Moving on this year...

Forum for the finished DM D&D game 'Time's Champions' run by beowuuf

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beowuuf
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Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

So, the game seems to have managed survive (woohoo) and I'm sure we've gotten passed the always scary December hump with holidays with hopefully everyone still with a hand in, so also woohoo.

Anyway, a few concerns of mine that you lot can weight in on as we go onwards (now we have a proper forum, I can keep thse out of the OOC).

1) DM versus D&D.

Obviously, there's a battle between using the system of d20 D&D as a ready made system to run a game in the DM world. Too much houseruling and I'm breaking the system, too little and you aren't really playing a DM game. Sadly, we seemed to have missed some of the DM-like monsters and puzzles.

Obviously, I don't want this to just be a 'sing-a-long-a-DM' and just keep going 'hey, look, purple worms, remember those, they were cool' etc, so I've always planned to have the original monsters with subtle fun twists and then flesh them out with new monsters (some D&D, others new). Similarly, introducing some new elements to compliment what we know of the DM plots.

I'd like to know if these are balancing well for people.


2) Pacing and playstyle.

Obviously pacing is a tough one in play by post. I think we are doing ok, obviously it's a shame the two or three times I let the party 'rest' there were some story triggers, and of course we've had people on reduced posting ability. Personally, I prefer that the dungeon keeps moving, and at the moment the party's actions keep triggering responses. So I'd like to keep a boot on their necks a little in terms of being chased or being pulled. Also, levelling up is something I don't want to do too little nor too much. The original 'one level per encounter' might start giving way to a slowly increasing spread, just as DM would ahve done it.

Playstyle is the odd one. I'm GMing without really railroading you guys (I hope). The dungeon is set in my mind, but I'm not devoting huge time to fleshing that out until you guys get close to an area. Hence I really will roll with what you want to do. Are you happy with this level of freedom, or would you prefer some story rails so you have something to set your backs against? At the moment I might indicate fruitful avenues for your characters, but even then they might be mutually exclusive with others sometimes :) I'm just conscious that with a great degree of freedom, it can lead to a paralysis of choice or worse yet an inability to really spot the main plot choices.


3) The d20 3.5 system. Obviously I have made some tweaks in line with 4th edition and some 3.5 spin-offs to smooth over some problems. And of course made some other small alteratiosn to try and bridge the gap between DM and D&D. How are people finding the system itself? Is it too restrictive in some ways? Are you happy with how it resolves things?

A few concerns are in the area of skills and the area of equipment restrictions. The former is a weakness of the 3.5 system, skills are a really great idea that builds upon the previous editions. However, in practice you start getting some unwieldy bonuses later on, and more importantly the skill point distribution for class and intelligence can be a little punishing. A '3.75' system released by Paizo to continue the system had a few small tweaks to shore this up that I might try to sneak in if people really feel the skills system is a little unfair on them (I'm thinking about Haynuus and Falkor more than others).

Equipment wise, obviously D&D puts restricions on the items people can use effectively, whereas DM did not in the same way. Obviously characters could wear any armour without penalty in DM. And in DM, you could at least use any weapon without penalties, although of course the useful options were only available to the right class.

Are people happy enough to stick withthe D&D equipment restrictions? Armour check penalties are applied to skills and hits if you aren'r proficient, and weapons take hit penalties if you aren't proficient with them.


Anyway, that's all, just to let you know what I'm trying to do in the background, so that you can comment on things if anything feels 'off' to you as players.

If you have any other comments, concerns or critisisms, feel free to post them here :D
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Ameena »

Well, basically, all I can say for now is that I have no complaints. If anything comes up that I'm really uncomfortable with, I'll let you know. And regarding equipment restrictions, I think they make perfect sense - somehow I can't see a rat the size of a small dog realistically wearing a breastplate that's about as big she she is ;).
I really need to try and draw a murafu at some point. I'd been thinking to make an Avatar of one - finally I've made a race that I really have fallen in love with (well given that they're basically enhanced rats so duhhh), so I want to use them lots :D.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Gambit37 »

As a reader rather than a player, can I throw in a suggestion, or is that completely pointless? After all, it's not me playing the game ;-)
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

External comments from the peanut gallery are welcome. I always like constructive critisism from the little people :p
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Gambit37 »

Wow, I just learned something. I've never heard "peanut gallery" before and Wikipedia is a treasure. Great phrase! :)

As for a suggestion, I realised I was being unfairly critical so will keep my mouth shut. Sorry, never mind, as you were!
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

Throw it in a PM or just man up and say it! Then I can mock you for your wrong opinion. :p

That or curl up in self-doubt and cry at how right you are
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by ian_scho »

1) All good here. Didn't know what was going on 20 odd years ago as I progressed, still haven't a clue now! Seriously though, I like the mix and pix style we have. Alllrighty so we haven't seen any purple worms yet as, but let's face it... We've had only like 6 'scenarios' thus far!

2) It's obvious that you've invested more time than the rest of us in this baby. I'm happy with the fact that we had a single path to begin with for a while, and now have up to three (four?) choices as to where to go! Sounds like DM to me ;) I assumed you'll be making much of this stuff up as you go along anyway :P

3) Never used the 3.5 system before - but imagine my surprise after having only ever played the 1983 Dungeons & Dragons (4th version) Basic Set (red box) edition with all of this extra 'stuff' and no THAC0 or whatever the hell that was. Cool. I've not noticed any problems - so Haynuus is upping his Intimidation and now Survival skills all the time but let's face it - he's a fighter! - and you seem to be changing some of the rules if they didn't suffice in the first place any way. No complaints here.

I love the maps that you do - they help a lot.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

2) Lol, you think you only had one path at the beginning? You give up far to easily! :D I know the basic nodes, I have a few floating points, and I let you guys wander around buggering up my ideas as you go!

And yeah, a few combat quirks and standardised dice rolls and skill additions aside, d20 is pretty easy to shift to from the old rules


Anyway,thank for the comments, I'll keep it business as usual for the moment and see how the next few senarios go.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by oh_brother »

When I read the title of this topic I first thought that you were leaving the forums! Glad to see that is not the case! :D

1)
beowuuf wrote:'hey, look, purple worms, remember those, they were cool'
LOL!

The balance is good. The back story and spell system prevent it from sliding into a pure D&D style game. If anything more house rules would be acceptable - although I realise that it could get very complicated very quickly.

2) Pacing is a tough one. I tend to find in most games (talking computer rpgs here) there are times when you would like to have a break to relax, but if it went too long it would get a bit dull. So in my opinion breaks should be something we look forward to but end before we want them to. Just like the Christmas holidays :(

Playstyle: do not worry about giving us too many choices! I like it that way! It feels very free at the moment, which is great. :)

3) I have not worried too much about the technicalities of the skills system, so I don't know the answer to that! As for the carrying capacity, I agree with sticking to D&D style.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by ian_scho »

oh_brother wrote:When I read the title of this topic I first thought that you were leaving the forums!
I forgot to mention that as well. :shock:
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Jan »

Hey, me too! I was so scared and frightened that I had to read the first post, even though I'm not involved in the game! After reading it, I had a sigh of relief. :P
Finally playing and immensely enjoying the awesome Thimbleweed Park-a-reno!
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

Well, of course I am leaving the forums. In this case, to go make some food. I'll be back later this evening! :D
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

Lol, so as you can see with Ameena, I'm not really into railroading too much. Well, not unless the plot really needs it, or players are trying to act against their own characters, but at the moment evetryone has a firm handle on their characters and the plot hasn't bitten the party yet.

Is everyone happy with this sort of freedom? As players, would you prefer a solid wall to put your back against so you can RP arguments between characters without the fear a player or character can actually be 'forced' to leave?

It's a minor strain to run multiple strands, but not too bad. If two or more groups get into combat at once, we'll see what happens then! Story-wise, I'd rather that NPCs and PCs keep threads intertwined, but I do like the organic feels of being able to have characters at odds and with different objectives. And having especially NPCs free to be influenced by the party and then left to grow or fester before being seen again. Or, of course, their fate being discovered much later. Just, you know, hopefully I give the players enough hooks that they don't feel they can't make a choice of staying with the party if all things are otherwise equal.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Ameena »

I don't think anything you do can ever affect the way PC characters react to each other, considering how, being PCs, they're played by us lot in non-GM land ;). It's more or less purely a PC thing that's got Ameena to this point. I really don't think I ever planned her to turn out quite this way when I started, but probably because of my sliiiight obsession with stories (reading and writing them) I've ended up evolving a character like this through the RP aspect - if this was tabletop I would probably have meta-gamed more or less the whole thing (at least, that's what seems to happen at club) and ended up as my usual back-stabbing, arse-kicking Rogue. As it is, Ameena's heading down the more diplomatic, "I can talk my way out of this and then bugger off double-quick and hide where you can't find me" route ;).
Anyway, being the GM, you can place whatever you want in the way of Helm and Ameena to...err..."encourage" them to take a different path, and have them end up doing other stuff. Like, you know, they find a button somewhere random and decide to push it and find that it apparently does nothing, and meanwhile over the other side of the dungeon, as the rest of the party walks through an open doorway the door suddenly starts to descend and donks Falkor on the head or something ;).
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

Nah, you can still steer a PC with your choices. You can choose to have a rogue who sticks to the mission or sticks to where the money is, etc.

I like the idea of odd things happening because of the other party...logically, the timing would be off for it to happen infront of the other, and having cross dungeon switches that just happend to be close is a little cute. Still, an interesting idea...
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Re: Moving on this year...

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Well yeah, that was just an example ;). Or maybe the mysterious button actually opens a door (and hey, who says there has to be any kind of delay or whatever - in a world of magic, who says everything's operated by a physical mechanism? ;)), one which the rest of the party is hurriedly trying to dig their way through as an angry *insert great big terrible monster thingy of your choice here* is busy stampeding its way toward them. Hehehe yeah...Helm presses the button and it "does nothing", then one of them presses it again, they shrug and leave it and continue on. Meanwhile the rest of the party falls through the door as it opens, then stares in vast surprise as it shuts just before the scary monster thingy gets there, leaving them to do likewise ;). Then later they run across each other again (main party and Helm/Ameena), and there's a passing mention of "Oh yeah, we found this switch that didn't seem to do anything...pressed it a couple of times but no effect. We did hear this rather angry roaring sound a long way off shortly afterward, though"... :twisted:.
Aaaaanyway...gah, stop posting, dammit - I'm knackered and I was gonna go to bed over an hour ago, lol.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by ian_scho »

This is the advantage of RPing through the forum - you can split the thread! You could never do this around a table. Of course it's more work for Beo...
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Ameena »

Actually, I have had a party-split thing in tabletop. There were about ten of us playing (not counting the GM), so our group ended up getting split in two - one group sat around one table (well, set of tables - they're small ones we push together), while the other group sat around another nearby. The GM would go to one group, describe our situation, and leave us to discuss tactics, ideas, etc amongst ourselves whilst he went and gave the other group their scenario. Then he'd give us about 5-10 minutes (we could call him over to ask questions and stuff in the meantime) to settle on a plan of action, then come over and have that group's nominated spokesperson announce our decision. Then he'd tell us the results of that, go over to the other group and get theirs, etc. We'd be so busy chatting/discussing amongst our own group that, even though we were still sitting pretty close to the other group, we didn't know wtf they were up to or how our actions were affecting each other's groups, so that was cool too :).
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by oh_brother »

Yes, I am happy with the freedom. One thing that occasionally annoys me about computer rpgs is the rail-roading - you know you will never be allowed to do certain things. That is of course neccesary because the software designers cannot program an infinite amount of options into a game. So a big advantage of this sort of game is that people can do anything they like (within reason).
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

Luever's post now here
Lunever wrote:Aside from the rules set suggested, what I still really would recommend for the forum game too is using the spellpoints from the Unearthed Arcana, because the spellpoints are very very similar to DM mana, and if you add up divine and arcane spellpoints you get a relation between priestly and wizardly magic very similar to DM. You don't need to change anything else in your game to implement the spellpoints.
The spell points system is described in the variant rulessection here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Lord_BoNes »

@Beo: You've forgotten to put quotes around Lunever's name in your above post :P LOL... I've done that one a million times.
 
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

No idea what you mean! :D
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by Lord_BoNes »

ROFL! Good show! :P
 
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by ian_scho »

I liked Lunever's suggestion of spell points in general. The D&D standard system is more restrictive isn't it? I wonder, therefore, that they then make spells to be as versatile as possible.
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Re: Moving on this year...

Post by beowuuf »

To my players:
THIS IS SPARTA!

Umm, I mean...the Pathfinder rules. Sorry, I always get them confused...
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