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Yea, don't worry about the 4E thing. It would be a help, but seriously, it sounds like running 3.5 will go smoothest for your group. The last thing you want to do is start thing off on the sour note of "Well, I don't really like 4E but if you really want, I'll try it." That sort of simmering distaste will kill a game. Anyway, here are a few of my lovely tips on GMing: First, overprepare. Don't just prepare one session, prepare three sessions. Don't just prepare one town, prepare it and all the surrounding towns. Write down a list of dozen NPC names for each race and gender. Stat up some generic NPCs of any major class the players might encounter. Have a list of generic plothooks cribbed down somewhere. When I used to be lovely at improv, I found that I could usually compensate by just doing tons of extra work. None of it is really ever wasted either, you'll find that the more preparation you do, the more ideas it will give you, and more often than not, even if your players never get to an encounter one session, you can usually quickly redesign it for another session. Secondly, don't be afraid to constantly look for input from your players. The most basic approach is the overt one; just ask them what they want to play. More grognardy GMs will say, "It's your game, just run what you want." Seriously though, that's retarded. Tabletop gaming is a shared experience, and even if you're putting in a lot more work than the players, you can't act as if you own the game. You can also take a more subtle approach and find out what they want by looking at all the small hints the players give you without even knowing it. If you tell them to roll up a bunch of lvl 1 characters and they all come to you asking if there's any way they can play some bullshit +8 LA race, that's probably a sign that they want to play a higher lvl campaign. If all the characters they submit to you are utility spell wizards and fast-talking rogues, they're probably looking for a more deep-thinking involved game with less hack and slash. If you always find them ignoring your planned quests and such, it's probably because they're boring. Thirdly, feel free to constantly give the players your input. Again, PnP RPing is a shared experience, and sometimes it's helpful for the players to know what your intentions are. If you're hoping to run a more classic adventuring game where they all play selfless heroes, tell them and emphasize that that's what they should try to RP. So long as it's a fun idea, players are generally willing to roll with it. More than that though, if you leave your players in too big of a sandbox and don't provide any direction, they'll usually just get lost and bored. There's all sorts of other BS nuances to good GMing, but really, so long as you maintain some good communication with your players and aren't afraid of doing some extra work, you'll nail 90% of it down.
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Jun 9, 2009 14:13
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Usually, I don't award full XP for missing a session. Like people have been saying, the games are about fun. That doesn't mean that you have to be at the same XP as everyone. If your main attraction to PnP RPing is XP, then I'd rather not have you at my table. To me, awarding full XP even when someone misses the session is sort of missing the point. I like to award the larger chunk of XP based not on how many kobolds you killed, but simply on the basis of quality roleplaying and the enjoyment of a player's company. Ideally, we're all beer-and-pretzels gamers sitting around more to hang out with eachother than for the sake of pretending to be elves in some silly game. 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. All that aside though, I do try and make some compromise for those folks who just can't make it (because it does suck to get the double whammy of missing the game and getting left behind half a level or so). Usually, I try and offer half-XP for the session if they're willing to write up a basic story (only a page or two tops) of what their character did during that session. It doesn't have to be a masterpiece, just something like we see for most of the TG PbP games will do.
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Jul 26, 2009 22:37
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Not rewarding someone is not the same as punishing them. You're not exactly hitting them with XP loss, you're just not giving them new XP. Even using this system, I've never seen anyone fall more than one level behind. Unless you give huge amounts of XP each session, missing a session doesn't often put you at a huge disadvantage, and missing half XP is hardly a penalty. I think something needs to be said for the GM in all this. I'm sure all of you guys can appreciate the problem of having planned a large part of one session around someone's character hooks, only to have them not show up. By itself, that's not a problem. But when said person is only missing the session because you got a drunk email from them at 5 AM saying they were too wasted to make the session, it's a bit like having them take a poo poo down your throat. Sure, I'm not going to ask folks to forego partying and normal socializing for the sake of a game, but there does need to be actual incentive to attending the game as well as the just showing up to bullshit. Take another example of the standard Rip van Winkle player. You know, the one who shows up half asleep because he was up all night (maybe even for a perfectly legit reason like working late), nods off all throughout the session, and only opens his eyes to say "I attack" and then roll. No GM I know of would give that player as much XP as the others, if for no other reason than roleplaying XP alone. But for some reason we're saying that if that same player were to just skip the session entirely, they ought to receive full XP? Maybe I am just a super young grognard, but I've always played it like this and I've never heard anyone ever complain about it. Hell, I thought I was some super nice and lenient GM for even giving the option of half-XP.
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Jul 26, 2009 23:04
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I don't give XP to players who miss sessions as an incentive to show up for sessions. As much as I would like to believe that XP doesn't factor into the decision of some players to show up, I know better than that. I don't particularly like that fact, but it's true nevertheless. I think the fact I'm even willing to give half XP for basically 15 minutes of writing (in place of a 4 hour session) is plenty of evidence that I don't think that it's all about making the session and crushing skulls. The problem is really, where do you draw the line for what constitutes a valid excuse? If you get an email from someone saying they can't make it because they partied all night and are hungover now, should they get XP? Sure they essentially chose to miss the session, but at the same time, it'd be kind of lame to tell your players to not go out and party the night before the game. There are all sorts of questionable situations like that, and instead of pissing people off by ruling that one excuse is valid while another isn't, it just seems easiest to blanket rule no XP with the option of half for a short email.
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Jul 26, 2009 23:45
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:If someone takes a poo poo down your throat for an out of game reason you don't penalize them in the drat game. Be a loving adult. You talk to them like a person. You let them know it's disrespectful. You don't ever mess with their character like a goddamn child for petty revenge. Passive-aggressive twat. That's exactly what I am, you nailed it dude. Thanks for talking to me like "a loving adult". Are you seriously so worried about that half-XP that you consider that "[messing] with their character"? It's not exactly like I poo poo all over them and harbor some secret grudge for the next two months. If someone misses a session - even one meant for their character - I just give them the half XP option, do the encounter the next session, and that's it. I don't see where "petty revenge" kicks in. Maybe it's a difference of what you guys are willing to accept as a GM. Personally, I'm not the type of guy who is going to give my players a stern talking to about disrespect because they decided to go out and get laid instead of making a session. Honestly, for all this "you're a wimpy twat" talk you're giving, it seems like you're just a dick to your players.
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Jul 26, 2009 23:57
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Here are the two options you as I see it: 1. Try and distinguish what makes a good excuse and what doesn't. Give those people who meet your subjective definition of a good excuse full XP. Those people who don't meet your definitions of a valid excuse get kicked out of the game. 2. Try and be impartial and not make judgments on how people choose to spend their time. Don't award them XP for missing a session regardless of the excuse, but actually still give them the option of getting some XP. Get poo poo on on the forums as as some kind of Nazi GM. That's what's so hard to understand. You guys seem to think that I'm allowing my emotions to come into this and I'm getting all butthurt and making GBS threads all over my players because of it. Honestly, it seems that option 1 is the more queer, passive aggressive option. "I don't think that going on a date instead of showing up to the session is a valid excuse. Sorry buddy, that's your second strike, you're outta my game! *smug look*" versus "You're going on a date? Okay dude, have a good time. I'll send you the session summary afterwards and I'll look forward to your email." Literally, every game I've ever played in with every GM I've ever played with has been like this. Never once did I ever feel like the GM was being petty or vengeful. It just made sense. Edit: Seriously, what kind of hardcore super rigid schedule groups do you guys play with? Just about every group I've ever played in had most players miss maybe one in five sessions. I never had problems with it, the GM never had problems with it. If I had a problem with folks missing two or three sessions and was booting folks out for it, I don't think I'd ever be able to find people to play with. Hell, we tend to have to cancel entire sessions maybe once every couple months because two or three all can't make it that day. Nog fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jul 27, 2009 |
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Jul 27, 2009 00:08
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Heh, sweet. A/S/L, baby? 24 years old. I play with a couple mixed groups of people ranging from their late teens into forties.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:14
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Mikan posted: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. 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. Seriously, I don't see why some of you are getting so hurt about this. Like I said, I've never seen or heard someone complain (even in the many other games I've played in like this, and not GMed) about this, and I've never seen someone left more than one level behind the rest. So long as we're all cool about it, and it solves absenteeism problems to all our satisfaction, what the hell is wrong with it?
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Jul 27, 2009 00:22
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The way I see it is like this. You're sitting there at the end of the school year watching your kid's third grade graduation party. His teacher starts handing out rewards to the other kids with "Perfect Attendance", but your poor little Billy missed one day because of the flu. Do you flip out about how that teacher is punishing your kid because he didn't get the Perfect Attendance award and just being sick and having the miss a day of school with his friends is punishment enough, or do you act like an ordinary human being and go, "Oh okay, she's not punishing him, he's just not getting some special reward." When your players miss a session, it does suck for everyone. That doesn't mean you punish them, but you don't really have to reward them. Like double_h notes, pretty much everyone misses sessions, and even at the end of long campaigns everyone tends to work out about even for XP regardless. XP is your way of saying "thanks for showing up guys", not some whip I use to punish absenteeism. What's hard to understand about that? I reward attendance.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:31
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Mikan posted:Where are you getting the "passing judgment" thing from?like that.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:33
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:As far as "evaluating excuses", there really isn't any evaluation required. Players that miss or half-rear end sessions for voluntary stuff that they have total control over (getting drunk, stoned, staying up too late, procrastinating, surfing the web during games, etc.) are not engaged and don't really care if they are there or not. Mechanical penalties don't work on these players because they are already distant from the game. Players who miss sessions for life stuff (work, finals, family) and who enjoy themselves during a session should not be penalized for things that they have no control over. Exactly. You say you aren't evaluating excuses and that you're some sort of awesome impartial robot, but that's bullshit. When someone misses the game because they say they have a big project tomorrow, do you question them about whether or not they could have done more work ahead of time in order to avoid missing the session? Probably not. You just go, "Oh okay, valid excuse, you couldn't have avoided that." All you're doing is drawing your own personal line about what constitutes "life stuff". Spending the day with your brother who is only in town for the weekend? Valid, apparently (since it's family stuff). Going to the end of term party that's your best chance of getting a girl you've been after for a while? Sorry, you need to commit more to the game. I don't want to GM like that. If someone can't make it, no problem. So long as you aren't skipping like four or five sessions in a row, like Mikan noted (even then, if they're on vacation, that's fine too), I don't mind. We're looking at two sides of the same coin. You see XP as something that can be used as punishment. I see it as a reward for attendance.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:39
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Well done guys, you reached Level 4. Sadly, Frank is no longer with us, as he chose to go to the waterpark last week and that was the last straw. How the gently caress do you decide when someone wants to play your precious game enough? Semper Fi DnD, motherfuckers. I can't even imagine being a big enough dick to lecture someone on how committed they are to playing DnD.
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Jul 27, 2009 00:51
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We're kind of on a second subject right now (commitment versus XP), but I fully agree that everyone needs to commit to some degree. I keep my degree much lighter (I think most of us do), than MM Jockstrap does though. To say that the solution to player absenteeism is to kick players out seems a bit silly. If they miss a month of sessions or something, and aren't on vacation or something, kicking them out isn't a problem, but evaluating their commitment on a session-by-session basis seems incredibly strict. As far as not rewarding XP (see that, we refer to it as "rewarding XP", not "withholding punishment") for a session goes though, the way I see it is this: As a GM, I'll do what the players like most. If I withheld some player's XP for missing a session and everyone thought that I was being extra mean and that I had ruined their fun, I'd have a change of heart. The way it is with the groups I'm playing with now (and all the groups I've played with in the past) though, is that this is the way we've always done it and the normal way of things in PnP gaming as far as all of us are concerned. If I were to give someone full XP even after they missed a session, I'd probably get funny looks from my players and have them all ask me why I did that. I'm not above doing what's most fun for the players, and I like to think that I do do that. I love mystery/horror style games, but I run hack-and-slash because that what the players like. I always award more XP than the rules say to. I always give extra bonuses and rewards outside of the rules. I'm hardly some kind of inconsiderate prick. So long as I keep playing with folks like this though, I'll be light on commitment and withhold XP for missing sessions.
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Jul 27, 2009 01:21
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Ferrinus posted:Hahaha you're incapable of conceiving of any kind of DM/player interaction except in terms of punishment for misdeeds How the gently caress do you even get that out of what I was saying? I was parodying what Half of Dracula said, not giving an example of something I would say. Megaman's Jockstrap is the one going on about lecturing players for some sort of attendance problem. RagnarokAngel posted:And yet aren't you trying to do that by penalizing XP? Like I've noted though, I have never once seen someone drop more than one level behind (they were level 7 and only a couple thousand XP away from the lvl 8 players) even with these rules. No one is left useless, partly because everyone tends to miss a session or two, not just one player. That means that everyone gets "left behind" equally as much over time. Nog fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jul 27, 2009 |
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Jul 27, 2009 01:23
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Ferrinus posted:Right, and you think that lecture or game ejection is supposed to be some kind of stand-in punishment since the normal punishment of removing xp has been arbitrarily declared off-limits. It's really very sad. No, the lecture isn't a stand-in punishment, it's just stupid. If you don't like playing with someone or they miss just about every session, kick them out. You don't need to talk to them like they're a kid and scold them about their commitment to DnD. What I can't see past is the hypocrisy of all this. I go, "Well guys, this is the way me and everyone I've ever played with have ever played and what we're comfortable with and enjoy." Then I get back, "You're loving stupid dude, you need to do it the way we say to, because that's the only way to enjoy DnD. Your players are #1, but by 'your players' we actually mean 'our opinions'." I actually did something super nerdy and crunched some numbers to show you how massive this "punishment" is. Let's say that on average, folks earn 500 times the party's average level in XP every session. You run a 10 session campaign track with an experience reward at the end for all the players finishing the campaign track. Jim misses the third and fifth sessions. 1st session - 500 xp 2nd session - 500 xp (every hits 1000 xp and level 2) 3rd session - 1000 xp (every hits 2000 xp, except Jim, who gets half XP and goes to 1500 xp) 4th session - 1000 xp (every but Jim makes 3rd level and 3000 xp, Jim is only 500 xp behind) 5th session - 1500 xp (everyone else is at 4500 xp, but Jim who misses his second session and gets half again, going to 3250 xp and 3rd level) 6th session - 1500 xp (everyone else makes 4th level, and Jim gets to 4750 xp) 7th session - 2000 xp (everyone else is at 8000 xp, and Jim gets to 4th level and 6750 xp, he has missed two sessions and is the same level) 8th session - 2000 xp (everyone else makes 5th level but Jim) 9th session - 2500 xp (everyone else is at 12500 xp, but Jim who makes lvl 5 and has 11250 xp) 10th session - 2500 xp with 1000 xp bonus (everyone else makes 6th level and 16k exp, Jim is trailing at 14750 xp, just 250 shy of 6th lvl) The higher the level, the less difference missing half XP makes each time. This also assumes that Jim is the only one to miss any of the ten sessions. If everyone else had missed even just one session, they'd all pretty much have the same XP.
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Jul 27, 2009 01:50
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"Why doesn't my little Billy get the award for perfect attendance? He wanted to show up that day, but he was sick!" "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we use the Perfect Attendance certificate as a small token reward to encourage students to attend." "Yea, but he missed classed and he missed his friends, isn't that punishment enough?" "Ma'am, we're not punishing Billy. It's just a silly certificate. It wouldn't really be fair to give it to Billy." "This is inexcusable! You can't punish him like this! He'll be left behind, all of Perfect Attendance kids will do better in school than him now." "The reward doesn't mean that much, it won't really set him back. Trust me, in a couple weeks this 'punishment' won't even matter anymore. It's so slight you'll probably forget about it." "gently caress you! gently caress this school! I'm gonna go homeschool my kid!"
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Jul 27, 2009 01:56
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"Er, ma'am, is Billy even in my class? I don't remember teaching him." "No, actually, he's in Ms. Cartwrights class. But I don't approve of the way you award Perfect Attendance in this class." "Well, all the other parents in this class, even the parents of kids without perfect attendance, don't mind it. In fact, most of them actually like the way I do it since it makes the Perfect Attendance reward more meaningful, if only just slightly." "Sounds to me, Ms. Applebottom, like you just can't control your children except through draconic punishments. You must instead learn how to properly address them. Instead of punishing them, have you ever thought about sitting down with them and just lecturing them about their commitment to their own education?" "Ma'am, so long as I get a signed note from their parents, I try not to pass judgment. Unless they have a genuine truancy problem, I don't mind that much if their parents pull them out of school on occasion." "You disgust me. Your passive-aggressive attitude is costing these children their fun and education." "Not really. I just figure they're trading the fun of the seeing their schoolmates, for the fun of doing whatever it is their parents pulled them out of school for. I'm sure if they go to Disneyland, for instance, they enjoy that more. Besides, I'm actually nicer than most teachers. I send their homework off to them so that they don't fall behind too much." "Well, you ought to just give them an 'A' for all the work they miss instead... and the Perfect Attendance award."
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Jul 27, 2009 02:08
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RagnarokAngel posted:Since when is EXP "worthless"? Pretty sure its one of the most valuable commodities to a character. XP isn't worthless. But it's worth is proportional to the amount of XP. If Jim was losing lots of XP and trailing two or three levels behind, that's a problem. But if Jim is pretty much on the same footing and is only about 1000 xp behind despite missing many more sessions than anyone else, it's hardly a punishment.\ Edit: I actually need to head off to work now guys. I'll be back to get yelled at more later.
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Jul 27, 2009 02:10
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You actually teach at a different school. Your school district gets all the money because its filled with suburban white kids and the superintendent is racist. I'm the downtrodden hispanic teacher who must come in and lift the spirits of the inter-city youth who believe that they are doomed to lives of crime and violence. Edit: In the movie, Denzel Washington plays my role, you're played by Renee Zellweger (we fall in love), and Jon Voight is the racist super.
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Jul 27, 2009 02:13
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Kerison posted:But Denzel Washington isn't Hispanic. You're not making any sense at all. It's the movie version, they get it all wrong. Also Ferrinus, yes, I do set them back a small amount of XP. I am a horrible GM and all my players hate me.
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Jul 27, 2009 02:27
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Ferrinus posted:So what you're saying here is that in order to punish people who miss your game sessions through no fault of their own, you make their character weaker than everyone else's. I just want to be clear here. At work and slacking... Honestly though Ferrinus, every GM makes the characters of people who miss their games weaker in one way or another. A couple pages back, for instance, someone mentioned how the players who are there get first pick of the loot and maybe a larger share of the gold. Weaker magic items and worse equipment leaves characters at a disadvantage as well, perhaps even a larger disadvantage than missing a few hundred XP, but we all accept that this is a reward for the active players and not necessarily a punishment for the inactive ones. There are RP consequences to missing a session as well. Unless, you're actually dragging their character along for all the fights, chances are that the missing player's character won't win as much acclaim as the active PCs or won't make new NPC friends/contacts. Even worse, if you handwave their disappearance as them being off on some minor errand or watching the party mule, their character assume the RP role of being some lameass lackey regardless of how much XP he has. Despite my arguing, I can understand your guys' point, and I don't have a problem with what you're saying so long as it's what the players want. I do think that you're overreacting here though. I don't exactly punish the players (if I do, it's certainly not severe) and every does stay on essentially even footing. To give an example, we just recently finished a long Deadlands: Reloaded game. I wasn't GMing, but the other GM does the same thing as me (no XP for missed sessions, and not even the chance of half-XP). By the time the campaign finished, we had all reached Legendary rank (80+ XP) and were all within 3 XP of eachother. That's 3 XP out of about 80. In the Savage Worlds system, 3 XP isn't even enough to purchase an Advance (the SW version of a level). Sure we missed sessions, but in the end, all of us missed about as many sessions so we all kept pace with eachother. What's more, we all felt like the rank we had was one we had earned. Instead of having the GM tell us our character was dragged along as an NPC, shot up a vampire some, and got XP with everyone else, we knew that all the XP we had was XP we had had an active hand in earning. Maybe it's just me, but I think I'd actually feel a bit awkward receiving XP for a session I had missed. In any case, I think we've all pretty much said our piece. If you want to get the last word, shoot. I'd prefer to put this argument to bed though; I'm not convincing anyone and I'm not really getting convinced. Edit: Etherwind, STFU. You're late for the bandwagon and Ferrinus won't make out with you no matter how much you stroke his dick.
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Jul 27, 2009 03:44
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Super Waffle posted: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? Invincible bad guys (or at least ones who are invincible unless you have the "Insert Weapon of Ultimate Power" to use against them) are pretty much a staple of fantasy settings. Of course, if he is that powerful it begs the question of why was he running away. Assuming you have something plausible for that though, the PCs don't ever really need to know. It is kind of lame though. It's nice to give them some kind of chance. Maybe go ahead and give the guy a lasting scar from the fight, so that the players can at least feel like what they did meant something.
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Jul 27, 2009 03:50
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Okay. Last words are in. That was long enough. In any case, in the situation you mentioned, I usually fall back on having the players roll whatever the game's equivalent to an Intelligence/Smarts check is. In Savage Worlds, they have a "Common Knowledge" roll that everyone can do, which is perfect for those "the players should/do know this, and they're loving up, and I need to remind them" situations. In DnD, having them roll a Knowledge skill or Intelligence to realize they're making a mistake is probably your best bet. I guess part of the trick isn't just how you deliver the clue, but what clues you deliver. Don't necessarily remind them of the key bit of knowledge they're forgetting, instead remind them of something else that will jog their memory. For instance, instead of going, "You remember that the professor told you to be absolutely certain you activated the dampeners before the hyperdrive", it's a little less blunt to lead them with, "You have some vague recollection of the professor warning you to do something in a particular order." You're still leading them, and the players will know it, but at least they can feel like it was them who connected the dots. Beyond all that though, if your players really are loving up in the extreme and they manage to avoid all your attempts to help them, let them gently caress up. Sure, it's no fun having a character die, but if it is going to happen, best that it happen in such a way that they realize the (extreme) error lies on their part, and not just some fluke roll.
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Jul 27, 2009 06:20
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ninjeff posted:you are worthless Heh, cool. You're a pretty helpful guy too, what with all your valuable insights. Tendrils, I don't think he's talking about just doing mildly stupid things. No one is going to stop that. I think what's he talking about are more of those "all the players have forgot something crucial, that I know they know, and I think they've just spaced out." As in, you're playing DnD and the players stumble across a red dragon and they start approaching it to chat with it because somehow they've confused it with a gold dragon. Not really a good example, but I think you know the kind of situation I'm talking about. The one where all you players realize they've just done something incredibly dumb, and they don't know how or why they did it. There are those times too where their characters would know instinctively know something the player has either forgotten or doesn't know. To give an example, we were playing a modern combat sort of game and one of our guys is an anti-tank weapons expert. He backs up to a wall and says he's going to fire his anti-tank rocket. Doing that would mean the backblast would kill him, and any anti-tank expert would know that. The GM just had him make an Intelligence roll to remind him what a horrible idea that was. To me that didn't seem at all railroady, and I know the player appreciated the reminder. If he wants to fire it anyway, he still can, but at least he knows what's probably going to happen. Nog fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jul 27, 2009 |
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Jul 27, 2009 08:59
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Super Waffle posted: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? Depends on their level, the distance to the town, danger of the trip, etc.
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Jul 28, 2009 01:01
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Yes, unless one of your players does something to radically change the situation so as to make the spy's escape extremely unlikely, it sounds fine. Running battles can be a pain and are obnoxious to deal with on a battle map, so it's often times easier to just sort of hand-wave it. At the same time though, doing the "he escapes after one action" thing sort of sacrifices a chance for a good skill challenge. I imagine it'd be fun to have skill challenge (Athletics, Streetwise, etc.) that involves the players basically chasing someone through city streets. If you want the spy to escape, but don't necessarily mind if they catch him, just make the challenge real difficult.
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Jul 29, 2009 04:52
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That's it Ether. Quick, find a bandwagon to jump on. People will start thinking you're cool any minute now.
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Jul 29, 2009 05:53
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Honestly, given the arbitrary nature of XP, I don't really think you particularly need to justify it. Unless the player has been missing so long that their character gained like 3 levels, I think you could just chalk up a few thousand XP or a level to "he was always about that powerful". I mean, as far as the characters are concerned, they don't know about levels. All the characters know is that one day Mike decides to try a new trick in combat and what do you know, it works! Otherwise though, it seemed as though many of the full-XP crowd were saying to just have someone else play the character while that player was missing. It all still seems pretty silly to me, but eh, it isn't that tough to resolve character-wise.
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Jul 29, 2009 15:25
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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.
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Jul 30, 2009 00:09
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RagnarokAngel posted:Bullshit them then. Get as close as you can then roll it up/down to 800. Pretty much. If you need to get them another 800 XP and you're worried that a few extra minions might wipe them, then just throw a non-combat obstacle their way. Keep in mind, XP isn't for "crushing skulls", it's for overcoming obstacles. That could be something like killing kobolds, or it can be for surviving an avalanche. Just throw a skill challenge their way (if you're worried about stretching their resources, make it an easy one) and say it's worth 800 XP. It can be anything really. A blizzard strikes that night while they're camping, and all they have to do is try to keep warm (fatigue them if they fail). Going along the side of a mountain, they hear a rumbling and look up to see a mudslide coming right at them. They come across a huge river they have to find a way to ford with their wagon (hah, it might even be fun to do this on the battle map as some kind of elaborate Oregon Trail joke). Granted, they're all kind of a distraction, but if your players are picky about exact XP this gives you a way to give them arbitrary amounts of extra XP without them whining.
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Jul 31, 2009 01:52
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lighttigersoul posted:I actually am considering throwing in the crushing ceiling trap in one of my games soon. Not as instant death, per say, but make it a skill challenge ((Haven't decided if death is the punishment for failure yet. . . Collapsing floor perhaps?)) Maybe go with the old "illusory trap" cop out. If they fail, are "crushed" by the ceiling only to discover it's illusory. The damage to their psyches is intense enough to knock off a few healing surges though. This also allows you to incorporate other skills into the challenge, like Arcana to give you clues to its illusory nature. I know that illusions are the DnD equivalent of holodeck episodes in Star Trek, but they work so eh.
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Jul 31, 2009 17:32
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Seriously, if they really are floundering, it's not always a bad idea to just sit them down for a sort of tutorial session in tactics. 4E is a significant enough departure from 3.5 (or even most other PnP RPGs in general) in terms of how demanding it is of tabletop tactics that I think some players might genuinely appreciate a chance to have a walkthrough of basic tactics. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would get bored and some would get offended, but if you think your players would appreciate it, then run a quick tutorial fight. Barring that, the less direct approach I suppose would be to put them in fights that obviously called for certain tactics. For instance, put them in a fight where their enemies are near the edge of some lava pit or trap and let the players figure out that they need to push their enemies in that direction. If they're having a hard time understanding combat advantage, maybe make them fight some golems that are heavily armored in front and lightly armored in the rear, so that combat advantages bonuses are doubled against them. Each time you feel they need to learn a concept better, put them in a fight that clearly calls for it and let them learn those tactics naturally. The only other thing I could think of is a Blood Bowl style game. Let them enter some sort of football/bloodbowl style game that essentially requires tactical movement to win. After a few "matches" against progressively harder teams on their way to the finals, they ought to pick up some understanding of tactics just by playing. You can even give each player a write up of how his "position" should play. e.g. "You are a Lineman and charged with defending your team's Rusher from the enemies Blitzers. To do this most effectively mark the Blitzers in order to make them temporarily focus on you. Use shift and push powers to open a lane for your Rusher."
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Aug 3, 2009 13:04
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The problem is, it sounds almost as if you're just looking for an excuse to give them the same over-long, boring description, but in smaller chunks. Regardless of how you present it, it still boils down to geeking out over your beautiful, precious city. You might just be best served with a quick description of the city, and then letting them explore the city on their own with more quick descriptions of each area they encounter. If they want to go to the Grand Market, describe the Grand Market for them. Sure, they might pass through Beggar's Alley and Battleburg on their way there, but you only need to mention them in passing. If they're interested in what those places are, they'll ask questions. GM: "As you enter Riverside, you can immediately tell why people call it the 'Jewel of Glunland'. The bustle of activity on the streets is almost overwhelming, and people swarm by in numbers you couldn't even imagine. Looking down the length of one of the larger canals, it seems as if the shops and stalls extend on forever, and towering over the it all stands the imposing Karthos Keep." Players: "Okay, cool. Well, we go find an inn." GM: "No problem. As you walk down the city streets, you begin to realize the question is not 'Where can we find an inn?', but 'What kind of inn do we want?' The city is so large and expansive that inns range from the upscale, pseudo-palaces of the Canal District to the bargain-hunter boardinghouses of Oldtown." Players: "Sweet. Let's go to Oldtown, that sounds kind of cool." GM: "Alright. You leave the Canal District, and pass around the Imperial Stockyards and the famous Star Stadium on the way to Oldtown. The vibrant color and teeming downtown life seem to drain away with each step into Oldtown. Smiling faces and eager merchants are replaced with suspicious glances and shady characters urging you to enter one rundown establishment after another. Even the beautiful canals seem to have been dammed up here, and are now infested with squatters and beggars, who root about in the muddy trenches under a patchwork tarps and canvases." Sure, some of those were a little bit long, but none of those descriptions would take more than 30 seconds to say. That's hardly too long for any player's attention span. You'll probably find that your players fixate on just one area of your big city anyway, so a lot of the work you invest into descriptions of other areas will be lost. Just get an idea of the city's major landmarks and burroughs, and then see what they gravitate to. If you really want them to explore, give them a map of the city with all its major locations clearly marked out and maybe even a few short descriptions. That way each player can look out the map for precisely as long as he feels like, and you give them a chance to understand just how impressive and huge the place is.
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Aug 16, 2009 14:03
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Try just presenting them with general problems that lack a clear solution. If they're actually given the chance and have the resources to do so, many players (even the combat-oriented types) will try for a clever solution, often times one that involves lots of money and contacts. For instance, you want your players to break into the Matsugumi crime family's headquarters to recover a laptop with critical information on it. Instead of telling them where the headquarters is and having some NPC show them some obvious way to approach the problem ("Yea yea, you guys got the blueprints of the building, huh? Well, that ain't poo poo. I can show you where the secret entrance is."), just tell them where the HQ is and leave the other clues out at first. This gives your money-launderer a chance to flex his social muscles by calling in contacts, making bribes, and acquiring expensive equipment. The party might just end up with the same information, but it'll feel like they earned that information, due largely to the help of Mr. Money. In terms of hooking him in to the city, it seems like you could do tons of the things with a money launderer. On the more unimaginative side, just give him some business. If he has connections with the local AmeriBank branch manager and some up-and-coming capo decides to trust this guy with his money, then now he has a real reason to stick around: money. In addition to just giving the party a constant source of funds, doing so would also generate countless plot hooks. Maybe they hear a rumor that someone is planning on knocking that capo off, threatening not just his life, but their money too. Or it could just be that Jimmy Sparks and his boys have been trying to muscle in on the party's business. Do they just keep their heads down, or do they fight back, potentially drawing the ire of Jimmy's dad, Don Canovichi?
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Aug 16, 2009 23:47
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ItalicSquirrels posted:I'm looking to start up a D&D Eberron game and (assuming the players like the idea) I'd like to start them off with some kind of mobile base, like a walking tower or something like that. I'd start it off pretty small, pretty bare bones, and let them add on or modify it however they wished as long as they paid for it (or got others to pay for it as a quest reward). Here're my questions: This provides all sorts of awesome adventure hooks, such as: 1. Dude, where's my castle? - After dumping all their loot off and heading on some wacky adventure, the players return to find that their castle isn't where they left it (this could be early on, before they even realize that it migrates). 2. Who built this thing? - Maybe it always goes to such interesting places because it was built by an adventuring wizard who enchanted it for that very purpose. Maybe it was a built as a mobile siege tower by a dead, warlike nation which enchanted it to seek out areas of strife. Maybe its creator is still alive and that's what it's looking for. 3. It provides a convenient railroad to lead them from place to place. 4. Try to find the device that supposedly controls it. Maybe the guy who gave them the tower actually owns the control device and uses to it have the tower return to him once he has some new suckers lined up. The guy might not even know that the shiny bauble he possesses is actually the control device and pawns it and the tower is really just moving from place to place following the device as it changes hands through trade. I actually like this idea so much, I'm totally stealing it for my next campaign.
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Apr 27, 2010 00:25
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Roads are so full of fun mini-quest possibilities. I actually really like it when my PCs so on roadtrips since it gives me a chance to clear my head of all the stupid, tiny ideas for interesting NPCs and small encounters I've been thinking of but couldn't find a place for. Consider this your chance to do just that. If you don't have any ideas though, here are a few adventure seeds: - The PCs come across a burned out merchant caravan on the same road they're traveling along. Most of the pack animals are slaughtered, and the caravan drivers are all dead. It's pretty obviously the work of highwaymen, and it's up to the PCs to hunt them down. - Blocking their path to capital city is the massive Biggerthanthemississippi River, but thankfully there's a ferry across. They hop on board the small ferry with maybe a few traveling merchants or farmers headed to market and about halfway across the ferry is stopped dead by a couple large logs that protrude up through the bottom of the hull. If the players go overboard to fix the damage, they are attacked by the generic swampmonsters/lizardfolk who have staged the trap. Otherwise, the swamp/lizardpeople will wait until night to assault the ferry. The swamp/lizardfolk usually don't travel this far north from the coastal marshes. Why now? What could be driving them this far and inciting them to such extreme measures for food? Fishing always seemed to be enough in the past. Maybe it's something they'll want to investigate. - The party finally reaches Middleofnowhere Village, a waypoint on their journey, only to discover that it is completely deserted. At first it seems as if there's no signs of fighting, but only closer inspection they find dried blood stains quickly concealed by carpeting, destroyed furniture hidden away in cellars, and such. It's almost as if there had been a fight here, things had been been overturned, broken, and bloodied, and the perpetrator had gone to pains to make it appear as if everyone had simply vanished mysteriously. The truth can be as mundane as a band of slavers. - The players encounter one of the aberrations that the society they're meeting with is having trouble with. That will sort of validate that the problem is there. - Even when the party gets to the city, don't forget that it's a city. There's tons of things that can distract them before they even get to worry about meeting up with the monster hunters. There are crooked gate guards that expect exorbitant "admittance fees" to get past, shady thieves' guilds who can rob the players blind the night before they're supposed to meet the society, and all that sort of fun stuff.
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Apr 29, 2010 06:19
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Sometimes it helps to just state your intentions bluntly; get everyone working on the same page. If you want them to get creative and think of a solution you hadn't considered, just be frank with them. e.g. "Guys, to be honest with you, I really don't have any special way planned for you to do this. It's up to you to get creative and find a way to overcome this." Part of the problem might just be that they haven't gotten used to working with all the resources of their environment and the game, and can only think in terms of their characters resources. A simple way to overcome this is to present them with a huge problem that is beyond the personal abilities of their characters to resolve, but then give the party near unlimited resources and time to resolve it. With so many resources, it's easy for them to see what all they have available to them and the only limit is the limit of their imagination. For instance, they get hired by a mercantile guild to root out and destroy the various criminal gangs that have been hurting business in this city. Obviously their characters can't take on this city's whole criminal underworld with just a few blasters and light sabers. The guild tells the players that they'll assist them with the full weight of their financial and logistical backing though, to the extent of millions of credits, dozens of armed guards, and all sorts of manufacturing equipment. Presented with a situation like this, most players will not only realize that they have to think outside the box, but they'll also love the opportunity. It's not everyday that your character gets unlimited financial and logistical aid. From there, just keep scaling down the challenges their resources until it's on a more personal level again. After a bit of practice, they should be comfortable exercising their imagination on a lower level.
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Apr 30, 2010 19:01
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What about option three: The villain just tricks them? "Hey [wandering bad of good guy adventurers] there is a band of thugs assembling in a boneyard in Prison City who are building their strength to stage an escape, I need some nice adventurers to sneak in there and stop them!" Later... "Wow! You managed to stop those nasty dudes. Thank the gods! But, oh no, there's some other group called the [other enemies of the cultists] Gang that are also threatening to escape, please stop them!" Later, after the PCs have knocked off all the cult's enemies and are ready to leave the city and collect their reward. "Hah, you fools! You fell for my clever plan! I wasn't a good guy warden at all, turns out I was an evil mastermind this whole time. I just used you to knock off the opponents of my allies, [evil cult], which are even at this very moment finishing off Prince Goodguy's royal guard. He will soon join you in this pit of despair because even though I should do the smart thing and just kill him, I am believe it is unacceptable for peons to shed noble blood, hence I will simply exile him into Prison City and pretend he's dead instead of outright killing him." ---------- This really seems like the perfect setup. The players aren't at all railroaded into the city, they are instead fooled into going by the seemingly honest and nice warden. Later, the betrayal ought to make for some good drama, and having the Prince tossed in their with them ought to make for some good ol' "Escape from New York" style action as the players work to recover the Prince, escape, and return with him to capitol to expose the traitor.
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May 4, 2010 06:25
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Guildencrantz posted:Also forest fires, since right now it's summer, winter will be miserable enough without my needing to torture them more. This is really the best background to the rest of the perils. Day 1: They notice smoke off in the distance Day 2: The smoke has erupted into a large, roaring forest fire and the winds are shifting in their direction Day 3: A gale begins to blow in their direction and the forest fire is racing to them Now, every other peril and dilemma you throw at them has the element of a ticking clock. They need to move fast or else the fire will catch up with them. Rest? We don't have time for that! Holy crap, an old convenience store that looks to still have some goods. How did the scavengers miss this? Do we have the time to stop and loot it? There's an old hermit on the trail trying to flee the flames too, but he won't make it at this pace. Can we really slow down to help him? Maybe there'd be time if we hadn't stopped to loot that place. etc.
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Mar 30, 2015 16:08
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Turtlicious posted:I should not, in total they're moving about 200,000 nuyen in profits alone every 2 weeks or so. Ideas: 1. Turns out they haven't actually been making that much. One of their managers has been cooking the books and/or embezzling from them. Turns out that this manager has Mafia connections, so they can't just kill him without upsetting the mob. 2. Finding good help is so hard. When they look at the books, they find that one of their operations is actually running at a loss. Everyone says that before they took over the place, they used to have another manager who ran the place like a well-oiled machine. He works for some AAA now, and convincing him to come back and work in some dingy warehouse isn't going to be easy. (this is the classic recruiting run with the twist being that they were their own Mr Johnson). 3. With profits like that, the players are definitely hurting someone else's bottom line. They get a call one day that some runners hit one of their businesses and wrecked some critical piece of machinery, costing them weeks of profits. Now they need to find the runners who did this, and then find who hired them. Basically, just think of every run the players have done on some nameless corp, scale it down to appropriate size, and have it happen to them. As they succeed, have this open new business opportunities (e.g. they find the business responsible for #3 and realize that they are on the verge of bankruptcy because of the players... now they can try to acquire that business).
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Apr 10, 2015 15:45
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