Edit: the first random powerful nicknack she's pilfered and hidden securely is a golden box with a button on it that says "Come and See" in abyssal on it.
I pulled that out of my ass and I have no idea what to make the button actually do, but it was in the "this stuff is probably really dangerous" lab. It cant just be a gate to the abyss, thats too easy
The box does nothing, it's in the "Probably dangerous" pile because nobody at the school is willing to risk pushing the button to find out.
"Sure, no matter how many times we cast "detect magic" on the box it comes back as utterly mundane, but do you really want to take that chance, Headmaester?
Wow that would be the best way to fuck with a wizard player, because no matter how many times the DM tells them with a shit eating grin that Identify reveals nothing, they're going to further build a narrative in their head of this thing being some kind of impossibly powerful artifact
it should also have keyholes on it
There is a magical item idea called a “hopeful key” which is a key that magically changes size and shape to fit in any lock, but does not turn.
You could reverse this and say that the lock changes size and shape to fit any key, but the box does not open.
this is kind of eating me up because everything he's describing to me in great detail sounds great, and fun, and would make a great campaign
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
I've had these sorts of players before. One of them straight-up told me that he didn't care if anyone else was having fun because of what he was doing.
this is kind of eating me up because everything he's describing to me in great detail sounds great, and fun, and would make a great campaign
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
I've had these sorts of players before. One of them straight-up told me that he didn't care if anyone else was having fun because of what he was doing.
There's a guy who wouldn't get invited back to my table!
Look, the simple fact is that DMs are far harder to find than players. Players need to play the game the DM is running. There's not a single other way that makes sense. If they don't want to play at your table, then best of luck finding another.
this is kind of eating me up because everything he's describing to me in great detail sounds great, and fun, and would make a great campaign
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
I think you just need to tell the guy that you can only run one game at a time, and right now the game you're running is with the party. He can choose to join that game, or not.
this is kind of eating me up because everything he's describing to me in great detail sounds great, and fun, and would make a great campaign
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
I think you just need to tell the guy that you can only run one game at a time, and right now the game you're running is with the party. He can choose to join that game, or not.
let's not discount the option of telling your friends "hey you can't bring random guys to my house ever. Also that guy is no longer a random guy, but separately, you can't bring him to my house ever."
i mean, there's nothing wrong with letting him in! But also there's nothing wrong with saying no he cannot choose to join your game
If you want to keep this guy around you need to explain to him that he can conform himself to the campaign you are running and acknowledge that the game is a group activity centered around collective story telling that he is joining into after the fact or he can get the fuck out.
Also, it's my personal ruling that for my home games where I'm the one putting in all the effort to construct a world setting I'm the one who gets to decide who gets a seat at my table. If other people meet someone who wants into my game I take it into consideration but I both need to know the person personally and also (critically) talk to them about what the themes and idea's of my campaign will be.
+5
Options
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
If you want to keep this guy around you need to explain to him that he can conform himself to the campaign you are running and acknowledge that the game is a group activity centered around collective story telling that he is joining into after the fact or he can get the fuck out.
Also, it's my personal ruling that for my home games where I'm the one putting in all the effort to construct a world setting I'm the one who gets to decide who gets a seat at my table. If other people meet someone who wants into my game I take it into consideration but I both need to know the person personally and also (critically) talk to them about what the themes and idea's of my campaign will be.
When we add people to our table, we usually do a board game night with a couple games, usually a co-op and a competitive, to see how they deal with it. We actually did weed out one person who could not work as a team. He was a nice dude, but it just didn't click that we all win together or lose together.
Yeah. You can't add a person to a gaming group all willy nilly.
Proper integration takes much more combined effort than a jackass showing up and saying, "Hi. I play here now. And this is how i want to play, so fuck you."
this is kind of eating me up because everything he's describing to me in great detail sounds great, and fun, and would make a great campaign
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
It seems like you can use this birdnet to assist you as DM? I don't know all the details of your campaign, but these are the things I would say:
Limit the scope: "You can add one bird per day, to a maximum of 30, because the charm only last 30 days. So assuming you spend 8 hours per day awakening a bird, you can maintain 30 total birds.
This will have the effect of [opportunity cost—what do the other plays do/get in the downtime? Income, xp, other advancement?]. You could also split your time, and maintain a smaller network. Let's stick to multiples of 5."
Establish the range: "Your birds do a relay pony-express style for maximum efficiency. For every 5 birds in a chain, you can cover X distance from your location (or whatever, based on terrain/world map). If you move you can look for your 'links' in the chain to get info on the road, but finding a specific bird in an X mile radius isn't something you should count on. You might be able to preset a meeting by sending an alert down the chain before you move."
Make management reasonable: "You have three bird lieutenants, and all information flows both directions through them. You basically just deal with them and they contact the others down the chain. Your lieutenants are a sparrow, a gull, and a hawk (or whatever / + names, npc personalities, etc), and each is in charge of a chain of command covering a certain territory." (Or, let him pick the bird types—sparrows and crows blend in, bigger birds have more range, etc)
Retirement planning: "After 30 days, your non-lieutenant birds retire from the network. How they feel about you depends on how hard you worked them and how you treated them." (Do they remain friendly? Do they talk too much, or turn sides? What if one were captured? Do they get 401k/dental?)
Interact with your world map: "So, with 5N birds in each of 3 networks, your sparrows can reach Xtown, or Ytown if you stress them; your gulls can go up and down the coast from X to Z, or P to Q if you stress them, and your hawks can scout this much forest, or this much if you stress them."
Discuss functionality: 1.) Passive information gathering: "What kind of information, generally, are you looking for?" (Use this like a newspaper to give world info to your players, and tuck in some secrets and adventure hooks.)
2.) Specific requests: "Once per season, you can ask each lieutenant to perform or order a specific mission. You will roll your Handle Animal, with advantage, to determine success" (and the bird will roll Stealth with advantage vs. Perception behind the screen to determine detection.)
Also having a network of aware sparrows could very easily be a nightmare for the player, since I'm imagining a giant flock of birds all talking to him all the time all day all at once.
Also having a network of aware sparrows could very easily be a nightmare for the player, since I'm imagining a giant flock of birds all talking to him all the time all day all at once.
Constantly accruing fatigue because every time he tries to sleep, he's got another chirpy little bastard showing up to tell him about the neighborhood cats...
These are all reasons why casters in universe don't go around Awakening things. It's like Wish. It's going to end up poorly. And if it doesn't, the consequences just haven't hit yet.
Moridin889 on
+2
Options
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
These are all reasons why casters in universe don't go around Awakening things. It's like Wish. It's going to end up poorly. And if it doesn't, the consequences just haven't hit yet.
Except for that time when you awaken a mint plant and go in together on opening a bar where the mint plant tends bar and makes its own very fresh mojitos
I just heat metal'd an evil drow paladin's platemail on an island (at 5th level), while he was monologuing, hopped into the water, turned into a fish and swam away as he burned to death
These are all reasons why casters in universe don't go around Awakening things. It's like Wish. It's going to end up poorly. And if it doesn't, the consequences just haven't hit yet.
Except for that time when you awaken a mint plant and go in together on opening a bar where the mint plant tends bar and makes its own very fresh mojitos
Now, picture that exact same scenario with any other race as the bartender, trimming off odds and ends and dropping it in your drink, and it gets pretty disturbing.
These are all reasons why casters in universe don't go around Awakening things. It's like Wish. It's going to end up poorly. And if it doesn't, the consequences just haven't hit yet.
Except for that time when you awaken a mint plant and go in together on opening a bar where the mint plant tends bar and makes its own very fresh mojitos
Now, picture that exact same scenario with any other race as the bartender, trimming off odds and ends and dropping it in your drink, and it gets pretty disturbing.
Perfect pussy becomes pretty fucking weird yeah. On the other hand you could work in some of the music from little shop of horrors.
Honestly If I was going to awaken things I'd go for the most asinine targets possible; Things like the evil wizards bathtub or his chamber pot.
0
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Yussss. I got my tiny butler when I was going to be happy with any assistant helping my character. He’s a blue-scaled kobold of above average strength, height, and build that wears sunglasses to deal with the surface sun. He also gives shoulder rubs and will hold up to 100 lbs of my stuff all day.
I also had to take on a child as an assistant (who I was under no circumstances was comfortable with keeping around) because dipshit problem maker player had to promise to let him be my page if he won an arm wrestling contest. He won one against me (which I was sensitive about because I was born a runt gnoll and have -1 in strength but the GM allowed my monk to use dex), this tiefling the problem player plays, and a barbarian tortle completely legitimately. He’s also traumatized because he saw a bunch of ethereal maw-filled worms and a living old god; so thanks problem player and tortle with his old-ones-communicating lantern.
This was during a personal thing I had worked out with the GM by the way and he butted into each of the other player’s planned things. When he decided he wanted to do a mini-adventure by himself we, the other four, took ourselves into another room and had the best time of roleplaying our characters I have ever had. We talked about each other’s pasts, what we wanted, how we felt, and how we had changed over the course of the adventure. It’s something I’ve wanted and dreamed of forever. This would have never happened with the problem player. The dude looks at me confusedly like I’m wasting my time when I have my character send off heartfelt letters to my family and an old teacher that showed through words how my character grew and matured from the self-centered self-made outcast and self-isolating hidden defensive girl to giving a fuck and thinking of others and opening up. She does this because she finally has perspective on things she didn’t understand growing up and wants her family and that teacher to be at peace if she dies in the next two dangerous encounters. He’s like, “wait, what will this do and what’s going to happen with these letters?” like it’s a videogame and there must be a 1:1 response for my action for it to be worth it. I tell him to his face this has great value to me personally and in-character, is the reason I am playing this game to be a living character in this world with relationships and wants, and maybe he’s confused because he’s seeing good roleplaying and that, “he should try it sometime.” He almost deflates multiple things I have planned.
Another thing the character matured in was to stop trying to base emotional attachments on people she barely knows to feel a connection and feel secure in herself.
That's the good shit right there, when your character grows and you get to share it with everyone.
I had an... intense sessions last night. Bit of background, one of my DMs is running a scifi game meant to emulate the feel of Shadowrun without its wonky mechanics. He built his own world (automated terraforming and pre-colonisation effort gone wrong) and we're using the Hero system mechanically, which is quite complex, but very flexible.
Spoilered for wall of text.
After 3 campaigns of fantasy D&D I used that flexibility to make a red panda riding a big mech suit of his own design, because what else. Character-wise said panda is runner by chance, rather than choice- he's too inexperienced to really understand all the implications, but thinks fighting stuff with his robot suit is cool and it makes him lots of money (he's very eager to be independent and having funds goes a long way towards that). But because of that, while he's fine blowing up robots, he's not that fine killing actual people, and downright squeamish when it comes to visual violence.
Last night we stumble into a faction war and end up fighting both sides, as you do. At one point, not wanting to fire a deadly laser at a person at point blank range, he decides to punch them instead. The way damage works in the system is that you have Normal and Lethal damage- normal damage will deal mostly Stun with some Body (you roll D6s and unless you roll a 6 you're barely hurting them), while lethal is just straight Body. Run out of Stun and you're unconscious, run out of Body and you're dead.
So, he decides to punch the guy, but to deal Normal damage. And to power up his servos with extra strength, to hopefully knock them out in one punch.
Except he crits, which maxes out your damage dice. Suddenly each die is dealing pretty substantial Body damage, and he rolled 10d6. Further, the guy was prone, punching causes knockback and for each tile of knockback resisted because you were against a wall (or in this case, floor), you take Normal damage. Which was also maxed out, thanks to the crit.
For comparison's sake, a handgun will deal ~2d6 Body damage. He hit the guy for about 25. The punch went not just through them, but through the floor below them.
The Face of the party basically had to coax the crying panda out of the robot suit and hug him for a while before he could talk again. Thankfully the session ended not too long after, giving me time to figure out how I want to handle it. But woof, there was some emotional whiplash there.
Spending game time on writing letters home to your family and talking about your character's emotional hangups and sex sounds horribly unfun and uncomfortable to me, so I can empathize with your "problem player." Though if four of your group went into the other room and had a good time doing it, sounds like that's the kind of game the majority of your group wants to have and you should keep doing it.
I will say that if Problem Player engaged your character in an arm wrestle with the goal of having a particular NPC with presumably no mechanical value continue to hang around with the party, it sounds like they are at least trying to roleplay.
0
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Spending game time on writing letters home to your family and talking about your character's emotional hangups and sex sounds horribly unfun and uncomfortable to me, so I can empathize with your "problem player." Though if four of your group went into the other room and had a good time doing it, sounds like that's the kind of game the majority of your group wants to have and you should keep doing it.
I will say that if Problem Player engaged your character in an arm wrestle with the goal of having a particular NPC with presumably no mechanical value continue to hang around with the party, it sounds like they are at least trying to roleplay.
You don't know this guy. He will be fine like half the time but then do stupid shit that puts the party in danger and doubles down on obnoxious behavior. He tries to cancel out our actions by trying to use the GM by saying often "before anyone does anything else" and then keeps insisting to do that when he won't even give the courtesy of just asking us if we would be cool with him doing a thing. He tries to outspeak others, interrupts them constantly, and then will have the gall to complain if anyone accidentally interrupts him while making grunting noises. He will interrupt the party members talking for like two minutes at a time, and when there seems to be a lull in speaking where I can speak, he will just keep speaking and complain that I interrupted him. He does not pay attention, we have been playing for three months consistently weekly and he still doesn't know anyone's names. He does not learn his class or the mechanics and then complains and insists to get his way when the DM tells him no. Every time the DM has told him no he tries to rationalize to him to get his way even if it will just end up in another no. Did you miss the part where he monopolized the DM to himself to have a mini-session while we had to go to another room?
Also, he didn't engage me in an arm wrestle, he butted in intrusively which forced us to take on someone I didn't want because he thought it was funny. He does not understand that his actions have consequences and constantly argues to avoid them. He does not understand he is a character in a world and treats it like a videogame when the rest of us know the deal of what we're playing.
Also sorry if you think that is horribly unfun and uncomfortable. I like to have actual nuance and character to my characters and the rest of the party agrees and I ask them about their comfort level with this stuff a lot. Especially when they also engage and we understand how to give each of us enough time to play their characters. If you're not playing to actually roleplay but to roll dice and see numbers go up you might as well play a videogame instead.
0
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
No, I don't truly believe your playstyle in invalid if you're really into the game mechanically but don't call what I do "horribly unfun and uncomfortable" if you don't want to be insulted, too.
No, I don't truly believe your playstyle in invalid if you're really into the game mechanically but don't call what I do "horribly unfun and uncomfortable" if you don't want to be insulted, too.
They didn't. They said it sounded like that, to them. And the sex part would make a lot of folks uncomfortable if it goes beyond a *slow pan to fireplace, fade to black* type thing.
I like to have "actual nuance" too, and am capable of it without the RP going R-rated. "Emotional hang ups" don't give you character.
No, I don't truly believe your playstyle in invalid if you're really into the game mechanically but don't call what I do "horribly unfun and uncomfortable" if you don't want to be insulted, too.
They didn't. They said it sounded like that, to them. And the sex part would make a lot of folks uncomfortable if it goes beyond a *slow pan to fireplace, fade to black* type thing.
I like to have "actual nuance" too, and am capable of it without the RP going R-rated. "Emotional hang ups" don't give you character.
That is exactly what I do though. The fade to black or implication thing.
Also, how is someone having a character arc dealing with their emotional hangups not having a character? It's literally the basis of dozens of books. It's also not the entirety of the character.
Why are you so hung up on the sex thing as well? That last part of the post was the least important part of the entirety of what was typed. That's not even the really the core thing she's been dealing with. Do you think my RP goes "R-Rated" every single second of the session? The one mention of sex is not nuance. You have no idea how I play.
No, I don't truly believe your playstyle in invalid if you're really into the game mechanically but don't call what I do "horribly unfun and uncomfortable" if you don't want to be insulted, too.
I did say if that's what your group finds fun, you should keep doing it. Just isn't the kind of game I would enjoy.
From the follow-up post, sounds like I wouldn't enjoy playing with your problem player, either. Shrug
0
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
No, I don't truly believe your playstyle in invalid if you're really into the game mechanically but don't call what I do "horribly unfun and uncomfortable" if you don't want to be insulted, too.
I did say if that's what your group finds fun, you should keep doing it. Just isn't the kind of game I would enjoy.
From the follow-up post, sounds like I wouldn't enjoy playing with your problem player, either. Shrug
I understand. I am very sensitive to wording and I did not give proper context.
edit: I am also sorry I snapped and accused you of not playing a "real" character. That was not cool.
different games are different, my game's probably too juvenile for a lot of people every now and again but we're frequently a few drinks in by the end of it so it's to be expected, I let the players set the pace
for example at one point we had to get some clarification from the rogue who offered a handjob to a cloud giant for a tour of all the rooms of the castle as to, mechanically, exactly what she was intending and she stood up and demonstrated on my tall wal-mart lamp, I made her make athletics checks and she ended up with a point of exhaustion before finishing
edit: A big issue is you have to have players you can trust to know when to press the brakes, I had (emphasis on past tense) a player that had a serious thatguy syndrome and he's no longer welcome because of it
We had a guy at our table that was that guy to one of our female players, aggressive ("want to fight IRL?" aggressive) to one of the male players he didn't like, and a huge whiner (for magic items and special treatment) to our DM. When we collectively "fired" him from the group he stalked our DM for a couple of weeks, and at one point implied gun violence.
so yesterday we had our normal Friday session but rescheduled and ended up going extra long with a dinner intermission
the giant serpent setpiece went well and was overcome by slicing one of its wings open
it crashed into a lake
(if anyone wants to know how i did that fight mechanically i am happy to share)
then the party took rightful ownership of the great fortress and the ranger allowed the dark elves to stay and live under him, the newly anointed lord
got to bust out Strongholds and Followers
then had great character moments with everyone that culminated in retirement of one of my original four characters (one had died along the way) leaving just two of four of those childhood friends in the party
and now they have traveled by teleportation to the monk’s homeland to attend the funeral of the monk’s late master
pretty insane how much things changed in the span of that 5 hours
+7
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
so yesterday we had our normal Friday session but rescheduled and ended up going extra long with a dinner intermission
the giant serpent setpiece went well and was overcome by slicing one of its wings open
it crashed into a lake
(if anyone wants to know how i did that fight mechanically i am happy to share)
then the party took rightful ownership of the great fortress and the ranger allowed the dark elves to stay and live under him, the newly anointed lord
got to bust out Strongholds and Followers
then had great character moments with everyone that culminated in retirement of one of my original four characters (one had died along the way) leaving just two of four of those childhood friends in the party
and now they have traveled by teleportation to the monk’s homeland to attend the funeral of the monk’s late master
pretty insane how much things changed in the span of that 5 hours
Is Strongholds and Followers coming out as a book at some point for non kick starters?
0
Options
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited August 2019
I really do try to measure everyone's comfort level with stuff. It helps I knew most of this group already or got to know them along with discussing stuff with them and the GM. I have kept promises about not doing certain stuff that wasn't even extremely crass or sensitive that the GM or players had even ambivalent feelings about. Essentially one of those promises was to not have my character call another player character hot basically. I talked about it with the GM and when he was a little tight-lipped about it on the first mention and I asked his genuine feelings on the matter and that he wouldn't hurt my feelings if he said I couldn't and he said he thought it would possibly make things uncomfortable and so I decided to not even have the possibility of that and promised him not to do it and I kept it. Plus with the background of the players talked about and their expectations known I really do try to cooperate with everyone to make our games smooth and fun. I was able to play out that in-character attraction subtely later in a way both of us were really cool with. That was part of the talk. The issue with the problem player isn't that he was uncomfortable with those subjects. He tried to butt into even the implication stuff too. The problem is he's uncooperative and feels like he's in his own world.
so yesterday we had our normal Friday session but rescheduled and ended up going extra long with a dinner intermission
the giant serpent setpiece went well and was overcome by slicing one of its wings open
it crashed into a lake
(if anyone wants to know how i did that fight mechanically i am happy to share)
then the party took rightful ownership of the great fortress and the ranger allowed the dark elves to stay and live under him, the newly anointed lord
got to bust out Strongholds and Followers
then had great character moments with everyone that culminated in retirement of one of my original four characters (one had died along the way) leaving just two of four of those childhood friends in the party
and now they have traveled by teleportation to the monk’s homeland to attend the funeral of the monk’s late master
pretty insane how much things changed in the span of that 5 hours
What happened?
in what sense? if you mean the character moments, just a lot of culminations of plans and bargains made
the campaign started in their home village in Nowhere Land and as they’ve traveled across the continent (to rescue the elf’s kidnapped parents) war broke out between their home country and the land they were traveling through
so after the cleric died and was reincarnated as an elf Paladin he finally decided it was time he returned home with his new elf girlfriend and deliver the news of the other character’s death to his family
Posts
but it has fucking nothing to do with what anyone else is doing
There is a magical item idea called a “hopeful key” which is a key that magically changes size and shape to fit in any lock, but does not turn.
You could reverse this and say that the lock changes size and shape to fit any key, but the box does not open.
I've had these sorts of players before. One of them straight-up told me that he didn't care if anyone else was having fun because of what he was doing.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
There's a guy who wouldn't get invited back to my table!
Look, the simple fact is that DMs are far harder to find than players. Players need to play the game the DM is running. There's not a single other way that makes sense. If they don't want to play at your table, then best of luck finding another.
I think you just need to tell the guy that you can only run one game at a time, and right now the game you're running is with the party. He can choose to join that game, or not.
Reroll rogue
let's not discount the option of telling your friends "hey you can't bring random guys to my house ever. Also that guy is no longer a random guy, but separately, you can't bring him to my house ever."
i mean, there's nothing wrong with letting him in! But also there's nothing wrong with saying no he cannot choose to join your game
Also, it's my personal ruling that for my home games where I'm the one putting in all the effort to construct a world setting I'm the one who gets to decide who gets a seat at my table. If other people meet someone who wants into my game I take it into consideration but I both need to know the person personally and also (critically) talk to them about what the themes and idea's of my campaign will be.
When we add people to our table, we usually do a board game night with a couple games, usually a co-op and a competitive, to see how they deal with it. We actually did weed out one person who could not work as a team. He was a nice dude, but it just didn't click that we all win together or lose together.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Proper integration takes much more combined effort than a jackass showing up and saying, "Hi. I play here now. And this is how i want to play, so fuck you."
It seems like you can use this birdnet to assist you as DM? I don't know all the details of your campaign, but these are the things I would say:
Limit the scope: "You can add one bird per day, to a maximum of 30, because the charm only last 30 days. So assuming you spend 8 hours per day awakening a bird, you can maintain 30 total birds.
This will have the effect of [opportunity cost—what do the other plays do/get in the downtime? Income, xp, other advancement?]. You could also split your time, and maintain a smaller network. Let's stick to multiples of 5."
Establish the range: "Your birds do a relay pony-express style for maximum efficiency. For every 5 birds in a chain, you can cover X distance from your location (or whatever, based on terrain/world map). If you move you can look for your 'links' in the chain to get info on the road, but finding a specific bird in an X mile radius isn't something you should count on. You might be able to preset a meeting by sending an alert down the chain before you move."
Make management reasonable: "You have three bird lieutenants, and all information flows both directions through them. You basically just deal with them and they contact the others down the chain. Your lieutenants are a sparrow, a gull, and a hawk (or whatever / + names, npc personalities, etc), and each is in charge of a chain of command covering a certain territory." (Or, let him pick the bird types—sparrows and crows blend in, bigger birds have more range, etc)
Retirement planning: "After 30 days, your non-lieutenant birds retire from the network. How they feel about you depends on how hard you worked them and how you treated them." (Do they remain friendly? Do they talk too much, or turn sides? What if one were captured? Do they get 401k/dental?)
Interact with your world map: "So, with 5N birds in each of 3 networks, your sparrows can reach Xtown, or Ytown if you stress them; your gulls can go up and down the coast from X to Z, or P to Q if you stress them, and your hawks can scout this much forest, or this much if you stress them."
Discuss functionality:
1.) Passive information gathering: "What kind of information, generally, are you looking for?" (Use this like a newspaper to give world info to your players, and tuck in some secrets and adventure hooks.)
2.) Specific requests: "Once per season, you can ask each lieutenant to perform or order a specific mission. You will roll your Handle Animal, with advantage, to determine success" (and the bird will roll Stealth with advantage vs. Perception behind the screen to determine detection.)
Constantly accruing fatigue because every time he tries to sleep, he's got another chirpy little bastard showing up to tell him about the neighborhood cats...
Except for that time when you awaken a mint plant and go in together on opening a bar where the mint plant tends bar and makes its own very fresh mojitos
the party is quite happy with this arrangement
Now, picture that exact same scenario with any other race as the bartender, trimming off odds and ends and dropping it in your drink, and it gets pretty disturbing.
Perfect pussy becomes pretty fucking weird yeah. On the other hand you could work in some of the music from little shop of horrors.
PSN:Furlion
I also had to take on a child as an assistant (who I was under no circumstances was comfortable with keeping around) because dipshit problem maker player had to promise to let him be my page if he won an arm wrestling contest. He won one against me (which I was sensitive about because I was born a runt gnoll and have -1 in strength but the GM allowed my monk to use dex), this tiefling the problem player plays, and a barbarian tortle completely legitimately. He’s also traumatized because he saw a bunch of ethereal maw-filled worms and a living old god; so thanks problem player and tortle with his old-ones-communicating lantern.
This was during a personal thing I had worked out with the GM by the way and he butted into each of the other player’s planned things. When he decided he wanted to do a mini-adventure by himself we, the other four, took ourselves into another room and had the best time of roleplaying our characters I have ever had. We talked about each other’s pasts, what we wanted, how we felt, and how we had changed over the course of the adventure. It’s something I’ve wanted and dreamed of forever. This would have never happened with the problem player. The dude looks at me confusedly like I’m wasting my time when I have my character send off heartfelt letters to my family and an old teacher that showed through words how my character grew and matured from the self-centered self-made outcast and self-isolating hidden defensive girl to giving a fuck and thinking of others and opening up. She does this because she finally has perspective on things she didn’t understand growing up and wants her family and that teacher to be at peace if she dies in the next two dangerous encounters. He’s like, “wait, what will this do and what’s going to happen with these letters?” like it’s a videogame and there must be a 1:1 response for my action for it to be worth it. I tell him to his face this has great value to me personally and in-character, is the reason I am playing this game to be a living character in this world with relationships and wants, and maybe he’s confused because he’s seeing good roleplaying and that, “he should try it sometime.” He almost deflates multiple things I have planned.
Another thing the character matured in was to stop trying to base emotional attachments on people she barely knows to feel a connection and feel secure in herself.
Also had sex.
I had an... intense sessions last night. Bit of background, one of my DMs is running a scifi game meant to emulate the feel of Shadowrun without its wonky mechanics. He built his own world (automated terraforming and pre-colonisation effort gone wrong) and we're using the Hero system mechanically, which is quite complex, but very flexible.
Spoilered for wall of text.
Last night we stumble into a faction war and end up fighting both sides, as you do. At one point, not wanting to fire a deadly laser at a person at point blank range, he decides to punch them instead. The way damage works in the system is that you have Normal and Lethal damage- normal damage will deal mostly Stun with some Body (you roll D6s and unless you roll a 6 you're barely hurting them), while lethal is just straight Body. Run out of Stun and you're unconscious, run out of Body and you're dead.
So, he decides to punch the guy, but to deal Normal damage. And to power up his servos with extra strength, to hopefully knock them out in one punch.
Except he crits, which maxes out your damage dice. Suddenly each die is dealing pretty substantial Body damage, and he rolled 10d6. Further, the guy was prone, punching causes knockback and for each tile of knockback resisted because you were against a wall (or in this case, floor), you take Normal damage. Which was also maxed out, thanks to the crit.
For comparison's sake, a handgun will deal ~2d6 Body damage. He hit the guy for about 25. The punch went not just through them, but through the floor below them.
The Face of the party basically had to coax the crying panda out of the robot suit and hug him for a while before he could talk again. Thankfully the session ended not too long after, giving me time to figure out how I want to handle it. But woof, there was some emotional whiplash there.
I will say that if Problem Player engaged your character in an arm wrestle with the goal of having a particular NPC with presumably no mechanical value continue to hang around with the party, it sounds like they are at least trying to roleplay.
You don't know this guy. He will be fine like half the time but then do stupid shit that puts the party in danger and doubles down on obnoxious behavior. He tries to cancel out our actions by trying to use the GM by saying often "before anyone does anything else" and then keeps insisting to do that when he won't even give the courtesy of just asking us if we would be cool with him doing a thing. He tries to outspeak others, interrupts them constantly, and then will have the gall to complain if anyone accidentally interrupts him while making grunting noises. He will interrupt the party members talking for like two minutes at a time, and when there seems to be a lull in speaking where I can speak, he will just keep speaking and complain that I interrupted him. He does not pay attention, we have been playing for three months consistently weekly and he still doesn't know anyone's names. He does not learn his class or the mechanics and then complains and insists to get his way when the DM tells him no. Every time the DM has told him no he tries to rationalize to him to get his way even if it will just end up in another no. Did you miss the part where he monopolized the DM to himself to have a mini-session while we had to go to another room?
Also, he didn't engage me in an arm wrestle, he butted in intrusively which forced us to take on someone I didn't want because he thought it was funny. He does not understand that his actions have consequences and constantly argues to avoid them. He does not understand he is a character in a world and treats it like a videogame when the rest of us know the deal of what we're playing.
Also sorry if you think that is horribly unfun and uncomfortable. I like to have actual nuance and character to my characters and the rest of the party agrees and I ask them about their comfort level with this stuff a lot. Especially when they also engage and we understand how to give each of us enough time to play their characters. If you're not playing to actually roleplay but to roll dice and see numbers go up you might as well play a videogame instead.
They didn't. They said it sounded like that, to them. And the sex part would make a lot of folks uncomfortable if it goes beyond a *slow pan to fireplace, fade to black* type thing.
I like to have "actual nuance" too, and am capable of it without the RP going R-rated. "Emotional hang ups" don't give you character.
Except the guy in Kadoken's game's play style
That's being a shitbird
That is exactly what I do though. The fade to black or implication thing.
Also, how is someone having a character arc dealing with their emotional hangups not having a character? It's literally the basis of dozens of books. It's also not the entirety of the character.
Why are you so hung up on the sex thing as well? That last part of the post was the least important part of the entirety of what was typed. That's not even the really the core thing she's been dealing with. Do you think my RP goes "R-Rated" every single second of the session? The one mention of sex is not nuance. You have no idea how I play.
I did say if that's what your group finds fun, you should keep doing it. Just isn't the kind of game I would enjoy.
From the follow-up post, sounds like I wouldn't enjoy playing with your problem player, either. Shrug
I understand. I am very sensitive to wording and I did not give proper context.
edit: I am also sorry I snapped and accused you of not playing a "real" character. That was not cool.
for example at one point we had to get some clarification from the rogue who offered a handjob to a cloud giant for a tour of all the rooms of the castle as to, mechanically, exactly what she was intending and she stood up and demonstrated on my tall wal-mart lamp, I made her make athletics checks and she ended up with a point of exhaustion before finishing
that wouldn't work for every table, but Sam Reigel would be at home here
edit: A big issue is you have to have players you can trust to know when to press the brakes, I had (emphasis on past tense) a player that had a serious thatguy syndrome and he's no longer welcome because of it
the giant serpent setpiece went well and was overcome by slicing one of its wings open
it crashed into a lake
(if anyone wants to know how i did that fight mechanically i am happy to share)
then the party took rightful ownership of the great fortress and the ranger allowed the dark elves to stay and live under him, the newly anointed lord
got to bust out Strongholds and Followers
then had great character moments with everyone that culminated in retirement of one of my original four characters (one had died along the way) leaving just two of four of those childhood friends in the party
and now they have traveled by teleportation to the monk’s homeland to attend the funeral of the monk’s late master
pretty insane how much things changed in the span of that 5 hours
in what sense? if you mean the character moments, just a lot of culminations of plans and bargains made
the campaign started in their home village in Nowhere Land and as they’ve traveled across the continent (to rescue the elf’s kidnapped parents) war broke out between their home country and the land they were traveling through
so after the cleric died and was reincarnated as an elf Paladin he finally decided it was time he returned home with his new elf girlfriend and deliver the news of the other character’s death to his family
it’s a lot to summarize
unless you meant the encounter