The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

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Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Ok guys I need some GMing advice. Is it grognardy of me to have an invincible NPC? The NPC in question got into combat with the PC's while running away. He took damage but I just sort of pretended to write it down so they wouldn't get suspicious that he was really important. I never even bothered to stat him up at all. Is this railroading? :ohdear:

# ¿ Jul 27, 2009 03:46

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:46

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

The NPC didn't take too much damage, never fought back, and teleported away once he was cornered (which was all planned). I just underestimated my PC's, he wasn't supposed to get cornered until the very last room. Thanks for the feedback.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2009 04:07

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Whats a good wage for a party of 5 to guard a traveling merchant to the next town over? 100gp a piece? 200gp? A 30% discount on weapons?

# ¿ Jul 27, 2009 22:53

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Ok, so lemme get this right. Under the Parcels section, theres a list of 10 items or group of items under each level. So over the course of going from level 1 to level 2, they should get everything in the list?

code:

Party Level 1 Total Monetary Treasure: 720 gp
1 Magic item, level 5
2 Magic item, level 4
3 Magic item, level 3
4 Magic item, level 2
5 200 gp, or two 100 gp gems,
  or two potions of healing +
  100 gp
6 180 gp, or one 100 gp gem +
  80 gp, or one potion of healing
  + 130 gp
7 120 gp, or one 100 gp gem +
  20 gp, or one potion of healing
  + 70 gp
8 120 gp, or 100 gp + 200 sp,
  or one 100 gp gem + 200 sp
9 60 gp, or one potion of healing
  + 10 gp, or 50 gp + 100 sp
10 40 gp, or 400 sp, or 30 gp +
  100 sp

If so, boy have I been stingy :shobon:

Actually, upon adding up all the treasure they've found and will find so far, all I'm missing is a level 2 magic weapon and a level 4 magic weapon.

Super Waffle fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jul 28, 2009

# ¿ Jul 28, 2009 23:03

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Thanks for the loot help, I'm starting to get a good grasp of how to build encounters. Now for another situation I want my group to be put in. They're walking through town late at night. If they make a DC 20 Perception check, they notice the spy thats been following them all night, sticking to the shadows and alley ways. When the spy realizes hes been caught, he tries to run. I'll tell the party they have enough time to for a single Standard action to try and stop the spy before he disappears. Does this sound ok?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2009 04:02

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Well the way I have it set up so far is, if the party fails to notice or catch the spy, they get ambushed when they leave town the following day. If they hit the spy with an attack, he dies in one hit (I'm stating him up as a lvl 2 human minion). If they catch him, I'll give them an easy Skill Challenge to see what he knows (All of my group is new, this will be our second session).

I'm thinking 4 success before 2 failures at DC 15. First is an Athletics check to pin him against a wall. If they fail, they make an Acrobatics check to catch him again as he slips away. If they make either, its a diplomacy check, an intimidate check, and a bluff check in whatever order they choose. If the party passes the check, they find out the spy was hired anonymously to find out what the Mcguffin item they're hired to protect is (the party doesn't know). He knows nothing else, and then the party can kill him/turn him into the guards. With the spy gone, they don't get ambushed until after the reach the Inn a days walk away (the Innkeeper hired the spy, hes in league with some bandits who want the Mcguffin).

Everything sound ok?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2009 17:08

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Well they're getting ambushed anyways, whether or not they find the spy just decides when and where. Am I being a railroady DM? :ohdear:

# ¿ Jul 29, 2009 19:16

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

ripped0ff posted:

Yea, what you're doing is hardly railroady, but it does sacrifice some of your creative control over the adventure. Don't worry about the roll, just have them spot the spy automatically. I wouldn't give it away right off the bat that they're being spied on, it'll probably be more interesting for them if they're forced to decide what to do.

*rolls some dice for effect* "Walking through the market, you begin to get the distinct feeling that you're being watched."

*the players come up with something clever (or even not-so-clever) to spot their tail*

"Looking into the polished surface of your shield, you catch a brief glimpse of a robed figure watching from behind. Your eyes meet in the reflection, and he turns to run."

Now, they're still doing essentially what you want them to do, but they've done so on their own and without some arbitrary dice roll deciding their fate. Let dice control combat and skill challenges, but it should be you and the players who control the story.

This is a much better idea, thanks :buddy:

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 02:05

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Question: Can I change a Rod into a Wand? The Warlock in my party wants a wand, but I have planned on giving him a lvl 2 Rod Of Dark Reward. Could I just make it a Wand of Dark Reward without horribly unbalancing the game in some unforeseen fashion?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2009 00:38

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Thanks for all the advice you guys, its helped a lot :kiddo:

Another question for you. How would I handle a "Trap Room", say the room before the Treasure Room. Can I do an encounter with nothing but traps? Do I roll initiative for each trap that has an initiative? What if they're all triggered traps?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2009 16:21

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

How can I get my players more involved in role playing their characters? We've only had two sessions, so while everyone is learning combat I've been describing their moves (You spin around in the blink of an eye and hit the kobold with both your swords), what happens when they fail a roll (You try to climb up the wall but hit your knee), etc. I had them sit around a campfire on the way back to town and told them to come up with a basic origin for their characters, and reluctantly did so only after I offered some xp for it. Should I just keep doing this?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2009 17:54

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

I'm wondering if this final boss battle will be too tough for my group. They're level 2, 5 members, Feylock, Battle Cleric, Paladin, Wizard, and Ranger. I'm planning on having them fight 3 level 6 Shadar Kai, 2 Gloomblades and a Chainfighter. Should I take each one down to level 5? 4?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2009 02:05

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

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?

# ¿ Aug 12, 2009 15:42

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Hes a paladin. I think I'll use the dragonling rules for a pseudodragon, and have him find it instead of his magic item reward for this level.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2009 16:55

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

How should I handle monsters that can turn invisible, then move? Should I take the model/token off the grid and keep a mental note of where it is? Or just tell them "Ok this guy is invisible"?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2009 18:49

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Ok, let me make sure I have this right :v:

Shadar Kai Gloomblade uses Veil of Shadows, turns invisible and moves up to his speed. After turning invisible, and before I move, I make a stealth check for the Gloomblade, if it passes the highest Passive Perception of the party, he can move up to his speed, and I can take the model off the grid. If he fails, the party gets to see where he moved. At the start of a players next turn, he can make an active Perception check with the DC set to what I rolled for Stealth before, to see where the Gloomblade moved. If he passes, I put the model back down where he had moved to.

Does all of that sound right?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2009 20:13

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

I make my players do that before they roll for a skill check. Takes a bit, but I can eventually coax out a sentence at least :smith:

My group is straight hack-n-slash, they don't even have backgrounds for their characters. Doesn't help that the most RP-ish one left the group.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2009 03:26

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

One of the players in my 4th edition game wants to play a different class (Swordmage), so I gave him the option of either retiring his ranger, or killing his ranger off in a dramatic way and having him reborn as a Revenant (Swordmage). He chose the later option, but now I'm having trouble finding a way to bring him back. If it helps, they're about 1/4 through Thunderspire Mountain (finished Chamber of Eyes, coming up on Horned Hold).

The upcoming fight with Murkelmor presents the opportunity to sacrifice himself in a dramatic and cinematic fashion (maybe charging him off the edge of the keep and plummeting into the chasm, open to ideas). My players are pretty hack-n-slash, so this character doesn't have any back story, history, or defined personality to work with, so this is a great opportunity to get him into the role playing side of things. How should I re-introduce him into the party?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2009 22:38

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

That sounds so awesome. Getting a real Penny Arcade vibe off that

# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 23:52

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Hey guys, so I have a potential game group forming of new and veteran RPG players, and I want to pitch a Sci-Fi game as an alternative to D&D. I recently came across an album of space shanties that I absolutely love, and I would like to run a game that evokes the same kind of pulpy sci-fi feelings. Is there a Traveler thread? Would that system work for what I would like to do? Any recommendations?

# ¿ Sep 10, 2014 00:53

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

My favorite piece of unconventional loot that I gave to my players was a stuffed and mounted Mindflayer they found in a purple dragon's lair. It still radiated a latent psychic field. They ended up taking it to their airship where the Artificer in the party rigged it up as a robotic bartender.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2014 18:21

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Ok so I have a surprise game of Call of Cthullu tomorrow night. I've played one game a few years ago. Can anyone give me any basic tips? I've run a few DnD games but never a horror game

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 04:31

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

BlackIronHeart posted:

Something I learned in part from Role Playing Public Radio (Caleb touched on this in one of their episodes but I can't remember which one. Maybe the Know Evil post mortem.) is that a horror game isn't horrific because of things, it's horrific because of ideas. Shoving a grotesque monster in front of your players won't horrify them because they'll likely immediately size it up in mechanical terms. "Oh, a squamous, eldritch horror? So, what, like 20 hitpoints then?" It's the ideas of things that really freak people out. Here's an example wrapped in some storytelling.

My longtime GM buddy once ran a hybrid Cthulhu/Shadowrun game that lasted for the better part of a decade. I came in late and only played in it for the last 2 or 3 years but something that kept coming up was a place, a hospital, that the other players mentioned in hushed tones. The PCs would mention it and basically spit on the ground and cross themselves, a few of them bemoaning that they didn't nuke the site when they had the chance. It must've been a total clusterfuck, right? Like, TPK sort of situation? Nope, not at all. Exactly one PC got stressed out and traumatized there but that was it. Nobody died but this place was talked about like it was the Temple of Elemental Evil. So what happened?

The background was that the place was a mental institution for decades, maybe centuries, in a gloomy, marshy part of England. The crew was sent to infiltrate the place as an important contact had been committed there as a patient. some of the team went undercover as patients, other members went in as new employees. Being surrounded by mental patients was creepy enough but then they started missing stuff. Someone couldn't find a shoe, someone else lost their glasses or a mop. Real inconsequential stuff but odd. Eventually, one of the runners-turned-janitors is called to clean a room and the bed inside of it is literally soaked and dripping blood but no one seems to find this strange at all. 'Oh my, yes, it looks like Brenda had an accident, poor dear. What's for lunch today?' The janitor then found his missing glasses under the bed.

There's a lot of other super strange poo poo that happened (Knot parties in the attic being the absolute worst of them) but that poo poo was an 'adventure' that lasted for maybe two or three sessions, years and years ago, and our group still talks about it to this day. That's the hallmark of creepy material if you ask me. The main thing that made it creepy is that there wasn't an easy or simple explanation for any of it and things that railed against the normal (mass suicide rituals, cannibalism, supernatural perversions of reality, etc etc) were treated as perfectly benign and normal.

Awesome, thanks for the advice. I have version 5.6, do you know of any Quick Reference sheets or good beginning adventures?

# ¿ Apr 11, 2015 18:24

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Need some system advice. I'm in the process of setting up a work D&D group. I'm most familiar with 4th Edition, and those are the book I have. Thing is all my players are complete RPG virgins and I'm starting to think 4th may be a bit too complex. Last thing I want to do is turn them off gaming entirely with a big mess of power cards and a billion feat options. Should I look into 5th edition? Or even go backwards to AD&D?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 02:29

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 13:46

Super Waffle: Sep 25, 2007; I'm a hermaphrodite and my parents (40K nerds) named me Slaanesh, THANKS MOM

Can anyone give me a rundown on 13th Age vs. Dungeon World?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 03:59

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