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The Annihilation of Tabletopolis
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I don't always!
Sometimes, I just do things and if the players succeed or die horribly, I dunno!
We'll see!
and even then, those are subject to suspicion
I still remember Psycho Whale
like that time you made us fight an ogre, on a small bridge, with falling rocks everywhere and gave the ogre the ability to knock people down really easily?
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and yet, they've pulled it off
so nowadays, I don't generally plan for how players will get past challenges. I just make plans for if they do or don't. How? That is their problem, man.
That seems like a thing i would like to do.
I always give clues.
there was a time that we had to storm a base that had two sets of captives. The first was a bunch of NPC allies, and the second was a clutch of giant eagle eggs/young. they were guarded by two Wyverns and some centaurs (I think). At best, we should have been able to save one group, while the other perished. Very Kobayashi Maru like.
by planning out a very complex, but effective assault strategy, saved both groups and felt very smart and badass.
There were others, but that's always the one that springs to mind.
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Reading your Hunter game, I already would have tried at least two different things that were more MacGuyver than delta green.
that's basically how I roll.
the reality is, I'm not big on hand-holding the players and while I will provide clear clues, weapons you can use, etc.
for the most part, i consider it the players' jobs to figure this out and do stuff
or, to surprise me!
players do that
a long time ago i stopped trying to plan for what the players will do, i will just plan for the outcomes of their actions.
so i don't worry about "how could they possibly kill the villain right now while he is doing his speech before he has a chance to get away?"
instead
i will be like "what will I do if they pull it off?"
but you have to be named Shawn Spencer to figure it out, Mr. Yang
even if they are pre-existing characters from the setting's history or whatever.
sometimes, if an NPC has a way that is clearly an out (like, an escape pod or whatever) and i have plans for them later, i'll be like "but actually he got away"
but there's been a number of times that there was basically no way to create a conceit that would allow the NPC to live
for example, in one campaign, a character put a grenade launcher against the back of an NPC's head and fired.
that NPC, who i had a whole series of adventures planned around, died.
fortunately, i was able to shuffle those adventures around to use a different villain with more or less the same plot.
This is something I will need to learn to do. Eventually.
gotta work on getting good in the first place. Which, by the by, I don't think I'm too badly on.
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you let me dropkick a wizard to death in the first round of combat
i think you are doing okay
Do we lime here? I don't know but the limed part is AWESOME
no
Basically, never prepare anything.
Years ago, it was decided by the high council of Ribaldry Woo, that "liming" was a thing that is passé and only done by [SILLY GEESE] in the other sub-forii.
So, no. Sorry.
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People getting machine implants is all the rage in the latter.
I came up with way too many in my Mage and Vampire games.
thaumatechnology is not machine implants, though
I just assume that my guys are going to try to kill most of the NPCs I introduce them too. the fun part is going to be when they decide to go against that natural instinct.
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yeah, i'm assuming Hank has some kind of supernatural juice in him but... who knows what the fuck it is or how he activates it.
Yeah drop kicking wizards is awesome. Probably my biggest peeve in RPGs is DMs that can't roll with stuff, or who constantly contrive stuff so that things go the way they planned. If a monster rolls five million criticals in a row then I want to die because that's what happened. Similarly if a player finds a clever way to kill the boss, or just straight up one shots him I don't appreciate the DM making shit up on the spot to save his villain. I play RPGs (as a DM or a player) because anything that can happen within the rules of the game universe MIGHT just happen. If I wanted to play through a linear story were things can only go one way I'd boot up a video game.
hopefully someone else can figure out how to go psycho/super on the next set of bad business we get
Mine were mostly friendly NPCs, though. Only three or four of them were evil. The rest were good.
I felt like I was obligated to have someone representing each clan/order.
I'm trying to figure out how to activate Esmer's upgrades without going entirely out of character.
I've had this problem too, some players seem to need npcs with yellow exclamation marks over their heads giving out very precise and specific quests or they can't decide what to do (I've had some who still wouldn't be able to figure out what to do at that point). That being said it's totally possible to have clear and defined goals but to be prepared for the party to side with the kobolds and help them defend their home, rather than killing them all as you might have had planned.
this reminds me. I need to do a write up of the plotline I'm sending my guys through.
Rawrbear and pony try not to look at this part
I should note: that's not the write up.
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but there's no way I'll do that
so annoying
Knowing Pony, I think that they'd have something to do with whom we are
No sense giving a socialite werewolf strength