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The entire hillside is loose scree, all movement is slowed. The fight is on the side of an erupting volcano, jump checks are needed to hop over maga flows Ice/slime/etc. Snow Maybe the hill giants are lobbing a few barrels of oil as well as rocks?
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Apr 15, 2018 23:28
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Have the boulders turn into obstacles, and I like the barrels of oil too, but they have to light the oil... so they throw a barrel, use the scatter chart, then throw something flaming ditto. If they just miss then the flame happens next round when the oil spreads far enough.
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Apr 16, 2018 05:43
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hyphz posted:Is there a good way to handle players who are constantly “meh” about playing or what game to play? "hey i noticed you guys don't seem to be enthusiastic about this, as a gm this is draining as all hell as i tirelessly work yo get you guys engaged in the game, tell me what's up or we can do something else." uncooperative players are the enemy
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Apr 16, 2018 08:08
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Elfgames posted:"hey i noticed you guys don't seem to be enthusiastic about this, as a gm this is draining as all hell as i tirelessly work yo get you guys engaged in the game, tell me what's up or we can do something else." Yeah, this. Express that you're having a hard time engaging them with tabletop games. Ask them what they'd rather be doing, and do that instead. Be prepared for answers you might not like, such as "we're burned out on tabletop, let's go to the pub". Or depending on your group, maybe something more like "game night interferes with out shitfaced drunk contact badminton league". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Apr 16, 2018 |
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Apr 16, 2018 08:55
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Do we have any kinda archive or anything for the  posts that get posted here?I just went to dig up DivineCoffeeBinge's glorious intrigue post from a couple pages back, but it would have been lost to the ages if I didn't know it was there Wouldn't take much effort to setup some kinda Drive folder or something and copy paste in text when something brilliant gets written up would it?
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Apr 16, 2018 09:56
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hyphz posted:Is there a good way to handle players who are constantly “meh” about playing or what game to play? That being said, there are a lot of times players appear apathetic when it's really a different kind of passivity. In a lot of traditional campaigns, the GM is the source of all information about the world. This leads to a lot of situations where players aren't sure what's "right" and are waiting for the GM to fill them in. If they go into a town, for example, might not have a clear idea of what they can assume is in that town, other than maybe a tavern, so rather than just getting on with doing things, they wait for the infodump. That can quickly feel like a lack of agency instead of just a lack of context. Breaking out of it is hard. Asking players to read and internalize a detailed setting document is a big ask, especially if you're rolling your own setting, which means you also have to produce it. Without that shared world knowledge, though, it's hard to get around that informational imbalance. I'm sure it's no surprise I'll suggest PbtA and similar narrative games as one way out. Since those games explicitly ask you to start without having developed the game world, they kind of cheat their way into having shared world knowledge. Since no one knows exactly what the world is like, it's easier to just assume things, since then they just become facts about the setting. There are, however, some downsides. It can be hard to keep track of all the information you create and avoid anyone contradicting themselves or each other. There are times where, if you knew ahead of time, you might have done something differently. And no one is on all the time when it comes to creating impromptu lore. Another option is to play in a setting that your group does already know. Star Wars is a great choice for most TTRPG groups. Even a casual fan knows enough that they can just assume things about the world and act on those assumptions. If you go to a Star Wars world, the players don't wait for you to describe the local underworld - they go looking for the Hutt crime lord, because they know that's how the setting works. And if you decide it's not a Hutt crime lord, well, that's an interesting twist - it's a mistake of the characters, not the players, because it's a reasonable assumption in world. See if maybe there's a setting everyone loves and would be interesting in playing in. That might wake them up some. A third choice is to go back to those narrative games, but not as your new campaign. Rather, there's a whole set of games about world building. Microscope, the Quiet Year, Kingdom, Follow, Downfall, and others besides. Sitting down with your group to create the game setting by playing one of those games before the main campaign is a great way to get everyone buy in. Since they helped make the world, they know it well, and they have ownership of it. It also gives them a shortcut to finding things they want to explore further with their character in the main game.
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Apr 17, 2018 04:59
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There's like $15 wax seal kits on Amazon, which means finding fun ways to use them in my campaign
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Apr 17, 2018 20:47
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So y'all, I spent some time lovingly crafting a Cold War-type scenario for my players to engage with. The general gist is that I've set up a city, divided north-south by a river. The northern half is occupied by a dragon and her various underlings, the southern half by some unsavory criminal folks that were in the process of taking over the city before the dragon showed up. The dragon has been noticeably inactive, so the dragon's underlings are stagnating on any attempts to continue taking over. The party meets each group and both are willing to hire the party to help destroy the other. The dragon side is moustache-twirlingly evil but very honest about their intentions, and the criminal side is full of lies and bullshit about their future as rulers, but a little more morally gray. The dragon side has an obvious advantage in numbers, but are unwilling to engage without the dragon's explicit & present backing. The criminal side, however, is smaller, has fewer resources, and sorely lacks a large, magical, winged lizard. The last bit of the scenario, the party is already on an explicit quest to kill the dragon. Regardless of outcome, their goal is to slay the dragon. So after two sessions that establish the central conflict and some of the smaller conflicts within, the party has a good viewpoint of their options on how to accomplish their goals. I intended this to be fairly open-ended leg of their quest and challenge them morally and strategically. They're relatively ~good~ so nobody's really fans of working with either side, but short of declaring war on basically two armies, it's basically necessary to pick someone to back. After all this establishing, one of my players, gives a large sigh and groans "I don't like this." He then says he hates how there's "no good answer" and how he'd rather leave this, if it weren't for their already established dragonslaying job. Part of me is delighted by this, I'm pretty sure I hit my mark with the rock and the hard place. And then he continues to repeat this sentiment throughout the party's planning phase. And after the planning phase. And into the remainder of the session. I attributed it to in-character speak to begin with, but it obviously grew to be beyond that. So can I get some input here? Did I gently caress up by not giving clear-cut heroic deed to fulfill? It isn't like this is tonally inconsistent with the sword and sorcery bullshit they have adventured through before. Really I'm kinda pissy that all my preparations were met with the same reception as a grind in the World of Warcraft.
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Apr 18, 2018 23:22
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Did you see if the players were interested in this idea before hand?
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Apr 18, 2018 23:31
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Yeah OP it kinda sounds like your players aren't into playing a game with those sorts of choices
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Apr 18, 2018 23:42
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Did you ask the player afterwards? Easiest way to see if he was OC not liking it is to ask him. Better to do it now and work something out between you, rather than dragging it out and make it miserable for everyone.
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Apr 18, 2018 23:59
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Malpais Legate posted:After all this establishing, one of my players, gives a large sigh and groans "I don't like this." He then says he hates how there's "no good answer" and how he'd rather leave this, if it weren't for their already established dragonslaying job. Part of me is delighted by this, I'm pretty sure I hit my mark with the rock and the hard place. And then he continues to repeat this sentiment throughout the party's planning phase. And after the planning phase. And into the remainder of the session. I attributed it to in-character speak to begin with, but it obviously grew to be beyond that. You didn't gently caress up, you just have an expectation mismatch. Your player is not playing a high fantasy game to engage in RealPolitik and feel like they picked the lesser evil. They probably want to be a Real drat Hero. The only way to salvage this for this particular player is to turn it into Yojimbo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yojimbo_(film)) and have it possible to kick both sides out of town. If the rest of the party is ok with playing RealPolitik then you've just got to power through it quickly and get back to a more universal plotline/motivation.
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Apr 19, 2018 00:55
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Yea, we had that with Curse Of Strahd. Moral choices like that work in video games where you can reload and try the other one. If you only ever get to pick one, well, some players don’t need decisions they regret that they’ll never know the other option for in their elfgames as well as their lives.
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Apr 19, 2018 17:45
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It's not even that. It's all context. If you set your players up as morally good heroic dragonslayers and then have them stumble into a moral morass some of them might mutiny. If you had just said from the beginning "this is high fantasy misery tourism, dress appropriately" then you would have less problems IMO.
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Apr 19, 2018 18:39
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hyphz posted:Yea, we had that with Curse Of Strahd. Moral choices like that work in video games where you can reload and try the other one. If you only ever get to pick one, well, some players don’t need decisions they regret that they’ll never know the other option for in their elfgames as well as their lives. Aren't good games full of meaningful decision exactly like that?
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Apr 19, 2018 18:55
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Subjunctive posted:Aren't good games full of meaningful decision exactly like that? Define "meaningful decision". Again, Yojimbo, a classic and well-loved movie, has a dubious and scruffy Ronin ride into town, see the situation, and say "I'm gonna gently caress both of these assholes up" and then do it. An extremely meaningful decision. Imagine if instead he felt forced to back one of those assholes, and how badly it hurts the narrative and your opinion of the character. I think you guys are confusing "is able to do the morally right thing" with "complexity" or thinking that having to support assholes is somehow more of an "adult" story. It's not. It's a more cynical one.
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Apr 19, 2018 19:02
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If you want realism, doing the right thing should be hard and costly, but not impossible.
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Apr 19, 2018 19:03
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Of course, if you want realism, you probably shouldn't start with a magic dragon running half the town. I get the feeling that expectations with the players were not set appropriately here. Edit: Again I just want to stress that nobody is 'at fault' here and I admire the GM putting a lot of effort into the scenario. This sort of thing happens all the time and should be resolved OOC. Maybe tell that whining player to watch Yojimbo and come up with a plan of his own. If it's interesting and exciting, let it work. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 19, 2018 |
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Apr 19, 2018 19:07
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If you want realism, doing the right thing should be hard and costly, but not impossible.
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Apr 19, 2018 19:14
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Define "meaningful decision". Decisions that alter the world irrevocably.
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Apr 19, 2018 19:15
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Subjunctive posted:Decisions that alter the world irrevocably. That describes every single decision a player makes in an RPG. The world's not real so by acting they define it. Or in other words, "a secret door that's never discovered is just a wall"
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Apr 19, 2018 19:15
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Of course, if you want realism, you probably shouldn't start with a magic dragon running half the town. nah that's actually completely fine, as long as you resist the urge to idealize the dragon
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Apr 19, 2018 19:16
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:That describes every single decision a player makes in an RPG. The world's not real so by acting they define it. Or in other words, "a secret door that's never discovered is just a wall" Yes, which is why I think hyphz posted:decisions they regret that they’ll never know the other option for aren't necessarily things to avoid.
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Apr 19, 2018 19:17
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I'm reminded of a mission in Dishonored 2. You need a piece of info, and two persons could help you with it. One is a gang leader gearing up for a violent revolution, but he genuinely wants the best for the common man, and the duke he's rebelling against is a real shithead (and your personal antagonist). The other is the leader of an inquisitory religious police force that maintains law and order, has a decidedly "opium for the masses" approach, but also opposes the evil duke. Either one will help you, but wants the other one dead first. Without a leader, each faction will falter and the other take over a city district. Taking a side is the obvious default approach and there's no immediate "good answer". ... but you can kill both of them, or ship them both off as mining slaves, or leave them alone altogether and find the info yourself, and in fact you don't even have to enter the area where they're warring, you can just pass on the info and work out a hard puzzle for yourself to move on, and the game acknowledges all those outcomes. (Arguably letting them both live is the best outcome, because they'll simply both end up on the city council.) I'd say if anything, sending your party in with explicit instructions to kill the dragon and setting it up so they have to back someone maybe closes off some approaches for them that might lead to a more satisfying outcome. Taking on both armies should be tougher but not impossible. Even letting the dragon live should be on the table, with appropriate consequences later on, although simply turning their backs on the whole situation now goes a bit in the area of "we go in the opposite direction from the obvious plot hook."
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Apr 19, 2018 19:25
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My Lovely Horse posted:I'm reminded of a mission in Dishonored 2. You need a piece of info, and two persons could help you with it. One is a gang leader gearing up for a violent revolution, but he genuinely wants the best for the common man, and the duke he's rebelling against is a real shithead (and your personal antagonist). The other is the leader of an inquisitory religious police force that maintains law and order, has a decidedly "opium for the masses" approach, but also opposes the evil duke. Either one will help you, but wants the other one dead first. Without a leader, each faction will falter and the other take over a city district. Taking a side is the obvious default approach and there's no immediate "good answer". That was a right bastard of a logic puzzle.
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Apr 19, 2018 20:03
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Okay, just a few things. I've asked for some feedback on the current scenario from my players, and most (read: all but the one mentioned in my OP) have expressed positive reactions to their current scenario. There were some mentions that they felt the open-endedness of the scenario left them with a loss for a clear course of action, but there was next to mention of the whole "lesser of two evils" element. Even in their discussion on how to move forward, several of them expressed interest in simply not backing either side and doing the difficult, but not impossible, task of annihilating both. I feel like I missed a mark on providing them with some clear routes of action and that slowed down the game, even after they were presented the opportunities to work with either side. But still, none of the feedback I've received seems to be that they're upset over the "no good answer" of the story line. These players are a year into a campaign and sitting at level 11, they've done several feats that have changed the world irrevocably and weren't all just clear-cut heroics before. I just want to be clear that I wasn't driving the school bus on Harry Potter Street and then took hard left onto Titus Andronicus Lane. We've been driving through some sort of high fantasy "bad poo poo happens" neighborhood since day one. While yeah, my goal was to make a hard choice for them, it isn't the first time they've made choices like this, although it's got a notably larger amount of moving parts. I tried to leave it out of the original post so I could get some more ~objective~ feedback, but now I feel the need to mention that the player has always been my sort-of problem child. He takes issue with the system we're playing (5E) and not-infrequently makes disparaging comments about it in favor of 3.5/Pathfinder, to the point of disrupting actual gameplay. He's had habits of ripping up the rails the party is on because he just "doesn't like" the direction they're going, including shooting down plot hooks because of things he, as a veteran D&D player of Forgotten Realms, already knows about the setting. I've long since given up trying to please him fully and he says he's still playing with us because he enjoys the story, so when the last game ended with groans and "I don't like this" being basically his only vocalizations, I was especially concerned that the rest of my group shared the sentiment. That's apparently not the case. My Lovely Horse posted:I'd say if anything, sending your party in with explicit instructions to kill the dragon and setting it up so they have to back someone maybe closes off some approaches for them that might lead to a more satisfying outcome. Taking on both armies should be tougher but not impossible. Even letting the dragon live should be on the table, with appropriate consequences later on, although simply turning their backs on the whole situation now goes a bit in the area of "we go in the opposite direction from the obvious plot hook." All of this was on the table and thoroughly discussed by them! They didn't really reach a conclusion because they're slow to reach consensus as a group, but like, even dropping the dragonslaying part of the job was tossed around as a possibility. Part of my design was that they'd be presented with opportunities to work with either side, but those weren't the only way forward. As I said earlier here, that didn't seem to get picked up very well, so communicating that was a failing on my part.
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Apr 19, 2018 20:07
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Have you talked to the player?
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Apr 19, 2018 20:46
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The context here definitely helps. This is, bluntly, a problem player. Assuming you've spoken with them about this and explained that this behavior is frustrating... If this is a friend who normally you (and the rest of the group) enjoys spending time with, and it's just this context that brings out this behavior, then it can be a bit tricky. Ideally you take them aside and just be up front about the fact you'd love to do something else with them. In practice, scheduling is hard and if this is the only time this set of friends can get together, you may need to sit down with the whole crew and have a discussion about how you want to spend your time together. Maybe, as good an idea as it sounds on paper, playing an RPG as this specific group isn't the right way for you all to enjoy each other's company. Maybe it should be a board game group, or a book club, or some other thing instead. It can be hard and disappointing to make that switch but friends are more important than campaigns. If, however, this is the only time you spend time with this player (and assuming there's no other risks involved), I would say it's probably time for them to go find another group. It doesn't sound like you much enjoy having them in the game, and it's hard to imagine the rest of the group does either.
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Apr 19, 2018 20:56
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Yup. 
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Apr 20, 2018 00:59
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Have you spoken to him directly on the matter of how he behaves at the table? Conflict resolution is super important to me and my closest friendships are marked by doing it in a productive manner. You could try that before giving up entirely, it's not impossible to have conversations.
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Apr 20, 2018 01:58
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Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0071771328/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_f3t2AbKKJFSNT E: not kidding even a little
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Apr 20, 2018 02:09
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Malpais Legate posted:I tried to leave it out of the original post so I could get some more ~objective~ feedback, but now I feel the need to mention that the player has always been my sort-of problem child. Yeah, that thing where one grumpy player drags everything down loving sucks. No advice, just a lot of sympathy. GM is a weird position in a lot of ways, where you're kinda running things, it's your job to tell people to loving behave, except they're also your friends and you want to do everything to avoid booting them. I guess I'd hook up with them outside game time, just the two of you, and try to talk it out. Beer may or may not help.
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Apr 20, 2018 02:21
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Can I field some critique from you other GMs on a setting guide I wrote for an upcoming campaign? I'd appreciate advice from the perspectives of a potential player, a fellow GM, or a prospective audience member. This game is going to be recorded by a buddy of mine. It's three pages, and I don't have any illustrations or maps yet so the formatting is very sterile. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mpQiTeBr-cSVbSiu9FLyBKxdK1C2OY4FV2Go6wxGw1I/edit?usp=sharing Thanks if any of you actually read it.
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Apr 20, 2018 04:21
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I'm coming at this from a technical view rather than looking at the content - I think it's an interesting setting, but obviously you agree or you wouldn't be running it. So I've focused this on managing to make information stick in players' heads. The way you've kept it short is good - players are lazy and keeping things brief is a really good call. I'd back that up by spending some time pre-game going over it - a spoken cliffnotes version of the setting OC, and give them a chance to ask questions. Ideally, you do that before chargen, so they can be inspired by the setting. If they ask questions, be flexible about answers, and roll with their suggestions - the most invested I've seen players is when they have a hand in coming up with bits of the setting. Players will struggle to remember names from different cultures/languages, so a few copies of the 'notable figures' sheet for them to refer to might be an idea. If you take 5m to sketch out a map of the area, no matter how rough, will help people visualise things. If players have suggestions, mark them down on the map - the village a PC grew up in, the oasis someone poisoned, etc. It might be worth stripping down the language in the setting document - you're using a lot of adjectives which make for good atmosphere when spoken, but slow down reading in text. Generally, I think it's good!
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Apr 20, 2018 04:38
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lofi posted:I'm coming at this from a technical view rather than looking at the content - I think it's an interesting setting, but obviously you agree or you wouldn't be running it. So I've focused this on managing to make information stick in players' heads. I've covered those bases and have been working closely with my players to give them hands in building the setting. I'll definitely roll with that reference sheet printed for each of them, which is something I totally hadn't considered. My biggest concern was that the prose was overwrought. I'll try to go back through and edit down where I can. Reading it aloud definitely makes it sound better than just following along in my head. I appreciate it.
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Apr 20, 2018 04:45
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Malpais Legate posted:
i could have probably told you the last part, in fact i'm really finding it hard to understand your confusion. the player has stated that they don't like the game and really it's pretty obvious that they don't actually like the story that much either, it seems to me like they're there to hang out and basically play along with the group (only they also want to control and lead the group too) so my only advice is to talk to them about falling in line and being a good team player or shipping out
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Apr 20, 2018 05:03
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Malpais Legate posted:Problem Player In the end I exploded at them during a game and I actually did need to which cost us our friendship, which is sad... However we found a new guy who's awesome and the games have been a load of fun since. So swings and roundabouts I guesstldr; it sounds like you need to do something now in case it does come to a head and/or affects your other friends. Although, I suck hard at confrontations like this, so that's about as far as my advice goes... Good luck!
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Apr 20, 2018 07:56
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Zomborgon posted:That was a right bastard of a logic puzzle. Malpais Legate posted:He takes issue with the system we're playing (5E) and not-infrequently makes disparaging comments about it in favor of 3.5/Pathfinder, to the point of disrupting actual gameplay. I have a player in my regular group who's basically just there to hang out with us. Doesn't really like the system nor any situations that can't immediately be won with the use of her best skill. I've frankly given up on trying to engage her, figuring the group's big enough without her to keep a game going and if she wants to give input, she will (and she does). Only time it doesn't work out is during combat when she periodically has to give input. We're dealing with her turns taking twice as long as everyone else's. That being said, I'm not exactly first in line to take DM duties for the group in this constellation anymore.
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Apr 20, 2018 08:07
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Please consider: How long would/ought your group put up with someone who goes out to pizza with you and then keeps loudly sighing and complaining about not being at the aquarium?
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Apr 20, 2018 08:32
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Mendrian posted:Please consider: I see you've met my ex girlfriend
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Apr 20, 2018 12:05
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