Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Sleep spell would be equivalent to knocking someone out. It allows for violations of consent, but does not alter their minds to make them want violations.
It allows for murdering people in their sleep. Or, with hold person, while they stand there helplessly, watching you.
It's only less squicky than a "love potion" because you're less likely to be playing a game with a murder victim.
I'll make the same argument: it's not the fact that a spell is used, it's the fact that you're murdering a helpless person. I agree that most players seem to draw a line between murdering the clearly helpless (as in the condition) and murdering those who are actively fighting back, but I'll make the argument that if the PCs instigated the fight it's murder either way. I believe that a moral character would only kill if there were no other reasonable resort, but in saying that I wouldn't fault them at all for using the most effective tactics available.
I'll tell you what bugs me: stories where the heroes mercilessly dispatch goons left and right without a single thought given, but pause before striking down the hated villain. "No, I won't kill him. He must be tried and a court will decide his fate." If you weren't sure of the necessity of bringing the villain to justice in the first place then why did you kill 20 henchmen in his employ?
Most RPGs are explicitly not designed to deal with intra-party conflict and do poorly in moderating it, even if the GM is totally prepared for it.
In general, this is why you supervise character creation and set hard limits against characters at the extreme ends of the play spectrum unless the group is very familiar and very comfortable with each other.
It doesn't always work, of course. My Star Wars group had to deliver an ultimatum to one of the characters/PCs because their behavior was becoming disruptive to the immersion of the group and the playstyle they preferred. They handled it themselves and somewhat in-character, but they decided it needed to be entirely clear and discussed it out of character after confronting the issue. It was resolved the following week with the player opting to keep the same character and play it straight after a confrontation with the ship's captain. Not all situations resolve so well and with such hands off GMing. I was concerned I'd need to step in on it, but the players are capable of talking through their issues.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I will say that the character who possesses the love potion is not suspect at all. Like, the most he would probably do in our campaign is make a giant love him so s/he wouldn't kill him/us or something. He might die from snu-snu but hey.
But yeah, boiled down, my reasoning why love potions are worse than hold or sleep is because you are actively messing with the chemistry of someone's brain and probably fucking them up for life and they agree to do whatever you want removing their total agency and overriding their agency rather than just stopping them from moving. You can do awful things with hold and sleep, but you are actively doing an awful thing with a love potion.
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Sleep spell would be equivalent to knocking someone out. It allows for violations of consent, but does not alter their minds to make them want violations.
It allows for murdering people in their sleep. Or, with hold person, while they stand there helplessly, watching you.
It's only less squicky than a "love potion" because you're less likely to be playing a game with a murder victim.
I'll make the same argument: it's not the fact that a spell is used, it's the fact that you're murdering a helpless person. I agree that most players seem to draw a line between murdering the clearly helpless (as in the condition) and murdering those who are actively fighting back, but I'll make the argument that if the PCs instigated the fight it's murder either way. I believe that a moral character would only kill if there were no other reasonable resort, but in saying that I wouldn't fault them at all for using the most effective tactics available.
I'll tell you what bugs me: stories where the heroes mercilessly dispatch goons left and right without a single thought given, but pause before striking down the hated villain. "No, I won't kill him. He must be tried and a court will decide his fate." If you weren't sure of the necessity of bringing the villain to justice in the first place then why did you kill 20 henchmen in his employ?
First season of Arrow is rife with this.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I am going to try to stop worrying about my players' character dying. Not that I want to be a player killer, but I feel sometimes I have coddled them like one time I literally had them restart an encounter when they all died in Dark Heresy. To be fair that time, when I designed that encounter they had Not-Guts on their side, and then that player stopped talking to me, and I based the things they fought on Genestealers. I forgot that they use Astartes Terminators to fight those things. One of my players also got fucked up real bad and did have to burn a fate point when he A) Fell down 20 meters and broke his ribs Failed to outrun daemons chasing them, gave a good college try shooting one and forgot daemons can't be surpressed C) Got burned alive and now looks like the Burned Man from Fallout. The rest were able to escape to a vehicle that wasteland gangers had left which I had set up earlier in this ancient abandoned city. I feel I gave the rest of my main group a copout at the end of the last campaign where they faced a Bloodletter, Tzeentch horror, and one of those miniature Great Unclean One type daemons but I gave them a tank made out of magrail train (which I did setup before hand and didn't pull out of my ass to help them) with an old timey cannon and heavy bolters and flamers which pretty much trivialized the fight. Well actually, if the bloodletter had actually caught up, the dude had like +26 damage on his sword from all the eldar and gangers he had just killed so he would have been a problem. The problem being they could move at like 40 meters a turn and he only moved like 35. So they did the Bethesda thing of walk back and shoot. I have this problem with not wanting to kill off characters they might be attached to.
However, I also think I have maybe been thinking that they are more invested in their particular characters than they actually are. I had this discussion with the DnD GM of why if my character tried to assassinate a king and failed I haven't had bounty hunter thrown at the party, and he basically said he forgot about that. Then the GM he played with that was with us for a while basically said that it is easier to run with more one dimensional characters where their main motivations come from interaction with the story the GM is making versus any kind of background thing. Like my character's motivation is to make enough money and get enough contacts to start a revolution in Damara. I will never get to the war part, because by that time my character will be retired and we're probably going to have to all move away from each other. I'm super fine with that. I still like my character a lot and don't want to throw him away, which was a point of contention where the GM was apparently frustrated at us for walking away from an encounter "just because" we thought we might not have been strong enough to fight it. My problem being that we didn't really have a pony in this encounter's race besides a fire giant chucking a stone at us when we looked in. They were apparently digging up a rod that can kill dragons and my thoughts were A) My character is interested in dragons because of a backstory thing he did But dragons are also fickle and usually callous creatures so why should I care? C) I suggested to get help from a knightly order from Neverwinter we were doing a favor for and come back. It was also the end of the night so we didn't really want to start the fight. When later I thought it would be cool to follow up on that background event and use it tocurry favor with a dragon, I asked how long should I wait until I could fight a dragon. He asked why should he tell me because we avoided that fight. I explained that I would actually want to fight a dragon if I needed to, versus this thing which looked utterly tangential to what we were doing.
My friend is going to be DMing Tomb of Annihilation for us soon.
Part of this involves a giant hex map that is mostly blank and we will fill it in. He's wondering how to best handle this. Plexi over the map? Just draw straight on it? Something digital? Etc?
I have the same question. I plan on running this for my IRL group and the blank poster map is so pretty I don't want my brute friends (or me, tbh) fucking it up with chickenscratch and a sharpie
I am going to try to stop worrying about my players' character dying. Not that I want to be a player killer, but I feel sometimes I have coddled them like one time I literally had them restart an encounter when they all died in Dark Heresy.
That's perfectly fine, and personally I prefer this style of play with most of my games. It's hard to raise tension if the players know you fudge dice in their favor. And dying, especially dying heroically, can be fun. Heck, even dying ignominiously can serve it's purpose. Warhammer games in particular can be ruthless, and frequent PKs can make the characters that do survive much more special. Also, just because a character dies doesn't mean that's where his or her story ends; that character could inspire others to take up the mantle, focus the resolve of the remaining party, and literally put the fear of death into the players. A little death can breath a lot of life into a campaign while the lack of consequencies to player actions can easily kill it.
...I still like my character a lot and don't want to throw him away, which was a point of contention where the GM was apparently frustrated at us for walking away from an encounter "just because" we thought we might not have been strong enough to fight it. My problem being that we didn't really have a pony in this encounter's race besides a fire giant chucking a stone at us when we looked in.
There's no shame in this. Nothing tells me more that I'm doing a poor job than players meta-gaming "oh, this must be where he wants us go next." When something like that happens I appreciate it when the players explain to me their character motivations (or lack there of) so I can correct my misconceptions. As a GM I'm usually overjoyed when my players try to avoid encounters; it makes me feel like I've done a good job in building the world and that they're really invested in their own characters well being. It also communicates that they don't expect to be able to defeat every encounter; like I said earlier a little fear is healthy for games.
My friend is going to be DMing Tomb of Annihilation for us soon.
Part of this involves a giant hex map that is mostly blank and we will fill it in. He's wondering how to best handle this. Plexi over the map? Just draw straight on it? Something digital? Etc?
Any thoughts?
I've got a... damn, I forgot exactly what sort of plastic it is. Came with the gaming table. It's great, perfect for wipe-off if that's what you're looking for.
Sorta sounds like you might want it to be permanent, though?
MagicPrime did it. Although three people did different ones.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited November 2017
My shame in the DH instance was I wanted them to see the rest of the thing I had written up so while I didn't make it impossible to die (shattered ribs and all happened after that), I definitely tried to downplay the danger until the daemons showed up. The other part is that they were all entirely fine with dying and starting as new characters (even though most of them had fates aplenty to burn), and basically I gave them a chance to avoid the encounters by making the xenos mutants they died to blind, relying on psyniscience, hearing, and smell (edit: this is how they have always been, not a nerf thing). They messed up the stealth vs awareness test, and I thought they might have gone into one of the buildings to hide (which they did after the restart battle and found themselves in a similar situation). None really objected to the restart and they still seem to happily play their characters (although these characters are dicks to each other in character, like they're from a 40k Archer) even though I would allow them new ones at any time, but I felt like I partially took the choice from them because they didn't want to say no and I wanted them to see the thing I made.
Edit: btw I forget who, but how is the destroying the IRA thing going? I remembered that because I love giving most characters different voices and started to try copy the Irish accents from Mafia 3 and Gavin Dunn from the Podquisition. It has sounded better than my previous attempts. Before everything was "Hoity-toity-ho" when I tried and stopped.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited November 2017
Would anyone look at my profile for this boss I made and am planning to put against my players in DH? I could use balancing suggestions.
The idea is this guy is Guts if he ever fell to the wolf demon and was broken to serve this other guy who is pseudo-revolver ocelot. I am very original. He has a big ass daemon sword and daemon armor. He is a berserker type of character. To keep him not OP, anything like dodging twice or getting another free hit after one successful hit, or whirlwind of death, is downplayed. He's also not supposed to have any help and will be fighting a 1v5 or 1v4 fight. He is supposed to be fast and hit hard but not be exactly a master of tactics or martial skill.
He does have armor 9 everywhere, but at this time the acolytes should be getting bolters (not because I'm a Monty Cook DM but because the story involves high end gun smuggling for a Khorne cult) so I am not worried about that, and the idea is, like with Guts's Berserk armor, that his sword and armor level up (or in this case allows the bound daemon more power.) They will be facing him at his weakest form, but his daemon infused armor still gives him a +2 AgB
Along with the pictured talents, he has Thundercharge, True Grit, Sprint, Iron Jaw, Leap Up, Hard Target, and Catfall.
Edit: okay my players are not ready for fighting daemons or not-Guts yet. I might make this guy fight my main group who are way better equipped. Two of five of them went down just fighting some gangers with revolvers and autoguns. Granted there were 12 vs their five and the tank of the team got shot in the back on accident and righteous fury'd but still. The plan was to plant demo charged around a dilapidated and ruined hideout and bring down on the head of a ganger boss as a favor to another one. Unfortunately one got caught sneaking around after another one had the decent idea of sending a servoskull to distract some guards, and it went to shit from there. Someone fell from a roof after it was shot from under them and luckily landed on a catwalk. Then he got shot in the face. One of my arbitrators lost an arm.
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WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
Will probably write up a full session report later, but wanted to share a happy thing: After losing those three folks from my group over the PC death consent rule, we got two new folks in at the invitation of an existing player. Had a session today, and one of the two new people showed up intending not to play, just to observe for the day and probably join in at next session.
...then they found out that the party was about to embark on a supernatural pub crawl, and said, "OK, yeah, I'm in, I want to play. Can my character just be drinking at the first pub they hit?"
Then they told me I was funny and good after the session, so it was just a good session all around.
Would anyone look at my profile for this boss I made and am planning to put against my players in DH? I could use balancing suggestions.
The idea is this guy is Guts if he ever fell to the wolf demon and was broken to serve this other guy who is pseudo-revolver ocelot. I am very original. He has a big ass daemon sword and daemon armor. He is a berserker type of character. To keep him not OP, anything like dodging twice or getting another free hit after one successful hit, or whirlwind of death, is downplayed. He's also not supposed to have any help and will be fighting a 1v5 or 1v4 fight. He is supposed to be fast and hit hard but not be exactly a master of tactics or martial skill.
He does have armor 9 everywhere, but at this time the acolytes should be getting bolters (not because I'm a Monty Cook DM but because the story involves high end gun smuggling for a Khorne cult) so I am not worried about that, and the idea is, like with Guts's Berserk armor, that his sword and armor level up (or in this case allows the bound daemon more power.) They will be facing him at his weakest form, but his daemon infused armor still gives him a +2 AgB
Along with the pictured talents, he has Thundercharge, True Grit, Sprint, Iron Jaw, Leap Up, Hard Target, and Catfall.
Edit: okay my players are not ready for fighting daemons or not-Guts yet. I might make this guy fight my main group who are way better equipped. Two of five of them went down just fighting some gangers with revolvers and autoguns. Granted there were 12 vs their five and the tank of the team got shot in the back on accident and righteous fury'd but still. The plan was to plant demo charged around a dilapidated and ruined hideout and bring down on the head of a ganger boss as a favor to another one. Unfortunately one got caught sneaking around after another one had the decent idea of sending a servoskull to distract some guards, and it went to shit from there. Someone fell from a roof after it was shot from under them and luckily landed on a catwalk. Then he got shot in the face. One of my arbitrators lost an arm.
If they land a few solid bolt shell hits he's toast so I think he'd be fine, he might take someone or a couple of them down with him though. His WS isn't that high but his damage is crazy good so yeah, depends how lucky he is.
Are they actually beast people? Would your sessions go more smoothly with raw meat as a snack instead of Doritos?
They might be. It's over Discord so I can't see any of them except my girlfriend who is surprisingly human.
Basically, I got my Warehouse 13th Age in the character creation stage and MagicPrime and his wife want to play Catfolk (Lion and Panther) and Lord_Asmodeus is playing a Gnoll, doomybear is playing a Serpentfolk (WoW Naga), and suddenly the Icons and races are being turned into animal races.
Looking at the Discord...
Orcs and Crusader- Boars
Elves- Deer
High Elves- Reindeer
Wood Elves- White Tail
Dark Elves- Musk (Fanged Deer)
Emperor- Monkey King
Diabloist- Ram
Dwarves- Moles
Halflings- Mice
Gnomes- Gerbils
So and it's the Monkey Kingdom. Dragons are still dragons and most beastmen are the same (and we found a ton of frogfolk pictures).
The game hasn't started and my players are already ruining my plans!
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
Okay, I want to dig in and see what the mass combat rules look like, because this idea reminds me a LOT of Dyansty Warriors - and I love that.
Greeting Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game Open Beta Testers,
Thank you for all of your hard work so far! We’re really excited about the direction the game is moving based on your feedback, and we’re looking forward to making some further refinements in the near future!
Updates
We’ve got a survey for you this week, so we aren’t adding anything to the updates document this week. However, we are in the midst of working on a few topics for next week’s update, including:
Optional rules for skirmishes on a tactical grid
A significant update to the damage/fatigue system to better unify theme and mechanics
Various refinements of becoming Compromised and the rules around Outbursts
Preview Vote
Additionally, after you give us your feedback on conflicts in the survey, please take the time to weigh in on which of seven classic schools you’d like to see previewed in next week’s update!
Designer Diary: Mass Battles
Mass battles have had rules in the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game since 1st Edition, and we wanted to make sure they were included in the newest incarnation of the system. Mass battles present an interesting challenge, however, as player characters spend most of their time acting at the personal level rather than the command level, meaning that a mass battle is more of a circumstance they are involved in than an activity whose outcome they alter.
However, the Legend of the Five Rings setting comes with the assumption that the player characters are people of influence in society. As samurai, they have specific duties and responsibilities, one of which is leadership in times of war. Therefore, it is perfectly believable that the PCs might be thrust into a role of authority, and this is why we created cohorts.
Each cohort is an abstraction of a group of soldiers in the army serving under a particular leader (one of the PCs, or an NPC of note in an enemy force). For simplicity’s sake, cohorts are the targets (and sources) of attacks, but their individual losses are not tracked—instead, the army itself is worn down over time. The cohorts’ leaders are organized and managed by the army’s commander, the single figure who determines strategy (the army’s strategic objective each round) rather than tactics (the actions performed by leaders).
Leadership and combat prowess are not the same, and in fact, some of the best leaders and commanders are actually courtiers trained in Command and Tactics. Of course, the Akodo Commander is a natural fit for leadership in mass battles, but socially oriented characters can also shine in this arena, and this is very much by design. For characters who prefer direct martial confrontation, however, calling out hostile leaders with the Challenge action to occupy and demoralize their cohorts can be a very effective strategy, as well. Shugenja and monks can perform quite well in Challenges, and can even make narrative use of some of their mystical abilities, to alter the terrain or gain intelligence other warriors could not!
Since mass battles are often set-piece events in a campaign that take some time to resolve, we wanted to make sure that nearly any character can contribute during a mass battle, whether their primary sphere of competence is social or martial.
So the weekly ETU game I'm in is still fun but it got a little rough.
Last week we got asked to investigate some student disappearances. We spent most the night talking to friends and family of the missing students. Turns out they all have the same tutor. Should be open and shut at this point. But either because we're down the wrong path or because we've blown important rolls we're at a dead end. We can't find any real proof.
So we're following the same threads this week and the frustration is starting to set in. No one is mad or anything in real life, but we're also not sure what to do next. We blow some other attempts and probably make the situation worse. When the GM gives us another side task I can tell some of the people we're playing with are getting antsy. We get a call to help out a nice old Voodoo lady we know. She's trying to get a guy to leave a gang, his dead girlfriend's spirit is restless because of the life he is leading. He's worried that the gang will kill him if he leaves. As soon some gang members show up it's a blood bath. One of our two "wildcards" in the group immediately attack. 5 college students vs. 10 gang members.
I think we're 6 or 7 games in and this was easily are largest combat. Next week we'll see if there is any legal fallout from it.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
That is one of the potential pitfalls of investigation-based scenarios and to be honest it's a failure on the part of your GM that he hasn't adapted to what you did and didn't manage to figure out.
I don't want to throw him under the bus since we are having fun, but I totally agree. I can't wait to find out what the clue we've obviously missed it though. It's probably laughably simple.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I'm putting in a false floor disguised as an elevator (it was a working elevator) in a cultist hideout I'm having these guys purge for Dark Heresy. If they fail to spot it and it break under them, should it be athletics or acrobatics to try to catch a handhold or jump off before it's too late?
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I'm putting in a false floor disguised as an elevator (it was a working elevator) in a cultist hideout I'm having these guys purge for Dark Heresy. If they fail to spot it and it break under them, should it be athletics or acrobatics to try to catch a handhold or jump off before it's too late?
There's a reason Gumshoe exists and it's because investigative scenarios essentially require a purpose-built system.
Gumshoe does it all on its own, but really you should be able to handle most investigative scenarios with a combination of fail forward, say yes or roll, and the PbtA principle of "when the players look to you, make a move".
Just assaulting or killing another person will get you past 90% of roadblocks. It may sound dumb but it's the plot of pretty much 90% of Agatha Christie's Poirot stories.
You should never just hit a dead end in an investigation. You should hit False Ends/Bad Endings. You found out that it's not the tutor kidnapping kids, it's the Principal who is because he talked to one of the missing kids last according to phone records. You find a notebook that one of the girls writes in and it says she's sleeping with the English teacher, except she isn't and it's just a fantasy she has and wrote down. Things like that. As players, they will know that the dice failed, but their characters won't, and good roleplayers will play it out, knowing they messed up.
I'm putting in a false floor disguised as an elevator (it was a working elevator) in a cultist hideout I'm having these guys purge for Dark Heresy. If they fail to spot it and it break under them, should it be athletics or acrobatics to try to catch a handhold or jump off before it's too late?
There's a reason Gumshoe exists and it's because investigative scenarios essentially require a purpose-built system.
Gumshoe does it all on its own, but really you should be able to handle most investigative scenarios with a combination of fail forward, say yes or roll, and the PbtA principle of "when the players look to you, make a move".
Just assaulting or killing another person will get you past 90% of roadblocks. It may sound dumb but it's the plot of pretty much 90% of Agatha Christie's Poirot stories.
Its the entire plot of criminal minds. We've hit a road block... new murder... new clues... now we can find them.
I'm not saying you can't do investigations in other game engines. You just have to get comfortable with handing out answers as is appropriate rather than sticking to target numbers or difficulties.
Is it a language clue? The Bard figures it out. Is it a magic clue? The Wizard figures it out. Is it a criminal clue? The Rogue figures it out. The rolls aren't important (except to the drama of the situation, obviously) so you let them make them. Regardless of the result, you move the investigation forward. If someone botches the group misses that clue but continues on, presumably figuring out what that clue was retrospectively. If they care.
But Gumshoe is built specifically to remove those ambiguities. It simply assumes everyone's a trained investigator with their specialties and hands them information to help them piece the conspiracy together.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited November 2017
My player with his character sans arm is pretty much out for the time being is agreeing to play a stand in character.
I decided to give him Connor Gallach, Sacrisian Highlander and Storm Warden chapter reject with his mighty big claymore Bessie.
I also think I might have an issue with mysteries, because I don’t know how to make good clues. Most of my mysteries are people and location based, this person met with that person before they were murdered, he owns this bar, he was talking to that guy etc.
Mini rant about my players:
This guy’s last name is literally (red) (h)Eorring dressed in all red and you were told by someone you didn’t trust that he was from a violent cult so why did you follow him instead of this guy I clearly made more suspicious who you know has lied to you before or the gangers who you’ve had run-ins with previously that were meeting with the suspicious guy (and they would have led them to the climax had they followed them as almost a cheat ending). Why didn’t you look at the murdered guy’s notes or cogitator. Why didn’t you bring the framed scribe to the bar so he might start to remember what happened and skip the hard parts of the investigation and you have a rosette so the cops would have allowed you to take him. You could lie that you were the domestic arbitrators transporting the prisoner to an Arbitrator fort, you even had specific papers given to you, an arbitrator, by the local arbitrators to operate in their jurisdiction- and more.
Now renegade guardsmen stole weapons crates containing like 400 heavy weapons and I will use them on the characters now as a consequence.
I’m not mad or really disappointed, I think I just expected these guys to know tropes of these kinds of stories.
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
My character sans arm whose character is pretty much out for the time being is agreeing to play a stand in character.
I decided to give him Connor Gallach, Sacrisian Highlander and Storm Warden chapter reject with his mighty big claymore Bessie.
I also think I might have an issue with mysteries, because I don’t know how to make good clues. Most of my mysteries are people and location based, this person met with that person before they were murdered, he owns this bar, he was talking to that guy etc.
Mini rant about my players:
This guy’s last name is literally (red) (h)Eorring dressed in all red and you were told by someone you didn’t trust that he was from a violent cult so why did you follow him instead of this guy I clearly made more suspicious who you know has lied to you before or the gangers who you’ve had run-ins with previously that were meeting with the suspicious guy (and they would have led them to the climax had they followed them as almost a cheat ending). Why didn’t you look at the murdered guy’s notes or cogitator. Why didn’t you bring the framed scribe to the bar so he might start to remember what happened and skip the hard parts of the investigation and you have a rosette so the cops would have allowed you to take him. You could lie that you were the domestic arbitrators transporting the prisoner to an Arbitrator fort, you even had specific papers given to you, an arbitrator, by the local arbitrators to operate in their jurisdiction- and more.
Now renegade guardsmen stole weapons crates containing like 400 heavy weapons and I will use them on the characters now as a consequence.
I’m not mad or really disappointed, I think I just expected these guys to know tropes of these kinds of stories.
That sounds somewhat familiar, except in our DH game we were the ones raiding a guard warehouse, which went bad, and I may have almost killed the rest of the party with a grenade.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
The roll shouldn't determine if they put the pieces together or not.
It should determine if they put the pieces together fast enough.
Like, oh, of course the deputy is the one behind the string of robberies! But shit, it took too long, and he's already left town with half the armory.
Now they've got a whole new problem to sort out.
cannot emphasize this enough
if you're writing the scenario and predicating the entire thing on whether or not the group can solve the riddle, you're approaching the structure wrong
you plan for both. either they cut the bad guy off at the pass, yay they are smart, or they don't and go get to kick him in the teeth, yay they are strong
Mage the Awakening 2nd has a great mystery investigation system
With the whole rolling to accumulate successes to overcome opacity but if you roll beyond a certain amount of times you start risking muddying the waters with your presence
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited November 2017
Yey my players had a good day. Two of them were out, and conveniently one of the knocked out ones were away because of work, so I gave the him I a final shot for screwing up the rules with him. He missed with a like +30 bonus, then slumped back down to the ground. The other temporary guy killed the ganger boss. None of her subordinates liked her in the first place (which they would have learned had they snuck in and listened on the gathering they had), but now that the scary boss was gone they decided to just get out. It helps someone had exploded a stack or two full of grenades in their hideout. Plus in meta terms two guys were burning fate points so I had my taste of blood for the day. They brought back the boss’s head (which even the boss they got the job from said was a little too much), got the info and money he promised, planted a bug at the meeting spot they were supposed to oversee, did very well tailing one of the cultists home to their hideout, and now are poised to purge a Khornate cell with the help of their handlers and a squad of stormtroopers.
These cultists don’t know they’re coming so no traps or fortifications besides the ones they already set up. With a big glowing Khornate idol, a fleshhound, big guns, and a hideout of about 30-40 hardened corrupted vets and gangers, and frenzying by blood ritual. It ought to be a good time.
Also the arbitrator who lost his arm burned influence to get a best quality Deus Ex arm. He’s playing that Sacrisian highlander because he’s in surgery for 12 days. The other downed guy should be okay to go after surgery and a week of rest. Edit 2: he has big visible plate on the side of his head now.
Edit: also one of them keeps asking if they can cut peoples faces off and wear them, and while there is a gang whose deal is that, she’s like a techpriest or something. I don’t say no, but I do warn about corruption points and the rest of the team keeps asking her to not. She’s not a troll or a problem player.
Edit 2: this reminds me of when I thought the alpha team might have stumbled into a slaaneshi cult’s hideout having messed up royally. They were going to walk in the middle of this place, get taunted by the cult leader over vox, then have it explode in flame so they would have to get out. Then I realized with how the story was going it didn’t make sense for them to stop by that place, so I set up the ambush instead. Had they not messed up, they would have had a big climactic battle on a runway, or if they had done really well, basically stopped the plot altogether.
Edit 3: DH2E's influence system is weird, and that's with me putting in the money system from DH1E in certain cases. It's like, why would you by chance have or not have enough money to bribe a guy, or buy something like a low-grade watch, or just have no cab fare but then suddenly have it later? Luckily my acolytes got their own car after a really good roll and a requisition bonus as a reward for helping that crime boss, so I no longer have ask them to roll to get a cab or have a magrail pass or something.
I'm not saying you can't do investigations in other game engines. You just have to get comfortable with handing out answers as is appropriate rather than sticking to target numbers or difficulties.
Is it a language clue? The Bard figures it out. Is it a magic clue? The Wizard figures it out. Is it a criminal clue? The Rogue figures it out. The rolls aren't important (except to the drama of the situation, obviously) so you let them make them. Regardless of the result, you move the investigation forward. If someone botches the group misses that clue but continues on, presumably figuring out what that clue was retrospectively. If they care.
But Gumshoe is built specifically to remove those ambiguities. It simply assumes everyone's a trained investigator with their specialties and hands them information to help them piece the conspiracy together.
Yeah, the most critical important thing that Gumshoe makes clear is that in an investigative game the challenge is not in finding clues, the challenge is working out what the clues mean. You should never fail to find clues.
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SickKids is a great organization. My brother spent more in their care than anyone should have to.
I'll make the same argument: it's not the fact that a spell is used, it's the fact that you're murdering a helpless person. I agree that most players seem to draw a line between murdering the clearly helpless (as in the condition) and murdering those who are actively fighting back, but I'll make the argument that if the PCs instigated the fight it's murder either way. I believe that a moral character would only kill if there were no other reasonable resort, but in saying that I wouldn't fault them at all for using the most effective tactics available.
I'll tell you what bugs me: stories where the heroes mercilessly dispatch goons left and right without a single thought given, but pause before striking down the hated villain. "No, I won't kill him. He must be tried and a court will decide his fate." If you weren't sure of the necessity of bringing the villain to justice in the first place then why did you kill 20 henchmen in his employ?
In general, this is why you supervise character creation and set hard limits against characters at the extreme ends of the play spectrum unless the group is very familiar and very comfortable with each other.
It doesn't always work, of course. My Star Wars group had to deliver an ultimatum to one of the characters/PCs because their behavior was becoming disruptive to the immersion of the group and the playstyle they preferred. They handled it themselves and somewhat in-character, but they decided it needed to be entirely clear and discussed it out of character after confronting the issue. It was resolved the following week with the player opting to keep the same character and play it straight after a confrontation with the ship's captain. Not all situations resolve so well and with such hands off GMing. I was concerned I'd need to step in on it, but the players are capable of talking through their issues.
But yeah, boiled down, my reasoning why love potions are worse than hold or sleep is because you are actively messing with the chemistry of someone's brain and probably fucking them up for life and they agree to do whatever you want removing their total agency and overriding their agency rather than just stopping them from moving. You can do awful things with hold and sleep, but you are actively doing an awful thing with a love potion.
First season of Arrow is rife with this.
However, I also think I have maybe been thinking that they are more invested in their particular characters than they actually are. I had this discussion with the DnD GM of why if my character tried to assassinate a king and failed I haven't had bounty hunter thrown at the party, and he basically said he forgot about that. Then the GM he played with that was with us for a while basically said that it is easier to run with more one dimensional characters where their main motivations come from interaction with the story the GM is making versus any kind of background thing. Like my character's motivation is to make enough money and get enough contacts to start a revolution in Damara. I will never get to the war part, because by that time my character will be retired and we're probably going to have to all move away from each other. I'm super fine with that. I still like my character a lot and don't want to throw him away, which was a point of contention where the GM was apparently frustrated at us for walking away from an encounter "just because" we thought we might not have been strong enough to fight it. My problem being that we didn't really have a pony in this encounter's race besides a fire giant chucking a stone at us when we looked in. They were apparently digging up a rod that can kill dragons and my thoughts were A) My character is interested in dragons because of a backstory thing he did
Part of this involves a giant hex map that is mostly blank and we will fill it in. He's wondering how to best handle this. Plexi over the map? Just draw straight on it? Something digital? Etc?
Any thoughts?
That's perfectly fine, and personally I prefer this style of play with most of my games. It's hard to raise tension if the players know you fudge dice in their favor. And dying, especially dying heroically, can be fun. Heck, even dying ignominiously can serve it's purpose. Warhammer games in particular can be ruthless, and frequent PKs can make the characters that do survive much more special. Also, just because a character dies doesn't mean that's where his or her story ends; that character could inspire others to take up the mantle, focus the resolve of the remaining party, and literally put the fear of death into the players. A little death can breath a lot of life into a campaign while the lack of consequencies to player actions can easily kill it.
There's no shame in this. Nothing tells me more that I'm doing a poor job than players meta-gaming "oh, this must be where he wants us go next." When something like that happens I appreciate it when the players explain to me their character motivations (or lack there of) so I can correct my misconceptions. As a GM I'm usually overjoyed when my players try to avoid encounters; it makes me feel like I've done a good job in building the world and that they're really invested in their own characters well being. It also communicates that they don't expect to be able to defeat every encounter; like I said earlier a little fear is healthy for games.
Sorta sounds like you might want it to be permanent, though?
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
MagicPrime did it. Although three people did different ones.
Edit: btw I forget who, but how is the destroying the IRA thing going? I remembered that because I love giving most characters different voices and started to try copy the Irish accents from Mafia 3 and Gavin Dunn from the Podquisition. It has sounded better than my previous attempts. Before everything was "Hoity-toity-ho" when I tried and stopped.
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The idea is this guy is Guts if he ever fell to the wolf demon and was broken to serve this other guy who is pseudo-revolver ocelot. I am very original. He has a big ass daemon sword and daemon armor. He is a berserker type of character. To keep him not OP, anything like dodging twice or getting another free hit after one successful hit, or whirlwind of death, is downplayed. He's also not supposed to have any help and will be fighting a 1v5 or 1v4 fight. He is supposed to be fast and hit hard but not be exactly a master of tactics or martial skill.
He does have armor 9 everywhere, but at this time the acolytes should be getting bolters (not because I'm a Monty Cook DM but because the story involves high end gun smuggling for a Khorne cult) so I am not worried about that, and the idea is, like with Guts's Berserk armor, that his sword and armor level up (or in this case allows the bound daemon more power.) They will be facing him at his weakest form, but his daemon infused armor still gives him a +2 AgB
Here stats
https://imgur.com/wrnxmvW
https://imgur.com/IdP9rcJ
Edit: okay my players are not ready for fighting daemons or not-Guts yet. I might make this guy fight my main group who are way better equipped. Two of five of them went down just fighting some gangers with revolvers and autoguns. Granted there were 12 vs their five and the tank of the team got shot in the back on accident and righteous fury'd but still. The plan was to plant demo charged around a dilapidated and ruined hideout and bring down on the head of a ganger boss as a favor to another one. Unfortunately one got caught sneaking around after another one had the decent idea of sending a servoskull to distract some guards, and it went to shit from there. Someone fell from a roof after it was shot from under them and luckily landed on a catwalk. Then he got shot in the face. One of my arbitrators lost an arm.
...then they found out that the party was about to embark on a supernatural pub crawl, and said, "OK, yeah, I'm in, I want to play. Can my character just be drinking at the first pub they hit?"
Then they told me I was funny and good after the session, so it was just a good session all around.
If they land a few solid bolt shell hits he's toast so I think he'd be fine, he might take someone or a couple of them down with him though. His WS isn't that high but his damage is crazy good so yeah, depends how lucky he is.
They might be. It's over Discord so I can't see any of them except my girlfriend who is surprisingly human.
Basically, I got my Warehouse 13th Age in the character creation stage and MagicPrime and his wife want to play Catfolk (Lion and Panther) and Lord_Asmodeus is playing a Gnoll, doomybear is playing a Serpentfolk (WoW Naga), and suddenly the Icons and races are being turned into animal races.
Looking at the Discord...
Orcs and Crusader- Boars
Elves- Deer
High Elves- Reindeer
Wood Elves- White Tail
Dark Elves- Musk (Fanged Deer)
Emperor- Monkey King
Diabloist- Ram
Dwarves- Moles
Halflings- Mice
Gnomes- Gerbils
So and it's the Monkey Kingdom. Dragons are still dragons and most beastmen are the same (and we found a ton of frogfolk pictures).
The game hasn't started and my players are already ruining my plans!
... exactly what I’d expect to hear about a secret beast person!!!!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Last week we got asked to investigate some student disappearances. We spent most the night talking to friends and family of the missing students. Turns out they all have the same tutor. Should be open and shut at this point. But either because we're down the wrong path or because we've blown important rolls we're at a dead end. We can't find any real proof.
So we're following the same threads this week and the frustration is starting to set in. No one is mad or anything in real life, but we're also not sure what to do next. We blow some other attempts and probably make the situation worse. When the GM gives us another side task I can tell some of the people we're playing with are getting antsy. We get a call to help out a nice old Voodoo lady we know. She's trying to get a guy to leave a gang, his dead girlfriend's spirit is restless because of the life he is leading. He's worried that the gang will kill him if he leaves. As soon some gang members show up it's a blood bath. One of our two "wildcards" in the group immediately attack. 5 college students vs. 10 gang members.
I think we're 6 or 7 games in and this was easily are largest combat. Next week we'll see if there is any legal fallout from it.
Comics, Games, Booze
Comics, Games, Booze
Either?
Gumshoe does it all on its own, but really you should be able to handle most investigative scenarios with a combination of fail forward, say yes or roll, and the PbtA principle of "when the players look to you, make a move".
Just assaulting or killing another person will get you past 90% of roadblocks. It may sound dumb but it's the plot of pretty much 90% of Agatha Christie's Poirot stories.
Its the entire plot of criminal minds. We've hit a road block... new murder... new clues... now we can find them.
Is it a language clue? The Bard figures it out. Is it a magic clue? The Wizard figures it out. Is it a criminal clue? The Rogue figures it out. The rolls aren't important (except to the drama of the situation, obviously) so you let them make them. Regardless of the result, you move the investigation forward. If someone botches the group misses that clue but continues on, presumably figuring out what that clue was retrospectively. If they care.
But Gumshoe is built specifically to remove those ambiguities. It simply assumes everyone's a trained investigator with their specialties and hands them information to help them piece the conspiracy together.
It should determine if they put the pieces together fast enough.
Like, oh, of course the deputy is the one behind the string of robberies! But shit, it took too long, and he's already left town with half the armory.
Now they've got a whole new problem to sort out.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I decided to give him Connor Gallach, Sacrisian Highlander and Storm Warden chapter reject with his mighty big claymore Bessie.
I also think I might have an issue with mysteries, because I don’t know how to make good clues. Most of my mysteries are people and location based, this person met with that person before they were murdered, he owns this bar, he was talking to that guy etc.
Mini rant about my players:
This guy’s last name is literally (red) (h)Eorring dressed in all red and you were told by someone you didn’t trust that he was from a violent cult so why did you follow him instead of this guy I clearly made more suspicious who you know has lied to you before or the gangers who you’ve had run-ins with previously that were meeting with the suspicious guy (and they would have led them to the climax had they followed them as almost a cheat ending). Why didn’t you look at the murdered guy’s notes or cogitator. Why didn’t you bring the framed scribe to the bar so he might start to remember what happened and skip the hard parts of the investigation and you have a rosette so the cops would have allowed you to take him. You could lie that you were the domestic arbitrators transporting the prisoner to an Arbitrator fort, you even had specific papers given to you, an arbitrator, by the local arbitrators to operate in their jurisdiction- and more.
Now renegade guardsmen stole weapons crates containing like 400 heavy weapons and I will use them on the characters now as a consequence.
I’m not mad or really disappointed, I think I just expected these guys to know tropes of these kinds of stories.
That sounds somewhat familiar, except in our DH game we were the ones raiding a guard warehouse, which went bad, and I may have almost killed the rest of the party with a grenade.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
cannot emphasize this enough
if you're writing the scenario and predicating the entire thing on whether or not the group can solve the riddle, you're approaching the structure wrong
you plan for both. either they cut the bad guy off at the pass, yay they are smart, or they don't and go get to kick him in the teeth, yay they are strong
don't just boondoggle em and say well you lose
With the whole rolling to accumulate successes to overcome opacity but if you roll beyond a certain amount of times you start risking muddying the waters with your presence
These cultists don’t know they’re coming so no traps or fortifications besides the ones they already set up. With a big glowing Khornate idol, a fleshhound, big guns, and a hideout of about 30-40 hardened corrupted vets and gangers, and frenzying by blood ritual. It ought to be a good time.
Also the arbitrator who lost his arm burned influence to get a best quality Deus Ex arm. He’s playing that Sacrisian highlander because he’s in surgery for 12 days. The other downed guy should be okay to go after surgery and a week of rest. Edit 2: he has big visible plate on the side of his head now.
Edit: also one of them keeps asking if they can cut peoples faces off and wear them, and while there is a gang whose deal is that, she’s like a techpriest or something. I don’t say no, but I do warn about corruption points and the rest of the team keeps asking her to not. She’s not a troll or a problem player.
Edit 2: this reminds me of when I thought the alpha team might have stumbled into a slaaneshi cult’s hideout having messed up royally. They were going to walk in the middle of this place, get taunted by the cult leader over vox, then have it explode in flame so they would have to get out. Then I realized with how the story was going it didn’t make sense for them to stop by that place, so I set up the ambush instead. Had they not messed up, they would have had a big climactic battle on a runway, or if they had done really well, basically stopped the plot altogether.
Edit 3: DH2E's influence system is weird, and that's with me putting in the money system from DH1E in certain cases. It's like, why would you by chance have or not have enough money to bribe a guy, or buy something like a low-grade watch, or just have no cab fare but then suddenly have it later? Luckily my acolytes got their own car after a really good roll and a requisition bonus as a reward for helping that crime boss, so I no longer have ask them to roll to get a cab or have a magrail pass or something.
Critical Failures - Havenhold Campaign • August St. Cloud (Human Ranger)
Yeah, the most critical important thing that Gumshoe makes clear is that in an investigative game the challenge is not in finding clues, the challenge is working out what the clues mean. You should never fail to find clues.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.