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I suspect your opinion won't change much, in that regard. One of the reasons I like the track system, is that I find it facilitates "paperless" play more easily - when my wife and Inare on long car trips, for instance, it works better (and is easier) to question whether "did you beat DC X? Yes/No, then..." is muuuuch easier in that case. (Vancian is, in this case, easier than PP as well, but I still like it less due to narrative inconsistency/silliness of "feeling" of it; skill-based works best in these cases - a reason I like the Cortex+ system as much as I do.)
That said, typically speaking, I enjoy PP for the same reasons as you and find the system the most elegant of the casting systems in an hp-based world.
That said, I also love up for the reasons you mention; and find Blue Rose as-written a bit clunky (the damage mechanic, specifically, becoming a save and keeping track of bruise points. I do think it's neat, it's just a tad of clunk (though the increasing resistance to bruises -> wounds does track to hp growth). I like the system (it's skill-based, fatigue-contingent style magic, three-fold class system, feat-based "specials", etc.) but recognize the potential issues. If one it much cleaner than Star Wars d20 or Psychic. True 20 is a bit better balanced, but comes across as clunkier and a little less smooth. Speaking of number growth: XP - do you like or prefer point-based level-ups? In 3.X, I liked XP. In PF, I find it needless number tracking as it doesn't actually mean anything in-world. I recognize (and feel!) it's loss, as it has no narrative impact beyond "hey, look, numbers!" I know others feel differently, so I was curious about your take. Also, anyone else posting here: I'd be curious about theirs as well.
EDIT: blarg: baby and Grammy made me ninja'd. Will look into other things later!
>when my wife and Inare on long car trips, for instance
Wait. Are you saying you have found a way to play DnD completely without pen, paper or a table? I would really like to know how that works, because I have been trying to find a way to do that for ages.
>Speaking of number growth: XP - do you like or prefer point-based level-ups?
I use story point-based level ups, but XP is still useful to design encounters. When I feel the need to give an incremental reward (smaller than a level up) for something awesome players did, I either give gold, magical items, free minor feats, traits, hero points or any other thing already present in PF.
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Hi, Klara. Wife of Tacticslion here.
I haven't been on these boards for a while (busy life!) but Tac is driving and we wanted to answer your question.
Want to play your favorite RPG in the car where dice are impractical?
Try our dice-less RPG system!
It might seem confusing or complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's simple and fun!
It requires the player(s) to trust the GM ... but that should be true anyway.
For whatever needs rolling, whether PC, NPC, or enemy, the GM says "Give me a d20" (or d6 or whatever) as the GM simultaneously mentally picks a number 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say, for example, the number three.
The player chooses a number out loud from 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say
"Six!"
The GM then adds three and six to get a total of nine for that d20 roll.
Easy, right? And random because neither player nor GM knows what number the other will pick.
Now, wait, you may say, what happens if the numbers total more than twenty?
Simple. It 'wraps around.'
For example, say the GM asks for a d20 and thinks of the number ten. Then the player chooses the number thirteen. The total is twenty-three, which is the same as a dice roll of three.
Is that clear?
We have various tricks for simplifying gameplay for car rides, but that's probably the most significant.
Game on! :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hi, Klara. Wife of Tacticslion here.
I haven't been on these boards for a while (busy life!) but Tac is driving and we wanted to answer your question.
Want to play your favorite RPG in the car where dice are impractical?
Try our dice-less RPG system!
It might seem confusing or complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's simple and fun!
It requires the player(s) to trust the GM ... but that should be true anyway.
For whatever needs rolling, whether PC, NPC, or enemy, the GM says "Give me a d20" (or d6 or whatever) as the GM simultaneously mentally picks a number 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say, for example, the number three.
The player chooses a number out loud from 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say
"Six!"
The GM then adds three and six to get a total of nine for that d20 roll.
Easy, right? And random because neither player nor GM knows what number the other will pick.
Now, wait, you may say, what happens if the numbers total more than twenty?
Simple. It 'wraps around.'
For example, say the GM asks for a d20 and thinks of the number ten. Then the player chooses the number thirteen. The total is twenty-three, which is the same as a dice roll of three.
Is that clear?
We have various tricks for simplifying gameplay for car rides, but that's probably the most significant.
Game on! :)
Hello.
This is a good solution for rolls, but what about other aspects of play? Do you memorise your character sheets or have them printed out on hand in case you need to look things up? What about combat in general-Pathfinder combat is quite reliant on a tactical map, as far as I understand. How does combat work when you don't have it?
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When playing in the car, whichever of us is not driving, whether GM or player, usually keeps the folder of character sheets, maps, and other pertinent info handy, though we do tend to memorize our most commonly used modifiers so we don't have to check them too often.
As for combat, even when we play at home, we don't generally use a tactical map. That's just us. For me, the story, characters, and conversations are the most interesting parts of gameplay, so we try to speed up combat, whether at home or on the car. It helps to have an experienced and fair GM who can clearly communicate, improvise, guesstimate, and wing it a bit, and a player or players who are willing to trust the GM and accept his or her rulings as to what is or is not possible.
So, for example, when my character is traveling in the forest, Tac might ask for a d20 roll for my perception check, and we get a number based on the system I described in my previous post, then add my modifier. Based on the result, Tac will decide whether I notice the two Bugbears hiding in the bushes, ready to atttack me. If I do, we roll initiative. If not, they get a surprise round to attack, then we roll initiative. Either way, when it's my turn, I just ask Tac how far away they are from me, he makes up a distance, and I choose my action accordingly.
Whoever is not driving keeps track of hp damage on both PC and enemies.
It works well for us. :)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi, Klara. Wife of Tacticslion here.
I haven't been on these boards for a while (busy life!) but Tac is driving and we wanted to answer your question.
Want to play your favorite RPG in the car where dice are impractical?
Try our dice-less RPG system!
It might seem confusing or complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's simple and fun!
It requires the player(s) to trust the GM ... but that should be true anyway.
For whatever needs rolling, whether PC, NPC, or enemy, the GM says "Give me a d20" (or d6 or whatever) as the GM simultaneously mentally picks a number 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say, for example, the number three.
The player chooses a number out loud from 1-20 (or 1-6 or whatever), let's say
"Six!"
The GM then adds three and six to get a total of nine for that d20 roll.
Easy, right? And random because neither player nor GM knows what number the other will pick.
Now, wait, you may say, what happens if the numbers total more than twenty?
Simple. It 'wraps around.'
For example, say the GM asks for a d20 and thinks of the number ten. Then the player chooses the number thirteen. The total is twenty-three, which is the same as a dice roll of three.
Is that clear?
We have various tricks for simplifying gameplay for car rides, but that's probably the most significant.
Game on! :)
Lol!
That is exactly what I came up with to run a game while in basic training when I was the army!
Nice to know I'm not the only smart one in the world. :)
To answer Klara,
You honestly don't really need all the stats and such, though you could put down the basics on a notepad if you really wanted. It ends up being more theater of the mind. The gm holds in mind a rough idea of where everyone is and describes it. Specifics such as counting X number of feet or spaces is forgone in favor of more generalized tactics. I.E. drawing the enemy under the arch and collapsing the arch on them, a perfectly understandable and useable tactic even without knowing specific placement of characters.
Edot; ninja'd.
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When playing in the car, whichever of us is not driving, whether GM or player, usually keeps the folder of character sheets, maps, and other pertinent info handy, though we do tend to memorize our most commonly used modifiers so we don't have to check them too often.
As for combat, even when we play at home, we don't generally use a tactical map. That's just us. For me, the story, characters, and conversations are the most interesting parts of gameplay, so we try to speed up combat, whether at home or on the car. It helps to have an experienced and fair GM who can clearly communicate, improvise, guesstimate, and wing it a bit, and a player or players who are willing to trust the GM and accept his or her rulings as to what is or is not possible.
So, for example, when my character is traveling in the forest, Tac might ask for a d20 roll for my perception check, and we get a number based on the system I described in my previous post, then add my modifier. Based on the result, Tac will decide whether I notice the two Bugbears hiding in the bushes, ready to atttack me. If I do, we roll initiative. If not, they get a surprise round to attack, then we roll initiative. Either way, when it's my turn, I just ask Tac how far away they are from me, he makes up a distance, and I choose my action accordingly.
Whoever is not driving keeps track of hp damage on both PC and enemies.
It works well for us. :)
That is an interesting perspective on the game. I can certainly see how it would influence the design decisions-combats would be a lot more one-sided, for one.
What sort of stories do you usually tell? Since there is only one PC, I imagine they would be quite different from the ones seen in Adventure Paths and such.
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"Generally, HP also allows for really minor hits to add up over time. For example, even if you've got 150 Hp, the mooks dropping fireball or unholy blight spells on you are still causing "chip damage" even when you make your saves and such. Most RPGs that forgo an HP pool in favor of a condition track lose out here, because either the piddly damage never has any growing effect (because it just keeps getting resisted) or it moves you along too quickly (in which case a group of enrinyes will slaughter your party in short order regardless of your defenses simply by pushing you from full health to dead on the condition track by spamming unblockable stuff)."
Indeed chipping away is something I think is importantand made sure to include in my system. My system runs on fort save plus conditions (no track though). Each time a save is made a penalty to further saves is gained regardless of the save result. Thus even minor attacks that have no chance of causing an injury still have the effect of making it easier for the target to be injured.
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Alicorn: that damage fracker sounds like Blue Rose!
Klara: actually, we do follow the APs: Council of Thieves (completed), Kingmaker (5/6), Serpent Skull (5/6), and Carrion Crown (2/6) so far. Additionally, we sometimes have other players, and play various pre-made modules. While I originally started out with entirely homebrew, as we've gotten less and less time to play, we've switched to modules and APs.
I often take published modules these days, significantly refluff them, and go. This allows me to cover my major weakness ("natural" dungeon maps - mine tend to be blocky and slightly awkward) while having a basic framework for a completely new story. It also allows us to push experimental play styles to their limits, with occasional "stop and retool" sessions. Often, a module is almost unrecognizeable by the time I'm done.
As an example, off the top of my head, I've used the same adventure (3.5's Twilight Tomb)
- basically as-printed, but with a succubus PC (this lead her into an alignment change/mythic in preparation for becoming a major force in the Council of Thieves AP)
- mostly as-printed, but in a location and a campaign setting vastly different than the original, from different materials and with different effects, linked to a few other prepublished adventures as part of a mega-challenge for a psion PC
- very different looking place in a 4E game for a group of PCs that included a dragon/sword mage
- a desert city segment for a two-PC game (an elf and a half orc in a desert world)
- as a part of a mega-fortress that included twelve other fortresses/adventure sites stacked on top of it, all covered in a molten good aesthetic with enemies that are statistically the same (with a few +s or -s altered here or there for stat blocks due to race/class alteration), and again, only tweaked for a 5e play test game for four PCs
- as above, only part of an enormous tower in the middle of a frozen wasteland demiplane threatening to overwhelm the material for an ascended NPC from another game who was mostly a fire wizard (she took out a powerful winterwight on her lonesome, and inherited his wish-castle, becoming the winter queen); the PCs (including a doppelgänger pretending to be a monk, and an ascended NPC ex-warrior ranger) effectively ignored the thing by riding a remorhaz up the side, and summoning a host of 'em into the tower itself
- as part of an adventure for the Cortex+ Roleplaying system for a Firefly RPG game
- mostly as-printed with a twist on character motivations in an aborted half-celestial shapeshifting Akhana PC game when my wife was sick (it stopped as soon as she could talk again, and felt like doing more than emoji); the full outcome/impact of that game should yet surprise her, since she decided not to play it anymore... Muahahahah...
... among a few other times (at least bits and pieces of it). Because I'm familiar with the module, I know the distances, lighting, and so on, quite well. That means, when I change something, I know it even better as "this which is different" because I know how I'm straying from the base one.
That is far from the only adventure I do that with. Given enough time, a PC who's played it before (usually my wife) will often clue into the fact that it's "that module" again (whichever one it is), but usually it takes a while, and I change enough each time, that she can never rely on her previous experience to guide her - not even the maps. And such recognition is not guaranteed - while I've mentioned a few to her that she didn't figure out, and she figured out a few more after-the-fact, I suspect a couple may surprise her (though I could be wrong by now): I'd say she recognizes that one about 3/4 of the time, these days.
Others, she recognizes less.
(I once built a second campaign run almost entirely off of modules she'd seen before, but heavily refluffed - she got about a quarter of them, and never met the same NPC in the same place for the same purpose twice. Of course, I once ran one group of players through the same maze-like passage - which did have a map - four times with it tilted different angles before anyone caught on the fifth time through (I think it was because I tilted it sideways, and they sat in the same seat); but that's because I had fourteen (up to sixteen) players who loooooooved to split the party, so I'm allowed a little slack (and they mostly had new adventures/dungeons, so, you know: I feel no shame; also, they finally decided to stick around long enough to complete the daggum thing instead of just collapsing it, leaving, or betraying their quest giver - who was, to be fair, evil and deserving - so, fifth time's a charm?). ;D
The whole point is: painting, fluffing, and mild tweaks can go a long way to remaking an experience into an entirely different one. Set an island in a dessert: the entire situation has changed. Put an adventure that takes place in a segment of a town in its own little demiplane that seals creatures inside unless they accomplish <goal>, populated by (pleasant and helpful, probably with the necropolitan template in 3.5) undead who never accomplished the goal, and the entire dynamic is different. The whole campaign shifts die to a change you can remember and don't need to refer to notecards to know. Even if a player recognizes a tropeish set up, doesn't mean they know where the experience is going... even you can't guess.
The psion? Unwillingly over the mind and essence of a demon and became bound to her in doing so. It was unexpected to say the least.
The succubus? Sacrificed the demon to raise a little girl who'd died of a death effect. She then completed a flesh golem by decieving an undead into becoming part of said golem for the purpose of "raising" the little girl's dead father from a kind of death even resurrection wouldn't work on (and none had access to true resurrection and would not for a looooong time, anyway... and even then, it might not work via a mechanic detailed substantially in advance). I saw neither of those coming.
The Firefly crew exploded the corporate assassin (demon-replacement: insert joke here), destroyed the floating mutants (flesh-golem replacement), and killed basically everything but some mercs that they hired to make a full-on assault against the Reaver citadel (orcs and undead, respectively) in the gas mining station (the adventure site).
None of that could have been planned in advance. It was they way the game played out, unique each time due to different players, PCs, and fluff/situations, and mildly tweaked mechanics.
As to balancing around one player, it's simple: I don't. Instead, I give the one player advantages that balance out being alone (usually) and/or provide GMCs to assist, as-needed (though my GMCs tend to be very attractive to all sorts of hideous deaths). Those books could be playing monster races, gestalts, templates for extra action economy, just being really tough, or so on. It usually balances out, but sometimes things get a bit too dangerous or easy. In the latter case, I deal: I made my bed and now I can lie in it (and it's usually fun anyway). In the former, I usually have an in-story trick ready to rescue the campaign, if the PC dies: either a backup character, a GMC readying something, or some prearranged resurrection effect for the story in question. It's usually rather limited, though, making the PC carefully examine their options. (One PC - not my wife - who was running through a version of TT I didn't even mention above, decided to bargain his soul away to demon wishes, and caused an interdemonic war by back-biting negotiations over who got his soul, and left with a fellow unconscious PC and the little girl they were supposed to rescue in toe, allowing the other creature in the real to die a gory death as it imploded from wish mismanagement. It was... interesting to say the least. Naturally, the only character that player ever had survive to the end of an adventure was the duplicitous chaotic evil merchant...)
Anyway, that's just one of many tricks I use to lower the workload of memorization. Hope that helps!
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"Alicorn: that damage fracker sounds like Blue Rose!"
Really!? Cause I've been getting test players for years to play with that and no one ever mentioned blue rose before. How old is it exactly?
What else about the mechanics. Is it a d20 base or does it use a different mechanics entirely? Is it a classless skillbased system?
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@Sage re. Dice Substitution Method: Great minds... :)
That is an interesting perspective on the game. I can certainly see how it would influence the design decisions-combats would be a lot more one-sided, for one.
What sort of stories do you usually tell? Since there is only one PC, I imagine they would be quite different from the ones seen in Adventure Paths and such.
Not as different as you might think. About half the time we run adventure paths or modules, and the other half we invent original stories. About 3/4 of the time Tac is GM, and about 1/4 of the time I am (usually during the summer when I have more prep time).
When we run preprinted APs or modules, Tac as GM might cut a few enemies or entire combats, but more often he gives my character (or characters if I run more than one) additional abilities (feats, skill points, spells per day, etc.) to help make the challenges surmountable. Also, I often like to make characters big on diplomacy and/or bluff who can talk their way out of what would otherwise be combat situations. And, yes, we do a lot of talking in character. Sometimes entire enthralling game sessions pass with nothing but talking in character. It's fun! :)
Tac says he just posted in this thread, so he probably ninja'd me on several points.
I'll stop there.
"Alicorn: that damage fracker sounds like Blue Rose!"
Really!? Cause I've been getting test players for years to play with that and no one ever mentioned blue rose before. How old is it exactly?
What else about the mechanics. Is it a d20 base or does it use a different mechanics entirely? Is it a classless skillbased system?
Alicorn: Pretty old. 2005 (about 11 years now). It was a mildly scandalous (or... something?) for being so "heavy-handed" in progressive values or some such. I can see the argument, but find it frivolous. It was also lauded for the same. Again: I think people are overdoing it.
Sorry for the typos... blech. Phone typing is not my strongest mode...
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A few more points:
If you're playing a one PC game, give the PC a 25pt buy or higher ability score spread, with no stat below 10... For a standard AP or module, in a party of one, you have to handle all the key roles yourself. You can't afford a dump stat. (...another reason extra skill points are invaluable...)
Magic like charm, suggestion, invisibility, etc. can also be used to bypass combats.
Most of the time we play standard fantasy adventure stories. Sometimes we play science fiction adventure stories. However, when our four-year-old son is involved, we play Bolt puppy adventures, or Cars car races, or Mario/Bowser/Princess Peach stories. Very few dice rolls or combats are involved. Recently, Mario taught Bad Bowser how to be Nice Bowser, and he joined Mario and Princess Peach on a picnic with cupcakes. RPGing can stretch across generations in delightful ways. :)
"Alicorn: that damage fracker sounds like Blue Rose!"
Really!? Cause I've been getting test players for years to play with that and no one ever mentioned blue rose before. How old is it exactly?
What else about the mechanics. Is it a d20 base or does it use a different mechanics entirely? Is it a classless skillbased system?
Alicorn: Pretty old. 2005 (about 11 years now). It was a mildly scandalous (or... something?) for being so "heavy-handed" in progressive values or some such. I can see the argument, but find it frivolous. It was also lauded for the same. Again: I think people are overdoing it.
Sorry for the typos... blech. Phone typing is not my strongest mode...
Well probably didn't steal it then. I only started fleshing out the idea around 2003. It was still a d20 mod back then though.
They'd need to have rushed to get that publish date. Of course they may have just added it to an already established game I guess.
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If you've got a smart phone, there are tons of dice rollers you can use for your RNG too. Most of them also let you save different rolls with tags on them (for different saves or attacks and junk).
@Sage re. Dice Substitution Method: Great minds... :)
That is an interesting perspective on the game. I can certainly see how it would influence the design decisions-combats would be a lot more one-sided, for one.
What sort of stories do you usually tell? Since there is only one PC, I imagine they would be quite different from the ones seen in Adventure Paths and such.Not as different as you might think. About half the time we run adventure paths or modules, and the other half we invent original stories. About 3/4 of the time Tac is GM, and about 1/4 of the time I am (usually during the summer when I have more prep time).
When we run preprinted APs or modules, Tac as GM might cut a few enemies or entire combats, but more often he gives my character (or characters if I run more than one) additional abilities (feats, skill points, spells per day, etc.) to help make the challenges surmountable. Also, I often like to make characters big on diplomacy and/or bluff who can talk their way out of what would otherwise be combat situations. And, yes, we do a lot of talking in character. Sometimes entire enthralling game sessions pass with nothing but talking in character. It's fun! :)
Tac says he just posted in this thread, so he probably ninja'd me on several points.
I'll stop there.
What classes do you usually play? Casters, I imagine?
Also, I just noticed Tacticslion's stealth edit.
>I'm curious about your thoughts as well, Klara, and Ash: how do you feel about the concepts of gentlemen's agreements in personal tables and balancing acts?
Well, seeing how all of human communication is one big gentlemen's agreement, I don't really see how one can feel bad about it. Are you talking about things like "You don't pick Leadership, and I won't drop rocks on you"?
Hahah! Perhaps!
Mostly I meant the concept as it applies to a table.
Obviously, for example, Ash has no problem with Sunder v. PCs, though there are often tables who have the agreement, "You don't, I won't." between PCs and GMs - the idea, in a Sunder-specific case, being that of the PCs aren't sunder-happy, the GM won't be. Not The Sunder agreement is not Ash's thing, certainly, but just the basic concept of similar. As in, "Do you have specific ones? And if so, what?"
This is part of, yet differs from, table varistion, as it is an explicit, "Do not cross this line." kind of deal.
The only two I'm aware of with me as a GM (and many aren't even aware of those that develop at their table) is, "Anything you can do, I (as GM) can do better." and, "Do unto the GM as you would have them do unto you." - that is, don't intentionally wreck the campaign and undermine the GM. That said, for a character with campaign-wrecking tendencies who just fits so well for a player's concepts, I don't necessarily have a problem with them, if we talk about them first, as then I can use a "wrecked" campaign (if it ever comes to that) and roll it in a non-wrecked brand-new game that takes tha into account.
For example, in Council of Thieves, the succubus character totally magically becalmed and then diplomanced the big boss in part four... leaving me in quite the lurch! As it wasn't the intent to wreck the game, I didn't want to negate player agency, but I didn't have any ideas on how to continue the campaign after that. Once you got one of those on your side... it's more or less over for that AP...
(Spoilers avoided.)
But, after we'd taken a break from that campaign for a while, I was able to eventually understand how to place the whole thing into context. That dude became one of several of a similar class of agents that were recruited into... a planar reclamation and reformation war (sort of) that tied into the backstory of the succubus I mentioned earlier, that Twilight Tomb module I'd run for her, and a secret history for that character due to the circumstances from which the game started. Once I had that going on, the NPC could legitimately be utilized in something the PCs needed to happen, while being removed from direct play in the AP. This rewarded the PCs, while still permitting dude to be itself (albeit with an alignment change, so... abnormal for their kind, to say the least), and allowed us to play parts 5 and 6 of the AP (which was a goal shred by everyone) without the GM just kind of going, "Uh, you win, I guess..." which wouldn't have been fun for anyone.
That was an instance that I'd originally thought that I was going to have to break my, "Vet the character and I'm likely okay with it." concept, but was eventually able to bring it back around.
All of that generally represents my "gentlemen's agreement" in games I run. Of course, I'm pretty lax. That one dude who:
- summoned an extra planar mercenary army he couldn't pay for into attacking a central campaign city... a city he summoned a force of githyanki tricked into destroying it... and tricked a red dragon into invading... all while pretending to be the ruler of the city (who was his real target)
- opened a hole to the elemental plane of air at the bottom of the ocean... before attempting to build his undersea fortress
- created a flesh-golem replica of himself combined with a wyvern that he eventually abandoned
- and so on...
... actually didn't disrupt the campaign he was in. Admittedly, I had more time on my hands, and it wasn't an AP, but I was able to roll with his changes and smoothly continue the game. So really, it's more, "Don't spring more on me than I have the time/thought capacity to handle (which may or may not be quite a bit, depending)."
Usually, though, if I break a game, I've asked extensively ahead of time, I've also cleared things immediately in advance, and then Inwork to help the GM figure how to fix things.
... at least, a bit.
(Sorry Lady... ;D)
WELP
IT'S FIXIN' TIME
:I
Alicorn: that damage
ftracker sounds like Blue Rose!Klara: actually, we do follow the APs: Council of Thieves (completed), Kingmaker (5/6), Serpent Skull (5/6), and Carrion Crown (2/6) so far. Additionally, we sometimes have other players, and play various pre-made modules. While I originally started out with entirely homebrew, as we've gotten less and less time to play, we've switched to modules and APs.
I often take published modules these days, significantly refluff them, and go. This allows me to cover my major weakness ("natural" dungeon maps - mine tend to be blocky and slightly awkward) while having a basic framework for a completely new story. It also allows us to push experimental play styles to their limits, with occasional "stop and retool" sessions. Often, a module is almost
unrecognizeableby the time I'm done.As an example, off the top of my head, I've used the same adventure (3.5's Twilight Tomb)
- basically as-printed, but with a succubus PC (this lead her into an alignment change/mythic in preparation for becoming a major force in the Council of Thieves AP)
- mostly as-printed, but in a location and a campaign setting vastly different than the original,fromdifferentmaterialsand with different effects , linked to a few other prepublished adventures as part of a mega-challenge for a psion PC
- very different looking place in a 4E game for a group of PCs that included a dragon/sword mage
- a desert city segment for a two-PC game (an elf and a half orc in a desert world)
- as a part of a mega-fortress that included twelve other fortresses/adventure sites stacked on top of it, all covered in a moltengoodaesthetic with enemies that are statistically the same (with a few +s or -s altered here or there for stat blocks due to race/class alteration), and again, only tweaked for a 5e play test game for four PCs
- as above, only part of an enormous tower in the middle of a frozen wasteland demiplane threatening to overwhelm the material for an ascended NPC from another game who was mostly a fire wizard (she took out a powerful winterwight on her lonesome, and inherited his wish-castle, becoming the winter queen); the PCs (including a doppelgänger pretending to be a monk, and an ascended NPC ex-warrior ranger) effectively ignored the thing by riding a remorhaz up the side, and summoning a host of 'em into the tower itself
- as part of an adventure for the Cortex+ Roleplaying system for a Firefly RPG game
- mostly as-printed with a twist on character motivations in an aborted half-celestial shape-shifting Akhana PC game when my wife was sick (it stopped as soon as she could talk again, and felt like doing more than emoji); the full outcome/impact of that game should yet surprise her, since she decided not to play it anymore... Muahahahah...... among a few other times (at least bits and pieces of it). Because I'm familiar with the module, I know the distances, lighting, and so on, quite well. That means, when I change something, I know it even better as "this which is different" because I know how I'm straying from the base one.
That is far from the only adventure I do that with. Given enough time, a PC who's played it before (usually my wife) will often clue into the fact that it's "that module" again (whichever one it is), but usually it takes a while, and I change enough each time, that she can never rely on her previous experience to guide her - not even the maps. And such recognition is not guaranteed - while I've mentioned a few to her that she didn't figure out, and she figured out a few more after-the-fact, I suspect a couple may surprise her (though I could be wrong by now): I'd say she recognizes that one about 3/4 of the time, these days.
Others, she recognizes less.
(I once built a second campaign run almost entirely off of modules she'd seen before, but heavily refluffed - she got about a quarter of them, and never met the same NPC in the same place for the same purpose twice. Of course, I once ran one group of players through the same maze-like passage - which did have a map - four times with it tilted different angles before anyone caught on the fifth time through (I think it was because I tilted it sideways, and they sat in the same seat); but that's because I had fourteen (up to sixteen) players who loooooooved to split the party, so I'm allowed a little slack and they mostly had new adventures/dungeons, so, you know: I feel no shame. Also, they finally decided to stick around long enough to complete the daggum thing instead of just collapsing it, leaving, or betraying their quest giver - who was, to be fair, evil and deserving - so, fifth time's a charm?). ;D
The whole point is: painting, fluffing, and mild tweaks can go a long way to remaking an experience into an entirely different one. Set an island in a dessert: the entire situation has changed. Put an adventure that takes place in a segment of a town in its own little demiplane that seals creatures inside unless they accomplish <goal>, populated by (pleasant and helpful
,probably with the necropolitan template in 3.5) undead who never accomplished the goal, and the entire dynamic is different. The whole campaign shiftsdieto a change you can remember and don't need to refer to notecards to know. Even if a player recognizes a tropeish set up, doesn't mean they know where the experience is going... even you can't guess.The psion? Unwillingly over the mind and essence of a demon and became bound to
herin doing so. It was unexpected to say the least.The succubus? Sacrificed the demon to raise a little girl who'd died of a death effect. She then completed a flesh golem by decieving an undead into becoming part of said golem for the purpose of "raising" the little girl's dead father from a kind of death even resurrection wouldn't work on (and none had access to true resurrection and would not for a looooong time, anyway... and even then, it might not work via a mechanic detailed substantially in advance). I saw neither of those coming.
The Firefly crew exploded the corporate assassin (demon-replacement: insert joke here), destroyed the floating mutants (flesh-golem replacement), and killed basically everything but some mercs that they hired to make a full-on assault against the Reaver citadel (orcs and undead, respectively) in the gas mining station (the adventure site).
None of that could have been planned in advance. It was they way the game played out, unique each time due to different players, PCs, and fluff/situations, and mildly tweaked mechanics.
As to balancing around one player, it's simple: I don't. Instead, I give the one player advantages that balance out being alone (usually) and/or provide GMCs to assist, as-needed (though my GMCs tend to be very attractive to all sorts of hideous deaths). Those books could be playing monster races, gestalts, templates for extra action economy, just being really tough, or so on. It usually balances out, but sometimes things get a bit too dangerous or easy. In the latter case, I deal: I made my bed and now I can lie in it (and it's usually fun anyway). In the former, I usually have an in-story trick ready to rescue the campaign, if the PC dies: either a backup character, a GMC readying something, or some prearranged resurrection effect for the story in question. It's usually rather limited, though, making the PC carefully examine their options. (One PC - not my wife - who was running through a version of TT I didn't even mention above, decided to bargain his soul away to demon wishes, and caused an interdemonic war by back-biting negotiations over who got his soul, and left with a fellow unconscious PC and the little girl they were supposed to rescue in toe, allowing the other creature in the real[/ooc]m[/ooc] to die a gory death as it imploded from wish mismanagement. It was... interesting to say the least. Naturally, the only character that player ever had survive to the end of an adventure was the duplicitous chaotic evil merchant... )
Anyway, that's just one of many tricks I use to lower the workload of memorization. Hope that helps!
I... I think that's all my typos and accidental omissions. I... think. Typing on a phone... wow.
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The sunder is an interesting thing... hmmmm... I'm curious about your thoughts as well, Klara, and Ash: how do you feel about the concepts of gentlemen's agreements in personal tables and balancing acts?
From a design standpoint, I think the necessity for gentleman agreements should be minimized whenever possible. From a simple GMing standpoint, there is very little I'd prefer my players not do. My typical gentleman's agreement is simply talking about certain things if players have an interest in those things (such as taking leadership, as I have no issues with players taking the feat but I'd like to get a feel for what they want to do with it). Sometimes players do things that make me a little nervous at first but I've learned to make some calls after seeing the results and how it plays out in game (Aratrok had a wizard whose plans for end-game involved simulacrum + magic jar shenanigans, and that can be a little daunting).
I do try to avoid arms races, and I also tend to avoid trying to turn the PCs' own tactics against them on a regular basis (since if those tactics include specific builds, it can feel rather forced and obvious that I'm attempting to mirror-battle the characters). As an example, if I have a set of PCs and one of them is using magic jar + simulacrum, I'll still try to avoid building encounters consisting of lots of magic jar + simulacrum users (though maybe meeting one now and then is probably fine for immersion).
I understand, however, that most groups have a much lower breaking point, and some people essentially have to hold back with their core characters so that other players can have fun and stuff. I'd like to minimize that as much as possible whenever possible in anything I'm working with.
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Did your players ever fight Ctulhu? What about killing a god-did that ever happen? Have they ever destroyed the world?
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Did your players ever fight Ctulhu?
Nah. Cthulu's not really a thing in my campaigns and I wasn't particularly impressed with Paizo's rendition of Cthulu.
What about killing a god-did that ever happen?
Kind of. Deities in my games tend to cap out around the CR 25 range if I stat some out, and my PCs have slain things of godly powers before. In my campaigns, a lot of gods are just powerful outsiders of around CR 16+.
Have they ever destroyed the world?
Not intentionally, though there was a campaign I never got to finish where the PCs released an angel that sealed away by her peers. The angel was incredible powerful and had went mad with zeal, and was intent upon bringing about an apocalypse on the material plane to purge it of all evil. But since the campaign fell apart shortly after it began (mostly scheduling issues since jobs + school didn't mesh a lot for the group), we never knew if the PCs would eventually stop her.
DAGGUMMIT, I MESSED UP ANOTHER BBCODE.
>:(
Ah, well. I guess I'm just error-prone.
Did your players ever fight Ctulhu?
Nah. Cthulu's not really a thing in my campaigns and I wasn't particularly impressed with Paizo's rendition of Cthulu.
Weren't impressed with its power, its relation to the books, both, or something else?
What about killing a god-did that ever happen?
Kind of. Deities in my games tend to cap out around the CR 25 range if I stat some out, and my PCs have slain things of godly powers before. In my campaigns, a lot of gods are just powerful outsiders of around CR 16+.
In those situations, does your internal head-canon have mythology for how the world was founded?
What about other Paizo creatures that have been statted above that CR: obviously, not your cuppa, but what do you think about them?
On a related, but very different note, what about things like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem?
Have they ever destroyed the world?
Not intentionally, though there was a campaign I never got to finish where the PCs released an angel that sealed away by her peers. The angel was incredible powerful and had went mad with zeal, and was intent upon bringing about an apocalypse on the material plane to purge it of all evil. But since the campaign fell apart shortly after it began (mostly scheduling issues since jobs + school didn't mesh a lot for the group), we never knew if the PCs would eventually stop her.
I... know how that goes, Ash...
*stares evenly at that one game where the players just stopped*
()
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Weren't impressed with its power, its relation to the books, both, or something else?
Not necessarily power, though Cthulu was punked by a boat, so I think his presented power scale is way off base. I was most disappointed in that he's largely just an inflated package of numbers and there's nothing particularly interesting about him. He has a number of abilities that you are either immune to or you get wrecked, so you get immunity to those (not super difficult actually at even 20th level, let alone anywhere near 30th) and then you spank him more or less like you fight any run of the mill demon, and that bugs me.
If we're dealing with a unique, super-powerful being, I'd like to see something that was more interesting than a demonic tank & spank.
What about killing a god-did that ever happen?Kind of. Deities in my games tend to cap out around the CR 25 range if I stat some out, and my PCs have slain things of godly powers before. In my campaigns, a lot of gods are just powerful outsiders of around CR 16+.In those situations, does your internal head-canon have mythology for how the world was founded?
Yes it does in fact. The short version is that this particular material plane (there are many throughout the planar cosmos) was created by seven gods whose own world was destroyed. They wandered the planes for countless years before they decided to make a new home for themselves, wherein they each contributed to making the world. They created the life within in, much of it inspired or taken from places they had seen across their incredible journey. Their own creations eventually populated the infinitely expanding plane and started walking their own paths. The gods, who weren't particularly experienced with acting as gods, made lots of mistakes and eventually realized they might be causing more harm to their creations than not so they scattered themselves to the corners of the universe and let humanity and other creatures forget about them. They now only appear to certain people via dream spells and the like to nudge or encourage people instead of interceding directly.
Most of the gods that people worship in the world were created as thoughts given form, from the divine spark inherent in all souls. Essentially, most of the gods worshiped in the world were created by their own followers (unbeknownst to the followers), born from the godly spark of their own faith and souls. Said deities reside primarily their own realms on the plane of dreams.
Then you have the "gods" that are outsiders (one of the major deities is an advanced lillend, the patron arch-angel demigoddess thingy for the templar is a planetar, etc), or powerful creatures that are revered (such as with dragon cults), or in some rare cases humanoids who have stepped foot into this realm of power and other humanoids take to worshiping them as messiahs, god-kings, or avatars.
In the end, there's little functional difference between them. Divine magic comes from the spirits of those using it, which is one of the reasons piousness doesn't equate to magical power but strength of soul does (which is why clerics, oracles, and the like grow in power rapidly because their experiences are steadily tempering their spirits where a life of quiet solitude in a temple or monastery doesn't build the soul up as quickly). So deities don't really even need to grant spells, people just have to believe in them fervently enough that they make the connection to their own divine magics (this can sometimes lead to splits in religious ideologies since two clerics can have different ideas of what is correct in the religion but both could be just as gifted magically so there's no clear indication as to which their "god" favors unless the deity appears to them and indicates).
The plane has also been invaded by outsiders (in the literal and figurative sense), as it was invaded by the forces of hell (which in this cosmology is a catch-all evil plane that is home to both demons and devils who are eternally struggling against each other for dominance), and later interceded by the forces of the heavens, which has left much of the world tainted by their presence (giving rise to countless planetouched individuals). Out in the vastness of the material plane's space, other invaders, the Neothelids scheme and plan universal domination. They and their aberrant servants conquered entire planets by seeding them and taking them over through subterfuge and then later (when their forces have the advantage) open warfare. The inhabitants of one of these lost planets fled to the core world and now live there as refugees, trying to prepare and spread awareness of the immense evil that lurks behind the stars. They do not intend to be taken unaware the next time.
That has some striking similarities to a couple of my own campaign settings. Hm. Thanks! :D
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What about other Paizo creatures that have been statted above that CR: obviously, not your cuppa, but what do you think about them?
My near universal complaint is usually that they aren't worth that level of experience budget and/or aren't interesting. If I'm dealing with a unique being of cosmic power, I want the encounter that would ensue to be more than just a slightly scaled up fight with a demon, and that desire is very rarely sated.
For example, the Tarrasque is just a big dumb brute that can be dismantled by a lone 20th level martial and his sidekick.
A being of such immense power should be its own encounter. It should have multiple phases of battle that you can expect, abilities that aren't just about numbers but change the way you are expected to battle them. In many cases, they should be able to change the very environment of the battle in ways that better suit themselves.
For example, great wyrms have side effects to their breath weapons, and abilities like being encircled by giant sandstorms, or the ability to zip around the battlefield with a variety of impressive movement abilities and spreading blinding fog everywhere that hinders everyone aside from themselves. These monsters are both powerful AND the battles against them can be epic and harrowing (because you're not just expected to dimensional anchor them and start spanking, you're fighting the very world around you as they manifest through it).
I tried to capture some of this mindset when I was revising mariliths and balors, giving them a number of swift-action abilities, unique powers and strategies, and things that changed the way they fight you and you fight them. Creatures of even greater CR (such as balor lords) have entirely different tactical schemes.
On a related, but very different note, what about things like Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem?
Haven't played it. I loved the first Eternal Darkness on the gamecube though. :o
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They now only appear to certain people via dream spells and the like to nudge or encourage people instead of interceding directly.
So, now that that campaign is over, how accurate was I when I was predicting divine intervention? ;p
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They now only appear to certain people via dream spells and the like to nudge or encourage people instead of interceding directly.So, now that that campaign is over, how accurate was I when I was predicting divine intervention? ;p
About as accurate as you usually are when you're making predictions and/or guessing at statblocks. :3
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@Klara re. Classes:
I often play casters, but not always.
Currently I'm playing a vigilante, fighter, & druid trio of PC characters.
I fairly recently played an inquisitor & alchemist pair of characters.
I've solo PC played a paladin dragonslayer, a psion shapeshifter, an archaeologist bard, a bard/rogue gestalt, a sorceress/monk succabus, and several others, if I recall correctly.
Good times! :)
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If you had an opportunity to go into space for a year(assuming you were fit enough to do so) to do sciency stuff, would you sign up?
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If you had an opportunity to go into space for a year(assuming you were fit enough to do so) to do sciency stuff, would you sign up?
Don't forget the decade or so of training astronauts need to get, because space is dangerous.
Seriously, look at things like this, or this talk. Astronauts don't get ridiculous amounts of training because NASA likes blowing money. They get ridiculous amounts of training because everything can go horribly wrong with every single little thing they do.
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If you had an opportunity to go into space for a year(assuming you were fit enough to do so) to do sciency stuff, would you sign up?
Probably not. There's a part of me that thinks it'd be a really cool experience, but at the same time, I also don't really have enough personal interest in spending a year in space. Since doing things just to say I did them isn't interesting to me in and of itself, I'd rather pass the torch to someone who'd appreciate that opportunity more.
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New Voltron on Netflix is awesome, btw.
Hahah! Perhaps!
Mostly I meant the concept as it applies to a table.
Obviously, for example, Ash has no problem with Sunder v. PCs, though there are often tables who have the agreement, "You don't, I won't." between PCs and GMs - the idea, in a Sunder-specific case, being that of the PCs aren't sunder-happy, the GM won't be. Not The Sunder agreement is not Ash's thing, certainly, but just the basic concept of similar. As in, "Do you have specific ones? And if so, what?"
This is part of, yet differs from, table varistion, as it is an explicit, "Do not cross this line." kind of deal.
The only two I'm aware of with me as a GM (and many aren't even aware of those that develop at their table) is, "Anything you can do, I (as GM) can do better." and, "Do unto the GM as you would have them do unto you." - that is, don't intentionally wreck the campaign and undermine the GM. That said, for a character with campaign-wrecking tendencies who just fits so well for a player's concepts, I don't necessarily have a problem with them, if we talk about them first, as then I can use a "wrecked" campaign (if it ever comes to that) and roll it in a non-wrecked brand-new game that takes tha into account.
For example, in Council of Thieves, the succubus character totally magically becalmed and then diplomanced the big boss in part four... leaving me in quite the lurch! As it wasn't the intent to wreck the game, I didn't want to negate player agency, but I didn't have any ideas on how to continue the campaign after that. Once you got one of those on your side... it's more or less over for that AP...
(Spoilers avoided.)But, after we'd taken a break from that campaign for a while, I was able to eventually understand how to place the whole thing into context. That dude became one of several of a similar class of agents that were recruited into... a planar reclamation and reformation war (sort of) that tied into the backstory of the succubus I mentioned earlier, that Twilight Tomb module I'd run...
>The only two I'm aware of with me as a GM (and many aren't even aware of those that develop at their table) is, "Anything you can do, I (as GM) can do better." and, "Do unto the GM as you would have them do unto you." - that is, don't intentionally wreck the campaign and undermine the GM.
I am not sure I actually agree(or maybe I just misunderstood your point). I think that players have to be considerate to one another and give one another ample opportunity to shine. I likewise think that GM should try their best to entertain all players equally. However, there is a very real asymmetry there-GM is omnipotent, while players are not. That means that GM will win any and all arms races by default, so even starting one is quite pointless.
As a matter of fact, I think that GM is supposed to underplay their hand, because they(likely) know more about the system than the players. That means that while they could go all Tucker's Kobolds on their asses from level 1, they should probably ramp up the difficulty slowly, otherwise they risk overwhelming the PCs and getting a TPK(which usually aren't fun). Meanwhile, PCs can(and perhaps should) go full Super Sayan 3 Kaioken times 10 right from the start-they, unlike the GM, don't have any particular reason to hold back. And if PCs do find some ridiculously powerful combination that they really like to use, GM should be the one to decide to yield and not make all further opponents immune to such tactic. E.g. if one of the PCs is playing an enchanter wizard, GM shouldn't make all their enemies undead for no other reason than PCs being good at combat.
As for wrecking campaigns and undermining GM...I have never had that happen to me, to be honest. I think that that happens when:
A) Player did something they thought was cool/reasonable, yet the campaign designer wasn't prepared for.
B) Player was bored with the campaign and chose the boring, but efficient option(e.g. wish->"Please make BBEG no longer exist")
C) Player doesn't like you.
If it is A it was clearly unintentional, so all you can do is rebuild the campaign. If it was B it was intentional, but only because you were doing things wrong as it was, so again, only real option is to make a new, better campaign. Finally, if it is C, well...Sorry?
Basically, I think that while GM has to be fair towards their players, players have a lot more leeway in how unfair they can be.
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I tried to use a wish to get out of a campaign arc once.
Only once.
If A happens, I think it is a sign the gm needs to improve. Also potentially a sign of poor campaign design. Of course, Alexandrian's Node Based design techniques sidestep this issue completely.
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I am not sure I actually agree(or maybe I just misunderstood your point). I think that players have to be considerate to one another and give one another ample opportunity to shine. I likewise think that GM should try their best to entertain all players equally. However, there is a very real asymmetry there-GM is omnipotent, while players are not. That means that GM will win any and all arms races by default, so even starting one is quite pointless.
That's actually my point. Some players feel they can "beat" the GM by "out-gunning" them. This... isn't possible. Hence my statement: "Anything you can do, I (as GM) can do better."
That said, it may be obvious, but some players try. Oh, how they try.
As for wrecking campaigns and undermining GM...I have never had that happen to me, to be honest. I think that that happens when:
A) Player did something they thought was cool/reasonable, yet the campaign designer wasn't prepared for.
B) Player was bored with the campaign and chose the boring, but efficient option(e.g. wish->"Please make BBEG no longer exist")
C) Player doesn't like you.
If it is A it was clearly unintentional, so all you can do is rebuild the campaign. If it was B it was intentional, but only because you were doing things wrong as it was, so again, only real option is to make a new, better campaign. Finally, if it is C, well...Sorry?
Basically, I think that while GM has to be fair towards their players, players have a lot more leeway in how unfair they can be.
If it's unintentional, that's its own thing, and I have no "agreement" or qualms about that - as I said, '"Do unto the GM as you would have them do unto you." - that is, don't intentionally wreck the campaign and undermine the GM'... that is, I only focus on those who do so intentionally.
That said, I'll let you know that certain players genuinely do wreck campaigns and derail them intentionally: there's a third fourth option: some players just want to see "what happens" - I've GM'd for (at least) two those guys. In the same game! And one of them was a decent player!
One guy I played with ran a sun-elf cleric (on account of "it's the best") and when I introduced him, before he started playing, I explained his character would have to wait to see the other PCs - the player'd have, like, five minutes, before the other characters came out and he was incorporated into their group.
He was at a temple of his own deity and people, but not his temple. While the other players were about to head out the door, I just, in descriptive form, mentioned a guard waved at him, but asked him to wait for a high priest before he was allowed to enter <specific part> where he didn't need to be anyway. He had his character (literally) flip out, all ninja-like and assassinate the guards via longbow. Because... they didn't let him in the door? He had to wait for everyone to be introduced? I don't know. It was... a confusing experience for all involved. He ended up being subdued by the other PCs and taken prisoner as, clearly, he was crazy, or something, and the player then went back to work.
(He much later returned - the other PCs had kept his character alive - sort of - at great expense and difficulty to themselves (as he kept trying to escape, flip out and kill everyone without talking to anyone; like three different times), though, admittedly, recently, he'd been accidentally and temporarily returned to life as a kobold. I handed him his character sheet, and he immediately commited suicide. He asked if there was anything else he could play. There was an NPC janni the group had worked hard to be friends with, and I said, sure, okay, and let him run that... and he immediately declares he commits suicide. And asked what else he could play. >:I)
((He was... escorted away from our table by several of the players, and did not return.))
- - - -
Same game, I had a player who decided to be a sorcerer named Cheezecake the Venerable. He was a venerable human sorcerer that I allowed to have a cow as a familiar (the familiar "bonus" was the ability to be milked each day...). >.<
Guy was a mess. He
- tried to "help" dead clerics of Lathander (the sun god) by using animate dead on them (though, to be fair, I think he didn't know what that did);
- kept accidentally fireball'ing the only person in the party he didn't hate (my wife's character; incidentally, the only one without SR);
- died and was reincarnation'd so often, I eventually just slapped a permanent "reincarnate" on his character, if only to allow the PCs not to have to go find the druids... again... today. (It was interesting, however - he always hit the same six forms in repetition; I eventually just ruled he always would)
- took leadership (to make dairy farmers to hopefully ruin local dairy economies);
- used polymorph any object on his familiar to make her into a horned human-like female (which he then used as part of an elaborate and really goofy "dance naked through the trees" distraction ploy on some elven guards... which actually kind of worked, though not for the reasons he was intending);
- and frequently walked up to things (such as, just pulling this out at random, a device that actually says, "this is dangerous, don't use" and uses it).
The guy was the first to derail anything, and greeted any new potential PCs with fireballs, unless the rest of the party stopped him via physical force (which they were successful at).
But. He came back every session. He always tried to stay with the party. He wanted his character to live (sort of), and worked to do the adventures... eventually. I no longer have the patience to handle that kind of play style... but at the time we all just kind of got used to him and incorporated him into the game. We were all glad he was there, in the end.
- - - -
There's also just a clash of playstyles - the idea that any set of rules are meant to be broken.
There was a guy (same game) who consistently tried to "beat" the GM (me) at the game. He liked me well enough, and I him. We'd eat lunch and chat, and I ferry'd him to a couple places when needed. Nothing bad about the guy and no bitterness between us.
- In this bank we've been called into to investigate a crime, there's a vault that's not the one we're looking for? It's magically sealed? It's okay, I'm a dwarf cleric, I've got picks, pitons, thirty coils of rope, several pulleys, and leverage: I break into it!
- There's an alarm spell? I grab all the treasure in the vault and run! Yes, through the bank we just came through! With no mask so everyone could see my face! Out the tunnels that took us ten minutes to walk through!
- There're are guards outside? I pick a one-on-one fight with the captain of the guard - I can totally beat him, since I'm a PC and he's just an NPC class!
- My dwarven cleric just went down like a punk because the guard lied and I botched my Sense Motive roll? You say he's alive, and will (probably) be exonerated, if I just explain that it was a mistake? I'll make an arcane caster and twink out my specialty so that I have the fewest forbidden schools! You say that, as an arcanist of any stripe, I should use the shadow weave (as the other arcanist does) because all others have gone insane and that's a centeral plot element that I agreed to before starting this game? I make an red wizard! A non-shadow weave red wizard!
- You say my wizard has been restrained by some druids to prevent him from going insane and destroying himself and everything else? And I can play my old dwarf for all of one session until I find <really easy plot element> that actually allows me to play the wizard? Instead, I break free from the druids, and try to ride past all twelve of the guys who're higher level than I, as fast as my horse can take me!
- You say my wizard was killed by lightning bolts because he entirely ignored the multiple warnings and death threats the druids gave me? I demand to be reincarnated! You say that I was reincarnated randomly as anything other than a human? You've ruined my character! And I make a druid without a name who's a painter!
- You say that there's a force field that digs into the surface of the earth? I put a portable hole on the surface of the earth, put us in it, and use a stick to slide it under! You say that's not how that works? Explicitly in the books? I do it anyway!
- You say that my druid is currently facing an overwhelming army of drow, due to having picked a fight with these twelve he's killed? And have forced the entire party to flee? I'll throw the corpses through this random gate and hop in after with no idea where we'll go!
- You say that this shadow-plane town is run by officers of the law who want to examine my story about the drow corpses that started randomly appearing in the middle of the street, and then I did, and then I started looting them as others gawked at me and even screamed in terror a few times (which you clearly described, in several different ways), and have promised that, if my story checks out, I'll be let go, and allowed to have all "loot rights" to everything the drow owned, if I just DAGGUM TALK WITH THEM FOR FIVE MINUTES*? WHY, I TURN INTO A RAPTOR AND FLY OFF WITH ONE OF THE CORPSES, OF COURSE, TO LOOT IT*.
- You say they, after asking me to stop, and warning me not to go past the shadow-light barrier that prevents the undead shadows from draining my strength, shoot magic missiles at me because, as you've noted about seven or eight times, the "ceiling" in this place is low and I performed three turns worth of action before trying to take off with no words? ... why would they do that?
Not that I'm bitter*.
* (Mmmmmaaaayyyyybe just a little. Also maybe a tad of my voice slipped in there, instead of his. *cough*)
But, in honesty, the guy just didn't get it. I'd speak to him in- and out-of-character. His play style was too deeply ingrained. It wasn't, in fact, a contingency that I'd not planned on. I knew of his his tendencies to do weird things. I provided in-character incentive for him to follow different paths. He just couldn't see it, because he wanted to loot something (at least, from what I could tell). He wanted to play a different kind of adventure. He wasn't "bored" - not really (though he was impatient).
He enjoyed the character interaction when it came up, and the combat when it came up, and most elements when they came up. He just... didn't follow "rules" in-world very well, and kept running afoul of strong organizations that had clear and obvious agendas that wouldn't harm him, if he just waited or went through procedure. His alignment didn't influence this at all. Lawful good dwarf, neutral evil red wizard, and true neutral druid were all the same: grab something you could loot and thumb your nose at "the man" (whatever it was, even if they were trying to help you).
- - -
There was a game I played in, where a player made a pretty girl character who was arrogant, snooty, and irritable. It was terrible.
The character had (as per agreement between GM and player to allow the player's backstory) been blown into town by a magical storm, not entirely sure where she was supposed to be. She verbally insulted everyone else, ignored their attempts at civility, and charmed an innocent bystander into attacking one of the other PCs as soon as she showed up because, "He looked at me funny." The character refused any sort of diplomacy, and was used as a stage to engage in antisocial behavior that was wrecking the very social campaign.
In desperation (and an attempt to prevent further PvP), I had my character charm the other character, which was a drama-bomb waiting to happen, but managed my real-life diplomacy roles well enough to ensure and clarify that I wasn't controlling her, merely making sure she felt comfortable with someone - anyone - in this new town she showed up in, so that she could calm down long enough to talk and be reasonable instead of irrationally attacking people who were trying to help her. Eventually the player accepted, and the character... continued her vitriol against everyone except me, "Because I was nice."
The GM decided enough was enough, and brought in an NPC that could teleport her home, and the player refused. I and the GM explained, ooc, that the player's actions were actively harming the game, but the player refused to alter anything. Eventually, the game dissolved, because there wasn't a way to continue playing. Drama-bombed the thing to smitherines... and the player admitted it, noting they'd, "... wanted to just play this character, no matter the consequences, because that's what games are about. And this character would do things. It's about playing that character, and nothing else matters, even if the game ends." (or something very similar). The the player was generally a pretty okay person... not horrible in every way, as it would indicate by the above, but often thoughtful and respectful of others (if opinionated). But daggum, what an awful experience.
- - -
The thing is, I ask only this: if you know the campaign is meant to be a land-locked game of low magic, don't make a super-crafter-mage merfolk who can't survive outside of full immersion. Or, if you know the theme of the game is to go investigating mysteries and solving crimes to save a town from its own destruction, don't show up as a sadistic psycho killer and arsonist. If the entire game is bent around being a pirate who robs other ships and sails the high seas in freedom, don't bring a cleric of Abadar. Or if you do, and really want that character in those themes, work with the GM instead of against them to make the character work.
The GM isn't meant to be an antagonist.
You can't win an arms race. You can't outplay the GM.
The story is meant to be there for everyone, not just you.
Don't intentionally derail the game.
Don't try to outdo the GM.
:)
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If A happens, I think it is a sign the gm needs to improve. Also potentially a sign of poor campaign design. Of course, Alexandrian's Node Based design techniques sidestep this issue completely.
It...really doesn't though. Boring campaigns/unexpected developments can happen no matter how you design them. Idea that you are talking about helps to minimise the risks, but it doesn't negate them entirely.
--
>Tacticslion's post
That post, full of examples of bad players, took up 2.5 screen lengths for me. And I have a very large monitor with a decent resolution. Do you need a hug?
>Or, if you know the theme of the game is to go investigating mysteries and solving crimes to save a town from its own destruction, don't show up as a sadistic psycho killer and arsonist.
A friend of mine read your post and told me that one of his favourite TV shows is about a psychopathic killer working for the police and solving murders-and by solving I mean finding and stopping other mass-murderers that have comitted those crimes(no, it's not Dexter). Concept is certainly not impossible to work around.
>The GM isn't meant to be an antagonist.
Well...he kind of is, to be honest, since he is responsible for all challenges the PCs face. And I think that an arms race can be a great way to teach someone about the game and(in some cases) the world, but both sides have to agree to it, kinda. I agree with you that it shouldn't be done just for the sake of it though.
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If A happens, I think it is a sign the gm needs to improve. Also potentially a sign of poor campaign design. Of course, Alexandrian's Node Based design techniques sidestep this issue completely.
A is a bit subjective, and the propensity for something to come up you weren't totally expecting becomes more likely the more content you come across. Very few GMs, even those who are very familiar with both the system and GMing, are aware of everything that exists within the ruleset. Many GMs on the Paizo forum never once considered the very simple impact of Heighten Spell + continual flame, or that incense of meditation is even a thing, let alone a thing that is extremely powerful for druids, or that a bead of karma is a thing and is a thing that can allow a cleric to gate and most importantly control a solar, or that a candle of invocation is a pretty spiffy way for someone without planar binding to begin boarding the train to the wish-factory.
Being as the game is constantly evolving and changing over time, new ideas are formed, people use old tools in new ways, or simply do something unexpected. Simply saying "The GM needs to improve" isn't really all that helpful. The GM always needs to improve. You need to improve, I need to improve, everyone needs to improve. We never reach the point of "perfect GM" but it's a journey worth taking anyway.
A great example of a cool/reasonable thing that the GM wasn't prepared for would be a scene where the party knows the big bad and his cronies are meeting in a nightclub. It's been made quite clear that the big bad AND his cronies are too strong for the PCs to do battle with, but the PCs are expected to be able to see them and search for additional clues (such as trying to spy on them, etc). You expect that these clues will let the PCs know where the big bad and his cronies are going to be split up later and the PCs can choose who to make their move on (in a situation similar to how the Alexandrian describes the process of stopping Yassif and his goons at different locations after finding clues to their different locations and such).
However, the PCs happened to have chipped their money together and bought a couple scrolls of cloudkill a bit earlier, which is a spell that's beyond the level of spells they can actually cast themselves (so few would assume that the party would be able to use it). Finding the badguys, the party ends up casting hold portal or something similar on the exits from the room, and instead of spying on them through the ventilation ducts, instead fill their meeting room with cloudkill spells.
Oops. >_>;
In this case, I feel it's less about whether or not you were prepared for that to happen and more about how you handle it happening. There are also a lot of different routes that you can go after this happens (my go-to would be to roll with it and finish out the session, possibly already sketching out some loose ideas for new points of interest; while my least favorite choices would involve changing the scenario right then to make the baddies immune to cloudkill {such as spontaneously giving them all poison-immunity magic items, or making them undead, or giving them potions they didn't have, etc} or immediately inventing a new badguy to replace the big bad so that business proceeds as normal, which I feel partially robs the PCs of their achievement).
As to node based design itself, I prefer a different adventure design I came up with (or at least I haven't seen anyone except me talk about it), but one that I'm happy to say is for the most part compatible with node or linear adventure design if those are your teacups. It was born primarily out of a desire to be more open-ended and give players the maximum amount of content with the greatest amount of freedom for both the PCs and GM.
That is, Event Based Design. :)
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I'm (still) designing a campaign now that I'm going to run in a month or two. It's a space campaign, with heavy influences from Homeworld, Firefly with a splash of Lensman.
I've chosen to use Palladium to run it in, because it's the most familiar to me, and it's mostly going to be a skill based game for a while (until the bonkers stuff starts).
That being said, I've compiled a list of all the skills from various Palladium titles that I'll be using (jury is still out on Mecha. I like them, but sometimes they can steal the focus of a game...players don't care either way...) that are appropriate, but have also found myself having to design O.C.C.s from the ground up for them. Not difficult, but time consuming. I want there to be some overlap in skills, but not specialties (ie. there should clearly be a medic, but fixing people isn't all they should be capable of) so when combat ensues, everyone can play a part.
The biggest problem I have is, in order for the story to work, certain things need to be discovered or suspected by the characters. I have to lay hints or have them observe things that won't necessarily make sense early on, but later will ring loud effing bells. If they figure out things too quickly though, it could make the game a bit less exciting. While these things happen infrequently at first, I need to come up with missions for them to occupy their time and make money and names for themselves, while other things continue to occur in the background.
How would you go about building the template to accomplish this slow leaking out of the main story line?
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The biggest problem I have is, in order for the story to work, certain things need to be discovered or suspected by the characters. I have to lay hints or have them observe things that won't necessarily make sense early on, but later will ring loud effing bells. If they figure out things too quickly though, it could make the game a bit less exciting. While these things happen infrequently at first, I need to come up with missions for them to occupy their time and make money and names for themselves, while other things continue to occur in the background.
How would you go about building the template to accomplish this slow leaking out of the main story line?
Pacing can be a difficult thing for a GM, especially since it's easy to be excited about the thing you're really interested in introducing but being concerned about rushing it. This is something I often struggle with myself because I can be impatient and excited. (Q_Q)
I find that event-based design is really good for this though if it's your thing, because with event-based design you present the campaign as a series of interlocking scenarios that your PCs can explore.
So you can have something like
Main Quest #1, #2, and #3, of an arc.
Then you can have lots of little filler sidequests that can be interjected whenever. Some of those little sidequests can even be related tot he main quests.
I used a prototype of this in the first (and currently only) adventure I've self-published. It was designed to be really easy for the GM to run, so I separated the events of the adventure into "main" and "extra" parts, with "main" portions of the adventure being part of the main story and advancing the game through the adventure. The extra stuff included filler, such as an encounter with a depressed drunk, or happening upon a mugging turned hostage situation, and stuff like that.
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I'm (still) designing a campaign now that I'm going to run in a month or two. It's a space campaign, with heavy influences from Homeworld, Firefly with a splash of Lensman.
I've chosen to use Palladium to run it in, because it's the most familiar to me, and it's mostly going to be a skill based game for a while (until the bonkers stuff starts).
That being said, I've compiled a list of all the skills from various Palladium titles that I'll be using (jury is still out on Mecha. I like them, but sometimes they can steal the focus of a game...players don't care either way...) that are appropriate, but have also found myself having to design O.C.C.s from the ground up for them. Not difficult, but time consuming. I want there to be some overlap in skills, but not specialties (ie. there should clearly be a medic, but fixing people isn't all they should be capable of) so when combat ensues, everyone can play a part.
The biggest problem I have is, in order for the story to work, certain things need to be discovered or suspected by the characters. I have to lay hints or have them observe things that won't necessarily make sense early on, but later will ring loud effing bells. If they figure out things too quickly though, it could make the game a bit less exciting. While these things happen infrequently at first, I need to come up with missions for them to occupy their time and make money and names for themselves, while other things continue to occur in the background.How would you go about building the template to accomplish this slow leaking out of the main story line?
There are two relevant rules of thumb here.
1) Foreshadowing never works as you intend, so just relax and enjoy the road
2) If you want the players to notice something, leave at least three major hints, because they will miss the first, blow the second one up and actually listen to the third.
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That's kinda what I had in mind actually...
The first few sessions will be getting together, getting their ship, deciding what to do as a team, etc. and getting going on their first mission as a crew. I plan on them having access to "terminals" to pick up missions from, so they can decide on what they want to do. Every 2 regular missions or so, I'll put a mission with a tie to the main story arch (whether they see the tie in or not), rinse repeat until the first major reveal. Then, the game turns personal for the characters a bit, as they work less for others and more for themselves, so they can afford to explore things (space travel ain't cheap) and do some sleuthing.
The second major reveal opens Pandora's box, and will shake (or should) the foundation of what the character's know about themselves, as a race and as individuals.
Oddly enough, it is the pacing I'm worried about, because if the game goes too slow, I will lose interest myself. So, while I want to show them the cool stuff, doing so too quickly won't do the story justice. It's the balance of what works and what I'll be happy with that I'll be looking for.
Last time I ran a game for these guys, they failed the campaign, overall.
I think it's because they didn't know that the hints I laid out were in fact hints, and they went where their curiosity took them. I had events progress, albeit slowly, but by the time they put 2 and 2 together, it was too late. I don't want that to happen again.
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The pacing really is the trickiest part. My big issue is that I tend to be too excited about something and throw too much at my PCs too quickly, so in like one session it goes from "Somebody killed Mr. Body" to "It was the butler, in the BDSM room, with the flamethrower" in one session when it should probably have been split up over a few sessions. (^~^);
I think part of that is a lack of patience on my part mixed with my concern about time constraints and of course the countless campaigns that fall apart over time due to things like scheduling issues. I'm still salty that I never got to finish the marilith arc with Aratrok and Raital. (Q_Q)
I think your pacing of 2:1 missions sounds pretty solid. You might even decide to do it in a message-board style thing if they're supposed to be space cowboys. :P
So like, scribble out a few outlines for little scenarios, post 'em on their missions board, and let 'em pick through them. What order they go through them usually won't matter unless you introduce a reason for it to matter (which is fine if it's intended) and it should give them the feeling of absolute freedom (as they can decide what missions to go on out of a pool), just it happens that some of the missions will inevitably lead to the big reveal.
Hell, you could the event-based design technique to turn most any random adventure into a potential hook for the big adventure, simply because you can drop the hooks anywhere that remotely makes sense.
For example, maybe on a routine mission to stop some space pirates the PCs find something that's out of the ordinary (maybe the see SomeGuy McPlothook who leaves the scene, or they find something that suggests the space pirates had some sort of connections to BigBad McEvil). After the party gives their report at the close of the mission, a new quest becomes available as someone (say a government body or something) has a vested interest in something they found and were impressed with their results and so they approach them with a new offer that wasn't open to the general public (or give them access to a more restricted form of the usual terminal quest system for special agents or AAA+ crews).
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Yes that last bit is exactly what I have in mind. At first, it'll be day-to-day salvage/mining/transport mission, then the story one will be "hey while you're out there, can you check on x, you're the closest vessel, blah blah". Where they will find Odd McOddface or Shifty McShifterson...etc.
I can send you specifics, but I don't want my players to stumble accross them here.
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Yes that last bit is exactly what I have in mind. At first, it'll be day-to-day salvage/mining/transport mission, then the story one will be "hey while you're out there, can you check on x, you're the closest vessel, blah blah". Where they will find Odd McOddface or Shifty McShifterson...etc.
I can send you specifics, but I don't want my players to stumble across them here.
It's a pretty decent way to get characters involved with something that doesn't immediately seem to pertain to them directly. It's also really effective at seeding plot points into sandboxy type games if you want to give a sense of wholeness to what may otherwise seem like unrelated episodic adventures. (^-^)
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They'll see through that bit of it, I'm sure (the episodic vs story line), but I just hope they don't figure out the twists ahead of time. :P
>Tacticslion's post
That post, full of examples of bad players, took up 2.5 screen lengths for me. And I have a very large monitor with a decent resolution. Do you need a hug?
Nah, I'm good. For the most part, I'm actually over it. (For the most part. >.>)
Thanks, though! I always accept hugs!
>Or, if you know the theme of the game is to go investigating mysteries and solving crimes to save a town from its own destruction, don't show up as a sadistic psycho killer and arsonist.
A friend of mine read your post and told me that one of his favourite TV shows is about a psychopathic killer working for the police and solving murders-and by solving I mean finding and stopping other mass-murderers that have comitted those crimes(no, it's not Dexter). Concept is certainly not impossible to work around.
Of course. But you have to talk to the GM, first. You can't go in presuming that kind of character is going to fit.
Also, note that the character your friend described is not the character I described, which was very specific, though the lines may well appear overly-fine at first.
Your character is (probably) closer to a serial killer than a mass-murderer; and either way, an arsonist is destructive of the local environment by default.
It can work... but you need to talk with your GM and fellow players.
>The GM isn't meant to be an antagonist.
Well...he kind of is, to be honest, since he is responsible for all challenges the PCs face. And I think that an arms race can be a great way to teach someone about the game and(in some cases) the world, but both sides have to agree to it, kinda. I agree with you that it shouldn't be done just for the sake of it though.
Nope. Absolutely not.
In the same manner that I can play a NE necromancer bent on world-death, but not have those goals as a person; I can be a GM and secretly root for the players, even as that NE necromancer does its darndest to destroy them.
I am not their antagonist - the enemies they face are.
This is a very important distinction.
If I am the antagonist, as a GM, than I'll give you a hint as to what happens: all the players lose. There is no other real outcome, unless I am arbitrarily handicapped in some way.
Similarly, I used to feel that teaching lessons in-character was the best way, too. Then I spent a lot of time with more people, and learned their histories, and watched how their play-styles developed. Now... not so much. Now I feel that actually talking about, and being honest with, others is much more important.
I'm not saying that some groups can't make the in-character thing work; I'm saying it's more error-prone and more likely to generate hard feelings and cause the wrong lessons to be learned: the player may well feel like they have to power-game and get in an arms race with the GM, else the GM will destroy them. This isn't hypothetical, by the way: there are people on these forums with that exact thing as their history and current gaming style, and can't get away from it, even when they know better, because they feel like the GM is out to get them.
By leaving things only in-character instead of out-, the GM indicates/teaches the player that doing things the wrong way is the necessary way, just for survival.
I am adamantly against any antagonistic relationship between GM and player.
Villains and PCs? Absolutely.
GMs and Players? Never.
GMs and PCs? Not really. In the same way that villains aren't really antagonists to the players (unless there's a social agreement), a GMs job isn't to antagonize a PC - because if it is, it's a simple, "You're first level; four hundred seventy three red dragons who hate you come from nowhere and burn you to ashes. They then raise those ashes as a form of undead slave, preventing you from ever getting better. Good-bye!" or some similarly impossible-to-resolve situation that keeps being impossible to resolve no matter what (because it grows harder as the PC gets stronger). That's not healthy or fun for the vast majority of groups.
Again, certain tables may be able to work with that. Good stories can be forged from similar (or less extreme) beginnings.
Most can't. And it's not even a case of "get good" - it's a case of out-of-character hurt feelings and problems that naturally arise when such behavior is engaged in.
A GM should never be the enemy.
Run the enemy intelligently? Sure. But not be the enemy.
It requires a certain degree of compartmentalization.
But a GM must always do that, else the villains will always know a PCs weaknesses and prey upon those, whether it makes sense or not*; and that isn't fun for most groups, either.
I'm all for different play styles, and generally for "let the player make what they want" - but I also apply the same rules to PCs and NPCs alike. Limits are limits. And that means I need to take my knowledge and hide it away to run the villain based on their own knowledge; and I take my goals and hide them away from the villain, and run said villain according to its goals. Meanwhile, I pepper the adventure with hints and bonuses for the PCs so that they, hopefully, defeat the villain, despite its (probably intelligent, I hope?) preparations to avoid defeat.
Hope that makes it clearer what I meant! :)
* There is a difference from a villain having general preparations which are powerful but sensible for and happen to apply to a character's weakness, and all the villains always targeting the character's weakness. That said, if the character's weakness was advertised when they entered the campaign as "Don't do this or else." that filters right back to what I said about running your character by the GM first.
I've said many times, the GM makes or breaks the game. In a sense, they are the game. Everything about the game faced by the players is set by the gm. Even modules and monsters are dependent on the gm's interpretation and how the gm portrays them, how the gm handles encounters and describes the world and events.
Therefore, the gm is more like the world itself, fate, than antagonist.
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>Tacticslion's post
That post, full of examples of bad players, took up 2.5 screen lengths for me. And I have a very large monitor with a decent resolution. Do you need a hug?
Nah, I'm good. For the most part, I'm actually over it. (For the most part. >.>)
Thanks, though! I always accept hugs!
>Or, if you know the theme of the game is to go investigating mysteries and solving crimes to save a town from its own destruction, don't show up as a sadistic psycho killer and arsonist.
A friend of mine read your post and told me that one of his favourite TV shows is about a psychopathic killer working for the police and solving murders-and by solving I mean finding and stopping other mass-murderers that have comitted those crimes(no, it's not Dexter). Concept is certainly not impossible to work around.
Of course. But you have to talk to the GM, first. You can't go in presuming that kind of character is going to fit.
Also, note that the character your friend described is not the character I described, which was very specific, though the lines may well appear overly-fine at first.
Your character is (probably) closer to a serial killer than a mass-murderer; and either way, an arsonist is destructive of the local environment by default.
It can work... but you need to talk with your GM and fellow players.
>The GM isn't meant to be an antagonist.
Well...he kind of is, to be honest, since he is responsible for all challenges the PCs face. And I think that an arms race can be a great way to teach someone about the game and(in some cases) the world, but both sides have to agree to it, kinda. I agree with you that it shouldn't be done just for the sake of it though.
Nope. Absolutely not.
In the same manner that I...
You know, I think we actually agree, and I am just using different words to describe the same concepts.
Like, say, this part
>I used to feel that teaching lessons in-character was the best way, too. Then I spent a lot of time with more people, and learned their histories, and watched how their play-styles developed. Now... not so much. Now I feel that actually talking about, and being honest with, others is much more important.
I am not saying that all lessons should be IC-just that people in general learn faster when they have actual practical examples right in front of them. You can be honest and explain that flanking is good as long as you want, but in the end the best way to do this is to make a combat encounter where an underpowered enemy flanks or an NPC helps PCs flank.
Gotcha! Thanks! :D
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How do you keep your GMing notes? Do you write them by hand, print them, or just use a laptop?
What do you make notes of? Do you use pre-generated unique NPCs if players decide to ask someone for help you haven't thought of(e.g. a player asks if there are any animal shelters in town, and you suddenly need an animal shelter leader), or do you make them up on the spot?
What main attractions do you usually make notes of when heroes are supposed to enter a town?