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LeafyGreens posted:Hi all, first time posting here but was just hoping for some advice as a relatively inexperienced DM who is going to be running a Strixhaven campaign with 5e. ( Classic student pranks involve hacking the doors to dress people in silly outfits and dumb hats. )
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Sep 2, 2023 03:31
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Ahaha I would never have thought of doorframes that could dress you , but I absolutely love that! All of these tips are great, I did have those magic brooms in mind, and there are robotic constructs in the library tidying shelves etc. but expanding that to more laborious work and quality of life improvements around the school is a great point! Thanks so much!
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Sep 2, 2023 05:18
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Fivemarks posted:I don't understand how of the multiple people I've asked to join my game, all 20 have said that 2 PM EST on a sunday is too late in the day for them. I'm not even asking Europeans exclusively. What time are you running to, though? Like, a game that runs 2pm-5pm is different from one which 2pm-8pm.
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Sep 2, 2023 14:15
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LeafyGreens posted:Hi all, first time posting here but was just hoping for some advice as a relatively inexperienced DM who is going to be running a Strixhaven campaign with 5e. For Strixhaven particularly I'd point out that the setting is really weird -- the school is built on a wilderness planet that's covered in mana whorls that distort the surface and ancient ruins and weird peaceful giant nephelim type things. Outside the college the sorts of fantastical abilities that are commonplace at Strixhaven are going to be important just for survival. There isn't really any peaceful countryside. It's not as hostile as Zendikar or Ikoria but it's not settled. Harry Potter tends to treat things like the ability to fly or teleport as a neat toy, but in Strixhaven those are their only means of transport in the wilderness. Going out without magical travel abilities would be a difficult and arduous undertaking. This is all to say they may treat the fantastical as practical; you wouldn't go out without purchasing a teleport scroll from the Quandrix guys, because that's basically fantasy AAA. You could get in real trouble without one.
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Sep 2, 2023 18:04
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My players have finally gotten back out of port after a long overhaul and the map is opened up. The thing is, their new plan involves setting up a triangle trade where they'll smuggle weapons into one place, export finished goods to a new settlement, and take furs (and eventually drugs but they haven't finished analyzing the local flora) back to civilization where they can buy more weapons. Setting all this up won't be too complicated for them but it's been very complicated for me since it involves a lot of travel, negotiation, combat encounters with prowling pirates or marauding jungle beasts, and possibly some random mishaps as travel in Rogue Trader isn't very safe or reliable. I'm having trouble putting it into a coherent structure with a hook, middle, and wrap-up for each part of the adventure. In some places if the players are clever and do a good job explaining what they're going to do and roll well to achieve their objectives they won't need to for example get into a fight with alien beasts or get caught by nosy Imperial authorities trying to sneak a regiment's worth of heavy weapons onto their ship, but that means I'm not really sure how long any particular part of the endeavor will last or when we're going to have an encounter. Should I just make them have combat encounters or should I stick to the concept that clever use of their resources will let them achieve their goals without traditional combat? It's been two sessions since we've actually done turn-based combat since they're pretty risk-averse as a party. In fact they've missed a couple plot hooks because they insist on wearing full environment suits on alien planets and they have been almost comically cautious about shielding themselves from glowing relics. How do I organize all this stuff and pace it in an engaging way when I am not really sure where the encounters are going to be since the players are often trying to avoid encounters and use their resources intelligently?
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Sep 3, 2023 06:57
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Arglebargle III posted:Stuff You wanna know what really motivates players who don't want to play along with the story hooks that you're trying to drop in? Taking away something they've grown to like having, and make them go out and get it back. Of course, the way to get it back involves hitting some of your cool decision points and dramatic scenes too (but don't stomp all over the player's agency either!). Make sure the rewards along the way of getting their Thing/Person/Situation back make it well worth their while, too. So, perhaps another rogue trader faction that's already running an operation in this region of space has taken notice to the party cutting into their business interests and profits, and have them come in and start interfering and going after the players. If they really like this idea of dealing with a rival group, then really lean into it, make a cool captain NPC as the head of their ship or group or whatever. Or perhaps have one of the imperial groups start to notice their operation once it gets really successful, and explore how that'll play out with their situations. Oh, they're wearing environment suits in an area that you'd like to have something cool happen? Oh, one of their suits is having a malfunction and they have to roll well to fix it or get back to their ship. Or, perhaps a roving pack of baddies comes up and tries to grapple one of the party, and if successful on that they try to pull their environment suit helmet off. Don't force the situation if their plan and rolls totally go their way. But you gotta introduce complications that they have to work through. Mechanical equipment fails due to chaotic influences or plain wear and tear, some creatures are intelligent enough to try to violate the integrity of their suits, etc. Etc. And ultimately, if they're having more fun with the planning and roleplaying more than combat all the time, then make sure to respect that too! Mederlock fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Sep 3, 2023 |
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Sep 3, 2023 07:25
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E: sorry don't know why I double posted.. was supposed to be an edit. Awful app being weird or something
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Sep 3, 2023 07:27
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If they're not a very combat oriented group, forcing combat is going to make the game boring for everybody. I always try to keep an open mind for my players' alternative problem solving, and if they figure out a good non-combat way to resolve what I wanted to be a combat situation, why should I punish them for cleverness? It's more fun that they're giving me fresh hooks that I can use for future stuff! And remember, any planned stuff you didn't end up using can be stashed away to pull out when you need it later. A GM should always keep an active slush pile of random non-fleshed-out ideas, cool stolen quotes, and various unused scenarios to draw upon whenever they're in a corner. My personal slush pile is the bible I game master out of. If you want them to be a bit less cautious about your special plot devices, give them meaningful consequences for their caution that does not punish them for being cautious. Like, for example, if they're so attached to their hazard suits give them situations where removing the suits give them obvious benefits but choosing to keep the suits on also gives them a benefit. Have them make hard bargains and once they learn there's more reward from risks, they should figure it out for themselves. As for the pacing, I wouldn't worry to much about the "beginning-middle-end" format for your games. I don't really think TTRPG falls into a typical story structure in general and trying to bend a game around the idea of Plot Mountain from high school English is going to keep you down. Let the beats form naturally and keep the overarching plot loose so your players can make their own beats.
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Sep 3, 2023 07:37
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LeafyGreens posted:Hi all, first time posting here but was just hoping for some advice as a relatively inexperienced DM who is going to be running a Strixhaven campaign with 5e. Magic is cheap and easy, so it's used for convenience, emphasis, decor, and frivolity - students enchant multicolored tattoos onto their faces and paint graffiti in impossible colors on the walls. Teachers don't have blackboards, they present lectures by summoning representations of their topic in 3d illusion. After hours, the students cover the smoke wards in their rooms with tiny zones of sweet air and smoke wild magic herbs with unpredictable effects. The professors return to their quarters too; maybe one of them happens to be a lich who disassembles himself into several canopic jars and speaks in a syrupy slurping when students come to his office hours. Another, maybe a magically uplifted dog who sets his spectacles aside and chews a bone? I think one of the major things about making a "magic is easy" setting real is that there has to be mundane acceptance of the fantastical. -Maybe there's a magical IT department who handles the psychic overspill of thousands of people casting message all at once to chat about their classes, grades, and crushes? -Maybe people from facilities walk around and cast mending and prestidigitation? -How do the students pay for their education - what do wizards value if they can conjure wealth; maybe students go to the bursar's office with pouches full of spell components? -If you have a grad student TA for your class, what's their thesis project; are they trying to find a way to case fireball without a verbal component, developing a novel spell, wandering the planes, or probing the nature of reality? -Does a history class involve casting "speak with dead" on the corpse of a historical figure?
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Sep 3, 2023 08:05
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Mederlock posted:
Oh man I just realized a space tiger ripped that guy's helmet off and I completely forgot to introduce the effect of the drug plants after that happened. I did consider having them take fatigue for trying to trek through a jungle in sealed environment suits. It must be awful.
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Sep 3, 2023 16:50
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1secondpersecond posted:-Does a history class involve casting "speak with dead" on the corpse of a historical figure? Do upper classmen get their PE capstone by going on an excursion to retrieve said historical figure?
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Sep 3, 2023 17:31
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Arglebargle III posted:Oh man I just realized a space tiger ripped that guy's helmet off and I completely forgot to introduce the effect of the drug plants after that happened. I imagine it would just be really bulky. An environment suit is sealed so it would keep the wearer cool and humidity free. But yeah, bulky af
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Sep 3, 2023 21:53
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1secondpersecond posted:-How do the students pay for their education - what do wizards value if they can conjure wealth; maybe students go to the bursar's office with pouches full of spell components? Or they take on students to prove their theoretical framework of pyrokinetic thaumaturgy is better than that rear end in a top hat Jamison’s bullshit he calls a theory; as soon as there’s enough of us to make a voting bloc that bastard’s tenure will be revoked
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Sep 3, 2023 22:10
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Shanty posted:This is a lot like the tachyon troll from Veins of the Earth (a rich, uh, vein of very hosed monster concepts) Like, in my head I’m picturing the party winding a cave bend to discover a field of mutilated bodies. Before anyone gets a good look, we roll initiative. “Well, Bill - your AC is 19, right? - you put up a good fight, but with the rest of the party down and your sword broken, it was only a matter of time. As the creatures overwhelm you, …we move on to 14, Jane I think that was you? The one you hit last round is looking staggered, but the rest circle around hungrily. What do you do? …I said, you wind a bend in the cave and find yourselves staring at the empty hallway and each other, awash in sweat and adrenaline. What do you do?”
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Sep 3, 2023 22:24
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Does anyone have advice on calibrating the challenge of encounters? The players keep winning too easily.
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Sep 3, 2023 23:48
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Arglebargle III posted:Does anyone have advice on calibrating the challenge of encounters? The players keep winning too easily. Give enemies more actions relative to the players so they feel overwhelmed or out matched. Add circumstances unrelated to direct combat for them to grapple with while fighting (i.e. stop a ritual from completing while holding off guards, rescue bystanders from the rampaging monster, etc). Give them a "smarter" enemy that has more varied roles and attack them more intelligently (crowd control the melee and attack the ranged).
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Sep 4, 2023 00:06
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Arglebargle III posted:Does anyone have advice on calibrating the challenge of encounters? The players keep winning too easily. How often do they get long rests?
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Sep 4, 2023 00:19
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Arglebargle III posted:Does anyone have advice on calibrating the challenge of encounters? The players keep winning too easily. Cheat
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Sep 4, 2023 00:31
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Nephzinho posted:Give enemies more actions relative to the players so they feel overwhelmed or out matched. Having them rescue their hapless crew and servants is a good idea, I'll have to do that. Also putting them in an overwhelming situation where they have to fall back and rally help would be interesting. I'll have to put them up against more intelligent enemies; so far it's been mostly orks and death world fauna. To be clear for everyone this is Rogue Trader, so the PCs are leaders of a large space operation involving warships, transports, thousands of crew and hundreds of soldiers. However they are fairly squishy humans in a nasty setting, so it's a balancing act getting them involved in fights that they can take on personally. Too difficult and they'll take off and nuke the site from orbit, too easy and they get bored. For example today they were fighting charging jungle beasts, but they discussed just dropping napalm on the jungle. I essentially put them up against three T-rexes, two of which they cut down with heavy weapons and the third ran away after they lit it on fire. The PCs didn't take a scratch but had the monsters gotten even one more round to charge they could easily have downed two PCs in a single turn. I can cut them off from the ship but I don't want to play that card too often. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 02:12
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Trip report from our first Strixhaven session, my group loved it and they appreciated all the weird magical stuff I was able to describe on campus (thank you everyone for your help!), but mostly they just enjoyed messing with all the NPCs and voting on who was hottest. Zanther Bowen got the most fans but I was playing Grayson as a rival rich boy with a stick up his rear end that they immediately fell out with in character and yet they love him too. I really appreciate all the good advice and will try to work even more of the suggestions in or use them as inspiration, but I think at this rate this will become a magical dating sim 😅 LeafyGreens fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Sep 4, 2023 |
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Sep 4, 2023 02:54
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LeafyGreens posted:Trip report from our first Strixhaven session, my group loved it and they appreciated all the weird magical stuff I was able to describe on campus (thank you everyone for your help!), but mostly they just enjoyed messing with all the NPCs and voting on who was hottest. Zanther Bowen got the most fans but I was playing Grayson as a rival rich boy with a stick up his rear end that they immediately fell out with in character and yet they love him too. that's how you know you've got it made
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Sep 4, 2023 02:57
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Absolutely, it always makes me happy when players care about the NPCs! And when I was beginning to try to draw the story to a finish they seemed to want to keep playing too, so we finished off the first day of school with the disco party cleric hosting a huge magic dorm party
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Sep 4, 2023 03:05
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LeafyGreens posted:Trip report from our first Strixhaven session, my group loved it and they appreciated all the weird magical stuff I was able to describe on campus (thank you everyone for your help!), but mostly they just enjoyed messing with all the NPCs and voting on who was hottest. Zanther Bowen got the most fans but I was playing Grayson as a rival rich boy with a stick up his rear end that they immediately fell out with in character and yet they love him too. 
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Sep 4, 2023 04:54
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Arglebargle III posted:I can cut them off from the ship but I don't want to play that card too often. It sounds like your campaign is in advanced stages with characters pulling strings for thousands of NPCs. In that case, giving the PCs combat situations in which they trounce the opposition is appropriate. Destroying the enemy easily is the reward for being powerful. Obviously this gets old if it is too common, so thinking about encounters that aren’t simply N+1 encounters becomes important. High level characters need to be challenged in other ways: perhaps with void demon incursions mid-flight, mutinies, hijackings, logistical issues, breakdowns, enemy pirate fleets, or whatever.
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Sep 4, 2023 06:23
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Have you considered introducing a rival Rogue Trader? Or even just an inquisitor who is just way too into pretending to be one. Be upfront that there is x amount of "trade factor" available in this area. And that calling up the ship and/or organizing your lackeys will cause you to lose some to your rival. Something like the first time they call in they are guaranteed to lose. But after that it is a Dx chance where they are trying to roll over the remaining amount. Be sure to be as upfront as their skills permit about how dangerous the situation could be. At least one out of ten should be an easy romp for the character's weapons and or skills.
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Sep 4, 2023 07:22
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I'm putting together a treasure hunt as an alternate ending to modified Forge of Fury. The players will be on a timeline for when their Wizard employer finishes his big ritual - after searching each treasure room they'll roll a luck check - it'll start with 2 and go up with each room room that they pass through- it could be possible for them to clear lots of rooms, it could be possible to only do 1, but much less probable. I'm also trying to come up with some random encounters that could happen in between rooms 1- Group of durregars 2- the next room they enter has an enemy in it- maybe an ooze, or some skeletons, or another roper again 3- Part of the hallway caves in/collapses - empty room underneath, have to have a time penalty digging out. 4- cave in/collapse - untouched cavern/storage room underneath, with some substantial riches! 5- the black dragon in the final area strolls in while shapeshifted to be a humanoid. They firmly request any gold, gems and jewelry that the party has gathered, though most of the haul is going to be magic weapons and items. If they refuse, then switch to dragon form and demand stuff again. 6- dragon arrives and attacks Any other suggestions that might be fun? challenging, or rewarding, or silly?
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Sep 5, 2023 23:16
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Arglebargle III posted:Having them rescue their hapless crew and servants is a good idea, I'll have to do that. Also putting them in an overwhelming situation where they have to fall back and rally help would be interesting. I'll have to put them up against more intelligent enemies; so far it's been mostly orks and death world fauna. So if they're that expansive in scope I would imagien that there are a lot of headaches and issues that have started cropping up across their little empire: Rival Rogue Trader(s) inching in on their territory. Food harvests were contaminated by ork spores that didn't grow until after delivery and are ravaging the colony and your reptuation. Packages not on the manifests have started to appear in warehouses and people are disappearing -- cultists might be on the loose. One of your best performing crews was busy unloading cargo and the planet was conscripted into the imperial guard, can you bureaucracy them out? Relics being transported with your cargo have attracted the attention of [pick a faction]. An abandoned Eldar ship was discovered with no survivors. With a little TLC this could become a flagship worthy of your organization, if no one comes looking for it. But all of these things are happening at the same time and they can only address so many things at once, and the ones they don't address will become bigger problems with time and lack of attention. Orks destroyed a settlement on your watch and word got out, now no one wants to buy your food. Cultists have taken over entire ships and a swarm is starting to head towards your operating sphere. The imperial guard realizes you've got quality people working for you and that they should conscript more of your crews to help train up civvies. Chaos agents steal a relic and the warp starts to open up near your HQ. Eldar show up to reclaim the abandoned craftworld and while they might have been willing to help in exchange for protection, they're upset about the sacrilege brought upon the vessel by your mods. Overwhelm them with problems that can't be solved by glassing a planet and make them choose which crisis to focus on. It is the 40k universe, its dystopian as gently caress, they should not be in a position where managing a large space operation is comfortable or easy.
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Sep 6, 2023 15:28
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I'm first time GMing a Pathfinder 2e group that is in Abomination Vaults and so far, it has been pretty fun. I did one house rule at the start of the campaign with darkvision where any character with it sees in black and white all the time, not just when there is no light. I did it mainly because I hate how darkvision discourages using torches. Half of the party is playing characters with darkvision, and the other half have regular vision. I figured it wouldn't be that big of a deal with the players, but one of them keeps bringing up color vision and if it will ever come into play. I wasn't really planning anything, but I figured I could add some stuff that you can't do without color vision. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can incorporate color into a trap possibly? I know from experience that wiring can be color based so it can be relevant there, but I was trying to come up with more of fantasy trap I could develop and can't really think of anything. Or maybe not even a trap but just a dungeon idea involving the benefits of color vision vs. only black and white.
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Sep 11, 2023 15:10
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Sep 11, 2023 16:02
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That a little on the nose lol but honestly, it's perfect for the character because the guy who is complaining about it is a barbarian who is playing up being dumb and strong. He actually might be thinking of that comic or one exactly like it when he's asking. Also,  and all but it bugs me they never show the golems colored. Maybe I should throw in a true seeing twist where there are environmental colors that you need an even better level of vision to see.
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Sep 11, 2023 16:18
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I'm imagining stripes or patterns that can only be seen in ultraviolet, kinda like the ones on flowers only bees can see.
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Sep 11, 2023 17:33
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I assumed was that he's a colorblind dog, not "I HAVE DARKVISION"
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Sep 11, 2023 18:38
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Your right it's the dog being colorblind thing. But in the comic, it never actually shows the two stone guardians as green or red, just a beige color, which implies to me there is a form of true seeing that sees another color beyond regular vision. I think I'm going to do a test of vision puzzle room. One of the puzzles is going to be a chimerical color, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chimerical-color-demo.svg) where that color is the answer. Im going to do a true seeing test that uses invisible stripes possibly. A was thinking of a grayscale one and maybe I would give two colors and ask which is darker. That can be a bit harder with color vision sometimes but should be pretty apparent in black and white.
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Sep 11, 2023 19:23
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Steal liberally from the color dungeon in Link's Awakening DX.
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Sep 12, 2023 05:32
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The Sky Blind Spire has a fun gimmick with the colour blue: once you've been in there a while, blue things become unnoticeable to you It's got a load of windows, though, so you'd have to run it at night or underground somehow to gently caress with the darkvision characters.
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Sep 12, 2023 05:37
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Is it true it makes for better better storytelling if you kill your PCs family members? I heard it adds more drama and depth to your campaign narrative.
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Sep 12, 2023 09:12
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trapstar posted:Is it true it makes for better better storytelling if you kill your PCs family members? I heard it adds more drama and depth to your campaign narrative. As a storytelling device it's blunt and trite. As a decision you make as a GM it's moronic. Every action you take as a GM conditions your players to react to it, if you've ever met players who are very clear that their character has no family to speak of, no connections to the world what so ever it's almost always because a GM did this move to them in the past.
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Sep 12, 2023 09:25
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ItohRespectArmy posted:As a storytelling device it's blunt and trite. Oh, ok I guess I got some bad advice. Thanks for clarifying, I personally couldn't see the purpose either so had to ask after someone told me that.
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Sep 12, 2023 09:31
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trapstar posted:Oh, ok I guess I got some bad advice. Thanks for clarifying, I personally couldn't see the purpose either so had to ask after someone told me that. its a fairly common mistake, people try to use shock value to wring drama out of games that naturally build towards drama anyway.
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Sep 12, 2023 09:35
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go the other way and give your PCs family members they didn't know about. "And it turns out that the Dark Necromancer is imprisoning... your father!" "But we just left my dad back at the village." "And it turns out that the Dark Necromancer is imprisoning... your real father!"
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Sep 12, 2023 10:32
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