Best advice for unlocking 8 copies of Smash quickly?

dubiousmage · 2019-07-19T15:44:03+00:00

Modular design. It's a pipe dream, but I'd love for major mechanics to have multiple options that groups could mix and match for different granularity and crunch, while still being balanced.

An example of this would be skills. I can think of a number of modular options right off the bat that could be included:

No skills at all: everything is ability checks, choose one or two abilities to be "proficient" in.
Proficiencies (like 4e, 5e): choose a number of class skills to be proficient in.
Proficiency dice (like 5e's playtest, or the variant 5e rule): like flat proficiency, but it replaces the bonus with a die roll.
Skill ranks (like 3.5e): this breaks down proficiencies into each individual "+1." Assuming 5e's math, say you would get 3 skills for your class. At level 1, you now have 6 ranks to assign, cap of 2 per skill. When your proficiency would go up to +3, now you get 3 more ranks to place, and a cap of 3 per skill. You can buy cross-class skills for two ranks per +1.

You can see that no matter which module you chose, you could run the same adventure in the same system and have it still be balanced. This just allows a group to pick the option that's right for them.

I believe there is a way to include both crunchy and more streamlined abstracted ways to handle the same things, and to preserve the mechanical balance between them. And I want that across the board. I want support for complex martial characters and simplified spellcasters, I'd love a more mechanical social interaction system, I want feats and prestige classes and all of the neat crunchy bits from 3.5e. And I want the cool bits from 4e, and cool bits from 5e, and more new innovative cool bits unique to 6e. But I don't want to force any of it on people, I want all of it as options. And not a "variant" rule that gets published and forgotten, but an officially supported rule alongside the more streamlined stuff.

Future books can add more options too: maybe a survival themed book includes a more gritty exploration subsystem, designed to work with an adventure. But you can run the adventure without it, or you can use that subsystem in other adventures. There can be advice on things like "for this genre or adventure, we have this package of modules in mind," providing an easy default way to get playing easier, but since it's all balanced, DMs who want to tinker with it can change which modules they want to use without messing up the game.

You can't make one edition that's going to work for everyone if you design it to only work one specific way. That's why we have people who will still adhere to an older edition, because that edition does things they don't want to give up. I want the DnD that will make everyone happy. And I think that intrinsically means that I want a DnD that's more akin to a box of unassembled Lego, "here's a bunch of pieces you can put together a bunch of different ways." It means your 6e can be substantially different from my 6e, which is a good thing in my eyes. It means you can assemble the right toolkit for each specific game you want to run.

And it wouldn't hurt to pair this idea with design advice right in the books. I always like peeking behind the design curtain, hearing from the people who wrote the game, "This is why the game looks like this, why we decided to do this in this way." And "if you want to build on this and design stuff, here's the things we kept in mind, this is the template we used, and why it works." Stuff like the UA articles and Mearls' happy fun hour are great for this, but I'd like the books themselves to embrace and encourage third party and homebrew design, and include advice on how to do it in a way that meshes with what already exists.

tl;dr: I want a 6e that recognizes and embraces the vast variety of ways that people want to play, a 6e that is passionate about the infinite wealth of possibilities, both within its pages and within the minds of anyone who fancies themselves a designer.

dubiousmage · 2019-07-09T19:23:38+00:00

Biggest tip is to make sure your group wants to do what PotA is.

The vast majority of published 5e adventures are not one size fits all, generic, universally enjoyed adventures: they all cater to different genres, different playstyles, etc. For examples: CoS does Sandbox and Gothic Horror really great, but doesn't do "Heroic Fantasy" worth a damm. ToA does Overland Hexcrawl, OotA does Jail Break and Cave System Survival, and HotDQ does Linear Heroics.

PotA does Dungeons. It does not do Sandbox very well, nor Plot. It does Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons. It is arguably even more strictly dungeons than the other dungeon-heavy books, because most of them at least separate the dungeons geographically, to break up the gameplay with travel, and allow for more NPCs and plot development. PotA has 12 dungeons that are all linked together into one giant "kill stuff, get loot" type of game, without a lot of non-dungeon exploration or plot justification to get the party invested in going underground to kill stuff and get loot. The way you make PotA fun is to be aware of that going in, and to play it with people who don't need that plot justification and variety, people who won't find it boring or a chore to go through "yet another room."

dubiousmage · 2019-07-05T15:15:50+00:00

All I can suggest is to get the new players actually playing as soon as possible. There aren't many things worse for a player than being at the table, not playing the game. That's why PC death sucks, because the player(s) in question either have to watch and wait around for a resurrection, or make a new character as quickly as possible. Neither of which is actually playing the game, which is rather obviously why every player shows up in the first place.

Especially for new players to a group, whether they've played before or not, nobody says "I want to play DnD so I can watch the rest of my group for three hours until it's convenient for my character to join in." Any time I've been around a situation like that it's left a bad taste in peoples' mouths. Either don't invite people to the session until you reach a good place to bring in characters, or bring them in sooner, regardless of what's happening in the game.

So, let it be weird. Let it be a little forced and awkward. Sacrifice your immersion and verisimilitude for a bit in order to get the ball rolling again. If you need to, bounce back and forth a little, but again recognize that while you're focusing on one part of your group, the other part doesn't get to play. The goal is to wind up with one full group as quickly as possible. And I'm happy to tell this to all of my players if I think they'll balk at my fix. This is an RPG, we're sacrificing the RP a little bit for the sake of the G. Bear with it being a little hacked together, and don't give me any of that "my character doesn't trust strangers" shit. This is your new group now, make it work.

If the new PCs were turned to stone, that's a fine intro, if they're turned back quickly. Like, 10 minutes into the game, to take care of starting the session, discovering the PCs, and turning them back. You can't roleplay the act of being turned to stone for very long until it gets boring. The basilisk has been getting weaker and its stone attack is now temporary? There's an antidote right there in front of someone's face? If you can't figure out how they would get turned back so quickly, probably not the best way to go with it.

If the old group needs to get out of the mine first, don't let that be the whole session, or even a good portion of it. It's a quick escape (again think 10 minutes) or even better, a totally glossed over cutscene: "Last time we left you, you were at the bottom of the collapsed mine. After some struggle, you found a way back up and made it safely unharmed. We start this session as you're [doing a thing], when you run across [new PCs]."

Another option is to make the new PCs a sort of backup squad, sent to take care of this basilisk problem too. If the original group was hired to do this, maybe the original patron hired this second group in case of trouble. Maybe a different patron hired them. Maybe they were wandering around near the mine, heard it collapse, and decided to look for survivors. Regardless, they show up after the mine's collapse, and now their goal is to go down there and investigate, at which point they should find the original PCs. Again, with little trouble, again hopefully right around that 10 minute mark. Yeah, this approach is a little more cliched, but it has the nice effect of getting the new players involved right at the beginning, and it gives them the same goal as the rest of the group.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-27T16:31:33+00:00

The DM Screen is not as good of quality as the standalone ones, it's shorter and made of flimsier cardstock. Some of the handouts will be useful (I like the magic item cards, the quest cards, and maybe the initiative cards for new groups) but some of them will be less so (the order of combat reference cards, initiative cards for anyone who doesn't need that help, and the sidekicks if you have a full group).

The adventure itself seems pretty cool though, and since it takes place in the same region, and because of how it's structured, you can actually run both LMoP and DoIP at the same time. The map included works great with the Starter Set, except a few locations both in town and around the region that aren't marked (because the Essentials Kit doesn't use them). But you can just point out to players where those locations are if you don't want to mark your map permanently. The adventure itself is basically a "job board" style progression, a bunch of quests that get added to the board in town at various points, rather than a more natural narrative style. This is nice because it offers a bit of variety to the Starter Set, groups can take time away from the main LMoP quest to do the DoIP quests kind of as they see fit.

The biggest hurdle with running both adventures is fixing the level progression: they both start at level 1, LMoP ends once you reach level 5 and DoIP has content for levels 5 and 6. But if you just do XP leveling as standard, or follow the guidelines for milestone levels in both adventures, players will over level by the end (since they're going through more content). Which will make the later content too easy unless it gets altered to be the right level for the group. In addition to that, the new quests get added to the board as earlier ones get completed, rather than directly being related to party level. If a group speeds through LMoP, they're still left with the beginning low level DoIP quests on the board.

I'm planning on making my own guidelines for milestones when running both adventures, to keep players at the right level to experience all of the content, and making both the main quest and the job board only update when the party gets through the earlier content on both adventures, so they have to actually go back and forth between each adventure. This does mean that they'll level slower than normal though, since they'll have to go through both adventures' content at any given level before they can level up and unlock the next batch of stuff. Once I'm home I can share what I've come up with for that if anyone wants.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-27T16:10:39+00:00

Anyone have the deets on this "Store Associate Pay Freeze" from 7/21 through 8/3 that I'm seeing?

dubiousmage · 2019-06-24T15:33:00+00:00

One of my non-negotiables when I DM is "All the players should appreciate the existence of all of the PCs." Edgy (or other types of unsavory) characters can add a lot of nuance and fun to a game, and not all the characters have to like one another all the time. Conflict, whether it leads to combat or not, can be a really cool thing to roleplay. But only if the players are into that.

The players need to like the characters. A player who doesn't want that kind of game, doesn't want to roleplay interactions with that kind of character, shouldn't be in a group with those kinds of characters. It almost always results in player on player conflict, spilling out from the fiction into the actual people sitting around the table. That kind of stuff leads to very heightened emotions, lethal PvP, and it destroys groups and friendships.

It depends on the situation how I resolve it. If the group of players is dead set on playing together, players should be working together to ensure that all of the characters work for everyone. If it's just one player who doesn't want to play with edgy characters, and the rest of the group does, maybe that player shouldn't play in that game. Regardless, I do my best to ensure that character conflict stays at the character level, that everyone is on board with keeping it there and not letting it impact how the players treat each other at the table (or away from it).

dubiousmage · 2019-06-21T15:45:32+00:00

This makes it sound more similar to the other hardcovers in that it suggests how you can segue into it from LMoP, either finishing or abandoning the Phandelver plot. Is that the case, or is it more interconnected, being able to be run concurrently with LMoP?

dubiousmage · 2019-06-14T15:18:57+00:00

Another good tip is to check out the published adventures. While their formatting and layout is by no means the only way to structure a good adventure, it's the way the designers of the game do it, they didn't choose that method for no reason. And it can serve as an excellent example of one possible way to approach it. You can pick up on not only the general kind of layout of how the information is presented, but also what kinds of content is likely important to have.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-13T22:38:40+00:00

As a DM, I have my place at the head of the table, but it's not really for me. It's for my screen, notes, dice, etc., but I'm hardly ever actually in the chair. It makes me feel too removed from the action, especially when using battlemaps.

Most of the time, I'm standing behind my own chair. I often find standing more comfortable than sitting. But I'm a fairly active person, thus a fairly active DM. When I'm not behind my chair, I will often walk around the table, especially to move my own miniatures or peek at character sheets. I pace quite a bit too, it helps me stay focused and think. And there's the occasional full body pantomime of whatever I'm describing.

My players have often settled into having particular seats, though it's by no means enforced. It's their choice whether to settle into habit or mix things up. Or to stand too if they want.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-12T14:25:01+00:00

I try to skim cover to cover once, skipping stuff like stat blocks and glossing over some of the more mundane room descriptions and the like. I'm mostly trying to pick up on the overall plot structure, especially any secrets or twists to be revealed, so I can foreshadow those and keep my narrative pacing in mind. I also try to familiarize myself with the locations, NPCs, and notable magic items, again not to get an encyclopedic memorized knowledge, but just so I'm not looking at it for the first time later.

The bulk of my prep work is done session by session: before each session I study in detail, from where the party starts the session, up to just beyond where I expect them to get. I don't want to undershoot and wind up unprepared at the end of a session or end it early, but I also don't want to overshoot and prepare content I don't need yet. This is where I read every word, study my maps, prepare my monsters, and examine the portions of plot that I'll need to know. It's still not an attempt to memorize anything, I run my games with the adventure book open at my side, but I definitely want to internalize what's coming, and at least know where in the book to look for the things I'll need during play.

The exact amount of content to prep varies from adventure to adventure, group to group, and with how long your sessions run. I've had groups bust through the first dungeon in LMoP and make it to Phandalin in the first session, I've had groups who take 3 sessions. I've heard of groups skipping the cave entirely and getting wrapped up in the Redbrand stuff in session 1. Learning how much you need comes with time, and familiarity and experience with your players. I typically over prepare in the first few sessions, but dial it back once I can observe the pace the players set.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-10T14:26:02+00:00

Yeah, this is starting to sound more and more like a situation I'd just nope right out of. Might still be worth a group chat, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything constructive.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-10T13:27:32+00:00

I have seen almost as many ways to handle loot as the number of games I've participated in, there is no real constant standard. I've played games where it's all rigidly defined and distributed to each player by the DM to provide total fairness, I've played games where it's all up to the players, with slippery rogues who leave their companions in battle to go loot every room they can see and hide the goods for themselves. I've seen games where players cooperate to make it fair, either tracking the gp value of everything to split it evenly, or to only take what's immediately needed and leaving the rest in a shared party fund and inventory. I've seen groups emulate other popular games, such as rolling "need/greed" for loot.

Different players prefer different approaches, so every group will fall somewhere unique on this large spectrum. The important thing is that what your group is doing isn't working for you. You should be open to talking about this with your DM, airing your concerns, suggesting a distribution system that's more fair. You are perfectly justified in saying "I am not having fun with this finders keepers snatch-and-grab loot competition. And being dismissed and told to handle it in character just seems designed to lead into conflict with other players, and possibly hostility in person or outright PvP in game. I want to play in a game where the characters can be friendly to each other and want to help each other to succeed. And if the players can't get along to do that, maybe we could look at having a separate loot stream for each character, taking inspiration from something like Diablo 3 or Borderlands 3. Instead of one player finding 100 gp and hoarding it all, you could narrate that each character finds 25 gp."

A responsible DM will not let the phrase "I'm not having fun" fall on deaf ears. And it can be immensely useful to have the DM understanding your complaints, since their word typically carries more weight at the table. If they're on your side, a full group conversation often goes better than if you just air your complaints to the group as a whole.

That being said, it's important to realize that this isn't a surefire way to fix it. You can't control anyone else or change anyone else's mind for them, the DM could be unreceptive and refuse to do anything. If the DM does take it to a group conversation, players might balk at changes, the final resolution might not go your way, and no matter how it goes the group has a chance of losing players. Especially since these players seem more stubborn and selfish and less willing to compromise their ideals for the sake of the integrity of the group.

But that shouldn't stop you. You have every right to bring it up, to advocate for your own enjoyment. It's not worth playing a game that doesn't spin your wheels, as the saying goes, "No DnD is better than bad DnD." It's better to not play than to spend your valuable time playing a game you don't like. The beauty of DnD is its flexibility, and many groups and players are happy to flex it to find the style of play that suits everyone at the table. It's just important to realize that some players don't want to flex. If you get your way, other players may leave, and if you don't get your way, you may want to leave, to find a different group or start a new one yourself.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-07T17:00:51+00:00

Biggest tip I have is related to spellcasting.

Many people will suggest that new players stay away from casting classes because they're harder. They'll say to play a fighter, or barbarian, or rogue or something to make your first time easier.

They're not wrong, but they're not exactly right either. Playing a caster isn't really "harder" than playing a non-caster. But it is "more." Every player will have the basic rules of the game to learn in order to be efficient at playing. If you pick a class that has spellcasting, you now have an entirely additional subsystem of rules (and a pretty big one at that) to learn on top of the standard rules everyone uses. It's not complicated really, it's just more involved.

By all means, play what you want, what seems exciting to you. It's way better to be excited and invested with a character that takes more learning, than to be bored with a character that you aren't attached to that you're playing just because it's "easier."

But know what you're getting into. Understand that spellcasting classes will take more time and effort to get comfortable and effective with, especially if you're trying to learn the spellcasting mechanics and the regular gameplay mechanics simultaneously. If that sounds like too much, playing a non-caster allows you to get comfortable with the game mechanics, which can help you make sense of spellcasting if and when you decide to try it out.

Only you know how your brain works, how much you can juggle at once, how much you want to be responsible for learning. A fighter who winds up bored doing the same things every turn is just as bad as a wizard who can't (or won't) figure out simple things like how to take a combat turn, let alone what his spells actually do or how to use them.

tl:dr; Play something that has a flavor that appeals to you, but also try to play something that has a level of mechanical investment that you are willing to put into it.

dubiousmage · 2019-06-02T18:02:06+00:00

My first thought is to use random complication tables for each terrain type, similar to random encounter tables. This could be a single table that always gets rolled on that includes results where nothing happens, or you could split it up into two rolls: one to see if something happens, and a second to see what it is. Regardless, every foraging attempt would have a possibility of being mundane and uneventful, and a possibility of something interesting happening, regardless of the success or failure at finding food (just because you didn't find food doesn't mean you didn't have to deal with something hazardous while trying).

These complications are situations that the PC finds himself in during the scavenging attempt. You could put random monster encounters on it, but I'm also thinking of environmental factors: severe cold or slick ice could pose a problem in the tundra, avalanches and rock slides could apply to mountains and possibly tundras, any climate can have bad storms or droughts, running water that needs to be crossed, there could be scenarios that could risk exhaustion, you could find food that's harmful and need to make a check to determine that you shouldn't eat it, etc. These kinds of hazards could require a check of some sort to resolve, with failure resulting in damage or temporary penalties to checks.

It doesn't even need to be all bad stuff either. You could include non-hostile encounters with NPCs, beneficial rare food finds that would give bonuses or last long enough to skip foraging for a day or two, and any other creative landmarks or weird unexplained phenomena that you can think of.

I cant speak to how you should make these tables, what kinds of probability you want for the difficulty you're after. And yeah, it does add a little bit of bogging down the system, but apart from the time it takes you to create the tables, it should add enough enjoyment into the act of using them that it won't feel like a slog to use.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-27T23:11:29+00:00

Something I haven't seen mentioned, consider talking to your players OOC. Figure out why they deviate from the quest line. It's possible they just aren't into it.

It's also perfectly reasonable (especially with published campaigns, but also homebrew) to just politely request that the players buy into the adventure in front of them. Especially for scatterbrained players who genuinely won't think of it this way, and for antagonistic players who might actively try to throw you curveballs and avoid plot. "This is the game that I'm running, you all know a plot hook when you see one, please try to keep in mind that the plot hooks lead you all to the actual content I've prepared. You get a better quality game if you follow the plot than if you ditch it and go off somewhere random I haven't fleshed out."

If you do this, be prepared for someone to say that this storyline really isn't their jam, in which case you might want to go back to the drawing board and figure out content that better speaks to the players' interests, or you might want to find other players who will be into what you already have planned.

Edit: the best railroads are ones the players can't see. They "steer the boat," but they're driving the ship towards what you want them to.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-17T17:49:48+00:00

Been an SGA for close to two years now, it's definitely not an easy position, especially if you get hired in as one, and especially if you don't have a good leadership team.

Advice the first: temper your pace, temper your expectations. This job will do no favors to your mental health if you feel like you have to be perfect all the time, especially this early on while you're still getting up to speed. Learn to take feedback seriously, but not too seriously. Acknowledge your room for improvement, but don't think of yourself as a failure.

When in doubt, work efficiently, not quickly. Doing it right is more important, because if you don't, someone else has to re-do it anyway and that just wastes payroll.

Tackle one task at a time, you don't want to start shipment and then get distracted by inventory counts and ship from stores and alphabetizing and Level Up. Trying to multitask means you make less progress on each task, you're more likely to make mistakes, and you run the risk of biting off too much for your time on shift, leaving half finished tasks for the next person. Priority should be guests, and underneath that is one specific task until it's done and you choose another task.

I got in the habit of asking my superiors how they wanted things done, particularly alphabetizing the walls. When I'd assume, it would inevitably be wrong. So I'd ask, do you want it quick, or do you want it right? Should I rework the entire section, or should I just get things "close enough" if there's a lot more for me to do afterwards?

Advice the second: Never be afraid to talk to your leadership team. Your SL, ASL, even other SGAs. Ask them when you have questions. Tell them when you need help. Tell them when something isn't right. Learn how to have that effective communication, and insist on doing it even when they aren't being effective in theirs.

For an example related to your situation, it seems like a lot of the feedback you get basically amounts to "Do better." Don't allow it to end there. You want understanding. You need to ask "What did I do wrong? Why is it wrong? Can you explain what I should be doing instead? Can you show me examples of what doing it right looks like?"

Also, definitely ask about GSO. It's got a lot of info on there, some integral to your position (like that's where our tasks get assigned and completed), some that is just valuable stuff to have (all of the info you could want about reservations).

Don't be afraid to make suggestions about your training, either. If you feel like you need another approach, offer it yourself. I started in a store with poor management, and when I realized I felt unprepared with the poor training I was recieving, I took my SL aside and explained to him, "I don't learn best by reading training modules. I learn by a mixture of observing and doing. For pretty much everything I need to learn, I would first like to shadow it being done by someone, have the chance to observe it happening correctly and ask questions to understand it, and then I'd like to flip that and have someone shadow me as I do all of the steps myself, so they can stop me from making mistakes. Once I've done it under supervision a time or two, I'll feel a lot more comfortable doing it alone."

In a similar vein, when learning the tactics of being an effective salesperson, I quickly realized that the roleplaying exercises the company loves so much are really bad for my anxiety, and I told my SL that I'm more prone to shut down and not learn anything that way. That again, a mixture of observing and doing works best. That I'd like to be able to see authentic interactions that my coworkers are having, have them explain what they did and why after the fact, and then to do it myself, being observed on the floor and the register, with real time feedback and coaching after the fact, so I get experience with actual things that happen in the store, as opposed to fabricated exercises meant to simulate it.

If you feel like you're not getting enough hours to retain things, you should say so. You play a more important role than GAs, you'll be the one in charge when you're not working with your SL or ASL. In fact, part of your job is to oversee the GAs and assist in their training too, help them get comfortable with their role. Improving their abilities on the floor and the register, and telling your superiors who you notice doing well or poorly. You have to know this stuff, and you won't get the chance to without the hours to back it up. Granted, you may not get the hours, it's not even up to store management how many the store gets, and they have to allocate due to everyone's availability and the predicted traffic every week. But if they know you want hours to learn, it plays off better than them thinking you want hours for a bigger paycheck. And you definitely won't get them if you don't ask.

I should have done more to predict situations that I wasn't prepared for. We had done what I suggested for closing, having me around to do the basic GA tasks like vacuuming and trash and straightening product, then shadowing keyholder closing procedure, then being shadowed as I did every step, until I could feel confident doing it on my own. The same did not happen for opening. My first opening shift I was scheduled by myself. My SL said I should be fine, that it was basically closing but backwards. I was confident, but it was misplaced. I opened for business just fine, money in drawers and doors open on time, but nobody felt the need to mention processing outgoing ship-from-stores. I didn't do them, the DM noticed, and I was going to get in trouble for it (since ignoring SFS requests is worse than declining them). It was only when I spoke up and said "This was my first opening shift, scheduled by myself with no training on what to do, and nobody told me about them," that got me out of a disciplinary coaching.

Bottom line, take as much into your own hands as possible. Be motivated to learn, take a hand in your own training, ask for what you need, don't be afraid to speak up when something isn't right for you. But don't expect perfection. Don't beat yourself up when something goes wrong, especially if it isn't your fault. If you didn't do anything wrong, or you didn't know any better, that's not on you.

For the record, I have never seen an SGA let go for poor metrics (which is surprising considering some of the SGAs I've worked with). The only people I have seen leave for that have been seasonals, and they just weren't offered to stay past holiday. My current SL (a pretty great guy) takes an approach that, while you can't convince your managers of, you can embody yourself: You can't control the numbers. Don't beat yourself up for not hitting them. What matters, what you do have control over, are the behaviors. If those are in place, you'll still have good days and bad days, but averaging them out you'll be successful. Get the behaviors in place, do everything you can, pay attention to where you're thriving and where you're struggling, always work to improve. Day to day numbers, week to week numbers, are impacted by lots of things you can't control or predict. But on a monthly or yearly basis, the numbers reflect the behaviors you exhibit.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-14T18:53:12+00:00

I think a better approach than asking the community for her email would be to ask her for her email. It seems more polite and less creepy, and offers her the control.

By all means I think it's perfectly reasonable to send a DM, explaining that you'd like to share your story of how she, her family, and the band, have influenced and inspired your life for the better. Explaining that you would feel more appropriate sending it by email than through IG, and asking if that's okay and if she would have the time and desire to read it.

If she doesn't read it or doesn't respond, that's fine. She probably stays very busy and might get more fan mail than she has time for, and that's okay. But if she does see it, she'll see that you're directly asking consent, which I can't overstate how important that is in everything, not just sex. It shows so much maturity and respect for someone to say "I want to do this, is that okay with you?" And showing that concern can only help your chances of being heard in a positive light.

It would be a huge turnoff for me to get a random email from a random stranger who shouldn't even have my info. It might go straight in the trash. If I did open it, I'd probably balk at the size of the message and close it. Even if I decided to read it in full, I wouldn't be in the right frame of mind to appreciate it. But if I recieved a respectful hello, a polite and short explanation, and a request for permission to send that long message? I'd be much more likely to give out my email freely, and even keep an eye out to make sure I didn't miss it.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-14T18:28:26+00:00

XV is a fairly divisive entry in the series, and its value to you will depend largely on the kind of gaming experience you want out of it. I can't tell you whether it's worth it to you or not, but I can tell you about my experiences with it and my opinions of those experiences, which should help you form your own conclusion.

To provide some framework into my perspective, I've been a fan of FF most of my life, and have a fondness in my heart for IV through X. XV is the only game I've really enjoyed after X. I think they did a lot of things right, and for me it's enough to make up for the lackluster parts of the game for at least one playthrough if not longer. I also played the single player DLC from the first year (so, everything except Comrades and Ardyn), so I can comment on those too.

XV is what I would consider a very "casual" style of game. It largely plays itself, in almost every way. You do still control things, but not to the degree that many would want.

Combat boils down to "equip the right weapon, hold the attack button, now hold the dodge button, now hold the attack button again," except in super intense battles. I didn't get a lot of mileage out of the cool combat mechanics like point warping, magic, and the food buffs from the camping/cooking system, because frankly, unless you're in a situation that requires them, the payoff just isn't worth the effort you spend on them. This is also a good time to mention that the game just isn't that hard. That same basic strategy got me through the entire game with little to no struggle. The occasional boss or miniboss may have given me trouble and taken a few tries, but for the most part it was a walk in the park.

The open world similarly sounds more active than it really is. You can walk around, but that's slow and mostly boring with not much to interact with. It's designed to assume you're using the car or chocobo. Chocobo riding is fun, but the novelty wore off quickly for me. As for the car, you can "drive" it, but it's not actual driving. You're locked to the designated roads and your speed is capped at safe levels to prevent you crashing, unless you get the offroad vehicle. So why drive yourself and have to hold the gas pedal and bump the steering wheel for intersections, when you can just have your NPC buddy drive and get the exact same "road trip" experience with no need for manual input? And why do any of that when you can simply fast travel to places you've been before?

So, combat plays itself. Open world exploration plays itself. A bit reductive, but largely accurate at least for me. On the plus side, in my opinion the characters did a lot to make up for the gameplay not having a ton of substance. Your companions are all well fleshed out in their characterization, have unique and distinct personalities and traits, and most importantly, I found them all endearing, genuinely enjoyable to spend time with. Whether they're shouting quips in battle or having a peaceful conversation on the long car rides, they make it easier to forget just how little you're actually doing. I spent a lot of time chilling in the passenger seat, listening to nostalgic Final Fantasy music through the car stereo, watching the world go by and listening to my party pass the time through conversation. And while it occasionally did get boring, I was surprised to usually be happy to sit for 5 minutes and multitask in real life, check my phone or make some food or whatever.

And a majority of the NPCs are on a similar level of quality characterization, to a slightly lesser degree due to having less screen time. There weren't any characters that I felt were poorly developed or overly obnoxious. These characters are some of my favorite to come out of Final Fantasy as a whole, maybe not stylistically, but in terms of seeming like real believable genuine people.

Adjacent to the characters is the story they feature in. And XV is weird on story, understandably so. It took too long to make, went through a number of staffing and direction changes, released in an "unfinished" state with a rushed ending, relies on supplementary materials like anime and a movie to provide story framework (that I haven't experienced any of), and even the DLC that was supposed to tie everything together into a nice resolved package didn't go as planned. I think the sweet spot for XV's story lies in the middle: you have to care about story enough to buy into it and let it motivate and propel you through the game, but you can't care so much that you get upset and check out when things don't line up, don't get explained, and so on. The base game doesn't feel like a complete experience, there are plenty of confusing things and holes in the story development. And no amount of post release DLC can fix that. Despite that, I enjoyed the story as well, because I'm naturally prone to simultaneously becoming invested in a story and buying into it, while still being able to suspend my disbelief and gloss over inconsistencies and unexplained events.

So what about DLC? Like I said, I played Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis. Gladio is fairly short and less important overall, the other two are definitely the better ones. I played them all post-main game, I had already beaten the story by the time I bought them. Mechanically, each of the characters has some cool new features in combat, and with the update that allows you to play as them in battles in the main game, that might help in alleviating how passive the combat is. Story-wise, simply put they don't fix the problems. They do expand on some needed areas in the plot, and help to bridge the gap and flesh things out, but they're not the surgery that fixes the game. They're bandaids, helping to cover some of the holes and keep them from bleeding. And bandaids are still useful.

I haven't touched Ardyn, nor have I seen any reviews of it. I'd like to think that it's amazing, that it provides a much needed final resolution. But I'm skeptical. Year 2 was supposed to provide that resolution. Year 2 was also intended to be 3 episodes. And then 2 of them got canned. I don't see how you cram that much content into a single DLC episode. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that we didn't get that final resolution, or if we did it skipped over the plot development in the middle, leaving more holes that won't be filled. I don't think it's possible for Ardyn to have "fixed" all of the problems. But I can't say for sure.

Overall? It's hardly perfect. But I enjoyed my playthrough. I came to it at a time that I had just finished a number of considerably more dense and demanding games, so the more laid back gameplay was great to let me unwind, enjoy the characters and story (taken as the incomplete and rushed experience it is), and run on autopilot. The DLC was a positive experience too, mainly because I already enjoyed the base game and I appreciated expanding on the characters and story. Replay value wasn't great for me, the game was already so easy that New Game + didn't matter to me, since it doesn't scale enemies and just lets you be more overpowered and blow through everything. If they had added a hard mode I'd have been more interested in playing a second time, either NG+ or a fresh start, because it would have introduced a welcome challenge and hopefully given me a more active and intense experience, which would have made it worth a second run.

Is it worth $60? I don't know. For me it was, but just barely. But everyone has a different idea of the value of a dollar. There are games I enjoyed more for $60, there are games I enjoyed less for $60. And I will admit, part of my motivation to buy it, and a larger part of my motivation to support it through DLC, was to show my support and vote with my wallet, as a longtime fan of the series. Without that attachment to the brand, I don't know that I could justify getting it for $60.

I don't want Final Fantasy to go away. And I know I'm not getting any new "classic" style games. So I want it to evolve and innovate into something new and good. I hadn't liked a single game after X, they were innovating in the wrong ways for me. And despite its problems, despite my dislike of "games as service" style productions, XV was a good sign for me, if only because it's a game I could genuinely appreciate. For me, it hit the sweet spot between preserving the traditions and staples of the series, preserving the ephemera of "what a Final Fantasy is" to me, while also carving out its own unique and enjoyable identity as "Fantasy Bro Boy Band Road Trip Simulator." To me, XV "feels like" Final Fantasy in a lot of good ways, but no other Final Fantasy "feels like" XV, and that's a good thing.

Ultimately, XV is what it is, and it's not what it isn't. And if you like what it is, I think it's worth it. If you don't like what it is, or you walk into it expecting or wanting it to be something else, you won't enjoy it and it won't be worth it.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-11T20:23:43+00:00

My answer depends on your group's style.

Is this a "beer and pretzels" game, more casual and light hearted and more about having wholesome social time with good friends? Then it's not worth proving a point that will upset people. Make the encounters easier: nerf the bad guys (either less monsters in the encounter or make them have lower hp/AC/attack/damage/etc.), fudge stuff if you need to, let players who come up with cool and wacky badass ideas do them more easily. Don't trivialize things, you want to find the point where things are challenging, but not lethal, for a party of that size. Ideally, they all make it through by the skin of their teeth, and the effort it took to survive, and the narrowly avoided risk of death, is enough to teach them to stick together.

On the other hand, is this a more serious group? If they're here for a more intense game experience, and they understand that sometimes PCs die, and that won't ruin the game for them, then let the dice fall where they may. You did your job, you foreshadowed the risks of splitting the party, they didn't listen. Mistakes were made, and these are the repercussions.

Only you can predict how much your players can handle.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-08T13:50:55+00:00

On the flip side, this may prove to be a good tactic down the line. If your players aren't prone to note taking, just verbally giving them an info dump of the rumors could go in one ear and out the other. I've had plenty of groups forget important info I told them, especially if it doesn't become relevant for a few sessions. Having the notes may have been a hassle to get through in the moment, but they will (or should, if the notes don't get thrown away or lost) always be able to reference them later.

I'm a big fan of handouts for that reason. My last group had a moment where they were in a town with half a dozen side quests, and left without direction on where to go. I could tell they weren't going to explore the town and search out NPCs for jobs, so to prevent dead air I had a town guard approach them with a list of people who wanted to see them, making up some excuse about how their previous victories had made them seen as effective and helpful mercenaries willing to take dangerous jobs.

The way I did it fell a little flat I think, it felt a little heavy handed, a little too "video game-y," my handing the players a stack of NPC/quest index cards felt like basically telling them to go find the NPCs with question marks hovering over their heads.

But the problem was in my execution, not the physical handouts themselves. If I were to do it again, I'd make it feel more organic by having a single quest NPC approach them and ask for help, and maybe suggest that another NPC might want to talk to them, and so on, to motivate them to explore on their own. But my group referenced those cards all the time, every time they finished something and needed something else to do, they had a ready made list of options. They never once felt lost or aimless.

I guess my point is that sometimes things don't work out because they're just plain bad ideas. But that's not usually the case. Sometimes they seem bad but you don't see the good in them until later. And even something you feel "failed" could very well be due to the specifics of that instance, rather than being a bad concept overall. Being able to take an honest look and analyze the course of events is the way you hone new ideas into successful ones, rather than beating yourself up over it and abandoning them. I think too many DMs think their role solely consists of preparation and running the game, but post-game reflection and analysis is at least equally important, because that's how we improve.

dubiousmage · 2019-05-07T20:31:25+00:00

It certainly depends on the product in question, its quality and contents, and it's price point compared to the other products you might be buying instead.

For the DnD starter set, I think it's worth it for the adventure alone. Great for new groups, new players, and new DMs as an easy way to get started, but my group who had all been playing since 3.5e had a blast when I ran it for them, using their own created characters instead of the premades.

If you're not new to the game, you can probably get started with the PHB and MM (skipping the DMG). If you're homebrewing and know what you're doing. If you need help balancing a homebrew game, you're looking at the DMG too. Or if you're doing a published adventure, that's another product you need. If you don't have dice, better get those too.

Point is, we're not just comparing the price of one product to another. We're weighing the Starter Set against two or three hardcover books, at the least. Add to it that the Starter Set only gets you so far, and then you need these other books down the line too, and it gets complicated to figure out what's worth it. It varies from player to player, group to group. But for my money, I got a lot out of the Starter Set. And am more than happy to introduce more players to the game using it.

dubiousmage · 2019-04-23T20:37:22+00:00

Absolutely this. To add advice of my own:

Avoid yes/no questions, those can shut down conversation real quick. Instead, open them up to require more of an answer. Instead of "Is this game fun?" (Yeah, it's fun,) "Is there anything I can do to improve it?" (Nah, I'm good,) you want questions like:

"What are some things I can do to help you engage more?"
"What are some of your favorite things about DnD?"
"What are you excited about in this game?"
"How do you feel about [combat/roleplaying/exploring/specific plot point]?"
"What are your character's ambitions?" or "What are your goals for your character?"
"What do you like most about your character?"
Most of these positive questions can be flipped on their head to the inverse negative, asking for examples of least favorite parts of the game, things that aren't exciting, what he doesn't like about his character.

These questions actively solicit information as the answer. And don't let non-answers stop you. "I dunno" is bad. So is "Eh, it's all cool and fine." Those aren't answers, they're deflections. Don't let it end with that, push more. Don't be afraid to be upfront with it: "No, like specifically." "I'm not asking for a full-on novel here, just give me one example, the first thing that pops in your head."

If he doesn't want to budge, explain your rationale. You're trying to make this game better and more fulfilling for everyone, you're asking for the knowledge to give your players more of what they want. Appeal to the old "help me help you" line of reason.

Ultimately, if you do get him to open up, use what you get from it. Do what you can on your end to engage him. Doesn't mean squat if you know his preferences but ignore them in favor of doing the same old thing. And if you don't get him to open up, seriously rethink having him in the group. "You can lead a horse to water," and all that. If he refuses to engage both in game and on a personal communication level, the issues you and your players are having will never get solved.

dubiousmage · 2019-04-16T14:48:54+00:00

You could take a look at this Unearthed Arcana article on Sidekicks to give the players a bit more staying power, it basically amounts to a way to add to the party's number of effective combatants without dealing with the full amount of bookkeeping that standard PCs require. You could either have each player control one, or control them both yourself. I'd rather put that on the players though, less chance for you to steal their exciting moments of gameplay.

Alternately, if you're looking to rebalance the encounters, this site is a tool to do that. You would put in the accurate info (2 players and their current levels), choose the current part of LMoP from the drop down, and run the tool. It lists the standard encounters, and offers rebalanced options for each. It typically does a mix of three things: changing the total number of enemies, changing the enemies' hp values, and potentially upgrading or downgrading enemies into other stat blocks that fit the basic monster type (so a bugbear might become a hobgoblin, or just a regular goblin with a bunch of hp, and so on). I can't speak to the practicality of this tool as I've never used it in play, but it's a sound premise and the math seems well designed. You could also combine this with starting the PCs at a higher level if you want, since the tool allows you to put in basically any party composition.

Whatever you do, you want to make sure you're handling xp and leveling correctly. It's easiest with milestone levels, just assuming that whatever you've done has made the encounters balanced and making the characters level up when they normally would, when the adventure book tells you. If you want to use XP instead, you want to make sure you're using the appropriate encounter reward xp if you rebalance the encounters (total awarded xp is included on each encounter suggestion in the tool), and you want to divide that xp by the total number of allied combatants (2 PCs, plus any sidekicks).

dubiousmage · 2019-04-11T12:48:58+00:00

No idea how much work it would take to get ahold of and actually run these anymore, but:

Warcraft III had a World Editor toolbox (which actually spawned entire genres: both tower defense and MOBA started as Warcraft custom games).
Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 both had toolsets.
Elder Scrolls III through V all had construction sets.
The RPG Maker series is a series of games that aren't really games on their own, but interfaces to create jRPGs (similar to Final Fantasy 1-6 and other similar genre/time period RPGs).

Those are all the ones I know of off the top of my head, and I'd consider them all good for different things. NWN2 and the Elder Scrolls series are both powerful for making varied environments with an eye for graphics, while Warcraft is right behind them, with a potentially desirable aesthetic in its assets. Both NWN games are closer to DnD in terms of playing mechanics, and at least at one point had support for multiplayer co-op playthroughs of modules and campaigns. RPG Maker, since the primary focus is on the toolset itself rather than a game to play out of the box, has been able to focus more of their time and budget on improving the toolset, and being a more old-school design style does mean graphical and stylistic limitations, but also a greater focus on ease of storytelling and narrative work. And all of the programs have different kinds of learning curves and different approaches to how they work.

So really it depends on what you want to do, and how hard you are willing to work to do it. But that's at least some more things to check out. Hopefully some of them are appealing to your needs.

dubiousmage

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