TRPG General Chat

Ben

12:07 AM

@AVeryLargeBear has entered the chat

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A Very Large Bear

@Ben Howdy

Ben

How are you?

@AVeryLargeBear I once saw a guy on xbox live with a similar name - "A Hobo on a Bench". It makes for very humorous tag lines. "A Very Large Bear has assassinated you" - "A Very Large Bear has Sniped you" - "A Very Large Bear is on a killing spree"

hey @Ash :)

Miniman

12:24 AM

@Ben Well, what do you want your Druid to do? If the answer is scribe scrolls/brew potions, then great. If not, pick a feat that lets you do want you want to do.

Ben

I suppose I'm in a position where I really am open to suggestions. My druid is sort of the "buffer" between the other members of the party. We have the Barb (damage dealer), and the Cleric (Healer). I'm liking the scribe scroll/brew potion due to my predicament of having to predict my spell list, and having a limited amount of spells to use. But on the other hand I usually do have issues in combat, particularly with not being able to take/deal damage

KorvinStarmast

2:22 AM

@nitsua60 that's not bad advice for a D&D DM, if we look at the pinned tweat on Mearls' twitter page ..... fits a sandboxy approach as well

nitsua60

2:37 AM

@KorvinStarmast I think the answers to that "how do I railroad them, but I don't want to railroad" question are lacking a good frame challenge: "don't. If your players are game to play the 'rise up against your oppressor' storyline, put the oppression in the past."

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 I guess I need to flesh mine out, but we are about to walk the dogs. But I think you are right.

nitsua60

I don't know if it naturally fits in yours or is a separate answer. Either way I don't feel like writing it =)

Vylix

2:49 AM

hi @nitsua60

nitsua60

Hey, @Vylix

I'm curious why the part of the storyline that's summed up "we're having to do these things we don't like because we're under this guy's thumb" needs to be played out, rather than just being in the characters' pasts when the campaign starts?

Are your players on board with playing "we do bad things for this guy, but some day we'll break free!"?

Vylix

i get what you mean, but I think the answer is "partially", in a sense that I design the campaign premise, but the party will agree whatever I throw at them, "blindly" trusting me to play fair

Shalvenay

hey there @MikeQ

MikeQ

Hello internet friends

Vylix

@nitsua60 that's a good idea, I never thought it that way. It may be a good idea to define the encounter scene a flashback, with a known outcome.

hi!

nitsua60

2:52 AM

I think if it were my group the whole "breaking free of an oppressor" bit would be part of the pitch, and then we'd discuss whether we want to play any of that out or just take it as our play-sessions' premise.

Shalvenay

@MikeQ -- how familiar are you with Dungeon World?

nitsua60

(But my group tends to run that way: a handful of people interested in running games will put together descriptive pitches, we circulate them to the mailing list, and whichever pitch attracts a quorum becomes our next game.)

Vylix

I was thinking about telling them the premise, but I don't want to spoil the plot line :P

MikeQ

@Shalvenay I understand the system premise, I know bits and pieces about the mechanics

nitsua60

@Vylix If you (and the players do want to play it out) I think you're right about bounded accuracy tying your hands a bit.

Resistance to nonmagical damage would be one big deal for L3 party to deal with.

Vylix

2:54 AM

ah, that will be a good idea

nitsua60

But even then the action economy makes it hard for one to stand against five. So give him lieutenants and mooks.

Enough so that if the party starts to carve through them the bigbad can still walk away.

linksassin

@Vylix Nitsua's idea about having it as a fixed cut scene in the past is what I was trying to imply. Establish it as part of the campaign baseline and you don't need to railroad a scene at the table

Vylix

I was thinking of a scene (in initiative, I think), where the villain get refused, then he blinked to the back of the refusing character, "I'm not asking, I'm telling you to."

nitsua60

If it is in the past, depending on the play-group you could even hand a lot of it over to them. Use some story-game's mechanics to let them feed a lot into how the party got under the bigbad's thumb.

linksassin

Immunity to non magic weapon would make it certainly a one sided fight. But I would still fear the party fighting to the death anyway. Which leads to you handwaving why they didn't die

MikeQ

2:58 AM

@nitsua60 I can actually speak to this one - If the intended antagonist hasn't really done much to antagonize the PCs in-game, if you just say "Hey this is the bad guy and you don't like him", it's hard to get the players invested in it

Vylix

@linksassin will definitely be my top consideration

nitsua60

@MikeQ I'm suggesting that the campaign doesn't start unless the players are invested in it. It strikes me as the sort of thing to be bought in to at the pre-campaign, table level rather than trying to ensure that it happens in-game.

MikeQ

@nitsua60 Ah, yes, that's a good point, it may be one of those pitfall that I and other newish GMs tend to fall into, where it's a storytelling device that works in other media but translates poorly to TTRPG format

Vylix

@linksassin now I'm thinking to use some kind of "hold person" to hold them in place, then critting them one by one, until the last of them agree to do it :)

linksassin

@Vylix I don't think your players would take that well

BESW

3:00 AM

In a Fate-style game, part of character creation would have players writing a short, pithy phrase about their relationship with the villain.

linksassin

I know I wouldn't if they happened to me at a table

nitsua60

@MikeQ (It's like when we started our ToA and had the explicit expectation set "this is going to be an Exploring Chult game." You-all are free to wander around Chult all you want, but if you want to hop the next ship out of Port N back to Baldur's Gate, thassfine. But it does mean that the game I was running is over.)

@Vylix (This sounds like the exact opposite of what I was talking about. That's okay, I just want to be clear I wasn't suggesting this.)

MikeQ

@nitsua60 In other media, a common trope is to introduce the antagonist during the story, not at the beginning. Strong first impression and such.

nitsua60

But I don't know the players at all. @Vylix what other sorts of campaign-starts have gone well or poorly for this group? What different games have you-all played together?

BESW

Yeah, basically what we're saying here is that you can't use in-game mechanics to force table-level behavior. If you want the players to buy into your story conceit, you need to pitch it to the players and not their characters.

Vylix

3:03 AM

@nitsua60 do you think if I asked them "what do you feel if I do this" to your characters in session 0, it might be tolerable?

nitsua60

@BESW I'd substitute "need" for "want" in that second sentence. (I.e. if you just "want" them to follow one line, but they don't, that might be managable. But if you "need" them to, be up front about that.)

@Vylix I'd be interested in hearing more about you and your players' past exploits before venturing a guess on that.

linksassin

@Vylix I'd suggest that would be the bare minimum you need to do if you really wanted to do this

BESW

@nitsua60 No amount of in-game coersion of characters will keep players from walking away from the table if it's a game they don't want to play.

Vylix

@nitsua60 we only have one campaign before. Our campaign starts as a sandbox with them being nobody and quickly rise to be one of the leading guild in a country

MikeQ

The trope of "have the antagonist make a big establishing entrance while the protagonist watches helplessly" scene does not work well in TTRPGs like D&D where the assumption is that players can interact with whatever is taking place in the scene

5

I am saying this because others have faced this issue, and because I have tried it too many times in my own games. It. Never. Works.

nitsua60

3:06 AM

@MikeQ Never mind that you won't even get through your box-text describing the villain's outfit before the players start interrupting =)

MikeQ

Trying to pull in the in-game combat mechanics to simulate a cutscene is just going to make the mess muddier

My suggestion is to drop the assumption that you need to establish the villain this way

nitsua60

@Vylix here's an example of the sort of thing my group uses--it's a pitch for a game from a while back:

A D&D5e adventure for 4-6 players set in the middle of an all-out Dwarf-Orc war. Attacking from deep in the Kholulir Mountains, a seemingly-endless invasion of orcs looks poised, three years into the conflict, to push the Khagulihr Dwarves from their ancestral mines and forges and caves and valley-farms. We will play weekly sessions in Kent, intending to continue on Wednesday evenings when the 18-19 academic year starts. (Though this adventure is likely only a short one, meant for a half-dozen or dozen sessions at most.)

linksassin

Matt Coville has an excellent video on establishing your villain. Running the Bad Guys check particularly for the section on Kaleral the Vile

nitsua60

Note it clearly establishes some things: you will be a rag-tag unit, and you will be sent on missions, and you'll be dwarves fighting orcs.
Thus when we plop down the map with notations for the orc units that need scouting, anybody who'd rather spend their time trying to track down the hoard of the dragon they saw fly overhead last week can know that's not part of the game.

BESW

@nitsua60 This is a strategy I starting using early in my time as a GM, and more recently I involve the rest of the group in designing the pitch.

But yeah, it's super helpful to have that kind of "this is what your characters' [goals/motives/alliances] have to be in order to tell this kind of story" thing set down right away, rather than attempting to push the players' differing ideas about the game toward my idea once we're in play.

nitsua60

3:18 AM

Our challenge is that we don't have a solid group: it's not six people meeting on Tuesdays who can take some time to design a game together, it's twenty people who like to relax and play RPGs all with kids and insane schedules. So we do the pitch-and-sign-up thing.
But maybe I've been thinking about it the wrong way. Maybe it needs to be that: six people regularly coming together, and the game(s) can grow out of that. If we can't make the first happen, maybe the second isn't worth it?
(Except is it--we have had fun playing together. Grr... people are hard.)

BESW

Maybe switch from prep-and-pitch to using systems that require little/no prep and can be run for whoever shows up.

It means not getting long-form campaign stories, but it allows you to still play RPGs with whoever comes.

nitsua60

@Vylix your campaign's premise reminds me of the beginning phase of the game Kingdom Death: Monster. If you have a chance to play it, I highly recommend it. It does an amazing job of establishing "horrible things are happening, many will die before ever making it to safety, those few of you who survive must band together to get free of this darkness...."

linksassin

I've just started playing in a West Marches group with the exact premise of episodic campaigns with a central set of characters

Vylix

@linksassin will check it later, thanks!

linksassin

With a rotating DM and player group of nearly 20 people

Its great for when you have lots of people that want to play but struggle to find regular schedules

Previously we have 3 separate groups but they all struggled to maintain campaigns for very long.

Vylix

3:29 AM

@nitsua60 twenty on a single session? :o or a pool of 20?

nitsua60

@Vylix Pool of twenty =)

linksassin

pool of 20 surely.

nitsua60

(I think the largest session I've run is 14 or 15.)

linksassin

I did once run a one shot for my partners birthday with 26 players

A had a co-dm for the night though and simplified the rules

Vylix

@linksassin might be a good idea for an Epic play

if it can be known before there will be 20+ coming

BESW

3:32 AM

I think the most players I've ever run for at a single table was nine, and that was with Roll For Shoes.

nitsua60

@BESW (Though I wonder if organizing a duplicate bridge night counts? In that case, I've run for 32.)

Shalvenay

3:45 AM

hey there @linksassin

linksassin

@Shalvenay hello

Shalvenay

how're things going?

linksassin

alright, is there something I can do for you?

Shalvenay

pondering DW campaign fronts and what a city'd do with an entire tribe of Orc refugees (blame the human idiots who thought trying to break illithids to their will was a good idea.)

you wouldn't happen to be familiar with Dungeon World I take it?

linksassin

Unfortunately no. Most of my experience is Pathfinder and 5e. Though I have played a few other systems DW isn't one of them

But always happy to talk campaign idea, just don't know the system.

BESW

3:52 AM

An orc refugee storyline doesn't seem like it'd match up well with DW's move set.

Shalvenay

@linksassin ah. I've played DW but never run it myself, am working on the genesis of a DW campaign but need someone to sanity-check the campaign front furball I've been cooking up

@BESW yeah, the orc refugees are from something else :P

Vylix

@linksassin that's a good point on the "replacing Drow High Magic feat spells". I missed the lost of "cast without spell slot"

linksassin

@Shalvenay we can help you come up with a Stack worthy question if you want? Then the DW experts on the site can weigh in

Shalvenay

@linksassin it's a bit more back-and-forth/idea-brainstormy than would befit a Stack question I reckon

linksassin

@Vylix No problem.

@Shalvenay Is your problem related to the rule system or plot creation? I know DW has some very particular rules about what the DM can do so am hesitant to give advice on a system I don't know. But can maybe provide a sounding board for story ideas

Shalvenay

4:03 AM

@linksassin it's kind of about how the story I am thinking of would fit into the DW campaign fronts system, and whether it'd be overwhelming or problematic in how it uses some of the functionality there

linksassin

@Shalvenay Yeah I'm definitely unqualified to help with that. But it doesn't necessarily mean it isn't a stack worth question. Even if it needs to be split across multiple questions.

See How to write a good homebrew review question for some ideas

If you can present what you have done and what you want to achieve and where you think the problems are you may get some help.

Shalvenay

@linksassin yeah, I'm also running it for some Stackizens so don't want to tip my hand too far ahead of time, as to not get them excited about something that won't have a chance to appear at the table

linksassin

@Shalvenay ah, that problem. My friend and I are dealing with that. We both run games the other plays in and can't really talk about stuff.

here's a list of other forums you could try if you need to stay clear of stack. rpg.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5449/…

Shalvenay

@linksassin yeah, it'll probably suffice if I can find someone else experienced in DW I can pull aside into a spoil-lair or the likes :)

linksassin

Here's the top DW users on the site: rpg.stackexchange.com/tags/dungeon-world/topusers

Shalvenay

4:11 AM

nods that gives me an idea as to someone I can ask here on Stack-chat actually :) so that's good

Joel Harmon

4:25 AM

@nitsua60 I have a local group of about 15 people. Our general rule of thumb is when there are pitches for 5 games, we'll organize 2-3 hours on a weekend afternoon to pitch in person. This is surprisingly effective at incentivizing people to get pitches together. Typically the interested players will talk to the DM and schedule something via Doodle.

It's worked very well for oneshots and shorter games. I think only one sizable campaign came out of it, but there was enough interest that it got twinned and the DM just ran it twice in parallel.

kviiri

8:19 AM

@Shalvenay The main issue is, one of the big principles in Dungeon World is that everyone including the GM plays to find out what happens. Trying to fit a story you already have into fronts contradicts that idea.

That said, I don't mean to say I advocate a dogmatic approach on this. You can of course try to run a game based on a story you have in Dungeon World, and it might work out. You'd best be very open to your players that you're going to be taking a risk and subverting a large part of the system, so it might play out different than they're used to, and you might not get the full potential of the system.

So basically, you can try but should expect trouble, as is usual whenever you're subverting core pieces of design of the system you're using.

The Oracle

11:17 AM

0

Q: My question was edited and now it looks like that the answer is in the question

I posted this question a few weeks ago: Do monks have a gempukku ceremony? As you can see, the second quote in this question seems to answer the question. If you look at the edit history, you can see that I didn't actually posted this quote, it was added during an edit. This quote is very rele...

discussion

kviiri

11:49 AM

3

Q: How can I rig a game where dice will always roll poorly?

I'm planning an encounter with the owner of a hotel casino who loads his dice, and for this encounter only I want my players to use special dice to roll poorly. If there is no website to purchase these from or a method to load my own dice, does anyone have an alternative suggestion to make this e...

pathfinder encounter-design loaded-dice

^ that seems to be degenerating into random pile of ideas fast

Joel Harmon

12:28 PM

@kviiri I've asked for more specific clarification, which I hope will help this new contributor.

kviiri

@JoelHarmon Cheers!

I think that's not a bad question, necessarily. The area of "tweaking your randomness" interests me

Joel Harmon

I agree. But I think it's important to know stuff I asked about. One option is 5e-style disadvantage; roll multiple die and take the worst. Easily expanded to hurt more by increasing N, but it's pretty obvious to the players what's going on (which may or may not be an issue). The DM could also use a varying size die to subtract from every roll, but the math may be off-putting and the players will also catch on to a counter-roll.

kviiri

@JoelHarmon Yeah. My first impression was that the querent wants actual dice, as a sort of verisimilitude and possibly player puzzle thing

Joel Harmon

@kviiri Sure. But I would immediately expect shenanigans if I walked into a game and the DM insisted we all use his dice.

kviiri

@JoelHarmon Yea! It's something I'm not really personally a fan of, on many layers... but I guess some people like it

Joel Harmon

12:36 PM

@kviiri Which is why I asked, rather than assuming.

kviiri

I mean, it could be a gimmick oneshot or somesuch. That opens up a lot of conceptual space

@JoelHarmon Yea

Joel Harmon

Definitely gimmicky, which gets into to what degree the DM is adversarial to the players and/or the characters.

kviiri

What's up, otherwise?

Good games brewing?

Shalvenay

hey there @kviiri and @JoelHarmon

Joel Harmon

@kviiri Nothing at all outside my own ideas to start a game.

Life's just been very busy, and the site fell off my radar for a month or two.

@Shalvenay hey there @Shalvenay

Ok, gotta run. Later, gents!

Shalvenay

12:44 PM

@kviiri in regard to your comment -- I don't have a predetermined story as to what will happen going forward, the idea is the party figures it out ;) they're contestants in a giant geopolitical Iron Chef with the various factions as ingredients as they try to sort through the furball in search of a path forward

when I said "story" there, I'm talking about the backstory, what happened before the campaign actually starts

kviiri

Ah ok, that's different then :)

We're gonna have a "season premiere" meetup this Friday with my RPG group

Like a session zero for the entire year

Supplementary, not substitutional

nitsua60

1:44 PM

@JoelHarmon That's interesting--might have to try that next time.

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