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Night10194 posted:The problem is if everyone else in the group is not doing the same thing, which seems unlikely. I've run into this same kind of thing before, where one player was playing a type of mage focused on buffing and literally only used a buff spell once all game, and eventually explained it as 'Well my character would just panic in a fight and use his poor attack magic or weaponry to try to make it go away faster'. In a game focused on tactical combat missions. It can be a real problem when there's a mismatch between group and player like that, and with 5e I suspect that's about what's going to go down, leaving the Warlock PC with being kinda bad at what's going down much of the time. That's also why a session 0, "this is a campaign that will be about X, you'll need to bring a character that can handle Y" is important. I'll always mention, especially with players new or new to me, "your character can have whatever personality or background you want but they'll need to be someone who would be interested in the campaign theme and want to engage it with a group."
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 17:47 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 22:25 |
Tuxedo Catfish posted:i'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, but on the other hand this is like walking into an Edgar Allan Poe society meeting and asking whether the orangutan is racist Well...is it?
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 17:48 |
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we do not talk about the orangutan! for context: https://mckitterick.tumblr.com/post/175750960430/embed
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 17:52 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:we do not talk about the orangutan! Oook?
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 18:08 |
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trapstar posted:What is the best way to go about intentionally deceiving your players for story/narrative purposes? What are some good plot twists basically? During the actual operation itself, they managed to get their most social and least terrifying character face-to-face with the daughter and asked her point-blank if she wanted to go live with her father. The girl was suspicious and obviously scared, but once she was convinced that the PCs were serious she was enthusiastically on-board, even going so far as to help the PCs evade her own security detail. Now I could have had the twist be that Mr. Johnson had somehow deceived the party and that they had somehow delivered the girl into some kind of horrible, abusive situation. But that's trite and boring. No, in this case the twist was that everyone involved was exactly who they seemed to be - Mr. Johnson was a kind, caring, relatable dude. The mother was in fact a cast-iron corporate bitch. The girl really wanted to live with her dad. But in-between nabbing the girl and the meet-up where they were to hand her off to her waiting father, the mother (who figured out exactly what was happening) took steps commensurate with her character and had Mr. Johnson messily assassinated. Whoops. So the "twist" had nothing to do with deceiving the players, but rather with putting them in an unexpected (but perhaps wholly predictable) situation, where now they found themselves with a 12-year-old girl and no one to give her to. The in-character discussions over what they should do about this - wipe her memories and give her back to mom, find some other family relative, even crazy poo poo like leave by the side of the road or raise her themselves in their odd little family of criminals - were loving epic. EDIT: Even the decision of whether to tell the girl the circumstances behind her father's death was hotly contested among the members of the party. Ilor fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Sep 22, 2023 |
# ? Sep 22, 2023 18:34 |
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Vargatron posted:How do y'all plot your campaign storylines? I used to be real meticulous about plot points but I've switched over to a bullet point outline and don't really plan head further than 2 or 3 sessions. I have a general ending I'm aiming for, but the last time I really tried to plan a story out, the party killed a big bad way too early and threw that in shambles! Can't believe they rolled so drat high on their grapple checks... I really like this method of approaching it, I'm adapting a prewritten module (Humblewood) using it to add in the character's backstory's and massively expand on each phase of the setting book so we get more mileage out of this campaign, adjusting difficulty levels as we go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9qQ4Yk6i4E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVelBbXcYCE
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 19:37 |
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Yeah that's a solid twist, rather than a deception, but good gnarly gaming. What did they end up doing, he asked, slightly apprehensive as to what the answer might be. My favorite twist I've suffered was a simple sci Fi one where we were working for a Mr Johnson who got us to do various things, including stealing a nuke and planting it and detonating it which we did entirely oblivious to any consequences of our actions then whoa what do you know if was the evil AI that everyone thought had been defeated all those years ago! I'm confident the dm would have let us investigate the quest giver, we just didn't bother lol.
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 19:39 |
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Verisimilidude posted:How would you approach a player creating a character in D&D5e, but their stats are kinda all over the place and they don't do any one thing particularly well because of it? Is she going to be a hex blade warlock? As long as that 15 stat is charisma, that's one great way that she can make that character and weapon combo work, as she can use her charisma modifier for her weapon attacks E: and you can always re-flavour the hex blade ability to be in line with alternative patron ideas they have, rather than it being related to the shadowfell it can be a holy weapon for instance, or a cursed blade, or a weapon made by some fey entity or whatever Mederlock fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Sep 22, 2023 |
# ? Sep 22, 2023 20:02 |
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This discussion reminds me of something I've been working on without much success: integrating character back stories into the campaign. I have a confessor who has pursued the cult leader who left him scarred and deformed across the galaxy, but there are so many dang cults and sorcerors in the setting already it's hard to point him in the right direction. On the other hand, I think it makes the setting smaller if every plot points back to the PC backstories, and one of the great strengths of the Koronus Expanse setting is just how huge and densely carpeted with story hooks it is. So what's the happy medium?
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 20:05 |
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Mederlock posted:Is she going to be a hex blade warlock? As long as that 15 stat is charisma, that's one great way that she can make that character and weapon combo work, as she can use her charisma modifier for her weapon attacks She chose fathomless as her patron, so no hexblade. I decided I'm gonna approach it from the perspective where, so long as she's aware of her choices, and how they might impact her capability to succeed in combat, I'm good with her choices. If she knows what she's getting herself into and has something in mind, that's fine (even if it doesn't really work). I'll leave it open for her to switch her stats around if she decides it needs some tweaking though.
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 20:29 |
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Verisimilidude posted:She chose fathomless as her patron, so no hexblade. Yeah, I would maybe just offer her the choice to re-flavour hex blade as a Spear.. or a trident? that came from some entity from deep in the plane of Water or something, and maybe let her swap a spell or three between their spell lists to some more water-themed stuff if she wanted. If she still wants to stick with her choice, then yeah, let it be and offer her a one time respec or whatever if she's unsatisfied later
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 20:57 |
trapstar posted:What is the best way to go about intentionally deceiving your players for story/narrative purposes? What are some good plot twists basically? Not a plot twist per se, but I got some funny comments when my players realized that they had inadvertently sold the keys to a vampire lord's vault to a gentleman thief a few sessions prior. He gave them a good deal for these suspiciously detailed rings and they figured it was about time they get money to buy new gear. In this case, I was just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it worked. Had a setup with a few competing agents, so to speak, in the campaign, and this seemed a natural thing to try. Was a really nice way to let the story develop while leaving it up to the players to make decisions about who to support. Also, the vault contained the phylactery of one of the major NPCs, held there as blackmail by the vampire lord, so I didn't really want them to get in there, anyway, but they could have, if they didn't sell the keys.
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 21:02 |
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You can integrate players backstory without making every plotline relate to it. Backstory can be evolving, when you ask dangerous questions. (The best are ones that can reshape the story. How do you know the Duke? Why don’t you trust the goblins here? Who did you rip off to get into the thieves guild?)
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# ? Sep 22, 2023 21:45 |
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Arglebargle III posted:This discussion reminds me of something I've been working on without much success: integrating character back stories into the campaign. I have a confessor who has pursued the cult leader who left him scarred and deformed across the galaxy, but there are so many dang cults and sorcerors in the setting already it's hard to point him in the right direction. On the other hand, I think it makes the setting smaller if every plot points back to the PC backstories, and one of the great strengths of the Koronus Expanse setting is just how huge and densely carpeted with story hooks it is. So what's the happy medium? This may not be super relevant but the game Scum and Villainy has an interesting method of developing stories by letting players dictate the finer connections of the story and who is relevant to who. Characters get a number of contacts, and one of them is an enemy, as well as other background information (origin, heritage, previous occupation, etc). When you generate a job you can give the broad details (what factions are involved, what the target is, where it takes place, etc) and let them come up with the whys. You can have a situation where their next job is on planet Buttz, you’re working for the Killer Klownz and against the Frogmen of Georgia, and you need to steal an artifact. One player could say “one of my contacts is from the Killer Klownz, maybe he got us the job”. “Yeah and my enemy is in the frogmen! Maybe we’re infiltrating his base on Buttz? He works as an arms dealer, so maybe we’re stealing a weapon of some kind” And it rolls from there. Suddenly several party members are invested because they literally came up with the adventure on their own. Player backstories instantly get woven into the game.
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# ? Sep 23, 2023 01:49 |
Verisimilidude posted:This may not be super relevant but the game Scum and Villainy has an interesting method of developing stories by letting players dictate the finer connections of the story and who is relevant to who. Characters get a number of contacts, and one of them is an enemy, as well as other background information (origin, heritage, previous occupation, etc). When you generate a job you can give the broad details (what factions are involved, what the target is, where it takes place, etc) and let them come up with the whys. Sounds like a great way to way get people to get into the story. I wonder if that would work for a larger-scale story rather than single jobs, though.
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# ? Sep 23, 2023 11:42 |
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Arglebargle III posted:This discussion reminds me of something I've been working on without much success: integrating character back stories into the campaign. I have a confessor who has pursued the cult leader who left him scarred and deformed across the galaxy, but there are so many dang cults and sorcerors in the setting already it's hard to point him in the right direction. On the other hand, I think it makes the setting smaller if every plot points back to the PC backstories, and one of the great strengths of the Koronus Expanse setting is just how huge and densely carpeted with story hooks it is. So what's the happy medium? With 40k I feel like you have options for the unseen and implicit, because it’s a huge universe and players should never be doing all the work themselves. An exhausted spy comes to the confessor and says, ‘milord, I paid bribes in two hundred dive-bars across sixty planets before I even found word of the cult you seek - but I found them.’ It doesn’t have to be the Star Wars-prequel problem of the same characters running into each other repeatedly, because the players should have their own networks to give a hint of the larger scale.
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# ? Sep 23, 2023 17:47 |
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What sort of enchantments, defenses, and traps would you put in a war wizard's castle? I have a map drawn of all the floors of a great medieval fortress for him, but I've been at a loss for creative magics to inhabit it. The wizard has a runs a council seat on "pirate island" and his wizards have a reputation for creativity and ruthlessness. Trademark of theirs is to turn pursuing ship's sails to stone. I've got a few basic defenses for the fortress that would repel invading forces, but on the inside it's pretty plain outside of a few secret doors.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 20:37 |
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:What sort of enchantments, defenses, and traps would you put in a war wizard's castle? I have a map drawn of all the floors of a great medieval fortress for him, but I've been at a loss for creative magics to inhabit it. The wizard has a runs a council seat on "pirate island" and his wizards have a reputation for creativity and ruthlessness. Trademark of theirs is to turn pursuing ship's sails to stone. Perimeter defenses and access points are incredibly well defended, but inside its mostly dangers related to the experiments running on new spells to be used in war. Maybe a few barracks for guards or stockpiles of spell scrolls for replenishing the perimeter defenses.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 20:55 |
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Obviously one of those holographic battle tables that corresponds to a courtyard filled with life-sized replicas. The players need to win the battle in both places simultaneously.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 21:44 |
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:What sort of enchantments, defenses, and traps would you put in a war wizard's castle? I have a map drawn of all the floors of a great medieval fortress for him, but I've been at a loss for creative magics to inhabit it. The wizard has a runs a council seat on "pirate island" and his wizards have a reputation for creativity and ruthlessness. Trademark of theirs is to turn pursuing ship's sails to stone. an old favourite is to gently caress with the geometry of the inside. The fact that a door faces towards the east wing doesn't mean that the room it opens into has to be in the east wing. It could be elsewhere in the building. It could be in another dimension.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 22:13 |
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I've got an upcoming game tomorrow, and the characters will be on a long sea voyage. Although we usually play in person, due to some covid risks we're doing our game online. Although I'm aware of the many tools for using battlemaps online, it's still a big shift in how we do combat encounters, so I'm disinclined to make it a very combat-heavy session. That leaves me with a group of people at sea for a long period, and the need to emphasize that this is a perilous journey. What are some good ways to encourage my players to spend time communicating with each other their feelings on the issues at hand? I'm already planning on having some NPC sailors talking about their goals for what happens after the trip, and prompting the PCs to respond in kind. Any other ideas for roleplaying scenarios, or skill challenges, to emphasize the perilous nature of their adventure and the bonds that are forming between them? (For context, there's a massive increase in Sahuagin attacks, and a permanent hurricane far to the south. They convinced a multinational consortium to redirect their efforts away from convoy operations to fight Sahuagin, in order to try and end the Everstorm that has been loving everything up. One of the players is a Warlock whose patron is involved with the storm, and he was the one who convinced the PCs leader that she should try and sway the consortium. Whether he can actually follow through on his claim that he can fix it is... dubious.)
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 22:43 |
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What's a reasonable amount of distance that a party can travel in a day? I'm planning on an outdoor scenario with some overland travel. Points of interest will include a few miles of swamp, a large forest, and some caves with ruins inside. I was thinking about doing a 20-30 mile overland map then have some random encounters rolled as the party travels. Basically, my party is tasked with gathering a few McGuffins to unblock the path to the rest of their adventurer. The last few sessions have been inside a dungeon, so I wanted to give some outdoor encounters a shot.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 22:44 |
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Oldsrocket_27 posted:What sort of enchantments, defenses, and traps would you put in a war wizard's castle? I have a map drawn of all the floors of a great medieval fortress for him, but I've been at a loss for creative magics to inhabit it. The wizard has a runs a council seat on "pirate island" and his wizards have a reputation for creativity and ruthlessness. Trademark of theirs is to turn pursuing ship's sails to stone. You can even use the same setup again later, but this time the signs are more subtle because everyone knows not to go in that room at all - say, the first sign is a big yellow “X”, and then later the sign is the rooms with golden latches on the doors.
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# ? Sep 24, 2023 22:49 |
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Vargatron posted:What's a reasonable amount of distance that a party can travel in a day? I'm planning on an outdoor scenario with some overland travel. Points of interest will include a few miles of swamp, a large forest, and some caves with ruins inside. I was thinking about doing a 20-30 mile overland map then have some random encounters rolled as the party travels. I'm trying to build a hexcrawl, so I've been researching this for the last couple of days! Overland via roads/plains is about 40 km / 24 miles / 8 leagues per day, this assumes 8 hours per day for travel. You can split travel into 2 or 3 stretches of 3-4 hours, rolling encounters every stretch or every hour or so.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 02:23 |
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Vargatron posted:What's a reasonable amount of distance that a party can travel in a day? I'm planning on an outdoor scenario with some overland travel. Points of interest will include a few miles of swamp, a large forest, and some caves with ruins inside. I was thinking about doing a 20-30 mile overland map then have some random encounters rolled as the party travels. I've really been digging this Channel's takes on DM'ing, he's really condensed down a crazy amount of DM advice in such a good way. He's got a great video on overland travel. https://youtu.be/pOKkrbPdsPA?si=aOarJLD6IYzXSEqs I also like the idea of borrowing from BG3 and converting everyone's rations and water supplies into a single party-wide Camp Supply resource, that is expended each long rest when not in a tavern or other accommodations, and limiting the maximum of supplies that can be carried based on the party's total strength modifier or something, and which levies a point of exhaustion if not used during a rest.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 02:36 |
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Signal posted:Boat question You should look up the board game unfathomable. It’s literally this with secret rolls. Supplies, morale, ship repair, betrayal. Makes these around and gave them a mystery, tough choices, and conflicting goals and you will be perfect.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 03:12 |
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Mederlock posted:I've really been digging this Channel's takes on DM'ing, he's really condensed down a crazy amount of DM advice in such a good way. He's got a great video on overland travel. Ooh that's tidy. I also like using the 4e condition track, so maybe have that for when they run out, like a set of worsening penalties as they go multiple days without supplies
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 03:25 |
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I had a nasty surprise this session when one of my players announced he was firing his shoulder-mounted autocannon! He's been running around purchasing things outside of sessions and now has a truly ludicrous arsenal; he's way out of whack with the other players. He also announced that due to a special rule it counts as twin-linked. He pretty much single-handedly ruined the combat encounter, which the players were supposed to lose, and turned a fight with overwhelming odds into a three-hour slog the players actually won. Kind of wrecked the whole session. How do you approach this kind of egregious power-gaming without bringing the whole session to a halt? Or do you just bring the session to a halt and say you're not putting things on your character sheet between sessions?
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 03:34 |
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Arglebargle III posted:I had a nasty surprise this session when one of my players announced he was firing his shoulder-mounted autocannon! He's been running around purchasing things outside of sessions and now has a truly ludicrous arsenal; he's way out of whack with the other players. He also announced that due to a special rule it counts as twin-linked. He pretty much single-handedly ruined the combat encounter, which the players were supposed to lose, and turned a fight with overwhelming odds into a three-hour slog the players actually won. Kind of wrecked the whole session. You're going to have to have a private talk to this player about the fact that Absolutely Nothing Happens on a character sheet or their inventory, except when you are part of the loop. During a session when a player pulls out something like that without talking to your first, you can just say, No, you do not have those weapons, because you didn't talk to me about it and find an appropriate vendor to buy those items during the session. Sheesh, purchasing things outside the session.. seriously, where did this individual even get this ludicrous idea? And also make a general note to the whole group during your next session that only actions that happen at the table or after discussion with you, are actions that happen in the world.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 04:38 |
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Arglebargle III posted:I had a nasty surprise this session when one of my players announced he was firing his shoulder-mounted autocannon! He's been running around purchasing things outside of sessions and now has a truly ludicrous arsenal; he's way out of whack with the other players. He also announced that due to a special rule it counts as twin-linked. He pretty much single-handedly ruined the combat encounter, which the players were supposed to lose, and turned a fight with overwhelming odds into a three-hour slog the players actually won. Kind of wrecked the whole session. Ah, I see you've met the Autocannon, one of the reasons combat in 40kRP is a mess. It'll be sticking around forever, along with its good friends Lascannon, Assault Cannon, and Heavily Melee Specced Techpriest.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 05:41 |
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Arglebargle III posted:I had a nasty surprise this session when one of my players announced he was firing his shoulder-mounted autocannon! He's been running around purchasing things outside of sessions and now has a truly ludicrous arsenal; he's way out of whack with the other players. He also announced that due to a special rule it counts as twin-linked. He pretty much single-handedly ruined the combat encounter, which the players were supposed to lose, and turned a fight with overwhelming odds into a three-hour slog the players actually won. Kind of wrecked the whole session. No he didn't. That's it. You screwed up by rolling with it and your last line contains the answer. You don't get to change your sheet behind the GM's and other players' back, ever, and especially not to pull out an OP item as a surprise. You're going to need to have a conversation and probably a retcon of some kind. But also... don't have fights the players are supposed to lose. If it has stats, you can kill it. If you're throwing overwhelming odds at the PCs, make it abundantly clear that a confrontation is 100% certain death and go directly to the chase sequence or whatever the actual intended story beat here is.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 13:12 |
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I had a puzzle which involved the party finding a cogwheel to repair a reflecting mirror mount and there was supposed to be this big trek through the dungeon to find a replacement. Our druid was like "well, we found these documents that had cog schematics, why don't I just use shape water to create a replacement and freeze the water?". Sadly, the cogwheel was too complex for the spell description of Shape Water, but I did appreciate the creativity. Also, our monk tried to flex his muscles to impress the warlock in the party, but he rolled a 2 on performance. I had the warlock roll a charisma check to see if they were impressed, and they rolled a 1. Being a kobold, the rest of the party saw this really skinny dragon do the Most Muscular pose to little effect, but the warlock was extremely impressed. I gave both a point of inspiration for that roleplay.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 13:17 |
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I feel like an entire spaceship full of incredibly rich space Catholic nutters should be able to apply almost any amount of destructive power to a situation, which puts the onus on you to come up with situations where that's not sufficient by itself to solve any problem. But also remember that rolling up and obliterating poo poo is actually really fun, so if the players are having a good time then let them.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 15:51 |
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sebmojo posted:I feel like an entire spaceship full of incredibly rich space Catholic nutters should be able to apply almost any amount of destructive power to a situation, which puts the onus on you to come up with situations where that's not sufficient by itself to solve any problem. But also remember that rolling up and obliterating poo poo is actually really fun, so if the players are having a good time then let them. If you're nutters space Catholics aren't constantly pulling out the
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 17:48 |
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+1 to both of those being an issue. The player shouldn’t be significantly altering their character outside of the common game world state, and the GM needs to recognize the possibility of “or-maybe-not” and adjust accordingly. That player’s a dope for shopping out of session and you need to make it clear they can’t do that, but this is also a good opportunity to practice flexibility and improv.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 17:58 |
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He didn't just purchase an integrated auto cannon. He bought best quality power armor and a storm shield. And the cannon is a 6000 year old relic. He clearly just went through various source books and picked the most broken build and equipment he could find and then somehow successfully purchased all these things while nobody was looking. Other players are playing by the rules with acquisition and are somewhere on a reasonable power curve. And then there's this guy. He's got the armor and damage potential of a necron lord and I'm kicking myself for not shutting it down during the session.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 21:35 |
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quote:He didn't just purchase an integrated auto cannon. He bought best quality power armor and a storm shield. And the cannon is a 6000 year old relic. He clearly just went through various source books and picked the most broken build and equipment he could find and then somehow successfully purchased all these things while nobody was looking. Other players are playing by the rules with acquisition and are somewhere on a reasonable power curve. And then there's this guy. He's got the armor and damage potential of a necron lord and I'm kicking myself for not shutting it down during the session. The conversation definitely needs to come first, as soon as possible (you cannot unilaterally buy stuff out of session, you definitely can't unilaterally buy a unique item that wouldn't reasonably be available at any standard trader, and it's definitely against the spirit of the game to secretly give yourself a mechanical leg-up that advantages you over everyone else). If he's unreasonable about that, it's 100% on him. Without resetting things completely, one compromise could be agreeing on the story of where the character secretly bought these outrageous items and adding that to the plot, with a rebalancing deficit attached to it. Maybe there's some nutty heretek who's been selling him all this powerful gear, but there's a daemonic curse, or it's prone to breaking, or the original owner is going to come looking for it and can shut it down at will...at the very least, it'd be a plotline that might lead every other character towards some equally cool gear to balance things out. grobbo fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 25, 2023 |
# ? Sep 25, 2023 21:37 |
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honestly I'm tempted to not even describe that as "power-gaming" as much as a perfectly logical set of decisions by someone who fundamentally doesn't understand the social contract of RPGs.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 21:53 |
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That's just what W40KRP is like. The Autocannon is the symbol of the game: Power is right there, and not even that hard to get. There's pages and pages of guns, and then there's a couple Best Guns. That, and Acquisition was always a mess. Sometimes someone gets lucky and gets everything they dreamed of.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 21:56 |
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# ? Jun 8, 2024 22:25 |
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Arglebargle III posted:He didn't just purchase an integrated auto cannon. He bought best quality power armor and a storm shield. And the cannon is a 6000 year old relic. He clearly just went through various source books and picked the most broken build and equipment he could find and then somehow successfully purchased all these things while nobody was looking. Other players are playing by the rules with acquisition and are somewhere on a reasonable power curve. And then there's this guy. He's got the armor and damage potential of a necron lord and I'm kicking myself for not shutting it down during the session. Okay yeah the dude needs RPGs explained to him. Not the grenades, the games. Also mental note to myself to never run this system.
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# ? Sep 25, 2023 22:12 |