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That was a cool finish to what sounds like a great campaign. Well done! I’m curios to know more about the group dynamics. You say that they were often at odds with each other yet remembered that they were all working towards the same goal. How did this dynamic play out and was it player conflict or character conflict?
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Apr 25, 2021 15:59
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Re: Legend of the Five Rings It was certainly in-character conflict; most of the group had been gaming together in one campaign or another (often overlapping) for years. For most of the game the party consisted of:
They were magistrates acting on orders they didn't fully understand, with very different interpretations of their role as keepers of the peace and their responsibility as samurai, and that resulted in as many disagreements within the party as without, particularly as each tried to keep different other members in the dark regarding different parts of their strategies for fear that their plans would be a) blurted out at inopportune times, b) subverted, or c) ignored. The players generally had a lot of fun, even if the characters absolutely did not. At times I felt like I had to track an unending number of disparate (and desperate) plot threads that were all player-created, but ultimately I was very happy that they were running with their character concepts and the world as presented so fervently.
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Apr 26, 2021 06:37
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Nothing brings out the inner-party conflict like L5R. The only time I played was as a Tamori shugenja who basically exploited every possible loophole in the Bushido to accomplish things in the most irritating way possible. It worked astoundingly well until it didn't.
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Apr 26, 2021 11:37
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So my latest Legend of the Five Ring campaign ended last week and I like to think it came to a satisfying—and emotional—close. The major plot of the game had the characters (one bushi, two shugenja, a monk, and a merchant) finding themselves trying to correct an elemental imbalance in the world that was causing a multi-season famine in or around around the year 600. Long story short, they discovered that the Nothing had helped create an artifact that would, if unchecked, unmake the world. This artifact was banished to the Spirit Realms in an effort to dampen its effects, which did not work, and caused the famine in the first place. Our protagonists traveled all across the Empire, getting the blessings of each Elemental Oracle so that they themselves could survive the pursuit of the dark artifact into the lands beyond. This was the overwhelming bulk of the campaign, and had them meeting many strange and curious allies, foes, and situations, including bearing witness to the sleeping Naga in the Shinomen Mori’s deepest recesses. When they successfully crossed over I told each of them, in private, that they now had a merit called “Spirit of [Element]”, but gave no hints on what it did. They found the Spirit Realms in chaos as each plane, formerly distinct, was blurring into others. L5R has a number of terrible, awful planes and so these were causing quite a headache for the less terrible ones. They saw the spirits of those who had lived before glowing a faint amber, and those corrupted by evil glowing red. A select few they noticed glowed white, and these were the souls of those who had not yet been born. None but the party seemed to see the glowing. After saving some souls and interrogating dread spirits, they prepared to make their final push toward the artifact—it was boring a hole from Jigoku (realm of demons) into Tengoku (the holiest of holy afterlives). They knew they had to destroy it before it merged the two diametrically opposed planes and corrupted everything forever. Fighting their way through hordes of demons, one character was mortally wounded and eaten whole by a demon the size of a mountain. The next turn however she burst forth from the bowels of the beast, fully healed—but glowing faintly sage green. I had her remove the merit from her sheet. After several more combats They came at last to The Dark Samurai, who was waiting patiently for the Nothing’s device to pierce the heavens. This ten-foot tall inverse samurai wielded a katana of obsidian and while the party was ultimately victorious, another of their number was slain and reborn. After the brilliant and blinding flash of them successfully destroying the artifact, which was an endeavor in and of itself, they were approached by a new entity, one they didn’t recognize. Perfectly androgynous, the Spirit of Man smiled at them and thanked them for their service to the Empire, to their species, and to creation as a whole. The being offered them each a choice—they could stay in the afterlife among the honored ancestors, or return to the mortal world. Unfortunately the two who had died could not be so easily returned, and they would be reincarnated instead. A very long and emotional discussion was had by all, particularly by the fallen shugenja who realized she’d never be able to go home again and see her family. With tears in their eyes (both the characters and the players), they all agreed to return to Rokugan, in whatever form that would take. The merchant returned to tell their story. The monk returned to heal the sick. The Crab shugenja returned to prepare the world for a war against the Shadowlands she knew was coming. The Lion bushi and Kitsune shugenja both vanished, to be reborn again someday. For a game that only lasted two years (60 weekly sessions), I was honored and humbled that the players were so attached to their characters and to the story. It felt genuinely good as a GM/ST to provide that kind of cathartic entertainment for all.
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Apr 29, 2021 09:39
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Holy poo poo I gotta run L5R.
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Apr 29, 2021 12:34
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"It's not that prosthetics make you less human; it's the matter of being the type of person who'd hack off their own arm to stick a bazooka on it." "Yeah, an AWESOME person." Cobalt-60 fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Apr 30, 2021 |
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Apr 30, 2021 18:07
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Cobalt-60 posted:"It's not that prosthetics make you less human; it's the matter of being the type of person who'd hack off their own arm to stick a bazooka on it." On a semi-related note, Hard Wired Island is awesome and definitely worth a look if not a purchase. I tried to hold out for the hard copy but wound up shelling out for the PDFs and only the part of my brain that lists over hardbound books regrets it
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May 1, 2021 06:21
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This is so good. Thank you for sharing! It's been a long time, too long, since I've played L5R. 
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May 1, 2021 18:41
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JonathonSpectre posted:Holy poo poo I gotta run L5R. 
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May 2, 2021 03:24
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DM - OK, so as Strahd flies away in the night with Ireena over his shoulder, he leaves behind the rubble of Von Richten's tower, where three of you are unconscious, one of you (me, the Cleric) is trapped under tons of wood and stone, which means only you can hear the distant howl of a pack of werewolves as they close in. And that's where we'll end tonight's session. Me - Join us in three weeks when we begin our Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign... Curse of Strahd is no joke.
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May 9, 2021 22:24
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CobiWann posted:DM - OK, so as Strahd flies away in the night with Ireena over his shoulder, he leaves behind the rubble of Von Richten's tower, where three of you are unconscious, one of you (me, the Cleric) is trapped under tons of wood and stone, which means only you can hear the distant howl of a pack of werewolves as they close in. And that's where we'll end tonight's session. Agreed 100%. I love the randomization mechanic in it that determines certain plot beats differently each time. One if them is "where will you find Strahd?" One of the random results is "he's just out and about, so you won't find him. He'll find you..."
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May 10, 2021 01:13
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Railing Kill posted:Agreed 100%. I love the randomization mechanic in it that determines certain plot beats differently each time. One if them is "where will you find Strahd?" One of the random results is "he's just out and about, so you won't find him. He'll find you..." Or, in the case of the in-store campaign I played, get a magic letter from Strahd himself saying, "All right you fuckers, quit messing around and let's finish it." I played through an unknown portion of Curse of Strahd, but due to bouncing around tables (in-store campaign), I have no idea what the plot is. We had three tables running CoS; this was the only table that finished it, and that was mainly because the DM was going back to college and/or we had run out of places on the map to show up and cause mayhem. Interesting introduction to 5e.
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May 10, 2021 05:17
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CobiWann posted:Me - Join us in three weeks when we begin our Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign... I can’t tell if you are being serious about starting Rime, but I’m in the middle of running it for a group and whoever GMs it needs to read that poo poo over and over again and become intimately familiar with the material. I say this because there are plot holes a mile deep in places and massive railroady bits in others and the GM will have to be on their toes to improvise their way to a good storyline through these sections.
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May 11, 2021 14:31
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Agrikk posted:I can’t tell if you are being serious about starting Rime, but I’m in the middle of running it for a group and whoever GMs it needs to read that poo poo over and over again and become intimately familiar with the material. I say this because there are plot holes a mile deep in places and massive railroady bits in others and the GM will have to be on their toes to improvise their way to a good storyline through these sections. I'm joking - I'm saying that we're so screwed that we might as well roll new characters in a campaign far, far away. Fortunately, our DM just got the new Ravenloft book that came out so there's still a chance...
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May 12, 2021 01:37
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Here's another Shadowrun story, from just a few years ago. One of our players always tried to utilize ... "creative" solutions to problems, usually without any explanation to or consultation with the rest of the group. ----- “Guys, something’s wrong with Casper,” the mechanic called out to the rest of his crew, worry tinging his normally gruff voice. He understood mechanical systems—pistons, pumps, and the like—no matter how ubiquitous cyberspace had become, it wasn’t his area of expertise, nor was tending to those who were lost inside its currents. Casper, their young hacker, had blood seeping from around his neural jack and spasms shook his whole body as he lay on the couch. Whatever he had run into while trying to investigate the team’s next target—a local subsidiary of a large multinational conglomerate—he wasn’t handling it well. “Can we pull him out?” their driver asked, a normally quiet and reserved woman who could pilot almost anything on land, sea, or air. She nervously brushed a lock of hair behind her pointed ears as she looked on with concern. Their medic shook his head, walking into the small back room and taking quick stock of the situation. “Absolutely not,” he chided, beginning a quick diagnostic of the comatose hacker’s vitals with a hand-held scanner. “Something’s got a hold of him in there; he’s not just browsing the Matrix like some passive observer. Our boy went into places you and I can’t even dream of—if we yanked the plug now he’d spend the rest of his days as a vegetable. We have to keep him comfortable until he either finds his way back on his own, or dies.” The team’s commlinks all bleeped in unison—an incoming message. The more tech-integrated among them were able to mentally command their devices to display directly in their field of vision while the more old-fashioned reached down to glance at their screens. Letter by letter Casper was reaching out to them, the message printing with anxiety-rising slowness. Inside the Matrix time moved at the speed of thought; whatever electronic foe he was facing was taking enough of his attention that he could only spare enough attention to send each new letter after what would have felt like minutes on the inside. code:The mechanic joined the team’s muscle in distributing weapons to everyone who wanted them—most had some experience with burst-fire weapons but more than a few pistols and shotguns were loaded and checked. “About time for a proper dust-up” mumbled the green-skinned mercenary. He wasn’t one for logistics or lengthy information-gathering. To him, any time spent without a weapon in-hand was boring, and he hated being bored. The driver plugged herself into the pilot seat of the armoured van that served as the team’s primary transport, subsuming her own senses in favor of the full-spectrum cameras and detectors custom-built into the heavily-modified vehicle. If it came to a quick escape, she knew she’d be able to plow through the roll-up door with almost no damage. Connected as she was, she could keep a detailed eye on everything happening around or within the large van. She opened the back hatch to facilitate a rapid embarking, hoping the team wouldn’t need it. Sinking to a comfortable position on the floor, the magician closed her eyes and allowed her consciousness to leave her body, trying to give as much forewarning of approaching danger as possible. As the doctor and the group’s resident faceman—a genetically- and technologically-enhanced smooth-talker—made preparations to move Casper into the waiting van, the wizard’s voice seemed to come from the air itself. “Team of four, heavily armed. Drone support and at least one spirit in tow.” A pause, as if she were confirming a suspicion. “They’re headed right for us; time’s up.” The medic signaled for the face to lower Casper back onto the couch. His unexpected patient situated for the time being, he tucked a heavy revolver into the back of his waistband and moved toward the front door; it was one of his aliases that had rented the small shop and he knew he had to be the front line of defense when it came to nosy corporate goons. The face, perking up with a new idea, sprinted into the back of the combat van. As a heavy three-knock staccato echoed from the front door, the team’s driver could only look on with horror as the face started peeling off clothes. While the rest of the group prepared for a tense standoff—and possible combat—with corporate hit-men, their smooth-talking negotiator was stripping down to his birthday suit. With the van’s enhanced sensor package the driver was getting a front-row seat to all of the details, whether she wanted one or not. “I’ll need everyone inside the premises to come with me,” the heavily-augmented corporate mercenary said by way of introduction when the medic opened the door. Just out of view most of the team had their firearms at the ready, some more eager than others to use them. “You have no authority here,” the medic answered, unimpressed with the heavily-armed team at his door. “We’re not on corporate grounds and I don’t imagine the municipal cops gave you a bulk arrest warrant for whatever it is you think I’ve done. Run along back home and stop bothering me.” With a heavy visor obscuring most of his face, only the soldier’s deepening frown was visible. “The Shiawase Decision of 2001, amended by the BRA treaty of 2042, permits corporate interests to extend beyond the physical grounds of their holdings, and includes the ongoing defense and recovery of electronic and intellectual property, even if said property has been exfiltrated from recognized corporate holdings and territories.” “You probably say that a lot, don’t you,” the medic stalled, crossing his arms. “How about you report it was a false alarm and we can all go our separate ways?” As the medic stood up to the collectively glowering corporate goon squad, he noticed a message come in from the team’s resident trigger-happy mercenary in the bottom corner of his vision. Waingro posted:Can we just kill them already? “Fine, fine,” the medic sighed, both to his unexpected guests and to his ambitious teammate. “Come on in if you want and have a look around, but you’ll see there’s no reason to take anyone anywhere.” He stepped back from the doorway, hands spread wide. As the corporate thugs warily entered the rented shop, the driver couldn’t have paid attention to them no matter how much she wanted to. The team’s face was squat-thrusting in the back of the van, now completely free of any shred of decency. “Time for the big show,” the man murmured to himself, as if part of some pregame ritual, “gotta get everything aired out just right.” Gunfire rocked the confined industrial space as the third corporate heavy cleared the door. The team’s mercenary sprung up and riddled the first two with bullets as the medic dove for the reinforced couch, his heavy pistol brought to bear. Tearing her electronic eyes from the horrifying gyrations going on in the van’s back compartment, the driver deployed several automated mounted weapons and set them to free-fire. As the third intruder stumbled backward into the small back room where Casper lay unmoving, he was hit with a powerful arcane blast from the mage who had taken over his protection. Cobalt flames licked at the man’s armour, finding the spaces between its thick plating and seeking out the soft flesh beneath. As the final shots rang out, four corporate goons having fallen beneath the weight of the team’s heavy-weapon onslaught, the face strode proudly out of the back of the van, with all the energy and poise of a Hollywood star walking down the red carpet. “Alright, now where were we—” his voice trailed off as he took in the carnage around him. “What the frag were you doing?” the driver’s voice came from the van’s speakers. “Why the hell are you naked?” the medic called out. “You know we can see your junk, right?” the mercenary asked, gesturing with his SMG “Well if you all hadn’t taken the violent option, it would have worked,” the face harumphed, almost pouting. “You never give me time to work.” The medic pressed again. “What was your plan here? What on god’s green Earth possessed you to strip in the middle of a gunfight?” “I’m telling you, it would have worked.” Rolling his eyes at the non-answer, the medic looked around the would-be headquarters. “We need to get Casper to the van and get out of here. This place is blown. And you—” he added, looking disdainfully at the face, “put on some drat clothes. We’re rolling out in five.” ------ It took literal years for the player to let us know what was going on in his mind for that one. His idea was apparently to make the corp goons uncomfortable by putting on a "super-gay naked ork routine", to the point where they would abandon investigating the group who had been caught hacking their systems. No man, it wouldn't have worked.
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May 12, 2021 08:34
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I love it when one player is so out of synch with the group that it's like they're in a different genre. That's not sarcasm. I think it's hilarious. Good story. I assumed for a little while that the face's plan meshed with the group, like he was to provide a brief but timely distraction right at the moment an ambush was triggered. But then I kept reading, and also remembered every single Shadowrun game i've ever played. No group is ever completely on the same page. That game is a constant exercise in controlled chaos.
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May 12, 2021 12:23
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So during our last Tanicus session we were fighting a gith commander in his tower. There was a pool of silver liquid in the middle of the room and the commander, an honorable sort, told us to make sure we didn't fall in, or else we wouldn't like where we ended up. We were on the verge of winning the fight when the commander grabbed our Cleric and threw her in the pool. She landed on a grassy hill in another world. The DM meant for the Cleric to climb back through the portal on her next turn. However, when we killed the gith commander it was on the turn that their red dragon ally showed up. The DM meant for us to fight said red dragon. Instead, the rest of the party jumped through the portal in order to join our Cleric. The DM called the session there because, to quote, "I didn't expect you guys to do this." So when we started today's session, the DM's describing certain things, like how there are mountains to the north, a forest to the south, a rotted sign in the language of the rakaskta, and weird feathered lizards. Our Cleric, who's been playing <I>D&D</i> for forty+ years, starts freaking the hell out. "X-1, Cobi! X-1!" I have no clue what he means. Until the DM mentions the King of Many Feathers.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Isle_of_Dread He's running us through module X-1. Which the rest of the party has never played before. 1st edition module with a 5th edition party. This is going to be so much fun. Edit - I was wrong. The King is from Tomb of Annihilation. The DM's jamming that adventure, the above adventure, and Rage of the Rakasta to explain the ancient history of how the Rakasta came to Tanicus. "No one ever talks about Mystara anymore," he said after the session. "This is my throwback." CobiWann fucked around with this message at 02:21 on May 17, 2021 |
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May 16, 2021 21:48
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Is there some mashup where you're on 5th edition rules, but the monsters and NPCs are on AD&D, so you need to roll for THAC0 with advantage or something?
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May 16, 2021 21:55
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Is there some mashup where you're on 5th edition rules, but the monsters and NPCs are on AD&D, so you need to roll for THAC0 with advantage or something? DM - "Only on a Wild Magic surge."
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May 16, 2021 21:57
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Cobi, have I mentioned how jealous I am of your group and especially your DM? Because drat.
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May 16, 2021 23:16
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Ichabod Sexbeast posted:Is there some mashup where you're on 5th edition rules, but the monsters and NPCs are on AD&D, so you need to roll for THAC0 with advantage or something? If you are fond of making up stats for monsters on the fly, fudging abilities and rolls to promote narrative style over rules-lawyering, and changing encounters to keep action from feeling railroady, then running classic AD&D modules in 5E is awesome. I’ve done In Search of Adventure, Temple of Elemental Evil and Assault on the Slave Lords and we had a blast. Kudos to your DM for unearthing a classic.
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May 16, 2021 23:42
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So I think that I'm just cursed to never enjoy myself. Tried to play 5e D&D, right? New group, new GM, drop in game, west marches style, DM bragging about how LETHAL he is and how he's going to kill ALL THE PLAYERS if they aren't SMART ENOUGH. We're sent to talk down or kill a band of bandits who are surrounded by town guards. Edgy Rogue starts talking about how we should just kill them immediately, while my Paladin manages to talk his way inside to talk to their leader. Druid wildshapes into a spider to come along... but gets distracted and fucks around on the roof while I try talking to the leader of the bandits instead of sticking on my unarmed and unarmored paladin in case a fight breaks out. Warlock and the rest of the party try sneaking in to kill them while i'm talking, which they all fail because they immediately wakl right in front of the windows. So the Bandit leader grapples my character, knocks him prone, and starts attacking him with dual wielding (using the standard bandit leader template). My turn comes up, I roll to break free, get a 1, the bandit leader maintains grapple, attacks me three times, crits twice. I'm still alive, next turn, I roll to break free, get a 1, DM laughs at me for being dumb, other players are laughing at me, I go "That's not cool", the warlock goes "Just relax, bad rolls happen", and the bandit leader maintains grapple and attacks me three times, critting again. My paladin's still alive, next turn, I roll a 1, I ask for a reroll because "Cmon!", DM says "Well maybe you shouldn't have been stupid enough to try negotiating with bandits", and I go "Well, I quit, this isn't fun." and I leave the discord server and Roll20 room. So yeah, I think I'm just straight up cursed.
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May 17, 2021 02:49
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Three Nat 1s obviously aren't impossible, but they're definitely some statistical bullshit. Sometimes I wonder if there's some feature that lets you rig rolls in that program. And yeah, calling your players stupid for trying to Talk to the bandits when that was explicitly an option is a major dick move.
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May 17, 2021 03:04
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FWIW I have been keeping track of our roll20 d20 rolls and after six months of gaming, the median score is a 7 and 1s are something like 20% more likely to occur than 2, 3 or 4. More importantly, calling someone stupid because they are getting their rear end kicked from staggeringly unlucky rolls is also stupid.
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May 17, 2021 03:14
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Fivemarks posted:DM bragging about how LETHAL he is and how he's going to kill ALL THE PLAYERS if they aren't SMART ENOUGH. Agrikk posted:FWIW I have been keeping track of our roll20 d20 rolls and after six months of gaming, the median score is a 7 and 1s are something like 20% more likely to occur than 2, 3 or 4.
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May 17, 2021 03:58
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I don't even know, maybe that's the way 5e is supposed to be played. Though if so, 5e Dungeons and Dragons is a bad game and should be destroyed.
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May 17, 2021 04:00
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It's just idiots cargo-culting their way through extremely telephoned stories of old games from cons in the 80s into "how D&D is meant to be played". Tomb of Horrors was a competition, it was meant to kill everyone because that way there'd be a winner; it was not how actual real games of tabletop D&D with friends was ever done. and yet these toolboxes keep springing up out of the fetid mists to squeal about how they're ~*real gamerzzzz*~ because they don't let anyone have fun. Honestly, if you meet anyone like that (especially on roll20, whose LFG forum is a cistern on par with 4chan) the correct response is "okay thanks for letting me know because that sounds like hot dogshit and I play games to have fun." Trust me, they aren't going to surprise you with any deep characters or compelling storylines. Always remember: bad gaming is worse than no game at all.
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May 17, 2021 04:10
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I'm not an expert on this field, but how hard can it be to have access to the most random numbers possible (I am aware that 'true randomness' is theoretically impossible) when it's an online game and one always has access to the atomic clock etc? Given what's been said here, I would almost prefer that people roll a D20 on their desks and we take their word for it. Why yes, I have had some phenomenally bad streaks of ill luck in my day, thanks for asking. I quite playing Risk, which is admittedly a rubbish game, when I lost a battle in which the odds were over 18 million to one in my favour. I know this because I took the issue to college professor of my acquaintance who was an expert in probability theory and an avid board gamer. I know of some lotteries that have better odds than that, but I would rather have the dosh.
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May 17, 2021 04:17
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm not an expert on this field, but how hard can it be to have access to the most random numbers possible (I am aware that 'true randomness' is theoretically impossible) when it's an online game and one always has access to the atomic clock etc? Trivially easy, if you aren't aiming for totally secure randomness. You don't even need an atomic clock, just use any programming language's built in or commonly available random library and seed it with the current system time. "Write a random number generator that passes the basic tests for randomness" is an assignment first or second year undergraduates can do in a single class. Source: I literally had to write a random number generator that passed basic tests for randomness in my first or second year (don't remember, it was a while ago) in class, and it was treated as the super easy demo it was
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May 17, 2021 04:45
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True randomness is streaky, and a very large pseudorandom number approximates true randomness well enough to be indistinguishable to a human. What people tend to want when they lament the RNG is bad luck protection, and many successful products include it because feeling like the RNG alone is beating you is a bad feel.
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May 17, 2021 04:46
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wiegieman posted:True randomness is streaky, and a very large pseudorandom number approximates true randomness well enough to be indistinguishable to a human. The trickier part is writing something that feels random while also feeling good. One thing that I like is to create a "deck" of dice results rather than generating an actual random number each time. So for a d20, you'd have each number 1-20 in the list 2 or 3 times, and then pull out a random entry from the list when you roll, only replenishing once you've exhausted them all. It's indistinguishable from randomness to anyone who isn't running moderately advanced statistics on the results, and it feels a lot better when you can't get streaks of 5 1s in a row
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May 17, 2021 04:49
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JustJeff88 posted:I'm not an expert on this field, but how hard can it be to have access to the most random numbers possible (I am aware that 'true randomness' is theoretically impossible) when it's an online game and one always has access to the atomic clock etc? Given what's been said here, I would almost prefer that people roll a D20 on their desks and we take their word for it. There are hardware true random number generators out there. They use quantum processes like thermal noise to generate truly random numbers. Even a Laplace Demon with full knowledge of the exact time and algorithm and state of the machine shouldn't be able to predict the result of a hardware TRNG. It's not an exotic thing either; I think modern Intel and AMD CPUs both support it (via the RDRAND instruction), and even the original Raspberry Pi SoC had one for some reason. I wrote a web-based dice roller a while ago that runs on a Raspberry Pi and generates die rolls based on the output of the hardware TRNG. As for non-cryptographic software that uses it? I don't know since my one interaction with such a thing was my own custom job. But it's not a difficult problem to solve nowadays. edit: though if I recall correctly, hardware TRNGs don't output randomness fast enough for lots of usage in a short time, so it's more common to use the output to periodically reseed a software pseudo RNG? Though I'm of the opinion that a properly-used PRNG is more than random enough for most uses including games so that wouldn't bother me too much. BattleMaster fucked around with this message at 05:03 on May 17, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 04:53
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Kaza42 posted:The trickier part is writing something that feels random while also feeling good. One thing that I like is to create a "deck" of dice results rather than generating an actual random number each time. So for a d20, you'd have each number 1-20 in the list 2 or 3 times, and then pull out a random entry from the list when you roll, only replenishing once you've exhausted them all. It's indistinguishable from randomness to anyone who isn't running moderately advanced statistics on the results, and it feels a lot better when you can't get streaks of 5 1s in a row This is one way to do bad luck protection (I stealth edited, my bad.) Gambler's fallacy is built into the human brain and playing to it makes people feel like they're "putting in the work" to get the result they want and that makes the happy juice flow.
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May 17, 2021 05:09
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I think there's a point where RNG isn't as important to the gameplay as the gameplay being enjoyable. If your random number generator makes the game not fun (or the game can be made not fun to play if the RNG just decides to gently caress a player), then that's a failure of game design right there. Give people some kind of points or tokens they can spend to turn a "You roll a 1 for the only thing you can do this turn, get hosed nerd" into a "You succeed a bit."
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May 17, 2021 05:10
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Fivemarks posted:I think there's a point where RNG isn't as important to the gameplay as the gameplay being enjoyable. If your random number generator makes the game not fun (or the game can be made not fun to play if the RNG just decides to gently caress a player), then that's a failure of game design right there. Give people some kind of points or tokens they can spend to turn a "You roll a 1 for the only thing you can do this turn, get hosed nerd" into a "You succeed a bit." Doesn't Edge of the Empire do this a bit? Like, you can fail to open a security door, but you accidentally lock another door behind you so that the people you're running from have to spend time getting it open, and vice versa. Plus the Light and Dark side points that players and the GM use as a risk/reward thing for rolls.
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May 17, 2021 05:27
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the_steve posted:Doesn't Edge of the Empire do this a bit? Yes. From experience it's a neat concept that's awful to have to determine in the moment on every. Single. Roll.
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May 17, 2021 05:31
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the_steve posted:Three Nat 1s obviously aren't impossible, but they're definitely some statistical bullshit. Sometimes I wonder if there's some feature that lets you rig rolls in that program. All 3 of us in my campaign rolled Nat 1s on initiative tonight,  I got to use a feat called Just Trust Me, It'll Be Awesome and proceeded to backflip over the skeleton and leap 20 feet back to the bridge tonight. I really love how much my DM actually values people having fun and let's us use crazy feats as a way to have awesome story moments. Just like when I whirlwinded and killed 4 skeletons in a single turn 
The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 06:02 on May 17, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 05:55
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Roll20 actually gives statistics on the rolls of d20s on the platform here. They're very proud of how they implement things.
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May 17, 2021 06:39
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One of the issues with Roll20 is players forgetting to turn off advantage/disadvantage so they end up "wasting" a ton of roll outcomes, which can make low rolls seem more frequent because no one goes back and looks at all the rolls that get generated, they just remember the ones that count for gameplay purposes. I've seen this time and again in my various R20 groups and it annoys me when people bitch about the RNG being "against" them when they're just failing to account for all the outcomes generated. Fivemarks posted:So I think that I'm just cursed to never enjoy myself. Straight up gently caress this DM. I absolutely hate this edgelord TPK EVERY GROUP toxic bullshit. Keep trying, you'll find good people. Though random pickup groups are a trainwreck, generally. Pvt. Public fucked around with this message at 07:43 on May 17, 2021 |
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May 17, 2021 07:32
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It doesn't help that d20 systems are based on a flat curve, where your difficulty is really based around a 1 in 2 or 1 in 4 chance of succeeding. Ever since I started playing other systems that had you roll multiple dice, either to count successes or to are based off of something like 2d6 or 3d6 I have hated going back to d20 systems. But the important thing for a GM is also to know when to make a player roll for something, and to know when the possibility of failing a roll will enhance the story or just bog things down and make players unhappy. My first DnD game had our GM make us roll for setting up camp and if we rolled badly we would burn food or have our tents blow over in the night. It did not add to anything except making me never want to play in his games again. (I was foolish and played in another game. Then he had an evil cultist cut my character's dick off in revenge for revenge for killing his partner who was also an evil cultist).
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May 17, 2021 08:22
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