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DCB has hit the most important structural stuff, so I'll touch on some peripheral things that will also help as the investigation progresses: Introduce Time Pressure. If the players have infinite time to gently caress around looking for clues, the investigation becomes old in a hurry. This will lead the players to do poo poo like follow down every tiny, insignificant, trivial detail you unknowingly put before them (because trust me, one of them will latch onto any molehill piece of fluff in your description/exposition and make a mountain out of it). Worse, each one will have their own pet (terrible) theory and they'll want to track them all down just to be super duper uber sure they have the killer. This will result in numerous arguments and a huge and frustrating waste of time for everyone involved. If there is time pressure (Baron McSuspect's entourage will be moving on in a few days, the guests will be able to leave the house once the storm ends, the killer will be able to escape via the Ur-Gate once they have all seven keys, whatever), then they will come to some consensus and concentrate on the stuff that they see as most likely first. Combined with flexibility above, this will cause the party's best (and most stealable) ideas percolating to the top quickly. Clues From Conflict. Freely give out information as background to give players sufficient context in which to place the clues they receive, but big-c "Clues" should always come at a cost. This means the players have to do something or expose themselves to some kind of risk or danger to get them. Like, the body is hung up on a rock in a raging rapids, so if they want to examine the wounds they're going to have to brave the torrent to recover the cadaver. Similarly, no suspect is going to give them free, full, and/or accurate information whenever they ask for it, so make them put those social skills to work. Even something as simple as chasing down the gardener - an obvious suspect, no doubt fleeing because he knows he's an obvious suspect and doesn't want the murder pinned on him - as he flees through the hedge maze can make for a fun encounter. Have The Killer React. The murderer isn't going to just kill one person and then mildly go about their business waiting to be caught. No, they're going to try to cover their tracks after the fact. And the more clues the PCs amass, the more dangerous they become to the killer's attempts to evade suspicion. And the more dangerous the PCs become, the more the killer will be pressured to act against them. This can be anything from stealing or destroying evidence to actively framing someone else for the murder to ultimately attacking the PCs themselves (though preferably through cut-outs or indirect means). This is a great way to introduce new lines of investigation if the players feel like they've gotten stuck; they may have run into a wall in terms of murder suspects, but whoever set fire to the tower in which they were staying is almost certainly the killer (or someone controlled by the killer), so if they can figure out who did that then they're back in business. Have Other Suspects React. This same notion can be extended to your red-herrings as well. If Chancellor McLooks-Guilty knows that he has written a hostile and threatening letter to the victim, he may take steps to recover/destroy that letter before it becomes a "Clue" even though he didn't actually commit the murder - especially if he believes his own alibi to be weak. This will be a great way to introduce red-herrings or highlight Clues that the players may have missed initially. Keep Things Moving. You can make things as simple or complicated as you want, but it's important that the players should always feel like they're making progress. And if they feel like they are stuck, it's up to you to introduce something to the situation that either gives them a new Clue or gives them context to re-examine one they already have but have overlooked.
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Sep 22, 2019 17:33
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What's all of your approach to making NPCs? I'm not sure how much to plan out for people. I realize a good idea is to prepare some generic simple NPCs for when the players go somewhere random, but how do you guys tend to do that? Just a list of names to pull from? If anyone wants to post some examples of what you've done in preparation for both important and random NPCs that'd be cool. 5e if that matters
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Sep 23, 2019 09:28
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A name generator/pregenerated list at the bare minimum to pull from at a moments notice. I tend to plan out a location and think about the persons of interest that would likely populate it, e.g. a small traditional d&d fantasy village would probably be similar to a medieval settlement and have a local blacksmith who would at least work on farming tools and equipment if not arms and armour, probably with an apprentice to assist them, so I'll add those to the list of POIs. Beyond that I try to think about things like the general knowledge level of the average npc in that location (e.g. would most of them know much beyond the next village over and really have any idea of what the latest fashion trends are in the capital), local customs, religion, dress and so on to create a base to work from, build on that for the important npcs previously identified and then maybe add a few flavour ones like a town drunk. Ultimately though you can't plan for every dumb thing your players will do and they may well latch on to some random scrub farmhand, thinking that maybe they know something about a local cult. If it makes sense, go with it, make that farmhand be the cult agent rather than the aforementioned town drunk you had initially planned it to be and whom the party are not interested in. Or don't, keep them a random scrub farmhand and when the party persuade them to stick their nose in to cult stuff have them meet with an unfortunate accident/become indoctrinated by the cult and lead the party into a trap. Be flexible and adapt.
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Sep 23, 2019 10:20
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Man with Hat posted:What's all of your approach to making NPCs? I'm not sure how much to plan out for people. I realize a good idea is to prepare some generic simple NPCs for when the players go somewhere random, but how do you guys tend to do that? Just a list of names to pull from? Okay, so for me the big thing is to prioritize and sort them into categories, namely "Important NPCs" and "Unimportant NPCs". Important NPCs, I approach their creation the same way I approach creating a PC as a player. Make them interesting. Drop hooks into their story and personality for future stories to hang on. Create as few of these as you can get away with, because you want to make sure they're distinct and different and notable and memorable, and you don't want to get stuck in a rut with them. Write out as much detail as you feel comfortable with, then put it to one side and forget about it for a while. Unimportant NPCs, I've found, can be handily created with a handy random chart. Get a list of like 20 names, then a list of 20 personality traits (like 'greedy' or 'kinda dumb' or 'extremely religious'), then a list of 20 unique visual signals (like 'bright red hair' or 'big nose' or 'interesting scar'), then roll 3d20. Cross off the ones you use, maybe write down the NPC name-trait-visual combo for later reference if you think they might show up again.
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Sep 23, 2019 10:22
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Okay, so for me the big thing is to prioritize and sort them into categories, namely "Important NPCs" and "Unimportant NPCs". yeah, this is good, but also keep an eye out for which npcs the players like and bring them back. Same goes for villains - do your best to have interesting villains escape, albeit with a scar or a reason to hate the party so, so much. i like a couple of notes about how they talk - hunched over, wide eyed, wave their hands around
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Sep 23, 2019 11:07
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Absolutely keep notes of any Unimportant NPC that your players glom onto - and they will glom onto one, I promise you. You may have come up with Rex the Watchman (strange sense of humor, crooked nose like it's been broken before) on the spur of the moment when a PC needed a watchman to report a crime to, but that doesn't mean the PCs aren't gonna do poo poo like "hey, we captured a major villain, let's turn him over to Rex so he can get a promotion!"
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Sep 23, 2019 11:22
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Absolutely keep notes of any Unimportant NPC that your players glom onto - and they will glom onto one, I promise you. You may have come up with Rex the Watchman (strange sense of humor, crooked nose like it's been broken before) on the spur of the moment when a PC needed a watchman to report a crime to, but that doesn't mean the PCs aren't gonna do poo poo like "hey, we captured a major villain, let's turn him over to Rex so he can get a promotion!" A recurring set of NPCs right now are random dudes from a random encounter that they befriended, then got fired from their jobs, and now continue to get work in other cities around the world as guards.
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Sep 23, 2019 13:39
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Nephzinho posted:A recurring set of NPCs right now are random dudes from a random encounter that they befriended, then got fired from their jobs, and now continue to get work in other cities around the world as guards. I really hope they have a Rosencrantz/Guildenstern dynamic. In my earth-based Post-Apocalypse campaign, the party is returning to their outpost after scouring the wasteland for survivors and supplies for a week. For their efforts they have recovered a MIRV from an ICBM with 8 warheads, as well as a Hydroponics expert who should be able to assist them in growing food for their outpost. However, they've also drawn the ire of The Baron, a local feudal lord who belongs to a group of survivors from beneath a Medieval Times. (he is fully committed to playing the part of a medieval baron, questionable english accent, ill-fitting tunic, etc). The party was seriously wounded in the last encounter and they are being forced to return to the outpost to receive surgery and rest. During this time, I would like the Baron to show up with a small army and demand their surrender. Any tips for a siege situation? Their outpost is built in a semi-ruined biotech facility, with a patched up ten-foot tall concrete wall and several massive geodesic domes full of highly advanced GMO plants.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:08
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kidkissinger posted:I really hope they have a Rosencrantz/Guildenstern dynamic. Biggs & Wedge.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:12
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Man with Hat posted:What's all of your approach to making NPCs? I'm not sure how much to plan out for people. I realize a good idea is to prepare some generic simple NPCs for when the players go somewhere random, but how do you guys tend to do that? Just a list of names to pull from? Definitely don't stat anything up unless you know you're going to need the numbers. Most of the time just knowing what the average stat/save/etc is good enough, you don't need the full stat sheet for the barman, but knowing he's an ex-merc dwarf means you can just take the average will save and add 2 to it or something if the party try to intimidate him.
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Sep 23, 2019 16:46
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kidkissinger posted:I really hope they have a Rosencrantz/Guildenstern dynamic. An actual literal catapult made of rusty car parts and soft drink vending machines
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Sep 23, 2019 21:28
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sebmojo posted:An actual literal catapult made of rusty car parts and soft drink vending machines Nice. I was thinking of having them scale the walls with a couple armored airport stair-cars too.
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Sep 23, 2019 21:34
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kidkissinger posted:Nice. I was thinking of having them scale the walls with a couple armored airport stair-cars too. A ram made of a telegraph pole with the cables still attached (that's how they pull it back for the next swing)
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Sep 24, 2019 00:20
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ILL Machina posted:PowerPoint has that, along with room for notes on the preview screen, but you probably cant do anything else on the preview computer. My other dumb thought was to stream pictures with OBS yeah I think I'm just going to end up using a makeup mirror and see how that goes tonight. I don't need to see precisely what's on there, just make sure it looks like I think it should Man with Hat posted:What's all of your approach to making NPCs? this has been treaded well with good advice already, but- I run my game using a laptop and just keep npcgenerator.com in a tab- not so much to stat out the NPCs, or to follow down to the letter, but to give me some seed material to start from if they decide to start talking to some rando I'm planning a segment down the road in my 5e D&D game where the PCs travel to the past to retrieve a missing artifact (missing, presumably, because it was stolen from the past by these selfsame knuckleheads), and I'm converting their characters to 2nd edition AD&D to complete the feel. It got me thinking about a future-travel scenario and how that would be handled- it seems like a loving enormous task for little payoff to imagine what, like, 9th edition is gonna be like and then create a comprehensive system for it- are there good systems that would match that feel? (I thought about using Paranoia, but I wanna save that for a dungeon delve that ends up being p much Alpha Complex)
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Sep 24, 2019 15:39
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13th Age has plenty of D&D DNA and you could plug in a more "standard" skill system to sell the idea that it's Future D&D. Make a skill list that covers all the stuff your players have, then liberally salt it with skill descriptors from all editions and other games. If your players tolerate it, one or two characters could lose a seldomly used skill that Future D&D just doesn't have. Also change some class names. Not all of them, there will still be fighters and wizards and rogues, but one player should find their usual class is called something else in Future D&D. Another player should find a multiclass character on their Future sheet. There are no paladins in 9th edition anymore, the best approximation is a Warlord/Cleric. Don't actually make a multiclass character, just switch the class name to something plausible (or if you have to make a multiclass character in whatever substitute system you use to get their character, obviously go with that). My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Sep 24, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 15:54
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I have a player who has a warlock pact with a host of dead soldiers he once fought alongside who he has sworn to take vengeance for. Except the situation has changed and the dudes got a son now and the anger ghosts almost made him do some bad stuff. He wants to break the pact but the ghosts won't let him. The party has a lead on a path forward for him, but now the ghosts know he is actively trying to banish him. A few of the ghost host are sympathetic and want the pact to be broken and are trying to keep him insulated from the worst of it., but they can't hold out forever. What are some cool ways I can pepper in the pact failing/rebelling that isn't going to totally gently caress over the player or make it in fun to play?
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Sep 24, 2019 21:39
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Farg posted:I have a player who has a warlock pact with a host of dead soldiers he once fought alongside who he has sworn to take vengeance for. Except the situation has changed and the dudes got a son now and the anger ghosts almost made him do some bad stuff. He wants to break the pact but the ghosts won't let him.
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Sep 24, 2019 21:47
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Farg posted:I have a player who has a warlock pact with a host of dead soldiers he once fought alongside who he has sworn to take vengeance for. Except the situation has changed and the dudes got a son now and the anger ghosts almost made him do some bad stuff. He wants to break the pact but the ghosts won't let him. The Angry Ghosts are getting so worked up about their need to take vengeance that they fail to notice the Forgiving Ghosts sort of splitting off into their own separate collective entity; the Forgiving Ghosts are willing to take over as the new Pact partners so the warlock can go and live a gentler and more optimistic life (and probably get new powers based on, like, protecting others from suffering the same fate that befell them), but they're not strong enough to survive the Angry Ghost's retaliation, so in order to free the warlock (without making him lose class levels or whatever) the party has to travel to the nebulous afterlife plane all the ghosts partially exist on and defeat the army of Angry Ghosts in battle so they can be sent off to their deserved afterlife.
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Sep 24, 2019 21:48
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Farg posted:What are some cool ways I can pepper in the pact failing/rebelling that isn't going to totally gently caress over the player or make it in fun to play? I think the unique thing you have going is that the pact is with a group and not just an individual. You're already introduced the potential for pluralities and flux, so it makes sense that the character could support one side or the other and have one of two generally beneficial outcomes, maybe shifting the patron alignment and some ability flavor, while maintaining his patron in the end. Phantasmal Legion patron sounds pretty cool. Extra points for making the fallout of the otherworldly civil war grisly af, whether the "good" side wins or not. It's like having a real army to manage, requiring periodic gold or glory to maintain the power they can provide reliably.
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Sep 24, 2019 22:00
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Glory to Italia!
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Infinite Karma posted:Maybe have a mini-adventure/scene prepared for the next time he gets knocked down to 0, and his half-dead ghost has to interact with/fight the vengeful ghosts to get back to his body? And have the other PCs either control friendly ghost NPCs or copies of their own characters for that portion of the game? Group C don't read I dig this idea a lot. A bit more background for context: the pact is made with the ghosts of soldiers who died near him during the Mourning (eberron, player is a warforged). So some of the ghosts are his old allies, some are random soldiers. He swore to find out who/what caused it. He recently picked up even MORE ghosts when he swore revenge on an arc villain who caused a train full of people who died, but that bond was severed when the totem symbolizing the pact was destroyed by his adopted son, which is what convinced him he needs to get rid of this whole situation. So he has a few built in 'allies' in this internal war. So far I've had the ghosts manifest in obtrusive ways. Where previously they would sometimes show up and talk to him and be invisible to the rest of the party, they've now shown up able to affect the real world and break windows and threaten the group. The current plan is for the arc to culminate in a dangerous ritual to sever the pact, which will result in a big ghostlegion boss fight against the pact itself. But maybe depending on how persuasive he's been and what actions he takes there could be backup in an otherwise very dangerous encounter in terms of the 'good' ghosts showing up and staying true to him even as he works to send them to their final rest? I think it could be a strong encounter
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Sep 24, 2019 22:26
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Farg posted:Group C don't read If the ghosts already appear menacingly out of combat, maybe have one possess a dead body in the middle of combat (i.e. as the party kills enemies), to escalate the situation and make the party feel some more urgency? It could also give a chance for the entire party to get to know a named NPC who pops up multiple times as an adversary. Raising the stakes further to ghosts attempting to possess the Warforged PC as time passes could also be a flashpoint. Without knowing more about the clues you've dropped about the mysteries like "who did the Mourning" and "where did Warforged really come from" for your campaign, it's hard to give specifics, but Eberron has a ton of potential for those pulpy slow-burning mysteries, it sounds like you've got the mood perfectly.
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Sep 24, 2019 23:01
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Infinite Karma posted:Enemy adventuring parties/superteams at setpiece locations are my favorite boss fights, but maybe that's just me. I'd much rather have 4-8 cool and unique enemy soldiers for the party to take on than just 1 big blobby "boss monster" with a bag of HP and legendary actions. But it sounds like a solid plan to me, as long as there's some sort of new pact he gets to form to continue being a Warlock, either with a different patron or the leftover allied ghosts (or he just has those powers free and clear without a pact, which might be a cool mystery). I was thinking big boss monster + lots of ghost soliders. Plus have the side objective of the player in question needing to complete some sort of ritual without being interrupted, which puts the onus on his party members (assisted by the won over ghosts) to keep him safe until the final blow can be dealt the player is a vengeance paladin / hexblade so the current plan is to let him keep the hexblade dip as sort of the lingering magic / willpower from the pact and then change oaths (he has expressed interest in redemption paladin maybe) I like the ghosts occasionally making unrelated fights more complicated idea a whole lot. As for the Mourning in our campaign: They recently defeated an extremely famous ex-adventurer and high ranking member of House Cannith who turned out to be the secret leader of a 'terrorist' organization that was killing and raiding Cannith facilities. Turns out he knew that Cannith maybe caused the Mourning by tampering with horrific technology and some sort of 'entity' they dug up from an ancient ruin somewhere deep in Cyre, and was gathering evidence to expose them but also was going crazy because he was experimenting on himself with some of that tech and was planning on killing a whole lot of people to ruin Cannith forever. Also the head researchers in charge of the project that seemingly caused the Mourning were a different PC's parents. Thanks to messing with some of this tech + mystic visions, the party has come in contact with some sort of incredibly powerful yet seemingly benevolent motherly figure who appears to them in their dreams in a weird fog plane, who claims to have given the warforged the ability to make their pact out of a misguided attempt to comfort them after the loss of their allies. The voice is also incredibly insistent that the party needs to pick up the ex-adventurer's work where he left off or else something super duper bad will happen, so they are trying to do that while also managing their new found fame for exposing the corruption of House Cannith (which is currently based out of Karrnath primarily because this campaign is 20 years after the Mourning and this is maybe going to reignite the last war woops) So now they have leads on various ancient sites that have something to do with the Mourning and this ancient civilization, a voice in their heads, newfound fame and power, angry ghosts, one character determined to prove that his parents didn't intentionally kill everyone in the Mourning, and also a big tournament coming up next month in Sharn with an airship as a prize! Also the druid has started a grove in the small town their guild branch is based off of that is currently be threatened by ~real estate developers~. It's a fun campaign to run. Oh and a former companion of that ex-adventurer is the president of the Wayfinder's Foundation right now and really would like to meet up and discuss all this ancient tech business with them
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Sep 24, 2019 23:27
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Peanut Butler posted:yeah I think I'm just going to end up using a makeup mirror and see how that goes tonight. I don't need to see precisely what's on there, just make sure it looks like I think it should What about the alternate present? Magic the Gathering did a great time travel series, Time Spiral. The past set was just a load of iconic reprints, but the Present had loads of What If?/Elsewords variants of iconic cards,and the Future set had them chuck in a bunch of crazy nonsense that they had planned for future sets, only about half of which actually came to anything. It also had funky "new" and futuristic card layouts. Rejigging the names is a good start, but I'd throw in some off the wall core mechanic that changes how they relate to basic parts of the game. Maybe rolls are 2d10 instead of d20, distances are metric now, spells are named after people they've never heard of (or some dumb kid wizard from their time invented the equivalent of Melfs Acid Arrow), replace advantage with SotDL boons etc. Stuff that is familiar, but also not.
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Sep 24, 2019 23:45
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Peanut Butler posted:I'm planning a segment down the road in my 5e D&D game where the PCs travel to the past to retrieve a missing artifact (missing, presumably, because it was stolen from the past by these selfsame knuckleheads), and I'm converting their characters to 2nd edition AD&D to complete the feel. It got me thinking about a future-travel scenario and how that would be handled- it seems like a loving enormous task for little payoff to imagine what, like, 9th edition is gonna be like and then create a comprehensive system for it- are there good systems that would match that feel? Future D&D is so mechanically complex that it's all done by computer, you declare your action and the DM hits a button that goes BEEP BOOP and tells you if you succeeded or not the real secret is that the computer actually just goes BEEP BOOP and doesn't actually display anything, the DM just runs everything freeform
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Sep 24, 2019 23:49
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I vote the future segment takes place in a Warhammer 40k RPG.
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Sep 25, 2019 02:11
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For maximum pain, but also fun, future should be set in Rifts. Nothing like a little light Palladium to appreciate DnD.
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Sep 25, 2019 02:54
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Man with Hat posted:What's all of your approach to making NPCs? I'm not sure how much to plan out for people. I realize a good idea is to prepare some generic simple NPCs for when the players go somewhere random, but how do you guys tend to do that? Just a list of names to pull from? I really appreciate all the answers you gave me on this, thank you! Lots of solid advice I've been looking at for my planning. This is a good thread
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Sep 25, 2019 11:52
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I need some honorary titles that don't actually mean anything. The cult I'm working on has one of its tenets being that everyone is equal (and perfect). Of course, it has a boss, and that boss has lieutenants. So of course these lieutenants are set just slightly above the common perfect rabble. Generally, these lieutenants are the ones that got something besides an arm or a leg out of the ancient auto-surgeon (One has electric horns, one has flaming tentacles growing from her back). Although I did already introduce one who's just got a leg, but maybe he was just the first one they got that could fly a spaceship. Anyway. The cult leader is titled Primus Inter Pares, or First Among Equals. One other one I came up with(*) is Sine Titulo Ducis, Leader Without Title. I just need a few more bits of suitably ego-inflating nonsense on par with that, because of course quae latine sonat magis infigo. Doesn't even need to be good latin, I'm just running things through google as it is. (*)I actually found a T-shirt that was used in some construction project or other (Neon yellow with reflective stripes) that had "Leader Without Title" as the back text, which just struck me as a fancy way of saying "You have responsibilities, but no benefits" and that was the perfect point of view for my cult.
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Sep 26, 2019 06:47
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Man with Hat posted:I really appreciate all the answers you gave me on this, thank you! Lots of solid advice I've been looking at for my planning. This is a good thread Something that I'd like to add to this is to give NPCs something more than a name and some stats as they'll not only stand out in the players memories and can lead to a wellspring of ideas. Give them a name, a detail about their appearance, and a detail about their personality. For example, I could introduce a contact that my players have approached for a heist job and simply say 'The contact, Fitz, desires the Eye of Meganoth, they're willing to pay 500 guilders if your crew steals it away from the Imperial Museum'. That works, right? Or I could present it as 'Fitz invites you into her parlor where you immediately see she and the dolls on the shelves, dozens of them, dress very similarly. She begins to lay out her desire for the Eye of Meganoth, currently in the museum, and you notice her eyes glaze over and she loses her train of thought whenever she looks at Party Member X. She apologizes profusely when this happens.' Your players are sure as poo poo gonna remember the creepy doll room.
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Sep 26, 2019 07:16
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"you suddenly notice the row of dolls that are all dressed like Party Member X"
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Sep 26, 2019 07:24
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anyway I've got a vague idea for a situation that I could use some help fleshing out, I've had a prepping marathon and I'm pretty tapped out for details. It's a haunted mansion with two major ghosts, a wizard and a soldier, and a couple minor ones with no fixed identity. I'm vaguely entertaining the idea that the two major ones were unhappily married to each other in life, each failing at their profession and holding that against the respective other, and the minor ghosts could have been their neglected children and/or servants of the house. Mechanically I can see this involving combat encounters with first one ghost, then the other, then both at once, or alternatively, both at once in different areas with a split party, padding the numbers with minor ghosts as required. Mainly I could use some ideas for clues the party could find that point towards what happened in this house and between these people, ways these clues could influence upcoming battles, ideally even a way the party could help the ghosts find peace instead of just fighting them. And some suitably ironic way they all died, come to think of it. What's an event where both could be equally at fault?
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Sep 26, 2019 11:03
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My Lovely Horse posted:anyway I've got a vague idea for a situation that I could use some help fleshing out, I've had a prepping marathon and I'm pretty tapped out for details. Give the PCs two routes, an rear end in a top hat Route and a Kindly Route. For the rear end in a top hat Route, let the PCs find evidence of the respective ghosts' failures. A diary entry where their son says how much they hate their dad, for instance, or a well-worn 'remedial invocations' text for the wizard ghost. When confronting the ghosts with this evidence, it weakens them in some way; the reminder that Ghost Boy hated his Dad means Ghost Dad has one fewer minion to call upon in the upcoming fight, or the evidence that Wizard Ghost was actually pretty crap at invocations in life prevents them from chucking fireballs in death, that kind of thing. The rear end in a top hat Route is completed by systematically crushing any remaining flickers of will and spirit (hah) the ghosts retain, dooming them to an eternity of nonexistence, with any shreds of soul remaining to them trapped in an endless cycle of bitter self-recrimination. For the Kindly Route, let the PCs find evidence of the respective ghosts' successes. The note from a commanding officer that admits that the soldier ghost only lost a bunch of soldiers because they were sent into an ambush because of bad intel, the award for Most Dedicated Student from wizard academy, whatever. Presenting the ghosts with these reminders of life actually makes them more powerful - the soldier gains resolve and hits harder, the wizard gains additional spell slots, whatever - but also makes them less bitter and angry, less likely to attack before talking, that sort of thing. The Kindly Route is completed by reminding the ghosts that, yes, they may have considered themselves failures, but only because they held themselves to impossible standards of perfection, and actually they did live a pretty good life together and had a bunch of kids they adored, letting them release the pain keeping them tetheredf to this mortal coil and ascend to their just rewards in the afterlife. For the Most Likely Route - that is, the PCs do some rear end in a top hat things and some kindly things - tweak the results a bit. If they were more Kindly than rear end in a top hat, the ghosts release their grip on the earthly plane but they're still a little miffed, so they don't tell the PCs about the secret treasure underneath the floorboards; if they were more rear end in a top hat than Kindly, the spirits dwindle away into nothingness but the PCs were gentle enough about it that they leave behind some minor blessing that will help the PCs in an upcoming scenario.
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Sep 26, 2019 11:26
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BlackIronHeart posted:Your players are sure as poo poo gonna remember the creepy doll room.
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Sep 26, 2019 15:57
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My players super hosed up being sieged by a post-apocalyptic Baron (survivor from beneath a Medieval Times). When the Baron demanded everyone in their outpost drop their weapons and walk out with their hands above their heads, they thought it would be a good idea for everyone but them to do so, while they hid inside and waited to ambush and kill the Baron when he walked in, cutting the head of the serpent. Unfortunately, The Baron is not a complete idiot and sent a group of soldiers to do a sweep first. The party ambushed and killed those soldiers and now the party are the only people in the outpost surrounded by several hundred soldiers who also have all of the party's friends in their custody. My players are pretty resourceful (and they also recently acquired several tactical nuclear warheads). How can I set them up to survive this situation? Should I just trust them to figure something out?
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Sep 26, 2019 16:06
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kidkissinger posted:My players are pretty resourceful (and they also recently acquired several tactical nuclear warheads). How can I set them up to survive this situation? Should I just trust them to figure something out?
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Sep 26, 2019 16:16
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My Lovely Horse posted:anyway I've got a vague idea for a situation that I could use some help fleshing out, I've had a prepping marathon and I'm pretty tapped out for details. I have something in my idea file along these lines. A pair of golems working at cross-purposes because the two were lovers in life and one of them bound their souls to golems so they could live and love forever. Without the other party's consent, so now golem B hates golem A and maybe vice versa. I know that's not particularly helpful, but let me chew on it. A part of an acrimonious relationship is living in the same house but interacting with each other as little as possible. I'm talking "Please pass the salt" being your only dialogue for the day, and maybe omitting the please (and/or tacking an insult onto the end). The smaller ghosts would have lived with a lot of "Tell your mother/tell your father (Madam/Sir)" backing and forthing, which would lead to them shuttling rapidly (or sullenly) back and forth through the house in undeath. Maybe the wizard set up a mystical messaging system that they used frequently and verbosely, but the soldier always resented and sent back mostly one-word replies. Or vice versa, the soldier spent one of their paychecks on this neat new magic intercom installed by a much better wizard than you, and by the way that other wizard is also much better in bed, yes I made love to them in our bed, the one we built together and always smelled vaguely like lemons because you can't even get a simple odor charm right, it was supposed to smell like oranges, who can fall asleep to lemons? That's something, too. If these two were actually bad at their jobs and not just magnifying their failures by projecting them onto the other party, those failures should be scattered around the house. A golf bag of bent swords and broken spears (maybe they look okay until they're pulled out, then anyone knowledgeable about weapons goes "Oh no, yeah, that's useless"), miscast spells haunting rooms and reflavoring traps (Every time the grandfather clock strikes the hour, ice coats the servant's stairs, the auto-igniter on the fireplace instead casts Burning Hands into the room). A battle map that has had its lines and figures obsessively drawn and redrawn to the point of illegibility (This being ghost bullshit, you could make this into a trap or minigame, an obsession effect or drawing the PCs into a mass combat scenario that would provide some benefit if they could win). If the smaller ghosts are the children, projecting failures onto them would be bound to happen at some point. A participation award from cantrip class with a note that Junior is just like their wizardly parent. (  homestuck alert) The snarky oneupladyship of Rose and her mother comes to mind.
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Sep 26, 2019 16:27
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Infinite Karma posted:Maybe have one of the friends reveal to the captor that the PCs have nuclear weapons, and that actually scares the Baron. The Baron doesn't want to get killed by a nuke, but also knows that he's got an advantage. Maybe he'll offer to let everyone leave with no more violence if they give him an intact bomb? Nuclear MAD in the post-apocalypse. Oh word, that's a good idea. The party set one of the nukes off like two nights beforehand and it lit the sky for the entire area, so the Baron would probably believe it to be a credible threat.
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Sep 26, 2019 16:31
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Super helpful haunted mansion ideas, here's how I'm planning to set it up: The party needs a macguffin in the basement, which is locked by the strongest of locks, a plot lock. There are two feuding ghosts in the house, each haunting their own area. Each ghost is only an apparition when the party encounters it. They do acknowledge the party, but the only way to interact with them is to show them memorabilia of their life. Each ghost has six of those distributed around the house, three that remind it of failure and three that remind it of success. An item that represents failure will enrage the ghost, but weaken it in combat. One that represents success makes it more peaceful, but strengthen it in combat. A ghost will initiate combat after seeing three items; once defeated, it vanishes and may reappear in the mansion's entrance hall. The state in which it reappears depends on what objects it saw: 2 or 3 failures will leave it wrathful, 2 successes will leave it pacified. With 3 successes it will vanish without a combat altogether and may reappear entirely at peace. (The ghosts ignore items intended for the other ghost or merely react with confusion, and if the party shows them more than 3 of "their" objects at once, it's random which 3 they'll acknowledge.) If the party initiates combat at any point, the ghost, once defeated, reappears in the entrance hall in a wrathful state, no matter what. Once both ghosts have been sent to the entrance hall, the party can observe the results, which depend on the states of the two ghosts: both wrathful: both ghosts attack together and must be destroyed. wrathful & pacified: the wrathful ghosts attacks and must be destroyed, the peaceful one will be left to haunt the mansion all alone. wrathful & at peace: only the wrathful ghost appears and attacks both pacified, or one pacified and the other at peace: the ghosts make peace with each other and move on both at peace: the ghosts make peace with each other and move on, but not before thanking the party with a special reward. In any case, the basement door finally opens. ========== I'm fully expecting my party to walk in guns blazing and miss the entire memorabilia aspect, to be perfectly honest, but I'm doing this. Now to think up past situations, appropriate artifacts, and I'll probably also need some sort of tutorial area where they can experiment with the effects of giving a ghost different memorabilia before they move into the mansion proper. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Sep 29, 2019 |
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Sep 29, 2019 18:27
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How are you planning to tip the party off about the minigame mechanics? That's the hardest thing for me when I set up some sort of politicking/non-combat system like this. Or just generally how much to tell players about what I'm doing behind the screen.
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Sep 30, 2019 17:45
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| # ? Jun 8, 2024 17:42 |
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Arcturas posted:How are you planning to tip the party off about the minigame mechanics? That's the hardest thing for me when I set up some sort of politicking/non-combat system like this. Or just generally how much to tell players about what I'm doing behind the screen. I generally err on the side of telling the players too much rather than too little. Like if I've got some, "The temple is filling up with toxic water" mechanic going on, I'll tell them exactly how fast the water will rise and what'll happen if they get caught in it, so they can make informed decisions. Likewise with minigames I'll be like, "You need eight wins to catch the mob boss, and to bust up one of his joints you'll need a 25 on an intimidate check, and that'll count as a win" - after all, the players are only playing your minigame once, so they need all the help they can get.
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Oct 1, 2019 11:27
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