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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Oct 15, 2018 11:27:34 GMT -8
Kimi: The chemical in this universe turns the dead into zombies. Then the zombies eat your brains and cannot be killed.
It is indeed on Netflix right now and is perfect Halloween movie watching.
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Post by chronovore on Oct 16, 2018 6:16:58 GMT -8
"Uh-oh, looks like Trashy's taking off her clothes again!"
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Oct 16, 2018 6:27:21 GMT -8
Funny story, met Linnea Quigley years ago when she came to a horror movie marathon back home and the whole scene where she dances nude she had an early version of the modesty patch that removed any hint of genitalia at all. The censors also wanted guarantees the audience wouldn't see her butthole so the whole thing was glue from her brown eye all the way forward like a scuba strap. She couldn't go to the bathroom for hours without the risk of spending another session of having someone spread costume glue on her privates.
She also did a zombie themed workout video.
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Post by chronovore on Oct 16, 2018 6:38:58 GMT -8
Linnea is a scream-queen of the highest caliber.
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Post by ericfromnj on Oct 16, 2018 7:59:07 GMT -8
For the npc who helps out a party with added muscle but doesn’t involve itself in decisions didn’t someone once comment or write in about a mute knight that travelled with the pcs?
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Oct 16, 2018 13:00:21 GMT -8
For the npc who helps out a party with added muscle but doesn’t involve itself in decisions didn’t someone once comment or write in about a mute knight that travelled with the pcs? I ran a two player game where, as the PC’s chose to be a caster and a rogue, I added a mute warrior NPC as the caster’s bodyguard. I just had to ensure they didn’t try to use Buliwyf as a canary.
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Post by uselesstriviaman on Oct 23, 2018 17:35:11 GMT -8
I remember seeing RotLD in the theater when I was in high school. There were some real one-liner gems in there. "Send more paramedics..." "Send more cops..." I turned to my friends and said in that annoying DJ voice, "We're doing a taste test! Which is better, cops or paramedics??" They groaned. I laughed. I was an annoying little shit back then.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Oct 25, 2018 22:21:59 GMT -8
Returning to this topic because something in ep 2301 reminded me I hadn’t commented on the GMPC discussion.
First of all, an aside. I prefer the term GMC to NPC, because the GM is of course also a player. The GMs role as a player is different to the other players, because while players get to concentrate on one character (normally] the GM has to play everyone else.
So, if all NPCs are GMCs, what’s the difference with a GMPC? The word Player in this acronym is redundant, because we know the GM is another player. Yet we all know what we are talking about, when we refer to a GMPC - a character who (often) accompanies the party, or is an ally or (sometimes) rival, as detailed as a player character, as fully worked up stats wise, and who acts like a player character. Actually all these things on their own don’t make the GMPC thing as annoying as it is often reported. But what does annoy people is when the GMPC becomes a protagonist. When the GM, through that character, starts to change the PCs story. When players start to feel that their characters are supporting characters in the GMPC’s story.
Actually I was surprised none of the panel used the word “protagonist” in their discussion, because for me that’s when the GM should recognise they have crossed a line. I posit that a GMProtagonistC is what the P in the eye-rolling use of the GMPC stands for.
So how does a GM spot it when their much loved regularly appearing GMC is in danger of becoming a GMPC? Let’s use Classic Trek as an example. All the characters that only appear in one episode are of course GMCs, including the Antagonists. They can have big roles, but it’s the Kirk/Spock/Bones trio that are the PCs. All the redshirts are obviously GMCs, even if they appear in more than one episode before dying. Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel are GMCs, but they might have fully worked up stats. I would argue that most of the speaking bridge crew: Sulu, Chekhov, Uhura and Scotty are actually GMCs (in most of the series, not the films), but they are on the borderline of becoming GMPCs. If your GMC feel like these characters, you should pull back to just saying stuff like “the engines cannae take it, Captain”. If your GMC cleric that you created to give the party some healing ability starts acting like Bones though, that’s a fully fledged GMPCs, and you need to kill him off, or hand him over to a hew player.
That cleric character reminds me of one final point on mechanics. Sometime GMs feel compelled to add party members for “balance” or “party effectiveness”. If you feel this need, I contend you are playing the wrong game, but if it’s the game you all want to play, I ain’t going to stop you. I suggest though that your players don’t want to watch you roll dice for the allies as well as the enemy. So think about how PCs might determine allied GMC successes. So if the wizard PC needs a fighter GMC for protection, rather than roll the fighters to hit and damage, is the something the wizards player can roll against - command, say, or even a charisma stat, to determine how well the fighter does?
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Oct 26, 2018 5:36:44 GMT -8
Returning to this topic because something in ep 2301 reminded me I hadn’t commented on the GMPC discussion. First of all, an aside. I prefer the term GMC to NPC, because the GM is of course also a player. The GMs role as a player is different to the other players, because while players get to concentrate on one character (normally] the GM has to play everyone else. So, if all NPCs are GMCs, what’s the difference with a GM PC? The word Player in this acronym is redundant, because we know the GM is another player. Yet we all know what we are talking about, when we refer to a GMPC - a character who (often) accompanies the party, or is an ally or (sometimes) rival, as detailed as a player character, as fully worked up stats wise, and who acts like a player character. Actually all these things on their own don’t make the GMPC thing as annoying as it is often reported. But what does annoy people is when the GMPC becomes a protagonist. When the GM, through that character, starts to change the PCs story. When players start to feel that their characters are supporting characters in the GMPC’s story. Actually I was surprised none of the panel used the word “protagonist” in their discussion, because for me that’s when the GM should recognise they have crossed a line. I posit that a GM ProtagonistC is what the P in the eye-rolling use of the GMPC stands for. So how does a GM spot it when their much loved regularly appearing GMC is in danger of becoming a GMPC? Let’s use Classic Trek as an example. All the characters that only appear in one episode are of course GMCs, including the Antagonists. They can have big roles, but it’s the Kirk/Spock/Bones trio that are the PCs. All the redshirts are obviously GMCs, even if they appear in more than one episode before dying. Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel are GMCs, but they might have fully worked up stats. I would argue that most of the speaking bridge crew: Sulu, Chekhov, Uhura and Scotty are actually GMCs (in most of the series, not the films), but they are on the borderline of becoming GMPCs. If your GMC feel like these characters, you should pull back to just saying stuff like “the engines cannae take it, Captain”. If your GMC cleric that you created to give the party some healing ability starts acting like Bones though, that’s a fully fledged GMPCs, and you need to kill him off, or hand him over to a hew player. That cleric character reminds me of one final point on mechanics. Sometime GMs feel compelled to add party members for “balance” or “party effectiveness”. If you feel this need, I contend you are playing the wrong game, but if it’s the game you all want to play, I ain’t going to stop you. I suggest though that your players don’t want to watch you roll dice for the allies as well as the enemy. So think about how PCs might determine allied GMC successes. So if the wizard PC needs a fighter GMC for protection, rather than roll the fighters to hit and damage, is the something the wizards player can roll against - command, say, or even a charisma stat, to determine how well the fighter does? Well, in the Dragon Warriors game I mentioned above, the spellcasting PC was noble, so I felt a bodyguard cohort was reasonable. The players rolled his dice and decided what Buliwyf did, but I made sure they understood that Buliwyf wasn't there to be used as their canary. Eventually a third player joined the group and took Buliwyf on as their character anyway (I hand-waved the mute thing at that point), but interestingly I ended up with a similar issue when that player adopted a stray dog. The player wanted to use the dog like an attack/scout drone, but I didn't think that was fair, given that all the character had done to adopt the dog was feed and be kind to him with no effort put into training his new four-legged friend (christened 'Doug'), and as I pointed out, how do you know what your dog sees anyway? It came to a head when the player tried to send their dog into some goblin tunnels to hunt them down. PC: "I send Doug in to find the goblins." Me: "Ok. How are you going to do it?" PC: "I point at the tunnel. "Doug! Hunt!"" Me: "You haven't spent any time training Doug to do this, have you?" PC: "Well, I'm sure I would have done. Can't I roll for it?" Me: "Sure, but it will be very, very hard to get your newly-adopted stray dog to hunt goblins in the dark." PC: "I'm rolling. 12" Me: *sigh under my breath* Doug looks from you to the tunnel and back again. He sits down, tilting his head quizzically, then yawns and lies down, resting his head on his front paws." PC: "Aww, I scratch behind Doug's ears and apologise for trying to send him into the dark." Me: "Doug licks your hand approvingly."
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booday
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 8
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Post by booday on Nov 1, 2018 6:27:39 GMT -8
My trick for running a companion NPC, that is an NPC who accompanies a party for an extended period of time, is to make them useful idiots or a fragile asset. They only get high INT if they're meant to be lore dispensers, and I almost never give them decent CHA so they can't send the NPC to do the talking. I have run two multi-year campaigns and both featured a companion NPC for some length of time; one was basically a local guide who essentially had nothing but Climb, Swim, and Acrobatics/Jump. The second campaigns had sort of a revolving door of seat fillers to flesh out a deficient party, I kept them under the party's level and highly specialized. Want a tank? She has AC and not much else. No healer? Cool, but they are frail so drag them into a fight at your own risk.
Really though,I think the key to my success is that I love playing supportive underdog characters and having terrible things happen to them. My npcs don't take over the show because I'm having too much fun leveraging them to give the party difficult choices. Go back for the npc tank who fell behind as you flee the chamber? No? Who's going to tell their widow?
Fun anecdote, the local guide died in a diabolical trap when she tried to save the drowning cleric who kept failing her checks to escape. The party pooled their loot, all of it, to have her reincarnated. They didn't even need her anymore, they just liked her. A few sessions later the jerkbag monk got himself killed (because the cleric opted to "forget" to heal him, because he was a jerkbag character). Not only did the party not look into having him reincarnated, they just looted his charred corpse and left him in the dungeon.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 2, 2018 6:59:45 GMT -8
That's less "murder-hobo" and more like "salvage-hobo"…
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