I'm using the "power checks" mostly as written but I don't play up too much the Fear/Horror/Madness rules (they just don't come up that often in a political intrigue). Horror and Madness checks can get really bad really fast so I tend to use them very sparingly.
Ravenloft only became interesting with the 3rd edition/Gazetteers imo..not sure what is the faux/crap Ravenloft.
I'm currently running a Ravenloft game using the Pathfinder rules. Can't really comment on Ustalav but you do have some highly magical places found in Ravenloft too. Where in Ravenloft are you envisioning your game? I'm playing in Dementlieu/Port-à-Lucine and my players are having a blast with the renaissance setting.
My players will be facing the Stag Lord next week after exploring pretty much everything that the charter covered. I can't wait.
Almost all my players including myself were at one point quite involved in MMORPGs. We're all in the mid-late twenties. I think most MMORPG players are looking for something else when they sit down to play a tabletop game but the mentality does tend to seep in somewhat. I could say the same about SNES games, namely the FF series. Gotta have a healer! I disagree that age is a factor in this. Playstyles aren't determined by age, it really is a matter of preference/individual. The last campaign I ran was a mystery/investigating story in Ravenloft where not a lot of dice were rolled and I chose my players accordingly. Some of my players in the Kingmaker AP are less interested in the roleplay aspect but the others are steering them towards playing their character by simply interacting in-character. It isn't about old-school versus young players in this case, it is about opinions. I've been staying away from most randomly generated stuff for a while now but I'm really enjoying the random encounters presented in Kingmaker. Still, random treasure and random ability points are sacred cows I sacrified long ago. I can't really understand the appeal of randomly-generated drawbacks and boons for characters since they will have an effect on the player's concept but hey, it's your game. You might need to tone down the Thorn River Camp encounter if you only have NPC classes aboard. It can be deadly if the players aren't really effective tactically. After Oleg's and the Camp, my players had about 500-600 xp.(6 players using the 6 PC conversion) And no offense taken!
Ad Hominem + straw man, really? Hahaha To answer your questions:
I never mentionned min-maxing, did I? Or that optimization is a requirement..? Because I am assuming you will be running the Kingmaker AP as written and that combat is indeed a part of this AP I am of course thinking that roleplaying is not important, right.. I don't think adding arbitrary mechanical subtractions will make playing a character more interesting. Drawbacks and limitations rolled randomly is just a bad idea..especially when unbalanced as it will frustrate players. How does -2 to attack add to a game? Your fighter with a 10% to drop his weapon won't have any fun. So I guess you will be rolling this stuff before character creation. Why is it a good idea to limit the choice of the players? Unless it is setting or plot oriented, I don't see the point. As for the challenge, I disagree. -2 to a dice isn't a challenge it is an hindrance. Players won't remember that, they'll remember the scene and what spectacular things happened during the scene..not a dice modifier. As if the PCs will automatically mow through the encounters if they don't have 10 point-buy and no class abilities. As you can read on this very board, many deaths occur in the Stolen lands. Lethality and danger are quite present and if they aren't you can only blame the GM. I don't have much else to add. Please stop trying to dismiss people using MMORPGs, it is silly.
Destined to not be the best melee fighter but randomly? If I understood your first post correctly. I don't see how this would add to the game at all. As I said earlier, they will suck more than the first bandit mooks. Normal point buy is 15 points. It isn't like being level 1 is devoid of challenges already. It is the point in the game where you are most likely to die with no way to come back. At level 1 you have at most one or two abilities and you want to keep it that way for an extra session or two? I'd be bored to death. I guess we don't have the same idea of a challenge. The game isn't always about combat but it is still about combat in the end. Actually, most campaign journals of the AP you will read on these boards start with two combats that are kinda hard to avoid.
It's hard to keep it interesting when you play NPC classes. Random bane and boon seems also like a bad idea since they will interfere with character concepts. The dropping of weapons on a 1 or 2 is especially a bad idea.. -2 to attacks really? Not sure any players I know would have a good time. They will be on par with the first bandits they will be fighting(Even worse according to the banes you wrote). Those bandits are supposed to be pathetic mooks so yeah..Good luck with that.
I've been trying to build a music folder for my soon to be Kingmaker campaign and I'd like to know what are you all using in your own games? Music:
-Conan the Barbarian/Destroyer soundtrack (Epic stuff)
For the creepy bits, Midnight Syndicate and Nox Arcana are always interesting. Playing the same music over and over again is worse than not playing music (Recurring themes are fine), but managing music during lengthy roleplay and downtime scenes is sometimes an extra bit of work I'd do without.
I find classical music suits my taste better. The last campaign I played in, whenever the GM played that song that starts with bell sounds all the players would end up head banging and emulating the intro to “For whom the bells tolls” from Metallica with their mouths. So basically, proceed with caution. ;) Any suggestions? Sound effects:
Still gathering them for now so feel free to suggest anything! I’ll be using a really loud frog chorus in the hot springs that will stop, announcing the presence of the giant frogs. I got the amazing wolf howls linked below as well as storm and wind effects (I’ve read about someone using a tornado on these boards and I actually never thought about it before... my players have come to hate blizzards but they won’t expect this! Thank you) Maybe Perlivash is really an amazing whistler
Maybe the chasm in the sycamore actually is more profound than it looks and a eerie droning
Maybe Chief Sootscale is really an amazing tribal drummer. Some links:
This site
Youtube does the job also. You can find a bunch of sites that will extract audio from a youtube video for free. The quality is diminished, but if the track has decent quality from the start the result shouldn’t be so bad. |
