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

[Claus]

This thread is for discussing pen and paper RPGs.

- what you are playing at home;
- upcoming books you're excited about;
- that one cool story about your character;

Any system is welcome, no edition wars please.

For people who want to play online with other scummers, please follow this link:

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So, is anyone else playing it?

My groups' Numenera campaign was not going so hot, so I decided to pick up and GM the new DnD. We played a very short game that I homebrewed based on the online materials, and now we are going through the published adventures "Lost Mine of Phandelver" and "Hoard of the Dragon Queen". I'm doing a mix-and-match of both modules.

I'm very pleasantly surprised with the new rules. They seem like a "Best of all editions" mash-up, and play very fluidly. We have finished 3 sessions now, and we can easily cover 4-6 encounters in a 3 hour game session.

If anyone is interested I can give more detailed game reports.

[Claus]

As far as I can tell, 5th edition feels more like an upgrade to 2nd edition than a return to 3.x.

Also, I killed the party's cleric last game, hooray!

[Claus]

I am about to start HotDQ with my group (they just finished the most interesting parts of LMoP). KCDA, if you are planning to run that, I think that the "fixing HoTDQ" blog series below could be very useful.

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.jp/2014 ... ode-i.html

[Claus]

My HotD group (around 5th level) is about to leave Waterdeep for the last leg of the campaign. Everyone loves the Paladin, and the Warlock is about to summon her patron demon into the world.

[Claus]

So, my group finally reached Skyreach castle. Anyone else playing/played hoard of the dragon queen? Or any other 5th edition DnD?

Warlock in my group was planning to multiclass at level 7, until I pointed out that she would get access to Polymorph

[Claus]

Sad to hear about your campaign, Oman.

Quadz, what is your homebrew 5th?

[Claus]

5e seems kinda dumb.

Okay.

Sad to hear about your campaign, Oman.

Ah thanks for the sympathy, mate. TBH I haven't felt attached to the character because I haven't had any chance to flesh her out. There's a Mysterious Doom in The Shadows, which is nice and all, but it means that we're just reacting. "something was reported in the graveyard", "I guess we go to the graveyard then." Instead what my character would do it's more about what drives the story forward for the hook. Also, my DM got really incredulous when my hard-nosed paladin would blame a man for getting his brother killed (by taking him into a fight they were woefully unprepared for). That was really early though, the one that really shit me came much later. We got captured, he obviously had an idea of where we were going to go and under what circumstances and he wouldn't allow me the option to diplomacise our way out of it. He doesn't yes, and very well. In this cage a guy was like "can I fit between the bars" "no". "Could I bend the bars?" "No." "Can I teleport out of the cage?" "You could but there's guards everywhere and you'd just get recaptured." I dunno, when I run games I often just go "fuck yeah, let's give that a go!" If it sounds fun, just try it. Breaking a bar off to escape and using the bar as an improvised weapon to fight your way out sounds like an absolute blast.

Just overall feels like there's an overarching story and my character just kind of exists within it, instead of actually being a character in her own right.

Sounds like a novice DM, or a DM without a lot of time to prepare. Any chance of you trying to find other groups?

[Claus]

The paladin in the group I DM is abusing the "Oath of Vengeance". He has already murdered, slaughtered and tortured quite a bit in the name of "bringing vengeance against the Cult of the Dragon".

Now, I don't really like to rein in the players when the group seems to be having fun, but I was pleasantly surprised when the guy playing the paladin was receptive to the idea of having his character fall in the near future.

Given that we have a demon warlock, and the group fighter just found a sentient evil sword, I guess the group might take a trip to the deep side of the alignment pool.

[Claus]

Well, for the why, this thread was here first I didn't know that the other threads existed.

But looking at the last few posts in that thread, I'm not really interested in getting in an edition war with people who think there is one right way to play RPGs

[Claus]

Right, I'm just thinking this can be the general D&D/RPG discussion thread, and the other one can remain specific to FakeGod's scummer campaign. Just trying to think

Sure, why not. I'll adjust the title.

I personally don't care what version/format/setting/edition you use, as long

As long as it is not world of darkness (joking, I love ars magica)

Has anyone heard of / played Spycraft? It's a little dated, but it's a fun d20 RPG set in "modern" times with a heavy spy/conspiracy theme. Super fun, IMO.

Unfortumately, I kinda coasted during the D20 era, so I didnt hear about this particular game. Actually I think the only time I ever played in a modern setting was when a friend was GMing "delta green", a game derived from Call of Cthulhu rules on a x-files-like setting.

What was your Spycraft game like?

[Claus]

i'd love to play with you claus.

just show up on wednesday night near Kanda, I will make a spot on the table for ya!

So how is/was your Pandelver campaign?

[Claus]

Cool story bro.

Which gurps are we talking about? I had some fun with gurps supers, but if we are talking point buy systems, I prefer Shadowrun. I think there is value in tailoring a system to the scenario you are going to play.

[Claus]

Quadz, what is your homebrew 5th?

What do you mean by 'what is it'? So far as I know, it's based on standard PHB stuff, with a setting / plot entirely of the DMs devising.

Sorry, I was on the phone, bad wording on my part. I meant to ask you to tell us a bit more about it

Which gurps are we talking about? I had some fun with gurps supers, but if we are talking point buy systems, I prefer Shadowrun. I think there is value in tailoring a system to the scenario you are going to play.

Well you could mix and match all kinds of stuff and make literally anything, the way the sourcebooks are. Gurps Robots plus Gurps Zombies plus Gurps Dinosaurs plus...

And in case you couldn't tell I was talking about my shitposting. I got the feeling you didn't.

Yeah, I know, I just wanted to try and turn the shitposting into some interesting discussion.

Sure, you can mix and match the books (to a degree), but I was asking which ones you particularly liked. For me, I really liked gurps supers, and a bit of gurps fantasy. But gurps sci-fi just stretches itself too thin in my opinion, and at that point you might just be better running a specialized RPG instead.

Or are you trying to say that you never actually played gurps?

[Claus]

Thus far, we've walked counter-clockwise around the island, running into a beached shipwreck and a dead body. We did some investigaton - there appeared to be a swarm of electric eels or sea snakes, and we didn't bother with them. Further around, we ran into some skeletons dragging some fresh corpses up the beach. We murderated them, and that's where the session ended.

Sounds like extremely good times Did any NPCs survive with you in the shipwreck?

I am playing a halfling warlock, who has entered into a pact with the Great Old One. I'm playing her as basically crazy person, driven mad from the things she's seen and experienced as a result of the pact. She's running from some event or trauma she caused, or thinks she caused - she doesn't even remember or know what it is, but she knows she needs to get away from it. It's a really fun character to play.

Ya Ya! Cthulhu Ftang!

I really liked that they added the great old ones as a possible warlock patron. It kinda breaks with what we usually see in D&D worlds, but I love the concept.

[Claus]

I don't really like "modern" settings, but let me give it a try:

1) How do you build a "big threat" that needs to be dealt with, without the answer being "the army takes care of it, or literally any large group of people that isn't four PCs"?

1- Conspiracies: No one believes this is actually happening. PCs are considered to be loonies. Having the police/army/etc take the issue seriously might actually be the win condition.
2- Personal stories: The world is not at stake, you guys are a gang in a slum trying to get rid of another gang - you DONT want the police involved because you are also outlaws.
3- Fuck the Police!: Governmental institutions are actually the bad guys. You and your group are some sort of Snowden-like figure.

2) Can you include a feasible method of melee combat?

If you are playing "modern", you need to play with modern values: which means you don't go killing people left and right just because they have different goals than yours. In this case, melee combat becomes much more important (you always risk killing somebody by shooting them).

3) How do you add variety? Without magic, without "sci-fi" tech, how do you keep variety when...like guns. Just always guns. Because guns are the most effective way to eliminate an individual threat.

If the world is semi-realistic, shooting people randomly will land you in jail. Make it a stealth or political game instead.

[Claus]

So in order to survive, he made a deal with what would later become the baddies of the campaign and has essentially started a massive war.

Sowing the seeds of your own destruction is always fun



Today was game night. My group finally started assaulting Skyreach Castle, the final dungeon of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign.

So the short version of the story so far is that the Cult of the Dragon has been raiding the countryside, and taking the spoils to this flying castle in order to be used as an offering for the summoning of Tiamat. The group tracked down one of the raiding parties and finally reached the castle. They managed to reach the village without raising much of an alarm, but a tavern keeper recognize them as outsiders, and slips away to warn the guards.

The party decides to ignore the shifty tavernkeeper, and an hour later they are greeted by the sound of the castle taking flight, and guards blocking their way. The party tries to bypass the guards and head straight to the castle, but the druid fails to jump into the lifting castle, or grab the rope that the characters throw down.

That's when the players decided to split the party.

The paladin decides to jump back down to save the druid, who is being hunted by the guard captain and his pet wyvern. The rogue and the barbarian charge into the castle, but end up activating a guardian golem (nicknamed "murder statue" by the party), and the charge becomes a benny hill chase. The session ended with the rogue and the barbarian running through the roofs of a castle floating hundreds of feet above the ground, while the paladin and the druid are hiding in a stone house from a raging wyvern.

Never split the party.

[Claus]

So wait, the Barbarian hates magic and is collecting magic items....or is he just getting magic items and not realizing they are magic?

He's getting them and being given increasingly ridiculous reasons why they're not magic by the rest of the party

That sounds really awesome

[Claus]

Yeah, I saw some people recommending it. The thing is that the videos are so damn long - I can't download a 3h youtube videos to listen in the train, do they have a podcast version?

[Claus]

So today was game day again.

Last time, the party was storming a flying castle, but they got themselves divided. Two of them were climbing across the walls of the castle, running away from Ogres, Golems and Cultists. Three of them were back on the ground, being chased by an angry wyvern and its rider.

The three at the bottom, a druid, a paladin and a thief, defeat the rider and his wyvern with little difficulty compared to last week (the dice smiled upon them). They go to the stables and find two ridable wyverns. Each wyvern can only carry two riders, and both the paladin and the thief are not confident in their ability to tame the beasts, so they leave it to the druid to ferry them back and forth to the flying castle. I tell them that the round trip will take 6 rounds, and the druid decides to take the thief up first (Why?). At first he tries to drop the thief at the front gates of the castle (WHYYYYY?). The ogres in the gate towers spot them, and the druid decides instead to drop the thief in the roof of a building in the back of the courtyard.

In the meanwhile, the Barbarian and the noble are sneaking through the walls at the other side of the courtyard. They decide to try to try to make their way to a large cave with a stairway at the back of he courtyard, avoid entering any buildings. They succeed for the most part, while the castle guards are organizing a search near the front where they were last seen. But as they are running the final leg to that cave, they are finally spotted. At the same time, the druid shows up in the front (paragraph above). They decide to take the distraction to bold to the cave in the back.

The druid goes back down to pick up the paladin, the barbarian and the noble start climbing on the stairs inside the cave, and the thieve sees herself surrounded by castle guards approaching the building that she is on top of.

The thief finds a trapdoor in the roof, goes down it, and find herself in a kitchen full of kobolds and a gryphon. She attacks the gryphon (WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) and is taken down quickly.

The Barbarian and the noble keep climbing the stairs, looking down for pursuers that don't come (they had a fair head start). After a while, they find that the caves branch in a few directions, and decide to go back down the stairs to try to kill the pursuers in a bottleneck. (WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY). Eventually an invisible mage comes through and fireballs them, the enemy guards start rushing in.

The druid returns to the castle with the paladin at his back, to find the courtyard filled with guards -- cultists, ogres, a mage and a few giants, who are now sticking together and ready to rush the stairway. They shoot an arrow at the mage, and try to circle the castle to find another spot. As they do so, two cultists riding wyverns take off after them. The druid spots some caves in the rock under the castle, and lands on it to avoid an aerial battle.

And that is where the session ended. The Barbarian and the noble are low on hit points and about to be rushed by a huge number of enemies. The druid and paladin are very low on spells and cut off from the other two, and the two flying guards are going to sound the general alarm and alert every creature in the castle that was not yet aware of the invaders. The question now seems to be not whether they can conquer their enemies, but whether any of them will be able to get off that rock alive.

[Claus]

Your party investigates things instead of kicking down doors and killing everyone who might or might not be involved? I'm touched

[Claus]

So, the party did not TPK. They were divided into two groups, inside the castle and outside the castle, which played in parallel. To make it easier to understand I will report one group at a time.

The noble and the barbarian hid in a tunnel inside the castle, backs against the walls. Through ferocious fighting, they managed to kill 4 Ogres before the barbarian finally fell. The noble was hit by a blindness spell soon afterwards, and surrendered. The barbarian, luckily, made his death saving throws and was taken prisoner together with the noble.

The three (noble, barbarian, and thief), wake up in different cells -- rooms that are actually visitor rooms. The doors have no apparent locks, but they are tied and gagged into a chair. The rogue frees herself from her shackles, and examine the room - she finds an illusionary wall in the back that leads to the empty sky, and quickly backs away. After one hour, the three are visited, separately, by Rath Mordath, a Red Wizard of Thay. The rogue and the noble refuse to collaborate with the interrogation, even under threat of death, but are left tied and alone. The barbarian, on the other hand, as he hear people outside, breaks out of his shackles (which, unfortunately, is heard by the guards outside). As the guards come in, he grabs one of them and steals his weapon. He fights bravely, but is eventually neutralized by the Red Wizard, and the cultists just toss him off the castle, to a 500ft fall.

Outside the castle, the druid, the warlock and the paladin landed in a small cave under the castle. They waffle in indecision for a few precious seconds, the druid and the warlock just insisting that they should abandon their friends and flee, the paladin insisting that they run after them. The paladin runs off, as the druid threatens to abandon him as well, and actually finds the stairway where combat was taking place. Not being able to reach the combatants (who were on the other end of the long stairwell) the paladin shouts for them to run and follow him (which they don't manage to, as explained above), and returns to the druid. He hops onto the wyvern, and the three flee the castle just as it creates a large cloud of Myst.

The three follow the castle for a while, but decide to go back for reinforcements. The druid send an animal messenger to the cultists, telling them that if they do not return right away, they will never see the black dragon mask again. Rath Modarth replies by Sending, telling them that they have one hour to be back to the village where the castle was initially, leave the dragon mask in an open space, and stand at least 100 feet away in a visible location, or their companions will die. The group responds "we will be there".

And that's where the session was left off.

[Claus]

Well, I am dressing up the reality a bit.

From a GM's point of view, the game was "the noble and the barbarian are in a bind, and the other players have to help them". The Paladin player was all about that, but the druid player wanted to bail before the game even began. The Warlock was fresh (since the player missed the last session), and would be key to rescue the others, but the player decided, with egging from the druid player, that "she thinks first of herself" and the first thing she did when they arrived in the castle was to turn right back away before her flight spell wore off. The paladin runs off anyway to try and find the others, finds the stairwell after two rounds of running, but the druid player starts shouting at him "I will leave you! I will leave you", succumbs to pressure, and runs back to the exit.

As for the ending, the players are already considering just leaving the prisoners to die, since the cultists will obviously just kill them anyway, and there is no way they could assault the whole castle anyway.

I try to let the players have their way on how they are playing, but this group is just outthinking itself over and over and over *sigh*

[Claus]

So tonight I'm having supposedly the last session of HotDQ, with the remaining three PCs waiting for the flying castle cultists, who want to exchange the dragon mask for the captured PCs. The three PCs said that they were considering just trying to renegotiate the deal to have the cultists actually meet them near a portal a day's walk away (where they had the support of a small Lizardmen army), but I had none of that -- they have 3 hours for the meet: they can cut the deal, ambush the cultists, sneak into the castle, or something else, but if they just walk away or try to stall further, the cultists will just leave, and we will move into debriefing and end-of-season stuff.

Also, I got "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide" on the mail yesterday. Seems to be a pretty decent book, and will come handy for the next season for this group.

Finally, what is the opinion of folks in this thread about retro-clones (original D&D clones) and MegaDungeons?

Cheers!

[Claus]

Wednesday, gameday! Castle in the sky part three!

In the last session, the group ended with an ultimatum from the cult: We will exchange your friends for the dragon mask, meet us at the village in three hours.

Back in the village, the dragonborn paladin, the demon warlock and the druid meet a pair of dwarves, forward reinforcements from the Harpers (and replacement PCs): A cleric of the life goddess, and a dragon hunting ranger. The group decides to try and sneak into the castle before it arrives. Taking advantage of the wyverns, they fly to an ambush point on the castles' route, and lay in wait. As the castle flies over them, they sneak into its bottom caves, aided by magical cover from the ranger.

The party heads to the main stairwell, where ogres are guarding the lower entrance. They take them out quickly, before the alarm can be sounded. They head straight to the top courtyard of the castle. Scouting ahead, the warlock sees a large group of Ogres training. Then she does something awesome.

The demonic warlock strides straight into the courtyard, in cult regalia, and oversees the training ogres. And they totally buy it. She scouts the upper castle as if she owned the place, and after mistakenly opening the door to the kobold barracks, she actually.asks the ogre for directions to the "red mage boss".

The group heads back to the lower courtyard, and into the lower keep. As they open the door, two cultist guards and three ogres are not fooled by their intrusion. That is when the cleric wins initiative, and casts silence, preventing the cultists from warning the red wizard about their presence! The combat is fierce, but the party has it under control. Unfortunately, a hit from an ogre breaks the cleric's concentration, and sounds of battle reach the inner chambers.

Just as the last ogre falls, the doors to the inner chamber burst open. The red wizard, fully buffed, and screened by his personal guard, greets the party:

"Well, I was not expecting you to arrive so early. Why don't you take a seat over there and have some tea with me?"

The session ends as I ask each player to roll a saving throw against charm spells.

[Claus]

Everything is better with dinossaurs

[Claus]

Wednesday, game report time!

Last session closed as the group faced the wizard of Thay and his lackeys, inside the keep of the flying castle. Unfortunately, two of the 6 players missed yesterday's session, so the roster was only the paladin, the warlock, and two players using temporary characters: a cleric and a ranger.

The wizard opens with a mass charm spell on the party, which catches the paladin: "Why don't you take a seat over that corner of the room and have some cookies?". The cleric advanced on the bodyguards, while the ranger and the warlock zapped them and took cover from the outside of the room. As the party made short work of the bodyguards (not before one of them scores a crit on the cleric), the Wizard casts a wall of force, and fireballs the party with impunity. After two rounds of the party taking cover from the fire blasts, the cleric (who had already fallen into the negatives twice in the combat, and was consuming the party's entire stash of healing potions), finally manages to dispell the wall of force. The warlock and the ranger concentrates their attacks on the wizard, taking down his mirror images, and forcing him to flee through an illusory wall in the back of the room.

The party rushes after the wizard, but on the other side of the illusionary wall is a balcony to an open sky, with a very angry white dragon waiting outside. As the wizard jumps off the balcony reading some sort of scroll, the dragon blasts a cold breath into the room (at least the paladin snaps out of the charm at this point). The party rushes back into the keep, and a game of cat and mouse begins as the dragon flies around the keep and breathes ice into the windows, and the players duck into corridors to escape the attacks. They do find their companions who were taken prisoner, but cannot find a place to rest under the dragon's siege.

The group needs to leave the keep and run to the nearby cavern to try and find some shelter from the dragon. The ranger decides to use one of her magic items, a set of "arrows of falling", in order to pin down the dragon long enough for the group to escape, but the plan fails as the ranger misses both shots, and is grabbed by the angry beast. Before the dragon can toss the ranger from the flying castle, though, the paladin rushes to her rescue, freeing the ranger, and taking some hits in her place. The party decides to just make a break for it, trying to time their escape to a time when the dragon is on the other side of the keep. The plan works, mostly, the dragon is able to take down only some of the characters in the back of the line with her ice breath, and the group drags the corpses as they rush into the safety of the caves.

A tense hour passes, as the cleric and the short rest heals the group. A mist descend on the caves, and a kobold is seen spotting the party resting location, but fortunately their rest is not disturbed. The group heads back to the castle courtyard, which is now completely surrounded in dense mist. Visibility is down to a couple meters. The group stumbles through the mists, until they hear the dragon from a distance. As the beast dive upon their location, they run back to the entrance of the cave. They manage to draw the dragon in to the enclosed space, and fall on it, all at once. The dragon tries to escape from the onslaught, but the ranger is finally able to pin the beast, and the group takes it down just as it is about to take to the sky again.

And that was our adrenalin filled session last night. Most of the baddies in the flying castle are now gone. There are a few more ogres and giants who are not really interested in fighting, unless the party goes murder hobo on them, but we should be concluding Hoard of the Dragon Queen next week. It is interesting how combat in 5th edition goes: you do not want a fight of atrition - the players were at their best when they were able to concentrate fire on a single enemy. If the party was separated, facing multiple threats, or an enemy attacking from far away, they would usually have their assess kicked. It was impressive the difference that made when one player decided to switch from a pure damage barbarian to a cleric with a more varied selection of utility spells, which could help the players control their engagements.

Cheers!

[Claus]

Lord du Schnoozle's name never ceases to amuse me.

Glork, you are playing RL right? How are you dealing with missing players (if you have this problem?)

[Claus]

As for me, I forgot to update the game from last Wednesday:

After killing the dragon, the party moves around to clean up the flying castle. They scour a the lower courtyard, and kill some stragglers, then move to the upper courtyard.

There, the party meets the true lord of the flying castle, King Blagthokus the Storm Giant. Blagthokus was collaborating with the cult for his own purposes: He thought that ressurecting the Dragon Queen would bring together the warring giant families in order to fight this new enemies. When he saw how easily the cult was dispatched by the small adventurer band, he abandoned this idea, and did not answer the cult pleas for help.

Surprisingly, the party accepted this explanation and did not attack the giant on sight (the fact that he was surrounded by a dozen ogres, and the party was low in HP and spells helped, I guess). Blagthokus said that, still, he wanted to see by himself the power of the party, and challenged any one PC for a one on one non-lethal duel. The paladin eagerly took his offer and, buffed by the druid and by the warlock, flew towards the giant. He was swatted down in two rounds.

The giant thanked the party for their sportsmanship, and said that they had the entire night to take away as much treasure from the dragon horde as they could, and after that he would take off and go back to giant lands. The party did so, and hauled a hefty mountain of treasure back to Waterdeep.

This ended Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

---

---

Now we will take a 2 week break (will play 3:16 instead of D&D), while I tie up loose ends and prepare for the second part of the campaign, "Rise of Tiamat". The situation is this:

• The party has taken one Dragon Mask, and all of the hoard that was collected by the cult. This sets the cult back severely, and they will need to find a new treasure hoard in order to summon the dragon queen, and an artifact powerful enough to replace the lost mask.
  
• On the other hand, the party in possession of the Dragon Mask means that the cult can freely try "Scry and Fry" tactics on them.
  
• The warlock sacrificed one of the high priests of the cult to her Demon patron, which now allows the demon patron to manifest upon the world. This blesses the warlock, but the demands of the demon will rise over time...
  
• The druid has gone full "dragon mother" he wants to learn how to train a black dragon as a faithful servant of Selune
  
• The paladin is torn on whether he should return the hoard to the suffering people of the sword coast, or go full oathbreaker and command a horde of undead
  
• The orc barbarian is back, and has his demon-possessed sword again. Now the party has two demons trying to exert their competing influence on the PCs -- this might not end well.

[Claus]

Do you want to get familiar with the rules system, or with the world? The games are good for the world, but terrible for the system. I played shadowrun quite a bit, so I'd love to help, but I dont know any resources to be frank. Just shoot questions, I guess

[Claus]

Oman! Tell us about when you played Shadowrun!

I'm still preparing for the beginning of part 2 of my Hoard of Dragonqueen/Rise of Tiamat game next week.

[Claus]

I can't watch it streamed, but I'd love if you posted a game report here later

[Claus]

Quadz! Thanks for the report! It sounds awesome!

The party collected the creature's antlers, and then placed the creature in the merchant's cart, hoping to sell it or use it as meat on the road.

I love it when parties do this!

She woke the bard, but despite her best efforts, was unable to convince the bard that there was anything there.

Why the heck do players do this? :-/ It is a particular kind of rules layer, I will call them "reality lawyers" that I hate.

The battle continued between the party and the ogre,

The last dungeon of my last campaign was full of ogres, and I learned to love them. They are a sack of HP, with very low AC, but who punch a wallop on their single attack when they hit. They make the party feel heroic by letting them hit it a lot, but still pose danger with their powerful attacks. Much better than the miss fest of high level humans.

[Claus]

I guess when I dove headfirst into Pathfinder character creation, it was pretty simply laid out and easy to follow. This one is just like "Priority" then I read it and it's like METATYPE AND ALSO HERE'S A BUNCHA NUMBERS AND TERMS YOU DON'T GET! It's so dense.

Yeah, Shadowrun is a very different world paradigm from Pathfinder/DnD/other phantasy games (most Sci-fi games are) so it can take a little time to get used to all the terms. But let me try to help with the main points.

Disclaimer: I mostly played 4th edition (point buy system), and it seems that you are playing 5th edition (priority system). I looked up a bit of 5th ed character creation, but I might be wrong in some details.

Characters in Shadowrun can be roughly divided in four "archetypes": The magic user, the street samurai (warrior), the Decker (hacker) and the Face (skilled character). You could mix those archetypes (for example, one of my favorite characters was the owner of a fake talisman shop who was a magic user and a face), but for a novice player I'd recommend that you try to stick to only one of them.

Also, unless you are really into the "matrix" side of cyberpunk, I'd recommend staying away from making a hacker. Like Illusionists in DnD, your fun with a Decker depends on whether your type of creativity is the same as the GM's type of creativity.

Ok, so you think about what kind of character you want to make, then you have to choose your priorities. They will determine how strong your character is in each area. For example, if you want to make a magic user, then your magic priority should be A. But if not, then it could probably be E. If you are playing a street samurai, you probably want Attributes with high priority (so you can be strong and fast), and money or magic as your secondary (depending if you want to depend on expensive guns, or semi-magical powers). If you are playing a Face, you probably want to have skills and money as your highest priorities. Etc.

Metatype means race (Ork, Troll, Human, Elf, Dwarf). Races in shadowrun are mutations, so your Metatype (race) priority says how strong your mutation has affected you, so how far from a human you are.

Here is a guide for character creation that I found online, but feel free to keep asking questions. Maybe if you write here what kind of character you want to build, we can help you select priorities and stuff.

http://hardcoregamemode.blogspot.jp/201 ... acter.html

Cheers!

[Claus]

Why the heck do players do this? :-/ It is a particular kind of rules layer, I will call them "reality lawyers" that I hate.

do what? they didn't do anything that seemed bothersome. Indirell made the roll to notice, Bree didn't. Bree threw faerie fire at it and the ogre made its save. Bree went to sleep. *shrug*

Ah ok. I was thinking it went along something like this.

Player A spots something.

Player A: I try to wake player B
Player B: Why are you trying to wake me?
Player A: I think I saw something, get ready.
Player B: I think you didn't *go back to sleep*

This is player B making things difficult for the group for the sake of "realism", and, as a DM, It bothers me when the party self-sabotages like that.

[Claus]

What is "Resonance"?

So, in the 6th world (Shadowrun), there are people who are attuned with technology in a semi-magical way (this does not come up directly in the computer games). These people can access computer systems without decks, sometimes without even touching the computer. They can also summon "program spirits" (low level AIs) when they are in the Matrix. This power, in 5th edition, is called "Resonance".

In short, it is "magic for machines" (remember that regular magic is essentially incompatible with technology).

[Claus]

[Claus]

5th edition is really hard to balance -- the players will destroy everything in their path with ease... until they don't. How was your encounter?

[Claus]

Last night was our last 5e session for the year. It was mostly an RP session to tie off loose ends and lots of exposition.

Tusk, the barbarian who fell from the flying castle, and was taken as dead by the rest of the group. Survived. Beaten and battered, he trekked through the snowy mountains, guided by an unknown force. He arrives upon a camp, where three dwarves are guarding his demonic-possessed two handed sword, Hazewraw. He rushes to it, and quickly defeat the dwarves, who were trying to take it to their mountain homes to be destroyed (one of the dwarves was a good cleric). After the combat, Tusk fights a battle of wills with the Demon in the sword as he tries to spare the dwarves, and wins by a small margin, killing only one of them. After that, he treks back two Waterdeep to try and find the rest of the group, stopping at every inn to drink and spend his hard earned gold on rounds to strangers!

Raidon, the druid, returned to his home village, near the South Woods. During the campaign, he sent them a Dragon Egg, and it was well time for it to hatch. The village, after many months, was relatively unscathed from Cult attacks, but had brimming to the top with refugees from nearby towns that had not been so lucky. After a few days, the dragon egg hatches, and a black dragon comes out of it. Raidon spends the entire month trying to raise the dragon to overcome his evil tendencies, by impressing upon him the teachings of Selune. He also invested almost all of his gold into improving his village to accomodate the refugees, and raising a new temple for the moon goddess.

Damaya, the warlock, secreted the high priest of the cult that they had managed to capture into her hidden demonic shrine. She made the human sacrifice to her demon patron, Neruda. The portal that links Neruda to this world widened by the tiniest bit, and the demon gave her a new, powerful ability to destroy her foes. He told her that more power would be rewarded by more sacrifices, but she also had to find new acolytes to properly honor him. Also, he said that by torturing the soul of the high priest, he learned much about the cult plans. Behind the humans who are foolishly trying to summon Tiamat into the world, he could smell the stench of devils pulling the strings from behind the courtain. He ordered Damaya to capture a Wyrmspeaker, the highest rank in the cult of the dragon, and sacrifice them upon the altar so that he could learn more. Damaya spent her hard earned gold buying a few new magic items, including a clasp of invisibility.

Kavah, the Paladin of Bahamut, was contacted by the leader of the Order of the Gautlet, and member of the Theocracy of Ethulgard. The Kingdom of eternal light had heard of his heroic feats, and wanted to honor and reward him for his services to the Sword Coast. He spend a month at the capital, Ethuriel, giving his money to families that had lost much during the cult attacks, and teaching and inspiring new paladins. He also hired a young and promising band of adventurers to scout the heartlands, to find out the truth about the increased goblin attacks in the region, that had disrupted some of the caravan trade.

After a few weeks, a single warrior returns from this group. Covered in gruesome burns of unknown origin, and clutching a tattered banner. In the banner it read:

"King Yemmick"

(Yemmick was a lowly goblin that led a small band which the group met back when they were first level nobodies. The goblin tried to use a hostage situation to capture everyone, but failed. In the ensuing battle, he ran for it, and the paladin followed. Not only Yemmick managed to escape, but while the paladin was away from the combat the rest of the band killed the cleric of the group. The paladin swore revenge on the goblin, and even tried to find him a few times, but never heard about him since)

[Claus]

just remember, reck: NEVER make a deal with a dragon!

And let us know how it goes. What is your character?

[Claus]

Neat! Very noir.

But wait... You're not SINless? That should be interesting

[Claus]

So, new year, start of the new campaign!

In the last session, the group discovered that Yeemick, a goblin that they let escape in one of their very first adventure, had found some sort of artifact cache, and was now terrorizing all the lands south of Baldur's Gate. The party decides that it is time to end this unfinished business, and for that, they group back in the paladinate of Ethuriel.

First things first, as the party arrives in the Ethuriel, the people there, who were until now throwing daily feasts for the party's paladin, have a rude awakening when they discover who the hero's friends are. The party at this point consists of a Demon worshipping warlock, a druid who is raising a black dragon, and walking everywhere on full cult-of-the-dragon regalia, a half-orc who is now king of the Lizardmen in the mere of the dead, and an elf thief. All riding black wyverns.

The guards in Ethuriel hastly say their goodbyes to the dragonborn paladin and tell him to not come back, like, never.

The players are surprisingly okay with this reception, and move on to the hunt of the goblin king. There are two witnesses for the most recent attack, a young adventurer, and the paladin's holy horse. For some reason, they ignore the young adventurer and question the horse. Based on the horse testimony ("we were ambushed by the goblins on the roads south of the forest of sharp teeth"), they decide to approach the forest from the north.

The forest is roughly the size of the kanto region, and very dense. Because of this, they abandon the idea of an aerial search, and go down and try to track the goblins. They soon find a hunting trail, which leads to a small group of very haggard looking hobgoblins. They easily defeat the hobgoblins, take one prisoner, and feed the rest to the wyverns. Interrogating the prisoner, they find out that the hobgoblins, who used to rule the south side of the forest, were kicked out by the goblins with their magical fire wands. The party forces the surviving hobgoblin to guide them back to the goblin's area.

A 15 day travel follows. The wood of sharp teeth has its name for a reason. While they manage to keep their heads low most of the time, they do have a close encounter with a hydra, and manage to avoid the territory of the werewolf tribe (although the druid wants to chat with the werewolves after the goblins are dealt with). They finally arrive at the goblin's territory, and are promptly ambushed at night. The party is surrounded by sickly looking goblins, with white patches in their green skin, and holding weird looking iron wands. The leader of the raiding party is riding a very large bipedal lizard. The fight is brief, and the party emerges victorious, but battered by the goblins new weapons. They grab the strange fire wands and... stash them in their backpacks!

The next two days, they keep a very low profile as they approach the former hobgoblin castle (pass without trace is a broken, broken spell). The castle is a ruin, crawling with goblins and human slaves. They observe the castle, and think about attacking it at night, but at twilight, a large group of slaves and goblins leaves the castle towards a hidden trail. The party follows the group, and after about two hours tracking them through the woods, they are spotted. They easily defeat half the goblins, while the other half dives into the woods and prepare for a guerilla style counter attack. And that is how our session ends.

Spoiler: coming up in the next session:

[Claus]

The best (or at least the quotiest) advice I have ever heard about Dming was: When in doubt, throw the dice and shout!

As for 5e specific advice:
- advantages and disadvantages are your friend
- If you want to throw a player a bone for an idea, give him a +2
- Characters lv 1 and 2 are more fragile than they appear. They become sturdy lv 3 on.
- Encounters with many monster are way more dangerous than an encounter with a single monster of equivalent cr
-you cannot buy power with gold. Give it freely to your players, and give them the means to live large
- mages can be amazingly interestIng opponents, but you got to use them right - I have a great link about this, but on mobile right now.

Good luck, Oman!

[Claus]

Oh, and for a campaign, never, ever give your players magical AC bonuses.

[Claus]

-you cannot buy power with gold.

Magical weapons? Armour? Mercenaries? Spells? This seems counter intuitive.

The 5th edition DMG recommends that you do not sell non consumable magic items, and I endorse that recommendation.

Non magical armor is limited to AC 20ish, and their use restricts class abilities. Buying spells is also restricted by how many of those you can cast per level.

In general, it is a common "complaint" that in 5th edition RAW, gold will not take you very far, power wise.

Mercenaries is something that makes the group more powerful, but does not make individual characters more powerful. I'd classify them as a roleplay purchase more than a power purchase, unless you are running a strictly old school kind of game (and since you mentioned rule of cool, I am assuming not). Go crazy with mercenaries, yarrr!

And why no magical AC bonuses?

Third and fourth editions were balanced on higher attack bonuses competing against higher AC, and both scale up as the game progresses.

Fifth edition throws that away in favor of what is called bounded accuracy. Namely, attack bonuses are expected to cap around mid tens, and AC around low twenties, for highly skilled/armored characters. The scaling occurs at damage/hitpoints instead. Check the stats of high level, non legendary monsters. A paladin on heavy plate and a shield honking AC 21, 23 with spells is a big deal in 5e.

That is why a horde of goblins is still threatening at high levels, they can nick a characters' hitpoits over time. And that is why giving your characters a dinky +2 AC ring will upset the game system more than giving them a staff that lets them ignore one attack per day.

[Claus]

<3 you too Oman.

BTW, back to game reports: We halted our DnD game in April in the middle of "Rise of Tiamat", because I got a bit too busy to DM. The group was lv 9-ish, just captured the dwarven wyrmspeaker. The Cult of the Dragon sounded the Dragonhorn in retaliation -- cliffhanger ending!

We are now playing SLA Industries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLA_Industries), using Savage Worlds rules. SLA is a dystopian fantasy-cyberpunk world written in the 90ies. Our group is a subcontracted security detail of a hyper capitalistic society being paid to maintain the status quo by any means necessary. My character is the psychotical bio-engineered squad-leading mage hanging on the edge of supreme power over the pleb, and supreme powerlessness under "The Man".

Also, I managed to convince the other players to name our group and characters after ponies :3

[Claus]

Oman, Fantastic! Great game report!

The Dragonborn sorcerer was right at the end, the boy is being held aloft by wild magic and they can't think of a way to get him down. (...)

I loved this!

The cleric is my next goal. She's the absolute newbie and she's been the POWERHOUSE in combat. I want to give her something divine that acknowledges that power or speaks to it somehow

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html

What every cleric need is an opposite cleric. Make the villain of the next game be a cleric of a god opposed to her. It doesn't even need to be in the title of the adventure. They track whatever baddie they need to track, and when they reach their lair, a symbol is splashed in front of the cave. No one knows what it means at a first glance, except for her. Oh yes, she has seen this before, and it feels her with determination.

Alternatively, I did this to the druid in my game with great results: They went after a ruined cave. Getting there, the druid figures that it is the remains of a shrine to his favoured god. After cleaning up the cave, he decides that he wants to restore the shrine. I give him a shopping list and a hefty gold figure, and he was happy to tally his treasure to hire the masons, preachers and workers necessary to restore the shrine. (Although this idea is probably better for a group that has already accumulated a small pile of gold).

For a more "evil" idea, which probably does not apply to your group, but might inspire you: Another player in my group was a demon-worshipping warlock. After gathering a lot of gold to restore the only shrine to this almost forgotten demi-god, the demon rewarded her with a ritual: She could sacrifice a living creature, and would receive a boon that increased one attack's damage by 1D6 x the CR of the creature sacrificed. This bonus could not be accumulated, and the shrine could not be moved from the base. This gave the player an incentive to capture at least one powerful enemy every adventure.

By the way, are you liberally using inspiration? Players cannot accumulate inspiration, and it is a single reroll, so I give it to my players whenever they do something cool at the table. This is another "cheap" way to reward them.

[Claus]

Do you want to punish the players or the characters, and why? Were they just being "LOL murderhobos!", or did they feel justified to do it for some reason?

[Claus]

Just to make sure, you want your new players to realize that the world has consequences, but would you still enjoy the game if they decide that they don't care about those consequences?

I ask this because one of my first rules of RPG is that "OOC problems should be dealt with OOC".

For example, my last game: Our current campaign is basically "you are MP in power armor". We were assigned to patrol a slum at border area, just to make a show of force. As we arrive, I make a perception roll and notice that the local gangs are keeping an eye on our movements. I radio the rest of the squad: "we're being watched, be ready if the scum decides to try anything funny". At that point the newbie in the table declares that her character starts panicking. I tell her that there is nothing to worry about, probably just some bums with sticks, and she declares that her character is running for cover.

We stop the game. We explain to her that her actions don't really make sense in-world, and she explains to us that her character is a coward. After talking a bit, we reach a compromise in that she wants to play a character "on edge", but that poor anger control would be more appropriate for that particular game. Crisis averted.

I mention this because the GM could instead have role played the consequences for her cowardly behaviour, but in this case, that would derail the game and detract about the role-playing that we were actually interested in doing that night. Just because it is an RPG, doesn't mean that you can't have some base rules.

OK, all this aside, if you would enjoy torturing your wannabe murder-hobos as they try to loot their way into a comfy retirement, this is what I would do:

At first, nothing. Give them MORE chances to savor that sweet, sweet murdering-hobo power fantasy. Have them demand more reward from the village chief, or keep an artefact that by all rights should have been returned to the temple. Have guards step out of their way in the beginning.

But make sure that the NPCs are suffering unjustly at the player's hands. The hear that the village's crop failed without the artefact they kept. They see the merchant they stole begging on the street, furiously staring at them. The guards of the mayor they short-changed now wear weak armor, and complain about successful bandit raids.

They might not care, but at every step make sure that the NPCs give the characters an earful. Let the players laugh at the NPC impotent rage or sorrow. And make sure someone survives to tell the tale. And keep notes.

When the party is back at the inn, having the ales and the wenches, the guy at the table complains about how dangerous the roads are, and why doesn't the king do something about all this violence? And their quest giver will tell them to be careful about a group of evil adventurers roaming about. By the way, this merchant wants a group to do a very important mission and ... what? This is the merchant you met in your very fist mission?

And them you go full Chrono Trigger on them.

The guards surround the quest giver's abode, the captain of the guard, the king's mage, and even the high cleric. Hell, have a good adventuring party there as well. The players are outmatched. They can surrender, fight and be captured, or flee. If they are captured/surrender, they now face a trial where every evil deed from their campaign is thrown back at them. They are found guilty, and to be executed, but because of their possible utility to the world, they are offered an out: accept a "mark of justice", and from now on kept on a very tight leash by the clergy, sent mostly on monster cleaning missions.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0295.html
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0568.html

Now, fair warning: Some players might see any "in-game" challenge to their murder-hobo tendencies as "part of the game". In other words, they might find it fun that the world does not like being robbed, and try to push the envelope as far as they can, like if they were trying to see how many stars they can survive in GTA. You need to decide whether you are OK if they decide to go that way.

That is why I asked you the first question in the post. If you want to play "this" game, it could be fun. But it is SM-kinda fun, the GM and the players need to keep tabs on each other to make sure that they still enjoy the abuse.

But if muder-hoboing is not what you want for your D&D campaign, the most effective way to deal with it is to have a frank talk with your PLAYERS about what you want for your game night.

Let us know how it goes, Oman!

[Claus]

Awww <3 Pokemon Avatars Unite!

[Claus]

I really like your idea for handling dreams, and will try to use it in the future, Oman

[Claus]

If you are not careful, "skill challenge thing" will not be very different from "I hit them with my (sword) skill".

It all depends if you are doing map battles or not, but I'd try to look for terrain effects that they can activate to shake up the combat. I usually shit on 4E, but that was one thing that was pretty easy to do with that system.

For 5E, you can look at the many special abilities/spells to see combinations that make the combat more interesting: For example, rogues can hide, and get advantages on attacks from hiding. This gives them a devastating hit-and-run strategy, and the players have to figure out how to neutralize that, you cant just stand and swing while the rogue only attacks you when he can crit.

If you have many "weak" enemies, you can have them bull rush and pin a player to the ground. They can help each other for bonuses in this check, and a grabbed, prone character will have disadvantage on attacks, and enemies attack him on advantage.

Terrain is always good: Remember, you can move, shoot/cast, and move again. So mages should stay behind walls at all times. Darkness followed by fireball is great.

Or you can have something as a combat in a maze, and the best way for the players would be to try and find a way to flank the enemies to "gank the mage".

Of course, the problem is that many times the players do not see all these possibilities, even if you prepare for them -- so it is useful to have a weak enemy try these tactics on the players first. Have the goblin throw the iron ball chained to the ceiling at the players, and when the players decide to turn the tables on the enemies, they will feel double smart.

Cheers!

[Claus]

So in my table the Paladin (who now is playing a battle medic in our game), botched it really bad when trying to do some undercover questioning to find a missing person and almost got capped in his ass. I had to dive in and save his sorry hide while rest of the group was running around like headless chickens D-:

But the worst part is that the player is really bummed at not being able to express himself in the questioning scene. He has difficulty improvising, is being ESL does not improve things. And now I have to pick up the pieces *sigh*

[Claus]

Oh man, Oman, that was a fantastic idea! I loved every second of it. Specially how you let your players build the final evil boss. Now I want to move this thread to the speakeasy so you can tell us how you are assembling the next session without risking spoiling it to your players.

As for my session, every week I write an In-character game summary to the group, and I was planning on writing one that tried to cast the events from last session in a better light, such as "what did we learn"? Unfortunately, I had some personal shit going on and didn't find the time. The session is in about 4 hours from now. Who knows? Maybe I can write something during the professor meeting.

Cheers!

[Claus]

I had a great Paranoia GM.

In our first game, he explained to us about how much everyone HATED mutants and secret societies, and took each of us separately during character creation.

* Rolls dice behind screen * "Damn Claus, I have bad news for you. You are a mutant. Don't let the other players know, or you're dead"
* Rolls dice again * "Daaaamn... yeah sorry Claus, the dice are not with you today. You are also member of a secret society."

This is something you can only pull once, but I found it amazing.
(for those who don't play paranoia, EVERY player is always a mutant and member of a secret society)

Also, about the missions, yes, navigating the security clearances, RD and the byzantine rules are fun, but this GM also always milked the "Paranoia as satire" angle by placing the game in the context of recent real world events as background, like the olympics (Clonympics, and the commie team always appeared at the last second to win the medal), or "elections" (and both parties sending the players to sabotage the other side). I'd recommend reading a bunch of The Onion articles for inspiration.

[Claus]

Oh remember they draw a new mutation every clone.

Is this a new rule?

[Claus]

Four hours... daaaamn. I will try to watch that on the weekend. Seems awesome.

[Claus]

As I mentioned before, I think that differentiating conflict resolution in game and out game is something that new DMs could be more aware of. As in, how to tell when OOC conflicts is seeping into the game, or vice versa, and how you should keep things separate.

In short, "talk to your players about what they want out of a game".

[Claus]

Also, DMs being aware that how they imagine a scene, and how a player imagine a scene can be two wildly different things is an important skill to have. Sometimes if your players are doing nonsensical things, it might be worth it to OOC ask them what is the final goal of their plan, before making the plan blow up in their faces just because it sounds nonsensical to you.

[Claus]

Nah, you are Oman.

So, tomorrow is game day again. Our group has finished the "patrol" the gang territory mission. The GM decided to take it a bit easier on the newbies, and after a failed infiltration-into-gang-territory-turned-shootout, the gang leaders decided to bring us the person we were looking for, to avoid any further violence in their territory. The medic/paladin got to shine by using his drug-enhanced interrogation techniques, and we got a fair share of mission hooks and info to report to our superiors.

Group goes back to Central, and we get our due payment. I encourage them to enjoy our success by spending some of the money for a night on "The Pit", the block-sized club that exists in the setting. The other players have some fun role-playing getting drunk and scoring, while I work on my character sheet . The GM is being really stingy with XP, which will hurt my magic-user/stealthy guy, but I take that as a nice challenge.

After the night of depravity, I manage to get our group our first sponsored mission (as opposed to the ATM issued standard missions), which will take place tomorrow.

In other words, after a rough start, the game is starting to proceed smoothly

[Claus]

No, SLA industries, a cyberpunk dystopic game where you play as a group of enforcers working for "the man". It is mostly non-fantasy, except for this one race of power wielding creatures.

The system is actually Savage worlds

[Claus]

So, this is the e-mail I sent to the other players to remind them that tonight is game night:

Operatives!

After a well deserved rest, we are ready to strike again.

Our patrol mission was exceedingly successful - the data we gathered on the situation regarding sector 45 is at this very moment being processed by the geniuses at SLA tower to devise new approaches for the improvement of life quality and security in Mort.

And our continued hard work has been noticed! I must remind you that, this time, we did not have to spend 30 hours at the queue to the BPN assignment desk. No, my dear team mates, we were hand-picked for this mission!

So today we head towards sector 110 of Lower Downtown, and kick the hell of whatever is causing the civil disturbance.

Please remember that the pay for this mission is 240 credits for the squad, or 48 credits per OP. Make every bullet, grenade and drug count!

See you later tonight!

Keep in mind to read it between the lines: for example, "hand picked" means "I begged on my knees for a fixer to gives us a mission, and still have to hand over 60% of the original mission pay total".
Also, the 48 credit pay does not include the 10 credit transport fee and, as mentioned, each bullet costs from 1 credit. So yeah, an Operative's life sucks

[Claus]

Hey Oman, how did your workshop go?

met some gypsies (I'm a fucking hack so I'm reusing this gypsy family from the other campaign because I know them and like them)

You call it a hack, I call it "worldbuilding"

He's asked me to guide him on stats because he wants to make his dog into a character of the story (I plan to kill the dog as part of the deep dark act two to inspire their final surge against the Big Bad, they all love this cute fucking terrier).

I would thread on this idea VERY carefully.

I really want to give it to her, but I don't know what spells I can give her that will feel impactful without starting to unbalance her. I want it to be something that makes them feel great for having done it, I've been thinking everything from +1 weapons, or ACs or extra health. It's the Goddess of Shelter, Welfare, and the Less Fortunate, if that can help you guide thematics.

Wait, do you want to give her spells (as in spells from the book), or a special ability?

For spells, I think that trading a feat for an appropriate spell slot for a non-spellcasting character seems reasonable.

For a blessing from the Goddess of Shelter, I would give her the ability to, once per day, spend one inspiration point to create a magic shelter that allows the group to either:

- take a short rest in 5 minutes
- take a safe short rest in regular time
- take a short rest with bonus recovery dice (no safety/short time, though)

(choose one, you probably want to balance this a bit more)

=========================================================================-

Last game was... okay-ish.

I had some horrid rolls, and according to the savage system rules, I loose my magic points even if I fail the roll, which means that
I spent almost my entire mana pool doing ... nothing.

To make things a bit worse, I'm having a bit of "the illusionist dillema" with my GM. My magic user has basically two powers:
the ability to boost his attributes for a few rounds, and the ability to meld through walls for a few rounds. The first one I almost never
use. The second one I try to use it more creatively, but I'm having trouble with the GM shooting down my ideas.

Case in point, we were fighting some punks in a ruined apartment complex. The punks were in the upper floor, attacking us through a
narrow hole which the tank was trying to get through. I was trying to use the wall-meld power to climb through the ceiling to pincer the
punks, but the GM was having none of that.

Oh well...

On a different note, here is another tip from GM Claus:

If you are running a "continuous yes/no" scene, such as a sneak sequence, or a tracking sequence, etc, avoid the temptation to ask the players
to roll the same skill many times in a row every few turns -- You are just multiplying the chance of the negative result.

For example, if your players are sneaking through a town, and they all pass their first sneak check, do not make them roll again unless
something major changes (probably a new scene). Else, you are just guaranteeing that your players will eventually fail their roll.

For a positive example, if your players are searching an area, do not let them make their search room more than once for each player
(or even once for the entire group), because the end result will also be a guarantee of success.

Decide why you are asking for a roll, and make them roll ONCE. A different roll should be made only on a different situation.
Or the monster of the Central Limit Theorem will pull your feet.

((Separately, rolling many times is a perfectly acceptable way to run continuous incremental scenes, but be aware that you
are probably just averaging the result))

[Claus]

Can you speak to your hesitation re:the pet getting stats? Familiars do it, I can't see it being a big problem? But then again I've never done it so I'd love to hear the concern.

Oh! No, I am not worried about the pet getting stats.

I am worried about the pet getting stats if you are planning to plot-kill it in the future. The moment that the pet gets stats and the players use it to fight, it is no long a pet, is another character. Just keep that in mind.

but I'm having trouble with the GM shooting down my ideas.

In my experience this is worth speaking to the GM aside about and being specific about the problem AND your solution.

Oh yeah, we are talking about it. The problem is that a large part of my having fun (as a player) in RPGs is to engineer my way out of situations,
while the GM is a bit more of a HR kinda of guy, so we often get into "No way you can use that power in THAT way" kind of discussions.

EDIT: I also loved your idea about rolling each relevant stat ONCE. I have a huge problem with the PCs walking into a room and saying "everyone roll perception" then afterwards "Everyone roll Investigation" and basically being guaranteed that one person will succeed. Maybe work on like a balance system where certain things need X number of success(...)

For perception/investigation, one thing that works well is to make each roll cost time. "Yeah, you can roll too, but it will cost the group another hour to re-do the search, this time with you in the lead".

Then it becomes a problem of resource management: how many hours can the group afford to spend searching for something?

[Claus]

Yeah, I can see it working wonderfully, but I can also see some players getting really upset if a character they are too close to die. But if you are checking expectations, everything will probably go ok

Also, DM got family business to deal with, so no game this week

[Claus]

Well, Oman, my friend. In this I think I can only offer questions, no answers

Let us know how it goes!

[Claus]

One thing that 4th edition did REALLY right was the addition of 1-hit kill enemies, which ties a lot with "the enemy dies when I feel it should" that you mentioned.

We are still playing SLA, but we have switched to the original system, which solved most of the issues I mentioned in my previous post. Since the GM is more comfortable with the original system, he is also more comfortable adjudicating when I try to push its boundaries -- everyone wins

In our last session, we were tasked to deal with a "public disturbance". It turns out that "cannibals" (feral humans) took over some buildings at an abandoned part of the town, and we moved in for cleanup duty. Now, in our power armors we pretty much outgunned the cannibals, and when I realized that, I put away my weapon, pulled out my hand camera, and started recording as the bio-engineering killing machine of the group tore apart the masses of under-nourished marginalised groups. Combat became: Enemies rolled to see if they hit, War machine rolled to see how many it killed, I rolled to see if I could capture the best and bloodiest shot.

The fixer took 60% of the pay to give us this cakewalk, but those clips will certainly be the entry ticket for our group to fame and fortune!

[Claus]

Oman > Come on, the games you DM (like that "stages of grief" scene that you narrated earlier) are super ultra duper. Most of the cool things in my group come out of playing with the same dudes over 10 years -- we basically know what to expect from one another by now. BTW, what do you mean by "six week run with you"? Is this some sort of rotating table arrangement?

Also, what is Storm Kings? New adventure from Wizards?

Hanasawa > I am super jealous! I wish I could be playing in more games All those you listed sound great, but I am most curious about the Spacer, because I'm a sucker for custom systems. Even if the game has not started yet, can you tell us a bit about what is the game about?

[Claus]

Yeah, having a long-standing gaming group does provide that real comfort zone of being able to play things differently. Do you ever feel bored of them? Like you know what they're going to do?

I kinda know how they will probably react, but I can't say I feel bored of them. When we get bored of a game, we generally switch to another one for six months, or try a few one shots.

Yeah I run six weeks worth of weekly games for a group of newbies at my local games store. I'm honestly liking this group enough to continue with them, but I'll have to have a chat with the store runner about it. We do provide a good service for the community, and that's really nice, but it's a LOT of effort teaching six new people how to play D&D every two months.

That is neat. is it a paid gig? The game store where I play has something similar, where they house tables for newbies. Maybe you can move the team you like to a different, permanent slot? Although then you are doubling the game time.

EDIT: Yeah new adventure from Wizards. Norse mythology, a lot of gods and giants. I know nothing else about it, but I'm excited. Curse of Strahd was really good (not escape from Ravenloft good, but good).

Yeah, I am terrible with following book releases - I'll take a look at it, giants are cool.

a lot of people hated 4e. I was not one of them. I thought it had a lot of really cool advantages, especially since it had the option to print out little cards for your powers that you could flip when exhausting and it was like...

I don't _hate_ 4e. Levels 1-to-5, it was really fun. I also really liked the ideas of dungeon delves. But when I got past level 10 with my group, the system started getting really clunky, and kinda "un-heroic"? It is a cool game, but in my mind it does not scale really well.

JonTron did a video on the Dark Dungeons movie, which is the DnD Chick Tract. It's played completely straight and looks wonderful.

Wooow! Looking forward to it I hope they show it here.

BTW, the SLA main book, the equipment book ("Karma"), and one setting book ("Contract Killer Circuit") are available for "Pay What You Want" on DriveThruRPG. If anyone wants to know more about what I'm playing right now, the books are a good read even if you will not play the games, as they are full of short stories between the crunchy bits.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/249 ... tries?it=1

[Claus]

So I'm going to continue with my current group. Not sure what to do for the adventure though. I don't want to homebrew the whole thing, it's just too much work for me.

I'm also writing a survey thing for my players, we're going to do a 0th session planning session, but I've never done one of those before (cause I've always run with whatever the DM had planned and whatever characters were brought). Has anyone (Claus) done this before and do they have any ideas?

I don't think I've ever done a explicit survey, but yeah, I do ask informal questions to the players before starting a campaign, and they, being lazy fucks, almost never answers. Usually questions as "you prefer this or that theme?", but more often request-questions (I will only allow one Jedi, who will it be?) or "Everyone must know at least one other person in the group before the adventure begins, where do you know each other from?"

[Claus]

The moment that the pet gets stats and the players use it to fight, it is no long a pet, is another character. Just keep that in mind.

I do not see a problem except that you think it's unfair to narrative-kill a character?

Players tend to expect their characters to survive unless they choose for the character to die. If a character is narrative-killed and it hasn't been discussed with the player beforehand, there's a very decent chance they'll be angry, and also a good chance they may quit.

What is this carebear nonsense? Characters die when they die.

That depends on the group and the system. I also said "narrative-killed".

Yup. NPCs get narrative-killed (and even then, sometimes the players want to feel that they had a chance at saving them, even if they fail). PCs die by the player's hand. (there are exceptions, yadda yadda).

[Claus]

That is why, when I use alignments in my games, it is mostly as an explicit connection to a divine pantheon, and not as an statement about the character personal morals.

"You are chaotic" - you were blessed at birth/consecrated/born at a location with connection to the gods of chaos. They will interfere in your life, and their magic runs in your veins.

Let the characters be whatever the players want them to be.

[Claus]

Can you identify what you are feeling burned out about?

[Claus]

Some times there is no relevant chapter. I've made 2 full custom dungeons, both were skipped (that was vexing).

Why were the dungeons skipped? Did the players just decided "no, we will not do this quest", or did they find some amazing way to reach their goal without going through the dungeon.

Something that DMs need to do more is talk OOC to their players:

"Look guys, I know your characters can figure out some reason for not wanting to go to this dungeon, but this is the game that I have prepped for you guys tonight. If your characters don't go to the dungeon, the mayor will have another group of adventurers go in your place, and I will just give you THEIR character sheets to play with. Which do you want?"

RPG is a social game, the DM gotta have his fun too.

[Claus]

Also, I don't know if this is relevant to your game, but never, ever allow a failed skill roll to end the game (unless the game end with a TPK).

For example, in my game last week the characters were exploring an island in search of a dungeon. The dungeon was in the middle of a dense forest. The characters could spy the location from the top of a nearby mountain that they just scaled, and now they were trying to make their way through the forest to the dungeon entrance.

They required some survival skill rolls to get to the dungeon. Normally the book says "If they fail, they are lost". But if they get lost, the game derails there, right? So let's change the penalty - they are on an island without other settlements, so food is super important. If they fail, they take two days to reach the dungeon instead of one. This means that they consume double the rations, and they get three random encounter checks during the night, which might take a few potions and wand charges from them. In a way, they still "get lost", but in a much more streamlined fashion.

In short, never roll a dice where one of the possible results is skipping part of the game.

[Claus]

Come on Oman, you will really leave at that, and not give us the juicy details?

In other news, I'm back to DM'ing D&D (the SLA GM got a new job and asked for a break on GMing). One of my players jokingly challenged me to make an adventure where you "Kill Dungeons and Explore Dragons".

That must happen now. Suggestions?

[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?

[Claus]

So my group finished the 5e HoTDQ/RoT that I was DM'ing, after two TPKs (once to mind flayers, who raised the parties as thralls, and a second time to an ancient black dragon).

After the second TPK, I decided that it would be disappointing to end the campaign without the final encounter, so I told the group that the Harpers decided to (with the help of bahamut) perform a ritual which would summon the parties as Shades for the final battle, with the understanding that they would have to face their final destinies after that. I gave each player one chance (side-quest) to tie-off loose ends before that, and it turned out actually quite well.

So here is my piece of advice: Rocks fell, and every one died? Go straight for the last page and make all characters undead

[Claus]

My groups is now playing "Shadows of the Demon Lord". It is an OK system.

[Claus]

I haven't checked on this thread recently, but has anyone ever played the "Powered by the Apocalypse" systems?

My group has been playing "Apocalypse World" for a few months now, and it has been a blast, and I am getting ready to GM "the Sprawl" (cyberpunk) in the short future.

Would love to talk more about it if there's interest.

[Claus]

The game is very interesting. One skill that the GM needs to learn is to not "close off" scenes on failures. A dice roll must ALWAYS move the story forward somehow -- if a players miss a roll and you just go "you can't do it", the game grinds to a halt very fast.