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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2012 22:04:24 GMT -8
So in other episodes and threads there have been conversations about how to keep an "atmosphere" but I was wondering what people did specifically for this system. I am attempting to take the number health numbers out of the players hands and submerge them more into the role-playing aspect. Many of player's are just hunting XP per game and wanting to level like machines instead of worrying about what the characters ideas are. How can I encourage role-playing more at my tables. I want to know what other DM's have done that have worked a low-magic DnD 2E world.
P.S. Thanks Stu for making this thread so quickly.
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Post by inflatus on Feb 2, 2012 12:56:33 GMT -8
When I played the older versions of D&D I stuck with the old tropes. I wanted the players to feel nostalgic. The players did not really care about PC development or anything more than what they thought about years ago.
The roleplaying will come when the players think about bygone times. I never ran a low magic D&D session so nothing specific from me.
The old tropes can be fun.
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 9, 2012 13:52:49 GMT -8
JiB's rules for wrenching role play out of the players ...
1. Take the rules out of their hands ... What they don't know they can't quibble or fixate on ... 2. Lurid Evocative Descriptions ... The more demonstratively evocative the gm is the more the players are likely to follow. 3. Don't accept half baked descriptions of actions. Either have them fail outright or just keep prodding the player to talk more until they get to where you want them to be. 4. Get the players emotionally invested ... If the player is emotionally invested the character will be as well. Basically whatever the player feels the character WILL feel the inverse is not necessarily true.
Just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary.
JiB
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joegun
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Post by joegun on Feb 9, 2012 14:58:50 GMT -8
JIB nails it here. Take the rules out of their hands. Just ask them what they want to do. And the best way to get players already familiar with the system to do that, is use very descriptive and Story based descriptions for everything! Honestly GM'ing my Sons little RPG group has taught me a TON on GMing as they don't have any concept of the rules. They just say what they want to do, and I tell them what to roll ( or if they even need too ). You get great stories that way ( Well at least in my experience you do! )
JoeGun out.
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 9, 2012 22:21:36 GMT -8
JIB nails it here. Take the rules out of their hands. Just ask them what they want to do. And the best way to get players already familiar with the system to do that, is use very descriptive and Story based descriptions for everything! Honestly GM'ing my Sons little RPG group has taught me a TON on GMing as they don't have any concept of the rules. They just say what they want to do, and I tell them what to roll ( or if they even need too ). You get great stories that way ( Well at least in my experience you do! ) JoeGun out. Over the years I have had very good luck with players who did not know the rules. That freedom on their part to not worry about the rules meant that they could focus on playing their character rather than on some rule or mechanic. Getting experienced gamers to let go of that can be difficult but it works very well. Just my 2 krupplenicks on the subject your mileage may of course vary. JiB
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Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2012 10:57:11 GMT -8
So I am wanting to get my characters more submersed into the roleplaying and noticed that my characters stair at their sheets a lot. I am wondering if pulling their sheets from them will help get them away from calculating everything and thinking that they can only do what the sheet tells them. They are all every experienced 3rd players and really attached to skill roles.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Feb 22, 2012 21:10:09 GMT -8
I had an idea about running a horror game where the players didn't have access to their character sheets to try and get "real" reactions out of them. My email about it got read towards the middle of Season 5, I think. I haven't gotten a chance to try it out yet, but I've been thinking about it on and off for a while now.
In my opinion, the simpler the system rules are the more the "no character sheet" idea has a chance of working. Really complex systems probably wouldn't work because of all the extra pressure it puts onto the GM. Part of having a character sheet in the first place is so that the player can figure some of the things out for themselves, freeing the GM up to run the NPCs. You also run into the "blank sheet" problem. Sometimes having too much freedom or too many choices can cause the players to freeze up and not do anything.
So rather than taking away their entire sheets, maybe you should just take away parts of it. Like their Hit Point tracker. That would be a good first step, I think.
Building on what JiB said about using vivid descriptions, don't tell the players any of their target numbers or the stats of any monsters or traps they come across. In our 4e game, the DM would say things like "Oh, you just missed. The Rock Golem has an AC of 27" or "He doesn't see you because he rolled a 13 on his Perception check".He was just trying to help, but I honestly didn't want to know the numbers behind anything. It made things less exciting and more math-y for me. Instead of telling the players the mechanical reasons for the actions or responses the NPCs take, tell them the fictional reasons instead.
Using the above example, instead of presenting the information as numbers, say something like "Your sword bounces off the golem's rock-hard hide leaving a tiny chip. It looks like you'll need to hit harder to actually damage the beast." The phrase 'need to hit harder' tells the player that they didn't roll high enough without directly saying "you didn't roll high enough".
If you as the GM do this, then hopefully your players will start doing it as well.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2012 8:21:40 GMT -8
Couple of questions... Are your PC-to-NPC conversations in character or are you doing the "my character says...." thing? Because that can kind of take you out of the game and staring at the sheets.
Is your game deadly enough? They may not be so focused on getting to the next level if they feel they might not make it there.
Are you using minis? That can take the eyes off the sheets and on to the battlemat.
And, how's your lighting? I don't know if this works, but our group plays at a huge round table with a desk light shining down attached to the edge. The only other light in the room is accent lighting so the eyes are drawn to the brightest spot in the room- the middle of the game table. This seems to keep everyone's attention to the table, either battlemat combat or NPC interactions or whatever.
Hope that helps a little. T
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Post by Deleted on Feb 23, 2012 12:50:22 GMT -8
There is a lot of "My character says..." from certain players but after that statement I normally start talking in character to them and they then respond in kind.
I do not like to use battle mats because I feel people get too concerned with placement and since 2E was never really built to use one it is hard to rationalize its use. The combat would be too hard to explain on the mat because a round is a minute and flanking works completely different then in later editions.
I have always felt I ran tough games when it comes to combat and try to deter people from opening going into it with other games but I have yet to kill someone in this one. I would hate to arbitrarily kill someone but I guess I should do more to screw with them and hinder them in some aspect.
The lighting is kind of random because we play in one of two places. Game shop or a restaurant. The restaurant I understand is hard to get into character but we did use a friends house once and it didn't change.
Sometimes it is hard to say things on the forum because some of my players look at this and I am sure they have figured out my name by now.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 3, 2012 5:45:23 GMT -8
Atmosphere . . . Low key music appropriate to the mood you're trying to evoke. It's even easier these days with MP3 playlists, not like dem olden days sitting round programming the track order from a multideck cd player or even worse having to make a mix tape from your Lp's.
Low magic doesn't mean no magic . . . There will always something each player wants, dreams about, has a goal to identify their character. That goal becomes a source of roleplaying, getting information, finding out how it can be done within your world. Don't just say you need to do this this and this to find/get/manufacture 'X'. The players want to know the mechanics they have to find out in world in character. I had a player once with a bog standard paladin . . . He qualified for his 'mount' and called for it: it didn't just come running over the hill it became an object that I had to work into the ongoing story arc . . . "As a consequence of this encounter you have acquired a horse and you feel a deep bond/affinity for this creature because of the recent events shared by you and it, it's magnificent and a fine specimen and responds better than mount you have ridden before" . . . player to DM, in an excited voice, " is it my mount?, it's my mount isn't it? . . . " DM "yep" - the player was exited ergo so was the character: I think that was a roleplaying 'win'.
With 2nd edition also remember that levelling is slower, 12th and 14th level characters are high level. You don't fuck with a 10th level character either with out being sure of backup. The long periods adventuring between levels tends to make for more roleplaying to compensate: maybe your stats haven't changed but how you character relates to their world does eg 'that last adventure left Baron Flatulant indebted to you, chalk one up on your goal to getting those lands and a title you want, plus a place of safety to retreat to when an encounter goes horribly wrong'.
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dnddad
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Post by dnddad on Dec 24, 2012 10:09:37 GMT -8
I always keep player, racial specific percentage rolls secret and I make them myself. It is hard to keep the meta away when you tell some one to make a roll for secret door. 2nd edition is pretty unforgiving and I like to keep it that way. I'm not afraid to level drain, poison or drop a trap on someone because they didn't specify how they move down the hallway, open the chest or blindly charge in to danger.
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