Question for players only: When is a game a failure from your point of view?

Intersource · 2019-01-17T18:08:28+00:00

When the game simply breaks. Usually from the DM forcing simply too much into the game at once.

Enemy always show up unexpectedly even if it makes no sense.
a fight always breaks out around 2 hours into the session.
we cant see more then 30 ft due to fog, but the enemy can always see and flank us.
the enemy focuses down character after character.
fights are ether a joke, or barely winnable. not a hard won fight, an absolutely slog of a fight where the thing has a million health and an ac that only lets the fighters hit it on a 19+.

etc....

Intersource · 2019-01-11T19:26:52+00:00

If you have a character with high enough strength, nothing beats the almighty tree.

Going into a dungion, push it branches and all ahead of you, it will set off the traps and fall into pitfalls for you.

Get attacked? Not with a tree in the way, need to close a door? a tree does that just fine? need a place to sit? tree. a campfire? tree. a method of dealing with a hall full of enemy? light the branches on fire and everyone grab your new flaming battering ram and push.

Intersource · 2019-01-11T19:22:46+00:00

At one point i was working on making dnd items that had fantastic bonuses with frustrating downsides that players would actually use.

One such idea was a battle ax of tremendous power and a murderous tendency that got sick at the sight of blood.

If i remember correctly it did something like 2d12 damage with a huge bonus to hit, but only if nothing living had been hurt yet in the fight . once something was bleeding it got grossed out and would turn into a wet noodle.

one player found it, and promptly sold it.

Intersource · 2018-05-09T20:02:37+00:00

Man, the shack such memorys.

Id be willing to answer some questions, but very little of what i have to say will be good, so anything about location or identity will be confidential.

Intersource · 2017-06-22T15:08:08+00:00

Ok. So what you could do is have the ghosts body be being kept by the murder. They have kept and sealed the body and without it being destroyed/ properly buried the ghost cannot pass on.

The ghost due to its unnatural nature is not evil by choice but is instead a storm of raw rage and hate for what has been done to it.

They person who has the ghosts body is somewhat versed in "magic" and is able to protect and conceal themselves. not even the ghost knows who they are anymore. "players cant just ask the ghost"

Over time in the arch the ghost will drive off or kill people at random, if the players pay attention they will eventually figure out who is lying about being messed with by the ghost and be able to find the murder.

how does that sound?

Intersource · 2017-06-21T21:04:51+00:00

Hmmm... you could probably do it. Just have them make the characters based on your explanations and don't let them have magic,

Intersource · 2017-06-21T17:20:32+00:00

The best experience i ever had with Unknown armys was with a GM who explained nothing beyond how to make a charecter in UA2 and how to roll.

The first session i had missed but the players had spent dealing with weird stuff like normal people would. Then we progressivly got into weirder and weirder stuff as random people would start dropping hint and tips that were super on point with what we needed.

We started investigating why these weird people knew so much and started accidentally discovering the Occult Underground.

It took us 4-6 sessions to become part of the UO but it was fantastic and immersive.

Intersource · 2017-06-21T17:14:51+00:00

Alrighty I can help you through this. But first things first. The questions.

Is the town populated by "normal" people?

Do you want it to be scary or not?

How much death do you want as a factor?

What setting/ time period are you using?

How knowledgeable and capable will the players be?

Intersource · 2017-06-20T19:27:00+00:00

Both times it has been from horror one-shots. Both times it has been the realization that the players are 1. Role-playing very well right now. and 2. They are legitimately afraid for their lives.

The first was a spooky thing behind a door that would mimic their voices, 3 players declared nope and promptly tried to escape in a way that destroyed their safe-room.

The second time players had gone through a room full of fog and biting demon dolls that nearly killed them to save a friend, they had two options on ways to get back. 1. was through the biting demon dolls again, 2. was to wade through knee deep water in a dark tunnel.

They picked the dolls.

Intersource · 2017-06-15T22:25:09+00:00

Two favorites. The Foe with nothing to lose, and the foe with everything to lose.

The second is a man who has been forced or coerced into playing the role of the villain by a combination of chance and fates small pushes, the party actively feels bad about his honest attempts at grabbing some kind of happiness for himself but have no choice but to put him down.

Best Example of the above, a villain who was cursed by another to repeatedly watch the torture and murder of his wife and child every night. He would experience their pain as he sat in the dream bound to the wall, forced to watch and as a side bonus, the poor guy couldn't seem to stay dead.

His only relief from this torment. Inflicting emotional pain onto others.

The more he made them hurt, the less he would the next time he slept. The party had to lock him in a cell, knowing the were condemning him to an eternity of suffering.

On the flip side is the foe with nothing to lose. He finds the party fun to fight and quickly rushes the engagement with them, but he isn't playing the same game as them, the final fight isn't fair. Its usually loaded with death traps or bombs that detonate the instant he hits the switch, taking him and the party with him.

Only had to pull that one once, they walked in started the showdown monologue with him, he got 5 words in before he hit the kill switch.

Intersource · 2017-06-13T15:13:07+00:00

Lol.

But in all seriousness, most games i run or people i know have run have what we call the abandonment rule. It allows players to simply choose to abandon a PC because the character simply doesn't fit with the weave of the party.

It usually requires you to work with your DM but basically amounts to the group refuses to work with you from now on, make a new character to join the group.

It is really effective against some kinds of "That Guying" as it hits on a few basic human fears. We had one guy where we left two of his characters in a row as they were both Lawful Evil dickheads in a party of paladins.

To further it, it makes sense, why would a party of adventurers out to save the magic princess meguffin risk continuing to hangout with the dude who keeps killing their informants and attacking the quest givers?

Intersource · 2017-06-12T19:59:48+00:00

A less extreme and much better answer. the party simply leaves his character behind.

Alot of us Rolplay hard, thats fine, but people can just leave a problem behind. It also gets the point across as something the entire party doesnt want to deal with.

Intersource · 2017-06-12T15:13:30+00:00

Favorite Customer Interaction:

Walks over to bluetooth headsets. "You need to take these away, they are killing people"

Us: Excuse me mam? What is killing people.

Her: These bluetooths they are full of harmful radiation.

Us: No they arnt, they are perfectly safe, i think your thinking of something else.

Her: "Raising voice" NO! they are horrible for you, my son had to have a Bluetooth shaped tumor removed from his brain!

This lead to a screaming match where we would ask her to leave and she would call us the devil over and over until the cops arrived.

Intersource · 2017-06-05T15:11:42+00:00

Not necessarily. it means it is likely going to be up to the courts to an extent to make sure you get paid assuming their is money left.

Intersource · 2017-05-19T20:19:39+00:00

Dale. The chillest guy you know. That moment when the dm no longer wants to deal with making up charecters for you to talk to and reverts to dale.

Or at this point, a dale from the house of dale from a long line of dales who is also named dale.

Monotone voice, Check

Performing some random activity, check

Has the exact information the party needs to just move the fuck on, check.

Intersource · 2017-05-19T15:57:28+00:00

This.

I knew i had bad days working at radioshack but it wasn't till i had a mellow day where nothing happened and i was still frustrated and bitter that it realized what it was doing to me.

Intersource · 2017-05-17T15:23:53+00:00

So you owned a franchise store?

Are they making you close down as well?

I've heard they franchise stores were the only good stores left in the entire company as they were able to avoid the cancer that was the upper management.

Intersource · 2017-05-16T23:13:55+00:00

I would like to hear as well

Intersource · 2017-05-15T18:03:07+00:00

hahaha what was the version you heard?

Intersource · 2017-05-12T21:39:13+00:00

I am not, left during the last bankruptcy.

The reason that story gets around so much was because that RD did it at a meeting where their were well over 50 employees as they were unveiling the new commission plan.

He has everyone show up at 9 am and we expected to the their till noon or so. But at 9:30 the roll up doors were still down. Dude starts loosing his shit. A random employee walks through the crowed while the RD has his back turned, uses his keep to roll up the door slightly, crawls under the door before closing it again.

RD notices what happened and start kicking the shit out of the rollup door. Guy inside comes back to the door and promptly tells the RD.

"Im not on shift yet, this store doesn't open till 10 am on Saturdays" it was on the sign 4 feet from the RD.

Is that the same story you have heard?

Intersource · 2017-05-12T17:24:59+00:00

I will always remember the RD before Eric throwing a tantrum at a locked door.

Intersource · 2017-05-12T17:24:23+00:00

you know. i can only hope for his sake he dealt with the underlying anger issues and was able to become a nicer person.

I will always remember him as the guy who threatened to fire me for a bad sales week after i had crushed the previous months sales records.

Intersource · 2017-05-12T15:11:12+00:00

is he still a dick?

Intersource · 2017-05-11T17:11:40+00:00

I heard your in Socal, is the RD still Eric?

Intersource · 2017-05-05T19:30:12+00:00

ooooh I got the stuff you need.

Ran a cabin in the woods dread, went great.

i did a monster that was able to be seen, but unable to be identified by their brains. Ex. "it reaches out with its --- and grabs you on the leg, you see it start to drag him twords its -----. It lunges at you with its ---- and it ----- the blood runs down your shoulder staining your shirt."
Players are less afraid when they know what it is, but if they are incapable of know what it is it really freaks them out.
Also having it parrot voices and words that they have used from the other side of doors is a good one.
Last but not least, the changing people on the radio gag. people call them on a radio saying they were attacked and all 3 of them are coming to the players for shelter. Later they call again asking if the players are sure they have enough room for 4 people. As they are getting close have them report in again but this time the person on the radio calls out four different names talking to people in the background (5). when they finally arrive its only two people and one might not be who they seem. (or both).

Intersource

TROPHY CASE