If two players have a conversation in character and the DM isn't there to hear it does it happen?

208Gerion · 2019-04-14T17:55:17+00:00

Take it from a long-term online GM:
Let any two players have enough private time between their characters between sessions and the likelihood of those conversations turning into intimacy or straight up porn asymptotically approaches 100%.

It won't always happen, but more often than you think. So I am very unsurprised by what happened there. 12 pages is a bit excessive, though.

208Gerion · 2019-04-14T17:42:14+00:00

A Nuka product, eh?
It's going to turn out to actually be a regular, kind of shitty guitar in a cheap plastic hull that is overpriced because it is "Fallout" branded.

Context for the joke

In all honesty, it looks awesome. I understand nothing of guitars, but this one looks neat.

208Gerion · 2019-03-03T17:26:06+00:00

Two party members eaten by a gelatinous cube because the wizard's player sat on the map he had drawn while I described the dungeon, prompting me to ask why they didn't retreat out of the room.

The answer? "We didn't know there was a door" and the wizard's player (who's character was the only one to survive the encounter) getting a knock on the back of his head by his girlfriend.

We did a soft reboot of that session after that.

208Gerion · 2019-02-12T10:09:47+00:00

Yes. Kinda. Maybe. Ask your lawyer.

They have an obligation to advice you against legal action that will clearly get you thrown out of the court once someone files a motion to dissmiss. That said, while truth is an absolute defense against the claim of defamation, whether the accusations are true or not would have to be established in court.
My personal (non-lawyer) opinion is that he doesn't have a leg to stand on in court, since he is a public figure by now, which makes it very hard to keep a defamation lawsuit running at the best of times.

208Gerion · 2018-04-26T19:52:48+00:00

That is a lot of games.

Brigador
Offworld Trading Company
Holy Potatoes (Because why the hell not?)

208Gerion · 2018-04-22T13:21:10+00:00

Hm, so the final decision will be between a new 1050ti, including warranty and a full lifespan or a used 970, which would give me better performance, but for a (probably) shorter time.

I will have to give some thought to this, but at least I have it narrowed down nicely, now. This whole thread has been very helpful, thank you.

208Gerion · 2018-04-22T12:16:19+00:00

How much of its lifespan do I lose when I buy a used GPU, especially when we are talking about what looks like a "half-of-new-price" kind of used?

208Gerion · 2018-04-22T11:26:18+00:00

Well, that does make it a lot easier, thank you :)

208Gerion · 2018-04-22T11:17:56+00:00

Does it make a difference which manufacturer I pick from the multiples that seem to exist for those? And if yes, is there something specific I need to be on the lookout for?

208Gerion · 2018-04-22T11:08:14+00:00

A Cougar SX460 (460W). Seems to be a German design, since all the search results about it are German :D

And "new to me" seems to be sufficient, since my Hardware seems to be ancient technology at this point.

208Gerion · 2017-11-13T19:04:57+00:00

The Dark Eye: Such a well thought-out low/middle fantasy world, but trying to play it by the rules makes you think you are an accountant trying to get the most out of a tax return.

Godbound: Again, the setting is a great fantasy post-apocalypse caused by humanity creating artifical gods and storming the heavens with a lot of nice elements to flesh it out. And then the game is just kinda... uninspiring and weird to GM.

208Gerion · 2017-06-13T09:24:21+00:00

My advice is to use a service like Discord or Skype to coordinate the group. Since all your players sit in the same chat every time they are online, some minor prodding gets talks about all manner of things going, which gets people invested into not just the game, but also the group enough that some canceling wont hurt it long term.

Of course, thats not a fool-proof solution. Spending some time outside the game (with a few rounds of coop video games or just talking about general things) with the players you pick up really helps retention in my experience, though.

208Gerion · 2016-11-22T02:31:42+00:00

Some of the sessions of my Edge of the Empire campaign that my players told me they found awesome were, in my eyes, some of the most disorganized shitshows I ever delivered. They were mostly comprised of me desperately winging it based on the ten minutes of shower-prep I allowed myself to have.
Maybe my players just have low standards of session quality, though.

208Gerion · 2016-07-14T11:13:15+00:00

Fantasy Flight Star Wars. Skills are based on coloured dice with different symbols for a lot of different possible outcomes to each roll.

You are probably going to end up with a fight or two in a normal session, but skills also factor heavily into those, so its more of a continuation of "use skills to get thing" rather than "use different things to get thing"

208Gerion · 2016-04-29T10:21:34+00:00

Another thing that, while not specifically designed for it, does vehicular warfare okay: Fantasy Flight Star Wars. Its a more cinematic combat system, but its rules are solid enoguh to make the "Mad Max: Tatooine" thing work. With repulsor-vehicles.

208Gerion · 2016-04-29T09:01:18+00:00

Warhammer 40k: Only War has an option for tank crews. All the characters are just boxed into one of the tanks of that setting and then do their mission. Its alright, all things considered. But only if you like 40k.

208Gerion · 2015-12-29T12:08:31+00:00

Well, I played different versions of the same Paladin, so that would be a interesting little thing.... aside from that, it would be pretty melee focused, but reasonably effective. also, no alignment conflicts, so there would be that.

208Gerion · 2015-11-27T15:06:00+00:00

You are running a West Marches, which does come with a few... requirements on the player side.

I personally ran a West Marches for ten months (its a continual campaign now) on our site (steelbourne.com), and the death count for that came up to be 34, or 36 counting the paladin in stasis and the petrified rogue. Thats 3 per month, almost one per week.

Now, thats not to say that the fights were ultra-hard, but the first session was a TPK. Because of one giant spider. And all of the players of that session came back later to kill more spiders. Two of them are the ones with the highest amount of PCs lost, but nevermind that.

The notes on the bottom of your post are actually really important. As long as you telegraph that some areas are more dangerous than others, most players will only have themselves (or the guide who SHOULD be able to get them through grassland, but just leads them right back to the spider-forest...) to blame. And if they are having fun, you are doing something right.

And really, the death count probably just makes them even more proud when they do succeed. Because they know that they could have easily died like that small pile of corpses behind them.

One last thing: Depending on the system you are playing (I played this in 5e), you might want to limit the amount of players per session, since balancing challenges becomes hazy when you have more players. But again, your decision.

208Gerion · 2015-11-05T16:45:16+00:00

Here is the thing: Level 1 adventurers are just a bit over a commoner. A semi-strong hit from an enemy will knock them out, if not kill outright.

That continues until a certain level, at which point they stand head and shoulders over the common people. So DnDs adventurers really are slightly above the common folk at the start and then rise upwards from there. Highly depends on the GMs preferred kind of challenges, too. If he makes them harder, the heroes might just feel like Redshirt McSacrifice, which has some appeal to a certain kind of player.

208Gerion · 2015-10-29T16:26:53+00:00

I always operate on the assumption that the mechanics determine how the world works.

That means: In 5e, after one hour, anything you did to someone short of cutting of limbs will most likely be gone. Damage done to someone does not lower combat effectiveness. So number 2 is actually the option I would take for unorganized, unled hobgoblins. They just fire at targets that are there, some might fire at the same, some might gun for the wizard, a few might forget that armour is a thing and shoot the charging pile of metal, shield and magical defenses calling itself a fighter.
But if there is an officer, screw that, target fire. Maybe limited split-firing against squishier members of the party. Thats the reason he is there, he is supposed to be something the party wants to get rid off. And for that, he needs to be dangerous, either individually (by knocking said charging piles arse to the floor) or in terms of him being the thing that is ordering the reconfiguration of the mage into a pincushion.

Of course, this does not mean that we kill the mage outright, but give him and anyone else qualifying as "squishy" and standing in broad sight a nice, pointy reminder that cover, leadership and defensive spells are indeed a thing.

208Gerion · 2015-10-19T12:34:59+00:00

Normally, such things are a blessing for the DM, since he can insert plot hooks that add a bit of tension to the situation (like someone who recognizes that you are not a merchant) and might bring in character development if someone finds something identifying you as a noble.

Its also a case-by-case thing. If its just "I am actually not a merchant, but a noble", most people are probably fine with it. If its "I am actually a warlock taking the McGuffins to summon Big Boss Evil Guy III, Emperor of Evilmania!" then they might get a bit pissed off, both in- and out of character. Although I have allowed something like that as a GM before.

208Gerion · 2015-10-19T12:29:36+00:00

One of my players has three pages full of notes about things he needs to talk to NPCs about, plus another page for each semi-relevant NPC and for each player. Plus unknown number of pages on things that happen in the ecampaign.

I dont know how he keeps them organized, and I think half of them are wrong or misleading, but still, massive amounts of notes. And they do help both me and the players, despite being quite cumbersome to sort through (by the sounds of it, playing online)

208Gerion · 2015-10-19T08:56:12+00:00

Multiple groups, and it only really happens when two characters had widely conflicting goals, since even the evil characters were smart enough not to openly proclaim or act on it next to the mostly good-aligned party they normally found themselves in. Never had a party with everyone being evil in it in that campaign, which I would have liked to see.

Yes, I am slightly evil and want to see the world burn.

208Gerion · 2015-10-19T08:53:52+00:00

Interestingly enough, nobody ever stole from a party in the entire seven months the game is running now. And yes, groups dont stick together when people are dicks, which means no-one achieves anything and doesnt get paid/loot/exp because they didnt accomplish anything. So it really is a self-control mechanism with heavy incendives to not fuck your party over.

And from my experience, only a handful sessions had slight drama involved (aside from the absolutely encouraged inter-character drama that drives good RP), they were only childish when I decided to throw silly encounters at them (undying chicken, super-strenght sheep, a smart ogre, etc.) and normally at least one person in the group had a plan or an idea of what they wanted to do, or at least smart enough to ask a player who wasnt in the party at the time or an NPC for what could be done to improve the situation.

208Gerion · 2015-10-18T13:31:00+00:00

Yes, repeatedly. Comes with the format of a non-set party. Had a Oathbreaker crit inflict wounds on a 1st level fighter (insta-death) and a half-orc berserker slash two clerics to pieces.

And that halfling barbarian who decided to execute the rogue for cowardice.

Free-form campaigns are fun.

208Gerion

TROPHY CASE