The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : Tadanori Oyama March 30, 2009, 02:37:57 PM
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We've mentioned Gamer Logic at least once or twice this last week and after some examples from various members Maze has suggested we present the matter directly.
So, this thread is for examples of Gamer Logic. I suppose the quickest way to establish a difference between Gamer Logic and normal logic is that Gamer Logic often doesn't make sense and is most often self-justified.
For example: "Killing the leader of the village (for being firm with the PCs) is really what is best for the village."
Or: "Another player (who's character is a police officer) won't give me his gun. Therefore, he is hording the weapons."
Game Master primarily discover these instances but certainly players see their share, both from other players and from their dungeon masters.
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In a one shot zombie game I played with 2 of my players, one of the players decided that he would kill off the people in his fort who had weapons so he would have them all and thus fight off the zombies. He didn't manage to kill the other survivors due to the survivors grabbing him and throwing him out a window where he fell squarely on top of a section of zombies that had been outside the base for a few days now.
In a separate zombie scenario, my 2 players had a house on a hill which was barricaded from the street, where of course zombies waited. I added in a small dog that was supposed to give them a fun factor of sorts and let the players get creative with what the dog can do. The dog managed to climb up the hill and get into the players very bare house (it had like a table, 2 chairs and a few canned goods, everything else was used to barricade). However, I played a game with the players and dog and made it where the players didn't know what it was, but it was inside the house. I pretty much described to them that it was a dog and it was hungry and tired and what not, But they believes it was a zombie dog! They immediately went outside and burned down the house so they would be safe. Afterward the barricade on the street collapsed due to a rockslide. Their logic: 'Burn the house so we'll be safe from the zombie. Then! Find another house. Somewhere.'
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I love the "burn the house down so we'll be safer" plan. Zombie games really seem to bring it out of people, don't they?
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Player logic is best when they decide on some fact that you haven't mentioned - the dog must be a zombie even the GM hasn't said anything suggesting that at all!
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It's like a whole other level of the meta game: Not only does the process include a player's knowledge of things the characters don't know about but also completely made up material that the player doesn't actually know.
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Let's see:
When faced with a problem, a player will use brute force to resolve it.
When faced with an opponent, perceived or real, a player will try to cause its death one way or another, regardless of morality or consequences.
Player character morality is an ambiguous thing that cannot be defined satisfyingly.
Player sensibilities will show up in a player character even if it goes against that character logic or mores. (e.g.: damsels in distress, kids, etc.)
When denied a virtual object in a imaginary world, a player will sell his mother to obtain it.
Pop culture elements will influence any imaginary and distant settings to varying degrees. (Fuck you katana!)
Correct me if I'm wrong. Add to it.
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NPCs exist to fight or give quests to the player.
If the police suspect a PC of a crime, the PC will either steal the evidence or kill the police.
If the PCs like an NPC, they will demolish anything that threatens them.
The players will never like any NPC that GM intends the players to like.
If the PCs dislike an NPC, they will kill or betray the NPC, regardless of consequences.
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Pop culture elements will influence any imaginary and distant settings to varying degrees.
Ugh, yes. Once my group encountered Gargarmaul...a horrifying cross between Jar Jar Binks, Darth Maul, and Gargamel from the Smurfs. When our warrior finally knocked him down, I (the rogue-assassin) decapitated the motherfucker.
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Pop culture elements will influence any imaginary and distant settings to varying degrees.
Ugh, yes. Once my group encountered Gargarmaul...a horrifying cross between Jar Jar Binks, Darth Maul, and Gargamel from the Smurfs. When our warrior finally knocked him down, I (the rogue-assassin) decapitated the motherfucker.
Oh man, I'm struggling hard not to laugh and wake up my girlfriend- HAHAHAHAHAHA. (biting hard on shirt)
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NPCs exist to fight or give quests to the player.
If the police suspect a PC of a crime, the PC will either steal the evidence or kill the police.
If the PCs like an NPC, they will demolish anything that threatens them.
The players will never like any NPC that GM intends the players to like.
If the PCs dislike an NPC, they will kill or betray the NPC, regardless of consequences.
I agree with all of these, but I would like to put another on there:
If an NPC is a dick, then the players will do anything to ruin that character's life (whether it be murder the NPC or just be really confrontational to him/her).
Even if the NPC isn't a dick, but the players perceive said NPC to be one, the NPC's life will be ruined.
Let's face it, did Thelonius have to die? No. We took that too far.
I think after awhile, we have done a pretty good job of fixing things and being less confrontational (i.e. dicks). I'll chalk it up to trying to survive in this harsh New World.
SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR THE NEW WORLD CAMPAIGN?
The moment I realized our group was too confrontational (i.e. dicks) was when I left for a session and came back to find that we wanted to kill someone just because they lied to us. I asked, "wait, did she take anything from us?"
"No."
"Did she try to kill us?"
"No."
"Then why are we trying to kill her again."
"She lied to us dude!"
Let's face it, our group has never been the most morally upstanding group of adventurers in the New World and yet, this person was hiding her true identity and now we have to kill her?
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Player hate being lied to. And my NPCs lie alot. I lose alot of NPCs...
Everything is a trap. This includes all plot hooks.
Son of Sam Laws should have a PC exemption clause.
Always use the dice in social encounters. Unless the number is low. Then use "roleplay".
Guards (town, prision, caravan, all guards basically) never have families or significant connection to the world.
Charisma is directly connected to physical appearance.
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Guards (town, prision, caravan, all guards basically) never have families or significant connection to the world.
If they did, then they wouldn't be guards! They would be PCs!
For the record, at least PCs that murder guards and NPCs that are dicks do something. My D&D jr. kids are inept and cowardly.
If there is a mystery going on, they run around aimlessly and try to find their party members who have no idea what to do either.
If there is adventure to be had, they try to find reinforcements from the village they are supposed to protect.
Most sessions revolve around one player trying to find another player. If they can't think of anything else to do, they go to a weapon shop and hang out there. Even after I tell them that their weapons are better than anything there, they just hang out and browse the shops.
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Any situation can be "won" by meeting the victory conditions established by the GM or by killing all of the "enemy units". This applies to all situations, including: dungeon combat, urban slum combat, gladatorial combat, sieges, royal banquets, legal proceedings, shopping trips, and folk festivals.
When told that a given town or individual employs NPC guards of high enough level to be an actual deterant to the PCs, the PCs will be insulted at the implication that someone thinks they might be dangerous. Even if the smoke pillar from the last place they trashed is still visible in the distance.
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Any situation can be "won" by meeting the victory conditions established by the GM or by killing all of the "enemy units". This applies to all situations, including: dungeon combat, urban slum combat, gladatorial combat, sieges, royal banquets, legal proceedings, shopping trips, and folk festivals.
Well . . . how else can the players win?!
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Upon beginning a game, go to the bard, look for the shady character and ask for a quest.
If he refuses to give quest, consider him "hostile" and treat him appropriately.
A PC with an absent player is a soulless shell that can be controlled by the other player at will.
Domestic animals in a D&D setting usually get burnt by the first baby dragon you meet.
Classes, powers and weapons are all valid socially acceptable topic of conversation in public.
When two options are presented, choose the third one.
When one possible course of action is presented, argue about it then choose the third one.
When a dice rolls to low, change dice.
When a dice rolls very well, protect it with your life from other players. (apples only to certain players)
Let's also define "hostile npc" and "friendly npc".
Friendly NPC: A non-player character that is humble, give us everything we want, let us do anything we want, never so much as think bad of us, is impressed at everything we do and keeps praising our deeds. Must be protected.
Hostile NPC: Anyone else. Must die now.
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Copying myself here - rules of D&D etiquette from a player's perspective
Assert your dominance by attacking the first character you meet.
If you roll a natural 1, ignore it and reroll it until you get a high number. Say the other rolls were practice rolls.
Talk about Naruto. Especially if you have no idea what a naruto is. Make things up. Yell at anyone who corrects you.
If you die or take damage, flip the table over, scream, and lock yourself in the bathroom. Refuse to come out until your character gets a bag of holding and an apparatus of Kwalish. When you come out, announce the apparatus of Kwalish is useless and you want to sell it so you can buy a holy avenger.
Roll up characters when it is not your turn. Have the secondary characters join the party as your loyal minions. Attack any player who talks back to you.
Make fun of other players who have backstories for their characters.
Write a ten page backstory for your character. Make sure it involves time travel and Star Trek. Pro players always do this.
Buy cattle, pet dogs, cats and other animals. Use them to detect traps. Use whatever healing magic you have on them before any other player characters.
Other players will respect you more if you show up in character, especially if you're playing a deaf mute monk with alcohol fetal syndrome and anger issues. They will be impressed by your acting ability.
Speaking of booze, be sure to bring some and drink when your character is in a tavern. Roleplay your attempts to start a bar fight with physical demonstrations.
Carry a real sword to the game.
Use the real sword to execute dice that fail you by rolling poorly.
Don't let the police get in the way of real roleplaying.
Make sure your character has the alchemy skill. Invent gunpowder.
Set up sweatshops filled with whatever goblins or orcs you capture and invent the assembly line.
To show how good your character is, adopt some orphans and have them become your apprentices or squires. Children provide half cover.
Offer to join whatever evil army or cult you are tasked to defeat. Demonstrate your commitment to evil by killing your apprentices or squires.
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This is the kind of stuff that should be in Tom's next letter. :)
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I strongly encourage a game where we get really drunk before hand. I have never played a game whilst drunk, and I really want to just once.
Then again, I had a player that was drunk once it was really annoying.
Lastly, I still think we should hire a prostitute and play D&D with her.
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I've been rereading DM of the Rings and found some fun advise from Shamus Young for the DM side of things:
What can you do when your players are about to do something astoundingly dumb because they aren’t thinking things through? There are many possible solutions.
Use an NPC to nudge the players in the right direction.
Give the players hints out-of-character.
Allow them to do the stupid thing, then laugh at them later.
Find smarter players.
#4 is obviously the wrong answer. Having players smart enough to outwit you is a tremendous pain in the backside. Don’t make that mistake.
Oh, adding this one too:
"When it comes to rolling dice, there are two types of players: One likes to avoid risk, and takes comfort in the cold, hard reality as defined by the shape of the bell curve and their advantageous position on it. The other kind wants to defy death and live against the odds at every possible moment.
These two types almost always end up in a game together. Sooner or later the death-defier rolls badly and dies spectacularly. Odds are that the more reserved, practical members of the team will follow suit moments later.
I find this to be hilarious."
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I strongly encourage a game where we get really drunk before hand. I have never played a game whilst drunk, and I really want to just once.
Then again, I had a player that was drunk once it was really annoying.
Lastly, I still think we should hire a prostitute and play D&D with her.
Yeah, everyone has to be drunk. I already sent my anecdote about the game where we were pissed drunk with the guy who cut out a ninja out of cardboard and waving it around while describing his action. Some of my friends often game drunk. Once, one guy played a dragon with an amazingly small penis so he took the paladin and tied it to its crotch to compensate. The other guy was a wizard who could cast an infinite of fireballs, he came upon a potion, drunk it to realize it made him puke to death. He never did died, he just puked and puked and puked. I think he was tied to the dragon's tail or something.
I would have to use gloves to remove the prostitute's dices from the table and throw them in a trashcan afterward.
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Inbetween rolls, talk about WoW.
During your turn, talk about how what you're doing relates to something you do in WoW.
Define your character, the setting, the other party members and the encounters in terms of WoW.
Try to hurry the game so you can get back to WoW, or say you're going to leave early because of something you need to do in WoW, then end up staying later than usual because you're talking about what you've been doing in WoW.
In short, don't come to game, come to talk about your real hobby: WoW.
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Inbetween rolls, talk about WoW.
During your turn, talk about how what you're doing relates to something you do in WoW.
Define your character, the setting, the other party members and the encounters in terms of WoW.
Try to hurry the game so you can get back to WoW, or say you're going to leave early because of something you need to do in WoW, then end up staying later than usual because you're talking about what you've been doing in WoW.
In short, don't come to game, come to talk about your real hobby: WoW.
ffffuuuccckkk those guys
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Inbetween rolls, talk about WoW.
During your turn, talk about how what you're doing relates to something you do in WoW.
Define your character, the setting, the other party members and the encounters in terms of WoW.
Try to hurry the game so you can get back to WoW, or say you're going to leave early because of something you need to do in WoW, then end up staying later than usual because you're talking about what you've been doing in WoW.
In short, don't come to game, come to talk about your real hobby: WoW.
For those unfamiliar with WOW, talk about how everything in the campaign is just a ripoff of Lord of the Rings even if it isn't. Any wizard is like Gandalf. Any main villain is like Sauron.
Demand that every fight be with orcs or goblins.
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
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Inbetween rolls, talk about WoW.
During your turn, talk about how what you're doing relates to something you do in WoW.
Define your character, the setting, the other party members and the encounters in terms of WoW.
Try to hurry the game so you can get back to WoW, or say you're going to leave early because of something you need to do in WoW, then end up staying later than usual because you're talking about what you've been doing in WoW.
In short, don't come to game, come to talk about your real hobby: WoW.
Yeah all of my players were sooo deep into WoW when I started running my game that this happened a balls load until the fourth or fifth session >.<
nothing is more annoying to me than having your D&D compared to WoW constantly. Lucky for me none of them said anything about hurrying up so they could get back home and play it.
Thank Christ most of my group have stopped playing WoW or are "taking a break" form it....
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
:-\
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
I think it was great for your character's developement. Now everybody knows exactly what kind of dude he is and it lead to the amazingly entertaining "debate" over your character being a dick or not.
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I meant, try to have sex with ALL NPCs, regardless of race or gender.
Anything that can be counted by hand doesn't cut it.
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
I think it was great for your character's developement. Now everybody knows exactly what kind of dude he is and it lead to the amazingly entertaining "debate" over your character being a dick or not.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
:-\
In one emoticon, my feelings have been hurt and my confidence shattered.
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Try to have sex with every and all NPCs at all time. It's great for character development.
I'm done defending myself on this topic.
I've been a great role-player and then I make one character and all my street cred is lost.
:-\
In one emoticon, my feelings have been hurt and my confidence shattered.
:(
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Would freaking out over a tiny digital representation of a human emotional expression be considered Gamer Logic?
Or using one for that matter.
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I don't think it's gamer logic so much as it is my crippling fear of paranoia.
Yeah, that's it.
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Wait, your afraid of paranoia? That sounds like some kind of meta-flaw for a point based system.
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Guh. I hate myself somedays.
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Changing the subject, here's a nice commentary on the logic of a player as pertains to dice. It's written by the Irregular Webcomic guys as a commentary on this Darths and Droids (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0099.html) strip.
"One possible superstition about dice, subscribed to by many gamers, is that if a die rolls badly (for some definition of "badly"), then it is obviously "tainted" and cannot be trusted when the chips are really down. There's also the idea that some dice are "hot" or "lucky" and will have a better chance than others of giving you the results you want. If you are lucky enough to possess such a hot die, you must be careful that nobody else ever uses or even touches it, as that will "rub the luck off". Gamers can have many quirks about how they treat their dice.
As pointed out so clearly in this essay on dice superstition, if dice are random, then it doesn't matter if you're superstitious about them. But if they're not... well, you better make sure you do the right thing and treat them properly. No use taking risks now, is there?
Pete, being the highly logical, calculating person he is, rejects all of that as superstitious nonsense. He instead applies the scientific approach. Over the years, he's collected somewhere around a thousand twenty-sided dice. Every so often, he gathers them all together. He sits down at a table and carefully and individually rolls each of the thousand dice, once. Of course, roughly a twentieth of them will roll a one. He takes those fifty-odd dice and rolls them a second time. After about an hour of concentrated dice rolling, he'll end up with around two or three dice that have rolled two ones in a row. He takes those primed dice and places them in special custom-made padded containers where they can't roll around, and carries them to all the games he plays.
Then, when in the most dire circumstances, where a roll of one would be absolutely disastrous, he pulls out the prepared dice. He now has in his hand a die that has rolled two ones in a row. Pete knows the odds of a d20 rolling three ones in a row is a puny one in 8,000. He has effectively pre-rolled the ones out of the die, and can make his crucial roll with confidence. Furthermore, being scientific about it means he knows that it doesn't matter who rolls the die for the third time, so he has no qualms about sharing his primed dice with other players, if that's what it takes to avoid disaster."
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Wait, your afraid of paranoia? That sounds like some kind of meta-flaw for a point based system.
ok I laughed. I love how ambiguous the statement is and how it could be interpreted as:
1. A fear of becoming a paranoiac
2. A fear of people who have paranoia
3. A fear of the game Paranoia
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I like to think it's the fear that you might be paranoid and not know it.
Addition to my previous post there is this comic from the same series, Darths and Droids (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0098.html).
For those who don't know it's a screen cap comic about gamers playing a settling that happens to be Star Wars but in a world where Star Wars doesn't exist. It was inspired by DM of the Rings.
Anyway, this particular strip shows the end result of some gaming logic and a typical reaction to it.
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I have seen players get into near fist fights over dice superstitions. What I always find hilarious is that it's not only the dice themselves, but the plane they roll on that factors into it. I've heard arguments about texture and gradient of surfaces, elevation, leylines, feng shei positions, etc.
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I'm pretty sure I've mentioned dice superstitions very early in the thread.
Anyway, to make Cody feel better, my character actually slept with a goblin princess once. I was playing a drunken fighter (to-be) in a 3.5e game and as the night went by, the more tired I became. At around 4 -5 AM, our party split and my very drunk monk came upon a bedroom where this goblin was trying to seduce me. I told the DM "fuck it." and passed out on his couch. I found out the next morning the other players were in a long painful encounter while I was sleeping. So basically, while the two other players were fighting for their life against a high level goblin shaman, I was discovering how goblin labia is really worst than how it sounds, and it already sounds pretty fucking horrible. :-X
The campaign didn't continue, only because the DM sucked though. It's still a fucked up gaming moment though.
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At around 4 -5 AM, our party split and my very drunk monk came upon a bedroom where this goblin was trying to seduce me. I told the DM "fuck it."
At least you didn't to lone wolf it later.
Right?
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I got to play D&D this week so I got to indulge in player logic for a bit. Our characters woke up in a different land and no one had any idea how we got there. I immediately decided that a wizard did it so my character's goal is to find the most powerful wizard he can and force him to teleport me back home.
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Well, obviously.
My group had some pretty ones this weekend. We had a major session, six hours from start to finish, with what was supposed to be four seperate encounters that ended up blending into only two because some players like to chase retreating villains and ignoring hints.
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Well, obviously.
My group had some pretty ones this weekend. We had a major session, six hours from start to finish, with what was supposed to be four seperate encounters that ended up blending into only two because some players like to chase retreating villains and ignoring hints.
BBEG (big bad evil guys) are very tricky to handle in RPGs. They are either mary sues who can't be killed or the players kill them as soon as it is physically possible. I played in a mech warrior game where we had to fight a BBEG samurai type who died in the first round due to a max damage critical hit to the head rolled by one of the players.
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You can make him behind the scene so that with some investigating, they find out he's pulling the strings but he's either very remotely situated, his whereabouts are unknown or he's very well guarded.
So he can the main enemy although the players never actually met him, or met him before they knew he was an enemy and no longer have any contact with him. You can make the whole tracking him down ordeal quite interesting pretty easily.
I think smarter is better than stronger for the simple reason that the smarter one won't get himself killed in the way that the big strong bad guy will.
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I had both this time. I purposefully selected four elites and one solo to act as named enemies. Nobody got to names.
I thought to myself: I haven't had named enemies for awhile. My players said they want story info, I'm sure they'll be interested to conversing with clearly modivated villains. Ha ha, how little I've learned, eh?
Oh, and they also slaughtered around half a dozen innoccent NPCs who where attempting to flee the conflict. In their defense, the NPCs didn't look human. But when your in an elemental "village" besieged by metal spiders and tieflings, do you really expect to see human peasants? I at least managed to make them feel bad about it.
Well, most of them. The psyco fighter didn't even notice.
Anyway, the elities when down after some pounding. When they found out the solo guy was tough enough to be a real threat they started complaining. Fucking gamers.
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A central tenet of gamer logic: Something is too hard if we're losing, regardless of any other factors.
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Another one: If he's confident, he's probably invincible.
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Another; If our first tactic doesn't work, it's only because of GM metagaming
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When fighting a boss, characters will instinctively look for some object around the room to use, such as a chandelier, a lever, a button, a coffin, etc, assuming that it will effectively trap/ bind/ kill said enemy.
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Another; If our first tactic doesn't work, it's only because of GM metagaming
GM metagaming? How could a GM not let his choice be affected by the conditions outside the games at all time! His whole purpose is to provide an universe for the players to have fun in. If he wasn't taking in consideration the players, they'd be facing way too high level enemies or simply doing nothing.
Actually, if the first tactic doesn't work, it's either because he's got other better plans for the players, because it's completely retarded, thank you player logic, or that he's kind of a dick and doesn't want to be out-smarted by players.
I know what you mean but man, if a player told me I was metagaming as a GM, I WOULD punch him in the fucking throat.
When fighting a boss, characters will instinctively look for some object around the room to use, such as a chandelier, a lever, a button, a coffin, etc, assuming that it will effectively trap/ bind/ kill said enemy.
Your players do that? You're lucky they even consider the room for more than tiles. Standard D&D players don't really know they ARE in an actual place filled with various objects. It's just a 10x15 room or whatever. Few of my players ever used concealment.
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When I GM my players are so paranoid about what's behind every corner they try to use Sneak ALL the time. Even when there's nothing to hide behind. My players have become VERY tactical with every fight, wanting to know what they can use and what the enemy could do. It's pretty frustrating alot o the time when it'll be a simple room with a goblin hiding in the corner. Fights drag on and they like when I explain EVERY little detail of the room so they don't miss ANYTHING.
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Old School player logic taken to its logical conclusion http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/ADnD/
"I'm twentieth level, actually."
Wierd Dough's jaw dropped. "How did you get so many experience points so quickly?"
"Well, how'd you guys get your experience points?"
Clerasil cleared his throat. "I plane-travelled to the Abyss and cleaned out all the demon lords."
"Likewise," Wierd Dough said. "I went down through the nine circles of Hell and destroyed all the arch-devils. And a good deal of greater devils to boot. Nothing like a pair of petrification glasses with the lenses put in backwards."
Peter Perfect inhaled and exhaled contentedly. "I got my ten levels from one lowly centaur."
"WHAT?!" the other two said in unison.
"Half the centaurs carry gems, right? This one happened to be carrying a couple million gold pieces worth. I just cut him in half, stole his gems, and got one experience point for every gold piece they were worth."
Clerasil quickly hauled out the Book of Infinite Wisdom. "Hey, that's right! A single gem can be worth up to a million gold pieces, if you roll the dice right."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" asked Wierd Dough. "Let's go mug a centaur and take his four one-million-gold-piece gems!"
"Kill a centaur and take his four 1 000 000 g.p. gems," Peter Perfect corrected them.
#
Three centaurs later, Clerasil's level went from 28th to 38th, and Wierd Dough's jumped from 18th (just barely arch-mage status) to a whopping 49th. They would have gone farther, but that was maximum spell ability in their campaign. Clerasil could now cast ten of each of the seven levels of clerical spells per day (plus 2 each 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level spells due to his superior strength of will), and Wierd Dough could cast 13 of each of the nine levels of magic-user spells each day (well, 26 actually, thanks to his 5 rings of wizardry).
They also had an extra 12 million gold pieces between themselves to spend. Digging up another obscure rule, they found a use for a couple million of them: By using the psychic plane-travel ability, they could not only survive contact with a small black hole but actually destroy it and gain another major psychic power in the process. They each bought about 30 black holes ("Spheres of Annihilation," they were called on the open black market) for some 30 000 gold pieces apiece, ran into each one, and gained every psychic discipline known to man and god alike. These made a fine addition to the spells and potions whose effects had been made permanent upon them, and let them keep pace with Peter Perfect who had already gone through the spheres-of-annihilation bit before they'd even thought of it.
The whole group was decked out almost beyond recognition. Enough rings, cloaks, magic armor and shields, bracelets of defense, and sundry magic gadgets to bring their armor classes down to the lowest allowable in the universe, -10; protection scarabs with enough gear to give them a 95% chance of avoiding the effects of magic that is supposed to be unavoidable; three or four different magic helms, all stacked one within the other, with the outer one bearing gems of explosive proportions; rings on each finger, covered by dexterity gloves, covered again by another ring on each finger; and all the wands of automatic missile fire stored inside their portable holes.
Ringman peered through the trees carefully at the group. With all their magic items, they must have detected him by now, he figured. They doubtlessly wanted him to see what power they held. It was disgusting.
"Do you realize how powerful we are now?" Wierd Dough asked. "We could take on an army and win!"
"Ah, from such humble beginnings spring such mighty oaks," Clerasil mused.
"Oaks can be cut down," Peter commented, symbolically swinging his Axe of the Dwarvish Lords through the air. "We can't. And as I recall, our beginnings weren't too humble."
"I was there, remember?" Clerasil replied. "We were in that dungeon together. The experience point values of the magic items alone was enough to boost us both to ninth level. The Dungeon Master" — his voice quavered in fear as he spoke the words — "would have sealed us off and doomed us in a half-mile-thick concrete prison if you hadn't threatened to kill off the characters he was running in your campaign."
"Yeah, and then he got tired of that campaign anyway," Peter noted.
"In any event," Wierd Dough continued, "We are positively disgusting in our power level. Holy swords and artifacts are nothing more than furniture to us. Look at that stack of artifacts Clerasil has."
Clerasil blushed.
"There must be others like us in the world. I know there must, because I've picked up several high-powered dummies on my crystal ball who didn't have the foresight to wear a detection-proof amulet. I say we form a union — a worldwide union. All the disgusting characters from around the globe can come to meet here on the shores of Crysglass lake, on this very spot." He drew Excalibur, his +6 dagger of sharpness. Peter Perfect followed his example and drew Prometheus, as did Clerasil who drew Mjolnir, his sentient hammer of thunderbolts. They raised their weapons together to the sky. "And we shall call it . . . the Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters!"
'I think I'm going to be sick,' thought Ringman.
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I planned for them to use the environment. The room was lite by six bright orbs on top of tall poles. The orbs can be broken, dealing radiant damage in a burst and giving whatever they hit radiant vulnerability. The first round one of the NPCs does it to the PCs to show them it can be done. Still wasn't until about half way through the fight one of the players figured it out.
The minions regenerated every round unless killed by Fire or Radiant damage. The solo could be beaten down normally but he had a ton of HP. The stacked vulnerabilities would make it easier to take him down. Nobody got it until very nearly the end of the fight.
In the end I'm sure I would've dropped at least two of them (downed, not dead) except about five crits hit the table. I don't even consider that a very big deal. Going down to zero HP in 4th Ed is really not that big a deal.
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Probably my worst moment in gamer logic was this:
****SPOILERS FOR NEW WORLD CAMPAIGN****
A slave trader comes into our camp and starts shit with us. Everyone starts puffing their chests out and acting all tough and so I did it too. I don't quite remember how it all went down, but eventually I was accused of assault on this guy (for once, I didn't do anything, he just framed me).
Everyone started planning revenge and getting pissed off and I shouted, "this guy is like Lex Luthor times ten!!!"
Ross's response was similiar to a very patient parent, "Yes because this guy framed you for assault he is not only Lex Luthor, but he is ten times the evil genius that Luthor is. He is so brilliant isn't he?"
This goes back to the idea that anyone who beats a PC is clearly the most brilliant and diabolical villain of all time and he must be stopped at all cost!
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I know what you mean but man, if a player told me I was metagaming as a GM, I WOULD punch him in the fucking throat.
I agree completely, but throat punching impertinent players that got me barred from OrcTech and Thunderdome. Now I have to run games at Shoneys for all the other social misanthropes and outcasts. :'(
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It makes for good youtube videos though. Nothing like players attacking other players physically on video.
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It can be entertaining to see some table top players go LARP on each other.
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Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!
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Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?!
Wait a second . . . did I travel back in time . . .
Nope. It is still 2009. Sorry, but I thought I accidentally travelled back to the year 2000. *whew* Good.
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I've actually found the New World campaign to be pretty straight forward, compared to alot of settings I've seen. There's the obsession of the players over the Garipalli but aside from some of the more out of character comments (like wanting to kill every major NPC) the in character elements have made a great deal of sense given the available facts. Not to say it's without it's moments (see Cody's example).
So, that might just be me. I mean, it's perfectly possible my games are just so bad it looks normal.
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Even though some of our antics in New World can be a little wacky, we still try our best to stay true to our characters. I'm proud of it.
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Any course of action, plan or stunt seen in a movie, particularly an over-the-top action movie, is an appropriate course of action for the characters even if said action is wholly inappropriate and even contrary to the tone of the game.
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Any course of action, plan or stunt seen in a movie, particularly an over-the-top action movie, is an appropriate course of action for the characters even if said action is wholly inappropriate and even contrary to the tone of the game.
In fact, it is almost always the inappropriate action for the genre. Players in a realistic tactical game will dual wield desert eagles, firing wildly at the enemy while charging them and screaming while characters in cinematic games will hide and refuse to try anything remotely dangerous.
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Any course of action, plan or stunt seen in a movie, particularly an over-the-top action movie, is an appropriate course of action for the characters even if said action is wholly inappropriate and even contrary to the tone of the game.
In fact, it is almost always the inappropriate action for the genre. Players in a realistic tactical game will dual wield desert eagles, firing wildly at the enemy while charging them and screaming while characters in cinematic games will hide and refuse to try anything remotely dangerous.
Having dual wielded gold plated desert eagles with platinum bullets in a Monsters and Other Childish Things game, I protest.
In all actuality, I think that cinematic games are the most difficult to run because it forces the players to think in a radically different mindset. Sure, I'm playing an elf with a sword, but my basic life functions are the same. But if I'm playing an elf shadow dancer with crazy rapier skills that require me to always think of the most cinematic way to respond, it gets a bit harder.
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Player logic. fully clad warrior in front of the canyon 100 feet across to the other side he pulls out a immoveable rod his only one and gets a running jump right at the point when he starts to fall activates the rod. starts to swing deactivates moves a little more and activates I start moving closer to the other side.
see guys, he said I'm not a stupid warrior I'm going to make it on my own
4 checks later almost there I roll a 1 on my check and fall to my death, the mage feather falls to my corps and loots my body and the group goes on its way.
I thought it was a good idea at the time ....now I try to get 2 immovable rods lol.. 8)
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the mage feather falls to my corps and loots my body and the group goes on its way.
... classic. ;D
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There are no good powerful NPCs. All of them are evil with intentions of destroying the world.
In D&D jr., my students finally found an incredibly powerful religious figure that has been helping them through their adventures thus far. Sure enough, they all think he is evil and he has to die.
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Powerful NPCs are never capable of direct action in the favor of the players unless they have a specific item which they need fetched by the PCs.
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If they do the above, they're a "Mary-Sue" or a "Marty-Sue" that has to die.
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one of the biggest problems I have with my group is them remebering details. I'll give an example. I was running a star wars game with my friends and one of them was a wookie. as the game goes on he gets captured and has an explosive collar put on. if he goes past the front door of this building his head will get blown off. well the rest of the group dive in head first to rescue him. they kill everything that moves including the secritary at the front desk. once done they bring there ship in to fly off. the wookie completely forgetting about the collar runs out to the ship. I told him as soon as he steps out of the door he hears a slight beep then an explosion. he was dead. all the players railled against me saying it was bull that he was killed and such. eventually I had to give and say that it was a force premonition that one of the jedi had.
now do you guys run into this type of problem to?
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Well, that's very similar to what I said. You gotta take in considerations that a player isn't living with whatever problems his character has. Joe working at retail has only so much attention to spend about Chewbaker, the one-armed wookie with down syndrome and sometimes, what happens in the span of 2 days game time takes about 3 weeks real time.
I personally think the best way around it is to tell the player "Uh, remember the collar? Your head will blow up." It avoids this kind of conflict because of player-logical choices.
(Hm...we should make a small glossary for gamers too.)
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Yeah, players have the memory and attention span of a kid with ADD and hopped up on mountain dew. I constantly remind them of various important facts.
Anyway, moral dilemmas are always fun for players. Last night in the new world campaign, I introduced a new NPC, Cortez the Builder. Cortez was a paladin from the old world who discovered the New World a long time ago. He now rules over many tribes like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now/Heart of Darkness. He has built a mine and enslaved the tribesman to work in it and wants to provide the colony with valuable ore. In exchange, he wants to be recognized as a legitimate ruler so he won't be overthrown or killed. He's also a brutal tyrant who executes dissidents with the bag of devouring.
Some players (Jason and Tom) wanted to fight him immediately, others thought the ore was too valuable to disrupt the mining and others wanted to learn more about what was going on before making a decision. It's quite fun from my perspective.
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I like to use a little weapon I call "Are you sure?" when players forget things. When I ask a player that it makes all the other players snap to attention and check their notes for details they forgot. I like to give them a chance.
Must be nice for Tom to have somebody agree with him, eh? Has he started using his Expliots yet? Whenever listen to the Actual Plays I only hear him throw out basic melee attacks.
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We didn't have a fight in the main game. Cody and Tom had to leave early so I ran a bonus fight for the 4 players who remained behind. I'm glad I did as I learned that sorcerers can do a shit load of damage so I can throw much tougher fights at the group next time.
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Its not like I mentioned the collar only once in the game it was almost a constant reminder and I even dropped the sacred "are you sure?" line on my players. sometimes you cant win but hell, they had fun with it.
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Actually, Tom really wasn't the first one to trumpet killing the guy. Cortez immediately came off insane. Not only was he killing off any dissidents with the bag of devouring, he also believed he was serving the will of Pelor. It didn't take long in Ross's role-playing of Cortez before we all felt just how off Cortez really was. Daniel and Cody engaged Cortez in a diplomatic way while the rest of us more or less listened while throwing in the occasional remark. I believe the only thing Tom said was "You're insane." I kept looking to Tom throughout the conversation while fidgeting in my seat because the tyrannical rule of Cortez contrasted so deeply with our own laws in Bordertown. Since we were trying to set up a fledgling township and were adamant about eliminating slavery, not to mention Cassius's own origins among the barbaric orc tribes, I found it hard to hold back trying to kill him. I kept trying to get in a word when I had finally gotten enough of Cortez, but was cut short by the other gamers (there were six of us and each I'm sure wanted to make his own point, so I'm not complaining). I felt I needed to make some stance even before Tom voiced his short line, but the others kept the conversation going. Of course, my problem was I didn't have a clear enough picture of the setting. I was working up for a big speech that the tribesmen could hear, but we were relatively alone with Cortez in some sort of throneroom. I highly doubted we would be able to get through to Cortez, and I didn't want to simply cut him down for no other reason than insanity. I think the prolonged speech made me want to kill him even more just because Cassius could not debate with a madman and I was becoming anxious for a fight (yay player logic).
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Okay, I have some great stuff from this week's session. Bits and pieces, particularly with one play, but we had a great surprise event this week: one of the players got arrested.
This player has been toeing the line between normal hack and slasher and outright psycho for awhile now. Last session he mugged a group of giants who wanted to be left in peace. This week he was standing on the street with a magic artifact, trying to gather a crowd with his story.
After awhile some city guards came by to ask him to stop he threatened them. So they went for backup. Player heard the bells, knew guards where coming, and stayed where he was. When the sergent told him they needed him to come down to the station he clubbed the sergent over the head with the artifact. The other guards retrained him, so he used his Dragonborn Breath Weapon on them.
With him totally restrained they had a wizard cast sleep on him but he kept trying to break out of the bonds so the guards started beating him with the butts of their spears. After four rounds of refusing to surrender to the officers, being beaten, and having sleep effects cast against him he finally got knocked out.
He gets a trial by jury, because they where in Cormyr so they get to put on a defense. The other PCs put their heads together and form his defense around several points:
1) The guards never identified themselves as city guards.
2) He was stressed out after their travel through the Shadowfell and Astral Sea.
3) He was crazy.
4) One of the PCs gave false testamony in his favor.
I'm going to try to work up the recording so I can present some of the highlights. Also, I got some photos of the court room we set up with the minis.
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Wow. That is really awesome! I like to imagine a whiney, high-priced Drow defending him. You know those drowish lawyers, they will charge up the ass!
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The drow was too busy coming up with jail break plans along with the halfling to act as legal council. The Genasi and the Eladrin where the ones trying to mount the legal defense. The Half-Elf NPC the party has with them testified for the state against the PC.
Basically, the unaligned party members want to spring the dude from jail. The good party members want to try and make a legal argument for his freedom but they want to make him serve his sentence if he is convicted.
His full list of charges, in the order incurred, is:
- Disrupting the peace (He threatened the crowd)
- Threatening an officer of the city guard (He threatened the guards who tried to stop him)
- Threatening an officer of the crown (The guard sergeant was a military officer)
- Resisting arrest (They used a tangle web bag on him and he broke out)
- Assaulting an officer of the crown with a non-weapon enchanted device (He smashed the sergeant in the head with a big glowing rock which happened to be a powerful magical artifact)
- Attempted murder of an officer of the crown with a non-weapon enchanted device (The artifact shattered the sergeant’s helm and cracked his skull)
- Aggravated resisting arrest (More tangle web bags, which he continued trying to pull off him)
- Six counts of assaulting an officer of the city guard with innate magical ability (Used his Dragon breath on the guards)
- Use of magical energies against a naturally vulnerable being (One of the guards had a vulnerability to the breath element)
- One count of attempted murder of an officer of the city guard (Using an energy type someone is vulnerable against constitutes attempted murder)
The civilian court official tried to push through "Use of a cursed device on an officer of the crown" instead of "Attempted murder of an officer of the crown with a non-weapon enchanted device" (which would allow for an automatic death sentence) but the city wizard said the artifact wasn't banefully cursed.
As it stands if he's found guilty he'll face "death by hanging or other civilized manner", "imprisonment until death", "imprisonment for fifty years" (which for a dragonborn is likely 'until death'), "imprisonment for twenty years", or "imprisonment for ten years"; depending on which charges do or do not stick.
The session ended with the jury leave to deliberate.
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Also, I got some photos of the court room we set up with the minis.
THIS. IS. EPIC.
I guess "Objection" is an at-will power for the attorney class?
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To (actually) contribute:
If a player attempts something unusual, and it works, it becomes standard tactics. Fighter A pushes a goblin down the stairs? The party makes a FUCKING LINE, and take turns pushing the rest of them.
I had this one guy, back in high school, obsessed with lighting people on fire. Seriously. He carried six or eight bottles of oil, smash one over an enemy and light him the next round (AD&D 2E, by the by). I said, "You know, you're carrying a greatsword...you could just take a couple of swings instead." But no, he liked fire, I guess. This is the same guy I mentioned a few minutes ago in the bad GM thread, who jumped into a five-foot-wide hole with no idea of either a) how deep it went or b) what was at the bottom.
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Let me tell you about my group.
First, there are 5 members, 3 male and 2 female, plus me, alpha dude. Four persons work in the video game industry, for three different companies, one's a doctor (MD) and another is in IT. I'm usually stuck being the GM, because even if I'm the least creative person in the group, I'm the only one not too flaky to learn and remember the rules and to create and plan a whole campaign instead of a single game then forgetting everything.
I often record the gaming sessions, to listen later on and see things that the players respond to and to shape out the overall story. So, one night we are playing a game of D20 Future, and most of the players have infiltrated a space pirate base and are looking for the hostages (and loot) before blowing the place up. I have one player that is a coward, he always play drivers/pilot/scientist or types like that and almost never fight. Let's call him, the Captain (because on his desk at work he has an old sea captain's hat). So the Captain is sitting at the end of the table, not participating while the others are dodging guards and being short for stormtroopers. The game ends, everybody's happy with the scenario, they saved the ambassadors, looted the valuables off the pirates and blew up the station. I go back home, to listen to the tape, when I hear something very strange in a low voice when the big tense scene in the pirates' base happen: [In french, this is the translation, bad Sulu accent and all]
-"Concept for a TV show: the Japanese Judge. Courtroom reality show where the Japanese Judge is also a Japanese chef with a heating pate instead of a desk. If you are found guilty, he throws you burning shrimps in your face. The theme song: Japaneeeeeeese Judge! If you guilty he burns face with shrimps on TV! Japaneeeeeeeese Judge! Makes awesome sushi for you innocent!"-
So, now you know the level of flakery I'm faced with.
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My players like to talk to the recorder whenever I leave the room, just to see if I actually listen to the recordings. They've said some odd things but I haven't gotten reality show pitches before.
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I thought of recording my games but it's too bad nobody would understand it. I still might simply because it's good memories (or bad at time, yet hilarious)
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You should do it. You never know what might happen during the games. With the court one I'm actually reviewing the "court transcript" for the session to determine their jury outcome (we ended the session with them leaving to deliberate). I want to be fair to the players and reviewing my own conduct is the best way I know to do that.
I mean, almost certain the dude is gonna fry.
This is also a great way to see what your players want because you can listen to their responces to your talking. You hear more of them on the tape than you do that the game and misunderstandings often become clearer when reviewing the record.
I've also used it to trap players when things don't go their way if they try to weasel out of something.
And, most importantly, you catch your players saying stupid ass things on tape.
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Well, the jury found him guilty (surprise) and sentenced him to five to ten years in prison. But, being a PC, he wanted to try and escape, which I let him try. My relucance to directly kill the character is leading to some odd situations. In all honesty I'd feel bad for killing him now, after the things he's managed to overcome. This is going to be the character's second chance, we'll see what he does with it.
New example of gamer logic from the game this week:
Possibly cursed weapon. Can't identify its abilities without actually using it. So, give a street kid a silver coin to swing it around a little.
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Possibly cursed weapon. Can't identify its abilities without actually using it. So, give a street kid a silver coin to swing it around a little.
Nothing ever bad happens when you mess around with street urchins.
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New example of gamer logic from the game this week:
Possibly cursed weapon. Can't identify its abilities without actually using it. So, give a street kid a silver coin to swing it around a little.
Can anyone say "alignment shift"?
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I always gave the unknown cursed item to the person that didn't show up that week. it teaches them to miss a game. you don't know what the item does for a week but it's more entertaining that way.
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Well, the jury found him guilty (surprise) and sentenced him to five to ten years in prison. But, being a PC, he wanted to try and escape, which I let him try. My relucance to directly kill the character is leading to some odd situations. In all honesty I'd feel bad for killing him now, after the things he's managed to overcome. This is going to be the character's second chance, we'll see what he does with it.
New example of gamer logic from the game this week:
Possibly cursed weapon. Can't identify its abilities without actually using it. So, give a street kid a silver coin to swing it around a little.
Congratulations, you just handed Excalibur to Arthur!
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Congratulations, you just handed Excalibur to Arthur!
More or less.
The sword attacks the Will Defense of the wielder to try and control them. The attack bonus is low so it's not a significant risk to the party's levels of Defense, it's meant to acts as a downside to a powerful weapon.
Well, guess what the Will Defense on a street urchine is?
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Congratulations, you just handed Excalibur to Arthur!
More or less.
The sword attacks the Will Defense of the wielder to try and control them. The attack bonus is low so it's not a significant risk to the party's levels of Defense, it's meant to acts as a downside to a powerful weapon.
Well, guess what the Will Defense on a street urchine is?
5?
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Congratulations, you just handed Excalibur to Arthur!
More or less.
The sword attacks the Will Defense of the wielder to try and control them. The attack bonus is low so it's not a significant risk to the party's levels of Defense, it's meant to acts as a downside to a powerful weapon.
Well, guess what the Will Defense on a street urchine is?
It depends. Are we talking about a street urchin made by Charles Dickens or one made by Terry Pratchett?
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Congratulations, you just handed Excalibur to Arthur!
More or less.
The sword attacks the Will Defense of the wielder to try and control them. The attack bonus is low so it's not a significant risk to the party's levels of Defense, it's meant to acts as a downside to a powerful weapon.
Well, guess what the Will Defense on a street urchine is?
It depends. Are we talking about a street urchin made by Charles Dickens or one made by Terry Pratchett?
Or the street urchin in Falling Down that shows Michael Douglas' character how to use the bazooka. PWNED
Although this talk is making me pine for the days of Sir Redgar Orphan's Bane (http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php?topic=109.0).
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All great guesses. The answer is: less than the total attack bonus for a device designed to be a minor threat to high Paragon Tier heroes.
What could only hit the players on a natural twenty could only miss the kid on a natural one.
Luckily, one of the other players caught that one before they followed through with Plan A.
Oh, and in other news, that Dragonborn that was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced? He managed to escape. Despite being hampered by chains, guards, odds, his own stupidity, a shark, and a Chuul (not related to Pinchy, of course) he managed to escape into the coastal wilds. He currently has 5 of his 12 healing surges, he's low on HP, he's wearing a muzzle that keeps him from opening his mouth wider than an inch or so, and he's still dragging his chains and manicales around. He's also still in the country he was convicted in, which is the country that the other PCs need on their side to farther their own goals.
As much as I hate the character, he and his player are somehow entralling enough that they convince me not to outright kill them. I feel compelled to make it work within the story rather than DM's will manifested, and so far he has overcome the story events I've thrown against him. I'm honestly very impressed.
But I'm still gonna try and kill him again next week.
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No matter how difficult or absurd you make a puzzle, your players will find an even more impossible and preposterous way of solving it.
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If a puzzle can be solved, through any method, by violence than it will be.
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You can stuff two dwarves in a dead owlbear.
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You can stuff two dwarves in a dead owlbear.
Is it New-World Thanksgiving, and this is the equivalent of a turducken?
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Heroic sacrific isn't. I mean, you don't even get bonus XP for it.
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You can stuff two dwarves in a dead owlbear.
Is it New-World Thanksgiving, and this is the equivalent of a turducken?
I'm playing in a 4E D&D game and in the last session we conducted operation Trojan Owlbear. I bluffed our way into the bad guy's HQ with the dwarf filled dead owlbear and then we ambushed them.
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I'm playing in a 4E D&D game and in the last session we conducted operation Trojan Owlbear. I bluffed our way into the bad guy's HQ with the dwarf filled dead owlbear and then we ambushed them.
Is there an entertaining story about the reason why the enemy HQ didn't find an owlbear wandering in to be an usual event?
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Oh well I told them I was a new guy (I'm a bugbear and I rolled a nat 20 on my bluff check) who just got hired on and they should let me into the HQ. However, they wouldn't open the door until the owlbear was dead. So the party killed the owlbear and we put the 2 PC dwarves in it and then me and another PC (half orc) carried the trojan owlbear inside as proof.
The owlbear was wandering around the dungeon because they had caught it earlier and tried to train it as a guard animal but it escaped.
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Okay I follow that.
I thought you just had two dwarves in an owlbear "costume" walk up to the gate, knock, and get let in.
"Who's out there?"
"Looks like an owlbear."
"Open the gates!"
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"Who's out there?"
"Looks like an owlbear."
"Open the gates!"
Would've worked if there were PCs guarding the gate.
Second thought, no, they wouldn't have the requisite attention span.
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And PCs probably won't have closed the gate to begin with.
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DM: "A man wearing merchant clothing arrives at the gate. He politely ask you to you to be let in."
Player: "I roll my insight/perception..... 3, damn."
DM: "He appears truthful and to be nothing more than a regular merchant in his middle-age."
Player: "I don't buy that. I'll shoot him with my crossbow."
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DM: "A man wearing merchant clothing arrives at the gate. He politely ask you to you to be let in."
Player: "I roll my insight/perception..... 3, damn."
DM: "He appears truthful and to be nothing more than a regular merchant in his middle-age."
Player: "I don't buy that. I'll shoot him with my crossbow."
This boys and girls reminds me of another gaming anecdote...
So one night at Ross's dining room table, we had two new DG players, the engaged and now married couple John and Katie (who appear in Best Game Ever). John had previously played in the Iron Heroes campaign and had played one session of the DG campaign with us. Katie was familiar with DnD, but had never played the masterful game of the dark arts and paranoia, emphasis on the latter, that is Cthulhu.
My DG-friendly FBI field agent (a different agent than the one that immolated himself) was already feeling a bit twitchy. He kept looking out the curtained windows of hotel expecting something, anything, to come stalking along after the party. This is where Katie's character comes in. Katie was playing a journalist who had learned of the strange group of apparently heavily armed individuals with various specialties holed up at the hotel and had come sniffing for a story. She figured the best way to attract the group's attention was to casually lean against one of the group's cars until the group appeared from their various rooms. She unwittingly picked the car of the FBI field agent.
My character stormed out of his room gun drawn and pointed directly at Katie's character in what in my mind is still the best introduction to DG / CoC one could have:
Katie: Whoa! What the hell?!?
Me: Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want?
Ross: You realize it's broad daylight and you have a gun drawn on a journalist.
Me: So?
Ross: (Sigh...)
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
So...which is mine?
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
So...which is mine?
Off hand I'd say the external expression of a deeply repressed, desperate cry for help from an emotionally scarred but stotic hero.
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
So...which is mine?
Off hand I'd say the external expression of a deeply repressed, desperate cry for help from an emotionally scarred but stotic hero.
In character or IRL?
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
So...which is mine?
Off hand I'd say the external expression of a deeply repressed, desperate cry for help from an emotionally scarred but stotic hero.
In character or IRL?
Ugh.... yes?
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I love the uses of "so" that players come up with.
It can be a serious request for information, a dismissal, a threat...
So...which is mine?
Off hand I'd say the external expression of a deeply repressed, desperate cry for help from an emotionally scarred but stotic hero.
In character or IRL?
Ugh.... yes?
I'm an English major and you don't expect me to perform detailed critical analysis work?!?
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Why, is that what English majors do? I don't know any English majors. Well, I suppose I might and they just won't admit it...
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I've been out of the gaming loop with my groups between games during these last two weeks and haven't had any great stories.
Luckily, I'll be starting a new game (perhaps two) of either Hunter: The Vigil or GURPS (modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen game) so I'll be able to supply new gamer logic examples shortly.
Don't let the thread die people! If it happens at your game table, share your wisdom!
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Well every time i begin typing something out i recall that it was already covered earlier in this thread. Soo when I find something new or interesting I'll post, otherwise it's just the same stuff over and over.
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the engaged and now married couple John and Katie
Hey, are these the couple that ran The Life and Times of Santa Claus? Because that was pretty fucking awesome.
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the engaged and now married couple John and Katie
Hey, are these the couple that ran The Life and Times of Santa Claus? Because that was pretty fucking awesome.
Yes, yes it was.
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tonight's New World Campaign session 17 was full of player logic
-players need to build army to fight Cortez's horde of doom. One way to help? Recruit orgres to join your rag-tag resistance. The ogres want a big ass fortress built. That's fine but do you really want to give ogres a big fortress? Well, since you're building it, you can put in a secret tunnel so you can sneak in and kill the ogres if they turn on you. How to disguise the tunnel? Make it a latrine. How to keep the ogres from poking around in it? Put a Otayguh in it to eat the shit. How to get a shit eating monster? Buy one from local goblin chieftain Balgron the Fat. Then proceed to make 20 minutes of jokes about a shit eating monster salesman.
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in a goblin new jersey accent:
you gotta dungeon full of ogres? Then you got a dungeon full of shit! Get one of my shit eating monsters to eat that shit!
Goblin shit, orc shit, even dragon shit!
I even got trained shit eating monsters! You can piss in their mouth and they won't bite your dick off!
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in a goblin new jersey accent:
you gotta dungeon full of ogres? Then you got a dungeon full of shit! Get one of my shit eating monsters to eat that shit!
Goblin shit, orc shit, even dragon shit!
I even got trained shit eating monsters! You can piss in their mouth and they won't bite your dick off!
Please..Try my product.
(http://www.distancelearningsystems.net/page2/page5/files/page5_2.jpg)
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More like this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrRGp4BSTyE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj1tN6H0oeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XUFmVU3o4c
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Or this?
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80545204/ (http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/80545204/)
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The New World truly is a fantastic new realm of possbility.
Remember, when dealing with Ogres: "The enemy of my enemy is too stupid to understand the whole 'balance of power' thing and will still smash me into paste with a torn up tree".
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Shit eating monsters . . . they're fuckin' classy!
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Player logic in those fancy pants vidya games http://www.eldergame.com/2009/05/11/user-generated-quests-and-the-ruby-slippers/
* Players subconsciously calculate the cost-to-benefit ratio of content when deciding if it’s fun. For most MMO players, more reward = more fun. (This is a bitch of a lesson to learn, too. “My custom-scripted quest was so incredibly cool! Why aren’t players doing the quest? Well, yes, the reward was a little sub-par, but so what? You’re telling me they aren’t playing it because of THAT? Players can’t be THAT shallow!” Ha ha, newb.)
* Players aren’t objective reviewers. If you ask them to grade content, they will grade more rewarding content higher than other content even if it isn’t as good by other metrics (like plot, writing, annoyance factor, or originality).
* Many players spend incredible amounts of time finding ways to min-max the system so they can get more power for less effort. That’s part of the fun for many players. So there are tens of thousands of people actively looking for mistakes, loopholes, and gray areas in your game. All the time.
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Let's face it, Captain Kirk is the ultimate player character. If he can't fuck it or kill it, then he is out of ideas.
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Let's face it, Captain Kirk is the ultimate player character. If he can't fuck it or kill it, then he is out of ideas.
At which point he does what gamer logic demands -- he turns to the "smart" PC and puts it on him to fix it. Spock = Wizard.
CR
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Let's face it, Captain Kirk is the ultimate player character. If he can't fuck it or kill it, then he is out of ideas.
At which point he does what gamer logic demands -- he turns to the "smart" PC and puts it on him to fix it. Spock = Wizard.
CR
Spock is the ultimate rules lawyer PC - minmaxed the fuck out of chargen (half human and half vulcan? Psionics and uber martial arts with a special knock out attack? Maxed out science skills in a sci fi game?)
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Dr. McCoy put all his skill points into medical but always rolls low ("He's dead Jim") so his player spends all his time drinking and arguing with the other PCs.
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Dr. McCoy put all his skill points into medical but always rolls low ("He's dead Jim") so his player spends all his time drinking and arguing with the other PCs.
The problem with McCoy is that he constantly has a -10 penalty because he's hungover constantly.
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Scotty always wants to take twenty instead of just rolling.
Chekhov's player is the group's roleplayer and think the accent is "being in character".
I'm enjoying this excerise. Perhaps I need to make a new thread for this sort of thing.
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Scotty always wants to take twenty instead of just rolling.
Chekhov's player is the group's roleplayer and think the accent is "being in character".
I'm enjoying this excerise. Perhaps I need to make a new thread for this sort of thing.
Let's not forget Ohura who was the token chick gamer.
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I think Ohura is that one guy in the group who always plays a woman.
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I think Ohura is that one guy in the group who always plays a woman.
Take it back! She was a fine, foxy lady!
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Uhura was the character who had all her skill points put in Communication Tech, and as such couldn't do anything else with any hope of success. As a result, the player of this character sits back from the gaming table drawing in a sketchbook through the whole gaming session, and rolls a die only when someone says in a loud voice, "Mike! Roll communications!"
CR
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all I can say is that the movie was the shit!!!! and sulu was the martial artist trained in melee weapons
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And I think every game should have a Leonard Nimoy NPC in it regardless of the system or setting.
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Just found a comic that I feel tells of the aftermath of a player character:
http://somethingpositive.net/sp11162007.shtml
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I'm the DM for a D&D 3.5 campaign. Along the middle of the continent there is a sheer cliff ~.5 mile straight up. Along the road, which runs right into this cliff, is a gnomish elevator manned and operated by none other than gnomes. The gnomes want to charge the PC's 3 silver pieces to take the 3 of them plus the 3 war horses they are riding to the top of the cliff. The PC's think that they are above paying tolls and proceed to kill all the gnomes at the bottom of the cliff. They then think they will be able to figure out how to use the elevator. Needless to say, they needed the help of the gnomes at the top of the cliff. After hearing the battle and seeing their buddies killed refuse to help. So the PC's are forced to climb up the elevator. One thought he was going to carry his warhorse up with him... I said no to that one (which proceeded to be a very lengthly argument with the PC saying that he can drag X lbs and he'll just drag his horse up the elevator while climbing... uh.. NO). So the PC's get to the top and the gnomes have removed some components needed for elevator use and split. After a failed check to track the gnomes, they went on their way.
So, the PC's saved 3 sp at the expense of 3 warhorses, a few hours of lost time, and a very long walk along the road to the next town.
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hahaha great story.
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I'm the DM for a D&D 3.5 campaign. Along the middle of the continent there is a sheer cliff ~.5 mile straight up. Along the road, which runs right into this cliff, is a gnomish elevator manned and operated by none other than gnomes. The gnomes want to charge the PC's 3 silver pieces to take the 3 of them plus the 3 war horses they are riding to the top of the cliff. The PC's think that they are above paying tolls and proceed to kill all the gnomes at the bottom of the cliff. They then think they will be able to figure out how to use the elevator. Needless to say, they needed the help of the gnomes at the top of the cliff. After hearing the battle and seeing their buddies killed refuse to help. So the PC's are forced to climb up the elevator. One thought he was going to carry his warhorse up with him... I said no to that one (which proceeded to be a very lengthly argument with the PC saying that he can drag X lbs and he'll just drag his horse up the elevator while climbing... uh.. NO). So the PC's get to the top and the gnomes have removed some components needed for elevator use and split. After a failed check to track the gnomes, they went on their way.
So, the PC's saved 3 sp at the expense of 3 warhorses, a few hours of lost time, and a very long walk along the road to the next town.
A horse weighs over 1000 pounds and a warhorse is more like 1500 pounds. How strong was the PC? Plus horses PANIC at all kinds of shit. I would have let him try if he was strong only to see what happens when a PC climbs up a cliff with a very strong horse strapped to his back.
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I'm the DM for a D&D 3.5 campaign. Along the middle of the continent there is a sheer cliff ~.5 mile straight up. Along the road, which runs right into this cliff, is a gnomish elevator manned and operated by none other than gnomes. The gnomes want to charge the PC's 3 silver pieces to take the 3 of them plus the 3 war horses they are riding to the top of the cliff. The PC's think that they are above paying tolls and proceed to kill all the gnomes at the bottom of the cliff. They then think they will be able to figure out how to use the elevator. Needless to say, they needed the help of the gnomes at the top of the cliff. After hearing the battle and seeing their buddies killed refuse to help. So the PC's are forced to climb up the elevator. One thought he was going to carry his warhorse up with him... I said no to that one (which proceeded to be a very lengthly argument with the PC saying that he can drag X lbs and he'll just drag his horse up the elevator while climbing... uh.. NO). So the PC's get to the top and the gnomes have removed some components needed for elevator use and split. After a failed check to track the gnomes, they went on their way.
So, the PC's saved 3 sp at the expense of 3 warhorses, a few hours of lost time, and a very long walk along the road to the next town.
A horse weighs over 1000 pounds and a warhorse is more like 1500 pounds. How strong was the PC? Plus horses PANIC at all kinds of shit. I would have let him try if he was strong only to see what happens when a PC climbs up a cliff with a very strong horse strapped to his back.
Well.. there's a story all by itself. He was a warforged with a STR of maybe 20, not extreme, but not common. And he was using the logic of draging his horse which is (I believe) 5x your max load with the silk rope he had with him. So he could easily drag 1500 lbs.... along the ground. He said it's not much different to drag it up the side of a cliff using the elevator rigging to balance himself. I informed him it was quite different and that the maximum load he can pull up the side of the cliff is the max lift above your head amount (which was less than what a horse weighs). Knowing this, the PCs decide to all add up their max lift (I inform them that they will have to leave some gear in order to use the whole amount). They are fine with this, they will climb the cliff naked... So it's a party of 3 and I allowed them to just be able to lift 1 horse. Then, as you commented, I asked them how they were going to keep the horse calm during this climb. One of the characters was a ranger with decent animal handling. He said he would just calm it by using that skill. I told him it would be terribly difficult to both climb and attempt to calm a horse on the end of a rope at the same time. One of them got the great idea to just use the elevator after they got to the top. So they abandoned that idea, climbed to the top and saw the gnomes took a gear or something (I don't remember) to prevent anyone else from using their awesome machinery. Promptly said "Fuck it" and went on their way.
I asked them if it was worth it to kill the gnomes. They said something along the lines of yes, it was out of principle.
*edit for fat fingers syndrome which causes me to push more keys than intended
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So, the PC's saved 3 sp at the expense of 3 warhorses, a few hours of lost time, and a very long walk along the road to the next town.
I asked them if it was worth it to kill the gnomes. They said something along the lines of yes, it was out of principle.
well that makes sense! haha!
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http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=57020&page=13
the whole thread is fucking crazy (probably a troll but whatevs)
DM (Me) You enter a room with a large pool of water in it.
PCs: Good, we are short of water and we need to refill our canteens. But first we will check to see if it is really water. I'll cast Detect Magic to make sure the water is not enchanted.
DM: OK you cast the spell and the pool radiates no magic.
PCs: OK, we will have our cleric perform a ritual to see if there is any divine power upon the pool of water.
DM: The ritual detects no divine power upon the pool of water.
PCs: OK we'll have our psionist check to see if there is any danger in drinking the water by using precognition.
DM: There seems to be no danger sensed.
PCs: OK we will have our wizard cast Seek Water to see if in fact the pool is filled with water.
DM: The spell leads to the pool before you.
PCs: Alright, then we will put a canteen on a stick and then place it in the pool to fill it up and also to see what happens to the canteen.
DM: The canteen fills normally and the canteen seems fine.
PCs: OK, then we will have our alchemist analyse the water to check for properties like boiling point and reactivity.
DM: The alchemy properties are what you would expect from water.
PCs: Good, OK our cleric will cast Purify Water on the canteen to remove any possible poisons.
DM: The Purify Water seems to work.
PCs: OK, now we will need someone to test the water, any volunteers? No? OK, we will draw straws....looks like the psionist is chosen.
Psionist: OK, I will use my Danger Sense again to make sure. Then I will use my precognition power just to be safe.
DM: There seems to be no danger.
Psionist: OK, I will take a very small sip of the water...What happens?
DM: Sorry your mouth takes 8d+2 damage as the water was cosmically obscured lava powered by chaos that retains all properties of normal water until it is ingested by a sentient being.
Psionist Player: OK, I will make an elf Scout next so give me a few minutes.
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Hahahahahahaha
:D
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Oh yeah, the old cosmically obsurced lava trick.
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i find most scary about this situation is the pc's have clearly encounterd something like it befor or there the most parinod pc's in the world.
my orignal cleric came face to face with an evil witch monster that was dipping a claw into some liquid. so i asked the dm is the liquid a water base posion? he said yeah. so i purified it causeing his great posion claw crasy woman to suck haha.
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There is a perfect gamer logic situation going on in the online game I'm playing that Jon(Hook) is running on RPOL. The game is set in WW2 Germany and we are playing an American Special Forces infiltration team that must investigate a German occult ops camp. We came across two German soldiers fixing a tire on a supply truck and killed the two soldiers. Now a discussion has broken out about how to best use the truck and here is where the gamer logic kicks in. Standard gamer logic dictates that we must take the truck and pose as German soldiers to gain entrance to the camp. BUT given that we are American soldiers and very few of us speak fluent German, the odds of being able to do this are slim. AND YET given this simple fact a good number of the players want to do this plan anyway. My character has instead taken the position we use the truck to get to the camp faster and then abandon the truck and sneak the rest of the way in or use the truck to go in cowboy style guns blazing. Because, honestly, if we tried to sneak into the camp using the truck mass combat would ensue anyway.
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Ya but we were gonna pose as prisoners, so only one guy really had to do the talking. Im not saying the plan is flawless, but it could be alot of fun =P
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Ya but we were gonna pose as prisoners, so only one guy really had to do the talking. Im not saying the plan is flawless, but it could be alot of fun =P
In the immortal words of John McClane, "Yippee-ki-yea motherfuckers!"
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Changing the subject, here's a nice commentary on the logic of a player as pertains to dice. It's written by the Irregular Webcomic guys as a commentary on this Darths and Droids (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0099.html) strip.
"One possible superstition about dice, subscribed to by many gamers, is that if a die rolls badly (for some definition of "badly"), then it is obviously "tainted" and cannot be trusted when the chips are really down. There's also the idea that some dice are "hot" or "lucky" and will have a better chance than others of giving you the results you want. If you are lucky enough to possess such a hot die, you must be careful that nobody else ever uses or even touches it, as that will "rub the luck off". Gamers can have many quirks about how they treat their dice.
As pointed out so clearly in this essay on dice superstition, if dice are random, then it doesn't matter if you're superstitious about them. But if they're not... well, you better make sure you do the right thing and treat them properly. No use taking risks now, is there?
Pete, being the highly logical, calculating person he is, rejects all of that as superstitious nonsense. He instead applies the scientific approach. Over the years, he's collected somewhere around a thousand twenty-sided dice. Every so often, he gathers them all together. He sits down at a table and carefully and individually rolls each of the thousand dice, once. Of course, roughly a twentieth of them will roll a one. He takes those fifty-odd dice and rolls them a second time. After about an hour of concentrated dice rolling, he'll end up with around two or three dice that have rolled two ones in a row. He takes those primed dice and places them in special custom-made padded containers where they can't roll around, and carries them to all the games he plays.
Then, when in the most dire circumstances, where a roll of one would be absolutely disastrous, he pulls out the prepared dice. He now has in his hand a die that has rolled two ones in a row. Pete knows the odds of a d20 rolling three ones in a row is a puny one in 8,000. He has effectively pre-rolled the ones out of the die, and can make his crucial roll with confidence. Furthermore, being scientific about it means he knows that it doesn't matter who rolls the die for the third time, so he has no qualms about sharing his primed dice with other players, if that's what it takes to avoid disaster."
Genius. Sheer genius.
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New example of gamer logic from the game this week:
Possibly cursed weapon. Can't identify its abilities without actually using it. So, give a street kid a silver coin to swing it around a little.
Can anyone say "alignment shift"?
What if that is actually a step towards good for him...
"Well, Jim, normally you would have just slashed the kid yourself, but hey, you gave him a chance - good on you. You are now no longer make pit fiends look like sweet grandmothers."
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Why, is that what English majors do? I don't know any English majors. Well, I suppose I might and they just won't admit it...
They outrank English captains and don't have to admit shit.
Meh.
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Scotty always wants to take twenty instead of just rolling.
Chekhov's player is the group's roleplayer and think the accent is "being in character".
I'm enjoying this excerise. Perhaps I need to make a new thread for this sort of thing.
Oooh, Oooh! My turn!
The red shirt is the person who just wants to "try" the system out. Since they don't get the nuances of version 6.9 of the system, they die quickly and never want to play again.
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Oh, hey, spot the guy who just read this forum for the first time and has a pocket full of pennies with which to provide 2 cents all day long...
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I strongly encourage a game where we get really drunk before hand. I have never played a game whilst drunk, and I really want to just once.
I have been playing with rules for FATE to turn it into a drinking game. (Take a box of stress, take a shot) I am however having a hard time coming up with an appropriate setting that wouldn't deteriorate to horribly as people get drunker. DnD is too complex and requires too much in-game thinking, CoC is too serious, etc. I was considering Don't Rest Your Head...
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I strongly encourage a game where we get really drunk before hand. I have never played a game whilst drunk, and I really want to just once.
Then again, I had a player that was drunk once it was really annoying.
Lastly, I still think we should hire a prostitute and play D&D with her.
Considering half of your group does not drink, it could be difficult to arrange that. Hell, Ross didn't even drink the champagne during the toasts at our wedding. Jason (and my friend Jessica) drank four bottles though.
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The GM for my weekly Shadowrun game has made a unique spin on the campaign and taken a frightening dive into a survival horror scenario.
Unfortunately, I win the "Gamer Logic Fail" prize this week.
Our party is exploring a high school in a wasteland city. The thing is that this school exists on the physical and astral planes at the same time. Not a soul is in sight and we have no access to augmented reality or the wireless world. In the first classroom we explored words began to appear on a chalkboard: "The sins of the innocent are washed by the blood of the lamb, the sins of the damned washed in fire"
Later on we enter a room to find the center of the floor suck into the ground creating a bowl-like shape. At the same time it begins to rapidly fill with blood. My companions quickly hurry through to the next room. I decided to dive into the blood pool. I figured that I was going to wash my sins away (assuming that it was obviously a literal note and that this blood was in fact lamb's blood)
Neither was true and I spent the remainder of the session coated with cold pig's blood... hooray me!
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... Pete, being the highly logical, calculating person he is, rejects all of that as superstitious nonsense. He instead applies the scientific approach. Over the years, he's collected somewhere around a thousand twenty-sided dice. Every so often, he gathers them all together. He sits down at a table and carefully and individually rolls each of the thousand dice, once. Of course, roughly a twentieth of them will roll a one. He takes those fifty-odd dice and rolls them a second time. After about an hour of concentrated dice rolling, he'll end up with around two or three dice that have rolled two ones in a row. He takes those primed dice and places them in special custom-made padded containers where they can't roll around, and carries them to all the games he plays.
Then, when in the most dire circumstances, where a roll of one would be absolutely disastrous, he pulls out the prepared dice. He now has in his hand a die that has rolled two ones in a row. Pete knows the odds of a d20 rolling three ones in a row is a puny one in 8,000. He has effectively pre-rolled the ones out of the die, and can make his crucial roll with confidence. Furthermore, being scientific about it means he knows that it doesn't matter who rolls the die for the third time, so he has no qualms about sharing his primed dice with other players, if that's what it takes to avoid disaster."
Genius. Sheer genius.
Except that to get ready for that roll, he has already made thousands of dice rolls. He has been pulling out those dice that rolled two 1's, which means he has not rolled 3 1's in a row yet. It may be a 1:8000 chance, but if he's just rolled 7,999 dice without getting that result.... what's bound to happen?
Add to that the fact that no single dice is truly random. A single extra µl of plastic on one side could weight it slightly towards a certain result. So by gathering the dice that roll 1's more often, he is in fact biasing his rolls TOWARDS 1.
I'll take my animistic-inspired tactics of intimidation and destruction of dice that roll poorly. "Okay frosted white d20. You've rolled 4 1's this session, and nothing above a 4. You need to get your shit together, or I'm going to throw you out onto the highway in front of the shop. Let's give you one more try..."
... It may be completely stupid and illogical, but at least it's a neutral bias at worst, and a selective destruction of poorly weighted dice at best. :)
Also it confuses the townies, who find a decent number of d20s in the drains nearby, ever since other people started "301"ing their sucky dice.
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Dice dont scare me.
Marsupials do.
Cause there fast!
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An unlikely band of adventurers...
We've all heard it before, but why?
I can't find a damned reason for these bastards to care about each other and neither can they. Even when one's head is on the executioners block.
What are some good methods of intriguing these players to group together?
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An unlikely band of adventurers...
We've all heard it before, but why?
I can't find a damned reason for these bastards to care about each other and neither can they. Even when one's head is on the executioners block.
What are some good methods of intriguing these players to group together?
Well, I think it starts with avoiding the common "how the hell do I get these guys together" cliches (like 5 adventures walk into a bar and the mysterious man in the corner says...) and make it so they have to generate their characters with the idea that they know each other member in the group to begin with. Whether or not they like one another is another matter, but they know one another first.
In mid-game, though, you might have to come up with some scenario where the players must depend on each other and if not their own character will die. The PCs might not like one another, but are they willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to rid themselves of a fellow party member? This would also work well if you just want to fuck with your players and, in that case, I recommend reading Sartre's No Exit.
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Except that to get ready for that roll, he has already made thousands of dice rolls. He has been pulling out those dice that rolled two 1's, which means he has not rolled 3 1's in a row yet. It may be a 1:8000 chance, but if he's just rolled 7,999 dice without getting that result.... what's bound to happen?
Add to that the fact that no single dice is truly random. A single extra µl of plastic on one side could weight it slightly towards a certain result. So by gathering the dice that roll 1's more often, he is in fact biasing his rolls TOWARDS 1.
1 in 8000 applies to the single die, not the culmination of rolls.
But the second point is interesting - let's say the bias makes it 1:7996 - still really good odds he won't roll another 1 with that particular die.
I do however like the completely "rational-gamer" (oxy-what?) method of dealing with poor-rolling dice. What would be better would be to have your GM adopt them as their Official Evil NPC Combat Dice. But good luck convincing a GM to do something that nice for their players...
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... What would be better would be to have your GM adopt them as their Official Evil NPC Combat Dice. But good luck convincing a GM to do something that nice for their players...
Hot damn. I DO like that idea. You win double. :D
1 in 8000 applies to the single die, not the culmination of rolls.
But the second point is interesting - let's say the bias makes it 1:7996 - still really good odds he won't roll another 1 with that particular die.
Here have to disagree. Anytime you start talking probability, you have to consider the whole set. <logicfail="we're assuming for a moment here that probability somehow MAGICALLY enforces odds of things happening, instead of just measuring/predicting them like it does in real life."> If we're looking at dice rolls in isolation, his odds are 1/20, every time. For the group, given that he started his rolling with 1,000 dice, he's increased his odds of NOT rolling a 1 by a measly %0.833 (repeating). </logicfail>
That said, it's all meaningless because there is no magical force running around making sure probability works out. The odds are 1:20 on every roll. Even in magical fantasy probability land, this doesn't work. Just do what makes you feel better about the shitty rolls you're inevitably going to get.
EDIT: Removed my ranty math vomit. Note me or request it in thread if you want to know how this math works out.
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and you people call me a nerd for googling d20 marijuana rules and posting a few links
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Your all nerds. Math has no place in gaming!
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Corn chips is no place for a mighty warrior. ArtfulShrapnel: Sanity check == fail
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and you people call me a nerd for googling d20 marijuana rules and posting a few links
I never called you a nerd for that. I was actually thinking of contributing. :) Just have to be careful what I google on a work machine.
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Here have to disagree. Anytime you start talking probability, you have to consider the whole set. <logicfail="we're assuming for a moment here that probability somehow MAGICALLY enforces odds of things happening, instead of just measuring/predicting them like it does in real life."> If we're looking at dice rolls in isolation, his odds are 1/20, every time. For the group, given that he started his rolling with 1,000 dice, he's increased his odds of NOT rolling a 1 by a measly %0.833 (repeating). </logicfail>
That said, it's all meaningless because there is no magical force running around making sure probability works out. The odds are 1:20 on every roll. Even in magical fantasy probability land, this doesn't work. Just do what makes you feel better about the shitty rolls you're inevitably going to get.
Point taken. But are you <b>sure</b> there is no magical force? Certainty is always tricky...
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Point taken. But are you sure there is no magical force? Certainty is always tricky...
Yes, I am certain. Take that. :P
A great example of actual gamer logic:
I had some players in a Mage the Awakening game. For those of you not familiar, by the time a character hits the game equivalent of level 10 in this setting, they can basically level a city if they so choose. They will likely explode afterwards, but the damage will be done.
In the early game they ran across a Necromancer mage who was using animated corpses (Life 3, Mind 2, Prime 3, for those who are keeping track) to do his will. They tracked him down to an abandoned McMansion on the edge of town which they detect has been awakened into a sort of malevolent blood house being. (Matter 3, Mind 3, Prime 3). Realizing he was dangerous, but also seeing all the bodies, they made what was at once a brilliant and completely doomed plan.
They called the police. "There are like three or four bodies, we believe he is involved in some sort of organized crime, etc." Squad cars roll in, lights flashing. They knock on the door and present a warrant like good cops. One sneaks around back without a warrant like a bad cop. Five minutes later, while they are investigating the interior, the screaming starts. Gunshots ring out. The characters with Mind sense a strange emotion of joy from the house.
Shock and dismay, the police were not equipped to handle ZOMBIES AND MAGIC. The players are surprised and think I gimped the police to force the party into the house, because "how dangerous can one guy in a McMansion be"?
Five mintues (of game time) later, one of them is using their life magic to try and reassemble a teammate's face, another is using his lightsaber (what else would a geek character with matter/forces/prime create?) to try and tear down the magic circle that the wizard uses to bind the zombies, while the last is desperately firing a machinegun towards the wizard and his zombies to try and keep them too busy dodging to attack.
One character ended up dead (granted, this was planned as he was being forced to retire from the game), another wound up with some permanent scarring and disfiguration, they were all a little scared after that. They managed to kill the guy despite his attempts to escape, but that required a madcap driving expedition in which they accidentally killed a pedestrian.
So now one has a criminal hit-and-run investigation bearing down on them, the others are trying to figure out what to do in order to keep the magic house without having the cops investigate all those dead officers. And at one point someone asks "Why are they so persistent? They already found the cops and their stuff."
Yes. Because that is why the police would be upset about dozens of dead police officers. Their stuff.
~sigh~
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"We gave them the loot from the dead cops, what more do they want?"
That's a great one. Reminds me alot of any Mage game I'd tried to run.
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Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
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It's all about the stuff.
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http://jachilli.squarespace.com/blog/2009/9/22/life-at-first-level.html
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Man, put a warning on that stuff, I almost burst out laughing at my desk. The other office staff are looking confused.
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going to sticky this shit
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In light of our new sticky, I'm going to give a little example of somebody who didn't really consider the end result of an action.
D&D 4th Edition game. Inspired by a recent cosmic horror kick I sent my players into the Far Realm, home of some of the freaker shit in D&D. They entered the realm and, from the start, where penalized on their ability to understand what was around them based on their intellegence and wisdom and on their ability to interact (physically, not socially) with things they encountered based on their charisma.
I figured it would be fun to reverse their roles within the part. The game is Epic level so I felt they could use a challenge. Suddenly the introvet Druid with 10 Intellegence is the only guy with any perspective on their surroundings, while the Sword Mage with Intellegence around 30 can't even see real shapes.
Long story short, they discover the world they are currently walking around in is a single entity, so the city itself is their enemy. Fight follows as the player try to fight a city (which, for the sake of having stats, was a 30th Level Solo monster putting it slightly below a number of deities in levels of power) with two of their characters begin, basically, blind.
The first, and most glorious, example of what I consider to be a transcendent form of gamer logic, the Sword Mage, realizing that because this instance of the Far Realm existed inside of the Elemental Chaos, he could make a simple Intellegence roll to alter the abiant physical laws, including appearances. The character is a Gensei (a native elemental humanoid) so he had "Elemental Chaos +2", using my homebrewed secondary skills system, and he managed to roll very high.
Given control of local physics, he forced his surroundings to become a flat, featureless brown expanse, segemented every five feet by perfectly straight black lines running at right angles across the surface of this plane. He farther forced all individuals within his field of control to exist only in one of these sqaures at a time. I was, quite honestly, speechless.
So, next round I hit him with a stun attack so he lost control and everything went back to the way it was before.
Second trick was the cleric. She decided to use what has become her favorite power which is basically a form of banishment. So, she uses it against the "monster". The "monster" is the city, and plane of reality, upon which the players stand. And the monster is now gone.
This creates a massive, completely empty space inside of the elemental chaos, with the PCs at the middle. And nature abhors a vaccum. The "implosion" of elemental energy didn't kill them (though it should have), but they didn't feel like adventuring for awhile afterwards.
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Had your swordmage recently read Flatland?
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He had not.
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I hate to go out on a limb, but had he, oh, say, looked at a blank battle grid?
That was a pretty awesome trick. Also I like how you were able to undo it without resorting to the GM Fiat Stick (AKA "Because I Said So, Damn It").
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I hate to go out on a limb, but had he, oh, say, looked at a blank battle grid?
That was a pretty awesome trick. Also I like how you were able to undo it without resorting to the GM Fiat Stick (AKA "Because I Said So, Damn It").
HA! I didn't even think of that. Shows how long it's been since I've been at a gaming table with one of those. Ross has mine and my minis.
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I hate to go out on a limb, but had he, oh, say, looked at a blank battle grid?
That was a pretty awesome trick. Also I like how you were able to undo it without resorting to the GM Fiat Stick (AKA "Because I Said So, Damn It").
Nail on the head. The player declared, with a grin, that he forced the reality of the game to repeat the reality of the battlemat we all sat around. He and I shared a grin but I think the existential moment was lost on the other players.
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Here's a bizarre tidbit of insane gamer logic for ya. A while ago, I decided to run Tom's Divine Fire scenario, and my players liked it and the characters they were playing enough that they wanted me to continue the story. I decided to have the survivors of the debacle at the secret Nazi complex join up with a Delta Green-esque branch of the military whose mission was to investigate and deal with supernatural threats on the battlefield, and sent them off to investigate a small town in the Hautes Vosges mountains where a critical supply line to the Franco-American allies was being disrupted for unknown reasons. Basically, the Nazis approached some Mi-Go that were mining in the area and negotiated for some advanced alien technologies, while simultaneously conducting research into creating their own CoC versions of horcruxes ("Apportion Ka" is the spell, I believe), a scenario that resulted in a bunch of disembodied Nazi brains taking control of a company of American soldiers by apportioning little bits of their souls into their organs and transplanting said body parts into the unwitting Americans.
My players had a wonderful time with it, with the exception of one: the power gamer in our party who is constantly looking for ways to make his character bigger/better/stronger and generally ore able than the others, even if it means trafficking with supernatural horrors and sacrificing a few of his friends to get what he wants. For example, when I ran the original Divine Fire scenario, his character wanted to sell the others out to the ghoul in order to learn more about the mythos, a plan that he never carried out because he missed a session and I was a bit too new to running CoC to feel comfortable adding that complication to the plot. This may be all well and good in the World of Darkness, but in CoC, engaging the Mythos creatures with that kind of reckless abandon is a fast route to insanity and an untimely death, a fact I've warned him of several times. It could also be the reason why he's not so keen on being a part of my CoC adventures, and why he misses so many sessions.
Anyhow, the Power Player had missed the session where the characters found the operating theater full of advanced surgical equipment that the team's doctor was unable to identify, and the strange room full of organs in jars, and he decided not to pay very close attention to my recap at the beginning of the next session. When the party finally unearthed the disembodied brains of the Nazi officers, floating in jars attached to crude robotic bodies, he failed his San check and slipped into a temporary insanity. I rolled Echolalia on the Temporary Insanity chart, and told him that his character was horrified beyond the capacity for speech, and could only helplessly repeat what those around him were saying.
The rest of the party entered the room, and those who remained sane enough to do so made contact with the brains. When one of the party members asked what they had done to themselves, one of the Nazi brains told them, "The fungus has made us what we are! Gods among men!" Now, I had been dropping hints that the aliens who gave the Nazis the advanced surgical instruments weren't exactly animal in nature, describing the places where the Mi-Go had been as being coated in a thin film of unidentifiable fungoid sludge. The Power Gamer, upon hearing the Nazi's statement, decided that he would drop the echolalia and manifest his insanity by scraping the mold off the walls and shoveling it into his mouth. He continued to do this through the rest of the scenario, every time I asked him what his character was doing. Later, when I asked him what he was hoping to accomplish, he told me that he ate the sludge because he heard the brain say that the fungus had transformed the Nazis into gods, and he was hoping that if he ate enough of it, he, too would be granted the same powers. When I asked him why in the hell he thought eating handfuls of mold would transform him into a brain in a jar on top of a robot body, he simply shrugged and told me that it made sense to him at the time.
After that incident, the Power Player politely bowed out of the CoC chronicle, and I began the next session by announcing the sad news that his character had died following a bizarre illness brought on from consuming unhealthy amounts of the unknown ooze. As you can imagine, none of the other players were very upset to see him go.
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A long string of them here. I'm running a CthulhuTech game at present and the players are all Tagers, people who can become destructive monsters with giant claws and laser mouths at will.
Long story short, the PCs are at a university investigating an artifact they got. Two are with a professor, the other is in the vault below, basically looting their artifact section. The PC in the vault gets tricked by a stealthy enemy psychic and is locked in the vault. He uses his monster form to tear out through the vault door, scaring the security guard so bad he passes out.
After chasing the psychic out of the vault (and ensuring that the 'good guys' where the ones caught on film) while in his monster form and causing panic among the civilians, the PC chooses to open fire on the bad guy in a crowded hallway. Using his cosmic energy "machine gun". He hit but because he was firing at what turned out to be an illusion that didn't matter much at all.
After alot of running, some fire, alot of dead college kids, ducking the police, and some discussion later the PCs figure out that they have been 'infected' by the psychic enemy agent. He's placed a psychic "worm" in their minds which allows him to read their thoughts as well as alter their memories.
Their central organization has cut them off because of this and they have to operate independently. Their first action? Go to the illegal underground magic market for information on mind worms. They find out they need money if they want a counter spell. None of them have income outside their organization so they go to the blood sport arena in the underground and one of the PCs jumps into the pit, easily taking down both of the fighters. The PC then allows the guards to lead him back into the cells where they lock him in. The other two PCs watch as the group dispurse, apparently sure that any moment now the arena 'owner' is going to come over to talk to them. When everyone else is gone they go to the betting booth and eventually manage to convince the man there that they own the PC who dove into the arena.
The PC in the cell changes into his monster form and starts trying to rip his way out of the cell. As he does so the two PCs upstairs are shown into an office where a TV screen clicks on and a man informs them they plan to see the captive PC to the highest bidder. The "leader" PC says they can't because he owns the captive PC to which the man on the screen replies "shapeshifters are extremely valuable." The screen displays a video of the captured PC changing form and thrashing around in his cell.
They fought their way out of it, stopped off long enough to rob the betting office, and ran away. They where really happy until I reminded them that they needed to go back to that same black market, the one they just trashed and got caught transforming on video at, to have the spell cast.
The PC who opened fire in the hallway is the same guy who recently, when told dramatically changing his way of thinking would destory the worm, decided to lock himself in an airtight freezer so he could destory his neutral pathways, then have his friends pull him out later and his supernatural regeneration would bring him back to life. That's the same freezer he keeps his collection of severed arms in.
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Insane words.
Those words are insane. :U
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I split Tad's reply about inter-forum posts about the logic of gaming and set it as a new sticky.
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I split Tad's reply about inter-forum posts about the logic of gaming and set it as a new sticky.
He turned my post into a topic... I didn't know higher learning gave you magic powers.
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going to split your soul into two topics, then lock them.
8)
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going to split your soul into two topics, then lock them.
8)
That sounds like a great World of Darkness game with a techno-style Mage villain.
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My first time running a Candlewick game was last week and the entire session was spun out of the player's desire to do one another harm.
Five guys, three of which I'd never played with before but who where all friends, and I'm the GM. After spending two hours making characters I drop them off infront of Candlewick manor. Drive leaves, after telling them to wait, and I ask what they do.
One of the players has the skill to hide in small places, so he decides to hide in his trunk. Once he's inside his truck, another player, his best friend, decides to throw the truck into the lake.
The other players made vague statements about how maybe he shouldn't but did nothing to stop him, instead choosing to follow his character to the lake and watch. The player in the truck, having caught wind of the plan, tries to escape, fails, and gets dropped so he rolls down the hill towards the lake and falls in, still in the truck.
Floating, he manages to get out of the truck just as one of the other PCs leaps off of the cliff to "save" him from drowning and says he aims for the trunk.
At that point I pulled out the sea monster Ross used in oneof his Candlewick games to try and get the PCs to unite a little. It sort of worked though two of them choose to run away rather than fight or help.
Lots of Echos got thrown down so when they ended the conflict the PC who started the whole thing (the one who hid in his trunk), managed to have a Revelation. He got "Antagonist" with the Vendetta complicatioon. The only person he'd met in the game so far where the other PCs, so he choose to apply it to the PC who tried to throw him into the lake.
I ended the session there. Most of those guys won't be back next week.
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Player 1 "I hide in the trunk."
player 2 "Lawl I toss the trunk in the lake!"
the only thing that would have made it better is if Player 2 decided to go threw player 1's stuff while he was in the lake.
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I actually ran a game not too long back which defied "gamer logic"... It was a scenario I had run a couple times before with different groups. Here's the general scenario: It's a Mutants & Masterminds game in which the PC's are the unofficial "B-Team" of a major super-hero group. The primary heroes are off thwarting some major disaster (I think, in this particular one, they were part of the disaster relief for major earthquakes at the time - hurray for being topical). They PC's were in their headquarters when it was surrounded by a mob (lead by an NPC of mine who was using emotion control on the mob to make them mad at the team). This initial scenario would be a tie-in opening scene to a much larger problem. The basic objective would be pretty easy. They would have to locate the "leader" of the mob and subdue him (a not-all-together difficult task). Every group I had run this scario with did so with relative ease... except the most recent. They called the cops and barricaded themselves inside their HQ.
Granted, in a real life situation like this, I would have done the same... but isn't gamer logic supposed to defy this reasoning? haha
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So Strange. Super heros calling the cops!
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LOL, I guess that's why they're the B-Team. Seriously though, that superhero team should consider hiring some new heroes.