Good fucking god. I rolled 4 20s in one fight against my players today. Thankfully only two of those were actually for crits
The players meanwhile got 3 crits, so go them. Including the paladin, which let her decapitate one of the catoctpus monsters they were fighting.
nice
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
Picked up the Arkham Horror Card Game so the boyfriend and I would have another 2 player game option. Assuming we have a good time going through the campaign in the base game, are any of the expansions a must-get? I know for eldritch horror there were one or two that greatly improved the experience
Picked up the Arkham Horror Card Game so the boyfriend and I would have another 2 player game option. Assuming we have a good time going through the campaign in the base game, are any of the expansions a must-get? I know for eldritch horror there were one or two that greatly improved the experience
The newly released Investigator decks would probably increase the player card pool pretty well and can help avoid having to get a second core set right away.
Other than that pick whatever deluxe expansion and the associated packs that are available. Some are awaiting reprints.
Dunwich is a good follow up for the core. Carcosa is a very popular favorite and really branches out in the design space. Forgotten Age is pretty brutal for the unprepared. I don't know much about Circle Undone or Dream Eaters (although Dream Eaters gimmic sounds cool). Innsmouth just started releasing.
As a completely new GM, I think that 5e allows for and encourages a good amount of improvisation while also giving a fairly strong framework for players to fall back on when the improv juice just isn't flowing.
I know many of you all are table top RPG veterans, but as someone who is new to both playing and GMing, DnD has a framework of well-recognized systems and mechanics that serve our group as a nice fallback for when we are not feeling as creative as more seasoned players might be.
I guess what I'm saying is, as a brand new GM who is currently running a 5e campaign, I do not feel nearly as constricted by DnD mechanics as some of you seem to feel about DnD in general. To me, it seems pretty clear that the player and DM handbooks are there as a guide, but that I am free to improvise or bend the rules as the play session dictates.
Let's take the example of the failure to properly pick a lock. I don't think there's anything in the DnD guidebook that's preventing me from just deciding "You know what, fine. After slamming against the chest for half an hour, it reveals its lackluster contents."
The question might then be why not use something other than DnD 5e. The answer is that there's a plethora of readily available modules and maps to help a new GM get started! It helps me tremendously to have a Roll 20 pack of ready made maps and tokens on offer, even if I end up modifying them heavily.
My biggest beef with the DM's guide is that it doesn't go into depth on the bolded. there's probably a whole chapter easily written on tried and true methods of empowering the players through rulings and improvisations in the moment that I imagine would be a big help to a new DM. There's plenty of stories over on RPG horror stories about DMs who rule and improvise to absolutely fuck their players, and I still hold out hope that some of them could be saved just by having a clear cut guide on how to help rather than hinder.
I seem to remember the DM's Guide section on writing your own campaigns beginning with "So the first thing you'll need to decide is who the gods of your setting are," which might be the most ass-backwards approach to narrative construction ever.
As a completely new GM, I think that 5e allows for and encourages a good amount of improvisation while also giving a fairly strong framework for players to fall back on when the improv juice just isn't flowing.
I know many of you all are table top RPG veterans, but as someone who is new to both playing and GMing, DnD has a framework of well-recognized systems and mechanics that serve our group as a nice fallback for when we are not feeling as creative as more seasoned players might be.
I guess what I'm saying is, as a brand new GM who is currently running a 5e campaign, I do not feel nearly as constricted by DnD mechanics as some of you seem to feel about DnD in general. To me, it seems pretty clear that the player and DM handbooks are there as a guide, but that I am free to improvise or bend the rules as the play session dictates.
Let's take the example of the failure to properly pick a lock. I don't think there's anything in the DnD guidebook that's preventing me from just deciding "You know what, fine. After slamming against the chest for half an hour, it reveals its lackluster contents."
The question might then be why not use something other than DnD 5e. The answer is that there's a plethora of readily available modules and maps to help a new GM get started! It helps me tremendously to have a Roll 20 pack of ready made maps and tokens on offer, even if I end up modifying them heavily.
My biggest beef with the DM's guide is that it doesn't go into depth on the bolded. there's probably a whole chapter easily written on tried and true methods of empowering the players through rulings and improvisations in the moment that I imagine would be a big help to a new DM. There's plenty of stories over on RPG horror stories about DMs who rule and improvise to absolutely fuck their players, and I still hold out hope that some of them could be saved just by having a clear cut guide on how to help rather than hinder.
I seem to remember the DM's Guide section on writing your own campaigns beginning with "So the first thing you'll need to decide is who the gods of your setting are," which might be the most ass-backwards approach to narrative construction ever.
...I'm pretty sure the first thing to decide is the theme you're going for. Horror, gritty urban dystopia, high fantasy murderhobo adventure...
I want to make a kenku artificer named *comical crashing sound effect*
I had a Kenku monk whose nickname was Long Song, because he had a crush on a bard so his name was a full multi minute song, complete with instruments and vocals.
Always a fun trap when a new player joined for a one-off and asked their name.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
As a completely new GM, I think that 5e allows for and encourages a good amount of improvisation while also giving a fairly strong framework for players to fall back on when the improv juice just isn't flowing.
I know many of you all are table top RPG veterans, but as someone who is new to both playing and GMing, DnD has a framework of well-recognized systems and mechanics that serve our group as a nice fallback for when we are not feeling as creative as more seasoned players might be.
I guess what I'm saying is, as a brand new GM who is currently running a 5e campaign, I do not feel nearly as constricted by DnD mechanics as some of you seem to feel about DnD in general. To me, it seems pretty clear that the player and DM handbooks are there as a guide, but that I am free to improvise or bend the rules as the play session dictates.
Let's take the example of the failure to properly pick a lock. I don't think there's anything in the DnD guidebook that's preventing me from just deciding "You know what, fine. After slamming against the chest for half an hour, it reveals its lackluster contents."
The question might then be why not use something other than DnD 5e. The answer is that there's a plethora of readily available modules and maps to help a new GM get started! It helps me tremendously to have a Roll 20 pack of ready made maps and tokens on offer, even if I end up modifying them heavily.
My biggest beef with the DM's guide is that it doesn't go into depth on the bolded. there's probably a whole chapter easily written on tried and true methods of empowering the players through rulings and improvisations in the moment that I imagine would be a big help to a new DM. There's plenty of stories over on RPG horror stories about DMs who rule and improvise to absolutely fuck their players, and I still hold out hope that some of them could be saved just by having a clear cut guide on how to help rather than hinder.
I seem to remember the DM's Guide section on writing your own campaigns beginning with "So the first thing you'll need to decide is who the gods of your setting are," which might be the most ass-backwards approach to narrative construction ever.
So specifically, The gods come first is part of the "creating the world" part of the DMs guide, the building your own campaign comes a few pages later.
I want to make a kenku artificer named *comical crashing sound effect*
Comical Crashing Sound Effect is perfect.
I suggest for maximum goodness you make them an Armorer, so they can be encased in their awesome powerarmor and then slam into people and commence the P U N C H C R A S H
Genuine question: What do you do with XP in a TTRPG trying to emulate a genre of already hypercompetent and pretty developed people?
Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
Perhaps do something akin to E6 for D&D and/or Pathfinder?
Lock the characters in at a certain level and then just have them gain feats/traits as they "level" up.
There is *very* little room for vertical progression in the system as written.
Skills are in groups and both of those have ratings from 0-2, with the total (giving a range of 0-4) being the max possible Being Good at that.
Then everything is just tags and more tags leads to a jumbled mess.
Currently I've just got in mind like, sideways progression (voluntarily going lower on a skill group to switch speciality to another area) or like, shifting down the curve of cyberization (never back up, flesh don't work that way).
Perma upgrades would probably be like, unlocking the ability to use one skill at a mythical 'rank 5' (which would be a d2) in certain situations. Like Saito in GITS is probably rank 5 at sniping from good positions. Unlocking a 3rd relationship slot so you can hang out with the team more, unlocking a 3rd concept slot to show more depth. Maybe an extra aug slot (or 2 if you're fully cyborged) or a bit of permenant personal gear at most.
It really depends on how much "more" the system has. Like if you can keep progressing your "Win encounters" skill directly that's a bit of an issue but if they're capped at max skill rank and are mostly only rounding out....who cares?
Genuine question: What do you do with XP in a TTRPG trying to emulate a genre of already hypercompetent and pretty developed people?
Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
It may sound like a dumb question, but do you want these characters to get better?
Because quite frankly, you don't need to have XP or advancement in a game, or if you still want to have something, there are options that are more lateral than like, gaining strength bonuses or whatever. A few ideas (which hey, you could potentially combine):
Retire - This is (one of) the Blades in the Dark system, or the drive clocks from Beamsaber. Your character has a goal, and being an adventurer means that you are pushing closer and closer to achieving that goal. This could be literally just socking away the cash (or a similar resource - fame/prestige comes to mind as an idea) to get out of this place, or it could be something more abstract.
Respec - If you don't want your characters getting more powerful, but you do want them to be able to change, you could use XP as a form of currency for changing your character's abilities. Maybe the move you took isn't work out the way you thought it would, and you want to switch it up. Or maybe you just want to represent your character getting a bit older, a bit wiser, and a bit slower on the draw.
Resource - While a lot of resources can be acquired through play, this would represent stuff like permanent upgrades to your credit limit, or increasingly powerful friends that you can ask for a favor (what is a line of credit but a friend who actually hates your fucking guts anyways). Bases of operations or vehicles that are primarily used outside of the direct action could also fall into this pretty easily.
Genuine question: What do you do with XP in a TTRPG trying to emulate a genre of already hypercompetent and pretty developed people?
Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
It may sound like a dumb question, but do you want these characters to get better?
Because quite frankly, you don't need to have XP or advancement in a game, or if you still want to have something, there are options that are more lateral than like, gaining strength bonuses or whatever. A few ideas (which hey, you could potentially combine):
Retire - This is (one of) the Blades in the Dark system, or the drive clocks from Beamsaber. Your character has a goal, and being an adventurer means that you are pushing closer and closer to achieving that goal. This could be literally just socking away the cash (or a similar resource - fame/prestige comes to mind as an idea) to get out of this place, or it could be something more abstract.
Respec - If you don't want your characters getting more powerful, but you do want them to be able to change, you could use XP as a form of currency for changing your character's abilities. Maybe the move you took isn't work out the way you thought it would, and you want to switch it up. Or maybe you just want to represent your character getting a bit older, a bit wiser, and a bit slower on the draw.
Resource - While a lot of resources can be acquired through play, this would represent stuff like permanent upgrades to your credit limit, or increasingly powerful friends that you can ask for a favor (what is a line of credit but a friend who actually hates your fucking guts anyways). Bases of operations or vehicles that are primarily used outside of the direct action could also fall into this pretty easily.
These are most of the lanes I'm looking at. Was just checking what other folks had up their sleeve.
Retire in particular is good for GITS because "you become a super powerful cyberghost in the internet for the whole investigation then have to fade" is a great hook.
But yeah in general the reason I want advancement is because XP hooks encourage using Concepts and Relationships for negative effects as well as positive.
It really depends on how much "more" the system has. Like if you can keep progressing your "Win encounters" skill directly that's a bit of an issue but if they're capped at max skill rank and are mostly only rounding out....who cares?
Edit: As an example from the playtest: We did one and a half mysteries and the players functionally never failed once.
There were stakes generated and tension abound but it went exactly how you'd picture the average Ghost in the SHell SAC episode: A competent team tackles big corruption and wins with a military firefight at the end.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I overall like XP as a mechanic for encouraging roleplaying, and I've definitely seen some XP-less games fall a bit flat by not having that (or something similar)
Like, I guess that is the other option - ditch XP entirely, and wherever you previously would have awarded XP, have it be a reroll or a bonus die or something like that as an incentive instead
Yeah, I overall like XP as a mechanic for encouraging roleplaying, and I've definitely seen some XP-less games fall a bit flat by not having that (or something similar)
Like, I guess that is the other option - ditch XP entirely, and wherever you previously would have awarded XP, have it be a reroll or a bonus die or something like that as an incentive instead
Bonus tokens mostly again push up against the power curve thing.
Folks in this game are already The Major or Batou or Togusa from session 1. So more levers to pull to make them stronger starts to become absurd or superfluous real quickly.
The 2.0 of this I'm working on literally just takes all the things that are flat dice pool reductions (a good thing) and makes them re-rolls instead to deal with this bloat of ways to be too good to be touched.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Genuine question: What do you do with XP in a TTRPG trying to emulate a genre of already hypercompetent and pretty developed people?
Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
Perhaps do something akin to E6 for D&D and/or Pathfinder?
Lock the characters in at a certain level and then just have them gain feats/traits as they "level" up.
There is *very* little room for vertical progression in the system as written.
Skills are in groups and both of those have ratings from 0-2, with the total (giving a range of 0-4) being the max possible Being Good at that.
Then everything is just tags and more tags leads to a jumbled mess.
Currently I've just got in mind like, sideways progression (voluntarily going lower on a skill group to switch speciality to another area) or like, shifting down the curve of cyberization (never back up, flesh don't work that way).
Perma upgrades would probably be like, unlocking the ability to use one skill at a mythical 'rank 5' (which would be a d2) in certain situations. Like Saito in GITS is probably rank 5 at sniping from good positions. Unlocking a 3rd relationship slot so you can hang out with the team more, unlocking a 3rd concept slot to show more depth. Maybe an extra aug slot (or 2 if you're fully cyborged) or a bit of permenant personal gear at most.
If the system/your gameplay supports fiction-first abilities like one would see in PbtA or FitD you could raid those games for a few.
Genuine question: What do you do with XP in a TTRPG trying to emulate a genre of already hypercompetent and pretty developed people?
Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
Perhaps do something akin to E6 for D&D and/or Pathfinder?
Lock the characters in at a certain level and then just have them gain feats/traits as they "level" up.
There is *very* little room for vertical progression in the system as written.
Skills are in groups and both of those have ratings from 0-2, with the total (giving a range of 0-4) being the max possible Being Good at that.
Then everything is just tags and more tags leads to a jumbled mess.
Currently I've just got in mind like, sideways progression (voluntarily going lower on a skill group to switch speciality to another area) or like, shifting down the curve of cyberization (never back up, flesh don't work that way).
Perma upgrades would probably be like, unlocking the ability to use one skill at a mythical 'rank 5' (which would be a d2) in certain situations. Like Saito in GITS is probably rank 5 at sniping from good positions. Unlocking a 3rd relationship slot so you can hang out with the team more, unlocking a 3rd concept slot to show more depth. Maybe an extra aug slot (or 2 if you're fully cyborged) or a bit of permenant personal gear at most.
If the system/your gameplay supports fiction-first abilities like one would see in PbtA or FitD you could raid those games for a few.
It does/could but mostly umbrella's them under the group resource of funding. Like if you go above and beyond in what you need you just spend that.
I don't *super* like things that define "and you can always do X" because it winds up calling into question if other players can do X and what the cost should be for X and all that junk. Especially when players are all pretty rad.
I want to make a kenku artificer named *comical crashing sound effect*
Fun Kenku fact I just learned today: in the world of Exandria (aka the Critical Role setting) Kenku are descended from an army of black winged angels devoted to the Raven Queen who were destroyed fighting Tharizdun, god of destruction and madness. The Raven Queen tried to restore them but Tharizdun had so thoroughly mangled their celestial essences that new lives as the first members of the mortal Kenku race was the best she could do for them.
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WearingglassesOf the friendly neighborhood varietyRegistered Userregular
So I haven't progressed a campaign plot point beyond "The Spy Guild (Dimir) is undergoing an internal civil war between the traditionalists (maintain status quo, keep the other guilds in line) and the usurpers (we now have xxxx, we can rule the world from the shadows now!)" What are some usual scenarios that play out in stories like this? My vague ideas are
- Why the hell are the Usurpers doing their thing now? (Because they got magical macguffin! And possibly an unhinged megalomaniacal leader, cue reveal)
- Players witnessing an Order 66 moment
- "I'm the good spy!" "No, I am the good spy!"
- A Dimir PC performing a triple-cross? I'd need to talk this one out if the PC wants to do something like this
The conversation has very much moved on since then, but I've spent like four days not being able to scrape together enough free time to finish this post, and I don't have it in me to let all these words go to waste now that I've typed them up, so I'm afraid you're all going to have to scroll past an irrelevant wall of text.
We've been talking about what sort of advice we'd want the DMG to dispense, guidelines and tips and so on, for how to make the game at the table better. That is stuff that largely sits outside the rules, and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to take a look at how other games reify good GMing practices or narrative techniques in the game mechanics themselves, or how they add concrete tools for managing various aspects of the GM's job. I am not nearly as learn-ed or experienced with RPGs as a lot of the folks here, so I suspect that others would have even more interesting stuff to contribute. These are not exhaustive examples from the games I'll mention, they're just some examples that popped into my head. Also, some of these rules are predicated on a core system of the game in question and entwined with the rest of the rule system, and some of them are pretty stand-alone and can be lifted into a different game system.
13th Age, which is D&D's cousin, adds the One Unique Thing concept to character creation. When you create your character, you decide something about them - their ancestry, past history, relationship with other people, place in the world, whatever - that is absolutely true, and also absolutely unique to them. Maybe your paladin is the only person who knows The Crusader's true name. Maybe your sorcerer is the only illegitimate daughter of The Emperor, conceived before he formally took the throne. Maybe your dwarf is the only dwarf who's been born on the Plane of Fire. This is primarily a narrative tool, there are restrictions on what mechanical bonuses this can give you - you can't be like "I'm the only pig farmer in the world who has a +5 vorpal blade of everything-slaying". Why this is good: It gets the players thinking about their connection to the world. Some folks are eager to write a ten-page backstory with hooks for the GM to use, but not everyone wants to, or is capable of, doing that; some folks might not even know how to do that. This is a relatively lightweight and guided way to making their characters a little bit more interesting than a set of numbers on a sheet. The other cool thing is that when you state that something is true only for your character, you are indirectly stating that it's not true for everyone else in the world. This means that players get to define a tiny bit of the world right off the bat, which I suspect invests them in that world a little more.
13th Age also has the concept of Icons. If you've consumed fantasy fiction, you're probably already familiar with this - they are the powerful figures, the movers and shakers of the fictional world, the actors who change the direction that wind blows. They're more archetypes than 3D-characters, and they appear in fantasy fiction over and over because literally every single person who's ever written fantasy is a hack, no exceptions, yes even your fave. The Elf Queen who is imperious and mystical and hangs out in the enchanted wood (Galadriel, probably some of Forgotten Realms's Seven Sisters qualify, Laurana Kanan and Alhana Starbreeze). The Archmage is a powerful arcane spellcaster who is doing experiments in his lab, watching over the mere mortals, and probably meddling in powers beyond his control (Gandalf, Elminster, a full 50% of all characters in fantasy fiction). The Dwarf King who rules in the realms under the earth, who claims ownership of any precious thing taken out of the ground, whose corridors extend under every other realm in the land (a buncha dwarves in Middle-Earth, Bruenor Battlehammer). Thirteen icons in total, covering a wide range of alignments, motivations, fields of interest, and geographic domains. The players all have to pick relationships with some of the icons, whether positive or negative. Why this is good: This further grounds the characters in the world, gives the GM narrative threads to pull, and fleshes out the characters (the Emperor and the Archmage are closely allied, so what does it mean if someone has a positive relationship with the Archmage but a negative one with the Emperor?). Furthermore, there's a mechanic in the game where the Icons offer aid to the players, either with no strings attached or with some complications, which lets the GM just give outright help to players if they're stuck, and creates both narrative and mechanical opportunities.
In D&D, failure is pretty much always bad news. There's probably some class/feat/whatever that gets a benefit from missing attacks, or getting hit, but generally you never want to fail a roll. Failing a roll means you don't get to do a cool thing, and it means you make your situation (narrative and mechanical) worse. However, in fiction, characters who always succeed are boring. It's more dramatic - more engaging - when the protagonist suffers some setback, faces obstacles, before their eventual success. It's more interesting when a character has flaws, vices, weaknesses. Fate Core recognizes this, and its core mechanic is built around this idea. Entities in the world (primarily characters, but also items, locations, organizations, etc) have Aspects, which are short descriptive phrases written in natural language that describe something about that entity. Like tags on a blog post. You don't just have a generic elven fighter, you have a [wood spirit][lieutenant of the Blood Order] who is [bonded to a symbiote sword]. Since the aspects are written in natural language, they are by definition loosey-goosey and require adjudication by the players and the GM, but they are made like that intentionally: if you are engaging in an action and you can demonstrate that one of your aspects is relevant to that action, makes you better at that action, you get your choice of either a numeric bonus to the roll, or a reroll. You get to be extra-cool at the things that are relevant to your character. The rulebook has some really good advice on making aspects that are interesting, useful, and create good drama, and the very first piece of advice is to make them double-edged. The best aspects can be used against you, as well. Why would you ever want to intentionally build a weakness into your character? Well, because invoking an aspect to get the bonus isn't free - it costs a limited resource called Fate Points, and once you're out of Fate Points, you can't get your badass-bonuses. But! If you are in a situation where one of your own aspects is used against you, you gain a Fate Point. Because you are a [lieutenant of the Blood Order], you can leverage the Order's resources to requisition equipment, dazzle commoners with your Order's fame, and so on - but when you track down the necromancer who killed your parents and your captain says "This man is working with the Blood Order; you will not act against him", that's your aspect working against you. If you're the [fastest gun in the West], you can expect to win all of your shootouts - but every kid is gonna know who you are and pick you out in a crowd, and upstarts will be challenging you to duels all the time. Now, the nice thing is that you do have some say in it - the GM will offer some setback that is triggered off of your aspect, and you can choose to allow it to happen to gain a Fate Point, or you can prevent it from happening by paying a Fate Point. Why this is good: Look at what's happening here: you are willingly accepting a narrative setback in order to gain a mechanical advantage that you can cash in at some later point. Your character is technically failing, but you as a player are actually getting currency. Failing is not entirely negative. Failing means you get to be extra-rad later on. Players can cash in their Fate Points to feel cool and special when they do something flashy, and they are then incentivized to do risky behavior and get their characters in trouble in order to recover Fate Points. If the main job of the GM is to present complications to players in order to create drama, then Fate creates an environment where the players will actively do the GM's job for them. Now, it's important to note that this is not something that everybody necessarily wants in their game. Because this is a core mechanic, and because it's based around earning and spending currency, it means that the game has a constant ebb and flow of willing failures and flashy successes, and that's not a cadence everyone wants. It also relies on everyone at the table accepting that the players and the GM are not in an adversarial relationship, that narrative complications are not bad, and it relies on everyone having trust that everyone else is playing in good faith. I bet this system gets real sour when someone starts an argument that their aspects should give them a bonus whenever any damn action comes up, from swinging on the chandelier to tying some shoes.
On the subject of tools: Dungeon World's Fronts provide the GM with a framework for fleshing out a threat that the players will face during their game. "Threat", in this context, is something on a relatively large scale - not "the orc in the room over there", but maybe "the orc army that is invading from the Barrenlands", or "the orc clan that's taken over Castle Wynngaar". A Front consists of a few linked dangers (groups of people, organizations, dangerous places, etc) that each have an "impulse" that motivates their actions; a description, cast of principal actors, and any custom abilities; "grim portents", a series of events that transpire in the world if the heroes do nothing and the danger gets closer and closer to its final goal; and an "impending doom", the final goal that the danger is heading towards. The book provides multiple options to choose from for each section of this framework, but of course you are free to whip up your own. Why this is good: Sitting down in front of a blank page is scary. Getting started is a hurdle for a lot of people, and the Fronts system bootstraps you into the creative process. It acts as an outline that you can flesh out with details specific to your campaign. After you've done it a few times and get the hang of it, you won't even need the lists it gives you for each component of the Front.
I'm pretty sure that I mention Fellowship in approximately half of my posts in the RPG threads on these forums (so why not mention it in this one as well, hey). There are a lot of reasons for that: it's the first Powered by Apocalypse game I read (although my understanding is that it's not necessarily a great example of a PbtA game); it has an extremely strong understanding of what its themes and goals are, and just about every element of the game is built in service of those themes; it is the game that, I think, I most want to play or run, because it is a game that is explicitly about my favorite thing in the world: camaraderie. One of my favorite tools that the game has to guide the players and GM are Agendas. I'll just quote the rulebook directly:
Your Agendas are your guidelines. When you do not know what your character should do next, look to your guidelines for ideas.
All players have a shared set of Agendas (they are "Improve The World Around You", "Tell Us Of Your People", and "Be Brave, Take Risks"), and each Playbook (think "class", "archetype", "role") has a couple bespoke Agendas of which you pick one (e.g. the Dwarf can pick "The Honored Word - Keep your word in all things, and punish the liars and oath-breakers."; the Halfling can pick "Get Some Recognition - Shake things up when people ignore or underestimate you"). The GM also has common Agendas to guide them ("Create Opportunities To Do Good" and "Play To Find Out What Happens", which means "Don't plan too far ahead, let the game evolve as a result of the player's actions"), as well as an Agenda defined by the category of Big Bad that they pick for the campaign (e.g. the "Watch The World Burn"-type Big Bad has the Agenda "Fill The World With Strange And Painful Events"). Why this is good: Not everyone is a born actor. Not everyone can conjure up an entirely separate, whole person in their mind and then channel that person's actions in the game. Not everyone can think on their feet when the spotlight is on them. Some folks just want to roll some dice and bop some skellies on the skullies with their pallies (sorry, it's late and I'm tired, that happened and I was powerless to stop it), and they don't really want anything more complicated than that. That's cool! Some folks, on the other hand, even some folks in this thread, want to engage more but aren't sure how to do it in general, or they draw a blank in the moment. Agendas are there to prompt everyone at the table on what to do next. If you are expected to do something, or if you want to jump into a scene, but you don't know what you can contribute, you can pick one of the agendas and expand on what it tells you to do.
I've already written an entire novel, so I'm going to stop here. If someone feels like picking up the baton, other things that popped into my head:
- Monsterhearts 2's extremely robust tools and guidelines for consent in RPGs, and for handling situations that make someone at the table uncomfortable. As we've discussed, a big part of being the GM is the social interaction with the human beings at the table, making sure that everyone feels safe and comfortable and is having a good time, and many RPGs just... don't address this part in their rulebooks at all.
- Blades in the Dark's system for skipping the boring part of prepping for a heist by letting players do mid-heist flashbacks to explain how they prepared the exact tool they need for this particular situation.
- Genesys's custom dice, which allow rolls to result not only in "success", "failure", "big success", "and "big failure", but also allow mixed results like "success with a drawback" and "failure that creates an opening".
Are there by chance any good sources on how to roleplay bad guys and get into the headspace of one? I'm consistently finding it difficult to do. For example, I've got a recurring ogre character who is the head of law enforcement in a place run by a reclusive wizard whose main instructions to the ogre are "if anyone that I haven't already told you is off limits causes trouble smash them to bits or send them to be tortured, your choice". I wanted this guy to be a menacing bully, but so far I've inadvertently made him come off as a buffoon.
I'm a very non-confrontational, polite, perhaps too agreeable and accommodating person IRL. How can I learn to roleplay this ogre with way more authority than he should have ever been trusted with as someone my players would be wary of and think of as a bully? Would it help if I came up with "triggers" for evil behavior?
On a related note, I've recently started writing down quotes from media where someone says something I find morally repugnant. For example, an anime I started recently had a character who the protagonist thought was an ally refuse to help him save someone, saying "I need you to give me an incentive to help, because it's not my responsibility to save people too weak to save themselves." Similarly, when someone does something like refuse to answer a person's question and tell them to look it up for themselves I take note.
Are there by chance any good sources on how to roleplay bad guys? I'm consistently finding it difficult to do. For example, I've got a recurring ogre character who is the head of law enforcement in a place run by a reclusive wizard whose main instructions to the ogre are "if anyone that I haven't already told you is off limits causes trouble smash them to bits or send them to be tortured, your choice". I wanted this guy to be a menacing bully, but so far I've inadvertently made him come off as a buffoon.
I'm a very non-confrontational and polite person IRL. How can I learn to roleplay this ogre with way more authority than he should have ever been trusted with as someone my players would be wary of and think of as a bully?
What's something completely unnecessary for him to do? Have him do it, for the sake of being petty and cruel. They've already arrested the thief, he doesn't have to beat him in public before they take him away, but he does.
Or have him do literally anything to mess with the PCs supplies or money, without them being able to immediately retaliate. They will despise him.
Are there by chance any good sources on how to roleplay bad guys? I'm consistently finding it difficult to do. For example, I've got a recurring ogre character who is the head of law enforcement in a place run by a reclusive wizard whose main instructions to the ogre are "if anyone that I haven't already told you is off limits causes trouble smash them to bits or send them to be tortured, your choice". I wanted this guy to be a menacing bully, but so far I've inadvertently made him come off as a buffoon.
I'm a very non-confrontational and polite person IRL. How can I learn to roleplay this ogre with way more authority than he should have ever been trusted with as someone my players would be wary of and think of as a bully?
What's something completely unnecessary for him to do? Have him do it, for the sake of being petty and cruel. They've already arrested the thief, he doesn't have to beat him in public before they take him away, but he does.
Or have him do literally anything to mess with the PCs supplies or money, without them being able to immediately retaliate. They will despise him.
Well, the original adventure I cribbed the area and characters from notes that the ogre likes to cause trouble for the local halfling-run inn, although the owner herself and her family have been designated as off-limits to the ogre. I actually had him show up there briefly last session, but I honestly didn't really have him do anything.
I swear I'm finding so hard to imagine what a bully would do that I'm currently looking at anti-bullying material intended for children as inspiration. I've been bullied a lot both at school when I was younger and at work, so you think it'd be easy for me to come up with something, but it's hard for me to imagine the why of it.
I'm gonna take a second to recount some of the things my most abusive supervisor did, as an example:
- Criticized my work very often.
- Would dismiss my questions as stupid, annoying, or just shake his head slowly and say nothing.
- Would tell me something would get me fired only for me to find out later it wasn't a problem.
- Commented that I was probably a virgin around other co-workers.
- Said my father must have done a poor job raising me.
- When I mentioned I was still living with my father commented that his son left home and got his own place at eighteen, and that if he was my father he would have thrown me out.
- Told me to leave when a particularly stressful event made me tear up because he didn't want to see a man cry, then weeks later when I expressed frustration at something asked me if I was going to cry again.
- Used a word another co-worker found offensive, and when she said so immediately said it four more times in a singsong fashion.
Why did he behave like this? What was the underlying reason? It's easier for me to understand why I put up with it, even after a friendly co-worker said to me "I hate the way you let him treat you"; I was raised a Christian and even after losing faith retained a belief in always turning the other cheek (that "the world" was wrong when it "told" people to be confrontational), I had a father who was very authoritative and a mother who would fume at his abuse but say nothing, I have an anxiety disorder that at the time made me frequently unable to look my supervisor in the eyes or voice how I felt, etc. A later, much better supervisor actually called me into his office once for some reason to tell me I needed to stand up for myself and not let my co-workers always tell me what to do as if they were my superiors. I increasingly wonder if I mistook being a non-confrontational people pleaser for being "good".
As for the abusive supervisor, did he pick on me because I was an easy target? Did he truly think my father did a poor job raising me and was trying to toughen me up? Did he dismiss my questions because he thought I wasn't doing enough to find out the answers for myself? I seem to recall someone telling me that certain people get angry when a person they're interacting with is too passive and that they like and respect people who will stand up to them. Was my meekness actually something that angered him, and would I have been liked more by him if I had not consistently "turned the other cheek"?
With this in mind, maybe the ogre in my campaign actually hates it when people act scared of him and obey him. Maybe it makes him angry when people accept his abuse because he finds meekness a disgusting trait, that if someone were to get sick of his abuse and at least yell at him it would actually make him like the person more. Maybe there's someone he thinks he's doing a favor by abusing to toughen them up? Maybe he wants to find tough, vulgar bullies to recruit into the guard and keep him company. Maybe he's just bored and does things to try and provoke people into fighting him (but only people he thinks he can beat handily).
I think in general I need to try and understand why people who perform behaviors I believe are wrong instead perceive themselves as doing the right thing, as well as contemplate how other people might think some of the things I've done that I've considered good were actually wrong.
If you have trouble being motivated to put social punishments on players/play people who do that then maybe try recontextualizing it a bit?
Like, do you flinch when you crit a player? Do you pull the punch when they fail a roll that's gonna really hurt thanks to a spike trap you presumed wouldn't go off?
Social stuff is just like that, abusers, villains and bullies are folks insulated by power and willing to let players know it. Don't hold back on that at all.
Have them just ask nicely for an item the player has (or the guards will find you criminal and have you hung).
Demand they leave a quest area before investigations are done (or the mob whose convinced they're a golden boy will inflict multiple stab wounds).
Think of your social villain as a given build that uses not the weapons of pike or shot but instead the social structures around him to create avalanches of potential fall out and force compliance.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
@Albino Bunny re: XP uses, I tend to think of it as the player gaining more ability to control the plot. If they're already fine with their in-universe ability to affect the plot, give them meta-narrative uses to spend this resource on. Let them 'buy' narrative twists and the ability to dictate or retcon certain details.
I want to give a huge thanks to whoever recommended dungeon draft in this thread for making roll20 maps. The ability to port in all the VTT stuff so you have working lines of sight and dynamic lighting for the players went down a storm during my last session.
Of course I now have the problem of making maps for everything, expanding the curse of strahd campaign I'm running probably more than needed. With the coffin makers shop
Instead of having the vampires just pop out in the attic, I had it be the basement and there's an entrance to an entire sewer dungeon with a bunch of encounters within it. Mainly because I wanted to play with dungeondraft
Of course, now I'm considering mapping out the entire castle, which would be frankly, a lot. But it would be cool...
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
For playing a good villain, I'm mostly interested in pathology, I think.
Like, if they're a villain, then they're doing something villainous (or antagonistic, at least). Let's assume that we have that basic action in place - in this case the villainous action seems to be that they're a cop who likes to throw their weight around, which works for me.
From there, we figure out why they like to throw their weight around, or why they became a cop. Do they like holding power over people because it makes them feel good to see others grovel? Did they become a cop because they like doing violence, and being a cop is a state sanctioned way to do so? This is also where you can get the like "bullies are only bullies because someone bullied them" which yeah, is true sometimes, but absolutely does not need to be.
From this point you can continue going deeper if you want - they like doing violence because it's something that they know they're good at, or because they enjoy the focused thrill of fighting, or because sometimes the pressure just builds up and you need a release valve, or whatever. And then violence is something they're good at because they were raised in a culture of it, because they were told they weren't good for anything else, et cetera. It's all cause and effect, and the funny thing about effects is that they always have a cause. So pick a place that you're happy stopping at, and don't try to figure out original sin.
Once you know their reason for the single villainous action, look at how that reason would lead to other effects. If they became a cop because they like doing violence because violence is something that they know they're good at, then what other things do they know they're good at? How can they show off their abilities there? If they like doing violence as a cop, where else are they going to engage in it? What other vices does their lust for violence lead to?
For RPG stuff, you can make this much more concrete, in the form of villain triggers. If they are presented with an opportunity to commit violence seemingly without repercussions, then they will. If they see an opportunity to brag about past times that they have done horrific violence, then they will. If an enemy asks them for mercy, they will not grant it. When those situations come up (which, as the GM, you can certainly encourage), let the pre-ordained action follow (even/especially if things might not go perfectly smoothly as a result).
You can make this all more or less complicated as you see fit, but that's my basic story for getting into character (which, again, is half based around my RPG experience and half based around my theatre background - a villain who was raised in a culture of violence and sees it as their only talent or way to communicate with others is a good description of the character I played in Titus Andronicus). From there, cloak it in a general demeanor (are they happy/sad/angry/distant about what they do), maybe determine their self-awareness about this aspect of their personality.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
One of my players is undertaking the pit fighting downtime activity. Rather than just settle it with ability checks as suggested by Xanathar's I'm going to have one on one fights where the other combatants are related to the other PCs' downtime activities or are characters that I'd like the players to become interested in and approach themselves.
The player, a shadar-kai monk, already lost the first fight against a duergar who is associated with a duergar outpost (honestly I may just say that fight didn't count towards the activity because I put him up against something stronger than I should have). I chose four other potential fighters today:
Jimjar, Deep Gnome. Uses a combination of his race's inherent magic and Rogue abilities in battle.
Thora Glodreddi, Mountain Dwarf. A guard and former adventurer at the nearby dwarven outpost who participates in the pit fights despite of the protests of Boltoc Glodreddi, her uncle and the public face of the outpost. The dragonborn sorcerer PC is currently involved in a prospecting downtime activity with the dwarven outpost.
Skessak Khoroshen, Lizardfolk. A member of a tribe that reveres the demon lord Sess'innek and has received the eldritch invocation Fiendish Vigor following an evil ritual presided over by the tribe's priest and leader, Uhndehk Khoroshen.
Rrynyk Scarmaker, Gnoll. One of the few surviving members of a pack of gnolls led by Maldrick Scarmaker, a half-fiend gnoll who served the demon lord Yeenoghu and tried to claim a ruin called the Well of Demons years ago. He has turned from Yeenoghu and now worships the nature goddess Melora for aid in resisting the demon lord's influence. The dwarf bard/cleric PC will meet him in the next session when he visits the local temple she's performing the religious services downtime activity at.
I next went ahead and ran two battles myself: Jimjar vs Thora and Skessak vs Rrynyk.
Thora won the first battle despite Jimjar's use of the Blur spell (although had he gotten lucky and landed Blindness on Thora the outcome would likely have been very different thanks to Sneak Attack damage). The battle between Skessak and Rrynyk actually turned out to be very exciting to run, as despite Skessak having a higher armor class, ten more hit points than Rrynyk, and Fiendish Vigor giving him another eight temporary hit points, Rrynyk managed to get the win thanks to poor attack rolls by Skessak and a critical hit on his part. The fight actually came down to both combatants facing off at one hit point each, with Skessak missing on his fina turn and Rrynyk scoring the final blow. I further decided to make Rrynyk make a Wisdom saving throw to resist the demonic temptation to bite out Skessak's throat, which he passed easily (he'll be sure to visit the temple afterwards to offer thanks to Melora). Although I didn't set out with this goal in mind, I came up with a short story of a gnoll who has rejected his race's demonic progrenitor who, against the odds, defeats a lizardfolk who both embraces a demonic lizardfolk patron and has gained small measure of power from that acceptance. Luck favored Rrynyk, which Rrynyk could interpret as Melora's protection and guidance (even though in actuality it was all him, a fact Melora might communicate to him in a dream).
Now the shadar-kai monk PC will be facing Thora Glodreddi and Rrynyk Scarmaker in the fighting pit. I may add one more opponent. I also need to devise ways to keep the other players invested, such as by introducing the option to bet on fights, speak briefly to NPCs next to them in the audience, etc.
Finally, I decided to run one more battle: Brugg the ogre (who I mentioned in my previous post) vs Khedira, a supposedly normal duergar warlord with some sorcerous ability who is actually a half-fiend favored by Asmodeus that hides her true nature. Despite an initially impressive showing from Brugg (who I gave the Shield Master feat, allowing him to completely nullify Khedira's Empowered Spell Fireball), Khedira loses her patience after the ogre shoves her prone and uses Id Insinuation (an Unearthed Arcana spell I'm confident will be included in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) to incapacitate the ogre, flooding his brain with a riot of random thoughts and desires. She then quickly tears through the ogre's hit points without even using Enlarge to increase her size and melee damage dealing capability, leaving Id Insinuation to fell Brugg with just enough psychic damage to send him unconscious.
Now I just need to write a few short summaries of these fights to read off to the players. The shadar-kai monk's player should especially pay attention so that he knows what the competition is like and can figure out some tactics.
Hasbro is going to making a Power Rangers D&D game
Renegade Games Studios who have a partnership with Hasbro for the 2018 Power Rangers: Heroes of The Grid board game today announced an expansion of that relationship.
The first game from the pair will be the Power Rangers Role Playing Game which will use Dungeon & Dragon’s 5e system, which Hasbro owns through Wizards of the Coast. Renegade have their own systems in games like Outbreak, Overlight, and the popular Kids on Bikes but these won’t be used for Power Rangers.
It's kinda unclear by the article, but if I understand correctly D&D adaptations of Transformers, GI Joe, and My Little Pony may follow (although I'm pretty sure that last one already has a TTRPG).
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
They've all got a TTRPG if you don't believe in copyright law!
Actually, speaking of, @DE?AD (if you're still lurking around) - did you ever make anything of that GI Joe game you were working on? I remember really liking what I saw of it.
I ain’t got no horse in this race, but I’m interested how they go about it. It just... doesn’t need to be D&D 5E. How much do you cut away? How much do you change?
I feel like this and the Hellboy game are a ruse, for lack of a better word.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
I ain’t got no horse in this race, but I’m interested how they go about it. It just... doesn’t need to be D&D 5E. How much do you cut away? How much do you change?
I feel like this and the Hellboy game are a ruse, for lack of a better word.
This is my hope as well. Especially for this one, which presumably involves designers who have worked on other games and may be more connected to and aware of the wider TTRPG ecosystem (which I know applies to plenty of people who have worked on D&D products before, but eh, hope springs eternal).
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The newly released Investigator decks would probably increase the player card pool pretty well and can help avoid having to get a second core set right away.
Other than that pick whatever deluxe expansion and the associated packs that are available. Some are awaiting reprints.
Dunwich is a good follow up for the core. Carcosa is a very popular favorite and really branches out in the design space. Forgotten Age is pretty brutal for the unprepared. I don't know much about Circle Undone or Dream Eaters (although Dream Eaters gimmic sounds cool). Innsmouth just started releasing.
I seem to remember the DM's Guide section on writing your own campaigns beginning with "So the first thing you'll need to decide is who the gods of your setting are," which might be the most ass-backwards approach to narrative construction ever.
...I'm pretty sure the first thing to decide is the theme you're going for. Horror, gritty urban dystopia, high fantasy murderhobo adventure...
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Always a fun trap when a new player joined for a one-off and asked their name.
So specifically, The gods come first is part of the "creating the world" part of the DMs guide, the building your own campaign comes a few pages later.
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Comical Crashing Sound Effect is perfect.
I suggest for maximum goodness you make them an Armorer, so they can be encased in their awesome powerarmor and then slam into people and commence the P U N C H C R A S H
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Say Ghost in the Shell or Cowboy Bebop for obvious examples.
Where you're starting at the 'correct' level and tone for the fiction from go.
Perhaps do something akin to E6 for D&D and/or Pathfinder?
Lock the characters in at a certain level and then just have them gain feats/traits as they "level" up.
There is *very* little room for vertical progression in the system as written.
Skills are in groups and both of those have ratings from 0-2, with the total (giving a range of 0-4) being the max possible Being Good at that.
Then everything is just tags and more tags leads to a jumbled mess.
Currently I've just got in mind like, sideways progression (voluntarily going lower on a skill group to switch speciality to another area) or like, shifting down the curve of cyberization (never back up, flesh don't work that way).
Perma upgrades would probably be like, unlocking the ability to use one skill at a mythical 'rank 5' (which would be a d2) in certain situations. Like Saito in GITS is probably rank 5 at sniping from good positions. Unlocking a 3rd relationship slot so you can hang out with the team more, unlocking a 3rd concept slot to show more depth. Maybe an extra aug slot (or 2 if you're fully cyborged) or a bit of permenant personal gear at most.
It may sound like a dumb question, but do you want these characters to get better?
Because quite frankly, you don't need to have XP or advancement in a game, or if you still want to have something, there are options that are more lateral than like, gaining strength bonuses or whatever. A few ideas (which hey, you could potentially combine):
These are most of the lanes I'm looking at. Was just checking what other folks had up their sleeve.
Retire in particular is good for GITS because "you become a super powerful cyberghost in the internet for the whole investigation then have to fade" is a great hook.
But yeah in general the reason I want advancement is because XP hooks encourage using Concepts and Relationships for negative effects as well as positive.
Edit: As an example from the playtest: We did one and a half mysteries and the players functionally never failed once.
There were stakes generated and tension abound but it went exactly how you'd picture the average Ghost in the SHell SAC episode: A competent team tackles big corruption and wins with a military firefight at the end.
Like, I guess that is the other option - ditch XP entirely, and wherever you previously would have awarded XP, have it be a reroll or a bonus die or something like that as an incentive instead
Bonus tokens mostly again push up against the power curve thing.
Folks in this game are already The Major or Batou or Togusa from session 1. So more levers to pull to make them stronger starts to become absurd or superfluous real quickly.
The 2.0 of this I'm working on literally just takes all the things that are flat dice pool reductions (a good thing) and makes them re-rolls instead to deal with this bloat of ways to be too good to be touched.
If the system/your gameplay supports fiction-first abilities like one would see in PbtA or FitD you could raid those games for a few.
It does/could but mostly umbrella's them under the group resource of funding. Like if you go above and beyond in what you need you just spend that.
I don't *super* like things that define "and you can always do X" because it winds up calling into question if other players can do X and what the cost should be for X and all that junk. Especially when players are all pretty rad.
Is what I'm working on for better clarity
With the caveat that it's a super WIP doc that's mostly a note pad for me and playtesters rather than something fully stand alone.
EDIT: and as example of that, I forgot that doc doesn't include skills/specialities without the playtest sheet
Fun Kenku fact I just learned today: in the world of Exandria (aka the Critical Role setting) Kenku are descended from an army of black winged angels devoted to the Raven Queen who were destroyed fighting Tharizdun, god of destruction and madness. The Raven Queen tried to restore them but Tharizdun had so thoroughly mangled their celestial essences that new lives as the first members of the mortal Kenku race was the best she could do for them.
- Why the hell are the Usurpers doing their thing now? (Because they got magical macguffin! And possibly an unhinged megalomaniacal leader, cue reveal)
- Players witnessing an Order 66 moment
- "I'm the good spy!" "No, I am the good spy!"
- A Dimir PC performing a triple-cross? I'd need to talk this one out if the PC wants to do something like this
We've been talking about what sort of advice we'd want the DMG to dispense, guidelines and tips and so on, for how to make the game at the table better. That is stuff that largely sits outside the rules, and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to take a look at how other games reify good GMing practices or narrative techniques in the game mechanics themselves, or how they add concrete tools for managing various aspects of the GM's job. I am not nearly as learn-ed or experienced with RPGs as a lot of the folks here, so I suspect that others would have even more interesting stuff to contribute. These are not exhaustive examples from the games I'll mention, they're just some examples that popped into my head. Also, some of these rules are predicated on a core system of the game in question and entwined with the rest of the rule system, and some of them are pretty stand-alone and can be lifted into a different game system.
13th Age, which is D&D's cousin, adds the One Unique Thing concept to character creation. When you create your character, you decide something about them - their ancestry, past history, relationship with other people, place in the world, whatever - that is absolutely true, and also absolutely unique to them. Maybe your paladin is the only person who knows The Crusader's true name. Maybe your sorcerer is the only illegitimate daughter of The Emperor, conceived before he formally took the throne. Maybe your dwarf is the only dwarf who's been born on the Plane of Fire. This is primarily a narrative tool, there are restrictions on what mechanical bonuses this can give you - you can't be like "I'm the only pig farmer in the world who has a +5 vorpal blade of everything-slaying".
Why this is good: It gets the players thinking about their connection to the world. Some folks are eager to write a ten-page backstory with hooks for the GM to use, but not everyone wants to, or is capable of, doing that; some folks might not even know how to do that. This is a relatively lightweight and guided way to making their characters a little bit more interesting than a set of numbers on a sheet. The other cool thing is that when you state that something is true only for your character, you are indirectly stating that it's not true for everyone else in the world. This means that players get to define a tiny bit of the world right off the bat, which I suspect invests them in that world a little more.
13th Age also has the concept of Icons. If you've consumed fantasy fiction, you're probably already familiar with this - they are the powerful figures, the movers and shakers of the fictional world, the actors who change the direction that wind blows. They're more archetypes than 3D-characters, and they appear in fantasy fiction over and over because literally every single person who's ever written fantasy is a hack, no exceptions, yes even your fave. The Elf Queen who is imperious and mystical and hangs out in the enchanted wood (Galadriel, probably some of Forgotten Realms's Seven Sisters qualify, Laurana Kanan and Alhana Starbreeze). The Archmage is a powerful arcane spellcaster who is doing experiments in his lab, watching over the mere mortals, and probably meddling in powers beyond his control (Gandalf, Elminster, a full 50% of all characters in fantasy fiction). The Dwarf King who rules in the realms under the earth, who claims ownership of any precious thing taken out of the ground, whose corridors extend under every other realm in the land (a buncha dwarves in Middle-Earth, Bruenor Battlehammer). Thirteen icons in total, covering a wide range of alignments, motivations, fields of interest, and geographic domains. The players all have to pick relationships with some of the icons, whether positive or negative.
Why this is good: This further grounds the characters in the world, gives the GM narrative threads to pull, and fleshes out the characters (the Emperor and the Archmage are closely allied, so what does it mean if someone has a positive relationship with the Archmage but a negative one with the Emperor?). Furthermore, there's a mechanic in the game where the Icons offer aid to the players, either with no strings attached or with some complications, which lets the GM just give outright help to players if they're stuck, and creates both narrative and mechanical opportunities.
In D&D, failure is pretty much always bad news. There's probably some class/feat/whatever that gets a benefit from missing attacks, or getting hit, but generally you never want to fail a roll. Failing a roll means you don't get to do a cool thing, and it means you make your situation (narrative and mechanical) worse. However, in fiction, characters who always succeed are boring. It's more dramatic - more engaging - when the protagonist suffers some setback, faces obstacles, before their eventual success. It's more interesting when a character has flaws, vices, weaknesses. Fate Core recognizes this, and its core mechanic is built around this idea. Entities in the world (primarily characters, but also items, locations, organizations, etc) have Aspects, which are short descriptive phrases written in natural language that describe something about that entity. Like tags on a blog post. You don't just have a generic elven fighter, you have a [wood spirit] [lieutenant of the Blood Order] who is [bonded to a symbiote sword]. Since the aspects are written in natural language, they are by definition loosey-goosey and require adjudication by the players and the GM, but they are made like that intentionally: if you are engaging in an action and you can demonstrate that one of your aspects is relevant to that action, makes you better at that action, you get your choice of either a numeric bonus to the roll, or a reroll. You get to be extra-cool at the things that are relevant to your character. The rulebook has some really good advice on making aspects that are interesting, useful, and create good drama, and the very first piece of advice is to make them double-edged. The best aspects can be used against you, as well. Why would you ever want to intentionally build a weakness into your character? Well, because invoking an aspect to get the bonus isn't free - it costs a limited resource called Fate Points, and once you're out of Fate Points, you can't get your badass-bonuses. But! If you are in a situation where one of your own aspects is used against you, you gain a Fate Point. Because you are a [lieutenant of the Blood Order], you can leverage the Order's resources to requisition equipment, dazzle commoners with your Order's fame, and so on - but when you track down the necromancer who killed your parents and your captain says "This man is working with the Blood Order; you will not act against him", that's your aspect working against you. If you're the [fastest gun in the West], you can expect to win all of your shootouts - but every kid is gonna know who you are and pick you out in a crowd, and upstarts will be challenging you to duels all the time. Now, the nice thing is that you do have some say in it - the GM will offer some setback that is triggered off of your aspect, and you can choose to allow it to happen to gain a Fate Point, or you can prevent it from happening by paying a Fate Point.
Why this is good: Look at what's happening here: you are willingly accepting a narrative setback in order to gain a mechanical advantage that you can cash in at some later point. Your character is technically failing, but you as a player are actually getting currency. Failing is not entirely negative. Failing means you get to be extra-rad later on. Players can cash in their Fate Points to feel cool and special when they do something flashy, and they are then incentivized to do risky behavior and get their characters in trouble in order to recover Fate Points. If the main job of the GM is to present complications to players in order to create drama, then Fate creates an environment where the players will actively do the GM's job for them. Now, it's important to note that this is not something that everybody necessarily wants in their game. Because this is a core mechanic, and because it's based around earning and spending currency, it means that the game has a constant ebb and flow of willing failures and flashy successes, and that's not a cadence everyone wants. It also relies on everyone at the table accepting that the players and the GM are not in an adversarial relationship, that narrative complications are not bad, and it relies on everyone having trust that everyone else is playing in good faith. I bet this system gets real sour when someone starts an argument that their aspects should give them a bonus whenever any damn action comes up, from swinging on the chandelier to tying some shoes.
On the subject of tools: Dungeon World's Fronts provide the GM with a framework for fleshing out a threat that the players will face during their game. "Threat", in this context, is something on a relatively large scale - not "the orc in the room over there", but maybe "the orc army that is invading from the Barrenlands", or "the orc clan that's taken over Castle Wynngaar". A Front consists of a few linked dangers (groups of people, organizations, dangerous places, etc) that each have an "impulse" that motivates their actions; a description, cast of principal actors, and any custom abilities; "grim portents", a series of events that transpire in the world if the heroes do nothing and the danger gets closer and closer to its final goal; and an "impending doom", the final goal that the danger is heading towards. The book provides multiple options to choose from for each section of this framework, but of course you are free to whip up your own.
Why this is good: Sitting down in front of a blank page is scary. Getting started is a hurdle for a lot of people, and the Fronts system bootstraps you into the creative process. It acts as an outline that you can flesh out with details specific to your campaign. After you've done it a few times and get the hang of it, you won't even need the lists it gives you for each component of the Front.
I'm pretty sure that I mention Fellowship in approximately half of my posts in the RPG threads on these forums (so why not mention it in this one as well, hey). There are a lot of reasons for that: it's the first Powered by Apocalypse game I read (although my understanding is that it's not necessarily a great example of a PbtA game); it has an extremely strong understanding of what its themes and goals are, and just about every element of the game is built in service of those themes; it is the game that, I think, I most want to play or run, because it is a game that is explicitly about my favorite thing in the world: camaraderie. One of my favorite tools that the game has to guide the players and GM are Agendas. I'll just quote the rulebook directly: All players have a shared set of Agendas (they are "Improve The World Around You", "Tell Us Of Your People", and "Be Brave, Take Risks"), and each Playbook (think "class", "archetype", "role") has a couple bespoke Agendas of which you pick one (e.g. the Dwarf can pick "The Honored Word - Keep your word in all things, and punish the liars and oath-breakers."; the Halfling can pick "Get Some Recognition - Shake things up when people ignore or underestimate you"). The GM also has common Agendas to guide them ("Create Opportunities To Do Good" and "Play To Find Out What Happens", which means "Don't plan too far ahead, let the game evolve as a result of the player's actions"), as well as an Agenda defined by the category of Big Bad that they pick for the campaign (e.g. the "Watch The World Burn"-type Big Bad has the Agenda "Fill The World With Strange And Painful Events").
Why this is good: Not everyone is a born actor. Not everyone can conjure up an entirely separate, whole person in their mind and then channel that person's actions in the game. Not everyone can think on their feet when the spotlight is on them. Some folks just want to roll some dice and bop some skellies on the skullies with their pallies (sorry, it's late and I'm tired, that happened and I was powerless to stop it), and they don't really want anything more complicated than that. That's cool! Some folks, on the other hand, even some folks in this thread, want to engage more but aren't sure how to do it in general, or they draw a blank in the moment. Agendas are there to prompt everyone at the table on what to do next. If you are expected to do something, or if you want to jump into a scene, but you don't know what you can contribute, you can pick one of the agendas and expand on what it tells you to do.
I've already written an entire novel, so I'm going to stop here. If someone feels like picking up the baton, other things that popped into my head:
- Monsterhearts 2's extremely robust tools and guidelines for consent in RPGs, and for handling situations that make someone at the table uncomfortable. As we've discussed, a big part of being the GM is the social interaction with the human beings at the table, making sure that everyone feels safe and comfortable and is having a good time, and many RPGs just... don't address this part in their rulebooks at all.
- Blades in the Dark's system for skipping the boring part of prepping for a heist by letting players do mid-heist flashbacks to explain how they prepared the exact tool they need for this particular situation.
- Genesys's custom dice, which allow rolls to result not only in "success", "failure", "big success", "and "big failure", but also allow mixed results like "success with a drawback" and "failure that creates an opening".
I'm a very non-confrontational, polite, perhaps too agreeable and accommodating person IRL. How can I learn to roleplay this ogre with way more authority than he should have ever been trusted with as someone my players would be wary of and think of as a bully? Would it help if I came up with "triggers" for evil behavior?
On a related note, I've recently started writing down quotes from media where someone says something I find morally repugnant. For example, an anime I started recently had a character who the protagonist thought was an ally refuse to help him save someone, saying "I need you to give me an incentive to help, because it's not my responsibility to save people too weak to save themselves." Similarly, when someone does something like refuse to answer a person's question and tell them to look it up for themselves I take note.
What's something completely unnecessary for him to do? Have him do it, for the sake of being petty and cruel. They've already arrested the thief, he doesn't have to beat him in public before they take him away, but he does.
Or have him do literally anything to mess with the PCs supplies or money, without them being able to immediately retaliate. They will despise him.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Well, the original adventure I cribbed the area and characters from notes that the ogre likes to cause trouble for the local halfling-run inn, although the owner herself and her family have been designated as off-limits to the ogre. I actually had him show up there briefly last session, but I honestly didn't really have him do anything.
I swear I'm finding so hard to imagine what a bully would do that I'm currently looking at anti-bullying material intended for children as inspiration. I've been bullied a lot both at school when I was younger and at work, so you think it'd be easy for me to come up with something, but it's hard for me to imagine the why of it.
I'm gonna take a second to recount some of the things my most abusive supervisor did, as an example:
- Criticized my work very often.
- Would dismiss my questions as stupid, annoying, or just shake his head slowly and say nothing.
- Would tell me something would get me fired only for me to find out later it wasn't a problem.
- Commented that I was probably a virgin around other co-workers.
- Said my father must have done a poor job raising me.
- When I mentioned I was still living with my father commented that his son left home and got his own place at eighteen, and that if he was my father he would have thrown me out.
- Told me to leave when a particularly stressful event made me tear up because he didn't want to see a man cry, then weeks later when I expressed frustration at something asked me if I was going to cry again.
- Used a word another co-worker found offensive, and when she said so immediately said it four more times in a singsong fashion.
Why did he behave like this? What was the underlying reason? It's easier for me to understand why I put up with it, even after a friendly co-worker said to me "I hate the way you let him treat you"; I was raised a Christian and even after losing faith retained a belief in always turning the other cheek (that "the world" was wrong when it "told" people to be confrontational), I had a father who was very authoritative and a mother who would fume at his abuse but say nothing, I have an anxiety disorder that at the time made me frequently unable to look my supervisor in the eyes or voice how I felt, etc. A later, much better supervisor actually called me into his office once for some reason to tell me I needed to stand up for myself and not let my co-workers always tell me what to do as if they were my superiors. I increasingly wonder if I mistook being a non-confrontational people pleaser for being "good".
As for the abusive supervisor, did he pick on me because I was an easy target? Did he truly think my father did a poor job raising me and was trying to toughen me up? Did he dismiss my questions because he thought I wasn't doing enough to find out the answers for myself? I seem to recall someone telling me that certain people get angry when a person they're interacting with is too passive and that they like and respect people who will stand up to them. Was my meekness actually something that angered him, and would I have been liked more by him if I had not consistently "turned the other cheek"?
With this in mind, maybe the ogre in my campaign actually hates it when people act scared of him and obey him. Maybe it makes him angry when people accept his abuse because he finds meekness a disgusting trait, that if someone were to get sick of his abuse and at least yell at him it would actually make him like the person more. Maybe there's someone he thinks he's doing a favor by abusing to toughen them up? Maybe he wants to find tough, vulgar bullies to recruit into the guard and keep him company. Maybe he's just bored and does things to try and provoke people into fighting him (but only people he thinks he can beat handily).
I think in general I need to try and understand why people who perform behaviors I believe are wrong instead perceive themselves as doing the right thing, as well as contemplate how other people might think some of the things I've done that I've considered good were actually wrong.
Like, do you flinch when you crit a player? Do you pull the punch when they fail a roll that's gonna really hurt thanks to a spike trap you presumed wouldn't go off?
Social stuff is just like that, abusers, villains and bullies are folks insulated by power and willing to let players know it. Don't hold back on that at all.
Have them just ask nicely for an item the player has (or the guards will find you criminal and have you hung).
Demand they leave a quest area before investigations are done (or the mob whose convinced they're a golden boy will inflict multiple stab wounds).
Think of your social villain as a given build that uses not the weapons of pike or shot but instead the social structures around him to create avalanches of potential fall out and force compliance.
Of course I now have the problem of making maps for everything, expanding the curse of strahd campaign I'm running probably more than needed. With the coffin makers shop
Of course, now I'm considering mapping out the entire castle, which would be frankly, a lot. But it would be cool...
Like, if they're a villain, then they're doing something villainous (or antagonistic, at least). Let's assume that we have that basic action in place - in this case the villainous action seems to be that they're a cop who likes to throw their weight around, which works for me.
From there, we figure out why they like to throw their weight around, or why they became a cop. Do they like holding power over people because it makes them feel good to see others grovel? Did they become a cop because they like doing violence, and being a cop is a state sanctioned way to do so? This is also where you can get the like "bullies are only bullies because someone bullied them" which yeah, is true sometimes, but absolutely does not need to be.
From this point you can continue going deeper if you want - they like doing violence because it's something that they know they're good at, or because they enjoy the focused thrill of fighting, or because sometimes the pressure just builds up and you need a release valve, or whatever. And then violence is something they're good at because they were raised in a culture of it, because they were told they weren't good for anything else, et cetera. It's all cause and effect, and the funny thing about effects is that they always have a cause. So pick a place that you're happy stopping at, and don't try to figure out original sin.
Once you know their reason for the single villainous action, look at how that reason would lead to other effects. If they became a cop because they like doing violence because violence is something that they know they're good at, then what other things do they know they're good at? How can they show off their abilities there? If they like doing violence as a cop, where else are they going to engage in it? What other vices does their lust for violence lead to?
For RPG stuff, you can make this much more concrete, in the form of villain triggers. If they are presented with an opportunity to commit violence seemingly without repercussions, then they will. If they see an opportunity to brag about past times that they have done horrific violence, then they will. If an enemy asks them for mercy, they will not grant it. When those situations come up (which, as the GM, you can certainly encourage), let the pre-ordained action follow (even/especially if things might not go perfectly smoothly as a result).
You can make this all more or less complicated as you see fit, but that's my basic story for getting into character (which, again, is half based around my RPG experience and half based around my theatre background - a villain who was raised in a culture of violence and sees it as their only talent or way to communicate with others is a good description of the character I played in Titus Andronicus). From there, cloak it in a general demeanor (are they happy/sad/angry/distant about what they do), maybe determine their self-awareness about this aspect of their personality.
The player, a shadar-kai monk, already lost the first fight against a duergar who is associated with a duergar outpost (honestly I may just say that fight didn't count towards the activity because I put him up against something stronger than I should have). I chose four other potential fighters today:
I next went ahead and ran two battles myself: Jimjar vs Thora and Skessak vs Rrynyk.
Thora won the first battle despite Jimjar's use of the Blur spell (although had he gotten lucky and landed Blindness on Thora the outcome would likely have been very different thanks to Sneak Attack damage). The battle between Skessak and Rrynyk actually turned out to be very exciting to run, as despite Skessak having a higher armor class, ten more hit points than Rrynyk, and Fiendish Vigor giving him another eight temporary hit points, Rrynyk managed to get the win thanks to poor attack rolls by Skessak and a critical hit on his part. The fight actually came down to both combatants facing off at one hit point each, with Skessak missing on his fina turn and Rrynyk scoring the final blow. I further decided to make Rrynyk make a Wisdom saving throw to resist the demonic temptation to bite out Skessak's throat, which he passed easily (he'll be sure to visit the temple afterwards to offer thanks to Melora). Although I didn't set out with this goal in mind, I came up with a short story of a gnoll who has rejected his race's demonic progrenitor who, against the odds, defeats a lizardfolk who both embraces a demonic lizardfolk patron and has gained small measure of power from that acceptance. Luck favored Rrynyk, which Rrynyk could interpret as Melora's protection and guidance (even though in actuality it was all him, a fact Melora might communicate to him in a dream).
Now the shadar-kai monk PC will be facing Thora Glodreddi and Rrynyk Scarmaker in the fighting pit. I may add one more opponent. I also need to devise ways to keep the other players invested, such as by introducing the option to bet on fights, speak briefly to NPCs next to them in the audience, etc.
Finally, I decided to run one more battle: Brugg the ogre (who I mentioned in my previous post) vs Khedira, a supposedly normal duergar warlord with some sorcerous ability who is actually a half-fiend favored by Asmodeus that hides her true nature. Despite an initially impressive showing from Brugg (who I gave the Shield Master feat, allowing him to completely nullify Khedira's Empowered Spell Fireball), Khedira loses her patience after the ogre shoves her prone and uses Id Insinuation (an Unearthed Arcana spell I'm confident will be included in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) to incapacitate the ogre, flooding his brain with a riot of random thoughts and desires. She then quickly tears through the ogre's hit points without even using Enlarge to increase her size and melee damage dealing capability, leaving Id Insinuation to fell Brugg with just enough psychic damage to send him unconscious.
Now I just need to write a few short summaries of these fights to read off to the players. The shadar-kai monk's player should especially pay attention so that he knows what the competition is like and can figure out some tactics.
Hasbro is going to making a Power Rangers D&D game
Soon you'll be able to play Blades in the Dark (D&D 5e), Dogs in the Vineyard (D&D 5e), and Monsterhearts (D&D 5e)
Mash them together to have a fun game where your career criminals and your mormon missionaries and your horny ghosts all go on adventures together!
Actually, speaking of, @DE?AD (if you're still lurking around) - did you ever make anything of that GI Joe game you were working on? I remember really liking what I saw of it.
I feel like this and the Hellboy game are a ruse, for lack of a better word.
This is my hope as well. Especially for this one, which presumably involves designers who have worked on other games and may be more connected to and aware of the wider TTRPG ecosystem (which I know applies to plenty of people who have worked on D&D products before, but eh, hope springs eternal).
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar