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Roger, you know what's wrong with the party in Ptolus?

Started by Sister Fracture, January 26, 2011, 08:10:40 PM

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President Television

Quote from: Sister Fracture on January 26, 2011, 10:36:49 PM
Quote from: Unqualified on January 26, 2011, 10:34:54 PM
Quote from: Sister Fracture on January 26, 2011, 10:33:14 PM
Quote from: Unqualified on January 26, 2011, 10:28:31 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 26, 2011, 10:08:55 PM
Quote from: Unqualified on January 26, 2011, 10:06:30 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 26, 2011, 09:36:55 PM
Quote from: Unqualified on January 26, 2011, 09:28:49 PM
What exactly do the terms "plot wagon" and "plot hammer" mean, anyway? I've seen you use them before.

Plot wagon:  The DM's steering of the party along the plot.  Good players will go along.

Plot hammer:  As above, but the party has no choice, and is usually a spectator/slave to the plot, rather than the center of it.

Ah. I'll try to keep that in mind for when I DM.

Players that deliberately overturn the plotwagon are usually either too used to plot hammers, or total dicks.

I was initially going to say that my group is like that, but upon reflection, of the people I play with:
1 likes to play a barbarian, have ridiculously cool gear, and kill shit,
1 likes to be a dainty wizard type and worry and fret about the rash actions of the party,
1 likes to play high-charisma characters despite having absolutely no charisma himself, to the point of not even being able to roleplay a pleasant conversation,
and 1 is as the above barbarian, except that he always takes Chaotic Evil for his alignment.

That last one causes surprisingly little trouble, despite his habit of doing things like going into schoolhouses armed with a greataxe while class is in session.
Myself, I like to play spellcasters who do their best to keep the Chaotic Evil guy and the Charisma guy from getting into serious shit. Me passing off Charisma guy's complete lack of social skills as "assburgers" to guards has even become a running gag. We all have a grand old time.

lol.

No one in my campaigns are allowed to take any Evil alignment. Roger occasionally lets people take LE, if they have a really good reason for it and it fits the story.

Yeah, I think I'll do that when my turn comes around. Most of my group likes to be chaotic, so it'll be fun to see how they fare on a continent dominated by paranoid communist dwarves.

That sounds fun. Do you write up your own stuff, or use pre-written?

Write my own, of course.
My shit list: Stephen Harper, anarchists that complain about taxes instead of institutionalized torture, those people walking, anyone who lets a single aspect of themselves define their entire personality, salesmen that don't smoke pipes, Fredericton New Brunswick, bigots, philosophy majors, my nemesis, pirates that don't do anything, criminals without class, sociopaths, narcissists, furries, juggalos, foes.

Pope Pixie Pickle

In our Dark Sun D&d game no one has bothered to take an alignment. It still good fun when we make the dm cry "but you guys killed my monster! It didnt even do any damage" tho.


Telarus

I still want to run D&D where we replace the alignment words with random draws from a bag /cut-up style/.

Setup the whole double-axis with dada.

"My Druid's Neutral Orange."

Protection from Sweet!

Sword +2, +5 vs BOOM creatures!

"Oh, he's an Prickly Anti-Paladin."

Make it obvious that these are primarily ways to have "teams" in the meta-game.
Telarus, KSC,
.__.  Keeper of the Contradictory Cephalopod, Zenarchist Swordsman,
(0o)  Tender to the Edible Zen Garden, Ratcheting Metallic Sex Doll of The End Times,
/||\   Episkopos of the Amorphous Dreams Cabal

Join the Doll Underground! Experience the Phantasmagorical Safari!

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Unqualified on January 26, 2011, 10:28:31 PM

and 1 is as the above barbarian, except that he always takes Chaotic Evil for his alignment.


I don't allow evil alignments, except for the RARE Lawful Evil, if the player can pull it off, and if it fits the campaign.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Telarus on January 26, 2011, 10:53:57 PM
I still want to run D&D where we replace the alignment words with random draws from a bag /cut-up style/.

Setup the whole double-axis with dada.

"My Druid's Neutral Orange."

Protection from Sweet!

Sword +2, +5 vs BOOM creatures!

"Oh, he's an Prickly Anti-Paladin."

Make it obvious that these are primarily ways to have "teams" in the meta-game.

One solution I used was to have everyone prepare characters, then right before we started, I had everyone pass their character to the left.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Sister Fracture

LAWL SUPER HUGE ADVANCED FIENDISH DIRE RAT. Only a CR 3. :lulz:
Roaring Berserkery Bunny of the North Endâ„¢

A Tucsonite is like a Christian in several important ways.  For one thing, they believe what they say about their god in the most literal, straightfaced way possible.  For another, they both know their god can hear them.  The difference between the two, however, is quite vast in terms of their relationship with their god; Christians believe in His benevolence, but Tucsonites KNOW of The City's spite and hate.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Sister Fracture on January 27, 2011, 02:16:56 AM
LAWL SUPER HUGE ADVANCED FIENDISH DIRE RAT. Only a CR 3. :lulz:

Did you know you can legally place 7 templates on a purple worm?  It's true.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Sister Fracture

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 27, 2011, 02:21:52 AM
Quote from: Sister Fracture on January 27, 2011, 02:16:56 AM
LAWL SUPER HUGE ADVANCED FIENDISH DIRE RAT. Only a CR 3. :lulz:

Did you know you can legally place 7 templates on a purple worm?  It's true.
:aaa:

WHOOOOOOOOO!
Roaring Berserkery Bunny of the North Endâ„¢

A Tucsonite is like a Christian in several important ways.  For one thing, they believe what they say about their god in the most literal, straightfaced way possible.  For another, they both know their god can hear them.  The difference between the two, however, is quite vast in terms of their relationship with their god; Christians believe in His benevolence, but Tucsonites KNOW of The City's spite and hate.

Don Coyote

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 26, 2011, 08:31:38 PM
Quote from: Sister Fracture on January 26, 2011, 08:10:40 PM
Shit is too easy for you. You have not one, but TWO damage monkeys in the party, not counting the rogue when she gets sneak attacks. How the fuck am I supposed to challenge you when you can kill the boss in a single round?

:argh!:

Sneaky bastardism.  Use terrain, use hazards, and start thinking of frontal assaults as a pathology, not a tactic.

Force fights during periods of low visibility, too include smoke and fog not just low light, with monsters that can give themselves concealment, Blur type effects, and/or/to include monsters that would be less effected by adverse conditions.

Requia ☣

I've never had much trouble with evil players, but I make it clear that it must be motivated evil (IE, greed sloth etc), and not killing babies for shits and giggles.  (Killing babies cause you're getting payed too works.  I have an easy solution to that in that I don't offer my players money for things I don't actually want them to do).
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

The Wizard

QuoteSneaky bastardism.  Use terrain, use hazards, and start thinking of frontal assaults as a pathology, not a tactic.

Not sure if  you've seen this article, but its something I've used as a blueprint the few times I've dmed.

http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/
Insanity we trust.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on January 27, 2011, 09:35:33 PM
QuoteSneaky bastardism.  Use terrain, use hazards, and start thinking of frontal assaults as a pathology, not a tactic.

Not sure if  you've seen this article, but its something I've used as a blueprint the few times I've dmed.

http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/
'

Read the original printing in Dragon, and my campaign has NEVER been the same since.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

The Wizard

Found this a couple years ago, used some of the ideas in a dungeon crawl. Was met by wails of frustration, but everyone had more fun because it was challenging. The Kobold's have been my DMing blueprint ever since.
Insanity we trust.

Don Coyote

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 27, 2011, 09:42:22 PM
Quote from: Dr. James Semaj on January 27, 2011, 09:35:33 PM
QuoteSneaky bastardism.  Use terrain, use hazards, and start thinking of frontal assaults as a pathology, not a tactic.

Not sure if  you've seen this article, but its something I've used as a blueprint the few times I've dmed.

http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/
'

Read the original printing in Dragon, and my campaign has NEVER been the same since.

I remember reading similar articles in Dragon, only with Goblins, and I have/had an old issue of Dungeon that has this OMFG GOBLINS EVERYWHERE AND THEY ARE SMART WTF RUN!!!!!! dungeon.

The Good Reverend Roger

Stupid Cobbled Man and his stupid chaositech sickening rods.  Bastard.

And Freeky, if that statue of the obese dude starts moving around, Hogar will SODOMIZE IT.  No shit.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.