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Messages - Marco0042

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1
Brilliant Gameologists Podcast / New Episode on April 23rd
« on: April 28, 2012, 02:35:13 AM »
Thanks for releasing a new episode. It was awesome and hopefully there will be more to come.  :clap

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Gaming Advice / Re: It's good to be the King: PCs as rulers
« on: March 01, 2012, 02:48:24 AM »
For a campaign of Noble Houses, including a PC ruler try "Houses of the Blooded" http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14250.phtml or perhaps if you would like a Sci-Fi element http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12453.phtml then perhaps "Burning Empires".

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How about this option. Let your players be AWESOME! Hey they used their resources, smarts, skills whatever to bypass some threats and face the BBEG in his lair faster than you expected. Why is this bad? Why punish them for ingenuity? Let them fight the BBEG, have a reasonably challenging fight and kick his bitch ass all over till Tuesday. Then when the guards come rushing in and see the evil Necromancer Lord who was forcing them into service is dead they cheer for the awesome heroes who set them free! Ding Dong the Witch-lord's dead, woot!   :cool

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Dungeon World is a blast. Gives that feeling of being awesome, the nostalgia of AD&D or OD&D and elements of those new fangled story games. yummy  :love

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Brilliant Gameologists Podcast / Re: Ready for the next episode
« on: March 01, 2012, 01:30:30 AM »
I would love to hear Josh's opinion about Cortex Plus. Perhaps a review of the new Marvel RPG or Smallworld. I was not a fan of old Cortex and still hold some prejudice about what was done with Firefly. But now that Cam Banks got his hands on the system and brought some Fate elements into it I'd like to see the BG's opinions on these games.

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Gaming Advice / Re: It's good to be the King: PCs as rulers
« on: January 26, 2012, 06:23:21 AM »
Or, if the rules of the game your playing don't support the kind of game you want to run .... Play a different game.

just saying  :p

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General D&D Discussion / Re: Recommended 3rd Party Settings/Books?
« on: January 26, 2012, 04:39:51 AM »
Alright guys, I've been checking out some 3rd Party Products I found fascinating, and I want your thoughts regarding these settings.  (snip)

Iron Kingdoms: Steampunk fullmetal fantasy.  Much of the setting focuses on warcasters, spellcasters who specialize in building techno-magic instruments of war.  Monsters are more powerful politically, and goblins, ogres, and trolls have their own kingdoms.  One of the nations is ruled by an undead dragon dude.

(snip)

I was a player in an Iron Kingdoms game. We played in the Khadorian Empire and had lots of fun with the Soviet Union meets Full Metal Fantasy. Most of the splat seems to assume you are going to play Cygnarans but the other nations have plenty of info to work with. Their books are well written and there is lots of fluff sources to draw on. Since you don't care about mechanics this is a good choice because I wouldn't want to advise anyone to play D20. The D20 setting book is not cheap on ebay. Or at least it wasn't when I was looking for it. I'm sure you can find most of the fluff info online.

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Gaming Advice / Re: Players Have Say, DM Should Too
« on: January 22, 2012, 07:29:56 AM »
Finding the right group of folks to play with is definitely not easy. I just feel that fighting fire with fire doesn't make sense. The house burns faster.  :smirk I would rather try to solve people problems rather than combat them. But I'm an old hippy as you can see by my sig file. Then again I haven't played with people like this since I was a teenager, many moons ago. When I was 15 years old I joined a group where one of the players beat up the DM for killing his character and sat on his chest and forced him to say his character was not dead. I left and didn't play there again. Now I'm an old man I don't have time for that kind of BS. Nor do I have time for the kind of crap KV is having to deal with. I really enjoy playing with my friends, they are all great people.  :love I only wish they were more interested in trying new games.  :bigeyes

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Gaming Advice / Re: Players Have Say, DM Should Too
« on: January 22, 2012, 01:33:15 AM »
Hi,

RPG can be played with good, neutral or evil characters, it doesn't really matter as long as whole group is following the same character path. I will write this from D&D point of view but this can be applied to any system.

I agree

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There are very simple rules to keep control of any campaign:
1. Make them hate someone as much as possible (BBEG, BBGG in this case?). This is rather simple.
They want to burn village? BBEG is living there, have some business there, or he is just bigger bully then they are.

Absolutely. Or a rival faction is making too much noise and likely to draw the eyes of the forces of good on your town. They have to be taken out because it's good for "Business". Some Pain in the ass morality group is making trouble for your gambling operation, organizing protesters. Dig up some dirt on the leader and blackmail him to silence. Or point him at your rival. Lots of options for evil people plots. Just watch some organized crime programming and convert the stories to your setting.

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After he will kick their asses, rape them, torture for three months and make them beg and cry they will hate him enough.
If player will say "my character is not crying, he is strong", ask him to make difficult Fort save each day of torture, sooner or later they will cry.  :lol

 :twitch This is the DM getting his jollies at the expense of the players. Making the PC's hate the BBGG is the same as getting a Good group to hate the BBEG. No need to resort to DM fiat and spoiling the game so you can flex your DM is GOD muscles. There is a thread on these boards about this. Read it all the way through, folks on this board gave some excellent advice.  http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2093.0

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2. Make them aware that every action is leading to reaction. This is the case for evil and good also.
  :clap

No question, no matter the campaign actions have consequences. Just remember this is a game and your job as GM is to help facilitate an enjoyable experience for the group. In Burning Wheel you even lay out the potential consequences before the challenge so the player knows what she is getting into before she commits to the challenge.

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They are not the strongest people in the world (if they are this is some god-like campaign).
If they are burning villages then someone will react to this. Deploy regiment of troops or some ultra heroes that will own them. If they are very evil let them die, then raise them (losing level for being raised will hurt them).

That's right, you are the GM so cheat. Then laugh maniacally while you masturbate at the table. Show those bastard players who their god is and if they want to survive the campaign they need to provide you with chips, mountain dew and blow jobs.  :o  Ok, I went overboard here. Look raising a village in warfare appears in lots of movies. But usually there is no motivation for this kind of thing. If you look at crime bosses, usually they help their communities so that the neighborhood folks are not willing to assist the authorities. When the great depression hit and people were out of work and starving Al Capone opened soup kitchens all over Chicago. John Gotti's neighborhood was one of the safest places to live in Queens. Well except for that guy who accidentally ran over one of his kids. If the party has a tavern where they are dealing in prostitution, gambling and the sale of black market goods they want the city watch to leave them alone. It is much easier to keep the corrupt guards on the take if the neighborhood is quiet and safe.

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3. If they are not willing to follow your lead... this one is tricky. Try to convince at least one of them. Then focus 80% of your attention on player/s following your path, rest will have 20%. So if someone is not willing to retrieve ancient artefact and want:
"I want to burn that village and rape every one there" then don't focus much on that "Ok, village is burned and everyone raped" the go to the group that is following your lead and describe their adventure in details. Alternatively you can assume that everyone that is not following your lead in playing on "hard" level (harder opponents, bigger risk of death, less rewards etc.) while group that is following adventure hook will play at "normal" level.
  :banghead

The crossing gate is coming down and the engineer is sounding the whistle, the train is pulling into the station, be on it or under it. Aren't we past the X-DM and Gygaxian Dungeon stuff yet? If the party doesn't follow my plot I am going to make sure they have a shitty time. If you want them to listen to the story you wrote, then have a book reading or a kindle party. If you want to role-play, have a game together.  How about you let the characters goals and beliefs drive the plot rather than your module. Lets break out the plot hammer and bash in the players heads with it.  :shakefist


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4. If group is not following adventure hooks let NPC do that. If you tried to involve them in princess rescue mission and they said "fuck it, we want to do other evil things" then let them meet some time later NPC who rescued princess and in reward get shiny magic armor that they can only dream of. Make this NPC so strong that they can't just kill him and take reward for themselves.

No problem here, remember actions have consequences. It's also ok to have them loose the contact when the princess dies at the hand of the kidnappers. "You let the Princess die now you want me to help you? take a walk." This has nothing to do with evil or good, sometimes a party won't want to follow your plot hooks, ok then what do they want to do?

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5. NPC are for your eyes only. Don't bother to explain to them why NPC is having 200 HP. It's your business, not their.  :D
   :huh

Sure it is a measure of someones DM skill if they can kill the party. show them who's boss by making some random NPC in town actually be Odin in disguise and he turns them into dust without a roll. That will show them. Oooh, I know how about a DMPC, those always work great.

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6. As already said, this is DeMocracy, not democracy.

Exactly, we are not playing together, they must bow and scrape before the allmighty DM.   :cool

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7. If they are killing your NPC don't be angry, you are having many cloning machines and can spam them with the same NPC over and over (different name, different appearance, the same stats).
 

Yes, this sounds so fun. Plus it makes the GM's job very easy. You have one NPC and just use him over and over again. Get attached to your NPC's, they are your babies. Stop those damn players from having any control over the world.  :plotting

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Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Pelzak

Yes, this has helped about as much as Tracey Hickman writing X*D*M.

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Gaming Advice / Re: Players Have Say, DM Should Too
« on: January 21, 2012, 06:58:55 AM »
I am going to take a clearly opposing viewpoint. I see nothing wrong with playing evil as long as everyone in the group GM and players are on the same page. All lines and veils are discussed and handled like adults. That is not the case with KV's group clearly. But just because you want to explore evil in an RPG doesn't mean you are sick in the head. I was in an Evil D&D group for 6 years with well adjusted adults. We didn't rape anyone, no baby eating and never once killed a vendor. We sometimes fought the forces of rival evil factions and sometimes the forces of good. We used necromancy, evil clerical powers and lied and betrayed our way up though the evil organization we worked for. Nothing wrong with playing a group of criminals and in a Lies of Locklamorra sort of campaign your goal is to take over the criminal underworld in your city. And evil people have friends and loyalties to a point. Think of a mafia family or a modern street gang or a biker gang like Sons of Anarchy. In my opinion these are evil people, they hold life and law in contempt. But the lives of your "brothers" are worth more than the average person. You can have a code of ethics or morality you follow. What if you are a group of religious fanatics? Your character thinks he is good, and justified in his actions. Since I am doing this for the benefit of society it is ok for me to vote republican bwa hahahaaa. People can justify lots of evil behaviors and still think they are being good. Have you listened to the Walking Eye folks actual play sessions of "Apocalypse World"? I thoroughly enjoyed that and it made me want to buy the game. There are friends of mine I would not play that game with, it would stress their lines and veils. I have to be good, polite and professional all day in real life. Sometimes I like to get on ToR and play a Sith Inquisitor who tortures prisoners and follows the dark side but is fiercely loyal to the Empire. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a game and it's not hurting anyone's fun. What about making a toon on Fallout 3
(click to show/hide)
. Lets face it most D&D pc's are evil anyway. Oh they're just goblins or kobolds so it's ok to slaughter their whole village. They look different from us and my god says they're evil so we can do whatever we want to them and take their stuff. These are sentient beings and the book judges them as evil so good people can be free to do whatever they like to them. I am not defending KV's group here, I don't like bullies. But I do think that evil can be played in a responsible way and an rpg is an ok way to explore some delicate subjects. I don't want to play a racist, or a rapist and I don't want to play in a game with one. But I'm ok with a guy who murders for money or eldritch knowledge or for food. That's right, a cannibal would not be a problem for me in a game. I have different lines and veils than some people. I don't want to play evil every time but I'm perfectly fine with doing so and I don't believe it's a matter of being a child or sick in the head. 

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Gaming Advice / Re: Not Giving Advice
« on: January 21, 2012, 02:28:31 AM »
On RPG net someone started a thread, "How do you tell a player that you don' t want them to play anymore?" http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?610281-How-do-you-tell-a-player-that-you-don-t-want-them-to-play-anymore  :banghead The OP even said this person was a friend and did not want to loose her friendship, he just didn't want her to play. He wanted her to come over on game days and just sit there and not play. But his main complaint was that she didn't participate at the table.  :twitch I had fun using some of the BG arguments of "If this is a friend, DON'T kick her out of the game". Naturally this caused people to be horrified at the thought that this is a dick move.  :??? I was fairly nice and didn't rant,  but I really wanted to start typing in all caps and calling people idiots.

13
Creations & Ephemera / Mysticon
« on: January 21, 2012, 02:00:55 AM »
Anyone going to Mysticon in Virginia? I plan on running Misspent Youth Saturday evening.

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Other RPGs / Re: Can you suggest a good gaming system?
« on: January 09, 2012, 05:14:36 AM »
I really enjoyed Misspent Youth. You need to be sure your group is on board with it though. It is about teen rebellion in a sci-fi world and selling out your beliefs and your character getting darker and more jaded. The world and character gen process is both fun and rewarding. Game play is a blast. Easy and fun read even if you never play it.

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Gaming Advice / Re: GM Help: Two Questions
« on: January 09, 2012, 03:45:50 AM »
Personally, If my players caught a glitch like that I missed ... I would have said "damn your right". Ok lets make this interesting. This thing plane shifts in and he is now embedded in the rock. As his body is thrashing about in it's death throws chunks of the ceiling start to dislodge "Run!".

About the die rolls, I don't see the problem. Chance is a big part of the game you are playing and sometimes it goes bad. I can definitely sympathize with the frustration, I have majorly crappy luck. Maybe not a monumentally bad run as you did, but it has been rather consistent for many years. This is both as a player and as a GM. If the dice go the players way, cool. They get to be awesome, let them.

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Other RPGs / Re: Burning Wheel - Murder Mystery convention game
« on: January 09, 2012, 03:25:52 AM »
Anything more or new on this? Sounds interesting to me. I have been turning an idea about in my head to run a BWG game based on city guards ala "Night's Watch" or "Garrett PI".

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Off Topic Fun / Re: Girlfriends & RPG's
« on: January 09, 2012, 03:13:26 AM »
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People often assume there's personal bias involved when the GM is receiving sex from one of the players.

All seriousness aside, If I am running a game and someone offers me head in exchange for imaginary stuff in a make believe world ... "Zip!".

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Off Topic Fun / Re: Girlfriends & RPG's
« on: January 09, 2012, 03:08:41 AM »
I was married for 20 years and am now divorced. My X and I still play in the same group once per month. Of course we have no kids and had a pretty equitable divorce and are still friends. We never brought our personal crap to the game table. Most of the folks I game with are married couples. The biggest issues we have is scheduling gaming around busy lives.

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The big reason I don't like gaming couples is that invariably everyone else in the group likes one of them, but then puts up with the other one (who is an annoying tw@t) because, even though he's someone you'd normally tell to scram, if you do tell him to get lost, your gaming group just dropped by two, usually leaving a DM and two players.  So you put up with shit you normally wouldn't, because you don't want your whole group and campaign to fall apart.

I just noticed this thread and was surprised no one commented on this. You are aware that this is horrible advice correct? http://media.blubrry.com/gameologists/p/brilliantgameologists.com/podcast/BG-Sode036-GM05-KickingPlayersOut.mp3 I am not a frequent con goer, I play with my friends. I know who I am playing with before I sit down to the table with them. It is not useful to advise someone to kick people out of their game.

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Gaming Advice / DoW scripting strategies
« on: December 30, 2011, 10:37:35 PM »
OK, Santa got me Burning Wheel Gold for Christmas.  :D I used to own revised. I read it, loaned it out and never got it back.  :( I also got the Mouseguard box set in my stocking (it was a big sock)  :p. I am able to discern from reading but never playing that there is no perfect strategy. One has to be able to read his opponent and have an argument that fits the maneuver. However from listening to the Podgecast I heard it mentioned how leading with "Feint" can lead to disaster. If your opponent comes out of the gate swinging "scripting point" you can get hosed. I would think that leading with "point" is a natural way to start a debate. Thereby one could look at his opponent and say he/she has passion about this topic and is an aggressive speaker you may choose to lead with "Obfuscate". What other strategies can people suggest?

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Brilliant Gameologists Podcast / Re: Ready for the next episode
« on: December 30, 2011, 10:22:22 PM »
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I'm also thinking of releasing a sort of solo-show about Burning Wheel. I went to Burning Apocalypse Con (alone) and have new revelations about the game. Anyone think that could be of interest?

I would love to hear that. Perhaps you could do a follow up with Walking Eye Jenn. I have really enjoyed their actual play sessions, and she was a riot during the AW shows.  :clap

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