I've had a little experience (and I mean a little), and one thing I'd say is that in my experience, you're better off letting the players come up with the characters. This may well vary by group, and if that's your group's norm it's fine, but I'd incline towards putting some restrictions on, rather than flat-out saying "Your characters are these."
As I say, may well be a group thing.
?
Ask Ironeye for some tips.
Anyone who assigns themselves loads of character tropes is someone to be worried about.
Oh, I wasn't going to give them any pre-made characters, just a background and basic class. For the rest, they should just go with what makes sense.
Cutmaster-san
I think you're being a bit too ambitious. It's challenge enough to run a game for the first time, and there's no need to complicate things by:
- Using a combat-based system (DnD 3.5?) for a mostly non-combat game
- Creating new monsters (a non-trivial feat for DnD)
- Creating a new class (an even more non-trivial feat) to force the players not to fight the new monsters directly in most cases
You also have the problem of getting the players on-board with playing a very un-DnD game of DnD, especially with a forced class choice that would be weak in a normal game *
My suggestion: don't run DnD. While it would be quite possible to run such a game using the DnD system, I certainly wouldn't recommend it on the first time out. Instead, try to find a game that's a bit more towards the narrative side of the narrative/crunch scale. There are all sorts of free RPGs online (and I'm not even talking "through perfectly legal means"; I do mean RPGs that have $0 for their cost), and their rules tend to be simple enough such that it would be easier for you to learn the rules and create monsters in the completely new system than it would be to do the same in DnD. Also, you avoid the players coming in with a preconceived notion of what the game is going to be like.
edited 15th Jul '10 12:50:43 PM by Ironeye
I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.
Planescape Hijack
Faw: Oh, I wasn't going to give them any pre-made characters, just a background and basic class. For the rest, they should just go with what makes sense.Those are two of the most important, if not the most important, choices to make for your character—enough that it probably does count as choosing their character for them. (Incidentally, the class you have in mind sounds a lot like the Scout from Complete Adventurer.)
Aside from that...there are systems that are more suited to an "adventure game" experience, but if you know D&D and want to use it, that's fine; it'll probably just play out more like a freeform game. But I think the important thing is to keep in mind what your players want from this game, and respond to what they would be interesting. (Not that you have to bow to all this wishes, of course, but along the lines of the sort of tone they're looking for.)
Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count Dorku
In my experience, being a DM is a thankless job that is rewarded with people not showing up, and breeding an endless cycle of apathy and DESPAIR!!!
Hopefully you have better luck than me though. I play exclusively online.
I would advise against using puzzle-based gameplay in groups larger than 2 or 3.
Just saying, when it comes down to Fighting The Puzzle Boss everyone's going to wanna be the one guy who realizes "Oh hey, we just have to sever that one cable."
Hmmmmmmrgh, this is a little worrying.
Well, I know Dn D (3.5, yes) is very combat-heavy, but I figure I can just play lose with anything that doesn't directly involve combat. The class wouldn't actually be bad... I think... It is pretty similar to the Scout, except without Skirmish, but the skill-related benefits would probably make it broken in certain combinations with other classes... the way I imagine it anyway.
My group is only 2 other people, too. One is our usual DM, who is a powergamer but can appreciate some actual roleplaying and very much misses it in our sessions, and the other is... uh, he's just kinda there and he attacks things. I'm a little worried about what he's gonna do in that game. But maybe it'd be like some sort of crash course in actually thinking about what you do...
I know it's ambitious, but with a proper grid plan of the area, it should be workable... I just have so many ideas, like a guy in a hut who seems more than suspicious, who will help you by giving you leather and other such materials, but at whose house you don't want to stay the night because that's when he becomes fully possessed and starts hunting for flesh, and so much cool scenery, like a huge apparatus from an underground colony sticking up out of the ground which is home to some weird bugs, and other stuff...
I'll manage it somehow! And I'd prefer to try it with Dn D... That's what we play, and it'd be a learning experience. And stuff. Hmm.
What kind of person honestly needs more than 8 skill points per level anyway? Rogue in the house I suppose.
If you want to go for a heavy skill based game, I'd advise you to look into d20 Past. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but skills play a bit more essential of a role, and it's more versatile of a system. This comes at the cost of some of the core identity of characters, but I always considered that a plus to begin with.
edited 16th Jul '10 6:11:46 AM by TheyCallMeTomu
Fawriel: You can try running a premade scenario, such as those offerred here
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Gagh. Fawriel, do not let They Call Me Tomu get you down. He is wrong, especially when it comes to proper tabletop gaming. That said, there will be times that people don't show up and have to delay and the game stagnates for a couple weeks while you get everything in order because you didn't expect them to steal the villain's flying sedan.
Now, let me brace you on a few things. First, your first time as a GM will be a terrible, horrible experience. It will not be as fun as you hoped, and you will make mistakes, horrible mistakes. There will be rules arguments. The fun will run out before the story does. No matter what precautions you take to prevent it, your first time as GM will be a slow grind into an abandoned story and bad decisions.
Your second time will also be bad. But it will be bad in a different way, because you will fix the mistakes you made the first time. The third time will be salvageable. And the fourth time will be good fun, except for that one time when etc. And so on and so on, and eventually you will dazzle new players with your wit and ability to flow with the game. Your stories will get better, your combat more intense, your descriptions less purple and more efficient. You will engage characters on an emotional level and put players in positions that are terrible for their characters but great fun for them. You will, in time, create tailored, beautiful motivations for characters, and stories will highlight the abilities of all the players in a natural, lyrical way.
Now, you will get there. But the embarrasment of the first time needs to happen. It will be bad. But it gets so much better.
Some tricks: Talk to the players afterward, ask them what they liked and what you did wrong, and what they'd like you to do better. Talk to them about the story you're writing- ask them whether they're combatty or talky or puzzle-solvy. Make sure you know your group well.
edited 31st Jul '10 5:26:08 PM by Somfin
^ What Somfin said. Minus the "proper" tabletop gaming part, or the part where I was called wrong, because I'm infallible and thus never wrong.
^You're almost certainly right about running an online RPG. I've found, though, when you are meant to physically go somehwere, you tend to show up.
However, I defend my use of "proper." I'm talking about tabletop gaming that is played on top of a table, not on this jumbled mass of lightning tubes.
I never knew that people online were so elitest about, well, not playing online. :D Though by the strictest sense of the terms, you're right, it's not "table"top gaming. Silly distinction but I'll let it slide ;P
I think it is true that off-line games are more individually likely to succeed, but, it does require more "investment" to establish one. It depends on what type of GM/Player you are. Though, the big thing is this:
Do you currently have a group that has the gaming resources to play, the desire to play, and the transportation to meet at a pre-determined location? If all of those conditions are met, playing online is really quite silly.
Some players are just not the type to want to play online, and I can accept that. I once ran a game online, with one person who lived in another state, and then basically everyone else was in my college dormitory. I had better luck with online play at the time, and didn't want to isolate the guy from online, so I stuck to online play.
One day, he was the only one who showed up. Without a word from anyone else, we waited for like, an hour or two. Later on, I found out that everyone just blew me off to go for a walk or some crap.
Long story short? If you're going to play with people online, make sure they're online people. Even if they're people who you know, they will have no compunctions against saying "No, fuck you and your session" and totally blowing you off. Somfin is right that they're more likely to reliably show up if there's a physical place, but, once again-you basically have to pick which group you want to associate yourself with. The reason I advocate online gaming is because it's easier to start up and, hey, no gas money (and no lugging around heavy books, you can use digital minis, etc).
edited 31st Jul '10 6:06:35 PM by TheyCallMeTomu
Damn right.
Sorry, I'm not really elitist (not consciously at least). I've just tried both and I really prefer offline play.
Lots of people do. Dinosaurs.
Wait... Dinosaurs are fucking awesome!
Needs moar friendship.
Speaking from personal experience, I personally prefer face-to-face campaigns. It's harder to get bored and walk away.
I can understand that, but I think that people who have that mindset are sort of Completely Missing The Point. But I may be bitter about my so-called-friends who I actually did know in person who just blew me off without a second word, so ... yeah.
Faw, when planning your campaign, it's important to bear in mind what the players want to do. If your players are a powergamer and a guy who likes to attack things, are they going to be happy with your point-and-click adventure? I can't answer that, obviously, but they can. Consider asking them directly.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea (because, actually, I think it sounds like fun), I'm saying that you should make sure that you've got players who want to play it before you invest time and effort into preparing it.
Somfin is right, though. Your first time will suck. That's why you should get it over with as soon as possible, because there's no way around it. Your friends know its your first time, and they want to have fun as much as you do. So, relax, make sure everyone's having a good time, and play hard.
Overkill is underrated
Somfin is right, though. Your first time will suck. That's why you should get it over with as soon as possible, because there's no way around it. Your friends know its your first time, and they want to have fun as much as you do. So, relax, make sure everyone's having a good time, and play hard.
The Book of Erotic Fantasy?
...
Hey guys.
I appear to have forgotten about the existence of this thread at some point. Sorry about that.
I, uhm, I need help again.
Well! I ended up pulling off the concept as I planned it, and it went decently well for a few sessions. Then it all fell apart on me because it sucks. DnD is not a point-and-click adventure, nor a JRPG. Partially because players don't like being restricted, partially because they only know what you're telling them and don't have a neatly ordered set of screens and an interface to work with.
Well, I got the idea now of how to do the rest of the first area better, but I'm at a complete loss as to what to do with the rest...
Okay, let me explain. In short, what I built is a story where two circus youths fall into a cursed marsh of some sort after something attacked their caravan. They now need to find a way out, and then their parents, if they are still alive.
The marsh is filled with ghosts and stuff that are clear leftovers from something, restless things that cling to the world out of yearning, there's hints of a former civilization, there's bits sticking out of the ground here and there showing that there's a civilization underground, like chimneys, gears, and whatnot....
After leaving the first half of the marsh and crossing the river to the other side, they leave the "body" of it and enter its "mind". Increasingly obvious remains of the previous civilization, ghosts wandering around, most of them harmless... mostly harmless. They have to bring a Lantern Archon along as a guide in order to keep their sanity. On their way, they were assaulted by a woman made of the same dirt they were walking on, who was still waiting for her fiancé to return to her. Finally, they found a place to rest, and after being assaulted by a wall turning into a human figure (that actually uses most of the "Mummy" template), they finally find some rest. And that's where the campaign stopped because I had to leave on my holidays.
Now, for the rest, I have a vague idea of a battle against a ghost bard imp of some sort that conjures flying hands (Gargoyles without crazy defense?) to attack the two.. actually, that might be a little too cruel. I don't want them to DIE after all. Well, after that, there's a fork in the road, and one path leads to the end (after a puzzle)... but the end is not quite accessible yet, at least not likely. On the other side of the path, after a puzzle involving tremorsense critters they need to distract somehow, lies the good spirit in the cave behind the waterfall that the giant river originates from.
See, I need to work this out in more detail, but roughly speaking, the reason for the existence of this cursed marsh is that a child once lost his mother on that very same cliff, her death somehow caused by the arrogance of the king of the city at the top of the mountain. The child's restless spirit lingers on in the mountain (and is the creature that destroyed their caravan). The waterfall is made of his tears. At the bottom of the cliff lies the spirit of the woman who died there, the last bastion of good in the otherwise godforsaken place.
Two important things that the spirit can do for them: For one, there's a possessed dude they encountered on the other side of the marsh... Buuut they had no idea he was possessed and instead just went there, thought he was a mighty wizard plotting their demise, then shrugged, ate food, and went on their merry way. Guess he won't be finding salvation, though I guess I could hint at him in the part after the marsh.
More importantly, she tells them about the way out of the marsh. They have to climb up a lower cliff, but after that, the marsh will try to prevent them from leaving, and they have to focus their will on what pushes them forwards in order to make it through.
I think that's the important background knowledge out of the way.
What I need help with is the following stuff. After the marsh, they arrive in a little town on an open plain. Guess the plain is very,uh, plain, but dangerous. The couple towns lying around inside the plateau are all protected from the griffins and stuff flying around by magic fields, perhaps? In that town, a kindly old lady with a whole lot of levels in Sorcerer or maybe Adept offers to take care of them. She might be recruited.
Aaaaaaand that's all I have planned, really. That, and that there's a final battle somewhere at the cliff with the restless spirit of the kid... There should be some way to make that work better, maybe have the mother spirit give them some water holified by her personally or so...
But yeah, I have no idea how to handle the open-ended stuff in the town. What can they do, what can I make them do, how do I create new conflicts for them to master until they find their parents again who are struggling for survival somewhere and... stuff?
I'm sorry for the horrible writing in this post, I'm really tired today and kinda wrote this bit by bit over the course of several hours...
Anyooone?
CHARACTER LIMIT EXCEEDED
Open-ended stuff, you say? Hmmm... having a section of the game where the players have some freedom to do what they want is either more relaxing or more stressful to run, depending on how good you are at improvising. When I have PCs coming into a town for the first time, I usually come up with a mini-guide for myself ahead of time, with a few key details available for quick reference.
1) The size and general layout of the town. Is it a rural village that consists mostly of thatch huts, and only a couple of merchants? Or is it a well-defended outpost of civilization, with a bustling marketplace in its center?
2) Names for points of interest— taverns, shops and guilds (if applicable)— as well as key NPCs who frequent these areas. Nothing is quite as frustrating as when you find yourself saying, "the innkeeper's name is... uhhhh...."
3) Travel time to other nearby towns, and services available to the PCs to make travel easier if they ask for them. Maybe this town has carriage service, or a stable where you can rent horses.
Once you get a feel for what kind of town your PCs are walking into, you can start thinking about what kinds of problems this town might have that your adventurers can fix. That's the way I come up with possible quests, anyway. If appropriate, you can determine who in town has information regarding their caravan and what might have happened to the survivors. Also, come up with a contingency plan for how to move the session along forcibly if the player-driven momentum stagnates.
Also, if all else fails, just wait until your PCs fall asleep for the night at the local inn, and have a gang of kobolds steal their pants.
Logged: The commanding officer is aboard. XO Pressley stands relieved.
Oh boy oh boy!
So one half of our Dn D troupe is gonna be missing for quite a while, so in the meantime, the rest of us have nothing to do in that respect. My DM (probably half-jokingly) asked me if I want to be a DM and start my own campaign for a while, and... you know, I didn't really say "yes" on the spot, but I kind of want to! On the other hand, I'm a newbie to the game and barely know how to fight for myself, much less how to create monsters...
All these are things that I can read up on, and I have the material ready to do so, but I still require some brainstorming, mostly because I'm not sure how to make my idea interesting. Because an idea, I have.
I want the two characters to be two young teenagers who are acrobats in a wandering circus family. As they are traveling through a swamp or forest of some sort, in the middle of the night, their caravan is attacked by a ferocious monster and the boys find themselves stranded in the middle of this place. They first have to find a way to get by, because the place is large and dangerous (and they can't just follow the road to the next town because, I don't know, a bridge broke down or so?).. then they have to make their way through to it... and find their way to the next city. There, the process of establishing a basis for their lives begins anew, they are helped by a kindly religious lady who gives them shelter, and then... things happen. I guess they might somehow get wind of the rest of their family having been brought to some place by whatever attacked them, and they used their own survival skills to survive and are looking to reunite with their sons as well...
Something like that!
I want the story to be more based on survival skills than plain old fighting. More like a point-and-click adventure than an RPG, though battles will definitely take place. Even then, I'd like to make up my own monsters that you have to figure out to get past, like a sort of slime critter that uses vibrations in the ground to track its prey. In fact, I'd even like to make up my own basic class for the two... something based on skills and movement feats. A "free spirit".
Ah, but what do I need to know to properly DM a game, and where do I start planning, and how do I make an effective puzzle-like world without planning too much, and how do I even make puzzles...
For one, after finding their bearings, they should get the obvious idea to check the wreckage of the caravan for things that can help them stay alive. They might find some scrolls, like Invisibility or so, that would make sense for a circus troupe to have, some food, some medical stuff... In order to keep them restrained to the area for some time, I could have them find bags, but they'd first have to find material to repair them to be able to bring food and other items with them.
In the town, they have the old lady who protects them, but some other sources of danger might lurk (anything but randomly attacking orcs ._.). At one point, they might have to escort her to some place because she's in charge of something kind of important or so... (She's not defenseless, she has some skills in sourcery, which she says are granted to her by God [no DnD gods in this setting].)
Hmm, what else can I say? I have a bunch of ideas and no idea how or if I can play them out properly.