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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:Sushi! Cult! Panic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTHn2tHhcI e: A gnomish establishment that specializes in "fake" food: It's perfectly good food, it just looks like other things. Every "vegetable" dish is made of meat, and vice versa. Salmon roses, apple roast beef, anachronistic veggie burgers. No clever name, just the proprietor's name on the shingle outside a nondescript backstreet establishment. Gnomethrottler's, a friendly TGI Friday's style family restaurant. Owned by a half-orc, Gnomethrottler is his family/clan name and he's not going to change just because some lawn ornaments are upset. It's heritage, not hate. It may actually not be hate, your choice, but if it isn't he obviously shouldn't use the phrase "lawn ornaments." Mystic Moonlight Grill: A druidic, localvore, farm-to-table, raw-food restaurant where all the food is grown on the roof. Grill is a misnomer, and they tend to run out quickly until their druids can refresh their spell slots. Contribute an appropriate spell to the running of the restaurant (Create Water, Plant Growth, etc) and receive a 30% discount. Dareon fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 07:35
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Julienne's - a restaurant specializing in tableside preparation (steak tartare is a particular favorite), notable for the flashy knife-work of the tableside servers; secretly a front for a clan of ninjas and/or assassins Aw nice, yah, a hibachi joint.
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Sep 16, 2019 08:48
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Glory to Italia!
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Strom Cuzewon posted:Went for a variation of this, with a dash of Logans Run - as the players murdered the priest and Sin Bearer (a sort of spiritual scapegoat/sin eater chap) the villagers were bereft and in mourning,and a teenage acolyte restarted the sacrifices to try and protect the village. When the players encountered her after her first kill she was wracked with guilt, and, goaded by the ghost of the dead priest (and goaded by the player who killed him) she attacked the group to try and avenge him. What's the mechanics of Spellbound Kingdoms like? Is it worth picking up if one likes the fantasypunk genres?
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Sep 16, 2019 09:07
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Dareon posted:Gnomethrottler's, a friendly TGI Friday's style family restaurant. Owned by a half-orc, Gnomethrottler is his family/clan name and he's not going to change just because some lawn ornaments are upset. It's heritage, not hate. It may actually not be hate, your choice, but if it isn't he obviously shouldn't use the phrase "lawn ornaments." Def in. Dareon posted:Moonlight Grill This is a better name for my "everything on the table volunteered to be eaten" restaurant. DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Julienne's - a restaurant specializing in tableside preparation (steak tartare is a particular favorite), notable for the flashy knife-work of the tableside servers; secretly a front for a clan of ninjas and/or assassins In. They already have a kobold set of passengers on the ship that can work there. Their behavior on the ship is going to influence friends/enemies they start with in the town (in addition to the 1 friend they made in a previous town) as well as word of mouth. Also using a version of WoRR's Cardamom spice trader. Current map:  Might add one more restaurant, then maybe two shops and call it a day. Nephzinho fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 14:47
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How did you get the map to do that?
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Sep 16, 2019 15:06
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Josef bugman posted:How did you get the map to do that? MS Paint.
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Sep 16, 2019 15:09
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Nephzinho posted:Alright, the group has cleared out the haunting and is about to depart for their new home. Once there they'll be setting down some roots and future adventures for at least a few months will be based out of it. I have a map that I'm filling in with various competing restaurants and a few shops -- let's hear some suggestions for good restaurants? In the last dnd game I ran, "The Braggin' Dragon" was the hoity-toity inn and "The Flagon Wagon" was the shithole e: and in my last WoRCc game of season 2, i finally managed to introduce Cardamom, via a scheme where she used the players to attempt to murder another spicer. They delivered a homemade pie that was actually filled with four-and-twenty blackbird assassins Ignite Memories fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 15:18
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Ignite Memories posted:In the last dnd game I ran, "The Braggin' Dragon" was the hoity-toity inn and "The Flagon Wagon" was the shithole I love the idea/name so much but am taking it in a very very very different direction. Her partner and who the party will think is the bad guy is Filson Whisk, a bugbear who runs the docks and beats the poo poo out of people/throws poo poo around/is very obviously a bad guy. Cardamom's shop is actually going to be their main supplier for ingredients outside of the oddities they have to hunt down/special order, she'll also help them upgrade their kitchen hardware. To be fair the party might not even go near it and it might never come up - they tend to turn a blind eye to anything going on that doesn't directly impact their ability to get a michelin star. If they decide to pursue the storyline they're going to "catch" Whisk, get him cornered, and Cardamom is going to have a nice reveal via kicking their asses/drugging them after being their main supplier and the person who helped them really improve the restaurant. Might force this plot if they flounder by saying "there's a drug problem in the city that is causing the foot traffic/tourism to go down, impacting the appeal of the restaurants location and ambiance to critics as well as just having you make less money". So far we've fairly been on rails with serving their first critic > getting run out of town > entering a chili contest in a neighboring town > taking care of a haunted property as a favor to their new landlord > sailing from the haunted property to the town where their new lease is > the grand re-opening of the restaurant. From there they will be pretty central in the continent and we're going to pretty much take a session "off" to discuss their options for what to do next via a full session of them exploring the town and talking to people/looking at postings. Just setting the table with the map of this town that is going to presumably be their home base for the next 6-7 levels before they start venturing to the michelin star board's HQ for the campaign's endgame.
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Sep 16, 2019 15:30
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Shouldn't it be called something other than "a Michelin star", or has that ship sailed?
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Sep 16, 2019 19:14
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Loxbourne posted:2. How to signal that NPCs are gonna lie to them without putting giant neon arrows above their heads? The game does have "GM tells player if NPC is lying" powers but neither player's class has them. I had thought, in a noirish Veronica Mars kinda game, that the players would start out sceptical and questioning, but clearly that didn't happen. Dead pan and sincerely lie to the whole group and then pick two players and ask "How did your character KNOW they were lying beyond a shadow of a doubt? What gave them away?" Let them provide some details-after-the-fact and also show them that there are no clear signs but also get them in on collaborative story telling etc. Also asking randomly "Does your character think they were lying or telling the truth?" to random players after random conversations. "Do YOU think they were lying or telling the truth". Don't ever say right or wrong just ask them randomly for liars and truth tellers alike, randomly.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:42
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ILL Machina posted:Shouldn't it be called something other than "a Michelin star", or has that ship sailed? It is but i call it that in this thread so that i don't have to explain it. e; There is a culinary institute that is named after its founder, the stars are named after her. Her original culinary school si a ruin they'll explore later and find her sous chef's journal that is sentient and can answer questions. If they get their 2nd star and travel to the institute's HQ they'll have the opportunity to go for the 3rd star that is incredibly rarely given out. It involves cooking a meal for the founder herself, who lives in an isolated tower and is actually a lich. The final meal is soul-ffle. They either will be required to sacrifice a PCs soul as part of the preparation and get the star they've spent the entire campaign going after, or fight the founder in her lair. Nephzinho fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 20:00
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Nephzinho posted:It is but i call it that in this thread so that i don't have to explain it. What is it, out of curiosity, and does it have supporting lore?
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Sep 16, 2019 20:07
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ILL Machina posted:What is it, out of curiosity, and does it have supporting lore? They're Vecna Stars, boasting centuries of tradition and consistency that only an organization run by a lich can provide
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Sep 16, 2019 20:10
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ILL Machina posted:What is it, out of curiosity, and does it have supporting lore? Qualanthri. Semi-random elven name. I was already editing in some of the background above.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:10
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:He's telling the truth, but there's something fishy about his smile. The next town over is Innsmouth.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:41
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Tias posted:What's the mechanics of Spellbound Kingdoms like? Is it worth picking up if one likes the fantasypunk genres? It's written by one dude, who got pissed off with WotC loving up the DnD supplements he wrote, and decided to make his own insane passion project - yeah there's some slightly wonky rules, and it needs a drat good editing, but it's absolutely dripping with atmosphere and style in both writing and mechanics. Characters have a stock of "mood" which can be damaged in social combat, but also can be used to absorb hits or boost rolls, which leads to fantastic fiction/mechanic interactions like torturing someone with nightmares to make them easier to kill, or punching a dude so brutally that people watching lose all respect for him. It also uses a cool dicepool-take-highest system - your rank in stats and stuff determines the size of dice you use, and you add bonus dice to the pool for character backgrounds or special equipment and stuff, so it's really easy to hand out bonuses in the form of extra dice or increased dice sizes, which helps keep things moving briskly. There are rules for running a company/troupe as well, which work the same way, so if the party want to send a squad of hired thugs to arrest the evil duke they can do it in one or two dice rolls. Combat uses "style sheets" which are kind of flowcharts of moves and combos. It works loving great for dramatic duels, but my players haven't really taken to it when I've scrawled maps on a big bit of paper. It doesn't care about precise positioning so I want to do more theatre of mind combats - I started DMing with Dungeon World, so that's what I'm used to, and it'll jive well with the swashbuckling feel of the system. Some of the classes are a bit anaemic compared to each other, and magic still rules the day - the Noble class has to wait til max level to get a protege that you can turn on your enemies, but from level 8 or so wizards can blight whole counties, summon armies of undead or block out the sun. The classes are really simple mechanically, so I hacked most of them up to give the players the fun abilities earlier (like the protege, or the rogue's network of false identities) There was a F&F review of it a few years ago, which mostly consisted of breathless claims about how insane the author is, and its hard to argue with the hyperbole. It's a game designed specifically and intensely for emotionally charged adventures, full of dasterdly rivals, lost loves, and horrifying magic. That was a lot of words for "yes, it owns"
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Sep 16, 2019 20:44
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Are there any good actual plays of Spellbound Kingdoms around? It sounds interesting and I'd like to get an idea of how it actually works as opposed to just reading the primer by itself.
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Sep 17, 2019 08:42
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Hey Thread. I posted in here years ago but kind of stopped playing for a long time. Lately however, I've been a player with a group that's just way more compatible with my idea of dnd and so I've started fiddling with the idea to start a new DnD campaign with these three people. For a first quest (they're gonna start at lvl 5 or 6, I think, since the first levels are kind of boring imo) they're supposed to hunt down and kill a spirit naga that they know lives in an old abandoned temple in a desert, but not exactly where in the desert. I now had the idea that since Spirit Nagas don't nead to eat, drink or breathe to survive, that it could have gotten itself stuck in a bag of holding, Is this a bad idea? I'm afraid the players won't figure out that it's in there, but I really love the idea that they stick their hand down a bag of holding and pull out a giant venomous centipede mage. Maybe I could make it so that when they get something else out of the bag there's a chance the Naga will be quick enough to use the temporary portal to this pocket dimension to jump out? Maybe the chance increases everytime they use it as the Naga learns more about it. It'd actually be funny as poo poo if they went to pick something up in a store to get appraised and this giant moster pops out.
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Sep 17, 2019 15:25
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Just finished my second years long RPG in a row and am enjoying a well deserved break from GMing, so my unsolicited advice to all of you is to just keep running the game until it's done. Don't give it to burn out; if you get weary towards the end just cut your prep work down to the bone. My last game was 40k rpg, an extremely crunch/rules heavy system, yet my last few sessions had absolutely zero book keeping, no monster stats, no preconceived maps, no nothing; that kept me running the game and now it's done. I'm already gearing up to feel reeeeal smug when the successor games my friends run all fizzle out.
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Sep 17, 2019 15:48
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Strom Cuzewon posted:It's written by one dude, who got pissed off with WotC loving up the DnD supplements he wrote, and decided to make his own insane passion project - yeah there's some slightly wonky rules, and it needs a drat good editing, but it's absolutely dripping with atmosphere and style in both writing and mechanics. Characters have a stock of "mood" which can be damaged in social combat, but also can be used to absorb hits or boost rolls, which leads to fantastic fiction/mechanic interactions like torturing someone with nightmares to make them easier to kill, or punching a dude so brutally that people watching lose all respect for him. That does sound amazing. Would it, in your opinion, work with a couple of guys whose only prior gaming experience is D&D?
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Sep 17, 2019 17:38
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Ceros_X posted:Dead pan and sincerely lie to the whole group and then pick two players and ask "How did your character KNOW they were lying beyond a shadow of a doubt? What gave them away?" Let them provide some details-after-the-fact and also show them that there are no clear signs but also get them in on collaborative story telling etc. Also asking randomly "Does your character think they were lying or telling the truth?" to random players after random conversations. "Do YOU think they were lying or telling the truth". Don't ever say right or wrong just ask them randomly for liars and truth tellers alike, randomly. Thanks for this, by the way. I intend to implement it.
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Sep 17, 2019 22:24
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Tias posted:That does sound amazing. Would it, in your opinion, work with a couple of guys whose only prior gaming experience is D&D? It’d work fine, it’s not that different and other systems aren’t hard to learn.
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Sep 17, 2019 23:03
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Man with Hat posted:Hey Thread. I posted in here years ago but kind of stopped playing for a long time. Lately however, I've been a player with a group that's just way more compatible with my idea of dnd and so I've started fiddling with the idea to start a new DnD campaign with these three people. It sounds cool but the obvious possible failure point is that they wander around the desert going "I wonder where that naga is" and not having fun. The only way to avoid an anticlimax, I think, is if it pops out of the BoH as soon as they reach into it.
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Sep 18, 2019 13:38
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Whatever you do don't let your players go into places and ask "Yo where my Nagas at?"
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Sep 18, 2019 13:43
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Lich please
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Sep 18, 2019 13:44
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Man with Hat posted:It'd actually be funny as poo poo if they went to pick something up in a store to get appraised and this giant moster pops out. Then just make that happen?
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Sep 18, 2019 13:44
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Guildencrantz posted:It sounds cool but the obvious possible failure point is that they wander around the desert going "I wonder where that naga is" and not having fun. The only way to avoid an anticlimax, I think, is if it pops out of the BoH as soon as they reach into it. If they do this, yeah, it'll probably just figure out how to escape on its own. I'd be hoping they'll assume they got bad information and go look for better info somewhere, but if they don't I'll not just sit and wait for some arbitrary thing I decided beforehand before anything happens. Good thinking though, this is something I'll have to consider Subjunctive posted:Then just make that happen? Yeah, of course I could just go "Suddenly a thing pops out of your bag" but I'd kind of want it to be because of something and not just out of nowhere. But sure, if there's a good time for it I'll just skip the whole "there's a chance" part and make it happen. But I want them to feel it's at least partially their fault a store clerk is attacked by this thing. Plutonis posted:Whatever you do don't let your players go into places and ask "Yo where my Nagas at?" Azhais posted:Lich please lol
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Sep 18, 2019 14:51
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Make a habit of asking what they pull/put items in to carry When they get the BoH start rolling your loudest die whenever they use it. Spring it when you want/feel is best regardless of die roll.
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Sep 18, 2019 15:07
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Nasgate posted:Make a habit of asking what they pull/put items in to carry This is a great way to do it, thanks!
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Sep 18, 2019 15:12
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Man with Hat posted:This is a great way to do it, thanks! No problem. I love using dice to create player tension. Though heads up if any of them metagame. They might try to take it to a big time mage to make sure it's not a bag of devouring.
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Sep 18, 2019 16:20
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Think my map is set for getting started: Plenty to do, some plot threads to pull at, and some room to expand.
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Sep 18, 2019 16:46
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Nasgate posted:No problem. I love using dice to create player tension. Though heads up if any of them metagame. They might try to take it to a big time mage to make sure it's not a bag of devouring. I don't think the players know that's a thing and eh, let them. They'll just be told it's a regular bag of holding. BTW, Neph, I love your map - the simplicity is brilliant and beautiful.
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Sep 18, 2019 17:15
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I'm planning on sending my players on a trek through an enchanted forest on a diplomatic mission to the local major nature spirit. Obviously fey places are perfect to harmlessly gently caress with the players, so I got the idea to subvert their adventuring instincts. In between fighting the usual Nasty Creatures Corrupting The Sacred Groves, they will encounter what looks like obvious traps for the unwary, but is actually the friendly, naive locals being nice. There's no trick to it, if the PC's show trust they will get boons, and if they don't they miss out on cool stuff that would make combats easier, plus the fey bigwig at the end will be somewhat offended. I'm looking for ideas like: A huge, gnarly old tree suddenly speaks and offers them shade to rest in and some tasty-looking unknown fruit from its branches. The fruit are delicious, provide healing and remove debuffs. A beautiful fey-touched elf girl is loudly crying because her favorite songbird died. She asks for a hug to cheer her up. If a PC does hug her, she provides a minor blessing. Etc. Just magic-forest-themed stuff that's a giant red flag to a cynical seasoned adventurer, but is actually exactly the nice, wholesome, beneficial thing it looks like.
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Sep 18, 2019 19:55
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A small lumpen looking creature made out of shadow and wearing a ridiculous hat wants to show your party a collection of interesting object it has found. It does so, showing the party a variety of minor trinkets and one quite nice magical item (wand of some description maybe?) A terrifying multilayered spirit speaking in rhyme attempts to bargain for some "minor object" from the PC's and will grant them a great boon in exchange. In actuality the creature is a minor Fey lord that has been told to create at least one bargain to be free of the curse and will be extremely grateful to any that deal with it. Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Sep 18, 2019 |
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Sep 18, 2019 20:21
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Every time the party finishes resting, they notice a path that wasn't there before. Conveniently, it seems to go off in the direction they were heading before the break. If they take the path, it's fairly safe and leads them to another good resting spot closer to their destination. If they decide to rough it, bring on the bumps, bruises, and slightly more encounters. This could annoy the bigwig at the end even more if that individual was the one reshaping the forest to make it happen.
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Sep 18, 2019 20:28
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Guildencrantz posted:I'm planning on sending my players on a trek through an enchanted forest on a diplomatic mission to the local major nature spirit. Obviously fey places are perfect to harmlessly gently caress with the players, so I got the idea to subvert their adventuring instincts. In between fighting the usual Nasty Creatures Corrupting The Sacred Groves, they will encounter what looks like obvious traps for the unwary, but is actually the friendly, naive locals being nice. There's no trick to it, if the PC's show trust they will get boons, and if they don't they miss out on cool stuff that would make combats easier, plus the fey bigwig at the end will be somewhat offended. The classic straight out of medieval literature is coming across a small lake; on its shores sits a beautiful woman who invited the party to join her for a meal. They will obviously expect poison or 'now you wander the woods for seven years' kind of faerie food. However, if they accept, the food is excellent and tasty, and she plays a song to lift the spirit of the brave heroes, granting them all Inspiration (for 5e; some other morale-based bennie in another system). If they're charming enough, go ahead and keep the lady around as a recurring NPC. She's not a powerful fae noble or anything, she's a completely normal human who happens to live on the edge of the faerie-infested land and understands that by acting like a stereotypical Fair Maiden she keeps the fae happy and they'll keep up the whole 'we'll just quietly slow her aging and make her beautiful so she fits the milieu a bit better' blessing she's under. *** The PCs encounter a bridge over a small stream, stride which stands a noble and well-accoutred Faerie Knight (go all out, give him the gleaming plate mail and the inhuman features and everything). He explains that he has been cursed to challenge all who would cross the bridge to a duel. If they let him keep talking, he explains that every time he loses a duel he also loses a memory of his dead mortal love, but his honor demands that he encourage his opponents to fight with all of their heart. Meanwhile the stream is approximately one foot deep and can be waded through with ease if the PCs decide to just go around the poor dude. If they fight him, he will turn out to be fantastically low-leveled and easy for the PCs to defeat... if they choose to. For bonus points have them come across a high-level magic item that could be sacrificed to break the curse on the poor sap. It turns out he's not under a curse at all, but is in fact the major nature spirit's bodyguard, sent to test the PC's honor. If they fight him and throw the fight he is displeased, but praises their kind hearts. If they fight him and beat him, he declares them cold but honorable (unless they gang up on him in which case they are vile blackhearts). If they go around the bridge to bypass the duel, he is delighted by their 'mortal ingenuity.' Only if they 'remove the curse' will he unreservedly talk them up as good dudes to the nature spirit they've come to treat with. *** The party encounters several examples of medieval animal allegories. Foxes feigning death to trick birds into flying low enough that they can be caught, a lion breathing life into dead cubs, that kind of thing. As any skilled woodsman will immediately know that no, animals don't actually loving work like that, they could choose to investigate and find a trickster spirit using illusions to try to 'educate' his fellow spirits, having been summoned by a wizard, bound into service for a while, and found religion along the way. If they can nonviolently convince the spirit to knock it off the nature spirit they're sent to treat with will be pleased, because he's sick and tired of the local dryads coming up to him and asking why the local stags have started drowning snakes in their dens. DivineCoffeeBinge fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Sep 19, 2019 |
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Sep 19, 2019 09:16
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gently caress the Faerie Knight bit is amazing. Really could have used it a few weeks ago when I ran a feywood interlude, but I'm definitely gonna try and remember it for future similar bits.
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Sep 19, 2019 09:46
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Do any of you guys have positive experiences having a player participate through skype or discord, in cases when they can't be there in person? If so can you recommend software that's well suited for it? Would a laptop w/ webcam on each end be sufficient? We have a regular group with people who have experience playing together, but one of our players travels frequently for work so we're having trouble getting into a regular schedule.
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Sep 19, 2019 14:49
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Devonaut posted:Do any of you guys have positive experiences having a player participate through skype or discord, in cases when they can't be there in person? If so can you recommend software that's well suited for it? Would a laptop w/ webcam on each end be sufficient? We have a regular group with people who have experience playing together, but one of our players travels frequently for work so we're having trouble getting into a regular schedule. I just set up my laptop at the end of the table with the webcam aimed at the board as needed, or aimed at the group otherwise. Google hangout video call. We have a slack for resources and poo poo and there's a roller there.
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Sep 19, 2019 15:29
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I’m about to start my first campaign as DM. For the first session I’m running a pre-made but have a world and story outline to fall into after that. What are some better ways to tie the main story hook into the end of the first adventure which are more interesting than “Local historian reads the documents you found and it’s an ancient prophecy about the end of the world”?
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Sep 19, 2019 15:43
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