dungeons and dragons (D&D) anyone?
HAHAHA. In my Scion game I sent the group to fight centaurs.
Turns out they are half human half motorcycle wielding chainsaws. (Scion takes place in the modern day)
Turns out they are half human half motorcycle wielding chainsaws. (Scion takes place in the modern day)
Petra
Cult Mother and Simpering Cunt
Yup, that's pretty much how you learn. Also, a very good technique to employ is if you're in the middle of a session and you're not 100% sure how something works, wing it and then go back and read the rules after the game then clarify it next time. Much easier than constantly flipping through books.
Also, with casters...make them write down the spell on index cards. This way they don't always have to look at the book.
As far as gaming this weekend, had to skip my weekly game in favor of a birthday party. I did however, get a game of Descent in Friday night with friends for some dungeon crawling goodness.
squallumz
knows petras secret: she farted.
Yup, that's pretty much how you learn. Also, a very good technique to employ is if you're in the middle of a session and you're not 100% sure how something works, wing it and then go back and read the rules after the game then clarify it next time. Much easier than constantly flipping through books.
Also, with casters...make them write down the spell on index cards. This way they don't always have to look at the book.
As far as gaming this weekend, had to skip my weekly game in favor of a birthday party. I did however, get a game of Descent in Friday night with friends for some dungeon crawling goodness.
yeah, as far as the couple of levels goes, the red box included little pokemon like cards with the basic encounter powers, spells, dailies, etc so its much easier than going through the book. i was just thinking now that my girl moved up to level 3 last night, im gonna need some index cards. good idea.
annnnd! awww descent! im fighting off the urge to get that game right now. i want it i want it i want it!
haha and this is just mean. my players were totally freaked out. i drew webs around every corner and then in the "boss room" there was a web that covered the entire room. of course it had a pretty-hard-for-their-level blade spider. they lucked out when its double attack rolled a 1 twice.
I'm surprised they didn't start burning the webs everywhere with the spider in it. Like has been said before at low levels fire can often be a solution to a surprisingly large number of problems. :1orglaugh
...unless it gets out of control that is.
A Shugenja in an old Rokugan game come to the mindset of "Fire Cleanses Everything"
squallumz
knows petras secret: she farted.
haha good call. i was totally hoping the wizard would have done just that but she didnt think about it. she did however make the mistake of throwing a corpse into a basin of mysterious liquid which in turn turned it into a hulking zombie.
its fun to watch them get into trouble on their own.
Petra
Cult Mother and Simpering Cunt
IMO, a sign of a great DM is letting the players run the game themselves. More often than not they'll completely avoid ever plot hook you throw at them, ignore your carefully prepared NPCs, and focus on the one thing that's just a little flavor for the scenerio.
For instance, the chicken farmer. It really was just a chicken farmer. He became a major player in a D&D game I ran a few years back...
squallumz
knows petras secret: she farted.
good call! ive totally seen them ignore things that i put in the way to help them and thats ok with me. my sister is also very zealous and thinks everything's suspicious and just wants to make things happen quick.
she healed a monster with a potion of healing for example since it was taking too long to defeat, and threw a body in the same exact water that turned a regular dire rat into a were rat just minutes before.
i also made a corridor full of webs and spiders so she could wipe it out with fire but alas she fought her way through.
i also love to make rooms that can be accessed if they want. sometimes they skip them and sometimes they go inside. usually its monsters but some times its got goodies for them.
btw, i wanna know more about what they did with the chicken farmer!
Petra
Cult Mother and Simpering Cunt
At this point in my DMing career I rarely prepare scenerios since my players will kill what should have been talked to, talk their way out of a situation that I set up as a fight, make random NPCs into something important, and ignore major plot hooks I set up.
So I wing 99% of my games. Vampire is a little different in that you usually don't move out of the city very quickly that it's set in...it's a very political and story driven game. So you have to actually populate the city with the major kindred players and stat the bastards. It's always lovely statting an entire city and then your players get it in their heads to leave Athens to take one of the PCs to her clan in the Carpathian mountains.
How they jumped to that one, I still don't know.Bastards.
On the flip side, my vampire in my weekly game that I play in has a power that is a DMs nightmare. She can read the past and the future and gets as many "glimpses" as I get with successes on the roll. Last time I got 10 successes. I didn't know my DM knew that many swear words. ;-)
squallumz
knows petras secret: she farted.
haha no way! im really looking forward to checking out vampire.
my last dming (the infamous spider dungeon which they stumbled into on accident btw), i had skeletons of the previous warriors who died which of course left behind clues for my players. one of them had a piece of parchment (thank god they checked him out)
i had got a piece of paper and took time to write a crude diary entry on it and burned it over the stove a little and bloodied parts of it up with red paint to make it look cool. i also tore pieces away from it which left out just the proper amount of clues with enough for them to figure out where the fuck the secret exit was.
after they examined the body, i reached in my box and gave the paper to the examiner. they were so excited as it took both of them to read it. it really made that episode exciting for them!
my last dming (the infamous spider dungeon which they stumbled into on accident btw), i had skeletons of the previous warriors who died which of course left behind clues for my players. one of them had a piece of parchment (thank god they checked him out)
i had got a piece of paper and took time to write a crude diary entry on it and burned it over the stove a little and bloodied parts of it up with red paint to make it look cool. i also tore pieces away from it which left out just the proper amount of clues with enough for them to figure out where the fuck the secret exit was.
after they examined the body, i reached in my box and gave the paper to the examiner. they were so excited as it took both of them to read it. it really made that episode exciting for them!
Though I play Scion. I think the only game that White Wolf put out that has any mind to balance is Exalted. All these games seem to be "shut up and give me cool powers".
Scion has a cool concept, but man some of the abilities are just a nightmare. And some are just useless.
Like the level 4 Sky ability lets you make shapes in clouds. The level 3 one lets you charge and attack with thunder and lighting. Level 2 lets you fly.
Oh yea making boobs in the clouds is twice as good as flying.
And yes. My Sky God player spends his time and energy making pornographic images in the sky.
Scion has a cool concept, but man some of the abilities are just a nightmare. And some are just useless.
Like the level 4 Sky ability lets you make shapes in clouds. The level 3 one lets you charge and attack with thunder and lighting. Level 2 lets you fly.
Oh yea making boobs in the clouds is twice as good as flying.
And yes. My Sky God player spends his time and energy making pornographic images in the sky.
Part of the game is to get the "I Win" Button called the Avatar states. You need levels 1-10 of an ability (Called a Perview) And he wants to become the sky Avatar "The Storm". And that means he has to get the cloud tamer ability.
"If I have to take it I am going to use it"
"If I have to take it I am going to use it"
Petra
Cult Mother and Simpering Cunt
I love making props. A game that is awesome to make props for is Paranoia. In my Alpha Complex, I imagine an eyeball on a wire coming out of the wall/ceiling and staring at the Trouble Shooter when Friend Computer is speaking to them. So for the con in January, I made a big eyeball out of a styrofoam ball and put it on a stick.
I carried it around the gaming hall and got tons of great reactions. ;-)
Another thing that happens with regularity is the testing of prototype drugs. Testing is mandatory. I collect pill bottles and put JellyBellies in them and make the players act out taking them.
Props are endless for this game. I will run a Paranoia LARP someday. I swear!
In my experience the more people play an RPG the more they will get better at not missing clues and correcting past mistakes as long as they realized they have made them, especially if they get a feel for how their DM operates. (You could always use that and their own method of doing things to set up surprises for them though
.) I would think that after they have found a clue on a dead body, for example, they might be more willing to check stuff over in the future. If needed you might even want ask them to make knowledge checks and other things even if they don't ask for it once in a while if they are stuck depending on if their character in the game might have known. I know a lot of groups that one of the first things they do when the encounter something is to ask if they have any knowledge of it and make checks to see if they know anything just from RPG experience. It might have helped with somebody knowing some spider webs are flammable in your instance or some of the properties of the spiders. Hopefully they would get used to things like that and not have to be prodded for it. It's also not always a bad idea to let them stumble through things themselves if you don't want to walk them through it. Making mistakes can be a good tool to not do them in the future, and they are playing their own characters. Usually as time goes on players get a little better at not needing you to remind them of things.
Of course the also get better at coming up with ideas totally outside of the box that screws up what you had planned also or somehow makes a carefully balanced challenge you set up into a mockery or do something you didn't expect but will get them killed even if it sounds reasonable. :1orglaugh It gets worse at higher levels just because of more plentiful and more powerful magic and how it can unpredictably alter things when the characters decide to use them in a way you hadn't planned.
squallumz
knows petras secret: she farted.
that pill bottle idea is awesome. im suddenly struck with ideas. potions in flasks, actual jewelry, etc.
yep, d-rock, i do suggest perception checks and that sort of thing sometimes to help. since they are a smaller group of 1 or 2, a little help is totally fair in my eyes.
yep, d-rock, i do suggest perception checks and that sort of thing sometimes to help. since they are a smaller group of 1 or 2, a little help is totally fair in my eyes.
