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Azhais posted:I've never understood magic mouth. 10 minute long message... of 25 words or less
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Apr 20, 2022 22:27
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The Slack Lagoon posted:Thanks for the input! I've come up with this. I really do love this, but (slightly rules-lawyer-y) if the amethyst is "consumed," what holds the recording? Maybe include that casting the spell transforms the gem into worthless glass or something.
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Apr 21, 2022 21:36
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Mirage posted:I really do love this, but (slightly rules-lawyer-y) if the amethyst is "consumed," what holds the recording? Maybe include that casting the spell transforms the gem into worthless glass or something. Yeah, it's not an amethyst any more, it's a thing that plays the recording.
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Apr 21, 2022 22:25
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Mirage posted:I really do love this, but (slightly rules-lawyer-y) if the amethyst is "consumed," what holds the recording? Maybe include that casting the spell transforms the gem into worthless glass or something. The amethyst is unchanged but it becomes worthless because now it won't shut up about liking and subscribing.
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Apr 22, 2022 08:44
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Rules as written in many ames you can create a magic item by possessing certain other kinds of items needed for a ritual. Any item that is not consumed you still have when you're done. It's still an amethyst but we have to say the amethyst is consumed in the rules or some jerk is going to start trying to make a thousand of them out of a single amethyst. It's me. I'm the jerk. 
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Apr 22, 2022 13:22
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the amethyst is transformed into a delicious crystal that says recorded messages but does not function as an amethyst, however shavings of the not amethyst now taste like artificial grape flavouring and can be used to make kool aid
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Apr 22, 2022 13:26
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I've been having a hard time coming up with events and challenges and dungeon dressing, I guess I'm just really creatively drained. But the tome of adventure design and the lazy dm's workbook are saving my rear end in a major way. I also found a series called "anatomy of a..." Which has random tables for places like wizards towers, caves, cults etc. What other books like this is there?
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Apr 22, 2022 16:48
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Jinh posted:I've been having a hard time coming up with events and challenges and dungeon dressing, I guess I'm just really creatively drained. But the tome of adventure design and the lazy dm's workbook are saving my rear end in a major way. I also found a series called "anatomy of a..." Which has random tables for places like wizards towers, caves, cults etc. I got a few options for you! Check out the solo role-playing thread for other people's lists Rutibex posted:Thank you for giving me an excuse to make this post Rutibex posted:There are also a few free programs that I use. When I want to generate a hexmap I use Hexographer. You can set it to generate all kinds of random terrain and populate it with random icons. This gives you a really great base for a solo game, you just need to roll up details as you trek along. I find that 16x21 fits well onto a single sheet of paper for printing:
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Apr 22, 2022 17:50
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Hey thanks! I forgot to mention worlds without number, good to see it in there. I'll check out all these tonight after work 
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Apr 22, 2022 18:38
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My D&D players are likely to be travelling through the ruins of a Victorian city dragged into hell and drowned in the Styx in a few sessions. The characters are all from Faerun so I want to have them explore a location that’s “futuristic” in the sense that it’s clearly not somewhere you’d find in a pre-industrial setting. I was thinking like, a locomotive factory. I’m not much good at from-scratch dungeon design so I tend to use pre-existing floor plans, maps or dungeons and adapt as needed. Does anyone have anything that might fit as a location?
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Apr 23, 2022 11:08
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Reveilled posted:My D&D players are likely to be travelling through the ruins of a Victorian city dragged into hell and drowned in the Styx in a few sessions. The characters are all from Faerun so I want to have them explore a location that’s “futuristic” in the sense that it’s clearly not somewhere you’d find in a pre-industrial setting. I was thinking like, a locomotive factory. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks has maps for a ruined space ship. I don't know just how futuristic you want to go, but I've run "crashed spaceship in hell" before and it was a lot of fun  https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17065/S3-Expedition-to-the-Barrier-Peaks-1e  
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Apr 23, 2022 15:26
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Reveilled posted:My D&D players are likely to be travelling through the ruins of a Victorian city dragged into hell and drowned in the Styx in a few sessions. The characters are all from Faerun so I want to have them explore a location that’s “futuristic” in the sense that it’s clearly not somewhere you’d find in a pre-industrial setting. I was thinking like, a locomotive factory. If you want to zoom out a bit then the setting from Blades in the Dark sounds like it would hit the flavor to a T, but it won't help you in terms of actual floor plans because the system eschews that level of detail. But in terms of districts, buildings, trappings, etc., it'll give you a lot of detail to work with.
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Apr 23, 2022 19:37
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Alternative way to disseminate performances: if a ritual honoring the God of drama/heroism/trickery or whatever is performed and the performance is good enough, it spreads via dreams and visions to the sacred playwrights, who, if their schedule is open and/or the author is prestigious enough, renact the events to the locals around the world.
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Apr 24, 2022 09:31
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Hello, to those who have run tournament arcs, how did ya do? There are the obvious question of PvP and how exactly a party of four or more would be matched against one of the named NPCs. For context, thinking of running a tournament arc in Lancer, vaguely inspired by Fate Stay Night and the Holy Grail Wars. So of course the tournament is going to go sideways in the second act but I need to figure out the first one, well, first.
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Apr 24, 2022 12:56
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Terratina posted:Hello, to those who have run tournament arcs, how did ya do? I ran a tournament as the beginning of a Dark Sun campaign once. It was rigged just like your tournament. The whole point of the event was to make a blood sacrifice for the sorcerer-king Kalik so he can become a dragon, but someone killed Kalik in round two plunging the city into chaos  For the first round of the tournament I suggest you just have a bit of fun. It's a controlled environment, the PCs can fight to the death and tournament clerics can revive them. Throw impossible odds at them and see how they do!
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Apr 24, 2022 13:09
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For those of you that crack open a new sourcebook with intentions of GM’ing a system: in what order do you prefer the info to be laid out? I am working on a few game design projects and have been looking at doing this sort of approach: 1a. Overview of game and game intentions 1b. Game Inspirations 2. How to Play (with examples) 3. How to Create a Character 4. The Base Setting 5. Telling the Story 6. Creating your own content 7. Example adventure This feels standard, but I feel like a bunch of sourcebooks don’t do this. Is there anything obvious I’m missing?
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Apr 28, 2022 03:43
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Gray Ghost posted:For those of you that crack open a new sourcebook with intentions of GM’ing a system: in what order do you prefer the info to be laid out? I am working on a few game design projects and have been looking at doing this sort of approach: I'm also writing a game-book. Here's how I have it: 1) Introduction 2) Character Creation 3) Equipment 4) Game-play Procedures 5) Spells & Magic 6) Game Master Procedures 7) Game Master Preparation 8) Monsters 9) Treasures Appendices: extra tables, examples of play I have the examples of play in the game masters section instead of the players section. Because I assume the game master is the one who will be teaching the players, they won't be learning from the game book. Rutibex fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Apr 28, 2022 |
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Apr 28, 2022 05:13
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Gray Ghost posted:For those of you that crack open a new sourcebook with intentions of GM’ing a system: in what order do you prefer the info to be laid out? I am working on a few game design projects and have been looking at doing this sort of approach: 1a and 1b are essential, with any sort of sourcebook you have to consider above all else "who is this for" and "what type of game am i making". this type of structure is generally good for a story game, pbta especially thrives with this kind of thing. as for layout, please pay special attention to how the information flows on the page. everything should be on two page spreads if at all possible. i also think it is essential to include a quick reference guide at the end which has all pertinent gameplay mechanics condensed to a two page spread for easy access. digitally, you can separate this out from the book too.
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Apr 28, 2022 13:48
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Gray Ghost posted:For those of you that crack open a new sourcebook with intentions of GM’ing a system: in what order do you prefer the info to be laid out? I am working on a few game design projects and have been looking at doing this sort of approach: I think this is the order I generally prefer and like pog boyfriend said having 1a and 1b are vital -- it sets the tone and expectations for everything that is to come. I think Blades in the Dark does this very good, the first few pages are the absolute basics to the point of seeming like an elevator pitch for the game itself -- what kind of game it is, what the setting is, what kind of characters are in this world, what are the players going to do and a whole bunch of media touchstones. Personally I like reading rules before character creation, especially if it's relatively rules-lite, so I can have some sort of context for the game's focus and verbs before actually thinking about what kind of character to make. I would probably swap base setting and telling the story around, to me what you emphasize for GMs in terms of storytelling can be independent of the setting, whereas if you're intertwining how you explain creating your own content with your own setting it probably makes sense to have those chapters adjacent.
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Apr 28, 2022 14:45
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pog boyfriend posted:1a and 1b are essential, with any sort of sourcebook you have to consider above all else "who is this for" and "what type of game am i making". this type of structure is generally good for a story game, pbta especially thrives with this kind of thing. I am going to second the desire for good two page spreads. I want a character class to take up two pages max and I don't want to turn the page. Random charts should never spill onto the next page. I hate turning pages!
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Apr 28, 2022 14:58
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Rutibex posted:I am going to second the desire for good two page spreads. I want a character class to take up two pages max and I don't want to turn the page. Random charts should never spill onto the next page. I hate turning pages! I too hate turning pages, so much so that I hate Bob Seger with a passion.
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Apr 28, 2022 15:01
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I have definitely come to appreciate an 'example of play' type thing towards the beginning of the book. I can't always get a sense of 'what is this thing like in action' from reading through character creation or a bunch of info about the setting, so something that provides a sense of what the game is like in motion is great to have.
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Apr 28, 2022 17:16
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Tangent but the DC Heroes RPG from the 90s had the best play example I've ever seen, a choose your own adventure where you are Batman dealing with some thugs in a warehouse. "If you break the skylight and cast your cape's shadow over the thugs to scare them, go to section 17"
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Apr 28, 2022 17:28
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Somewhere near the very beginning you should lay out some of the key design philosophies behind the system. Like say for example you wanted as much of the game to be fail forward as possible, clearly stating that in this section with your definition of what that means and just one or two super quick examples would work. Then when you get to examples of play you can reinforce these when explaining the why of a thing. I think it'll help a lot of new DMs coming to your system to help them understand why you chose to have a rule in place as well as how to actually adjudicate it.
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Apr 30, 2022 04:43
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Seeking advice from someone who has run or played Storm King's Thunder. I tipped the party to the Weevil having a 5,000g bounty and living in Xanathel Keep, and a fully expect them to go there next session, but the encounter as written is... dumb as hell. Basically a frost giant and small army show up to siege the place, in the hopes of secretly kidnapping Weevil for the bounty. For starters, why does a giant want smallfolk money, and second, this seems super annoying to actually implement. So much of this module seems like it was written by people who don't run games. So my question is how to make it better? Also they should be heading into Khedrun Valley towards the Eye of the World soon, and I am drawing blanks on good encounters for that. It's supposed to be a twisting labyrinth of canyons but the book doesn't provide any good encounters.
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Apr 30, 2022 19:08
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Nobody who has run it has responded so I will spitball an idea or two. A giant might not care about smallfolk money, but presumably their "small" army does. Or the Frost giant could be raising a kid. And they really want to hire a smallfolk magic tutor/bard/bodyguard to take of their kid when they are off on campaign. The players can promise to fulfill that role to get the giant to go away, counting on the giant's inability to tell smallfolk apart. Maybe the giant is tired of having a bounty on their own head, and took this job to get it cleared out. A frost giant addicted to some luxury smallfolk item is a classic. Nothing terribly secret about most of these. The frost giant siege ideally does all the lengthy and time consuming parts of a siege for the players. All the enemies of interest are firmly in the keep, surrounded by a flimsy siege wall. Thrown or launched boulders have knocked PC grade holes in the Keep's wall already. A satisfying fight's worth of the small army is stationed within PC range but not within easy reinforcement range of similarly sized groups. The Frost Giant comes to investigate such a disturbance, killing or negotiating with them negates the rest of the army. Or the PCs can run away into the keep. The defender's will probably let the PC's in if they beat the giant or just don't openly announce their intention to collect the bounty. Edit: Harpies local to the canyon treat the trials and travails of those within as a game show. Everybody gets heckled, people who take the lead on skill challenges twice in a row have things thrown at them. The winding canyons boil down to a series of "would you rather fight a yellow ooze or climb a rock wall," decisions. The harpies are happy to tell you your choices. Non perishable rations are more than enough of a bribe for them to tell you what comes after the current dilemma. habituallyred fucked around with this message at 10:16 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 1, 2022 20:20
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habituallyred posted:Edit: Harpies local to the canyon treat the trials and travails of those within as a game show. Riffs on this idea: The harpies are capricious and act rashly. They bicker amongst themselves about whether it would be more entertaining to help or hinder the PCs, or just watch. If entertained by their interactions with the party, the harpies will distract enemies by hurling sticks and stones, forcing them to roll attacks or saves with disadvantage. If angered, they instead hinder the PCs, yelling m "DON'T MISS!" at an attacker, "TRY DODGING!" When a character makes a Dex save, etc. Initial conversation with the harpies is fruitless since all they do is insult the PCs, zeroing in on the quirks they're most sensitive about like a group of middle schoolers. With a successful Wisdom (Insight) or Charisma (Intimidation) check, a PC can fire back with a zinger you provide, gaining inspiration and causing the other harpies to laugh at the sick burn their comrade just got hit with. Any player who comes up with something better than what you wrote auto-succeeds. The harpies act very much like a Twitch chat, offering commentary on the goings-on below.
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May 3, 2022 22:06
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Regarding FoundryVTT: Is there a good way to find actual adventures of varying levels that aren't just single encounters with half a dozen baddies and a couple extra journal entries? I've found maybe one group (Dragonshorn) that seem to have put out like three adventures? Really what I'm after is a full-size mini-campaign, like something that runs through a dozen levels. I'm happy paying, I just don't have time to stitch together 800 encounters of varying quality and/or creating content from scratch. But as far as I can tell, Foundry's mechanism for discovering content is trash? I can't even find a reliable way to filter by game system, like 5e or pathfinder or what have you. Seems like Roll20 has a much better marketplace for actual content, but I sure do like Foundry's features more. Bad Munki fucked around with this message at 03:06 on May 4, 2022 |
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May 4, 2022 03:04
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I've been using the dndbeyond integration with some Patreon money to convert the official adventures to foundary. They have this adventure muncher thing that will spit out all the monsters, scenes, journals and items to your foundary instance and takes little to no setup to actually run one.
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May 4, 2022 13:34
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Bad Munki posted:Regarding FoundryVTT: Foundry doesn't really have a marketplace in the same way that Roll20 does. I believe there is both a D&D Beyond and Roll20 importer, but my impression is that 5e on Foundry is kind of a hot mess and certainly doesn't have any official support from Wizards.
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May 4, 2022 13:54
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Is there a better but similar system I should consider that’ll still get me content? For background, I cut my teeth on 2nd Ed and then later moved to 3e, skipped everything past that for a while, and have occasionally dabbled in 5e and pathfinder since. My prospective players don’t have a long history with any system but have dabbled in the 3e-5e ecosystem. We mostly play for the dungeon crawling progress quest, RP-lite at most.
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May 4, 2022 15:07
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Bad Munki posted:Regarding FoundryVTT: I mean, if you're willing to play PF2e, there's a ton of support for ingesting the adventure paths--like it scans the PDF and creates all of the encounters and maps and such.
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May 4, 2022 15:10
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Bad Munki posted:Is there a better but similar system I should consider that’ll still get me content? I don't know anything about foundry or whatever online system your talking about. But it sounds like your looking for some adventure modules. If you want a bunch of good encounters and dungeons my best recommendation is the G-D-Q series written by Gary Gygax himself. Against the Giants, Decent to the Depths of the Earth, Vault of the Drow, then finished off with a fight with Lolith herself in Queen of the Demonweb pits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjZsjK5idJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-qWqJRA4uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdzuzXO_7hc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIVqC26VIj4 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17037/G13-Against-the-Giants-1e https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17041/D12-Descent-into-the-Depths-of-the-Earth-1e https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17043/D3-Vault-of-the-Drow-1e?src=also_purchased https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17054/Q1-Queen-of-the-Demonweb-Pits-1e?src=also_purchased
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May 4, 2022 15:33
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The Foundry Discord channel has a bunch of content releases that might get you started on a wider campaign. Once I found the Drag and Drop to canvas module, building out maps and scenes became so much easier that for my homebrew campaign I've been freed up to do more improv/go along with what players want on a whim.
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May 4, 2022 17:10
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How do you all deal with really complicated characters, where the player is clearly overwhelmed? This could mean mechanical complexity, but in my particular case the issue is with a PC that is RP-wise incredibly complex. We're playing Savage Worlds in a fantasy version of NYC. The players are working with a detective agency to solve crimes and pull in bounties to pay off a debt they owe to a friend who bailed them out of prison. One of these characters I find to be incredibly complex, and the player doesn't really know what to do with them. Their motivations and desires are all over the place, and the complexity of it is I think pushing the player to act in very out of character ways (this is most recently manifesting in sociopathic behavior). The character is a middle-aged unattractive woman who is stuck working in her family's business, a space ship themed rundown motel. She has dreams of becoming an elite hacker, and has the skills to boot, but her family forces her to work at the hotel. Her mom is a talented engineer and tinkerer, who runs a side business in the hotel to fix things, but also doesn't want her daughter to leave the family business because she thinks computers won't get her anywhere. Also the daughter has long term dreams of making the hotel really prosperous. The character is all over the place, and when I confronted the player about it during character creation they assured me they'd make it work, so I accepted the character. Unfortunately they haven't been making it work. If the player were having fun with it I'd leave it alone, but they're clearly not. Instead they're barely engaging with anything going on, I think because they're overwhelmed with trying to figure out what their character would realistically do, or how their character would fit in a particular situation. When they do engage, they tend to follow along with some of the more sociopathic characters and perform acts of sadism and psychopathy, which are pretty anathema to the character's backstory and description. Just curious how some of you might interact with this player or their character, what you'd suggest to them, what you'd do on your end to make things easier for this player, etc.
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May 5, 2022 16:52
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Offer to turn them into an npc and make another character
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May 5, 2022 16:58
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Are you sure this is an issue with their character? Does this player usually act differently when playing something else? If they want to be a sociopath maybe have this characters mom killed by cyber ninjas so they can be a happy psycho and forget the complex backstory. After talking it over with them of course
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May 5, 2022 17:11
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This is why my characters are always simple. Halfling dad going through a midlife crisis. Hippie elf that's really good at drugs and magic. Bookstore owner who likes old books and also is basically a character in a police procedural comedy.
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May 5, 2022 17:48
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May 5, 2022 22:41
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Lol I did, but I’m asking for advice from other people who may have experienced this or have some insight into it.
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May 6, 2022 03:16
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