The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

It is a complicated one to be sure. It is a new type of adventure for me to run, but I think I've finally got a handle on it. The secret, I think, is to learn the area and the NPCs rather than the locations. Know who is doing what and what is happening where, and you'll be ready to let your players go wherever they want. If you haven't found them, these may be of help:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4 - especially his campaign outline.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

Thanks for those links. I'll check them out!

(And regardless of how I'm feeling about the game, my kids are having a ball. Especially my middle daughter, who is running a halfling rogue with an apparent death wish.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Holman »

TiLT wrote:So, am I the only one around here who plays the Warhammer 40k RPGs? I've found that both myself and my players have gravitated towards that setting over time, and now it's the game that gives us the best experiences. True to tradition, I'm always the GM.
A few years back I had fun reading the Dark Heresy rulebook. I never played the game, but it inspired me to write a pretty good (IMHO) story set in the W40K universe. It was about the Pontifex of a planet falling to Chaos.

I submitted it to one of the Black Library open submission windows, but word on the street is they accept nothing from nobodies.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by TiLT »

Holman wrote:
TiLT wrote:So, am I the only one around here who plays the Warhammer 40k RPGs? I've found that both myself and my players have gravitated towards that setting over time, and now it's the game that gives us the best experiences. True to tradition, I'm always the GM.
A few years back I had fun reading the Dark Heresy rulebook. I never played the game, but it inspired me to write a pretty good (IMHO) story set in the W40K universe. It was about the Pontifex of a planet falling to Chaos.

I submitted it to one of the Black Library open submission windows, but word on the street is they accept nothing from nobodies.
Well, they've got a pretty good assortment of authors already. :) Actually, I've heard that the regular authors use the RPG books as guidelines when writing their books nowadays too. One specific example someone mentioned was Dan Abnett (their best author bar none) changing his interpretation of starship scale after reading the Rogue Trader rules. If you read his Eisenhorn books, you'll see ships the scale of medium-sized sea ships of our time traveling between stars with only a handful of crew. Heck, Eisenhorn even has a Guncutter with a Warp drive, which is pretty much unheard of since. These days Abnett's scale is on par with Rogue Trader: Starships are kilometers long and contain a crew of tens, sometimes hundreds, of thousands.

My current game is Dark Heresy 2nd Edition. My players are acolytes serving the Ordo Hereticus, and they have fallen out of favor with their Inquisitor since he suspects he's got a traitor among his servants. Right now they're stuck trawling through the underhive of a major hive city, looking for the source of a heretical drug that a group of angelic, bladed maniacs is pushing, while trying hard not to mix up the multiple cases they've got running at the same time. It's awesome. :)
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

So does anyone know how well the old Pathfinder adventure paths work with 5E? Would I have to worry about a lot of conversions, or do the creatures scale pretty well from Pathfinder to 5E?

(I'm off to search other places for opinions, but I always like to ask here before I venture out into the big evil interwebs.)

Edit: Well, general consensus is that it's pretty simple...ignore stat blocks for critters in encounters and just use monster manual stats. Critters should be pretty equal, level wise. Be careful of skill tests, the numbers in older editions of D&D/Pathfinder tended to be higher. And be very careful about treasure, Pathfinder handed out money and magic items pretty freely. Pretty much as I thought.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

From our D&D game last night, as the heroes were sneaking into the necromancer's workshop and see a zombie in a robe working on a body on a table:

Wife (playing human fighter): A zombie making another zombie? That doesn't make any sense! How does that work?

Daughter #2 (playing Halfling rogue): I don't see what the big deal is. You humans seem to make new humans all the time...
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

hentzau wrote:From our D&D game last night, as the heroes were sneaking into the necromancer's workshop and see a zombie in a robe working on a body on a table:

Wife (playing human fighter): A zombie making another zombie? That doesn't make any sense! How does that work?

Daughter #2 (playing Halfling rogue): I don't see what the big deal is. You humans seem to make new humans all the time...
Ha!

If you're playing what I think you're playing, I had his hood up and his back to the party. "Aha!", shouted they. "We've found the necromancer! Alpha strike!" They then proceeded to dump every high-end limited ability into this zombie's back. When the necromancer showed up, they had very little left to fight him with.

They managed to force him to retreat and put down his minions with only one or two characters left standing, then dragged themselves away to heal (by which time he had, of course, reanimated some of said minions.)
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote:
hentzau wrote:From our D&D game last night, as the heroes were sneaking into the necromancer's workshop and see a zombie in a robe working on a body on a table:

Wife (playing human fighter): A zombie making another zombie? That doesn't make any sense! How does that work?

Daughter #2 (playing Halfling rogue): I don't see what the big deal is. You humans seem to make new humans all the time...
Ha!

If you're playing what I think you're playing, I had his hood up and his back to the party. "Aha!", shouted they. "We've found the necromancer! Alpha strike!" They then proceeded to dump every high-end limited ability into this zombie's back. When the necromancer showed up, they had very little left to fight him with.

They managed to force him to retreat and put down his minions with only one or two characters left standing, then dragged themselves away to heal (by which time he had, of course, reanimated some of said minions.)
They played it really smart/cautious. They took a short rest in the room before, and went up the correct corridor. As soon as they saw the light from the room, they sent the rogue ahead to scout. I told her what she saw (based on the set up in the book) and she thought it was too easy a set up. She asked if she could make a perception check to see if she spotted anything unusual about the "necromancer" and rolled a 20 on it. Based on that, I told her that she was able to discern that the movements of the robed figure were very stiff and jerky, and that she could see that the flesh of it's hands were rotted and decomposed. She immediately jumped to the (correct) conclusion that it was a zombie put there to distract them. Then the above conversation occurred.

I gave her an inspiration point for some great deductions and really acting like a rogue.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Madmarcus »

Does anyone have a favorite RPG for a 2 person game? My younger son would like to play while we go to and from school (we drive together). We, mostly I, bounced off of Numenera because of the setting. I like it but the combination of almost anything goes with a fixed premade world just didn't work for me.

Dungeon World would be interesting but I don't think it would work with only one PC. So I'm leaning towards PDQ or FATE.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

If you didn't mind Numenera except for the setting you might like The Strange or the recently released Cypher System (same rules but have information for running a stadard fantasy setting, super hero, horror, or space opera).

While I think Dungeon World works better with more people I see some on the Dungeon World Google+ community state they are playing with just one player)

I know there's an old school game called Scarlet Heroes that's meant for 1 player and 1 GM. I have no idea how it is but the guy who did it did Stars Without Number and Silent Legions which seem to be well received. Here's the link to the quick start rules

http://drivethrurpg.com/product/127458/ ... Quickstart
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Zurai »

Burning Wheel is a very good system for pretty much any number of players, but it might not be a good fit for a school-aged child.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Madmarcus »

Zurai wrote:Burning Wheel is a very good system for pretty much any number of players, but it might not be a good fit for a school-aged child.
I haven't heard of that game in a while. 3-4 years ago I picked up Burning Wheel because my brother was raving about it. It has some nice features but felt very clunky. All the thought processes of a narrative / fiction first game plus all of the fiddly rules of an older game. After a few sessions of my brother and I plus my two sons (early to mid teens at the time) we shelved it.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Madmarcus »

IceBear wrote:If you didn't mind Numenera except for the setting you might like The Strange or the recently released Cypher System (same rules but have information for running a stadard fantasy setting, super hero, horror, or space opera).
The Strange didn't really grab either of us. I could see the Cyber System working out but I'd rather try something else.

[qupte]
I know there's an old school game called Scarlet Heroes that's meant for 1 player and 1 GM. I have no idea how it is but the guy who did it did Stars Without Number and Silent Legions which seem to be well received. Here's the link to the quick start rules

http://drivethrurpg.com/product/127458/ ... Quickstart[/quote]

Interesting call. I had downloaded the quickstarter yesterday but had not read it when I posted. It looks interesting but I'm going to have to give it a longer look.

I spent last night attempting to figure out FATE Core. If I can deal with the metagame economy I think its cool but there is part of me that says I shouldn't jump into a game that depends on compels since that was a mechanic that didn't work well in Numenera.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

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Yeah that's something people who are set in the D&D ways might have trouble with and why I really like Fate but haven't tried to put it on the table yet....I think it is just too "loose" for my group. That said, I was sure I was going to get a lot of resistance to GM intrusions when we played a one shot The Strange adventure. Before we started I basically said that I was going to try to give each of them an intrusion (not including natural 1s) but that I wasn't trying to be a dick just try to provide an interesting twist to the story we were all telling. Surprisingly they were ok with that and not one of them refused their intrusion. Haven't actually run a campaign yet so maybe with established characters they actually care about they might not be so ok with it
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

As much as I love 5e, balancing encounters on the fly is a pain in the ass.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

Blackhawk wrote:As much as I love 5e, balancing encounters on the fly is a pain in the ass.
I haven't hit that yet, but I can see how it would be.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

5E inspiration I just had:

You know what? No more alignments for players in my campaigns.

There are no more mechanics that use them, no more spells that address them, no more items that require them. They're still useful as a quick-and-dirty motivation reference for out-of-the-book monsters, but they tend to limit players rather than encouraging them by making them play in very black-and-white ways.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by TiLT »

Blackhawk wrote:but they tend to limit players rather than encouraging them by making them play in very black-and-white ways.
They also inspire old-school players to pull of stupid shit like the classic AD&D version of the alignment system. "I'm True Neutral, so I'll do something evil for every time I do something good." Even the more reasonable 3.5 alignment system is completely whacky when you stop to think about it. Rich Burlew spends a lot of time subverting the alignment tropes in the Order of the Stick webcomic, to the point where you start to wonder what the point of such a system is if all interesting characters have to subvert it to be... well, interesting.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

Hmmm, my group hasn't really enforced alignment since 2nd Edition. We tended to develop character traits and back story and alignment was what we used to fill in the gaps if something came up that wasn't taken care of said listed character motivation and back story. We never had an Awful Stupid Paladin because of it
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

I still have my players pick out a general alignment because that gives me a "stereotype" to aim at to provide role playing opportunities, as well as to set standards for giving out inspiration rewards. I won't bust their chops if they stray too far from that alignment unless they are a cleric. Especially since I'm playing with my younger son, I will sometimes ask the question "Are you sure your character would do that?" He really goes into D&D with a video gamers perspective...kill everything, loot everything, sort shit out later. I also ask them to review their traits, ideals, bonds and flaws before each session so they get into the mindset of the character.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

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hentzau wrote:I still have my players pick out a general alignment because that gives me a "stereotype" to aim at to provide role playing opportunities, as well as to set standards for giving out inspiration rewards. I won't bust their chops if they stray too far from that alignment unless they are a cleric. Especially since I'm playing with my younger son, I will sometimes ask the question "Are you sure your character would do that?" He really goes into D&D with a video gamers perspective...kill everything, loot everything, sort shit out later. I also ask them to review their traits, ideals, bonds and flaws before each session so they get into the mindset of the character.
Yeah, that's pretty much how we've been doing it for ages now
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

I haven't actually enforced alignment in a long time. When I was thinking last night about how there weren't any mechanics that required it, I started wondering what it was still for. I couldn't come up with anything useful when applied to a player that wasn't better served with the traits system. I've got plenty of other roleplaying games that do a great job of having fleshed out characters with interesting personalities and motivations - elements that D&D has now - without an alignment system.

Far too often I see players trying to find their motivations ('protect my family', 'prevent the rise of tyranny'), while trying to squeeze it into the artificial constraints of 'lawful' or 'chaotic.' It doesn't leave much room for shades of grey. I've seen many players ask if they could play chaotic neutral. When I ask them why, it basically comes down to 'so I can play my character like I want.' - ie, ignore the alignment system.

As an example, I played a character (in a different system) a while back who was a military officer, and completely loyal to the local empire. He discovered a conspiracy, and at one point executed a traitor on the spot. It was a little lawful (he was supporting the true government), a little chaotic (he was taking the law into his own hands, as there was nobody he could trust to do it properly), a little good (got rid of a bad guy), and a little evil (he executed a prisoner without any express authority.) That would have been unusual with D&D, as the character probably would have been lawful good. Every decision becomes 'is this lawful good' instead of 'what would this character do in this situation?'
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

Right, it's an artifact of old school D&D.

But, it's an artifact that doesn't really hurt anything, does it?
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

hentzau wrote:Right, it's an artifact of old school D&D.

But, it's an artifact that doesn't really hurt anything, does it?
I think it does. Players limit interesting characters artificially to fit in with their alignment.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

Blackhawk wrote:
hentzau wrote:Right, it's an artifact of old school D&D.

But, it's an artifact that doesn't really hurt anything, does it?
I think it does. Players limit interesting characters artificially to fit in with their alignment.
Interesting. I haven't noticed that with my players. As mentioned, they tend to act as per their motivations that they've added to their character sheets (especially with Inspiration in 5E). We only default back to their alignment if there's a question about whether or not a player feels if his character would do something (which doesn't come up often). If you feel its impacting your players' creativity negatively feel free to get rid of it. We look at it as a roleplaying challenge the few times it's come up, but honestly find characters sticking to their character backgrounds that limit their actions more than alignment.

I guess we look at alignment as a broad suggestion but have crafted personalities and backgrounds that focus character behaviour. We have a Chaotic Good character that will slaugher any orc warrior / raider he comes across because of his backstory and in his character's mind it is Good (he hasn't killed non-combatant orcs - children for example - yet, and that one might bring up moral issues but I'm not going to forbid him from doing it because he's Good. If he does it enough I may suggest that he changes to CN, but like I said, alignment is there but we've never been a great stickler about it)
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

That's pretty much how I see it. It has some detrimental effect, but no significant benefit, and is still a pain in the ass to explain to new players.

Let the 'lawful good' fighter lose his temper and punch the incompetent sheriff! Let's see a thief who has no moral reservations about stealing property from folks with money, good or evil, but would never take from a poor person or someone of his own nationality. What alignment is that? Compassionate Greedy?

The 5e Characteristics system does everything the alignment system was meant to do, does it better, and is easier for people to grasp as it isn't somehow both black-and-white and abstract at the same time.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Zarathud »

I find players and DMs often need crutches. Traits, quirks, alignment, etc. are all tools, nothing more. DMs and players who get hung up on actions having to follow these systems are stifling. Most of the time and on major quest points, you should have an organic motivation -- kill the traitor on the spot because you've been chasing them and planning what to do. But when something unexpected happens, you might need help.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

Blackhawk wrote:That's pretty much how I see it. It has some detrimental effect, but no significant benefit, and is still a pain in the ass to explain to new players.

Let the 'lawful good' fighter lose his temper and punch the incompetent sheriff! Let's see a thief who has no moral reservations about stealing property from folks with money, good or evil, but would never take from a poor person or someone of his own nationality. What alignment is that? Compassionate Greedy?

The 5e Characteristics system does everything the alignment system was meant to do, does it better, and is easier for people to grasp as it isn't somehow both black-and-white and abstract at the same time.
Ah, see that's where my experience is lacking. All of my players have been playing at least 20 years (a couple of us 30+ years) so we're over the emotional baggage.

The thief I see as Chaotic (doesn't follow the laws) Good or Neutral (depends on your view there). My thief player was constantly stealing from the party members and hiding under tables during a fight. It was in his character so he got inspiration for it (he basically said his character was a coward and a klepto), but eventually the players took him aside and told him to stop running from combat because the group needed his attacks. So, he still fled from melee combat but did use missile weapons and is currently working on a character arc where he overcomes his cowardly nature.

As Zarathud said. it's just a tool to help guide roleplay, but honestly when push comes to shove my players get it done regardless.

Anyway, it doesn't bother my group but if it bothers yours, as you say, it can be dropped without issue. Monte Cook even said that when he was designing 3E he had planned on not using Alignment but they all thought it was a sacred cow and the backlash would have been horrible. The way I see it, it'll probably be gone come 6E but they're still too afraid to pull the trigger so we've got baby steps
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Blackhawk »

It is still a good tool for minor NPCs and monsters who don't really need complex motivations, and I have 30+ years of D&D under my belt, such that the alignments come naturally to me.
IceBear wrote: The way I see it, it'll probably be gone come 6E but they're still too afraid to pull the trigger so we've got baby steps
That's my impression, too. They removed the need for it in 5e, but let it continue to exist in the background for the die-hards. By the time 6e hits, nobody will be paying much attention to it one way or the other.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

You can have my alignments when you pry them from my cold, dead hands! :tjg:
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

hentzau wrote:You can have my alignments when you pry them from my cold, dead hands! :tjg:
So you're the reason Monte didn't take them out in 3E ;)
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The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Zarathud »

While it might be fun to play a klepto coward, it is important to play a character that contributes to the party. Insisting on ranged attacks is a good, workable compromise -- although there were other ways to work it.

In my high school futuristic Car Wars/GURPs campaign, aliens occupied the African continent after human civilization fragmented. I thought it made sense for my PC to be motivated by a desire to seek out the tools to resist the alien invasion. After various skirmishes with the aliens in an ever increasing Monte Haul campaign, the group decided on a Journey into the Heart of Darkness to negotiate a peace. I reminded the group that my character had vowed to resist the aliens and thought peace was impossible. The GM worked the conflict into the story when we were all captured by the aliens--and pointedly asked if my PC would willingly put his life at the mercy of the aliens. My answer was "HELL NO" and my PC's escape and return led to a most memorable 2 day solo RPG adventure (with only 3 combat checks!) and triumphant return to rescue the party--with the information that the aliens were incapable of accepting co-existence but would barter aid for solitude. Convincing the other players that I had valuable information and was not being a dick spoiling their plans was a neat little bit of forced role play.

No alignment system can recreate that drama.
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IceBear
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

Zarathud wrote:While it might be fun to play a klepto coward, it is important to play a character that contributes to the party. Insisting on ranged attacks is a good, workable compromise -- although there were other ways to work it
BTW I had nothing to do with that. That was 100% the players who came up with that. I try to stay out of player vs player issues unless it goes on to long and effects everyone's enjoyment. With the thief, he spent one session acting like a coward and stole something from the Dwarven cleric. Taking a page from Dungeon World I asked him what else was in the pouch besides the coins and the Dwarven Dildo of Returning (despite whomever had it planted on them by the thief throwing it away it seemed to end up in someone's possession) was born. The guys used that as comic relief for the entire campaign, but the next session when a fight went badly because the rogue was busy hiding under a table while some bugbears was pounding on the cleric and fighter, he was essentially told that if he did that again they would treat his character as an enemy and kill him...."nothing personal" :).

Luckily no one's feelings were hurt and adjustments were msde
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Isgrimnur »

IceBear wrote:Luckily no one's feelings were hurt and adjustments were msde
So the thief donned a hound's-tooth fedora and started yelling 'ROLL TIDE!"?
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

While brandishing a Dwarven implement of pleasure. Yeah, he's new to the group but actually a really nice guy so was easier to accept him pretending to be an asshole
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

BTW I assume those of you running princes of the apocalypse have the password for the Elemental Expeditions Adventure League?
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by hentzau »

IceBear wrote:BTW I assume those of you running princes of the apocalypse have the password for the Elemental Expeditions Adventure League?
You assume incorrectly, sir...
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by Madmarcus »

Zarathud wrote:While it might be fun to play a klepto coward, it is important to play a character that contributes to the party. Insisting on ranged attacks is a good, workable compromise -- although there were other ways to work it.
Why? If his character (coward and klepto as give) is fun for the players then what does it matter? It might be a pain if you are using some sort of fixed mechanical balancing stuff but it really doesn't seem any harder to balance around party of 4 plus one combat ineffectual than it would be to balance around the full party of 5.
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Re: The Randomness of the Pen and the Paper

Post by IceBear »

hentzau wrote:
IceBear wrote:BTW I assume those of you running princes of the apocalypse have the password for the Elemental Expeditions Adventure League?
You assume incorrectly, sir...
I will hook you up when I get home. Just found the new password for the new series with the Abyss module coming out in September
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