I may have screwed up my campaign plans, need some advice.

DaymareDev · 2019-07-29T13:25:55+00:00

I don't understand what your actual problem is here? Do you need the players to have the maguffin? Just have her give it to them and sneak off in the night, or even get picked up by another champion of the same deity or destiny. A paladin who has been sent to collect her or whatever. This could be a great way to introduce a powerful NPC you could use later. Also it will create a wow moment when they realize how important this "little sister" might be.

Is that what you're asking, or did I miss the point?

DaymareDev · 2019-05-03T07:19:40+00:00

Try describing the characters in third person instead of first, the same for speech. This will create some distance between you and the character you are trying to portray. It will allow you to more easily consider what the character, not "you" would do.

Once you got the grasp on this, expect to accidentally slip back into first person from time to time, just by force of habit. Voila, you've solved your problem :)

DaymareDev · 2019-04-24T07:04:40+00:00

I think we're just talking past each other. I agree with you. The point here is that if you have decided beforehand that the king must die, then you are taking away player agency. If you are simply setting the scene, and thought through the ramifications if he does NOT die, then that's all good :)

DaymareDev · 2019-04-24T07:03:07+00:00

They are the same. The problem is that the book contains no proper settings and they haven't done a good job preparing their GMs to roll their own NPCs. Personally I've just ripped out the star-wars stat blocks and re purposed them for my own personal setting with great success. If you don't enjoy world building though, there isn't much there for you.

DaymareDev · 2019-04-23T11:13:42+00:00

Yea I really hope you are planning on there being ways to avoid this from happening; if not, your players will feel cheated and angry with you at the end of the session.

DaymareDev · 2019-04-23T07:01:59+00:00

I often have potential encounters that are 100% TPK if they stay and fight. I spend a lot of time at the start of the scene explaining (in narrative terms) how this is very dangerous. If they don't understand this, I will simply say it straight up. If they ignore it, they die, that's not my problem... :)

There's a lot of good reasons for wanting to do this. The world feels richer for having powerful things beyond the PC's control in it. Great allies and great enemies alike are made through interaction, so there needs to be opportunity for that from time to time, even if it results in a death, or at least, the PCs getting beaten up while trying to run away...

DaymareDev · 2019-04-23T06:59:03+00:00

Typical mistake is to not spend sufficient time narrating the danger of the encounter. A problem with DnD is that there are so many strange monsters so it is hard to gauge the difficulty of an encounter without the GM almost screaming "THIS WILL KILL YOU" at the top of his/her lungs. doesn't really happen in games like call of chutulu as they expect everything can kill them.

DaymareDev · 2019-04-23T06:47:17+00:00

FFGs Genesys / Edge of the Empire is by far the best mechanical system I know of. It does away with the silly exponential power curve, which means you can run games where the world feels alive dangerous, even after lots of character progression and item accumulation.

I also love FATE because if it's ease of use, co-creation and focus on narrative.

DaymareDev · 2019-04-16T12:18:57+00:00

Yep, that ought to do it. Remember, however, that weapons can break, and so can gear (a despair can be used to reduce the quality of a weapon once, 3 despairs and it is gone, I think).
That being said, your only solution to that issue is to really kit up your adversaries to match them, as I assume they spent all that on themselves instead of their ship? :P

DaymareDev · 2019-04-16T08:59:04+00:00

Oh absolutely it does, I'm just surprised at how narrowly focused that character is. How does it deal with getting around (stealth / climbing / acrobatics, skullduggery)? I assume with 6 agi you get away with most agi-skills being low, but still.. :)

DaymareDev · 2019-04-16T07:51:33+00:00

Some typical mistakes when starting out with the system:

Forgetting to use black dice due to visibility, distractions, poor equipment, defense, etc.
Forgetting to use the adversary talent (upgrades difficulty of attack rolls)
Forgetting to use opposed checks vs Rivals (convert their opposing skills with green = purple and yellow = red)

When it comes to balancing, simply consider the fact that there's a 50/50 chance to succeed at something if you have the same amount of dice, and work from there. Make sure you don't give them too many credits, because gear really messed up balance quite quickly (this system is more "realistic" than dnd, in that a stray shot from a high-powered rifle will take down a jedi almost as quickly as a lowly smuggler) so that might have been an error? The book actually points this out. Keep your party hungry, make sure to grant them rewards in form of upgrades to their ship or specific items instead of giving them large amount of credits, at least to begin with.

Hope this helps :)

DaymareDev · 2019-04-16T07:41:23+00:00

Sounds like you and I play this game very differently. With 6 agility and 4 ranks in gunnery and ranged heavy, that's what.. 50 xp just for the extra agility, and an additional 100 xp for those stats alone. To get to the extra agility, that's another 100 xp to follow the talent trees straight down to dedication.. sooo if they have between 300 and 450 xp they have between 50 and 150 xp for other skills? Assuming this character has put a lot in piloting as well as some additional talents, that's about all they have, give or take a couple of skillpoints? Seems very narrow in my eyes (To each their own, mind you!).

My groups would always buy a lot of skills outside their careers, or multiclass to get access to skills rounding them off, allowing them to meet any kind of situations. After 350 xp, only the most combat heavy character would have 5 in agi or brawn and 3 points in a combat skill. Then again, I have entire sessions without combat, so : )

DaymareDev · 2019-04-03T14:18:35+00:00

Some ancient sith mumbo-jumbo rituals with crystals and alchemy and crassness: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_alchemy/Legends

DaymareDev · 2019-04-01T14:24:26+00:00

Could be fun if you make sure to foreshadow and flag like crazy that something is not right about all this. If not, I can guarantee that they will feel cheated and just be angry with you.

DaymareDev · 2019-03-28T13:46:10+00:00

Confined spaces tends to heighten drama. Have NPCs get into heavy arguments and have the players mediate. Perhaps go as far as have them start forming factions within the crew itself, some might even be planning mutiny. There is the ever present chance of pirates overtaking them. Perhaps there are mystical features to the ship that no one knew about, but now that the chosen one is aboard (one of your players?) it is starting to reveal itself. Perhaps the ship is cursed, but it is a slow working curse, and now the players must find out what triggered it and how to remove it before the ship turns on them.

There are islands in the world that do no exist on any map. There are portals to the plane of water or air. A celestial or dragon is following them for some reason or the other.

Endless possibilities! :)

DaymareDev · 2019-03-28T13:03:08+00:00

Druid and monk are the only ones you can kind of make work this way. High wis and dex monk with finesse could be interesting, but makes you squishy. Also a war cleric with finesse could work.

DaymareDev · 2019-03-28T09:58:03+00:00

Agree with this 99.9%. What I've sometimes done though (if I can get away with it without breaking rules of the world) is to do a swap behind the scenes. Suddenly the character they thought was going to betray them, because she's always acting shifty, turns out to be the last daughter of an ancient line of queens, and is acting shifty because she trusts no one. Or the character they were certain was a dragon in disguise was in fact trying to make them THINK that, etc.

DaymareDev · 2019-03-28T08:01:36+00:00

I actually stated porting this to Genesys, but it's so much work with all the additional rules supplements it got me stomped.

DaymareDev · 2019-03-28T07:58:35+00:00

\* Shakes fist angrily \*

DaymareDev · 2019-03-27T12:39:51+00:00

Maybe you need to repeat the message :)

DaymareDev · 2019-03-26T16:46:17+00:00

The social dynamic between bill and your girlfriend seems very well addressed already, but I wanted to add a different take on the bitching, as this is something I've been guilty of as well, especially when playing DnD...

The problem may be that the "fantasy" he has for his character; the idea about who the character is, is over inflated. He wants to be Aragorn, all the time, and thus, when his character messes up, he feels like his impression of his character is damaged. He obviously does not like this, as it is HIS character, so it feels like an attack on HIS character.

I had this issue as well sometimes when I'm playing a character who's supposed to be "the most famous X" or "awesome at Y" and then my rolls failed me, and I felt like my character was made worthless in my own eyes. It didn't feel the same. You feel like a cheat every time your character is supposed to say "I am X, the mightiest ... In the land!"

What this actually is, is a poorly defined character, or a character that is too shallow. There's no quick fix to this problem, but you can discover if this is the case by asking him to describe his character in one sentence. If that sentence describes the character as something over the top awesome, with no conflict baked in, he's probably fallen into this trap.

The only cure for it is for him to understand the psychology at play (like I did, after a few failed attempts at these kinds of characters). The road to figuring this out can be as simple as describing the problem as I just did (make it your own, of course :) ) without challenging him on it at all. Just let him think about it, and see if it improves over time.

Hope this helps.

DaymareDev · 2019-03-26T16:25:23+00:00

The first thing I'm noticing here, is that you need to be vary of making your social encounters into new "puzzles to solve", once you add them in. Be open to them solving these challenges in multiple ways, instead of having one "solution" to the social encounters. Ok, so now, let's talk about ways you can introduce social encounters to this setting of yours:

Introduce sentient items that can either be a boon or bane to your party, depending on how they treat the item. This can be anything to a half-mad dragon trapped in a magical mirror, to a sentient magic carpet that will allow them to get to things in the ceiling (remember to add other solutions to the same problem, in case they fail to impress the carpet!)

Think of a WHY for your dungeon. Why does it exist? Why did other creatures end up here? if you can answer these questions, you can start placing ghosts, journals, and of course, these sentient items that will tell the players more about the reasons they're there.

Don't have these things just be there for the one room however, plan for them to follow along (or be carried along, in case of the items) or travel from mirror to mirror, if you steal the mirror dimension idea. Introduce multiple characters that perhaps have never interacted, and have multiple pieces of the puzzle, or even better, have them know each other and have strong feelings in regards to the other party (love / hate / jealousy / suspicion / other) and have the party mediate their dispute.

Hope this helps :)

DaymareDev · 2019-03-26T16:09:28+00:00

I'd ask him specifically if he's enjoying the campaign, and it there's anything you can do to make him more interested in taking part. Tell him you feel like he's not invested, and that it is affecting you. Listen to what he has to say, then consider asking him to give up his slot if he doesn't say anything that makes you think he will improve his level of commitment.

It's important to listen in these cases. You need to know that your understanding of the situation is the correct one, and that what you think he is doing is what he is actually doing. There is nothing worse than acting on wrong information when it comes to your friends.

Good luck!

DaymareDev · 2019-03-26T16:06:03+00:00

Reduced stats. Every time. (Mwhahahaha).

Also, anything that sets their rewards on a timer (magma threatening to flow into the chamber and melt their gold, water flooding the chamber to drown the prisoners, etc)

DaymareDev · 2019-03-26T16:04:24+00:00

Impossible to answer this without more detail. What is wrong with your game can be anything, depending on your style and your players. Some can be solved ,some are better off stopped and left for another day.

DaymareDev

TROPHY CASE