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What happens, if they decide that it sounds too dangerous and decide to gently caress off in the forest?
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Mar 7, 2016 09:29
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Turtlicious posted:What happens, if they decide that it sounds too dangerous and decide to gently caress off in the forest? You say before the session, "I designed an adventure set in an ancient dwarven mine, who thinks that sounds cool?" (I think it sounds pretty cool)
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Mar 7, 2016 09:33
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PublicOpinion posted:You say before the session, "I designed an adventure set in an ancient dwarven mine, who thinks that sounds cool?" (I think it sounds pretty cool) As someone who did a 13A short campaign where I literally went "hey, this is all going to be about going in an abandoned dwarven mine to get a lost crown" when recruiting people, I can say this works since everyone gets the score going in.
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Mar 7, 2016 09:36
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Yeah I've never quite had a group yet that did the equivalent of "we don't want to do all that stuff you just prepped for", but that's also because I tell them what the session/campaign/arc is supposed to be before we start it.
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Mar 7, 2016 09:40
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Pretty much all that plus I let the players come up with their own ideas for adventure arcs and we're going through each one in turn. So it's not just "there's a lost Dwarven city" but "there's THE lost Dwarven city that the paladin has spent all his life looking for, ostracizing himself from his home in the process, all to find out why it was lost in the first place." e: if that does ever happen though I guess I'd be like "well what kind of board games you guys got around" and prep the forest for next time. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 10:01
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Something more games need to spell out like Feng Shui 2 does is the concept of buy-in. Put basically, it's the idea that it's the GM's job to come up with an adventure, but it's the players' job to decide why they're going on it. Not "if they'd go," but "why they're going." The idea that the players can or should just sit back and passively wait for interesting poo poo to happen needs to go away.
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Mar 7, 2016 14:21
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Lynx Winters posted:Something more games need to spell out like Feng Shui 2 does is the concept of buy-in. Put basically, it's the idea that it's the GM's job to come up with an adventure, but it's the players' job to decide why they're going on it. Not "if they'd go," but "why they're going." The idea that the players can or should just sit back and passively wait for interesting poo poo to happen needs to go away. Indeed. Roleplaying is for enhancing the fun, and staying in-character is laudable, but not when you make the other players sit through your monologue about why you can't do that fun thing. Grudging acceptance is good enough if you simply must make sure your character's unwillingness is manifested.
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Mar 7, 2016 14:40
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We had a situation a while ago where we spent two hours debating whether to do a thing one way or another, with one PC adamantly against one way. That wasn't even roleplaying how they did the thing, just their in-character preparation for the decision. Eventually I said, look guys, we've basically brought up every argument that's gonna come up in the actual decision now - let's not play that out and just hold a quick vote. The thing the one guy didn't want won and I said, them's the breaks, hope that's alright with you, and the player was like, oh no I'd love to play through that, just Jim the Paladin would never go for it.  So in addition to buy-in it's also a good idea to say "please play your character in accordance with your wishes as a player." Coulda been worse though, it was a civil discussion, it brought up some interesting points, it probably would have taken as much time anyway, and now the guy gets to roleplay a grumpy paladin who stomps around going "I told you this would happen!" My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 14:56
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Though I don't always manage to follow my own advice I'm a big believer in going with the group decision while complaining about it in character.
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Mar 7, 2016 22:42
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A while ago I posted about this character I'm planning things for. Kalashtar, nuts, hears voices, looking for other Kalashtar. Big plot twist, she's an illusion, done so well that she herself believes she's real. You may remember. So now I come across this comic: Is that better? That's better, isn't it?
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Mar 8, 2016 10:44
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I recently had my party infected with a psychic parasite that moves between them at night, causes bad dreams, feeds off a couple hitpoints during their rest, and if they fail a save causes them to gain a level of exhaustion instead of losing one while resting. I'm struggling to come up with creepy signs that it's attached to a player beyond eventually giving the character a second shadow.
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Mar 8, 2016 17:23
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Soylent Pudding posted:I recently had my party infected with a psychic parasite that moves between them at night, causes bad dreams, feeds off a couple hitpoints during their rest, and if they fail a save causes them to gain a level of exhaustion instead of losing one while resting. I'm struggling to come up with creepy signs that it's attached to a player beyond eventually giving the character a second shadow. Walking hallucinations. Infected player rolls a spot checks, sees that the trees are bleeding. On closer inspection it's just a shadow. The whole party is listening for an ambush, that player distinctly hears a voice murmuring about eating the dead. You could also have it manifest as weird ticks, the character suddenly notices he's mumbling in a language he doesn't know. You could further flavor this with bonuses to doing creepy things 'if you cut his ear off and carry it around, you get a +1 morale bonus to ac".
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Mar 8, 2016 17:36
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My Lovely Horse posted:A while ago I posted about this character I'm planning things for. Kalashtar, nuts, hears voices, looking for other Kalashtar. Big plot twist, she's an illusion, done so well that she herself believes she's real. You may remember. So now I come across this comic: It leaves fewer questions unanswered, like "how was I subject to mind-affecting spells if I was an illusion?" or "how was I able to do [biological thing] if I am not real?"
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Mar 8, 2016 18:19
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That has been a concern, yes. I was just gonna have some mystic wise man go on about "well how do you know anything is real, if she believes she did [thing] and you saw her do it, what is the difference" etc., and refer any remaining doubts to Fight Club, but if I'm honest with myself my players aren't nonpedantic enough to go all in on that.
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Mar 8, 2016 19:06
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Shared without comment: Two million copper coins weighing 10 tonnes found inside 2,000-year-old tomb
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Mar 8, 2016 22:25
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Hubis posted:Shared without comment: Two million copper coins weighing 10 tonnes found inside 2,000-year-old tomb As spell, see p. 231 of player's handbook.
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Mar 9, 2016 01:50
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uuuuurgh. So as just turned out, the whole thing where we go through each player's adventure idea in turn has a huge downside: if the current adventure's main player suddenly can't make it the whole thing is kinda left hanging. I spent a few weeks building an adventure and made sure to include lots of decision points geared towards his character specifically and two days before go time he tells us something came up and he can only make half the session. Options as I see them: - gently caress it, session cancelled, see y'all in two weeks. But that's just petty. - cut adventure in half. Don't wanna do that, I set things up so this will just fill one of our regular sessions, with a neat cliffhanger at the end. - play as planned, shift the major decision/plot stuff to the start of next session. Not really cool but probably workable. - gently caress it, we're playing as planned and he's gonna have to deal with getting the major decision/plot stuff for HIS adventure in the recap notes for next time. Currently tending strongly towards #4 but I'm still finalizing stuff and probably could accomodate #3. Just not sure if I want to because finalizing is enough work still to do.
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Mar 9, 2016 09:19
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You should be more specific so we can give better advice. Because right now you're just asking us if you should do the thing or only half do the thing without any real hint as to what the thing is. I feel like most DMS, myself included, are too committed to their ~grand narratives~ and sometimes should just throw some bullshit and see what happens. Just have the first part of the session dedicated to desperately buying some time and have the second half be some hilarious consequence. One word: long lost twin
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Mar 9, 2016 09:30
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Turtlicious posted:What happens, if they decide that it sounds too dangerous and decide to gently caress off in the forest? An evil wizard put a force field around the forest. I guess the mine holds answers to THAT little mystery.
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Mar 9, 2016 09:52
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Fair enough, I just sometimes feel I'm talking too much about all the details of my campaign here as it is.  One huge part of the issue is that we only meet about once a month on average, so I want to make each session count. We can use Easter this month but still, if I introduce some filler now, that pushes next session's material further away, and so on...The current arc has the party's paladin finally finding a clue to the lost city he's spent all his life looking for. The actual thing is exploring the minotaur labyrinth that leads to the entrance of the (aforementioned) mines where the city's supposed to be. I was hoping for that to take up exactly one session; at the end of the labyrinth the party'd find the gate to the mines and have some details about their history revealed. Also, there are points in the labyrinth where the party has to decide on a path and the decisions are mostly geared towards the paladin's outlook (like, he's a paladin of freedom, does he choose the Path to Freedom or the Path to Stability, that sort of fairly obvious stuff). It's just a bit silly to have the guy not around for making decisions like that or big revelations that concern him specifically. But, y'know, it's also mostly this general thing about appropriate times to mention you might have stuff coming up. Okay, so sometimes you can't avoid it. It still leaves me scrambling to pull this thing together. ===== e: okay. I think I'm just gonna run the session as planned, and when the guy has to split I'll just take him aside and say, alright, these decisions are gonna come up later, what's the paladin's take on them? The whole history thing can probably be moved to somewhere later on. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Mar 9, 2016 |
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Mar 9, 2016 10:02
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Ominous Jazz posted:I feel like most DMS, myself included, are too committed to their ~grand narratives~ and sometimes should just throw some bullshit and see what happens.
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Mar 9, 2016 17:17
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One of the best sessions I can remember DMing was one where I set up a broad situation, made sure to include something that would fit each PCs backstory, and let them loose on it. Notable aspect: that was in 13th Age, not 4e with its tenfold prep time. I'm not good at accepting that an encounter is just not gonna happen when I spent three hours balancing it just so. Starting this campaign I gave my group the choice between a relatively linear 4E and a more freeform 13th Age/maybe FATE game and this is what they picked. Other notable aspect: the freeform improvisation annoyed one of my players so much that it was also the last 13th Age session we ever played.
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Mar 9, 2016 18:55
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That's strange. I've never heard of freeform improvisation pissing off a player before. Why and how?
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Mar 9, 2016 19:39
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Covok posted:That's strange. I've never heard of freeform improvisation pissing off a player before. Why and how? Some men just want to be told how they watch the world burn.
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Mar 9, 2016 19:53
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Covok posted:That's strange. I've never heard of freeform improvisation pissing off a player before. Why and how? Some people approach RPGs as a strategy game to beat or a puzzle to solve. For them it is much less satisfying to have the curtain pulled back to reveal that the GM has been pegging encounters at just-difficult-enough all along, rather than being some form of absolute challenge that measures their objective skill (an illusion otherwise maintained in a "non improv" game even when the GM fudges everything). It is similar to the disappointment of beating a video game opponent that you know uses "rubber banding" to always adjust itself to be 95% of your skill level.
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Mar 9, 2016 21:38
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Paolomania posted:Some people approach RPGs as a strategy game to beat or a puzzle to solve. Instead of, y'know, something relating to Playing a Role in a story, using Game mechanics for structure. Yes, it's a valid way to think for some mechanics-heavy systems, and I have been that guy to some degree, so I really shouldn't talk, but... 
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Mar 9, 2016 23:09
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Zomborgon posted:Instead of, y'know, something relating to Playing a Role in a story, using Game mechanics for structure. IMO only GM styles that really focus on giving players the ability to make these high level choices really support character driven play. How much mechanical support is needed is up for debate. Character-driven play can be managed in just about any system. Something like 13th Age icons could be done without mechanics, although the mechanics apply some GM scaffolding and mechanical pretext to narrative events.
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Mar 10, 2016 01:43
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Paolomania posted:A Good Arguement. You know what's a good system where the mechanics are built around the character and not the other way around? Mutants and Masterminds.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:29
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Savidudeosoo posted:You know what's a good system? I've only played second edition but that is a bold faced lie.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:43
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Ominous Jazz posted:I've only played second edition but that is a bold faced lie. Never played second. Third is pretty solid.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:46
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Cross-post from the Pathfinder thread:kingcom posted:"wait wait you're using a re-flavoured arrow as-spell, gently caress they've got a special damage resistance to that i've been reducing to damage every turn, and why I like John do full damage with his spell, poo poo the last 4 turns didn't happen. Do you remember what you rolled?" I just wanted to share that I've leaned on the Advanced Squad Leader principle that if you ever mess up following a rule and only realize it after the fact, you don't take it back, and instead just admit your mistake, and commit to tracking it starting from now on. I imagine there might be cases where this is disagreeable depending on how large the omission was and how critical it is to the player's mechanics, but I find that it's a lot less messier than trying to re-do a turn.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:57
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Savidudeosoo posted:Never played second. Third is pretty solid. Second is d20 as gently caress, with a million powers and a million feats and a million skills. It doesn't feel good to play with, but my group loves the crunch and I so very don't.
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Mar 10, 2016 06:58
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Ominous Jazz posted:Second is d20 as gently caress, with a million powers and a million feats and a million skills. It doesn't feel good to play with, but my group loves the crunch and I so very don't. Yeah, if you don't like the crunch it's probably not a good system for you. It gives you complete control over making the mechanics fit your character, but all that great min-maxing fun is definitely still there. Savidudeosoo fucked around with this message at 07:48 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 07:34
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I mean, M&M gave you Complications which linked to Hero Points; your players signposted what sorts of troubles they wanted to have. For the mid 2000s, that was progressive.
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Mar 10, 2016 07:36
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Golden Bee posted:I mean, M&M gave you Complications which linked to Hero Points; your players signposted what sorts of troubles they wanted to have. For the mid 2000s, that was progressive. It pushes players to think more about their characters by giving them a mechanical reason for doing so. I feel like this is kinda what 5e tried to do, but all I've seen is good players sticking to their characters without needing keywords and bad players just kinda ignoring them to begin with. M&M really is just the perfect blend of Crunch and Fluff. Too bad it doesn't get that much attention.
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Mar 10, 2016 07:52
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Ilor posted:I'm so glad I play story-based games now. This idea of massive amounts of time and effort spent in game prep and/or "plot development" is utterly alien to me now. I often have exactly zero idea about what's going to happen in a session, and you know what? That's totally OK, and usually ends up being cooler than I could have planned anyway. i'm gming for the first time using DW and two times now I was forced to do something cool when a player did something unexpected. The first time I wasn't expecting the wizard to throw himself into the summoning pool, so they ended up fighting a god trapped in a diving suit because he fouled up the ritual. The second time is still ongoing, but basically the thief wanted to raid the local thieves' guild (he's a freelancer) and now they're fighting a cabal of mages who basically blink around, but the thief managed to tie it into his backstory and now I think (I'm pretty sure none of my players read SA but if this sounds familiar bugger off now) those mages are out to steal an empire. it's pretty good
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Mar 10, 2016 13:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just wanted to share that I've leaned on the Advanced Squad Leader principle that if you ever mess up following a rule and only realize it after the fact, you don't take it back, and instead just admit your mistake, and commit to tracking it starting from now on. Sidenote: this thing about my player half jumping ship is turning out to be a blessing in disguise because I reviewed my whole session plan and came up with a much better setup. Okay, so I have to cram the whole prep in two days, but it's gonna be great.
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Mar 10, 2016 14:53
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Savidudeosoo posted:M&M really is just the perfect blend of Crunch and Fluff. Too bad it doesn't get that much attention. Well no, since a flat curve for success doesn't match the superhero genre. Generally it's "Success/Partial Success/Dramatic, Conflict-Upping failure" which is Cortex+ or Masks or Icons or something. I played a great game in it once based on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, so it's not a wash, but I'd be fine not rolling a d20+mods any time soon.
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Mar 11, 2016 07:51
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Golden Bee posted:Well no, since a flat curve for success doesn't match the superhero genre. Generally it's "Success/Partial Success/Dramatic, Conflict-Upping failure" which is Cortex+ or Masks or Icons or something. I'm not saying it's the best Superhero game, just that the system as a whole is pretty solid.
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Mar 11, 2016 08:07
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Need a quick sanity check. Here are a few elements I need to tie together, mandated mostly by past plot developments: - an old Dwarven passage, closed down for reasons lost to history - a beholder - a devil forcing the party to go to the Dwarven passage and open a specific gate there in his name - an ancient dragon - a lost monastery My plan: The dragon has been scheming to secretly gain power over the civilized world. A few generations in the past, the folks in the monastery get wind of part of his plan and decide to shut it down. They succeed, but in revenge, the dragon shows up at their doorstep and obliterates the place. The destruction is on a scale that threatens even the nearby dwarven trade passage. The dwarves have, in ancient times, imprisoned a beholder to magically power their machines. Faced with destruction, they decide to weaponize the beholder's power against the dragon. poo poo goes wrong, and the beholder threatens to break free. A few survivors turn to the devil in their desperation, who is able to seal the beholder away, but this also removes the passage's power source and it crumbles. Present day: the devil has learned of the dragon's plan and wants to put an end to it (but only so the armies of hell are free to take over). He needs the beholder as a weapon - whoever undoes the seal gains power over him, but being the one who has placed the seal, the devil can't do it on his own. Fortunately a certain group of people owes him a favour. Make sense, consistent, sound good?
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Mar 21, 2016 14:11
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