It’s a pretty good example of why I don’t really like April fools because the jokes are:
1. Haha the thing you’d be interested in isn’t real
2. Also narrative rpgs amirite?
The good jokes in there are the infinite chart jokes which seem to dig at what the back of every Fragged book looks like due to the equipment and trait charts.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I want to name a Punisher type character with a bubonic plague doctor and bird theme “the Crow”. I feel embarassed to because the movie. I feel like the newest name I gave him, “the Pyre”, is a weird name since he’s not a zealot type. Also is it like people burn on him? Same thing with “the Cure”. Too on the nose that his main target is a secretive Nurgle cult.
I can’t ask my players what they think because I’ve been building him up with radio broadcasts about him blowing up aid houses. They can’t assume they’ll be meeting him to advance their campaign based upon exposing and destroying this cult they’ll be tipped off to at the end of their current campaign.
More on the nose is me using Greg Rucka’s young, Solid-Snake-looking version of the Punisher for his unmasked portrait in Roll20.
I want to name a Punisher type character with a bubonic plague doctor and bird theme “the Crow”. I feel embarassed to because the movie. I feel like the newest name I gave him, “the Pyre”, is a weird name since he’s not a zealot type. Also is it like people burn on him? Same thing with “the Cure”. Too on the nose that his main target is a secretive Nurgle cult.
I can’t ask my players what they think because I’ve been building him up with radio broadcasts about him blowing up aid houses. They can’t assume they’ll be meeting him to advance their campaign based upon exposing and destroying this cult they’ll be tipped off to at the end of their current campaign.
More on the nose is me using Greg Rucka’s young, Solid-Snake-looking version of the Punisher for his unmasked portrait in Roll20.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
Thanks for the suggestions!
Raven wouldn’t quite work. Plus his symbol (to replace the skull) is a crow’s foot.
His backstory is he was a Kasrkin (like how Frank was special forces) mustered out of service on a different planet so having a Japanese name wouldn’t quite make sense. The people with Asian names are from Asian inspired planets I invented like Wu from a space China/American Wild West themed frontier world and Oniboshi and the samurai marine from a Japanese history and mythology inspired world (that is dead).
I have this whole plot about disgruntled Cadians. In my continuity, the administratum and munitorum made a big bureaucratic fuck up (as they do) during one of the Spinward Front campaigns and got groups of Cadian guardsmen and kasrkin abandoned due to paperwork and such. Basically they were mustered out on mess-ups.
Many of them have not been appreciative of this. This led to one influential ex-officer to join the big conspiracy and alliance of Chaos and renegade types I named “the Tarot” that is behind some important events in the campaigns. He started to recruit local guardsmen and other Cadians to their side. So now I have a reason to send corrupted stormtroopers/kasrkin after the Henchmen. He was also the prior owner of the Galloping Aethexe. The acolytes basically stole it from him after he ran when he led them on a wild goose chase once.
The Pun-Pun type is one of the Cadians who tried to make the mustering out work. His family got sick and he went to these aid houses. The cult made them worse by secretly infecting them with Nurgle Rot. A twist for the acolytes is that the family didn’t die of the rot. He mercy-killed them so they wouldn’t turn into plague bearers. So he’s now on a suicide/revenge mission, hence the blown up clinics and such.
I honestly might just go with “the Crow” since it fits him well. The crowsfoot symbol, the get up, the symbol of fear/death thing he’s trying, and him metaphorically picking among the dead (his family) like a carrion bird. Fuck movies.
Edit: might call him “White Crow” or “Black Crow” to separate him. He’s got that symbol in white on his chest and he’s been leaving it around the hive to show what he’s done.
Edit 2: Black Crow is a band. That brings the direct musical name references up to like six now, I think.
Edit 3: wait no that's Black Crowes. There's only one of him. Edit 4: I did find a way to ask a player about it. I'm going with "White Crow". Edit 5: I looked up pics. White crows are cool. Edit 6: Do not go looking for white crows unaware that there's a picture of a headless chicken next to one for some reason.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
Damn, that’s good too. Edit: Kind of sounds creepy as a plus.
Maybe I’ll coward out and have the character treat it like Pun-Pun does where it seems like most of the time people gave him the name and he doesn’t choose it himself (at least in the 2000s comics I read). That way he can have different names from different people.
Edit 2: oh that makes the name of the protagonists’ gang in AC: Syndicate actually a little more neat. I thought Jacob was being a dummy and named the group after the chess piece. Edit 3: Might default to “the Rook” though. It’s the perfect sweet spot of creepy, supersitious, and thematic that I’m trying to go for.
Oh guys! How does this sound? I'm still doing my genesys sci fi world. Next one I think I want to get the team to board (hopefully stealthily) onto another ship to try to steal the other half of blue prints they already have. Well whether they do or do not do it stealthily I printed off a big 3' x 3' blue print of a space ship they'll have to board. I have 24 sections hidden with index cards that will correspond to various difficulties and success of the genesys dice rolls. So the hacker is constantly hacking trying to open up the map for the team trying to find the plan. Doable if he fails but big help as he succeeds! Any suggestions?
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Maybe make a smaller map for hackman to keep track of on his own. Also is the hacking allowing them to move from room to room or to see from room to room? It would be a boon to be able to see oncoming enemies in rooms they hacked prior or see dudes in rooms they’re going into. Maybe on really good rolls allow hackman to lock doors so enemies gotta use laser cutters or whatever to get in and be slowed down.
Maybe make a smaller map for hackman to keep track of on his own. Also is the hacking allowing them to move from room to room or to see from room to room? It would be a boon to be able to see oncoming enemies in rooms they hacked prior or see dudes in rooms they’re going into. Maybe on really good rolls allow hackman to lock doors so enemies gotta use laser cutters or whatever to get in and be slowed down.
He'll be able to see the room using the ships security so he can get a view of threats or equipment in the room . Good idea on the bonus rolls to lock doors!
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
Also if they’re using any heavy weaponry inside the ship and they get like a really bad roll (like three despairs or whatever the opposite of a triumph is in Genesys), allow the ship walls to be breached and decompression be a problem. You don’t have to space them immediately, but maybe show the danger of blowing holes in a metal can that has the vacuum of space surrounding it. Like maybe have oxygen leave the room, have the artificial gravity messed up, and have them have to take hold and wait for reinforcement bulkheads to be put into place.
Maybe allow space suits to be used to climb on the outside hull.
Edit: I don’t know maybe that breach stuff is kind of cruel. I know I’m not a big fan of environmental hazards unless they’re very obvious, forced by hostile NPCs, or self-imposed like my players falling off of roofs they didn’t have to climb (buy your stupid fucking rope).
Edit 2: This is a more 40k based question rather than RP, but should Hotshot Volley Guns count as the Hotshot equivalent of a heavy machine gun weapon like a heavy bolter or heavy stubber (which in DH terms means firing on full auto only and has to be braced), or as a twin-linked version of a hot shot lasgun (which means you fire twice the amount of ammo to get double the hits of the set RoF values)?
My players can can get one if they requisition it, but I have to homebrew it since it’s not in any 40k RPG. Also I’m using it as a stand-in for Punisher’s M60 for the Rook. Edit 3: Friend says Machine Gun Edit 4: I made it http://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2018/04/homebrew-dark-heresy-weapons-hot-shot.html
I also made sure it wasn't super OP. It has similar stats to standard hot shots and is upped where appropriate as I have seen with other heavy weapons where they'll up the pen or dam. I really don't like wikis (Edit 6:I shouldn’t name them like I’m calling specific ones out) where every weapon is way too powerful. The whole set up is pretty jank but it's prettier than just typing it out. Edit 5: It is odd to keep making stuff for what is essentially a dead game. Ullysies didn't care enough to put errata changes FFG made into their branded PDF version of the core rulebook.
Guess whose Fragged Empire Expanded books arrived in the mail today!!
Other than Kingdom I've mostly only scan read them but the art is, as ever, consistently awesome and they all do interesting things with how the game works.
Guess whose Fragged Empire Expanded books arrived in the mail today!!
Other than Kingdom I've mostly only scan read them but the art is, as ever, consistently awesome and they all do interesting things with how the game works.
I've been working 12-hour days, basically, because I need to catch up from vacation, so I've mostly, like ... smelled the covers? ... but holy shit yes the art this guy gets is top notch.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
How y’all feel about adaptive difficulty in GMing? Like removing or adding some dangers based on the state of the player party?
Here’s an example for tomorrow: the Expendable Henchmen will be entering a fort and shutting off a portal through the warp that would allow a nurglite invasion to take place. Through the portal will come a chaos space marine, two tough and big mutants, and a psyker. The biggest danger is the Marine. The other three are really there to be meat shields so the marine can connect and an epic and pretty even combat can take place. My players have power weapons, bolt and melta weaponry, good skills and talents, and their sniper party member a few hundred meters away safe to snipe the people while they’re distracted.
I have a separate encounter in a bridge tower with a bevy of low and mid level cultist and mutant troop types. They need to use those bridge controls (or demolitions or well-placed shots with high powered or explosive weapons) to bring down the bridge. That will break the physical and mystical Chaotic alignment and the energy allowing the portal to open.
Now with that marine I am assuming they will probably come out of this fight with burned fate points or at the very least critical wounds. So I am thinking if they are hurt very bad, the bridge tower will be empty or mostly empty since one of their leaders is now dead. If somehow, like with a carnosaur they fought, they trivialize the encounter I will keep the enemies in the tower.
Is that fair? How do you feel about this kind of stuff?
Personally I am not into games like that Only War campaign where the players had like 10 replacement characters. I also want them to feel danger and humbled though, and I am not afraid of them dying in a combat with a pretty worthy opponent for a pretty just cause. I have run through the combat by simulating the rolls and actions on the Roll20 map I made for it. It seems even.
I assumed that adaptive GMing was always the norm and standard practice.
Without adaptive GMing you might as well be playing a computer game, as far as I’m concerned.
I routinely add and subtract entire fights and tweak enemy stats on the fly to tell the most interesting and engaging story possible for my players, and that is typically an adaptive story that keeps them on the edge without pushing them over.
So there's bad adaptation. For instance, one of the special abilities characters can choose in Blades in the Dark reduces all incoming harm by one level. Bad adaptation would be artificially increasing the harm dealt by attacks targeting that player. Worse adaptation would be artificially increasing the harm done by all attacks against the players.
I would say that's bad for several reasons, most relevant that the adaptation is counter to the core fantasy that the player wants at the table.
The adaptation you're describing, assuming you handle it well, would probably be good adaptation, because it would keep to build and maintain that core fantasy. Like inquisitor said, keep them on the edge, that's where it's interesting.
Fully agreed, never adapt to take away the player’s cool powers or triumphant moments. If someone takes a power to reduce all incoming harm by one level, the adaptation you should make (if any) is to throw lots of weak hits against them to make that choice feel satisfying and let them play out that role/fantasy. (Before eventually throwing an elite that hits like a truck at them to put the fear of god back into the player, but only after establishing that baseline.)
A bad adaptation is making it so the enemy big bad guy had a surprise forcefield that saves them from the carefully planned out sniper headshot from the party’s marksman. A good adaptation is letting the marksman have that feel good moment and quietly shuffling the plot elements that big bad was linked with to other NPCs.
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
I think I improved on doing big battles. Rather than than trying to do a full on structured combat (like last time when it was boring when I tried it), I basically gave the players objectives for them to influence the battle. They took charge in trying to find stuff like munitions dumps and inspiring their allies to do better.
One of them did a smart and set up overwatch on the portal they've come to destroy. This interrupted a villain speech, but it was funny. The marine's threat is firmly established. One of the party is having a seizure from fear and is stunned. The other two just came out on top. One just barely.
Their allies are mostly thugs with lasguns and autoguns so they will not help much with the marine. The appearance of the marine rallied the other nurglite cultists and now their allies are distracted by that.
The acolytes have seen warpy stuff before and remembered their previous experiences. The arbitrator of the group tried to rally their allies to fire upon whatever came out of the portal. He yelled at them that, “Fucking daemons are about to pour out of thing,” and I took that and said in-character in a raspy, sickly sounding voice “No daemon, but a child of the Emperor” when the nurglite marine came out.
In general balancing and in the interest of flow I am reducing the amount of combatants per fight. The worst part of RPGs is how long combat can take. That is the drawback to the overall freedom they offer. I need the fights to be punchy to keep them engaged.
I have one big annoyance with my players. I have set up a map screen with obvious characters they can talk to. They know these characters or know people related to them. They lead to little side questy stuff.
They did take an interest in the double personality psyker bard. They have taken well to Veljack the manhound. The tech priest has been treating his daemonically influenced dreams seriously and attempting to fight back (it’s Nightmare on Elmstreet but sexy). They did well in playing out their interrogation and I didn’t have to force their target into spilling info unnaturally too much. So they have been engaging and I’m glad.
That night was really nice. I got to really let loose. I’ve been getting some good vibes from that still.
Edit 2: I thought of a fun thing that I could use to introduce the Rook outside of the radio broadcasts. The thing would be basically running him through a raid where the players control all the combatants. One of the group takes control of him and the others take control of the ganger thugs. I pepper in the models and give the person playing the Rook a simple goal to kill all the gangers in a hideout. After every combat, the players switch roles so everyone gets a turn. I then tie it to the story of them investigating the cult he’s targeting.
Had my first TPK tonight *flexes*. Back-to-back-to-back failed saving throws from the party left them cowering with fear and gave the boss monster free rein. Instead I had her monologue a bit filling in some nice exposition for all the things they missed. A little deus-ex-machina from an NPC put the train back on the tracks, but now I'm going to have to do something to show them that I still mean business. Well, aside from continuing to kill off NPCs that are important to them. As it ended up they're going into the Mournlands, a sort of magical Chernobyl, without any supplies, information, or escape route. So, 'bad ending', but I wonder if I will need to make it clear that I'm willing to kill them (just not kill all of them at once...).
I had a great time tonight despite (or maybe because of) inflicting emotional torment. We started the session off with a fight inside a burning building, and they decided to split up trying to save all the people inside. The fire gave them a time limit, and enemies and civilians in each room gave them something to chew on as they had to make tough decisions as to whether to save civilians and expose themselves to more attacks or concentrate on enemies as those civilians tried to save themselves (often failing in the process). Because they all split up they ended up not being able to provide each other support, taking a lot of damage and using up most of their limited resources (potions, etc.), while also being only moderately successful in their endeavors; of the three NPCs they tried to save only the daughter was rescued as her mother and father died in front of her. I hope they learned a few valuable lessons in the process: that they can't accomplish everything, that they will be forced to make difficult choices, and that their DM is a monster wearing human skin.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Maybe a daemon that you know is at the edge of their capability, and if it manages to kill one of the players, have it absorb their soul or something and then peace out.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I bought a Blue Yeti to commit to the radio drama idea. I like it.
I got this concept for a PC. I want to make that guy that’s the oafish muscle at the side of a mob boss going “Yeah, Boss”. A big ape of a man. Big muscles. Deep voiced. The stereotypical thug. Good at fighting, intimidating, breaking thumbs and such. However, while he’s a simple-minded man he isn’t a comedic relief fool. He just knows his ways around the street and ain’t never had no use fer fancy book learnin’. Save that for the nerds, wizards, psionics, and whatnot. He’s there when someone is being choosey with words and needs to catch some knuckles. Or when diplomacy breaks down and the parts has to do things his way. The only way he knows how.
Might even be good with kids and ladies. Loves junk food, stiff drinks, and listening to live music. Sticks to the funny papers.
Might be with a party for himself to get out of what he was doing the only way he knows how. Maybe he’s being threatened. Someone got his Ma under gunpoint. His heart could be a replacement that could explode at the click of a button. Maybe he owes Mr. New Heart his life.
Basically could fit in a number of games where that type could pop up like Star Wars, DH, Cyberpunk, or pretty much any game set in or after the mid-late victorian era on Earth.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
GMed my groups first session of our Pirates themed Genesys game. It was a ton of fun but I'm going to have to build up a decent somewhat abstracted ship combat system. I think I'm going to repurpose an old battleship peg board, so then we can do some basic maneuvering and actions. Everyone had a ton of fun creating characters, and they are all unique and memorable out of the gate, which I give big props to the system for, as these guys are all almost completely new to table top RPGs. They took to the narrative dice pretty quickly too, and I credit this to both Genesys and to not having any roleplaying habits from other games.
I heartily approve of the system though. Biggest thing is that a lot of the narrative control can be handed off to the players with the advantage and threat system, and I recommend doing that. It really engaged my players.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2018
I think every pirate setting RPG I have heard of has lacking ship combat either in quality or absence. Has there been a good one with both ship and on foot aspects?
Edit: Oh I just thought up a thing that would help my players connect to an NPC. So I have a performer type whose alternate personality is a powerful psyker (and maybe a warp entity sharing his soul). He’s been set up as an unconscious part of this perfomer guy. They seem conflicted about the performer because he exploded. My techpriest has been having Nightmare on Elmstreet type dreams brought on by a daemon. So far, he’s been somewhat protected by another player whose secretly an untouchable. However, there are times when he goes to sleep and that guy isn’t around. So to redeem this performer his alternate personality will come into the techpriest’s dream, rock out, and literally (play) “Shout at the Devil” to fight off the daemon. (It’s not the only song I know even though I’ve been referencing it a lot. It’s better here than with the Rock and Roll sorceror though).
Kadoken on
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Nothing modern that I can think of. Im going to look over my star wars Armada rules and do a super basic version of that. The biggest thing will be how to set initiative for the players and enemies and give them interesting things to do.
make the ships themselves into characters and do normal combat, reflavoring things as they make sense
that's what the Star Wars games do for ship combat, should work fine for pirates
Personally speaking, I think the Star Wars ship combat rules could totally work (mostly as-is), with the stipulation that every ship is Silhouette 5 or higher.
this week in curse of strahd, we used dimension door to rob a kindly, senile lich
later my character broke down in gross snotty ugly sobbing because of the nigh comedic amount of terrible shit that has been happening to him specifically, so we used Tiny Hut to make an emergency drinking safehouse so we could end the session on a feelings powwow
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Posts
1. Haha the thing you’d be interested in isn’t real
2. Also narrative rpgs amirite?
The good jokes in there are the infinite chart jokes which seem to dig at what the back of every Fragged book looks like due to the equipment and trait charts.
From ThinkGeek's April Fool's Day products this year. That's a fantastic logo.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I can’t ask my players what they think because I’ve been building him up with radio broadcasts about him blowing up aid houses. They can’t assume they’ll be meeting him to advance their campaign based upon exposing and destroying this cult they’ll be tipped off to at the end of their current campaign.
More on the nose is me using Greg Rucka’s young, Solid-Snake-looking version of the Punisher for his unmasked portrait in Roll20.
Raven
Though that makes the rip off thing feel worse probably.
Raven wouldn’t quite work. Plus his symbol (to replace the skull) is a crow’s foot.
His backstory is he was a Kasrkin (like how Frank was special forces) mustered out of service on a different planet so having a Japanese name wouldn’t quite make sense. The people with Asian names are from Asian inspired planets I invented like Wu from a space China/American Wild West themed frontier world and Oniboshi and the samurai marine from a Japanese history and mythology inspired world (that is dead).
I have this whole plot about disgruntled Cadians. In my continuity, the administratum and munitorum made a big bureaucratic fuck up (as they do) during one of the Spinward Front campaigns and got groups of Cadian guardsmen and kasrkin abandoned due to paperwork and such. Basically they were mustered out on mess-ups.
Many of them have not been appreciative of this. This led to one influential ex-officer to join the big conspiracy and alliance of Chaos and renegade types I named “the Tarot” that is behind some important events in the campaigns. He started to recruit local guardsmen and other Cadians to their side. So now I have a reason to send corrupted stormtroopers/kasrkin after the Henchmen. He was also the prior owner of the Galloping Aethexe. The acolytes basically stole it from him after he ran when he led them on a wild goose chase once.
The Pun-Pun type is one of the Cadians who tried to make the mustering out work. His family got sick and he went to these aid houses. The cult made them worse by secretly infecting them with Nurgle Rot. A twist for the acolytes is that the family didn’t die of the rot. He mercy-killed them so they wouldn’t turn into plague bearers. So he’s now on a suicide/revenge mission, hence the blown up clinics and such.
I honestly might just go with “the Crow” since it fits him well. The crowsfoot symbol, the get up, the symbol of fear/death thing he’s trying, and him metaphorically picking among the dead (his family) like a carrion bird. Fuck movies.
Edit: might call him “White Crow” or “Black Crow” to separate him. He’s got that symbol in white on his chest and he’s been leaving it around the hive to show what he’s done.
Edit 2: Black Crow is a band. That brings the direct musical name references up to like six now, I think.
Edit 3: wait no that's Black Crowes. There's only one of him. Edit 4: I did find a way to ask a player about it. I'm going with "White Crow". Edit 5: I looked up pics. White crows are cool. Edit 6: Do not go looking for white crows unaware that there's a picture of a headless chicken next to one for some reason.
Maybe I’ll coward out and have the character treat it like Pun-Pun does where it seems like most of the time people gave him the name and he doesn’t choose it himself (at least in the 2000s comics I read). That way he can have different names from different people.
Edit 2: oh that makes the name of the protagonists’ gang in AC: Syndicate actually a little more neat. I thought Jacob was being a dummy and named the group after the chess piece. Edit 3: Might default to “the Rook” though. It’s the perfect sweet spot of creepy, supersitious, and thematic that I’m trying to go for.
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
He'll be able to see the room using the ships security so he can get a view of threats or equipment in the room . Good idea on the bonus rolls to lock doors!
Selling Board Games for Medical Bills
Maybe allow space suits to be used to climb on the outside hull.
Edit: I don’t know maybe that breach stuff is kind of cruel. I know I’m not a big fan of environmental hazards unless they’re very obvious, forced by hostile NPCs, or self-imposed like my players falling off of roofs they didn’t have to climb (buy your stupid fucking rope).
Edit 2: This is a more 40k based question rather than RP, but should Hotshot Volley Guns count as the Hotshot equivalent of a heavy machine gun weapon like a heavy bolter or heavy stubber (which in DH terms means firing on full auto only and has to be braced), or as a twin-linked version of a hot shot lasgun (which means you fire twice the amount of ammo to get double the hits of the set RoF values)?
My players can can get one if they requisition it, but I have to homebrew it since it’s not in any 40k RPG. Also I’m using it as a stand-in for Punisher’s M60 for the Rook. Edit 3: Friend says Machine Gun Edit 4: I made it http://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2018/04/homebrew-dark-heresy-weapons-hot-shot.html
I also made sure it wasn't super OP. It has similar stats to standard hot shots and is upped where appropriate as I have seen with other heavy weapons where they'll up the pen or dam. I really don't like wikis (Edit 6:I shouldn’t name them like I’m calling specific ones out) where every weapon is way too powerful. The whole set up is pretty jank but it's prettier than just typing it out. Edit 5: It is odd to keep making stuff for what is essentially a dead game. Ullysies didn't care enough to put errata changes FFG made into their branded PDF version of the core rulebook.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
My only time playing FFG's Star Wars was once, on here, with @DaMoonRulz. May Waukeen bless me in return for my sacrifices.
Other than Kingdom I've mostly only scan read them but the art is, as ever, consistently awesome and they all do interesting things with how the game works.
I've been working 12-hour days, basically, because I need to catch up from vacation, so I've mostly, like ... smelled the covers? ... but holy shit yes the art this guy gets is top notch.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Here’s an example for tomorrow: the Expendable Henchmen will be entering a fort and shutting off a portal through the warp that would allow a nurglite invasion to take place. Through the portal will come a chaos space marine, two tough and big mutants, and a psyker. The biggest danger is the Marine. The other three are really there to be meat shields so the marine can connect and an epic and pretty even combat can take place. My players have power weapons, bolt and melta weaponry, good skills and talents, and their sniper party member a few hundred meters away safe to snipe the people while they’re distracted.
I have a separate encounter in a bridge tower with a bevy of low and mid level cultist and mutant troop types. They need to use those bridge controls (or demolitions or well-placed shots with high powered or explosive weapons) to bring down the bridge. That will break the physical and mystical Chaotic alignment and the energy allowing the portal to open.
Now with that marine I am assuming they will probably come out of this fight with burned fate points or at the very least critical wounds. So I am thinking if they are hurt very bad, the bridge tower will be empty or mostly empty since one of their leaders is now dead. If somehow, like with a carnosaur they fought, they trivialize the encounter I will keep the enemies in the tower.
Is that fair? How do you feel about this kind of stuff?
Personally I am not into games like that Only War campaign where the players had like 10 replacement characters. I also want them to feel danger and humbled though, and I am not afraid of them dying in a combat with a pretty worthy opponent for a pretty just cause. I have run through the combat by simulating the rolls and actions on the Roll20 map I made for it. It seems even.
Without adaptive GMing you might as well be playing a computer game, as far as I’m concerned.
I routinely add and subtract entire fights and tweak enemy stats on the fly to tell the most interesting and engaging story possible for my players, and that is typically an adaptive story that keeps them on the edge without pushing them over.
I would say that's bad for several reasons, most relevant that the adaptation is counter to the core fantasy that the player wants at the table.
The adaptation you're describing, assuming you handle it well, would probably be good adaptation, because it would keep to build and maintain that core fantasy. Like inquisitor said, keep them on the edge, that's where it's interesting.
A bad adaptation is making it so the enemy big bad guy had a surprise forcefield that saves them from the carefully planned out sniper headshot from the party’s marksman. A good adaptation is letting the marksman have that feel good moment and quietly shuffling the plot elements that big bad was linked with to other NPCs.
One of them did a smart and set up overwatch on the portal they've come to destroy. This interrupted a villain speech, but it was funny. The marine's threat is firmly established. One of the party is having a seizure from fear and is stunned. The other two just came out on top. One just barely.
Their allies are mostly thugs with lasguns and autoguns so they will not help much with the marine. The appearance of the marine rallied the other nurglite cultists and now their allies are distracted by that.
The acolytes have seen warpy stuff before and remembered their previous experiences. The arbitrator of the group tried to rally their allies to fire upon whatever came out of the portal. He yelled at them that, “Fucking daemons are about to pour out of thing,” and I took that and said in-character in a raspy, sickly sounding voice “No daemon, but a child of the Emperor” when the nurglite marine came out.
In general balancing and in the interest of flow I am reducing the amount of combatants per fight. The worst part of RPGs is how long combat can take. That is the drawback to the overall freedom they offer. I need the fights to be punchy to keep them engaged.
This is rad battlefield ambience
I have one big annoyance with my players. I have set up a map screen with obvious characters they can talk to. They know these characters or know people related to them. They lead to little side questy stuff.
They did take an interest in the double personality psyker bard. They have taken well to Veljack the manhound. The tech priest has been treating his daemonically influenced dreams seriously and attempting to fight back (it’s Nightmare on Elmstreet but sexy). They did well in playing out their interrogation and I didn’t have to force their target into spilling info unnaturally too much. So they have been engaging and I’m glad.
That night was really nice. I got to really let loose. I’ve been getting some good vibes from that still.
Edit 2: I thought of a fun thing that I could use to introduce the Rook outside of the radio broadcasts. The thing would be basically running him through a raid where the players control all the combatants. One of the group takes control of him and the others take control of the ganger thugs. I pepper in the models and give the person playing the Rook a simple goal to kill all the gangers in a hideout. After every combat, the players switch roles so everyone gets a turn. I then tie it to the story of them investigating the cult he’s targeting.
Hrm. I could trace it back here but not to the actual artist. https://www.pinterest.com/dandi0792/
I had a great time tonight despite (or maybe because of) inflicting emotional torment. We started the session off with a fight inside a burning building, and they decided to split up trying to save all the people inside. The fire gave them a time limit, and enemies and civilians in each room gave them something to chew on as they had to make tough decisions as to whether to save civilians and expose themselves to more attacks or concentrate on enemies as those civilians tried to save themselves (often failing in the process). Because they all split up they ended up not being able to provide each other support, taking a lot of damage and using up most of their limited resources (potions, etc.), while also being only moderately successful in their endeavors; of the three NPCs they tried to save only the daughter was rescued as her mother and father died in front of her. I hope they learned a few valuable lessons in the process: that they can't accomplish everything, that they will be forced to make difficult choices, and that their DM is a monster wearing human skin.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
I got this concept for a PC. I want to make that guy that’s the oafish muscle at the side of a mob boss going “Yeah, Boss”. A big ape of a man. Big muscles. Deep voiced. The stereotypical thug. Good at fighting, intimidating, breaking thumbs and such. However, while he’s a simple-minded man he isn’t a comedic relief fool. He just knows his ways around the street and ain’t never had no use fer fancy book learnin’. Save that for the nerds, wizards, psionics, and whatnot. He’s there when someone is being choosey with words and needs to catch some knuckles. Or when diplomacy breaks down and the parts has to do things his way. The only way he knows how.
Might even be good with kids and ladies. Loves junk food, stiff drinks, and listening to live music. Sticks to the funny papers.
Might be with a party for himself to get out of what he was doing the only way he knows how. Maybe he’s being threatened. Someone got his Ma under gunpoint. His heart could be a replacement that could explode at the click of a button. Maybe he owes Mr. New Heart his life.
Basically could fit in a number of games where that type could pop up like Star Wars, DH, Cyberpunk, or pretty much any game set in or after the mid-late victorian era on Earth.
I heartily approve of the system though. Biggest thing is that a lot of the narrative control can be handed off to the players with the advantage and threat system, and I recommend doing that. It really engaged my players.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Edit: Oh I just thought up a thing that would help my players connect to an NPC. So I have a performer type whose alternate personality is a powerful psyker (and maybe a warp entity sharing his soul). He’s been set up as an unconscious part of this perfomer guy. They seem conflicted about the performer because he exploded. My techpriest has been having Nightmare on Elmstreet type dreams brought on by a daemon. So far, he’s been somewhat protected by another player whose secretly an untouchable. However, there are times when he goes to sleep and that guy isn’t around. So to redeem this performer his alternate personality will come into the techpriest’s dream, rock out, and literally (play) “Shout at the Devil” to fight off the daemon. (It’s not the only song I know even though I’ve been referencing it a lot. It’s better here than with the Rock and Roll sorceror though).
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
make the ships themselves into characters and do normal combat, reflavoring things as they make sense
that's what the Star Wars games do for ship combat, should work fine for pirates
Personally speaking, I think the Star Wars ship combat rules could totally work (mostly as-is), with the stipulation that every ship is Silhouette 5 or higher.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
later my character broke down in gross snotty ugly sobbing because of the nigh comedic amount of terrible shit that has been happening to him specifically, so we used Tiny Hut to make an emergency drinking safehouse so we could end the session on a feelings powwow
The face of FEAR