Archived threads in /tg/ - Traditional Games - 3877. page

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You gaze carefully at the creature on the lake dancing across the water. While the glow is a different color from Freyja's and certainly brighter, you are almost positive that the woman floating around out there is a Tul. You have no idea how this could be any kind of monster, from what you know the Tul are a peaceful people with no history of attacking anyone, much less killing countless people over years and years.

What do you do? Should you inform Freyja?

>>46399837
Inform Freyja have her talk to her.

>>46399837
Yep inform Freyja.

>>46385673
> Someone other than the GM is in charge of organizing.
> Your dice have to be easy to read.
> No snacks until after there's been an actual meal break.

Back when we played D&D:
> If it takes more than 12 seconds for you to start saying what your character does, we skip your turn.

>>46385673
D&D 5e

On a Crit miss of a ranged attack, I pick the most disadvantagous target that is in the line of fire. The player makes a new attack roll against that target. For hordes of enemies, it actually helps the player. When shooting from behind the tank, it can hurt.

You want to do something clearly beyond the limits of what is reasonable (such as lifting a huge boulder or breaking the toughest safe in the country or seduce a succubus of all things) then you can roll for it. Not a d20, though. d100. You need 100. After this fails, you fall back to reality & start playing the game properly again. It has yet to happen that someone actually gets 100, so I've never had to allow nonsense because of it.

>>46385865
>more than 12 seconds...we skip your turn
That sounds wonderful.

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>>46385987
>mfw

I have a fondness for khopesh.

Glaive.

>>46385220
Some of the more ridiculous polearms from splat books can get pretty ridiculous.

If you are going for cheese, kukri can get you pretty far.

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>>46384695
This is how I Chaotic Good AND how I Chaotic Evil.

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>>46384695
How I CN

>>46385780
>I am... Kroot

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>>46384516
Only when they hit the exact number, to speed up fighting.

They usually figure it out pretty fast

>>46384516
Only indirectly by letting them know when they hit and asking for a damage roll. I guess I could be even more cryptic and get them to always roll damage and pretend to adjust hit points when they miss, using concrete description to actually tell them how well they're doing. (e.g. A miss with 15 damage is "you barely pink the beast, but at least you got it angry" while a hit that does 6 might be "you're drawing blood - just not very much".)

But I wouldn't do that without players who like being confused and/or solving that sort of puzzle.

>>46383403
Because they know everyone's darkest secrets.

>>46383403
No one knows. It's a secret

No such thing exists, report to the local Inquisitor for a free prize

Jumpers have you ever been worried your companions are plotting against you?

>>46399435
Don't play with my heart like this OP.

Because the only other guy who's making a TMNT jump is an arsehole and it hurts deep down.

Let's say I want to go about podding Zelretch so that people in future jumps have to deal with two massive trolls.

What's the best jump to do so in?

>>46381565
Not well.

>>46381593

Develop your hypothesis

>>46381565
Invade from where?
How would they reach Valinor?

"DM, we've gone through high hell and back, and we might have lost a few characters along the way, but I think we've proven that we can handle it." The rest of the group agreed. The guy who always played fighters also spoke up. "Yeah, as long as you don't do anything dumb like put in a dragon at level 1, I'm pretty sure we can take whatever it is you have to dish out."

DM: "Oh, no, I'd probably only need things like orcs, lizardfolk, and kobolds to do it, honestly. I'm not sure you guys could make it to the higher level stuff." Again, hurt pride. But now I was determined, and I think the rest of us didn't want him to just sit there, looking down on us like that. We practically begged him to run a game for us the way he wanted to. He eventually broke down, but was still adamant that we couldn't handle him on "full blast", so his compromise was this.

"I'll run a few test games first. Just dinky little one-shots. If you get through the first one, I'll raise the difficulty of the next one, and if you can get through all of them, I'll concede defeat and even apologize to you for saying you couldn't handle it. Deal?"

Us: "Deal. We'll take down your fucking dungeon and make you get on your hands and knees in a dress by the time we're through. We'll show you that we can handle it."

We couldn't handle it.

2/7

A little something about our DM. He might have been blunt, but he was fair. He always rolled out in the open, always was completely transparent about the rulings he made, and even would listen to us if we thought the situation was unfair. He's a great DM, but something I didn't really think about until after that incident was the fact that he was a genius. He always quickly adapted to anything he got his hands on, was able to see the pros and cons of something faster than any of us, and any game he got hold of, he would pretty much win if there wasn't too much luck involved. I always kind of thought he was smart, but I didn't really know HOW smart he was. To put it simply, we were outplayed.

The first level alone nearly did us in. I think if we hadn't had our pride hurt so bad, we would have stopped the first time someone died. Or the second.

We wiped.

Three times.

Just on level one. One of them being the first encounter.

It wasn't even anything special is what pissed me off the most. The dungeon was barebones and barely had any of the intricate flavor text he would normally put into rooms. He told us that it was just a "test environment". Something to control the variables as he threw them at us. And he was right. He didn't really need more than just the orcs. Those god damned orcs. The orcs were what really got us. We saw some orcs marching around, and we thought "Piece of cake. We can take this with no problem". We were fools.

Afterwards, he gave me what notes he had on the thing. I wasn't shocked afterwards by what I had seen, because I think by the end of it, we had discovered everything he had done. All he did was adjust the stat block according to some behind the scenes rules he had made.

To start with, everything in here was part of a military force we were sent to wipe out as they had been encroaching on our territory and it was up to us to stop them. So, naturally, the military had a lot of structure to it we weren't expecting. Each encounter was just written as a squad with a squiggly symbol next to it which was actually an orc letter. At minimum, each squad was composed of 10 units. 8 of those units had improved armor. Splint mail at the minimum. 4 of them came with swords and shields, while the other 4 came with longbows and greataxes. The 2 other units were always spellcasters. No squad left base without them. They could be any two spellcasters, but they were usually a wizard and a cleric at the bare minimum. They weren't higher level over their comrades. Just a different skill set.

Their strategy was brilliant in its efficiency. When encountering an enemy, the ones with bows fall back to surround the spellcasters and reign death from afar, and drew into greataxes if anyone approached the precious glass canons. The ones with the shields would spread out to avoid AoE spells, and immediately target the ones with the weakest armor, while the mages threw status effects and saving throws at our high-armored warriors. Our deaths were quick, and quite painful. Even starting an a higher level than normal, we just weren't ready for that kind of thing.

The DM was no longer giving us hints and nudges when we were about to do something stupid, either. None of the signs of "Are you SURE you want to do that?" or "Your character would know..." or "roll an intelligence saving throw to see if you realize what is about to go wrong for you." Just cold, stony silence.

In retrospect, I think that he might have intentionally made it this hard to set a point. But when I asked him that, he just assured me that he likes it when stories don't pull out any stops like that for someone as nitpicky as he was to tear it apart.

4/7

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OP, I hope you're still here, refreshing every few minutes until your thread dies, hoping to see a reply.
Well, I'm hoping you haven't already seen this heap of knowledge I'm about to drop on ya, so you'll always remember the kindness of an anonymous stranger throughout your career as the best goddamn GM your crew has ever fucking seen.

Step one is to have your first session be a bit longer than the norm, just so everyone can become familiar with the setting and rules, or perhaps receive help creating their characters. I'm a fan of doing real short solo sessions so your players can feel established into the world, but that's not always possible.

>>46381580

Everyone is already familiar with the settings and the rules as am I. Also using established characters.

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>>46381020
>Tips for new GM?
Bees are your friends, they produce honey and are docile as long as you don't mess with them. They're also team players and generally decent at roleplay

Wasps crawled directly out of Satan's asshole and exist purely to fuck you up. They're also notorious powergamers and their rules lawyering will grind any session to a screeching halt

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>>46399268

[11:00 AM Monday, June 29th 2015]

The drive back to headquarters in D.C. had been relatively uneventful, save for the occasional snore Victoria made in her fitful sleep. As soon as she greeted your return with a tired ‘good morning’ and strapped herself into the seatbelt, she promptly collapsed against the side of the car without any further preamble and refused to budge until you arrived in the capital. For the sake of not disturbing her, you all decided to keep your silence.

Alger had driven on ahead, with a restrained Murdock in the backseat of his car. It was his opinion that they get the former agent processed as fast as possible. You spoke your piece and did the best you could, but it’s out of your hands now. Murdock’s fate was in the hands of the internal bureaucracy of the Task Force.

Due to the impromptu nature of her recruitment, Madison was going to have to be picked up by another team. She had two weeks to get her affairs in order and keep her mouth shut about the existence of her new employers. After that, training and (if Alger’s sources were correct), a desk job for Division IV. Something about the last secretary getting transferred to Division II, the intelligence branch of North American Operations.

Before you left, she approached you, and dangled a little chain wrapped around her wrist. A tracking device, courtesy of Alger, just to make sure that she wasn’t going to hightail it out of town. At your frown, Madison assured you that it was alright. As far as she was concerned, if it was all in the name of atonement, then she would just bear it and accept it as it was.

You smile at the memory. She’s come a long way from the loud-mouthed jerk you met at the Boardwalk.

(cont.)

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>>46399300

Three days have passed since your return, with dreams devoid of goddesses and commendations from Central. For a first mission, you all did exceptionally well. In addition to giving Alger a bonus to his budget, you were all formally recognized as a proper team of Devil Summoners.

>Rookie III has been reassigned as Carina Squad!

Since then, the five of you have had little in the ways of doing anything until you all fully recovered from your injuries sustained in the last case, each doing their own thing occasionally in the company of the others. Whenever she wasn’t in her room, Victoria was tinkering around with her COMP, and Brady was feeding his demons exotic snacks and deserts. MacKay meditated, prayed and studied tomes from the archives while Fitz alternated between the shooting range and fitness area.

And then you had the one Pathfinder session that everyone decided to forget and leave in Division IV’s recreation room…until you came back for another session. Your collective experience could be best described as ‘watching a train crash in slow motion’, complete with screaming, tears and sides going into orbit. Oh, and dice being flung across the room, courtesy of too many natural ones and a very irate and unlucky Fitz.

They can’t wait for the next session.

>Brady approves + 9
>Fitz approves +9.
>MacKay approves +9.
>Victoria approves +9.

That aside, what have you been up to for the past three days?

>Hitting the gym with Fitz. (Combat)
>Hanging out with Brady and Victoria. (Social)
>Studying in the library with MacKay. (Knowledge)

>>46399347
>Hitting the gym with Fitz. (Combat)
Hmm considering we got a social perk last time and our Knowledge is pretty solid we should work on combat.

Especially if that OP image is any indication of more combat in our future.

>what is the justice league

>>46378466
That's stupid.

You're stupid.

>>46378521
then give me a better one.

>>46375890
Post a PDF and let's find out

>>46375890
>generic system

Is that even legal under Anlo IP laws? I figured somebody would sue them into the ground for something like that.

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>>46375890
Never played it, but the minis have an old-school hard SF charm to them.

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>Tali drags himself upright, blinking sleep away. For once, he is not drowning in the fine ladies of minia.

G'morning, Orb. What's on the schedule for today?

>>46398580
The same thing we do every day, Tali. To seduce and impregnate girls.

>>46398580
Faildragon riding lessons, weren't it?

>>46375425
A tiny little baby robot hand pops out of the palm of the YUGE FIST and reloads the bolter.

>>46375425
A greater question is; where are the rest of the magazines?

>>46375425
Reload? At worst they will shoot 24 bullets in total, a single magazine should be enough