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Okay, so, I'm going to be taking up a long term game writing project. I'm thinking something easy that I'm familiar with, D&D 3.5. However, I've becoming increasingly bored with yawn worthy dungeon crawls and a complete lack of permanency in previous campaigns run by other people. So I want to write the game with two things in mind: First, I want to run it out of a specific location. Where doesn't actually really matter as long as I have the source material or failing that, time to make it up. I'm looking for something with source material of a city with 50k+ to run something reaching up to about level ten. Days will go by, seasons will come and go, festivals will go on and can be looked forward to, people come to market and travel, characters can make use of craft skills and you can get to know your local neighborhood/city. And with enough places to take them outside of it when I'm looking for a change of scenery before bringing them back. Second, I want to get away from dungeon crawls. I've never been a big fan of them. And while I'll partake now and again I much prefer people using their heads instead of going from room to room killing whatever is inside robotically, which is excruciating to design and to run. So I was thinking of something along the lines of being more receptive to players, having a sort of wanted board for non-story missions so they can choose what sorts of missions they'd like. So in order to get away from dungeon crawls I've been designing missions along the lines of seafaring, exploration, investigative work, running security, etc. But I'm trying to rack my brains for other stuff and I'm coming up with nothing else. In other words I'm looking for some detailed source material either online or in book form so I can run an entire campaign out of it and I'm also looking for rough ideas on some alternatives to dungeon crawls because they bore the hell out of me. Any suggestions?
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Aug 11, 2010 08:23
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 21:59 |
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Standard 4E D&D game, getting into freeing an enslaved population. Yadda yadda, I was getting a little bored so I decided to switch things up for fun. So I was getting to the end of a campaign when someone new joined in. The game was turning heavily into combat only, which was fine for some players but I wanted to get away from it for a little while as little roleplay was being done and I wanted to change that. Long story short, the characters killed a lawyer who sold his soul to a minor demon lord for a paltry amount of power. The lawyer was unable to fulfill his part of the bargain and so the demon lord ordered that the characters be put on trial for destruction of property and the lawyer himself is going to be their adversary. And so they are now in hell. Specifically the part that deals with sloth. And they are awaiting trial. Barring any pacts with forces greater than them, the players will have to defend themselves in court from said lawyer with the honorable judge Belphagor (inventor demon who the lawyer belongs to, creator of the slap chop and the unseen servant) presiding. The main goal of this story arc will be a sort of recap of the campaign leading up to the death of the lawyer so the new players won't be bored/lost all of the time, and so he'll feel more connected to the storyline. It will also be foreshadowing a campaign at a later time which is coming up soon. What I have: Read through Dante's Inferno. It will be at most a mutated caricature of tiny parts of the book. Characters fight their way through a demonic library in order to obtain knowledge of how to win a court case, battling against hellish books, library paiges and the dreaded severe librarian Fraulein Hair Bun herelf. Also, doing a job of some sorts to recruit a Johnny Cochranesque or some other type of lawyer to be defined at a later date. If the glove don't fit, you must acquit! What I want: I'm looking for any sort of flavor which might deal with both evil and laziness and how it would impact the characters. More fluff than anything. The campaign is also fairly lighthearted, so I'd rather have punishments from hell, the trial, gathering evidence for the defense, etc, be more laden with irony rather than straight up torture. Although grotesque monsters of laziness would be great too. Also faux legalese hilarity. I have some experience with how court proceedings work, but it has been ages since I've went over legal documents. However, I need to dumb it down and make it interesting so I don't bore them with legalese. I'm looking for any ideas for the campaign to be fun. I'm going to run this for at least four game sessions, if not more. Any help with ideas, no matter how small, would be greatly appreciated.
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Feb 21, 2011 06:50
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Lord Psychodin posted:I'm very confused on this, Because honestly while I lovefull on mental battles in games, I wouldn't want them within a mile of an RPG I like, LARP or not. However this has nothing to do with it, and no offense, I think any player whose read up on anything in this genre can Objection! you in the first moments airtight without needing to do poo poo. this is why I am asking this  It's a game, dude. You're overthinking things. I'm not too worried about MY STORY. I'm worried about everyone having fun, myself included. Consequently, I'm not running a game to be taken seriously. I'm just running it to have some laughs, hang out with friends and drink some beer. Mostly I'm just trying to squeeze comedic value out of it while simultaneously horrifying them.
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Feb 22, 2011 11:27
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If they're itching for killing the big bad have a discussion with your players. Tell them that on one hand you're willing to stretch the game out for a while in order to get the fun going. And do it in game. Make the big bad harder by a level or two. It'll be tough, but they can do it with what they have but it may be costly to do so. If they can wreck certain magical sites/items/minions they'll drive his power away. In essence, by giving the players a choice like this they'll most likely choose to prolong it a bit if they can make their chances better. If not, you won't have to string them along with them getting bored.
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Mar 30, 2011 06:33
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In a lot of cases you can simply say yes. You hadn't planned for a thing but it is possible that it might exist so why not make some poo poo up on the fly? If it makes sense for the area that you're in, do a dice roll. Is X thing there? Roll dice, think about probability. "Is there a map within X place?" Roll dice again. Or do whatever. Saying yes more often makes players happy. Just don't do it all of the time. But if they come up with a legitimate thing which could exist, why the gently caress not? Have a ball. As for your players: 1. Therapy Man - Stomp on this poo poo right away. If he's moping and using you and your friends as emotional toerags and you're not okay with it, tell him now. You're not his therapist. You could be a good friend to him and talk about it, but hashing out sexual identity, daddy issues, any other weird or hosed up poo poo, etc, normally isn't appropriate when you're doing adventure time. Adventure time is fun time. Not everyone pay attention to my self esteem issues time. It probably isn't appropriate. 2. I used to be a rules lawyer. This is an annoying way of people getting their fun out of things. My suggestion is to recruit him as a co-dm, have him keep score of hit points during battle and otherwise keeping him busy. I got over it after realizing that I was ruining everyone else's fun. Unless there's an absolutely glaring error which could effect everything, see if you can get him to confine doing that to the beginning or end of the game when it isn't chewing up time. Although my personal cure for rules lawyering was weird. I started playing sub optimized dump stat characters. It was like playing on super hard mode for me. Pimping out your character with super stats and broken powers. My old 3.5 psionic character would sometimes win encounters by himself. It was optimized and horribly broken. So I started playing charismatic bards/clerics and haven't looked back since. And the reason is because I now get to be the party mouthpiece -and- charisma based characters need a lot of care to make them effective in combat. I'm weird. 
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Apr 4, 2011 20:35
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Astfgl posted:Yeah, I figured this would be the answer. I was hoping there was an in-game solution like "Your god is annoyed by your capricious nature and chooses to block your changeling abilities until you grow the gently caress up." When you're dealing with nerds you have to be up front with them. Passive aggressiveness doesn't work because he's already doing it to you. And since you're asking for help it means that he's better at it than you are. If he freaks out and blows up then it is better that it is with you that one time than making a huge scene of it for everyone to see. Just tell him that it is making you uncomfortable and ask him to either tone it down to a reasonable level or stop it all together. Be diplomatic about it, but you never let one player hijack an entire game.
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Apr 5, 2011 00:19
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That really is shoehorning roleplay into your game incredibly hard. Realize that the game that you want is not always the game that the players want. Most players will want to participate and talk. But some just want to lightsaber poo poo to death and pretend that they don't like it (or secretly do). Encourage it. Sit down with your players and sort it out with them like adults. "I like X. I enjoy myself when you do X. What will it take for you to do more X? What do you folks want? More Y? I can do more Y if you can give me some extra X. We can have both together if we just do this." You could be passive aggressive. But some people just don't have a clue.
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Apr 15, 2011 08:09
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Doc Hawkins posted:I think it depends on how much the OP is looking to encourage... The first rule of project mayhem is that you do not ask questions. Its shoehorning if you reward or punish people for conforming to what you want. Less so for positive reinforcement, doubly so for negative enforcement. Gaming is give and take. It is better to sit down and ask what people want from the game rather than force them into what you want to do. Ultimately it ends in a lot of butthurt feelings and shut mouths. You can't make them do anything otherwise they'll begin to resent you.
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Apr 16, 2011 04:22
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I use a lot of imagery when I write horror and I hosed with my players' expectations just enough that they'd keep from turtling up and killing everything but would still be paranoid. Less pants making GBS threads fear and more them admitting to me in confidence that they had a nightmare or five about a few of my games. Man filled completely with ticks enveloping half of the party in a sneak attack? Check. KKK crucifies a man who they mercy kill (their fault) and they gently caress up the mercy kill and he becomes a recurring enemy? Check. Recurring them of crows throughout the entire campaign? I don't know how it ever scared anyone, but check. Mostly though I just didn't define what was happening. Here's the biggest thing about horror that you'll ever need to know. Tease the players, gently caress with their expectations, never fully reveal what's happening. Because if you define the big scary thing that happens it lets a person categorize what is happening. Better that you let the thing remain a mystery because their own minds make a thing far, far scarier than you will ever have the ability to do on your won.
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Jun 23, 2011 04:06
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Hal Gill username posted:Oh god yes this. Especially if you're playing in an established system don't ever tell them flat out what a monster is, unless they're in a position where their characters should know. "It's big, it's hairy, it smells like death" is going to be much more intimidating than "it is the monster from page 82." Ghouls are very much tougher than the average person. They have roughly 7-9 Body per ghoul. Many use scrounged up blades and occasionally a smart one will use a shotgun or something like that. And when they smell food and are outnumbered, have them do a hunting cry. And in the distance, other hunting cries ring out from several other directions, eventually getting closer and closer each round. Shadowrun has been and always will be "stay the gently caress out of combat unless you act first and don't get overwhelmed".
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Jun 23, 2011 04:34
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Doc Hawkins posted:Is the smugness part of your technique? Because if my GM sounded like this, I'd be a little unsettled, too. Smugness is always part of my technique. 
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Jun 23, 2011 09:56
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Unless I have a great idea for an NPC I pretty much go by the seat of my pants and go with what feels right at the time. Some of my most notable ones was a grizzled old farmer turned levied veteran turned beggar after his side lost. Even if his side won he'd still be a farmer. But he shot his mouth off to a soldier and they broke his kneecaps. A natural twenty later for a heal check I thought "Well, I shouldn't let this go to waste." And after they lifted him to a bar (he crapped on their back, he couldn't walk, wet slopping noise. Less funny, more sad and embarrassing for him. They laughed at first until I described how awful he felt for being in this position) and fed him and patched him up he became their official go to guy for word on the street. We even renamed our streetwise checks and called them Petewise checks, as characters kept rolling twenties with this guy for some reason and getting crazy awesome rolls on their checks. Weeks later, the guys were in trouble and I was just rolling awesome and they were rolling badly, so I thought to myself, "What the hell, they earned it," and Pete speared a heavily armored knight and stuck a knife through his helmet after about three turns of fighting, which turned the tide. He was still old and underfed and out of breath after all of this, but his legs weren't as busted up and he had fighting spirit again. All of this happened because the first guy they talked to while they were in town I just happened to name Pete, he was a beggar and they adopted him. I just made it up on the fly, keeping it simple and writing it down later. So don't be afraid to just make poo poo up on the fly. It really lends to a more organic experience to the game then "My name is generic fantasy name 3, may I eat a thousand razor blades my story is so horrible, boo hoo." I used to fall into this habit of making up convoluted horrible stories for people. But players can empathize more with "They took my farm, my dignity and my legs away from me. gently caress those guys" because it is easier to understand.
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Aug 7, 2011 09:08
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 21:59 |
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Just thought of this. How does everyone here feel about killing main NPC's in games with no or limited resurrection? Not just in a main fight or at an appropriately dramatic time, but I mean because they're unlucky or in the wrong place or just in some way which cheapens their life and leaves whatever destiny they supposedly had unfulfilled? I've been killing main NPC's so much that people aren't getting as attached as they were before. Characters have to sometimes work to keep the NPC's that they drag along with them alive and in the short term it is often easier and safer just to abandon them instead of going to the wall for them. But I'm wondering if I'm going too far with, "Life is cheap, here's your grit, enjoy your noir" sometimes. Thoughts?
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Aug 7, 2011 09:12
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