Douglas Muir 406's page

Just looking for tips from people who've played or run this before. PCs are 1st level. I skipped over the "assassins crash the dinner" thing in the 2e hardback and went straight to Oleg's. We had Session Zero, and they're now about to face the bandits.

So -- suggestions, tips, cool ideas?

Doug M.

Just looking for tips from people who've played or run this before. PCs are 1st level; I skipped over the "assassins crash the dinner" thing and went straight to Oleg's. We had Session Zero, and they're about to face the bandits.

Suggestions, tips, cool ideas?

Doug M.

My group doesn't love high level play. Too many options, combats take too long... the usual. So there's a consensus to wrap things up around 11th or at most 12th level.

We just finished Curse of the Crimson Throne two weeks ago, and I was able to adapt that pretty readily. (Cut most of the Cinderlands and about half of Scarwall, then go straight to the final battle with the Queen. Then all you have to do is nerf the Queen down to CR 15 or so.) That was fairly straightforward. Kingmaker... looks to be a bit trickier.

So, advice: how would you run Kingmaker as a campaign that ends around 11th or 12th level?

Doug M.

Yah, I see that you did a correction post. Thanks for you work! I'm going to give that a long look.

Doug M.

No content for 5e otherwise.

Well, dang.

The camping rules look interesting but finicky, and I saw one review that said they were too much trouble. I can probably freehand a simplified version. Weather, same same, though I definitely want weather to be a factor, especially at low levels.

But when the time comes, the kingdom rules could be crucial -- depending, of course, on whether my players want to go that route, which is TBD at the moment. We're doing Session Zero tonight, and starting with 1st level characters, so it will be a while. But I suspect they'll be interested and want to try it.

(Is there a version of the kingdom rules for players only? 1e, 2e, whatever? Like, I have the big Kingmaker book, but I can't really hand that over to the players.)

Doug M.

So I have the big Kingmaker book for 2e, and the 2e Companion, and the 5e Kingmaker monster book. My players want to play 5e, though.

So -- besides the monster book, what is out there for 5e? I guess the monster book is all that Paizo had done. But has anyone done 5e conversions of the Companion stuff (especially the camping and weather rules, because those will come up a lot)? And of course, are there Kingdom building rules for 5e?

Thanks much in advance --

Doug M.

You could use Hollow's Last Hope from the Kobold King adventure as an alternative opening. Curing a town of a fungal plague and killing a beast plaguing the country-side might draw the attention of Lady Jamandi and she can offer the PCs their commission based on the competence displayed.

Just went back and looked at HLH again.

Huh: It's really a first finger exercise for Kingmaker, isn't it. You can see where a bunch of these elements would get repurposed a few years later.

Doug M.

Did someone say they want a different Origin Story for their Kingmaker AP?

Ohh, these were great. And they gave me some ideas for where and how to start.

Thank you!

Doug M.

Back in the original AP, you start with Oleg and the defense of the trading post. Now you start with the assassins at Lady Aldori's house.

The thing is, for various reasons I kinda dislike this starting point. Thematically and in terms of actual play it's jarringly different from the rest of the first module. The assassins are a one-off with no connection to the rest of the AP. The set-up -- with part of the mansion being sealed off -- feels contrived. YMMV, but I just don't like it.

Of course, the starting scenario does have a point: it introduces a bunch of NPCs who will be important later, it gives the PCs some minor magic items, and it gives them enough XP to level up. But there should be lots of other ways to do this.

So I'd like to run some other short 1st level scenario instead. I was looking at Wolfgang Baur's _The Raven's Call_, an old third party module from the early days of 1e. It has 1st level adventurers rescuing a village from attack by humanoids. That's not precisely what I want, but it's closer than the starting point in the AP book.

But I bet the hive mind can do better. So what I'm looking for is:

-- a wilderness adventure
-- for 1st level characters
-- with some opportunity to drop in NPCs

It can be 1e, 2e, or D&D 5e... I can adapt stuff readily enough, that's not an issue.

Right, so! What've you got, team?

Doug M.

So we will soon -- like in 2-3 weeks -- finish a long-running Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign. I chopped it back considerably so that the campaign will end when the PCs are level 11, but it will end in the standard manner, i.e. with a confrontation with the Queen.

So this AP is intriguing! The players will surely want to continue in Korvosa, and this provides a way to do that right through to level 18 or so. I would have to do some adapting (different location, starting level 11 instead of 10, etc.) but I'm okay with that.

But: $60 is a fair chunk of change. So... what's interesting and special about this AP? And, does it really work for several levels of high-level play? Is it possible to just play the first module only, or is that just a incomplete first chapter? Is there anyone who has actually played through it who would like to comment?

Many thanks in advance,

Doug M.

CotCT is ending, and the players want to start a new campaign at 1st level. But they want to do so in Korvosa, so they can continue to interact with the city -- the NPCs, the institutions.

So, is there another AP that is set either in or near Korvosa, or at least in a city that could be reskinned as Korvosa? Paizo APs preferred obviously, but I know there's some good 3PP stuff out there too.

cheers,

Doug M.

Hello all!

I haven't entirely abandoned this. Here's the scoop: I have my long-running FTF campaign, and I figure I have room in my life for one other campaign as well. I've been trying to get a pay-to-play Scum and Villainy campaign going over at StartPlaying -- not to make money, but because I'm curious about the whole PtP system. But so far that PtP campaign keeps almost happening, but then not quite. We get a quorum of players, then one slips away; then we find a replacement, but one guy has wandered off. The usual.

If I can get that going in the next week or two, okay. If not, then I'll come back here and see if we still have three or four people ready to roll with A Nocturne.

Cheers,

Doug M.

Possible recruitment in January, so I will gently bump this thread to keep it open.

Doug M.

Recognizing that this is an interest check, not a recruitment, but I probably wouldn't be able to apply if you were to recruit today. Between the holidays and the amount of material it seems I'd have to cover, I just wouldn't have the time to get up to speed.

I was literally thinking the same thing. If I were to do this, I would start in January -- the holidays are just too wacky.

That said, if anyone else is potentially interested, please hop in!

Doug M.

Yes, I'm half-convinced that BoB is some sort of Kobayashi Maru given life in an RPG in order to test your gaming group's capacity for failure - I'm not entirely sure it can be beaten

I've run it a couple of times. I think it's doable. The players have to be brutal minimaxers, and you can't get attached to individual PCs. There are some fine points -- horses are more important than they seem, alchemists are fun but a red herring.

But yeah, the point is to have fun.

Doug M.

played Band of Blades one Christmas a while back (there were no survivors)

Congratulations on playing correctly!

-- It is possible to win BoB, get to the final objective and survive. But it should not be easy. If you're playing it as it's meant to be played, you should be seeing Call of Cthulhu levels of lethality. That game encourages you to play multiple different characters, and there's a reason for that.

Doug M.

Thanks for the info!

Another question, regarding the "make a profit by any means necessary" clause. Would you be putting any guidelines in place for things that are off-limits, or would that be up to the players?

Session Zero -- we would discuss.

The game literally has a mechanic for mass-scale mayhem, with the strong implication that the destruction of Alderaan is on the table. But we don't have to use that mechanic. The game plays fine without it.

You can totally play as a group of scrappy underdogs who are trying to get by in a tough universe. Or cynical but not utterly conscienceless mercenaries who are just looking for the big score to retire on. It's up to you as a group.

Doug M.

How long is A NOCTURNE? What sort of material is in it that the player would need?

To gain familiarity with Blades in the Dark, would looking through the game's SRD be sufficient?

It's about 200 pages. It assumes you already have the base BitD / FitD rules, so it doesn't explain things like how the system works. So it's a lot of setting and setting-specific rules.

If you were the only noob in the group, it would probably be fine. It's a pretty easy system to learn.

If we do start a game, there's a Bundle right now where you can get it -- one of six or seven FitD games for about $20. Or you can get it from the designer's website, here for EUR 15 (about $16).

Doug M.

What it says: checking if there's any interest. This is a bit of a niche. It's a hard-ish SF game where you play the crew of a slower-than-light starship, using the Forged In The Dark system. If you've played Blades in the Dark or Scum and Villainy? Like that.

"A NOCTURNE is a hard sci-fi RPG that casts the players as the crew of an interstellar spitter craft - a vast, weird, scarred old spaceship - and charges them with a simple task: make Profit by any means necessary. Will they be smugglers and thieves? Scavengers? Diplomats? Con artists? Or mere war-criminals, leaving nothing but dust in their wake? Will they let their stress and guilt consume them and their craft, or will they rise above it and retire to some peaceful world, rich as kings? Will they even survive 'til the next inhabited system?"

Elevator pitch: this is a game where you can literally start play with a Death Star. 3/4 of the ship may be under the control of rogue nanotech, feral stowaways, or uplifted mutant rats, and the controlling AI may be violently bipolar. But still.

Requirements: you would need a copy of A Nocturne, and either a copy of BitD / S&V or familiarity with the system -- A Nocturne assumes you already know the basic system.

So, checking. Any interest?

Okay, so... guessing that's a "No"?

Doug M.

Been running this AP as a 5e campaign. The first module, it was pretty easy to just "wing it". But Seven Days is a bit more complex. Has anyone done a 5e conversion of this?

Many thanks in advance --

Doug M.

Where are you at right now, and what happened to your previous DM?

[Edit] Also, link to the campaign?

Doug M.

It's an idea worth exploring. Often in a PbP group you start with a group of characters that are all waiting to be told what to do, with nobody feeling comfortable making the next-steps or end-goal decisions.

Right. Besides the novelty value, I was thinking it might be useful to provide a framework for roleplaying, not just as individuals but as a party too.

I've also seen it where multiple people try and be the group leader. What happens is the rest of the party listens to one leader, and the player of the other PC leader feels hurt. I've also seen similar scenarios for other archetypes, as well. Two Smart Guys can be fun, but there's also a lot of redundancy.

Yeah there are some obvious failure modes. "Leader player thinks that means he should be telling other players what to do," "Heart player thinks that means constantly telling other players what they /should/ do, "Lancer player decides that his role is to be an a~%!#++ / critic / loner," and so forth.

Doug M.

The Five Man Band is a trope: a way to build a team (adventurers, superheroes, whatever) that pops up repeatedly, presumably because it's a good plot engine that produces interesting stories. If you haven't heard of it, probably the best description can be found right here, by Red over at Overly Sarcastic. While there are a lot of different versions -- this is an empirically observed thing, not a rule that someone has written down -- the classic Five Man Band goes something like this:

The Leader -- Self-explanatory, yes? May be the hero or protagonist, but not necessarily. Not the best fighter, or the strongest, but the one who makes high-level decisions and sets the direction for the team. Captain Kirk, Captain Mal, Cyclops in classic X-Men, Robin in the Teen Titans, Nate on Leverage, Roy in The Order of the Stick, Monkey D. Luffy.

The Lancer -- The Lancer is a foil to the Leader. He's a character who differs most from the other four, either in personality, in motivations, or in tactics. He's therefore most likely to be involved in conflicts with the others, or to provide implicit or explicit criticism. Wolverine, Belkar, Han Solo, Melinda May, Spock, Zuko in Season Three (after joining the Gaang). Battlestar Galactica had two Lancers: Starbuck (to Apollo) and Tigh (to Adama).

(Note that the same character can switch roles depending on context. So, Batman is a Leader to the Batman Family, while in the Justice League he's usually in more of a Lancer role. Captain Jack Harkness was something like a Lancer to the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, but was a Leader in Torchwood.)

The Heart -- The emotional center. Most likely to be female (though not always). Probably kindly and nurturing (though not always). Probably either the most wise / sensible, or a sweet innocent. Provides emotional support, pep talks, good advice, maybe healing. On Firefly, Kaylee and Shepherd Book neatly split the Heart role down the middle (one Wise, one Sweet and Innocent). The Invisible Woman, Katara, Durkon, Starfire in the Teen Titans, Groot.

The Big Guy -- The one who solves problems by strength or hitting things. Jayne, Cyborg, Colossus, Eliot on Leverage, The Thing. Usually male and usually literally big, but not always -- Toph in A:TLA was a Big Guy. Might be a gentle giant, but OTOH Mr. Hyde in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also qualifies.

The Smart Guy -- The one who solves problems with brains. Might be a tech genius, mad scientist, psychic, robot, or wizard. Brainiac 5, Vaarsuvius, Donatello, Felicity Smoak, Hardison on Leverage, Mina Harker in LOEG. Reed Richards is a hybrid Smart Guy / Leader.

Okay, so: this sort of thing can lead to ENDLESS nerd conversations (isn't Spock more of a Smart Guy than a Lancer? What about the Avengers? You are WRONG about Firefly!) but (1) it's a very broad vague general empirical pattern, not an actual set of rules as such, and (2) that's not what I'm asking here.

What I'm asking here is... has anyone tried to use this to set up a campaign? Like, here on the forums, recruitment is either free-form (most common) or, if there's a structure, people may say "we need a melee tank and a specialized arcane caster". Has anyone tried a recruitment where you say "We need one each of the classic Five -- tell me if your proposed character is a Leader, Lancer, Heart or whatever, and briefly explain why"?

It might not work -- I can think of a couple of failure modes, easily enough -- but I'm just wondering whether anyone has tried it.

Doug M.

I mean... obviously they do, because people use Discord for frickin' everything. So I guess my question is more "How does that work, how /well/ does that work, and is this something worth trying?"

Note that I'm not talking about getting a group together at 7 PM every Sunday for online-but-live gaming. I'm talking about play-by-post, just like on these forums, except with Discord. Has anyone around here been doing that, and how has it worked out?

Thanks in advance,

Doug M.

Just went back and looked at _Into The Darklands_ again, for the first time in years.

It actually holds up pretty well! Putting aside the OGL stuff and the slightly edgier 3.5 ambience, the ideas are good and the writing is very solid. And most of the content still works just fine. Dividing the Darklands into three big regions was a good idea in 2008, and still is. The majority of the locations were cool, and still are.

There are a bunch of different ways you could slice this -- splatbooks on particular locations, or races, or whatever. But most of this content looks still relevant and usable.

Doug M.

PF1 had _Into the Darklands_ (2008) and then _Darklands Revisited_ (2015). Has there been anything since then?

I see from this thread here that the OGL-ORC transition is going to result in a bunch of changes, since a lot of the Darklands stuff was OGL. That discussion was at Paizocon back in May of this year. So, there probably hasn't been time for any ORC stuff.

But is there any pre-ORC 2E Darklands stuff? Splatbooks, a module, PFS scenarios, anything?

Doug M.

So, Devargo. PCs go, make a check, pay a bribe. Maybe they play knivesies. Knivesies is mildly interesting, but I'd like to liven this up a bit.

My PCs are violent-ish, but also kinda good-aligned. So "please go and kill this person for me" doesn't really work. So... what's something that a group of low-level adventurers could do for the King of Spiders that he couldn't do for himself?

Thanks in advance,

Doug M.

11 years after writing this, I am running it myself, as part of a 5e campaign.

The PCs have just fended off the Red Mantis! Lyrie took some damage but survived. Next session: the big deal goes down!

Doug M.

I have a couple of players who just don't like playing fragile low level characters. I think I can still make EoA work -- throw out a couple of early encounters, adjust others to be harder. The main concern here is Lamm and the fishery. Running through the creatures there, I see:

Bloo the dog -- two dogs, Bloo and Booger. Otherwise no change.
Yargin -- Yargin is a speed bump. Add another level of expert? If that.
Hookshanks the gnome -- He's a Rogue 2. Make him a Rogue 4, I guess? Or give him one level of illusionist, which he uses to terrorize the orphans.
Giggles the half-orc -- Ftr 2 becomes Ftr 4, easy enough.
Spiders -- Not sure what to do here. I could just use more / bigger spiders, but... eh, they'll encounter a bunch of spiders with the ettercap later. What sort of CR 3 creature might Lamm keep penned up in here?
Jigsaw shark -- just give it a couple more HD, no problem there
Alligator -- Advanced template
Lamm -- Lamm is tricky, but I think we can make him a straight Rogue 6. Keep the slowed movement, we don't want him getting away...

Thoughts, comments?

Doug M.

Like, say I wanted to set a campaign during the actual, historical Hundred Years War or the War of the Roses -- late medieval, 14th / 15th century type of thing.

Is there (1) a PF2 resource that could help (probably it would be 3PP), or (2) failing that, a PF1 / 5e / 3.x resource? I remember there was a 3e 3PP book called something like "A Realistic Medieval Campaign" back in the '00s, and I remember it being pretty solid, but... that was a while ago, and I don't even remember the name precisely.

Anyway! Does anyone have anything?

Thanks in advance,

Doug M.

Toying with the idea of running a settle the wild / build a kingdom game. Kingmaker is the obvious way to go here... except that freaking EVERYBODY knows Kingmaker now. It's been around forever, it's one of the two or three most popular APs and it has a popular video game. Even people who haven't played it know the plot and the Big Bad.

Okay then... what else is out there that might scratch this particular itch? In this case, the more obscure the better! (As long as it's at least okay-good.) 3PP, weird online stuff, something that was published in Dungeon magazine back in 1993... whatever.

What've you got?

Long-time player of 3.x, PF 1e, and D&D 5e. Now finally -- very late to the party! -- considering trying 2e.

So, the obvious question: as a long-time 1e player, what takes most getting used to in 2e? What are the unexpected changes -- good or bad -- and what should I be mindful of?

Doug M.

Aw.

Well, perhaps some other time!

Same question. I mentioned playing a paladin, because it looks like the party needs a front-line melee tank. Also, are there skills that the party is missing? Also-also, yes -- what sorts of characters would best fit the story being told?

[raises hand] Would there be any interest in a straight-up paladin?

Not a morally superior jerk, not a naive doofus, and no stick up the butt either. Just a guy who is trying to be a Good Guy, and who has picked up a sword to defend the innocent.

Is that something that could work here?

Pathfinder, D&D, or any other TTRPG. Can speak English or German. Happpy to either DM or play.

Is there anyone out there?

Good questions!

Also, I wonder if it would be worth a quick Study roll to look for vulnerabilities and/or how to manipulate this thing.

I'm willing to give it a try! But if we do, I would really like to pick up the pace.

"They wouldn't last half a day in the Deathlands."

"They don't care." Zuben spreads his hands. "Half of them are dying of mutations anyway -- deformed, poisoned by Leviathan blood. Their life expectancy is measured in months or weeks anyway. Months or weeks of horror and pain. If your life were surely ending, would you not sacrifice it to some better cause?" This is a calculated risk -- asking a proud Severosi to put himself in the filth-spattered shoes of a Grinder revolutionary. But needs must, when the Negative Spirit drives. "Besides, they don't need to survive long in the Darklands. Just long enough."

Minimum interest threshold crossed; recruitment threat activated.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43oyk?DMDMs-Last-Fleet#1

Doug M.

The Scorpio playbook *must* be a traitor. But anyone can be traitor if you want to! (Honestly, the Gemini playbook is hinting at it pretty broadly IMO.)

Anyway -- it looks like we might have a critical mass of 4+ players! Hold the thought...

Doug M.

I suspect a lot of folks have migrated to playing on Discord, whether in closed groups or on a server where things like Pathfinder & Starfinder Society happen. I can think of at least a couple folks who used to be active in PbP here that have since migrated to Discord to play.

I believe that. OTOH there are people who dislike gaming on Discord, for one reason or another.

I'm one of them! I'd much rather game on a friendly forum -- especially one that provides a good set of tools for it.

Doug M.

I enjoy the PbtA engine. I'd be interested in giving this a try, although I don't currently have the book. A link to the bundle would be great. Is it similar to Band of Blades only in space?

There are points of similarity. It's PbtA, not the Forged in the Dark system. They both use playbooks, and they both have "success / partial or complicated success / failure" rolls. They're both very narrativist, and they both alternate scenes of action with social / cooldown scenes. The Pressure mechanic is rather similar to FitD's Stress. And with particular regard to BoB, you are running away from a vastly more powerful foe in a universe where the bad guys have already mostly won. So that's familiar.

The PbtA system is mechanically simpler, though -- it's always 2d6, with modifiers that can't go below -3 or above +4. That's really simple! Characters have just 5 stats, which start at either 0, -1, or +1. Also pretty simple.

Doug M.

Speaking for myself, one factor was the instability of this platform. I had my most recent campaign end because the system locked me out for several days. (No reason I could ever figure out, and eventually it just let me back in.) Intermittent outages are also a thing. IME they seem to come in waves -- things will be fine for weeks, and suddenly there'll be a flurry of incidents where the forum won't load, or it loads but messages post slowly or even disappear, or whatever.

The Paizo forums were amazing when they came into existence 15+ years ago, and they're still an important asset. But they haven't had a serious upgrade in... when? over a decade? more? At this point one has the impression that behind the scenes they're held together with string and chewing gum.

Here you go: https://bundleofholding.com/presents/ApocEngine5#core-bundle

$9.95 to get it, along with one other complete game and short versions of three more games.

Sorry, I was unclear. I was thinking of *this* forum particularly -- the PBP / Online Campaigns one.

Doug M.

I've been on and off this forum since 2012 or so, and it feels like there's less traffic now than a few years back. Still plenty of activity; just, less than there was a few years back.

This is just an impression, but... does anyone else see it too? (And is anyone tracking or keeping statistics that could confirm or refute it?)

Doug M.

Why I ask: I like PBP, but if you try to run most modules on PBP, you get six people who've read and/or played the module already. That's not a game-stopper, but it makes me sigh a little. I'd like to run something that nobody knows anything about. So I'm looking for:

-- a module or scenario. Not an AP! This should be something a competent group could get through in no more than 3 sessions.

-- can be PF1, PF2, 3.x, or 5e.

-- ideally, should still be available to buy somewhere, at least as a pdf.

And that's it. Basically, I'm just looking for that cool fun interesting adventure that *you* know about, but that somehow the rest of the world either missed or has already forgotten. What've you got?

Doug M.

Hi Kevin!

With some googling I was able to find this page, which converts about 2/3 of Call Forth Darkness. Can't find a complete CFD, though, nor any of the other modules.

-- You know, it's been ten ! years ! since this thing first came out, and it's still very solid.