The preparation I do is primarily setup for improvisation. With some players, I don't even try to script things out. But for them, it's still a lot of prep work because you need to create, in your head, a living world for them to interact with.
Let's take the adventure in Dek Sep. My preparations consisted of:
Making a general map of the city, just the walls, a river running through, a main road running perpendicular, and a palace in one quarter
The city's general economy (trade hub via river), politics (oppressive monarchy, lots of power lying in the ministers, not the monarch proper), and society (lots of thieves and other criminals, due to rampant poverty)
The secret plot (a vizier was poisoning the town with a disease that was slowly making them mind-controlled, the king was suspicious but too detached from low society to know)
The outward signs of the secret plot (basically a town dying of plague, with quarantine squads and everything)
Basic stats for several types of guards, the zombies, and the vizier
A half-scripted encounter entering the city
That's it. I didn't know how they would be involved in the plot, I didn't make any location maps, I didn't even have names for most of them. I just built the world, and let the players loose in it.
I started with the half-scripted bit - as they entered the city, they were searched, and one of their artifacts went off-the-carts on "Detect Chaos". But then it stopped registering at all, and they went into the city itself. This was just dropping hints for the grand questline, no relevance to this adventure itself, but a) putting scripted stuff at the front guarantees it'll be hit, and b) it showed them that Dek Sep takes security quite seriously.
I gave some off-hand descriptions of the dirty, muddy town. It wasn't prewritten, I just made it up as I went along. The description included seeing guys who looked like a cross between the Spanish Inquisition and medieval witch doctors storming a house SWAT-style to take people into quarantine.
My preparations included designing and statting these guys, because I expected them to be fought at some point. I didn't expect it to be RIGHT THEN. But two of the party went on the attack, so I just tossed out some tokens. Ultimately one ended up captured, the others fled.
This did not throw my plans into disarray, because I didn't really have any plans, other than "get them to the palace somehow". Guess where the prison is! Right under the palace, or so I decided right then and there. The remaining two fled to the slum quarter of the city, gathered some intel and an ally, then tried to break him out.
I cut over to the prisoner. He managed to talk his way out, but then ran into some guards. I cut back to the rescuers, who tried to swoop in for a nice rescue, but failed miserably. Cut back to the prisoner, he escapes out a different entrance. I decide the odds of them actually meeting the king and getting the quest are shot, so as he flees, he witnesses the vizier killing the king, throwing him off a balcony, then framing it as an assassination.
Well, they all get back together, go hide in an inn overnight. We take a quick break, which lets me figure out how the world is going to respond.
I decide the vizier's going all-out, having his mind-control victims kill anyone he doesn't control, so it's basically a zombie apocalypse for this town. That makes it easy - you don't have to binge-read TVTropes, but just being able to think "okay, this is like that one movie" makes improvisation easy.
Five minutes later, they're boarding up doors trying to keep the zombies out. That fails, they flee out the back window into an alley while burning the place down. They run through a melee between the loyalist guards and the "zombies". They decide their best bet is to go to the river, steal a boat, rather than try to scale the walls, so I whip up a map of the docks. They manage to steal a boat despite a) the zombies, b) the guards, c) another ship firing ballistas at them, d) the boat's captain being on board, and e) none of them having a single point in Profession (Sailor).
Their GM-controlled ally stays behind to hold them off, tells them to meet him at Malsekavojo, the town at the mouth of the river. And that was the end of it.
[QUOTE=doomkiwi;46975074]Would an all martial party be viable in DnD 4e?[/QUOTE]
Anyone? I need to know if I can use the system I'm most familiar with for a low magic game.
[QUOTE=doomkiwi;46976148]Anyone? I need to know if I can use the system I'm most familiar with for a low magic game.[/QUOTE]
sure it could work
except every single class is magical
maybe if you ban leveling up and keep your players at like level 3 forever
[QUOTE=doomkiwi;46976148]Anyone? I need to know if I can use the system I'm most familiar with for a low magic game.[/QUOTE]
4e blurred the lines between magical and martial classes a little so every class has access to some wierd abilities. You might be better off looking at 5th if you're really determined to play D&D. Honestly though I think it might also be worth considering some other systems as well while you're at it.
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;46979492]4e blurred the lines between magical and martial classes a little so every class has access to some wierd abilities. You might be better off looking at 5th if you're really determined to play D&D. Honestly though I think it might also be worth considering some other systems as well while you're at it.[/QUOTE]
No edition of D&D works well with low fantasy after the first few levels.
[QUOTE=cdr248;46975055]fuck improvisational skills when you can just anticipate every move the player makes and plan ahead
[editline]20th January 2015[/editline]
this is why i never get past the concept stage of any game i run[/QUOTE]
I've played tabletop long enough to know that the party will ALWAYS find a way
trust no one and expect everything as a dm
Oh hey look an [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1447469]IRL Traveller Character[/url]
[QUOTE=elowin;46979554]No edition of D&D works well with low fantasy after the first few levels.[/QUOTE]
Well I mostly agree with you. Up until 5th edition, D&D (and yes Pathfinder) tends to assume that parties will eventually have access to lots of magic items. But based on what I've seen in 5th I think playing a game where magic items are super rare and wondrous rather than abundant and everyone plays a non-magic class is definitely feasible, as long as the players and DM cooperate on making such a game possible. Until I've actually played a 5th game though I can't say for sure.
[QUOTE=LiquidNazgul;46981139]Well I mostly agree with you. Up until 5th edition, D&D (and yes Pathfinder) tends to assume that parties will eventually have access to lots of magic items. But based on what I've seen in 5th I think playing a game where magic items are super rare and wondrous rather than abundant and everyone plays a non-magic class is definitely feasible, as long as the players and DM cooperate on making such a game possible. Until I've actually played a 5th game though I can't say for sure.[/QUOTE]
It doesn't really change the fact that at higher levels you become a crazy powerful pseudo-mythological being, which doesn't mesh too good with low-fantasy, generally.
You still need to keep things to the low levels. Once you go past 3rd level, you're stretching the definition of "low fantasy". By 6th level you might even be past "high fantasy" and into "epic fantasy".
Yeah you're better off using another setting if you want low fantasy. Try the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, specifically 2nd edition. 3rd edition makes use of the wacky dice that the Star Wars RPG uses, but imo it really doesn't fit Warhammer like it does Star Wars.
Depending on what kind of low fantasy want, you could also try Blade of the Iron Throne. It's what my group is going to be using for a game starting here soon that we're calling Knight Quest.
[QUOTE=Rats808;46981380]Depending on what kind of low fantasy want, you could also try Blade of the Iron Throne. It's what my group is going to be using for a game starting here soon that we're calling Knight Quest.[/QUOTE]
Disclaimers being the book is ugly as sin and the combat system insanely complex
Trying to start a pen and paper game with my friends, who are totally with it. We just dont know where to start. I dont feel like being the only one shelling out extensive stacks to get this shit going.
Does anyone have any links to some kind of tutorial for, lets say, Pathfinder? Anything that some newbies could use to get this rpg flow going.
Hey, does someone have a link to that story about a guy joining an online anime rpg thingy, where he gets wrecked by the other players who are being total dicks, but then eventually he manages to beat the most powerful player by using some obscure rule, which ends with him getting banned because the guy he owned was to big of a bitch?
[QUOTE=Tagger;46981917]Trying to start a pen and paper game with my friends, who are totally with it. We just dont know where to start. I dont feel like being the only one shelling out extensive stacks to get this shit going.
Does anyone have any links to some kind of tutorial for, lets say, Pathfinder? Anything that some newbies could use to get this rpg flow going.[/QUOTE]
Well if you don't want to spend a single cent on anything ever (at least for the first few games), you could try the [URL="http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf"]basic rules[/URL] for D&D 5th. They also have a [URL="http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMBasicRulesv.0.3.pdf"]DM's basic rules[/URL] as well.
But if y'all are dead set on Pathfinder, I couldn't do much help there. There [I]are[/I] video tutorials for Pathfinder but the only ones I know of are like [I]forty minutes long[/I]. The [URL="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/character-creation"]pfsrd[/URL] does have basically everything you ever need to run Pathfinder, if you're okay sifting through enough information that can be intimidating for new players.
[QUOTE=Tagger;46981917]Trying to start a pen and paper game with my friends, who are totally with it. We just dont know where to start. I dont feel like being the only one shelling out extensive stacks to get this shit going.
Does anyone have any links to some kind of tutorial for, lets say, Pathfinder? Anything that some newbies could use to get this rpg flow going.[/QUOTE]
Dawnforgedcast is a pretty good source of videos for Pathfinder if that's definitely what you're going for that takes you from character gen to more advanced game play mechanics.
[QUOTE=Muggi;46982171]Hey, does someone have a link to that story about a guy joining an online anime rpg thingy, where he gets wrecked by the other players who are being total dicks, but then eventually he manages to beat the most powerful player by using some obscure rule, which ends with him getting banned because the guy he owned was to big of a bitch?[/QUOTE]
[url=http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/26565579/]The Ballad of Edgardo[/url]
[editline]21st January 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Tagger;46981917]Trying to start a pen and paper game with my friends, who are totally with it. We just dont know where to start. I dont feel like being the only one shelling out extensive stacks to get this shit going.
Does anyone have any links to some kind of tutorial for, lets say, Pathfinder? Anything that some newbies could use to get this rpg flow going.[/QUOTE]
[url=http://www.d20pfsrd.com/]The Pathfinder SRD[/url] has all the rules of the game for free, and it's completely legal.
Along with [url]http://www.d20srd.org/[/url] if you prefer
This may be a dumb question, but on some monsters, they have their hitpoints/attack power and then in parentheses it'll say something like (2d6) or (1d6+3), I get the reason why it has it for attack, but then why would it have just a regular number next to it like 5? I'm completely lost with the hit points, I assume the dice is how much hp they get from resting?
[QUOTE=LiquidNazgul;46981139]Well I mostly agree with you. Up until 5th edition, D&D (and yes Pathfinder) tends to assume that parties will eventually have access to lots of magic items. But based on what I've seen in 5th I think playing a game where magic items are super rare and wondrous rather than abundant and everyone plays a non-magic class is definitely feasible, as long as the players and DM cooperate on making such a game possible. Until I've actually played a 5th game though I can't say for sure.[/QUOTE]
Well if you want to play non-magical classes in 5e you're pretty much limited to frenzy barbarian, champion or battlemaster fighter and thief or assassin rogue. Magic items? Yeah, players don't require magic items period in 5e, they're not an essential part of the game, but magic? Not so easy.
[editline]22nd January 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Obvious Shizz;46983544]This may be a dumb question, but on some monsters, they have their hitpoints/attack power and then in parentheses it'll say something like (2d6) or (1d6+3), I get the reason why it has it for attack, but then why would it have just a regular number next to it like 5? I'm completely lost with the hit points, I assume the dice is how much hp they get from resting?[/QUOTE]
Assuming you are talking about 5e here...
The number is the average (for both hit points and damage) incase you don't want to roll them. Like if it says 7 (2d6) it's because 7 is the average result of 2d6. For their hit points it'll say something like "18 (4d8)" because 18 is the average result of 4d8. Basically, it's for GMs who don't want to roll monster's hit points or damage. Creatures regain all their hit points when they rest.
so we've been playing a lot with Blade of the Iron Throne's combat system
things we have learned:
armor in general is amazing, metal armor is incredibly so
nut shots are devastating
i illuminated some motherfucker pretty hard though, drove my sword through his eye.
[QUOTE=Vengeful Falcon;46982272]Dawnforgedcast is a pretty good source of videos for Pathfinder if that's definitely what you're going for that takes you from character gen to more advanced game play mechanics.[/QUOTE]
Fuck me, I can't stand video/audio tutorials, let alone ones that are 40 minutes long.
Seems like the only way I can get this going is either to dole out the gualla for some books or rely on someone already well versed with the game to DM and guide us.
Thanks anyways, folks!
[QUOTE=Tagger;46986785]Fuck me, I can't stand video/audio tutorials, let alone ones that are 40 minutes long.
Seems like the only way I can get this going is either to dole out the gualla for some books or rely on someone already well versed with the game to DM and guide us.
Thanks anyways, folks![/QUOTE]
or you can just use the SRD
the srd has a step by step guide to character creation etc
pathfinder really isn't that hard to pick up. it's more tedious than anything else
[QUOTE=lintz;46991100]pathfinder really isn't that hard to pick up. it's more tedious than anything else[/QUOTE]
ur tedious
[QUOTE=No Party Hats;46986686]i illuminated some motherfucker pretty hard though, drove my sword through his eye.[/QUOTE]
I still say your refusal to wear a helmet is going to cut your lifespan incredibly short.
Also, what sib said, upwards swings with a blunt weapon have the propensity to either make a male character a woman, or take your head clean off.
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