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Fuckin hell man I honestly don't know, but the whole setup with the alzabo is brilliant and straight out of every 80s Vertigo comic so I suggest you lean hard into making the LT temporary Swamp Thing as much as you can pull off. e: spitballing, but: - something went on in the night, and the guy exploded, as per - thanks to being Swamp Thing, he's now out there, slowly regrowing. I dunno maybe the explosion spread seeds. - what happened, and why does no one else remember? My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 20:28
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Another fun option is to give each player something they remember about the previous night, and make sure its contradictory.
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Jun 13, 2020 20:33
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A quick update with the idea so far: The alzabo saw the LT become a vector and now knows he's a bomb. As a result, the alzabo killed the LT last night and put the body in the croc pen. The session is going to start with the team discovering the LT is gone, and then they will get a call from the "LT" telling them to just sit tight and not do anything major until they hear from him again as their case manager has sent him on a special assignment. This will give them a chance to poke around the town a bit and talk to some locals. The group knows the LT is not going to make the game, so they will assume this is how I've written him out. They'll get another call from him a bit later when they are out at Cowie's, where Cowie is headed out to feed Sawgrass (the croc). This time the LT tells them the case manager has called off the op and they should head back to the city. This is going to be suspicious, as their case manager was super serious about getting to the bottom of this. I expect them at this point to whip out the burner and call him. If they do, of course, his first question is, "Where's the LT?" Whether they call or not, a minute or two down the line they'll hear Cowie scream and discover Sawgrass munching on what's left of the LT. And now, of course, the alzabo knows everything they do...
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Jun 13, 2020 22:15
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Okay so I thought about what y'all said about me using the wrong system for my sci fi campaign. You were all 100% correct. I am going with Starfinder because it has a lot of what I want and it's in the d20 system. It should be easier to modify since it's not as magic-intense and I can hand wave a lot of it with technobabble. I didn't mean to just disappear but I wanted to take time to think about what everyone was suggesting because I was afraid of starting over. So I'm scrapping a lot but that just means I can focus more on the important stuff - like writing a good campaign instead of focusing on balancing a bunch of crap. Thanks for the nudge. e: Don't worry, I plan to hold a generic Starfinder game for like 5 levels ish so everyone gets a feel it for it and so I can practice GMing before I get into the custom universe. 3 DONG HORSE fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Jun 13, 2020 |
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Jun 13, 2020 22:39
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Kind of a bare-bones question here, but I'm gonna do my first online session tomorrow(5e) and I'm wondering what sort of subscriptions/services everyone likes or deems necessary. I was looking at both Roll20's and DnDBeyond's and they seem like they'd have a lot of overlap and just Roll20 would be plenty. Is there any other resources people use to streamline things and/or make their job easier? I was also looking at something like WorldAnvil to hold a map of the world and congregate all the lore and stuff(I'm using a homebrew continent), but I don't love the idea of paying for it. Smaller question: is there a good resource for monster and character tokens/art someone can point me to? I don't mind paying as long as it's not too expensive and the art is decent.
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Jun 14, 2020 04:31
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3 DONG HORSE posted:Okay so I thought about what y'all said about me using the wrong system for my sci fi campaign. You were all 100% correct. I am going with Starfinder because it has a lot of what I want and it's in the d20 system. It should be easier to modify since it's not as magic-intense and I can hand wave a lot of it with technobabble. I didn't mean to just disappear but I wanted to take time to think about what everyone was suggesting because I was afraid of starting over. So I'm scrapping a lot but that just means I can focus more on the important stuff - like writing a good campaign instead of focusing on balancing a bunch of crap. Thanks for the nudge. Thanks for listening. Usually people leave forever or become jerks when they get advice, so just coming back gives you top marks. Extra points for taking the most difficult-to-take advice this thread tends to offer. You are the best of us. You're being entirely too self-critical when it's clear you have good instincts. Don't let it affect your GM game.
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Jun 14, 2020 05:01
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Glory to Italia!
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Baller Ina posted:Kind of a bare-bones question here, but I'm gonna do my first online session tomorrow(5e) and I'm wondering what sort of subscriptions/services everyone likes or deems necessary. I was looking at both Roll20's and DnDBeyond's and they seem like they'd have a lot of overlap and just Roll20 would be plenty. Is there any other resources people use to streamline things and/or make their job easier? I was also looking at something like WorldAnvil to hold a map of the world and congregate all the lore and stuff(I'm using a homebrew continent), but I don't love the idea of paying for it. you can make your own art with microsoft paint anyway, you dont need any of that crap at all. roll20/foundry/whatever is nice to have especially if you run battlemaps. dndbeyond is nice if you run 5e and you have pedro to throw into a furnace cause that poo poo is expensive. i wouldnt recommend worldanvil unless they told me how to use their software because i see like a million links and immediately get confused(i have an iq which is best described as a complex number where the real part is negative). start with roll20(dont spend money on it), and if you want to expand from the basic books and add stuff consider getting it on dndbeyond - i primarily invested cause i ran 3 weekly online games and having dndbeyond kept my sanity in check. learning too many tools early is going to make things harder, not easier. if you use roll20 it gives you a lot of free tokens you can play around with. if you want to make your life as a 5e dm easier, learn how the surprised condition works, and that DC 5 is very easy, 10 is easy, 15 is medium, 20 is hard. first time DMs overprepare way too often and from your post it looks like you were about to jump into the deep end right off the bat. your first session will go nothing like you expect it to, and that is totally fine and normal
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Jun 14, 2020 05:28
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Baller Ina posted:Kind of a bare-bones question here, but I'm gonna do my first online session tomorrow(5e) and I'm wondering what sort of subscriptions/services everyone likes or deems necessary. I agree with the previous poster and offer an extension that the content owner can usually share purchased/subbed content with players in their campaigns. Roll20 will let you buy official D&D modules which will include digital maps and tokens and everything you could want within the book scope. Otherwise you'll usually want to joojle and import. dndbeyond has the best web interface for campaign/char management, especially for casual players, but it's probably best used on tablets by in-person tabletop players. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jun 14, 2020 |
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Jun 14, 2020 05:34
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(Oh no this is much bigger than I initially intended, quick summary: Need help connecting plot points together for a cool payoff for player character) Hello, I could use some help connecting the dots for a plot thread one of my players is involved in. I'm running a game of Spectaculars, a superhero RPG. The players are basically the equivalent of the Avengers and are there to save the earth against the biggest threats. Alien invaders, Kaijus, megalomaniac supervillains, etc. As part of the structure of the game the players have the opportunity to run interludes where they flesh out their characters and we see a glimpse of their personal lives, their background, and so on. Spectaculars comes with a bunch of generic pre-made scenarios to run, and what I've been doing is I've been mostly running those pre-made scenarios but also sometimes creating custom scenarios to fit with what was going on in the players lives. For example, one pre-made calls for the villain to try to capture one of the players and then escape. There's no pre-made scenario to get the character back from the villain, so I ran that as an issue that I designed. Anyway, I'm running out of pre-made adventures, the next one will start the big endgame event that's been hinted at throughout the whole game, so before I get to that one I'm running a scenario based on one of the characters' villain that he's been hinting at. One of the players plays a character who's made of fire, and during his interludes he gave some clues as to his origins. He doesn't remember much from his childhood, only that he was experimented on and there were a bunch of other children that represented the other elements. He sought out some of those children to try and find out more information about himself. During one of the interludes, it was revealed that the person who experimented on them is able to see through their eyes, and that he's on a space station. We pretty much saw the villain Dr. Claw style, staring at screens and looking all mysterious. During one of the sessions I included another character who had control over ice, and hinted that she was sort of a second generation version of him, younger and with better control over her powers. Also, it has been implied that the tyrannical dictatorship that the ice lady is from has been able to genetically engineer mutants to give them specific powers to suit their need. During the last session, the player gathered 3 other test subjects and started formulating a plan to track down their creator. It was revealed that the man made of water was actually a spy working for their creator. So during next session I'm tasked with running a scenario that involves finding their creator and taking him down, using the elements that were revealed so far. I have nothing for the villain's motivation or reasons why he's been spying on all the test subjects. So, if I put all the plot points of this character in a nice list: -Doesn't remember his childhood much, knows he was part of a bunch of kids being experimented on to give them elemental powers -Tracked down some other kids to try and figure out who he is -The person responsible is on a space station and can see through the eyes of all the test subjects -There is possibly a second generation of test subjects who were a bit more refined than the first -One of the original test subject, the water elemental, is working on behalf of the villain I'm thinking that the villain did some extremely unethical experiments 30 years ago(the character is roughly 25) and was so convinced that he was right that he fled to space to continue his experiments in secret, hoping that one day he would come back to earth and be like "See? I experimented on children and most of them turned out fine and one of them's a hero. Apologize to me right now." He's implanted them with something that allows him to look through their eyes because he's in space and otherwise has no way to check on their progress. The Ice lady is from his second batch of experiments and stole his research and this is why the country she is in has access to a similar type of gene-engineering. To make him more villainous I'm also planning on having him infect the player with some sort of FOXDIE type virus by another one of his experiments, because the villain would rather kill his creations than be exposed. If everything goes according to plan, the scenario would go something like: Characters are called to help with a young mutant who controls several elements and is out of control, they calm him down or beat him up but being in proximity to him causes the player to get infected with a virus that is quickly killing him. Everyone goes "Oh hey that thing you were talking about finding your creator, we should probably get right on that because he definitely just poisoned you and we don't know how to cure you" - they find a way to locate the bad guy and fly to space to kick his rear end, he probably explains his actions while everyone's wailing on him, they get the antidote, happy ending. I guess the reason I'm asking for advice is that it feels like it doesn't have much impact for something that's been hinted at for ~12 sessions. It feels like there isn't really much of a big reveal or payoff, it's just kind of something we knew all along, like yeah the guy experimenting on children is bad, who would have thought. Given that there's only a few games left and Spectaculars has this awesome thing where you write everything about the setting into a Setting book that you re-use when you run another game, I'm ready to have a reveal that has much bigger implications but I'm struggling to come up with anything that will connect with the plot points that were already established in a way that is satisfying.
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Jun 14, 2020 06:02
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Depending on how dark you want to go, there is no reason the villain needs to be disgraced. The remoteness could also be because it makes it really hard for pesky journalists to check out what is going on, and gives the financial backers deniability. He could easily be funded by some govt or rich family (or small group made of up some combination of those), who all have pretty easy motivations for wanting to be able to create super powered individuals. Being able to observe through their eyes is something the villain would have had planned from the start, and data collection is pretty important for stuff like this - seeing how effective the various test subjects are, monitoring their stability, etc. You could have the villain be a 'science for the sake of science' type guy, or they could be doing something else on the side that is their actual motivation (and running child super soldier program supplies the location and resources they need for that), could be a super patriot, could have some sort of prophecy of doom (true or false) that needs all these super soldiers, or a truly monstrous villain. I'm sure there are plenty more options, those are just some that came to my mind that'd all fit into the framework.
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Jun 14, 2020 10:29
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The villain is not just looking through the experimental superhero's eyes for his own edification. He is recording everything and selling it to some isolated population as entertainment. I don't know if you want the buyers to be aliens, a space colony, hollow earth folks, or just rich shut-ins. The adventures of fire hero, and their trusty team, was the first big hit. When the heroes try to track the villain down they run into the biggest fans they never knew they had. Folks are pushing and shoving to get fire hero to light their brand name firesticks, etc far from any public relations team. I'll put forth two different ideas on why the villain wants to deal with the heroes face to face and risk everything. The first idea is that fire hero sales are slacking. The villain needs to think of a way to sell their backlog of merchandise, before they can start cashing in on the second generation. Possibly in partnership or competition with the ice villain's dictatorship. So the villain reads some old comic books and comes up with a surefire way to boost sales and promote the next generation: The Death of Fire Hero. So the villain slaps together a virus and carrier to catch the heroes attention. The villain is confident in their ability to create a monster strong enough to beat the weakened team. Naturally the plan is for a second generation team to be waiting nearby to clean up, with water elemental villain acting as the team captain. The second idea is that the villain wants to use fire hero for revenge against the dictatorship. The villain at least tries to send a polite invitation to their former subject. The villain shows them all the people who tune in, week after week. Praises the hero as the most successful of their subjects. And finally offers improved powers in exchange for destroying the dictatorship and regular appearances to sign autographs. Play up the creepy "adoptive stage parent" vibes. Have a chance to discover that the second generation of experiments is explicitly for the purpose of this deal. The villain is not going to trust a simple signature on a contract. Obviously the villain is not going to take rejection well.
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Jun 14, 2020 10:46
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Thanks for the words, folks. I should note that this is a group that's converting to online so it's not quite my first ever session, though it's pretty close. Definitely sounds like I can avoid DnDBeyond and I agree that WorldAnvil is super confusing to navigate. If I have a sub to Roll20 and buy the PHB from their store, does that let my players search their spells by name and drag n drop them onto their sheets? From my poking around the character sheet it looks like you need to otherwise write out every part of every spell manually and I know that's gonna leave several of my players lost and overwhelmed, especially since I have four "full list" casters.
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Jun 14, 2020 19:37
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I personally would consider it a mistake to invest anything into Roll20, and find it odd that someone called DnDBeyond expensive. If you plan to play online for 5th Edition, DnDBeyond is the best thing to invest into for content. For running the game? At this point I would say that's Foundry VTT, although it does require a bit of prep from the DMs side of things. More importantly there's modules that let you import all that content you just bought on DnDBeyond. The sheer number of posts and videos I'm seeing online of DMs that have spent 3-5 years worth of Pro subscription on Roll20, and now are jumping ship is pretty staggering. Now for something you'll only do for a couple months? Yeah, use Roll20. Don't pay a cent to anyone, just put the info in manually that you already have. But for the long-term I don't feel it's the way to go.
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Jun 14, 2020 22:44
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Thanks for the suggestions! I actually ended up using a mix of both: When they confronted the villain, they found dozens of monitors showing the point of view of every one of his experiments, and also a screen where he was receiving communications from anonymous spectators. The group was able to find that they were being watched by very influential people who definitely didn't want to be caught, as evidenced by the fact that they launched a missile at the base as soon as they found out the heroes were going to be on it. The heroes managed to disable the missile before it obliterated the space station but missile fragments still caused damage to the station and gave the heroes a time limit for gathering information once they had defeated the villain. The heroes decided to free all the test subjects, find the antidote for the virus that was killing the Fire hero and grab all of the research about gene-engineering that the villain had done, but did not gather any information about the mysterious backers before the space station collapsed. So they know some very influential people want to kill them, but they don't know who, and the people who want to kill them have no way to know that they actually don't know anything and are no threat. I expect that this will come up again in the final stretch as the players currently rely quite a bit on the goodwill of major organizations.
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Jun 15, 2020 05:50
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Baller Ina posted:Thanks for the words, folks. I should note that this is a group that's converting to online so it's not quite my first ever session, though it's pretty close. Definitely sounds like I can avoid DnDBeyond and I agree that WorldAnvil is super confusing to navigate.
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Jun 15, 2020 07:32
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I haven't done much RPG'ing since I was a kid in the 80s - but I was thinking of running a few sessions with my kids (aged 10-12). Randomly clicking around on DriveThruRPG, I found "Tiny Dungeons 2E". Seems like a reasonable fit in that: 1. There's not a lot of rules or required materials/prep 2. No baked-in grim-dark - but also not too "kiddy" looking 3. "Hatchling" edition has rules for animal companions (which my kids will go for) 4. There's some setting ideas. I think I can freeball details well enough for the kids, but having some base stories to pick from is nice Anyway, there's not a lot of risk here if I get this wrong - but I figured you guys might be able to steer me towards something else that might work better, or give me some important basic hints on stuff to get or whatever. Also, I think it would help to have some standees to move around a map? So I figure I need some bases, some hero-looking types (even if they're not perfect fits), some monsters, some chests, some obstacles. A chunk of base grid for the map would be nice too. This seems like something some kind of "RPG starter pack" might have, but I'm having trouble finding a product like this (I don't need $50 worth of forest tiles, 201 gnolls, or 7500 dice) - any thoughts?
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Jun 15, 2020 18:20
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Honestly getting decent scenery and stuff is really hard and expensive and takes up space quickly. Cheapest thing to do in the long run is buy a 3d printer. Dwarvenforge has some cool terrain stuff, Heroforge has great custom character figures. For monsters, I started printing images and cutting them out and wrapping them around cheap blank standees with feet. I will sometimes use dice or color tokens for minions or civilians, but as much as possible I'll try to get a picture and either keep it flat or try to get it footed. Assign genetic mobs an adjective to distinguish them with little strips of index card and stick it into the foot. For maps and floor layouts, you can get some cool stuff for free online, but I like the dry erase chessex mats and have purchased a few books of maps from kickstarters. Maps can be constraining, though, and limit character options (see: eldritch blast and long bow rangers able to target things outside your irl house)
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Jun 15, 2020 19:22
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jmzero posted:I haven't done much RPG'ing since I was a kid in the 80s - but I was thinking of running a few sessions with my kids (aged 10-12). physical terrain is super expensive over time, especially if you are trying to get it to look good. if you want cheaper, printed out 2d maps are totally fine, you can then get figures for interactive objects only and leave everything else up to the map. paizo makes pawn tokens which are very cheap, i would start off with that for a beginning setup and scale up depending on how far you are willing to go
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Jun 15, 2020 19:26
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kids will also more readily imagine details without realistic visual aids, the print-n-cut, tape to a penny paper pawns would be fine
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Jun 15, 2020 20:27
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ILL Machina posted:Cheapest thing to do in the long run is buy a 3d printer. Dwarvenforge has some cool terrain stuff, Heroforge has great custom character figures. I have a 3d printer rotting away somewhere.. this is a fun idea, even if the RPG sessions go nowhere my kids will like making little dudes. I think I'll try this for the PCs (it should be a fun little project on its own), regular print some enemies and put them on whatever I can find for bases, and print a couple mostly empty grid maps... Then see how it goes. Thanks for all the ideas.
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Jun 15, 2020 20:55
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jmzero posted:I have a 3d printer rotting away somewhere.. this is a fun idea, even if the RPG sessions go nowhere my kids will like making little dudes. I think I'll try this for the PCs (it should be a fun little project on its own), regular print some enemies and put them on whatever I can find for bases, and print a couple mostly empty grid maps... Then see how it goes. Honestly, this is what my first campaign has turned into. And my buddy who owns the thing just has it printing terrain all day now. Got a really cheap package on humblebundle. Heroforge will let you buy the digital blueprint for a custom figure. It's like $8 but still way cheaper than some options. Couple people broke down and bought metal versions of their characters and they turned out pretty amazing. ILL Machina fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Jun 15, 2020 |
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Jun 15, 2020 21:21
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I created a T-Rex jungle chase encounter for DND 5E groups around level 3-6. The chase rules in the DM guide didn't quite match what I was going for. I wanted to achieve: The Chase rules in the DM guide didn't quite match what I was going for. I wanted to achieve:
I uploaded the PDF here: https://docdro.id/qrrCIVK Hope some of you like it, and would love it if you had feedback!
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Jun 16, 2020 05:09
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Luebbi posted:I created a T-Rex jungle chase encounter for DND 5E groups around level 3-6. The chase rules in the DM guide didn't quite match what I was going for. I wanted to achieve: Sounds pretty great. 1000ft might take too long, though? After a few rounds you could multiply the distance to simulate a few turns in a row if necessary. You also might want to simply keep distance counters between a) the party and the dino and b) the party and the ledge. Telling them ahead of time "how fast" the dino looks like it's going to move would provide some potential counterplay, but the "simultaneous movement" helps with that.
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Jun 16, 2020 05:23
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Thanks for the feedback! I originally started out with the cliff 500 feet and the Dino 100 feet away, but thought this might be too short for the encounter. With my 4 players (and the T-Rex), the distance of 1000 feat will be traversed in roughly 4 initiative go-throughs, which sounds about right for this type of encounter. I will be running it on roll20, already made an extra-large map with blurred sides to suggest speed. I played a dry-run which ended with the T-Rex just 10 feet behind the group, who had to spend 3 Hit Die and 2 Spell Slots to maintain their distance , before they made it to cover. I also implemented all the tables into roll20 and will allow players to roll themselves, hopefully significantly speeding up the encounter! All this work for one random encounter - but hopefully a memorable one 
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Jun 16, 2020 05:31
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Hey, this comes in really handy, I was just these days thinking about how to set up a chase encounter (minecart chased by a bulette). Thanks!
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Jun 16, 2020 06:38
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Luebbi posted:Thanks for the feedback! I originally started out with the cliff 500 feet and the Dino 100 feet away, but thought this might be too short for the encounter. With my 4 players (and the T-Rex), the distance of 1000 feat will be traversed in roughly 4 initiative go-throughs, which sounds about right for this type of encounter. Great counter feedback. Let us know how it goes. Post it to that DMGuides webpages for an occasion dollar.
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Jun 16, 2020 06:47
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Luebbi posted:I created a T-Rex jungle chase encounter for DND 5E groups around level 3-6. The chase rules in the DM guide didn't quite match what I was going for. I wanted to achieve: the checks on the table that use acrobatics are a way to let dextrous players show off flashy moves and jumps and i think that is perfect, but acrobatics for an extended chase is kind of... pog boyfriend fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jun 16, 2020 |
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Jun 16, 2020 13:13
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pog boyfriend posted:please do not add acrobatics to this (E: for the base "run" action of these rules). "running" is so strictly in the purview of athletics it is absolutely unfair to the skill to let acrobatics even close to that space. when you let acrobatics do what athletics is supposed to do, all it does is devalue strength far more than was intended and encourage all players to dump it That's a good point. I wrote the encounter with my party in mind - with 3 casters and a rogue, anything strength based would be a death sentence but I'll change thst if I ever revise the encounter.
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Jun 16, 2020 17:27
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It's a beautiful encounter, and looks extremely fun and well-designed, but what would happen if the party is full of really stupid or aggro players who just stand their ground and fight it? What would you do?
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Jun 16, 2020 20:11
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DrSunshine posted:It's a beautiful encounter, and looks extremely fun and well-designed, but what would happen if the party is full of really stupid or aggro players who just stand their ground and fight it? What would you do? here is what i do: tell high wisdom players "you know fighting this is a terrible idea". their character is wise, just because the player is not does not mean their character should suddenly be unwise. then if they continue to fight the thing they have been told is a bad idea to fight just start killing PCs until they get the message or wipe. you gave them all the information they need and they chose to ignore it, c'est la vie
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Jun 16, 2020 21:01
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I want to give one of my level 4 players in a 5e D&D game a reskinned cloak of elvenkind. They like to keep secrets from the rest of the party, so I want the item to have a secondary effect that plays into that side of their character and can lead to some potential complications in later sessions. Any thoughts on if this modification fills that purpose, or if it's too powerful/weak? A cloak made out of a thick, dark leather of unknown origin. When you raise the hood of the cloak, nearby shadows will bend to help conceal you. If you are in dim light, low light, or non-magical darkness, Wisdom (Perception) checks made to see you have disadvantage, and you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks made to hide. The soft interior of the cloak possess a fiendish aura which is typically blocked by the exterior side of the cloak. The exterior portion of the cloak can block a paladin's divine senses, the spell Detect Good or Evil, the spell Detect Magic, and similar spells and abilities blocked by a thin sheet of lead. The cloak will naturally hide its interior aura when you are not performing strenuous activities. When you are in combat, move faster than half of your move speed, or physically exert yourself in some other way, the cloak will open and make its fiendish nature--and anything concealed inside of it--detectable.
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Jun 16, 2020 21:13
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DrSunshine posted:It's a beautiful encounter, and looks extremely fun and well-designed, but what would happen if the party is full of really stupid or aggro players who just stand their ground and fight it? What would you do?
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Jun 16, 2020 21:21
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DrSunshine posted:It's a beautiful encounter, and looks extremely fun and well-designed, but what would happen if the party is full of really stupid or aggro players who just stand their ground and fight it? What would you do? Have the t-rex capture them and take the party to her lair, to feed her soon-to-be-hatched babies. She's asleep when they come to and they have to escape the lair before the babies finish hatching...and potentially before Daddy comes home (or maybe she's a single mother). If they gently caress that up, they deserve to die.
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Jun 16, 2020 22:11
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My Lovely Horse posted:I mean if my players would rather spend their time on a fight than a chase scene, I'd give them a fight so they could have fun. Sure! That'd be fine. But like my point is that D&D kind of tends to frame things in the form of combat encounters. The whole game is kind of structured around the idea that, if you encounter some awful monster, you should engage it rather than, say, run away from it or parley with it or so on. I guess my question is to parley it into a broader discussion of how to get players to be less aggro - or rather, if the party has an aggro guy, how to hint to that person that a fight might not be survivable. Though I guess I can answer it myself - set up the context through the rest of the campaign that not all encounters are meant to be combat encounters by littering the campaign with rewarding encounters that the players could solve through clever puzzles, charisma, retreating etc. I just think it'd be such a shame to waste a cool chase by having it devolve into combat. I like that comment about telling the wiser characters that hey, your character realizes that it'd be certain death to face down a T-Rex right now. That makes it explicit but avoids having to obviously talk about things like hit points and reveal challenge ratings and so on.
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Jun 16, 2020 22:35
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"Its obvious to you that to fight is certain death." That's the 13th age formula and it's p good.
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Jun 17, 2020 00:05
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Yeah, just saying "you cannot fight this" is fine, say what honesty demands is a universal good idea.
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Jun 17, 2020 00:14
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Yeah, just tell them. I never really understood why people think it's a good thing to not clearly communicate when the players' options are limited.
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Jun 17, 2020 02:53
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gms underestimate how good telling the player stuff is. seriously, it is the biggest reason why people say i am a good dm and it is dead easy. ever play disco elysium and think to yourself "wow i love how having X points in this gives me more information about the world and my characters abilities?" you can just do that. as a dm, you make an entire world in your head that players run around in. most of the time your players can not read your mind, but their characters exist in that world. give them information that a person with their experience level wild know. i guarantee you that if you do this well your players will love it.
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Jun 17, 2020 03:15
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My GM had a huge revelation once he realized that all of the NPCs having cool stories and schemes is way more fun if the players know about it. Tension can come in the form of the audience knowing things that the characters don't. He started being way more forthcoming with info and we even sometimes have little scenes that the characters could never be privy to. Nothing long or masturbatory, just a thing like at the end of a session with a huge fight where someone got away of like "the camera pans over the city, and begins following someone stumbling down an alleyway, grumbling about their plans being ruined and disbelief about your crew being there" Another one was just "meanwhile, somewhere at sea, a lonely ship is joined by three others" and after five sessions we got "there is a fleet of ships waving the banner of house Kaizoku, on the deck is a very angry woman with an axe who spits a curse and vows to kill the bastard that took her arm" and then a couple of months passed and because we did nothing to intervene or investigate this problem they ended up taking an island and the GM tells us that our characters can guess that outside of us going to deal with them or acting in a manner to accelerate their plans, we have about 9 months before they have stomped that island into obedience and can make their next move, which will most likely be to come at us. Outside of stuff like that, it's also just an extension of setting expectations. Like how you do a session 0 to get everyone on board with what the game is going to be about and everyone getting on the same page, it's just doing that while the game is going. We've had a couple of instances of this in our Shadowrun game, where one player had a completely different idea of what a Z Zone (basically Akira/Mad Max urban gang hell) was, so when his character said "i'll walk home" and everyone else reacted very negatively to that and he had no idea what was going and then said "it's not like it's Mad Max out there" "it's literally like Mad Max out there" "oh, yeah that makes sense why you all said to not do that" It also works between players, it's fun to come up with a neat trick or plan and then start doing it, it's even cooler if you tell the other players what you're going to be attempting and what your character is thinking and why. We've started doing a more..uh, directorial stance? stuff, where someone will say "ok, my character is thinking X and they are about to do this really dumb thing Y, you guys would notice he's about to fly off the handle, are you going to stop him?" or "my character right now is thinking about the threat to her dad and she can be convinced to go along with this plan, but someone is going to have to do that. There doesn't need to be a roll and its not going to be difficult, but someone needs to say something because she's not going to come to that conclusion on her own right now" its basically flagging up an idea that you think might be a little disruptive and checking that everyone else is down for the scene to go in that direction and they either go "yeah, my guy will move to stop you from flipping out, but he's not going to actually stop you, go for it" or "Lion grabs Ox by the arm and squeezes while whispering "now is not the time, stay calm"" and sometimes even "no wait, instead of just getting up and shouting you should jump up on the table and mention this thing and really insult them!" and that's then it gets really wild. Gotcha GMing is bad, telling players things is the opposite of that and is good.
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Jun 17, 2020 04:56
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| # ? May 13, 2024 17:09 |
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I do think there's at least a risk of it turning into the GM telling the players what to do indirectly, by telling them what not to do. Players: Let's stand and fight the dinosaur! GM: If you do that you will die. Players: Let's try to climb up the cliff and push boulders onto the dinosaur! GM: It's too close. If you try it'll catch you mid-climb and you will die. Players: Sigh. I guess we run away then. It's not inherently a problem all of the time, and if the players are discussing doing something obviously insane then there's probably been a miscommunication in your descriptions somewhere that you should clarify. But I do think players making meaningful decisions is the fundamental core of what makes RPGs good, and that has to include the ability to make mistakes too.
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Jun 17, 2020 23:51
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