In my struggles with epic level 4e encounters, I've found one of the best 'tricks' is to present a Hard Choice: "You have the time/resources to do one of these two cool things, which will you choose?"
Instead of throwing up walls to block them, I throw out options for them to choose from.
It's admittedly a bit easier in 4e, which is more structured, but "if you dispel this fog then you will be blinded" is a harder choice than "if you don't dispel this fog why didn't you?"
I need to find a Q: but can't find it, maybe you english speaking people can be of some help. Anything about ad&d players asking what changes from ad&d to 3.5e is god
Ok, let's throw this out there. Can anyone recommend a rules-light post-apocalyptic RPG? Something fast and fun and easy to learn?
I want to run a post-apocalytic game for my group, currently running Pathfinder. I'm looking for a system that gives focus to cool powers, and coolness-factor in general, but will be easy to switch to for 3 players who've played mostly d20 (and some 4e) in the last few years, and one player that's really crunch-averse.
The mechanical engine for character and story advancement consists of a set of pithy statements about the character, and using game currency to make those statements have mechanical effect.
@BESW Sounds interesting. Might give it a go. Currently me and my group are running our own homebrew system which is also aimed at having RP at the core.
You get more game currency when those phrases ("aspects") complicate your situation, and you spend it for narrative control --bonuses, re-rolls, declaring things about your situation, etc.
The more you can tie your expenditure of game currency into those phrases, the more control you have.
It is released, as the engine for a number of games. But right now the FATE Core is being developed as a free-to-download streamlined version.
Because the core system is so simple (the rest of it is based on opposed skill checks with a dice pool that has a really strong bell curve), the game also doesn't provide much in the way of pre-made content.
That's exactly the sort of narrative-enhancing mechanics we're aiming for. We've had several homebrewed rules for things like that tacked onto D&D/Pathfinder over the years, but I'd rather play a system designed for that from the ground up.
It gives a set of guidelines for how to make your own content to customize your characters and setting within a loosely balanced system (loosely, because it's all narrative and that's explicitly the balance being sought).
Most of the games based on the system provide their own content, but also make it clear that the provided stuff is just a springboard.
The great example is the Dresden Files RPG: as a spellcaster in that system, you're given some example spells but expected to not only design your own...
you're expected to be making them up on the fly.
The system is flexible enough to have a lot of room to invent on the fly, and simple enough to make it possible mid-combat.
In fact, one of the basic options in combat is to try adding an aspect to someone or something: "Off Balance," "On Fire," "Lined Up The Shot," "Can't Hit A Clown."
Also worth noting: "conflict" can be physical, social, mental, or even others depending on the game and setting, and they all follow the same rules.
When you're "taken out" of a conflict, the person who took you out narrates your defeat. If you concede before that happens, you narrate your defeat.
One of the premades for DFRPG is about a bunch of teens in a haunted house, and being taken out mentally means you flee the house.
The mime rolls his Fists skill vs the clown's Athletics. If the mime meets or beats the clown's roll, the punch connects.
Stress is determined by how much better than the clowns' defense the mime's offensive roll was. Let's say the mime rolled a total of 5 vs the clown's 3. That's 2 "shifts" difference, so the clown takes two "physical stress."
Stress isn't damage: it's one's ability to not be damaged. It 0s out at the end of each conflict, and has some amusing rules of its own I won't go into here.
Damage in FATE takes the form of "consequences." Let's say the clown's already been beat up a bit, and two stress will take him out because he's got so much physical stress already.
He can choose to take a "mild consequence." That's an aspect that will last until the end of the scene after he starts taking care of it, and taking this aspect lets him cancel out two stress on the attack he just took.
Right. The mime is going to be gunning for that rib; as the person who caused it, he gets one free "invocation" on it, for a bonus or a reroll. Anyone else can also take advantage of it by spending game currency.
The clown's stress will drop to 0 at the end of the conflict, but people can tap him in the ribs until he loses that aspect.
So damage is always something you get to choose; it's just that sometimes the alternative is getting taken out.
Let's say the clown comes back with a haymaker and KO's the mime, taking him out; the mime's player may have used up all his consequences, but more likely he's going to feel the clown won't kill the mime, and doesn't want to get a lot of long-duration negative aspects if he can help it.
Now the clown gets to narrate the mime's defeat. Death may be on the table, but the group should have an agreement about that before they start to play.
(Frequently, it includes the GM having to say when death is likely at the start of a conflict, so the players know the stakes.)
The clown's player might drop the mime in the lion cage (for an exciting next encounter!) or just leave him on the side of the road when the circus moves on. If he tries to narrate the mime doing something out of character (like talking), the mime's player gets to adjust the scenario accordingly.
One thing FATE constantly emphasizes is that stuff has to be interesting. If it's not, skip it or change it.
Instead give the pit a value of "barrier:2" so everyone has to roll Athletics to get across it, or they simply fail. Or have the failed check mean they're clinging to the edge of the other side.
Failure should generally be at least as cool as winning.
Oh, regardless of whether you're taken out or you concede, you get game currency (FATE points) for the number of consequences you picked up in that fight.
A common narrative conceit enforced by the game is that the more a hero gets beaten up on his way to confront the villain, the harder he kicks the villain's lights out.
So the mime could've spent a Fate point on his punch to give his roll another +2, invoking the clown's aspect Two Big Left Feet to say the clown's off-balance and leans into the punch.
The GM gets to do the same; if you have a "Fiery Bad Temper" aspect, you can spend Fate to get bonuses in the appropriate places... but I can bribe you with Fate to make your temper complicate your life. If you have Fate points you can buy off the "compel," but you don't always want to: compelling your aspects is my primary way of feeding you more Fate points.
A good aspect for a character is one that he can use to his advantage, and that the GM can compel in interesting ways.
And as you said above, to realize that it's driven by the narrative, not by the rules. DnD is like "You can do one of 10 things, what do you do?". Fate is like "You can try to do anything you wish, what do you do?". Anyway sorry for interrupting.
No problem. That actually reminds me of FATE Core's Golden Rule: Decide what you’re trying to accomplish first, then consult the rules to help you do it.
Important: when a GM compels a PC's aspect, it doesn't take control away from the player.
Obviously it helps to know the rules so you know how to leverage aspects for your gain, but if you are a player under a GM the GM can help with that at first.
By accepting a Fate point on a compel, the player is agreeing to constrain their actions so that whatever they do a) complicates things, and b) does so with a particular aspect in mind.
A good GM will let a play fiddle with aspects for the first couple sessions.
And one of the most basic forms of character progression, that you can do at the end of any session, is re-writing one aspect on your sheet in a way that makes sense based on the session.
As you can see, the whole system is very setting-neutral. By changing what the skills and aspects are, you can change the setting.
And because you get to make up your own mechanics within some rough guidelines, there's a lot of room for levels of crunch --heck, one PC could have more crunch than another in the same game and they could still be balanced.
The one's just inventing subsystems to further define what the other is relying on the basic rules to cover.
I really love the sound of FATE and I can definitely see why people find it interesting. I'm curios if I can get my players into the mindset for it though. There's a few dice loving combatants in the group as well. I doubt they'll find it interesting every session.
We had an experimental house rule in our previous Pathfinder game, where each player gets a History token, and once per session can use that token to add something appropriate to the setting, whether personal or global.
We met an elven ghost in a dungeon somewhere, and I used my token to have my half-elf bard "suddenly remember" an ancient elven lullaby that his father taught him when he was a child, which made the ghost friendly.
But when in another system recommendation someone explained it in more depth I've read it again and was all "Goodness, it's so good I can't believe I've managed to enjoy RPGs and not know it"
I've found the handbook to be a little overflowing with fluff, which sometimes made it difficult to understand the underlying mechanics
It was an attempted replacement for Flash in an era of mobile devices that refused to even try to render Flash. It was one of those unfortunate bets on the wrong side of history.
@William'MindWorX'Mariager Yeah, transpiling is one solution. The important part is having a single domain model to deal with all the elements inside the browser window.
Scaling isn't really an issue. The problem is mostly that the player miss important parts, have to spend time catching up, and their characters aren't properly used, which means they miss out on skill experience in this system.
Wealth is also an issue; assign wealth gains equally as well. We'll address the immersion/simulation issues later, this is for the health of the group.
First of all I'd keep the NR (non recurring) characters the same level as the rest of the party. As I said before, I'd make the NRs not very important to the plot altogether, with no major subplots on their own (anything which takes more than one session to resolve is a no). I'd limit their role to the plot to the same of an NPC which from time to time joins with the party for help - he can do stuff when he's around, but the spotlight is never on him, because of his unreliability.
If they're really unstable, consider having their character not be a part of the party, but still a part of the plot. Have them be a part of a parallel group of adventurers that often crosses paths with the party.
b) is easy: regardless of who showed up, I always ask my players to summarize what happened last game before we start, just to make sure we're all on the same page. It gives me interesting insights into the player side of things, too.
Now, for a) and c) I've experimented a lot. My most recent campaign has a reality-destroying plot, so the PCs no-clip out and then back in; they had no experience of time passing, so they get things explained to them in-game by the other characters because they know no more than their players.
But that's not something which can be done in most campaigns --alas, or I'd do it every time. It works great.
Instead, I've developed a standard gimmick that I use in many campaigns. It addresses my always-fluctuating attendance, and it also helps a few other issues like "you all meet in a bar."
@William'MindWorX'Mariager That's the gist of what I was suggesting. In fact, we tried running an experimental game a while back that was built around the concept of a shadowy organization that sends out the characters to missions across time and space, so "injecting" a character mid-mission isn't unusual.
The nature of their "base" is up to you. Maybe they're mercenaries hired by a group of paladins who don't have enough actual paladins to cover all the evil-smiting.
I used the old Mission: Impossible TV show as my inspiration.
Of course, making these changes means talking to your players (all of them) and accepting this sort of change to the campaign, since for people looking for a more realistic/simulationist game, it can be a real challenge to believability and suspension of disbelief.
But in my experience, they're so happy to not have to pretend that somebody's there when they're obviously not, or other such mental gymnastics, that this is very welcome.
Speaking of suspension and believability. Picking up inspiration online can be very hard when you're not English speaking. There are so many awesome names for characters, locations, spells, abilities, etc. in English. But direct translation to Danish makes a lot of them sound kinda silly. :P
Neither of them use any words outside my native language, although the first one employs a simple trick to make it seem that way, and the second one uses obscure words.
(Okay, the first one uses a single made-up word cribbed from a science fiction setting I liked at the time.)
My players spent six months living in Ossifica, Devo, Tesella, Incep, and Bas, and were never able to figure out why those words seemed so familiar.
But my main point is in the other names: Slurpy Marshes, Eternal Mountains, Southern Wastes, Black River, Snake Bone Hills.
They're totally normal words, sometimes even a bit slangy, but so are a lot of names. Whitehall, Jamestown, Portland.
Look at how ordinary words are turned into names in your language--I'm sure they are.
And maybe do a little digging for obscure words; "Otiose Bog" is just archaic English for "useless swamp."
Think about who named the place and why. We name things after heroes, sponsors and loved ones. We name them for great events, or great hopes.
We name them because of how they look or how we wish they'd look --there are a TON of twin-peaked mountains with names that are just variations on "Those look like boobs."
For another wishful thinking name, see: Greenland.
@William'MindWorX'Mariager The older map was made using Caesar III's mapping utility, with a lot of photoshop to mesh snapshots of the same place in different climates.
The newer, cleaner map started out as a scan from the Dictionary of Imaginary Places, and then got Photoshopped.
Both of them, you'll see, got the exact same "rough edged paper" treatment.
Ah, I use the combat grid out of the DMG 3.5, which I had laminated. Crayola window markers come in lots of good colors, and wipe off with water better than actual wet-erase markers.
