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Just gonna pose a question to the "Dice are Gods" group not those of you who understand that the game I play is cool to me and my players.
Do any of you run your own setting?
If you do you maintain continuity in it?
If so have you ever set the game up for a true end of the world as in it will cease to exist if the party fails?
Would you let the dice destroy this world?
1. Usually run variants of existing worlds (Forgotten Realms/Golarion)
2. Absolutely, which is why they are variants3. End of the world is a relative thing. Global catastrophes have happened, wars have happened, even demi-gods have been born. None of us has every been nearly important enough to "end" worlds with our failures, but we have changed history on both sides of the coin.
In Gaming however its possible that the Failure of one group could end the world if for whatever reason you decided you wanted that kind of epic story would you let a series of lucky crits by the badguys kill the party and let the insane BBEG get off his epic spell of "Make the world blow up into so many peices that not even the gods can fix it"?
In Gaming however its possible that the Failure of one group could end the world if for whatever reason you decided you wanted that kind of epic story would you let a series of lucky crits by the badguys kill the party and let the insane BBEG get off his epic spell of "Make the world blow up into so many peices that not even the gods can fix it"?
I'm running Age of Worms and there are a few ways the campaign can end, one of which is utter failure. I'm hoping my players can prevent it from happening. They need to finish the penultimate adventure first though. They are 1.5 modules away from finding out how well they do. I don't expect them all to survive. I won't fudge die rolls to help them win. I expect level 20+ characters to be able to figure this stuff out on their own. I will fudge if I make an error in conversion. I need to make sure that it's at least a "fair" fight.
In Gaming however its possible that the Failure of one group could end the world if for whatever reason you decided you wanted that kind of epic story would you let a series of lucky crits by the badguys kill the party and let the insane BBEG get off his epic spell of "Make the world blow up into so many peices that not even the gods can fix it"?I'm running Age of Worms and there are a few ways the campaign can end, one of which is utter failure. I'm hoping my players can prevent it from happening. They need to finish the penultimate adventure first though. They are 1.5 modules away from finding out how well they do. I don't expect them all to survive. I won't fudge die rolls to help them win. I expect level 20+ characters to be able to figure this stuff out on their own. I will fudge if I make an error in conversion. I need to make sure that it's at least a "fair" fight.
Never read it but i am talking about a setting you yourself have dedicated years to writing and now the dice say that your note books full of info are worthless since your world is gone.
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I don't think anyone who is against fudges runs apocalypse stories much.
Unless it's something involving the death of the universe, any villian plan can be bounced back from. It may look nothing like your normal fantasy world, but there will be opportunities for heroes to rise and take the world back.
I don't think anyone who is against fudges runs apocalypse stories much.
Unless it's something involving the death of the universe, any villian plan can be bounced back from. It may look nothing like your normal fantasy world, but there will be opportunities for heroes to rise and take the world back.
The campaign I run (which is unfortunately on indefinite hiatus) is indeed such a story.
I look forward to the possibility of running my homebrew world as a scarred and joyless post-apocalyptic world.
Just a bit about my apocalypse story: it involves illithids and a possible future involving a cold, lightless, lifeless wasteland where all humanoids live underground and are mind-slaves to a psionic god. It's f*@#in' bleak. I sure hope my players get their s@@* together and stop it.
But if they can't, if the epic fight that ends the campaign fails to stop the birth of the god-mind, there's a whole other, darker campaign waiting for my players.
Even the campaigns I run would bounce back. Sure, the NEXT group might have to survive an all out planar war on the material plane, surviving encounters with double-digit CRs, but there will still be a chance to reverse the failure of the first group.
This is the approach I'd take to published adventures, like the APs. For my own world I try pretty hard to convey an internal consistency. The players, while heroes, are not the most important thing in the world. Bad things happen in places they aren't, NPCs move forward with their own plans for good or ill, economies rise and fall, etc. To a certain point in the story I could probably start over with new characters but I think everyone involved would feel like that's less fun. Which is why I give them a lot of leeway via action points and carefully plan encounters and encounter sets ahead of time. To be fair my campaign adventures do end up being relatively linear or at least branching rather than freeform, but downtime and between "plot-hubs" is where I get to really have fun and ad-lib.
I removed some posts.
It is unnecessary to post to say you're ignoring something or someone. If you're ignoring it, you don't need to reply. If you do reply, then you're not ignoring it, you're just trying to get the last word in.
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I don't think anyone who is against fudges runs apocalypse stories much.
At high levels, I do, and in my favorite homebrew setting.
Already, the PCs' direct experiences have led to massive food shortages, riots, and the hanging of at least one noble in the primary area of game play, and a different group of PCs have stood by and witnessed the destruction of a small town; this is all at low levels. At high levels, when the fate of the world is at stake, I have no problem with the world's fate actually being in their hands, rather than being guaranteed by fudging on my part.
My philosphy is that if the setting is too precious and fragile to allow PCs to mess it up, then just hold onto it and write novels about it. Any world in which you're going to share with a group of other people, you have to be prepared for it to get dirtied up and/or broken.
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I mean things like earth-shattering kabooms.
Not to spoil too much, but in my Shackled City games, if the PCs fail, the material world becomes a suburb of Carceri. More to your familiarity, if the PCs fail in Age of Worms, the world is overrun by undead.
That's much different from 'if you fail, reality ceases to exist'.
I don't think anyone who is against fudges runs apocalypse stories much.At high levels, I do, and in my favorite homebrew setting.
Already, the PCs' direct experiences have led to massive food shortages, riots, and the hanging of at least one noble in the primary area of game play, and a different group of PCs have stood by and witnessed the destruction of a small town; this is all at low levels. At high levels, when the fate of the world is at stake, I have no problem with the world's fate actually being in their hands, rather than being guaranteed by fudging on my part.
My philosphy is that if the setting is too precious and fragile to allow PCs to mess it up, then just hold onto it and write novels about it. Any world in which you're going to share with a group of other people, you have to be prepared for it to get dirtied up and/or broken.
I agree with this. I don't think fudging should be used to guarantee that the PCs never die/always win. I think if that's the reason, or if it's to keep the world from never suffering at the hands of the PCs, then the GM should reevaluate his style. Of course, if that's what the players want, I guess it's ok. It certainly wouldn't be what I would want.
and a different group of PCs have stood by and witnessed the destruction of a small town; this is all at low levels.
I'm still very conflicted about that, I want you to know. I may be Chaotic, but I AM Good as well.
Blasted DR.
More to your familiarity, if the PCs fail in Age of Worms, the world is overrun by undead.
And I'm fine with that, if that's how things turn out... which is what led to my "sissy elf cleric" flame striking the entire party -- TPK by me to save the world! That kind of excitement wouldn't happen if the GM fudged to prevent
*ponders working out a Prestige Paladin of Freedom class*
If Falandar wanted to go that route in my Aviona game, I'd totally allow it.
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Well, it's what happened in the first game I played him. Then he got reincarnated as a yuan-ti halfblood. That was interesting.
And I'm fine with that, if that's how things turn out...
So am I.
I'm less fine with the PCs failing, and Galactus consuming the planet.
A lot harder to bounce back from that.
So I don't run world-ending scenarios. Would you run such a scenario in Aviona? With the consequence being you could never run Aviona again?
Would you run such a scenario in Aviona? With the consequence being you could never run Aviona again?
Have done so, and had a lot of fun. Then made a few new campaign settings, had some fun with those, I moved and the gaming groups shifted a few times so that there's no overlap in players -- and Aviona got rebooted for you guys. Same maps, generally the same NPCs, but a number of the former PCs conspicuously absent, the timelines altered somewhat, and ready for business. It's a fictitious setting, so it can be destroyed and rebooted, altered to taste, whatever... as long as it's a different group of people (or the same group of like-minded people).
That was about what I thought, but the way you described it sometimes made me wonder. If I stick around Killeen long enough and my Austin group doesn't dissolve, I look forward to the next campaign being Savage Tide, starting them in familiar territory. :)
In ca. 2007 (about two years before finding Derek and them) I ran half of Savage Tide (non-Aviona, obviously!). It's a great AP, lots and lots of fun, and just about every adventure a gem... until about 15th level. But that's a problem common to D&D.