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Post by demonnachos on Nov 11, 2017 20:27:18 GMT
While rewatching Spoony's Counter Monkey series I started pondering clever tricks to try if I ever get to join an RPG again. We should share our cleverness to maximize our cleverity.
First trick is a work around for the damage types. For example, I gave Sahara that spear so she could thrust, but also cut with the blade or bash with the haft. Same thing with a long sword. You can't poke or cut a skeleton, but you can do a mordhau (murder-stroke, aka grab the blade and smack the skeley with the pommel to end him rightly). A pollaxe has a bashy bit, a pokey but, AND a cutty bit so all your bases are covered.
A trick a friend told me was to get a coin or something enchanted with permanent "Light" and put it in a cylinder with a glass "lens" and a cap. You now have a flash light. Only you don't have to worry about batteries.
What are some of your RPG "hacks"?
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 11, 2017 23:58:01 GMT
This is going to sound really pretentious but I never really thought of RPGs in those kidn of terms.
Im very much of the artsy "its a collective story telling experience" school of thought.
My hacks would be things related to story structure, like making sure the players know the plot, but that they dont learn significant things before their characters, as that is boring to play through, like an audience watching a show who have figured out the twist before the detective.
Or always pairing together characters that are opposite in order to make their interreactions entertaining.
Look at wierd britannia, almost every pairing is two oppsoites.
Straight laced and polite Frost vs Criminal and rude Riptide.
Fun loving out going Hazard vs shy Paradox.
Happy Sidewinder vs grumpy Steel.
And so on.
When making characters, don't make peopel with the same personality together, that's really boring.
The idea of tricks in a game mechanic sense...thats not really my bag.
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Post by TempestFennac on Nov 12, 2017 5:40:33 GMT
Demon, sticking specifically with OSRIC's rules, spears can only deal piercing damage.  I know being able to do more would make sense but I suppose it was always intended to be more gamist than simulationist. That light one is pretty good. I'll admit I never really care about that once games get started, Hark (I generally try to pick characters which have abilities which other selected characters don't have due to knowing from past experience that unbalanced parties just ruin games). Once it gets going I find it's more interesting to see how things go regardless of what you'd expect to happen if it was a more conventional story due to primarily seeing it as a game. |
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 12, 2017 13:18:01 GMT
I tend to look at it from a Gamesmastering point of view, and I always aim for games I make to make a decent story.
Like if you took the adventure and just relayed it as a story to someone, it would make sense and seem interesting, rather than just being a disconnected series of events.
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 12, 2017 13:56:51 GMT
Team work! Team work is super important!
Always try to make other characters look good.
Sometimes people view looking good as a very sum game and its not at all. Looking good as a group raises everyone up.
Case in point...
In Canuoveas game right now, my character got shot and fell over so StyxD's character jumped in to defend me with a big shield.
When you are all on the same page, it makes you seem like a well oiled machine.
I've played in other games where players did things like I asked for more amo to fire and they said "no, thats my ammo".
This made us looking like a bunch of clowns.
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Post by TempestFennac on Nov 12, 2017 15:03:19 GMT
Stories are the hardest part for me so I never feel like I'm not doing too well with that aspect of games I run.
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Post by demonnachos on Nov 12, 2017 18:50:33 GMT
I am better at being a player than a DM, tis more fun.
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Post by StyxD on Nov 12, 2017 22:18:33 GMT
I'm not sure if you can "hack" RPGs.
Sure, you can find exploits or common sense workarounds (like you mentioned in the first post), but if you're playing a system that's heavy on rules, the GM is likely to veto them. And if you're playing a rules-light system, then it's not really a "hack" so much a normal thing to be expected in the game's world.
At lest it's how I understand it.
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 13, 2017 2:39:28 GMT
Yeah that's how I feel.
To me its a social thing, so there are things to do that make it work well but not really a hack or trick.
Unless you are into some wierd pick up scene you don't need tricks or ploys to do well in social situations, and the same is true to RPGs for me.
I am a games master more than a player, so I see it all in very group terms, like the dirty commie that I am.
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Post by demonnachos on Nov 13, 2017 5:37:14 GMT
Hacks in the sense of Spoony's "Bardic Knock Spell" more than the "Cheat code" sense.
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 13, 2017 15:12:14 GMT
Spoony's view on rpgs is very strange to me.
He makes it all seem oddly antagonistic, like the players are in competition to beat the GM and outwit him some how.
His shadowrun campaign involved a wierd arms race of players inventing new ridiculous broken weapons based on teh rules (like squirt guns killed with contact poison) and hte gm coming up with ever more contrived counters (bad guys all where hazmat suits.)
Or the time at a convention when he changed the scenario to try to kill as many o the players as possible by having the bad guys have the perfect spells to counter them and literally throw their lives away to kill downed players, rather than simply trying to complete their mission and escape...because the players laughed at his NPCs.
Honestly I wouldn't point to him as a good model to learn how to roleplay well from.
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Post by TempestFennac on Nov 13, 2017 17:01:07 GMT
The first way he ran games sounds kind of interesting (at least in a "I think I'll try this once in the same way I would a core-only game" way). The 2nd one just sounds petty. Then again I often specifically intend NPCs to be amusing so I'd class that reaction as a good thing.
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 13, 2017 17:05:12 GMT
He did that one at a games convention, where people brought their previously made characters and the senario was pre written.
People travelled to be there and he got but hurt so decided to teach everyone a lesson.
He got kicked out...shockingly.
In his retelling he makes himself sound like the victim of unfair treatment.
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Post by Harkovast on Nov 13, 2017 17:10:44 GMT
A part of this might just be me havinga very different expectation from RPGs to a lot of people, since I am incredibly pretentious and sya things like "shared story telling experience" without irony.
If you read the Wierd Britannia summaries Ive written out, they give a pretty clear indication of how I imagine an rpg should play out.
Things like how much rope and how many ten foot poles people have aren't really the focus for me.
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Post by TempestFennac on Nov 13, 2017 17:15:38 GMT
Kicking him out sounded wise. My main goal when I'm a player is escapism (I'd argue the shared story telling thing should realistically happen in any RPG unless you have people like El Disgusto or Deviant Boy from the Binder of Shame who are only interested in doing 1 specific thing rather than actively participating in the plot).
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I know being able to do more would make sense but I suppose it was always intended to be more gamist than simulationist. That light one is pretty good.
