The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Bob Smith posted:

I'm sort of worried that my campaign will be the same way - the villain has a plan, but he's not a sort of "MUAHAHAHAHA I AM EVIL SEE THIS GIRL TIED TO A RAILROAD" villain.

What I'm planning is having a "Doomsday Clock" in the background along the lines of "X sessions passed, the villain achieves Phase 1 of his plan" up to "He completes his plan and now needs stopping before he can capitalise on it."

Is that particularly unfair? There'll be things to do other than challenge him, and I'll be flexible with the time limit (if the players stay in one place for a long time because a combat or encounter took a long time mechanically, I'll delay the clock by a session.)

This is exactly what the 3.5 Red Hand of Doom adventure does, and it works pretty well.

# ¿ Jun 16, 2009 16:38

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 3, 2024 09:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Jiggity posted:

Just started playing D&D 3.5ed. about 4 weeks ago, and the current GM is fine doing his thing as GM, but seems to want to PC more often. So, being interested in the opportunity, I'm about to try my hand at GM-ing in a few weeks. I have what I think is a pretty good idea for a story, and I hope they enjoy it, as much as I have had in my writing of it.

What I'm wondering is, would it be completely ridiculous to introduce dragons at PC-lvl 3? I have a plan for a battle with a very young green dragon (which wont be too tough on them, I don't think), and a friendly very old, gold dragon that assists them in battle against an old black dragon.

Obviously I don't want the dragons to lose their luster(to PCs) so soon, as I have intended for multiple dragon battles to take place, and also I have written in the gold dragon as a bit central to the story of the campaign(though he can be staved off for a later adventure in this story).

Long story short, am I ruining any sort of mystique for the PCs by throwing dragons in the mix so early? Is there a level at which dragons might be more acceptably introduced?

A very young green dragon will be very tough but probably manageable. However, the "gold dragon assists the party against an old black dragon" won't work. A single attack from an old black dragon will most likely kill a character, and they won't even be able to hit it or beat it's SR. If you do do this, the players aren't going to be able to do anything other than watch the fight go down, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Also, it seems like you might be making the gold dragon one of the worst kinds of a NPC - the far more powerful character that "helps" the party along. The problem with this is that it basically reduces the PC's to sidekicks when they should be the heroes.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2009 03:18

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Send some NPCs to talk with them.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2009 18:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Yarrbossa posted:

I'm not sure if this is an appropriate thread to post this in, but I don't feel it warrants it's own thread.

Is there any element built into the D&D 3.5 rules that covers a human performing a ritual/spell/something along those lines to ascend to demon form? I'm in the process of building a particular nasty villain that I hope will give my players something to work towards defeating throughout the campaign.

If there isn't, I'll just make a home brewed option, but I was just curious if anything existed in the current system designed to do what I'm wanting, or something close.

You want the Acolyte of the Skin PrC, from Complete Arcane.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2009 17:48

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Super Waffle posted:

The Shadar kai are AC 20, which isn't so bad for a boss. They just fought a hobgoblin with AC 21 and they did ok. The chainfighter only does 2d4+3 and the gloomblades 1d10+3. I think they can handle it.

Another thing. One of of my players is begging me for a Pseudodragon pet. How should I handle this?

Have him take the Arcane Familiar feat, pick the dragonling familiar, call it a pseudodragon. If he's not an arcane class, you could let him take it anyway, and pick a different familiar that would be more useful and reskin it as a pseudodragon.

Piell fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Aug 12, 2009

# ¿ Aug 12, 2009 15:47

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Fitz posted:

Do you guys have any ideas for a walled town defense scenario? In my next game session, my players will be helping a town defend itself against a group of roughly 300 hobgoblins/goblins/gnolls with the occasional heavy like an ogre or troll thrown in for living siege machinery. The first part of the encounter is setting up defenses, that's a pretty straightforward skill challenge, but I didn't want the second half to be just straight combat. The town has walls surrounding it on 3/4s with a large lake at the other 1/4th. The town also has a standing constabulary as well as a rallyable militia. I could just have them fight some focused skirmishes against the heavier combatants and then just narrate the rest. But I don't want to take too much out of the hands of the players. At the very least I want to give them something out of the ordinary to work with, maybe popping magical flares to mark targets for the archers on the wall to focus on.

Let them order around the militia/guards, sending them after different targets at a time, i.e.

Players have:
Themselves
One group of guards with bows
One group of guards with swords and shields
A pair of wizards
A trio of clerics
Three groups of militia

Stat each of the groups of militia/guards/etc as monsters, and each group of enemies as a single monster. Any combat between militia/guards and monsters takes place as group fights (where each group acts as a single creature, with a "boss" monsters statted as a single creature as well), and have each fight that the players do take place as a real fight as normal.

# ¿ May 4, 2010 22:20

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

D20 modern is a lovely system. What would work far better for what you are doing is the D20 CoC system. You'd have to get a hold of the book somehow, since there is no SRD for it. Coming up with concepts/builds is fine, but I would make it an option (i.e. "You guys can use one of these that I've created, or you can make your own") rather than force the players to use them.

# ¿ May 8, 2010 13:01

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Stuntman Mike posted:

I need some help getting around the 1-hour workday problem. I've got my party exploring a small-ish dungeon, and it is not realistic for them to spend 8 hours resting there - its a short crawl, but there's enough encounters that I feel they'll exhaust their spells and healing before the big bad at the end. If they do rest, it is very likely that the big bad will escape or overwhelm them in an ambush.

I've supplied them with several Pearls of Power and plenty of healing potions to get them through, but what else can I do to get them to press on and not rest? I want them capable and able to fight the end boss, but if they choose to rest I'll have to ambush them while they're sleeping and that just compounds the issue.

Give them a time limit - they need to find item X before something bad happens, or bad guy Y is going to be leaving soon, so they need to get through this as fast as possible.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 18:11

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Dedekind posted:

Bit of a rambling response here, sorry.

I'm still trying to work out skill challenges myself, but I think there's a valid comparison here with combat. In earlier editions, combat was off-balance in much the same way as you're describing: a few players with skill sets who could shut down things unless the encounter was specifically tailored to eliminate their strengths. Now, most of that was down to poor design, but there was another big factor: the lack of a map. Without the map, it was easy for the wizard to declare "I drop a fireball," and the fight was over. With a map, though, it becomes clear that dropping a fireball isn't a trivial thing you can do whenever you want: the party has to work to get everything into a place where the fireball will work.

So my intuition is that what skill challenges need is the equivalent of a tactical map: that is, something that makes the players have to work to get into a position where their characters can use their skills. One aspect of this is requiring successes to "unlock" other skills. So maybe the bard has +18 to Diplomacy, but who is he going to be diplomatic at? He needs to speak to the lord of the castle, but the guards at the gate aren't going to let him -- their orders are to keep people out unless they have a castle seal. Maybe Thievery can let them forge a seal, or Streetwise might find a guard amenable to bribing, or Athletics and Stealth to climb the wall. Maybe History to find some legal precedent to let them in. The idea is to define an end-goal, and then have the players construct a narrative that allows them to use skills in order to move towards that goal.

To make it work, you'd have to let go the whole "eight successes before three failures" thing, except as a design guideline. For a difficult encounter, you want to aim for a scenario such that there are eight to ten obstacles between the starting situation and the end goal, and a failure scenario that kicks in after three or four successes.

This isn't much in the way of advice, because I'm still working out how to do this reliably myself. My first attempt (navigating an early-warning trap room) worked pretty well, and it confirmed my main thought: the key is to keep the players out of the "roll my highest skill" mentality.

This idea works really well with the Obsidian Skill Challenge system. Each round could have a different set of skills allowed. So the first round could be getting into the building, the second round could be getting access to the king, and the third round could be convincing the king to help.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2010 15:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

csammis posted:

I'm new to the idea of running skill challenges and I'm just now beginning to have faith in my improvisational out-of-combat DMing. I've been looking at the Obsidian skill challenges and it seems like a good improvement over the published rules in the DMG, I am a definite believer that X successes before 3 rounds is a good model, but for the goddamn life of me I cannot figure out what a round is supposed to consist of outside of combat

Let's say the party has been brought to trial on conspiracy charges, and they have to convince a judge that they're not associated with an evil cult. It's a social skill challenge using Diplomacy/Bluff/Insight (Intimidate probably wouldn't go down too smooth in a courtroom). This is what I'm envisioning:

1) DM says "Okay everyone around this table, tell me what you are going to do."
2) One by one everyone tells the DM what their character is doing and rolls using the skill they chose.
3) DM says "The judge looks down at you and says 'well i am not convinced hm okay'"
4) Repeat two more times

This can't be the sort of sequence envisioned by Obsidian, right? It just seems too rigid but I can't get the idea of rounds-as-in-combat out of my head.

For this example, I might do a prosecution (where each of them takes the stand against someone who is against them), defense (where they get to show their own reasoning for what happened), and closing arguments.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2010 03:10

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Tomero_the_Great posted:

Green DM here as well. I've got 5 sessions under my belt and things are going smoothly and the players love it so far. I have a few questions, one more technical than the others and probably easier to answer so we'll start with that.

What's the best way to go about traps as far as design, execution, and detection goes?

There doesn't seem to be any traps in the Adventure Tools, and while I read the section in the DM Guide 1, I'm still a bit fuzzy on how I can give my players a chance of becoming aware of traps and avoiding them. As it is, I've improvised in that if a player interacts with object A and is standing in area B, then the trap involving A and B goes off and I roll an attack and see if it hits. I do try and give them warning ("you see some holes in the wall opposite of the only door.") and wait and see if they use a perception check (I gave them an obvious trap, but there were other traps in the room that weren't so blatant.).
I'm also confused with how passive perception interacts with traps. Player passive perception isn't going to change much over time, so when I design a trap, according to my understanding of the RAW, I'm predetermining whether they recognize the trap or not (which I guess would sometimes make sense with crappy traps that are poorly put together). Also it would usually be the same character every time since she's the only one statted in wisdom.

How can I go about using traps in a meaningful way that would give the scenario both a solid chance of success and a solid chance of failure?

Don't use traps alone, that is boring. Traps should be used to spice up encounters, rather than replace them. Have a trap that creates a jet of fire across a couple squares, and have enemies and PCs avoid or knock each other into it, for example.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2010 23:05

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Why are you forcing one group to lose the fight? Just run the original fights (or a somewhat weakened version.) that you had planned for each section originally. If everyone in one group goes down, have them be capture and run through their escape.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2010 15:38

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Yawgmoth posted:

I didn't say it makes plot hooks impossible, I said that it makes a lot of potential plot hooks impossible. Like, anything starting with "PCs are trapped in..." or "PCs need to break into..." or "PCs are cornered by..." is immediately quashed because they can't be trapped, they can teleport in and out, and it's hard to corner a group when they can make themselves instantly not there.

If your players are trying to do something other than grab the macguffin and slay the Jabberwock, then it becomes less of an issue.

Short range occasional line of sight teleports on one or two PC's don't make any of those impossible.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2011 22:27

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Perry Mason Jar posted:

Brand new to DMing and I'm wondering how I can handle an alignment difference in my party. One player, brand new to D&D mind you, had his heart set on a necromancer. I was reluctant to allow it, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. It's his first time playing and I want all my players to have fun, even if it that makes things harder on me, so I explained to him he'd need to play an evil aligned character if he wanted to cast the vast majority of his school's spells and he understood and rolled lawful evil.

That's all well and good but I've no idea how to handle this. One big problem is that the other PCs know he's playing an evil character, and even if they don't metagame and RP properly they'll eventually be clued in in game and it'll have to be dealt with. Besides that what motivation could the necro have for adventuring with the group? Sure I could shoehorn in a reason but what's to stop them from kicking him out of the group once that adventure wraps up (campaign's going to continue indefinitely)?

The other PCs are either good or neutral aligned, the rogue (CN) is the closest to the necromancer in terms of alignment.

You can be neutral and still cast evil spells.

# ¿ May 7, 2011 03:51

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Faerie Fortune posted:

I'm having a bit of a...personal issue with one of my players and I'm not sure how to resolve it. For a bit of background, it's my first time DMing any RPG really and I'm a little unsure of myself in spots. Because of this, I've taken to allowing my players to goof off probably a bit more than I should. My campaign isn't super grimdark or anything but neither do I want it to be seen as some kind of joke and most of the players get that. They do silly things occasionally (some of them are actually awesome like when our Seeker decided to try and earn some money in a town by using his at-will powers to create some kind of elemental light show in a fountain to entertain the townspeople) but the rest of the time, they take it about as seriously as you can take spending your evenings pretending to be a party of adventurers. They're all pretty new to this too and we're all learning together.

Our party is two fighters (a tiefling specialising in tempest technique and a goliath with a warhammer) a seeker, a sorceress, a rogue/swordmage and a wizard..

And our Warlock. He's one of the newbies in the party, like most of us having never played anything D&D besides Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. From the first session he started with his poo poo which includes - but is not limited to;

- If he comes to any kind of obstacle, be it a door, tree, gate, iron bars or even a cliff, he will Eldrich Blast it. Despite the entire party telling him on multiple occasions that this is a terrible idea that will get them killed, he still does it. Even if there are multiple enemies on the other side of the door that our Rogue can hear through an awesome roll, he will blast through it just because he can, putting the entire party in danger and provoking opportunity attacks. He insists that this is because, in his characters backstory "she has a vendetta against doors" but I've never seen ANY backstory from him, let alone one involving doors.

- For a short time, every session we had, he would "change" his characters name, saying that she uses a fake name. Fair enough, I can deal with characters hiding their identities for whatever reason but when your "fake names" are things like Rodger Dodger, John Madden and other things based off lovely 4chan memes, it's not justifiable in any way, shape or form.

- Speaking of memes, he will spout them. All the drat time. When he decided his characters "fake name" was John Madden, he spent the entire session quoting things from that Moonbase Alpha thing that's so popular. I told him to shut the gently caress up because the other players were clearly getting annoyed at him and he just carried on. This is a theme with him. There was one session where the characters were locked in a cell and had to retrieve some keys. They managed to do this and he took the keys, which led to him shouting "USE. KEY. WITH. DOOR" like he was playing a text adventure. The first time it was amusing. The twentieth, not so much. We told him to shut up because he kept interrupting people who were actually wanting to do things and he carried on anyway.

- Lastly, he has a deathwish. He's not happy with his character, which is fine with me, I'd let him re-roll if he wanted. I asked him this and he said no, he doesn't want to re-roll. So he must be happy with his character, right? Wrong. Any enemy we come across that's stronger than a standard minion, he will run into the room and attempt to draw its attacks towards him. Why? He wants his character to die so he can roll again. I'd just let him die if I could but since the encounters I run with him in the group are scaled for our group and I'm a somewhat new DM, I don't want to totally unbalance the encounter just because he can't be bothered to admit he wants to re-roll and take himself out of the game for a bit.

I'm seriously considering kicking him out of the group. I don't want to DM for this guy because I find every session with him intolerable, especially when my other players are awesome to play and learn the game with. When we run a session without him, it's great and we all have a laugh. With him the other players always seem so...disheartened. They don't work together because they know any plan they make will fall apart thanks to mister "I think I'm hilarious because I'm an intolerable jackass".

Now for my actual question regarding this guy, am I being oversensitive and dickish by wanting him out of my group for the sake of mine and my players sanity or should I take him aside and talk to him one on one to establish why he feels the need to be the center of attention in the most obnoxious way possible and see if I can get him to calm down first? I'm totally new to DMing and D&D as a whole really so I'd really appreciate some help because I just don't know what to do at this point.

Always try talking first before kicking someone out. If he keeps up his poo poo, then boot him.

# ¿ May 24, 2011 16:34

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Affi posted:

How would you solve a situation where the PC's want to break someones arm for example, or if a NPC wants to do something similar? Skill challenge? Attack roll?

Str vs Str and Con check? 3 consecutive successes and you break the arm, 1 failure and you only bruise him (x dmg)?

When he hits 0 HP, instead of dying his arm is broken and he gives up.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2011 19:44

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Baronjutter posted:

I got so sick of crunchy cumbersome D&D style combat that could take an hour to resolve at times. Even a good fight would end up slightly boring and just seem to take too long. So we've gone to a more narrative based system.

Rounds are simultaneous. Everyone states their goal for the round, as do the bad guys. I roll a d6 for everyone and add in their related skill. If their number is higher than their opponents, they win and accomplish their goal to a degree related to the gap between their and their opponents rolls.

So if a guy just says "This round I want to focus on that axe bear and try to quickly kill it" him and the axe bear roll, add bonuses and compare.

Even or close to even results: "You charge and attack the axebear with your sword but it blocks with its bear axe. You two are locked in a pitched fight with no one having the upper hand or paw!"

Player comes out a little on top: "you and the axe bear trade blows, parrying and dodging in a brutal melee of fur and steel. You get in a few good slices on the bears arms but the fight will continue next round" (I then give the axe bear a penalty next round for being injured)

Player wins large difference "You leap at the axe bear, you are too fast for it and plunge your sword deep into its neck before it can raise its heavy axe to defend its self. The axe bear is dead!"

Combat goes way faster now, and the players seem a bit more engaged and not as quickly bored. It's also very very scaleable and handy in huge fights.
Certainly not for everyone though. There's a certain fun with playing with very set and quantified mechanics. Some people play just for the mechanics, some people play just for the story and role playing, most somewhere in the middle. It's good to find out whee on that axis your players are.

You should really check out a FATE based system.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2011 07:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Mundane people can (mostly) keep up with wizards just fine. Because their top tier skills aren't taken up with casting, they can put up their dodging/attack skills at the top, and a wizard isn't going to be able to get one or maybe two points higher. The downside in combat is damage - wizards can get conviction + focus item + specialization, and strong creatures get a bonus to their damage. In this case, when Merlin and Mulder are fighting Dracula, it's best for Mulder to use his gun as a distraction or knock over a bookcase onto Dracula or whatever maneuver he can do. Maneuvers in FATE are quite strong and stacking the tags from maneuvers and FP (which Pure Mortals will have more of) is the fastest way to take out enemies.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2012 18:00

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

tzirean posted:

On the maps topic, how do other people handle them? They're easily my least favorite part of DMing, because I play at someone else's house and we use a dry-erase mat, so I can't set up beforehand and the players get impatient if I take too long to draw. The end results are typically uninteresting or flawed maps. Is there a good way around this that I'm missing, or is it just "yeah, it sucks, but that's how it works?"

Do they have a good-sized TV? Do you (or someone) have a laptop? Connect the laptop to the TV and open Maptools or the mapping application of your choice!

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 11:28

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

I'm just gonna note that nothing can ruin a game faster than PC's starting to steal from each other. I'd have a talk with the players and make sure everyone's OK with it or someone is going to get pissed out of character.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2013 09:29

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

P.d0t posted:

So, it turns out one of the PCs in my party is ~*cRaZy!*~
This is particularly annoying because it doesn't terribly line-up with the backstory the player submitted to me, and now they're literally being like "I wanna start burning down the drinking establishment owned by the NPC I don't like who is a non-combatant."

Is there any way to handle this other than being just straight up, like "don't play your character this way"?
I really don't want to be the evil DM, but when a player is just out to start fights, should I just say "fuckit" once in a while and do it?

Is the rest of the group good with that? Then go nuts and do whatever.
Is the rest of the group not fine with it? Warn them there will be real consequences for their character, and then implement them (but not in a way that fucks over the rest of the play), or ask them to play a less disruptive character or to tone their current character down.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 05:22

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Fargo Fukes posted:

I was just involved in a game a week ago with a great system for getting you involved with and attached to your characters/group. I forget what the system is called, maybe someone will recognise it?

Basically you come up with a one-line description for your character, building a little bit of conflict in to it if possible. The example we were given was "Only straight cop in a dirty town". I went with "Marxist revolutionary fighting to bring down the system". You then come up with one event that's had a defining impact on your character in the past - "Was betrayed by Revolutionary Crime Squad when storming the home of a local fatcat property developer".

This is the great bit: your little story gets passed along to another member of the group who writes themselves a little part in it, while you get the story of someone else and have to write yourself into their story. It turns out the groups' conspiracy-theorist journalist had been working to uncover the fatcat's involvement in a local cult, and may have had something to do with my betrayal. Meanwhile I had joined the sewing circle of our evangelist librarian group member in order to radicalise it and recruit it to the new Revolutionary Crime Squad. You do this swap-and-rewrite one more time and then you're set to go.

It really helps break down the initial-group awkwardness, as your characters start off with this whole intertwining history behind them. I had a mild rivalry with, but also respect for the journalist while had recruited the evangelist (and had been recruited to her Demonfighting squad). Turned the boring tutorial, introductory session into something with a bit of banter to it.

Anyway, I recommend something like that!

That's a Fate game of some sort.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 08:52

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

The party has angered the Swordhawks, a band of scimitar-wielding wildshape druids, by upsetting the ecological balance of the area by killing off an important link in the food chain.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 15:14

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

redherringj posted:

I've been playing RPGs for 23 years, and am used to extroverted, funny people who are not intimidated by rules or playing make-believe. I'm an adult now and stuck with the people I know now who are much more reserved. Does anyone have suggestions of how to best reach out to new players, and how to encourage introverts to roleplay? What are some tips to getting new players to share the creation of a campaign?

Let player share the creation of a game. Do a Dresden Files-style setting creation by having the first session of the game be a combination of character and setting creation. Have everyone come up with a few threats and setting themes right there, at the table, as a collaborative effort, and then make sure each player is tied into at least on the of things they've created.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2014 19:58

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Bad Munki posted:

Does 4e still suffer the same "OMG NINJA YESSSSSS" bs that 3.0 suffered with the monk class? When I was running 3.0, I had to outlaw monks entirely in my games because they were just way too overpowered, even if the player wasn't trying.

Holy poo poo someone who thinks monks are overpowered. Next you're going to tell me how Warlocks were too good.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2014 20:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Why do you have to trick them into it? Even if you manage it, if you're at all accurate they're going to notice it pretty quick I would think.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 07:24

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Sionak posted:

I have a request on behalf on my DM: he was looking for ways to make a labyrinth session more interesting.

He isn't really feeling doing the whole "map out the labyrinth on graph paper" thing. And last time we had mazes come up in game, he had us solve actual mazes as skill checks - but we'v already done that, now.

So, veteran DMs, how do you make a maze fun and involved without having it be a long slog?

Don't. I've never seen a maze be good, because you either map out the fucker and take forever or you handwave it and it doesn't matter.

# ¿ May 7, 2014 18:40

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

GM's killing/kidnapping family members is why 90% of D&D characters are orphans. Don't stand for it!

# ¿ May 29, 2014 08:03

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Play it on Roll20 instead, you can load up sound and music and poo poo, and it will let you easily put up images of NPC's/areas as well.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 15:08

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

If you took it as Signature gear why the gently caress were you planning to destroy it? Dude wants a rare but not overpowered gun and paid the appropriate metagame price for it, so why not let him have his fun?

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 23:43

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Xelkelvos posted:

I'm in quite a predicament with my Dungeon World campaign

1. At the end of the previous session, a player was arrested for bashing someone in the knee and generally causing an uproar in the middle of the city (standard Murderhobo stuff). Should I follow my player's expectations and give them a jailbreak for them to do or should I continue my plan where he arrested player and the party are sent out as guinea pigs to complete/solve a dungeon/trap?

2. I have two new players joining the party next session and one comes with their own ship (The Captain from Inverse World). I hadn't planned for there to be airships in the setting, nor did I plan on there being much naval interaction. I don't want to reject the Class pick purely because they have a large means of transportation that I'm not sure how to account for, but I've been sort of sidelined with this. So I'm not sure how to handle this as well.

1. Do both - set up the dungeon quest with the arrested player, and then have the players do a jailbreak as cover (the guard captain can't just let the PC's go, after all, he has to make it look good for the higher-ups!)

2. Talk to the player, see how dead set they are on the Captain. If they're fine with switching to another Class, then fine! If they don't really want to change, well now your setting has rare airships.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2014 05:09

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Bandits were horses all along

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 11:35

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

No it's still bad, use Skype.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 12:56

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Night10194 posted:

What makes it bad, exactly?

Sometimes you just won't be able to hear a specific person for no apparent reason, or nobody can hear you, and then you have to keep reconnecting until it fixes itself.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 00:19

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

I did that with Maptools a while back and it worked pretty good. Nowadays I'd probably use roll20 and two log ins, one as player to send to the screen and one as GM to run stuff.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 05:44

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Dareon posted:

Unfortunately, you're a little slow on that.

On another note, as some of you may be aware, I'm prepping for a Fallout campaign, and I keep wandering back to an idea, studying it, coming up with tidbits for it, and going "No, that's not funny/too on the nose/stupid," but it keeps rolling around and I've begun thinking there may be some merit to it.

Super Mutant Donald Trump.

Has the Toupee, listens to Enclave Radio, rants about making America great again. If/when the players confront him, he breaks down in tears and cries "TRUNK JUST HATE SELF!"

Do it

# ¿ Jan 11, 2016 21:41

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Cat Face Joe posted:

However if it wouldn't be a burden to the player and the group, when the first demon attacks, make it clear that this won't stop even if they win. Now the group is invested in making sure he does his side jobs. Everything seems fine at first but slowly the side jobs become more questionable.

Maybe don't drag the rest of the party into annoying sidequests connected to a player who obviously does not want to do them? I'm guessing you aren't forcing the wizard to sidequest for just the right ink for his spellbook or the fighter for just the right tutor to learn how to sword, don't force the warlock to work for his class features when nobody else has to.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2016 19:01

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

I'll form the head

# ¿ Apr 23, 2018 13:02

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

A Necklace of Fire Balls

# ¿ Oct 5, 2018 19:19

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 3, 2024 09:39

Piell: Sep 3, 2006; Grey Worm's Ken doll-like groin throbbed with the anticipatory pleasure that only a slightly warm and moist piece of lemoncake could offer; Young Orc

Bad Seafood posted:

For games that lack a failing forward mentality, I've instituted a bad luck table for critical failures. Roll a crit fail, roll on the table. The results are heavily skewed in favor of simply "You miss/you don't do the thing you wanted to do," but there's some wiggle room allowing for more inconvenient, complicated, and occasionally hilarious outcomes. Allows for that feeling of dread without necessarily screwing you over simply because your character needs to make more rolls; you basically need to roll snake eyes for anything wacky to happen.

I, too, hate people who roll more often do to character build.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 18:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

«‹›2 »