7) Our GM named the quasit Quigley and most of the non-essential NPCs in our caravan (drivers, cooks & such) are named after the Muppets. Based on what you know about us so far, how crazy is our group on a scale of 1 to 10?
Cerberus, You've given James a 10th of one percent of what our group is like. If you really want a good accounting you need to tell some better stories.
Spoilered for space issues:
The Weirdness:
We once killed a demon with 400 forks. Someone in the group once looted an entire mansion, meaning they took the floorboards, the walls, the doors, the doorknobs, the sinks, the plumbing, etc... We were in a pitched space battle and one of the party members turned everyone into squirrels. Most of the adventures nowadays usually contain a very adult XXX theme somewhere in them. A Gnome Queen in our Kingmaker game rode an awakened Mammoth named "Snuffles" into battle. The DM gave a new player an expanded Rod of Wonder and the player used it multiple times each session, even after fireballing himself in the face and almost dying on the spot. A NPC asked us to stop the tigers that killed her parents and then jumped in the way when we were ready to shoot them with a laser cannon to save them; We shot anyway. We stack dice on the heads of sleeping players. We kept one campaign universe going from 1996 to 2010. We once needed names for crew members on a spelljamming vessel and ended up with a crew of Sailor scouts and other anime characters. we didn't know a new guy's name for 6 months and called him by his character name in public; He didn't correct us (Granted his character was named Bob).
The Saneness:
When one player went to college and tried to find a group, he did not stay with the group who had a girl who introduced herself as Arwen and claimed to be Arwen from the lord of the rings and played a character named Arwen. The core of the group has somehow remained friends for close to 20 years. We have kept the Sunday slot for gaming for that same amount of time. We all have decent jobs and aren't crazy.
That'll probably help James decide if we're loonies. :P
EDIT: James, are we loonies or just typical gamers?
1) Do Catfolk call Humans "Apefolk" or Elves "Rabbitfolk"? Just checking cause I think my low wisdom Catgirl gunslinger is going to.
2) Also, my campaign world orbits a gas giant the size of Jupiter. It's considered that it's the home of the gods, like Mount Olympus. What do you think of the gas giant being a Genius Loci that watches over the inhabitants of the moons that circle it and sometimes grants the occasional Oracle her spells?
Also, As the Game Master over Cerberus Seven, many thanks for answering the ninja trick question in a way that won't be a headache for me!
3) Regarding headaches, would you allow players to pull things out of the Book of Nine Swords for use in your campaign? I think it's off limits in the next game I run.
Our group has had it's share of players who fudge die rolls. Usually when someone rolls a d20 they hold out the dice bowl for everyone to see as a "Check it out suckas!" kind of gesture. One guy had a HUGE d20 that he would drop and then grab and spin to the closest big number. We just kind of looked at him like, "Really?" and then mocked him incessantly for the rest of the night. Then mocked him incessantly for the rest of the week until we gamed again and you can bet that we watched like hawks and he didn't cheat. We continued to mock him incessantly for a while, but only because he tried to rotate a five inch diameter d20 in front of five people and pretend like he didn't. Now when he rolls a 1 he kind of droops over dramatically and just sucks it up.
Another person used a bowl with deep grooves in it and when a die landed on the edge he'd take the best result. We simply told him that the die has to land flat and that was it.
I guess to each their own, course our group has been friends since high school and we're around mid-thirties now.
Probably different in a group of strangers at a game store.
CASTING
Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M/DF (a bit of eggshell)
EFFECT
Range touch
Targets creatures touched, up to one/level
Duration 2 hours/level; see text
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless); Spell Resistance yes (harmless)
Paizo Peripheral
This content is from material published by Paizo Publishing, LLC, but is not part of the Pathfinder Core Rules.
DESCRIPTION
You surround the touched creatures with a constant and moveable 1-inch shell of tolerable living conditions. This shell enables the subjects to breathe freely, even underwater or in a vacuum, as well as making them immune to harmful gases and vapors, including inhaled diseases and poisons and spells like cloudkill and stinking cloud. In addition, the shell protects subjects from extremes of temperature (per endure elements) as well as extremes of pressure.
Life bubble does not provide protection from negative or positive energy (such as found on the Negative and Positive Energy planes), the ability to see in conditions of poor visibility (such as in smoke or fog), nor the ability to move or act normally in conditions that impede movement (such as underwater).
When you cast this spell it has a total duration of 2 hours per caster level. You can divide this duration up in any manner you wish, not necessarily equally, between up to 1 creature per caster level.
A stinky dwarf in the party has cast Life Bubble on himself and the GM has allowed him to Permanency it.
1a) The female PC's in the party want to know if the dwarf can still bathe or does water simply not touch him.
1b) Does the dwarf still smell bad? This is a question because Life Bubble filters out harmful gases and vapors, which are coming off the dwarf.
1c) Does Life Bubble defeat scent ability?
1d) Can someone under the effect of Life Bubble still stop and smell the roses? Are pollen and allergens and ummm... 'smell particles' filtered out?
The next set of questions are about Astral Projection, so I'll include it here.
CASTING
Casting Time 30 minutes
Components V, S, M (1,000 gp jacinth)
EFFECT
Range touch
Targets you plus one additional willing creature touched per two caster levels
Duration see text
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes
DESCRIPTION
By freeing your spirit from your physical body, this spell allows you to project an astral body onto another plane altogether. You can bring the astral forms of other willing creatures with you, provided that these subjects are linked in a circle with you at the time of the casting. These fellow travelers are dependent upon you and must accompany you at all times. If something happens to you during the journey, your companions are stranded wherever you left them.
You project your astral self onto the Astral Plane, leaving your physical body behind on the Material Plane in a state of suspended animation. The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane. Since the Astral Plane touches upon other planes, you can travel astrally to any of these other planes as you will. To enter one, you leave the Astral Plane, forming a new physical body (and equipment) on the plane of existence you have chosen to enter.
While you are on the Astral Plane, your astral body is connected at all times to your physical body by an incorporeal silver cord. If the cord is broken, you are killed, astrally and physically. Luckily, very few things can destroy a silver cord. When a second body is formed on a different plane, the silver cord remains invisibly attached to the new body. If the second body or the astral form is slain, the cord simply returns to your body where it rests on the Material Plane, thereby reviving it from its state of suspended animation. This is a traumatic affair, however, and you gain two permanent negative levels if your second body or astral form is slain. Although astral projections are able to function on the Astral Plane, their actions affect only creatures existing on the Astral Plane; a physical body must be materialized on other planes.
You and your companions may travel through the Astral Plane indefinitely. Your bodies simply wait behind in a state of suspended animation until you choose to return your spirits to them. The spell lasts until you desire to end it, or until it is terminated by some outside means, such as dispel magic cast upon either the physical body or the astral form, the breaking of the silver cord, or the destruction of your body back on the Material Plane (which kills you).
When this spell ends, your astral body and all of its gear, vanishes.
The party has a wizard who can cast Astral Projection.
2a)Astral Projection says,"The spell projects an astral copy of you and all you wear or carry onto the Astral Plane." Does this mean that a wizard's satchel of potions and other consumables are now able to be used without expending them on the home plane? What about things like Wish scrolls?
2b) If a party hides their bodies and has Astral Projection cast on them and then returns to their home plane, does this mean that they can adventure and gain experience without fear of death? I mean, they have an 'Avatar' now that will wander around for them, collect gear, and level up, right?
2c) If the 'Avatar' is able to level up and the like, how does that effect the real body left in stasis? Does it get stronger during the time spent adventuring or does it suddenly beef up once the spirit returns?
2d) Does the 'Avatar' age? It looks like it has to eat and drink and sleep, so I'm assuming it does, but I'm not sure.
2e) Could an adventuring group use Astral Projection and then go on a long term plane hopping adventure across all the multiverse and never return to their bodies?
That's it for now! Sorry for the complicated questions.
2. Please don't take this the wrong way because I think what you do is awesome, but when you submitted your first adventure to Dragon all those years ago did you ever imagine that you would become some Nerd Rockstar Icon?
3. Do you object to the term "Nerdstar" as a description of a Nerd Rockstar?
I'm going to build my own table eventually. Right now we're using a $14 sheet of white board from Lowes on top of a folding table. People LIKE writing directly on the table and it's easy for maps.
I'm thinking of running a short little mythic playtest storyline. I know you aren't sure when they're going to be available for playtesting, but where can we look for them when they do pop into existance?
Also, someone asked me, "Is James Jacobs a muppet fan?" the other day. My response was, "How should I know?" but now I want to know. Are you a muppet fan? Would a giant Tyrannosaurus muppet be awesome or dumb? When you imagine a muppet based on Lovecraftian lore, which muppet is it?
Crud, I missed the original thread title and now it was changed.
Yeah, I did this once for a player of a game with multiple people. He wanted to play a different character for a while, so he sacrificed his character to kill an evil demi-god. An NPC was going to do the self-sacrificing, but when the PC realized what was going on, the PC cracked him on the head and took the Deus Ex Machina and said, "Nobody is dying to save me." and then went and died to save everyone else.
Perhaps you need to remember that it's much better to allow someone to chose to sacrifice their character for the sake of the world than to force them to. Perhaps there is an NPC that the PC dearly loves and that NPC declares that he or she has to do this to stop a resurrection cycle. Yes, it forces the PC to have to make that choice, but then it's the PC's choice. That is so much more interesting when the player decides that they have to jump in the crazy certain death plot thing. Just be sure to have a character sheet for the person who they saved available so that they can continue playing.
Be anyone or anything plus various flight modes or swim speeds? Yeah that sounds good. Guess there's a reason that I played a transmuter to high levels.
We have a close knit group that has been together for years. Loot is easy.
The list of items is read, people discuss who wants what. If more than one person wants the item they roll d100 and highest wins. If someone decides to roll on everything (which doesn't happen anymore) then they get glared at.
The gold/gems are equally given out.
Party goes out and purchases or crafts items.
Loans are common.
The last time I named a character I wanted something truly unique. I took what I knew about the character and wrote down a great deal of things.
What I knew: Gunslinger Catgirl Princess.
Great, So I wanted something that sounded cutesy and southern and feline. I settled on Daisirelle Felirune. Her nickname is "Daisy" which is a type of rifle. There is also a rather famous (or maybe less than famous) Princess named Daisy. She has some magic in her took so Feline + Rune minus the "ne".
That was hours of fiddling around with name ideas and rejecting a whole boatload. I find that considering the characters personality traits and class in the name selection really helps with it being memorable.
Of course all that fiddling around occured on the side of what I do for a living, which is answering phone calls. It's easy to keep a pad of paper on the side and jot down ideas. I also keep a list of neat names that I encounter in a notepad that I can publish for you here if you want.
This has been a fun read! Thanks for posting it all. I hope you don't let this schmuck drive a wedge between you and the other players. I'm also kind of saddened that you are the one who left.
We too had a "revisionist" player in our group once, he was always trying to tell people "What really happened", but we all knew differently. Eventually we managed to not have him in the group and it's been fantastic.
For ease of this query about Simulacrum, I'm going to paste the relevant part of Simulacrum here...
"Simulacrum creates an illusory duplicate of any creature. The duplicate creature is partially real and formed from ice or snow. It appears to be the same as the original..."
1: How alive are simulacrums?
2: Do simulacrums need to eat?
3: Are living simulacrums still made of ice and snow or does the quasi-real nature of the simulacrum make illusory organs and innards instead?
4: Can simulacrums learn and form ideas on their own? (ie: perform spell research or craft new things.)
5: Could a simulacrum level up?
6: What happens when the creator of a simulacrum dies?
7: Do simulacrums pick up as illusion magic to detect magic or as magic at all? Keep in mind the duration is instantaneous.
8: How does a simulacrum appear under True Seeing?
Pathfinder does not have official rules for what happens to a developing fetus—we don't cover rules for how an unborn baby might be harmed by things like the mother being in combat and getting stabbed in the belly, or what happens if the mother is possessed by a demon, or what happens if she's poisoned by a giant spider. And by extension, we don't have rules for how a potion or alchemical injection or mutagen would affect an unborn child. (I suspect the reasons why we don't cover this in the game should be obvious.)
AKA: This lies entirely in the hands of your GM.
I chuckled at this exchange because a)I've submitted questions that got ignored for being silly and/or douchy and b) we had a pregnant priestess of a fertility diety and ignored it when a rogue snuck attacked her to death and she was res'd later. (ok, she was pregnant with quadruplets and her goddess gave her a 5th somewhere along the way who ended up being a divine birth, but I digress.)
At any rate, questions!
So James, i totally forgot what i was going to ask. Probably something like, "Do you think the market could bear 3rd party supplements to Pathfinder that were more along the 'greater than PG13' or more like rated R or NC17?"
I mean who doesn't want to adventure in a brothel? (well, gaming groups with immature weirdos, but what about mature gamers?)
Then out of rampant curiosity, if someone did actually sit down and write naughty supplements for Pathfinder and they asked you to write the foreword, would you do it?
...he had what appeared to be a dumbfounded look upon his face. This look, persisted for much longer than I anticipated. In fact, he said, and did little until the end of session...
This doesn't really sound like a lot of yelling and carrying on either. I would probably give up on the audio.
As I recall this happened quite a bit in the 50's.
I'm actually playing a bard/gunslinger in our current campaign, it works fairly well.
The character is more of belly/erotic dancer bard than a traditional bard, but after getting bardic performance started she pulls her piece and opens fire. She uses dance for granting bonuses for when stealth is needed, orates religious verses when rightousness suits her, or sings when she's being lazy.
Does that dispel the idea of a yodeling cowboy in a ten gallon hat for you? I hope it does...
:'( How exactly do they stand out as stupid? It's a cartoon world with bipedal cows, Jamaican trolls, Russian space-goats, and Victorian werewolves. Seems like beer-guzzling asian pandas are pretty consistent.
Ow, my tongue! (I bit it)
Anyway James!
Supposedly it's really easy to tell when someone is dominated since they don't act normal. Is there a form of mind control that's subtler?
Also if a similacrum is under the mental control of the creator, does a protection from evil break that control, since it breaks compulsion effects?
Finally, on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being sillier and 10 being badass cool, please rate the following combinations.
It really sounds like this guy wants to play an MMORPG, but without the players deciding on what they want. Skill tree? Heck no! Stat growth? NIEN! Time for FUN! nope...
Yeah, refusing to do something works out if all players do it. We once had a DM who is bad at managing players declare he wanted a low powered game where everyone had 60 points to spread amongst 6 stats. Not point buy, you started at 0 and bought up to a 10. He worked up some stats with 18s in them, things like 18, 18, 15, 3,3,3. we were like, ". . . Really?" We wanted to play heroes, not mutant... things.
Finally someone pointed out that straight 10's are weaker than a peasant. We were granted a 15 point buy. At level 1 we fought a hydra, it should have killed us but he ran it wrong.
James! How does a multiclass summoner synthesist work with other classes. That's not so clear... lets say you have a 5th level rogue, he takes a level of synth, now he wants to wrap himself in eidolon and attack. Synthesist says he uses his eidolon bab, but he has more bab from being a 5th level rogue. So does he get only BAB of +1 or does he have his full +4? Or does he get both? a +5?
Okay, I'm gonna bite a post an campaign idea a friend help me with.
Damsels and Dragons
The oldest children of important humans(wealthy merchants, guild leaders, nobles, diplomats, etc) having disappearing all across the continent for years. The last time any were seen they were talking to a very old man. He seemed a bit weird, but completely harmless and everyone liked him after just a short while. Over time, he's become a legend.
In truth, this 'old man' is a gold dragon who has gone senile in his old age and has come to believe that humans are the best of the non-dragon races. He's been collecting them because of their lineages, considering them the 'best of the best'. Having been working on this for the past few decades, he already has a enough 'grandchildren' on his island for a village. He plans to reveal his better human(humans with the advanced template) in the next hundred years, and if they aren't accepted as the rulers they were raised to be, he knows just what he'll do. War.
The PC's, of course, are to find a way to stop him.
This would probably make a better 3-4 session plot line than a whole huge campaign. It's kind of a quirky idea, but it doesn't sound like it would be that urgent or pressing of a matter. Yes nobles are getting kidnapped and someone would have to find them, but after finding the village full of the best of the best what's to stop the party from just convincing the dragon that they could train these super humans or that they are good breeding stock. Sounds like an ideal village to settle down... oh and they have sometime in the next hundred years to stop him.
The idea is interesting, just difficult to work with. I really have no idea how you'd make that work as a long term level 1-20 campaign.
Black Powder Fantasy: It must be done, and who else but me? Put your swords, bows, and armor away, and pick up a boomstick. Melee combat will still happen, but shooting is more common. Guns will use black powder alchemically treated to repel moisture, load from the breech, and have internal magazines or cylinders, reloaded by cocking the hammer. Aesthetically, they should look like rifle-muskets or revolvers. These guns should have a somewhat fantasized appearance, but damned if I know how to make that look.
This could be a lot of fun! Of course since everyone and their brother is getting touch attacked to death you wouldn't really worry as much about armor as you would dex or deflection bonuses. It would be very old westy, with a lot of people playing gunslingers, dual classed gunslinger rogues, or dual class gunslinger fighters. The fact that you could have dual classed clerics/ gunslingers and mage/gunslingers really makes this idea neat. You can ignore the alchemically treated black powder and just make it a plot point that the party has to keep it dry, just like the wild west did. I'm sure they'll find a way. Also for melee combat, you could write up all sorts of gun/melee weapon choices like a gunblade or something.
Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
North America is great, and so is Australia: I use fantasy analogues of real areas, kind of like Golarion, Dragon Age, and Ace Combat do. For these analogues, North America and Australia stand as the biggest sources of inspiration. The two continents I am currently writing up resemble them quite a bit. That's not to say that Europe, Africa, South America, or Asia will never get analogues (Great Britain, Ireland, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Brazil, parts of China, Arabia, and Persia are the most likely), but not right now. I'm focusing on North America and Australia.
This really isn't so much a 'campaign' as it is an 'idea'. It's a good idea, but it's not really saying "Yes, here's the plot." Remember, the world is freaking huge, so if you're going to write up the world, be prepared for writer's cramp.
Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
Nineteenth Century Themes: Pathfinder's Alchemist class is based off of Nineteenth Century horror fiction. Pathfinder's Alchemist class is the most flavor-fully delicious base class in the game. I happen to love 19th century horror, so the Alchemist's flavor was much appreciated. Though this isn't a pure horror setting, it should be able to handle 19th century horror in a very thematically fitting manner. It should also be able to do Victorian, Exploration, Frontier Life, and Wild West. Monster hunting will be available in spades for those who want that.
I'm certain this has been done before. I believe it's called "Call of Cthuthlu" or something like that. While using the setting of COC mixed with the classes of PF could be interesting, this is still a huge project.
Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
The Gods have both Good and Evil aspects: All of them. None is pure evil or pure good. Religious characters tend to follow a single aspect of the deity and not the deity's entire portfolio. This is why good and evil clerics and paladins exist. The gods are fine with people only worshiping one aspect of them.
We did this exact thing in one campaign! It was actually reasonably awesome. We had four deities. Celure, most commonly associated with love was also lust, envy, and the other gamut of emotions. Myer was all things dealing with civilization. Kelvara the deity of things nature. Finally, Amalgon, the deity of all things conflict related. All the deities represented the good and bad aspects of things, so while Celure was goddess of love, she also represented lust and more unpleasant aspects. Amalgon could be war, protection, haven, etc. It was a very neat concept. The gods also left most of the world alone, rarely manifesting except in rare circumstances. Cults from any deity were allowed to visit and we fought the occasional Thor groupie or Asmodeous worshiping villain, but most people worshiped one or all the primary gods.
Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
Zombie Infestation: Not a complete apocalypse. It's been mostly contained in one region of the area between Cocora and Alexa. However, that area has some very valuable things, so people still live there, despite all the undead. Cue a great many adventure hooks for low level parties.
This campaign would be called, "Everyone play a cleric or paladin." I can't imagine that fighting endless hordes of low CR zombies would be that exciting. It could be interesting to find out why it's still happening, perhaps the astral location where all those undead got stuck is flooding onto the world. I think it was in 2e planescape, bone cloud or boneyard or something. That could also account for higher levels of undead showing up, but expect your players to get undead bane weapons asap and start trouncing your encounters with their undead only spells.
Kelsey MacAilbert wrote:
Nations yada yada...
You already mentioned this earlier. Still a neat idea, but seriously, if you want to play an Aussie that bad, just have the damn accent and say you come from an island in the south. Hell, tell everyone you were borne to a whore on a prison island if you really want the experience!
No insult to Australia intended. It looks like a wonderful place...
Freehold, I'm really offering to read people's plot ideas and synopsises. Not really looking to go through an entire blog website and 30,000 words about various classes and your preposed changes and that sort of nitty gritty. I guess I did open myself up to being asked to look it over, but I'm not going to read your blog.
New Rule: If you're going to throw some campaign ideas and plot lines down for people to read, please limit it to around 2,000 words. Thanks!
Hey Freehold, there are a lot of things on this blog site. I'm seeing at least 3 different campaigns that you're running... Is there one of them that you're willing to target in on? I'm not sure I can read through 6 years of blog posts to determine what you really want feedback on.
Let's go ahead and avoid links and just write up plot ideas. If it can fit in a messageboard window, that'll make it easier for people to focus in on what you're wanting feedback on.
You know, low stats can actually be fun. Our group typically does 20 point buy, several people will lower to 7s. We had a magus who lowered his cha to 7, a different player declared his character spit when he talked and referred to him as "Mister Spitty". So thus the Awesome badass Teifling with all the arcane powers of hell was called Mister Spitty during the entire campaign. The DM had people not want to talk to him and his terrible nickname stuck. The only time he had women actually want to... uhh... promiscuate with him was when they were assassins. He was all happy that the DM finally rolled in his favor until he got snuck attacked to death.
My current character has a strength of 7. I can barely lift and carry anything, it makes for an interesting challenge.
We have had players play 7 intelligence very well, usually with "My character wouldn't think of this, but someone else would..." prefacing a lot of things. When someone has a 7 wisdom the players routinely make bad decisions or roll to see if they would even consider a smart course of action. One of my rogues had a 7 int, he started play with the title, "Lord of bad ideas" from his backstory.
I guess my point is, low stats can be fun and challenging and fun to play up. Nobody certainly picks on anyone for a 10 cha or a 10 wisdom, but 7? Yes, i pick on 7 wisdom characters...
To everyone who wants to know what other people think about their campaign ideas: Here's the thread for preposing your ideas and getting a critique. Amazing!
I am not affiliated with Paizo. I'm a long time GM, a player and most importantly, someone who is willing to give you an honest feedback about your idea. Additionally, if you want some ideas for your campaign then everyone here is welcome to contribute.
This is not a thread for trashing peoples campaigns or plotlines. If you read something here that you think wouldn't work out for you or a game you're in, please don't flame or say "This suckzor! LOLZ!" (this is how all teenagers speak, I'm fairly sure...) If you don't like an idea, please explain why you don't like it. That's the point of critique. Conversely, if you like an idea and think it's cool, feel free to comment as to why you think so. We're all adults here (mostly) and I think we want to provide a good experience for our players and make memorable sessions and campaigns.
The only thing I'd like to still finesse is how Versatile Performance works—I'd like to let bard players reconfigure their skill ranks whenever they gain a new Versatile Performance so that those skill ranks that are now covered by Perform Checks can be put to use elsewhere.
Yeah, my group does that now actually. My bard/mysterious stranger is a lot of fun, but what I really wanted was a sorcerer/mysterious stranger/magic gunner thing. Right now the magic gunner class is a wizard archetype and that makes me sad.
Saaaay, could we get a sorcerer/magic gunner thing in a future book? Shooting spells out of guns is awesome fun.
James, if you could have any single 6th level or lower spell from the Core Rule Book as an at will spell-like ability, which spell would you want? How would you use it?
I will laugh if James replys with "Permanency". He could use it to make things permanent! Duh!
For me it would be a toss up between Heal and Polymorph. On one hand I could heal the sick, on the other hand I could be anyone.
Alternatively, if you want to throw a little realism into the game, Wolfsbane is described as "instantly lethal" if applied in a large enough dose.
Drop a 1 ton block of Wolfsbane on him! That'll get him! Then you can declare all innocently, "Gasp! He was poisoned!"
hmmm you're on a ship, do you take shifts on watch? oooooh monks train with heavy things on their wrists and ankles, or at least you could convince him to, 20 lbs on each limb should work for strength training / swimming hindering. Course you have to throw him overboard then...
Does your DM allow you to purchase or find cursed items?
I once was going to tie up a PC (and his annoying cohort) in a portable hole, toss that in a leadlined adamantine box and then throw it into a bag of holding to lose it on the astral. I needed permanent non-detection on the box too. Granted that's expensive, but we were an epic party. Never did get to do that. :( He had it coming...
I feel your pain, a lot of groups have annoying players and we have a hard time getting rid of them.
I really like the idea of a song that has to be recreated. While i'm not sure if this fits in thematically with the DM's story, as a stand-alone thing i really, really like this.
I'd be tempted to make a player sing it. But with my players they'd do it off key and in the most horrible, warbling voice they could manage...
okay, maybe not such a good idea. Good for youtube though!
It doesn't have to make sense, just make it solidified air, something that's super lightweight and unbreakable. I'm imagining something solid with the texture of glass that ripples and rolls and flows like air currents. They can put it in a bag and it won't flow out.
Or just call it "Solidified air" and never explain what it is.
I've noticed sort of a growing trend that GMs seem less willing to take control and design and change a setting for themselves, break from cannon, or make rules decisions without "official" sanction. Is this my imagination or preconcieved notion or is it something you as designers have noticed as well. If so, why do you think that trend has happened?
*This is in no way a comment on any other poster, and wasn't aimed at anyone, or in any way in response to any previous question above*
I've noticed that too, it's annoying. I tear apart Adventure paths and put them back together and not worry about what some book I've never read might tell me about it. If it's a different campaign in the same world then it's just a different reality with none of the prior events having taken place. Simple as that.
Oh hey! Question for James!
James... while we tend to gloss over the sex lives of our characters with maybe a few savory details, I wanted to know how do you deal with characters having intimate and active relationships. So how much do you include? (Yes, I own the naughty Book that ended Phil Foglio's career with Dragon Magizine.)
I ran all of serpent's skull for a group. My experiences differ greatly. The vegypygmy's only speak vegypygmy so the party didn't talk to them. The Hag watched the party butcher quite a bit of stuff right outside her window (a random encounter) so she came clean with them and didn't commit suicide via party and became an ally. The best part of that entire AP was "Suddenly Spiders!".
It's very interesting to me how everyone has their different experiences going in and out of that AP. I also changed the Vaults of Madness to have different forms of madness for each vault. Honestly I was disappointed with Vaults of Madness as it was 6 dungeon crawls with the same conditions in each.
Anyway, Do you like hearing how other GM's have managed to run things James?
I also have a question I'd like to ask but it might be upsetting to some. Can I send you a PM for that?
I'm in two games at the moment, one of which is a slow moving PBP and the other a solo adventure. In the past I've had two main gaming groups, one of which took turns GMing, but neither group was particuarly willing to play in a non-abusive manner. One had a fairly good GM for a bit, but it didn't last. I'm not a member of either group anymore. My campaigns rarely last more than a few levels, and are usually over within a week or two at most.
Most of the characters I bring to the boards are either NPCs or characters that I think would be awesome to play, but that I don't actually intend to play or that I intend to save as backups for a current character. As for campaign ideas, I have far more of them flying around my head than I could ever use, and I greatly enjoy sharing them. Most of what I post on these boards is either hypothetical or for future use, not for immediate use.
I have some ideas for you, but I'm sending them in a PM. Give me some time to write stuff down.
While I lack the terms, the first thing that came to mind was the Three Kingdoms period, and the oathbrothers Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Liu Bei. Or Zhao Yun, or Ma Chao, or pretty much a good chunk of the characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms who were itinerant and martially inclined.
This is not helped by the mental image of a dwarven Dong Zhuo.
I think he was a half-fiend when we statted him up for a game once. That was years ago.
I have a question for you Kelsey. You seem to be writing up new characters constantly and experimenting with new campaign ideas all the time.
Just how many games are you in? I only say this cause I get to design a new character maybe once every year or two cause the campaigns I'm in last a long damn time.
Course they go from level 1-20+...
Oh yeah, can you inform the rest of us about your group makeup? I'm curious as hell.
Sorry to hijack your thread for this, but I know you'll read it.
I've always played as if the village Adept had spells like "Ease Childbirth" and "Summon Children" and so forth - spells no ordinary PC would bother with but that in a magical universe would have been invented by some harried spell-caster, somewhere. Though "Summon Children" has a certain Grimm connection. Is this true in your games?
Jeff de luna,
IANJ but, we had a hedge witch have spells similar to that. Part of my character's backstory included that the hedge witch was casting "Know gender" on fetuses and she also had the spells, "Babymaker" which assisted in child birth, "Powerword: STFU" which also assisted in childbirth, (or at least making the whole process quieter) and "Baby gauge" which told the midwife witch how far along in development the fetus was.
Powerword: Stfu only worked on targets with less than 8 hp, and it only lasted a few rounds. I don't think it ever saw combat...
Our parties actually use several useful, utility spells that are intended for everyday use. It just helps with the verisimilitude.
How do you handle absent players in your game? We usually just have someone else run the character or put them in "NPC mode". I just wondered if you had some mind-blowingly awesome way of doing so.
