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ripped0ff posted:With that in mind, losing a player's presence at the table is doesn't mean so much that you lose the aid of their character, it means you lose the chance to shoot the breeze with them. That player also already lost the chance to shoot the breeze with everybody else (which sucks to begin with) and you're further penalizing them by docking XP. quote:If your main attraction to PnP RPing is XP, then I'd rather not have you at my table. This completely misses the point.
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Jul 26, 2009 22:53
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Actually I usually just say something like "sorry you can't make the session dude, I know how much fun you have playing RPGs. I'll email you with a summary of the session and XP/treasure notes later this week" If chronic absence is a problem then I'll just ask upfront if they're not having fun and if they aren't, that's cool. I'd rather have honesty than somebody not enjoying the game. Making it clear I'll penalize XP and require a homework assignment doesn't sound conducive to a laidback enjoyable RPG experience. 
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Jul 27, 2009 00:04
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I didn't say anything in my post about whether an excuse is good or not. I do the same no matter the reason (a date, hangover, death in the family, work issues, whatever).If a player can't make the game for any reason I give them the benefit of the doubt regardless. If they miss like five or six sessions in a row then yeah I'm gonna ask what's up but I'll do so casually and with no hard feelings. Why add stress to what should be an entertaining hobby?
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Jul 27, 2009 00:16
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ripped0ff posted:I don't have any particular problem with this method. The idea of passing judgment on what constitutes a true commitment to the game after someone misses a couple sessions seems like a dick move though. Where are you getting the "passing judgment" thing from? I just said I'd ask what's going on if somebody's consistently missing game sessions. Not out of irritation or anything, just a genuine attempt at communication. I'm not gonna kick them out or anything. It does give them a chance to let me know if there's something bugging them about the game though. Even my maptool players can attest to the fact that I am all about communication like that.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:31
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Yeah, vacation is a special circumstance. I missed three sessions of the maptool game I run to spend time moving and going to California. I don't agree with the way you do things ripped_off but if it works for your group then that's great. I'm just adding my own two cents on the matter to foster discussion since TGD could really use more of it. No hostility on my part. H_double, on the other hand, the whole thing about players risking their characters and "earning" XP kinda boggles the mind. RPGs aren't serious business. I mean RPGs own and they're something I'm involved with both as a hobby and professionally but that kind of "the players must earn the right to deserve XP" thing is weird
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Jul 27, 2009 00:50
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That's a bad analogy. Docking XP is more like taking away this kid's recess privileges because he missed a day of class. Analogies are bad in general though.
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Jul 27, 2009 02:04
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Which of the teachers am I This is important
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Jul 27, 2009 02:11
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h_double posted:Another question: how do the rest of you feel about giving XP rewards to individual characters, say for an exceptionally clever plan or great tactics or bravery? I usually give them neat Wondrous Items or something else that doesn't make them any more powerful than the other players, but is still a neat toy to play with. Whaleporn got free items in my maptool game for insulting the other characters while dominated, for example.
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Jul 27, 2009 02:23
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Depends. Was it plausible that the NPC could have survived the amount of damage he took?
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Jul 27, 2009 03:47
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even worse username posted:I don't want to restart the big XP Depends on what's happening in the game at that point. I'll use my maptool game as an example since it's what I've been focused on lately. All of the PCs receive the same amount of experience points (as I mentioned in a previous post, I use shiny objects instead) Early on, when one character missed a session it was right after the party defeated a kraken and shipwrecked. Easy enough to assume the PC in question ended up floating somewhere else from the rest of the party. He eventually caught up with them (next session). Two sessions back, the party had just killed a fairly important enemy leader named Boldwin. This guy was responsible for some of the setting's biggest atrocities, and was also an important part of one PC's background. Boldwin killed the PC's wife and imprisoned the PC, leading the PC to swear revenge and hunt him down after escaping (mechanically resulting in the PC becoming an Avenger). The session right after killing Boldwin, the PC's player couldn't make the game until fairly late in the session. I talked it over with the player and the in-game justification was that his PC now had his revenge, but it ultimately felt hollow and didn't bring the PC the closure he desired. So during the party's attempt to escape, they had to drag their party member along as he was too emotionally conflicted to contribute meaningfully to any encounters. Once the player showed up, the character managed to shake it off long enough to assist everyone else in the escape. Same as always, full experience. I don't really care about things being perfectly "realistic" as far as game mechanics go. I'm more concerned about making sure everybody's enjoying themselves, properly balancing encounters for tough but interesting fights and creating cool NPCs who talk and act like real people. Sperging over XP doesn't help me do any of that so I don't bother with it. Everyone gets the same amount, absent or otherwise, and if I feel like playing behavioral psychologist* I use things that don't directly affect the power curve. *I often do, but that's because it was my secondary field during my studies
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Jul 27, 2009 21:31
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but I have a question for the GMs who award full XPs to characters with absent players - how is this rationalized in game, or do you bother? Are the characters assumed to have been present, and just in the background, or were they off doing their own thing that happened to net them the same amount of XP? In lots of games different players get different amounts of XP depending on their accomplishments, so how do you handle that for absent players? Do they just get an average award?
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ripped0ff posted:That's it Ether. Quick, find a bandwagon to jump on. People will start thinking you're cool any minute now. I am willing to let people borrow my considerable amount of cred for a price
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Jul 29, 2009 06:05
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Ulta posted:Just to tie this to GMing, what do you guys think is the "best" setting?  There is only one correct answer to this question: The Iron Kingdoms. It's the most internally consistent and awesome setting ever created. The two core setting books are each 400-page monstrosities of awesome. The rules content in the Player's Guide is 3.5 (yuck) but 4e is honestly a perfect fit for the feel and the stuff going on in the Iron Kingdoms.
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Jul 31, 2009 00:29
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Thri-Kreen ain't got poo poo on the Trollbloods  
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Jul 31, 2009 00:32
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^^^^ the points about recharging are good I don't think there's anything wrong with pushing them out of the aura. You don't want players facing her in melee combat, so pushing them away is a good idea. The aura just means that it's gonna hurt more if they persist in getting in her face. The aura doesn't seem like the defining feature of the monster, just a neat bonus and a slight deterrent to getting too close. It looks pretty solid overall, a mix of melee, ranged and area attacks to keep the players guessing as to what happens next. My only complaint is that it might end up becoming a five on one slogfest; I'd suggest including some minions or awesome terrain features. Some difficult terrain to take advantage of Wild Step, flame geysers that fire randomly, etc
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Jul 31, 2009 21:27
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Fitz posted: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. If you want to give your players a chance to try some new character builds and direct the battle entirely by themselves, check out Hard Boiled Armies. Essentially, you create army units just like you would a regular 4e character and change up just a few things to make it work. It even includes this: quote:nvasion! A fully-detailed military encounter, where the players take on the roles of city watch garrisons charged with defending their city against an invading force. Invasion! Includes five enemy armies for your players to repel, and a map of the city and its surroundings, broken into nine 8″x6″ printable map tiles. (let the players) stat up the militia and things using this, so like a group of pikemen might be great weapon Fighters or the crossbow force is a Ranger or whatever, maybe do it at a lower level to keep the options clear and keep your players from getting confused.
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May 4, 2010 22:48
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I'm going to look past the archaic combat/roleplaying dichotomy stuff since I've posted plenty about it in other threads and it's far too common of a misguided belief to fix it every time Discuss what you think the issue is, ask them about their opinions, accept the fact that they might not want to change how they play. People can suggest systems all they want or give you tricks or whatever but this is the only piece of advice on the topic you actually need: talk to your players and tell them what you're thinking. Seriously. Just talk to them. Changing systems isn't going to fix things for you. Trying to trick people into a new playstyle isn't going to change anything. blah blah blah "roleplaying" doesn't help. Have a conversation.
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May 13, 2010 06:04
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Gunfighter_IX posted:My group claims to be interested in, and enjoy non-combat encounters while they roleplay. However, from what I've witnessed, they treat the current game as a very in-depth miniatures combat game. Does anyone have any experience that will positively re-enforce 'role-playing' and solving encounters without drawing a sword? This we can do. There are other options, but what you're probably going to have to do is lead by example. The most effective way to do it is probably run a game for them. Let them know in advance what kind of game you're looking to run, what you're hoping to get out of it. That might not be enough though, even if people want to try a new kind of game there are still a lot of old habits to break. Get them involved in the campaign process. I'm going to bold this because it's the best way to get players invested. Get them involved in the campaign process. If they have a chance to mold parts of the campaign world, they'll feel more immersed and waaaay more interested in what's going on beyond combat. It's cool to check out Castle A or whatever but when the players are in Joe's ancestral family holdings, the one his grandfather constructed over twenty long years, the one you helped one of the players build, there's going to be a lot more interest. Reward the kind of behavior you're looking for. Make sure people know it's appreciated. Don't give them in game bonuses or anything just pay more attention to everyone's attempts to be in character and try to make it feel like a cool normal thing to do.
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May 14, 2010 05:24
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Son of Thunderbeast posted:What's everyone's opinion on PC deaths? Talk to your players. Have a discussion wit the specifically about PC death. We did this in the vampire game I never run. We all agreed that PCs could die at any time if the player opted in - if the player wanted to be involved in politics and scheming and killing other vampires, they were fair game too. So three of my players are actively scheming to kill individual PCs. Their resources they bought with XP have semi-protection, and they are refunded if say their ghouls die or whatever. In my irl 4e game, resurrections were no big thing but everyone also had a stable of characters to pick from. In another, abandoned 4e game dead PCs could be revived through quests and the player of the dead PC could create a temporary character until that happened. There's not really an objectively right answer here. Ask the players what they want, figure out what you want, find some acceptable middle ground
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Aug 13, 2010 00:19
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I've run plenty of 4e games with no Leaders. You'll be fine. Didn't even have to pull punches on encounters. They'll probably grab a multiclass Leader or some of the healing-ish skill powers shortly after the first few sessions, though.
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Apr 6, 2012 09:20
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Robzor McFabulous posted:You realise some people like to roleplay a certain character because it's the type of character THEY want to play, not the min-maxer super-optimal type of character? I invoke Ferrinus I thought everyone in TGD knew better than this by now. You can roleplay the character you want and not have poo poo combat stats.
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Apr 9, 2012 03:01
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Jimbozig posted:What if you want to play a halfling hunter? There's nothing wrong with playing any race/class combination. quote:the real answer is to introduce one houserule: being a small character does not limit what weapon you can use. Then she can take a superior crossbow and if she wants to do that other optimization stuff she can. Everyone should be doing this anyway
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Apr 9, 2012 10:31
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Affi posted:Group is annoying and wanting to play Devas, Pixies, Plants and Gitzerai. How do I get rid of their bodies? If every other person in your group wants to play those races/play to get the benefits and you don't, maybe you should learn to deal or compromise because you are one person at a table of more people.
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Oct 19, 2012 16:28
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Guesticles posted:I want to hear the curse you're cooking up more than I want to point out that was the comedy answer. This was your serious answer: quote: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 . It is somehow worse than your usual bullshit passive-aggressive I do not understand human interaction I am literally a child posts.
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Oct 19, 2012 20:33
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