Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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honorentheos
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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Bret Ripley wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 11:31 pm
honorentheos wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 7:48 pm
Zuggtmoy and her cultists are painted and ready for the big chapter-ending battle...
Nice!

We never got into painting figures, except for this one time a guy running a paladin reached 7th level (a gloriously rare occurrence) and to celebrate decided to buy and paint a lead figure to represent his character; less than an hour into the very fist session using the painted figure, the paladin died. From that point on, "painting your paladin" became 'table-speak' for any action that seemed likely to invite disaster. "Grod told me he plans to humiliate the Arch-Mage by publicly peeing in the punch bowl; hell of a way to paint your paladin."
That's an awesome story! I've found that D&D 5e is no where near as lethal as older versions...mainly because there are numerous ways to heal or bring back characters who die. I've killed PCs in the campaign but they've been brought back every time. Now they are getting into territory where the Lady of Rot is a serious challenge but they could take her out as long as the dice don't turn against them.

Your story makes me want to find an in game reason for using the phrase, "Paint your paladin", too...I've got ideas. :)
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Bret Ripley
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by Bret Ripley »

honorentheos wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 11:53 pm
Bret Ripley wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 11:31 pm
Nice!

We never got into painting figures, except for this one time a guy running a paladin reached 7th level (a gloriously rare occurrence) and to celebrate decided to buy and paint a lead figure to represent his character; less than an hour into the very fist session using the painted figure, the paladin died. From that point on, "painting your paladin" became 'table-speak' for any action that seemed likely to invite disaster. "Grod told me he plans to humiliate the Arch-Mage by publicly peeing in the punch bowl; hell of a way to paint your paladin."
That's an awesome story! I've found that D&D 5e is no where near as lethal as older versions...mainly because there are numerous ways to heal or bring back characters who die. I've killed PCs in the campaign but they've been brought back every time. Now they are getting into territory where the Lady of Rot is a serious challenge but they could take her out as long as the dice don't turn against them.

Your story makes me want to find an in game reason for using the phrase, "Paint your paladin", too...I've got ideas. :)
Presumably, royalties will be involved? :)

I haven't played since 2E -- the paladin episode occurred under AD&D rules. As far as I can remember -- which admittedly isn't as far as it used to be -- we never had anyone who was 'brought back.' The best DM I ever played under was also the most lethal; we sometimes didn't bother naming our characters unless they reached 2nd level. If you made 5th level, you had something to brag about.

Say, have you ever read 'Knights of the Dinner Table'? I highly recommend it for gamers/ex-gamers -- I get a big kick out of it, anyway. In fact, after I discovered it ... some 20+ years ago, forsooth ... I became a subscriber and went on Ebay and snatched up as many back-issues as I could find. My subscription has long since lapsed, but every year or two I play "catch up" by buying the issues I've missed in pdf format. In fact, I'm about due for more catching up ...
honorentheos
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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I'll give you 10% of the work that goes into DMing, which is a steal I'd say. :)

I hear you about the old games. Nothing was more terrifying than an unopened chest...

I quit playing/DMing about the time 2e came out. I think part of it had to do with the Satanic Panic resulting in it feeling watered down somehow. But also we moved on to other games by then, too. We discovered Pandemic, Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, and some other games plus even more table top war games about that time and it faded out.

It's been fun getting back into it, though.
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Bret Ripley
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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honorentheos wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 12:33 am
I'll give you 10% of the work that goes into DMing, which is a steal I'd say. :)

I hear you about the old games. Nothing was more terrifying than an unopened chest...

I quit playing/DMing about the time 2e came out. I think part of it had to do with the Satanic Panic resulting in it feeling watered down somehow. But also we moved on to other games by then, too. We discovered Pandemic, Shadowrun, Twilight 2000, and some other games plus even more table top war games about that time and it faded out.

It's been fun getting back into it, though.
It sounds like it. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at one of your games.

I stopped DMing almost 30 years ago, after the players drifted apart geographically and otherwise. Before that, it was almost weekly D&D with some Boot Hill, Top Secret, and Paranoia thrown in to add some variety. Some fun times. But, as you say, a lot of work -- I'm sure I don't have the stomach for it anymore. I think the part I miss most is 'winging it' when players took the action in unexpected directions -- off-the-cuff adventures sometimes turned out to be the best.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by honorentheos »

Bret Ripley wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 12:25 am
Say, have you ever read 'Knights of the Dinner Table'? I highly recommend it for gamers/ex-gamers -- I get a big kick out of it, anyway. In fact, after I discovered it ... some 20+ years ago, forsooth ... I became a subscriber and went on Ebay and snatched up as many back-issues as I could find. My subscription has long since lapsed, but every year or two I play "catch up" by buying the issues I've missed in pdf format. In fact, I'm about due for more catching up ...
I hadn't heard of this but just checked some of them out. Thanks for the recommendation!
honorentheos
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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Bret Ripley wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 1:18 am
I think the part I miss most is 'winging it' when players took the action in unexpected directions -- off-the-cuff adventures sometimes turned out to be the best.
We were discussing this after last Fridays session, too. One of the gents playing who has recently tried his hand at DMing asked how much they actually did that I expected them to do? And my honest answer is that the campaign is essentially their creation, I'm just trying to fill in what details I can before they can see the edges. I ended up building a TV map box because it is easier to have digital maps ready for multiple situations than it is to print them out, and I still probably draw half the encounter maps by hand on the spot or just run them theater of the mind if they will only last a couple of rounds at most. I have a Word doc I use for session preparation. It has on it the weather for the next couple of days, when sunrise and sunset occur, then bullets on what's going on in nearby locations where they might go. Then a few sentences describing likely NPCs they would meet by location or affiliation. I then update key events, roll some treasure from treasure tables, homebrew any unique monsters needed based on the events and locations, and that's about all the time I have.

My take on DM preparation is it falls under the sentiment expressed by General Eisenhower regarding plans. That being something along the lines of, "In my experience I've found that plans are useless, but planning is essential."
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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I remember feeling there was a sweet spot between improvisation and planning.

Some games my scenario ran on rails, to the point where the players were almost spectators—they did things, but the things for them to do were so obvious that they weren't really choosing much. Other times I concealed the sparseness of my pre-planned world by determining that X, Y and Z would be behind the first three doors the party opened, whichever those happened to be. The players sometimes agonised over which door to choose and I sat there poker-faced. That kind of thing seemed to work all right when I did it but it was duller for me and I think the campaign would have become lifeless if I had done it too much.

Other times, though, I had too little preparation and had to make things up on the spur of the moment. For every time that led to something awesome, I think there must have been several when it led only to something disappointing. The worst of it, in fact, was probably how often a spur-of-the-moment improvisation sounded really cool at first but petered out when I ran out of creative steam.

I think I eventually found a good balance of substance and looseness, where I had some high-quality ingredients prepped in bowls on the counter, as it were, but could leave it up to the flow of the game how the things would combine. On the other hand you can't always get it right and that was fine. We weren't getting paid.
I was a teenager before it was cool.
honorentheos
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

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Physics Guy wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 11:02 am
I remember feeling there was a sweet spot between improvisation and planning.
This aligns with my experience as well. Players are too unpredictable so there is always a reasonable chance much prepared material will go unused. But not preparing has a tendency to result in let down moments or I improvise my way into a tough corner. My current method of focusing first on the world, then events, then people all within an area they have motive and ability to travel to meet lays the ground work. Then details that can be added, puzzles, the cool world-enriching things I let percolate during the time between, writing them down when a good one comes up. It works pretty well. I find some of their favorite sessions recently didn't include any combat, with one week in particular including a situation they intimidated their way out of it. Ruined some plans I had, but rewarded them for their creativity and wit, setting up a fly-by-the-seat-my-pants hour of game play before there was a reason to introduce an NPC I had prepared. Good times. :)
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Bret Ripley
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by Bret Ripley »

honorentheos wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 5:13 am
My take on DM preparation is it falls under the sentiment expressed by General Eisenhower regarding plans. That being something along the lines of, "In my experience I've found that plans are useless, but planning is essential."
Yes. If you have creative players, they will drive the story in unexpected directions. And, frankly, sometimes their ideas -- often driven by suspicions of possible 'off-stage' machinations that hadn't even occurred to me -- were more interesting than what I had planned. In situations like that, you can try to plot-hammer them back onto the fairway, but they won't love you for it. Rather -- I will riff off your Eisenhower quote -- I found it generally best to take the attitude of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. on D-Day upon discovering his regiment had been landed a mile out of position: "We'll start the war from right here."
Physics Guy wrote:
Mon May 09, 2022 11:02 am
I remember feeling there was a sweet spot between improvisation and planning ...

I think I eventually found a good balance of substance and looseness, where I had some high-quality ingredients prepped in bowls on the counter, as it were, but could leave it up to the flow of the game how the things would combine. On the other hand you can't always get it right and that was fine. We weren't getting paid.
That is definitely consistent with my experience. I used to try to keep a few roughly mapped-out encounters/locations/set pieces in my back pocket to dip into to keep things interesting while my mind feverishly scrambled to adjust to an unexpected turn of events. On a few occasions those things took on a life of their own and became quite entertaining side-quests, and sometimes they fell flat. Either way, it kept the dice rolling and bought me time to catch up with the players.

I think it's perfectly fine to make it up as you go along, as long as it doesn't look like you are making it up as you go along.
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Re: Way Off-Topic: Question for RPGamers

Post by honorentheos »

We had an interesting situation arise in the session on Friday.

Going back at least six months of in real life time (ETA: it's actually approaching a year), and numerous sessions first as prologue. For quite some time now the party has had a ghost tethered to them. The ghost is the soul of an originally nameless thug the party had captured and offered to a powerful being of unclear origin in exchange for her releasing her claim on a person the party rogue rescued from certain death. When this being they know as the Pale Queen sent word to the thieves guild they were residing with that she expected her servant be returned or a life for their life given in exchange, the leader of the guild made it clear he wanted no trouble with her so they needed to fix things, and pronto. The party decided this gang they disliked was more deserving of her torment than was this individual, then hatched a plan to capture two of them at night and leave them with her and a note saying they were hers in payment.

The plan to capture the two gang members went off with bells on, and they were excited to leave them on the doorstep. Only things weren't that clean. They were caught on the steps, ushered into audience with this being, and questioned as to why they had done what they did? The Pale Queen found their moral reasoning dubious and ridiculed them for believing they could walk away without bloodying their own hands as if they were not somehow complicit in what was occuring here. She demanded they be the ones to finish the transaction. As the others hesitated at what had become a less ambiguous situation there was a member of her society who took their place but made it clear they should not believe it a casual thing to send someone to die as they had. I'm not entirely heartless as a DM but wanted to make a moral point in game and out.

Subsequent to this event, the Pale Queen had each leave a snippet of hair so she can keep an eye on their doings. That night, each of the other party members witnessed in dream as the rogue was awakened by a sobbing sound in his room. The figure turned out to be one of the two killed and they were unable to process what had happened to them. The ghost, giving his name, asked why they had done this and what he had done to deserve to be given up to be murdered as he was? I chose the rogue player for this because he had been willing to take the blade to them himself but was held back by the party. The rogue was flippant, suggesting the thug was guilty by association with other bad people who clearly did wrong. Thad, as he was known in life, bewailed a life growing up with a father who worked for a gang, where he had to fight to survive from his youth, and no one ever gave him anything they didn't expect something in return. He asked, "What choices did I ever really have? I couldn't become anything but what I am, as any time I tried to go in a different direction life stomped on me and sent me back." It was really just a mirror of the rogue's own backstory and intended to get the player to engage him sympathetically. The rogue was again flippant and left what happened up to the unfortunate fact Thad should have chosen better friends. At this point Thad became angry, swearing revenge on the rogue with a promise as soon as whatever bound him from harming the rogue at that moment was released he'd return the favor of a life for a life. ETA: His being prevented from doing immediate harm as well as the rest of the party observing this in dream was the doing of the Pale Queen whose background is complicated. She's similar to the Raven Queen in many ways but younger, and bound to the world the story takes place in.

In D&D 5e, ghosts are not inherently vengeful but are instead spirits unable to move on to their afterlife due to an unresolved trauma. I had presented the encounter as a chance for the rogue/player to resolve the trauma of his unjust death with dialog if possible. But since it didn't go that way, Thad then became a regular serious issue for the party who attempted regularly to possess others to try and kill the rogue, and made it so the rogue could not sleep alone or else he may be possessed and wander off to his own death. That almost happened a couple of times, requiring the cleric to intervene.

The party and Thad found themselves in a stalemate as he was stuck with them seeking the death of the rogue, but not being powerful enough to accomplish the deed. He typically remained in either the border ethereal or ethereal plane to avoid the party, only entering the material plane when he thought there was a chance to get the rogue without injury to himself which was rare given the party of five made sure the rogue was never alone, and the cleric was usually waiting with channel divinity to turn him which really made a it hard for him to do real damages. So instead he took to making it so the rogue, to whom he was effectively tethered, had difficulty in even the most simple social situation since the ghost would do what he could to scare off business or possess a city guard behind the players backs which caused all kinds of trouble. I played him as being able to slip back beyond the border ethereal into the ethereal plane to create more space for the rest of the story to progress out of necessity.

Finally the cleric and warlock had a discussion with him while the rogue was sleeping and they were on watch. After much back and forth they cleric convinced Thad that, while they did wrong by him, they were sorry for what happened and wanted to show him they meant good. They intended to find a way to help him if possible. But they wanted him to give them a chance to prove this. He agreed, having seen enough to view them as unique individuals and not all as terrible as he still imagined the rogue to be. The detente meant he would just observe until they could either help him find release, or he determined they were lying to him and all unredeemable as well.

The party missed a couple of chances I put in game to resolve this, including not going to a temple where a powerful cleric presided in favor of other pursuits. So Thad remained with them as they found themselves discovering an attempt to summon the demon lord Zuggtmoy. This had sent Thad into raw terror, claiming the party was now not only going to have been the cause of his death but also cause his soul to be eternally consumed in the abyss by demons. As they assaulted the defenses of the cult of Zuggtmoy he made an attempt to escape by possessing a soldier who was helping them and fleeing. The rogue convinced him he could remain and fight with them (which I liked by the way) but then kept getting him into bad situations where the rogue could slip away while he took the brunt of the consequences. He decided to finally nope out and attempted to run, only to be forcefully returned to proximity of the rogue as per the conditions of his situation. He then slipped off weeping into the ethereal plane to await the consequences of the fight.

The party had difficulty, largely due to the barbarian trying to solo the combat and getting isolated as a result. So he almost died before the warlock managed to get to him via misty stepping though a closed portcullis and help him before he was completely dropped. I thought he may end up dead, to be honest. A lot of bad decisions in there we won't get into. The result was a party that needed to retreat and lick their wounds. As they did so, the cleric and barbarian had a talk with Thad ( the rogue was a reluctant party who only remained because he couldn't leave) where Thad explained in detail what he expected would happen to him as a result of their dragging him into the presence of a demon lord.

I found myself as a DM rather proud of them for coming up with a plan for entrapping him in a magical cylinder for his own safety just before they headed back into the fight that required some sacrifice on their part. It had a time limit but it was possible they could do what they needed to do in that time. Strictly speaking it was unlikely given they had done zero recon so it was almost a given they would need to spend time together exploring around. But I was willing to let the exact passing of time slide if they showed a sense of urgency since the concern for him was something that had been developing over time and I wanted to reward.

But, as things tend to go, they then preceded to spend way too much time after they headed back into the cult's domain doing minor petty things and engaging in video game habits of wanting to cast multiple 10 minute healing spells and one hour rituals to figure out what kind of magic item they recovered from a defeated enemy. I reminded them when they had used up half the time to give a little push but not everyone was onboard with pushing forward. And the demon cult was playing the game of letting the party come to their prepared defenses since they had been reduced in number substantially by this point as well. In game, part of the logic of the situation is the party made this discovery early enough on to be able to intervene before a full demonic intrusion could occur, so the resources spent by the cult had to be conserved for ambushes in hopes of stopping the party from stopping them.

So time ran out.

I described how first the rogue (23 passive perception) then the rest of the party heard a strange, distant screaming rushing in their direction. The accumulated material at the border between the ethereal and material plane was compressed then hit them like a shock wave as Thad was pulled against his will in a rush back to being in the required proximity to the party. They had finished a fight with the priestess of the cult and a handful of others before they ventured into the domain where the portal between the abyss and their home plane lay.

Thad at first thought they had been victorious only to his horror be told they were just getting ready to confront what they assume will be Zuggtmoy (it's actually an aspect of her with reduced attacks, damage, and HP to keep the right potentially winnable. And she is only being summoned as a last resort to try and prevent the party from completely ruining their plans as the resources needed to do this will delay their ability to final summon her in her final form). He tried to convince them to leave, that they had done enough, that they had recovered artifacts needed to fully summon her and wasn't that really more than could have been expected of them? But they were intent on going in. Then the rogue suggested he shouldn't worry about dying since they had already killed him.

On hearing this Thad stopped his wailing, suddenly seeming caught up in thought. He then fully emerged out of the border ethereal into the material plane, dropped to his knees, and in a hoarse ghostly whisper said, "Then finish it. Kill me for good this time...and do it yourself."

The rogue and the warlock asked if he really meant this. The cleric wanted everyone to stop and not be rash. The barbarian was silent. The player for the wizard had to miss the session so he didn't contribute, either. The rogue told him to lie prone, then, and the others shouted in protest but he beat their attempts to stop him as he killed Thad with his magic rapier. (Sneak attack, other reasons due to Thad being undead meant the damage was enough to one-shot him).

I ended up intervening as DM to remind them to keep it all in game, and I narratively had them summarize their reactions and thought to prevent any player vs player reactions that would make it bad. That worked as intended. I then also used an NPC present who had not been aware they had an undead problem and suggest they work through things after they deal with the bigger evil...that it might even be the influence of the abyss causing them to want to turn on one another. Another NPC pointed out there was hypocrisy in the rogue for claiming the ghost had no choice but to be evil, but then claiming That was volunteering for death as a choice despite that choice being between what Thad saw as the only two available terrible options so he was choosing oblivion over torment.

They essentially put a pin in it, acknowledging that some PVs would have serious concern while others might not like me how it went down but agree it was the right thing in the end, and they then headed into the darkness of a discovered passage.

So, it got dark but narrative-wise it resulted in a few good discussions out of game afterward. When we started the campaign over a year and a half ago they tended to play like it was a video game ala Grand Theft Auto. The most bro-ish player had once bemoaned my giving their actions consequences about six months in after he had basically cheated some people and assumed his good rolls and win in the moment was the end of it. But I think the moral dilemma of being inherently in situations where violence is often needed doesn't excuse how one inflicts violence or avoid the consequences has been cause for more than a little reflection at the table and they play differently. But clearly not entirely. I particularly brought up how Thad's position paralleled someone with suicidal thoughts, and how rash decision making resulted in accepting a bad premise that only extremely limited bad options might be immediately apparent that time and reflection could reframe which I think rightly made the rogue player give an audible, "Oh..." So. Who knows.

I'm now contemplating the ultimate fate of Thad. Has his trauma resolved through acceptance of the injustice of reality? That his fate could have been worse? I'm leaning that way. Ideally letting him find some peace in the afterlife he earned as a result. We will have to see. I'm leaving the door open to there being a good reason for him to return to the story.
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