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Louisgod posted:Has anybody here GMed the Avatar Legends rpg game? I got a few friends from my main D&D group to agree to start up Avatar and what's interesting so far is that the book doesn't have any pre-made campaigns or scenarios, only the bones needed for you to make your own "episode", and that building a campaign is predicated on player input. We're starting with the Kyoshi era and I'm kinda hoping to find somebody on Youtube playing through their own episodes so I can steal some ideas but can't find anything and am curious if folks here have done it. I haven't run the game, only played it, but RPGClinic did a small campaign of Avatar if you want to check it out: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsZP95-GZNa0tOa2vzfaGEt4j599PYULY&si=ZZLYjfp2N0gr-Rx3
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Nov 21, 2023 18:44
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How are Vaesen and Monster of the Week? I like the concept for both games and I would love to try them bu haven’t seen much conversation around it
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Nov 21, 2023 18:47
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bbcisdabomb posted:I haven't run the game, only played it, but RPGClinic did a small campaign of Avatar if you want to check it out: Nice, thanks! I found some sessions on Youtube but couldn't find any Kyoshi era playthroughs but will check these out and may pilfer some ideas.
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Nov 21, 2023 18:50
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Cool Dad posted:My GM is about to start a Numenera game. This is cool, I'm interested in the setting, but the system seems pretty mixed. In particular I really hate the use of XP as a narrative currency/reroll currency. I am having trouble making a persuasive argument that this is terrible, even though it seems screamingly obvious to me that it is. Help me convince my GM not to do this, please. You fail a roll so you spend XP to e.g. Not loving Die. I did not fail the roll so I keep my XP. I level. I now have better numbers than you. Since I have better numbers than you I succeed more than you. Since I succeed more than you I have to spend less XP on reroll bennies. Since I have to spend less XP on bennies I level up more. Since I level up more I have to spend less XP on bennies. Level numbers level numbers oh look you're grubbing in the dirt trying to scrounge out enough XP to Not loving Die Again vs challenges I'm casually backhanding into the sun. The narrative one is easier: you're mechanically incentivised to be boring. If everyone else in the group is spending 1xp a session on interesting narrative stuff then I'm basically earning a bonus for being a fun vacuum. It's like reverse roleplaying XP. Splicer fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Nov 21, 2023 |
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Nov 21, 2023 19:01
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radlum posted:How are Vaesen and Monster of the Week? I like the concept for both games and I would love to try them bu haven’t seen much conversation around it No idea about Vaesen, but I can say that Monster of the Week is great. You're pretty much guaranteed to have a good time. I have a few quibbles but overall, it absolutely nails that Buffy/X-files/Men in Black/Supernatural vibe.
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Nov 21, 2023 19:11
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Splicer posted:The reroll causes a positive feedback loops/"failure spiral" I'm not a fan of the system, which I found a bit boring to run, but looking back, I think the simplest resolution as far as the xp thing is just to say that xp doesn't go away when you use it in session, it just converts to banked xp or something like that. Once you spend it for a mechanical benefit, now it's currency you can spend for character advancement.
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Nov 21, 2023 19:11
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Louisgod posted:the book doesn't have any pre-made campaigns or scenarios, only the bones needed for you to make your own "episode", and that building a campaign is predicated on player input. Welcome to fiction-first games. You should read the GM chapter from Apocalypse World, and generally look up how to GM PbtA games online (people have written/recorded a lot of stuff about this since PbtA is one of the most popular indie systems), which will really help you to grok how this is different than D&D. Also, in general, fiction-first systems live and die on how good the players (including the MC) are at getting into the setting and/or genre - everyone needs to be able to come up with evocative descriptions and narrative details to make the game work, which is why you need to make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to the tone, setting, and other media that inspires the game. This is a lot easier to do for something like Avatar, since you can just get everyone to watch a few episodes of the shows and/or read a few of the graphic novels ahead of the game, if they're not already all fans of the source material.
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Nov 21, 2023 19:11
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Explodingdice posted:I'm not a fan of the system, which I found a bit boring to run, but looking back, I think the simplest resolution as far as the xp thing is just to say that xp doesn't go away when you use it in session, it just converts to banked xp or something like that. Once you spend it for a mechanical benefit, now it's currency you can spend for character advancement. The game I played of it did this and it worked great.
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Nov 21, 2023 19:54
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Splicer posted:Though it should be said, Skill Challenges predate Clocks so it's not the 5E classic of "Pick a solved problem and do a worse version". If they'd taken what they'd learned about bad solos and applied it to non-combat encounters they would have ironically ended up with something that felt much more natural. yeah i stumbled on a fail forward story approach and it instantly clicked in.
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Nov 21, 2023 19:59
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Lemon-Lime posted:Welcome to fiction-first games. Fantastic, appreciate the advice. We're all devoted Avatar fans so I don't think us not getting the world and nuance of everything will be an issue, and I've already set the expectations that I'm going to try to form each session into "episodes", per the book's suggestion and I'm sure we'll pick up on how the overall game works quickly. Only thing I'm struggling with is coming up with a compelling story as the main book gives you pieces to work with but doesn't necessarily connect them for the GM. But, I'm suggesting to everybody we do a "session zero" where the players decide on how we move forward. It's gonna be a blast no matter what.
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Nov 21, 2023 21:05
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Louisgod posted:Has anybody here GMed the Avatar Legends rpg game? I got a few friends from my main D&D group to agree to start up Avatar and what's interesting so far is that the book doesn't have any pre-made campaigns or scenarios, only the bones needed for you to make your own "episode", and that building a campaign is predicated on player input. We're starting with the Kyoshi era and I'm kinda hoping to find somebody on Youtube playing through their own episodes so I can steal some ideas but can't find anything and am curious if folks here have done it. It's Korra-era not Kyoshi, but this dropped just today. https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/460496/movers-shakers-quickstart I can also recommend the book The Rise of Kyoshi for more setting-related stuff. It's a good novel too. I haven't read the rest of the series, but they're by the same author so they should also be good. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X1QBC2D
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Nov 21, 2023 21:39
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Don't plan a story, the game will actively fight you if you try. The GM chapters of games that use the Powered by the Apocalypse system are well worth reading, and unlike say a D&D DM's guide, are not just suggestions.They will generally tell you to come up with threats (Apocalypse World calls them Fronts) and plan out what those threats would do if the players never did anything to stop them. That's as far as you should go for planning out a story, because it will go way off the rails and it's more fun if you let it
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Nov 21, 2023 21:43
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Louisgod posted:Fantastic, appreciate the advice. We're all devoted Avatar fans so I don't think us not getting the world and nuance of everything will be an issue, and I've already set the expectations that I'm going to try to form each session into "episodes", per the book's suggestion and I'm sure we'll pick up on how the overall game works quickly. Only thing I'm struggling with is coming up with a compelling story as the main book gives you pieces to work with but doesn't necessarily connect them for the GM. But, I'm suggesting to everybody we do a "session zero" where the players decide on how we move forward. It's gonna be a blast no matter what. One more tip on the subject: "play to find out what happens" is one of the core precepts of this kind of game, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't plan things. At the very least, plan out how antagonistic forces are probably going to act. "The bandit king will do X and Y if left alone, and will probably respond to getting attacked with Z", the "the annoying bureaucrat wants to do A and B, and will do C if you annoy her", etcetera. For that moment, as long as you keep your plans loose there's no reason you can't figure out the big beats you want to hit in an adventure ahead of time. Especially not in an early session when the group haven't found their feet yet and it would be especially helpful to default to "if I don't know what to do next, introduce the next plot beat from Six Samurai" when you're running a game about a group of benders defending a village. Like with most things about RPGs, it'll become a lot simpler once you've seen it in motion and start to get a feel for what does and doesn't work for your group. Until then, good luck and have fun.
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Nov 21, 2023 21:52
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mllaneza posted:It's Korra-era not Kyoshi, but this dropped just today. I got an email about that today! Looks fun, I'm glad they're continuously releasing material for the campaign. I did the Kickstarter and also pitched in for the Wan Shi Tong's guide as well, so it'll be fun to incorporate the library into each era. And good call on the books, I have both I bought for my kids a while back and will start them when I'm done reading My Best Friend's Exorcism. We're starting with the Kyoshi era and are working forward from there and it seems like Magpie did a ton of extra stuff for the Korra era. Lurks With Wolves posted:One more tip on the subject: "play to find out what happens" is one of the core precepts of this kind of game, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't plan things. At the very least, plan out how antagonistic forces are probably going to act. "The bandit king will do X and Y if left alone, and will probably respond to getting attacked with Z", the "the annoying bureaucrat wants to do A and B, and will do C if you annoy her", etcetera. For that moment, as long as you keep your plans loose there's no reason you can't figure out the big beats you want to hit in an adventure ahead of time. Especially not in an early session when the group haven't found their feet yet and it would be especially helpful to default to "if I don't know what to do next, introduce the next plot beat from Six Samurai" when you're running a game about a group of benders defending a village. Truly appreciate the advice, great stuff. The guidebook does a great job of laying out the general dynamics of each era, including what's going on politically, who the main groups are, how each group views each other, what happened previously to cause tension between groups, if the government is corrupt, what's going on with other nations, things like that. I just want to be a good GM and ensure I'm giving everybody the spirit of the show. I may change battles a bit by introducing initiative so it's easier for me to track everything. Tarnop posted:Don't plan a story, the game will actively fight you if you try. So basically memorize the main beats/groups/happenings of the location and effectively let the players guide how things go? What about drawing out a map or planning in advance what options are in the town (shops, training areas, things like that)? Want to be prepared for the "roll for perception" question that will inevitably be asked and if I make stuff up as I go, I may forget and run into a contradiction. Thank you all for the advice so far. We've done the whole Expanse tabletop campaigns and are doing D&D now too but I was a PC in both of those, and the Avatar system is very different. Louisgod fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Nov 21, 2023 |
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Nov 21, 2023 21:59
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Don't make stories, make problems,. The players will make the story.
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Nov 21, 2023 22:04
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Louisgod posted:So basically memorize the main beats/groups/happenings of the location and effectively let the players guide how things go? What about drawing out a map or planning in advance what options are in the town (shops, training areas, things like that)? Want to be prepared for the "roll for perception" question that will inevitably be asked and if I make stuff up as I go, I may forget and run into a contradiction. I haven't read the Avatar book but Apocalypse World tells you to draw maps like crazy and to always leave gaps to be filled in during play. Drawing maps can be a collaborative exercise too, let players fill in blanks based on rumours the characters have heard (rumours are great because they let the players tell you what they're interested in but leave it to you to define specifics). Let your players know that you're going to be managing a lot of improvised stuff and that you might contradict yourself sometimes and need to make light retcons. A good group will generally be more forgiving than you expect. And sometimes it can be fun to roll with the contradictions. "I don't know, how can the fire nation's general appear to be in two places at the same time?" could end up being the basis for a whole campaign arc
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Nov 21, 2023 22:30
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Louisgod posted:So basically memorize the main beats/groups/happenings of the location and effectively let the players guide how things go? What about drawing out a map or planning in advance what options are in the town (shops, training areas, things like that)? Want to be prepared for the "roll for perception" question that will inevitably be asked and if I make stuff up as I go, I may forget and run into a contradiction. Here's how I approach this sort of game. 1. Come up with a main adversary who has a goal. (In Avatar, this is Fire Lord Ozai. His goal is to take over the world. Your main adversary probably shouldn't be this big/ambitious unless you're going to run a very long campaign. Maybe do something like "Fire Nation General who wants to defeat the family the PCs work for," see below.) 2. Come up with a couple of secondary adversaries. These are essentially the main adversary's lieutenants. The PCs are going to tangle with them before they get even close to the main adversary. Think Zuko or later Azula. Think of how they're going to help the main adversary accomplish goals, come up with something distinctive, and maybe come up with how their own individual plan may even conflict with this. (Zuko's main goal is (initially) to restore his own honor. He'll do this by capturing the Avatar. That's going to be why he's in conflict with the Avatar.) 3. Come up with a couple of NPCs that the PCs will interact with. Think of why they'd want to help out. Maybe they're friendly villagers, maybe they already have a conflict with one of the adversaries' lieutenants, etc. 4. Think of a couple of cool ideas of how the setting is different. That is - Avatar is all about cool locations, from different cities (Omashu, Ba Sing Se) to the different villages to swamps and deserts. If you've got a rough idea of where your game starts/is set, come up with a couple of ways to make things distinctly different. ("You're in a swamp." What's different? "The plants can ensnare or catch people with vines.") Don't push too far beyond this. Keep it simple. Now just throw it all together. Have them meet somehow - "The PCs are exploring this location and find this character" or the like is all you need. You can see this pattern over and over in Avatar. Think of all of the secondary adversaries they face: June, the bounty-hunter on the mole-monster, Sparky-Sparky Boom-Man, etc. Think of all of the NPCs that they meet: King Bumi, Suki, the Swordmaster.) Just let them bounce off each other. Maybe they fight, maybe they don't. Maybe they switch sides (Zuko). Maybe the PCs get captured and have to escape. Don't take anything too seriously, just roll with it and play out whatever seems natural. Just don't run into any hard ends, like "everyone dies." Instead, give the PCs ways to mess things up for the adversary and get away. When you get tired, stop. Then when you start the next session, add in a couple more NPCs, maybe change the adversary, and put it in a different location. Let it all build on itself. Do this over and over until you think the time is right for the PCs to finally confront the main adversary. Then have a boss-fight. If they win, yay! If not, step back and do it over again. Eventually they'll win! So, for an example, and this is completely off the top of my head. The PCs work for an important family somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. There's a Fire Nation general who wants to take their city/land/stuff. First he sends in some spies - the PCs must find them and get rid of them. Then he sends out a lieutenant and some soldiers to block the roads into the city; the PCs must deal with them and keep the roads open. Then he sends in an army and lays siege to their town, etc. How stuff plays out is up to the players. Do they stand and fight? Do they lose, and have to escape? Etc, etc, etc, just let it all play out, sit back and see what happens.
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Nov 21, 2023 22:50
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You know, even that's way too effort-posty. So: Come up with some bad people, some good people, and a couple of locations. Throw 'em together, let the players figure it out. Then repeat.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:09
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Cessna posted:You know, even that's way too effort-posty. So: And write everything down.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:15
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Always keep a good slush pile on hand where you can jot down any good ideas that come to you, the names of incidental NPCs to call up later, cool setpieces that you don't have a use for, anything that will come in handy once your back is against the wall and everybody's looking at you.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:34
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sebmojo posted:And write everything down.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:35
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Correction: I meant Seven Samurai. Six Samurai isn't anything. (Other than a Yu-Gi-Oh archetype, but those don't count.)Nessus posted:Doing it by text in Discord or something seems useful here I've played a lot of long-running PBTA games via Discord chat, and just being able to search the logs for all the random names and details that got mentioned in previous sessions is so helpful. Just the ability to look at what happened in previous sessions so you can call back to session 2 when you realize you're traveling through the same area in session 12 makes the game feel so much more lived in. You can get roughly the same effect by keeping good notes and a few callbacks go a long way, so don't worry if you're playing over voice chat or in person.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:45
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Tarnop posted:Let your players know that you're going to be managing a lot of improvised stuff and that you might contradict yourself sometimes and need to make light retcons. A good group will generally be more forgiving than you expect. And sometimes it can be fun to roll with the contradictions. "I don't know, how can the fire nation's general appear to be in two places at the same time?" could end up being the basis for a whole campaign arc Also, this is really important. Remember: mistakes into miracles. If you accidentally imply something cool that makes the game more interesting and your players notice, it was intentional the whole time and they are very clever for noticing it. Yes, the general does secretly have a body double, and I'm confirming it in a cool reveal that makes you feel smart for realizing. And if you gently caress up, just admit you hosed up. Like Tarnop said, your players are willing to meet you halfway.
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Nov 21, 2023 23:55
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Correction: I meant Seven Samurai. Six Samurai isn't anything. (Other than a Yu-Gi-Oh archetype, but those don't count.) Excuse me, we wouldn’t have OctaNe without Six String Samurai. What a wild time that was back when GamingOutpost was live.
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Nov 22, 2023 00:11
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So they've announced a Stormlight Archive RPG. It looks very heartbreaker. It's going to make millions of dollars. https://www.polygon.com/tabletop-games/23960557/brandon-sanderson-stormlight-rpg-first-details-release-date-price-kickstarter
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Nov 22, 2023 00:15
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Thank you all for the wonderful advice, I've printed a lot of the posts you all have written and wrote "Don't make stories, make problems" at the top of my main page as my mantra. I'm playing with high school friends I've known for 20+ years so anything "bad" that happens we'll just end up turning into a running joke or something. In our D&D campaign our party ran into a talking crab and one us said "excuse me, crab man, sir, what is your name?" and our DM improvised with "oh, Crabmansir sounds great", so hoping to come up with ridiculous stuff like that.dwarf74 posted:So they've announced a Stormlight Archive RPG. Oh hell yes, one other long time friend in our group got me into Sanderson and we've both read just about every cosmere book out there (still need to read the last two secret project books) and now we're banding together to bully everybody else to read the books to prep for this. Just got the shipping notice today for the Stormlight miniatures!
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Nov 22, 2023 00:42
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Louisgod posted:Thank you all for the wonderful advice, I've printed a lot of the posts you all have written and wrote "Don't make stories, make problems" at the top of my main page as my mantra. I'm playing with high school friends I've known for 20+ years so anything "bad" that happens we'll just end up turning into a running joke or something. In our D&D campaign our party ran into a talking crab and one us said "excuse me, crab man, sir, what is your name?" and our DM improvised with "oh, Crabmansir sounds great", so hoping to come up with ridiculous stuff like that. yeah you'll be fine! *world games are tiring in some ways because you're constantly thinking and creating, but that also means they are generally really fun, the system sort of gets you to the meat of what's entertaining about roleplaying very quickly.
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Nov 22, 2023 00:54
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sebmojo posted:yeah you'll be fine! *world games are tiring in some ways because you're constantly thinking and creating, but that also means they are generally really fun, the system sort of gets you to the meat of what's entertaining about roleplaying very quickly. Yeah, two-and-a-half-hour sessions left me completely drained. I advise building in some break time for the GM into any PBTA play.
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Nov 22, 2023 01:35
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Cessna posted:You know, even that's way too effort-posty. So: And remember, not all players enjoy a 'you figure it out' kind of game. Some do, some don't.
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Nov 22, 2023 02:26
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:And remember, not all players enjoy a 'you figure it out' kind of game. Some do, some don't. Doesn't hurt to ask people about that every now and again either. Not everyone is good at being proactive, some (like me) can get choice paralysis or just be more comfortable letting others set the pace. Meet people halfway.
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Nov 22, 2023 09:15
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I still like the Same Page tool for setting expectations before a game starts, and it functions pretty well as a mid campaign check-in aid too
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Nov 22, 2023 10:22
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Cessna posted:Here's how I approach this sort of game.
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Nov 22, 2023 10:53
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Always remember the most powerful tool of the fiction-first GM: if your players ask a question and you can't think of an answer, just look them in the eye and repeat their question at them word for word.
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Nov 22, 2023 13:24
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Also, this is really important. Remember: mistakes into miracles. If you accidentally imply something cool that makes the game more interesting and your players notice, it was intentional the whole time and they are very clever for noticing it. Yes, the general does secretly have a body double, and I'm confirming it in a cool reveal that makes you feel smart for realizing. And if you gently caress up, just admit you hosed up. Like Tarnop said, your players are willing to meet you halfway. This needs to be written in gold embossed letters on every GM screen. Ghost Leviathan posted:Doesn't hurt to ask people about that every now and again either. Not everyone is good at being proactive, some (like me) can get choice paralysis or just be more comfortable letting others set the pace. Meet people halfway. Yes! Sooooo many problems in play can be avoided or solved by just talking to your players. Just simple stuff like - "Hey, I'm thinking of pulling a big surprise next session. Is that okay, or do you want things to keep going the way they are for a bit longer?" "What are you liking about the game so far? Do you want more conflict/combat, or less?" "Is there anything you'd like to see more of?" Can really help keep a game friendly and fun. Remember, you and your friends are playing a game together. The more you're all on board together the better.
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Nov 22, 2023 17:05
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All my friends and I are incredibly open to whatever happens and just appreciate the social aspect in general, and we usually smoke when we play sooo we'll just be cracking jokes the whole time. One D&D session our party spent most of the time traveling across a map, camping and resting, and we for whatever reason set up watches where each of us took 2 hour watches or whatever. We literally got nothing done, the DM planned nothing of the sort, but it was still super fun because we just hosed with each other while we slept.
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Nov 22, 2023 17:13
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Yeah, i think in a lot of circumstances, if the players gently caress with somebody's plan, even unintentionally, let this thing play out, i think they'll be way more satisfied if they know what they did to make this happen much more so than that they'd be bored by the fact that they didn't get a huge setpiece and Dramatic Moment.
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Nov 22, 2023 17:44
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Cessna posted:This needs to be written in gold embossed letters on every GM screen. uhhh but then where am I gonna put the diagram showing me the difference between a cone and a cylinder, genius? 
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Nov 22, 2023 17:54
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Our GM, Luis, has been running an avatar game in the Kyoshi era for us for about a year and a half now. I talked very briefly about it a bit earlier in the thread, but here's a few highlights. We started with a session where we bounced ideas around to establish a "how did we get here" shared history, motivation and situation, decided we had These shenanigans have taken two seasons to get entangled with a war of succession and a separate but related uprising in the Earth Kingdom, worrying cultural trends among the air nation, and Kyoshi herself looming like a terrible sword of Damokles on the horizon. After season one we were fairly fed up with the mechanical system, so much so that one player dropped out and another switched characters as we retooled and started using mutants and masterminds 3 instead. I don't necessarily recommend that system in general either, but it worked fine for our particular group and didn't run into any of legends' issues of uneven character advancement for some playbooks, lack of longevity, and plodding combat that wants to put the emphasis on narrative but is too mechanically involved to really pull that off. We also found ourselves a bit adrift with the balance system granting xp for not letting your character develop radically but rather staying perfectly static.
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Nov 23, 2023 01:31
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Man, I wish that there was a good game that carried on the Gamma World legacy. MCC is half baked, Vaults of Vaarn just doesn't feel good, and UVG is more a setting book than a set of rules. Maybe I should try Gamma World 4e, given how expensive stuff for 7e is.
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Nov 23, 2023 06:53
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Hiro Protagonist posted:Man, I wish that there was a good game that carried on the Gamma World legacy. MCC is half baked, Vaults of Vaarn just doesn't feel good, and UVG is more a setting book than a set of rules. Maybe I should try Gamma World 4e, given how expensive stuff for 7e is. While you can't get the books and other stuff, all the GW7 cards are PoD on DTRPG for fairly reasonable cost.
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Nov 23, 2023 07:25
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