The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

shitty poker hand: Jun 13, 2013

Fanzay posted:

I am going to be a GM for the first time ever, in a group of friends who have barely any experience with role playing, in a system none of us has ever tried, 13th Age. I feel like I'm in over my head here, what are the most important things to keep in mind? Other than making sure people have fun, I mean.

Remember that, as much as it's your job to make sure that they have fun, you also have to make sure that you have fun. You should try to prepare yourself as much as you can, but if the time to play comes and you're not 100% completely ready, make sure that your players know that they might have to bear with you a little bit. You're new to this, too.

# ? May 9, 2016 19:36

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# ? May 24, 2024 19:15

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Fanzay posted:

I am going to be a GM for the first time ever, in a group of friends who have barely any experience with role playing, in a system none of us has ever tried, 13th Age. I feel like I'm in over my head here, what are the most important things to keep in mind? Other than making sure people have fun, I mean.

It's more important that you know the rules than that you plan things out in detail.

It's more important that you just kind of roll with whatever happens than that you know the rules.

# ? May 9, 2016 19:44

Rohan Kishibe: Oct 29, 2011; Frankly, I don't like you
and I never have.

homullus posted:

It's more important that you just kind of roll with whatever happens than that you know the rules.

Yes. if your players want to do something that sounds cool, your response should be "gently caress YES you can suplex the Dragon!" rather than being a big lame-o.

Also, I was gonna just link/quote some Prime A+ Double Good words about 13th Age, but they are in archive, so gently caress it.

Mystic Mongol on Backgrounds posted:

Right, so one repeating meme regarding 13th age is that the background system means some powerful backgrounds, like, say, "Batman +5," are universally applicable, while other backgrounds, like "Beach Volleyball +5," are not. We can argue all day about how Beach Volleyball experience can be surprisingly useful in a variety of situations, but it's basically irrefutable that Batman is useful in more of them, and the few gaps in batmanning can be made up for with the character's other background, "Billionaire Playboy +3." This is considered a bad thing.

But "Fail Forwards" skill use (Page reference: 42) means that being more likely to succeed is not advantageous.

Let's look at two theoretical parties. The first stars alpha player Wruce Bwane, who had the backgrounds, "Batman +5" and "Billionaire Playboy +3," is part of a team of PCs who all have similarly justice league themed backgrounds. They have powerful, universally applicable backgrounds that synergize well with their stats. The second team's alpha player is Kele the Bird, an elf who used to be a bird, who has the backgrounds "Bird +5," "Fortune loves an Idiot +1," and "Slept through his monastic training +2." He's good at perching on objects and cheating on tests and not much else--while you could say his background as a wild animal makes him perceptive he doesn't have a high wisdom so at the table there's not much he actually rolls a high number for. The rest of his party are musicians, chumps, and drunks. They are given similar premises for adventure.

Wruce Bwane is very concerned that the Police Commissioner's daughter has been captured. By rolling Batman he finds the discarded crossbow bolt---most of them had been retrieved, but the head of one had broken off in a floorboard. His wizard buddy, the Emerald Lantern, uses his broadly defined arcane abilities to find the original forge the crossbow head was made in. It's in the private forge of the Badwrongfun Estate, a troublesome aristocratic family with a small army of guards and a ball later tonight. Fortunately a successful "Billionaire Playboy" roll gets Wruce and his personal servants invitations to the ball. Inside a few successful rolls (and one notable failure) gets them inside and in the basement, but tips off the head of security, who jumps the party in the basement, in a dramatic level 2 scuffle where everyone themes their actions to be as quiet as possible, occasionally making rolls to dive across the room and catch a falling vase so as not to disturb the party upstairs.

Kele the Bird is very concerned that the Police Commissioner's daughter was stolen by grackles, even though the commissioner says no one knows who kidnapped her--it's always grackles! You can't trust them. He rolls against Bird to find the nearest Grackle Triad, which is apparently a thing that exists, and the GM says it's in the Badwrongfun Estate, a troublesome aristocratic family with a small army of guards and a ball later tonight. One of his allies tries to get them jobs in the catering group, but after getting in the party quickly flubs a series of catering related checks and are escorted to the back door to get thrown out on their asses. Furious, Kele knocks out the chefs as "miserable grackle allies" and the party is quickly set upon a group of house guards. A level 2 scuffle erupts, where everyone modifies their actions to toss guards into pots or to upend cakes on their heads.

Meanwhile, Wruce Bwane finishes his fight--because they were silent, no other guards come running. In fact, no one knows there's trouble until he dangles the head of security out of an attic window with a rope tied around his foot and demands to know just what Lord Badwrongfun has to do with it. The guards say they had nothing to do with it--the crossbow bolt was probably taken by those lycanthrope bandits which attacked last week, a scurrilous bunch. A party member uses her background as an Amazon Princess to magically determine that the guards are telling the truth, and that the Badwrongfun Estate was not directly involved. Wruce leaves the head of security dangling out the window to draw attention as his team escapes out the window. A few Batman checks later and they've shaken down the local thugs and found out the gang of terrifying were-creatures is lurking in an abandoned temple. An icon roll of the priestess means the party knows a secret tunnel in and they ambush the creatures after spying on a ritual--some sort of foul prayer to a giant, monstrous, shapeshifting demiurge. And there's the captured daughter, on the dias and about to be sacrificed! The party leaps from the shadows and attacks. It's a desperate struggle against a level 3 fight, a series of fights against humanoids, each of whom turns into a different kind of animal! There's plenty of ritual urns to upturn and magical effects to accidentally trigger as they fight.

Kele the Bird and company wins the fight against the guard, but dozens more of them are totes coming! The party runs for it, using their goofy backgrounds to blunder through the city streets, making "Drunk" rolls to burst through breweries, a negative relationship with the Elf Queen to steal an elvish horse from those rear end in a top hat elvish merchants, and a roll of "Arcane College Dropout" to quickly join and blend into a game of hackey-sack. Burning with fury, Kele starts talking with the birds around time, using his background to find out just what the grackles are up to. As per tradition, the GM gives the rest of the party no indication that Kele can (or can't) talk to birds, but people see him talking to animals and assume he's one of those dangerous lycanthropes. Word gets back to the thieves, and they investigate the new, unaffiliated were-bird. They approach the party, are disheartened to learn none of them are lyanthropes, and try to kill them to keep their secret. It's a desperate struggle against a level 3 fight, a series of fights against humanoids, each of whom turns into a different kind of animal! It's a ugly, messy fight in the muddy back alleys of the city, with a break every two rounds (lowering the escalation die each break) as everyone leans against a wall and whistles innocently whenever the city guard walk past.

Back to Wruce Bwane, who corners the last remaining lycanthrope, a were-snake shaman. The shaman whips out a sacrificial knife and plunges it into his own chest--they may have stopped the ritual, but dark lord Horribus Unpronouncibliliux will arise nevertheless! The building crumbles as a huge shadowy presence bursts up from the ground, sundering walls as it grows. The party moves quickly to use their skills to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood, saving the lives of countless poor or dispossessed citizens before the monster solidifies into a terrifying mass of flesh and claw. It's time for the final showdown against a triple strength monster and his two remaining lycanthrope minions, and every round the demon turns into a different form, with different defenses, attacks, and special qualities. Can the party stay focused and execute a plan with the combat being completely different each round!? The city is at stake!

Kele the Bird is enjoying considerably less success. They've fought off the lycanthropes, but a few escape. Chasing them, the party finds itself outside a small building, an abandoned church completely haunted by an enormous flock of grackles. Is this the source of the evil? The party makes a few rolls to try to sneak up on the building without attracting the attention of any avian foes, but their attempt is abruptly stopped when the building crumbles as a huge shadowy presence bursts up from the ground, sundering walls as it grows. The party moves quickly to use their skills to evacuate the surrounding neighborhood, saving the lives of countless poor or dispossessed citizens before the monster solidifies into a terrifying mass of flesh and claw. It's dark lord Horribus Unpronouncibliliux, dark lord of the grackles! It's time for the final showdown against a triple strength monster and his two remaining lycanthrope minions, and every round the demon turns into a different form, with different defenses, attacks, and special qualities. Can the party stay focused and execute a plan with the combat being completely different each round!? The city is at stake!

Wruce Bwane and company defeats the were-demon, saving the girl and the city. He and his allies return to the captain of the guard in triumph, return the daughter to her loving father, and are buried in praise. They are given a level appropriate treasure with a quirk themed to the city guard and the key to the city. Everyone is super impressed with them because they're so rad and awesome.

Kele the Bird and company defeats the grackle lord, saving the city. They find a level appropriate challenge in the claws of one of the lycanthrope minions of the grackle lord, presumably the leader of the foul grackle cult. It has some kind of wild beast quirk to it. Returning to the commissioner in triumph, they announce proudly that the Grackles have been defeated, one and all. "And my daughter?" the commisioner says, worried.

"Oh, right, her." Kele looks sad. "I think grackles ate her!"

"Get the hell out of my office."

So we've got two parties. One of them passed nearly every background check with awesome backgrounds that do a lot, and one failed nearly every check with terrible background bad at nearly everything, and yet each of them had a level 2 fight, a level 3 fight, a level 3 fight with unusually few monsers, and a single treasure drop. The only real difference is that the player playing Batman went around looking cool and doing cool things, while the player playing a Bird went around looking dumb and doing goofy things. And a player who plays batman probably wants to look cool, and a player playing a bird probably wants to do goofy things. Which means the background mechanics are working as intended, and that players are empowered to choose the game they want to play.

There's only two questions left.

Is my background too powerful or useful? Only if it annoys the other players.

Is my background too weak or useless? Only if it annoys the other players.

Rohan Kishibe fucked around with this message at 21:36 on May 9, 2016

# ? May 9, 2016 21:29

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Holy poo poo that is a magisterial post

# ? May 9, 2016 21:47

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

If you're looking for a module, the intro one shot Make Your Own Luck is very good, and leads into the astonishing Eyes of the Stone Thief.

# ? May 9, 2016 21:54

Razorwired: Dec 7, 2008; It's about to start!

The other advice I'd give for 13A regarding backgrounds is to let them replace the RAW Ritual Casting rules. If a character really wants to do out of combat/utility magic just tell them to take a background like "Spellthief/Hedge Witch/I Do Magic Sometimes". Then if the Rogue wants to flavor a lockpick roll like this just let them.

And if Icons are feeling a little daunting remember that having a relationship with The Three doesn't necessarily mean that your character has regular meetings with the Blue. Each Icon has an entire race, city, college, or network of cults associated with it. A successful Icon roll could result in finding a journal, knowing a bit about the dungeon's design, or knowing that the Crusader's templars "recruit" out of a certain orphanage. The way it clicked for me was to think about the Icons as Shadowrun's Megacorps, they're always present and your character probably has some feelings about them, but you're not going to just run into the president of Renraku when you steal a blueprint.

# ? May 10, 2016 03:55

The Glumslinger: Sep 24, 2008; Coach Nagy, you want me to throw to WHAT side of the field?; Hair Elf

So I want to get some ideas from the crowd. I'm running a game, and my characters have just arrived in a new city and are broke as a joke, plus in debt to one of the PCs (protip: It might not be the best idea to steal the salary of someone you hired). They're a fairly underworldy group, with a theif, a Ranger (who is a con artist), and a fighter.

Does anyone have any fun suggestions for things they can do while in town to make money and make connections to the underworld? So far I'm thinking about tracking someone down who is debt to the mob, but I'm open for more interesting suggestions. Also, please no suggestions about stealing paintings, I think my group might literally kill me if I wen with that at this point.

The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 04:12 on May 10, 2016

# ? May 10, 2016 04:05

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

I'd have them walk in on an obvious turf war in progress or a clandestine meeting gone wrong and make them choose sides. Maybe somebody in the skirmish chooses for them, either by assuming they're an enemy and attacking them or calling out for their assistance, though it needn't be so cut and dry. You've got four thugs in an ally staring down one guy all on his lonesome, maybe with the dead bodies of his partners around him. Far from begin intimidated, the guy sees your PCs and bluffs like they're his reinforcements, indicating in some way that it'll be worth their while to play along ("Well now, would you look at that. Right on time. You know, you guys never disappoint. Maybe I'll throw in a little something extra this time since you've been so punctual. Ah, ah, business first now. I've a lot of trash that needs collecting"). They help him out, he introduces himself as some minor minion in a grander organization and offers to get them on the payroll, maybe throw another job their way. Or maybe they decide to disappoint him, help the other guys beat him up, and the four thugs think it's so funny this guy's plan backfired they become friends over it.

Maybe they find a shifty-looking guy off in some corner somewhere trying to staunch the bleeding. Some city guards come by, the bleeding guy hidden from view, and they ask the party if they've seen an injured man. The party covers for him, "He went thattaway, sir," and he turns out to be somebody worth knowing - and now he's in their debt. Maybe they find a kid who's run away from home or all by themselves acting like they own the place. Maybe they're the boss' son or daughter. Maybe the boss'll appreciate having them returned. Maybe someone else'll appreciate having them held hostage. There's a lot of permutations you could try. The big benefit to this approach is twofold: it gives them a benefactor and provides them with an adversary. Whoever they help, they're decidedly not helping someone else, and that someone else is probably gonna be a bit put out about it.

Whatever you go with though, the inciting incident should definitely be something small while the "Job" or "Opportunity" that immediately follows it should 1.) be substantially bigger and 2.) go disastrously wrong. Let's say they rescue the boss' kid. The boss decides he likes these guys, so he gives them the all-important task of guarding one of his top dogs who's conducting some business deal, only the guy they're guarding gets zoinked and now they need to catch the assassins or find out who did it or who the traitor is or whatever in order to stay within the boss' good graces. Success will further endear them to their newfound employers, perhaps earning the begrudging respect of their rivals, and people start talking about the new kids on the block. Maybe they've gotta kill some guy, only that guy is really hard to find, or once found is really hard to kill, or has a lot of friends who're willing to intervene on his behalf. Afterwards they'll have decisively proven themselves, established an unflinching reputation, and you can start having their parent organization throw jobs their way and they can take whatever interests them.

EDIT: Rereading your post, I think I might've misunderstood what you were asking for, but I'll leave this post as is in case it inspires anything.

Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 07:47 on May 10, 2016

# ? May 10, 2016 04:53

Golden Bee: Dec 24, 2009; I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.

Let them get the drop on a shady Magick Artifact Deal or a Elf Auction. Especially if the elf being auctioned was an unlucky friend from earlier in the campaign.

# ? May 10, 2016 05:30

Razorwired: Dec 7, 2008; It's about to start!

Some small animal runs up on the group as soon as they start wandering around the city.

If they kill it the cute thing is vermin and the local magistrate will pay you 5 silver per male(small and cuddly) and 300 gold for a female(big, angry, and deep in the sewers)

If they get attached tot he cute thing the city has a local tradition of racing them. The party can enter the race and do things like sneak into the stables to drug the competition, giving your animal an illegal stimulant, etc.

# ? May 10, 2016 06:31

Whybird: Aug 2, 2009; Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar; Nap Ghost

Rigging gambling events, whether it's a race of small furry animals or a battle of the bands or a gladiatorial duel, never stops being awesome fun.

# ? May 10, 2016 08:29

My Lovely Horse: Aug 21, 2010

My group once entered the party barbarian into a cagefight against the undefeated Masked Champion, who they'd found out was a zombie, so she ripped his head off as a finishing move. Small problem: these fights usually went to knockout or submission. At least they managed to rob the betting office amidst the panic.

# ? May 10, 2016 08:37

Stumiester: Dec 3, 2004; "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

Don't know if this is the right thread for this, but I'm GMing D&D for the first time and need a bit of lore help.

I want my big bad to be a level ~17 Devil pact warlock. He has a pact with a big evil devil to distabilise his corner of the prime sufficiently to first open small rifts to the 9 hells then eventually sacrifice himself to open a huge portal. The very end of the campaign will be the players travelling through the portal into the 9 hells to kill the sponsor to close the rift.

Firstly: is this a good idea? Would demons be a better choice than devils in this case?

Would the rifts cause corruption even if nothing came through them?

Who is a big enough badguy to be the sponsor? I was thinking an ambitious Pit Fiend.

# ? May 10, 2016 13:47

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

Devils are lawful, demons are chaotic. Either might gladly sponsor your villain, but their means, methods, and goals are gonna be a bit different in keeping with their preferences. Is your dude's boss effectively Darth Vader, or the Joker?

As for your other two questions, up to you. You're the DM. If you say the rifts are harmless until something passes through them, they're harmless. If you say their very existence represents a corrosive hole in the fabric of the universe which must be closed ASAP, well, they'd better close them ASAP. Likewise, there are a lot of high-ranking fiends you could either look into or invent. You're basically the god of the game world for all intents and purposes, so stuff works how you say it does. There's lore, sure, but nothing you can't fudge a little to suit your purposes.

# ? May 10, 2016 16:13

Cat Face Joe: Feb 20, 2005; goth vegan crossfit mom who vapes

The Glumslinger posted:

So far I'm thinking about tracking someone down who is debt to the mob, but I'm open for more interesting suggestions.

They find the guy but he's got an even better score he just needs a team of people to pull it off. And now that they're past due on bringing this guy in they're on the bad side of the mob.

My Lovely Horse posted:

undefeated Masked Champion, who they'd found out was a zombie

We once had a skeleton PC who was a former knife fighting champion.

Razorwired posted:

If they get attached tot he cute thing the city has a local tradition of racing them. The party can enter the race and do things like sneak into the stables to drug the competition, giving your animal an illegal stimulant, etc.

This is the perfect distraction and I'm totally doing it next time I blank on a new adventure.

# ? May 10, 2016 16:29

Zomborgon: Feb 19, 2014; I don't even want to see what happens if you gain CHIM outside of a pre-coded system.

Razorwired posted:

Some small animal runs up on the group as soon as they start wandering around the city.

If they kill it the cute thing is vermin and the local magistrate will pay you 5 silver per male(small and cuddly) and 300 gold for a female(big, angry, and deep in the sewers)

If they get attached tot he cute thing the city has a local tradition of racing them. The party can enter the race and do things like sneak into the stables to drug the competition, giving your animal an illegal stimulant, etc.

I wouldn't keep the species dimorphism exclusive to the vermin side- suddenly, breeding better racing gophers is an extreme sport in itself!

# ? May 10, 2016 16:43

Whybird: Aug 2, 2009; Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar; Nap Ghost

Stumiester posted:

I want my big bad to be a level ~17 Devil pact warlock. He has a pact with a big evil devil to distabilise his corner of the prime sufficiently to first open small rifts to the 9 hells then eventually sacrifice himself to open a huge portal. The very end of the campaign will be the players travelling through the portal into the 9 hells to kill the sponsor to close the rift.

The biggest advice I can give you is not to plan this far in advance. If the players come up with an ironclad way of stopping him at Rift One, then you should be able to roll with that. If the players decide they want to help the guy in exchange for being able to rule a fiefdom on the surface, then that sounds like a cool idea and you should be able to account for that. If the players decide they want to convince the bad guy that his sponsor is out to betray him, and get him to side with them against the sponsor? That's a cool idea too and you shouldn't be so wedded to your plans that you can't roll with that.

I would say "The antagonist is a high-level Devil pact warlock whose goal is opening lots of rifts to the Nine Hells on behalf of his sponsor" is a great place to be starting off. Like, literally don't sketch out his plans in any more detail than that. Maybe figure out what he's doing to open the first rift, where he's opening it, and what the consequences are. But what's more important is understanding why he's doing it, what he hopes to gain, what he's willing to sacrifice, and what drove him to such extreme measures.

Then listen to the backstories your players create. Ask them about their characters: how did they gain their skills, who is important to them, who wants them dead? Figure out ways that the warlock's rift-opening could start to draw these characters in. Like, maybe one player says his clan are guardians of the First Oak (whatever that is). In that case, you can then decide that your bad guy has a plan to infiltrate their clan and open his next rift inside the First Oak itself. Or maybe another player is also a Devil Pact Warlock -- in which case, maybe their sponsors are at each others' throats, or maybe they're actually being sponsored by the same devil!

# ? May 10, 2016 17:21

Inverse Icarus: Dec 4, 2003; I run SyncRPG, and produce original, digital content for the Pathfinder RPG, designed from the ground up to be played online.

We had a TPK in a game I'm running, a group of ankhegs surprised the party while sleeping and slaughtered them.

The players will be back next week with new characters, and I'm trying to come up with clever things to do with the dead PCs beyond "a necromancer found them and they are now undead versions of your characters." Maybe some NPCs found their corpses and are wearing/using their acid-damaged gear?

I'm coming up dry and looking for inspiration. Any tips? It's for a 4th level party in Pathfinder, if that matters.

For those curious about how the TPK went down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2MfpUjKEo

# ? May 11, 2016 19:37

Cat Face Joe: Feb 20, 2005; goth vegan crossfit mom who vapes

Inverse Icarus posted:

We had a TPK in a game I'm running, a group of ankhegs surprised the party while sleeping and slaughtered them.

The players will be back next week with new characters, and I'm trying to come up with clever things to do with the dead PCs beyond "a necromancer found them and they are now undead versions of your characters." Maybe some NPCs found their corpses and are wearing/using their acid-damaged gear?

I'm coming up dry and looking for inspiration. Any tips? It's for a 4th level party in Pathfinder, if that matters.

For those curious about how the TPK went down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2MfpUjKEo

u monster

# ? May 11, 2016 19:51

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Inverse Icarus posted:

We had a TPK in a game I'm running, a group of ankhegs surprised the party while sleeping and slaughtered them.

The players will be back next week with new characters, and I'm trying to come up with clever things to do with the dead PCs beyond "a necromancer found them and they are now undead versions of your characters." Maybe some NPCs found their corpses and are wearing/using their acid-damaged gear?

I'm coming up dry and looking for inspiration. Any tips? It's for a 4th level party in Pathfinder, if that matters.

For those curious about how the TPK went down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2MfpUjKEo

Party meets one of those previous PCs, apparently really actually alive. Up to you whether it's a doppelganger or a polymorphed something or a straight up miracle, if you resolve it at all. Their PCs wouldn't necessarily know the old ones, so it creates a fun bit of dissonance between character knowledge and player knowledge.

# ? May 11, 2016 19:52

Inverse Icarus: Dec 4, 2003; I run SyncRPG, and produce original, digital content for the Pathfinder RPG, designed from the ground up to be played online.

Cat Face Joe posted:

u monster

Close your eyes, player! This is the GM thread! :P

# ? May 11, 2016 19:58

Stumiester: Dec 3, 2004; "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent."

Whybird posted:

The biggest advice I can give you is not to plan this far in advance. If the players come up with an ironclad way of stopping him at Rift One, then you should be able to roll with that. If the players decide they want to help the guy in exchange for being able to rule a fiefdom on the surface, then that sounds like a cool idea and you should be able to account for that. If the players decide they want to convince the bad guy that his sponsor is out to betray him, and get him to side with them against the sponsor? That's a cool idea too and you shouldn't be so wedded to your plans that you can't roll with that.

I would say "The antagonist is a high-level Devil pact warlock whose goal is opening lots of rifts to the Nine Hells on behalf of his sponsor" is a great place to be starting off. Like, literally don't sketch out his plans in any more detail than that. Maybe figure out what he's doing to open the first rift, where he's opening it, and what the consequences are. But what's more important is understanding why he's doing it, what he hopes to gain, what he's willing to sacrifice, and what drove him to such extreme measures.

Then listen to the backstories your players create. Ask them about their characters: how did they gain their skills, who is important to them, who wants them dead? Figure out ways that the warlock's rift-opening could start to draw these characters in. Like, maybe one player says his clan are guardians of the First Oak (whatever that is). In that case, you can then decide that your bad guy has a plan to infiltrate their clan and open his next rift inside the First Oak itself. Or maybe another player is also a Devil Pact Warlock -- in which case, maybe their sponsors are at each others' throats, or maybe they're actually being sponsored by the same devil!

Thanks so much for this. I'm coming from video gaming and boardgaming where everything is more structured. Its difficult to avoid the temptation to plan everything out in great detail. I decided to write the backstory to my villain rather than planning out more specific adventures.

# ? May 11, 2016 20:27

Soylent Pudding: Jun 22, 2007; We've got people!

I created a celestial call center in the True Neutral plane of Purgatory. Dead PCs can earn time off their wait by working to respond to prayers. Of course, per the celestial accords any call center employee can be assigned to respond to prayers made to any deity.

I use it for a source of one shot adventures and a way to let players still use PCs they enjoyed even after permanent character death.
"A Balor steps into your call center. 'I need four associates for a job, each associate will earn 3 years off their wait time. No questions asked.' Do you accept the job?"

# ? May 11, 2016 20:33

8one6: May 20, 2012; When in doubt, err on the side of Awesome!

Inverse Icarus posted:

We had a TPK in a game I'm running, a group of ankhegs surprised the party while sleeping and slaughtered them.

The players will be back next week with new characters, and I'm trying to come up with clever things to do with the dead PCs beyond "a necromancer found them and they are now undead versions of your characters." Maybe some NPCs found their corpses and are wearing/using their acid-damaged gear?

I'm coming up dry and looking for inspiration. Any tips? It's for a 4th level party in Pathfinder, if that matters.

For those curious about how the TPK went down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR2MfpUjKEo

One of the party members comes back to the prime material plane looking for help, the other party members have "inadvertently" started a war in the afterlife. The two (or more) sides want mortals present for the tense [ peace talks/hostage exchange/whatever].

# ? May 11, 2016 21:28

Kwanzaa Quickie: Nov 4, 2009

Some type of horrible flesh golem-like creature made out of the bodies of the whole dead party, ala http://keiththompsonart.com/pages/pripyatbeast.html

# ? May 11, 2016 21:38

SaviourX: Sep 30, 2003; The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, or Eartha Kitt.

quote:

The players will be back next week with new characters, and I'm trying to come up with clever things to do with the dead PCs

Real or fake long lost siblings and/or aggrieved spouses and children of the deceased that are clamouring for misdirected vengeance and blood for their fallen heroes? It doesn't matter if they're completely lying, how are the new PCs to know? Bonus points if there's a romance interest worked in there somewhere before the inevitable discovery.

SaviourX fucked around with this message at 05:23 on May 12, 2016

# ? May 12, 2016 05:20

Condoleezza Nice!: Jan 4, 2010; Lite som Robin Hood
fast inte

Thanks for the words of advice, thread! I ran my group through the introductory adventure "Blood and Lightning", and it was a smashing success!

# ? May 15, 2016 19:56

ZearothK: Aug 25, 2008; I've lost twice, I've failed twice and I've gotten two dishonorable mentions within 7 weeks. But I keep coming back. I am The Trooper!

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2021

Suggest me a system that has a combat system that is relatively fast and provides players with meaningful tactical options.

For reference, my group is mostly familiar with Storytelling (good speed, but lacking options for more dramatic combat), the 40K/WF RPGs (a good spread of tactical options, but games get slowed a lot), ORE (actually just great for duels and small fights, but becomes a nightmare to manage in big fights), Unknown Armies (great for what it does), Eclipse Phase (clumsy as hell) and Dungeon World (actually a surprisingly amount of combat being reduced to roll to hit, despite loving the rest of the system).

So, any suggestions for us to try out?

# ? May 16, 2016 22:43

TheTofuShop: Aug 28, 2009

ZearothK posted:

So, any suggestions for us to try out?

I'd suggest Strike! , the system has been working well for my playgroup lately.

# ? May 16, 2016 23:38

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

ZearothK posted:

Suggest me a system that has a combat system that is relatively fast and provides players with meaningful tactical options.

For reference, my group is mostly familiar with Storytelling (good speed, but lacking options for more dramatic combat), the 40K/WF RPGs (a good spread of tactical options, but games get slowed a lot), ORE (actually just great for duels and small fights, but becomes a nightmare to manage in big fights), Unknown Armies (great for what it does), Eclipse Phase (clumsy as hell) and Dungeon World (actually a surprisingly amount of combat being reduced to roll to hit, despite loving the rest of the system).

So, any suggestions for us to try out?

13th age.

Mongoose Traveler is actually pretty great, and you can run the fantastic pirates of drinax free campaign.

# ? May 17, 2016 05:38

Morpheus: Apr 18, 2008; My favourite little monsters

sebmojo posted:

13th age.

Mongoose Traveler is actually pretty great, and you can run the fantastic pirates of drinax free campaign.

Isn't 13th age just D&D plus an escalation die? Or is there more to it than that (I thumbed through the rulebook briefly)

# ? May 17, 2016 14:27

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

13th Age is faster than D&D combat in the sense that it doesn't use a grid, and has mechanics specifically to allow you to play gridless without having to fudge any rules.

It's also faster than D&D combat in the sense that most attacks are a d20 attack roll vs AC, or Physical Defense, or Magical Defense to inflict HP, rather than whatever convoluted combination of saving throws and status effects are inflicted in your average high-level 3.5e game.

It's also faster than D&D combat in the sense that it inherits 4th Edition's attempt to keep damage levels vs HP levels roughly proportional to keep combat length limited to a specific number of rounds before kills start getting inflicted.

Finally, it tries to inherit 4th Edition's class design with every class getting a meaningful number of tactical options at every level and for every round, although this is the part where actual execution kind of falls flat.

# ? May 17, 2016 14:36

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

I have this idea for a really interesting setting for a D&D adventure, but I don't have any ideas as to how to hook my adventurers into it, or indeed, what to actually do with it, plotwise.

The idea is basically the petrified body of an 800 ft tall giant, standing in the middle of a grassy plain. Giants in D&D sort of disappointed me by not actually being as gigantic as I had hoped. A real giant in my mind is colossal! He should stand taller than a hill, with feet the size of houses! So there's that: hundreds of years ago, some enormous giant was turned into stone mid-walk, and over the many hundreds of years, his petrified remains have become home to the local flora and fauna. Trees and plants are growing on the shoulders and all over the crevices in his former clothing. A nest of wyverns could be nesting in his mouth, and perhaps a wizard hollowed out part of his body to make a lair of some sort.

I just think that it'd be really fascinating, as a player, to be walking to some destination when the DM says "Over the hill, in the distance, you spot what appears to be a gigantic man made of stone".

# ? May 17, 2016 15:47

Morpheus: Apr 18, 2008; My favourite little monsters

I don't know if this'll help you or not, but the entire game of Xenoblade (the original, on the Wii and 3DS), takes place on the colossal bodies of two robots that have stopped moving mid-combat:

(a massive loving sword acts as a bridge between the two)

What I'm saying is you could potentially create an entire campaign upon the back of this giant - think of what petrified it in the first place, what would happen if that petrification were to end, how long has it been there, and does anybody want to do something with it (perhaps the wizard). Does it have a power source, perhaps, a source of incredible magical energy if someone can perhaps penetrate the creatures that lead to its heart/head?

Also if there are small civilizations thriving on there, I think it'd be neat to develop lingo that they've become accustomed to using, like describing directions beyond 'up' and 'down'.

# ? May 17, 2016 15:54

Whybird: Aug 2, 2009; Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar; Nap Ghost

I seem to recall that REIGN by Greg Stolze does this: the world is a giant man and woman, immersed in the ocean.

# ? May 17, 2016 22:23

Wrestlepig: Feb 25, 2011; my mum says im cool; Toilet Rascal

Does he have to be dead? What if he's asleep, or just cloudwatching?

# ? May 18, 2016 02:40

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

Slumbering would be good.

Then you can have the bad guy's plan being to wake him up.

# ? May 18, 2016 03:41

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Well, he was turned to stone, so I sort of assumed that he was dead by then. But slumbering is an intriguing (and pretty epic) idea if someone plans to depetrify him. Who would want to depetrify a giant? I mean, how would you even control or influence such an entity? Hmm. Perhaps a chaotic evil wizard who just wants to gleefully unleash him upon the world. Or possibly some sort of cult that worships the giant and wants to bring him back to life, not really knowing what he'd do if he were to return.

I had an amusing thought that perhaps he was just minding his own business one day and happened to match gazes with a basilisk a hundred miles away, and was turned to stone through pure accident.

# ? May 18, 2016 14:00

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

"Before all things, the Giant was 'First.' We are parasites, unlawful squatters who've taken up residence on his unwilling person. The sleeper must wake, and we must wake him. Our sins demand we welcome our own destruction. We are as insignificant fleas perched on the back of a god, and while we thrive he suffers." - Your Bad Guy, Maybe

# ? May 18, 2016 16:14

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# ? May 24, 2024 19:15

CHaKKaWaKka: Aug 6, 2001; I've chosen my next victim. Cry tears of joy it's not you!

Plot twist: The giant's actually really really nice, and if he ever awakens he'll feel awful about destroying all the things people have built on or near him just by moving around.

# ? May 18, 2016 18:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

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