@Skyler Well, not exactly parallel, but a staple of the genre is behind-the-scenes drama. If you have a Rogue-type, maybe they hear about a plan to kill/wound/otherwise disable [the PC who is going to be in the fight] and they get a pre-fight adventure trying to prevent that from happening.
I know my players, if they were told "tomorrow you're going to be fighting Thogroth, the biggest scariest guy ever" would immediately try to sneak him a laxative or something.
yea, i had an idea for a PC being approached by a politician about a contestant who is a competitors body guard and has an item of interest (key, decryptor, etc.) they would like pilfered, but either (havent been able to decide): They have quite the eye for thieves and only would take off this item while in the ring OR That item is physically on their person, but since they have lightened up on restrictive/mandated clothing for the battle, the item is accessible and a person fighting would need to sneak it out to a thief hiding out under the arena battlegrounds during the fight
other ideas included letting players track down an escaped creature thats polluting the establishments water/food
And then there is a character who i have as a substitute PC who also joined the arena (separate from the party and now playing as an NPC) who is in there to exact revenge/get answers from a fellow veteran he blames for the death of his unit
so im trying to think of how players could explore that
basically ~3 PCs are in the tournament and I want to let other players have an option of things to do in parallel
since it could very quickly only become one person in the tournament too
@Miniman for pilfering, which of the two options sounds better in your opinion
@Skyler I like "they keep it on them at all times except while they're in the ring wearing only a loincloth" - that opens up "where did they leave it, who did they leave it with, who's watching it, and so on".
Also, the second one is more about someone who's fighting in the ring, and the whole point is to find stuff for the others to do.
also, I was saying to Shal earlier I was thinking about making the rule for winning the actual combats something like a person has to keep an item on them and get the other players, but I feel like there is a little something missing from that type of rule.
I could make it a type of capture the flag where the flagbearers are fighting each other.
@Skyler I see 2 problems with it. 1) It changes the rules of combat, so people are going to spend more time making Dex checks than what their character is built for. 2) It's likely to be resolved very quickly.
@Skyler Oooh, yet another media reference: In The Final Reflection (Star Trek novel), Klingons play a game like chess, except that the pieces are living warriors who fight each other when a move makes it appropriate. The different abilities of chess pieces are simulated by different armaments, so a pawn (unarmed) is unlikely to defeat a rook (heavy armor and a two-handed weapon), but it's still possible.
It's probably not practical for your game, but now that I've thought of it in a D&D context, I definitely want to try it at some point.
yw, any potential ideas on what i should look into for answering the "where did they leave it, who did they leave it with, who's watching it" part of this for the coliseum heist
I want to leave it in the coliseum
but now i need to think about what its like in the underbelly
Yep, it'll depend on the setup there. I'd also suggest that it should depend on the characters looking for it. For example, if you've got a Rogue with +11 to investigation and perception, then hiding it somewhere will play to their strengths. On the other hand, if that Bard you mentioned is looking for it with his +6 to Persuasion, hiding it on someone will play to his strengths.
@Skyler It's conservative, sadly - I assumed they still put their best stat in Dex. Those +11s just represent a 14 in Int and Wis, Expertise in Investigation and Perception, and the Observant feat.
Hey @Shalvenay, since you left I was brainstormning some, do you think the pilfering quest above, a tracking quest for a creature contaminating the coliseum facilities, and digging into a substitute PC (currently NPC) is a good triad of things for non-contestants to do?
How can I calculate the probability of being able to purchase a card in my custom die system? has had an interesting life so far:
closed (3 votes, incl. a diamond mod) as unclear
bunch of comments asking for clarification on the die-system being described (now moved to chat)
edits to better exp...
@Adeptus At a certain point, I started to feel like rep is as much a measure of "how often am I around that I happen to be the one to answer some simple question that, bizzarely, gets lots of eyes on it?" as it is of much else.
Personally, I consider posts on this site, as far as rep is concerned, as offerings to a fickle and unpredictable entity. Sometimes it rewards you, sometimes it smites you.
See, the problem with probability questions is that there really isn't any line to be drawn. If this question was asked in a purely mathematical format, it'd surely be off-topic, despite being the same question.
I think, though, that there's a practical point to be made here about this being the best place to ask such questions. We disallowed recommendation questions based on SSD's excellent point that we just don't handle them well, and other places do. But these questions, we handle extremely well, even to the point of having attracted/created experts at answering these specific types of questions.
@BESW Incidentally, I was looking at GOG as a way to introduce my little sister to RPGs, since I'm pretty sure she'd enjoy them greatly if she could get past her inability to take them seriously, but I suspect its mechanical complexity might be a sticking point. Any suggestions for simpler games that have similar lightheartedness?
My first Great Ork Gods game was a raid on a well-defended magical mine, the ork general's strategy was "keep throwing orks at them, eventually we'll win!" and win they did
> Hot Guys Making Out is about the relationship between Honoré, a former nobleman, and Gonsalvo, his ward. They are both totally gorgeous and have the hots for each other. Also pretty often there are other people trying to kill them. It is set in a remote village in the Pyrenees during the Spanish Civil War (1930s) but you don’t have to know anything at all about the history or setting to play. It also includes rules for character creation, in case you would like to make out with other hot guys in other hot settings.
@BESW mind reminding me about what the deal is with the second one on the list? (I recall it being mentioned here before, but can't recall what's up with it)
> IaPP! is a story game for three or more players, one of whom takes the role of the Fairy Godmother (FGM); the others are all pretty princesses. IaPP! is rules-light, easy to learn, quick to play, and family friendly.
unlike "Hot Guys MAking Out", I'm not afraid to google "I'm a pretty princess" :D
though google might remember this search and give me princess-y ads in a month or so
If she winds up wanting something crunchier but still silly and overblown in the Fast & Furious genre, Katanas & Trenchcoats has a Car Wizards expansion.
(You get bonuses for each extra sentence/paragraph/page of ridiculous character backstory you start with.)
I'm starting to get worried, because apparently the 2e books ship country by country yet the people in the major Finnish RPG group on Facebook said they already got theirs. The only sensible reason that doesn't involve our order/package having gone missing I can think of is that they ship 4-packs separately.
One would think that us well-paying four-pack buyers would receive preferential treatment! Angry murmurs.
I'm not really miffed about the delay itself, but Vincent Baker is not communicating about things very well. He's basically logged on on Kickstarter once a month to say "it's delayed, don't worry! It's too soon to worry!" since late last year.
They're the absolute best about setting realistic goals with more than enough buffer room for unexpected complications, AND they communicate regularly and effectively but not annoyingly often.
waiting for compilation and export of our week criminal for work. He set fire to the Factory next to us at 1Am yesterday. So my script is working on every video data that i collect in the neigbour Hood to catch him. We already have his car in the night. So we have to find match in the day to see the registration.
Writing a question about how to die in deadland reloaded
We were trap in a time loop. my char was so choked he instant die again from an hearth attack
So i try to not die again. But all my party was dead so for 2 hours i was trying to survie in a mad world. they were pretty annoy
So my question will be about how to die when the 'my guy' dont want to die, but he is missing his friend but he don't know they are dead so he can't commit suicide.
Gm tryied to kill for 2 hours. I was begging him to kill me. My party was begging me to keep roleplay my character. for the story we were play a french scenari, that is pure Madness. Kids kill they parent the parent was raping the kid. the french cook is a canibal. the sherif is the one that kill the murder we were solving.
So when we ask if he new someone that had a .44 in the city cause the bullet was .44 he told us to wait and killed us. The priest is so mad, he almost bless us with fire. every one in the city is going to go pure Madness. We can have no help and have to find the source of the Madness befor becoming mad our self.
So... every player character is dead except yours, and you want to wrap things up with that character, and the other players are asking you to keep playing that one character?
@kviiri Hm, actually my issue may be that I originally ordered my single softcover with shipping to Germany, but then put a Dutch address in there because I moved in the meantime? Apparently I had forgotten that it said “Germany” and not “EU” or something like that.
So far the only RPG character I've lost was my beloved Texas Ranger in Deadlands: Reloaded. It was a very good death, though.
It was the campaign's final session, we were supposed to defend a village until the Confederate army came to relieve us. My character was killed after bravely holding the position for several rounds.
The rest of the characters got a rather bleak ending too: they were given a short motivational speech in the form of "You've seen and done too much. You're no longer welcome here. Since you helped us, you're free to go - but never show your face around here again, for now, you're outlaws."
@doppelgreener , Yes every one is dead. If I die we all come back to life. they ask me to not try to suicide as I was roleplaying a i need to survie i ready to do what ever it takes to survive.
@Skyler, it's a french but I can translate it into English without risk. as the editor close 4 years ago. Do you want a translation? because we need to finish the script before mj give the script to us. I already took your So Id and put a reminder for this.
@DragandDrop I mean the actual people, not their characters.
So did I get this straight, they want your character to die but at the same time want you to try to keep your character alive as long as possible because "It's what Your Guy Would Do"?
I'm confused why you'd need to go through the hoops of getting your dude killed, when you could just say you're not having fun doing this solo and would like to move on to something that involves the group again.
If that's the case, I think there's some Same Paging to be done with them. I know perspectives differ, but most people I know put the enjoyment of the people around the table before the integrity of the fictional characters they're playing.
I have openned a tiket on our forum about it. Im waiting for some feed back before posting a question here to have some new "blood" in our conversation.
I agree with dopplergreener wholeheartedly. I know it might be hard, but need to demand your GM to change things if your party-turned-solo game is no longer fun for anyone involved.
I am pretty sure, they enjoy seeing me on a hook in a kitchen watching the french chief slicing part of my leg singing Sinatra new York..
Playing 12 games of 3 to 6 hours of Deadland. Game is quite fun but very punnishing. The most important thing for gm is to indroduce the trick part of combat. Because combat are straigth forward but a little too straight forward for new player. if you just go i attakc you Attack you will really soon have all party wiped
We found out, when playing Deadlands:RL with a DnD-background group, that the system isn't really that well suited for "hack-n-slash" style adventuring, yes.
One of our players got hit by a lucky enemy shot and took three wounds instantly, and spent the next two sessions mostly playing Hearthstone on his phone because his rolls had really slim chances of success.
I think if we were to play DL:DR again, we'd have to spend the first session agreeing which of the more simulationist parts of Savage Worlds we want to cut.
Yeah, those would've helped quite a lot. Sadly, I'm the only member of our party who was aware of those tactical options. The rest of the group isn't exactly as keen on rules as I am.
No, not really. Nor do I like having to break out the book and explain the knockout blow table to my fellow players every time it's relevant, because it's not really that intuitive.
I have a friend who's really into Deadlands Classic though. I'd like to try that out sometime but after taking a peek at some of the books I have no idea how it's supposed to work.
This build is not easy to come up with for sure. And you can't talk to people with it. but their is a lot of fun build in dead land. We have a hooker that is really good at insulting people with sarcasm to give malus / bonus on every action. She even engage a fucking stair battle with a were wolf. Insulting him so badly that he ends up with a -4.
So I've got a Night Hag haunting my party, but I am a bit bad at deciding arbitrarily when she finds the party at night to haunt them, so I've been thinking of making a mechanic out of it. The Hag is known to be a persistent, but a fairly lousy tracker, and has to resort to gossip and just random searching to find the party.
So what I thought of is is this: there is a tracker that goes from zero to six. Every time the party takes a long rest, I roll a d6, and if I roll at most the number on the tracker, the Hag tries to haunt them that night. If they sleep during the daytime, I roll twice and keep the lower number.
I'd consider making it a sort of skill challenge. Each night, each player makes a skill check representing their attempt to not leave a trail, opposed by the Hag's skill check to track them. Whichever side gets more successes wins that night.
Whenever the players make a scene somewhere, leverage their reputation or otherwise act visible, the tracker increases by one. Every night, if the hag doesn't haunt the players, the tracker increases by one. If the players travel beyond their current town, they roll 1d6 and subtract the result from the tracker. If the Hag haunts the players and is successful, the tracker is zeroed (she retreats to avoid reprisals), if she is thwarted the tracker is maxed.
Pretty much every D&D-like setting I've ever run has had a rough-and-tumble tavern called The Horned King, and an upscale inn called The [color] Peacock.
(And I had a GM once who always included a bar called The Mummy's Left Nipple.)
@BESW You want me to expand on a random idea, how rude. Let's see. Nightmare PCs exist to be the nightmare that person has that night. They want to become a recurring nightmare and keep existing, but to do that they have to reach their target without spending too much of their power.
@BESW Was there a special bottle in which alcohol was infused with the mummy's nipple?
Is there an English word for a tavern/inn that's situated roughly at the halfway point between two towns?
The Finnish word would literally translate to "Halfway's Inn". I have an inn named that between two major towns, but it's not in the halfway point, but roughly a third from one town to the other. The owner's surname just happens to be Halfway.
generally though we would call it a tavern/inn since the term doesn't care where they're located. it just so happens they are generally in towns because that is where such a business can flourish.
...you start with a number of points in various nightmare themes. Heights, nakedness, spiders, clowns. If there are multiple PCs you are all parts of the same horrifying dream, divide the points between you. Specialise or generalize, your choice. Spend a nightmare point to... use a power associated with it? Something. When you find the target, narrate the dream they have based on what you have left.
@Magician or you are ideas of frightening things, travelling and spreading by people talking about them. you use your powers to make the dream memorable, if done well wake them in sweat
The best tarvern name we cames up with was : The Triple Buse. While buse is the name a buzzard. the expression triple buse in french mean idiot. and in English it's a punny tavern the trip abuse..
@DragandDrop Heh, that's good. The best we've had was probably "The Bouncing Animal" when our DM just couldn't come up with a specific animal to name it with.
I give punny names for everything all the time, even in mostly-serious campaigns. I just find my players like them and also remember them easier than pseudo-elvish.
If the two criminal enforcers are called something like Jonathan and Marcus, my players are sure to forget them instantly, or write them down even if they're pretty unimportant. But if their names are Rough and Tumble, or Higgs and Boson, they're sure to remember them just well!
Would anyone on this chat be capable and willing to answer my 13th Age question? I want to spread the joy of my upvotes.
@tuskiomi The main story is about a group of adventurers who become heroes of the realm by doing good deeds, but they never find their soul mate. Every person they meet either wants to kill them or thinks they are out of their league and cannot imagine a relationship. How can you even think about that when you have a world to save?
@nitsua60, did you add the "Designer Reasons" tag to the armor question by talking to the questioner?
Cause the way I read the unaltered question, his question seems perfectly answered by T.J.L's answer, but with the tag, that's no longer a valid answer.
Even from the question's first introduction, the question included the line: "Has there been any statement from the designers or rules-makers about the decision to omit a stat bump from this feat?" Which, to me, makes that tag appropriate. Beyond that though, if the question isn't explicitly about designer intent, then the question would probably be closed as primarily opinion based.
But in the particular circumstance--oath of the crown--I would have no problem with a GM that said "look, you need to be aware of the paladin's words."
in 3.PF you can hear while sleeping, which also adds the unconscious condition and does not prevent hearing in any way. So, I don't know where this ruling is coming from.
An unconscious creature is incapacitated (see the condition), can’t move or speak, and is unaware of its surroundings The creature drops whatever it’s holding and falls prone. The creature automatically fails Strength and Dexterity saving throws. Attack rolls against the creature have advantage. Any Attack that hits the creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature.
@ShadowKras You've basically been beaten into an unconscious state. While modern medical studies suggest you can hear, D&D 5es "unaware of environment" seems to make suggest that "No, you can't."
@nitsua60 I was also referring more to the original discussion around the Crown Paladin using their ability...which is generally done in the heat of combat? Maybe.
In pathfinder, if you have the sleeping condition, you automatically become unconscious. But things that can affect sleeping creatures will not necessarily affect unconscious creatures, as they are different conditions.
@NautArch To me that one's totally a table-call, and I don't see much to argue either way. "You're only unconscious, you can hear, which is known because I've got an alarm clock, so the ability works." Fine by me. "From the ability it's clear the reason they need to hear is to understand what the Paladin's saying, which you can't while unconscious, so no go." Fine by me, also.
@nitsua60 I'd have no issues with it, either. But I think the intent is that if you're not able to process, you're not getting the boon. At least, that's how it is in my head.
but i've picked out the parts for him (he really doesn't know enough to do that) but I asked him to pick a case.
I did give him some good sites to learn from, but it's pretty daunting. I figured I'll explain it more and how everything works when we put it together (explaining socket size, motherboard sizes, case sizes, ram types, etc. etc.)
How can I calculate the probability of being able to purchase a card in my custom die system? has had an interesting life so far:
closed (3 votes, incl. a diamond mod) as unclear
bunch of comments asking for clarification on the die-system being described (now moved to chat)
edits to better exp...
