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I don't think you need to make a rule change for this; just make a point of saying "Good diplomacy roll. Describe how you convince the duke." This is the same as you'd say "Good acrobatics roll. Describe how you make your way to the roof." I can't imagine a player (that you chose to play with) would cross their arms and refuse.
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Aug 13, 2010 01:24
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Generally, the best way to handle it is to roll the dice first, see what the result is, then role-play it out appropriately. If you're dealing with a new player, or one who just plain sucks at that kind of improvisation, it's your job as GM to fill in the blanks to make it work. The alternative way to do it is to ignore the dice and just role-play it out, and base the result on the interaction that occurs. It's never a good idea to role-play and then roll the dice anyway, as the mismatch can be a pain to arbitrate. The only exception I can think of is when you've role-played it, but the result of the role-play is unclear, and you can then use the dice as an arbiter. I learned this the hard way, in a game I ran where players role-played and then rolled. It didn't work well. After changing the order, suddenly it became much more fluid.
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Aug 13, 2010 01:55
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I've been making my players pay in order to not die. I got this idea after seeing the Diehard feat in Mutants & Masterminds, which automatically stabilizes you when you're dying. The players who want their characters to survive will buy this feat, and the players who don't mind character death won't. I've been using this with other systems and it's working fine. For example, in nwod it's a one point merit. It's never 100% guarantee that your character won't die, but it's a way for my players to say "hey, I'd rather not lose a character because of a bad roll" and it costs them something much like it would cost them something to increase their character's stamina in order to be tougher. As for the diplomacy scenario, I'd say it depends on how you narrate rolls as a GM. Let's say you narrate the results of the player's roll in combat. The player says "I'm gonna hit the weredonkey with my club", rolls a 19, and rolls for damage. You say "You smash the weredonkey across the jaw with your club and it screams in pain." The player will probably get used to just telling you what he wants to do and then rolling the dice and wait for you to tell him what happens. Maybe he expects you to tell him how you convinced the dude by using diplomacy. On the other hand, if you let the player narrate the results of his rolls, I think there's a better chance that he'll start thinking about what he's actually doing rather than just rolling the dice and waiting for you. In either case, I think the diplomacy roll should come before the player and GM play the attempt at diplomacy. It's how it works with every other roll, and there's no reason it should be different for diplomacy. If your player rolls a 1 on his diplomacy check and he's a good roleplayer, he'll have fun making a fool of himself as he insults the one he's trying to convince. If he rolls well, you can both decide how the character manages to convince the dude. If he rolls just a bit below the DC, maybe let him try to convince you that he deserves a +2 circumstance bonus because of all these wonderful arguments that he has. Edit: I should not go buy milk in the middle of a post. Beaten on the "roll first" thing
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Aug 13, 2010 02:12
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The argument against that is "Hey, I can't swing a sword in real life and my barbarian can do that fine, why not let a socially crippled person play a super charismatic guy?" I guess at the end of the day the answer is that it is a roleplaying game and it depends how much actual roleplaying you want to do. Not to judge people, but I've been in games where people are perfectly happy for the only roleplaying to be "hello wizard, yes I will accept your quest" and even that has some internet meme thrown in the middle. Depends on your group!
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Aug 13, 2010 02:32
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So I'm about to start running a game for a group of people, and my idea is for them to do kind of an accelerated heroic tier (~1 level per session) because they really want to get to paragon, but I have some stuff I want to do at a heroic-like power level before they start paragon. I've been unabashedly stealing poo poo from this thread and others around here, so I've given them all the usual "feat tax" feats for free and allowed them some leeway in character creation. The general plot is going to be they find a magic ship that lets them travel between planes, but it's pretty heavily damaged/contains more space on the inside then the outside and they have to spend pretty much all of the (short) heroic tier fixing it up and clearing out the eldritch horrors that live in it's between-deck spaces. I'm giving them each a "bridge crew" position and am going to run ship-to-ship combat as a skill challenge, borrowing a bit from Rogue Trader (more for stuff you can do to the other guy than for the actual mechanics). So I think that'll be a pretty cool heroic tier, but I'm a bit worried about paragon My tentative thought right now is that they have a "base" while they're running about getting magic cannons and whatnot, and that at the end of paragon tier, they return to it to find it completely wrecked, with some pretty obvious clues to the guy what did it. Do y'all think this is a good enough hook to lead to a main paragon tier baddy? He's got the power to wreck cities but not worlds, and he's not got it in for the party specifically (yet), but he did ruin their homebase. Do you think this is reasonable? It should give them a pretty good "oh no you di'int" motivation for hunting down this guy, but I have no idea what the guy's motivations could be. Any suggestions? Does this sound like a valid basis for a campaign? Any advice all you wise sages could impart would be great. This is the first game of any kind I have written and run save a Deadlands one-shot years ago involving a bus-sized prawn. I've run a bunch of 4e modules, though.
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Aug 13, 2010 04:22
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Karandras posted:The argument against that is "Hey, I can't swing a sword in real life and my barbarian can do that fine, why not let a socially crippled person play a super charismatic guy?" Well, a nice middle ground would be to award some kind of stunt bonus to roleplaying. Award Action Points in d20 systems, some dice bonuses on the roll, etc.
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Aug 13, 2010 06:32
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veekie posted:Well, a nice middle ground would be to award some kind of stunt bonus to roleplaying. Award Action Points in d20 systems, some dice bonuses on the roll, etc. This is exactly what I do. If the player doesn't want to roleplay the social interaction, that's fine, but if someone wants to flesh out the conversation or take it in a given direction, fantastic. It doesn't penalize the socially awkward, but it does reward those who try to roleplay a bit better, which can (generally) result in a better experience over all. "Thanks for helping out, here's a bonus." Or, in the case of my groups, "wow, I never thought you'd top the last stupid thing to fall out of your mouth. Roll initiative." Y'know, whatever.
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Aug 13, 2010 08:24
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E:Goddammit, missed a page. Well, my point stands, albeit not uncontested. I usually let the players actually talk things out, and then let a roll determine how effectively they delivered this message. For instance, say a character is sneaking into the room of a noble host in order to kill him, but screws up and wakes the target. They decide they're going to try and talk their way out of it. Before they roll anything, they have to actually explain themselves. So player A spins a story about hearing noises in the room, fearing assassins, and busting in sword drawn to defend the noble, thus waking him. He apologizes for the mistake and quickly excuses himself. Player B claims to have been sleep-walking, sword drawn. If player A fails his roll, he fails to convince the noble of his good intentions, but probably isn't in immediate trouble. The Noble locks his door, summons a guard, and starts to view the character suspiciously, perhaps ordering him watched. If he succeeds, the noble is actually grateful, and potentially rewards the player, or asks him to accompany him on a hunting trip, giving him another, possibly better shot at offing him. If player B fails though, the noble freaks out, goes for his crossbow and summons the guards, forcing the player to fight his way out. If he succeeds, the noble probably considers it queer, and might even have a guard put on the character's room to wake him in the event of further 'episodes' Now, I would probably give player B a penalty to his roll for lack of believability, but all my players are pretty canny, and won't be upset for being penalized for an occasional brainfart. If you have players though who aren't actually charismatic, this method still lets them play someone who's good at convincing others, while simultaneously rewarding inventive players. Also, by having to still engage in dialog, the shy or tongue-tied players can actually improve through practice. You can even go the opposite way and give bonuses for particularly good dialog, which leads to more confidence in the future. Leatherhead fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Aug 18, 2010 |
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Aug 18, 2010 02:52
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Thanks for the opinions, folks. Part of the context in which I was thinking of the game was for a campaign I've been bashing together that was VERY heavily diplomacy/negotiation/urban intrigue-based, so it had me focused on interaction skills. Specifically, the ability to see through people's motivations and predilictions, pushing the right buttons (Not that it'd be like, 'You failed to appeal to his vanity, his only weakness, the duke has you hung from the cliffside'). Good point on the puzzle solving stuff. If I do use it, it'll 1) be told totally up-front to the players about the mechanics of it and 2) only used if the group actually cares for the idea.
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Aug 19, 2010 19:50
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Yeah just add a bonus to the stuff. Player roleplayed out and had a good, compelling reason or a well done speech/con? Then they get a +2 bonus on their roll, and maybe avoid a terrible failure/critical fumble/whatever.
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Aug 19, 2010 20:27
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Some other ideas I've heard are (a) having the charisma roll not determine how convincing the PC is but what other factors come in to make him more or less believable: so if a player is accosted by a town guard at night, mumbles something like "I was... umm... looking for my cat" but rolls well, then the guard is drunk, or incompetent, or at that moment a black cat runs across their path -- or (b) you make the charisma roll before you start talking, and depending on how well you do, the GM gives you an impression of what the best way to win this particular NPC over is.
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Aug 20, 2010 00:06
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ninja: durr posted in wrong thread sorry
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Aug 21, 2010 07:13
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I'm GMing a Call of Cthulhu game for a relatively small group. The appeal of CoC to the group is how grounded it can be, ie that you play with relatively average normal characters. When a relatively normal character sees some sort of far out, paranormal horror show, they tend to contact the police or the authorities. What's a good way to deal with that? As far as I can tell you have two options. There's the "Pfft, you're crazy" way and there's the Cover up Men in Black type of way. Both ways get sort of old. I've been relying mostly on the 2nd because the characters have been mostly savvy about using terms like creature or animal rather than specifics that might raise suspicions. When the authorities check out the story, then what? I can have them find nothing but I can't do that all the time. How do you suggest I handle this situation? Woffle fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Aug 23, 2010 |
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Aug 23, 2010 04:02
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The police go in to sort out the situation (probably underestimating it) and get ripped to pieces. Then it's just them and the cult/monsters, and a countdown has started until the Men in Black turn up to cover up the entire thing, including witnesses.
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Aug 23, 2010 04:36
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The Capm posted:As far as I can tell you have two options. There's the "Pfft, you're crazy" way and there's the Cover up Men in Black type of way. Both ways get sort of old. I've been relying mostly on the 2nd because the characters have been mostly savvy about using terms like creature or animal rather than specifics that might raise suspicions. When the authorities check out the story, then what? I can have them find nothing but I can't do that all the time. Well, first off, how are you portraying the local authorities? If this is a Shadow over Innsmouth sort of thing, then it'd make sense for them to do the coverup thing. Otherwise, not so much. If you don't want the cops involved, there are several other options. First, if they're downplaying things, there's the old classic of amused disinterest. "You say you've got an animal digging around? You just stay put, don't worry your pretty little head, and we'll send somebody out to check it out just Once the cops do come out, there are several options, as well. First, you can just give the poor officer a gruesome end, if it's appropriate for the level of tension you're trying to set at that point. Second, you can set up the cop as an NPC ally - let him see the same things, and get on the PCs' side. That can be especially helpful if you're running an investigation game, and need a character who can call up and give a hint or two if the players are stuck. It's a bit ham-handed, to be sure, but it can come in handy. Finally, there's the classic "you people are crazy, I'm going back to the station" response - which really isn't too far out of line if you're running a horror game. Disbelief from the authorities is a cliche for a reason.
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Aug 23, 2010 04:43
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The Capm posted:I'm GMing a Call of Cthulhu game for a relatively small group. The appeal of CoC to the group is how grounded it can be, ie that you play with relatively average normal characters. When a relatively normal character sees some sort of far out, paranormal horror show, they tend to contact the police or the authorities. What's a good way to deal with that? The oldest trick in the book would be the Haunted House scenario. Put them in a location from which there is no easy escape, entry, or means of communication - a cruise ship, a secluded cabin, an antarctic research station, etc. It's been working for horror movies for about a century now.
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Aug 23, 2010 05:31
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I have a bit of a tricky situation coming up in my 4E game. The party was attacked by a warlock a few (in-game) weeks ago, they found out he has ties to a local thieves guild, and they're currently trying to infiltrate the guild to find this guy. They don't know that they unintentionally pissed off the head of the guild a long time ago and that he's more than happy to let them try to get into his guild so he, in turn, can get at them. He also especially wants to get his hands on one of the PCs, a Warforged who has important information stored in his brain but doesn't know. My general idea for the guild's next actions goes something like: offer the party a meeting with the warlock in exchange for a chance to extract the information, and lure both the Warforged and the rest of the party into traps separately and kidnap them. I'd like to be a good DM about it and avoid railroading as much as possible while still having the thieves guild make a very serious effort to capture the party, but I don't think I've nailed a good way to go about this yet. Really all that's important to me is that after all this, both the party and the thieves guild have the information, and the party knows they're up against a powerful underworld boss and his buddies, so I'm pretty flexible and not married to the kidnapping idea at all. Everything else I can think of doesn't feel quite right though.
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Aug 23, 2010 11:08
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Why does the guildmaster's hatred have to have anything to do with the warlock? I know that's why the PCs joined, but is it a big enough guild that the two aren't necessarily working together? I'd probably have the party's new guildmaster send them on a rigged run, a la Joker's origin in the original batman. Make it part of proving themselves in the new guild blah blah. Except instead of Joker falling in acid, I guess you should have a reveal of the warforged's data.
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Aug 23, 2010 13:27
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Now I assume the guild is reasonably familiar with the party's capabilities if they pissed him off a while ago, so pull out the stops. Gas their meeting room with a fast acting sleep poison so they have to fight against the clock to get out before they knock out. Obviously the warforged is probably not going to fall for it, so you set up some pit traps to trigger when a great weight is placed on them to separate him out. Splitting the party I think, would be the difficult part without a player being in on it. Most players I know of have their danger senses set off when that happens.
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Aug 23, 2010 13:54
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e: woops had the wrong tab open when I posted! Pretend that this was a post about adventure pacing or something. frest fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 23, 2010 |
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Aug 23, 2010 14:45
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Thanks for the advice, everyone. I've done the cop goes out to check it out but gets killed and I'm in the process of bringing a detective over to the PCs side. The issue is just that I'm running it in the modern world in a college town outside a major city, so there are cell phones, authorities take threats of strange behavior seriously, etc. I think what I might do is actually craft a story designed to discredit the PCs rather than hurt them or drive them insane.
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Aug 23, 2010 15:23
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My Lovely Horse posted:Really all that's important to me is that after all this, both the party and the thieves guild have the information, and the party knows they're up against a powerful underworld boss and his buddies, so I'm pretty flexible and not married to the kidnapping idea at all. Everything else I can think of doesn't feel quite right though. Pardon my Eberron ignorance, but are warforged brains a physical thing that can be interfaced with, like a crystal or something? Because if so, you could always have one of the conditions of their joining be for the warforged to open up his mind to the guild. Have him feed them a line about information belonging to all the guild, and the warforged memories having potential usefulness. If they're wary about this, you can have the warforged make a dummy will check to block off certain aspects of his mind. Let him know he's succeeded, because he doesn't know the info exists, and thus can't target it to protect it. As the guildmaster (or his skilled villainous associate) plucks that information to the forefront, it's revealed in a flash to him as well. Once Guildmaster has that info, and the warforged does too, Guildmaster departs, ordering his cohorts to kill the party. Party fights their way out, everybody knows the info, and they know the Guildmaster has it in for them. Or, you know, if warforged don't work like that, nevermind.
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Aug 23, 2010 20:50
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Chainsawdomy posted:Pardon my Eberron ignorance, but are warforged brains a physical thing that can be interfaced with, like a crystal or something? Because if so, you could always have one of the conditions of their joining be for the warforged to open up his mind to the guild. Have him feed them a line about information belonging to all the guild, and the warforged memories having potential usefulness. If they're wary about this, you can have the warforged make a dummy will check to block off certain aspects of his mind. Let him know he's succeeded, because he doesn't know the info exists, and thus can't target it to protect it. As the guildmaster (or his skilled villainous associate) plucks that information to the forefront, it's revealed in a flash to him as well. Once Guildmaster has that info, and the warforged does too, Guildmaster departs, ordering his cohorts to kill the party. Party fights their way out, everybody knows the info, and they know the Guildmaster has it in for them. I don't think they're ever described in that much anatomical detail, so they have discrete brains if he wants them to.
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Aug 24, 2010 18:46
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So uhhh... is it possible to buy large pads with DnD sized squares already drawn out? I'm making a few maps for my first go at DMing and drawing the squares is really tedious.
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Aug 24, 2010 19:16
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Miles O'Brian posted:So uhhh... is it possible to buy large pads with DnD sized squares already drawn out? I'm making a few maps for my first go at DMing and drawing the squares is really tedious. I believe I last got the paper online from Staples? And the battle-mat is available via amazon or lots of nerd-retailers
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Aug 24, 2010 19:19
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Miles O'Brian posted:So uhhh... is it possible to buy large pads with DnD sized squares already drawn out? I'm making a few maps for my first go at DMing and drawing the squares is really tedious. You can get a big 4 foot by 3 foot easel pad with blue 1 inch squares on it at Office Depot or Office Max. I think it was about 50 sheets for 12 bucks.
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Aug 24, 2010 20:45
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You can also get large fiberboard with a laminated coating that looks like whiteboard surface if you don't mind storing it. I think it's used for waterproofing some shower walls. If they only have the plain stuff, you can easily scribe a 1" grid with a straitedge and a razorblade.
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Aug 25, 2010 04:37
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Or if you want the fancy option, Gaming Paper.
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Aug 25, 2010 04:41
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I got one of the 30 page easel-size pads with a 1-inch grid from Office Depot, which allows me to pre-draw and prepare maps. I tried Gaming Paper, and it just didn't seem worth the price. For when I want/need to draw something on the fly, I got one of these poster frames from Target, and just used the clear plastic laid over a blank sheet from the grid pad for dry erase. If one of my players is playing a class with lots of temporary AOE status effects, then I can even lay the plastic over a pre-drawn map for easy zone marking/removal. Best of both worlds.
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Aug 25, 2010 05:06
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Thanks for the input! All great ideas, and I think I got a better grip on the situation and a halfway decent plan now. Never really looked at the Eberron setting beyond Warforged stats and items, other than that our principle is "it works the way we say it works." But actually that whole idea about reading a Warforged's memories is more or less what I already established as possible / planned, so I'ma go with that. Also the sleep gas, which is an idea I'd already dismissed as too potentially railroady (heard too many DM quotes that go like "suddenly the room fills with gas and you all fall unconscious unless you can make a DC 45 save  "), but playing it against time is a fantastic idea to give them a chance to turn the situation around.
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Aug 25, 2010 11:29
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The kick in the nuts could probably be the weight triggered pit trap for the warforged, so the others must consider to fight their way out before the gas knocks them out, or to free the warforged from the pit(and risk being taken out by the gas) or the ever popular Option 3(whatever the hell your players think of, perhaps jamming or counteracting the poison, maybe stealing the masks off their opponents to slow the KO down)
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Aug 25, 2010 13:21
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Does anyone here use DM Genie? I've been building my first 3.5 campaign with it and it's incredibly robust. I just wish the database was more expansive with item, races and monsters.
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Aug 25, 2010 15:31
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SnatchRabbit posted:Does anyone here use DM Genie? I've been building my first 3.5 campaign with it and it's incredibly robust. I just wish the database was more expansive with item, races and monsters. I used it when I ran 3.5 forever ago. Basically I ended up putting it aside because it was hard to input new stuff into it, and I was finding myself not using stuff based on how hard it was to get DM Genie to support it.
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Aug 25, 2010 15:35
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Dominion posted:I used it when I ran 3.5 forever ago. Basically I ended up putting it aside because it was hard to input new stuff into it, and I was finding myself not using stuff based on how hard it was to get DM Genie to support it. Yeah, I've noticed this too. Thankfully most of the players are fairly new so the basic classes should suffice. Another question I have is how do people feel about having players actually meet eachother in game instead of just throwing them together into a group i.e. "You've met at the inn and decided to begin adventuring together"/"You are from the same town/guild and have been sent out on a quest." I was thinking instead of dropping all of the players into a remote area with very little supplies or means of survival and basically telling them that the only way out is work together, figure it out amongst yourselves. This way they can all have independent backstories and have a fairly consequence free situation to work out their character beats and ticks while learning generally how the game works. This of course could completely blow-up in my face. I was also thinking of having an NPC with a bottle of water or something that they can either kill, persuade, intimidate into sharing. I just thought it would be an interesting way to start out a campaign that's not at the local Inn.
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Aug 25, 2010 19:16
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SnatchRabbit posted:Yeah, I've noticed this too. Thankfully most of the players are fairly new so the basic classes should suffice. One that our DM did for our campaign is through our backstories we all needed to go from X place to Y place... then along the way the ship we were on got stormed and thrown into a sargasso patch that had things to adventure and see, and find a way to get off the patch a note our DM said afterwords, "God, I liked the intro but I forgot the issue with stranding people out with no way to get back to civilization, Sure it makes you have a good way to induce fear or a bit of stress into the players but eventually they get weighted down by the money they're hauling around and no safe place to sleep or heal, and a level 1 party gets screwed up by that"
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Aug 25, 2010 21:05
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SnatchRabbit posted:Another question I have is how do people feel about having players actually meet eachother in game instead of just throwing them together into a group i.e. "You've met at the inn and decided to begin adventuring together"/"You are from the same town/guild and have been sent out on a quest." I was thinking instead of dropping all of the players into a remote area with very little supplies or means of survival and basically telling them that the only way out is work together, figure it out amongst yourselves. This way they can all have independent backstories and have a fairly consequence free situation to work out their character beats and ticks while learning generally how the game works. This of course could completely blow-up in my face. I was also thinking of having an NPC with a bottle of water or something that they can either kill, persuade, intimidate into sharing. I just thought it would be an interesting way to start out a campaign that's not at the local Inn. Well, one that can work is that each of the PCs get sent on the same or similar missions(for more mercenary games, the employer makes the choices), but it's mostly academic once they've held through a fight or two for most groups. Bonds forged in fire and blood, etc.
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Aug 25, 2010 21:29
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veekie posted:The kick in the nuts could probably be the weight triggered pit trap for the warforged, so the others must consider to fight their way out before the gas knocks them out, or to free the warforged from the pit(and risk being taken out by the gas) or the ever popular Option 3(whatever the hell your players think of, perhaps jamming or counteracting the poison, maybe stealing the masks off their opponents to slow the KO down) A few months ago someone posted a great way to kick off a campaign and get PCs together right here, but I can't for the life of me remember who or in what thread, and there's no chance of me finding that post again so I'm just gonna post what I can remember and hope mystery person doesn't mind: Basically the DM starts off by describing a more or less everyday situation, and the players get to describe who their characters are in that situation. The specific example used was a busy marketplace where an prisoner was about to be executed, and PCs could be anything from random guards or merchants to the executioner or the prisoner or entirely new characters; I think one inserted himself in the role of a priest sent along to give the prisoner last rites, another described himself as a thief looking for a secret passage in an alley (and being very annoyed at the large crowd), and another ended up a messenger who just arrived with new evidence for the prisoner's innocence or something. I thought that was just fantastic: it introduces the immediate setting, it makes for an initial adventure, and most importantly it introduces the characters in a way that gives everyone a good idea of who everyone else is, and it offers tons of opportunities for interesting inter-party dynamics. It's very simple, but has incredible potential. Instead of a fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard who met in an inn and saw the "help my basement is full of rats" ad the party could be a con artist framed for murder, a guard who doesn't quite trust him but is also suspicious of the situation, the con artist's wizard buddy who just saved him at the last minute and a wandering priest whose cart they appropriated, all together on the run from corrupt officials, within an hour of sitting down at the table. Okay so I'm gushing but when I read that I seriously considered restarting my own campaign just so I could use this method. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Aug 25, 2010 |
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Aug 25, 2010 22:20
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My Lovely Horse posted:I might simply make it a skill challenge to get out of the room once the gas is set off, with some thugs waiting outside, and depending on how well the party does they'd end up fighting them at full strength, fighting them with one PC unconscious from the gas (and needing a Heal check or two to join the fray), or everyone falling victim to the gas after all. Not to mention trying to trap the warforged is easier when you have mooks to lure him onto the trapped tiles. quote:I thought that was just fantastic: it introduces the immediate setting, it makes for an initial adventure, and most importantly it introduces the characters in a way that gives everyone a good idea of who everyone else is, and it offers tons of opportunities for interesting inter-party dynamics. It's very simple, but has incredible potential. Instead of a fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard who met in an inn and saw the "help my basement is full of rats" ad the party could be a con artist framed for murder, a guard who doesn't quite trust him but is also suspicious of the situation, the con artist's wizard buddy who just saved him at the last minute and a wandering priest whose cart they appropriated, all together on the run from corrupt officials, within an hour of sitting down at the table.
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Aug 26, 2010 07:00
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Here's a rather complicated thing I've been turning over in my head lately. It deals with character arcs and background plot hooks. The setting is mid-1400s Europe, D&D-ified. The characters all, somehow, decided they would be a band of slaves (though with more freedom, they're really more like indentured servants I guess) working for the same master. They are: Cur: Unspecified Native Central-American Goliath Barbarian - Played by someone with lots of experience with playing, DMing, and writing. His background is FANTASTIC, and if I can get a copy I'll paste it for anyone interested. It's chock full of plot hooks and good character building/development, and you can really get a sense of who he is. Essentially, a slave all his life for several masters in several countries, spent some time as a gladiator, and now believes his life only has meaning when he kills for his master, essentially like an attack dog. Were he to be given freedom, he wouldn't even know what to do with it, and probably just find another who would take him as a slave. Tochtli: Aztec Tiefling Warlord - Formerly a grand leader and general of his people, now living in shame of defeat and slavery under his current master. Still extremely proud, though, he's tried to scrape together a new identity as the self-appointed "leader" of the slaves, and functions as the Baron's right-hand-man. Could be mistaken for a suck-up, but it's not the case. His and Cur's people were bitter enemies, and though they work together from necessity, they hate each other personally. Mikal: Someone who doesn't show up often enough at the moment, so I won't worry about him for now. But he's an Unspecified Eastern-European Half-Elf Bard, with very little backstory. Thia: Persian Half-Elf Seeker - The most undeveloped, mostly because she's brand-new and learning the ropes of the game and the ideas of role-playing. Essentially a blank slate. So plot hooks. The writer in me can't resist the idea of character-developing and -changing character arcs. Over the course of the campaign, I'd like to provide opportunities (via quests or what have you) for, say, Cur to gain a sense of identity and self-worth, or perhaps for Cur and Tochtli to somehow forge a bond, or whatever. I realize that even my best-laid hooks or quests can and will probably go totally awry, but I'd at least like to give it a shot. But I also would like to develop a character-specific plot hook or two to draw Thia more into the game. As it is, she's kind of disconnected and treats the game from a totally mechanical point of view (probably because most of her RPG experience is with WoW). As she's a blank slate, I'm not quite sure how to approach that. I know she wouldn't have a problem with me generating her entire backstory if it came to that, but I'd like to keep it low-key at first, maybe intrigue her with something here or there, and hopefully inspire her to think more about her character and maybe come up with the rest of the background on her own. Thoughts?
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Aug 26, 2010 09:51
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| # ? May 7, 2024 18:54 |
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Introduce a relative. Then have something happen to them. It's probably better to do that then have the relative themselves do something. For instance, introducing Thia's Grandfather, the Elven Necromancer might go wrong. However, if you introduce an Evil Necromancer who is raising the bones of her Elven ancestors as skeletons, this is much less likely to go wrong and seems likely to get a non mechanical reaction.
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Aug 26, 2010 20:40
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