DungeonmasterCal's House of Respite

[Mark Hoover 330]

Spoiler:

when did taking risks become taboo in PF1 games? Over the weekend I had monsters with the Hover special ability fighting a group. One player was itching to use his Fireball but couldn't see well enough to have the PERFECT placement of said spell to take out all of the monsters, since the Hover feat allows Large sized monsters to kick up a sizeable dust and debris cloud that obscures vision.

Since the monsters gain Concealment (50% miss chance) I told the player it'd be a 50/50 shot on hitting the target square. He's only level 5 with 2 level 3 spells for the day, so he opted to cast Haste on the party instead, then sat with his arms crossed glaring at me.

This same group of PCs took nearly an hour and used the U-Rogue in Stealth to investigate 90' of empty cave tunnel. Tunnel, mind you, they'd been through a dozen times (return trips to a megadungeon) AND they have low-level NPC allies watching from a guard post for the party.

Like, I'm all for caution but the point of being an "adventurer" is to, I don't know... ADVENTURE? Take risks, try things, explore territory.

The best is, last game session they complained about how slow the game is, blaming it on the U-rogue checking for traps so hard. This weekend the entire party took half an hour of real time to do a mini CSI analysis over some dire bat guano they found in a hallway.

I know I give the impression like I'm spent with these players but they really are good folks and genuine friends. I just think sometimes they overthink things in games is all. I DO wish they'd try different things, different tactics, or just generally "feel" the game instead of always calculating the most reliable, efficient way to resolve every conflict.

[quibblemuch]

Have you tried an action timer? 6 seconds may be too harsh, but even a 10-15 second limit on action decision will require players to loosen up some. Or possibly seize up and never take any action... which generally solves the problem too.

[DungeonmasterCal]

My group are the Great Cabalistic Masters of Overthinking. I've had to just announce, "Ok, you have ONE minute to come up with a plan" before. Once, as a sort of experiment, I just sat back and literally listened to them plan on how to open a door, come up with all sorts of questions about how would this or that affect a Perception roll to detect what's on the other side, then the WHAT IF there is nothing on the other side and the BUT WHAT IF THERE IS something on the other side, WHAT MIGHT IT BE and then a whole laundry list of possibilities, and then contingencies to deal with what MIGHT be there. This took about two hours. Seriously. I know I could have just had the door burst open and have had angry Orcish orphans dressed as eldritch horrors with rubber tentacles and googlie eyes pasted on their bodies come boiling through it trying to eat their brains at any moment in order to speed things along (and I have actually told them to roll initiative in the middle of an overplanning session). But this time I decided to just see what would happen if left to their own devices. I didn't go off surfing the net while they did it or bury my face in my smartphone. I just sat there with a sort of "oh my God why do I hate myself this much" combined with a smirking sort of "See? This is why I want to drown your characters in burlap bags stuffed with vampire bees" look on my face. They didn't even notice. Then they got indignant when, after they had finally decided on a PLAN OF ACTION™ that I let them take that long. sigh...

PS... Had I actually used angry orcish orphans this would have caused things to grind to another halt while this ONE guy who took it to heart and apparently made it part of his real-life religion that if the book says something is "evil" then it's born that way and should be killed before it grows up and the rest of the crew dissolving into socio-theological debates about it.

I love my group, but sometimes it's one of those "It's a good thing I do otherwise I'd..." situations.

[Mark Hoover 330]

quibblemuch wrote:

Have you tried an action timer? 6 seconds may be too harsh, but even a 10-15 second limit on action decision will require players to loosen up some. Or possibly seize up and never take any action... which generally solves the problem too.

I count to 30 when in combat. Outside combat, if they're not being pursued/stalked by anything, I just let actions play out, rolling for random encounters or other weirdness while they act.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Cal, as always, you're awesome! I have launched attacks in the middle of overplanning moments as well, but mostly I just sit and listen as you did that time.

The 2 things that bug me as a GM are the fact that unless something is an obvious threat, like a monster in Stealth or a pit in the floor, the PCs remain as far away from the whatever that they've detected and that, when trying to analyze the detail they've found the players expect that they can Knowledge roll and understand at least the basics of anything.

The megadungeon is decent masonry that's held up for centuries, but with barrel-arched, 15' high ceilings in most rooms/hallways. The masonry has chipped and crumbled over the ages, obviously, and other monsters/humanoids have been down here for a long time, so there's loose detritus on the floor. Long stretches of hallways are supported by buttresses and decorative pilasters allowing some spots for Cover in hallways, but mostly unless you're hiding around a corner or behind some decoration a lot of the halls are just long, open 10' wide corridors.

Many halls run in lengths of 20' - 100' long, with 50' being pretty typical. That means 50' of natural darkness with few large obstructions to vision. The U-Rogue has 120' Darkvision and has cranked her Perception sky high.

So, in a typical scenario: PCs come close to a corner, say w/in 30'. The U-Rogue leaves the party, Stealths to the corner, then peers around from there. Spying 50' down the hall, she's got a Perception +14 modified by distance. On a 10 that's 24; for some reason, even though I can audit her rolls online, it is rare she gets below a 9 on one of these rolls.

So generally she spots anything out maybe 10', 20' from the corner. If it's not a monster or something she thinks could be a trap, she'll use the Message cantrip to tell the PCs what she sees. At that point we begin an in character dialogue between the players, with 1 or 2 of the players specifically saying they're keeping an eye behind the party as well to ensure they're not ambushed.

From what they learn from the Message cantrip or MAYBE if one of the PCs moves closer, but still not closer than say, 20' - 30' away, the players have an expectation that their characters should be able to make some kind of roll:

- dead body on the floor? Knowledge: x to determine what it was, Heal check to know how it died/how long its been there, all from a distance

- weird spatter on the walls? Knowledge: x to determine what it is, how long its been, if it's dangerous, perhaps a Craft or Profession skill to see if the substance relates to a field they're familiar with, and so on, from a safe distance

And so on. When I DON'T allow them to just skill check through something immediately, they either get close enough to get the answers they're looking for or question me why their skills aren't working per RAW. Yesterday when I said they needed to walk over and inspect the guano on the floor one player literally pouted.

I'm trying to hit a happy medium between truly old school games where you had to push every button and pull every lever to figure out clues in the dungeon and PF1 where you can make a Knowledge: Engineering from 30' away and understand some complex mechanism in a Move action.

[Ed Reppert]

Many years ago I ran a shipmate solo through Tomb of Horrors. When he came on the big ugly stone face with the huge round black mouth at the end of the third (and actual entrance to the Tomb) tunnel into the hill, the first thing he did was to stick his +7 sword into that round black mouth, which you may recall was a sphere of annihilation. I was kind to him - when he pulled back the sword I said "you now have a blunt +7 dagger, 2 inches long". Things went downhill from there. :-)

[The Worst Person Ever]

Ed Reppert wrote:

Many years ago I ran a shipmate solo through Tomb of Horrors. When he came on the big ugly stone face with the huge round black mouth at the end of the third (and actual entrance to the Tomb) tunnel into the hill, the first thing he did was to stick his +7 sword into that round black mouth, which you may recall was a sphere of annihilation. I was kind to him - when he pulled back the sword I said "you now have a blunt +7 dagger, 2 inches long". Things went downhill from there. :-)

Is it chilly in here or did you stab a sphere of annihilation?

[Mark Hoover 330]

No joke, first run at the ToH when me and my buddies were kids in HS, we'd played a campaign for over a year. One guy was playing a halfling back when the race was your class. He was our thief and he was 11th freaking level.

We come to the stone face with the black mouth. No one can see inside or through. The halfling player being a cocky son of a gun gets out a stool, stands on it, and puts his WHOLE HEAD into the maw.

My buddy asks "well, what do I see?" as the DM just sits there, grinning and speechless. Finally the DM musters "you don't see anything, not anymore. The rest of you see the halfling's headless corpse fall off the stool to the earthen floor. What do you do?"

I love and hate that module at the same time.

[Haladir]

Tomb of Horrors is a terrible module.

It's Gary Gygax extending his middle finger to confident players to show that, no, they really don't know what they're doing.

I find that TOH is the opposite of "fun."

The module is interesting solely as an historical curiosity from the earliest days of the hobby. (It was originally written in 1975, a little more than a year after the original D&D game was published.)

But nobody should ever actually run it.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I've never in my 37 years of gaming played or ran it.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Although this doesn't affect communications between myself and any of my friends here just thought I'd mention I'm in Facebook Jail again. Another 7 days in the hoosegow.

On the flipside, I had to put on my "Karen wig" today after visiting a local fast-food joint. I now have the apology and personal phone number of the Area Director for Wendy's Restaurants who told me to let him know when I next visit the restaurant and he'd make sure that things would be set right.

I'm such a malcontent.

[Rysky]

Haladir wrote:

Tomb of Horrors is a terrible module.

It's Gary Gygax extending his middle finger to confident players to show that, no, they really don't know what they're doing.

I find that TOH is the opposite of "fun."

The module is interesting solely as an historical curiosity from the earliest days of the hobby. (It was originally written in 1975, a little more than a year after the original D&D game was published.)

But nobody should ever actually run it.

Wasn't it specifically made for tournament play?

[Quark Blast]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I've never in my 37 years of gaming played or ran it.

I got a box-worth of old school gaming stuff and this was the first adventure I adapted to my campaign from that trove. I finessed the bleep out of it though - specifics aside, mostly what I did was pretend the tomb was the result of high magic in a deeply archaic age of legerdemain. Characters that spent time trying to figure out the various magic traps could usually, eventually, see a way to subvert the danger that always also used magic but of the "modern" sort.

[Ed Reppert]

“Many years ago” was 1977.

[Haladir]

Rysky wrote:

Haladir wrote:

Tomb of Horrors is a terrible module.

It's Gary Gygax extending his middle finger to confident players to show that, no, they really don't know what they're doing.

I find that TOH is the opposite of "fun."

The module is interesting solely as an historical curiosity from the earliest days of the hobby. (It was originally written in 1975, a little more than a year after the original D&D game was published.)

But nobody should ever actually run it.

Wasn't it specifically made for tournament play?

Sure was: Gygax wrote it for Origins I in 1975. He ran it again in 1976, then TSR published it in 1978.

Finds my PDF of the 1978 edition on Google Drive...

The module includes bare-bones stats for 20 pre-gen characters of levels 6-14, and recommends specific characters depending on the number of players (up to 10!)

This adventure is a test of player skill, and requires metagame thinking and using out-of-character knowledge to successfully navigate. These were norms of play back in the day.

But even with that, a lot of the traps just come out of nowhere with a "BAMF! You're dead!"

And the kicker: if by some miracle you survive to the end, all the treasure is cursed.

Oh, and yes, I did run it two or three times back when I was a teenager in the early/mid '80s. It always went over like a lead balloon: Players freaking HATE this adventure. It is NOT fun to play, and it's only fun to run if you're the kind of GM who cackles with glee when PCs die.

[The Worst Person Ever]

*cackle*

[Mark Hoover 330]

I have fond memories of ToH, but only b/c I survived it as a player. We never faced the real lich, only the stand in. Also we were horribly cursed, one guy got decapitated and had to be resurrected, it wasn't "fun" in the traditional sense.

It GOT fun though, in certain moments. For one, our DM pronounced it "lick" every time we encountered that monster. Said DM improvised a chest opening and, instead of a giant skeleton, out jumped a FULL GROWN BENGAL TIGER! This is still a catchphrase among my HS chums decades later.

Still, this module represents the core reason why I went into rules-heavy, character driven games like PF1 in the first place. Haladir has it right, the whole thing is about PLAYER skill. It's also one long "rocks fall, everyone dies" moment at the DM's whim. I transitioned to 3e D&D and eventually PF1, as well as other beefy character games and even board games strictly b/c I was sick of GMs/DMs asking questions like:

Exactly WHERE do you search; HOW do you turn the knob; you never SAID you were checking for smells; your character is constipated b/c you never said you were going to the bathroom for the 3 days you've been on the road (an actual 1e DM quote).

Bottom line folks: I am not my character. My PC grew up inside the fantasy setting we're playing in, not Chicago, IL. One guy might have the Wisdom of Solomon or be as smart and cunning as Gandalf; I've forgotten my own birthday and paid a technician to plug in my sump pump b/c I didn't notice the chord on the basement floor.

If you were running a DC Heroes game and someone chose to be Batman, supposedly the "world's greatest detective," would you laugh and point at the player when they couldn't make rudimentary deductions? Why is it any different when you generate a random fantasy PC then in a D&D clone?

ToH is something I played as a kid b/c that's the experience I was prepared to have then. if someone offered to run me through it today I'd probably set the module on fire and run.

[Vanykrye]

Tomb of Horrors can be a ton of fun, but only if everyone goes into it with appropriate expectations. Otherwise, yeah, it's just a coffee grinder full of glass.

[Limeylongears]

I played ToH. The only thing I remember about it was my character getting urinated on by an Aasimir, which I'm pretty sure was not in the original module.

[The Worst Person Ever]

Limeylongears wrote:

I played ToH. The only thing I remember about it was my character getting urinated on by an Aasimir, which I'm pretty sure was not in the original module.

But enough about my wedding night...

[Feros]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

I've never in my 37 years of gaming played or ran it.

I've run it, but I went in telling my players exactly what Haladir said about it. They made up characters specifically for the module and several back-up characters. We had a blast because we knew the characters were going to die and couldn't care less.

Running it as a straight up module? Bad idea.

[Haladir]

As much as I hate TOH as a D&D module, I am using it as inspiration for a "play-to-lose" scenario I'm writing for the dark fantasy/tragic horror story-game Trophy Dark.

I think the themes of TOH would be a great fit for that game: Players know going in that their characters are almost certainly not going to come back out.

[DungeonmasterCal]

My elation at having my house all to myself again has been torn away. Last summer my son and his gf and another friend got a place of their own and moved out of my house. I CRAVE solitude and don't like living with someone else in my space. Hell, I was married for 30 years and spent almost 15 of that living in separate place from my wife. Seriously. We got along wonderfully, still do in fact. She's pretty much my best friend. I'm just happier and a better person overall if I live by myself.

Anyway, they're breaking the lease on their place because quite frankly it's not a safe place to live. They have no electricity in the kitchen or bathroom, the roof above a closet leaks and the water ruined some of his roomie's clothes, the floor around the toilet is about to cave in, and there are several other problems with the place. Their landlord told them he was not going to fix any of it. And he doesn't have to. Arkansas is the only state in America that does not have a law stating that property owners who own rental houses or apartments must maintain the premises in any way. It comes up in the state legislature every session, and it either gets thrown out or completely ignored. This year it was thrown out again. Many of our state legislators own rental properties, an investigation by a local news station found out, and they don't want to be forced to make their places safe for tenants because of the cost. There is an apartment complex in Little Rock where raw sewage bubbled up from the ground all around the area for years and it took a law suit filed by the residents of the place to have something done about it. The lawns were continually covered in filthy water, with flies and other insects just filling the air like clouds. The property owner actually sold the complex to another buyer at a throw away price to avoid having to fix the problems before the case came to court.

So anyway, while I'll never tell my son he can't stay with me if he needs to, I'm not happy about the situation. My anxiety levels are off the scale and I have panic attacks at least every other day. And right now her vehicle is parked behind mine in the driveway and I can't get out. They're not here and they're not answering their phones. I actually really don't like his gf much and I found out from their roomie that she doesn't care for me, either, so I think if I use that to my advantage and act like a complete a$$hole to her it'll be an incentive to move out quickly.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my Ted Rant.

[CrystalSeas]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

And right now her vehicle is parked behind mine in the driveway and I can't get out.

Would you feel better if you had a copy of her car keys and could move it out of the way?

[DungeonmasterCal]

CrystalSeas wrote:

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

And right now her vehicle is parked behind mine in the driveway and I can't get out.

Would you feel better if you had a copy of her car keys and could move it out of the way?

I would, yes. But I really doubt she'd do it.

[CrystalSeas]

Ah, but it's not her choice.

It's a condition of you providing her housing, and her parking behind you in the driveway.

If she wants to park there, she has to give you a key so you aren't inconvenienced. And this isn't hypothetical: she's already inconvenienced you.

[DungeonmasterCal]

That IS true. I reckon I just took my first step into a$$hole-dom. :)

[CrystalSeas]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

That IS true. I reckon I just took my first step into a$$hole-dom. :)

Nope, it's maintaining your own boundaries and being assertive.

Nowhere near being an a#%**+#.

[Vanykrye]

And if that doesn't work, it's amazing how quickly a call to a towing company can get a car removed at the owner's expense.

Might be a bit extreme. Keep it in your back pocket.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Vanykrye wrote:

And if that doesn't work, it's amazing how quickly a call to a towing company can get a car removed at the owner's expense.

Might be a bit extreme. Keep it in your back pocket.

Believe it or not when I noticed it this morning I really did think about calling a tow truck. I even already had one in mind.

[Drejk]

Fantasy Monsters: Spinehog.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Very cool!

[DungeonmasterCal]

So for several years now every night when I turn in for bed I post some lyrics from a song that I've heard recently or that have been bouncing around in my head all day on Facebook. I don't do it to make any sort of statement or to expose any secret meanings or insights into my life, but it's something I just started one night and now it's a thing. If I forget to post something at bedtime I get private messages from friends checking in to see if I'm ok. I was in Facebook jail last week and I had no way to post anything and every day I had to answer private messages to reassure folks I wasn't in the hospital with another heart attack or something. I am very moved and very grateful to have friends like these. I'm also thankful for the people I've met and the friends I've made here in the forums. It's an invisible community that I'm glad to be a part of and I hope I never take anyone's friendship, whether here, on FB, or in the real world for granted.

Anyway, it's been a trying day and it's time to turn in for the evening. I hope that you have a terrific whatever time zone you're in. Take care of each other.

"For we all seem to give our lives away
Searching for things that we think we must own
Until on this evening
When the year is leaving
We all try to find our way home"

[Quark Blast]

"I hope I never take anyone's friendship, whether here, on FB, or in the real world for granted."

A truth worth pursuing, especially IRL.

[Drejk]

Fantasy Monster: Thorny. A tiny, spiny, goat-fighting plant.

[quibblemuch]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

So for several years now every night when I turn in for bed I post some lyrics from a song that I've heard recently or that have been bouncing around in my head all day on Facebook. I don't do it to make any sort of statement or to expose any secret meanings or insights into my life, but it's something I just started one night and now it's a thing. If I forget to post something at bedtime I get private messages from friends checking in to see if I'm ok. I was in Facebook jail last week and I had no way to post anything and every day I had to answer private messages to reassure folks I wasn't in the hospital with another heart attack or something. I am very moved and very grateful to have friends like these. I'm also thankful for the people I've met and the friends I've made here in the forums. It's an invisible community that I'm glad to be a part of and I hope I never take anyone's friendship, whether here, on FB, or in the real world for granted.

Anyway, it's been a trying day and it's time to turn in for the evening. I hope that you have a terrific whatever time zone you're in. Take care of each other.

"For we all seem to give our lives away
Searching for things that we think we must own
Until on this evening
When the year is leaving
We all try to find our way home"

This is awesome. Thanks, Cal!

[quibblemuch]

Drejk wrote:

Fantasy Monster: Thorny. A tiny, spiny, goat-fighting plant.

The adjective "goat-fighting" reminds me of a recent event.

BACKGROUND: I periodically get awesome ideas. And by "awesome" I mean "truly terrible." And I text these when they occur to my brother. I also sometimes get insomnia. Which was how at 3:00 AM last Wednesday, my beleaguered brother received a text:

"We're taking the Petting Zoo to the next level. PUNCHING ZOO! BOOYA! *horn throwmoji*"

[DungeonmasterCal]

Drejk wrote:

Fantasy Monster: Thorny. A tiny, spiny, goat-fighting plant.

This is fantastic!

[DungeonmasterCal]

quibblemuch wrote:

"We're taking the Petting Zoo to the next level. PUNCHING ZOO! BOOYA! *horn throwmoji*"

I'm in. I grew up on a farm and I'm ready to punch some ruminant faces in revenge for all the times I was peed on, pooped on, kicked, butted, and trampled by those ungulate bastards.

[Monkey Santa]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

quibblemuch wrote:

"We're taking the Petting Zoo to the next level. PUNCHING ZOO! BOOYA! *horn throwmoji*"

I'm in. I grew up on a farm and I'm ready to punch some ruminant faces in revenge for all the times I was peed on, pooped on, kicked, butted, and trampled by those ungulate bastards.

Step right up and punch a goat! Only 5 dollars! Ignore that sign that claims this is the Jones Farm! Pay attention only to the hastily scribbled sign that says Monkey Santa’s Punching Zoo! Five dollars, haymaker a llama!

[Haladir]

Wen my kid was little (like 3 or so), we took her to the Long Island Game Farm, which is a small children's zoo. They have a combination of exotic animals in a traditional zoo setting, as well as domesticated farm animals that kids can pet/feed.

One of the popular Spring seasonal attractions is to buy a feeding bottle of goat milk and to go into an open area with a bunch of baby goats, where you can then bottle-feed a baby goat or two.

Well...

We entered the pen, with our three-year-old holding the oversized baby bottle, and about two dozen baby goats charged at us. Before we could intervene, they knocked her over and started fighting over the bottle, which they emptied in about 3 seconds. The goats then, as a group, trotted off to another sucker little kid holding a feeding bottle, to whom they did exactly the same thing.

Our daughter is a junior in college now [that's third year to the non-USians], and she has said that is one of her earliest memories.

We still refer to it as "The Time Our Kid Got Mugged By Baby Goats."

[Amby's Brain]

quibblemuch wrote:

Drejk wrote:

Fantasy Monster: Thorny. A tiny, spiny, goat-fighting plant.

The adjective "goat-fighting" reminds me of a recent event.

.

Brain: Hey
Brain: Hey
Me: No. Go away.
Brain: Hey
Me: No.
Brain: Hey
Me: ...
Brain: You now wanna turn this song into a filk about fighting goats.

Brain: Also, I'm gonna mentally play it for at least the next couple hours.

Me: G*&$+$n it.

[AM GOLD]

Everywhere I hear the sound of riled-up, angry bleats,
'Cause summer's here and the time is right,
For goatin' in the street.
So what should a caprid do,
Chew on an old tin can?
Try to throw it down,
We'll be buttin' a man

[90s Simpsons Referotron]

Smithers, have the Rolling Stones killed.

[Treppa]

I was reading last night trying to bore myself to sleep, when I heard a very distinct voice inside my head. It sounded like those dark, fuzzed voices on TV when they're hiding the identity of an informant.

It said very distinctly and matter-of-factly:

I will help you kill her.

I'm still somewhat freaked out. No plans for murder yet.

[CrystalSeas]

Treppa wrote:

No plans for murder yet.

Any candidates?

[Vanykrye]

CrystalSeas wrote:

Treppa wrote:

No plans for murder yet.

Any candidates?

*raises hand*

Can I add some suggestions?

[DungeonmasterCal]

The only instance of sleep paralysis I can ever recall having was when I was about ten years old. Right before I managed to regain control of my limbs and voice again I heard, very distinctly, "Test sequence ended. Return subject to its original holding area." That was over 45 years ago and it STILL freaks me out.

[Ed Reppert]

The mind is a strange and wondrous thing. :-)

[Ensign Gray]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

The only instance of sleep paralysis I can ever recall having was when I was about ten years old. Right before I managed to regain control of my limbs and voice again I heard, very distinctly, "Test sequence ended. Return subject to its original holding area." That was over 45 years ago and it STILL freaks me out.

(¬_¬)