RPG Talk

Thank God for that. These days everything is trying to be DMless and the very heart of role-playing requires that human-driven narrative.

I would always just cheat. If the party was rolling over everything I'd push up the difficulty on the spot to keep things interesting. That's the thing that card-driven co-ops can't do -- they can't assess. That assessment of party need is critical to good narrative.

S.

If you as a DM aren't cheating at least once in a while, you're blowing it big time.

Been playing a fair amount of Dragon Warriors (I've got the original small books as well as the recent reprint) and I still find it the best fantasy RPG to play or DM. There are some nice pre-written adventures spread through the rule books as well as some larger one-book campaigns. I love the system, it's easy to manage as a DM since you're not submerged in the sea of numbers & modifiers that you get in D&D and the game universe feels just right to us, it's basically medieval with relatively low-key magic and a samll, local, feel. In the first couple of adventures the players never moved more than 20miles fom their starting point.

I have also been playing some Classic Traveller with the offspring who are both huge Babylon 5 and Firefly fans, the game started of as a discussion about the B5 & Firefly universes, I said to the kids 'Firefly feels like one of our old Traveller games' and they said 'show me'. I fired up a traveller character generator (the only thing I don't like in Traveller is the tedious character generation) got them to create a couple of characters and then winged the robbery scenario on a couple of the Ashanti High Lightning maps.

Sagrilarus wrote: Thank God for that. These days everything is trying to be DMless and the very heart of role-playing requires that human-driven narrative.

I guess you mean boardgame pseudo-RPGs like AH? I agree in that case. But if you mean the current trend in indie RPGs towards GMless structures, then in my experience that increases the amount of human-driven narrative, since more people can contribute significantly to the narrative.

I would always just cheat. If the party was rolling over everything I'd push up the difficulty on the spot to keep things interesting. That's the thing that card-driven co-ops can't do -- they can't assess. That assessment of party need is critical to good narrative

I'm not big on cheating personally. If I am in a situation where I have to cheat to keep the game interesting, then that indicates that I dropped the ball somewhere earlier in the process -- either choosing a bad ruleset, a bad scenario, or whatever.

dysjunct wrote: If I am in a situation where I have to cheat to keep the game interesting, then that indicates that I dropped the ball somewhere earlier in the process -- either choosing a bad ruleset, a bad scenario, or whatever.

. . . or one of the four players couldn't make it that night because his kid was sick.

And what if you did drop the ball? You continue to play your mistake to the detriment of everyone's enjoyment? Or do you correct your mistake as you discover it to put the game back on an even keel?

S.

dysjunct wrote: If I am in a situation where I have to cheat to keep the game interesting, then that indicates that I dropped the ball somewhere earlier in the process -- either choosing a bad ruleset, a bad scenario, or whatever.

I don't know about that. Especially in some of the 4E modules I've played, sometimes combat can drag on entirely too long trying to kill off a monster that has HP's for days. If a single combat encounter takes an hour to resolve, something is amiss. Several times I have truncated HP's just to keep the story moving. I don't think it's entirely possible to create such an even flowing scenario that you can even predict how long something will take. In some cases the above encounter could be over in seconds, while other times drags on and on and on. I don't think it is a bad thing to do to cheat the system a little bit for the stories sake.

Some of the early 4E monsters they totally fucked up on the HP levels for. Just gave them a ton as they way of upping the difficulty. MM3 and on, everything is smooth sailing though.

I fudge HP, rolls, AC etc. once in a while in the service of telling a great story. If someone comes up with something really amazing and they miss by a point, fuck it, I'm gonna say it hits. Similarly, if combat is starting to drag, HP downgrade or you are suddenly hitting more. When you have dice involved in the nitty gritty of so many decisions, there are occasions where the dice try really hard to take the fun out of an adventure and you need to fudge a little.

For me I'm generally making those adjustments before combat commences, but the principle is largely the same. You have to keep the players' skin in the game, but if one encounter after another is them getting crushed (or walking through undamaged) I'll change the mix.

S.

I was running my bi-weekly Call of Cthulhu campaign, and we just had one of the most gruesome deaths in all my role-playing experience. The characters were exploring an area contaminated by gray fungus that emits spores that can cause hallucinations when inhaled. Two of the characters were scouting ahead of the group, wearing bandanas over their mouths and noses to protect against spore inhalation.

One of the characters failed a Spot Hidden roll and then a DEX x5 roll and fell into a fissure that contained a lot of the fungus. She only took 3 points of damage, but failed a CON x5 roll and got infected. Despite splashing kerosene on the wound and then successfully rolling for First Aid, she noticed her arm gradually turning gray and numb as time went on. The players discussed amputation, but instead decided to try to get to better medical treatment at a location three hours away. By the time they got there, the arm looked really bad, so they cut it off, which caused no pain to that character. There was no blood, and it appeared that the fungal infection had already spread into her torso.

To spare their sanity, she ordered the rest of the group to leave her behind. While they were still within earshot, they heard a gunshot. Then several more gunshots, which was very disturbing. Finally, just silence. She tried to shoot herself in the head, but part of her brain was already turned into fungal matter, so she didn't die. Then she doused herself with kerosene and set herself on fire, and then emptied the rest of the clip into her head. The bullets didn't do the job, but the fire did.

Now, this is the key difference between Call of Cthulhu players and all the other role-players: all of our players thought that was really cool. A typical D&D or WoD powergamer would have been pissed, but these players were impressed by her slow, horrific death and the way she chose to end it all. The proud player posted on Facebook today about the incident.

Chapel wrote: I don't know about that. Especially in some of the 4E modules I've played, sometimes combat can drag on entirely too long trying to kill off a monster that has HP's for days. If a single combat encounter takes an hour to resolve, something is amiss.

That's my beef with 4e. Combat at mid-levels is supposed to take about an hour. It is fun at lower (1-3) levels. All of the D&D systems do suffer from HP creep. HP goes up linearly on PCs and Monsters. But damage doesn't so much. 4E at least TRIES to address this with some damage tweaks here and there as levels go up.

...and so one of the first things I look for in an RPG is how HP increases over time.