Just bear in mind that almost nothing happened and I am attempting to do my best to stretch this out into a somewhat readable entry because I feel like I gypped you guys last week with the "Gulag's Dead, go home" entry
So that was an absolute disaster.
Should have been simple, the Hell-knights roll up to the city intimidate everyone into doing what they're told and claim the city in the name of the crown while I scare some people, and get the money that I was supposed to be paid, you can guess how well that went Journey Journal.
So my night was mostly dragging beaten, battered, and bloody corpses to a god-damned pyre because the Hell-knights wouldn't; my only help being an old man who was so far past his prime that you couldn't see it with a telescope, whose thanks was so profuse you'd think I'd made him young and virile again.
I couldn't bring myself to sleep under the same roof as those murdering bastards so I decided to sleep on the roof, safely tied up in one of the few banners that the castle's new occupants hadn't managed to remove.
After my nap, I flew down to the town, and after a little searching managed to find the only work-shop still open in town, where I made a "small" investment, on the promise that said investment would go into rebuilding the town, and visited to local messeneger's office who promised to carry a letter and a package to my hometown just to let my parent know I'm okay.
I've got to go now Journey Journal, one of the priest's is calling me, it seems like they've found another survivor, this one's covered in burns and lacerations that have already started to go septic, and I doubt I'll be able to him, but I've got to try otherwise what kind of alchemist am I?
Friday, 28 November 2014
Tuesday, 25 November 2014
Story Time: The Restless Dead
So in my last Story Time entry I talked about how to give someone who wants to go off the rails something to be interested in, even if it's just for a single session, and a lot of my ideas used undead, why, I like the undead, especially mindless undead, as a minor threat. Why? there are so many options, especially at low to medium levels.
For example, and I've used this encounter to great effect, the party is walking through an old Forest following an overgrown trail and they come upon an abandoned temple (any god, but I used Pharasma), the interior is gloomy and poorly lit by intermittent beams of light coming from Ivy covered holes in the ceiling, just inside the door, there are three crumbling pillars each 10ft apart from each other and the walls. Beyond the pillars (about 15-20ft) lies a 4 foot tall wall that surrounds a murky, stagnant pool, almost 20ft wide and 40 ft long, its surface covered in rotting leaves, and thick scum, the water laps several inches below
As the PC's approach the Pillars, rotting hands grasp at the wall around the pool, and several waterlogged, swollen Corpses pull themselves from the pool and start shambling towards the PC's.
Looking at my notes from that campaign, the only difference I made to the Zombies in that encounter was to give them Fire Resistance 5, and yet those 5 Sodden Zombies were one of the hardest fights of that campaign for a group of lvl 2 PCs.
Alternatively, and this is an idea I've yet to fully expand upon or write down, was the PC's have to go through a narrow cramped dungeon before finally ending up in a wide antechamber where the McGuffin, or treasure or plot-device is on a plinth in the centre of the room. When a PC picks up the item the walls start spewing out bones, which coalesce into multiple Skeletons (Use the Exploding Skeleton template for extra fun) before any PC's who are in the room are surrounded. and the doors to the room slam shut.
Using the Explosive Skeleton template in this fight, with its cramped conditions makes for a fun potential chain reaction when the first Skeleton goes down.
And these are just the 2 most common types of undead, I can think of off the top of my head, I haven't even got into Ghouls, Ghasts, Draugr, Wights, Mummies, Haunts, Dullahans, Crypt Things, or anything else.
So I suppose what I'm saying is that, get grave-digging you'll never know what you might come up with.
For example, and I've used this encounter to great effect, the party is walking through an old Forest following an overgrown trail and they come upon an abandoned temple (any god, but I used Pharasma), the interior is gloomy and poorly lit by intermittent beams of light coming from Ivy covered holes in the ceiling, just inside the door, there are three crumbling pillars each 10ft apart from each other and the walls. Beyond the pillars (about 15-20ft) lies a 4 foot tall wall that surrounds a murky, stagnant pool, almost 20ft wide and 40 ft long, its surface covered in rotting leaves, and thick scum, the water laps several inches below
As the PC's approach the Pillars, rotting hands grasp at the wall around the pool, and several waterlogged, swollen Corpses pull themselves from the pool and start shambling towards the PC's.
Looking at my notes from that campaign, the only difference I made to the Zombies in that encounter was to give them Fire Resistance 5, and yet those 5 Sodden Zombies were one of the hardest fights of that campaign for a group of lvl 2 PCs.
Alternatively, and this is an idea I've yet to fully expand upon or write down, was the PC's have to go through a narrow cramped dungeon before finally ending up in a wide antechamber where the McGuffin, or treasure or plot-device is on a plinth in the centre of the room. When a PC picks up the item the walls start spewing out bones, which coalesce into multiple Skeletons (Use the Exploding Skeleton template for extra fun) before any PC's who are in the room are surrounded. and the doors to the room slam shut.
Using the Explosive Skeleton template in this fight, with its cramped conditions makes for a fun potential chain reaction when the first Skeleton goes down.
And these are just the 2 most common types of undead, I can think of off the top of my head, I haven't even got into Ghouls, Ghasts, Draugr, Wights, Mummies, Haunts, Dullahans, Crypt Things, or anything else.
So I suppose what I'm saying is that, get grave-digging you'll never know what you might come up with.
Thursday, 20 November 2014
Journel Entry 3
Gulag is dead, this journal is now deactivated.
Wiped out by an Undead with explosive Cysts and a failed save.
Please wait while party either clears dungeon, or gets wiped before I start new character Journal.
Have a good one, and treasure any character still living, for death is swift, sudden and unwelcome.
Wiped out by an Undead with explosive Cysts and a failed save.
Please wait while party either clears dungeon, or gets wiped before I start new character Journal.
Have a good one, and treasure any character still living, for death is swift, sudden and unwelcome.
Tuesday, 18 November 2014
Character Growth: You Gotta Have a Goal
Do you have a goal? You can't be a hooker forever.
Character motivations are a rare and beautiful beast, done well you'll never see them at all, done poorly you'll see them all over the place, and if a character has no motivation beyond "go there, kill thing, XP, ???, Profit" then it will be the most visible thing ever.
They also happen to one of the most divisive thing ever in my group, possible many more groups, and when a DM attempts to force a motivation onto players it can ruin that player's enjoyment of a game.
So what's the point of character motivation where if you do it well it won't be noticed, and a bad character motivation takes away from the game? Simple, it's your character, your dudes, your world, why would you not want to have them go through challenges, achieve personal victories, and make their mark on the world?
"No, it's a game, all that matters is getting sweet loot, and being powerful", I hear none of you say, mostly because I'm secure behind the internet, and also I trust most of you guys to be smart, decent, emotionally invested, and awesome players, and while I may be entirely wrong, I want to be right on that count.
So how about a player's who's character motivation acts against the party? They're fine. I mean I don't like them, but people disagree, and character motivations are not exempt to this rule, PC's are going to disagree, and having 2 characters argue about how to proceed is as natural as breathing, interfere if it comes to blows, in game or out of game, mostly because it's a game.
So how about characters that are made to get revenge on a PC, and make it their sole reason to continue existing, maybe because that PC killed that player's previous character, or because the PC wants to play a CE prick who does things because reasons? I call these spite characters, and occasionally spite players, what do you do with them? I dunno.
Some people like to fuck with them, constantly killing each new spite character as it comes along, some people try to talk to them and get them to stop it for the sake of the group, some people just kick them out, never to return, leaving other gaming groups to deal with their spite. I haven't had to deal any spite players yet, besides the occasional "Let's keep a secret from Chris and only Chris" but that's fair enough, it was the sort of secret I would rage over, and did rage over when it was revealed (As an aside, leadership is bullshit).
As it stands Character motivations are one of those nebulous areas of RPG's where no-one is right and no-one is wrong.
But regardless shoot for the moon, it'll be awesome, and you'll have a story to tell.
Character motivations are a rare and beautiful beast, done well you'll never see them at all, done poorly you'll see them all over the place, and if a character has no motivation beyond "go there, kill thing, XP, ???, Profit" then it will be the most visible thing ever.
They also happen to one of the most divisive thing ever in my group, possible many more groups, and when a DM attempts to force a motivation onto players it can ruin that player's enjoyment of a game.
So what's the point of character motivation where if you do it well it won't be noticed, and a bad character motivation takes away from the game? Simple, it's your character, your dudes, your world, why would you not want to have them go through challenges, achieve personal victories, and make their mark on the world?
"No, it's a game, all that matters is getting sweet loot, and being powerful", I hear none of you say, mostly because I'm secure behind the internet, and also I trust most of you guys to be smart, decent, emotionally invested, and awesome players, and while I may be entirely wrong, I want to be right on that count.
So how about a player's who's character motivation acts against the party? They're fine. I mean I don't like them, but people disagree, and character motivations are not exempt to this rule, PC's are going to disagree, and having 2 characters argue about how to proceed is as natural as breathing, interfere if it comes to blows, in game or out of game, mostly because it's a game.
So how about characters that are made to get revenge on a PC, and make it their sole reason to continue existing, maybe because that PC killed that player's previous character, or because the PC wants to play a CE prick who does things because reasons? I call these spite characters, and occasionally spite players, what do you do with them? I dunno.
Some people like to fuck with them, constantly killing each new spite character as it comes along, some people try to talk to them and get them to stop it for the sake of the group, some people just kick them out, never to return, leaving other gaming groups to deal with their spite. I haven't had to deal any spite players yet, besides the occasional "Let's keep a secret from Chris and only Chris" but that's fair enough, it was the sort of secret I would rage over, and did rage over when it was revealed (As an aside, leadership is bullshit).
As it stands Character motivations are one of those nebulous areas of RPG's where no-one is right and no-one is wrong.
But regardless shoot for the moon, it'll be awesome, and you'll have a story to tell.
Friday, 14 November 2014
Story Time: You Find...
Okay, this is a continuation of my last post, sort of.
For those of you expecting another character journal, game got called this week on account of schedule, and so I decided to bless you with another story Time post, so ... are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
So in my last post I talked about how the DM for that campaign took the time to make what is quite literally the first full world map I have ever seen for any homebrew campaign, and I love that fact, it helps the world feel real, and gives me a point of reference when the game is happening, even if he doesn't really use it, I'm grateful for the fact that he even took the time to make it.
Now here's the crux, what does the map have? Town names, Forests, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and Political Borders.
In other words, the bare minimum that a map should have if you're making a map that goes into an atlas.
I did talk to him about putting roads in at one point, I can't remember when, and he said that "It's kinda obvious where the roads should be man" and I couldn't argue with him, because 1) it kind of is obvious, and 2), well if there's nothing in the way then the road goes in a mostly straight line, otherwise it follows a river, the coast, or contours around the mountains, not really necessary to draw a bunch of straight lines all over your shiny new maps.
Here's where my point comes in.
Let's say you're a player, and your party is travelling down one of these straight line,empty plains roads, your DM is grabbing his notes on the next city while you and the others maybe describe the journey, maybe chat amongst yourselves in character or out of character, and one of you decides that he wants to describe one part of the landscape, or go off the rails. And so he says loudly.
"I spot a stone circle/ copse of trees/ abandoned structure a short distance from the road" before calling the groups attention to it and going to explore it. The rest of the group, motivated by loot, exp, or RP may follow or not.
Now as a DM your first inclination may be to just go, you find this place, but it's mostly abandoned, except for a nest of starlings/ Bats/ Mice or some other harmless creature entity, and if your players do this a lot, then I'd recommend doing this roughly 2 out of 3 times, it's not like the entire world is festooned with dungeons, abandoned temples full of loot, secret wizard towers or hidden dens of rare monsters. But this tells you 2 things, 1) your players, at least one is interested enough in your world to want to explore and 2), that player is bored enough to start trying to force exploration.
At this point you've got 2 options, 1) the above option where you deflect the exploration, and get your players back on the rails or 2) drop your city notes, and see if you've got a random dungeon ready to go, or make one up on the spot, before using the completion of the dungeon to push the players towards the town where you wanted them, either to sell their shiny new loot, or to lick their wounds depending on how well they did.
Now I'm aware that no everyone is amazing at improvisation so I'll put down a couple of examples that anyone can use.
Ancient Barrow: A player spots a Barrow several hundred meters from the road before running over to inspect it for loot, or check it for the unquiet dead, the classics here would be Barrow Wights, Sword Wights, and Cairn Wights, although if you wanted to have some fun, there could be ghouls that have settled here and use the Barrow as a home base from which to attack travellers who camp nearby.
Stone Circle: Players with decent perception (+8 or higher) notice that there's a breeze coming from the base of an altar in the centre of the circle, any player who can move the altar will find a circular chamber with a powerful planar seal. Natural constructs, wood Golems or elementals try to force the players away without them disturbing the seal, turning violent if the PC's try to use force, or Undead sealed within the chamber try to use the PC's to break the seal holding back a powerful Lich or Demon which becomes a extended sub-plot throughout the campaign.
Huntsman's Cottage: A PC who notices this cottage can approach and knock on the door, either meeting a friendly old woman who offers them come inside, have some food, and rest for the night, eventually her husband comes back with a dead deer/wolf and offers to sell the PC's the hide for crafting purposes at a fairly low price if the PC's tell him stories of their adventures, alternatively the PC knock on the door, and is greeted with silence, entering the cottage he sees the dead body of an old man and woman, before their killer ambushes him.
Abandoned Tower: A PC who draws the parties attention to an old, derelict tower, after venturing inside they trigger a magical summoning trap which creates a number of suitable creatures for Summon Monster IV or V, that last for 11 rounds, or they find why the tower is derelict, one of the owners experiments escaped, and has made this tower its home that it defends with its life.
Stand of Trees: A PC who suggests a stand of trees as a good camping spot may by accident have set up shop a stone throw away from a den of wolves who are sleeping at the moment, or Pixies and Sprites come in the night and start playing pranks on the Party.
Broken Wagon: A classic, whether done by bandits, the wagon owner transporting dangerous animals and magical beasts that have broken free, or just a wagon breaking down and needing repairs.
Moorland Pool:A PC stops to fill up his canteen from a quick running stream that feeds into a small pool, if the PC's all decide to stop and water their horses for a short while, then whatever has made that pool its hunting ground attacks.
... and with that I'm out of ideas for now.
Just remember, the wasteland holds more adventure than just the plot, and exploring can reap great rewards.
Best of luck.
For those of you expecting another character journal, game got called this week on account of schedule, and so I decided to bless you with another story Time post, so ... are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
So in my last post I talked about how the DM for that campaign took the time to make what is quite literally the first full world map I have ever seen for any homebrew campaign, and I love that fact, it helps the world feel real, and gives me a point of reference when the game is happening, even if he doesn't really use it, I'm grateful for the fact that he even took the time to make it.
Now here's the crux, what does the map have? Town names, Forests, Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and Political Borders.
In other words, the bare minimum that a map should have if you're making a map that goes into an atlas.
I did talk to him about putting roads in at one point, I can't remember when, and he said that "It's kinda obvious where the roads should be man" and I couldn't argue with him, because 1) it kind of is obvious, and 2), well if there's nothing in the way then the road goes in a mostly straight line, otherwise it follows a river, the coast, or contours around the mountains, not really necessary to draw a bunch of straight lines all over your shiny new maps.
Here's where my point comes in.
Let's say you're a player, and your party is travelling down one of these straight line,empty plains roads, your DM is grabbing his notes on the next city while you and the others maybe describe the journey, maybe chat amongst yourselves in character or out of character, and one of you decides that he wants to describe one part of the landscape, or go off the rails. And so he says loudly.
"I spot a stone circle/ copse of trees/ abandoned structure a short distance from the road" before calling the groups attention to it and going to explore it. The rest of the group, motivated by loot, exp, or RP may follow or not.
Now as a DM your first inclination may be to just go, you find this place, but it's mostly abandoned, except for a nest of starlings/ Bats/ Mice or some other harmless creature entity, and if your players do this a lot, then I'd recommend doing this roughly 2 out of 3 times, it's not like the entire world is festooned with dungeons, abandoned temples full of loot, secret wizard towers or hidden dens of rare monsters. But this tells you 2 things, 1) your players, at least one is interested enough in your world to want to explore and 2), that player is bored enough to start trying to force exploration.
At this point you've got 2 options, 1) the above option where you deflect the exploration, and get your players back on the rails or 2) drop your city notes, and see if you've got a random dungeon ready to go, or make one up on the spot, before using the completion of the dungeon to push the players towards the town where you wanted them, either to sell their shiny new loot, or to lick their wounds depending on how well they did.
Now I'm aware that no everyone is amazing at improvisation so I'll put down a couple of examples that anyone can use.
Ancient Barrow: A player spots a Barrow several hundred meters from the road before running over to inspect it for loot, or check it for the unquiet dead, the classics here would be Barrow Wights, Sword Wights, and Cairn Wights, although if you wanted to have some fun, there could be ghouls that have settled here and use the Barrow as a home base from which to attack travellers who camp nearby.
Stone Circle: Players with decent perception (+8 or higher) notice that there's a breeze coming from the base of an altar in the centre of the circle, any player who can move the altar will find a circular chamber with a powerful planar seal. Natural constructs, wood Golems or elementals try to force the players away without them disturbing the seal, turning violent if the PC's try to use force, or Undead sealed within the chamber try to use the PC's to break the seal holding back a powerful Lich or Demon which becomes a extended sub-plot throughout the campaign.
Huntsman's Cottage: A PC who notices this cottage can approach and knock on the door, either meeting a friendly old woman who offers them come inside, have some food, and rest for the night, eventually her husband comes back with a dead deer/wolf and offers to sell the PC's the hide for crafting purposes at a fairly low price if the PC's tell him stories of their adventures, alternatively the PC knock on the door, and is greeted with silence, entering the cottage he sees the dead body of an old man and woman, before their killer ambushes him.
Abandoned Tower: A PC who draws the parties attention to an old, derelict tower, after venturing inside they trigger a magical summoning trap which creates a number of suitable creatures for Summon Monster IV or V, that last for 11 rounds, or they find why the tower is derelict, one of the owners experiments escaped, and has made this tower its home that it defends with its life.
Stand of Trees: A PC who suggests a stand of trees as a good camping spot may by accident have set up shop a stone throw away from a den of wolves who are sleeping at the moment, or Pixies and Sprites come in the night and start playing pranks on the Party.
Broken Wagon: A classic, whether done by bandits, the wagon owner transporting dangerous animals and magical beasts that have broken free, or just a wagon breaking down and needing repairs.
Moorland Pool:A PC stops to fill up his canteen from a quick running stream that feeds into a small pool, if the PC's all decide to stop and water their horses for a short while, then whatever has made that pool its hunting ground attacks.
... and with that I'm out of ideas for now.
Just remember, the wasteland holds more adventure than just the plot, and exploring can reap great rewards.
Best of luck.
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Story Time: Empty Spaces & Loneliness
Empty Spaces, what are we playing for?
For those of you who are reading these posts in order, trawling through whatever mess of an archive I have, firstly I apologise, secondly, if you read the massive "Real Talk" segment from Seltyiel's last journal entry, may have gleaned that I'm both annoyed with my DM, and bored/confused with his campaign, I should probably clear this up in my normal rambling, tangential, circular manner.
Firstly I should probably talk about what the DM said he was trying to do with the campaign. He was, and I paraphrase "Trying to get a very "Game of Thrones" style sandbox campaign with the big bads being the Seven Sins" now this being his first campaign I sent him two APs, "Kingmaker" and "Rise of the Runelords" both having themes that touch with what he was/is trying to do.
Secondly, he's only, as far as I know, watched the "Game of Thrones" series on TV. Now I'm not being some kind of elitist reading snob, there are plenty of positive sides to telling a story through a televised series, for one thing it allows the environments and world to feel solid and tangible, and it makes the action far more visceral, however I think "A Song of Fire and Ice" lost something very important in its translation to the small screen; scale.
Watching the TV series and reading each book side by side, the world feels somehow smaller, like cramming the books into 10 episodes, 60 minutes of runtime each means that a lot of the non-essential world building has to be thrown to the roadside so we can have more sex, violence, politics, and memes. I feel like I'm watching a world in snippets only being shown the bare essentials where the only things happening on screen are vitally important to the plot.
Now I know that's not fair, if you're going to take the time out of your schedule to read a 600+ page book, and a 1 hour TV show you obviously have differing amounts of free time, and you can't have an episode where all the characters do is ride on horseback and make small talk about how nice the weather is, or how they're interested in old books, while dedicating several pages in a book to such activities is much easier, if no less boring when done incorrectly; but Pathfinder is neither a TV show or a Book, it is an RPG.
It is equally reliant on the players and the DM to tell the story. A story that can change with the roll of a dice.
It is a game reliant on clear, concise, communication.
It is a world populated by one person.
It is easy to fuck up.
So let's start at the beginning.
Campaign begins, M, K, and S are in a battle with their NPC charge, a prince. the battle goes poorly and they flee into the forest, where they eventually meet Me, C and V's original character, and get to the city of Kentonborough within a day. After staying the night at Kentonborough, we get a cart to the Capital city of Rhuen, along the way we are attacked by a mysterious assassin after the life of the Prince. We keep the prince alive as we travel to Rhuen, and spend the night there, before leaving the next day, the prince rewarding us for escorting him and saving his life. It takes us half a day to make our way to Bastion Zenith (which considering it's twice the distance on the map from Kentonborough to Rhuen astounds me) where M, S, C and K are given their continuing orders, M has a duel to the death because he felt insulted and wins because he cheated, before we rest another night, M and V perform a blood sacrifice to an unknown deity that whispers 2 days in their heads, before M, breaks all of his vows and breaks a small girl out of jail. We continue on towards High Haven, a journey that takes another 1/2 day despite what the map says, and pick up another jail-breaker on the way. Once we reach High-Haven we don't rest for the night, except Seltyiel who makes the most of his Ring of Sustenance and naps for 2 hours on a rooftop, before we are kicked out of the city to deal with the Von Heltzer Army that is laying siege to the city, which we do in one night, as the Lord of High Haven, and Sij, V's original character are killed by an assassin. We are then given a night of rest, and leave the city for the 4 hour road trip back to bastion Zenith which I have ceased caring about because space is warped and time is bendable, where M reports back to his boss, and is told to go conquer High Haven in the name of the Queen, which we do in probably the most violent and bloody way possible, because of course D'n'D has to bloody and violent, what's this diplomacy shit you keep talking about, and that's where we got up to.
If you've noticed one thing missing from this wall of text, it would be, we take the day to recuperate, relax, craft some potions, try and find some better gear; additionally, although the DM took the time to make what is quite literally the first world map I have seen made for any of our campaigns, he refuses to use it, instead warping distances so we arrive whenever he wants us to, and removing any chance for world building, or learning about the world, instead just throwing us into combat after combat, not realising that all he's doing is basically running a dungeon crawl with no roof.
Empty space is incredibly important for setting atmosphere and setting, allowing characters to slowly get invested in a world, especially when your players know next to nothing about the world they're in, good examples of this would be Dark Souls and Fallout 3, both massively empty games, full of desolation, monsters, and a storied history that you're only going to find out if you explore; this is especially important for PC's who are already separated from the game world by the 4th wall, unable to know what their character feels, tastes, smells, sees and hears, except what snippets are told to them by the DM.
Empty space also allows PC's and Players to rest, recover, absorb what just happened, there has to be a calm point, an up to a down, a yin to a yang. If all you eat is chicken mcnuggets then your body is going to go, get the fuck out, and throw them out, possibly shut-down completely.
The point I'm trying laboriously to get to is this, Pathfinder is not a TV show; without empty space or rest time you confuse and tire your players, and lessen the importance of your campaign world. I could tell you more about the seaside, mining town we spent three days in, than I could tell you about A's entire world, and it's all because we had to wait there with nothing to do but explore.
Leave your world empty, it'll be that much more fun to explore, for both you and your PC's.
For those of you who are reading these posts in order, trawling through whatever mess of an archive I have, firstly I apologise, secondly, if you read the massive "Real Talk" segment from Seltyiel's last journal entry, may have gleaned that I'm both annoyed with my DM, and bored/confused with his campaign, I should probably clear this up in my normal rambling, tangential, circular manner.
Firstly I should probably talk about what the DM said he was trying to do with the campaign. He was, and I paraphrase "Trying to get a very "Game of Thrones" style sandbox campaign with the big bads being the Seven Sins" now this being his first campaign I sent him two APs, "Kingmaker" and "Rise of the Runelords" both having themes that touch with what he was/is trying to do.
Secondly, he's only, as far as I know, watched the "Game of Thrones" series on TV. Now I'm not being some kind of elitist reading snob, there are plenty of positive sides to telling a story through a televised series, for one thing it allows the environments and world to feel solid and tangible, and it makes the action far more visceral, however I think "A Song of Fire and Ice" lost something very important in its translation to the small screen; scale.
Watching the TV series and reading each book side by side, the world feels somehow smaller, like cramming the books into 10 episodes, 60 minutes of runtime each means that a lot of the non-essential world building has to be thrown to the roadside so we can have more sex, violence, politics, and memes. I feel like I'm watching a world in snippets only being shown the bare essentials where the only things happening on screen are vitally important to the plot.
Now I know that's not fair, if you're going to take the time out of your schedule to read a 600+ page book, and a 1 hour TV show you obviously have differing amounts of free time, and you can't have an episode where all the characters do is ride on horseback and make small talk about how nice the weather is, or how they're interested in old books, while dedicating several pages in a book to such activities is much easier, if no less boring when done incorrectly; but Pathfinder is neither a TV show or a Book, it is an RPG.
It is equally reliant on the players and the DM to tell the story. A story that can change with the roll of a dice.
It is a game reliant on clear, concise, communication.
It is a world populated by one person.
It is easy to fuck up.
So let's start at the beginning.
Campaign begins, M, K, and S are in a battle with their NPC charge, a prince. the battle goes poorly and they flee into the forest, where they eventually meet Me, C and V's original character, and get to the city of Kentonborough within a day. After staying the night at Kentonborough, we get a cart to the Capital city of Rhuen, along the way we are attacked by a mysterious assassin after the life of the Prince. We keep the prince alive as we travel to Rhuen, and spend the night there, before leaving the next day, the prince rewarding us for escorting him and saving his life. It takes us half a day to make our way to Bastion Zenith (which considering it's twice the distance on the map from Kentonborough to Rhuen astounds me) where M, S, C and K are given their continuing orders, M has a duel to the death because he felt insulted and wins because he cheated, before we rest another night, M and V perform a blood sacrifice to an unknown deity that whispers 2 days in their heads, before M, breaks all of his vows and breaks a small girl out of jail. We continue on towards High Haven, a journey that takes another 1/2 day despite what the map says, and pick up another jail-breaker on the way. Once we reach High-Haven we don't rest for the night, except Seltyiel who makes the most of his Ring of Sustenance and naps for 2 hours on a rooftop, before we are kicked out of the city to deal with the Von Heltzer Army that is laying siege to the city, which we do in one night, as the Lord of High Haven, and Sij, V's original character are killed by an assassin. We are then given a night of rest, and leave the city for the 4 hour road trip back to bastion Zenith which I have ceased caring about because space is warped and time is bendable, where M reports back to his boss, and is told to go conquer High Haven in the name of the Queen, which we do in probably the most violent and bloody way possible, because of course D'n'D has to bloody and violent, what's this diplomacy shit you keep talking about, and that's where we got up to.
If you've noticed one thing missing from this wall of text, it would be, we take the day to recuperate, relax, craft some potions, try and find some better gear; additionally, although the DM took the time to make what is quite literally the first world map I have seen made for any of our campaigns, he refuses to use it, instead warping distances so we arrive whenever he wants us to, and removing any chance for world building, or learning about the world, instead just throwing us into combat after combat, not realising that all he's doing is basically running a dungeon crawl with no roof.
Empty space is incredibly important for setting atmosphere and setting, allowing characters to slowly get invested in a world, especially when your players know next to nothing about the world they're in, good examples of this would be Dark Souls and Fallout 3, both massively empty games, full of desolation, monsters, and a storied history that you're only going to find out if you explore; this is especially important for PC's who are already separated from the game world by the 4th wall, unable to know what their character feels, tastes, smells, sees and hears, except what snippets are told to them by the DM.
Empty space also allows PC's and Players to rest, recover, absorb what just happened, there has to be a calm point, an up to a down, a yin to a yang. If all you eat is chicken mcnuggets then your body is going to go, get the fuck out, and throw them out, possibly shut-down completely.
The point I'm trying laboriously to get to is this, Pathfinder is not a TV show; without empty space or rest time you confuse and tire your players, and lessen the importance of your campaign world. I could tell you more about the seaside, mining town we spent three days in, than I could tell you about A's entire world, and it's all because we had to wait there with nothing to do but explore.
Leave your world empty, it'll be that much more fun to explore, for both you and your PC's.
Saturday, 8 November 2014
Journey Journal, Entry 2, Same Day, Date still unknown
So Hel pointed out that I'd misspelled Journal in my last entry, I graciously accepted the fact I'd made a mistake before she was called away by Neffarion again, probably to spit shine his armour while he engages in acts of bloody debauchery.
So a lot happened after we left the Hell-Knight den of iniquity, mostly the bloody and violent invasion of a major city with the aid of 10 Hell-Knights, 3 of them Signifers, that was aligned with their cause as far as I knew; I'll explain from the beginning.
Real Talk, I have no clue why we invaded this city and put it to the sword, they were planning on defecting because the royal court wasn't sending them any reinforcements to a problem that had showed up either 2/3 days prior, or 4 months ago, either way sensible story telling took it right in the logical progression of time. The lord, and his counsel including some fairly important city figures promised to not defect if the party dealt with the 2000+ strong army of Paladin's, Knights, Fighters and trained Griffins, which we did by crippling their command structure in a night of brutal and rapid assassinations, during this night the lord was killed by a member of Ramos's order, because reasons, and according to the campaigns DM, the moment a lord dies, the city loses it's entire command structure, and turns into a melting pot of stupidity, fear, and traitorous intent, any time I questioned this I was met with an answer that was essentially, "Because I want it to be so", and I have been incredibly displeased with the way the DM handled all of this, because he basically made a night of awesome rolls, stellar role-playing, intelligent usage of skills and excellent combat ability entirely pointless. Meta-rant over.
Turns out I'm not very good at horseback riding, as Neffarion gave the signal to halt our steeds some distance before the city gates, my Horse, You, didn't listen to my request to politely stop, and instead charged the city gates on his own initiative, with me still riding him. The guards shot at both You and I, prompting him to throw me from the saddle and dump me arse over teakettle on the ground before cantering away, and fading out of existence.
Taking the arrows as a sign of a fight about to break out, and knowing that if I stuck around I was going to see something that made me deeply and personally unhappy, maybe even enraged, I decided to fly to the castle hoping to persuade the idiot who was running the show to surrender, instead what I found was a bunch of palace servants and unofficials looting the place and taking as much money as they could.
After relieving what appeared to be a minor unofficial of some gold, I decided, rather on the spur of the moment to, empty the Castle's vault of all the gold I could find, for a purpose I shouldn't elaborate on until it comes to pass, that's a fun turn of phrase isn't it Journal? comes to pass.
Anyway, as part of my cunning ruse, I headed down to the castle jail, and busied myself with rummaging through the confiscated bin, pretending that I thought I could find something of rare value there.
I'm going to stop writing now, I think I can hear someone coming, I'm too deep in this plan to stop, and my success is entirely up to the winds of fate and the whims of the gods.
So a lot happened after we left the Hell-Knight den of iniquity, mostly the bloody and violent invasion of a major city with the aid of 10 Hell-Knights, 3 of them Signifers, that was aligned with their cause as far as I knew; I'll explain from the beginning.
Real Talk, I have no clue why we invaded this city and put it to the sword, they were planning on defecting because the royal court wasn't sending them any reinforcements to a problem that had showed up either 2/3 days prior, or 4 months ago, either way sensible story telling took it right in the logical progression of time. The lord, and his counsel including some fairly important city figures promised to not defect if the party dealt with the 2000+ strong army of Paladin's, Knights, Fighters and trained Griffins, which we did by crippling their command structure in a night of brutal and rapid assassinations, during this night the lord was killed by a member of Ramos's order, because reasons, and according to the campaigns DM, the moment a lord dies, the city loses it's entire command structure, and turns into a melting pot of stupidity, fear, and traitorous intent, any time I questioned this I was met with an answer that was essentially, "Because I want it to be so", and I have been incredibly displeased with the way the DM handled all of this, because he basically made a night of awesome rolls, stellar role-playing, intelligent usage of skills and excellent combat ability entirely pointless. Meta-rant over.
Turns out I'm not very good at horseback riding, as Neffarion gave the signal to halt our steeds some distance before the city gates, my Horse, You, didn't listen to my request to politely stop, and instead charged the city gates on his own initiative, with me still riding him. The guards shot at both You and I, prompting him to throw me from the saddle and dump me arse over teakettle on the ground before cantering away, and fading out of existence.
Taking the arrows as a sign of a fight about to break out, and knowing that if I stuck around I was going to see something that made me deeply and personally unhappy, maybe even enraged, I decided to fly to the castle hoping to persuade the idiot who was running the show to surrender, instead what I found was a bunch of palace servants and unofficials looting the place and taking as much money as they could.
After relieving what appeared to be a minor unofficial of some gold, I decided, rather on the spur of the moment to, empty the Castle's vault of all the gold I could find, for a purpose I shouldn't elaborate on until it comes to pass, that's a fun turn of phrase isn't it Journal? comes to pass.
Anyway, as part of my cunning ruse, I headed down to the castle jail, and busied myself with rummaging through the confiscated bin, pretending that I thought I could find something of rare value there.
I'm going to stop writing now, I think I can hear someone coming, I'm too deep in this plan to stop, and my success is entirely up to the winds of fate and the whims of the gods.
Thursday, 6 November 2014
Mechanical Talk: Blazing a path with Firearms
Okay, so last time I talked about Broken characters, and anyone who is not my friends will notice I put down Pathfinders firearms as an example of broken mechanics under a particulars persons opinion, I should probably be clear as to why I chose that example.
I love the Firearms in Pathfinder.
Gameplay-wise it takes nothing away and adds another dimension to swords, stealth, and sorcery. Story-wise there's that pulpy feel of a junker pistol misfiring in your hand when you need it most. Character-wise, tell me that not one of you has wanted to do the Dirty Harry "Do ya feel lucky, well do ya punk?" thing, or the wandering Gunslinger, striding out of town into the setting sun.
Medieval stasis has its place, don't get me wrong, if the next Hobbit or Silmarillion Film (ya know they're gonna do it, if only to make some more money) comes out, and suddenly we've got Dwarves wielding shotguns and Elves duel wielding Uzis, I'm going to just as betrayed as the next person, Middle Earth is not the place for that kind of stuff, it goes against one of the underlying themes of the universe.
But similarly, not all fantasy universes should be stuck in a medieval setting. I have argued multiple times with my friends, and my family on occasion, that although you've got magic, that does not break the underlying rules of physics, matter cannot occupy the same space as matter, two identical entities cannot exist at the same time (although I can explain why there could be 2 of someone running about without breaking this rule, it hinges on observation which alters the state of things), thermodynamics still works, and you can't opt out of Gravity without some serious mystical mojo, and a lot of diamond dust.
So if science still works on the same central conceits, then the advancement of science will take the same general path, maybe we'll get penicillin before flintlock pistols, maybe we'll never learn anything about pathology before someone creates a rotor-craft capable of basic aviation, but science will still advance, it's what science does.
Which brings us back to, in a roundabout way, Firearms. Firearms represent the continual advancement in military technology as kingdoms without magical capabilities search for a method to match magic users on the field of battle, and the rules for Firearms in Pathfinder remind me a lot of a casters ray spells, in their application and execution.
So let's start with how Firearms work in game. basic one-handed or two-handed firearms, same rules one-handed do less damage, but give you a free hand either to use a shield or use another firearm, while two-handed firearms do more damage and have better range but take longer to reload. However unlike bows and crossbows, the fighters normal method of enacting ranged slaughter on his enemies Firearms target Touch AC, ignoring a good chunk of most PC's and NPC's armour making them possibly one of the most accurate weapon types in Pathfinder, possibly any RPG.
(I'm not 100% sure, but I remember seeing somewhere recently that Firearms do not ignore Shield Bonuses to AC, but I've been unable to confirm or deny this so, if anyone does know, post a link in the comments please)
This massive bonus to accuracy comes at the cost of your firearm occasionally exploding in your face, each firearm has a misfire range, often in the range of 1 - 3, if a gunslinger naturally rolls one of these result on the to hit roll, the firearm misfires, initially breaking, which expands the misfire chance by a +4 making it more likely to misfire again, subsequently exploding. This is a bad thing since now, not only are you the possessor of a stump where your hand should be, you've also lost something to the tune of at least 1,000 GP, often more.
Naturally the Gunslinger class, and other class archetypes that specialise in Firearms have some methods of restoring a Firearm to proper condition given enough time and money, but a Firearm misfiring in the middle of a fight can change the flow of battle significantly, often with disastrous consequences for the wielder.
At the end of this post all I can say is that while I'm unlikely to change to opinions of the players who hate Firearms for story reasons, or the way they alter game balance, I do encourage all of you to give them a shot (figuratively, don't take a gun and wander down the street shooting wildly into the air, that'll get you arrested in most places) and see just how much you enjoy them.
I hope you have a blast.
I love the Firearms in Pathfinder.
Gameplay-wise it takes nothing away and adds another dimension to swords, stealth, and sorcery. Story-wise there's that pulpy feel of a junker pistol misfiring in your hand when you need it most. Character-wise, tell me that not one of you has wanted to do the Dirty Harry "Do ya feel lucky, well do ya punk?" thing, or the wandering Gunslinger, striding out of town into the setting sun.
Medieval stasis has its place, don't get me wrong, if the next Hobbit or Silmarillion Film (ya know they're gonna do it, if only to make some more money) comes out, and suddenly we've got Dwarves wielding shotguns and Elves duel wielding Uzis, I'm going to just as betrayed as the next person, Middle Earth is not the place for that kind of stuff, it goes against one of the underlying themes of the universe.
But similarly, not all fantasy universes should be stuck in a medieval setting. I have argued multiple times with my friends, and my family on occasion, that although you've got magic, that does not break the underlying rules of physics, matter cannot occupy the same space as matter, two identical entities cannot exist at the same time (although I can explain why there could be 2 of someone running about without breaking this rule, it hinges on observation which alters the state of things), thermodynamics still works, and you can't opt out of Gravity without some serious mystical mojo, and a lot of diamond dust.
So if science still works on the same central conceits, then the advancement of science will take the same general path, maybe we'll get penicillin before flintlock pistols, maybe we'll never learn anything about pathology before someone creates a rotor-craft capable of basic aviation, but science will still advance, it's what science does.
Which brings us back to, in a roundabout way, Firearms. Firearms represent the continual advancement in military technology as kingdoms without magical capabilities search for a method to match magic users on the field of battle, and the rules for Firearms in Pathfinder remind me a lot of a casters ray spells, in their application and execution.
So let's start with how Firearms work in game. basic one-handed or two-handed firearms, same rules one-handed do less damage, but give you a free hand either to use a shield or use another firearm, while two-handed firearms do more damage and have better range but take longer to reload. However unlike bows and crossbows, the fighters normal method of enacting ranged slaughter on his enemies Firearms target Touch AC, ignoring a good chunk of most PC's and NPC's armour making them possibly one of the most accurate weapon types in Pathfinder, possibly any RPG.
(I'm not 100% sure, but I remember seeing somewhere recently that Firearms do not ignore Shield Bonuses to AC, but I've been unable to confirm or deny this so, if anyone does know, post a link in the comments please)
This massive bonus to accuracy comes at the cost of your firearm occasionally exploding in your face, each firearm has a misfire range, often in the range of 1 - 3, if a gunslinger naturally rolls one of these result on the to hit roll, the firearm misfires, initially breaking, which expands the misfire chance by a +4 making it more likely to misfire again, subsequently exploding. This is a bad thing since now, not only are you the possessor of a stump where your hand should be, you've also lost something to the tune of at least 1,000 GP, often more.
Naturally the Gunslinger class, and other class archetypes that specialise in Firearms have some methods of restoring a Firearm to proper condition given enough time and money, but a Firearm misfiring in the middle of a fight can change the flow of battle significantly, often with disastrous consequences for the wielder.
At the end of this post all I can say is that while I'm unlikely to change to opinions of the players who hate Firearms for story reasons, or the way they alter game balance, I do encourage all of you to give them a shot (figuratively, don't take a gun and wander down the street shooting wildly into the air, that'll get you arrested in most places) and see just how much you enjoy them.
I hope you have a blast.
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