Hey this is some fucking awesome advice! I'm thinking it might be fun to come up with a table of random complications. Then when I create stuff for them to do at the end I can generate a random complication or two to give me and my players some spice.
I'm excited for Android because as much as the whole cyberpunk/Shadowrun aesthetic really interests me, I never have wanted to have to really dig into the shadowrun books. I'm already running a main Genesys game set on the fantasy D&D high seas that I've put together from scratch, and this game is for when we have a player who can't make it (Lots of travel for work) with a system I don't have to do too much bolting on to.
Glad to hear it! Couple of pile-ons to consider. When you're players are looking for ways to exploit these systems you've put in place remember these two adages: "Convenience is the enemy of security," and "Complacency is the friend of Confidence." It's like when you've got to make a weird 24 character password with no sequential numbers or letters, no words, and of course 2 each of capitals, lower-case, numbers, and special characters. And you've got to change it every month. Ain't no body gonna remember that: it's either going to be some kind of spacial sequence or they're going to write it down in a convienet place, like in that cool moleskin notebook they review with their morning coffee at the nearby Starbucks.
Genesys I think is a little rough wrt this kinda of deliberate cause & effect style of gameplay, so you may want to plan in advance how to translate the threat generated on their rolls in predictable and scale-able ways that don't immediately compromise their objectives. For example, the win condition in my scenario above is to upload a plant into the network undetected, it wouldn't do if you spent threat to make a hidden alarm go off. But it could work out that there's some sort of daemon that automatically logs admin accounts and notifies an off-site when its alarm threshold is reached for a certain number of actions (represented by a total amount of threat). The PCs should know about this if they've done their homework (and it raises the tension for the game if they know it's coming) but they might not be able to find out exactly what that response is until it happens. It should be another encounter/obstacle for them to overcome if the game reaches that point. To help this along I'd encourage you to allow the PCs to suffer stress instead of letting threat build, and also only allowing them to recover a single stress per scene via advantage.
As far as building random charts goes, that's been on my to-do list for a long time. I've codified a few different security examples scattered across multiple doc files, and maybe I'll take a look for them tomorrow. I went so far as to read a few books on Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare to add more depth and realism to my games that never materialized
I’ve never understood the hype about 13th age. I like the narrative elements of the icons and relative positioning in combat, but everything else about the system is clunky if not dull.
It was intended to evoke feelings of D&D.
Not to chuck a spear your way, but what does that even mean?
I think the post you're quoting was intended to be read like this:
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
First session of Genesys:Android went really well. Finished up our session zero and did a short mission. They got to gather a bit of intel, raid a chop shop and do some running. The running integrated pretty seamlessly into the regular combat system. I also printed out the "map" of the system our runner was in and it helped a lot.
Overall a thumbs up. Though this setting is much more reliant on social encounters, which means I'm going to have to step my NPC game up. Anybody have some good suggestions or resources for that? Especially acting them out during the session
Every NPC should have a drive, a motive. In Dungeon World parlance, an "instinct."
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
Every NPC should have a drive, a motive. In Dungeon World parlance, an "instinct."
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
I do have that part, which is super helpful I agree. I guess specifically I'm having a hard time bringing these characters to life at the table. I'm wondering if I should take an acting or improv class or lessons?
Every NPC should have a drive, a motive. In Dungeon World parlance, an "instinct."
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
I do have that part, which is super helpful I agree. I guess specifically I'm having a hard time bringing these characters to life at the table.
For each of them, pick a thing. A mannerism, a (bad) accent, a favorite phrase. Something that when you do your players can be sure they're talking to NPC Y. That and them having an actual POV(/goal/instinct/whatever) will help a lot.
I'm wondering if I should take an acting or improv class or lessons?
That could help but be aware that character work is usually not intro improv stuff. I've usually seen it as an intermediate level stuff. Intro is usually about basic concepts and getting folks past freezing up.
Every NPC should have a drive, a motive. In Dungeon World parlance, an "instinct."
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
I do have that part, which is super helpful I agree. I guess specifically I'm having a hard time bringing these characters to life at the table.
For each of them, pick a thing. A mannerism, a (bad) accent, a favorite phrase. Something that when you do your players can be sure they're talking to NPC Y. That and them having an actual POV(/goal/instinct/whatever) will help a lot.
I'm wondering if I should take an acting or improv class or lessons?
That could help but be aware that character work is usually not intro improv stuff. I've usually seen it as an intermediate level stuff. Intro is usually about basic concepts and getting folks past freezing up.
I'll look into mannerisms, speech patterns and phrases. I'm naturally introverted with no ear for accents so opening up playing characters has been my biggest struggle for sure.
so the interesting thing about acting in general is that tons of communication and character comes just as much from cadence, pitch, tone, and body language, and the best part is all of those are pretty easy to change. you could build an entire stable of characters without modifying accent at all just by tweaking say, cadence, or speed of speech, or just body language
also, body language in general tends to force changes in the other qualities if you exaggerate it (posture especially)
so start there, make tweaks, and you will find yourself inhabiting those roles more and more
(accents help, so i'd recommend if you like that sort of thing to learn, but it's definitely not needed!)
Every NPC should have a drive, a motive. In Dungeon World parlance, an "instinct."
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
I do have that part, which is super helpful I agree. I guess specifically I'm having a hard time bringing these characters to life at the table.
For each of them, pick a thing. A mannerism, a (bad) accent, a favorite phrase. Something that when you do your players can be sure they're talking to NPC Y. That and them having an actual POV(/goal/instinct/whatever) will help a lot.
I'm wondering if I should take an acting or improv class or lessons?
That could help but be aware that character work is usually not intro improv stuff. I've usually seen it as an intermediate level stuff. Intro is usually about basic concepts and getting folks past freezing up.
I'll look into mannerisms, speech patterns and phrases. I'm naturally introverted with no ear for accents so opening up playing characters has been my biggest struggle for sure.
Do what I did for about a month: Pick a Muppet and emulate that Muppet for each NPC. Start with hard to guess ones like Sam The Eagle and keep going until you reach Cookie Monster or The Count. See how long it takes before your PCs catch on.
Accents aren't really necessary to distinguish characters. Austin Walker, generally regarded as an extremely good GM, has said he only has "higher voice, lower voice, Southern accent" for character voices, but it's the word choice, inflection, cadence, etc., that makes the characters distinct.
Maybe one character stammers, or always goes "uh..." before answering a question, or or doesn't use contractions, or speaks with a haughty air, or is always smiling (actually smile while doing the lines), or or or...
Accents aren't really necessary to distinguish characters. Austin Walker, generally regarded as an extremely good GM, has said he only has "higher voice, lower voice, Southern accent" for character voices, but it's the word choice, inflection, cadence, etc., that makes the characters distinct.
Maybe one character stammers, or always goes "uh..." before answering a question, or or doesn't use contractions, or speaks with a haughty air, or is always smiling (actually smile while doing the lines), or or or...
I started writing a D?? chart of verbal quirks that includes things like "unsettling laughter", "sharp and snapping end to words and sentences" and "constant insults." I've never actually rolled on the chart but just having them in my head seems to have helped put them into use.
As someone with no ear for accents nor any voice training I have only very recently started doing anything like an accent, and it has mostly been (a) applying a very distinct vowel sound like an elongated "aaaah" in "mah pa always said..." and (b) letting my tongue rest in a different part of my mouth and having that affect words however it may. Neither of those create a full accent but they alter it enough to be distinctive.
fwiw I play in a game with multiple theater and voice-trained women and even they can have trouble staying in an accent for a long scene.
Gotta echo this is all great advice. I usually write down on a separate sheet of paper 10 male and female names along with their defining feature and a role play note (like “talks fast”) with a space under each line. I use these for any NPCs that I didn’t prepare otherwise, and fill in the details during play as I use them.
I also sometimes will involve the players for my prepared NPCs, especially if they’re the opposite sex (I don’t have a convincing female voice). I’ll hand the player a note that has a script and some other basic details like the drive and motivation along with some additional information and triggers for giving it. I reward following that script with some inspiration or system equivalent. I try to match the players with characters their own PCs wouldn’t typically interact with, and I only do this once or twice an arc with a really important supporting character, and then I’ll take over if required.
The best usage I had so far with this was making a warforged bodyguard in an Eberron campaign and initially giving it to one of my players who has a deep rumbling voice. He really made the character super memorable and I ended up working it in more with the story helping the PCs out a few times in their greatest times of need. I took over playing the character though once it had more interaction with the group since I didn’t want to lesson the player’s involvement with their own PC.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
0
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
@jdarksun Any info available on that Mass Effect Genesys hack?
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
So the guy in my campaign playing the runner is a young dude, around 23 or so. I'm 37, and the other players are around 30. This dude is just so excited for the android setting and he is that player you want that drives the rest of the group along. He's a great example of a new player/DM (He is running 5e for a group of our friends) that is exemplifying the best of the hobby.
Anyways, as a bit of a reward I found an old IBM toughbook that I've had lying around for a few years that I got for free from an old job that was getting rid of it. It's the perfect deck for hacking. I'm going to wipe the drive, install ubuntu and make it cyberpunk as heck and give it to him. When he goes on a run in the game I'll give him a USB drive with the "schematic" of the network he is hacking.
I'll also load up some hacking music, the PDFs of the books, and some other useful rules stuff. I'm pretty sure he'll be super stoked and I really look forward to giving it to him next time we game in that setting. I also need to think of some other cool things to hook up the rest of the players so everyone has a cool toy.
When there's a real tense scene with the looming threat of violence, place a loaded Nerf gun on the table within easy reach. Don't say anything else about it.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
+4
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I do have some nerf pistols. I will totally bring those along.
Hahaha so it's not a toughbook. It's one of these. Even more early 2000s than I thought.
Look for the most readily available street drug. Find dealers. Make friends with one that will also find you other more restricted drugs after they call a guy. Then figure out how to meet that guy, and then just keep climbing that ladder till you can get the illegal thing you want.
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Look for the most readily available street drug. Find dealers. Make friends with one that will also find you other more restricted drugs after they call a guy. Then figure out how to meet that guy, and then just keep climbing that ladder till you can get the illegal thing you want.
I needed religious relics that are xenos artifacts. I can't be snorting saints bones like John Constantine and Santa.
Look for the most readily available street drug. Find dealers. Make friends with one that will also find you other more restricted drugs after they call a guy. Then figure out how to meet that guy, and then just keep climbing that ladder till you can get the illegal thing you want.
I needed religious relics that are xenos artifacts. I can't be snorting saints bones like John Constantine and Santa.
The reason you start with a common street drug is because well... they're easy as heck to find, and are readily lookin to talk to people. you might need to buy some drugs while you chat the guy up... you might need to do that a few times... this might take a little while, but they're the easiest section of the black market to interact with and can often eventually connect you to larger drug syndicate operations, and they know plenty of unifying services. If you're lookin for black market artifacts those folks absolutely need smugglers...luckily so do drugs.
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Look for the most readily available street drug. Find dealers. Make friends with one that will also find you other more restricted drugs after they call a guy. Then figure out how to meet that guy, and then just keep climbing that ladder till you can get the illegal thing you want.
I needed religious relics that are xenos artifacts. I can't be snorting saints bones like John Constantine and Santa.
The reason you start with a common street drug is because well... they're easy as heck to find, and are readily lookin to talk to people. you might need to buy some drugs while you chat the guy up... you might need to do that a few times... this might take a little while, but they're the easiest section of the black market to interact with and can often eventually connect you to larger drug syndicate operations, and they know plenty of unifying services. If you're lookin for black market artifacts those folks absolutely need smugglers...luckily so do drugs.
I was thinking of doing that but there were cops like everywhere and my character is built more for combat than telling five-oh that I'm gonna pay them $100 to fuck off.
edit: In Dark Heresy 2E I saved a witness from being executed by another party member. He was going to possibly tell the cops that I had destroyed his master (it was self-defense). To preface, meta-wise I have no issue with what he did in terms of it being a thing between us players and it made sense to do it (although I prefer the Ibram Gaunt/Caiaphas Cain school of 40k characters of trying to bring a tiny bit of light in crushing darkness and being a little more moral). Sir Chaucer is a relative golden boy and an idealistic knight from a feudal world in 40k though so he had to get rough with him. Also, I pummelled an Evil Dead corpse to the ground with a hammer which preceded all of this. The servant had not seen the evil dead bit.
I think it's going to be a sore spot in-character. We were joking around about him shivering and then he made it a thing and I turned a joke from him being cold physically and changed tone drastically to "*jovial* but thou art a cold one, Lazarus, *deadly serious* cold in form and spirit."
I am a big stwong man so I am very good at intimidating people. Often, we would all just mess up our rolls so then I would get in someone's face or punch a wall right next to them and get them to talk. I got plate gauntlets so my hand's not getting hurt.
I got to use the fact I killed the guy later. Luckily, the sore spot player brought the dude's teeth with him and when they asked how he died I just pointed to my hammer and said, "I just had it cleaned."
also my GM gave the party bonus XP for me and sore sport player's RP (I say "player" I mean character; we are entirely cool).
Kadoken on
+3
Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
There's a sort of rules-light gladiator management RP some guy I knew on another forum cooked up for the roleplaying game subforum there like 7 years ago, I'd love to play it again but I'm terrible at the math required to run it. Last one I remember playing was 5 years ago, was a fun game. I remember it sort of petered out as the GM had life stuff going on, but after a only tangentially related apocalypse scenario involving psychic cannibal butterfly people was not-totally averted.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
It might be time to look into Exalted 3e again, but aside from the previous dev problems I worry about finding a group to play this with. I still had to explain how rage worked to my D&D 5e barbarian player after a year of gaming; what hope do I have for explaining Charm trees?
This friday I will be starting a game of The One Ring. This is the first time in fifteen years that I again have players that have actually read the rules. After so long I'm not sure I can run without being able to make rules up in the moment without anyone noticing, anymore.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
Haha! That old tablet PC I have does boot! I got a new power adapter in the mail today and now I just need the system to charge up for a bit. I have the Linux software ready to go and I should have this thing set up to be a netrunners dream by the end of the week hopefully.
...boy that's going to be a long line around the Paizo booth, isn't it?
My feet were in bad shape last time standing in line for star finder. This time around I am just preordering their launch hard covers and save myself some pain. That stuff is going to sell out by friday again I would bet.
+3
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
My players really don’t bat an eye at familicide, huh.
“Hey I’m the person who oversees your missions and with whom you have most contact with and I killed my dad and you had to hear it from an arch-villain”
“Neat”
“I murdered my plague-suffering wife and children in a despair and grief driven act that I still chose to do and I loathe myself as the monster I am so I set myself on a suicidal mission because the first didn’t take”
“Huh”
I definitely have more fun as a player than as a GM nowadays. It’s still worth it for the performances I can do. Combat’s more fun as a player, although I have gotten a lot better at setting it up and running it for the pacing to be fun and use the different strengths and weaknesses of the npcs in the book and the ones I make. I think one of the reasons I did those big overstuffed murder battles that took forever was me getting a kick out of seeing them possibly get overwhelmed. I have greatly drawn back from that but running combats are just kind of there now. That’s probably why I made a number of comic-book like villains with their own personalities and quirks so I have someone to banter as and use neat abilities rather than use 40k archtype villains. Those aren’t bad but I like being a menacing yet oddly amiable mix of all of the Jokers and Pennywise from It further mixed with a little of the Thing (from outerspace but he might be absorbing some rocks and metal material later).
They still aren’t really pro-active roleplayers and don’t put as much work into this stuff as I do as a GM for them and as a player in their campaigns. I have at least a compromise of making the adventures a little more linear and more in the vein of at least telling them a story I think they will like even if they don’t interact with all the bits within it. However, I am also guilty of this in DnD 5E. My fighter is probably one of the least rounded people but he is very blunt and comically serious at times. He is probably the most active as far as roleplay goes, though.
The big difference to me is that the GM does not really steer us into stuff whereas my adventures are there is a beginning and an end with stuff to steer you between parts to progress. You decide how you want to play it out but I am going to get you to the next bit one way or another even if you skip a part or two or do stuff in a way I didn’t expect.
I like the roleplaying experience but I still think the game of 5e is just okay. That of course is personal preference, especially with me not liking generic high fantasy unless it has a certain theme or something really engaging about it like Warhammer Fantasy, The Witcher, and the like
Still working on blog stuff in the URL of my signature. I got a bunch of new entries and I’m always tweaking and adding stuff to the Malice Overhaul. I have been surprised that two entries, one on the Samurai Space Marine and one on the Punisher-influenced character the Rook, have gotten a relatively good amount of views being around a hundred. For comparison the overhaul is the most looked at thing at 390, the felinid (I see you) page at 250, and the squat page at 232.
Mmm, one more thing. I finally got to introduce my players to the naming scheme of the sons of a Slaaneshi Rock and Roll Traitor Space Marine sorcerer. They had killed two before named Ebon and Lustre and father is pissed. They were told this by another son named Ivory. The players responded with derision.
Kadoken on
+1
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Got the tablet fully configured, at least to my ability to mess with the Linux command line. The player getting this is a programmer though, so he'll be able to get it configured exactly how he wants it if it ends up being useful.
Yeah Kadoken, it's been my experience that younger roleplayers simply aren't as invested in the story. They're super invested in imagining a cool character doing cool things, but often they play them completely agnostic to the background they developed. One of my players I thought had a really cool backstory of being a war hero and taking command of a squad of troops. So of course I rolled up her troops and stated them out complete with knowledge-sets and connections that would complement the party's goals. Instead of just handing her a dossier I made her and the rest of the group part of the process as we all brain-stormed together a sort of dirty dozen of random misfit vets assigning names, personality traits, and other defining features. Then... well, they literally had to "kidnap" her and drag her to a bar on Remembrance day to get her to freakin interact with them! I kept dropping a lot of hints too like, "Hey, you know someone who's in the Thieves Guild..." or "Ol' Ringwald is still in the Guard, he might have some info." But no, she wanted to just struggle through it on her own. Why did you make a character that's supposed to be a good leader if you're not going to interact with anyone!?
My new group though has at least one player who's really interested in the story and the general welfare of his town... Maybe a little too interested. I'm worried that at the conclusion of this campaign arc he's going to want to put down roots...
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Yeah Kadoken, it's been my experience that younger roleplayers simply aren't as invested in the story. They're super invested in imagining a cool character doing cool things, but often they play them completely agnostic to the background they developed. One of my players I thought had a really cool backstory of being a war hero and taking command of a squad of troops. So of course I rolled up her troops and stated them out complete with knowledge-sets and connections that would complement the party's goals. Instead of just handing her a dossier I made her and the rest of the group part of the process as we all brain-stormed together a sort of dirty dozen of random misfit vets assigning names, personality traits, and other defining features. Then... well, they literally had to "kidnap" her and drag her to a bar on Remembrance day to get her to freakin interact with them! I kept dropping a lot of hints too like, "Hey, you know someone who's in the Thieves Guild..." or "Ol' Ringwald is still in the Guard, he might have some info." But no, she wanted to just struggle through it on her own. Why did you make a character that's supposed to be a good leader if you're not going to interact with anyone!?
My new group though has at least one player who's really interested in the story and the general welfare of his town... Maybe a little too interested. I'm worried that at the conclusion of this campaign arc he's going to want to put down roots...
Seen, I don’t think the former is a bad thing; nor am I accusing you of saying it is although I am reading some disappointment in the player’s play style. I think can be good to really try to define oneself through the present campaign even with backstory that adds to a character. I have been guilty of trying to really bring out my backstory to the fore rather than try to engage with the current campaign (although it didn’t help that it was resetting a caste system, meh). I got called out by the GM and his GM for it and while I disagreed with half of their reasoning where they mainly came down to having more blank slate generic types being easier to run and run for, I think they were right that it is better to engage in essentially the now. I feel I am now acting that out with Sir Chaucer in the DH2E campaign I play in where I got a great balance of having a backstory and planet (I invented for him) to play off of while having his concerns be rooted in the now. He wants to do his job well so he can raise enough influence that he can bring his wife and children he misses into the Inquisition. He wants to see his family again and do the work he actually feels privileged to do as a simpleton from a Medieval era world where stories of heroes turning back the darkness are commonplace and celebrated (even if the reality is much more muddy than that). To that point he acts in accordance with his planet’s values of chivalry and virtue without dragging everything to be centered around him and making him protagonist-chan. So the game is centered in the now that the GM can run stuff and make stuff without me being a suffocating force and with enough backstory to give him flavor and a foundation to work off of.
What I am looking for is bare reaction and interaction with major characters and events happening right in front of my players outside of mechanically go place, talk to one guy that advances the plot, shoot thing, investigate. Which is why I am making adventures and running them in a way to move them along to the next thing with more input and progression spurred by me as a GM. I am the guy who actively goes to places and talks to the folks along with reacting and interacting as a player in DH2E but I am guilty of being more passive in DnD5E. The latter also has to do with the current campaign layout, however.
Let me make this clear: I am happy enough with the group. I want to tell a story, they humor me and at least hear it. I felt a freedom and felt awesome when I sat down the Rook and performed his emotional recounting of his experience and life with a story relevant to his and their goals. I would like them to interact more with that story beyond base mechanics and I don’t really care about them making big backstories or quirks. The issue is at the end of that story, they basically went, “huh,” and then we needed to move on. That is the center of my problem.
*snip*The issue is at the end of that story, they basically went, “huh,” and then we needed to move on. That is the center of my problem.
I think right here is the crux of the problem. And what I've found, at the end of the day, is that the more you're pulling on stuff from outside what occurs in the game, the less anyone else at the table cares about it.
That's why you hear tales of DMs spending hours on creating an NPC only for the players to fall in love with the silly alchemist who sold them a potion with a funny accent.
That's why you hear horror stories of DMs saying how their players turned in 4 page elaborate backgrounds that tell a huge story arc and leave nothing to be discovered at the table.
In order for your background to ever matter, or for your emotional moments to ever land with anything more than a non-reaction, it has to be based on things that happened together, at the table. If I just say "My character wants to bring his family out of poverty" that's likely to be noted as a "huh".
But if my otherwise rough and tumble character always goes out of his way to be kind to children, carries a picture of his kid, stops by the "post/mail/bank/w/e" to send money back home, buys little trinkets and toys with what meager money he can spare...etc. If I bring that all up as flavor consistently and repeatedly throughout, well then if the DM decides to threaten my character's kid, suddenly the table might actually care. Maybe? Who knows.
I've just always found that leaning into what the table wants and doing your best to elevate what others are bringing will end up having everyone have a better time, rather than trying to force any given table to be more about what you want.
Diagnosed with AML on 6/1/12. Read about it: www.effleukemia.com
+3
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
*snip*The issue is at the end of that story, they basically went, “huh,” and then we needed to move on. That is the center of my problem.
I think right here is the crux of the problem. And what I've found, at the end of the day, is that the more you're pulling on stuff from outside what occurs in the game, the less anyone else at the table cares about it.
That's why you hear tales of DMs spending hours on creating an NPC only for the players to fall in love with the silly alchemist who sold them a potion with a funny accent.
That's why you hear horror stories of DMs saying how their players turned in 4 page elaborate backgrounds that tell a huge story arc and leave nothing to be discovered at the table.
In order for your background to ever matter, or for your emotional moments to ever land with anything more than a non-reaction, it has to be based on things that happened together, at the table. If I just say "My character wants to bring his family out of poverty" that's likely to be noted as a "huh".
But if my otherwise rough and tumble character always goes out of his way to be kind to children, carries a picture of his kid, stops by the "post/mail/bank/w/e" to send money back home, buys little trinkets and toys with what meager money he can spare...etc. If I bring that all up as flavor consistently and repeatedly throughout, well then if the DM decides to threaten my character's kid, suddenly the table might actually care. Maybe? Who knows.
I've just always found that leaning into what the table wants and doing your best to elevate what others are bringing will end up having everyone have a better time, rather than trying to force any given table to be more about what you want.
They're not bringing much.
Also, that character has been built up indirectly and directly to the point that they have played as him. That's not even relevant because anything other than, "okay," does not require all of this because I can at least say something even in a setting I don't really know much about with people who haven't done those small things like the DnD5E game I play in. A simple, "that really sucks, man" or anything else is what I am looking for.
Edit: The first thing I said is unfair and hyperbolic. I actually do have some positive examples of them getting into it from Saturday night. First was when the arbitrator finally became a shouty Judge Dredd type and organized a tactical retreat for a bunch of scared and confused veterans. He did this while popping out of a garbage can like Ashley from Resident Evil 4 after hiding in it to spy on the meeting. The second when the psyker was able to talk down a cop from arresting said veterans in for assembling in a place they weren't supposed to be and carrying a bunch of guns around as a group looking like a bunch of rebels. Which technically they were brought to that place to be recruited into the militant wing of the big bad group but they didn't know that until they got there and were really pissed when they were suddenly in the middle of a warzone between the big bad group and nurglite cultists by someone they knew and trusted. The third was when the psyker once again caught the guy who brought the vets to that place trying to sneak off and psychically held him before he could use a teleporter beacon to escape. Then she was able to distract that son of the sorcerer I mentioned earlier to switch out her microbead for his microbead which they can use to track where he's going because the guy was let go. That was all great.
I might be selling the idea through my words that I'm grumpy about the later thing but it's more like slight disappointment.
I will say I stated I am acquiescing to how they play more.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
My favorite, and most annoying part of mission design. How might my players approach this mission? I've got the setting set, the primary characters, where they will be at certain times. Now I have to try to imagine a few ways in which my players might attempt this and make notes. Always a good time, especially when everyone is super new at the game and still aren't real sure of their abilities or what is allowed in the world.
So I'm running the new android expansion for Genesys, and part of that is generating a Network map for the runner when they hack into a system. This is the one I made tonight for my game tomorrow. It's the 2nd session so the hacking isn't too complex yet, and this is the first time he is going to run into an apposed OpSec person, who will appose his hacking.
I have a more advanced version that shows what the security measures are, and the player will learn about them as he interfaces with the system.
Only question I got Webguy wrt the comms is do they have a back-up system? I'm guessing yes. So like I said I'm not familiar with Android itself, but there are a few different comm networks that are generally available. History has shown that for most security networks (at least at the national level) technology is never replaced, it's simply built upon. Meaning that whatever comm networks preceded the current one are likely to still be in-use with the current one acting as a hub to connect them all. So if they've got HF hand radios, the network has an antenna that is keyed to that frequency, but even taking down the network or burning that antenna isn't going to eliminate their ability to use HF hand radios. It may cut off some people who don't have the hardware and were a computer to access it. Also, I would guess that there are multiple concurrent networks in-use including a greater civilian one that individuals use with their own personal communication devices. The effect of hacking can be very successful when used to monitor or extract information, but as soon as you start to disrupt the network the thinking adversary is going to do their best to counter that, which means that disruption/destruction isn't a permanent solution but only a delaying tactic. Any paramilitary team will know this and plan for it: so they should get a 'best guess' on what how long the disruption should last.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
0
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2019
This is taking place at a small time facility out in the sticks. The players will know that shutting down the comms will mean disabling the long distance communication temporarily so the site can't call for backup while the team is working.
As the players level up and the networks they hack more complex, I probably will have different levels of communication that the players can mess with, along with other sub systems.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I’m going to explode the foundations of a building and have my players run, jump, and climb through a collapsing seven floor structure while on the top. Complete 180 from never having them do environmental stuff.
They have their own gunship with a pilot and grappling guns and the like so they have tools to prepare or escape.
Posts
Glad to hear it! Couple of pile-ons to consider. When you're players are looking for ways to exploit these systems you've put in place remember these two adages: "Convenience is the enemy of security," and "Complacency is the friend of Confidence." It's like when you've got to make a weird 24 character password with no sequential numbers or letters, no words, and of course 2 each of capitals, lower-case, numbers, and special characters. And you've got to change it every month. Ain't no body gonna remember that: it's either going to be some kind of spacial sequence or they're going to write it down in a convienet place, like in that cool moleskin notebook they review with their morning coffee at the nearby Starbucks.
Genesys I think is a little rough wrt this kinda of deliberate cause & effect style of gameplay, so you may want to plan in advance how to translate the threat generated on their rolls in predictable and scale-able ways that don't immediately compromise their objectives. For example, the win condition in my scenario above is to upload a plant into the network undetected, it wouldn't do if you spent threat to make a hidden alarm go off. But it could work out that there's some sort of daemon that automatically logs admin accounts and notifies an off-site when its alarm threshold is reached for a certain number of actions (represented by a total amount of threat). The PCs should know about this if they've done their homework (and it raises the tension for the game if they know it's coming) but they might not be able to find out exactly what that response is until it happens. It should be another encounter/obstacle for them to overcome if the game reaches that point. To help this along I'd encourage you to allow the PCs to suffer stress instead of letting threat build, and also only allowing them to recover a single stress per scene via advantage.
As far as building random charts goes, that's been on my to-do list for a long time. I've codified a few different security examples scattered across multiple doc files, and maybe I'll take a look for them tomorrow. I went so far as to read a few books on Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare to add more depth and realism to my games that never materialized
In other words, it's a dunk on D&D.
Overall a thumbs up. Though this setting is much more reliant on social encounters, which means I'm going to have to step my NPC game up. Anybody have some good suggestions or resources for that? Especially acting them out during the session
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It doesn't have to be complicated, it could just be "keep your head down and make rent," but it will help inform how the NPC interacts with the players.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I do have that part, which is super helpful I agree. I guess specifically I'm having a hard time bringing these characters to life at the table. I'm wondering if I should take an acting or improv class or lessons?
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
For each of them, pick a thing. A mannerism, a (bad) accent, a favorite phrase. Something that when you do your players can be sure they're talking to NPC Y. That and them having an actual POV(/goal/instinct/whatever) will help a lot.
That could help but be aware that character work is usually not intro improv stuff. I've usually seen it as an intermediate level stuff. Intro is usually about basic concepts and getting folks past freezing up.
I'll look into mannerisms, speech patterns and phrases. I'm naturally introverted with no ear for accents so opening up playing characters has been my biggest struggle for sure.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
also, body language in general tends to force changes in the other qualities if you exaggerate it (posture especially)
so start there, make tweaks, and you will find yourself inhabiting those roles more and more
(accents help, so i'd recommend if you like that sort of thing to learn, but it's definitely not needed!)
Do what I did for about a month: Pick a Muppet and emulate that Muppet for each NPC. Start with hard to guess ones like Sam The Eagle and keep going until you reach Cookie Monster or The Count. See how long it takes before your PCs catch on.
Maybe one character stammers, or always goes "uh..." before answering a question, or or doesn't use contractions, or speaks with a haughty air, or is always smiling (actually smile while doing the lines), or or or...
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I started writing a D?? chart of verbal quirks that includes things like "unsettling laughter", "sharp and snapping end to words and sentences" and "constant insults." I've never actually rolled on the chart but just having them in my head seems to have helped put them into use.
As someone with no ear for accents nor any voice training I have only very recently started doing anything like an accent, and it has mostly been (a) applying a very distinct vowel sound like an elongated "aaaah" in "mah pa always said..." and (b) letting my tongue rest in a different part of my mouth and having that affect words however it may. Neither of those create a full accent but they alter it enough to be distinctive.
fwiw I play in a game with multiple theater and voice-trained women and even they can have trouble staying in an accent for a long scene.
I also sometimes will involve the players for my prepared NPCs, especially if they’re the opposite sex (I don’t have a convincing female voice). I’ll hand the player a note that has a script and some other basic details like the drive and motivation along with some additional information and triggers for giving it. I reward following that script with some inspiration or system equivalent. I try to match the players with characters their own PCs wouldn’t typically interact with, and I only do this once or twice an arc with a really important supporting character, and then I’ll take over if required.
The best usage I had so far with this was making a warforged bodyguard in an Eberron campaign and initially giving it to one of my players who has a deep rumbling voice. He really made the character super memorable and I ended up working it in more with the story helping the PCs out a few times in their greatest times of need. I took over playing the character though once it had more interaction with the group since I didn’t want to lesson the player’s involvement with their own PC.
Anyways, as a bit of a reward I found an old IBM toughbook that I've had lying around for a few years that I got for free from an old job that was getting rid of it. It's the perfect deck for hacking. I'm going to wipe the drive, install ubuntu and make it cyberpunk as heck and give it to him. When he goes on a run in the game I'll give him a USB drive with the "schematic" of the network he is hacking.
I'll also load up some hacking music, the PDFs of the books, and some other useful rules stuff. I'm pretty sure he'll be super stoked and I really look forward to giving it to him next time we game in that setting. I also need to think of some other cool things to hook up the rest of the players so everyone has a cool toy.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Hahaha so it's not a toughbook. It's one of these. Even more early 2000s than I thought.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Played two or three sessions to test it out, went great. I think I still have the recording maybe? Was a lot of fun, felt immediately like ME.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It just barely worked.
Look for the most readily available street drug. Find dealers. Make friends with one that will also find you other more restricted drugs after they call a guy. Then figure out how to meet that guy, and then just keep climbing that ladder till you can get the illegal thing you want.
I needed religious relics that are xenos artifacts. I can't be snorting saints bones like John Constantine and Santa.
The reason you start with a common street drug is because well... they're easy as heck to find, and are readily lookin to talk to people. you might need to buy some drugs while you chat the guy up... you might need to do that a few times... this might take a little while, but they're the easiest section of the black market to interact with and can often eventually connect you to larger drug syndicate operations, and they know plenty of unifying services. If you're lookin for black market artifacts those folks absolutely need smugglers...luckily so do drugs.
I was thinking of doing that but there were cops like everywhere and my character is built more for combat than telling five-oh that I'm gonna pay them $100 to fuck off.
edit: In Dark Heresy 2E I saved a witness from being executed by another party member. He was going to possibly tell the cops that I had destroyed his master (it was self-defense). To preface, meta-wise I have no issue with what he did in terms of it being a thing between us players and it made sense to do it (although I prefer the Ibram Gaunt/Caiaphas Cain school of 40k characters of trying to bring a tiny bit of light in crushing darkness and being a little more moral). Sir Chaucer is a relative golden boy and an idealistic knight from a feudal world in 40k though so he had to get rough with him. Also, I pummelled an Evil Dead corpse to the ground with a hammer which preceded all of this. The servant had not seen the evil dead bit.
I think it's going to be a sore spot in-character. We were joking around about him shivering and then he made it a thing and I turned a joke from him being cold physically and changed tone drastically to "*jovial* but thou art a cold one, Lazarus, *deadly serious* cold in form and spirit."
I am a big stwong man so I am very good at intimidating people. Often, we would all just mess up our rolls so then I would get in someone's face or punch a wall right next to them and get them to talk. I got plate gauntlets so my hand's not getting hurt.
I got to use the fact I killed the guy later. Luckily, the sore spot player brought the dude's teeth with him and when they asked how he died I just pointed to my hammer and said, "I just had it cleaned."
also my GM gave the party bonus XP for me and sore sport player's RP (I say "player" I mean character; we are entirely cool).
(rules, if anyone is curious)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CLgD9J_amGxniyghFifypOxRfJUO8bI0F87nAJFvJvw/edit?usp=sharing
This friday I will be starting a game of The One Ring. This is the first time in fifteen years that I again have players that have actually read the rules. After so long I'm not sure I can run without being able to make rules up in the moment without anyone noticing, anymore.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
My feet were in bad shape last time standing in line for star finder. This time around I am just preordering their launch hard covers and save myself some pain. That stuff is going to sell out by friday again I would bet.
“Hey I’m the person who oversees your missions and with whom you have most contact with and I killed my dad and you had to hear it from an arch-villain”
“Neat”
“I murdered my plague-suffering wife and children in a despair and grief driven act that I still chose to do and I loathe myself as the monster I am so I set myself on a suicidal mission because the first didn’t take”
“Huh”
I definitely have more fun as a player than as a GM nowadays. It’s still worth it for the performances I can do. Combat’s more fun as a player, although I have gotten a lot better at setting it up and running it for the pacing to be fun and use the different strengths and weaknesses of the npcs in the book and the ones I make. I think one of the reasons I did those big overstuffed murder battles that took forever was me getting a kick out of seeing them possibly get overwhelmed. I have greatly drawn back from that but running combats are just kind of there now. That’s probably why I made a number of comic-book like villains with their own personalities and quirks so I have someone to banter as and use neat abilities rather than use 40k archtype villains. Those aren’t bad but I like being a menacing yet oddly amiable mix of all of the Jokers and Pennywise from It further mixed with a little of the Thing (from outerspace but he might be absorbing some rocks and metal material later).
They still aren’t really pro-active roleplayers and don’t put as much work into this stuff as I do as a GM for them and as a player in their campaigns. I have at least a compromise of making the adventures a little more linear and more in the vein of at least telling them a story I think they will like even if they don’t interact with all the bits within it. However, I am also guilty of this in DnD 5E. My fighter is probably one of the least rounded people but he is very blunt and comically serious at times. He is probably the most active as far as roleplay goes, though.
The big difference to me is that the GM does not really steer us into stuff whereas my adventures are there is a beginning and an end with stuff to steer you between parts to progress. You decide how you want to play it out but I am going to get you to the next bit one way or another even if you skip a part or two or do stuff in a way I didn’t expect.
I like the roleplaying experience but I still think the game of 5e is just okay. That of course is personal preference, especially with me not liking generic high fantasy unless it has a certain theme or something really engaging about it like Warhammer Fantasy, The Witcher, and the like
Still working on blog stuff in the URL of my signature. I got a bunch of new entries and I’m always tweaking and adding stuff to the Malice Overhaul. I have been surprised that two entries, one on the Samurai Space Marine and one on the Punisher-influenced character the Rook, have gotten a relatively good amount of views being around a hundred. For comparison the overhaul is the most looked at thing at 390, the felinid (I see you) page at 250, and the squat page at 232.
Mmm, one more thing. I finally got to introduce my players to the naming scheme of the sons of a Slaaneshi Rock and Roll Traitor Space Marine sorcerer. They had killed two before named Ebon and Lustre and father is pissed. They were told this by another son named Ivory. The players responded with derision.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
My new group though has at least one player who's really interested in the story and the general welfare of his town... Maybe a little too interested. I'm worried that at the conclusion of this campaign arc he's going to want to put down roots...
Seen, I don’t think the former is a bad thing; nor am I accusing you of saying it is although I am reading some disappointment in the player’s play style. I think can be good to really try to define oneself through the present campaign even with backstory that adds to a character. I have been guilty of trying to really bring out my backstory to the fore rather than try to engage with the current campaign (although it didn’t help that it was resetting a caste system, meh). I got called out by the GM and his GM for it and while I disagreed with half of their reasoning where they mainly came down to having more blank slate generic types being easier to run and run for, I think they were right that it is better to engage in essentially the now. I feel I am now acting that out with Sir Chaucer in the DH2E campaign I play in where I got a great balance of having a backstory and planet (I invented for him) to play off of while having his concerns be rooted in the now. He wants to do his job well so he can raise enough influence that he can bring his wife and children he misses into the Inquisition. He wants to see his family again and do the work he actually feels privileged to do as a simpleton from a Medieval era world where stories of heroes turning back the darkness are commonplace and celebrated (even if the reality is much more muddy than that). To that point he acts in accordance with his planet’s values of chivalry and virtue without dragging everything to be centered around him and making him protagonist-chan. So the game is centered in the now that the GM can run stuff and make stuff without me being a suffocating force and with enough backstory to give him flavor and a foundation to work off of.
What I am looking for is bare reaction and interaction with major characters and events happening right in front of my players outside of mechanically go place, talk to one guy that advances the plot, shoot thing, investigate. Which is why I am making adventures and running them in a way to move them along to the next thing with more input and progression spurred by me as a GM. I am the guy who actively goes to places and talks to the folks along with reacting and interacting as a player in DH2E but I am guilty of being more passive in DnD5E. The latter also has to do with the current campaign layout, however.
Let me make this clear: I am happy enough with the group. I want to tell a story, they humor me and at least hear it. I felt a freedom and felt awesome when I sat down the Rook and performed his emotional recounting of his experience and life with a story relevant to his and their goals. I would like them to interact more with that story beyond base mechanics and I don’t really care about them making big backstories or quirks. The issue is at the end of that story, they basically went, “huh,” and then we needed to move on. That is the center of my problem.
I think right here is the crux of the problem. And what I've found, at the end of the day, is that the more you're pulling on stuff from outside what occurs in the game, the less anyone else at the table cares about it.
That's why you hear tales of DMs spending hours on creating an NPC only for the players to fall in love with the silly alchemist who sold them a potion with a funny accent.
That's why you hear horror stories of DMs saying how their players turned in 4 page elaborate backgrounds that tell a huge story arc and leave nothing to be discovered at the table.
In order for your background to ever matter, or for your emotional moments to ever land with anything more than a non-reaction, it has to be based on things that happened together, at the table. If I just say "My character wants to bring his family out of poverty" that's likely to be noted as a "huh".
But if my otherwise rough and tumble character always goes out of his way to be kind to children, carries a picture of his kid, stops by the "post/mail/bank/w/e" to send money back home, buys little trinkets and toys with what meager money he can spare...etc. If I bring that all up as flavor consistently and repeatedly throughout, well then if the DM decides to threaten my character's kid, suddenly the table might actually care. Maybe? Who knows.
I've just always found that leaning into what the table wants and doing your best to elevate what others are bringing will end up having everyone have a better time, rather than trying to force any given table to be more about what you want.
They're not bringing much.
Also, that character has been built up indirectly and directly to the point that they have played as him. That's not even relevant because anything other than, "okay," does not require all of this because I can at least say something even in a setting I don't really know much about with people who haven't done those small things like the DnD5E game I play in. A simple, "that really sucks, man" or anything else is what I am looking for.
Edit: The first thing I said is unfair and hyperbolic. I actually do have some positive examples of them getting into it from Saturday night. First was when the arbitrator finally became a shouty Judge Dredd type and organized a tactical retreat for a bunch of scared and confused veterans. He did this while popping out of a garbage can like Ashley from Resident Evil 4 after hiding in it to spy on the meeting. The second when the psyker was able to talk down a cop from arresting said veterans in for assembling in a place they weren't supposed to be and carrying a bunch of guns around as a group looking like a bunch of rebels. Which technically they were brought to that place to be recruited into the militant wing of the big bad group but they didn't know that until they got there and were really pissed when they were suddenly in the middle of a warzone between the big bad group and nurglite cultists by someone they knew and trusted. The third was when the psyker once again caught the guy who brought the vets to that place trying to sneak off and psychically held him before he could use a teleporter beacon to escape. Then she was able to distract that son of the sorcerer I mentioned earlier to switch out her microbead for his microbead which they can use to track where he's going because the guy was let go. That was all great.
I might be selling the idea through my words that I'm grumpy about the later thing but it's more like slight disappointment.
I will say I stated I am acquiescing to how they play more.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
As the players level up and the networks they hack more complex, I probably will have different levels of communication that the players can mess with, along with other sub systems.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
They have their own gunship with a pilot and grappling guns and the like so they have tools to prepare or escape.