In Labyrinth Lord, when there is a possibility of surprise for both PCs and foes, both sides roll 1d6. A 1-2 indicates that side is surprised for the first round. If both sides roll a 1-2, both sides are surprised for the first round. A surprised side can take no action.
This is a nice simple...
Road of Knives is a "battle blog"
wherein Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng, and
other artists take turns drawing
monsters fighting each other.
from the website, Road of Knives
Basically, I'm looking for any similar games or rulesets that involve drawing each others' characters. Ideally, I'd lik...
I participated in a large group like that for a little while. Local shop owner found that few people wanted to run a public D&D game, so he took up the mantle.
Started with six, grew every week until we hit about 14.
Any time the party had to make a decision it became a 45 minute debate.
The part I did like about the group was the broad age range. Veterans who had played 2nd ed brought their kids along who found 4E easy to to learn. kids ranging from ages 8 to 14.
The GM wanted to split up the group into two with the clever idea of "This is a big mountain, we should split up into two groups" and change the campaign so actions from one game affected the other, as the games ran at the same time and the GMs would break every hour to exchange notes.
Well, the lead GM also runs the store, has a wife and four kids, a day job working for an industrial valve company, and the occasional side job as an electrician. Oh, and fistfuls of religious obligations sprinkled here and there.
4E is good. I won't argue 3.5E vs. 4E, but I tend to think of them as two entirely different games with a similar theme. 4E is very good at what it does, which is providing a relatively simple to learn system with varied combat mechanics that encourages working as a team.
4E is very good at getting new people to sit at a table and learn about roleplaying, at least in this region.
No argument there. I was pretty much done with 3.5 when 4th came along. It got too complex for me at levels 10+, especially as a DM. 4th provided a nice change of pace
My group has always enjoyed the tactical aspects of combat and 4th edition feeds into that very well.
I keep 3.5 around for games with veterans. Games that focus more on a story element than combat are easier for me as a DM in that than 4E.
4E skill challenges are an interesting way of going about things, but I've read their examples to imply that you can replace actual roleplay with a dice roll in some situations.
The flow for me is "Here's your non-combat scenario. Here are the things you can see, the logical assumptions you can draw from that, and any outstanding features of the area." Let the players stew around for a little bit, and wait for them to actually pipe up, "I want to try X." and then we throw some dice.
In D&D my players know there is some wiggle room for failure results. If they're at full HP they can take a trap or two. In Dark Heresy they're always acting like there's a gun to their head.... Which is usually true.
I haven't played Dark Heresy, but my group gets a little paranoid when I'm running. For whatever reason, I kill PC's with regularity. The other DM has got us up to level 14 without any PC deaths
My question on TPKs had some good insight to that. If your characters are low level, people are more willing to deal with character death. If you've been at this a long time and have seriously invested in the character, they want to keep them alive at all costs.
Your party has had a streak of bad luck and/or made a poor choice and are now staring down death. The rules were followed to the letter and loss is assured. How do you handle this as a GM?
Does story trump rules? If you give them a means to pull out of the situation it could lead to the party...
yup yup..killed two last week in the new tomb of horrors. I had them auto-raised after a short death. The rest of the party saw a brief gleam of red in their eyes as the dead folks stood back up.
I posted a community wiki question yesterday "A Grimoire of Magic Item Curses and Boons". There were several objections raised in the comments:
It wasn't really a question.
It was asking for user created content.
It was outside the scope of this website.
It seems like a number of folk have be...
I haven't used downvotes because I have yet to find a question in my areas of expertise that was poor quality. I try not to judge things outside my domain.
I am considering setting up a semi-casual zombie-apocalypse game in which the player's characters will be based on "normal" people. [Rather than heroic characters.] This is not a game that I expect all the characters to make it through. What kind of zombie movie lets all of the main characters li...
Ninjas know 20 skills. and nothing else. (this does not stop you from creative descriptions the GM buys, such as horsemanship to drive a car)
Ninjas have two hands and an infinite array of ninja pockets. To pull something from a pocket you roll on a 2d6 table (x,y). To get something back out of your pockets you put in there before, you have to roll doubles.
It's a simple concept. You have a mission. Deliver food.
Do not be seen.
Some players go as far as to interpret this as even the customer must not see you. this is challenging.
Everything about chargen is random. There is a 1 in 6 chance of being a traitor ninja
Road of Knives is a "battle blog"
wherein Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng, and
other artists take turns drawing
monsters fighting each other.
from the website, Road of Knives
Basically, I'm looking for any similar games or rulesets that involve drawing each others' characters. Ideally, I'd lik...
Your party has had a streak of bad luck and/or made a poor choice and are now staring down death. The rules were followed to the letter and loss is assured. How do you handle this as a GM?
Does story trump rules? If you give them a means to pull out of the situation it could lead to the party...
I posted a community wiki question yesterday "A Grimoire of Magic Item Curses and Boons". There were several objections raised in the comments:
It wasn't really a question.
It was asking for user created content.
It was outside the scope of this website.
It seems like a number of folk have be...
