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Post by Kainguru on Nov 23, 2012 8:15:35 GMT -8
Update: Well here's a tale of douchy players. Due to real life commitments we have had several weeks with no game, which equals several weeks plotting to raise the funds to get an airship. The GM then announces it'll be the last session for a while because he's a bit burnt out. Last session becomes a total derail as we try to effect our various plots to get the cash so we'll be set for the enxt campaign arc. Result . . . GM (during same intervening weeks) had planned for us to aquire the desired airship at the end of the session . . . of course we didn't know that!!!!. Derailing the plot meant we missed the set up and have to wait til the next campaign arc starts . . . the derail was the clever use of a 'grease' spell to enable us to run away with the money we'd blagged instead of confronting our pursuers and getting the information as to the location of the air ship we could hijack. Add to that an improbably lucky tracking roll which meant we followed the trail directly to the where the current antagonists were headed rather than the anticipated detour . . . lesson to GM: no plan survives contact with the players (especially when it's a disparate chaotic group of derailing douches like us . . . "plot hook? . . . nah we're going to the brothel instead then we're gonna keep the gold from the hostage exchange" "but you were going to rescue the hostages afterwards?" "yeah but, well after consideration, we like the gold better than the hostages" GM thumps head on table)
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Nov 25, 2012 10:28:25 GMT -8
There needs to be a hotline to report an abused GM...damn wrench throwing bastards! No wonder he's burnt out . Maybe you should step up to fill in for him and have all the PCs wake up bound and gagged aboard...a fuckin airship! "Here's your airship bastards!" Have a nice prison escape introduction and then realize they don't know how to fly the thing and off it goes "A RAILROAD IN THE SKY!" Damn wrench throwers...poor GM. Makes me get all huffy. GM's unite! As a side note that style of play is exactly why I keep GMing. Expect the unexpected makes for a sweaty, mind racing night of damn good fun!
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Post by Kainguru on Nov 25, 2012 10:47:01 GMT -8
Exactly . . . The shame is he worries that's it's not fun and we keep saying "we wouldn't be laughing if it wasn't and we wouldn't be doing it if we didn't enjoy it". Needless to say we each have a bag of throwing wrenches under the table. The best bit is one player has already called "captain" for when we get the airship . . . I said "fine, just don't give us any orders and that'll be sweet". Mind you I have stepped up to GM while he recharges . . . AD&D 1e cause they've never played it and it was my gateway game - after Pathfinder it's funny watching them try to optimise their character sheets and asking "how do we do xyz?" and replying "you roleplay that shit . . . If it sounds plausible you can do it". The funniest old gamer meets new gamer moment so far?: "you roll for stats" . . . "but these scores suck! When do I get to increase a stat?" . . . "find a tome or get a wish" . . . "shit that sounds hard" . . . "yep, it's called adventuring"
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2012 8:19:47 GMT -8
Cut all the eyes off of a few beholders and stuff them into the baloon?
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jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
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Post by jfever on Nov 27, 2012 9:49:31 GMT -8
Cut all the eyes off of a few beholders and stuff them into the baloon? mind = blown
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Post by jazzisblues on Nov 27, 2012 11:57:02 GMT -8
Cut all the eyes off of a few beholders and stuff them into the baloon? Interesting
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2012 18:12:13 GMT -8
This is why my notes for any particular session consist of no more then one side of a piece of paper. Usually its jsut monster stat blocks and some NPC names. When will they fight the monsters? Where will they meet the NPCs? Will they meet the NPC? I don't know anymore then the players when a given session starts.
But then I've gotten pretty good at rolling with my players. I had too because the first few sessions I DMed I had reams of notes on paper, tons of plans, and within the first ten minutes of the first session they had managed to completely derail almost everything and every time I tried to bring things back they did it again. Eventually you learn to simply let the story flow as it will.
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Post by jazzisblues on Nov 30, 2012 7:49:00 GMT -8
This is why my notes for any particular session consist of no more then one side of a piece of paper. Usually its jsut monster stat blocks and some NPC names. When will they fight the monsters? Where will they meet the NPCs? Will they meet the NPC? I don't know anymore then the players when a given session starts. But then I've gotten pretty good at rolling with my players. I had too because the first few sessions I DMed I had reams of notes on paper, tons of plans, and within the first ten minutes of the first session they had managed to completely derail almost everything and every time I tried to bring things back they did it again. Eventually you learn to simply let the story flow as it will. I usually end up with volumes of background information on the people and places and then just a single page of bullet points for the session at hand. This is usually true for my convention games as well. JiB
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freyki
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 86
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Post by freyki on Nov 30, 2012 8:18:29 GMT -8
This is why my notes for any particular session consist of no more then one side of a piece of paper. Usually its jsut monster stat blocks and some NPC names. When will they fight the monsters? Where will they meet the NPCs? Will they meet the NPC? I don't know anymore then the players when a given session starts. But then I've gotten pretty good at rolling with my players. I had too because the first few sessions I DMed I had reams of notes on paper, tons of plans, and within the first ten minutes of the first session they had managed to completely derail almost everything and every time I tried to bring things back they did it again. Eventually you learn to simply let the story flow as it will. I usually end up with volumes of background information on the people and places and then just a single page of bullet points for the session at hand. This is usually true for my convention games as well. JiB This. Plus, I usually have the opening scene pretty clearly defined. After that, the game might as well run with MythicGME for all the control I have! -Freyki-
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Post by jazzisblues on Nov 30, 2012 12:23:27 GMT -8
I usually end up with volumes of background information on the people and places and then just a single page of bullet points for the session at hand. This is usually true for my convention games as well. JiB This. Plus, I usually have the opening scene pretty clearly defined. After that, the game might as well run with MythicGME for all the control I have! -Freyki- How well I know that feeling. The last session of my Deadlands game did not go at all the way I had thought it would. JiB
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Post by Kainguru on Dec 5, 2012 9:20:41 GMT -8
This is why my notes for any particular session consist of no more then one side of a piece of paper. Usually its jsut monster stat blocks and some NPC names. When will they fight the monsters? Where will they meet the NPCs? Will they meet the NPC? I don't know anymore then the players when a given session starts. But then I've gotten pretty good at rolling with my players. I had too because the first few sessions I DMed I had reams of notes on paper, tons of plans, and within the first ten minutes of the first session they had managed to completely derail almost everything and every time I tried to bring things back they did it again. Eventually you learn to simply let the story flow as it will. I usually end up with volumes of background information on the people and places and then just a single page of bullet points for the session at hand. This is usually true for my convention games as well. JiB Yeah that's pretty much what I do . . . background, background, background plus few ongoing plots/happenings independent of the PC's . . . add PC's and see what happens. I spend more time designing the NPC's as people with their own motivations and history than planning an 'adventure path' per se. Just finished 1st AD&D 1e session* with the group and my erstwhile collaborator in derailment did ask "what's it like on the other side of the screen with a derailing bunch of fucks like us?" . . . my reply "brilliant!! you can't derail what I haven't planned I'm just enjoying watching you find your way thru" (they've already inadvertently and totally innocently come to the notice of their opposition) Aaron *one caveat to railroading . . . one of the players had a change of mind about his character choice so I let him generate a new character for next the session provided I be allowed to use this now planned death of his original character as a plot hook (either that or he would have suicided the PC somehow sooner rather than later).
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Post by shadrack on Dec 5, 2012 10:09:30 GMT -8
I could see lots of ways to "power" flying ships. I would go with a variety based on the culture that created the ship ... Elves: Magic powered Humans: Magic / Elemental Powered Illithids: Psionic Dwarves: Steam It doesn't actually have to make any sense in the real world it just really needs flavor and should have some sort of balance such as elven ships powered by magic might be faster and more maneuverable but less heavily armed and armored. You get the idea. Cheers, JiB Hey look, you very nearly re-did spelljammer here. A typical spelljamming helm runs off the magic of the person sitting in it (arcane or divine). Works for the humans and elves. Illithid typically used 'lifejammers' where they would throw slaves in certain areas and their lifeforce would fuel the ship. You could always go for the very rare 'liftwood' (ala Sundered Skies) or 'bluewood' (ala Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies). or of course you could just find some 'unobtainium' that should take care of it too.
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Post by jazzisblues on Dec 6, 2012 6:11:48 GMT -8
I could see lots of ways to "power" flying ships. I would go with a variety based on the culture that created the ship ... Elves: Magic powered Humans: Magic / Elemental Powered Illithids: Psionic Dwarves: Steam It doesn't actually have to make any sense in the real world it just really needs flavor and should have some sort of balance such as elven ships powered by magic might be faster and more maneuverable but less heavily armed and armored. You get the idea. Cheers, JiB Hey look, you very nearly re-did spelljammer here. A typical spelljamming helm runs off the magic of the person sitting in it (arcane or divine). Works for the humans and elves. Illithid typically used 'lifejammers' where they would throw slaves in certain areas and their lifeforce would fuel the ship. You could always go for the very rare 'liftwood' (ala Sundered Skies) or 'bluewood' (ala Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies). or of course you could just find some 'unobtainium' that should take care of it too. I always dug Spelljammer and thought it rather got a bad rap. RE: Unobtanium ... Fucking stupid name for something, didn't really care all that much for the movie either. JiB
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2012 6:21:48 GMT -8
I thought there was a species of beholder that powered most spell jammer ships?
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jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
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Post by jfever on Dec 6, 2012 7:49:34 GMT -8
shoe = beholder fanboy
*fap fap fap fap*
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