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Guildencrantz posted:I don't know jack poo poo about boats. If it's a riverboat or some kind of lock system, you can run things more or less the same as any other standard caravan. There's land in sight the entirety of the way, but it's no less prone to piracy than the open sea.
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Jan 23, 2023 01:42
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Session was a blast, I had them interacting with different timelines and bump into their doppelgangers. The PC that I previously mentioned dying several sessions ago kept giving advice to the party and it had them shook. Then an NPC the love/hated showed up with lots of scars and pieces of all their equipment. They found him dead later and discovered that in his timeline they had all died and he had tried to complete their quest on his own. It worked really well. Thanks for the advice! They need to deal with the doppelgangers next time, should be interesting!
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Jan 23, 2023 01:46
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Here's how I remeber the difference between port and starboard: Port has fewer letters than starboard. Left has fewer letters than right. This is my cumulative knowledge about boats.
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Jan 23, 2023 16:52
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Port and left both have four letters. That's how I do it.
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Jan 23, 2023 17:35
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Okay here's the link to the google doc (please don't stalk me thx) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RlM2k7w48_Obn4AHo7edQGteju1H4ZtV/view?usp=sharing It's not super polished since it's mostly cobbled together from notes and then expanded a little bit, but it should be enough to get you playing in the setting. There aren't any actual adventures in it, just some plot hooks and rumors at the end. My party hasn't done much but show up and get acclimated, then decide what they want to try and do (next session) so I haven't written more yet. Still, it's a mostly fleshed out setting that you can drop into about any campaign as "Pirate Island" or whatever else you want to call it.
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Jan 23, 2023 18:53
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Does anyone have a link to a list of all the major D&D "zones". Like Astral Plane, Feywild, Feydark, Elemental planes, etc. I'm going to making an "Elden Ring" style campaign and I want to use those major d&d planes as the various settings of the game. Filing the numbers off these various planes should give me a big and fairly comprehensive list of wacky zones I can think build some specific origins for in my game and then slam together Dark Souls 2 style.
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Jan 24, 2023 18:48
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https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Planes_of_existence
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Jan 24, 2023 18:54
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Jack B Nimble posted:Does anyone have a link to a list of all the major D&D "zones". Like Astral Plane, Feywild, Feydark, Elemental planes, etc. There are sort of two major eras of D&D planes; the streamlined post-4E "World Axis" cosmology (which is a little more manageable and coherent) and the old Great Wheel cosmology (which is way more baroque and great for use as a huge grab bag to cherry pick what you need from, but is very tied in to some old, dumb assumptions about alignment, etc.) This describes the former: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/World_Axis_cosmology And the latter: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Wheel_cosmology They're Forgotten Realms-specific (obviously, given the website) but it's basically just responding to changes in the multiverse as a whole, so it should all apply. For further reading on the Great Wheel the AD&D or 3.5 Manual of the Planes might be useful. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 18:56
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Ok but there's over a hundred entries there. Arent some of these more important than others? From reading articles / my own memory theres: The elemental planes The Astral Plane The ...far reaches? The beyond the beyond that Beholders come from The abyss (not the same as hell) Hell (not the same as the abyss) Heaven? FeyWild FeyDark Edit: Ok, I'll check out those links, I'd like to find roughly twenty but I'd also like to connect them to broader forces or factions within my game, so I'll see what I can see. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 19:00
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Honestly I wouldn't use any of it as-is. It's at once too messy and chaotic but also too over-systematized for what you're proposing, in my opinion. You want Bloodborne flavor? Read up on the Far Realms and maybe Ghaunadar's layer of the Abyss (which I think is instead its own plane entirely in the World Axis version, but same idea). You want more traditional Gothic horror, look at Ravenloft and salvage what you can. Ravenloft is, by design, tremendously isolated from all other planes / settings except insofar as it occasionally steals pieces of them. Honestly crossing Dark Souls / Elden Ring with Ravenloft would elevate Ravenloft and diminish the Soulsborne side, but it's as close as you're gonna get. If you like the parts of Elden Ring that are fantasy very nearly verging on science fiction, with magical space travel and mass genetic engineering and the like, check out Mystara and Spelljammer. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jan 24, 2023 |
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Jan 24, 2023 19:09
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Jack B Nimble posted:Ok but there's over a hundred entries there. Arent some of these more important than others? There's this chart:  The more 'relevant' ones are the things in the center around the prime material. Past that, it's a grab bag of stuff - you could probably pick the ones on the axes, ie elysium (good), hades (evil), mechanus (law), and limbo (chaos).
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Jan 24, 2023 19:13
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Jack B Nimble posted:Does anyone have a link to a list of all the major D&D "zones". Like Astral Plane, Feywild, Feydark, Elemental planes, etc.
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Jan 25, 2023 08:42
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The Froghemoth fight was interesting. It was awful in combat which was ok, but never actually managed to eat anyone which was surprising. The players were smart enough to run after a couple rounds of combat which was great and so the map switch to a road for running combat went great. The unexpected side effect was the players feeling guilty for killing some of the kobolds that unleashed the beast on them. The party thought the kobolds stole some food, but came to learn someone else stole the food and sold it to the kobolds who had families in the ruins they were camped out in. The kobolds did give lots of opportunity for the party to leave, but when one player magically compelled a kobold to approach him for a chat they unleashed the Froghemoth. My murder-hobos have a conscience, and a conscience over killing kobolds! Indolent Bastard fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 15:07
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Might be able to actually take up the DM shoes for some friends. I have an NPC I'd like to introduce. I'm assuming a powerful enough fey could do this, but want to check. The character was a merchant who ended up traveling in the feywild for a bit. Ran into a major fey there who offered them a business proposition. The character politely declined, but mentioned they were of two minds about the deal. The fey in their displeasure made this literal. So now there is Left Hubbard, and Right Hubbard stuck in one body operating L R Hubbard's Alien Exotics together.
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Jan 28, 2023 03:48
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LemonRind posted:Might be able to actually take up the DM shoes for some friends. I have an NPC I'd like to introduce. I'm assuming a powerful enough fey could do this, but want to check. The character was a merchant who ended up traveling in the feywild for a bit. Ran into a major fey there who offered them a business proposition. The character politely declined, but mentioned they were of two minds about the deal. The fey in their displeasure made this literal. So now there is Left Hubbard, and Right Hubbard stuck in one body operating L R Hubbard's Alien Exotics together. 
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Jan 28, 2023 04:04
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I assume that to pair you with his best wares, he'll want to give you a quick personality assessment?
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Jan 28, 2023 06:21
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Dameius posted:I assume that to pair you with his best wares, he'll want to give you a quick personality assessment? Only the left half. The right will disparage him as best he can while trying to make sure you purchase a warranty with your magical item. Can never be too careful with those.
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Jan 28, 2023 06:49
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LemonRind posted:Might be able to actually take up the DM shoes for some friends. I have an NPC I'd like to introduce. I'm assuming a powerful enough fey could do this, but want to check. The character was a merchant who ended up traveling in the feywild for a bit. Ran into a major fey there who offered them a business proposition. The character politely declined, but mentioned they were of two minds about the deal. The fey in their displeasure made this literal. So now there is Left Hubbard, and Right Hubbard stuck in one body operating L R Hubbard's Alien Exotics together. It sounds like an awesome idea and go with it, but also why are you asking our permission? You're the GM, if you say that fae can do that poo poo then they can.
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Jan 28, 2023 09:51
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Dameius posted:I assume that to pair you with his best wares, he'll want to give you a quick personality assessment? The other one has a fantasy book he's writing
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Jan 28, 2023 10:10
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Whybird posted:It sounds like an awesome idea and go with it, but also why are you asking our permission? You're the GM, if you say that fae can do that poo poo then they can. Just new to all of this on the DM side, and while i know fae can do some incredibly powerful things I was just wondering if anyone thought I'd be stretching it.
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Jan 29, 2023 04:36
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LemonRind posted:Just new to all of this on the DM side, and while i know fae can do some incredibly powerful things I was just wondering if anyone thought I'd be stretching it. IMO the Fae work best if you think of their magic as poetic or dream logic rather than something that has power levels or clear rational boundaries. I wouldn't have a Fae, say, magically raze a village to the ground because they pissed them off, but could they enchant the village to disappear into a mist for 50 years, ala Brigadoon? Sure, why not?
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Jan 29, 2023 13:33
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LemonRind posted:Just new to all of this on the DM side, and while i know fae can do some incredibly powerful things I was just wondering if anyone thought I'd be stretching it. But that's my point -- stretching it according to who? There's no universally accepted standard of what fae can do other than what you've already established what they can do in your game. It's perfectly legitimate for you to run a game where fae can't do that at all and they're minor spirits who just throw a few illusions around at best. It's also perfectly legitimate for you to run a game where the fae are godlike dictators who rule all human nations with an iron fist. It's your game, fae are what you say they are. It feels like the question you really want to ask is "am I treating my players unfairly by slapping them with consequences like this?" And that's a question about the OC expectations of your group and the kind of things they have fun doing, not about the IC power level of fae.
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Jan 29, 2023 13:58
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Well, if you have the sort of players in your group that assume for this to happen there must be a spell that describes the effect, and they'll be able to extrapolate the fae's class and level from knowing they can cast that spell, things might actually get a bit dicey around the table.
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Jan 29, 2023 16:44
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more so than they usually do anyway
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Jan 29, 2023 16:45
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One of the things I love about my long term group is that we are all in it to build a great story. While they themselves have tacitly agreed to abide by the rules of class and level progression and understand that their PCs can do this at that level, as the GM I can do whatever I want within or without the rules as long as I am internally consistent and it makes for a good story. For one session I invented an herb that strips the ability to cast spells from a specific realm of magic and sprung it on a player. It was a rude shock for the player but the story made sense so they rolled with it: my world has a not-KKK group of witchfinders and since they use no magic I deemed that they needed a weapon to render a mage helpless so I created the herb. It was a really fun encounter where a PC had to use wits instead of invisibility/fly to get away and the PCs have since discovered that cure poison removes the effect readily enough and have also identified the herb. My point is as mentioned up thread: it’s your world and if it remains internally consistent and if your changes add to the story without completely breaking the game then you are free to do what you want.
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Jan 29, 2023 18:01
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Unless your players are Really sold on the official lore I don't see problems with things just working how you say they do at your home table. Last week we got a the first place they've run into where there's a dragon nearby, and lots of kobolds are around worshipping her. Where do the kobolds come from? Do they find the dragon to worship or just spring up form nothing? I told my players "dragons work kinda like chickens." They can lay eggs without them being fertilized, and since they're powerful magical beings they can use unfertilized eggs to hatch kobolds to worship them. With enough kobolds made this way they can develop a self-sustaining kobold community. Only fertilized eggs make dragons. "Dragons are chickens" is now canon at my table and no one cares if it's official lore because it's funny and makes something close enough to sense. We don't think much harder about it.
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Jan 29, 2023 19:13
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while not all groups are really built to utilize it, IMHO the greatest thing you can do as a DM is say "I don't care, this is cool so I'm doing it" it works both ways, after all - the same logic that lets you say "the fae can do this poo poo even if there isn't a spell effect for it because it would be cool" is also the logic that lets you say "that was a really cool tactic, take a to-hit bonus or Advantage or something"
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Jan 29, 2023 20:10
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:Unless your players are Really sold on the official lore I don't see problems with things just working how you say they do at your home table. gently caress that's great.
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Jan 29, 2023 20:16
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:while not all groups are really built to utilize it, IMHO the greatest thing you can do as a DM is say "I don't care, this is cool so I'm doing it" Along these lines, last week I had a session where our party was fighting a gorgon and some mooks trying to kidnap a kid for Reasons. I was playing a Kenku thief with a splash of artificer, so I cast disguise self and spent the battle pretending to be the kid while he was hiding, and near the end decided to try pretending to run away to draw the gorgon away. The DM had her chase after and let me use a reaction to try and reflect her gaze using a mirror from my thieves tools, things rolled in my favor and she turned to stone. It was a really cool ending to a memorable fight and I felt cool as hell even though it wasn't necessarily something I could do RAW.
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Jan 29, 2023 21:08
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Freudian posted:gently caress that's great. Better yet, I have not spelled all of this out for them. They know that dragons make their kobold worshippers, but not the details how. They know that a dragon will sometimes have eggs around because "dragons work like chickens." Our druid wants to steal a dragon egg and raise a dragon for the party. If they don't connect the dots/ explore the lore, they might end up with a kobold minion instead, assuming they can successfully steal an egg from an ancient green dragon. If they do explore the lore there's an opportunity to try and play dragon matchmaker by investigating an offshoot kobold colony that has lost it's green scales because another dragon has arrived on the island and is stealing away followers. THEN they can steal a fertilized egg and get a pet dragon. That's a ton of work, but they're only level 3 so if they want a pet dragon I feel like it should take some runaround.
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Jan 29, 2023 22:07
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:while not all groups are really built to utilize it, IMHO the greatest thing you can do as a DM is say "I don't care, this is cool so I'm doing it" The biggest thing to remind yourself: It's all fiction, it does what you want it to. Mind, you can hit a point where you're bending a system or setting enough that you're better off writing a different setting or using a different system. But always remember whatever you're working with is mutable because it's fiction.
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Jan 29, 2023 22:16
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So they’re like bees and ants? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplodiploidy
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Jan 30, 2023 02:30
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Muir posted:So they’re like bees and ants? I guess so. I was imagining that making kobolds was a choice they made if they wanted to have followers, but it might be funnier if it wasn't. I don't have do decide now anyway. As an aside, making combat encounters for larger parties is a real trick. Higher level monsters have enough HP to sometimes survive for more than a round or two, but deal enough damage to TPK in a few rounds too. Lower level monsters deal more appropriate damage but get wiped out, and if you buff their HP then you've got to explain why these orcs or whatever are three times tougher than the old ones. Sending waves of unedited low level monsters is fine once and a while, but not every fight. I've been trying to mix higher and lower CR monsters and raising some HP, lowering some damage output, but it still very often feels like combat is just me deciding if I want my players to live or die right now based on how I fudge the numbers and choose not to use monsters abilities, and that doesn't feel a lot like letting them play the game. They aren't upset because they can't see behind the screen and it's a pretty casual group, but I'm starting to have a lot less fun if it feels like there's no element of chance or player agency in combat.
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Jan 30, 2023 15:34
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https://i.imgur.com/XSbpjex.gifv So hawt. Creator has a vid of some others: https://youtu.be/i3Pxp7YlZfU
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Feb 1, 2023 03:32
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I have a question for those who have run games with lots of politics and intrigue. What did your typical sessions look like? Like, were your players spending lots of time away from the group, working on their own machinations? Or maybe the sessions were based around group events, and then individual matters handled as one-on-one things with the GM? I ask because I want to run a politics-heavy VtM game in the near-ish future and I'm not sure how best to structure it. I'd like the players to feel free to plot and scheme as individuals to enhance their own power, but my gut says that a session where everyone is off on their own would get real boring for anyone who isn't currently in the spotlight. I've been GMing for years and am very familiar with the setting I want to use, but all the games I've run in the past have been based around a group of characters with shared goals, and I'm having trouble imagining how to do this different thing in a fun way.
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Feb 2, 2023 07:44
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I would focus on players working in the same direction for a long time until they can finish their betrayals. In Paranoia, you get an instant satisfying pay off and you can get revenge quick. For a serious game, that’s not possible. Otherwise, you run into the Urban Shadows problem where game time is divided equally among players in different places, who want different things, and know different people. If people want to do scheming others can’t know about, it might be best between sessions or at least during breaks. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Nov 15, 2023 |
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Feb 2, 2023 08:05
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That Urban Shadows problem you described is what I'm concerned about, yeah. It would be lots of fun for me, as the GM, but I know I'd get real bored as a player in that game. We play over Discord, so what I might end up doing is saying our regular sessions are for group activities only and then create a text channel for each player where they can work out their shenanigans with me. Probably signing myself up for a lot more work that way, but maybe I'll make the regular sessions less frequent to compensate.
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Feb 2, 2023 18:42
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aw frig aw dang it posted:I have a question for those who have run games with lots of politics and intrigue. What did your typical sessions look like? Like, were your players spending lots of time away from the group, working on their own machinations? Or maybe the sessions were based around group events, and then individual matters handled as one-on-one things with the GM? I ask because I want to run a politics-heavy VtM game in the near-ish future and I'm not sure how best to structure it. I'd like the players to feel free to plot and scheme as individuals to enhance their own power, but my gut says that a session where everyone is off on their own would get real boring for anyone who isn't currently in the spotlight. I'm currently running 3 asoiaf intrigue games which are different but I've learned a few things running them. Running individual scenes in a group setting can be daunting but you can do it in a satisfying way. If all your players are on board with scheming and backstabbing then simply setting up scenes for everyone and cutting between them can be a very satisfying way of conveying what everyone is up to. It does require you to have a way to bring them all together and for everyone to be invested in the story of the group and how things converge but generally framing the game as a tv show and trusting your players to care about the other scenes can go very very well if done correctly.
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Feb 2, 2023 19:01
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ItohRespectArmy posted:I'm currently running 3 asoiaf intrigue games which are different but I've learned a few things running them. Running individual scenes in a group setting can be daunting but you can do it in a satisfying way. If all your players are on board with scheming and backstabbing then simply setting up scenes for everyone and cutting between them can be a very satisfying way of conveying what everyone is up to. This sounds impossible.
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Feb 2, 2023 19:16
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admanb posted:This sounds impossible. I can barely handle one dungeon crawl plus in-town shenanigans. Running three intrigue games sounds like hell. I’m sure it’s a wild ride though.
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Feb 2, 2023 19:52
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