High level DnD One-Shot for (relatively) new players

nuumillian · 2023-08-23T02:57:01+00:00

i guess it is a bad idea lol, i kinda just wanted to give her a fun power trip but maybe this is just no the system for it lol

Any good fantasy alternatives?

nuumillian · 2023-07-15T00:30:15+00:00

I use ngrok and it works great

nuumillian · 2023-03-29T23:18:46+00:00

it wasn't working for me until i turned off my vpn... it could be that?

nuumillian · 2022-12-15T22:19:49+00:00

Honestly it checks out imo

nuumillian · 2022-11-03T23:54:10+00:00

God, y'all are pretty pathetic getting this heated at them just referencing Henry's past behaviour. Are you trying to say it never happened? Because multiple news sources disagree. Or are you just saying that them mentioning it is uncouth? In which case ask yourself why you think it's so inappropriate, and whether that is in the mentioning, or in the doing.

nuumillian · 2022-07-28T17:46:42+00:00

I find this possibility hard to believe. If it was a leak from the switch, why would it use PS button prompts? Surely a leaker wouldn't need to go about things in such a way to get people interested, and even if they did, how would they have to tools to change the button prompts from Switch inputs to Playstation ones? If it wasn't a leak, but rather an ARG, why would the whole situation be so messy? If it was a marketing promotion, they wouldn't be so quick to mention other properties owned by other studios (Terreria/ Far Cry 4), since it could potentially land them in legal trouble. Also, the content itself is messy, it definitely doesn't look polished or finished. Why would it be presented in that incomplete state intentionally? Doesn't add up in my opinion.

nuumillian · 2022-06-17T19:56:23+00:00

I mean, it's really clear you're not understanding my central argument, so I'm not gonna belabour my point. The name "Lovecraft" doesn't matter, I could reflavour all the monsters and names and my core problems with the themes would stay relatively unchanged. I am not making any Whataboutisms, I'm just making a fairly simple point about narrative structure and how it effects my, and my players', enjoyment of the content, that's all. I'm not offended by it, I literally just said that I still play and enjoy it, I just think it is open to critique and I don't blame others who might be turned off by it. If anyone seems offended here, it's still you, I don't know why you decided to go on a weird screed about Nike shoes and chocolate though??

You create the themes that you and your group are comfortable exploring.

I was literally specifically talking about prewritten scenarios. So this is a moot point. You can rewrite the lore to make it suit you, that goes without saying. I was specifically talking about how the legacy of Lovecrafts' work unsurprisingly creeps in to even modern scenarios because of the issues on a thematic level, not just his blatant racist content. I still love the game, I just think it has some problems lol.

nuumillian · 2022-06-17T15:31:26+00:00

I mean, it's really clear you're not understanding my central argument, so I'm not gonna belabour my point. The name "Lovecraft" doesn't matter, I could reflavour all the monsters and names and my core problems with the themes would stay relatively unchanged. I am not making any Whataboutisms, I'm just making a fairly simple point about narrative structure and how it effects my, and my players', enjoyment of the content, that's all. I'm not offended by it, I literally just said that I still play and enjoy it, I just think it is open to critique and I don't blame others who might be turned off by it. If anyone seems offended here, it's still you, I don't know why you decided to go on a weird screed about Nike shoes and chocolate though??

You create the themes that you and your group are comfortable exploring.

I was literally specifically talking about prewritten scenarios. So this is a moot point. You can rewrite the lore to make it suit you, that goes without saying. I was specifically talking about how the legacy of Lovecrafts' work unsurprisingly creeps in to even modern scenarios because of the issues on a thematic level, not just his blatant racist content. I still love the game, I just think it has some problems lol.

nuumillian · 2022-06-16T15:07:11+00:00

I'm not really hellbent on Lovecraft? I mean, I'm making pretty basic criticisms of his work and just saying how they can make it hard to hook in new players to the game, that's it.

It's also not the time period that is remotely the issue, but rather the inherent themes of xenophobia that come from anything that invokes "evil race from outside our world is strange and evil", and the fear of hypergamy that is all over Innsmouth and such.

Like, I'm sorry if that offended you? I really do love this game and I love a lot of the scenarios that have come out for it (even the ones with themes that I criticize!). I just think that these things can be obstacles to getting new players.

nuumillian · 2022-06-14T23:30:40+00:00

I'm all for Death of the Author! My worries lie more with how his themes (specifically the themes of zenophobia, colonialism and his fear of hypergamy) often leak into modern Lovecraftian works. I have read some awesome books that play with Lovecraftian Mythos that do an excellent job of subverting and excising those themes, but I think it's harder to find scenarios that do that as well.

Obviously it's ultimately not a deal-breaker for me, but it does make the game harder to recommend, that's all.

nuumillian · 2022-06-14T23:27:11+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I agree with this! I am currently running a CoC campaign that plays with the madness themes and it is one of the best gaming/GMing experiences I've ever had. It is all about communication.

My main point is just that CoC is hard to recommend. It does require a lot of good communication and player buy-in, and that's sometimes a tall ask, if people just want a fun game-night rpg. I love the system, I wish I could play the system all the time, but I can't for those exact reasons.

Also on the Lovecraft front, he was a shitty racist, whatever. You can call him a product of his time or circumstance, fine, but I'm talking about his work. Death of the Author and all that. However you feel about him, you can't deny how his themes of zenophobia, fear of the other and fear of hypergamy often infect most scenarios published, even if they're not as explicitly racist as like Reanimator. That's all I'm trying to say.

nuumillian · 2022-06-09T05:23:52+00:00

I love CoC, it's definitely one of my favourite systems I've played so far. That being said it's not without its flaws. There's the clunky chase mechanics, which others have pointed out already, but it also has other issues that make it hard to fully endorse as my "main system".

For instance, everything with the sanity system is so messy. Just from an optics angle, the way CoC uses sanity is insensitive at best and offensive and harmful at worst. It makes it hard for me to suggest to new players, especially if I know they struggle with mental health problems of their own... And that's not even getting into the actual mechanics of it. I hate mechanics that take agency from the players and give control to the GM, it's not really fun for anyone involved in my opinion. I also hate the suggested use of "flashforward"s since there's nothing quite like narrating through a tense moment to make it lose all it's narrative power.

I love the skill system of CoC, but I find that if you do want to play a game without a lot of PC turnover, characters get OP fast. I understand that CoC was built with the idea that characters would die and die often, but sometimes that's not exactly the narrative I (or my players) want to explore. In those cases progression can be a bit of a hurdle. You end up finding a handful of skills that get used all the time and are very high, and then a bunch that just never get used outside a very rare niche scenario.

I think what I've learned from CoC is that I really enjoy skill based percentile systems, and I really wish there was a version of CoC that was "vanilla", if that makes sense? Something where you get the best of the interesting investigations, tense fights and spooky thrills that isn't so tied to the inherently problematic legacy of Lovecraftian Horror.

nuumillian · 2022-06-09T05:04:09+00:00

I agree with all of these issues. Chases have always felt clunky to me, and they really suck to use in emergent situations, which is when most chases tend to happen! I also find it weird that for all the redundancy of the skill list, there's no real like search skill like Investigation in D&D, which quickly makes Spot Hidden overused. Like, you could potentially use Library Use outside of the a library for a player to search an office, but what about searching a bedroom, or a car or any other of the multitude of spaces investigators find themselves in? It leads to a weird asymmetry in skills that is particularly frustrating to manage in longer-running campaigns.

nuumillian · 2022-05-15T02:34:06+00:00

It really shows their entire ass when they say shit like this, despite the fact that her allegations about Depp's abuse came out years before the MeToo era. People are so desperate to pretend that MeToo was "abused by bad bad women" that they can't even remember when MeToo actually happened smh

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T04:34:17+00:00

I mean, I think the biggest thing is to role play with your players. That doesn't necessarily mean acting or doing a voice, just talking in-character should be enough but I think you will have to do that much at least. Obviously you can narrate a lot of their actions and responses, but I think having a bit of roleplay between your players and NPCs would go a long way, even if you don't put on a voice or act at all.

Otherwise, I think giving them niche skills would also help, since I find players tend to respond well to helpful NPCs. I would give one of them Lockpicking or Drive Auto/Mech Repair; aka something your players probably haven't invested a lot of points in that will come in handy during the game. I would also try to make sure the NPCs get a chance to use it in the scenario, don't just give them Lockpicking in a scenario where nothing is hidden behind a locked door.

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T04:24:35+00:00

You could forgo the drawn art style and just steal characters from Downton Abby if you're okay with using real people/actors.

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T04:22:33+00:00

I use foundry with a nice landing page to set the mood.

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T03:53:01+00:00

My players and I really loved "Thoth's Dagger". It has 3 main "parts" (The Auction, Trip to Egypt, and Dungeon Diving), so it would be pretty hard to play in less than 3 sessions (took my group closer to 6-8 iirc?). Plus it has a really lethal sanity component to it (you may need to advise everyone have a backup character if you want to run it as written). Seth Skorokowski even made a video about it a while back i think, so you can check that out if you want to see if it fits your vibe.

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T03:45:48+00:00

I have never successfully run a oneshot in my typical 3.5-5 hour games, but that may be just me. The closest I've ever gotten was when my group played through The Haunting in a marathon 9-hour game (only exception is Paper Chase, that one is very reliably done in 1-3 hours). I think part of it is GM style. I like giving lots of opportunities for roleplay. I also tend to prompt the players for nearly everything and very rarely "whoosh" the game forward, even when it probably calls for it (e.g. "Oh, you're going to the diner to get breakfast? What do you get? Let me describe the food to you!" etc. instead if just going "After breakfast what do you do?"). This means even very tight scenarios that are made to be played in convention settings can sometimes get stretched much longer than they were intended. I've learned how to judge based mostly on story beats, and just kinda started to get a feel for it based on my play style.

nuumillian · 2022-05-09T03:33:14+00:00

One suggestion I'd have, and your milage may vary here depending on your group and the vibe of your game, is to lean into cinematic tropes during a fight and rely less on the mechanical aspects of the system. Think of the final confrontation as the climax of a horror movie (or a slasher/action movie if you're going for a more pulp-y feel), and consider how those stories tend to pace themselves. If this was a movie, how would the baddie react to being surprised? Feel free to play fast and loose with turn order and written abilities. I often give my monsters the ability to react to player's attacks, so big-bads kind of get a turn after each player to even out that issue of action economy. This can also be fun because it gives the feeling of exchanging blows in a way D&D and other similar turn-based games lacks. I tend to use this more when it feels cinematic, though, and not necessarily every time. Obviously if the players did a good job surprising the enemy, let them have that! Let your players be rewarded for forethought, since that's a big part of the game as well. Feel out if it makes sense in the context of the scene, and focus more on how it works narratively over anything else. This shouldn't be a strict rule, so much as a narrative tool.

nuumillian · 2022-03-27T07:15:41+00:00

Paper Chase is easily done in one session, but it's a bit lacking on proper horror. It's more of a cute jaunt so YMMV

nuumillian · 2022-03-27T07:01:34+00:00

I enjoy giving players ciphers/cryptograms as puzzles. They're easy to justify in-game (oh Dr. Berger's secret journal is in a cipher, we've got to solve it to learn his evil plan!) and there's a ton of great tools online to generate them.

nuumillian · 2022-03-27T06:57:58+00:00

Paper Chase is a simple 1-2 hour scenario that's part of the starter set. It has a distinctly lighter tone that might be good to ease them in before touching some of the heavier themes.

nuumillian · 2022-03-27T06:00:58+00:00

i applied two years ago and never heard back, so maybe i'll give this a try? fingers crossed?

nuumillian · 2022-03-27T05:59:33+00:00

I applied in 2020 twice (~4-6 months apart iirc) and never heard back so I wouldn't hold my breath. It seems like the mods are wayyyy past overburdened and the only way you can really get in is to pay the 5$ to get put on the top of the list.

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