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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:Certain members of the Kingdom Of Generica Historical Preservation Society, however, are very upset. As is the Mysterious Loner Hero who was hoping to reforge the sword and claim his destiny
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Jul 25, 2019 03:29
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Cheese with a spork in it
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Jul 25, 2019 09:44
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My Lovely Horse posted:a small but precisely rendered porcelain likeness of the chaos mage. At some point after this, they Summon a slightly larger, slightly angrier porcelain statue of the chaos mage. This continues until the figurine of the Chaos mage has hit life size and tries to deck him
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Jul 25, 2019 11:34
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:As is the Mysterious Loner Hero who was hoping to reforge the sword and claim his destiny All three True Heirs to the Throne by Divine Right (blessings be upon them), which is bound to happen eventually when you have more than one real god.
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Jul 25, 2019 11:54
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A bookshelf worth of very worn mass-market paperbacks from potboiler authors like Stephen King and the like. The thing is tho that these books were never written in our timeline, so it's stuff like Stephen King's Red Mechanic or Dean Koontz's The Invaders or <whatever Clive Cussler/Stephen King/Dean Koontz sound-alike you can think up>
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Jul 25, 2019 17:35
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I'm kinda dreading my next game. Had two players leave because of work/life issues and had to find two more. I have no idea how to properly screen players because I kinda just lucked out in the past and it's hard to gauge people over a few brief conversations. So half the party is gone and now we've got two new players coming into the story. I feel like it's gonna be sloppy.
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Jul 25, 2019 17:40
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Say so straight away. It’s their job as much as yours to make this all work - a bit of pre-agreed give and take will make that all go much smoother.
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Jul 25, 2019 17:44
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Sanford posted:Say so straight away. It’s their job as much as yours to make this all work - a bit of pre-agreed give and take will make that all go much smoother. A good trick I find is not to introduce the characters as two randos who are now journeying with the party -- workshop with the players to figure out how these two already know and have a history with members of the party.
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Jul 25, 2019 17:48
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:A bookshelf worth of very worn mass-market paperbacks from potboiler authors like Stephen King and the like. The thing is tho that these books were never written in our timeline, so it's stuff like Stephen King's Red Mechanic or Dean Koontz's The Invaders or <whatever Clive Cussler/Stephen King/Dean Koontz sound-alike you can think up>
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Jul 25, 2019 18:05
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Yawgmoth posted:Ancient Indian Burial Ground Built on an Ancient Indian Burial Ground, by Stephen King. LMAO yes or you could also do comedy names, that works too.
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Jul 25, 2019 19:14
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I actually remember a McSweeny's short story about that once, it was called I Know What You Did Two Moons Ago iirc
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Jul 25, 2019 19:43
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My players have just infiltrated the private quarters of the head priest of a death god. He has a reputation for very spartan, austere living but they've found this is a front and once you get past the initial rooms his apartments are luxurious to the point ofdecadence. He gets away with it because all his servants are undead raised in service to the religion (not evil, lots of citizens trade 3 years service for full funeral expenses). We stopped with them standing outside a room with a loud dragging and thumping noise coming from inside. What can be in there that's a bit more interesting than "A BIG SKELLINGTON"? The aim of the infiltration is to get the priest's memoirs/diary but other than that it's a blank canvas. He's a super powerful, super rich necromancer with a lot of political clout so he has the resources to have pretty much anything hidden away in his apartment.
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Jul 26, 2019 10:37
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A bunch of regular sized skeletons that are trying to quickly assemble a really big skeleton.
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Jul 26, 2019 11:05
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An extremely angry and very much alive giant crow. It's too heavy to fly- really, at most it can flap about three wingbeats worth and jump really good- but it has razor sharp claws and beak and it hasn't been properly fed lately. If the priest discovers his baby has been fed the generic-brand crow chow and not the premium stuff, skulls will roll. EDIT: The crow can be bribed with tasty snacks.
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Jul 26, 2019 12:04
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An office with a bunch of accountants. Turns out that the "three years service" thing is not, strictly speaking, true. Dear departed Gramps gets ordered to lie still for a few hours at the "funeral," then once the family is out the door the necromancer's henchmen crack the coffin back open. Gramps gets packed up and sent on a ship/wagon to any place willing to pay for some discreet, reliable, and disposable zombie labor. Many of the customers are not nice people (feel free to tie it all into a Greater Evil Overlord here), and none of the people who supply the bodies would be OK with what's happening. Of course, tracking the payments and invoices for this operation requires a bunch of clerical staff, and the whole operation has to be kept secret. So, it's run out of the priest's already secure sanctum. That's the office the characters just ran into. The noises come from a zombie dragging a massive but mostly empty treasure chest. The necromancer recently paid out a bunch for even fancier furnishings, so there's only level-appropriate wealth in the vaults right now.
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Jul 26, 2019 14:42
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A dusty old room, decorated in a style wildly different from the rest of the building but clearly left untouched for decades. Completely calm, with no source of the thumping apparent. If they enter, the door closes and the thumping resumes from the other side. If they close the door without entering, it keeps going. If they leave, the door opens by itself and the thumping starts following them, appearing behind paintings, under floorboards, and from behind new doors that, when opened, only reveal a bare wall. Eventually they realize the thumps appear to be herding them towards a hidden trapdoor revealing a secret passage to wherever the documents they're after are held.
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Jul 26, 2019 14:49
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The door is a gateway to The Backrooms:
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Jul 26, 2019 16:48
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I'm having trouble coming up with a good scheme to introduce Cardamom the evil spice trader. I figure it's best if i take advantage of the caterers while they don't know who she is, and somehow manipulate them into eliminating her competition (or otherwise strengthening her hold on the spice market.) What's a good two-timing evil business scheme? Considering any and all ideas. I would like her to end the adventure much more powerful than she was previously, so that I can use another adventure idea I had where she is gouging for spices going into the autumn season so the adventurers have to go on a Dune-style adventure to go get Allspice from the landshark-inhabited deserts.
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Jul 26, 2019 16:56
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm having trouble coming up with a good scheme to introduce Cardamom the evil spice trader. I figure it's best if i take advantage of the caterers while they don't know who she is, and somehow manipulate them into eliminating her competition (or otherwise strengthening her hold on the spice market.) There's always the simple go-to double-crosses; through an intermediary she subcontracts the party to retrieve the fabled Saffron of the Sages (a spice said to imbue any dish it is used in with the power to increase the memory and cognitive abilities of the person who eats it). This luscious and legendary cheese is, they discover, in the possession of the feared Gorgon, Zola. Only upon vanquishing the beast do they learn that actually Zola was hired by Cardamom to find the Saffron in the first place; hiring the World of Ruin Catering Company was cheaper than actually paying Zola the previously agreed-upon finder's fee. (This may or may not be an attempt to get you to use the Gorgonzola pun that's been rattling in my head for a few days and I couldn't remember if you'd mentioned you'd used it yet) Anyways, while they're off dealing with that, Cardamom takes the opportunity to strongarm all the local spice merchants to join her cartel and starts jacking up the prices, cornering the market on oregano, so they better hurry up and find a way to deal with her before the Best Pizza In The Land competition next month or else they won't be able to afford to enter!
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Jul 26, 2019 17:51
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm having trouble coming up with a good scheme to introduce Cardamom the evil spice trader. I figure it's best if i take advantage of the caterers while they don't know who she is, and somehow manipulate them into eliminating her competition (or otherwise strengthening her hold on the spice market.) She enlists the help of the caterers to save their diners by showing them the spices they bought from her competition are poisoned/fraudulent/etc. They don't know that she actually planted the bad product to ruin the competition. Alternatively you have her secretly be a drug dealer who deals in Spice (ala synthetic drugs).
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Jul 26, 2019 18:24
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maybe she's selling fake spice, and the name's just a happy coincidence that dupes people to think her spice would be the best
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Jul 26, 2019 19:28
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:in the possession of the feared Gorgon, Zola. Duuuuuuude
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Jul 26, 2019 19:41
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I wonder if Cardamom might have five young henchwomen
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Jul 26, 2019 20:14
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My Lovely Horse posted:I wonder if Cardamom might have five young henchwomen The Cardadaughters.
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Jul 26, 2019 20:16
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Jesus man Also thanks for all the wacky random items, I got a good 50 entry table out of it!
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Jul 26, 2019 20:21
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I want to have an upcoming magic item curse the user with a degree of paranoia, but nothing too punishing. Any off-the-cuff ideas for something mild enough to offset a Weapon of Warning, thread?
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Jul 27, 2019 21:14
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A thing I've liked to do with mood-affecting magical items is rather than have it be a constant low-level effect, it's an occasional powerful effect. For paranoia, I'd have it so whenever the character fails an Insight check by a sufficient value, the paranoia kicks in big-time: they interpret the person they're speaking to as being about to spring an ambush on them, and will act on this immediately.
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Jul 27, 2019 22:59
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Baller Ina posted:I want to have an upcoming magic item curse the user with a degree of paranoia, but nothing too punishing. Any off-the-cuff ideas for something mild enough to offset a Weapon of Warning, thread? Hypochondria?
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Jul 27, 2019 23:35
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Duuuuuuude 
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Jul 28, 2019 00:52
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Baller Ina posted:I want to have an upcoming magic item curse the user with a degree of paranoia, but nothing too punishing. Any off-the-cuff ideas for something mild enough to offset a Weapon of Warning, thread? Perhaps the item lets you cast detect thoughts twice per day, but the item's curse is that it always reports stuff like the following as the target's thoughts: 1) The target seems to have no thoughts at all, as if they're a construct or an illusion 2) The target is mentally repeating "don't think about it. don't think about it. They can read your thoughts, don't think about it." 3) The target is mentally repeating "if you can hear this, don't react. We're being watched." 4) The target is idly pondering rumours they've heard about the item's owner 5) The target is casually fantasising about violently murdering the item's owner and their companions. Delving deeper into the target's mind reveals details of a shadowy and elaborate plot against the item's owner. Maybe even give the weapon some sort of semi-cryptic warning it comes with, that you might not like what you learn about other people if you read their minds. The downside to something like this, I guess, is that it might lead to the players going off on massive wild goose chases to try to stop the conspiracy their weapon-weilding companion has convinced them is actually real. But then again, maybe it's not paranoia after all, and people really are out to get the PCs.
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Jul 28, 2019 13:05
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Running a Fragged Empire game with a homebrew setting, near-future, post-apocalypse on earth. The players are going to be the first generation to come of age since the nuclear holocaust happened. There are very few people left and they end up coming together, along with a small group of civilians, looking for shelter in the wasteland. First, they will be attacked by a group of cannibals. Some of their group will be kidnapped by these cannibals, and the party will track them back to their base in a ruined parking garage. After defeating the cannibals, they will find that all the cars in the garage have been ruined and the gas siphoned off, except for one behind a security gate, beneath a tarp: I'm thinking the next session will involve them having to deal with the local "baron" who controls the bridge between the endless wastes and somewhere they might settle. Any other ideas for what they can do with this kickass van?
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Jul 29, 2019 17:00
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Jul 29, 2019 17:10
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THE one and only correct answer if you give your PCs a motor vehicle you drat well better give them ramps to jump it off
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Jul 29, 2019 17:20
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Take a road trip to Lucas Ranch and find out that the real adventure was the friends you made along the way? Also drive to some peyote.
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Jul 29, 2019 17:21
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Also, have them encounter a person that looks exactly like the person airbrushed onto the side of the van They will probably assume that they're some kind of "chosen one" and take them in and make them an important, featured NPC and search for their destiny they aren't, they're just someone that happens to look like they should be airbrushed onto the side of a van, but after the PCs talk up their importance enough other people will probably start believing it too
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Jul 29, 2019 17:23
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Also, have them encounter a person that looks exactly like the person airbrushed onto the side of the van I love this. the guy is definitely just going to be a deranged wanderer who constantly spouts gibberish too. Definitely going to use this.
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Jul 29, 2019 17:40
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kidkissinger posted:I love this. the guy is definitely just going to be a deranged wanderer who constantly spouts gibberish too. Definitely going to use this. "He must be important! He's on the van!" Even if the PCs don't start thinking it, some of the people they're escorting will, so sooner or later he'll be the focus of a cult You can't go wrong throwing a cult into the mix
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Jul 29, 2019 17:50
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I've got a scenario set up but I need some good hints to drop as clues to what is actually going on The PC's are contracted to go into a haunted forest and take out a powerful demon who is bound there. They are warned that the demon is clever and will try to trick them. Deep in the forest, the party finds a clearing with a circle of glowing runes surrounding a scorched patch of ground with a big angry Balrog looking figure pacing around inside that is obviously far beyond the party's ability to deal with in open combat. Once it spots them, it first starts pounding on an invisible wall where the runes are. Once it calms down a bit, it tells the party that if they free it, it will grand them limitless power elevate them to be it's demonic lieutenants and they'll ride at it's side as it goes on a campaign to slaughter everybody in the entire world. After the party has a few moment to deliberate this offer, a wizard walks into the clearing. The wizard introduces themselves as an archaeologist investigating an ancient temple. While exploring said temple, the wizard accidentally freed the Balrog and, in order to stop it from rampaging freely, bound it to the runic circle. Unfortunately there was nothing to properly anchor the circle to except the wizard themselves so if the wizard ever dies or leaves the forest, the Balrog is freed. The wizard would very much like to do something other than being trapped in the woods with that thing so they request the party to help them perform a ritual to transfer the demon's shackles to something other than themselves. The wizard explains that the only thing capable of permanently trapping something of this kind of Evil is a sacrifice of an equivalent force of Good, like unicorn horns or angel wings. For their troubles, the wizard will teach the party various spells and enchantments he was able to learn from the ruins before the Balrog showed up. The wizard is the real demon What I need is some clues to drop along the way if the party doesn't realize the spoilered part because it's easy to lose track of the exact reason things are being done after the initial briefing and I don't want them to get to the end just for me to go "Actually, you failed because of a thing you did two hours ago at the very start of this quest." So far I have: -The party's employer sends them a letter asking if they made any progress defeating the demon. The letter contains a mention of the demon's shapeshifting powers. -Something they need to kill for the ritual requires a trip to the library. The library's bestiary mentions that only Evil rituals use that critter's body parts. -Said library has absolutely no references to any ancient ruins in that forests, nor have the inhabitants of any nearby wizard towers ever heard of the wizard in the forest.
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Jul 30, 2019 00:08
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I would instantly suspect the gently caress out of that wizard guy
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Jul 30, 2019 00:17
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Don’t make the story hinge on figuring out the secret twist you’re thinking of. I would get stuck overthinking it. They are both demons, obvious one is as he appears, sketchy wizard is the disguised demon. Make sure to have interesting, non game-ending consequences if they trust one or both. Your idea of having them kill a unicorn for the wizard step 1 is great. If your players go for it, you could have them keep doing progressively more outlandishly evil things for the wizard, furthering his demonic plans until they figure it out or just become the villains. TacoNight fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Jul 30, 2019 |
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Jul 30, 2019 01:06
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