DM_aka_Dudemeister's page

The biggest conflict here is whether or not to make it true >:-)

Cool, a kickass female character because its 2013 now and I'm excited to be surprised by a new character.

Tolkien was entirely too descriptive for my tastes. I don't need a hundred year history of a stretch of road. I need to know what cool thing is happening on it now. If it's nothing then let's abridge that.

Whatever, the last movie was great and the next one looks just as fun.

Fantastic and historical "artificers" or "inventors":

Hephaestus - Twisted smith of the gods, Hephaestus was famously ugly but could create objects of such power and beauty he caused the goddess of love herself to love him.

Daedalus - Creator of the labyrinth that housed the Minotaur and the wax wings of Icarus. Daedalus would probably be considered the first mortal artificer. Throw in the ancient clockwork mechanism and I don't want anyone crying foul about anachronisms.

Archimedes - The archetypal natural philosopher. Even now we refer to the Eureka moment.

Leonardo da Vinci - flying machines, battle tanks, submersibles and other impossible devices all lived in this artistic genius' head.

Here's what I think. The Alchemist is the equivalent of a fantasy chemist/biologist. We should have the equivalent of a fantasy physicist/engineer to round out the sciences!

I would change the progression to slow progression if you're going to add these adventures in.
Alternatively throw out experience points entirely.

The adventures I've suggested are all 3.5 so the conversions are pretty simple usually just grab the bestiary equivalent of monster manual monsters, and for anything else just calculate CMB/CMD and you're good.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

Stuff I'd like to see either by Paizo, fans or 3pp come out of this book:

Spreadsheets for all the new rules subsystems.

Random Hex Map Generator using the randomization from the exploration chapter.

Young Hero Adventures.

Dragonkin Unleashed.

Scott, "It's not a problem for me" does not equate to "it's not a problem".

The way I handled the Iron Lords in my game is during a feast between book 1 and 2 at Restov where Drelev, Varn and the PCs receive their official titles there was a lot of speculation about what happened to the Iron Lords. Then King Irovetti shows up, clad in Iron (my Irovetti is more like Doctor Doom), and throws down the shield of the Iron Lords on the table where everyone is feasting.

"You send scavengers to pick at the edges of my domain!? You have overstepped your borders Sword-Lords. There. Will. Be. A. Reckoning."
At which point he turned around, stormed out and rode away in his horseless carriage.

My PCs were thoroughly intimidated.

I've watched it twice now and all told enjoyed myself both times. At first I was conflicted.

We need a "Book of Shrugged Indifference".

Sure for the first five minutes or so it's a heroic struggle, but after that it's mostly 16 years of sitting.

Ragathiel: "You dead yet?"
Monstrous Evil Acidic Serpent: "Nope."
Ragathiel: *sigh* "I should have brought a book."

Play Telltale's "Walking Dead", it's a Human Drama simulator and it's wonderful.

There was pictures and footage of people running towards the explosions immediately to try and help. Just as we see the worst of humanity we also see the best. I hope we see no more casualties and fatalities today.

Lucasarts was my childhood. Verb based adventure games are still my biggest influence as a GM, because they showed me a story, could be a reward and a punchline could be a payoff. To my friends I was the Lucasarts tip line. I've been missing Lucasarts for years, but I mourn for the opportunity lost to see the company realise its potential.

I think it's a common misconception to believe the game is about rolling dice. Dice are wonderful randomizers but they are there to force players to adapt to situations.

What the game is really about is choice:

Do I try and hit the baddie or do I pull my injured friend out of the fire?

Do I spend some spell-slots so we can fly over this challenge, or do I save them for if more of those bloody skeletons come crawling out of the walls again?

Do we arrest the villain so he can answer for his crimes, or do we murder him here because he killed the party henchmen and taunted us?

THOSE are the game. The Dice Rolling is just gambling, you can stack the deck in your favor, but rolling the dice is just watching to see if you made a good choice or a bad one.

In my games, I don't fudge either for or against the PCs. To me the part of the fun is adapting the story the whims of the dice. My players know this and plan accordingly. It's improv at its best, and the rest is making decisions based on situations created by previous choices and the whims of the dice.

That said, I wouldn't call my games hard mode. I do prompt my players if they're sure they want to take a course of action and tell them what likely consequences might be. They can go ahead with their crazy plans in spite of that, but they rarely act ignorantly and with good teamwork rarely lose a PC.

I once played a cleric of Thor and when my allies took some damage after the first combat of the day they wanted healing. My response was:

"Verily I have communed with Thor and he hath said thou shalt suck it up princess. Art thou an adventurer or art thou a milk-maid fresh from the farm? Thou shalt be cured when it is neededeth, verily I shall not swap out the lightning of Thor to fixeth thy tiny booboo."

Last night I ran a Mass Combat as a skill challenge.

The bridge to the North of Drelev was controlled by barbarian forces. So I put 12 tokens down to represent the barbarians. I had the players describe the forces they brought with them (one unit per player each unit had a variable number of tokens depending on role (5 for warriors, 4 for specialists and 2 for casters) - they chose Human/Dwarven foot soldiers, Elf Archers, Centaur Archers, Erastil Clerics and Candlemere Wizards)
I had the players make Skill Checks, Attack Rolls and Saves going around the table and asking what their plans were and calling for saves during opponent's attacks. Whenever they succeeded on a check I removed an enemy token, and whenever they failed a check by more than 5 they had to choose a token to remove. If they failed a save vs the enemy attacks I got to choose what was removed).
The fun of this method is it takes up about as much time as a regular combat and I always prompted the players to describe the battle. The players had a blast as our Druid out up a magical dam so the ground troops could cross and the bard used his harp of building to put together a fallback fort that drew the boulders from the giants.

Krom Barbarian. Krom smash good. Krom am about level 12/mythic tier 6.
Puny man got problem with that? Then puny man get SMASHED!

Krom miss Thog. Him lose touch with clan after enrolling at squishy school.

Krom never justify multi class. Krom am paladin, dipped to take advantage of Krom good charisma. Krom not believe in objective alignments. Gods too scared to argue.

I do play my stats. If I'm going to come up with clever plans and solve problems laterally in game you bet I'll take High Int. If I dump Int then I specifically DON'T suggest clever plans because my character wouldn't think of them even if I do.

That TO ME is the challenge and joy of RPGs, playing a character including their features and flaws. It's why I endorse the Roll First method, determine the result and THEN play to match.

My playstyle is not everyone's playstyle and that's okay. I do think drawing down your Wis/Int/Cha to get better combat stats but not playing the personality to match is cheating somewhat. In the same sense a blind oracle looking at the battle mat refusing to separate IC and OOC knowledge is cheating. A weakness should be played.

Drawing down your charisma because you know that you can "role-play" past social encounters without rolls is bad sportsmanship as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the proof that the Aboleths are a lie:

Did the Aboleth's do it?

It's a bluff!

Think about it, the Aboleths put out a rumor that says some leaders may be secret Aboleths. What better way is there to make a human population distrust their leaders after all?

It's genius.

I am not a millionaire because I haven't yet figured out a way to monetize my happiness. It must be worth a lot since its so rare. Monetizing my misery hasn't paid much because the market appears to be flooded with that product.

Shifty wrote:

Christopher Rowe wrote:

Wow! "Chatter?" Conquering neighbors? Is this post a troll? Or a joke?

What is wrong with 'chatter'?

Cultural difference - chatter is talking, having a chat, and what's the chatter, are neutral terms in Australian English. On the otherhand in British English the Chattering Classes is a class attack on the middle to lower classes. I am not sure what the connotation is in US English.

It's often considered a dismissive term for "women's talk", aka idle gossip and conversation about "unimportant" things like women's interests.

The implication is that men discuss, talk and deliberate while women chat, gossip and natter. Men talk about sports, women chat about boys and glitter and I don't know... Stickers?

I'm sure that's not what was meant but it speaks to the gendering of language. Often unconscious but insidious.

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes."

Is something I try to live by and sometimes I fail. Sometimes I don't party on, sometimes I end up working. I do alright at the excellence thing though ;).

When it comes to gaming I try and make sure everyone at the table has a voice, including the more shy or reserved people. Outgoing natural improvisers don't need a helping hand to get the spotlight, so instead I make the effort to give the quieter voices time to shine. Whether it's a story arc that specifically effects them or just an encounter that has a particular weakness to my shy player's particular powers.

When I come as a player I bring a snack, a drink and a sweet for everyone to share. If we haven't arranged to eat during the session before hand I make sure I eat before I arrive so I have energy and don't interrupt the game. If I can't make a game I make sure to give as much notice as possible (24 hours minimum) that I won't be attending to give the GM time to work around my absence.

As a GM, I ask for feedback and work to incorporate my PC's narrative arcs into the overarching plot. I endeavor to encourage new players to join my games (no matter how much I strive for a table of 4, inevitably someone new wants to try RPGs so I add them to my table). I take note of particularly great moments the players bring to the table and commend them for their actions.

As a community member I try and share my notes as much as possible, so that other GMs can benefit from my own experiences and ideas. When other GMs ask me questions I try to answer them as honestly as possible, with an eye towards inclusion and increasing the fun.

As a human being I like to make people laugh and feel good. My sense of humor is a lot of what defines my personality. Whenever possible I bring the funny. I get up out of my seat for elderly and pregnant passengers and actively try to make life fun for the people around me. When I have a disagreement with someone I try to calm the conflict before continuing the discourse.

What do these things have to do with women at the gaming table, and in the gaming industry?

Because from where I sit, I can't figure out how we are now talking about racial demographics of front line soldiers in World War II, instead of women. Please focus.

Judy Bauer wrote:

Fey Revisited, when it comes out, should provide another fun source of fodder for exploring gender and sexuality on Golarion.

** spoiler omitted **

Looking forward to this and the ensuing fun in this thread. :) The spoilered bit sounds really fairy-tale-ish.

no pugwampi love plz

Y'know...satyrs were explicitly stated to go for guys as well as gals in the very first setting-neutral Bestiary. (they did seem to come across as selfish lovers though)

The phrase for making love to a pugwampi is "getting unlucky".

Can we get back to the topic at hand:

Making Gaming Spaces more inclusive.

Right now the "who has it worse" wang measuring contest is both off topic and really overloading my irony quota for the day.

I finally got to start this adventure line in last night's game. We ended on a cliffhanger with the scene of Darth Vader in the Cloud City dining hall (aka the opening of Monstrous Feast, natch). The look on the players' faces was classic.

-blarg

That look is why I do what I do.

Well I'd like to see Ghostwalk: Revived especially since SKR worked on the original.

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes." - Bill & Ted.

What more is there?

Don't just be good, or kind or tolerant. Be excellent to each other. It's why I have many female players that enjoy my games and friendship.

No, a Lawful Good character has a code that they follow. If the law is unjust they try and change the law, if the law conflicts with their code then they are within their purview to break it. Lawful Good is the hardest alignment to play and that's because people confuse the laws of the land as the Law in lawful.
It's just not so, it's about having a personal code.

Now if you're lawful good in a society that practices slavery you don't participate in that system. You actively protest and work to change it. Or you buy slaves and grant them freedom whenever possible. What you DON'T do is break into the slave pens, free the slaves and terrorise slavers for their foul practices (that's more Chaotic Good).

Finally a Lawful Good character accepts sometimes they'll fail to live up to their ideals. They seek forgiveness, atonement and either revise their code or strive to do better in future.

Playing Lawful Good is difficult and rewarding, I really recommend it sometime especially for an unlikely class (Rogue, Sorcerer or Witch as LG is something to see).

Relevant.

Rock Johnson, he has no idea why people snigger when he introduces himself.

Anything that lets me swing over terrain like Spider-Man or Indiana Jones makes me happy. So animate rope!

@Original Poster:

Most GMs expect the players to interact with the scenes (as opposed to just stealth, steal beer and run). That's basic improv, you don't just ignore or negate what's happening, you interact. This is why your GM is baffled. Now to be fair he is dropping many of his hooks quite clumsily in front of you but that can be attributed to many factors.

Essentially when you make a character, don't build someone who only looks out for his own interests, because that's incredibly boring and hard to hook. It basically means the GM needs to imperil you personally to get you to interact with adventures the GM writes. Try playing a character who says "Yes" or "Yes and".

Take the barfight, you needn't have asked the GM how well you knew the guy you could just say: "Hey that's my friend and he needs my help!" and jump into the brawl. Or even: "Hey, I know that guy and he owes me a beer!" and then jump in and protect the guy long enough that he can buy you a beer.

When you see a wizard being dragged down the street you say: "Yeah, and I am going to find out where they're taking him." Then follow the officers surreptitiously. Basically instead of "do nothing" or "walk away", try saying yes and jumping into the action. Because you know... it's kind of why we have the game.

Disclaimer: I am in no way judging your play style, and your character choices. I just notice a pattern of the GM offering and you not taking. In addition it may be important to talk to your GM about the kind of hooks that WILL bait your character into action.

The first thing you have to remember is that it's not easy being green. Spending each day the color of the leaves. I'm sure it'd be much nicer to be red, or blue or aquamarine or something more colorful like that.

It's not easy being green, it seems you blend in with all kinds of ordinary things, and people tend to pass over you 'cause you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water or stars in the sky.

But green's the color of Spring! Green can be cool and friendly-like and green can be big like a mountain, important like a river or tall like a tree.

When green is all there is to be, it could make you wonder why, wonder why, why wonder? You're green and that'll do fine, it's beautiful and frankly it's all you'll want to be.

...

Or you know you can give him a tiny shocking warhammer and call him THROG FROG OF THUNDER.

It's been long said that one female and one male iconic is gay, and one is trans. (The Female iconic was revealed in the comic Pathfinder #5)

On top of that there are more:

There's many more examples throughout the Pathfinder materials but those are some of the earliest.

Hi James,

I wasn't aware that Pathfinder had a transgendered iconic, I assume you're saving the reveal for the comic so I won't ask which one here.

My question is this: is the transgendered iconic already the gender of their choice or are they still in a body of their disassociated gender?

What magic effects are capable of changing a character's gender?

This book is as beautiful as Legacy of Fire. Opening up to that beautiful picture book page took my breath away.

I would buy Kingmaker #1 and adapt liberally.

I hope they learn about readied actions before they TPK. Sounds like y'all are having a blast. My group lost their Marshall in the elven ruins due to the deadliness of the Baobhan Sidhe. Then had a real life argument over what to do with the Elven ruins. It was intense.

If the fiction gets replaced I'd rather see it replaced with something equally player friendly. Some of us who subscribe to the AP line might not get to read much of the adventure until after someone has run it for us. The fiction is player safe and whets my appetite for the AP.

So what does that mean:

Worm Food was an okay model for this. Each month a player friendly article tied to the themes or needs of the adventure. With Ultimate Campaign coming out, this style of article could expand on the rules in that book while also utilising the flavour of the AP.

"Tell my wife I said... Hello."

To many Gnomes.

No such thing.

My ideal party:

Gretel - Female Human Winter Witch
Hansel - Male Human Witch Hunter Inquisitor
Big Jock - Gnome Titan Mauler Barbarian
Medium Jock - Gnome Experimental Gunsmith (Gunslinger)
Wee Jock - Gnome Prankster Bard

if you're playing with six then I'd probably add

Not Quite as Big as Medium Jock But Not Quite As Wee As Wee Jock Jock - Gnome Arctic Druid.

I think you should reveal more details about Nyrissa. It doesn't do any harm and will make the players more aware of the over arching fey plot. I replaced Count Ranalc with Dou-Bral (who later became Zon-Kuthon) entirely so I could insert Skeletons of Scarwall later and insert a werewolf subplot. This looks like good stuff let us know how it goes :-)

In my game Rhoswyn didn't die, her plane is something akin to a phylactery, she wanted to try escaping so she reshaped the plane into a shadow of the Elven City that once stood on Candlemere. (Second Darkness: Armageddon Echo).

Kingmaker is like the human centipede of APs, my players don't know where the published material stops and my additions start.

I think I should have picked a less gross metaphor...