I remember we had an assignment in one of my high school science classes to do a report on an Asian scientist. I picked some Russian because Russia is CLEARLY in Asia. The teacher was not pleased.
Historically and culturally Russians have had some angst about that; if your Russian scientist was from Asiatic Russia, and especially if they had some cultural connection--e.g. they were part ethnically Turkmen or whatever--I feel like it wouldn't even be cheating
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I remember we had an assignment in one of my high school science classes to do a report on an Asian scientist. I picked some Russian because Russia is CLEARLY in Asia. The teacher was not pleased.
Why weren't they pleased? You adhered to their instructions.
Sorry Vee, but in the prologue, gold squadron was tragically killed by the ghost of jango fett
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Guys, don't you just hate it when you're feeling stressed out and a sudden rash of small, intensely itchy, water-filled blisters forms on your feet and hands, starting as deep-seated vesicles before merging into larger clusters, hardening over, flaking off, and revealing new skin underneath over a period of a little over a month?
I definitely don't want to kill my players in the first few sessions.
*oh wait you're serious png mp4*
Look, have you seen @Kid Presentable 's bird? It's delightful. @Blameless Cleric did a bang up job on that art. To murder him the first session? That would be a travesty! I have to make the bird sell their soul to a devil first.
I definitely don't want to kill my players in the first few sessions.
*oh wait you're serious png mp4*
Look, have you seen +"Kid Presentable" 's bird? It's delightful. +"Blameless Cleric" did a bang up job on that art. To murder him the first session? That would be a travesty! I have to make the bird sell their soul to a devil first.
Or... now hear me out... a way to increase demand for more delightful BC content.
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
I remember in grade school there was an assignment to pick a holiday to do a project on. Any holiday.
Knowing that people were all going to cluster around the popular ones, and because I was a smartass, I wanted to do the one holiday in August that nobody remembers exists: Civic Holiday.
The teacher didn't know there was one, got frustrated, and effectively told me to just pick a fucking regular holiday like everyone else.
I was mildly disappointed, because in retrospect, there's a lot of neat civic duty-related material you could build a project around for a holiday people forget exists (and in reality, was a holiday specifically there for municipalities to celebrate local historical figures).
Hi I'm Vee!Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered Userregular
Lets see there was elemental ring magic guy, who was collecting these powerful elemental rings, of which there were five, okay yes I stole the idea from Captain Planet, but he was super cool I swear. In the final climactic battle against the armies of darkness, I rolled a critical success on a "make an earth golem" roll (which was really hard in this system, we rolled d100s instead of d20s, and a special success was ~10% chance, while a critical was more like ~2%) and pulled together the walls of all the nearby buildings to create a massive kaiju-sized golem that ran rampant through the enemy troops.
There was the character I made for an M&M campaign here on the forums that was, like...Mike Mignola themed. Not in the Hellboy universe, but going for that style. We had a severed yeti paw as a character in that game, really cool. My character was basically like "what if Weird Science but it was just one dude, and the experiment went wrong and he fused with the woman he was 'creating', gained crazy techno powers but also had a female presence in his head that was really fucking mad because she saw all the gross things he wanted to do with her, and occasionally he fails a Will save and she takes control". That was a fun one.
Then there was the lady assassin who had a dark past and who had a one-on-one session with the GM where she conducted an assassination, and then later the party was coming back to town from a thing, and they ran into someone on the road who was like "Did you hear? [Bigshot noble who I had assassinated] was assassinated by someone!" and on of my party members was like "WHAT? MY FATHER IS DEAD??" That was an awesome moment.
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Hi I'm Vee!Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered Userregular
Lets see there was elemental ring magic guy, who was collecting these powerful elemental rings, of which there were five, okay yes I stole the idea from Captain Planet, but he was super cool I swear. In the final climactic battle against the armies of darkness, I rolled a critical success on a "make an earth golem" roll (which was really hard in this system, we rolled d100s instead of d20s, and a special success was ~10% chance, while a critical was more like ~2%) and pulled together the walls of all the nearby buildings to create a massive kaiju-sized golem that ran rampant through the enemy troops.
There was the character I made for an M&M campaign here on the forums that was, like...Mike Mignola themed. Not in the Hellboy universe, but going for that style. We had a severed yeti paw as a character in that game, really cool. My character was basically like "what if Weird Science but it was just one dude, and the experiment went wrong and he fused with the woman he was 'creating', gained crazy techno powers but also had a female presence in his head that was really fucking mad because she saw all the gross things he wanted to do with her, and occasionally he fails a Will save and she takes control". That was a fun one.
Then there was the lady assassin who had a dark past and who had a one-on-one session with the GM where she conducted an assassination, and then later the party was coming back to town from a thing, and they ran into someone on the road who was like "Did you hear? [Bigshot noble who I had assassinated] was assassinated by someone!" and on of my party members was like "WHAT? MY FATHER IS DEAD??" That was an awesome moment.
Also, just like...hmm
That was like 10 years ago
Maybe I should have been having some gender thoughts earlier than I did...
Guys, don't you just hate it when you're feeling stressed out and a sudden rash of small, intensely itchy, water-filled blisters forms on your feet and hands, starting as deep-seated vesicles before merging into larger clusters, hardening over, flaking off, and revealing new skin underneath over a period of a little over a month?
I definitely don't want to kill my players in the first few sessions. I want to get them into the adventure a bit before things get lethal. And if my players are like "hey no, please no permadeath" then sure we can work on that. But also there's ways to avoid dying in this campaign and death makes for good stories! No one remembers all their party members that survived, but the ones who died are much more memorable.
Besides, I've never actually DM'd and had a character die AND THE DICE CRAVE SOULS
AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
See, now I just have a campaign idea where the campaign starts as normal for a few sessions, and then everyone dies, and the campaign continues as the party reunites and proceeds through the afterlife/planes/whatever cosmology we're using.
if you aren't playing some diceless freeform hippy game then it can be very valuable to make sure something happens entirely because of die rolls early on. That something should not be the dramatic option or serve the plot or be narratively satisfying or otherwise be something that would be desirable in a passive medium like a novel / theatre / movie. A player character dying is a good example of this but not the only one.
But something to just to drive home that everything isn't being manipulated to fit a narrative or to provide maximum drama or even be "fun" will make the game feel so much more real and really ratchet up the tension (at least for a while). There is no plot armor. What would best fit a story doesn't have to happen (unless our heroes....).
edit: and when I say "make sure", that really just means engineering situations where there are dice rolls happening reasonably frequently that could have such outcomes. Sooner or later a player will roll a 1.
if you aren't playing some diceless freeform hippy game then it can be very valuable to make sure something happen entirely because of die rolls early on. That something should not be the a dramatic option or serve the plot or be narratively satisfying or otherwise be something that would be desirable in a passive medium like a novel / theatre / movie. A player character dying is a good example of this but not the only one.
But something to just to drive home that everything isn't being manipulated to fit a narrative or to provide maximum drama or even be "fun" will make the game feel so much more real and really ratchet up the tension (at least for a while). There is no plot armor. What would best fit a story doesn't have to happen (unless our heroes....).
This happened in one of my games in which the party, instead of killing an Ettin, decided to make it their friend. I forget how exactly, I think it was a serious of really impressive Persuasion rolls and choosing to subdue it.
Naturally, this was not planned.
So now I had to make a hex grid exploration side map of them continuing to explore the forest with a tamed Ettin in toe.
Coming up the back steps from the lower level at work, see something on the stairs, looks like a rag. Figures, they're cleaning the railings and doorknobs almost hourly. Snag it and ...it's a sweaty ladies thong. Whoop, drop that like a hot potato. Go get a plastic bag, grab it, again, toss it in the trash.
The best D&D character death I've ever seen is in episode 2 of Dimension 20's Fantasy High.
I stood up and yelled WHAT
It was incredible
The characters live in a John Hughes esque country where they have to go to an Adventuring High School. They're freshmen, there's cars, an ice cream parlor run by a genie, the principal is a wizard, the vice principal is a dragonborn, etc etc.
The students are in the cafeteria investigating something and get attacked. In the battle, two of them straight up die.
BUT
Arthur Aguefort, the principal of The Arthur Aguefort Adventuring Academy comes into the room with the guidance counselor and has a little speech about how a youthful life is such a terrible thing to waste. Isn't that right, guidance counselor?
"What?" says the guidance counselor, before Arthur pulls out a gun and SHOOTS HIM IN THE FACE, WHICH REVIVES ONE OF THE STUDENTS
Then as everyone is screaming he says something else and SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FACE AND REVIVES THE OTHER STUDENT
It was incredible.
I absolutely cannot recommend Fantasy High enough. First season is on youtube for free I think?
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
The best D&D character death I've ever seen is in episode 2 of Dimension 20's Fantasy High.
I stood up and yelled WHAT
It was incredible
The characters live in a John Hughes esque country where they have to go to an Adventuring High School. They're freshmen, there's cars, an ice cream parlor run by a genie, the principal is a wizard, the vice principal is a dragonborn, etc etc.
The students are in the cafeteria investigating something and get attacked. In the battle, two of them straight up die.
BUT
Arthur Aguefort, the principal of The Arthur Aguefort Adventuring Academy comes into the room with the guidance counselor and has a little speech about how a youthful life is such a terrible thing to waste. Isn't that right, guidance counselor?
"What?" says the guidance counselor, before Arthur pulls out a gun and SHOOTS HIM IN THE FACE, WHICH REVIVES ONE OF THE STUDENTS
Then as everyone is screaming he says something else and SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FACE AND REVIVES THE OTHER STUDENT
It was incredible.
I absolutely cannot recommend Fantasy High enough. First season is on youtube for free I think?
I would be mad as hell if a DM killed my character for laffs, or to build tension, or whatever
ok cool story, see you never again
What I am suggesting is a bit more subtle: It's refraining from fudging die rolls to keep a player alive. Or otherwise fudging things behind the screen to make sure the most narratively or dramatically appropriate / satisfying thing always happen.
edit: and the way most players play, and especially in D&D but I've seen it even more in games with guns, they are gonna put themselves in situations that get them killed early on without fudging in their favor
Posts
Historically and culturally Russians have had some angst about that; if your Russian scientist was from Asiatic Russia, and especially if they had some cultural connection--e.g. they were part ethnically Turkmen or whatever--I feel like it wouldn't even be cheating
Why weren't they pleased? You adhered to their instructions.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
I remember almost all of them vividly, they're my precious babies.
Yes, even you grimdark edgelordy Mutants and Masterminds character with negative emotion mind powers named Schadenfreude.
Even you.
But get this
there was a twist
because actually
he was a baddie pretending to be a hero
BET YOU NEVER SAW THAT COMING
just Mr comin at ya with more relatable content
( @VishNub )
So, it was changed to a generic building.
Run by the inimitable @Talonrazor if I remember correctly.
Good times. One of my favorite campaigns I've ever been in, though sadly short-lived.
It’s a weird synesthesia. When I poo I can smell the color. Worst super power.
Damn, looks like he just kinda disappeared.
Hope he's doing alright, wherever he is...
Got to brawl with a jedi abit and make himself look credible and then immediately gets his head sliced off when he shows back up feeling himself.
Look, have you seen @Kid Presentable 's bird? It's delightful. @Blameless Cleric did a bang up job on that art. To murder him the first session? That would be a travesty! I have to make the bird sell their soul to a devil first.
I really liked the traveling writer with the magical yelp review book of locations that had been explored, that was cool.
Or... now hear me out... a way to increase demand for more delightful BC content.
Knowing that people were all going to cluster around the popular ones, and because I was a smartass, I wanted to do the one holiday in August that nobody remembers exists: Civic Holiday.
The teacher didn't know there was one, got frustrated, and effectively told me to just pick a fucking regular holiday like everyone else.
I was mildly disappointed, because in retrospect, there's a lot of neat civic duty-related material you could build a project around for a holiday people forget exists (and in reality, was a holiday specifically there for municipalities to celebrate local historical figures).
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
There was the character I made for an M&M campaign here on the forums that was, like...Mike Mignola themed. Not in the Hellboy universe, but going for that style. We had a severed yeti paw as a character in that game, really cool. My character was basically like "what if Weird Science but it was just one dude, and the experiment went wrong and he fused with the woman he was 'creating', gained crazy techno powers but also had a female presence in his head that was really fucking mad because she saw all the gross things he wanted to do with her, and occasionally he fails a Will save and she takes control". That was a fun one.
Then there was the lady assassin who had a dark past and who had a one-on-one session with the GM where she conducted an assassination, and then later the party was coming back to town from a thing, and they ran into someone on the road who was like "Did you hear? [Bigshot noble who I had assassinated] was assassinated by someone!" and on of my party members was like "WHAT? MY FATHER IS DEAD??" That was an awesome moment.
Yeah that'd be something that would be really neat to explore some more at some point.
Though Jepharian was a blast to play too.
Ready for this year to die.
Also, just like...hmm
That was like 10 years ago
Maybe I should have been having some gender thoughts earlier than I did...
The dream
Going meatless
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
why wait
But something to just to drive home that everything isn't being manipulated to fit a narrative or to provide maximum drama or even be "fun" will make the game feel so much more real and really ratchet up the tension (at least for a while). There is no plot armor. What would best fit a story doesn't have to happen (unless our heroes....).
edit: and when I say "make sure", that really just means engineering situations where there are dice rolls happening reasonably frequently that could have such outcomes. Sooner or later a player will roll a 1.
I responded to a recruiter
I have done so much work today I am so proud of myself I really did it
This happened in one of my games in which the party, instead of killing an Ettin, decided to make it their friend. I forget how exactly, I think it was a serious of really impressive Persuasion rolls and choosing to subdue it.
Naturally, this was not planned.
So now I had to make a hex grid exploration side map of them continuing to explore the forest with a tamed Ettin in toe.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Fucking pandemic, man.
I stood up and yelled WHAT
It was incredible
The students are in the cafeteria investigating something and get attacked. In the battle, two of them straight up die.
BUT
Arthur Aguefort, the principal of The Arthur Aguefort Adventuring Academy comes into the room with the guidance counselor and has a little speech about how a youthful life is such a terrible thing to waste. Isn't that right, guidance counselor?
"What?" says the guidance counselor, before Arthur pulls out a gun and SHOOTS HIM IN THE FACE, WHICH REVIVES ONE OF THE STUDENTS
Then as everyone is screaming he says something else and SHOOTS HIMSELF IN THE FACE AND REVIVES THE OTHER STUDENT
It was incredible.
I absolutely cannot recommend Fantasy High enough. First season is on youtube for free I think?
The temptation is real, believe me
I found it! Start at an hour and 26 minutes if you just wanna see the amazing bit
ok cool story, see you never again
I just got owned
What I am suggesting is a bit more subtle: It's refraining from fudging die rolls to keep a player alive. Or otherwise fudging things behind the screen to make sure the most narratively or dramatically appropriate / satisfying thing always happen.
edit: and the way most players play, and especially in D&D but I've seen it even more in games with guns, they are gonna put themselves in situations that get them killed early on without fudging in their favor
Not very.
Why would anyone from the future choose to come to 2020?
I imagine to see the last gasp of civilization before we go full mad max