D&D V6 - Edition jokes don't really make sense anymore - Games

For the people into homebrewing, I found an app that has a bunch of plot points, an NPC generator, riddles, etc. It has a lot of good ideas to get the brain juices flowing [URL]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mpvreeken.rpgcompanion&hl=en[/URL]

How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] If the mystery is strong enough, magical fuckery. Attempting to remove the poison has caused to it to act more rapidly, like its cursed poison or something. A divine/necrotic force is keeping this person dead/they're soul was destroyed, they can't be ressurected. The NPC saved. he saved. Don't look at my dice he saved.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] Make it a sort of magical poison that bypasses magical protections or cures (which is why it was used in the first place). Somehow destroy the body completely. If it's an important NPC, have them utilize some sort of protection spell that's unnoticeable at first glance unless checked for.

Not to mention that something like Zone of Truth may not work, then they will be even more intrigued. Figure out counters for the player's go to powers and then use them sparingly to add an extra spice and excitement here or there. My one wizard was always using magic missile for everything, built his character around it, so he had 3 magic missiles a turn. He had a hard time thinking outside of the magic missile. Next campaign just happened to take place in a cavern filled with magic ore that interfered with the targeting of his magic missile and suddenly he started thinking of other spells to use. It can be a tricky balancing act, because you don't want your players to feel cheated, but surprise and that kind of thing is important enough that you should push for it. Maybe a character enters the zone of truth, play it as normal, but have them lying anyways and the characters later find out that character had some kind of artifact that allowed him immunity for some reason.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] You probably shouldn't be using D&D if you want mystery to be a big part of your game.

I'm looking through Xanathar's spells and three things struck me. One, Ice Knife is kind of horrible (in a positive way) for a 1st level spell from my amateur DM perspective. Two, I'm going to make a villain at some point who casts Danse Macabre, just to see how my players will react. Three, I just know that the moment a player finds out about Snilloc's Snowball Swarm, I'm gonna see it a bunch. Also, the first treasure my players will run into are X Cloaks of Billowing, one for everyone. This will happen for every group. This is non-negotiable.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] Resurrection's an incredibly high level spell with an expensive reagent component. Zone of truth allows a saving throw and doesn't force people to speak the truth (just not tell any lies). Removing a poison also doesn't really remove the mystery since you still don't know what poisoned them and it could just happen again.

[QUOTE=Glent;53016897]Resurrection's an incredibly high level spell with an expensive reagent component. Zone of truth allows a saving throw and doesn't force people to speak the truth (just not tell any lies). Removing a poison also doesn't really remove the mystery since you still don't know what poisoned them and it could just happen again.[/QUOTE] Not to mention it's used for the poison status condition (assuming this is 5e), you could make it a stronger poison that can't be taken out by a 2nd level spell.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] 1. remind them this isn't a video game, overtly or covertly 2. use scenarios and enemies video game logic won't solve 3. political and philosophical bullshit 4. Hard checks, especially if something is outside the range of their character's expertise 5. If all fails and they still rely on the meta and brute non-characterized force to progress, it is time for the nuclear option: The Wandering Damage Table ex: Every time a meta choice is made to circumvent an encounter or rp moment, roll a check, if the check fails the Wandering Damage Table strikes without mercy. [quote] suddenly you are mercilessly assailed about the legs and buttocks by sharks [/quote] "wtf, we're in the desert" [quote] suddenly you are mercilessly assailed about the legs and buttocks by sand sharks [/quote] [quote] without warning you fall down a flight of previously unseen stairs [/quote] "wtf we're in space" [quote] without warning you fall down a flight of previously unseen space stairs [/quote] If all else fails,[QUOTE] [I]chromatic vorpal squirrels[/I][/QUOTE].

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] You can block all three of those specific uses of spells, but in general I prefer lower magic games to prevent people from just pulling the automatic answer from their massive Batman toolbelt. For poison you can say it was magical or something in nature, or a parasite or something. Easy enough. For a death you can say the spell fails (lots of reasons why - the soul has been removed and captured, they simply do not wish to return, or something.) For lying, a simple reverse of that spell or Nondetection or.. lots of things will block it.

[QUOTE=_Maverick_;53016759]How do you stop your players from fucking over any and all sense of mystery "this person is suffering from an unknown poison..." "protection from poison." "this NPC has been killed..." "resurrection." *NPC might be lying* "zone of truth."[/QUOTE] Neutralize poison is not automatically successful for one. Resurrection is a hyper high level and expensive spell and if your players are capable of casting it, let alone casually, they might just be a bit too high level for whatever you have in mind. It can also be negated in a bunch of ways though. If the body is destroyed true resurrection is necessary, doesn't work if the soul is unwilling to return for some reason and also doesn't work if the soul is trapped somehow, including if it is a spooky undead ghost. Zone of Truth can be negated in a bunch of ways even before just straight up passing the saving throw gets involved. Also your spellcasters really shouldn't just happen to have the correct spells prepared for every situation ever. If that's happening, something is wrong. Consider having at least a little bit of combat so the spellcasters have to invest a bit into fighting magic as well, D&D at its core is built around this sort of resource management.

If any fans of the Souls series are interested, I just recently completed a [URL="http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1-uYMF-f"]compendium [/URL]of monsters and magic weapons inspired by Demon's Souls.

[QUOTE=Chronische;53017150]You can block all three of those specific uses of spells, but in general I prefer lower magic games to prevent people from just pulling the automatic answer from their massive Batman toolbelt.[/QUOTE] This is actually one of my biggest problems with 3e+. Magic should be a difficult and rare mechanic so having it become as common as it tends to be in newer versions really makes players rely on it far too much which can easily result in ruining an adventure that should be quite interesting.

[QUOTE=Alice3173;53018811]Magic should be a difficult and rare mechanic[/QUOTE] Why?

[QUOTE=Mmrnmhrm;53018904]Why?[/QUOTE] Because otherwise magic is just a bland and gamey thing that just sorta exists without any mysticism or y'know actual "magic" to it. Some min-maxed spellcaster shitting out spells to more or less trivialize various plot devices or challenges is neither very fun nor clever or engaging. Being limited in and forced to make the best of your abilities is what creates interesting conflicts and stories, and magic more often than not in my experience just kinda ruins it. Magic is supposed to be some higher force you gotta learn to master for years, but that just never really cuts quite through because it seemingly doesn't require much effort at all in practise.

[QUOTE=Mmrnmhrm;53018904]Why?[/QUOTE] I uh... Kinda explained that in the exact post you're replying to? Also what Mezzokoko said too.

Low fantasy magic is always best. High fantasy magic is just brightly coloured sparks of gamey dice rolls. Having to sacrifice things and go through interesting, compromising trials and rituals to cast something that would be taken for granted in most "magic" based fantasy series is waaaaay more interesting and makes you appreciate the fantastic/arcane nature of it a lot more; such as rituals/spells in Blades in the Dark.

-snip-

I want to run a post-post apocalypse magitech game like a combination of Wild Arms and Fallout, but my friends are too afraid of stepping out of their comfort zones to use Ops & Tactics So, with that in mind, what's the best 5E thirdparty/homebrew supplement for guns and robots

[QUOTE=TWKUK;53027171]I want to run a post-post apocalypse magitech game like a combination of Wild Arms and Fallout, but my friends are too afraid of stepping out of their comfort zones to use Ops & Tactics So, with that in mind, what's the best 5E thirdparty/homebrew supplement for guns and robots[/QUOTE] Pretty sure 5e core DMG has a little section on gunpowder weapons As for robots if you want to have them in your standard fantasy campaign maybe you could have them similar to the Dwemer from The Elder Scrolls SKYRIM Or those cute little harmless robots from the 5e dimension of order. (which I forget the name of)

Pages 267-268 in the DMG have a little bit about alternative weapons, including explosives and firearms.

Yeah, I'm aware that that section is there, but it's still a bit too sparse for what I was looking for. I realize that I might've been overly vague with what I was asking for (my bad), so to be more specific; the setting I'm tinkering with is a far distant future of an Earth where technology and science progressed to such a stage that they were functionally identical to magic. And then an apocalypse happened and a gorillion years later society has rebuilt into an Trigun-esque anachronistic magitech Wild West. Or in other words, I want to play Cowboy Nier.

There's always d20 Modern, which has all your gun and robot needs, though in a DnD 3/3.5 flavor, some version of Gamma World which is straight post-apoc with advanced tech treated like magic sometimes, or Numinera, which I haven't played, but from what I understand it's long after a magical space apocalypse.

[QUOTE=TWKUK;53027583]Yeah, I'm aware that that section is there, but it's still a bit too sparse for what I was looking for. I realize that I might've been overly vague with what I was asking for (my bad), so to be more specific; the setting I'm tinkering with is a far distant future of an Earth where technology and science progressed to such a stage that they were functionally identical to magic. And then an apocalypse happened and a gorillion years later society has rebuilt into an Trigun-esque anachronistic magitech Wild West. Or in other words, I want to play Cowboy Nier.[/QUOTE] GURPS. Butt easy to learn, a long time to master.

Numenera springs to mind immediately if only because it does the post-singularity-apocalypse feel fantastically Beyond that, Savage Worlds has loads of stuff (and grew out of Deadlands which is one of the best Western games) that could easily be used to throw something like that together

[QUOTE=TWKUK;53027583]Yeah, I'm aware that that section is there, but it's still a bit too sparse for what I was looking for. I realize that I might've been overly vague with what I was asking for (my bad), so to be more specific; the setting I'm tinkering with is a far distant future of an Earth where technology and science progressed to such a stage that they were functionally identical to magic. And then an apocalypse happened and a gorillion years later society has rebuilt into an Trigun-esque anachronistic magitech Wild West. Or in other words, I want to play Cowboy Nier.[/QUOTE] this is basically the same realm of scifi+spaghetti western I've been working at, had adapted a bunch of bits and pieces of some systems with Savage Worlds as a base (system has fun stuff like using a deck of cards for initiative that adds to that 'wild west' vibe [I also love that it basically adds a feeling of randomness and unease as people don't know the order of each other or the enemies til their card is called]), though with the release of STARFINDER I've decided to shift gears and use that as it has all the good stuff I wanted out of ship building/combat, sans the built-in lore.

I've been talking with a friend about settings and tropes and I've come to realize that while I love the "lost technology/ancient civilization" kind of tropes, I have one glaring, serious issue with them and that's that there's very few of them that actually advance as civilizations. The only one that Ivan really think of off the top of my head, though I'm sure more will be added or suggested, is Mass Effect. While none of the species in that universe really understand Prothean technology or anything, they grew to understand ME fields and jump their technology forward because of it. Even Warhammer 40k has some innovation to it, despite the loss of STCs. This is kinda exacerbated by my playing Elder Scrolls Online lately, it takes place a millennium before Skyrim and basically nothing has changed since, technology-wise. With exceptions, basically nobody understands Dwemer or Ayleid technology, there's been practically no progress in experimenting with magic and applications beyond utility in combat, healing, or making lights, no attempt for full contact with Aedra or planehopping, there's barely even been any change in architectural styles. It irks the shit out of me, by Skyrim I'd expect at LEAST a basic understanding of combustion and electricity, which would be made massively easier by magic, but there's nothing. And it's not like Bethesda is a stranger to this style of stuff, people in Fallout have some semblance of understanding of pre-war technology, though that's a rant in and of itself. I dunno, I didn't intend for this to be this long but it really bugs me that so many settings out there have this sort of trope and yet such a small nunber of them ever have their peoples make significant progress as cultures and species. Feel free go mention settings that DO progress, I'm sure there's a lot I don't know about.

Tonight i GMed 5e for 3 completely new players. We went through character creation, and we got a Barbarian, a Warlock and a Cleric. Tank Spellcaster healer is a pretty good mix for people that didn't think about composition. So we start playing and i can't believe how natural and enjoyable everything was. One player was kind of in the middle with RP, but one player got super into it right off the bat, i gave them a little build of, of how they met up in the tavern as all three of them grabbed at the same notice, and that they started in an old Dwarven mining town in the frozen north, and the Barbarian just started rolling with the punches, by the end of it even the 3rd player that wasn't doing much RP was into it. We all decided that we'd do a few more sessions, i love it when everything goes well and the players all get into it.

Had my favorite sessions with my players yet yesterday. They managed to kill the Lich with the army they gathered in the south and escaped to the capital where they were told they were to see the King's Regent since they were such big damn heroes. Of course all the shit they were doing caught up and instead after they were bathed and their equipment stripped, the Inquisition swooped in and dragged them off to the torture chambers where I dragged them to separate rooms and got them to rat on each other. They were about to have another round of questioning when a servant to a noble swooped them up and told them they had gotten them out of jail and under the dukes protection in return for them serving him for some time. They then caught a master thief in a LA Noire style investigation to find who stole the duke's crown jewels along with their new buddy in the city guard, the capitals first Guardswoman who has had a rivalry with this thief for over a year now. Anyway they caught him and went to sleep in their quarters in the fancy inn the Duke got them rooms in and ended the session. They also got two manservant's a pop to use as they would. So fast forward to yesterdays session, which somehow, without prompting, became entirely about moral relativism and grey morality. It started great, they all wake up in the tavern and my two players who don't RP surprised literally everyone. One of them, the Ranger, asked her manservant to find out if there were any open bounties in the city (which is the first time she has ever done something like this and also fit in perfectly since the Duke was going to have them chase a bounty) and the other, our Rogue, demanded her manservants fill her tub for a morning bath and go out in town and buy her grapes, and then feed them to her. It was actually hilarious. Anyway, they get to the Duke and he gives them their quest, to go kill the evil lich in the countryside thanks to their reputation as lichhunters (IT'S WHAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT, SIR BONES THE GRIM'S WILD RIDE: [QUOTE=JeSuisIkea;52010992]I started writing a campaign and I wanted it to be standard "find and kill the necromancer before he raises an army" stuff. I drank a little and started writing and now the story goes that the party learns of a foul necromancer raising a dark army to conquer the lands with, and go to his dark fortress to defeat him. When they get there they discover the castle has pretty much been torn down and he has built a rather extravagant manor there instead. When they break in they discover the legendary necromancer and lich Asgarth the Blackheart has gone slightly insane from the constant consorting with the dark forces beyond his control and he lost control of his body, deteriorating into an insane skeleton. He now goes by Sir Bones the Grim, and he locks the party inside his manor as they enter. Instead of your standard dungeon fighting to him, he leads them through puzzles and insane traps he designed while singing musical numbers and throwing insane parties. I even wrote musical numbers for me to sing filled with skeleton and death puns. Towards the end the players realize that he isn't raising an army to scour the land anymore, at the end of his insane dungeon is actually the world's first nightclub cabaret, and he's been building to cater to the dead, and that he just put the players through the insane ringer because they were technically invading his property. He's raising the dead was so he could invite them to the show. Figured the party would either let him go ahead and he could become some sort of ally in the future or kill him to stop the insanity. If they let him go they could hear about Sir Bones the Grim and his traveling posse of performers terrorizing the land completely by accident, or if they kill him he'd haunt their ass. Was going to explain the weird anachronisms and the fact a skeleton invented jazz music by saying his mad rituals and experiments before he went nuts involved him looking into the future and different worlds and everything he saw became a jumbled mess in his rotten brain by the time the players found him. Is this too retarded to keep. I think it's a lot more interesting than the original idea but it's also something I thought up while drunk.[/QUOTE]) Anyway, this session the Duke asked them to find him but also said they could stay in the capital for a bit and help his friend, the Imperial Ambassador. They've been on the fence on thinking the Imperials are evil entirely or might actually just be another dickhole country in our crapsack world so them meeting the Ambassador, who is actually a nice guy and wanted to help solve a Jack the Ripper style murder spree in the city, was a great swing. Corpses have been turning up in the poor districts and people keep ignoring them because hey they're poor, but a fellow Imperial Ambassador's son in the city was the latest to be killed, and the Imperium has matched the 5,000 gold bounty the city has put up. They went off to the only real doctor in the city, the [URL="https://art.ngfiles.com/images/513000/513308_j-caro_plague-doctor.jpg?f1495331838"]WUNDERDOKTOR[/URL], a stern Imperial doctor who is trying to spread the good name of washing your fucking hands before sticking them into people, actually studying a body before you cut it open, and leeching out blood to get rid of bad humors (two of three ain't bad), who has been performing the autopsy. His rival is a local 'doctor' who has zero idea how to operate on people but people like him much more because he's local. After a bit, they go to the crime scene and realize the kid was killed right outside of a brothel in the poor areas, and going in, soon learn from the whores that he has a rather nasty streak, and has a favorite there who he regularly tortures for his amusement. There are several thugs outside they question, and get some information out of, but then, them being thugs, the thugs quickly demand they drop their weapons and any more gold they have. The party pretty gleefully hops into combat at this point and murders the shit out of them, then tries killing the ones who run away after half of them get wiped out. The paladin too. One of the whores runs out crying because one of the thugs was her brother, but the party takes the opinion of "lol who gives a fuck they jumped us" and when they're asked why they even thought it was a good idea to approach back alley thugs and toss around serious coin, the party sorta just shrugs and tells her to get over it. An Inquisitor is the next one murdered, and the party gets a case of "Lol fuck 'em's", though a Guard tells them this one was actually known as a pretty nice guy with a history of letting people go. It turns out he was the one investigating the murders on behalf of the Inquisition, and shortly thereafter, the Inquisition swoops in and tells the party that if they try and interfere with the case any further they'll end up back in the cells, and that the cities bounty is now over. Ignoring this order of course, they go to the WUNDERDOKTOR again and he has no idea, but the whore who was beaten regularly is in there and he's treating her, and he mentions that one of the other dead was also one of his customers. The party immediately decides he's doing the murders to make a buck off the autopsies, but on questioning they reveal he runs a free clinic off donations, not believing in profiting off the ill of others. They investigate the other dead and realize all of them had some pretty heavy sins. One had robbed a church and killed a man, one was a serial murderer himself, and so on and so forth. After learning this, they go around and around in circles missing the hints that are getting dropped before they check in with their buddy in the Guard who tells them that she has no idea who it could be but asks them to clear out because one of her guardsmen accidentally caused a fire that ended up torching an orphanage and she had to do the paperwork so that he can be thrown in a dungeon forever. The party immediately realized the guardsmen was probably the next target in the brutal string of murders, and had their friend sign an order that allowed them to spend a night in the dungeons with him, armed. So they run off into the cities main Guard barracks and prison and camp out with the prisoner when night passes and a dark shadow fills the room, and a mist passes between the bars into the prisoner's cell before coalescing into a darkly clothed man. A vampire. The mage had been polymorphed as a rat and turned back to himself behind the creature before nailing him with flame blade, awaking the party. Vampire fight ensued and it had a close call or two but thanks to me forgetting they regenerate every turn, they manage to come out on top, cutting him down. The paladin's thunder blade spell whatever also woke up the entire barracks and soon they were sprinting out with half the Guard because the Vampire had tried to kill them with a surgical scalpel and he had to be one of the two doctors. They break into the bad ones first and find him in the back fondling a corpse while whispering and sort of just back out slowly. Realizing it had to be the WUNDERDOKTOR, they all converged on his shop and broke in, having lost enough time that the vampire had reformed. The party breaks into the backroom and find him standing there, trying to bandage his own wounds, still recovering. Instead of attacking, he asks them to simply close the door behind them so the guardsmen can't see and then tells the party his story. (In my world, Vampires tend to go evil but some people are able to resist that and remain themselves). When coming south to spread superior medical practices, he had been attacked by and turned by a Vampire, but had managed to resist, and decided that he couldn't die and let their Kingdom remain filled with disease and the dying, and that he could keep doing good if he only fed on those he deemed evil. The only reason the Inquisitor had been killed was because he was coming too close, and risked everything, but otherwise he had never killed someone who was not deserving. Rapists, murderers, child abusers. There was an argument in the party about what to do, the WUNDERDOKTOR told them he had no plans on resisting and killing people he deemed not deserving of it. The Paladin stepped up and said "I'm not letting a murderer live, it's not your place to decide who lives and dies." The doctor immediately pointed out the Paladin had probably killed hundreds more than he ever had, and would kill hundreds more. He asked him how many random bandits, thugs, mercenaries and others he had slain and how many of them he knew for a fact were as evil as the men he had murdered. He then pointed out that earlier that day the Paladin had come in with the party and openly gloated about murdering thugs in an alleyway and asked him if he knew that those thugs were murderers themselves. The Paladin didn't. The doctor also offered them an alternative, they could burn one of his bodies and say that he burned when exposed to fire, a common belief among the peasants. The Paladin still killed him after a ton of arguing but I'm pretty sure I mentally broke his player and I don't think anyone in the party was entirely happy with the decision. They brought the body to the Ambassador and still got his half of the reward and his thanks but very quickly realized nobody wanted to hear them try and defend a vampire they killed, and that the shitty doctor was probably going to be the new head honcho in the medical community. And any good will the Imperials had for hiring the ones who stopped the murders, which was a goal of the Ambassador (who hoped to build further relations and understanding) was now gone thanks to the fact the murderer was a known Imperial. Anyway, next session is the wild ride and a bit of stress relief for the party after all that sadness, so I'm excited.