The GM Advice thread: Killing your players quickly

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

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

I'm starting to stitch together a system to run a game based on The MAXX. I want the game to be lethal to the point of ridiculousness so I'm basing the rules on HOL. The idea is that anything that has a chance of killing you will be rolled against, so that the character can die in the "real world" as easily as they can die in the fantasy outback. The problem is that HOL is a joke system and doesn't really have character creation. I want creation to be simple as describing the character and determining their power animal. Any suggestions?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2012 12:12

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:56

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

The problem is that you're going to basically be rebuilding 3.5 D&D to make it do something it is legitimately bad at doing. I guess my advice would be don't put any undead, constructs, plants, full-casters, or oozes in encounters. Also, halve the suggested challenge ratings.

The main problem you'll have is that most of the interesting bits of the campaign will be handled with the "social combat" skills, or role-play that is system agnostic.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 10:26

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

3.5 doesn't really have any rules governing intrigue, so you'll be RPing it anyway. Same with strategy. Outside of character optimization and filling out your prepared spells, there really isn't a game for hatching a brilliant plan. The best advice I can give you is that if you think there might be a rule regarding something outside of combat, crafting, and character advancement, don't bother looking. There is a tiny bit of kingdom rules in the DMG, but it's mostly for random generation. Use D20srd.org instead of the core rulebooks.

Ravenloft is cool in that it intentionally subverts traditional D&D behavior. It also has built in sanity rules. With a party of mid-tier classes you will be able to keep the villains threatening and it sounds like their character backgrounds have their own morality plays built in. Ravenloft very well could be where the party ends up if they decide to sell potions of quest-to-drink-more-potions.

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Dec 31, 2012

# ¿ Dec 31, 2012 12:02

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Nyambe is a well thought out Africa analog you could mine for hooks that aren't explicitly historical Africa.
http://www.atlas-games.com/nyambe/

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Jan 24, 2013

# ¿ Jan 24, 2013 11:56

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Dear god yes. Do that. You'll never want to mess with XP again because you can just level up when you feel it's time. If you are all enjoying level 8, hang out at level 8 for a while. Assigning XP does the opposite of this because you would burn through the levels your character scales well at and linger at the dead levels.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2013 12:20

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Quid posted:

Is there a right way to deal with "I want a different character?" Or is it ok to say no?

There's four of us playing. Unless the one guy wants to run a "you have to do this" story that he has, I'm the DM. I really have no idea what I'm doing but no one else wants to do it. A few sessions ago the one guy says "I don't like my [whatever he was]. I rolled a new character by myself and he's a paladin." I didn't like not seeing his rolls and that's where I should have said something. But we were between stories and nothing major was going on so I let it go. He wasn't involved for 20-30 minutes until I had the original group run into him. I think I set a bad precedent.

I have to ask: what was the sum of his ability modifiers? Chances are his stats look hilariously bad, because 3d6 down the line no re-rolls produces dunces and cripples. Would you let him create with point buy 25 or elite array?

# ¿ Mar 15, 2013 11:11

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Quick D&D 3.5 question: what is the correct damage for a colossal mercurial great-sword?

Thanks! I was rolling 4d10 because I have the 3rd ed books and RAW could be interpreted that way. 40d6 criticals here I come!
V

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Apr 17, 2013

# ¿ Apr 17, 2013 08:17

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Make in game artifacts. I usually send out a mid week email with pictures and letters that the characters found during the session. Really helps the players guide the RP, because if they ask about an in game artifact that you really didn't flesh out before the session, you can elaborate on it in the email.

I don't go full on DM mask, but in game feelies can facilitate the mood of the game as well. My group doesn't do much in character first person RP honestly, so I don't see a problem with narration vs. acting. You are still RPing in my opinion.

# ¿ May 7, 2013 01:27

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

AlternatePFG posted:

So I recently started a D&D 4e campaign with some friends who've never played D&D before and we finished up our 3rd session yesterday. Things are going well and the players are having fun but some people aren't always able to make it. I was wondering what you guys do for XP for people who don't show up. On one hand, I want to reward people for playing but on the other hand, I don't want anyone to fall too far behind level-wise.

If your game is good, people don't want to miss it. That should be bad enough. Making their character more and more useless as bullshit comes up in their personal life is just rubbing salt into the wound. It might seem crazy now, but eventually you'll stop tracking XP entirely. It's a really lame part of the game that makes running the content you want very difficult even with meticulous planning. Let's say you have 1 level 1 dungeon, 2 level 2 dungeons, and 1 level 3 dungeon. You'll be over-leveled for one, and under-leveled for another. Instead, just level when it's appropriate. If someone bitches about "earning their fun", it just means they want to level slower.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 22:41

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

That's legit. If no one is complains about absent players getting XP, then roll with it. If someone gets butthurt, cook the books so everyone levels at the same time anyway. I ignore XP unless I'm playing certain OSR styles, but I guess it is useful as a sort of drama meter like you use it.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2013 23:22

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Talkie Toaster posted:

Whoever takes the 30gp +100sp is a complete rear end. If you told me those item parcels were from the bowels of ODD I would have believed you. Those treasure charts don't seem extravagant compared to every other core D&D treasure tables.

I have the packet from god knows when; are there guidelines for rewards yet?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 11:48

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Baronjutter posted:

-The Honour derail
Their character just HAS to kill someone no one else wants to kill and in fact would be extremely detrimental to the game if they did. A key NPC, an innocent, or even another player. Due to the player's lack of social skills combined with a lack of understanding "honour" and compounded with a total lack of role playing skills, they think minor slights against their character MUST be met with violence. It's always something stupid like finding out that +3 ring you bought was actually only a +2 ring and then demanding the party travel back to town and KILL the merchant who sold it. Minor disputes between players often result in the DEMAND FOR HONOUR that can result in character-death, players quitting, and the whole drat game flying off the tracks. Players who do this are fulfilling revenge and power fantasies that they can't in real life. Imagine if I could draw my katana and cut that dude who said vintage Ranma 1/2 t-shirt was gross and ill-fitting in half!

I did something like that recently. We were in Undermountain, and some guy walked up who was alone on the 3 level, and looked like a wizard. Fantasy Vietnam took over so I jumped him without a word. It turns out he was some Ed Greenwood self-insert who had 30 levels in every class, so it was probably a good call. Is being extremely paranoid a disruptive player type? It was a dungeon crawl not a city adventure so I feel justified.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 00:24

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

How about dice poker?

# ¿ Aug 16, 2013 11:31

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

toomanyninjas posted:

Within about an hour of play, my character and the usual character of one of the other present players were charmed and removed from play, meaning I sat there for another 2.5 hours doing nothing.

Was this D&D, because that's not how charm works anyway.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2013 08:35

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

I agree with the warnings against portraying different ethnic groups as inhuman fantasy species, but I also support cribbing the following whole cloth:

# ¿ Sep 3, 2013 09:36

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

E is a weird choice because it isn't audible a lot of the time. That might make it too hard to figure out.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2014 22:24

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Rexides posted:

Should I just get rid of XP and let them level at appropriate story points?

Yes you should. Tracking XP is tedious as hell, and if you were really worried about the number of encounters and challenges per level you would just be doing the math backwards during actual play. I've both held my players at a lower level and over leveled them and neither was a problem, where not doing so would have been terrible for the game.

Tendales posted:

Even if you still use the XP system straight, killing those kobolds shouldn't be worth any XP reward.

That's another problem. There are a finite number of times you can kill a kobold for rewards if you play xp straight. Delaying leveling can make for months of kobold shenanigans.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2014 04:21

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Dookie-In-The-Pants posted:

One of the two highlights, there's a great outdoor fight Melee Tournament, maybe 15 total combatants and only punching/wrestling applies, and I think that'll be a lot of fun for everyone to first team up and then wail on eachother. Some of the NPC entrants are people in the Keep like the Smithy and the Sergeant of the Guard, and others are randoms like douchebag Chet Worthington and huge thug The Man Mountain Amber Alert. Any ideas for what the big prize should be, for if any PC actually wins? I'm seriously stumped... Don't want to go with just Gold Pieces, but I'm flat out for ideas here.

A title belt?

# ¿ May 6, 2014 08:51

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Paizo makes a baller battlemat. The one that comes with the pathfinder starter set has worked really well for me using wet erase markers. I even left it written on and packed up for almost a year and it erased with no stains at all.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2014 20:00

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Look at Stars without Numbers. Even if you don't end up playing it, the world generation will help. You can crank out vast star system maps.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 05:22

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Everything good about 5e can be easily transplanted into 13th Age.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2014 23:05

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

thespaceinvader posted:

Make a weapon that fires BIG bullets. Like, .50 caliber plus. And fires them fast. Big bullets hitting in the wrong place just tear off limbs. Then have the wielder police their brass and collect their expended bullets.

Cartridges wouldn't fit "renaissance firearms," but .50 cal is the size of a small to medium sized musket ball.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 21:11

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

An evil wizard, and a hellgate that demons walk through until the party is reduced to 1/4 of their resources.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2014 01:54

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

I've ran all martial, magic is incredibly forbidden campaign (Madlands), and every magic item was reskinned to something non-magical. The +3 blackjack became a fish covered in glue that just knocked people the gently caress out left and right. Don't have 6 items in each cache, have 6 encounters. If someone really cares that someone else got a shiny half an hour before them, sever.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2015 06:07

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

It's not 4e, but I found that people exposed to video game rpgs could pick up Gamma World quickly. If the word hitpoint means nothing to you, maybe not so much. Most all rpg books are horrible at teaching people to rpg. The only reason my wife picked up D&D quickly was because she watched her dad play Final Fantasy 1. Otherwise, "you level up, spells have levels, and you have to sleep for them" is so arbitrary and dumb that it is frustrating and hard to remember. It is kind of random advice, but as a DM you will teach many people how to play whatever it is you are playing.

Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Jul 29, 2015

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 08:20

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 20:56

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Man, today's advice from Robin D Laws is the best GM advice ever.

Kick 'Em Out

If it is true that he actually ran The Mad Lands, Robin Laws might just be the best GM ever.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 12:01

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