Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2013 11:43:45 GMT -8
I generally prep as many characters as I have slots for and design them once I have the outline for the adventure. I used to do a mix of gender characters but after seeing multiple people picking the character then wanting to flip the gender (in both directions) I now provide a male and female name for each character with the default randomised. For the writeup I aim for around half a page / 1 decent sized paragraph and try to describe the personality of the character through their background. While I prefer having artwork I can't draw to save my life, hence why I commissioned artwork for Demon Hunters. The other thing that I generally aim for is to have descriptions of talents / advantages / disadvantages, even if it's just how they work mechanically. That's mostly for the benefit of people who haven't played the system before, which I find is fairly common with the Cortex games. Putting it all together I tend to aim for 3 pages of info unless the character has special requirements such as a spell list. Generally that is: 1. Main attributes and skills 2. Background and talents / advantages descriptions 3. Equipment and space for notes As for cheat sheets that depends on the game I'm running and whether it's online or not. For online games I'll tend towards a cheat sheet even if it's just a single page. For regular conventions I've got the Savage World's GM screen and try to put the cheat sheet on the front panels where the players can see it easily.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 11, 2013 19:37:58 GMT -8
Well my character sheets are made had to do a Excel sheet to get what I wanted for the games that I am prepping for Play test. I will be Running Grimm and Abney Park’s Airship Pirates. One problem that I have run into is that the Excel sheet points to a Misbalance in Airpirates. As I made the characters I was planning on making a Scientist Crew (Hawking is on the list) and the misbalance is the Wits stat. If you are a Genius you are Awesome for all of the ship skills The Skills spread is Strength 1 Dexterity 15 Fortitude 0 just a health stat Presence 14 Wits 21 Resolve 0 Statement that this helps you against giving up your crew under duress. So I might have just Grin and run it, until I find a good replacement system for a Steampunk Pirate genre. The Plan is to run this up in December and see how it plays.
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plusx2a
Strategicon/RPG Section Staff
Join me at Gamex 2014 Memorial Day Weekend May 23 - May 26
Posts: 238
Preferred Game Systems: Savage Worlds, Modiphius 2d20, FATE, PbTA
Currently Playing: Legend of the Five Rings, Cortex
Currently Running: Savage World of Solomon Cane, Modiphius Conan
Favorite Species of Monkey: Spider
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Post by plusx2a on Feb 19, 2014 14:30:30 GMT -8
I'm a huge fan of virtual cons. They allow me to play with new people and experience new games without getting out of my jammies. Running three cons a year, I am usually too burnt out to go to many others physically. LUG con, Contessa and now Jackercon have been the limit of my experiences with this medium but I have picked up quite a few things about how these things work. I want to run for some of these cons but what I realized is that I don't need a con to run a game online I would rather run a Hangouts game with people I know and work out the kinks there before I go out for general consumption. So I am going to be running a Dresden Files game starting up pretty soon exclusively on Hangouts. Figure I can fuck up in front of the people that have to forgive me right?
Here are some of the things I have learned in the handfull of games I have played in. 1) If you plan on using Roll20 or some other table top sim do lots of prep. These things require a lot of prep to make it feel effortless. Unless you have used the system quite a bit and have a library of stuff to work with it's hard to do anything on the fly. This leads into my next suggestion.
2) These games work best in the minds eye. You have very little precious time to mess around with a lot of complex imagry on screen and if people are inexperienced with something like Roll20 you will be spending a lot of time explaining how things work. Putting up the whiteboard and setting up a combat scene is fine, but I have found that a table with a lot of icons and whatnot bogs things down UNLESS the GM has done a lot of prep AND the players are experienced.
3) Try to be on about 15 minutes early. Usually you will have players with questions and comments about their characters or want to pick out a character from the pre gens or may be inexperienced in the system and might need a rundown of the basics. Getting people set beforehand makes the game go more smoothly. Also be active with your players via e-mail and chat.
4) Sharing detailed character sheets and cheat sheets over google docs is quite intuitive and helps a great deal. I have a two monitor setup and having the cheat sheets up along with my character on several tabs in the left screen browser really helped me reffer to all my info quickly and easily. Having access to the info ahead of time via an e-mailed google docs link was also gravy.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Feb 20, 2014 4:51:16 GMT -8
+1 for dual monitor setup.
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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 Feb 20, 2014 8:04:58 GMT -8
My buddy is THE IT guy for the old Indiana home school district that bastard's got FOUR monitors! Its pretty awesome. But yeah for our Pathfinder games I spread the Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop across my two monitors so that maps, character sheets, initiative tracker, and secret chats, etc. are all right in front of me. I also get to pretend I'm piloting a fucking starship! There was a time when a spiral notebook was sufficient, but I guess we live in an amazing modern age.
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Post by mook on Feb 20, 2014 13:54:16 GMT -8
Usually wouldn't double post, but I just updated the game page for my recent OrcCon game, and it includes all six pre-gen PC packets -- seems on-topic.
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