ITT we ask questions bothering us in our games, and other user give suggestions on how to help, or what they've done in similar situations. Cross discussion of solutions and problems is, of course, welcome, but try to avoid troll answers and petty arguments.
To start us off, here's a classic - how do you deal with a character whose player is invested in the game, but whose character has no personal stakes in ongoing story threads, and who has not been drawn to attempts to make it personal?
You take them outside and ask them about it. Chances are that they haven't bit the story hook because you've used bait that isn't appealing, or they're happy playing as part of a team and so doesn't really want to do "personal story" stuff. You need to find out which one it is though, as trying to foist story on a player who doesn't want it is not going to endear them to the game, and not trying to provide it to someone who wants it probably won't end up with a happy player.
As always, communication is the first step in working out the cause for a symptom.
Do you allow inter-party fighting in your games? Personally, I do, albeit with all players consenting before the game begins. I discourage it generally, but don't disallow it.
>Do you allow inter-party fighting in your games?
depends on the system, generally if the game's rules make it easy for players to resolve conflict non-lethally then fine, if not then it's better left untouched
If the players want to do stuff like that, I'll allow them to engage in sparring matches with one another if there's nothing pressing going on.
But usually, no. I make sure the players make characters that work well together in a group... although, differences of opinion do happen from time to time, it's never come to in-character blows. Yet.
generally no
once i let one player attack another player, and ended up killing him
the problem is people are petty and even though the character died the player resented him and used every opportunity to fuck him over with his new character
The most i ever allow it is during down time and usually in the form of some sparring match such as boxing or wrestling, were the rules are clearing laid out and noone will get damaged to the point were a nights rest wont fix it.
How does one deal with losing a player in a quest where the stakes were personal, especially for the player character that'll be leaving? It's not as easy as dropping the whole thing, since other characters have their own stakes, albeit slightly less important and built-up-to ones.
Its hard for me to add to this , but possibly let it go? If your group doesn't seem to be falling apart, and the character in question just tags along, and the whole group and fine with it, you can try rolling with it until the player starts to be bothered, after which they will happily bite the story hooks you offer.
Depending on the game, but in most games with high power levels and equal opposition, like Exalted or Mage (contrast with Hunter or Call of Cthulhu) - oh boy I do. Shooting themselves in the foot can be an educational experience for PCs to start with, and combat is usually spectacular.
That's a tough one. If it's absolutely imperative that the character is in the story, take over with player consent. If that doesn't work, either kill off the character so stakes rise for the rest of the group ("We must avenge him now!") or try to rewrite the story so it ties into a different module.
As always, the relationship between DM/player is a two-way street. The hooks should feel relevant, but the players should be willing to accommodate a variety of hooks. Compromises can and should be made.
In our group, we've had one player who rather famously made a Rogue whose only goal was to "escape" the party. Doing so at the first opportunity, they were forced to roll a new character within minutes instead of playing the character they actually liked.
I feel like the downside of making an active PC into an NPC is that you get the DMPC effect. No one minds when it's the PCs taking the lead (provided a sane group and spotlight rotation), but it's REALLY noticeable when the DM is just talking to themselves. That's not even dealing with the fact that removing player agency for an NPC just makes all the story beats hollow and dull, fake even.
Killing the PC introduces its own problems. What if the player comes back? And what about multi-faceted scenarios, where different PCs experience different things according to social class and past experiences, each then bringing their own piece to the whole?
I almost think the best solution is to just scrap it, but if you're just discarding plots that have been built up and the motivations that come with, you may as well go play a fucking video game.
Hijacking this question, what would you all do if one asshole player keeps actively trying to fuck over another players. Some examples:
>Let's call this player Jake
>Someone else beats Jake to the loot and found a really cool sword that Jake wants. Jake says "I want to attack *other player* because I want that sword
>Someone else's character in game makes a joke about Jake's character. Jake decides that his PC is now a mortal enemy of the other player and actively tries to kill them
>Player's wizard has a familiar, Jake says "I want to attack kill the familiar" because it's funny
>Player's find a bowl of magical liquid that does severe damage to players if they touch it. Jake goes "I want to throw the gnome into it"
It's like he thinks he's in fucking Skyrim and can do whatever the hell he wants
Ask him why he's doing it. Explain that it's disruptive and makes the game worse for you and the players. If he does it again, remove him.
good on the DM though for enforcing the re-roll.
I wouldn't even ask, to be honest. Most of that stuff is psychopathic and unjustifiable and there should be no ambiguity in crushing it.
I have an NPC tiny child genius in one of my games. How do I make her act like an actual child genius without being a giant bitch/pain?
Right now she talks like she's at least 13. She's five years old.
There's an in-universe justification for her insane intelligence, but I want to work on the 'is actually still a child' portion of her character.
It's an opportunity for the player to be called to account for their actions and a moment to reflect on them.
The final option is booting them. I have a 3 Strikes rule, personally.
You need to be able to identify the difference between knowledge from experience and maturity and knowledge from genius.
Having her miss adult or older child social cues, having her jump to her bed to avoid the monster under it, having her show difficulty understanding others' motivations, etc.
Please advise on how to do sandbox fun? My players usually don't know what to do with freedom.
What are some general ideas on doing a fib sandbox?
>how do you deal with a character whose player is invested in the game, but whose character has no personal stakes in ongoing story
Is this such a bad thing? It typically happens to me in campaigns because I prefer to be somewhat of a supporting character rather than a full on protagonist, but if I'm going along with things and not actively disrupting the story, what's the big deal?
Read Ender's Game series. Child genius that led an army that destroyed an entire race of beings in space if you don't know.
Throw out a shit ton of plot hooks and let them pick the one they want to do the most. After that you can add more things to do but also make the ones they skipped be a little more threatening since the pcs didn't take care of that one. Short example:
>Tell Pcs there have been talk of an abnormal number of goblins being seen in the forest outside of town, in one part of town people are noticing the cheese and meat rations dwindling, and there have been tales of pirates harassing ships at sea
>Let's say the players go and deal with the goblins
>They kill the goblins and find out they were being used as scouts for a orc army wanting to pillage the city
>PCs decide to go back to town only to find out that the pirates have now destroyed a merchant ship and took them hostage while the Rat King has made his move and his rat minions are overrunning the city while he tries to take over the city
Then let your PCs decide what they want to deal with next
This. sandbox is one of the few cases where analysis paralysis is kind of a good thing, since they'll eventually see plot hooks come and go, which gives a feeling of a living world.
Most Dm's want all their characters to have involvement in the story otherwise you might as well be a npc/dmpc.
>we've had one player who rather famously made a Rogue whose only goal was to "escape" the party. Doing so at the first opportunity, they were forced to roll a new character within minutes instead of playing the character they actually liked.
I'm always involved in the story, just for reasons other than what the DM is throwing out there. Like a couple years back I was playing a dude who wanted to become an infamous pirate , so his motivation for taking down the big bad was so that the populace would be free to be pillaged and whatnot.
step 1) central hub of some kind, build relationships with NPCs there. Don't force this, allow for it. If players come to a place more than once, make sure you bring back old NPCs who live there, and add new ones. Do the first step of this process every time they go to a new place; prep broad rather than deep.
2) HOOKS! NPCs in any town, hub, caravan, or who the PCs have just defeated in combat and are begging for their lives ALWAYS want to tell the players about Something Interesting Over There. Give information about your world out for free; give out mysteries for free and allow relatively quick resolution. A great way of doing this is geographically- while travelling, the players see a tower floating over the in the next hex, or see the dragon who lives in the mountain just visible over the horizon going home to roost.
3) Backstory shit. This is kind of the cheap way to do things- you should lean on 1&2 mostly. However, if your players have written backstories, or established facts about what their characters care about or believe in, always have something prepped you can use to press on this. For an old group, I used to jump to an NPC being rude to the halfling to spark some sort of confrontation, or rumours about elven ruins.
Question specifically for DMs who run games on R20 or similar services. How do you account for players wanting to go somewhere you hadn't planned? Since in person I can draw a new map in a minute or two, or worst case scenario I can draw it as they progress, but online I'm not given that luxury and can't draw maps that quickly. Is it okay to have a campaign be more on rails if you're limited for resources.
soon to be first time DM here with a really basic question, how do you have your players make their characters?
do you just give them the information and tools and tell them to make something on before your first session like homework or something or do you get all of them together and do you just spend a session making characters together?
assuming this is pretty much the first time playing for all involved.
What game is it? If it's 5e you could roll your characters pretty damn quick. Just have them decide on a race, a class, and a loose backstory before coming.
You make an overland map to start: relevant to the game, have a general map of "within 3 days travel" and a placeholder X for were the party is. God forbid, you do some theater of the mind with them while they look at the overland map, and you setup what you need on the fly.
Also, preparation is key to future success. It costs nothing but downtime to make filler maps, so you can throw quantum ogres at people when need be
Stop caring about nice maps so much? You can still draw something quick in only a minute or so, and it's easier to add detail as you go. Alternatively, fall back on theatre of the mind- just describe the situation and worry less about exactly where everyone is standing for one encounter. It's not ideal considering how most games treat Aoe/ranged attacks, but it works.
I usually have 'filler maps' just for this kind of situations. Just random ruins, roadside ambush or other random encounters just to get players involved and to drag some time. Also helps if you can roleplay with them.
as said, use filler maps, or get used to slapping some generic ones together using basic colors.
Best to all do it together. One thing you definitely want to do is go through the whole process yourself beforehand, probably a couple of times. This makes it more familiar, easier to explain etc.
The other thing you could do is have a couple of pre-made characters, for players either to copy from (equipment/spell lists eg), or to use directly before making/customising their own character the next time.
Back in the day we spend first session just to create characters. Now, now we just send out emails with PDFs in them.
>do you just give them the information and tools and tell them to make something on before your first session like homework
Yes.
>do you get all of them together and do you just spend a session making characters together?
Concepts are hammered out communally through a brainstorming session.
Ask the other members of the party why they aren't retaliating.
I prefer brainstorm chargen too, but getting players to DO it is another thing entirely. My ideal rule of thumb is that at game start, every char knows at least 1 other char in the group, preferably not all the same one.
I had this problem as a player once. My character was basically being held at gunpoint to do quests for a bad guy, and the DM admitted that while my character was a functional member of the party mechanically, story wise he was extremely out of place with the other characters.
The solution was that my character left the party and was replaced with a new one. This has worked thus far, but I'm afraid it might end up repeating itself as it's an evil campaign and my characters invariably tend to lean towards good.
To add to what others have said: a 'session zero' is incredibly useful if you have the time. People can discuss, share and refine ideas for their characters, and having the group work together can lead to an interesting (and balanced) party composition.
I've had situations where players have strayed from my nice well-made maps, and I had to improvise.
They walked through the well designed and depicted lab, through the dark and spooky officesp, and then out into the back alley drawn in ms paint rectangles, with colorful squiggles representing vomit, garbage, blood, etc.
>preferably not all the same one.
> Party gathers
> Everyone thought they were just invited to hang out with Dave
> Dave is super social and knows everyone
> Awkwardness ensues because everybody only knows Dave
Most of my groups are already friends and work well together, so brainstorming works well for us.
Otherwise, as GM, I like to talk through characters with the players, to make sure there aren't any surprises, and that everyone knows what's what.
And so my last attempt at Shadowrun ended up with a runaway English noblewoman with a horse, an ex-special forces redneck with what amounts to the player's pickup truck as a personal vehicle (mods recreated surprisingly well by Shadowrun), and another player ripping off an Overwatch character to get the hang of character creation, then fluffing his ACTUAL character as that guy's disciple.
And we're probably going to have a loli elf of some sort from another player.
Personally, I tend to create and write my characters in a fit of inspiration. This has lead to a slightly retarded foxgirl street samurai with a vibro-katana on rollerskates, with an annoying verbal tic and a fear of trucks. Who has to try really hard not to say stupid things to Johnsons. Oh, and her main contact was her sugar daddy, because that felt like a good idea at the time.
Everyone loved her, though.
To be honest, make it more about motivations than anything.
>Why did you build a city destroying death ray
>Because the nice man asked me too. He always brings cookies and has soft hands.
Me and some friends just played our first game of 5th edition and they are all new. I am Dming being the only person to have ever played even though it was 3.5. I just tossed them into a world and let them roam and learn the game. I wasnt to harsh with the rules or anything but when should I try to get a little strict on them. Should I give them another game to just play around or go ahead and start a serious story arc that we can continue playing. This is the first part of the video if you would like to see how it was youtu.be
You could always try playing someone like Senator Armstrong, toned back a bit: a real might makes right type, but gets no personal enjoyment out of harming weaklings.
How do I prevent GM ADHD? There's so many things I want to run but I can only do one at a time. The indecision gets so bad that I just give up and run regular bog-standard generic D&D.
Resign yourself to the fact that by the time you finally set up and get to a cool one, half the group will have left, rendering the whole exercise moot.
well my group gets around this by having occassional breaks in the main campaign during which we run a few one-shots, it's worked out pretty well
I have a similar issue, though I guess it's not a serious problem, if somebody really wants to play, they do.
But when we started the game, it was pretty obvious that some players made less invested characters than others, and the way I resolved this is that once the story came into its own, I started giving the characters spotlight-sidequests. This had good results and bad results: One character that was a little too mild is now much more fleshed out, with the player being muhc more invested, but it also causes the players to be less inclined to attend sessions, "because it wasn't their story anyway". Seriously, the session before the last was the first time we had all six players, we tend to have like three or four as of late.
There isn't a good solution because one player is seriously sick enough to be justified in not attending sometimes, and another player is seriously busy and says it ahead of time, but this last person, fuck.
We talked about it at length, they are around for the sessions, they want to play more, their character has a personality now, but it's still not fucking happening. Their stance is that their character wouldn't do anything most of the time, and they are completely right, and we both want them to do more things, and I shouldn't be throwing character-specific hooks at them in the middle of another person's story, and it hurts.
One of my players is dead set wanting to be a conversation character, but has no idea:
1. What to say or how to act in character
2. What kind of check to use.
What the fuck am i supposed to do?
Turn all adventures into episodic and modular adventures that are open enough to continue the game, but can also offer some closure. Never throw out a hook that requires multiple campaigns. Do it, and do it now. That way, when you switch gears, it'll be much easier to abandon the last game.
Work WITH the flaw, not against it.
Have him play Facade until he wins.
He will be a conversation god if he wins.
You can win that game?
There's this one youtuber named Crendor that beat it completely by accident, but that's the only time I've seen or heard of someone beating it.
What's a good way to hide side objectives well enough to not point them out on a sliver platter but also making it possible to find?
Can he hold a conversation IRL?
And if he can make his character him.
And just hold a conversation close to IRL.
You give the character incentives that make sense. Like giving a greedy fuck money for doing thing x or z. It shouldn't be hard in all honesty.
Is it wise to "talk to yourself" as the DM? That is when you have multiple NPCs talking to each other. Should I avoid these situations?
Sometimes you need to. Make sure it's brief and justified.
Why is this wrong?
On the other hand, as a GM, should I focus solely on the player and forfeit or limit my NPC's?
Can a story be told without characters or only focused on the very few protagonists in a world with millions of other beings in it?
>Why is this wrong?
The players are just watching you talk to yourself and not actively playing the game.
That said,
>Sometimes you need to. Make sure it's brief and justified.
This
>On the other hand, as a GM, should I focus solely on the player and forfeit or limit my NPC's?
I don't forfeit an NPC's will or actions.
I do try to limit the NPCs as much as reasonable, but also try to avoid turning them into mute bots at the PCs disposal. It's an imperfect balance.
It varies, but NPCs should never really be the main characters of the story.
>Can a story be told without characters or only focused on the very few protagonists in a world with millions of other beings in it?
Stories can be told any number of different ways.
Roleplaying games played in a group should focus on the perspective of the group.
New to D&D, and i have been chosen to DM as I'm the only one with the attention span to read a manual. Here in lies the problem,
I've found that I care more than most of the people I play with. Only one other player has actually bought a PHB and seems to at least try, albeit he is a slow learner.
The other party member does things like roll to move when there is no stealth involved, and generally make things difficult. For example he said "I'm gonna hide behind this corner and shoot my bow blind around it", even though he still had a move and could shoot, then move. I told him I'd make him roll disadvantage for shooting like that but he did anyway. Sure enough he critfailed so I made him shoot a teammate.
Another party member smoked a little weed and I feel like all the rules I explained (it was his first adventure) went over his head.
Is there any suggestions on how to get them more into it? It's hard to come by people willing to play so I'd like to make it work if I can.
You're going to have to exercise a little more control over your group.
You tell them what to roll.They ask if they can do things and what they want to do, and you tell them what to roll.
Tell them to come to the game sober, or not at all. You're putting hard work in running the game, they should give it their full attention.
Also, don't use a critical failure system. It's shitty and just makes things awful. Just have a Natural 1 be an automatic failure, but not critical failure that results in accidentally shooting a party member or stuff like that.
>party member does things to generally make things difficult.
1. Continue to address the points and communicate clearly
2. Do not engage in the actions they are employing that are making things difficult.
If they are making unnecessary rolls, explain again that they are unneeded and ignore the result.
If a player wants to stealthily sneak for no reason and at no risk, by acknowledging their roll, you accept the action.
"I told you, you don't need to roll. You quietly walk across the room." does a better job of expressing this to them than just "Your 4 succeeds."
>even though he still had a move and could shoot, then move.
>I told him I'd make him roll disadvantage for shooting like that but he did anyway.
Did he know he could shoot then duck?
If so, then his choice makes no sense.
Any time a player wants to have their PC do something that makes no sense, I ask them "Why would your character do that?".
My personal rule is that if they can't come up with some flimsy stretch to explain why the character would do what the player wants to do, then they can't do it.
This cuts nonsense down to an acceptable level.
"Because it's funny" is not a good reason.
"Because that last orc cut him bad and he's panicked." might be, even if its a justification for doing something funny.
It has the additional benefit of forcing the player to reframe their mindset to that of the character.
>Sure enough he critfailed so I made him shoot a teammate.
If the player was just out to ignore the game, the rules, and the setting as well as not caring about the game and only caring about the lulz, then this was an excellent reward for his choice.
It seems like this was a perfectly acceptable outcome to him, not a negative result.
>Another party member smoked a little weed
This is likely to become a problem with poor attention span and retention, but not necessarily. Some can function on a little pot.
If it becomes a problem, talk to him about it.
>Also, don't use a critical failure system. It's shitty and just makes things awful. Just have a Natural 1 be an automatic failure, but not critical failure that results in accidentally shooting a party member or stuff like that.
Seconding this.
>Continue to address the points and communicate clearly
This is pretty much what I've been doing. Since this whole thing is still in its infancy I'm pretty chill and straightforward about it. i have hope that they will learn slowly but surely.
>If the player was just out to ignore the game, the rules, and the setting as well as not caring about the game and only caring about the lulz, then this was an excellent reward for his choice.It seems like this was a perfectly acceptable outcome to him, not a negative result.
I don't believe that he is out to mess up the game, I think he's not the brightest guy and he's played a lot of videogames and seen a lot of movies and goes overboard with some of the cinematic stuff.
As far as the critfail thing, I use it for enemy npcs as well. I feel like it adds a little bit of extra fun to it, but maybe not doing it every time a 1 is rolled would be better.
Anyways thanks for the advice it all seems pretty solid to me
I don't like critfails, but in a casual game it usually gets a laugh out of the players. When your buddy accidentally shot another PC, I'm guessing no one was too upset by it, right?
They seem to enjoy it. had a pretty funny encounter at the start of LMoP that went something like
>Player 1 attempts to do a sliding slash on a goblin
>nails the slide but misses attack
>basically just laying under the goblin
>Player 2 jumps off cart trying to do a flying strike on same goblin
>Fails, both players now basically laying under the goblin
>Goblins buddy attempts to shoot one of the players
>crit fails and shoots his the other goblin dead
I think it's moments like this every once in a while that keep them entertained and hooked on the game. Obviously the storytelling, etc. should be doing most of the heavy lifting as far as gameplay goes, but I feel like it gives them a little humor/entertainment boost
>I don't believe that he is out to mess up the game
My concern was that he didn't care if he messed up the game or not.
I know the type. "It's just a game."
But you know him, I just read a couple lines about him.
One of my players asked if he could have any cool doodads, like a transdimensional workshop tent from his time as a scientist for the Lizardfolk Capital City(Lizardfolk is my leading race in this setting), but aside from the aforementioned workshop, I'm drawing a blank...
Any nifty suggestions? Everyone is starting at level 4, and the guy asking is usually my DM, so I kind of wanted to blow him away with a cool doodad.
Ask Jake why he thinks D&D is not a team game.
Better yet, stop inviting Jake to play games with you.
I'm GMing my first game (Dark Heresy) tomorrow and I fear that the material I have isn't enough. Here's the basics
>A player met a merchant in a gambling den and heard that he could use some muscle/brains to recover a shipment that was stolen in a raid during transportation.
>Merchant directs the party to the raid site
>There are some clues on who could have done it (mainly a raider corpse and security footage.)
>The clues will end up at the raider's den.
I tried to keep it simple, but I think it's too short. Any suggestions on adding more meat to it or tips on how to come up with stuff?
Aren't PCs in DH are Adepts of the Inquisition?
Usually when a player character dies in my group, he can write up a new sheet and his new character gets introduced by the next session with little fuss because players used to hang around cities or in general places with people.
However now they're on a sort of an expedition away from any civilization. They've been at it for a couple of sessions now and it doesn't look like it'll end any time soon. A few of the players came close to dying to a tiger attack recently, so that got me thinking about what I would do if one of them dies.
Can't have a player sit out 5 or more sessions because that's kinda bullshit. My options are either a contrived survival or the players meeting the new character by coincidence, or having them take over one of the accompanying NPCs. All these choices are kinda shit.
What should I do in this situation?
Tell us more about his character
Open in the den and give them other NPCs to fuck around with
He is an... uplifted Velociraptor Artificer.
Essentially he ran secret experiments for the Allaince to mutate Orcs(who are slaves in my setting), and one of his experiments backfired, mutating him, a Lizardfolk, into a velociraptor. The character is level 4, and the groups healer, despite being a condescending cunt.
If it helps, this is a 5e setting.
Make them bipolar, in a way. Sometimes they're brilliant genius who can quickly deduce exactly what's going on, but sometimes they're 'It's a pony! Oh! I wanna pet the pony!'
Is there anything I should know, starting a gestalt 3.5 game? My players are pretty new ones, only having started playing in the past few months, but I think they're familiar enough with it for things not to be a problem.
I've got a truespeaker bard, a shadowcaster/monster, and what might be a fighter/warmage (archery-specified, eventual arcane archer/abjurant champion).
I admit, this is a bit more of a mechanical question than most, but I haven't really played with gestalt more than most.
I've also fixed truespeakers with a few houserules like a lower truespeech DC and less Law of Sequence, and it seems like the monster's going be pretty melee... but do you think there's anything the party might need? Or a player that might need more help than the others?
>I just tossed them into a world and let them roam and learn the game.
Good approach for newbies.
>I wasn't to harsh with the rules or anything but when should I try to get a little strict on them.
Now.
If you let them ignore rules, you are teaching them the rules don't matter.
Be gentle, be forgiving for mistakes, but be consistent.
Slowly start enforcing rules they might be ignoring, forgetting, or overlooking until you reach the level of adherence to RAW that you are most comfortable with.
Protip: that level is subjective. Ask the yellow dragons.
>Should I give them another game to just play around or go ahead and start a serious story arc that we can continue playing.
That depends entirely on what they and you want to do.
It sounds like you want to run a more structured game.
There is no real guideline to transitioning from sandbox to campaign beyond giving them the hooks.
so I'm gonna tell a quick story and ask about how fucked this campaign is going to be.
I was just invited into a coworker's house who is starting a dungeon and dragons game. 5th edition dnd, we're gonna be doing a module then do a 'homebrew'. I get asked to build a character, and settle pretty quick on a cleric. I ask for some d6s to start generating stats and he tells me he uses a different system. I assume point buy, but instead he asks me what my characteristics should be from strongest to weakest. I list off my preferences and he then proceeds to give me a 20, an 18, a 17 and so on down to a 14 for my 'worst' stat (dex).
He then gave me 3 cantrips without letting me look through the book (they all seemed fine but motherfucker I want to make my own character) and after that he showed me his collection of dice and all his minis for when we play. And I mean every one of them, from the big dragon down to 4 goblins and their various stances. He even explained how each one looked.
When I asked what the other players were doing, I was told one other person had locked down their stats and he was an 'autistic berserker' and I figured I'd just fucking leave it at that.
How fucked am I? And what advice could I give this DM to help steer away from disaster?
Can someone please give an example of a good investigation quest? Or some advice on how to make one that is fun and not a chore.
I really need one.
I'd allow it under a certain context such as a friendly fight between two character or in the worst case, if a player want to stop a That guy to do something very stupid that hurt the fun of other player (such as stealing from the party or trying to rape a PC or important npc)
>he asks me what my characteristics should be from strongest to weakest. I list off my preferences and he then proceeds to give me a 20, an 18, a 17 and so on down to a 14 for my 'worst' stat (dex).
>He then gave me 3 cantrips without letting me look through the book
When you, as a sensible adult, asked him why he was choosing to run his game this way, what was his response?
>he showed me his collection
>He even explained how each one looked.
Are you trying to say he pointed out the details of each one?
Otherwise, that makes zero sense.
A person shows you something or explains how it looks, not both.
a good general guideline for making an investigation is
>Plan a central line of clues, one should lead the players to the next and when all are gathered they should have the absolute minimum information needed to potentially solve the mystery
>Now make satellite clues, these can be either connected to the central ones, as additional info in those scenes or free-floating ones which can be dropped in like random encounters. You'll have enough when if they have all of them plus the central clues the answer is obvious.
>Lastly put in two odd details, these are like satellite clues except they don't help the main mystery, rather they create a sense that there's more going on in the world and can also be turned into future plot hooks.
Jesus fucking Christ
Here are some essential guides for mysteries: thealexandrian.net
thealexandrian.net
Also try not to make all the clues be behind a skill check so the game doesn't stop dead on its tracks after 5 minutes of play when all the players fail their notice/investigation roll.
In my mystery campaign I pretty much let them have most of the clues without any rolling in the first session (I didn't spoonfeed the clues though. Their characters had to search for them). In later sessions, a failed roll would let them have the clue but a success could give them insight about the clue or even possible leads or additional clues.
>Also try not to make all the clues be behind a skill check so the game doesn't stop dead on its tracks after 5 minutes of play when all the players fail their notice/investigation roll.
This is pretty important. You want multiple routes to a solution, even accidental ones. And sometimes it's worth it to have any friendly NPCs be, well, helpful in solving mysteries. They're people too, even if not protagonists.
Thank you for all the advice!
Curse of Strahd spoilers below.
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I'm thinking about asking one of my player to play Ireena. How fucked am I ?
For those of you who don't know the setting, she's usually seen as the "princess" to rescue in the setting. The vampire and darklord Strahd wants her because she's the reincarnation of his previous lover who killed herself tragically. So you kinda have to make her safe by any means while Strahd is going to try his best to steal her.
Strahd being the creepy fuck he is, I'm first going to ask my player if she's OK with that (obviously), but I'm still wondering if I'm not making things super hard for myself. She's a pretty important plot tool.
Pic related that's the beautiful bitch.
I sarcastically asked him if he wanted a transdimensional workshop tent and he said, "Nah, but I don't necessarily need a weapon either. He would prefer utility magic items or strange things. A staff that creates bubbles that do... something? Potions are likely something he'd have."
Which, helps me a bit, but I've been so creatively dead from work recently. Thankfully the game is all written, and my fiance is drawing the maps, otherwise I'd be completely boned instead of just a little.
A staff that you can 'store' potions inside of. Then you can fire a bubble of potion at someone to affect them with it. Healing potions for allies, poison for enemies, acid for locks, etc.
Teleport button, d5 needles.
Insert needle into target. Press button. They are teleported to you.
Dragon Cigar
A fat, black cigar; the cigar band has a picture of a dragon smoking a cigar. When lit, the smoke begins pouring out at a ferocious rate- 20ft/round until it's filled all space up to 100ft away. Smoke remains for d30 minutes after bottle is recorked. User only is able to see through smoke/fog. Good for 1 full Turn of use total.
Vial of either universal solvent/adhesive, 1 use only. No way to know which it is until you use it, and no way of safely re-corking bottle to test before use.
Also look up 'Into the Odd' - its a microlite system based around magic all coming from magical items, "Arcana" of varying strength. It's a good thing to base magic item rules off, and has magic items which aren't intended (as in most Dnd derivatives) to supplement pre-existing character magical abilities.
Have them encounter a prisoner held by their enemies and free them.
Have them encounter the remains of a battle, and one of the people who looks dead is just wounded and unconscious.
Have them encounter someone lost from another expidition. Either lost because they got separated for whatever reason, or because everyone else is dead.
That could be pretty fun. Thanks, user.
Bump
How much back story is really necessary to make a single character really fleshed out?
I posted this in its own thread but had no responses, hopefully you guys can help
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Has anyone run a one-shot for a group of strangers who may or may not have any experience in roleplaying games?
I wanted to try my hand at it at an upcoming convention (2.5 months away), in a 3-6 hour session. The system I'm leaning towards is Basic D&D, with some watering down to make it easier to stomach. I suppose I should make some quick play sheets with all of the basics rules and have them at each seat. The group would be revolving as people at this event tend to join and leave tabletop games at will. I would imagine I would need to pre-generate a few dozen characters ahead of time and bring my cheap dice, in case some go "missing". The actual adventure is what concerns me. I've never done a one-shot, all of my group's adventures are at least 3 sessions. I would imagine because people would not necessarily stay the whole time, it should be focused on combat and "doing things" rather than putting too much roleplaying in. I'm considering taking one of the Basic D&D published modules, cutting it up, and piecing all of the big encounters together while giving liberal amounts of experience.
So if you've participated or ran a one-shot, can you give me advice/share experiences? What works and what doesn't? What might be more important is the kind of people that would be joining. It's an anime convention and there are a lot of tabletop players there, each year the board game tables are filled all weekend long, but not necessarily tabletop roleplayers. I could make it more appealing by giving some anime edge to the characters, or to let people who are cosplaying to play as someone like their cosplay. It could make the game more social and interesting, but it could also slow down the game quite a bit.
Enough that they can reasonably interact with other characters. General quirks and attitudes, particular events in the character's past that influence (or, if it's negative, threaten) them to this day. Plans for a future, even if it's limited to 5 minutes from now and it's "find a bottle of whiskey". If this is a PC, remember, you're playing another person. If it's an important NPC, then I'd say it's even more important to flesh out backstory because it gives the characters someone interesting to interact with. I have a whole crew from all over the galaxy, each with their own story (even if it's just important bullet points that I can elaborate/improvise upon later). It really lets the characters feel like they're part of a living universe.