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I am usually too clueless about music to choose some, though my 5e players pushed me into playing the Pacific Rim theme on loop for a boss battleThe DM/GM playing music would be a precarious point for me, thank god it's never happened; I mean, even if I liked the music, it could feel awkward, but if I don't like the music...I dunno, I've never had this problem. I played mostly songs I knew everybody loved, and a few *I* loved and turned out to be if not hits at least agreeable.against a storm giant quintessentat level 4. That was a fun session, albeit less fun than the one with the constant screaming.I love storm giant quintessents. And fire giant dreadnoughts. And cloud giant laughing ones.
Yeah, I can see your campaign is so incredibly overpowered you'd have them face a quintessent at level 4 X)
Good choice on Pacific Rim, epic OST.
... Constant screaming?... You got it sis, I'm biting. Do tell ;)
Fun fact, that was before the power level went above normal 5e. In fact, at that point everyone had something like a cheap magic item and less than 30GP to their name.
The storm giant was protecting a lost city out at sea, and sunk every ship that came past. The PCs were on an arctic exploration ship as hired muscle and they'd previously fished up some creepy precognitive documents that let them knew something dangerous was coming. The warlock sealed all the outer rooms (which actually stopped the ship going down when the giant punched several holes in it) and the rogue made a bunch of magical firebombs that everyone strapped to harpoons. The crew of the ship set up archers at their command. The fight consisted of the giant punching and blasting holes in the ship, using lair actions to throw people overboard into the churning arctic waves, teleporting around, and generally trying to kill the crew and sink the ship. I think my favourite bit of the fight was when the sorc fell 60 feet from the mast onto the cold metal deck only to later get stomped on by the giant, my second favourite was when the rogue beat the DC to avoid being hurled out of the ship by 2, and perhaps my third favourite was when the rogue accidentally ran into the giant carrying a large number of explosives. Relatively few casualties, at 30 NPCs.
The actual power level escalation occurred in a different boss fight, two levels later. Where I put them up against a fire elemental with the stat block of Maegera the Dawn Titan from Storm King's Thunder and two party members were finally pushed to the brink and invoked the gods. Over 100 NPCs died in that fight, I think several went down with the ship, and the barbarian had to put down around 40 of the survivors thanks to a fungal infection.
The then level 3 PCs were hired by some morally dubious nobles to fetch an aether infused meteorite from the woods outside a city, only to find that it was a fey infested wilderness and overlapped with the extraplanar dominion of the goddess of heartbreak, isolation, and madness. They'd already fought fey wildlife like a snake-tailed bear and the now much feared "dropsnakes" thanks to everybody forgetting the monster manual, and by this point they were getting close to the meteorite. After dealing with a werewolf, a crazed hunter, some more dropsnakes, and some friendly but dangerous looking spectres, our intrepid "heroes" (at that point more just trying to make a living) finally reached the clearing and snatched up the small-ish but heavy rock. Leaving the clearing, several members of the party heard the bone chilling howl of a (IIRC) Yeth Hound and found themselves compelled to flee. Now, this is where the trouble started...
You see, throughout this whole thing they had been semi periodically harassed by a dryad (the murderous tendencies of which I was attempting to base more on a picture I had of the Swedish Askefroa than the traditional happy D&D dryad). Upon seeing the party find themselves in trouble the dryad began to teleport near and harass the party again before warping away (it is possible I misread the tree stride ability they had). But she didn't stop there. The sorcerer in the party could speak Sylvan, and realised that the dryad was insisting that everything else in the woods should help deal with the intruders. So we rolled initiative, and when the party brought up the roll for the "mystery monster", I calmly informed them that said roll was the initiative of the trees.
So. The party was split up, dropsnakes were falling out of trees onto and constricting them, the trees attempted to throttle and ensnare the party with their roots -all the while closing off the path and growing closer and closer to each other. The wizard even set party members on fire trying to burn them free. The dryad used her spells to bog some PCs down. Meenlocks began crawling about nearby, and then it got worse.
The dryad began hurling the corpses of things that the party had killed at them, while working together with the trees to herd the party into pitfall traps it had dug. At one point it even had a treant hurl the dead fey bear at the party.
I forget how long the chase actually took, but all throughout there was constant screaming, shouting, panicking and swearing. eventually the party managed to catch the dryad unawares at the edge of the wood and kill her. The cry of triumph was... monumental. I believe it went to the tune of "Ding dong, the *@&^# is dead!" and some heavy slamming of the table. There was a lot of screaming and swearing and the players of another table just sort of looked over at me in horror. As my guys left the woods, they swore to never step foot in another forest again.
I believe it sealed their hatred of elves when the noble who hired them gave out 30GP each and, after some bartering, a hefty discount on some Common-tier magic items they'd make with the scraps of aether after refining the meteorite.
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Well, my players are awesome role-players, but they don't really care about new rules systems unless it's D&D or PF, they'd actually mostly prefer a completely narrative, freestyle experience, no rules/dice/nothing.
Amusingly, RPGs lacking variables for me are glorified Choose Your Own Adventure books. That's just not my cup of tea.
At least that's what they say, of course when they crit or take lots of damage you see the excitement or fear in their face and voice. Once an npc was dying and Morris told me "I was so worried when Leda went down, I swear!", and I was laughing, "I wasn't at all, because 1) it's only fair that a big white dragon downs somebody in a fight, and 2) she had just failed a single save and was in no immediate danger, plus you had revive!", and he: "Yeah but still! I've grown so attached to her, and she's such a dreadnought, I was almost panicking!".
Now tell me how in all hell you'd get results like this with wholly freestyle narrative with no rules and dice ;P
But still, they won't read game rules unless it's D&D/PF, so I could never trust them to make characters in GURPS. They just wouldn't, they'd refuse. They'd say it's too complex and boring and full of silly stuff and let's play diceless instead or D&D. They're my best male friends but jeez, they don't make it easy on me.
Don't think you'd be as likely to evoke the same reaction in an entirely narrative piece, by and large due to the enormous amount of Narrative Empowerment inherent to a diceless game.
Based on your above statements, I'd hazard a guess that you underestimate your abilities a bit. ;)
Here's an exercise I do almost subconsciously as a GM at this point: use a small scratch pad / open a Note on your phone or computer. During the course of the next game jot down the PCs' personality traits. After the game, look them up in GURPS. Odds are you'll find the bones of a character for each one after a session or two. :)
Also, how would I make some really cool, detailed npcs? I like making npcs. But the rules need to be simpler than this.
How many NPCs need to be detailed? Farmer Brown needs just that - occupation and surname. If Farmer Brown is an alias of a villain, then make any necessary notes. (Such as if Farmer Brown is secretly hosting an intellect devourer in his brain case.) I get the impression you already know most of the essentials as a GM. Beg, borrow, "liberate" and flat-out steal what you need when you need it in terms of portraying the NPCs, even some monsters. There are tons of good stuff on messageboards, including here at Paizo.
Finally, I need a setting. I actually can't improv a game worth s%%!. And the better the setting is delineated, the better I can run it. With just the few info you mention I wouldn't know what to do. Of course I could use already existing settings. Exalted still has a great setting even though the rules suck (at least imo, and that of a rather vocal minority as well), but it's still woefully incomplete with the pace they're publishing stuff. Eberron is an incredible setting. Golarion is very nice. Eclipse Phase is another masterpiece.
Here's the deal though: when I run a game I need to know as much as I can about the setting. If it's an AP, as for Doomsday Dawn, I can do with less. I reread my pdfs, gathered various info, I'm still in the process, but all in all I'm more than ready to run that baby, I'll just need to look at the rules and adventure and I'll be more than fine.
Eberron, though, I have no ready campaign. Same for Eclipse Phase. So I'll have to really study them in their entirety, and they're not fluff-light games (if they were I wouldn't like it). And Exalted, yeah, I can try, but I'd rather run it when all the fluff will have been published (and with different rules of course).
So there it is.
I have tried Apocalypse World for instance, and the improv part of the game really doesn't sit well at all with me. I'm just too OCD for that - I take after my mother ;)
On this I generally agree. A setting is a freight train's worth of work. As time marches on it becomes steadily more difficult to completely come up with one from whole cloth. Most homebrew settings are ones that have built slowly and steadily over the course of a lifetime, or at least a couple of decades.
Sometimes an AP/published campaign may strike you as working better in a setting that you know well. The Setting Police aren't going to boot down your door and drag you off in zip ties for transferring their campaign/AP from their setting to another one.
Hell, if you cobble together a campaign journal as some do hereabouts, unconventional journals can build a loyal following.
I *do* still have a lot of GURPS pdfs though, because those books are like graduate theses - extremely well researched and realistic. I love them. I could probably use them too as settings - GURPS Aztecs, Vikings, China, Banestorm... awesome stuff. With the technology supplements, thaumaturgy, martial arts? Incredible. I'll never be able to actually run GURPS, but I learned a lot of stuff by just reading it =)
I've not updated my GURPS collection since the first few books of 4th edition came out - one or two are still in the shrink wrap from when I bought them.
With Vehicles 2nd Ed. (for GURPS 3rd ed.) I built what in today's terms would be a pseudo-Starfinder-esque setting positing that the Roman Empire survived to become a space-faring civilization. Americanus Vespuccius discovered the Western Hemisphere (from the Roman side of things) whilst the main geopolitical rivals to them on Earth are the Mongol Empire. Over time the Americas liberated themselves from the yoke of Roman Tyranny, blah blah etc etc. As a result, Earth and by extension Sol have three Superpowers.
What the Vehicles 2nd Ed. rules let me do was completely custom-build the setting's assorted vehicles, blue water fleets, aerospace forces and of course the star of the concept: the "Roman Star Navy". (I'd only begun sketching out the IMSF whilst the UASF I'd only written up their pocket battleship.)
Vehicles 2e is such a gem because you can use it to custom-design all manner of things, from sidearms to knock-offs of Big Damned Railguns, photon torpedoes (or the setting's equivalent), "Wave Motion Guns" and so on ad nauseam. Icarus, between the orbit of Mercury and the Sun, serves the primary purpose of a power station beaming power back to Earth. Being Roman-engineered, Icarus also has the [insert ridiculously high security clearance here]-classified capacity to accurately deliver full-powered beams on a 1-centimeter-diameter target to just shy of 1 AU.
I did all of this in the, oh, during the 1990s during the middle-to-later years of the decade.
The main antagonists intended for the setting aren't Terrans ... it's what is Out There in the Void...
The drama comes from Terrans having to figure out how to either settle or set aside aeons-old grudges and differences of opinion before They do Their Thing...
I am usually too clueless about music to choose some, though my 5e players pushed me into playing the Pacific Rim theme on loop for a boss battleThe DM/GM playing music would be a precarious point for me, thank god it's never happened; I mean, even if I liked the music, it could feel awkward, but if I don't like the music...I dunno, I've never had this problem. I played mostly songs I knew everybody loved, and a few *I* loved and turned out to be if not hits at least agreeable.against a storm giant quintessentat level 4. That was a fun session, albeit less fun than the one with the constant screaming.I love storm giant quintessents. And fire giant dreadnoughts. And cloud giant laughing ones.
Yeah, I can see your campaign is so incredibly overpowered you'd have them face a quintessent at level 4 X)
Good choice on Pacific Rim, epic OST.
... Constant screaming?... You got it sis, I'm biting. Do tell ;)
Fun fact, that was before the power level went above normal 5e. In fact, at that point everyone had something like a cheap magic item and less than 30GP to their name.
** spoiler omitted **...
...
Okay, that... was riveting. I'd surmise you're a professional writer, Elleth, aren't you? What have you published?
If you're not, then at least fan fiction perhaps? *Something*?
Anyways... so many questions... let me try and put some method to the madness... okay,
1) Why do you keep sending enormously higher-level enemies after your players? I mean, I can see the results are incredible, but how did that come to pass? Usually people stick to normal challenges, or something a little above... I can testify it doesn't always work, some classes are really powerful... while others, well, have some more problems keeping up. But... in your case, what gave you the idea of unleashing such horrors on your players?...
2) How was the rogue able to make *a bunch of magical firebombs*? I'd say alchemy of course, but even then it's not just snapping fingers and bam, 10 magical firebombs. It would take like a couple days for 1 alchemist's fire more or less, iirc... and alchemist's fire really sucks =/
3) You... really love hurting those pcs, it appears. I mean, I do too, but you seem to take an inordinate amount of glee in having them being stomped on, almost thrown over board, or simply just explode... aren't you ever afraid you'll kill them by accident and the narrative will come to an awkward moment? Maybe I grew up with the wrong examples...
4) ... a fire elemental... with... the stats of... Magaera...
... against a... what? 3rd level party?...
5) Put down 40 people because of a FUNGAL INFECTION? LIKE CANDIDA? THERE ARE - there are herbal remedies for that! Also, cure disease! You don't turn into a ravenous zombie! What, was it cordyceps?!
6) Dropsnakes? O_o
7) I love askefroaor (I had to google-fu my way to the plural, and I'm still not sure) - I like less that so many monsters are hags, succubi, etc, like we're such good inspirations for inventing fiendish killers! X( ... g!!$%&n mythology - sorry, let's go on -__-
8) That was... epic. A whole lot of screaming. I'd like to be able to solicit such screaming in my players as well. Teach me, mistress. Also, "Ding Dong, the bi-ch is dead!"... awesome! XD
9) Okay but... how did the party come upon their current semidivine power level, you didn't say that and I'm curious now... O_O
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Sounds like "3rd level" doesn't mean what 3rd level normally means to me. Sounds like it was fun! :)
Well, my players are awesome role-players, but they don't really care about new rules systems unless it's D&D or PF, they'd actually mostly prefer a completely narrative, freestyle experience, no rules/dice/nothing.Amusingly, RPGs lacking variables for me are glorified Choose Your Own Adventure books. That's just not my cup of tea.
At least that's what they say, of course when they crit or take lots of damage you see the excitement or fear in their face and voice. Once an npc was dying and Morris told me "I was so worried when Leda went down, I swear!", and I was laughing, "I wasn't at all, because 1) it's only fair that a big white dragon downs somebody in a fight, and 2) she had just failed a single save and was in no immediate danger, plus you had revive!", and he: "Yeah but still! I've grown so attached to her, and she's such a dreadnought, I was almost panicking!".
Now tell me how in all hell you'd get results like this with wholly freestyle narrative with no rules and dice ;P
But still, they won't read game rules unless it's D&D/PF, so I could never trust them to make characters in GURPS. They just wouldn't, they'd refuse. They'd say it's too complex and boring and full of silly stuff and let's play diceless instead or D&D. They're my best male friends but jeez, they don't make it easy on me.
Don't think you'd be as likely to evoke the same reaction in an entirely narrative piece, by and large due to the enormous amount of Narrative Empowerment inherent to a diceless game.
Based on your above statements, I'd hazard a guess that you underestimate your abilities a bit. ;)
Here's an exercise I do almost subconsciously as a GM at this point: use a small scratch pad / open a Note on your phone or computer. During the course of the next game jot down the PCs' personality traits. After the game, look them up in GURPS. Odds are you'll find the bones of a character for each one after a session or two. :)...
"Glorified" Choose Your Own Adventure? What's "glorified" about this s!*$? It's all arbitrary, I'm supposed to run adventures based on our telepathic bond of friendship and mutually known tropes and aesthetics, my friends are crazy! They're heterosexual life partners forever ♥♥♥ Great for them, but I'm my own person, I can't read their thoughts! And without dice and rules it's all arbitrary anyways, we could just sit down and write fanfic at that point! I hate diceless games! X(
I don't understand your comment about me underestimating my abilities. I sure ain't a great GM but I try my hardest and get some good results. Unless it's Exalted. Or I don't have any prep. In those cases I suck. Otherwise I'm gold.
Although, after reading The Elleth Chronicles, I mostly feel like a big dumb noobster. Goshdarnit all to heck.
How many npcs need to be detailed? Well, were it for me, all of them. But being that a day is 24h and Exalted is stupidly complicated, only the major ones, with the mooks using mook rules and civilians mostly being just name, appearance, personality, background. The point is that when I need to stat those npcs, if I'm playing PF2 or 5e I can do it in my sleep (well, almost), whereas GURPS... is a big Whiskey Tango Foxtrot situation for me (also Tina Fey rules).
No, look, I like to keep campaigns where they belong! If I move Reign of Winter to Eberron there's NOWHERE I can put Irrisen, and the idea of
... Of course, now that I think about it... one can always "take inspiration" from an AP, for instance. Huh. Not that I've never adapted pieces of canned adventures to my own stuff of course, I just never thought to take elements from the wonderful PF 1st ed APs... that's going on my to do list. For instance
... Americanus Vespuccius? I'm sorry Comrade, how old were you in the '90s? X(
Anyways, see, Vehicles is exactly the kind of rpg material I can't enjoy. It's just too complex. I know nothing about 2nd ed, but I've seen something equivalent in 3rd ed and maybe 4th (in 4th there are magical mechas!!) but the problem stays the same, it's too complicated. I'm not an accountant, I'm a friggin' artist, I need easier systems.
Although, that campaign sounds quite cool, actually. Hi-tech Romans against Cthulhu. Not too shabby, my man.
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In my experience good GMs are not the ones that praise themselves to the Heavens, they are the ones that tackle GM'ing the way life tends to be: learning, one experience at a time. I believe, based on the comments above, that you're able to elicit emotional reactions from your players. This is rather rare. You're doing fine.
^_____^
Based on your profile, I'm old enough to be your dad. Not by much, by enough. Barely. ;)
My suggestion is to apply the principles you outlined re: Exalted NPCs. Detail only your major NPCs; civilians are name, appearance, brief background and brief personality note; mooks are mooks.
Tina Fey does indeed rule.
Thank you re: Romans-in-Space vs. Cthulhu. I probably have that massive binder sealed up somewhere in the house. Probably.
Magical mecha ... oh wow, the Roman Legions would hate to be on the receiving end of those (probably). Then again, the Romans do field some spectacularly nasty mechs of their own. ;)
Right on, and yes, the soundtrack/score for Conan is superb, Carmina Burana, can't go wrong, and still one of my top fantasy movies of all time, don't make 'em like that anymore!If you really know everyone and their taste, then I could see it working. Do these songs have lyrics, or instrumental? What genre?The DM/GM playing music would be a precarious point for me, thank god it's never happened; I mean, even if I liked the music, it could feel awkward, but if I don't like the music...I dunno, I've never had this problem. I played mostly songs I knew everybody loved, and a few *I* loved and turned out to be if not hits at least agreeable.Okay, this was for Exalted, in a custom-made city state with strong Classical Greek flavor. Summarizing, almost all instrumental themes, from:
Battlestar Galactica (plus the beautiful Gayatri Mantra intro, a Hindu prayer to the sun we played before each session as a kind of silly ritual), 300, God of War (all the games but the latest), Conan (the '80s movie... I was surprised at how really great the music was), Dragon's Dogma, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, Wonder Woman, The Last of Us, Pacific Rim, Gladiator, and Sunshine, plus just a couple songs with vocals like Malukah's Reignite, all divided according to: action, ambient, foreboding, and triumphant.
So 99% instrumentals from OSTs of movies, shows and games. I don't think genre really applies with OSTs (although I'm not sure), but you can see there are fast and powerful songs, others which are more mellow for moments of reflection, others still that sound like ballads or even a passacaglia, some electronica-influenced tunes, lots of full orchestras, and just a couple filk ballads, in case.
No they don't. Wasn't Carmina Burana featured in Excalibur, not Conan the Barbarian?
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Okay, that... was riveting. I'd surmise you're a professional writer, Elleth, aren't you? What have you published?
If you're not, then at least fan fiction perhaps? *Something*?
I unfortunately get bored of stories faster than I can write them. Tbh I store most of my session notes in my head (I still owe my PCs a write-up of the Megacity of Pit (cyberpunk hell) before they decide to visit). I haven't actually really tried to write a story since I was 14, because I can never get it to go anywhere. :/
1) Why do you keep sending enormously higher-level enemies after your players? I mean, I can see the results are incredible, but how did that come to pass? Usually people stick to normal challenges, or something a little above... I can testify it doesn't always work, some classes are really powerful... while others, well, have some more problems keeping up. But... in your case, what gave you the idea of unleashing such horrors on your players?...
I noticed that the storm giant quintessent had only 12AC, which gave PCs a good chance to hit. In terms of damage it couldn't instant pulp a PC with one hit. So I figured that, provided the storm giant wasn't directly fighting them, the party could probably take it. For the later maegera fight she had an orthogonal goal to simply fighting the party, the mass death was incidental. She was chosen because I thought her statblock was really cool and figured that AC16 and prep time was good enough for level 6 PCs to take on. Past that point I figured it was fun, but dialed it back a little because my guys didn't want to be constantly fighting titans. I have unfortunately played some monsters a bit dumb when learning combat but I'm slowly getting the hang of it.
2) How was the rogue able to make *a bunch of magical firebombs*? I'd say alchemy of course, but even then it's not just snapping fingers and bam, 10 magical firebombs. It would take like a couple days for 1 alchemist's fire more or less, iirc... and alchemist's fire really sucks =/
Ship's engine room, "aether dust" (think magically enhanced coal dust), arcana checks. I gave it as an example of something and the rogue ran with it.
3) You... really love hurting those pcs, it appears. I mean, I do too, but you seem to take an inordinate amount of glee in having them being stomped on, almost thrown over board, or simply just explode... aren't you ever afraid you'll kill them by accident and the narrative will come to an awkward moment? Maybe I grew up with the wrong examples...
At the end of the day I want my guys to have fun, so I enjoy the situations where I can cut loose and almost kill them but not actually. It might not seem like it but I'm actually a bit soft -only 4 PCs have become ex-PCs for reasons other than the player not being able to commit, and all of them were due to story reasons (and related to their respective blessings and curses). We're at level 17 now. I did botch it once though. Lowered AC ancient green dracolich. Level 11 players, I forgot to calibrate the breath weapon properly and almost killed two PCs in a very very unfun manner.
4) ... a fire elemental... with... the stats of... Magaera...
... against a... what? 3rd level party?...
Oh no. A 6th level party. Also archers on the ship, and people staffing the harpoons. Some NPCs were making depth charges with the oversight of the rogue again. Still, Maegera's heat aura killed something like 30 NPCs per round, and she melted a hole in the ship to get inside. Her soul was trapped in a golem the party thought was just some weird magic kid, which they had lovingly adopted and called Valerie. Due to some prophecy misreading on the part of the players they released her body which decided to go and pick up its soul and then escape. She got her soul, sunk the ship during her escape, and got shot down by archers and a single point of fall damage during her escape.
I think the fight took like 4 hours. It was incredibly intense as one mistake from me could lead to a poorly timed TPK.
5) Put down 40 people because of a FUNGAL INFECTION? LIKE CANDIDA? THERE ARE - there are herbal remedies for that! Also, cure disease! You don't turn into a ravenous zombie! What, was it cordyceps?!
When the Flame Titan Valerie emerged from her bindings, she scattered something with stats borrowed from the Gas Spore upon the waves. The healers were out of spells and the mundane doctors could only spare a few. So barbarian knocked them all out and drowned them (death in air would have led to the spores being spread) so nobody else could get infected.
6) Dropsnakes? O_o
They are serpentine fey that live in trees and drop out of them on unsuspecting prey. About as big as a person, good at constricting, and venomous. There were a lot of nests of them in that forest and the player of the former rogue panics whenever the idea of snakes, trees, and falling comes up.
7) I love askefroaor (I had to google-fu my way to the plural, and I'm still not sure) - I like less that so many monsters are hags, succubi, etc, like we're such good inspirations for inventing fiendish killers! X( ... g~#+$~n mythology - sorry, let's go on -__-
If you want more evil murderous dudes then check out the Nakken from Scandinavian myth (guy who sits in a stream playing a fiddle to lure people to their death) or a fair number of yokai whose name can be derived from a word for monk. D&D/PF hags seem like a weird case of merging a bunch of myths together and really you could throw players off by making male "hags" a thing in the form of creepy hunchbacked wizards who live in the hills.
8) That was... epic. A whole lot of screaming. I'd like to be able to solicit such screaming in my players as well. Teach me, mistress. Also, "Ding Dong, the bi-ch is dead!"... awesome! XD
It's a... little hard to give general advice here, as it boils down to knowing what causes your players to freak out. Most of the time I just start smiling whenever the twitchiest player starts doing something.
9) Okay but... how did the party come upon their current semidivine power level, you didn't say that and I'm curious now... O_O
During the fight with Valerie/Maegera the level 6 melee barbarian got in melee combat with her. Predictably, he went down quickly. I reminded him that he could pray to a god and perhaps they'd listen, and he did so.
He prayed for power to Yabasanaak, mother of monsters and patron of heroes, goddess of stories and legend. She responded and he merged with his sword and entered a berserker rage, passing Wisdom saves to keep his mind. He did some considerable damage and then passed out from his own wounds.I then asked if anyone else wanted to pray and the rogue did. To Nimmoreth, goddess of heartbreak, isolation, and madness. He asked for nothing and just gave me the rationale of "can't get any worse." This is generally considered a bad idea. He got a surprise dryad visit, planar rifts, and fey running around from that, ended up after the fight with the ability to partially phase into things (and later store stuff in his shadow). His bad decision ultimately led to him turning himself into a tree by eating a cursed apple (that he knew was a bad idea to eat) he got with his "blessing". To this day none of us know the actual reasoning for this, we just assume that his character snapped. The player is still playing.
The barbarian ended up with a power that let him absorb items, but abuse would cause his need to consume to grow. The player had a huge amount of restraint and with some in character effort managed to persuade the goddess of monsters and heroes to have him be the latter, not the former. Given that he outlived everyone else in the original party despite being the first to make a pact, I gave him control over his blessing (I believe I put it in the when's the next blog chat, dubbed "the seven colours of death") via a feature called the Emperor's Oath.
Later the sorcerer got jealous of the immense power, and made an ill advised pact with the devil Zdahradel, one of the most malicious in setting entities. He got the ability to turn items into demons, which he absolutely loved. He also accidentally caused a demon to try and murder the party, and summoned more demons to protect his "baby" from the party, while trying to avoid fighting the party. The party killed the demons, took him hostage, and then when they realised his ability to silently cast spells meant they couldn't contain him, had a huge heartfelt debate culminating in the barbarian chopping off his head. The player handled it like a champ, and as a result PvP has become an acceptable and amicable way of the party keeping a consistent moral compass. His new PC is a goodie two-shoes bard who accidentally stumbled into a deal with Hleiyula the Conquering Queen (more on her in the next case, though this time it might go better).
Then the wizard accidentally awakened an ancient giant lich gish known as Gigashadokuro the Dread-king. The brother of the storm giant and husband of the elemental (who he had sealed away while he tried to bring his stillborn son back to life, before his sister killed him on her deathbed, seeing the tyrant he had become (I run giants as excessively shakespearean in mentality, so this is par for the course)). Dread-king freaked out, swore a death-oath against the party, and upon realising that his powers were too weak to remotely kill the perpetrators, began remotely killing the NPCs they needed to survive (e.g. healers, watchmen, organisers, etc.) The wizard didn't take this well and on a whim demanded power from Hleiyula the Conquering Queen, goddess of hubris, betrayal, magic and song. Goddess of unrepentant ambition and patron of warlords. She was more than happy to comply and gave him the ability to harvest the souls of the dead for power. Of course, she wanted to drive a wedge between him and his allies, mostly of his own choice, forcing him to become a brutal warlord. Ultimately I let him trade in souls for monster powers. After a while of using it he failed a save and picked up a form of long term madness that made people look like building blocks for greater power. Still, he stuck by his old moral compass for a while, but didn't bring up his creeping madness with the party. Instead he tried sneaking off to look for souls in the ruins, and then to pick off some cruel criminals like a darker and edgier batman. Unfortunately he then got paranoid about letting witnesses see him use blatantly supernatural abilities, and so ate their souls too. Then he realised how fast the powers were stacking up and just went off the deep end and picked off anyone he could get away with. By the time the party found out (spies of a fey tyrant revealed it after he spurned the fey tyrant and electrocuted their avatar) he'd become a lich, and gained the ability to shapeshift, absorb lightning, howl like a demilich, pass through walls, possess people, summon ghosts to fight for him, and exhale poison. He refused to admit that anything he'd done was wrong and got into a fight with the party, almost TPKing them. The warlock came to the rescue and banished him (OG party originated on a different plane) and now he's the most hated antagonist they're waiting to return. Player is playing a new, goodie two-shoes PC. His new PC ended up in a deal with Fenra the Thunder Maiden, a Prometheus like lesser deity who stole free will and magic from the gods and gave it to mortals. So it's going more amicably this time.
The warlock ended up asking the god/dess of trickery, duality and fate to become a god. I'd mentioned previously to the players that becoming a god was impossible, though there were occasions of gods having mortal aspects. He ended up half-realising the truth and gained great power, until his eventual apotheosis, realising that he was the god he prayed to all along (and posthumously arranged for certain weird events related to that god that took the players to this moment, and left a parting blessing on the party to represent him still watching over them).
I don't understand your comment about me underestimating my abilities. I sure ain't a great GM but I try my hardest and get some good results. Unless it's Exalted. Or I don't have any prep. In those cases I suck. Otherwise I'm gold.
Although, after reading The Elleth Chronicles, I mostly feel like a big dumb noobster. Goshdarnit all to heck.
Nahhhhhhh. I suck at a lot of stuff, like handling NPCs in character. I'm also terrible at prep. Like. My prepped sessions are actually worse on average than the ones where I just have a vague idea what's going on and pretend I know what I'm doing. I actually only worked out how to run fights properly with the big boss monster ones mentioned above. If your people are enjoying it, you're probably good.
In my experience good GMs are not the ones that praise themselves to the Heavens, they are the ones that tackle GM'ing the way life tends to be: learning, one experience at a time. I believe, based on the comments above, that you're able to elicit emotional reactions from your players. This is rather rare. You're doing fine.
Yep, this. Emotional reactions are the biggie. And I can attest that when I started this campaign I was more unjustly smug than I am right now, learning is what makes it work.
Also yes. Romans, Americas, and Mongols Vs Horrors from BEYOND is a fun idea and I like it.
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Both, and Excalibur rocks, too.Right on, and yes, the soundtrack/score for Conan is superb, Carmina Burana, can't go wrong, and still one of my top fantasy movies of all time, don't make 'em like that anymore!No they don't. Wasn't Carmine Burana featured in Excalibur, not Conan the...
I'll have to re-watch Conan the Barbarian then. I'm much more familiar with Carmina Burana from Excalibur. Not that this is a harsh task. Who doesn't like watching Ahnold hacking apart all manner of things with a bastard sword? ^_____^
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** spoiler omitted **...
Why thank you, Elleth!
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Also, so I actually contribute while I'm here.
Actions for concentration is definitely how I'd consider balancing it, but maybe the lack of stacking is good enough even if this isn't really a thing.
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Are buff spells visible?
Do the people with ten magic spells stacked on themselves just glow as hell?
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Also, so I actually contribute while I'm here.
Actions for concentration is definitely how I'd consider balancing it, but maybe the lack of stacking is good enough even if this isn't really a thing.
*Nods sagely*
I think I caught a blurb on one of the blogs that there are only four bonus types, none of which are stackable with themselves (such as circumstance, dodge, racial and untyped from PF1).
Should all of the spells provide typed bonuses, then concerns about excessive buff spells being active solves itself.
Are buff spells visible?
Do the people with ten magic spells stacked on themselves just glow as hell?
Well, in PF1 abjuration spells are perceivable (DC 25 + spell level), with it being somewhat easier to notice those under the protection of 2 or more 24-hour+ duration abjurations (21 + spell level) according to a recently hashed-out discussion.
Kinda puts the kabosh on slathering under eleventy-million abjurations then trying to sneak around "undetectable" via mind blank. ;)
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Are buff spells visible?
Do the people with ten magic spells stacked on themselves just glow as hell?Well, in PF1 abjuration spells are perceivable (DC 25 + spell level), with it being somewhat easier to notice those under the protection of 2 or more 24-hour+ duration abjurations (21 + spell level) according to a recently hashed-out discussion.
Kinda puts the kabosh on slathering under eleventy-million abjurations then trying to sneak around "undetectable" via mind blank. ;)
Unless addressed in the rules I may as well just add "magic things and spells glow in leylines" to my growing list of optional rules for leylines.
Unless addressed in the rules I may as well just add "magic things and spells glow in leylines" to my growing list of optional rules for leylines.Are buff spells visible?
Do the people with ten magic spells stacked on themselves just glow as hell?Well, in PF1 abjuration spells are perceivable (DC 25 + spell level), with it being somewhat easier to notice those under the protection of 2 or more 24-hour+ duration abjurations (21 + spell level) according to a recently hashed-out discussion.
Kinda puts the kabosh on slathering under eleventy-million abjurations then trying to sneak around "undetectable" via mind blank. ;)
Sounds good to me.
In my experience good GMs are not the ones that praise themselves to the Heavens, they are the ones that tackle GM'ing the way life tends to be: learning, one experience at a time. I believe, based on the comments above, that you're able to elicit emotional reactions from your players. This is rather rare. You're doing fine.
^_____^
Based on your profile, I'm old enough to be your dad. Not by much, by enough. Barely. ;)
My suggestion is to apply the principles you outlined re: Exalted NPCs. Detail only your major NPCs; civilians are name, appearance, brief background and brief personality note; mooks are mooks.
Tina Fey does indeed rule.
Thank you re: Romans-in-Space vs. Cthulhu. I probably have that massive binder sealed up somewhere in the house. Probably.
Magical mecha ... oh wow, the Roman Legions would hate to be on the receiving end of those (probably). Then again, the Romans do field some spectacularly nasty mechs of their own. ;)
Thank you, you're too nice, you old bastard ;)
So you were a full-grown adult when you named Amerigo Vespucci AMERICANUS VESPUCCIUS!! X( OMG WORST NAME EVER and you used Latin to clean your butt essentially, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
It's "Americus Vespucius", FYI.
YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Unless addressed in the rules I may as well just add "magic things and spells glow in leylines" to my growing list of optional rules for leylines.Are buff spells visible?
Do the people with ten magic spells stacked on themselves just glow as hell?Well, in PF1 abjuration spells are perceivable (DC 25 + spell level), with it being somewhat easier to notice those under the protection of 2 or more 24-hour+ duration abjurations (21 + spell level) according to a recently hashed-out discussion.
Kinda puts the kabosh on slathering under eleventy-million abjurations then trying to sneak around "undetectable" via mind blank. ;)
Sometimes they also just glow, you know? As specified in the spell description. Other times it's something like blink and even if that doesn't glow you're intermittently disappearing/reappearing like someone had a bad trip. There is quite a bit of noticeable stuff, and all together it can be overwhelming enough to induce seizures in small children...
I'll have to re-watch Conan the Barbarian then. I'm much more familiar with Carmina Burana from Excalibur. Not that this is a harsh task. Who doesn't like watching Ahnold hacking apart all manner of things with a bastard sword? ^_____^Both, and Excalibur rocks, too.Right on, and yes, the soundtrack/score for Conan is superb, Carmina Burana, can't go wrong, and still one of my top fantasy movies of all time, don't make 'em like that anymore!No they don't. Wasn't Carmine Burana featured in Excalibur, not Conan the...
Start by playing the OST in the background while on the comp. The description under the "clip" has all the songs' names.
I don't like 80s movies in general, but this music is a feat of legend.
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Thank you, you're too nice, you old bastard ;)In my experience good GMs are not the ones that praise themselves to the Heavens, they are the ones that tackle GM'ing the way life tends to be: learning, one experience at a time. I believe, based on the comments above, that you're able to elicit emotional reactions from your players. This is rather rare. You're doing fine.
^_____^
Based on your profile, I'm old enough to be your dad. Not by much, by enough. Barely. ;)
My suggestion is to apply the principles you outlined re: Exalted NPCs. Detail only your major NPCs; civilians are name, appearance, brief background and brief personality note; mooks are mooks.
Tina Fey does indeed rule.
Thank you re: Romans-in-Space vs. Cthulhu. I probably have that massive binder sealed up somewhere in the house. Probably.
Magical mecha ... oh wow, the Roman Legions would hate to be on the receiving end of those (probably). Then again, the Romans do field some spectacularly nasty mechs of their own. ;)
That's dirty old bastard to you, young lady! ;)
So you were a full-grown adult when you named Amerigo Vespucci AMERICANUS VESPUCCIUS!! X( OMG WORST NAME EVER and you used Latin to clean your butt essentially, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
It's "Americus Vespucius", FYI.
Re: "Americus Vespucius", there was no such thing as Google Translate then, precious few Latin-English dictionaries and I'd barely squeaked through a semester of Latin as a high school freshman!
YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)
** spoiler omitted **
This is incredible, Elleth. You say you're still learning but this is absolutely epic stuff. And it's obvious you don't need any prep - you're not the only one, my players too, when they run it, they don't prep almost anything, they just intensely, prolongedly think about the adventure, coming up with details they memorize, and what they didn't have ready, they improv. I would NEVER be able to run without extensive prep, I envy you guys a bit.
If writing bores you then you probably chose the right hobby! Stories without the need of writing down stuff! It would be glorious, though.
... a write-up of the Megacity of Pit, cyberpunk hell... I'd trade a little finger for your genius in all honesty.
That sounds like a clever way of deciding what enemies to present - actually checking their stats, instead of just eyeballing their cr...
I'm a huge softie too, I would cheat to avoid untimely players' deaths... although, perhaps if raising them would be possible, well... but anyways, I try to follow a narrative logic, and that means I'm really extra careful not to have them die permanently... I should give them harder challenges, it's becoming too easy. I hope Doomsday Dawn gives them a good scare (one of them is really thrilled by Golarion and likes what I'm telling them of PF2, he particularly loves the art. I didn't even show him all the best).
... Valerie... So. Awesome.
Are dropsnakes from... wait, I don't remember them from any 5e product. What's their deal? Where did you find them?
Yeah, I knew about the nakkan (although I called that type of fae a fossegrim), it's just... it's my old conceit that some monsters are obviously inspired by undesirable, othered people. Hags are old women and witches to boot, succubi are temptresses (slut-shaming), a male hag would be an old man, it'd still be ageist... I would like monsters that act like imperialistic pigs once in a while. I'm glad there's Cheliax for that, though. I just don't like my monsters to be very obviously derived from people who are actually already demeaned in real life. But anyways.
Okay, your pantheon is... awesome. Did you come up with it? Do you worldbuild? First off, how did you manage to come up with such great names? Secondly, really cool, original deities... I can't describe how impressed I am. And I swear I'm not bootlicking, I really feel awed.
Wow, really awesome. Oh, and do you think if we keep threadjacking the mods will come rein us in? I don't see why, we're all having fun, aren't we? And *sometimes* we do talk about buffs ;P
I don't like 80s movies in general,Why?
Because my aesthetics were shaped by the 90s. My classics are Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Fight Club, The 6th Sense, 7, American Beauty, Fargo... I'm ill-equipped for '80s movies, it's a paradigm switch in filmography, photography, acting, even the music was a bit corny, even though I like a lot of it all the same. It's actually not easy for me to watch '80s movies - they have familiar elements, but that only makes them more alien to me, you know, like the Uncanny Valley phenomenon. Oh! Alien! I did like Alien, and Aliens, I really did. But, for instance, I greatly prefer the newest Star Wars trilogy to the first one, and that's blasphemy conventionally speaking, nobody likes it, everybody prefers the original movies. And still... that's how my brain works (shrugs) =)
Thank you, you're too nice, you old bastard ;)That's dirty old bastard to you, young lady! ;)
Oh oh oh, you won't have to repeat that, Uncle! ;)
So you were a full-grown adult when you named Amerigo Vespucci AMERICANUS VESPUCCIUS!! X( OMG WORST NAME EVER and you used Latin to clean your butt essentially, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
It's "Americus Vespucius", FYI.
Re: "Americus Vespucius", there was no such thing as Google Translate then, precious few Latin-English dictionaries and I'd barely squeaked through a semester of Latin as a high school freshman!
That's why I went all Game of Thrones on you. I STUDIED Latin, what did you think? I don't remember s%+&, but I STUDIED IT XD
YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)
I like mass drivers... but they usually need little gravity and many miles of infrastructure, no? Like, you could build one on the Moon. Do your mecha have portable mass drivers? Holy crap, I underestimated my ancestors...
Because my aesthetics were shaped by the 90s.I don't like 80s movies in general,Why?That seems a very limited and primitive way to think about an art form, I may have been born in the 70s, but I appreciate films from all decades, since they have been made (too many gems to ignore).
Also, watching older films gives you transparency: "Ah, so this is where they got that...".
It's definitely very limited, no s@!!. I just am limited like that, I don't know what to tell you. If I could help myself I would, but I've tried watching many '80s movies and it just, doesn't, compute =/
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Thank you, you're too nice, you old bastard ;)That's dirty old bastard to you, young lady! ;)Oh oh oh, you won't have to repeat that, Uncle! ;)
So you were a full-grown adult when you named Amerigo Vespucci AMERICANUS VESPUCCIUS!! X( OMG WORST NAME EVER and you used Latin to clean your butt essentially, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
It's "Americus Vespucius", FYI.
Re: "Americus Vespucius", there was no such thing as Google Translate then, precious few Latin-English dictionaries and I'd barely squeaked through a semester of Latin as a high school freshman!That's why I went all Game of Thrones on you. I STUDIED Latin, what did you think? I don't remember s!+*, but I STUDIED IT XD
YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)I like mass drivers... but they usually need little gravity and many miles of infrastructure, no? Like, you could build one on the Moon. Do your mecha have portable mass drivers? Holy crap, I underestimated my ancestors...
Uncle. Rolls the concept around in his brain for a bit. I like that, thanks!
Hey, I am glad to take the correction on Latin nomenclature. I didn't study it, and at this point... yeah, I'd probably anglicize almost everything and hand it off to someone like you to comb through it and fix all the screw-ups. ;)
The difference between railguns and mass drivers at that time is one of bore size. The smaller bore sizes (25mm or less, I think - I don't have the Binder of Roman Doom at hand) are railguns. Anything bigger is classified as a mass driver.
The Moon is Switzerland-in-Space. Terrans love their Moon. (Almost no Terran knows the terrible truth about its origin ...)
Romans use fusion reactors, primarily, for combat vehicles (mechs, AFVs, aerospace, blue navy), starships et al, with banks of flywheel capacitors for high-energy intensity functions, barring the more unique projects such as Icarus. The older designs still in service are ... eclectic ...
Speaking of buff spells I assume we still still have bull str and the like with the changes where a stat buff item only gives +2 is it safe to assume that bull str will only give +2 as well?
Speaking of buff spells I assume we still still have bull str and the like with the changes where a stat buff item only gives +2 is it safe to assume that bull str will only give +2 as well?
I don't know that we will have ability score boosting spells when it takes major magic items or artifacts to get a measly +2 bonus to one ability score.
Well if they did they would probably make them higher level at least.
As an aside, the 'capped ability scores' paradigm is bugging me a little bit, especially in conjunction with the current state of ability score generation.
For the most part Nouveau Pathfinder is sacrificing more than a few sacred cows. This is one that was sacrificed with the advent of d20.
Now they're resurrecting this particular sacred cow, returning to a pre-3e paradigm on ability scores.
I'm fine with it if (a) All of the Things adhere to whatever the absolute upper limit is (such as pre-3e's absolute ability score cap of 25); and (b) it is possible, however unlikely that it may be, to attain that cap.
It was possible to do so pre-3e. Extraordinarily difficult, but possible.
If the upper cap is within, say, 4 points of character creation's maximum, then we're playing in the territory of When Everyone is Exceptional, No One Is. This is Not a Good Thing.
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Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Clearly, that type of units are auxilia!
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Clearly, that type of units are auxilia!Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Well ... the Catapult-class mecha were massive artillery platforms ... ;)
So, is it just films made between 1980 and 1989, or all films made before 1990?It's definitely very limited, no s@%*. I just am limited like that, I don't know what to tell you. If I could help myself I would, but I've tried watching many '80s movies and it just, doesn't, compute =/Because my aesthetics were shaped by the 90s.I don't like 80s movies in general,Why?That seems a very limited and primitive way to think about an art form, I may have been born in the 70s, but I appreciate films from all decades, since they have been made (too many gems to ignore).
Also, watching older films gives you transparency: "Ah, so this is where they got that...".
I have trouble with everything outside the paradigm of current art and entertainment. I can appreciate elements, but old stuff is either boring, campy, or weird to me. So yeah, even older movies, I can try to watch them but for the most part I just don't like them. There are exceptions, and as I said I can appreciate individual parts - a story, some techniques, the care with which the whole work was put together... I liked A Clockwork Orange, I loved 1984 and The Lord of the Flies if we bring books into the discussion, and there's a whole lot of old music I like, but my default preference is always current stuff.
Thank you, you're too nice, you old bastard ;)That's dirty old bastard to you, young lady! ;)Oh oh oh, you won't have to repeat that, Uncle! ;)
So you were a full-grown adult when you named Amerigo Vespucci AMERICANUS VESPUCCIUS!! X( OMG WORST NAME EVER and you used Latin to clean your butt essentially, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
It's "Americus Vespucius", FYI.
Re: "Americus Vespucius", there was no such thing as Google Translate then, precious few Latin-English dictionaries and I'd barely squeaked through a semester of Latin as a high school freshman!That's why I went all Game of Thrones on you. I STUDIED Latin, what did you think? I don't remember s!+*, but I STUDIED IT XD
YAY FOR TINA FEY
Yeah, no, I don't necessarily stat down everyone - I usually limit myself to major npcs. I wouldn't stat a random butcher or weaponsmith. Unless they were really extremely interesting...
BUT DO THE ROMAN MECHAS LOOK LIKE IMPERIAL LEGIONNAIRES? Because that's what really matters, Uncle Comrade.
Not all of them, just the little ones. Railguns don't lend themselves to being pilum-shaped. Especially large-bore mass drivers. ;)I like mass drivers... but they usually need little gravity and many miles of infrastructure, no? Like, you could build one on the Moon. Do your mecha have portable mass drivers? Holy crap, I underestimated my ancestors...Uncle. Rolls the concept around in his brain for a bit. I like that, thanks!
Hey, I am glad to take the correction on Latin nomenclature. I didn't study it, and at this point... yeah, I'd probably anglicize almost everything and hand it off to someone like you to comb through it and fix all the screw-ups. ;)
The difference between railguns and mass drivers at that time is one of bore size. The smaller bore sizes (25mm or less, I...
Re: Uncle, thanks to you for being game ;)
Oh it's not like I'm some Latin expert, I just remember some principles.
Ah, okay, I see how you're classifying those weapons.
Fusion reactors using Helium-3 mined from various satellites is only reasonable. Btw, last year they started one in England - does anyone know the current state of things?
Wow, I am very saddened to hear that, especially considering current art and entertainment is generally at an all time low (music and film are severely mediocre), certainly mainstream.
No need to pity me, I'm really happy with current art. I love MCU movies, they're a lot of fun and great escapism. Pixar still cranks out great stories. I love the current SW trilogy, this last version of It was the best I've seen, and maybe we'll even get a decent movie treatment of Battle Angel Alita.
Then we have Orange is the New Black, Stranger Things, Jessica Jones, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and sometimes Game of Thrones is really good all things considered.
As for music we have Sara Bareilles, Barrett Wilbert Weed singing show tunes and great authors' songs, Ramin Djawadi, Adele, and where I live there are a couple really good artists, plus I can always listen to "old" songs by Green Day, Sting, Ani Di Franco, REM, Pearl Jam, They Might Be Giants, Foo Fighters, System of A Down, Radiohead... and with music I have less problems with actual oldies and can enjoy The Bangles, Depeche Mode, U2, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Tears for Fears, Queen... I can dig a lot of '80s songs, I've found out.
There's also a lot of really good PS games around (I consider games art). My very first was FF7, I think I was 12! XD But more recently we've had The Last of Us, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3... good stuff I'd say.
So yeah, in all likelyhood I'll never discover some great seminal bands and directors... but honestly I'm not making a big deal out of it.