Lets Talk Pen & Paper RPGs (All systems welcome!)

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Post Post #725 (ISO) » Sun Jan 01, 2017 12:40 pm

Post by Glork »

I am potentially interested but it depends on timing and availability.
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Post Post #726 (ISO) » Sun Jan 01, 2017 4:01 pm

Post by Oman »

I'm interested just to try out Roll20. Probably too buy to take up GMing.

I've added One-shots to my events now, doing FATE, Dungeon World, and others to spread knowledge around the group.
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Post Post #727 (ISO) » Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:30 pm

Post by Claus »

Argh, I disappeared from this thread :-(

Rise of Tiamat: My group was sent to the Dwarven city-states, to try to forge an allience with them to attack the site where the cult is preparing to summon the dragon goddess.

Unfortunately, the dwarfs are still reeling from a recent orcish invasion in which the human kingdoms did not come to their help in spite of multiple pleas, so they are not very keen in being asked to ally with the surface dwellers.

It was supposed to be a session full of politicking, bribing, cajoling and blackmail... until the paladin murdered a Cultist diplomat(spy) to the dwarven kingdoms in broad daylight. Murder-hobos, ho!

So the paladin gets arrested and put on trial, and the cultists make things worse by using their succubus to trick the paladin into break out of the prison (killing some guards on the way). Now the entire group is wanted by the dwarves.

The thief of the group makes contact with the local Zhentarin cell, and buy their free passage out of the city... in exchange for their promise of helping rescue three drow Wizards who were captured by illithid while conducting some very plotful magical experiments.

I guess the drow make as good allies as the dwarves, if you don't care about all the sacrifices to their spider goddess? :-D
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Post Post #728 (ISO) » Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:41 pm

Post by Oman »

Has anyone every recorded their session as a DM and listened to it back? It's...humbling as fuck!
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Post Post #729 (ISO) » Tue Jan 03, 2017 10:59 pm

Post by chamber »

That's not surprising, listening to the really good DM's online and even they come across as flawed humans still.
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Post Post #730 (ISO) » Wed Feb 01, 2017 7:38 pm

Post by animorpherv1 »

So... I've decided to throw my hat into the GM'ing ring. I'll be doing
Iron Gods
, the pathfinder adventure path starting in March. I'm nervous, but also excited! If at all possible, I'd love some tips (and yes, I have heard "your PCs are stupid" already).

In about a month or so, I'd be more than willing to quasi-revive the thread with weekly updates if wanted.
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Post Post #731 (ISO) » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:48 am

Post by chamber »

In post 730, animorpherv1 wrote:So... I've decided to throw my hat into the GM'ing ring. I'll be doing
Iron Gods
, the pathfinder adventure path starting in March. I'm nervous, but also excited! If at all possible, I'd love some tips (and yes, I have heard "your PCs are stupid" already).

In about a month or so, I'd be more than willing to quasi-revive the thread with weekly updates if wanted.
I've been dming weekly for about 10 months now, but thats all of my experience more or less, so take everything with some grains of salt. But here are things I've picked up or gotten wrong.

1: Figure out what your players are looking for and deliver that. Some players will want different things, make sure they are all engaged.
2: Characters will tend to have a thing they are good at, make sure you give opportunities for the things their characters are good at to show up.
3: Don't allow non-good characters the first time you DM. It's too much extra work to deal with.
4: Try to never setup a situation where you need to talk to yourself (Ie multiple NPCs talking to each other)
5: If there are going to be long running NPCs, give them to the players to run with the caveat that you may step in for them at key moments if needed.
6: Everyone likes getting treasure, even if it's just gold.
7: Everyone -hates- having stuff stolen from them. They will go to the ends of the world to get shit back.
8: I find a lot of premade modules push random encounters. I think random encounters are shit. Combat takes a lot of time. Make everything count. If you want to establish a setting using an encounter, thats fine. If you want to advance the narrative with an encounter, thats fine. Even if you just want to pressure the party that's fine. But just having random encounters as a tax for traveling isn't imo.
9: make combat interesting. If they've just gotten access to new toys (likely by leveling) just using those toys can be interesting. However often it makes combats much more interesting and dynamic if they have some objective other than kill everyone. This can be as simple as having an enemy spell caster in the party that they may want to nuke down first. But is ideally more complicated for bigger set pieces (maybe something constantly spawning minions, maybe someone trying to run away etc).
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Post Post #732 (ISO) » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:50 am

Post by chamber »

10: It's ok to bend the rules in the name of player fun (ie Rule of Cool).
11: But not if it makes one character step on the mechanical toes of another.
12: Try and follow improve rules (ie, don't say no flat out. instead use: yes, yes and, no but. Don't just shut them down if it can be avoided)
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Post Post #733 (ISO) » Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:38 pm

Post by animorpherv1 »

In post 731, chamber wrote:3: Don't allow non-good characters the first time you DM. It's too much extra work to deal with.
Can you explain this one? Or go into more detail. The rest I understand, but I would like to know why here.
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Post Post #734 (ISO) » Fri Feb 03, 2017 1:46 pm

Post by chamber »

I guess lawful neutral might be fine? Otherwise, in my experience, they will be soulless thieves or murderers whenever it benefits them. You then need to let them get away with this (which can be ok if its the intent of the campaign, but in that case you want them all to be thieves or etc) or you need to spend a lot of work coming up with consequences for their actions. Like them being wanted now. You need to actually stat shit you wouldn't otherwise because they might decide to try and kill it. You need to know the fully inventory of random PC's in case they try and steal from them.


13: Listen to the players theories, they might have better ideas than you had planned, you can use them on the fly.
14: if you get caught in a mistake/plot hole. Depending on it's nature, either come clean immediately and resolve it. Or come up with some justification the players don't know about after the fact (in which case you can just confirm that it's weird but intentional if pressed).
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Post Post #735 (ISO) » Fri Feb 03, 2017 2:22 pm

Post by animorpherv1 »

That makes sense. Also man, helping the PCs make their characters (via giving suggestions when they get stuck) is actually lots of fun.
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Post Post #736 (ISO) » Sun Feb 05, 2017 10:02 am

Post by Oman »

In post 735, animorpherv1 wrote:That makes sense. Also man, helping the PCs make their characters (via giving suggestions when they get stuck) is actually lots of fun.
The best way to help people make characters is to ask questions, then build on the answers. Get them thinking about their own characters from angles they don't expect.

I'm keeping a few thoughts on RPGs as I play, it's been a good notebook so far. I recommend taking notes, it'll make you a better DM.
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Post Post #737 (ISO) » Sun Feb 05, 2017 10:31 am

Post by animorpherv1 »

That's actually a great idea.
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Post Post #738 (ISO) » Sun Feb 12, 2017 1:31 am

Post by Oman »

Dogs in the Vineyard added. Four Tabletop RPGs played in 2017 so far.

Next up is either Dungeon World or Apocalypse World.
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Post Post #739 (ISO) » Sun Feb 12, 2017 1:51 am

Post by Nexus »

I ran the first half of Death House yesterday. It went well, although if I had kept them at Lvl 1 they would've got fucked straight away. I started with them being attacked by a dire wolf pack containing Strahd, just to give them a clue as to what they'd be dealing with - knowing this I started them at 3, but even then the Warlock and Barbarian was nearly down...
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Post Post #740 (ISO) » Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:02 am

Post by Oman »

Strahd can and does pull his punches on the party early. But he makes it known. He laughs at them. He calls them weak. He is thoroughly unimpressed. And he takes stuff for later: Their hair, their weapons (best after death house when they can get new ones), and for one of my players he took a finger. The wolves, under his employ, will avoid kills as well. Strahd then uses that hair later to empower his scrying spells against the party, or if you'd prefer, any spells against the party.

Have Strahd destroy them, knock them all out, and then walk away laughing at them with all of their gold, or the cleric's holy symbol, or the paladin's shield. That's what he's meant to do, he's oppressive, and they should fear him.
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Post Post #741 (ISO) » Wed Feb 15, 2017 11:38 am

Post by Clumsy »

Yeah, the point of him coming in early is so that the characters (and players) learn to fear his power. My players gave me a look that basically said "Really? -He- is here already? We're so screwed." That's what you want out of it. Makes the ending so much sweeter.
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Post Post #742 (ISO) » Wed Mar 08, 2017 3:32 pm

Post by animorpherv1 »

So I'm late etc. etc. but better late than never. The first session was mostly finishing off character creation anyways. So, my group is 6 players, which is larger than I anticipated but I'm just glad the interest was there. The group is three changelings, two of which are identical twins (Witch/Occultist are twins, the other is a Ranger). We have two Humans (Cleric/Samurai), and an Android (Investigator).

The large part of what actually happened during the Friday session was they went to get lodging before their trip underground and ended up hearing a scream from a girl (who was an adoptive sister of the changeling girls). They destroyed the poor malfunctioning robot that wanted to "repair" the house via tearing it down :(

I learned a lot about DM'ing already, and the group says I did a great job, so that was good to hear!
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Post Post #743 (ISO) » Sat Apr 08, 2017 8:04 am

Post by Glork »

Ok friends, I'm DMing my first D&D 5e campaign for quadz/singer and some friends starring in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to bounce some ideas off of someone if possible. I've DMed for 3.5, and I DMed a 1-shot in 5e, but I always get kinds anxious about making content for a new campaign.

Setting is homebrew with a theme centered on gods/religion. Party will be starting out in a large-ish city. I have an initial hook (I think), but want feedback and really just someone to bounce ideas off of.
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Post Post #744 (ISO) » Sat Apr 08, 2017 8:28 am

Post by chamber »

I'm not the ideal person for this but I've been running a campaign in 5e for about a year now, so if no one else offers, shoot me a pm.
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Post Post #745 (ISO) » Mon Apr 10, 2017 10:27 pm

Post by Tatsuya Kaname »

Hello! Just a heads up that I attempt to run a crazy Comedy TRPG that is named
Schoolgirl RPG
(Written by Ewen Cluney, inspired by Ryo Kamiya's Maid RPG) on Mish Mash. It's a rules-light game and most stuffs involve throwing dice, starting from character creations! You can click on the link in my signature to check out the thread, register for a character and join the game. Thanks!
Embark the journey to life-changing fortune in Para{dice} Trinity: The Quest for Spirits' Fortune, a luck-based casual arcade Mish Mash game by Tatsuya Kaname!

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Post Post #746 (ISO) » Wed Apr 19, 2017 8:37 pm

Post by animorpherv1 »

So, my session is still going well but I came here to link my newest character's backstory, of which the picture for him is my ccurrent avatar.
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Post Post #747 (ISO) » Thu May 25, 2017 9:17 am

Post by animorpherv1 »

Small update! I'm running a second campaign. They have both recieved massive acclaim from my friends, which makes want to do even more.
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Post Post #748 (ISO) » Thu May 25, 2017 7:15 pm

Post by SleepyKrew »

I am in two 5e campaigns it's fun
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Post Post #749 (ISO) » Thu May 25, 2017 7:53 pm

Post by PJ. »

Lld....run a white wolf game....plzzzzzzz =]]]]]]
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