Kaemon
2014-11-05, 10:19 PM
Hello there, I'm usually not very active here but I love reading some post by time to time, specially those about good/bad experiences as/with DM or Players.
So lately I have been trying to get a Rise of the Runelords campaign for Pathfinder going using the online tool Roll20. We haven't started yet (as only 1 of my IRL friends seems interested so far) and was even thinking about the possibility of looking for some players online. If you are interested let me know, but I'm afraid we are only looking for spanish people. Wouldn't mind playing in English myself (as a player) if I was allowed in a game (as I need some practice with my spoken English), and I even could GM in English for people I know and that were okay with my lack of practice speaking it, but I really can't GM in English right now, not only because I'm not confident enough with my English, but because my IRL friend doesn't speaks it.
I have learned a lot of what to do and what not to do just by reading those fun "Worst/Best GM/Players" posts, but I figured out I could ask here for some extra advice.
We are pretty new with the whole Pathfinder rules (I already did read them, knew some basic things from old D&Ds even if we didn't play those long neither). Main problem is that my experience pretty much starts and ends with me teaching my IRL friends how a system goes and then GMing for them. Sure, they would look/read/learn things I didn't bother learning/reading myself (like many classes/races/spells that were only for players), and we would discuss and look for online discussions about some rules, but is not the same as joining other groups and seeing other GMs and players at work and learn from that as well.
Lately I have been watching some people on Youtube that were playing using Roll20 or MapTools, and that helps seeing what works and what not, but when you are not part of the group (just watching a video) it can get pretty boring... and we aren't talking short videos here.
So I was wondering how you guys handle some things and I'm open for general tips and suggestions. As far as I know (only did read the 50 first pages of chapter 1) Rise of the Runelords is quite linear but its a quite nice adventure and I don't think any player would have problems with it (and most likely they will just follow all the hooks without need of rail-roading). I know I should improvise and allow them to go with whatever ideas/plans they have in mind even if they aren't contingencies for them in the books and the like. Overall (biased much) I think I am a good GM.
Anyway... We haven't started yet in fact we are waiting until the weekend to see if we can convince some extra IRL friends before looking for players online (still feel free to contact me already if you may be interested in joining and can speak Spanish) but I have already some "quite big" doubts that I would like to sort out before even starting and read what you guys think about them:
1 - The Drow PC:
The other player already enlisted (an IRL friend) wanted to play a non-core Char/Race for a change (too many Human Barbarian and Elven Archers if you follow my drill). He has no real practice with D&D/Pathfinder, but he has played a lot Hero Quest and other simple RPGs. He checked the advanced classes and saw Summoner and his Eidolon, I read it along with him, discussed some things (overall I think we have no real doubts beyond how do you heal him beyond the spell that heals him, as he never seems to regenerate when summoned/not-summoned) and it looks quite fun and have no problems with him playing that. However... He also checked the races listed online and he wanted to be a Noble Drow and then (after I told him I wouldn't allow) a Drow.
First of all, Noble Drow? Seriously? Why the **** is that listed as a playable race. If some player wants to play something overpowered or so out-of-the-charts he should discuss it with the GM, but it shouldn't be there in the middle of a core/advanced list just to force GMs tell their players "No, because no".
Second of all... He doesn't know how the drows are; so I explained him the problems of him choosing a drow. How all the other races hate them and how he pretty much couldn't get into any town unless he hided his real identity and what not. He felt like I was already "nerfing" or "banning" for no reason. I explained him a little about the drows and why usually they shouldn't be a player character for a "normal" campaign, but that if he really wanted to be a drow we could come up with something. Maybe he could have been raised since he was a baby in Sandpoint (starting city) and people where used to him in particular (and replacing the powers/proficiencies that wouldn't make sense without being raised by drows with human/elf/something ones) or that he could maybe conceal his true nature via hood or a free magic item or something, at least until the other characters grew fond of him.. or that we could even make up something similar to the drow (same stats/similar appearance) but different and recognizable by the inhabitants of the world, like "Night Elves".
Also note that I don't think he is planning on playing an Evil character at all (I kinda wouldn't allow it unless he can manage to make it work with the group) as he has zero experience with role-playing and so far he sees it just like what toon you would choose on an online game because it looks cool... Making "The drows in this world are treated like elves" wouldn't do it, as that is stupid and for that he could just play an elf (and told him so but he argued that they have different stats)...
Anyway... Not a big problem on itself, but really curious on how do you guys usually handle a character wanting to be X when its very disruptive for the party/campaign/etc. Should I just stay firm and say that drows and other creatures that don't seem to fit for player characters are pretty much banned as such for this campaign? Keep my original approach of "let's try to make it work" even if it feel a little forced? And most curious about: how would you and your NPCs act in the presence of an unknown Drizzt Do'Urden? Should he be forbidden from cities and attacked on sight/etc? I never GMed something like that.
(Fun enough this IRL friend of mine hasn't read any of R.A.Salvatore's books, as stated previously he doesn't have a clue of how the drow race acts or anything drow-related, he just thought looks and stats where cool).
2 - The Player Re-Roll:
So, lets say my players make some bad decisions or have very bad luck with the dice and someone ends dead... I try to challenge my players but I honestly feel bad if I kill them (and we aren't even used to role-play the characters, imagine how I could feel if they were emotionally attached to them!) but sometimes **** happens. I usually give them lots of opportunities to survive: houseruling things like 0/-10 = unconscious instead of dead before that was a thing in games, allowing them to force-feed heal potions down "dead" allies gorges, sometimes even going as far as giving them a freebie "this time you survive"... That last one I did only once, and it was one per player after I felt forced to do so on the first one dying and because we didn't have re-roll contingencies planned. On one hand I know killing them can suck a lot, but on the other a game where you can't die and with no real-risk (read pretty much "you can't lose") stops being a game and becomes pointless (unless you are really heavy into role playing and don't care about the "game", I guess).
I don't know if there are "default re-rolling rules" anywhere in the books, but I personally like the house-rules of the order "You can't choose the same class again" and "Your new character has -1 level".
The first rule is so that Generic Barbarian A doesn't come back as Generic Barbarian B just as he dies (sometimes asking about just re-using the same sheet because of laziness)... In fact, one time they died 1st level at the start of a campaign because they went head-first into a big goblin camp instead of investigating it, (even if in hindsight it was probably more my fault than theirs) and 2 of the players wanted to just reuse their sheets (because they had good stats and wanted to play those classes that died on the 3rd session), one wanted to try out a new class (good boy!), one didn't care but was going to try a new class, and the other... he wanted to re-roll even before playing because he had bad stats (4d6 keep 3, he was a ranger with a +2, a -2 and four 0). Will make another point about this guy in particular later on.
The second house rule is so people don't go "Man, I'm bored of my Barbarian, I feel like playing a Mage, I will just suicide and re-roll". I also don't want them to do this just to "re-roll" after getting bad stats or to get more items (as the group would have whatever the one that died had and whatever the new char brings along with him). I guess I would have no problem with someone wanting to play as something else, but I'm afraid of some of my players just using that excuse trying to get better stats...
So... How do you guys handle re-rolling? Anything special? Anything wrong with what I just exposed?
Should I also make clear that they are NOT allowed to give the magical +1 sword from the fighter that just died to the barbarian they happen to meet a couple of hours later? Should I give the re-rolling players lower XP/Level in some way so dying has some kind of consequence on the character you will be playing beyond being forced to make a new sheet? Should I forbid them for playing the same class twice in a row?
Those things are quite hard for me to handle as I have little experience with role-playing players. My players (trying to change that) are more concerned with stats, so if their Lv2 "toon" (not "character") happen to die and they don't care about their character's story/arc/etc and just reroll another Lv2 "toon" it feels like dying has no consequence at all...
As for the penalty I was thinking "-1 Level compared with your previous character or -1 compared to the lowest alive party member; whatever is higher".
3 - Role-Playing, Min-Maxers and Rolling Stats:
Overall I wouldn't call my IRL friend are min-maxers, at least when compared to some complains I read in these forums... And if I end playing with people I meet online I don't know how they will turn out to be... But as stated before we never were big on the role-playing aspect...
I want that to change with this new campaign, telling them to please try to role-play their chars instead of discussing what moves each of their "figurines" will do to defeat the "Orc Mob Number 3" while talking it all completely out of character and meta-gaming non-stop. So far I wanted to just explain to them that it will be funnier this way, that I will probably reward with XP (or maybe "Hero/Luck Points" or similar) to those who roleplay or something, and that combat becomes way funnier if you tell me what your dwarf barbarian does without discussing/asking with the other guys what they will do or have a consensus on whats the better course of action for the whole party. Its way funnier if they learn to fight together because of the in-character-discussions they have after a fight ("Don't charge those big groups your stupid barbaric dwarf! I always have a fireball ready for big groups!") instead of just discussing what will happen and what each will do in what order while completely out of character...
So... Any tips to encourage role-playing? Any extra tip just make it easier on their end? I'm pretty sure they (and myself) feel quite shy/ridiculous/embarrassed about the whole role-playing aspect.
As for the min-maxer... I wouldn't call them min-maxer per-se, but since they aren't role-playing anyway, their chooses of Class, Race, Feats and what-not are more often than not leaded just by the desire to just make their "toon" as strong as possible. Bear in mind that they all played videogames (most notably WoW) where the only goal pretty much is to just get the "bigger numbers" you can to "be the best", so they have that kind of mentality going on... They don't think about doing a memorable character with a personality but how to arrange the stats so they are the best killing machines, and I respecc that and the min-maxing is not that much of a trouble, but I would prefer to minimize or know how to handle it if it starts getting out of hand... So far I tried to explain to them (well, the only one that has agreed to play so far) that they should try to care a little more about making an interesting character that they feel like role-playing and not so much about a combo of stats that feels strong. Not saying (and I specifically pointed this to him) that they should end with something useless or make poor choices for the sake of it, but not to worry so much about what will be "better"/"more useful" and just roll with what they think it could be more fun.
But then, if they happen to die in X situation (and again, not trying to kill them but giving them real challenges by time to time its a possibility) they may blame me for telling them not to optimize their chars 100%... So, how do you handle this? Not a big problem on itself (yet) but then this "problem" kinda mixes with the next part of this point... the starting stats.
So, for the stats I personally like/love the "roll 3d6, 6 times, place them where you want" ("in order" sucks unless ALL the players are fine with the challenge of playing whatever class you happened to roll). But this has quite big chances of having some really low rolls, so we moved to "roll 4d6, keep 3" to make it less random and so they are sightly stronger than average without breaking anything. For me? That's just perfect. Sometimes you get average rolls, sometimes good, sometime bad, but you roll with it and this time around your Barbarian may be weaker than another Barbarian (form the same player or another player) was, and that's no biggie... for me.
For some of my players this seemed to be a problem. Not to all of them, but there was one in particular that pretty much didn't feel like playing, AT ALL; because he had AVERAGE stats (+2, -2, 0, 0, 0, 0) while the rest of the party had better-than-average stats (so they all were above average, 4d6 keep 3). He felt cheated and in fact he stopped playing before the TPK that stopped the game (not 100% sure if just because of the stats, but he really looked like he didn't feel like playing with "bad" rolls). Bear in mind that this player in particular has a strong "World of Warcraft" mentality for this matter, and I don't know if he felt as if there was no point in playing because he couldn't have the bigger numbers, but he certainly complained about having the "worse" character. And I don't like (nor dislike) this person in particular, but I would prefer a different solution other than "just drop him if something as minor as that makes him not want to play"; I want to know if you guys have solutions/suggestions to minimize this problem. Happens in your groups when you roll for stats? How you handle it?
I'm well aware that there are fix-point-buy solutions and what not, but I'm not personally a big fan of all players having the same base stats (I prefer it when some are stronger than others and the weak ones have to try to make up in other ways, by being smart or what not, or just deal with being weaker as you can do in real life) or how easy is for them to just use that system to go get 7/7/7 in 3 dump stats... So, any opinion here? I was also MAYBE (not sure) thinking about giving players more stats/level (like 1 every 2 levels instead of 1 every 4) or MAYBE giving those extra-stats on certain levels to the players with lower stats to the point it would balance out if they ever reached Lv15/20 (probably they wouldn't, but they could feel less cheated and I could explain it in-game by their characters trying extra hard to keep it up with the rest of the party or something). Opinions on that?
4 - Roll20 and Whatnot
For of those of you that aren't aware (if such person exists in these forums, I kinda doubt it) there are computer tools that help you playing RPGs online, most notably MapsTool (which I believe is becoming obsolete and doesn't update anymore and gave me problems when players tried to join anyway) and Roll20 which is online-only and has some space limitations, specially if you aren't a Mentor (donator).
So far we are planning on using Roll20, and spending money (like the 100€+ some other tools are priced for) is out of the question right now (even if we may do the 5€/monthly fee for Mentor while we keep playing Roll20).
I have used Roll20 a little in the past and I'm quite experienced with it (we even tried out dynamic lights last time), but I think it was worth mentioning and see if anyone has any suggestion or a cool trick I may not know about Roll20 or just GMing online in general (like using X program for Y purpose).
By the way, how do you guys feel about using "top view characters" instead of tokens (the monster/character face in a circle for example). The "top view" ones "look" or "fit" in the scenery "better", but like when playing with miniatures (instead of your imagination) they seem to take the general immersion one step further away... I mean.. If I tell you that you enter a room and there is an ogre there (and I describe it) you can "see" it and feel fear, but if I use a miniature some players don't see the "real" ogre at all (even if I use the same description) and instead just see that small (even if cool) piece of plastic on the table. I kinda feel the same with Tokens (the face of the monster or something symbolic) vs "a top view of the monster". Any opinions with this matter?
I know I have more questions/doubts, but I don't seem to remember them right now... I may edit later if any comes to mind, but I believe those are my main problems and even if I'm pretty sure there is no perfect-solution I'm eager to read some of your suggestions/ideas on how to handle them.
Also feel free to suggest about other things I didn't ask about or if you are familiar with the campaign and what to point at some part of it that you know that may get troublesome or something.
And since I know I did write quite a wall of text, here is a TL;DR:
1 - How do you handle a player wanting to play a class/race that you would prefer them not to? Just explain to him and ban it? Try to add some ludicrous explanation for it being possible? And most specifically how do you (or your GMs) make NPCs act around a Drow (or similar problem) in a "normal" situation? (Human village, etc).
2 - How do you handle having to re-roll? Should I ban re-rolling the same exact character after dying? Should they re-join as a lower level (-1 their dying char or similar) so death had consequences beyond making a new sheet (that could be abused to get better stats if you had lower than average)? Should I explicitly forbid the other players handing the "newcomer" "his" old stuff the just looted from his corpse?
3 - How can I encourage my players to role-play beyond telling them it will be funnier and giving them XP/etc rewards? Any tips for the ones that feel shy/ridiculous doing so? Should I try to handle min-maxers before it gets out of hand (they are used to "only stats/numbers matter" from experiences like playing World of Warcraft)? I like rolling 4d6 keep 3 for stats... but should I use Point-buy (15)?
4 - Planning on using Roll20. Any cool tricks or suggestions about other programs (even if for other purposes)? How do you feel with Imagination vs Miniature or, more relevant, with Token (just the face of the creature) vs Depiction of it from a top view?
Thanks in advance for the help and tips and I pity the fool that only reads the TL;DR version (somethings are not mentioned there).
PD: Thank God I got used to Copy-Paste the whole thing before trying to post or I would have lost everything I wrote. XD
So lately I have been trying to get a Rise of the Runelords campaign for Pathfinder going using the online tool Roll20. We haven't started yet (as only 1 of my IRL friends seems interested so far) and was even thinking about the possibility of looking for some players online. If you are interested let me know, but I'm afraid we are only looking for spanish people. Wouldn't mind playing in English myself (as a player) if I was allowed in a game (as I need some practice with my spoken English), and I even could GM in English for people I know and that were okay with my lack of practice speaking it, but I really can't GM in English right now, not only because I'm not confident enough with my English, but because my IRL friend doesn't speaks it.
I have learned a lot of what to do and what not to do just by reading those fun "Worst/Best GM/Players" posts, but I figured out I could ask here for some extra advice.
We are pretty new with the whole Pathfinder rules (I already did read them, knew some basic things from old D&Ds even if we didn't play those long neither). Main problem is that my experience pretty much starts and ends with me teaching my IRL friends how a system goes and then GMing for them. Sure, they would look/read/learn things I didn't bother learning/reading myself (like many classes/races/spells that were only for players), and we would discuss and look for online discussions about some rules, but is not the same as joining other groups and seeing other GMs and players at work and learn from that as well.
Lately I have been watching some people on Youtube that were playing using Roll20 or MapTools, and that helps seeing what works and what not, but when you are not part of the group (just watching a video) it can get pretty boring... and we aren't talking short videos here.
So I was wondering how you guys handle some things and I'm open for general tips and suggestions. As far as I know (only did read the 50 first pages of chapter 1) Rise of the Runelords is quite linear but its a quite nice adventure and I don't think any player would have problems with it (and most likely they will just follow all the hooks without need of rail-roading). I know I should improvise and allow them to go with whatever ideas/plans they have in mind even if they aren't contingencies for them in the books and the like. Overall (biased much) I think I am a good GM.
Anyway... We haven't started yet in fact we are waiting until the weekend to see if we can convince some extra IRL friends before looking for players online (still feel free to contact me already if you may be interested in joining and can speak Spanish) but I have already some "quite big" doubts that I would like to sort out before even starting and read what you guys think about them:
1 - The Drow PC:
The other player already enlisted (an IRL friend) wanted to play a non-core Char/Race for a change (too many Human Barbarian and Elven Archers if you follow my drill). He has no real practice with D&D/Pathfinder, but he has played a lot Hero Quest and other simple RPGs. He checked the advanced classes and saw Summoner and his Eidolon, I read it along with him, discussed some things (overall I think we have no real doubts beyond how do you heal him beyond the spell that heals him, as he never seems to regenerate when summoned/not-summoned) and it looks quite fun and have no problems with him playing that. However... He also checked the races listed online and he wanted to be a Noble Drow and then (after I told him I wouldn't allow) a Drow.
First of all, Noble Drow? Seriously? Why the **** is that listed as a playable race. If some player wants to play something overpowered or so out-of-the-charts he should discuss it with the GM, but it shouldn't be there in the middle of a core/advanced list just to force GMs tell their players "No, because no".
Second of all... He doesn't know how the drows are; so I explained him the problems of him choosing a drow. How all the other races hate them and how he pretty much couldn't get into any town unless he hided his real identity and what not. He felt like I was already "nerfing" or "banning" for no reason. I explained him a little about the drows and why usually they shouldn't be a player character for a "normal" campaign, but that if he really wanted to be a drow we could come up with something. Maybe he could have been raised since he was a baby in Sandpoint (starting city) and people where used to him in particular (and replacing the powers/proficiencies that wouldn't make sense without being raised by drows with human/elf/something ones) or that he could maybe conceal his true nature via hood or a free magic item or something, at least until the other characters grew fond of him.. or that we could even make up something similar to the drow (same stats/similar appearance) but different and recognizable by the inhabitants of the world, like "Night Elves".
Also note that I don't think he is planning on playing an Evil character at all (I kinda wouldn't allow it unless he can manage to make it work with the group) as he has zero experience with role-playing and so far he sees it just like what toon you would choose on an online game because it looks cool... Making "The drows in this world are treated like elves" wouldn't do it, as that is stupid and for that he could just play an elf (and told him so but he argued that they have different stats)...
Anyway... Not a big problem on itself, but really curious on how do you guys usually handle a character wanting to be X when its very disruptive for the party/campaign/etc. Should I just stay firm and say that drows and other creatures that don't seem to fit for player characters are pretty much banned as such for this campaign? Keep my original approach of "let's try to make it work" even if it feel a little forced? And most curious about: how would you and your NPCs act in the presence of an unknown Drizzt Do'Urden? Should he be forbidden from cities and attacked on sight/etc? I never GMed something like that.
(Fun enough this IRL friend of mine hasn't read any of R.A.Salvatore's books, as stated previously he doesn't have a clue of how the drow race acts or anything drow-related, he just thought looks and stats where cool).
2 - The Player Re-Roll:
So, lets say my players make some bad decisions or have very bad luck with the dice and someone ends dead... I try to challenge my players but I honestly feel bad if I kill them (and we aren't even used to role-play the characters, imagine how I could feel if they were emotionally attached to them!) but sometimes **** happens. I usually give them lots of opportunities to survive: houseruling things like 0/-10 = unconscious instead of dead before that was a thing in games, allowing them to force-feed heal potions down "dead" allies gorges, sometimes even going as far as giving them a freebie "this time you survive"... That last one I did only once, and it was one per player after I felt forced to do so on the first one dying and because we didn't have re-roll contingencies planned. On one hand I know killing them can suck a lot, but on the other a game where you can't die and with no real-risk (read pretty much "you can't lose") stops being a game and becomes pointless (unless you are really heavy into role playing and don't care about the "game", I guess).
I don't know if there are "default re-rolling rules" anywhere in the books, but I personally like the house-rules of the order "You can't choose the same class again" and "Your new character has -1 level".
The first rule is so that Generic Barbarian A doesn't come back as Generic Barbarian B just as he dies (sometimes asking about just re-using the same sheet because of laziness)... In fact, one time they died 1st level at the start of a campaign because they went head-first into a big goblin camp instead of investigating it, (even if in hindsight it was probably more my fault than theirs) and 2 of the players wanted to just reuse their sheets (because they had good stats and wanted to play those classes that died on the 3rd session), one wanted to try out a new class (good boy!), one didn't care but was going to try a new class, and the other... he wanted to re-roll even before playing because he had bad stats (4d6 keep 3, he was a ranger with a +2, a -2 and four 0). Will make another point about this guy in particular later on.
The second house rule is so people don't go "Man, I'm bored of my Barbarian, I feel like playing a Mage, I will just suicide and re-roll". I also don't want them to do this just to "re-roll" after getting bad stats or to get more items (as the group would have whatever the one that died had and whatever the new char brings along with him). I guess I would have no problem with someone wanting to play as something else, but I'm afraid of some of my players just using that excuse trying to get better stats...
So... How do you guys handle re-rolling? Anything special? Anything wrong with what I just exposed?
Should I also make clear that they are NOT allowed to give the magical +1 sword from the fighter that just died to the barbarian they happen to meet a couple of hours later? Should I give the re-rolling players lower XP/Level in some way so dying has some kind of consequence on the character you will be playing beyond being forced to make a new sheet? Should I forbid them for playing the same class twice in a row?
Those things are quite hard for me to handle as I have little experience with role-playing players. My players (trying to change that) are more concerned with stats, so if their Lv2 "toon" (not "character") happen to die and they don't care about their character's story/arc/etc and just reroll another Lv2 "toon" it feels like dying has no consequence at all...
As for the penalty I was thinking "-1 Level compared with your previous character or -1 compared to the lowest alive party member; whatever is higher".
3 - Role-Playing, Min-Maxers and Rolling Stats:
Overall I wouldn't call my IRL friend are min-maxers, at least when compared to some complains I read in these forums... And if I end playing with people I meet online I don't know how they will turn out to be... But as stated before we never were big on the role-playing aspect...
I want that to change with this new campaign, telling them to please try to role-play their chars instead of discussing what moves each of their "figurines" will do to defeat the "Orc Mob Number 3" while talking it all completely out of character and meta-gaming non-stop. So far I wanted to just explain to them that it will be funnier this way, that I will probably reward with XP (or maybe "Hero/Luck Points" or similar) to those who roleplay or something, and that combat becomes way funnier if you tell me what your dwarf barbarian does without discussing/asking with the other guys what they will do or have a consensus on whats the better course of action for the whole party. Its way funnier if they learn to fight together because of the in-character-discussions they have after a fight ("Don't charge those big groups your stupid barbaric dwarf! I always have a fireball ready for big groups!") instead of just discussing what will happen and what each will do in what order while completely out of character...
So... Any tips to encourage role-playing? Any extra tip just make it easier on their end? I'm pretty sure they (and myself) feel quite shy/ridiculous/embarrassed about the whole role-playing aspect.
As for the min-maxer... I wouldn't call them min-maxer per-se, but since they aren't role-playing anyway, their chooses of Class, Race, Feats and what-not are more often than not leaded just by the desire to just make their "toon" as strong as possible. Bear in mind that they all played videogames (most notably WoW) where the only goal pretty much is to just get the "bigger numbers" you can to "be the best", so they have that kind of mentality going on... They don't think about doing a memorable character with a personality but how to arrange the stats so they are the best killing machines, and I respecc that and the min-maxing is not that much of a trouble, but I would prefer to minimize or know how to handle it if it starts getting out of hand... So far I tried to explain to them (well, the only one that has agreed to play so far) that they should try to care a little more about making an interesting character that they feel like role-playing and not so much about a combo of stats that feels strong. Not saying (and I specifically pointed this to him) that they should end with something useless or make poor choices for the sake of it, but not to worry so much about what will be "better"/"more useful" and just roll with what they think it could be more fun.
But then, if they happen to die in X situation (and again, not trying to kill them but giving them real challenges by time to time its a possibility) they may blame me for telling them not to optimize their chars 100%... So, how do you handle this? Not a big problem on itself (yet) but then this "problem" kinda mixes with the next part of this point... the starting stats.
So, for the stats I personally like/love the "roll 3d6, 6 times, place them where you want" ("in order" sucks unless ALL the players are fine with the challenge of playing whatever class you happened to roll). But this has quite big chances of having some really low rolls, so we moved to "roll 4d6, keep 3" to make it less random and so they are sightly stronger than average without breaking anything. For me? That's just perfect. Sometimes you get average rolls, sometimes good, sometime bad, but you roll with it and this time around your Barbarian may be weaker than another Barbarian (form the same player or another player) was, and that's no biggie... for me.
For some of my players this seemed to be a problem. Not to all of them, but there was one in particular that pretty much didn't feel like playing, AT ALL; because he had AVERAGE stats (+2, -2, 0, 0, 0, 0) while the rest of the party had better-than-average stats (so they all were above average, 4d6 keep 3). He felt cheated and in fact he stopped playing before the TPK that stopped the game (not 100% sure if just because of the stats, but he really looked like he didn't feel like playing with "bad" rolls). Bear in mind that this player in particular has a strong "World of Warcraft" mentality for this matter, and I don't know if he felt as if there was no point in playing because he couldn't have the bigger numbers, but he certainly complained about having the "worse" character. And I don't like (nor dislike) this person in particular, but I would prefer a different solution other than "just drop him if something as minor as that makes him not want to play"; I want to know if you guys have solutions/suggestions to minimize this problem. Happens in your groups when you roll for stats? How you handle it?
I'm well aware that there are fix-point-buy solutions and what not, but I'm not personally a big fan of all players having the same base stats (I prefer it when some are stronger than others and the weak ones have to try to make up in other ways, by being smart or what not, or just deal with being weaker as you can do in real life) or how easy is for them to just use that system to go get 7/7/7 in 3 dump stats... So, any opinion here? I was also MAYBE (not sure) thinking about giving players more stats/level (like 1 every 2 levels instead of 1 every 4) or MAYBE giving those extra-stats on certain levels to the players with lower stats to the point it would balance out if they ever reached Lv15/20 (probably they wouldn't, but they could feel less cheated and I could explain it in-game by their characters trying extra hard to keep it up with the rest of the party or something). Opinions on that?
4 - Roll20 and Whatnot
For of those of you that aren't aware (if such person exists in these forums, I kinda doubt it) there are computer tools that help you playing RPGs online, most notably MapsTool (which I believe is becoming obsolete and doesn't update anymore and gave me problems when players tried to join anyway) and Roll20 which is online-only and has some space limitations, specially if you aren't a Mentor (donator).
So far we are planning on using Roll20, and spending money (like the 100€+ some other tools are priced for) is out of the question right now (even if we may do the 5€/monthly fee for Mentor while we keep playing Roll20).
I have used Roll20 a little in the past and I'm quite experienced with it (we even tried out dynamic lights last time), but I think it was worth mentioning and see if anyone has any suggestion or a cool trick I may not know about Roll20 or just GMing online in general (like using X program for Y purpose).
By the way, how do you guys feel about using "top view characters" instead of tokens (the monster/character face in a circle for example). The "top view" ones "look" or "fit" in the scenery "better", but like when playing with miniatures (instead of your imagination) they seem to take the general immersion one step further away... I mean.. If I tell you that you enter a room and there is an ogre there (and I describe it) you can "see" it and feel fear, but if I use a miniature some players don't see the "real" ogre at all (even if I use the same description) and instead just see that small (even if cool) piece of plastic on the table. I kinda feel the same with Tokens (the face of the monster or something symbolic) vs "a top view of the monster". Any opinions with this matter?
I know I have more questions/doubts, but I don't seem to remember them right now... I may edit later if any comes to mind, but I believe those are my main problems and even if I'm pretty sure there is no perfect-solution I'm eager to read some of your suggestions/ideas on how to handle them.
Also feel free to suggest about other things I didn't ask about or if you are familiar with the campaign and what to point at some part of it that you know that may get troublesome or something.
And since I know I did write quite a wall of text, here is a TL;DR:
1 - How do you handle a player wanting to play a class/race that you would prefer them not to? Just explain to him and ban it? Try to add some ludicrous explanation for it being possible? And most specifically how do you (or your GMs) make NPCs act around a Drow (or similar problem) in a "normal" situation? (Human village, etc).
2 - How do you handle having to re-roll? Should I ban re-rolling the same exact character after dying? Should they re-join as a lower level (-1 their dying char or similar) so death had consequences beyond making a new sheet (that could be abused to get better stats if you had lower than average)? Should I explicitly forbid the other players handing the "newcomer" "his" old stuff the just looted from his corpse?
3 - How can I encourage my players to role-play beyond telling them it will be funnier and giving them XP/etc rewards? Any tips for the ones that feel shy/ridiculous doing so? Should I try to handle min-maxers before it gets out of hand (they are used to "only stats/numbers matter" from experiences like playing World of Warcraft)? I like rolling 4d6 keep 3 for stats... but should I use Point-buy (15)?
4 - Planning on using Roll20. Any cool tricks or suggestions about other programs (even if for other purposes)? How do you feel with Imagination vs Miniature or, more relevant, with Token (just the face of the creature) vs Depiction of it from a top view?
Thanks in advance for the help and tips and I pity the fool that only reads the TL;DR version (somethings are not mentioned there).
PD: Thank God I got used to Copy-Paste the whole thing before trying to post or I would have lost everything I wrote. XD