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AlphaDog posted:If I try to do complicated plots or intrigue, they get bored and start looting and burning everything. My group would joke about doing that (Same group that joked about ditching the plot to become wandering minstrels, if you happen to recall my previous posts on the subject), but the one time I felt they were serious, I nipped it in the bud by saying "I want a fight or two that's not connected to this grand plot myself, but we are not leaving this town in ruins in order to set up a bandit farm!"
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Feb 24, 2012 19:24
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Temascos posted:And finally, they stop a bank robbery and utterly pulverise the enemy so I made sure to draw in loads of blood splatters. You draw in blood splatters too? One of my party members would do that (on Gametable) whenever he got a critical hit. I don't mean just a quick swirly blob of red, I mean lovingly-detailed fans, careful wall-following spatters, pools filled in neatly with his Wacom tablet. It got ridiculous in one fight where he managed to crit every single enemy he attacked. When he one-shot the mage, he narrated it as slicing the head open, and added bits of gray. 
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Mar 7, 2012 07:50
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:DM actually takes me aside and says in a quiet voice, "I'm not trying to gently caress you, here, man, your reaction made perfect sense and you're gonna get Raised, I promise, but it was a Figurine of Wondrous Power." Which I actually thought was kind of cool, that he'd make a point of explaining what looked like an enormous dick move to let me know he wasn't trying to be a jackass. I wasn't bothered or anything, but the fact that he took the time to say something was cool of him. I've done that before a couple times. Once was when the enemy focused on the combat monster who'd just taken half their dudes out, and I'd recently been in an argument with said combat monster's player, so there was the potential to see it as retaliation. Another was just a dude who kept rolling abysmally whenever he tried to do anything. He hit maybe once in five rounds of combat before getting horribly stuck in a wizard's spell (save ends) for the other five. Although now I want to design something around Summon Monster and SNA in incredibly unlikely places. Like Hibbert the Ineluctable is an rear end in a top hat wizard that traps his dungeon with summons in the weirdest places. Rogue opens a chest, 1d4+1 fiendish centipedes. Fighter steps into a room, sudden owlbear. Wizard falls into a pit trap, so does a celestial badger.
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Mar 12, 2012 03:26
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Section Z posted:[nerd]Bonus! Lasers swords that anyone can use exist. It's just like a lightsaber! The only difference is the discount rate lens and parts. You don't need the force to use it because... Uh... Um... The Force says it's okay so long as your laser sword isn't as cool as theirs? You can even have a lightfoil duelist at first level in Saga Edition. There's a whole culture where the nobles use them. Which is appropriate, since they're almost enough to take up the Noble's entire first-level Wealth talent by themselves. Of course, if you then add a prosthetic limb like I did, it eats the rest of the way through the talent and then some. Kinda sad I never got to play that dude. I even have a note in his file to make a "An elegant weapon for a more civilized age" joke when confronted with a regular lightsaber.
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Mar 14, 2012 20:24
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I find that the best way to keep PCs who have acquired an army from getting bored is to introduce a villain with a bigger and nastier army. Another option is to figure out what they're attached to within their army and then threaten it. One of my DMs (For those who happen to be following all my posts in and out of this thread like an obsessive stalker who wants to wear my face for a hat, this is the same campaign with manly fisticuffs between my Warlock and a ranger, the Grey Render as party mascot, and the Shifter Totemist that could be set on liquify) noticed that we were really attached to our stronghold. One of the NPCs we'd picked up was an architect, and we'd thrown a boatload of money at her to fix it up. He had an opposing force teleport into the keep. Their leader was this mad scientist mage who had Ghost Sound Permanencied on himself just to give himself an impressive, multiplexing voice. We immediately decided to take the fight to him after he teleported out, because A) He was really goddamn pretentious, and B) He defaced our really cool dome.
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Mar 18, 2012 19:34
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On the one hand, Abe, Smug Sociopath, and the rest of his gaming group have shown remarkably unenlightened mindsets. On the other, the stories are kinda cool. Given that that encompasses the spectrum of reactions here, could we please drop the argument and return to posting stories?
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Mar 21, 2012 05:13
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Going back to the Deck of Many Things discussion, the basic deck and rod are items I'm opposed to, mostly due to their wild swing between game-breaking, game-ruining, and useless effects. Like so many things, there exists the possibility to be used well (Byers2142's creation myth in particular was really cool), but they're usually not. Still, I like the concept of the random-generator item. So I made my own. Essentially an extension of the Robe of Useful Items with some DNA from a kender's pouch (None from the kender itself, just its pouch), it's a 100-entry table of most of the 3.5 mundane and alchemical items. Yes, including the ladder and ten-foot pole. Here, if you want it. It's pretty well balanced, but the price is just a guess.
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Mar 23, 2012 02:10
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B.B. Rodriguez posted:I'm brand new to Dark Sun, but isn't this kind of thing the norm? It seems like there are no good aligned NPCs in the whole place. Everyone is living in terror and don't go outside because even rocks have psychic powers and want to eat you. Yeah, altruistic good is a very rare thing in Dark Sun. Unless you have a group of pathological goody-goodies. Never before have I felt like That Guy for fitting my character to the world flavor.
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Mar 26, 2012 04:57
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some loving LIAR posted:As entertaining as the next seven or eight 4e pun posts will doubtless be, Pathfinder also has Perception checks. Yes, but I've yet to see a single Pathfinder pun. A system is only as interesting to grogs as the derogatory nicknames that can be made from its designation.  See also: Buttsexbox, Gaystation.
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Apr 28, 2012 06:43
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pw pw pw posted:Man, I love it when someone has such a poor idea of the game mechanics as to strongly desire real estate in dungeons and dragons. Genuinely, it's just the most lovably retarded thing. What a god forsaken idiot, bless his little heart. On the one hand, they were going through the Temple of Elemental Evil, and having a base they could fall back to without trekking back to town would be decently handy. On the other hand, they were going through the Temple of Elemental Evil. If you happen to be in a game where a fort will be a necessary part of things, real estate can be a decent investment. Of course, it's still possible to go about things in a completely rear end-backwards way. For instance, my party had just cleared out a temple full of bad guys, accessed the sealed treasure room, and kickstarted the plot by getting labeled the Stars of Destiny. Yes, just like Suikoden. My character, being a very social and legally-minded person, decided to put some effort into finding out who had owned the place previously, and what it would take to transfer ownership. This would have been all fine and good, except we were in the middle of a nation whose power groups consisted entirely of barbarian tribes and a few hidden fortresses full of ninjas. The local chieftain's response was basically "Well, you're there now, we'll call it yours."
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May 9, 2012 21:00
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Section Z posted:No, see, it's always funny when it happens to somebody else. Piedenfreude.
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Jul 2, 2012 05:45
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ProfessorProf posted:The indicated PC was the party's Tough Hero, who had a beautiful combination of tools at her disposal: A motorcycle, a grappling hook, a sledgehammer, and a plan. While you may recreate a wide variety of action properties in d20 Modern, Just Cause is not one of them. Yes, I know the campaign likely predates the games.
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Aug 4, 2012 08:11
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I'm not sure whether that explanation makes things better or worse. 
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Aug 23, 2012 11:20
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Error 404 posted:
Yes, indeed. I've found that I only need to plan the events at the very start of a session, and anything further just gets discarded as I watch the PCs and go "Well, that's much more awesome than I had planned!" Just as an example, I'm running a Legends of the Wulin game currently. A recent session had this as the entirety of my notes (And these weren't even written down, just what I came up with in my head in the days prior): "Party encounters column of troops, general in carriage with Moonlight Mirror." Moonlight Mirror is one of the big bads, although we're still in the introduction phase for all of them. At any rate, I had basic stats for the troops, some thoughts on what the general can do, and a few ideas for how to hold a battle on top of a speeding carriage in this system. I was worried because I'd been meaning to stat out Moonlight Mirror all week, but hadn't gotten around to it. Turns out I needn't have worried, because no combat happened. The PCs were polite and courteous, and wound up being offered a ride in the general's carriage. This worked out both well and badly for them, because while they got much useful information about the Jin Empire's plans and got to know Moonlight Mirror a bit, they were seen disembarking at their mutual destination, and when they started waving around their McGuffins in an area that is not entirely friendly towards the Jin, it prompted a late-night appearance by ninjas wishing to 'speak' with them. None of that would have happened had they beaten on the troops, but I'm sure I would have discovered something else cool to happen.
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Oct 23, 2012 03:34
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You could also go around putting kittens in trees.
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Oct 23, 2012 09:09
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Suleman posted:Speaking of which, here's a tip: Think twice before making making a character for a game that doesn't share at least one language with everyone in the party. It sounds interesting but it's mostly just a pain. Unless it's a Wookiee and you happen to like making Wookiee noises. And really, who doesn't. 
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Nov 19, 2012 08:06
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Or at least Flesh to Salt, it's a good way to get some extra cash out of unwanted dungeon features.
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Jul 28, 2013 07:06
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OmniDesol posted:A disguised Frog-man Fighter used a conflicted success with Azathoth to burn down a thriving African metropolis, killing hundreds of people. Her motivation? Stealing a really nice shovel from one store. That shovel was then used by the ancient Descendant of Cthulhu Ranger to brutally murder an enraged shopkeeper. The same shopkeeper it was stolen from, or a different one? 
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Aug 13, 2013 08:19
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Kobold posted:I'm oddly inspired to have a character who carries around a variety of different soups to deal with all sorts of situations. Would probably be the group healer, since that makes the most sense in my mind. One soup for acid burns, another soup for stat drain, a third soup for petrification wherein it's never explained how said recipient partakes of it... There's actually a spell for that in 3.5: Estanna's Stew. Creates several servings of healing soup, which naturally damages undead if you throw the soup on them. Requires a special expensive stew pot. I only know this because I ran a cleric with a cooking gimmick.
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Sep 26, 2013 01:16
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Cornwind Evil posted:Still, I wonder how many DMs actually root against themselves. It's fairly common, at least among my groups. One character death happened because he was getting pretty low on HP and still had a minotaur on him. DM decided it didn't make sense for the minotaur to switch targets or flee, so went for full Power Attack to lower its attack bonus, hoping for a miss. We all just kinda stared at the natural 20 that resulted. I also tend to worry that I've overpowered the party whenever I throw much of anything at them. I suppose it's a mark of decent DMing. Anyway, are we talking about neckbeards casting spells? Because I have a story of a neckbeard casting a spell. I've mentioned Matt before. Matt was the one who always played the brooding, trenchcoated Richter Sterling. Matt was the one who tried to bring the SDF-1 into every game (Yes, every game, no matter the system or genre. Watching him do verbal gymnastics on the topic was always mildly entertaining). Matt was the one who, before I even got the second sentence of setting description out (coincidentally the one describing the watchful guards), interrupted with "I start pickpocketing!" Matt was also the one "responsible" for "resetting" a friend's mind and letting a "new personality" take over. This is that story. A disclaimer: I was raised by psychic hippies, steeped in mysticism all my life. So if someone says they can cast spells, I'm skeptical, but not going to call bullshit immediately. Strip away the mysticism, and every "spell" is just positive thinking and creative interpretation of events. Someone may need the framework of the spell in order to think positively and creatively enough to be the change they want. It's more like religion than anyone involved in the comparison cares to admit. So keep in mind that I at least half bought into this nonsense at the time. At any rate, I was over at Matt's house with our mutual friend Randy. I think it was Matt's birthday, and either everyone else had left or we were the only ones who showed up (We only qualified as Matt's friends because he had latched, lamprey-like, onto us and would not leave us alone). We had played a little RIFTS earlier in the day (Matt, Randy, and I were really the only group in my school that played tabletop games), but mostly the day had seen us passing the controllers around playing fighting games on the Playstation. Due to this, I missed the setup or why Matt was casting a spell, but when I looked up he'd set up a ring of candles with Randy in the center. Matt started going on about how he'd cast spells with runes before, but the spell needed five runes and he only had four left. So not only did Matt think he had a working knowledge of spellcasting, he also thought he was a Vancian caster. At the time I only took issue with the second part, although not vocally. I only informed him of the existence of the null or blank rune, which he agreed would be perfect for his spell. He continued his setup, which I don't recall accurately, and when he finished casting, Randy That sounds silly, and I'm still having trouble believing I bought into it even partially. But Randy, to get a little geekier for a moment, was like a videogame NPC with no AI loaded. He was in neutral.  He still breathed, blinked, maintained balance, but he stayed silent and didn't respond much otherwise. We ran through some impromptu tests, verifying that Randy had reflexes and instinct and his martial arts training.  I may have freaked out a little at this point, but that stopped when Matt grabbed a sword and threatened to commit suicide to get Randy's mind back. I talked Matt down and, it being very late and not knowing anything else to do, I hitchhiked home with Randy, still silent and mostly unresponsive. Since nothing happens in a vacuum, this is also the story of how Randy got us to take him seriously when he changed his name to Sephiroth.
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Sep 28, 2013 17:50
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These stories get me thinking often about a hypothetical store rules notice I'd put up if I ran a FLGS. "No Gaming Is Better Than Bad Gaming" would be right at the top, in big bold letters. Some kind of admonition to have showered in the past eight hours would be on there as well, and either a selection of "don't be a dick" rules, or just "Don't Be A Dick. If we have to explain what that means, we will probably just ask you to leave." coupled with the standard "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" sign. I also have a vague idea for a series of satirical "Know Your Grognards" posters detailing various undesirables as if with monster manual or wilderness guide entries. The Fun Vampire, The Edition Warrior, The Catbox Golem, etc. I might kick that idea around some more, see if I can get enough fleshed out to justify kickstarting it or something. Do you guys think either of those would actually be a useful thing that would bring some measure of enlightenment to the hobby?
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Nov 15, 2013 15:01
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Dr. Jamming posted:but they're doing chicken fights up on deck, so I have to go change into my swimsuit. I'm glad we have you around. I'm curious whether the Gunslinger's player was... I can't think of all the right words, but whether he was more like his cousin at first and the Gunslinger's transformation was also his own, or whether he was mostly playing against type initially. You have a pretty cool group, though, aside from the Paladin's player bringing her rape fetish to the table. That's just not cricket. I'm of the opinion that it's okay for a group to use RPGs as a vehicle for discussing sensitive topics, but it's definitely something that everyone involved needs to go into with full information, eyes wide open. I mentioned this in a previous thread, but I also deployed PVP to good effect in violation of my own principles. I had a real problem with one of my group's characters, a rather assholish Ranger that was mostly just snarky but occasionally went against the group's plans. I wound up blowing up at the Ranger's player a few times, which, after the initial burst of anger had driven everyone else off (I still feel bad about that, by the way, it was not something I could say was justified), led to peaceful, civilized discussion of the problem between myself and the Ranger's player. We eventually worked out that the only thing the Ranger really understood was force, and I suggested we punch it out. The other player was incredulous: "You realize I'm a Ranger with Favored Enemy: Humans and you're a ranged, low-Con Warlock, right? I'd beat the crap out of you." "Yeah, I'd lose mechanically, but the point is more to plant an idea in your mind. We should probably just RP it out, no rolls involved." It wound up being something close to Monkey Island's insult swordfighting, it all worked out great, and it still lingers in my mind as one of the best times I've had RPing. Partially because it helped me finally set in my mind the difference between a player and a character's personality. Because the Ranger's player was a pretty cool guy, if a bit of a munchkin.
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Nov 16, 2013 17:17
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Well, at least it's not one of the other PCs themself. Also, before I read the setup, I thought you had a different Coyote's Tooth.
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Dec 20, 2013 02:49
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Kurieg posted:His slam attack (That it is mathematically impossible for him to miss with) He has a 5% chance to miss, unless he literally has an ability that says he doesn't miss on a natural 1 in which case that is some bullshit.
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Jan 5, 2014 20:08
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Yeah, I realized like five minutes after posting that that singling that single point out as being some bullshit was missing the forest because all these drat trees are in the way.
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Jan 5, 2014 20:40
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Grey Hunter posted:Name remembering is another thing. Players always seem to forget the name of secondary characters, the type who turn up every few sessions, or are at least mentioned. In my Rogue Trader game I had another Rogue Trader who just got referred to as "whatshername" no matter how many times I prompted them. I ran a short campaign where the captain of the ship the PCs were crew on was only ever referred to as The Captain. I didn't actually have names for her or any of the other crew, and the players didn't mind at all. It helped that this was when Nextwave was popular.
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Mar 13, 2014 11:00
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Just saw this on imgur, I vaguely remember seeing it before, but who knows, it may be new!
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Mar 21, 2014 07:48
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Bieeardo posted:Reminds me of one of the first PBP games held here, before Trad Games was its own subforum, involving penis-shaped magic missiles and an orc chieftain named Come-Sail-Away. I realize it was probably horrible, but all that synopsis does is give me an idea for an entire tribe/clan/clique with names based on pop songs. "This is our scout, Ran-So-Far-Away. There's one of our younglings, In-The-Street. Gonna be a big man someday. And, of course, our witch doctor, Oo-Ee-Oo-Ah-Ah."
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Mar 30, 2014 23:12
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Rulebook Heavily posted:(including one where a player's boyfriend showed up to play the guitar and give his love roses, in front of everyone) Absurd Alhazred posted:You gargle it like mouthwash. Please don't gargle it like mouthwash. Not gonna lie, I was tempted. I've got this bag of assorted polyhedrals on my desk and I was looking at it appraisingly, when I realized A) I'd bought it from a thrift shop and thus literally don't know where they've been, and B) I'm alone in the house and can't reliably Heimlich myself based on the previous times I've tried. e: Yes, I've had to try and perform the Heimlich maneuver on myself multiple times. Not just "Oh, I think I'll practice the Heimlich maneuver!"
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Apr 3, 2014 23:43
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Rulebook Heavily posted:I think I was... eighteen? I'm gonna say eighteen. Pretty sure that made me the oldest person in the room, though not by much. When you're roleplaying without dice, the roleplaying never ends. That would actually be kind of a decent tagline for something.
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Apr 4, 2014 01:04
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I guess I'm sort of half that guy that misses the point. I'll make odd, edge-case characters based on interesting rules interactions or system mastery of things like movement speed or Search checks, then think up somewhere between one and three reasons for them to be adventuring with the rest of these murderhobos. Various 3.5 characters that I can remember, by way of example: -Ven Hao, Human Warlock/Mindbender/Enlightened Spirit, tuned for Bluff checks (Atallas, custom setting): The party was a convenient cover for his spy activities, and he did feel a bit of responsibility to put the sealed evil back in the can we saw it released from during the first session. Wound up making a grand total of one Bluff check over the entire campaign. -Earil-Galinde Lomuriand, Elf Artificer, tuned for Search checks (Coperia, custom setting): Party was hired and put together by an oversight company, but he stuck with the party because he wanted to keep an eye on the psychotic ex-paladin who might be multi-classing in Sorceror. -<name forgotten>, Rilkan Lurk, tuned for acrobatics (Started in Eberron, wound up in Planescape): Was hired on for a dungeon run by the party well before the campaign began and never saw a need to change the business arrangement. DM actually took me aside and said he had no idea what I was looking to get out of encounters, despite my tumbling everywhere, running up walls to smack people atop them, then leaping off to air assassinate others and generally having a high old time. -Krak, Kobold Swordsage, tuned for Setting Sun and trip attacks (Eberron): Technically stole his Nine Swords knowledge (He was the janitor at a Droaam monastery) and joined the party to get away from the monsters chasing him. Sadly this campaign only had like two sessions before falling apart, but I really liked Krak. Especially because he managed to throw a hobgoblin into a fountain. -Loric, Human Marksman (Eberron): The runaway princess McGuffin was tagging along with him, and one of the other PCs reminded him of his daughter that had been lost during the Last War. -Mayachil, Human Cleric/Pyrokineticist, tuned for fire damage with a minor in movement speed (Dark Sun): Joined later in the campaign, was added to the party by a Sorceror-Queen. Wound up carrying at least one of every way to do fire damage or light something on fire (Including firewood in one of the small pockets of a Handy Haversack), burst out laughing when one of the party asked if anyone had a way of burning bodies. fake e: And of course while I'm writing this the topic moves on. 
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Apr 7, 2014 02:51
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Just finished an Eclipse Phase session, in which the sentinel team signed into a simulspace game, 1715, to participate in a whaling party that would lead into their briefing. A key component of the simulspace was being able to take the part of any mob in the area. Which lead to my saying "Whaleboats are lowered, harpoons prepped, and the crew of one of the boats happens to be the captain, the cook, a swabbie, and the ship's cat."
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Apr 22, 2014 02:09
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See also Tamriel, which has held the same level of technology (And even backslid a little, they seem to have forgotten how to forge spears) and also failed to make any significant advances in magic for at least 200 years.
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May 15, 2014 09:57
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In a similar vein, I have an idea in a text file somewhere where a fifty-year-old prince is mad as hell about the succession he got shafted on because his father the king got turned into a vampire and still looks to be in his mid-20s.
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May 17, 2014 07:51
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"Well it's on her spell list so  "
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Jun 7, 2014 17:16
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Notable in the "Overheard at the game shop" sense: I went out to my FLGS (For given values of local, I had to drive 90 miles to get there) with the intent of buying Eclipse Phase if they had a copy. While browsing, I heard a man and his daughter looking over the Gundam models in the case at the cash register. Dad said, "Huh, are those Transformers?" prompting a nearby staffer to correct him that no, those are Gundam models. "But it's like Transformers, though, right?" The staffer paused noticeably before finally answering "Yeah, sort of." I mentally applauded his self-restraint. They did have Eclipse Phase, and also had a copy of Lamentations of the Flame Princess with a "Mature Content" sticker over the snakewoman boobs on the cover. A good experience all around, although one of the customers was wearing enough cologne to kill a canary.
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Jun 17, 2014 18:17
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Kumaton posted:I just finished running a Borderlands Powered by the Apocalypse game... Do you have a specific hack/ruleset you were using that you can link to? Because that sounds like fun.
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Jun 21, 2014 06:34
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alcharagia posted:an XBox he found in the woods somewhere. Should've been a SNES with photorealistic skeletons and BLAST PROCESSING.
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Sep 6, 2014 08:25
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I think the story that was told last time this came up was the card had the rules text "Target player loses their next turn." The player argued that instead of skipping their next turn, the card could be interpreted that they lost the game ON their next turn. e: The card text has since been errata'd, of course. Dareon fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 11:02
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Most of my old D&D group was neutral on the angsty-wacky scale, although we had one outlier on each end, which made for great fun when the hyperactive, eats-anything-vaguely-classifiable-as-food Shifter Totemist decided to buddy cop with the brooding, literally-raised-by-hyenas Ranger. Mostly they joked about eating the Ranger's animal companion.
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Oct 22, 2014 00:18
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