|
Post by jazzisblues on Mar 22, 2012 18:20:45 GMT -8
You have to build up to that point by giving them things that look innocuous and then tears their faces off. Do that a few times and they will run from the unknown.
JiB
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2012 9:40:53 GMT -8
My problem with describing the creatures is that they all they do is go, "oh it is a Gnoll? Come on you didn't explain it perfectly. I didn't know they were able to stand on their hind legs." Normally I just shrug to this and continue to describe creatures and let them name them as they see fit.
|
|
|
Post by rickno7 on Mar 23, 2012 10:34:46 GMT -8
I'm a world creating nut. I'll get that out of the way. Designing Ecosystems and reasons for why things are the way they are through using ecosystems is a happy pass time for me. Food chains, evolutionary considerations, and the like are the bone marrow of GM'ing for me(of course 90% of that stuff the players never realize, but I do not do it for them, I do it because its part of the game that is fun for ME)
I typically work out what is "common" and "uncommon" to people in the area. Why should people that travel an hour away from home encounter entire tribes of things they never knew existed? There are things that people in town would know even if its fantastic or supernatural.
So stuff like owl bears, while something to be feared, is a KNOWN thing in the world. As are the goblins, the kobolds, the gnolls. It is the deep dark stuff that never venture outside the dungeons that surprise them, that do not get named(except in some kind of knowledge check that the super nerdy wizard may have read in a book).
|
|
|
Post by jazzisblues on Mar 23, 2012 10:39:44 GMT -8
My problem with describing the creatures is that they all they do is go, "oh it is a Gnoll? Come on you didn't explain it perfectly. I didn't know they were able to stand on their hind legs." Normally I just shrug to this and continue to describe creatures and let them name them as they see fit. My personal favorite answer to that is to take a beastie and then change them to make them nastier or just different. My answer to players who say, "A gnoll can't do that," is, "They might look like gnolls to you but maybe they're not, or maybe they're just more powerful than you've seen before." I have no remorse about ripping away the assumptions that someone has with a game. I do have a rule against breaking the agreement we've made which does not include that the players will know everything about every monster and trap and situation that might come up, only that those changes have to be consistent and documented. I also do not change the rules in the middle. Cheers, JiB
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2012 15:34:57 GMT -8
One of the joys of playing in the Dark Sun game world is that none of my players know much about its denizens, and really neither do the NPCs of the world. I can pretty much make up any monster I wish and describe them as I like without them jumping out with the name and weakness like you get in a traditional fantasy world.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2012 11:34:48 GMT -8
I'm a world creating nut. I'll get that out of the way. Designing Ecosystems and reasons for why things are the way they are through using ecosystems is a happy pass time for me. Food chains, evolutionary considerations, and the like are the bone marrow of GM'ing for me(of course 90% of that stuff the players never realize, but I do not do it for them, I do it because its part of the game that is fun for ME) I typically work out what is "common" and "uncommon" to people in the area. Why should people that travel an hour away from home encounter entire tribes of things they never knew existed? There are things that people in town would know even if its fantastic or supernatural. So stuff like owl bears, while something to be feared, is a KNOWN thing in the world. As are the goblins, the kobolds, the gnolls. It is the deep dark stuff that never venture outside the dungeons that surprise them, that do not get named(except in some kind of knowledge check that the super nerdy wizard may have read in a book). I love doing in depth social structures of a world and creating a love/hate society. Most of the times it makes my cities seem very grey since most denizens have some kind of ulterior motive and can not just help you out for the sake of it. This gets embraced by some and others just wish to ignore it. For me it works out pretty well because it helps me create NPC's on the fly.
|
|
clanhanna
Journeyman Douchebag
The Muffin
Posts: 221
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller, O.R.E, Mongoose Traveller
Currently Playing: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, D&D 5e
Currently Running: Vampire: The Dark Ages
Favorite Species of Monkey: Peanut-buttery Rhesus
|
Post by clanhanna on Mar 26, 2012 10:06:53 GMT -8
Yeah, that guy was in my "Parties at Parties" D&D 4e game, wherein the characters I created were based (loosely) off of my real-life Fraternity brothers. He was the Gnome Fighter who was very reluctant to fight the "They Might Be Giants" tribute band of orcs, but whose befriending of the earth elemental in the previous encounter led to that elemental coming to the PCs' aid in the climactic battle against the dragons-who-used-to-be-house-cats.
Yeah, it was a weird game. But, when compared to certain other games that weekend (looks pointedly at Rob, CADave, and Tappy), it was pretty tame.
|
|
HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
|
Post by HyveMynd on Mar 27, 2012 16:49:22 GMT -8
I'm a world creating nut. I'll get that out of the way. Designing Ecosystems and reasons for why things are the way they are through using ecosystems is a happy pass time for me. Food chains, evolutionary considerations, and the like are the bone marrow of GM'ing for me. Yeah, me too. I was a giant nature and biology nut when I was a kid (I guess I still am) and watched all those National Geographic, Wild America, and NOVA Presents shows on TV. My friends kind of hated it, since I would always complain about how unrealistic the monster or alien was in the movie we just watched. Sometimes I'd yell stuff during the movie like "Oh come on! That's obviously a herbivore, so why does it need claws and fangs!" There was a guy in my high school who spent his free time drawing creatures for the planets he came up with. He wanted to be my friend, I guess (our parents worked together) and so was always showing my the denizens of his latest planetary system. Problem was, he didn't seem to understand how ecosystems worked, as everything in his worlds was a super dangerous carnivore. Everything. I'd listen to him explain about his beasties and all their razor sharp fangs and claw, how fast they could run, the toxic spines they could shoot, or the barbed tentacles that were coiled inside their breasts (yes, he did the tentacle-shooting boob thing from the Species movie). His worlds felt like someone picked the baddest of the bad ass monsters from the D&D Monster Manual and dumped them all onto a planet together. I always try to have things in my settings make sense, given the rules of the reality it exists in. Just like rickno7, I go into minute detail about how everything in my setting works, which then usually never even gets seen by the players and their characters. Heh.
|
|