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My Lovely Horse posted:Or like... a form of improvisational collaborative storytelling with the Summer Queen narrating the general story and the PCs dictating what the heroic adventurers do? Something like that. Maybe have some sort of method of simulating the probability of actions succeeding or failing, with a bit of chance thrown in! I recall one the PA adventures from the newsbox where they did the "party experiences the actions of heros of olde" and switched to 1st Edition (or was it second?) for the adventure.
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Jun 19, 2012 19:28
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P.S. STILL COMPLETELY DEVOID OF MERIT
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M.c.P posted:Our gaming group tried out Star Wars d20. It was fun, all in all, but the module demonstrated that space combat was an utterly over complicated crock of poo poo. Oh God this is so true. SWd20 space combat is horrible. Horrible. Our GM basically house-ruled in his own system - and for big, complicated battles he essentially extrapolates from a few rolls and just goes all Narrativist on us. It lets us get back to the good poo poo, so no complaints here.
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Jun 19, 2012 19:52
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Man I just realized, I don't even need to get all verbose on my players to explain the setup, I'll just have the Summer Queen call the characters on stage while she's telling the creation story, have a few of her entourage's gnome illusionists layer some imagery of the legendary heroes of yore over them and that should make sure they get the hint. Bunch of satyrs bring out a big old tarrasque puppet dressed in more glamour, and it's on. This is a great idea.
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Jun 20, 2012 09:52
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I've been thinking about putting together a WFRP game set in the Border Princes -- basically the general idea would be to run it out of a Guild Hall in some non-descript town in the BP. I've ran PbP games before, but never in the Fantasy Genre (I've run a Star Wars game, two Star Trek games, and a Stargate game) and I am trying to figure out how to set the thing up so that it retains the sort of cool fun part of WHRP while adding the depth that I think you get in PbP. As a further note, the games I've ran in the past have been very character focused with very little of the more "technical" mechanics of character creation in play (e.g., I didn't make people roll dice for character stats.) BI NOW GAY LATER fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jun 22, 2012 |
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Jun 22, 2012 20:03
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I've been thinking about putting together a WFRP game set in the Border Princes -- basically the general idea would be to run it out of a Guild Hall in some non-descript town in the BP. I don't know much about PbP, but one fun aspect of WFRP3 is the interpretation of the dice rolls. The time-shifted nature of PbP gives everyone, not just the person whose turn it is, plenty of time to come up with the best explanation for what happened to the poor beastman who rolled six banes.
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Jun 22, 2012 20:12
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I'm looking for some advice on the narrative, rather than mechanical, side of a one-shot I'm working on. I'm creating an adventure where the players are a family of fairly historical Vikings. As it developed from this seed, I ended up with the idea that the antagonists should be Christian converts who break the sacred laws of hospitality and a few others, killing members of their clan, and it's up to the party to save the remaining ones and exact revenge. It's a fairly straightforward scenario with plenty of opportunity for awesome axe action, but a nice theme jumped out at me as well. I want to frame this as a conflict between the tribal, consensus law based mentality of the characters' pagan society and the ends-justify-the-means approach of medieval monotheism. Here's my conundrum: I don't want it to end up as crude, black-metal-style Christian-bashing. Sure, the protagonists are old-faith Norsemen and the antagonists are Christians, but I don't want to idealize them too much and would like some bit to show that the Vikings are Not Nice People. If this were a short story that would be pretty easy, but with an RPG, you run into the problem of portraying this. I definitely don't want the players to RP raping, pillaging, slaughtering innocents and making human sacrifices because that's wrong and creepy, or describe that poo poo in detail, but at the same I want them to know that their characters do these things and believe they are sometimes okay. Does anyone have ideas on how subtly accomplish that without hamfisted, uncomfortable descriptions of them slitting the throats of defenseless monks etc.? I suppose this is the usual issue with trying to put artsy-fartsy moral ambiguities into your make-believe...
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Jun 23, 2012 19:13
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Guildencrantz posted:I'm looking for some advice on the narrative, rather than mechanical, side of a one-shot I'm working on. So how the hell are they going to RP vikings then? That's like saying I want to run a game based on a family of eagles, but don't want to deal with the whole "flying" thing. serious answer: I'd start off pillaging a scotish/english monestary. Maybe on the way home, and give everyone a short background story telling how they are returning home after slaughtering and robbing dozens of unarmed monks/nuns/sick/peasants; maybe even addressing how this the only way to feed your families. Members of the antagonist clan might also be involved, maybe showing that . This will show 1) Vikings are not nice people 2) not all of your christians are assholes. 3) your antagonists are a bunch of loving asshat douchebags no matter what mystic forces they pray to. The antagonist clan then somehow comes in contact with a medieval christian monarchy, and converts for the process of material gain (maybe they get it in their head if they take territory, the Church will send them an army to help hold it. You can decide how true you want this statement to be). Maybe they try to convince the clan your Player's Characters are a part of to convert with them, the PC Clan refuses, slaughter commences. This will make it much more clear you're framing this as "The People Vs. Douchebags". As for descriptions, try describing the aftermath instead of the actions. "You slit the monk's throat despite his pleads and throw him to the floor. You take anything you see of value from the room, and then leave, stepping body and the ever growing pool of blood." Its medieval vikings, you're only going to be able sanitize so much. You might want to consider to reframing your central theme using a different setting.
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Jun 23, 2012 19:46
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Guildencrantz posted:I definitely don't want the players to RP raping, pillaging, slaughtering innocents and making human sacrifices because that's wrong and creepy, or describe that poo poo in detail, but at the same I want them to know that their characters do these things and believe they are sometimes okay. Does anyone have ideas on how subtly accomplish that without hamfisted, uncomfortable descriptions of them slitting the throats of defenseless monks etc.? Go with shades of grey: include bad Vikings and good Christians. None of them have to be PCs, but you can define what is usual in the PCs' world by the people they hang around with, who talk enthusiastically about how many people they've killed and how great it is when they beg for mercy before you kill them. The PCs are still free to be all noble, but it's clear that the society they live in isn't.
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Jun 24, 2012 23:38
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Technical question. What's the best way, on a flat map, to deal with potential, obvious traps on the ceiling and walls? If you want to get specific, i'm using MapTools. Longer explaination: So, for the final level "boss" of the poison tower, I'm dumping the party in basically a Zehir shrine, with a door leading to the antidote they'll need. To open the door, they need to collect the keys from different parts of the shrine. To do so, they have to content with poison traps, pissed off golems, and a juiced-out iron cobra and its guardian area which is placed squarely on the door. Think "Legends of the Hidden Temple", only with a poison spitting cobra instead of Mayan guards. Part of the Cobra's abilities would have been access to a cobra-width series of grates, letting it pop out, attack, and then retreat, reappearing in a new place. Some of these I'd want to be on the ceiling, some on the ground, on walls, etc. Basically I want them freaking out like someone in Alien. I'm going a slightly different route with the encounter I'm going to run, but I think I might reuse the idea.
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Jun 26, 2012 07:50
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You could make a separate grate icon and plop it on the map where the grates are on the ground. Where they are on the ceiling you plop it down with something like 50% transparency. I dunno if maptools does layers and transparency but can you prepare the map in GIMP or something? For grates on the wall I'd draw that bit of wall as a dashed line and, if it's relevant, write how high above ground the grate is next to it. e: my Tarrasque Theater went really well by the way. I gave them a few extra powers and the levelled down MM1 tarrasque and it turned into the retelling of How The Tarrasque Was Curb Stomped. Poor thing never got a single attack in. I made a note to make my own when they fight the real one later. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Jun 26, 2012 |
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Jun 26, 2012 07:58
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MapTool supports transparency and PNG alpha layers, so you could do the floor on the map layer or background layer, and then make an image of the ceiling with transparency. If your grate image is a tileable image you can even paint it on and use the built-in transparency features. You might want to fool around with putting tokens on different layers and whether the players can interact with them.
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Jun 26, 2012 14:49
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I'd played around with the transparency thing, and wasn't too happy with it. (There was a ceiling trap that dropped gelatinous cubes on the party. Followed by a floor trap that dropped the party onto gelatinous cubes.) I might tint the ceiling grates a different color, plus transparency.
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Jun 26, 2012 14:59
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I create (in maptool) tokens on the object layer, so I never have to arrange other tokens if they move on top of them, and then use the tokens to store macros for attacks (for traps that just hit you) or /emit macros (for objects with descriptions or puzzles, so it prints out in the chat window). If they are meant to be semi-obvious traps, I will sometimes create tokens that aren't traps in any way, just to throw them off.
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Jun 26, 2012 18:19
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homullus posted:I create (in maptool) tokens on the object layer, so I never have to arrange other tokens if they move on top of them, and then use the tokens to store macros for attacks (for traps that just hit you) or /emit macros (for objects with descriptions or puzzles, so it prints out in the chat window). If they are meant to be semi-obvious traps, I will sometimes create tokens that aren't traps in any way, just to throw them off. Well, the ceiling grating itself isn't a trap so much as a potential place the cobra might appear from. There were going to be a few networks of interconnected grates. (So the cobra couldn't pop out of just any grate, but it could move between networks fairly easily). The idea was to force the party to make a choice. If they stuck together to deal with the other hazards, the cobra would have a very easy time knowing which grate network to stay in, and harass them the whole encounter. If the party split up, the cobra now has to divide its attention, but the hazards would be more of a problem. On fake traps: And all my dungeons contain 10x10ft alcoves now. The paranoia they still inspire warms my black heart.
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Jun 26, 2012 18:34
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What do you guys do to get ready to run a new campaign? I picked up 13th Age and I want to run it, but I've always been a micro-management kind of GM where I try to come up with a big grand story with multiple plot beats and I get kind of hung up on trying to make it awesome or figure out what direction to take it. I've always had a big focus on combats to eat up time too. With a new system (switching from D&D), I want to try to go a little more fast and loose with more improvisation and less combat-heavy stuff. I want to find out what the characters want to do and take the story in those directions rather than my own epic threat or whatever. Also, how much time percentage-wise out of your typical sessions would you say are combat vs non-combat roleplay/investigation/etc.? I'd like to include more time between combats for social interaction but if the goal is to spend LESS time laying the groundwork for plots and twists or whatever I'm not sure how well I'll do just improvising everything as I don't have a lot of experience with that style of GMing.
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Jul 4, 2012 20:46
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GOONS ARE MEAN
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sighnoceros posted:What do you guys do to get ready to run a new campaign? Basically my method is I watch the Gilmore Girls and imagine they were in a fantasy setting and port everything they do to my characters.
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Jul 4, 2012 23:40
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sighnoceros posted:I want to try to go a little more fast and loose with more improvisation and less combat-heavy stuff. I want to find out what the characters want to do and take the story in those directions rather than my own epic threat or whatever. I run very very improv heavy very open games. This works only because my players tend to know what they're getting into beforehand. Sometimes it doesn't work at all and no-one achieves anything, normally this is my fault. Another friend also runs some games with extremely detailed plans for almost every possible outcome, and we all love them, but they're very intensive with us regularly having weeks or months between sessions. I tend to get a rough outline of what I'd quite like to get done, but not how it gets done, stat out or find a few enemies I'd like to use and prepare a few setpieces and bosses which they players might go for. I don't use a fair proportion of what I prepare and often I don't use it as originally intended. More important that that though for very loose open games I find is working out the tone you want to go for and making sure everyone involved understands it before that fact. Make sure everyone knows you want to run a campaign which is basically High Fantasy Poirot with the players as Poirot and Hastings or Steampunk James Bond with the players as the baddies. Make sure they know what the theme is and consult them on it and they're more likely to stay relatively close to the source. Finally don't define too much, let anything that can can keep vague remain vague unless a player wants to explore it. This serves two purposes, it allows you to make poo poo up if things go seriously off the rails and it also allows the players to take ownership of an aspect of the world or story, which gives them a stake and thus a reason to care.
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Jul 4, 2012 23:51
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My college group liked to do these little questionnaires. We'd just write up a few questions like "You've been offered a chest full of gold, a night with the most beautiful woman/man in the kingdom, or the only known scroll that contains a forgotten spell. Which do you choose?" or "The church, the palace and the slums are being attacked. You can only save two, which one do you let fall?" People that answered these with a character in mind that wasn't a Monkey Cheese style Chaotic Neutral rear end in a top hat got a little perk when the game started. To keep it appropriate we mixed it up from game to game. An extra character point in Nobilis is okay but you probably don't want to dole out bonus xp in D&D for instance. A few healing potions or letting them start with two action points but one never regenerates might be more appropriate for a combat game. It gets the players thinking in terms beyond "War Wizard with Staff Mastery" and gives you valuable information what kind of plot hooks you can place in a setting for the characters.
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Jul 5, 2012 00:05
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sighnoceros posted:What do you guys do to get ready to run a new campaign? I picked up 13th Age and I want to run it, but I've always been a micro-management kind of GM where I try to come up with a big grand story with multiple plot beats and I get kind of hung up on trying to make it awesome or figure out what direction to take it. I've always had a big focus on combats to eat up time too. With a new system (switching from D&D), I want to try to go a little more fast and loose with more improvisation and less combat-heavy stuff. I want to find out what the characters want to do and take the story in those directions rather than my own epic threat or whatever. I outline a series of events, then talk to my players about what kind of characters they are going to play, then pencil in connections to my events and re-work stuff to fit in with plot hooks going on with their ideas. I never plan more than the next session in any form of detail so that I don't have wasted work. EDIT: Unless it's Paranoia. I print out questionnaire's and use a stack black/red/blue pens and start counting lost clones.
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Jul 5, 2012 04:37
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How I prep for a campaign: 1) Read. Read a LOT. Ideally get to the point where I know the campaign setting, in broad strokes at least, by heart. 2) Come up with a story. Who's my villain, what's his objective, et cetera. Figure out how everything will work out for him if the PCs don't get involved. Then figure a number of different adjustments to the story that could be made if certain reasonably likely events occur (example: evil baron wants to overthrow the King. Baron's prime lackey is a city councilman known to be horribly corrupt, meaning he's likely to get taken down by the PCs. How does the loss of the councilman affect the Baron's plans? Et cetera). 3) Let the players know roughly what kind of game I'm aiming for - if I want a super-serious political machination-style game, they oughta know that before they build a band of berserker sociopaths. 4) Figure out where the PCs will be starting off. 5) Put them there and let them do the rest. Now the reason I do it this way is because I know what the main plot will be and how it will happen if the PCs ignore it... so if they do ignore it, things just run along in the background until they notice it. Meanwhile, if they decide to go off and do something else, I know the setting well enough to wing it. This way when the PCs do notice the plot, they choose to pursue it rather than being made to pursue it, which I find lets them be far more emotionally invested - not to mention, sometimes they come up with goals that are way the hell cooler than anything I would have thrown at them. Basically, by winging it from the very beginning I give my players enough freedom and agency to make them feel like their input matters. The worst thing a GM can do, in my opinion, is to let their players get interested in the idea of pursuing a goal and then ignore that pursuit because 'it doesn't matter;' if your PCs want to take over a band of highway robbers and teach them to be good and virtuous and then use them as the nucleus of an armed rebellion, then you'd damned well better let them, because that's what they want to do. It doesn't matter that 'armed rebellion' isn't the plot beat you were looking to hit; it's the one they were looking to hit, so let 'em hit it. Your goal, as GM, is to do the necessary prep work to give you the confidence to wing it in future sessions, that's the way I look at it. This advice is not one-size-fits-all, however. It might not work for you. But hey, you asked.
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Jul 6, 2012 06:05
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I'm hoping to run Black Crusade for the first time soon, as a newbie to the system teaching a bunch of newbies I know that regardless of the prep I do its going to be hilariously insane. I'm gonna be running "Broken Chains" to start off with and see how it goes from there, but I'm worried about some of the players being too chaotic evil (One player loves melee combat in just about every game we play that has it) to get anything done. I'm trying to prepare scenerios in advance but I'm thinking: Should I just go with it and let the team of heretics destroy itself? (Hopefully in an awesomely explosive total party kill)
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Jul 10, 2012 19:36
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I say go for it. Half the fun of a new system with over-elaborate rules is strategically ignoring limits and getting the most hilariously stupid stuff out of your players' systems, or at least out on the table where you can give it a thorough eyeballing before trying again. Or, you know, leaping back into the fray and continuing where you left off.
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Jul 10, 2012 21:55
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Are there any good articles or anyone have anything useful to say about writing adventures? At the moment I'm running my first game, a module, over on another forum as PbP. It's going decently so far, and while I've realised that I've done a few things wrong, no major problems have happened, and I've been paying attention to where I've gone wrong. I'd like to either finish this module, or another one, and then start doing my own writing. But I'm not really sure where to start. I do come up with ideas for adventures, but they're so out there and "experimental", I just can't imagine I would be able to pull it off at my skill level, which wouldn't be fair to players. I'd like to do unusual games eventually, but I know I'm not up to it yet. So I want to know how to go about writing adventures in general, but also how to put together and be inspired for something more conventional.
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Jul 22, 2012 16:45
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A while back I posted about DMing a live game of D&D with the PCs and NPCs being played by improv comedians. This opens tonight. I blatantly stole a campaign hook from the Eberron thread and have pressed my PCs into service delivering mail. I figured a world full of monsters creates certain logistical problems, the mail being one of them. Thus, Avandra's Special Parcel Service has been created. They deliver the mail at all costs and against all odds, and the ranks filled by criminals and refugees who's crimes are forgiven upon the completion of 3 deliveries (of course the lifespan of a Parcel Carrier is much lower than that.) They are given the high risk mail delivery missions: Serving the brutal warlord with divorce papers, delivering an official letter of censure to the leader of the thieves guild etc. What has proven to be the most funny, against all odds, has been skill challenges. We took our half-orc bard (seductress) out on a date with the tyrant's captain of the guard in order to determine information about sneaking into his keep. The other PC's provided support by using their skills to set the mood throughout the date. I have schooled all of my NPC performers on the rules for the skill and they keep track of successes and failures themselves and react accordingly. It worked like a charm. What's not working as well is combat. It can be funny for a little while, but anything over 3 rounds drags no matter how fast we go, and if we do more than one combat its like the same jokes again. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place because the fans want to see some iconic monsters but even the stuff from the Monster Vault dies too slowly, and I cant run all minions. I've been resorting to faking it or making the monsters flee. I feel like I need at least 2 combat encounters per night and they need to present a real threat to the players without killing them and be over in 3-4 rounds. Any advice?
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Jul 22, 2012 17:53
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Handsome Carl posted:A while back I posted about DMing a live game of D&D with the PCs and NPCs being played by improv comedians. This opens tonight. I blatantly stole a campaign hook from the Eberron thread and have pressed my PCs into service delivering mail. I figured a world full of monsters creates certain logistical problems, the mail being one of them. Thus, Avandra's Special Parcel Service has been created. They deliver the mail at all costs and against all odds, and the ranks filled by criminals and refugees who's crimes are forgiven upon the completion of 3 deliveries (of course the lifespan of a Parcel Carrier is much lower than that.) My advice, since this isn't a "serious" game 1) Fix your players. Have workshops with your players, and work on making the funny while bashing faces in. Brainstorm and test out things that might make the combat more interesting and engaging for players/audience. See if maybe sending them against other sorts of enemies might be funnier. Have the enemies trash talk. Work in audience participation somehow. Turn your 'bard' into a sports commentator during combat, and maybe give them a partner to play off of (Make this assistant the "Retired Quarterback" portion of the sports commentary team). 2) Fix the combat. Turn combat die in to a D2. 1-10, fumble. 11-20, crit. (Give magic weapons and armor a daily/encounter to bump a roll by +-1. A +2 weapon could do this twice an encounter/day). Maybe couple it with a fumble/crit chart so something is always happening (The Devious Book of Fumbles and Crits is highly reviewed). Rename powers. Give powers additional effects. Turn combat rounds into skill challenges with combat attack as a/the skill, if your players suceed, they narrate how they succeeded. If they fail, you tell them how bad that previous 6 seconds was for them. Of course, if you fix combat, its not really D&D anymore. The reason your skill challenges are hilarious is because they give your players/comedians the most leeway to do what they do best: describe an event in a hilarious manner. Guesticles fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 22, 2012 |
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Jul 22, 2012 21:07
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The above is great advice. Also, are you using the monsters in the original Monster Manual or the MM3? They updated the rules because even stock monsters took too long: slightly dropping AC and other defenses, upping damage, and dropping hit points about 80%. If Guesticles' changes feel too extreme, I would recommend checking against the rules here or go even further in cutting AC and dropping hitpoints. When playing a game the PCs want to be able to use all their different powers and abilities, which means they need at least a few rounds so they can get 3-4 hits in. Since your group's objectives are different, you may need to change things up a bit. One other thing is you can have them narrate stunting. It will make it like a mini-skill challenge when they try to backflip over the Big Bad and give him a wedgie or swing from the chandelier (only to go crashing into the wall)... that sort of thing. I can't wait to hear how it all turns out. Hopefully it'll be recorded so we can watch it 
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Jul 22, 2012 21:42
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Hey guys - not sure if this technically qualifies as "GM Advice" it's more like "Advice about what I should say to my GM" so my apologies if this doesn't fit the thread perfectly but anyway... So I've been playing a campaign with good friends of mine for the last few months using a home-brewed system of the GM's design (he lets us give feedback on it) and I volunteered to play the mage to help test out his magic system, which is very cool conceptually but has a lot of room for optimization (certain spells are way too powerful, etc) My problem is two-fold: First off, I am not having much fun playing as the mage because I'm a pretty rules-oriented person. I'm ok with a little GM fiat but at this point it's almost like every spell I cast is asking the GM to rule on what I can and can't do. I like the idea of the system but playing is such a chore because of this. I think this also leads to the GM playing favorites, which is problem #2 The 'I always play a paladin because I think I'm a paladin IRL' guy in the group is the GM's best friend and while it seems like I get ruled against a lot during play, this guy runs roughshod over the rules almost constantly. Everyone at the table are pretty good friends so we kinda just laugh it off because I mean, it's a game we're all here to have fun but it definitely makes the game less enjoyable for me personally. At least 2 other people in the group have expressed similar disappointment at how the game has kinda devolved. So my question is, what should I do to fix the situation? I don't want to be a drag by bringing these issues up, but I also don't want to be a part of a gaming group that isn't fun. Do you think the ambiguity of the rules is the main problem here, or just personality conflict? Thanks for any input you have.
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Jul 24, 2012 19:02
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Unzip and Attack posted:Hey guys - not sure if this technically qualifies as "GM Advice" it's more like "Advice about what I should say to my GM" so my apologies if this doesn't fit the thread perfectly but anyway... First, gather some data -- make sure it is not just your perception. Think of how many times the paladin character has been ruled against, and for what, and think about how many times you have, and for what. Then, when you feel you can address the situation calmly, talk to your GM outside of the session, in person if at all remotely possible (you run grave risks doing it over e-mail). Say that while you enjoy the group and his campaign, you aren't having as much fun as you'd like to, and explain that it is because you feel (and it is important that you phrase these as "I" statements) the rulings are not coming down evenly. Do not launch into examples first! You may not even need them at all and they are likely to escalate the conversation. They are simply evidence, and all of this is backing up your claim that you are not having fun, which he cannot argue against, as it is your feeling. If you make it about his being a bad GM or the guy being a bad player, you are instantly the bad guy in his eyes. He may not have even noticed the slippage, and be glad to correct his course.
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Jul 24, 2012 19:26
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Handsome Carl posted:Improv combat Look up monsters that are kinda goofy by nature. I'd suggest using Pathfinder Goblins skinned into DnD stats. They're basically the monsters from the movie Gremlins. Dump a bunch of extras into an encounter and give half of them actions that make no sense in combat(goblin A attacks, Goblin B starts gorging himself on the contents of a wine barrel.) On the players end, if they're not already, get them to describe their powers beyond "I cast Magic Missile". There was a player I had that used to do stuff like "I scream FOR KOOORD! as holy fire engulfs my mace. I leap off the ledge at Gulwarf and... 18 vs AC? I smash him in the face with 7 points of righteous fury!" Really ham it up and have fun with it.
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Jul 25, 2012 02:21
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I'm playing Shadowrun 4e with a couple friends, and I'm having trouble reconciling the background of one of the PCs with the setting. His character has amnesia, but also a couple contacts who are high level corporate employees and also his very close friends. In addition, he wants his character to be the "Pet Project" of a AAA-rated Megacorporation that they apparently just cut loose and dumped into an alleyway to test some 'secret technology' which, according to his character sheet, amounts to a handful of low-grade Cybernetics and about five different commlinks. I'm trying to tell him to lighten up on the Grand Destiny in a game that's about low-level street guns for hire, but he apparently thinks the alternative is a guy who hit himself with a brick until he lost his memory and is, in his words, "just a pair of floating guns." Am I wrong in this? I want to explain to him that having a humble background is a good thing in Shadowrun, but he seems dead set on being what is essentially Damien Knight's Long Lost Robot Best Friend.
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Jul 25, 2012 06:48
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I'm playing Shadowrun 4e with a couple friends, and I'm having trouble reconciling the background of one of the PCs with the setting. His character has amnesia, but also a couple contacts who are high level corporate employees and also his very close friends. In addition, he wants his character to be the "Pet Project" of a AAA-rated Megacorporation that they apparently just cut loose and dumped into an alleyway to test some 'secret technology' which, according to his character sheet, amounts to a handful of low-grade Cybernetics and about five different commlinks. Make the whole "Pet project" bit a fabrication. He is a test subject - but not for new cyberware, for memory fabrication and modification. As his amnesia fades over time he'll remember his whole Grand Destiny thing, but you'll start tossing out inconsistencies - he 'remembers' one of his contacts working as an R&D head when actually he's in Finance or something. If he starts piecing that together and following up on it, he can eventually find out that he was the subject of a program that the megacorp wanted to use for Nefarious Purposes (tm), but which has hit snags; new memories can be implanted, but the implantation process destroys original memories and causes amnesia, which - it is hoped - will wear off in time. Having uncovered his Fake Background, then, and discovered its Fake-ness, he can then try and uncover his real background. Basically I'm saying a tweak to the concept will make him as 'special' as the player appears to want, but by shifting the project's goals he A) avoids cliche and B) opens up more story possibilities down the road that aren't all 'look how special I am, dude!' He still gets his shady corporate malfeasance and you get the freedom to run the game you want to run.
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Jul 25, 2012 07:35
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DMing D&D 4e with some friends. There are only 6 other players, but to be honest that's far more than I've ever DM'd for before. Just started off and I have them split into two groups of three to make things more manageable. A few have expressed a desire to unite the party, but I really prefer this sort of set up. Should I help facilitate the two groups coming together entirely, or is there a middle ground I haven't thought of?
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Jul 25, 2012 07:41
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How are you splitting the playtime? Is there a Saturday group and a Sunday group or are half of your players having a session while the others have to go play Mario Kart for an hour? If its the latter merge up because sitting around waiting for your game gets old fast. In fact I'd join them up unless your combat is glacial. Six players isn't that rough after a few games and you'll probably lose people as real life or burnout become factors.
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Jul 25, 2012 09:33
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It's more that I switch focus between the two groups in-session. Combat's "glacial" in that it's paragon-tier.
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Jul 25, 2012 09:35
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KillerQueen posted:It's more that I switch focus between the two groups in-session. Combat's "glacial" in that it's paragon-tier. Yeah, if I were one of your players I would hate this. Focus-switching means the group without the focus on them has nothing to do, and no one joins a game to watch other people play.
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Jul 25, 2012 15:22
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Yeah, if I were one of your players I would hate this. Focus-switching means the group without the focus on them has nothing to do, and no one joins a game to watch other people play. Yeah, I know. It's especially bad when combat comes up, since this is paragon-tier 4e. I was trying to make it so combat wouldn't take forever and still be challenging, but I'm starting to think that may just be inevitable at this point.
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Jul 25, 2012 18:17
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The only thing I'd suggest, if you were dead set on two groups, would be getting a Co-GM. What exactly is making your combat go at glacial pace?
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Jul 25, 2012 19:01
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Guesticles posted:The only thing I'd suggest, if you were dead set on two groups, would be getting a Co-GM. My guess would be "4e." Combat is an interesting, albeit 30-120 minute, tactical game. The fight can be pretty interesting for most of its time and you're still looking at the clock saying "ok it's been 90 minutes since this fight started." I really, really don't think 4e is made for split focus, and that's one of my only complaints about it. Co-GM and unification are your options unless they are the types who don't mind a long time between doing anything in-game because they're gaming on their phone or laptop at the same time.
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Jul 25, 2012 19:38
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I mean "Other than 4e". Is it player indecision about the power they're using? Movement? Movement due to terrain/immediate actions? Resolving actions? Blast actions?
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Jul 25, 2012 20:32
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The Maptool-based Pathfinder game I'm running is likely starting the first meeting of the new module tomorrow (waiting on one more player to confirm he can play), and four fifth-level PCs will be heading out on a customized version of The City of Golden Death. As mentioned in the Pathfinder thread, I had to essentially "move" the last module (Masks of the Living God) from Nirmathas and Lake Encarthan to Kaer Maga. They're on a timeline. The big bad evil girl left to sail to an island (which I have moved to near the Linnorm Kingdoms) two weeks ago. Roedarc, the "Paladin of the Sea" in the party has a decent Profession (Sailor), and the Wizard has solid knowledge skills, and they were able to determine that it would take her approximately three weeks to get there. With a smaller, nimbler ship, and the winds in their favor, Roedarc estimated that if they left immediately, they would be less than a week behind the cultists. So, they're wrapping up their poo poo in Kaer Maga, and then taking a River Barge to Magnimar, since they're too cheap to pay for a Teleport spell. An NPC has already arranged for their travel, and when they get to Magnimar they're going to be shown to a Caravel, which the NPC has effectively bought for Roedarc. The party will pick up another character there, at the docks, being the only person there foolish enough to join in an expedition to "The Isle of Terror" and "The City of Golden Death." Roedarc will captain his own ship, and the profession (sailor) and Survival checks will be split between him and this new PC. I want the sailing to feel "organic" and real, and I used a lot of the rules from the 3.5 splatbook Stormwrack to try to simulate that. I will let them plot a course, and then make checks to see if they can follow it. Every day at sea, I plan to do the following:
For example, if they tried to sail north, and the wind was blowing northeast, they need to know how to properly rig the sails so that they end up heading north. If they fail to properly run the ship, they may end up going much more east than north. If they fail the Survival check that day, they might not know that, and will think they went in some other (random) direction. The next day when they go to re-plot their course, they may not be where they think they are, so they might head the wrong way. Like, they think they went X miles north, but in reality they only went Y north and Z east. I will maintain a visible "party" token on the map for where they think they are, and also an invisible one for where they actually are. I'm hoping this won't just be "roll dice for a half hour and groan until we get there", I'd like it to be an interesting experience that actually makes use of the skills my players have chosen. It's fairly likely that they fail the sailor/survival checks for several days in a row and then find out they are extremely off course. The Paladin has a Wisdom of 10, so even with full ranks he's only got a +8 to Sailor/Survival checks, and I'm pretty sure he hasn't invested that much in Survival. Even if they get knocked off course, I want that to be more fun/funny and not "Oh, come on, how long until we get to the island?!" I've come up with a myriad of encounters, including Sea Hags, Scrags, and Lacedons. I'm also thinking of stealing some ideas from They Odyssey if they end up significantly off course. Get some Scylla and Charybdis up in this module, or some Sirens. I've got a lot of the groundwork laid down and tonight I'm going to polish the parts they're likely to reach in tomorrow's meeting. I'd love any input or ideas other DMs might have to make the experience better for my players, even the ones like the Wizard and the Cleric who know nothing of the sea or navigating. I want them to be involved somehow. The Gnome Wizard has the best Perception check in the party, so I guess he could be in the crow's nest for a lot of the trip. Any other ideas?
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Jul 25, 2012 21:06
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