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Old elves don’t die, they simply retire to The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 20: The Deck of Elves and Gastly Ghoulies 101: The Beauty of Nature The PCs wander into grey elf territory in a forest, and of course four grey elf sentries reveal themselves and inform the party of this. However, unlike those rear end in a top hat wood elves, they’re quite friendly. They will insist the PCs visit the tribe, have a good meal, and “listen to several stories about the lands into which they have passed.” This translates to “lengthy lectures about the value of nature and how humans are destroying it.” “No debate on this subject is tolerated unless it comes from another elf or someone who displays tremendous intellect.” Ribbing environmentalists is a lot less amusing in 2020 than it presumably was in 1994. I’m gonna pass. 102: Hidden Retreat The PCs are in the woods, deep in elven territory, apparently by accident. As they draw obliviously nearer to a wood elf camp, wood elves keep an eye on them and eventually reveal themselves to insist that they turn around. If they don’t, the wood elves fight them like the xenophobic border patrol rangers that they generally are. They explicitly have mercy, however, and don’t finish off people who fell unconscious but didn’t die. (Instead they, and any corpses, will be dumped on the outskirts of the wood). The only real twist here is that “[The wood elves] speak in an elvish dialect so thick that only hue elves and half-elves who were raised in elven communities can understand the threats to leave.” I’m imagining the DM playing these elves with some kind of super-thick New York accent or something. Not great, because if the PCs are even semi-reasonable, they’ll just turn around, and that’s the end of the encounter. It’s the same deal as card #16, “The Hostile Forest,” from the first Deck of Encounters. Is there nothing more interesting that you can do with Wood Elves? Even thick elven dialect can’t save this. Pass. 103: Mysterious Structure A town’s mayor asks to speak with the PCs. Over refreshments, he explains that several of his associates have been found murdered while working late hours in the old municipal hall, which is rumored to be haunted. He wants them to determine the cause of death. “He quickly dismisses the possibility of assassins, for he is sure he has no enemies.” Well, that’s the most suspicious point here. Actually, it’s two gargoyles. That’s all. Implicitly they only animate late at night. They try to pick off loners. Meh. Trying to properly build up suspense while describing this old building, and play out an investigation, is way too much effort when the payoff is “two gargoyles.” Kinda like the crawling claw encounter, which in the end just wasn’t worth the effort. Pass. 104: Together in Undeath The PCs are passing through a small community and everyone is super warm and friendly except one guy in the corner, who is distant and depressed. His wife was “apparently attacked by wolves while riding alone one day.” Now he goes to her grave in the cemetery every evening to bring her roses and read her love poems. One night he does not return. That makes sense, because (to those of you new to the Deck of Encounters) cemeteries are horrible deathtraps that should never be visited by anyone with any common sense. The PCs are asked to join in the search. The dude has been turned into a ghoul by his own wife, who was killed by two other ghouls who inhibit the graveyard. There’s 345 gold in it for the PCs from the couple’s parents and the town as a whole if they get rid of them all. Frigging graveyards, man. I dunno. Keep? 105: Field of Death The PCs pass by an ancient battlefield. It’s long-since been picked clean. Which is why it’s weird when they’re suddenly “overcome by the stench of death.” It’s coming from three ghasts who live in the moors, who are now stalking the PCs through the fields of bones. There’s some coinage in their lair, scavenged from the battlefield. Nice evocative backdrop for a random monster fight. Keep.
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Jul 28, 2020 14:42
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MonsterEnvy posted:I quite like the Inevitables portrayal in 5e. There are much less of them, but they are far more powerful. I kinda like these maruts. It would be kinda fun to have one be antagonistic towards a party that's not strong enough to confront it. Make it a sort of terminator type threat where it's single-minded about enforcing its contract and the PCs have to try to outwit it and avoid it rather than fight it. It wouldn't be particularly interested in hurting the PCs outside of dealing with them if they try to interfere, so it would be a sort of fun, implacable force of nature type of obstacle.
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Jul 28, 2020 14:59
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Actually having to hold a conversation with one of these things (because you stumbled into some plot to break the contract) must be rather terrifying.
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Jul 28, 2020 16:07
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By popular demand posted:Actually having to hold a conversation with one of these things (because you stumbled into some plot to break the contract) must be rather terrifying. 
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Jul 28, 2020 17:21
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By popular demand posted:Actually having to hold a conversation with one of these things (because you stumbled into some plot to break the contract) must be rather terrifying. Make it so Inevitables are bound by nature to stop fighting and engage in lengthy debate with anyone who legitimately questions their legal grounds for attacking. So the way to get an Inevitable to stop rebuilding itself and coming after you is to hire a lawyer and work out a solid legal defence.
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Jul 28, 2020 18:37
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megane posted:Make it so Inevitables are bound by nature to stop fighting and engage in lengthy debate with anyone who legitimately questions their legal grounds for attacking. So the way to get an Inevitable to stop rebuilding itself and coming after you is to hire a lawyer and work out a solid legal defence. Mortal, you have spoken the words, and spoken them rightly. We will tell you why we do this thing.
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Jul 28, 2020 18:43
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Spending an entire campaign quietly nodding along with whatever the Inevitables say and then the second I can beat their DR/SR hollering "AMAB" as I burn Mechanus to the loving ground
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Jul 28, 2020 18:57
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Glagha posted:I kinda like these maruts. It would be kinda fun to have one be antagonistic towards a party that's not strong enough to confront it. Make it a sort of terminator type threat where it's single-minded about enforcing its contract and the PCs have to try to outwit it and avoid it rather than fight it. It wouldn't be particularly interested in hurting the PCs outside of dealing with them if they try to interfere, so it would be a sort of fun, implacable force of nature type of obstacle. I'd play it for comedy. It would walk up to the party and stand behind them, looming. Constantly dropping hints that it's watching and waiting for them to do something, without explicitly saying what. And it just keeps following them, starting to drop hints about what it doesn't want them to do. And eventually it turns out that it's enforcing a misspelled contract, one with a badly placed comma or something similar that slipped through, so now it only gets to paste people if they adopt a grey-and-white sheepdog at exactly 3AM or something similarly stupid, and it's desperate for a chance to actually complete its duty and enforce the contract. Thus it's been stalking adventuring parties and travellers and trying to goad them into doing whatever the dumb thing is, so it has some purpose in existence, but it can't legally do anything except be really, really annoying until they do. And yes my players do absolutely hate me.
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Jul 28, 2020 19:17
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The Marut is stated to not go to lethal force unless the contract says it should. (Or an unrelated party attacks them.) For the most part the Marut will subdue the offending parties then planeshift them to the Hall of Concordance.
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Jul 28, 2020 20:01
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B2: Keep on the Borderlands -- Part 1: Introduction I’m going to do a deep dive into what is probably the most iconic classic D&D module of all time--B2: Keep on the Borderlands, also known as The Caves of Chaos. It was written in 1979 by Gary Gygax himself, making it over forty years old, and in some ways really sets the tone for module design from that point on. It’s also really weird in a lot of ways, and a lot of its design decisions seem utterly inexplicable at first glance, all of which comes together to make it a great fit for some analysis! What Am I Hoping To Accomplish? One of the big things you hear about the B line of modules is that they were meant in part to instruct GMs on how to properly run D&D sessions. B1 (Into the Unknown aka Quasqueton) provides an intricate map and room descriptions, but requires GMs to place monsters manually--supposedly to work as a training-wheels experience to teach them to design their own dungeons. B2 doesn’t do anything quite like that, but instead is all about teaching GMs how to run a dungeon as a sort of flexible interconnected ecosystem. My goal in doing this reading is to try to suss out what sort of playstyle B2 is attempting to teach, identify the procedures that are needed to make it work, and get a sense for how successful the module is--both at creating a fun playstyle and teaching it to novice GMs. The module is broken into three main locations: The Keep on the Borderlands: a human-controlled keep on the edge of civilization that acts to hold the forces of chaos at bay. The Wilderness: the areas surrounding the keep, full of monsters, bandits, and madmen. Includes the Caves of the Unknown, a blank spot for GMs to insert a dungeon of their own design The Caves of Chaos: the probable reason for the players to be here at all, a network of caves carved into a ravine that have been settled by a bunch of different factions of monsters Before we get into any of those, though, let’s take a look at the intro! Okay, so if we accept that a major purpose of this module is to teach novice GMs how to run dungeon crawls, then it makes sense to expect that the introductory section would have a ton of good advice and guidance within. Let’s take a look at what the module gives us! Or, if the size of this post is too much for you, go ahead and skip straight down to “Thoughts So Far” Part 1: Introduction Introduction: Tells players not to read this due to spoilers and establishes some real basic info (this is a module for D&D) Part 2: Notes for the Dungeon Master Basic Power Level: “This module has been designed to allow six to nine player characters of first level to play out many adventures, gradually working up to second or third level of experience in the process. The group is assumed to have at least one magic-user and one cleric In It.” Basic Premise: There’s a keep your players can use as a home base, and some caves they can adventure in! D&D Rules Rehash: The module recaps a bunch of D&D rules here? It explains what a statblock is (useful), and then goes over how armor, attacking, and movement speed works in D&D. It doesn’t really recap enough rules to let you play without the main book, so I’m honestly not sure what purpose this section serves. Some DM Advice: Quick summary of what to expect your first session or two to look like and some basic advice. . . Gygax posted:Make the encounter exciting with the proper dramatics of the animal sort - including noises! If the encounter is with an intelligent monster, it is up to the DM to not only provide an exciting description but also to correctly act the part of the monster. Rats, for instance, will swarm chitteringly from their burrows - a wave of liceridden hunger seeking to overrun the adventurers with sheer numbers, but easily driven off squealing with blows and fire. Goblins, on the other hand, will skulk and hide in order to ambush and trap the party - fleeing from more powerful foes, but always ready to set a new snare for the unwary character. Part 3:How To Be An Effective Dungeon Master Basic Advice: This is mostly just “what is a RPG?”-level stuff, but it does emphasize that the DM’s job is to be ‘neutral’. It explicitly tells the DM not to punish players for creatively sidestepping things that were supposed to be big challenges, but also not to go easy on the players if they’re doing badly. The module provides the setting, the players drive the action, and the DM’s job is just to try to make sure that the simulation runs smoothly. Time: Detailed rules on how time passes in a dungeon, including how many feet a party moves in 10 minutes--a thing I have never seen a GM actually track in my life. Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of wandering monster checks here--the prime reason any of this needs to be tracked in the first place. Dividing Treasure And Computing Experience: A bunch of guidelines on how to fairly divide up treasure. This feels like more player-facing info, so it’s a bit odd that it’s here. There’s also rules for calculating XP (including GP=XP stuff), but I think it’s also just following standard D&D rules. Preparation For The Use Of The Module: This is mostly generic DM advice on things like how to handle camping, mapping, character creation. It does open with this quote, however. . . Gygax posted:The use of this module first requires that the DM be familiar with its contents. Therefore, the first step is to completely read through the module, referring to the maps provided to learn the locations of the various features. A second (and third!) reading will be helpful in learning the nature of the monsters, their methods of attack and defense, and the treasures guarded. Background: Boxed text to read the players. . . Gygax posted:The Realm of mankind is narrow and constricted. Always the forces of Chaos press upon its borders, seeking to enslave its populace, rape its riches, and steal its treasures. If it were not for a stout few, many in the Realm would indeed fall prey to the evil which surrounds them. Yet, there are always certain exceptional and brave embers of humanity, as well as similar individuals among its allies - dwarves, elves, and halflings - who rise above the common leveland join battle to stave off the darkness which would otherwise overwhelm the land. One really cool thing this section does, though, is have the players start the game by arriving at the keep’s gates, where the guards yell down at them to one-by-one identify themselves and state their business, which is actually a pretty great way to diegetically handle character introductions at the start of a campaign. DM Notes About the Keep: This is formatted to be a part of the Background, but it’s all about how the Keep is run so I’ll put off covering this until next time.  Thoughts So Far Alright, we would expect this to be the segment of the module that does the meat of the heavy lifting when it comes to teaching novice GMs how to run dungeon crawls. What does it seem to be teaching so far, and how successful is it at doing so? First off, I just want to say that I really dislike how this module handles information presentation. Everything is so dense! Trying to find specific information in real time is extremely difficult, since most of this section is just lines and lines of occasionally-labeled paragraphs. There is bolding, but seemingly for emphasis rather than clarity. The text is near-unskimmable. The sections aren’t really distinct, either. Notes for the Dungeon Master contains some basic info about the module, followed by some random D&D rules, followed by some advice on running encounters. The whole thing feels slightly stream-of-consciousness, placing the onus on the GM to study the module like a holy book in order to extract its secrets over time. Anyway, given what we’ve seen so far--what playstyle does the module seem to be teaching? The GM is a neutral party: The GM’s job may be to facilitate fun, but the GM’s job is more akin to a game engine than a party host. In the same way that it wouldn’t be fun for the computer to start pulling punches if it looks like you might lose in a hardcore video game, the GM refusing to let the PCs lose if things turn against them would deny a certain type of fun to the players. On the flip side, if the PCs find a way to ‘break’ the module, the GM’s job is to be happy for them rather than to punish them. The Players Default To Heroic: The module’s boxtext lays out that the PCs are expected, by default, to be here to fight back the hordes of Chaos. At the same time, it does seem to leave open the idea that they could switch sides if they wanted. Which brings us to. . . Sandbox Play: Players are expected to drive the action. They pick what their objectives are. They choose where to go, and when. There’s no time pressure or urgent quest that needs to be taken care of--just a home base, a dungeon, some monsters, and some treasure (which grant XP). While I love sandbox play, I think this is a pretty big ask on new players--a few more easily ignored signposts pointing at ‘default play’ feel like they’d be helpful. Monsters Have Inner Lives: Monsters aren’t just meant to be pure combat encounters--they’re meant to be full-blown (mostly hostile) NPCs that are pursuing their own motivations and actively trying to get one over on the players at the same time the PCs are trying to get one over on them. They shouldn’t fight to the death if they have nothing to gain, and once they go off-camera they should continue to be active parts of the game--recruiting backup, laying traps, moving out of the dungeon, inventing new defenses, and so on. Episodic Play: The PCs typically begin each session in a well-guarded Keep, then delve into a wholly distinct dungeon, only to return before the session’s end to recuperate and pawn off their loot. While what happens during one delve may impact what’s going on in the dungeon the next time the PCs return, each session is its own little self-contained story. This seems especially important when you’re expecting a party size of ‘six to nine player characters’ and you need to be able to allow players to drop in/out easily. Alright, that’s it for the intro. Next time we’ll take a look at the Keep itself--this is where the design philosophy of the module starts getting real weird and where the real fun of this reading begins.
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Jul 28, 2020 22:50
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I quite enjoyed the reincarnated version of the book. Lots of Commentary and stuff for it.
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Jul 28, 2020 22:55
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Manual of the Planes: 3.5E Worlds Beyond Besides the Great Wheel, the Manual of the Planes has a few more planes tucked away at the end as ideas for homebrew cosmologies that don't use the Great Wheel to the letter. Descriptions of planes assume that you have indeed worked them in somehow.  The Realm of Dreams Traits: Subjective Directional Gravity, Flowing Time, Infinite Size, Highly Morphic, Normal Magic The Realm of Dreams is a poorly understood part of the cosmos, coterminous with the Material Plane and perhaps others (at the DM's discretion), but it is a plane that draws its stuff from the Material Plane alone. The Realm of Dreams is a plane comprised of the dreams of sleeping mortals on the Material Plane - if outsiders, or mortals on other planes interact with this plane, no one's yet encountered evidence - and requires powerful magic to enter as anything but a dreamer. The plane consists purely of dreamscapes, essentially a nigh-infinite number of layers each controlled by a dreamer whose power within their dream is equal to that of a god in the Outer Planes. Few dreamers are aware of this when they dream, but visiting planeswalkers must beware, for the rules of any given dream depend purely upon the dreamer and as is the nature of dreams, things are seldom what they seem. Particularly vivid or long-lasting dreams (an example given is a colonist on an alien world trapped in stasis) seem to blend together in the Dreamheart, a region of intense planar turbulence about which little is known. Rumors abound that there is a calm eye to the Dreamheart like there is to a storm on the Material Plane, but to date no one has found this 'eye' - or at least, no one has found it and returned. The Plane of Mirrors Traits: Normal Gravity, Normal Time, Finite Size, Static, Normal Magic The Plane of Mirrors is a Transitive Plane of sorts, coterminous with the Material Plane alone. This is an endless hallway, or perhaps an infinitely sprawling mansion, filled with mirrors at every turn. Each mirror on this plane is linked to a mirror on the Material Plane, and powerful mages have learned how to use mirrors to access this plane as a shortcut around the Material Plane. Nothing is truly native to this plane, and most planar scholars consider the Plane of Mirrors to be little more than a curiosity. That isn't to say the Plane of Mirrors isn't dangerous, and the danger here is unique: upon entering the plane, any visitor is immediately duplicated by the plane itself, creating a mirror self somewhere in the plane. Mirror copies are of the opposite alignment to the original (TN visitors spawn a TN mirror), with all the knowledge, equipment, feats, and spells of the original, and are consumed by a need to kill the original. Mirror copies cannot leave the plane unless their original self is dead, and always know exactly where their original is. Stories abound both of sinister mirrors killing and replacing the original to the horror of friends and family who never realized they were dealing with an impostor, and of heroes gaining unexpected allies when pursuing villains into the plane and being aided by their adversary's noble copy. The Spirit World Traits: Normal Gravity, Timeless, Infinite Size, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (divine spells) You know what a spirit world is, a perfected vision of the Material Plane where the spirits live etc etc. The book suggests that the Spirit World replace the Astral Plane in your cosmology. The Elemental Plane of Cold Traits: Normal Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced Magic (cold), Impeded Magic (fire) This plane is exactly what the name suggests, a fusion of every ice level ever. The Elemental Plane of Wood Traits: Objective Directional Gravity, Normal Time, Infinite Size, Alterable Morphic, Enhanced magic (spells dealing with plants and water) This plane is suggested for cosmologies that draw inspiration from Eastern mythology, which then makes it odd that the plane is basically Yggdrasil: an infinitely sprawling Great Tree in all directions, with the trunk and limitless expanses of branches the size of continents the surface. Every imaginable ecosystem thrives on this plane as long as it is rich with life, to the point of being a serious danger to visitors: plants will rapidly grow over, entangle, and ultimately consume anything that stays still for more than a few hours. As long as visitors stay on the move and don't harvest the plants for food or lumber, the Elemental Plane of Wood is fairly harmless. Should one start harvesting fruit or chopping into branches for wood, however, seemingly the entire plane will become aware and retaliate with spectacular force. The Temporal Energy Plane is a plot device to allow for time travel and will kill you dead or gently caress you up by displacing you in time. Nothing lives here and there's nothing to do here except travel through time. The Plane of Faerie you know what the realm of faeries would look like. It's suggested to treat the plane as effectively an Outer Plane that's coterminous with the Material Plane.  The Far Realm is borrowed from the Forgotten Realms, and it's where Cthulu lives, a limitless expanse of madness and body horror beyond any mortal's ability to comprehend. This might be where horrors such as illithids and beholders come from, but no planar scholar knows for sure: everyone who has peered into the Far Realm has gone mad, and most die. Even the relatively lucid ones become dangerously erratic, tainted by knowledge that it seems was not meant for humanoid minds. Many whisper that the Far Realm must be what lies beyond the Great Wheel and the Outer Planes, so far removed from the Material Plane that it is simply impossible for a mortal mind to comprehend. Of the beings that dwell here, only one thing is certain: they do not obey the laws of physics and magic as mortal scholars know them. There's a few more pages about generically weird planar poo poo and alternative cosmologies, but I don't think anyone cares. Conclusions All things considered, I think the 3E Manual of the Planes kind of struggles to have a clear reason to exist. It provides a decent overview of the Great Wheel and updates some of the rules and features for 3E, but doesn't go into enough detail to be a campaign setting book in its own right. It's also meant to be a toolkit to let a DM build their own cosmos, but I'm not sure it really succeeds at that, either, given that the provided rules don't really do much. As a jumping off point for a campaign that wants to go planeswalking I suppose it's not bad, but only a couple of the planes - Mount Celestia and Pandemonium - struck me as all that interesting, and a lot of the Upper and Lower planes felt pretty samey. I may do the companion book to this, the Planar Handbook, at some point in the future. It's written by the same people and is meant to provide more player-facing options for planar games.
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Jul 28, 2020 23:18
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You joke about the 20d6 rats but then you realize the original module expected you to fully run every one of the rats individually plus their blinged out rat lord.
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Jul 28, 2020 23:38
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OtspIII posted:Time: Detailed rules on how time passes in a dungeon, including how many feet a party moves in 10 minutes--a thing I have never seen a GM actually track in my life. Interestingly enough, there’s no mention of wandering monster checks here--the prime reason any of this needs to be tracked in the first place. Coincidentally, I was reading In Search of the Unknown earlier today, and I agree completely about the formatting. The room descriptions freely mix stuff that should be obvious to the player characters with DM-only information that's meant to be hidden, rather than separating them out. It means you have to read every key entry a couple times before you know what the players see when they enter. I've been told this is a modern affectation and the old modules were better about it, but it looks like it's been a problem since day one. Looking forward to more Keep on the Borderlands.
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Jul 28, 2020 23:40
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Der Waffle Mous posted:You joke about the 20d6 rats but then you realize the original module expected you to fully run every one of the rats individually plus their blinged out rat lord. I will say, 20 giant rats is more reasonable to run in B/X than it is in a modern system, in that combat is just way faster. It's still pretty ridiculous if you just run it pure RAW. Which actually previews one of the big things I'm going to be talking about with B2! So much of the dungeon Just Doesn't Work if you run it like Diablo. It really exemplifies the "combat as written is tilted badly against the player, so it's the player's job to find creative ways to tilt combat back in their favor (if not outright sidestep it)" philosophy that old-school D&D has. Because, oh man, if you think the rat room is bad you should wait for Literally Just 40 Kobolds In A Medium Room.
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Jul 29, 2020 00:49
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OtspIII posted:Because, oh man, if you think the rat room is bad you should wait for Literally Just 40 Kobolds In A Medium Room.
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Jul 29, 2020 00:50
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I am definitely interested in a deep look at Keep on the Borderlands, OtspIII. A close reading of this sounds like it'll be extremely interesting. A 'sandbox' approach for one of the first modules is a bit of a surprise to me and it's one of the few cases I'd use a pre-made for GMing.
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Jul 29, 2020 00:58
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MonsterEnvy posted:I quite enjoyed the reincarnated version of the book. Lots of Commentary and stuff for it. I haven't ever gotten a chance to read it--that pricing is pretty brutal. I'd be very curious to hear if any of what I say here goes against any of the official commentary, though. kommy5 posted:A 'sandbox' approach for one of the first modules is a bit of a surprise to me and it's one of the few cases I'd use a pre-made for GMing. Sandbox was actually pretty default when it comes to early modules! I believe the big shift to modules that were more linear and story-based was a 2e AD&D thing, and before that modules tended (although there are always exceptions in every era) to be more about just giving an interesting setting for PCs to make trouble in.
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Jul 29, 2020 01:32
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Cythereal posted:
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Jul 29, 2020 01:40
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Dallbun posted:Old elves don’t die, they simply retire to These days playing ecoterrorists is a good campaign hook in its own right. And by the way, I don't think you've gotten enough love for the clever intros to each part of the review. They add a lot and are very much appreciated.
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Jul 29, 2020 01:46
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OtspIII posted:I haven't ever gotten a chance to read it--that pricing is pretty brutal. I'd be very curious to hear if any of what I say here goes against any of the official commentary, though. Will read over it tonight. Also yes Price point was pretty mean. Cost me 60 Bucks, but at least I did not order it from the site. That would have cost me 110 with all the shipping fees.
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Jul 29, 2020 04:24
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Chapter 8: Bazaar, pt. 3 Degenesis Rebirth Katharsys Chapter 8: Bazaar CHRONICLERS Draft Printer Literally a money printer. To prevent you sinking the European economy singlehandedly (the book itself says that), each is limited to the amount of money it can print per-month. A Chronicler can print 50 x Resources Drafts per month. Nessus posted:It seems like the idea of that device is that it will produce a certain finite amount of IOUs which the receivers may be confident will be useful, to pay taxes or obtain valuable supplies et cetera, right? Then it doesn't seem like it has any problems, it's basically a credit card with a much more rickety method of operation, or a checkbook. Actually it's just a checkbook. With a pistol grip. Nessus posted:Then yeah, it seems like it's just a checkbook and it's drawing on, I guess, what Chronicler command is willing to tolerate getting out into the European economy. It's actually kind of clever. Presumably they set it up for you when you check in at the Vault or whatever, and it's set to (say) "give out 200 bux per month, up to a maximum of 3600," meaning that even if some bandit finds you and tortures the code out of you, they can only get so much out of the device. Which would have the same economic effect, broadly speaking, as YOU spending it... so it's a wash, and in the mean time it's much harder to CASUALLY steal your money.  Finally, a gun you can kill the economy with. Streamer Glove quote:Like the Draft Printer, the Streamer Glove has become a symbol of the Cult. A Chronicler’s raised little finger brings respect since everybody fears the painful discharges from the fingertip. This is basically an insulated plastic glove with an electrode on the little finger. Just the stupidest little thing.  Shocker Two in the lore, one in the game mechanics – this is the combat version of Streamer Glove, it's about arm-length and powered by six batteries (rather than one). Incidentally, the batteries are called “E-Cubed.” If this is a typo, it's repeated like three times so far. It’s not a typo. Vocoder The most important cosplay device in the world, this mask with microphone and chest speaker allows Chroniclers to sound like robots, shout to be heard kilometers away, and otherwise appear like a no-poo poo Techpriests instead of a bunch of 4chan posters in LARPing gear. quote:Within the Cluster, the voice distorters are not used. What do you know, they have re-discovered the indoor voice!  Cascader “What if I was a Noise Marine in Europe” is the question this collection of mic, amps and speakers is meant to answer. Does “heavy trauma damage in a 45 degree conus.” Whoever wrote this is certain that “conus” is a good synonym for “cone.” Stream drones Basically servoskull, held aloft by “buzzing propeller gyroscopes.” They circle a Fragment, transmitting footage to a display on his arm. Somehow, having a screen on your arm that shows footage from four constantly moving drones makes you immune to surprises.  Up to four drones, providing +1D for visual perception per drone (any more active drones, and even the Fragment would get confused). Drones are homing on the display and can't go further than 10 meters from it before shutting down and drifting to the ground. Sanctioned technology A side section stating that lethal weapons are sanctioned tech for Chroniclers, so they have to buy them from the general weapons table, paying resources (or Resources, I guess?) equal to tech level. No clue what this means.  Also useful for drinking tea like the biggest prick Portable uplink A Paradigma can use this to call up the nearest Alcove to ask for trivia, getting +2D to Lore and +1D Engineering. For 1 Renown, you can ask for a Shutter as reinforcement, though the book tells us that it can take him a long time to arrive (I mean, duh). Tracker A lovely tracking device that blinks faster the closer you are to a Chronicler with an injected transponder. Basically something you get from a quest giver NPC.  Chronicler Suit A fancy tech suit controlled by programmed movements and whatever... all to impress the Clanners with blinkenlights. This means has the “First Impression” quality – though almost every time an item has a quality, they first explain the effect with  , and the explanation is then capped off with something dumb like “has the equivalent of X quality.” Just name the quality first and then explain what it does.  Modules Oh hey, the good poo poo you can slot into the Chronicler Suit. INT+Engineering (1) to activate, unless you have more than one – then difficulty rises by 1 for every additional module. This is because they are activated by moves, and you have to differentiate them to not go accidental Inspector Gadget. Costs an action in combat. Module levels range I-III and each level makes it more expensive by 1 Resources. >Source: a bunch of E-Cubeds to power the suit. Level determines how many modules it can power, and you can have more than one, but they tend to get heavy. >Fumor: you can now get smoke cover, giving you +1 passive defense per level for 2 turns. Also holds one charge per level. Getting 5 passive defense (at level III), even for a short while, seems p. sweet. >Dome of Rays: essentially a laser disco ball pauldron, gives +1D to social interactions per level as it makes you look like a god (apparently, people like being blinded). Superstitious Clanners may run away or fall to the dirt before you. >Greenlight: shoulder and chest mounted laser array (works in a 45 degree Continental United States) that gives nausea/-1D of general penalty per level for 2 combat rounds. 3 round cooldown. >Discharge: electrified armor that does Ego damage per level to attackers. If you want, you can do an AGI+Mobility test to jump on the enemy, I guess. 2 round discharge. Not advisable to use in snow, rain, etc., but there are no rules for that, so go wild. >Screamer: a sensor net on the armor that unleashes high frequency screaming if someone tries to pickpocket a sleeping Chronicler. This awakes the Chronicler and makes the thief make a PSY+Faith/Willpower (4) test to not run away. Unless you’re planning on carrying out nap ambushes, pass. >Freon: arm mounted cold ray. 3 meter range. Only penetrates up to Armor 4, but is said to cause 1D damage per level no matter the armor? Whatever, you can only have two (one per arm), has shots equal to level. Feel free to make terrible cold puns. Next time: They may take our lives, but they will never take our pocket knives! JcDent fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Aug 4, 2020 |
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Jul 29, 2020 04:32
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the reason is because currency is fake as hell
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Jul 29, 2020 05:17
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It seems like the idea of that device is that it will produce a certain finite amount of IOUs which the receivers may be confident will be useful, to pay taxes or obtain valuable supplies et cetera, right? Then it doesn't seem like it has any problems, it's basically a credit card with a much more rickety method of operation, or a checkbook. Actually it's just a checkbook. With a pistol grip. e: like the mechanism is absurd but the underlying idea is more or less reinventing the promissory note e2: Do all of them get limited to 50 moneybucks per whenever? If you get a pay raise do you have to get a bandolier of these things like some kind of pirate lord of the Crimson Permanent Assurance? Nessus fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Jul 29, 2020 |
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Jul 29, 2020 05:29
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Nessus posted:It seems like the idea of that device is that it will produce a certain finite amount of IOUs which the receivers may be confident will be useful, to pay taxes or obtain valuable supplies et cetera, right? Then it doesn't seem like it has any problems, it's basically a credit card with a much more rickety method of operation, or a checkbook. Actually it's just a checkbook. With a pistol grip. Chronicler Drafts are literally money, and their exchange rate with Neolib Dinar is 1:1. And since you can start out with Resources 4 iirc, you can fart out 200 Draft per-month. Here's how the book puts it: quote:Draft printers are money-printing machines. They have the power to unbalance Europe’s economy, so they come with a maximum amount. Only a Fragment in the Cluster can reset the internal counter and reactivate the printer. On the other hand, 200 Drafts isn't a lot of money, sooo... quote:e2: Do all of them get limited to 50 moneybucks per whenever? If you get a pay raise do you have to get a bandolier of these things like some kind of pirate lord of the Crimson Permanent Assurance? quote:The numerical keyboard is faded; the amber numbers blink on the display. The Chronicler enters his code, confirms it with the number sign, and adds more numbers: the amount on the Draft. Another number sign, and the machine spits out a piece of printed thermo paper with a whir: a Chroniclers’ Draft I dunno if the game is set to deal with you finding multiple Printers and making them key to you (or, you know, using the previous owner's code that the Spitalian tortured out of him).
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Jul 29, 2020 06:18
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Then yeah, it seems like it's just a checkbook and it's drawing on, I guess, what Chronicler command is willing to tolerate getting out into the European economy. It's actually kind of clever. Presumably they set it up for you when you check in at the Vault or whatever, and it's set to (say) "give out 200 bux per month, up to a maximum of 3600," meaning that even if some bandit finds you and tortures the code out of you, they can only get so much out of the device. Which would have the same economic effect, broadly speaking, as YOU spending it... so it's a wash, and in the mean time it's much harder to CASUALLY steal your money. Now obviously mission one would be to hack this device to produce infinite monies, but it sounds like it has a thick layer of technological obscurity - the fragment thingies IIRC are like relic supercomputers. It would be like asking colonial Americans to hack smartphones; it would not be something immediately feasible, and if you abruptly found someone who COULD, you have probably found a very important piece of information that you can track back purely by looking at where the sudden reams of inflating Chroniclebux are coming from. But yeah mechanically this just seems like a debit card mounted in an interface to let you use your debit card with low-tech primitive screwheads. e: Is this how the Chroniclers get their money out there in the first place? (Presumably non-Chroniclers would be informed they could redeem Drafts in Chronicler territory.)
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Jul 29, 2020 06:46
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mllaneza posted:And by the way, I don't think you've gotten enough love for the clever intros to each part of the review. They add a lot and are very much appreciated. Gnomes can be wizards, but they must specialize in The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 21: The (Complete) Deck of Gnomes and Halflings 106: Practical Joke The PCs are travelling through hills despite having been warned that they’re haunted. At night, the person on watch is approached by a silent “beautiful or handsome ghost,” who beckons for them to follow; if they don’t, it dissipates, but if it does, it leads them into a big pile of crap. Other visions will appear, such as an army of elephant-riding ogres (which will disappear before they hit the camp), or a large hill giant who tries to stomp on them… but then disappears. They’re all illusions from a bunch of gnomes, and in the morning, their leader marches them into camp to apologize to the party. Your tolerance for gnomes, illusions, and whimsy may vary, but I guess I have no reason to throw it out. Keep. 107: Tiny Threats In a dungeon, there’s a room filled with debris, rocks, and It’s ok, but pretty empty. And maybe let the PCs react to the gremlins instead of having a forced combat? Keep I suppose. 108: An Artist Scorned In a town with a halfling shire nearby (is “shire” the generic term for a halfling settlement now?), a merchant approaches the PCs and explains that he commissioned a halfling woodcarver to make something for his daughter’s wedding… but time is running out. “Knowing nothing about the little fellow’s culture,” he’s offering 100 gp to these The halfling is friendly but turns gruff when the commission is raised, saying he refuses to let the marchant make a profit off his work. If told why the artist actually wants the work, he’ll be happy to complete it. So, wait... if he thought the merchant was an art speculator…and he hates that… then why… did he take the commission… in the first place? I guess you could change it so that the halfling hasn’t yet agreed, but even then it’s just too boring as a quest. Pass. 109: Unrequited Love The party notices a young man tailing them in the city. If confronted, he apologizes and says he wanted to observe them before hiring them. He recently bought an old house and it’s haunted. He’ll pay 200 pp for it to be cleared. Yep, it’s haunted by a, uh, haunt: another young man, who just wants someone to find his spouse and tell her he loves her. He’ll insist on possessing someone to accomplish this, and attack if they refuse. The woman is long dead, but that doesn’t change his goal - he’ll just need a speak with dead spell. “This will be quite difficult and expensive, since the loved one died 106 years ago.” No kidding - checking the Player’s Handbook, a 20th-level priest can only chat with a spirit who’s been dead a maximum of 100 years. You’d need a 21st-level priest! Could be interesting. Keep. P.S. According to the PH, speak with dead “does not function underwater.” What ridiculous shenanigans happened in some ancient D&D campaign to make them put that rule in place? 110: A Familiar Imp The PCs are passing through a fairly barren area with only a few ravens around. Actually it’s just a single disguised imp, the familiar of a local tower-dwelling wizard. It’ll turn into a spider and attack the party at night, fleeing if discovered and the fight isn’t going its way. (You’ve only got 14 hp, dude - if the fight isn’t going your way, you’re more than likely dead.) When it returns to its master, the card notes that “unless the party was intentionally destructive, the imp will simply be rewarded for its work, and nothing more will happen to the party.” Question - what would the party have been destructive towards in this empty, almost lifeless plain? (Also, why is the imp being rewarded for picking a fight with a party of adventurers, something that most tower-dwelling recluse wizards might try to avoid?) Basically an imp attacks, and that’s an annoying encounter under the best of circumstances. Pass.
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Jul 29, 2020 15:01
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Nessus posted:Then yeah, it seems like it's just a checkbook and it's drawing on, I guess, what Chronicler command is willing to tolerate getting out into the European economy. It's actually kind of clever. Presumably they set it up for you when you check in at the Vault or whatever, and it's set to (say) "give out 200 bux per month, up to a maximum of 3600," meaning that even if some bandit finds you and tortures the code out of you, they can only get so much out of the device. Which would have the same economic effect, broadly speaking, as YOU spending it... so it's a wash, and in the mean time it's much harder to CASUALLY steal your money. CD is the only currency of note in non-African territories. I guess it usually goes into circulation when its paid for Scrap that Scrappers bring in, then they spend it on booze and sex. I dunno what's backing CD; there was something about data being printed on them.
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Jul 29, 2020 18:48
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Falconier111 posted:Subsector Nonsense I always liked the subsector generation rules in the various space games that have them, it can be fun to sit down and roll out worlds. Some of them could get ridiculously detailed, though.
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Jul 29, 2020 18:51
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Just want to chime in and say that despite my lack of replies, I am genuinely enjoying both the Degenesis and Deck of Encounters reviews, I just don't often have anything interesting to add as commentary.
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Jul 29, 2020 19:07
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Dallbun posted:
I actually have been in a 13th age game where that would have been relevant, my character escaped from a crazy mermaid cult and wanted the necromancer's help to talk to his non-escaped siblings. ADND tends to have less stuff like that when you don't do 1 unique things, of course.
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Jul 29, 2020 23:04
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"No, Dave, you can't just ask the pirate corpse where the treasure is! Because...it doesn't work underwater, that's why!"
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Jul 29, 2020 23:23
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B2: Keep on the Borderlands -- Part 2: The Keep The name of this module always confused me a little. The whole point of the module is the dungeon, right? The keep is just there to act as a home base for the players to operate out of. Why isn’t this module named “B2: The Caves of Chaos”? That’s the mystery we’ll try to answer with this installment! First off, the Keep’s description starts on page 8 and ends on page 14, making it 7 pages long. For reference, the intro was 5 pages, while the caves themselves are going to be 10 pages. That’s pretty intense for a place just meant to serve as a safe camp for the PCs to rest at. Furthermore, it’s keyed in exactly the same manner as the dungeon, with exhaustive notes on how many gold pieces various bureaucrats' ink-wells are worth. It goes into a lot of detail about exactly where each NPC hides their personal savings, and exactly what those savings consist of. Huh No NPC within the Keep has a name. Some people praise this decision, because it means the Keep is generic enough that you can really run it in any kind of setting--it’d be trivially easy to drop this into a European, Arabic, East-Asian, etc themed setting. I’m not a fan, personally--it’s extremely easy to just ignore given names if they don’t fit the setting, and in practice this just leads to my brain seizing up periodically when my players ask what someone’s name is. DM Notes about the Keep The very first things we learn about the keep are its defenses, which are pretty overwhelming Human Guards: Professional soldiers guard the Keep. It gives some general tips on how the guards patrol and how frequent check-ins are. By a quick count there are over 200 guards/captains/etc, which is actually pretty close to how many sentient monsters there are in the Caves. Brave Civilians: many of the civilians living within will also take up arms if the keep is attacked, and those who don’t will assist as messengers / porters / medics / etc. If anybody causes trouble they call for guards, who arrive in 1-2 rounds. Ballista: They do 2d6+2 damage and can fire once every 4 rounds. Catapults: They do 1d6 splash damage and can fire once every 8 rounds. Magic Wards?: It says that you can have magic traps placed at your discretion that detect invisible creatures within 10’, but doesn’t give any guidance on where to put them It’s Just Hard To Get Into: Finally, the keep is just on a steep hill, with only one ramp leading up to it, and has huge walls fully surrounding it. It’s in an extremely defendable position. After that the module spells out a few other notes about the Keep as a whole. Floor Plans: There is a map of the Keep in the center of the book, but it also advises the GM to draw their own maps for any rooms in the Keep they’re expecting players to spend a lot of time in (the tavern, etc). There’s even graph paper and an example in the back of the book. I guess this is to help players practice mapping in a low-stakes environment? You have a general sense of the size of each building from the overmap, and you have a description of the buildings’ contents, so you only need to place internal walls/tables/etc. Rumor Table: Always one of the best parts of a module, it gives the GM a d20 table of rumors to feed their players, advising them to give each player one at the game’s start. Most of the rumors are true, but plenty are misleading or irrelevant. It also says that more rumors can be learned by talking to NPCs, and actually gives a tiny example of a sub-procedure for how to gain them--if a PC talks to the tavern keeper they roll a reaction check (2d6+CHA modifier). On a ‘good’ result the rumor they’re told is guaranteed true. Inner Bailey Entrance: The Keep is in two big segments--the Inner and Outer Bailey. The Outer Bailey is full of civilians, adventurers, merchants, and so on, while the Inner Bailey is where the Castilian and the guards operate from. PCs are initially barred from entering the Inner Bailey, but if they “perform a heroic act in behalf of the KEEP, if they bring back an exceptional trophy or valuable prisoners, or if they contribute a valuable magic item or 1,000 or more gold pieces to the place” then they’ll be invited to meet the Castilian, and if they behave themselves the Castilian will start feeding them ‘suitable’ quests. If they prove themselves further they’ll even be able to ask the Castilian for assistance from Keep soldiers when raiding an especially dangerous part of the dungeon. This feels a little backwards to me. Once the players have made it to the Caves a few times they’re likely to be intertwined enough to not need much motivation to go back, but this module tends to have a pretty rocky start without the GM inventing an initial quest wholesale to give the PCs. I think that’s pretty easy for A Good DM to come up with one, but I do wish the module did more to signpost that this is something a novice GM should be doing. After The Caves: The module also gives advice that, once the Caves have been completed, the PCs might continue to use the Keep as their base of operations as they delve deeper into the realms of chaos.  Areas of the Keep I’m not going to list out all 27 buildings in the Keep, but I will note some of the more interesting ones. Gate: A few rooms are dedicated to really detailing the protocols for letting in visitors to the Keep. There’s a Corporal of the Watch who’s grumpy, but has a soft spot for flashy adventurers and pretty women. Storage Places: There are stables and a warehouse where people can leave low-value items under lock and key. Each ‘wagon-load’ of stuff stored here is worth an average of 100gp. Private Apartments: There are two fancy apartments used to hold wealthy NPCs. The first has a Jewel Merchant (along with his wife and some bodyguards), but the second is a jovial and respected Priest who is secretly a spy sent by the Chaos Cultists. If the players ask him for help he’ll accompany them with two other clerics, then turn on them “during a crucial encounter with monsters” and try to kill them all. Shops: There’s a smithy and a trader, who the players can buy and sell from but who are otherwise unremarkable. The trader likes furs? A slightly strange detail, given that this module is almost entirely about fighting intelligent monsters, and I don’t remember any trade-worthy skins listed in the dungeon. Loan Bank: You know what’s a staple of D&D? Taking out loans. This heavily guarded bank gives out loans, trades cash & gems (for a 10% fee), and stores valuable items--for free if the item is being left for at least a month, and for a 10% fee otherwise. There are also a bunch of exotic (but not useful) items for sale, and a list of what’s in each safety deposit box. These stored valuables are worth a lot. Like, ~$27k gold pieces a lot. Enough to take six first level characters straight to level three in one go. Tavern/Inn: These are both pretty generic, although the book does include a pretty exhaustive menu of all the food and drink for sale in the tavern, along with their prices. There are also a bunch of percentage chances that different groups of people are present getting drunk--rolling these gets pretty annoying, but has good adventure hook potential. Guild House: The module goes deep into how being a trader or artisan works in the Keep--what your dues are, what services are offered, and so on. This is all seemingly pretty irrelevant to the PCs, but one of the prisoners you can rescue from the Caves just offers to get you all registered as an official merchant company with the Guild House when freed, so maybe it can come up? Chapel: The Curate is a 5th level priest with a ton of magic items. If he likes you, he might tell you that he distrusts the traveling Priest (the one who’s secretly a cultist). The module also goes into detail on how much money is in the Chapel at any given time, when it gets transferred into the bank, and who does so. A Ton of Guard Stations, Towers, Gatehouses, Calvary Stables, Etc: Tons of details on the defenses of the fort, where each guard is stationed, where guards perform weapons practice, etc. The Fortress: This is where the Castellan (the guy who runs the keep) operates. He’s a 6th level fighter, with a 3rd level elf assistant, and a 2nd level cleric scribe. Their rooms are probably some of the densest concentrations of treasure in the module. The Castellan “is a very clever fellow, but at times he can be too hasty in his decisions. His bravery and honesty are absolute. If a guest asks him any question, he will do his best to answer, providing that it does not compromise the security of the KEEP.” And that’s the Keep! Why So Much Detail? My first reaction to the Keep was confusion. Why is it so densely keyed? Why are you telling me that the tavern keeper has 82cp, 29sp, 40ep, and 17gp hidden in an old crock under a flour bag in their back room? Why talk so extensively about exactly how many guards there are and what their patrols and strategies are? I’ve talked to people a fair bit about this, and I think there are a few possible explanations (and that the truth is probably some combination of all of them). Gygaxian Naturalism: Gary Gygax is infamous for his love of fantasy realism--maybe all this detail work is just Gary being Gary? I think this answer is a bit of a cop-out; Gygax’s preferred style was definitely detail-heavy, but it’s probably the case that he liked naturalistic details because they encouraged cool things to happen in-play, rather than being for its own sake. Keep As Campaign HQ: Maybe all this detail is because the PCs are supposed to continue operating out of the Keep long after they’ve cleared the Caves. This module is named after the Keep itself, rather than after the Caves--maybe the main focus of this module is to lay out an example home base for GMs to use, with the dungeon as bonus content. Monsters Attack: Could all the detail be relevant because it’s intended that the monsters might attack the Keep itself if provoked by the players? Why would the module go into depth on which NPCs would or wouldn’t defend against an attack if no attack is ever meant to happen? I don’t think this explanation is especially convincing, although it is pretty cool. Although the Keep and Cave forces are at about the same level of strength at the campaign’s start, the populations of monsters in the Caves tend to drop fast as PCs show up, and the Keep’s defenses are so strong that it really doesn’t feel like a monster attack is a credible threat. Keep As Dungeon: All the details on exactly what’s in each room of the Keep, how the guards patrol, whose treasure is stored where--it’s because the PCs are low-key expected to treat the Keep as the true dungeon of the module. This module isn’t about a dungeon-crawl--it’s about a heist. This is my favorite interpretation, and it’s backed up by a few things. First off, the Keep has a crazy amount of treasure in it--the bank vault alone has more treasure in it than any individual cave in the dungeon, and the Castellan’s room has more than (I believe) all but one. There’s a lot of gp to be earned by heisting the Keep. The bank’s loaning policies also point at something weird going on. Why would storage of treasure be free, but only if kept for a long period of time? Is the hope that adventurers are just going to put their stuff in storage here, go into the caves, and then all die? It’s not especially supported by any other part of the text, but how I’ve decided to run the Keep from now on is as a place dedicated to extracting as much treasure from adventurers as possible--the whole economy is propped up on confiscating the property of dead adventurers, charging all sorts of nonsensical administrative charges, and just generally trying to exploit adventurers as much as possible. Just really emphasize how hungrily the Keep’s NPCs treat the players, and flaunt just how much money there is flowing ostentatiously around the Keep, with the hopes that the players gain a few levels going into the Caves and then turn their attention to the “true” final boss of the module--the Castellan himself. Final Thoughts The Keep is fine. I think there are some cool things you could do with what they’ve given you here, but it does feel like there are a few opportunities seriously missed here. NPC Motivations: The NPCs in this module are almost all pretty flat as written. Some have small details provided (the tavern keeper hates small beer and loves honey mead), but there just isn’t that much going on at the Keep itself for the PCs to intertwine themselves with. No hidden intrigue or factions at odds with one another or secrets being kept or NPCs with urgent requests for the PCs to attend to. Just people doing their jobs, sometimes quietly judging you based on your drink choices. They give the Castellan a sliver of a personality, but it’s pretty boring and more or less what you’d come up with on the spot. The one obvious exception to this is the evil Priest, who’s great. His gimmick of going along with the PCs and trying to kill them is fine, but the fact that there’s an enemy spy hidden in the Keep is good fodder for all sorts of hijinks. I really wish there was more like that going on. Unlabeled Map: This is more of a gripe, but I really don’t like how the Keep’s map is numbered. It’s just a huge smush of buildings next to each other with only numbers for identification, meaning that any attempt to describe what the PCs can see from any given spot in the Keep requires thirty seconds of flipping between pages figuring out which buildings are which. Too Safe: The Keep is a little too competent-feeling for me. It’s described as being one of the most remote bastions of humanity, but it’s also this super wealthy place full of banks and cavalry battalions and 200 soldiers. This is a personal opinion, but I think it’d be way more compelling if it started off more precariously, with the threat of monster invasion looming, and was able to truly control the surrounding areas only through the help of adventurers. Next time we’ll take a look at the smallest section of the Module: Wilderness Adventures!
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Jul 30, 2020 01:03
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Heh, the Keep as the same kind of scheme as Karak Azgal is a pretty fun idea.
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Jul 30, 2020 01:49
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Dallbun posted:Thank you! Hopefully I'll reach the end of the deck before the end of my cleverness. Does it mention any treasure/rot-grubs they'll find when they inevitably dig/sift through the big pile of crap? Dallbun posted:107: Tiny Threats Eh, I'd Pass. Random attacks are kind of meh to me. Dallbun posted:108: An Artist Scorned I dunno, I'd go Keep here. It's not violent, introduces them to the woodcarver (who might well hire them to go procure some rare wood in a dangerous area) and maybe even lets them crash a wedding (or be invited to it, in which case they can meet/befriend/offend various other NPCs). As for why in the first place? Maybe the carver had a cash flow issue that was later resolved. Maybe he's a bit flighty as stereotypical Artiste type are want to be. Dallbun posted:109: Unrequited Love I'd rule that Speak With Dead does work underwater but all you hear from them is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBYjEA-EvOw As for the encounter itself, it sounds like a good reason for them to reconnect with the Gnomes from the Practical Joke encounter. The dude doesn't have to tell the wife's spirit he loves, he just has to think he has as I understand things. Otherwise, good luck finding a 21+ Priest willing to make time for this poo poo. Figure doing that'll cost way more than 200pp. Dallbun posted:110: A Familiar Imp On the other hand, if they capture and "interrogate" it, it can lead them to the tower of a (presumably) evil wizard. In which case possible new spells and magic treasure. I'd Keep it. Sure, it's a random attack, but it's a random attack that potentially leads into other stuff. Everyone fucked around with this message at 12:44 on Jul 30, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 12:37
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PurpleXVI posted:Just want to chime in and say that despite my lack of replies, I am genuinely enjoying both the Degenesis and Deck of Encounters reviews, I just don't often have anything interesting to add as commentary. Everyone posted:On the other hand, if they capture and "interrogate" it, it can lead them to the tower of a (presumably) evil wizard. In which case possible new spells and magic treasure. I'd Keep it. Sure, it's a random attack, but it's a random attack that potentially leads into other stuff.
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Jul 30, 2020 13:20
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The Hackmaster 4th Edition product “The Deck of Ways to Screw Over Yer Players” was a parodic recreation of The Deck of Encounters Set Two Part 22: The Deck of Animal People that start with J, L, and M 111: The Deceivers The PCs are traveling across plains and are trailed by threatening jackals, who bay at the moon and get a little closer to the campfire than one might expect. That goes on for a few nights, then the night watch is approached by a man and a woman “strolling across the plains” towards them, gesturing peacefully. They say they’re lost and need a place to camp. That’s just to get within arm’s reach, though. They’re jackalweres who will drop their disguise and try to silence the guard “before the alarm can be sounded.” Pretty straightforward, and I'm never too big on "don't trust the NPCs, they'll try to murder you!" as a theme. Pass unless I specifically want the PCs to be on edge and suspicious in whatever part of the world they're visiting. 112: Ambush in the Marsh The PCs are ambushed in a marsh by a dozen lizard men who want to eat them. They call for reinforcements (another 12 lizard men) if pressed. If they’re all killed, they can be tracked back to their lair, which ~240 gp of coins and a potion of human control (dwarves). Also, if you want to, you can skin them to make AC 6 scale armor later, which is… horrifying and gruesome? Word of advice, intelligent hunting humanoids: do not hunt armed travelers for food. That is not a sustainable food resource! Hunt them for other reasons if you must, but if you get hungry, eat a gator or something. Anyway, a biome-appropriate straightforward standard combat encounter is not interesting enough. It's another card that could be replaced by the words “2d10 lizard men” on an encounter table. Pass. 113: Baying in the Night In a dense forest at night, the PCs hear the baying of wolves, and it moves closer. The card devotes many words to the idea of “five crazed werewolves attack!” If you kill them and track them back to their lair (“the cabin of a recent victim”), there’s 3 gp (wooooooo!) and a scroll of protection against lycanthropes. I guess that didn’t work out for this poor schmuck, huh? Just another forced combat, really. Pass. 114: Beneath the Streets The PCs are invited to dine with a city council member, who explains that the city is overrun with rats rising up from the sewers. (You’d think the PCs might have noticed that before being told, really). The mayor has ordered a cleanup, but this counselor is independently offering them 1,000 gp to sewer delve and destroy the rats below. It’s a dark, dungeon-y sewer, and going through, the PCs attract the attention of four wererats “who have made a home among their smaller cousins.” One of them has a brooch worth 25. It belonged to the council member’s son, whose son was killed by the wererats “while playing in the sewers.” Looks like helicopter parenting has some advantages after all. So is the idea that the counselor knew about the wererats and just didn’t tell the PCs for… reasons? There’s also no reason given as to why the rats in the sewer are overflowing. There’s no particular indication that it’s because of the wererats - summoning rat hordes isn't something they usually do. All I can think of is the Rat Faucet from Kingdom of Loathing. But eh, sure. It can be a little quest. Maybe I’d even have an idea for a larger rat plot. 115: Breeding Time The PCs are in town and are approached by “a representative of a large portion of the population” (hooray for detail!) who wants to hire them for 5,000 sp to retrieve a young woman. See, a minotaur who lives in a cave nearby “has recently decided it is time for him to mate,” and, uh…. sent his followers to kidnap “a local sweetheart.” Which they did. So, uh... Look, this is a scenario explicitly, specifically about minotaur rape. Pass. P.S. The minotaur’s weapon is a bardiche +1 “that lets the user move in complete silence,” and that’s pretty sweet, if sort of a slap in the face to the party thief. Just imagine a fighter sneaking silently behind a monster while their back is turned, clenching a six-foot-long axe. Dallbun fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Jul 30, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 13:27
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A giant-rear end axe letting someone move quietly is hilarious, but yeah Rape-Minotaur is absolutely unacceptable.
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Jul 30, 2020 15:32
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Dallbun posted:No worries - I don't often have anything interesting to say either, so I certainly don't expect you to. It's 2ed AD&D. If you don't have 2-3 Evil Wizard Tower Adventurers on the back burner at any given time, you're not doing it right.  Honestly, this thing would be a weird lead-in to A Wizard. This stupid thing attacks them. They more than likely kill it and look around to see what pointy-hatted dumbass sent it. They enter the village to find the reward for "A Wizard" and stomp right into "WTF is this?!"
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Jul 30, 2020 16:47
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| # ? Jan 17, 2026 18:47 |
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Dallbun posted:The Hackmaster 4th Edition product “The Deck of Ways to Screw Over Yer Players” was a parodic recreation of I figure no on "the Counselor knew." What? He thinks the party might demand 2,000 GP? Figure if he knew he'd have told them 'cause he wants the things dead. Maybe give one of the Wererats some kind of "Thingie for Summoning and Controlling Rats" and make him Wererat Willard to explain why there's all those rats down there. Make it a flute or something for the whole "reverse Pied Piper" thing. Dallbun posted:
gently caress that. That's a Keep. We get to kill a rapey monster, get a pretty sweet magic item and get a steak dinner if our wizard Fireballs the minotaur (who wants Well Done)? drat right. Everyone fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Jul 30, 2020 |
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Jul 30, 2020 16:59
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