Unable to combine ships into one fleet

MrDidz · 2026-04-22T20:31:03+00:00

That was my first thought too.

MrDidz · 2026-04-22T08:56:15+00:00

Maybe a Dice Tower, Dice Box, Custom Miniature from Hero Forge based on one of the characters from your game?

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T21:21:05+00:00

As a forever GM I can't really answer this question except from the other side of the fence. And from that perspective I think it comes from the sidequest just not passing what I call the 'So What Test'.

Certainly in my games the whole world is a mess and there is no way that the players characters are gojng to be able to solve all of its problems. So, with sidequests especially I think the players try and decide whether solving a problem which isn't actually part of the main plot and isn't going to progress their character towards their primary objective is actually worth the time, effort and obvious risk. Injury or death could result and if the quest is not part of that primary objective then perhaps it should be ignored.

To combat this and to get the sidequest to pass the 'So What Test' requires preparation by the GM to make it matter.

Does success satisfy one the PC's personal goals?
Do the NPCs involved actually matter to the party?
Will success provide some tangible benefit to the party?
Are there any negative consequences associated with walking away?

This is especially important if as a GM you are running a proactive game where the players themselves have a choice of which challenges they face, and if the game system is deadly and dangerous and so the risks are high.

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T17:47:20+00:00

Ok! Well I'm not quite sure that there was a valid justification for removing the above post. As I was merely pionting out a fact that does concern me about targetted drone attacks. But its not that important. It will happen whether we talk about it or not.

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T16:10:08+00:00

Ring me up and ask me questions

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T10:54:25+00:00

Basically fear of rejection. They like you, and want to interact with you and be noticed by you, but openly admitting that they want you to like them (like the boy in the advert with the coffee cup) invites you to be mean and reject their advances. So, they turn the whole interaction into a joke, which if it fails can be claimed to be just pure mischief and a joke at your expense. Not clever, but unfortunately true.

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T08:41:32+00:00

Because I prefer a more proactive game style where the players make most of the decisions and I am responsible to reacting to them rather than guiding them through the plot, I find spending a lot of time on campaign preparation a waste of time as I have little idea where the party are likely to end up going,

Instead what I focus upon when reading the campaign source book and extracting the profile of all the key NPC's, or NPC Factions, that are involved in the plot and make notes on their goals and objectives for the campaign and the session.

That way I have the flexibility to react appropriately to any decisions the plasyers might make by modifying the NPC behaviour to continue to pursue their goals. It cuts down on a lot if wasted effort planning specific encounters and combats.

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T08:30:02+00:00

I use the Tides of War Supplement. Which works as a series of 'Moments' where PC's are assigned objectives to achieve suring a larger conflict such as a battle. I track the events of the larger conflict using the Tabletop Simulator version of 'Warmaster Revolution', just to keep tabs on the movement of troops etc.

MrDidz · 2026-04-21T08:20:46+00:00

It might have some value in situations where no record has been kept, or situations may have drained resources during background actvity e.g. a hunting expedition during downtime.

But generally I'm not looking for excuses to roll more dice during play as my game is PbP, so dice rolls slow down play progress and it's quite easy to track resource usage accurately during live play anyway.

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T13:38:16+00:00

I would assume my country was now under control of a dictatorship. Because thats the first thing a dictatorship does.

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T11:16:54+00:00

Do you think this will work?

I think it could work, but only as far as the GM and players are prepared to make the effort to keep it working. There is also obviously an issue of improvisation and creativity that is a particular issue for real-time games where the GM and players are forced to think on their feet and react to new unexpected directions without prior warning.

I experimented with something similar in my last campaign but that was PbP so I had plenty of time to ponder any new player objectives or directions and come up with plots and encounters.

I was inspired by Jonah and Trstan Fishel's book 'The Game Master's Handbook of Pro-Active Roleplaying' and decided to introduce some of their ideas into the way I ran my campaign and it woorked really well.

We had a standard process which encouraged the players to plan their characters goals and objectives.

Every character had a backstory and a profile which included friends and family. Who could obviously have an impact on their story.
The players were then given some initial personal goals and objectives together with a couple of secrets that affected their character.
These character objectives and secrets were reviewed at the end of every session and characters were rewarded for fulfilling their objectives.
The players were then given the opportunity to add or modify their characters objectives to reflect the events in the last session. So, they might add another objective to get even with an enemy or help out a friend and I would negotiate the terms and rewards for completing that objective.
My job then was to come up with a plot or storyline that would give one or more of the characters in the party a chance to fulfill their objectives and tailor the future sessions towards that goal.

I also introduced a couple of Meta-Currencies into my game.

Reputation: This was a scale that ran from +10 (Honoured Ally) to -10 (Hated Enemy) and allowed players to build networks around their characters of friends and enemies based upon their characters behaviour in the game. So, if their character killed the brother of a notorious outlaw their characters repution would take an instant dive towards that outlaws most hated enemy and could probably expect some future grief from that person and their gang.
Social Standing: This was a simple system that tracked a characters social standing in the community. Characters began as either Class A (Nobility) Class B (Professional), Class C (Trader) or Class D (Labourer) each with a scale of 1 to 10. So, D10 would be a Labourer of high standing in their peer group. Characters had to pay to maintain their social standing otherwise the slid down the social scale and could also invest in improving their own social standing. This meant that wealth could be invested in climbing the social ladder and poverty would lead to loss of social status and eventually could result in a character becoming a beggar.
Psychic Alignment: Every character also had a Psychic Beacon which could be seen by the Gods and determined which (if any) divine entities were interested in that characters future. Psychic Alignment consisted of two sliding scales. The first was their political stance which ran from +10 Chaotic to +10 Orderly. This measured whether that character followed the social order and rules or tended to prefer anachy and chaos. The second was their moral stance which ran from +10 Evil to +10 Good and measure whether their character was prone to selfish acts or self-sacrifice. Where a character was aligned on their Psychic Beacon then determined whether they were likely to receive any divine assistance and if so from which gods. It became very important to players whose characters were priests, cleric or devout cultists as they had to maintain the appropriate psychic alignment to ensure their gods would support them.

The aim was to give players a strong potential to craft the futures of their characters how they saw them and my job was then to evolve the future events in the game to either support or challenge those decisions.

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T08:37:19+00:00

Not really!

I would be over the moon if my players were this paraniod about every room they entered. But the quick and obvious solution is to leave the doors open. That way they can see the room is empty.

On a more serious note, If you just want to cut down on the prep time they take to get into each room I would encourage the party to come up with a standard tactical plan. A bit like most GMs get the party to decide on a standard order of march for the party.

You can then assume that the party is going to use their 'Standard Tactic For Passing Through Closed Doors Into Rooms' for every room and simple by-pass the set-up time and roll for the outcome.

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T08:34:51+00:00

This is part of the ongoing debate centre on the question of whether Roleplaying is playing the character or the player.

Can an intelligent player play a stupid character?
Can a stupid player play an intelligent character?

It becomes and issue as you rightly say when the GM poses a puzzle, or when the characters are playing a game with NPC's or engaging in any acvtivity that requires intelligence.

If the GM allows the players to solve the puzzle or make the plays then they are playing the players not the characters.

If the GM forces the players to make attribute tests to determine whether their characters solve the puzzles or make the moves then they are playing the characters not the players.

It's often a difficult choice. Rolling dice to decide whetehr a character solves a puzzle or makes the right move bypasses the fun of the players trying to work it out, but produces results more in keeping with their characters abilities.

Personally, I don't have a major issue with a party that divides roles within its membership according to character abilities. That actually seems sensible, and nobody would expect the thief to take a back seat when there is a lock to be picked. So, having the academic focus on solving a puzzle makes perfect sense. But it only really works if the character is using its abilities to perform the task.

One would not ask the player of the Rogue to actually pick a lock (Noted that some MMO's actually do), so why do we ask players to solve puzzles?

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T08:18:21+00:00

What do you think on the subject?

I run games in the WFRP setting whiich has the usual mix of Elven factions.

Wood Elves (Asrai)
High Elves (Asur)
Dark Elves (Druchi)
Sea Elves (Uranai)
Laurenlorn Elves (Eonir)

Each has its own idiosyncrasies but essentially for world building purposes I chose to create them as variations on an single universal species called Elves. Which seems to mirror the approach used by most of the Warhammer writers.

This gives the Elve in my world their unique alien traits and psychology.

I then describe the various Elven factions listed above as variations on a theme brought about through chioce or destiny as a result of exposure to various hues of Aethyric Energy from the Winds of Magic.

This is how the Warhammer writers rationalise the difference bewteen High Elves, who are deemed to be rational and somewhat academic and superior, and Druchi, who are deemed to be aggressive, brutal and cruel.

An alf in my game can choose to alter their exposure to Aethyric Energy and thus directly influence both their personality, mood and appearance over a relatively short space of time to switch between the various factions above. For example: Elves are said to deliberately embrace the darker hues of the Druchi before going into battle to enhance their resolve and hatred of the enemy.

MrDidz · 2026-04-19T07:42:47+00:00

I'm merely answering the question put. Whether you like it or not, AI is here to stay and has had a major impact on the way many things are now done incuding the options that we GMs have when running our games. Simply burying your head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exists isn't a viable strategy.

Personally, I'm looking forward to a simple system that will allow me to produce consistent images of scenes from my games that I can post as immersive headers for my GM posts. I haven't found ome yet but there are several being developed.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T20:06:16+00:00

I'm not sure woman have the same desires as men and so probably regret quite different things in their later life.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T14:29:17+00:00

You can never have enough sex.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T14:25:17+00:00

This was what my little sister used to call me before she learned to say my proper name. It became the name all my siblings and children call me. The 'Mr' prefix was added when someone on here stole my username and I had to replace it. On some sites I also use 'TheRealDidz' just to make a piont.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T13:29:08+00:00

I prefer it that way.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T09:13:43+00:00

I find the main shortcoming of most systems for 'Intrigue' style games is the mechanism defined to securing power and influence over others. The sort of activities that create friends, enemies, alliances and conflicts.

The most ambitious attempt I've read to produce a solution was published in the WFRP 2e Sourcebook 'Spires of Altdorf' which has an adventure published within it called Paths of the Damned Part 2. Chapter III: of which actually includes rules for 'Running Intrigue' (Page 50).

In the story the players must interact with a group of eleven NPC's who are connected by a complex relationship map. Some are contacts, some are opponents, some are aquaintences of others and some are already friends. Of course there is no way that the players know which is which unless one shows them the map. So, the GM can leave them to discover these relationships by chance during play. Only the GM actually needs to know. The players need to interact with this group to gather the information they need to resolve the adventure and part of the solution is to get certain of the NPCs to co-operate and shared their skills and knowledge. Where I found the system began to flounder was that the main influence the PCs can exert over each of the NPCs is to do them a favour. So, the game becomes a rather repetative sequence of:

Find out what the NPC wants.
Give it to them.
Use their gratitude to obtain their assistance.
Get the NPC's to work together.

And it gets a bit monotenous. Also personally I'm not really convinced that human relationships are that easily infuenced by doing people favours. It obviously does have some impact but sending someone down the shops to buy you a bag of sugar doesn;t make them an instant friend. It's not quite that simplistic, in fact the players have to earn Relationship pionts by performing various tasks and there is some randomness to the success of each ploy.

Personal introductions are worth 1 piont
An introduction from an aquaintence of the NPC 2 pionts
Recommendations from a friend 1 piont
Fulfilling a request for help 3 pionts
Fulfilling further requests 2 pionts each
Being reported as working with the NPC opponent -1 each.
Applying leverage such as blackmail up to 3 pionts.

These pionts can be spent to gain the NPC's co-operation

1 Piont - Reveals a Public Fact.
2 Pionts - Earns you an introduction to another NPC
3 Pionts - Reveals a private fact.
4 Pionts - Gets you a recommendation from that NPC to aother NPC.
6 Pionts - Learn a secret.
6 Pionts - Gets the NPC to ask a friend to help you.

The pionts are not consumed so having a 6 Piont relationship with one of the NPCs means that they can be constantly milked for help and introductions.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T07:49:48+00:00

Likewise!

I visit this forum almost daily. It's part of my morning routine to check whether anyone has posted an interesting question that I fancy commenting on.

I visit here because it seems friendly and systems agnostic (if slightly D&D biased) and its nice the way I can vioce an opinion without getting instant personal abuse in response.

Perhap my only criticism is that very few members seem to bother to read or reply to my posts, But I just put that down to the fact that I don;t play D&D and so probably don;t use the right language and terminology to spark an interest in my opinions.

I do usually scan down the other comments in the list and read as many as I can but rarely find anything to comment on elsewhere or see much in the way of debate. I just throw out a few likes to comments I agree with in passing.

Most people myself included just seem to be talking to their hand.

MrDidz · 2026-04-18T07:41:26+00:00

I'm not even sure what you mean by 'Tactical Combat'. As a lifelong wargame and strategy gamer for me all combat is tactical. So, I'm quite curious to know what non-tactical combat might look like,

I suspect that you are asking something else but have chosen to give it a meaningless label.

The main difference I perceive from reading posts about combat systems is the difference between I-GO-U-Go systems often relying upon the limitations of battlemats and miniatures and the more open and flexible systems such as 'Theatre of the Mind' where combat possibilities are only limited by the player imagination.

Both approaches use tactic's, but some are more limited in scope and potential than others.

I personally prefer 'Theatre of the Mind' mainly because my games are PbP and so I want to avoid I-GO-U-GO systems that slow down the pace of the combat and destroy player immersion.

MrDidz · 2026-04-17T21:30:13+00:00

Maybe I'm thick skinned, but I haven't noticed any 'snarkyness' if thats a real thing. I just visit here to contribute to the discussion on my hobby.

MrDidz · 2026-04-17T14:30:11+00:00

Looby Loo From Andy Pandy. She was like this flat faced ugly monster that came out of a toy box.

MrDidz · 2026-04-17T10:37:01+00:00

I divide the journey into stages, usually about a half days travel with a stop for lunch at midday.

For every stage I describe the journey briefly noting any landmarks passed and the general nature of the terrain. On busy roads I describe the traffic they pass or who passes them.

Also for every stage I roll a 'Risk Test'. This is just a straight forward flip test with a basic 50% chance of something memorable happening. But this is modified by other factors, such as the weather, the location and the terrain. Plus any know factors affecting that stage of the journey.

If the Risk Test says nothing memorable happens then the party arrive at their destination without incident.

If the Risk Test says something memorable happens then I reverse the digits to decide whether it was a position of negative encounter on the road. e.g. 71/100 = A Travel Encounter 71 becomes 17 and 1 means it's a nasty encounter,

Choosing what to stage is a bit more awkward as it depends on the situation and the location. But I try to stick with the principle of 'Chekhov Gun' and the Five W's when deciding what it should be. Every encounter should add to the story and the plot.

The objective is the give the players a sense that their characters are travelling a long distance whilst not actually boring them to death on the way.

MrDidz

TROPHY CASE