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Colonel Cool posted: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.
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Jun 18, 2020 00:44
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I'm trying to show my players what the encounter is about with the flavor text - a way to escape is described, and if asked, I will tell them the T-Rex is a very deadly target at their level. As I play with 2 other DM's, they will probably deduce themselves that 4 level 3 players can't take down the beast alone. If they do decide to stand and fight, I'd probably add a Triceratops into the mix who fights alongside the players to protect his herd.
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Jun 18, 2020 05:51
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Luebbi posted:I'm trying to show my players what the encounter is about with the flavor text - a way to escape is described, and if asked, I will tell them the T-Rex is a very deadly target at their level. As I play with 2 other DM's, they will probably deduce themselves that 4 level 3 players can't take down the beast alone. One way to emphasise "you can't fight this thing" is to get the players to make a Nature check, and show them the thing's stats, with higher checks showing more of its stats. Or have some other monster with them that charges to attack it, ideally one they've fought before so they know how tough it is, and visibly show them how many dice worth of damage the t-rex does when it hits.
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Jun 18, 2020 09:02
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Luebbi posted:I'm trying to show my players what the encounter is about with the flavor text - a way to escape is described, and if asked, I will tell them the T-Rex is a very deadly target at their level. As I play with 2 other DM's, they will probably deduce themselves that 4 level 3 players can't take down the beast alone. if you warn players enough and they make a terrible decision nonetheless you gotta hard punish for it, in my books. otherwise consequences are not real. the worst thing you can do for your players taking things seriously and being attached to their characters is to remove consequences for their actions, as it then removes the weight of danger and leads to people making bad decisions. worse yet, if you do this - if you design hard encounters, warn players, but then pull punches at the last second... say the t rex would have bit lancelot the paladin for more than his max hp, but instead it chooses to run past the paladin in its face and bite the triceratops that randomly jumped in the fight: if the players catch on you are pulling punches, and then you choose not to pull punches for some other character?? you already demonstrated you can remove consequences for mistakes if you choose, and that you can, and by not doing so it feels like(to the player being punished) that you consciously chose not to save them.
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Jun 18, 2020 13:15
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Just tell them it's a set-piece chase scene and to trust you because it'll be cool.
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Jun 18, 2020 13:57
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pog boyfriend posted:if you warn players enough and they make a terrible decision nonetheless you gotta hard punish for it, in my books. otherwise consequences are not real. the worst thing you can do for your players taking things seriously and being attached to their characters is to remove consequences for their actions, as it then removes the weight of danger and leads to people making bad decisions. I totally agree with what you're saying except for the use of the word 'punish'. The goal is not to hit the players with a rolled up newspaper and saying "Bad!" -- just to impartially present them with the consequences of their actions. And those consequences don't have to be a TPK. Whenever I put my players into an encounter where bad choices might destroy them, I first figure out a worst possible outcome that could allow the story to continue. Like, in the t-rex situation I'd probably do something like "the t-rex has places to go, so it's not gonna sit around and eat all the PCs -- but it sure as hell will bite one of them clean in half and stomp off to go fight a giant gorilla as the other PCs lie around in agony". That way I can throw everything I've got at them, secure in the knowledge that even in the worst case scenario there will still be a game for them to turn up to next week.
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Jun 18, 2020 14:48
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As a player, if presented with the triceratops v. t. rex fight I'm not going to think 'oh I didn't get that this was supposed to be a chase scene and I'm being rewarded for making the wrong decision because my gm is pulling punches', I'm going to go poo poo YEAH T REX VERSUS TRICERATOPS FIGHT, THIS IS BADASS.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:02
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Leraika posted:As a player, if presented with the triceratops v. t. rex fight I'm not going to think 'oh I didn't get that this was supposed to be a chase scene and I'm being rewarded for making the wrong decision because my gm is pulling punches', I'm going to go poo poo YEAH T REX VERSUS TRICERATOPS FIGHT, THIS IS BADASS. Sure, but if as a player I keep on throwing myself into danger and my GM keeps on finding ways to make things nonlethal I'm eventually gonna assume that my GM wants me to throw myself into danger and will always provide a safety net if I do. And hell, if that's the kind of game we both want to play then brilliant, and we'll have a blast coming up with ever stupider situations for my character to Teflon Billy their way into and then out of. But it doesn't sound like that's the kind of game that OP wants to run.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:07
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Basically, I'm saying that the average player (or just known dumbass me) isn't even going to be aware that there was to be a chase scene at all or that a safety net is being provided, they're going to think that this was an intentional cool setpiece battle. Probably should have quoted pog, since I was directly responding to them, but woops.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:14
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On the other hand, if you play your cards right, your players are gonna think everything you do was intentional and cool, whether it's a setpiece battle, a chase scene or a contract negotiation, and whether or not you had an alternative prepared or came up with contract law on the spot. The other day I had my group threatened by an assassin, and I way played up his capabilities. When one of them wanted to go scouting I told them IC and OOC the assassin would surely go after anyone who split from the party. Guy went scouting and I said "welp here's the assassin". Then I allowed the rest of the gang to join the ongoing 1-on-1 fight and because they all rolled really well they curbstomped this supposedly unstoppable killing machine in a round flat. And then I decided it would be reasonable if this alerted the bad guys they were actually up against, so they had a tense battle with them, compounded by having spent spells in the assassin fight. Lord knows how much of that sequence my players thought was intentional, for all they know it was an intentional setpiece about stretching your guard too thin.
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Jun 18, 2020 15:30
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Leraika posted:As a player, if presented with the triceratops v. t. rex fight I'm not going to think 'oh I didn't get that this was supposed to be a chase scene and I'm being rewarded for making the wrong decision because my gm is pulling punches', I'm going to go poo poo YEAH T REX VERSUS TRICERATOPS FIGHT, THIS IS BADASS. thats why the caveat is "if the players discover you are pulling punches". as a dm i get it, you dont want to hurt your player characters that you have developed a narrative around and ruin peoples fun. but, speaking from experience, if the players figure out that is what you are doing it causes lots of problems. Whybird posted:I totally agree with what you're saying except for the use of the word 'punish'. The goal is not to hit the players with a rolled up newspaper and saying "Bad!" -- just to impartially present them with the consequences of their actions. the word punish is very strong and i dont think any good dm tries to be malicious, but i think people tend to see consequences as punishment - something dms try to shy away from - so the goal of my post was to say "dont be afraid to punish your players", if that makes sense.
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Jun 18, 2020 16:18
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Reward them with the consequences they clearly want. They want a super tough fight against a Big Monster, give it to them. Death is too kind and dull a fate for player characters so you should never make an encounter that the players can't lose and TPK is the most boring result. Acceptable consequences vary by game like in D&D resurrection magic exists so characters dying isn't the end and the paladin getting chomped can be solved by the campaign being about getting money (via a loan if necessary) to res the paladin. If they all die they can wake up in a church and a guy going "you owe me, here's a quest" or whatever.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:15
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I've never been particularly fond of the "death is the least interesting consequence" school of thought. It's okay in moderation, and in certain types of games. But personally I tend to just get bored and frustrated when it feels like the universe is coming up with contrived means to keep my character alive despite my best efforts.
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Jun 18, 2020 19:02
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What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard?
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Jun 18, 2020 21:26
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My Lovely Horse posted:On the other hand, if you play your cards right, your players are gonna think everything you do was intentional and cool, whether it's a setpiece battle, a chase scene or a contract negotiation, and whether or not you had an alternative prepared or came up with contract law on the spot. Yeah, this is another really good point -- rather than planning an encounter like "I'm gonna have my players chased by a T-Rex" a better approach is to come at it like "I'm gonna have my players encounter a thing that's too big for them to fight". And hey, they might run away from it, they might risk fighting it anyway and burn through resources that mean they have to give ground on some other stuff later, or they might come up with some sort of other idea like sneaking around it or luring it into a trap or jury-rigging a giant tyrannosaur costume out of sticks and papier-mache so that the loving bard can seduce it again. Point is, if your planning was "the PCs get chased by a T-Rex" then all the other stuff's gonna leave you feeling left out, whereas if your planning was "there is a T-Rex" then you can just bullshit whatever solution the PCs come up with and work it into whatever you've got planned for later on.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:31
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? Building public works was always one of our go to explanations for less sinister necromancers.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:31
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? They registered as "skele donors" like how we can register as organ donors. "When I die, my bones can be repurposed for the greater good"
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Jun 18, 2020 21:34
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? It's bushfire season. Every year lives get lost. He plans to donate one skeleton to each farmstead and order it to stand in the linen closet until it hears the family ringing a bell, at which point it must search the house and bring every living being outside to safety.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:36
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? There is a horde of monsters coming, and the town isn't prepared to defend itself. There is a horrible famine, and the town needs more hands to produce food. There is an evil necromantic force coming, and the bodies need to be moved before they become a threat to the innocents. Living ossuary, or art piece. They are fake bodies, and are actually mimics.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:44
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Farmsteads pranking passing adventurers by ominously whispering the next farmstead over "have a few skeletons in the closet". They keep score of how many farms a party visits before they catch on. One year the score was 1 because the adventurers were a bit overzealous and set fire to the farmhouse immediately, but luckily the family was well prepared for just such an occasion.
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Jun 18, 2020 21:46
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Colonel Cool posted:I've never been particularly fond of the "death is the least interesting consequence" school of thought. It's okay in moderation, and in certain types of games. But personally I tend to just get bored and frustrated when it feels like the universe is coming up with contrived means to keep my character alive despite my best efforts. It isn't "death is the least interesting consequence and so characters should never die" it is "for the most part, a character dying is not as interesting as a lot of other things and so you should consider having other outcomes for failure than just death" If you keep doing things in a game with the intent of dying and you don't die, you're playing the wrong game. If you are doing things with the expectation that you could die if you fail and then if it doesn't happen that feels unsatisfying, you're playing the wrong game or you have the wrong expectation. Characters should die, when they should die. When it makes sense that they should die, they should die. This requires both mechanics and narrative perspectives to be considered. You can consider mechanics more important and that 0 hp = die, the story is over, or you could consider the narrative more important and hitting 0hp just means capture and more adventure and the only time a character will die is when the player says "yes, now they will die" and they nobly sacrifice their life in the final battle against the Evil Lich or whatever. They are both valid ways of running things and really does depend on the game being run.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:06
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? He's conducting an investigation into an atrocity that occurred several decades/centuries ago and which the locals are uncomfortable with discussing. It turns out he's been returning most of the bodies, and the only ones people notice going missing are the ones who have particularly pertinent testimony that needs to be delivered before a council of authorities overseeing it.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:12
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1000th year high school reunion.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:25
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He's just a neophyte and doing his residency in a particularly parochial/innocent/remote village. She's bored or lonely and wants someone to talk to. He's bringing back friends or compatriots he lost earlier in life. She had a writ from the crown to produce a certain amount of bone dust for a big spell that's important to the kingdom. He's scared of his own death and wants to know what it will be like.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:33
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Glory to Italia!
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He's the new priest of the Church of the Holy Spirit, and he thinks that death shouldn't stop a paladin from upholding their sacred duty to defend others. He also summons ghosts to double his once-holy forces. There's a massive flood coming, and the graveyard needs to be covered in New Orleans style mausoleums. It's día de los muertos. Of course there are skeletons out and about. \/\/ aww dang it. I knew it looked wrong! Tenik fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 22:43
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Tenik posted:It's deos de los muertos. Of course there are skeletons out and about. "Día" Cool ideas, btw. Made me think maybe he's doing it as a municipal construction project and the bones act as wattle for the daub.
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Jun 18, 2020 22:52
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He feels guilty about the way the dead people were treated and wants to right the wrongs done to them. He's a historian trying to find firsthand recounts of time past. (God I love Tabletop so much)
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Jun 18, 2020 22:53
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Bands of skeleton-slaying adventurers bring money into the economy. He plans on having the undead just hang around and go 'wooooo' at people, and sticking a crown on one of them and having it sit on a throne in a crypt until someone comes to save the village from the 'lich king'.
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Jun 18, 2020 23:41
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The groundskeeper for the graveyard is paid by the hour and she is slipping him kickbacks.
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Jun 18, 2020 23:45
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? Last year's planting was never done properly as more and more of the able-bodied and young departed for the War. Now there's nowhere near enough people left who can get the harvest in. For added grim: it's like this everywhere.
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Jun 19, 2020 00:46
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Keeshhound posted:He's conducting an investigation into an atrocity that occurred several decades/centuries ago and which the locals are uncomfortable with discussing. It turns out he's been returning most of the bodies, and the only ones people notice going missing are the ones who have particularly pertinent testimony that needs to be delivered before a council of authorities overseeing it. Dang, that's super good.
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Jun 19, 2020 01:20
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? i am a big fan of necromancers using the concept of soul to justify reanimating corpses("the soul left! other wizards animate golems out of rock and clay, why is out of bone different?") that are constantly bitter about how superstition and the feelings of ignorant masses get in the way of their magical study alternatively: there is of course the possibility they are licensed to do this. i have a licence to ... unkill... of course, if the players ask, the court sanctioned necromancer trying to skip town and go to the next town with an army of skeletons will not answer why the king is asking them to go town to town to gather skeletons. they dont want the public knowing that a drow raiding party has connected into a suddenly abandoned gold mine and the hordes of skeletons are the front line in the war, because the public does not know there is a war in the recently abandoned gold mine.
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Jun 19, 2020 03:40
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*Haggard man elbow deep in ashes-2-life* *Record scratch* "You're probably wondering how I got myself into this here pickle" Thanks for all the necromancer ideas, they are great! Now I started thinking of a questgiver going: "Some drat adventurers came through earlier and killed off all the necromancers, totally upsetting the ecological balance of the region... drat owl infestation in the crypts again..."
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Jun 19, 2020 06:41
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ovenboy posted:What sort of sensible, reasonably moral, and perfectly legal reasons could a necromancer have to be secretly rustling up and animating heaps of skeletons in the local graveyard? Rescue operation https://www.geeknative.com/50768/skeletons-attack/
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Jun 19, 2020 08:10
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There's some kind of curse on the land and the dead will not rest quietly. If left untouched, most of them will get up after some time and be hostile to all living things. The necromancer is doing preventative maintenance, resurrecting them all at once, having them all stretch their legs a bit for a day, and then putting them back to sleep for another decade or so.
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Jun 24, 2020 14:18
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Asehujiko posted:There's some kind of curse on the land and the dead will not rest quietly. If left untouched, most of them will get up after some time and be hostile to all living things. The necromancer is doing preventative maintenance, resurrecting them all at once, having them all stretch their legs a bit for a day, and then putting them back to sleep for another decade or so.
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Jun 24, 2020 21:08
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I just want to say y'all have helped me a ton over the last couple years with my writing in general and I super appreciate it. If SA dies I'll miss this thread most of all.
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Jun 24, 2020 21:12
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Honestly most likely just gonna let my current games play out one way or another and find a different hobby without this thread and/or subforum.
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Jun 24, 2020 21:16
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This has been a really good thread for me over the years! I'm certainly planning to continue posting on the Bread & Roses TG subforum if Something Awful shuts its doors, or wherever the Discord ends up taking us, because some of the best GMing advice I've got has been from here.
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Jun 24, 2020 22:23
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Seriously this thread has some of the most creative and talented people I've ever met.
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Jun 24, 2020 22:49
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