TRPG General Chat

Ben

00:14

Gewd morning all

SuperNine09

00:34

good morning

How's your life Ben (been).

Ben

It's Friday, the day is going rather quietly (so far), I have my fortnightly game on tonight, and the world hasn't ended yet.

So it's all coming up well :D

Yourself?

V2Blast

00:59

I'm doing alright. Gradually been catching up on work :)

Ben

"Work" work or "passtime" work?

SuperNine09

I'm doing great.

I'm catching up on "pass time" work. I have a campaign to get ready after all.

Hot RPG Questions

01:48

2

Q: Faking a spell in order to make an enemy caster waste a counterspell

Wizards are smart and sorcerers are cunning, and their power is pretty directly tied to how many spell slots they have remaining. As such, losing one to a counterspell can turn the tides of a battle quickly. Suppose a player wished to force an enemy spellcaster to use a precious counterspell slot...

Ben

@SuperNine09 I'm halfway through planning a holiday one-off and plotting out a larger, more long term campaign as well

TheDragonOfFlame

02:16

So I am prepping for a campaign session, and I am having difficulty coming up with ideas.
The party (recently 10th level) is sailing across the astral sea toward the kingdom of a deity to gain his blessing on their quest so that the Astral monks who sent them to see the god will know that they can be trusted. The god is the deity of True Neutral, as in my world all the gods are gods of one alignment rather than various domains. I am trying to think of some tests or trials that the god can give the characters, preferably not a big quest, or even combat, but some sort of narrative event / puz…

Any thoughts would be helpful and appreciate :)

Ben

Maybe the test is not actually a test, but more of a determination?

So like, "you find yourself in a hallway, and at either end is a room. in one room you find (x) and in the other you find (the opposite of x)"

The players don't have to necessarily figure anything out, just pick

But you don't give them any hints beyond the description. For example, in one room you find a valiant knight, and scripture on the walls speaking of good deeds, at the other end you find a serpent creature, and written on the walls are scratchings of evilness and wrongdoing.

Maybe just to throw a hint in, have something scrawled on the wall in mud or blood or something saying something about a "direction", though that may be a bit too obvious

When they pick a direction - the wall opens up, leading to the next area. Then in this room, have (x) number of flasks (1 for each player) and a rule stating "Only take 1"

Then if you want to go really deep, you can reward the player(s) that ask "why" or "what is the point of all this?" by making them "pop" out of existence; having already passed the test

@TheDragonOfFlame

Ben

03:01

Or regardless of their choices, they then face the god who asks them why they made the decisions they did. The tests themselves are arbitrary; it's the convincing the God themself that is the actual test.

"Convincing"*

[Wisdom save to resist philosophical spiral]

d20

Dice Service

6

Ben

oof...

Andrew Micallef

11:52

morning

Does anyone have any thoughts on how to set up a big bad to appear like a big bad to players but to be kinda a total "sheep" (in the sense of wolf in sheeps clothing, think sheep in wolfs clothing)

Like the dude appears to be this malefacent force of untamed evil, but is through incompetence or some other quirk just unable to live up to his own hype .... but then the people of the town/village/whatever, play into this, because he is scaring off real threats to their safety

maleifcent...

male.withacent

maleiftycent

fiddy

but he really wants you to think he is evil. For whatever reason his entire world would come crashing down if he realised the town he has enslaved are actually keeping him in power through their own collective will. You know, its a kind of emporer with no clothes meets the declaration of independance....

actually that makes me think...maybe his big evil act is to cut the town off from its realm, banishing the power of the local dovinly appointed ruler. Thus creating an independant republic...the peasants realise they can have an easier lifestyle with lower taxes, because the "big bad" has no need for their worthless trinkets...

and then the peasants all make a sport of pretending life is so much worse noe, fanning the ego of the "villain", attracting the attention of local adventurers as an unintended consequence

fuck it, that would be intentional. The big bad needs to show he means business by vanquishing would be "rescuers" of his suffering captives

world building done?

ohhh....maybe the big bad didn't cut ties with the kingdom...maybe he slaughtered all the gods and now the people are burdened with the unbearable weight of moral uncertainty.

Hot RPG Questions

13:12

1

Q: What happens if the specific demon summoned by Summon Greater Demon dies?

So I understand that the way to get a true name of a demon is to charm it, such as with Charm Monster unless you find an ancient scroll. My DM rules that you can't command it to tell you it's true name because it isn't charmed (seems this is controversial, with a ton of people on both sides and t...

dnd-5e spells summoning

Hot RPG Questions

14:28

3

Q: Can I retrain the spells I pick with Greater Crossblooded Evolution during downtime?

Pretty straightforward question--does GCBE give a Sorcerer the ability to retrain and learn any two spells during downtime? If so, how long does it take?

feats pathfinder-2e sorcerer downtime

TheDragonOfFlame

16:06

@AndrewMicallef you could go the rout of the competent Lieutenant. The Big Bad is incompetent, but the players don’t know that. They continually fight his one lieutenant who is always ‘hyping up’ the boss. But when they finally meet the boss, they realize he’s a figure head. And they’ve been after the wrong person this whole time. Queue panic rushing back to where they left the lieutenant… who has now marshalled the army for war.

Joel Harmon

17:08

@AndrewMicallef I feel like the canonical example of over-hype is the Wizard of Oz.

GcL

18:09

I concur the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz is a good template. Better from the book. As for how rulers inflate their perception without actually having done deeds is through bread and circus. If the populate believe the BBEG vanquished dozens of heroes... because there's plays and songs about it... then it's inconsequential if the BBEG actually did or not.

AncientSwordRage

@AndrewMicallef that half feels like something from the mistborn series

GcL

@TheDragonOfFlame Alignment is either a relative trait or a relatively useless one. So, I wouldn't go out of the way to make that a defining feature. A diety of negotiation or balance or something that could be illustrated might be a better choice for defining features to go with.

Joel Harmon

18:36

Consider setting up this deity with goals and limitations. The god of Neutrality can't play favorites and interfere without helping/hindering someone else equally somewhere else, perhaps? He might also actively want to help, but has to put on a show for whatever reason. Or he may legitimately need convincing.

@AncientSwordRage (I'm pretty hyped!)

Andrew Micallef

21:58

@TheDragonOfFlame A good angle. I like.

It also reminds me of the folk tale about how the people of Lübeck tricked the devil into doing the hard work of building their church.

. The devil had seen the people of the town working hard on construction, and asked what they were up to, the people conspired to tell him they where building a brothel. Pleased at the prospect of moral debasment the Devil insisted on hauling masonary to speed up construction. Fortunatley the Devil could not read construction drawings / none where available. When the church is complete the building is sanctified and the devil cant do jack

@JoelHarmon I hadn't thought of the Wizard of Oz. That gives me some material to work with. Is the wizard of Oz making himself appear big and powerfull as a defence mechanism? A bit like a puffer fish or frill neck lizard? Trying to intimidate more powerful rivals from encrouching his territory?

Care to expand? Are there specific elements I could use that the mistborn series does well in this aspect? I really want to lean into the sense that a) the Big Bad percieves himself as a **Bad Guy** and b) the people of the town disagree, and much prefer him to any alternative.

I thought of an agricultural example. Like BBEG is trying to decimate their crops, but has no understanding of how ecological systems work, and repeatedly flooding the pastures just increases their fertility...people are pretending to be mad about it, but actually his evil deeds are actually working out well all thi…

@AncientSwordRage Mistborn seams like a looong slog, is there a character you think of that evokes the trope I am trying to describe?

SuperNine09

22:33

Wow, I've missed a lot since the last time I was on.

SuperNine09

23:22

Also, which one should I get, "Rise of Tiamat" or "Curse of Strahd"?

Thomas Markov

@SuperNine09 Curse of Strahd has some really dark themes. Definitely a “know your players” sort of adventure.

Someone_Evil

Do you have (and are playing/have played) Hoard of the Dragon Queen? (which Rise of Tiamat is the continuance of)

Or more broadly, what are you looking for?

Also, IIRC HotDQ and RoT was republished as one (with some revisions) not too long ago

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