@BESW We used tabletop simulator, for obvious reasons. And I doubt their suggestions would work well unless you already use technology at the table. Printed cards would be fine, I reckon.
Or, er. The Red Mist? That's... unfamiliar, actually. I'm slightly confused.
@Shalvenay Hiya. Second the "nice answer" from above. And I'd say anything that starts with "Slow down there, WotC" in big letters is probably pretty good upvote-bait =)
Just saw the inside cover of ToA--very excited to see my name in print =) (I wonder if this means that they appreciated some suggestion of mine, where in previous products where my name didn't appear, they haven't?)
@Miniman Thanks! It's also cool to see everyone else in my "Monday group" named there--we really cranked to try to put it through its paces. I feel bad, though--these last few weeks I've found many more things I'd have given as feedback, going through it with GM-hat on rather than just playing it.
@Magician Yeah, it's the Cthulhu Confidential adventure you can download from the pelgrane website; the book recommends it as shorter and simpler than the ones in the manual.
Just finished the first really successful twosie with Trogdor; we've always had trouble gaming when it's just the two of us, but the Gumshoe One-2-One system seems to be a solution. Now I have to hack it for non-horror.
Players are starting to realize the supposed "magic is running out" story they've all grown up with might not be true after all and that the queen might not be who they think she is. Mystery is an addiction to me.
That's interesting, I've always had trouble with twosies as well. I generally prefer at least 3 players to have a proper group dynamic.
I've done twosies okay-to-awesome with some people, and others (like Troggy) even though we work together great in larger groups we just fall apart in twosies.
Gumshoe One-2-One gives structure and guidance that really helps shore up the places we're lacking.
The Gumshoe assumption that you're always working on solving a mystery helps.
But it's also got stuff like, you don't die in the middle of a case.
With a larger group, mid-adventure death is a hiccough. In a twosie.... well. If you get shot, you're bleeding for the rest of the case and if you ignore it completely you'll probably die after you finish the case.
And it has the usual Gumshoe awesomeness of "you never risk missing a clue, so long as you're looking in the right place." So you're never bogged down in "I don't know what to do next" because you're solving a mystery and you have leads to follow.
I always have a few obvious clues for that and then reward them if they find or make up some other clues.
Letting the players make up some of the story was a big challenge for me to overcome, but it leads to much better situations I think, because the players are really satisfied that they figured it out.
In Gumshoe, red herrings and useful clues are given equal precedence, but you can spend pushes (kinda like fate points) to get extra stuff--like the difference between "I know he's lying" and "I know why he's lying" or "I know who has that book" vs "the person who has that book likes me."
One-2-One can get a little CYOA if you play it with pre-made adventures, but once I start writing my own mysteries it'll get a lot looser, I hope.
I can relate to that. I've never been comfortable with premade adventures. I need the freedom of my own stories. I draw a lot of inspiration from premades though.
But that's just my idea; I gotta work with Troggy to get something we both want to spend time in.
I'm not sure exactly why, but it also got us into some RP spaces that we haven't occupied for a while. Some extended dialog-for-its-own-sake moments, in particular, with me mugging some exaggerated characters.
Probably in large part it's just that it's harder to do that with one person attending by Skype, like many of our games have lately.
@BESW I mean, you don't haaaave to, I enjoyed it as it was, but I definitely understand wanting to be able to do something else with it too
like how I want to run the Golden Sky Strories pre made "break into this game for the first time" adventure, but after that I probably want to put my own characters/spin/prep into any possible future games of it I might get the chance to run
5e question; can a character have a magic shield and benefit from it's magical effect but not it's use as a shield when they do not have shield proficiency?
@Clarus_Nox Looks like the answer aligns with your question.
@SevenSidedDie I'd like to be helpful on that souls / curses / blessings thing but I was on early and this morning has been a bit hectic. Can you retrieve my comment and post it here? I may be able to expand on it slightly as you requested in the comment.
@T.J.L. that was not available on the official MS download page for IE - and I guess I downloaded a virus from soe other site instead, since the installer I tried is stuck at "can't delete, this file used by another application" even after restarting. Derp.
> […] Since you are creating the system, blessings and curses act in whatever way you choose for them to act, as it's your system. You appear to be asking a system design or game design question, with some "compare one system to the other" elements for a particular facet of your game idea. Since this isn't specific to D&D 5e, I have removed that tag and added the game design tag.
