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  1. - Top - End - #241
    Orc in the Playground
     
    BardGirl

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    My current group is the only one where it is more or less constant.

    But, I have never been part of a group where we didn't have multiple instances, usually several months apart, where one or more players wouldn't stop arguing / complaining to the point where the DM legitimately considered ending the game.

    But, then again, it is a pretty small sample size as I have only been in a handful of long-term groups that weren't formed by me and / or my friends; a couple of school clubs and a couple from flyers in gaming stores.
    I'll just plus-one what everyone else is telling you. It's not normal, and it's not acceptable.

    Yes, a lot of people have stories about dysfunctional groups or games (I could tell you stories of a Mage: The Ascension game I ran which went so badly it effectively destroyed a gaming group) but for most of us, those stories stand out because they're unusual, or something that taught us better. In my case, dealing with a manipulative jerk of a player helped me be more assertive and to be less scared about laying out what I wanted from games from page one. My own horror story certainly wouldn't mean that was the standard for every game I've ever been in--the truly dysfunctional groups I've ever been in, including many, many Play-by-Posts would be 5% of the total at the most.

  2. - Top - End - #242
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Well, the big day has come and gone.

    The game happened and it went... fine.

    Brian actually managed to balance the mission even tighter than I do, and it was really looking bleak at the end there, but we barely managed to pull through, so fears about him running the game too easy didn't pan out.

    There were a couple of rules calls I didn't agree with, but I managed to bite my tongue and not say anything. There were a few times when one of the players asked a question (not to anyone in particular) and Brian and I both answered them and gave conflicting responses. I did my best to defer to Brian, but I am not sure how to handle that in the future.

    We were joined by a fifth player, he was new to the game and I am not sure if he will be back.


    Session report:

    Characters:

    Sarah Blackwell (me), Human defensive swashbuckler and former monk / samurai.
    Ordieth, half elf necromancer and child outcast.
    Scraps, Ogre pirate and gourmand
    Tiana, pixie priest, healer, and trickster
    Fritz, idealistic human generalist mage

    The game starts with us on the high seas, our crew dead and our hold plundered by pirates. The ship was damaged in the attack and soon a storm starts are the ship, damaged in the attack, begins taking on water. I tell Scraps, a pirate who was "accidentally" left behind by our attackers, that if he wants to survive he can take our former Boson's job and try and steer us into port and then go below ducks to man the pumps. Tiana flies into the sails and works with the ropes, Fritz, one of our only surviving passengers, uses subtle magic to hold the ship together. Ordieth them comes out of hiding, raises the half dozen pirates who died in the attack as mindless zombies, and orders them to crew the ship, and with their help we are able to hold the ship together to make port in a small harbor on the nearby island of Conixo; neutral ground with no real culture and only notable as being the place where the great nations meet to sign treaties.

    (OOC: This was a long skill challenge. It was fairly poorly designed, as there was a penalty for failure and as new characters we don't have great scores, which meant that it was long, frustrating, and used up a disproportionate amount of our party resources. Still, it wasn't terrible, and was fine for a first time DM, and I did my best to keep Bob from bitching).

    Frtiz and I find an inn while the others stay with the boat. There are rooms, but no decent food, and the inn keeper apologizes and tells us that both the crops and the fish have failed and the town is starving, and that the local druid, whom they would normally consult about such things, has gone missing.

    In the early morning when the storm has cleared I assess the boat, and find that it will take several months, and likely more money than we have and more supplies / labor than can be found in the town, to fix it, and that nobody can afford to buy the ship (or even salvage it for parts) for anywhere close to what it is worth, and we wouldn't be able to supply it for an ocean voyage anyway.

    Finding that Ordieth, Scraps, and Tiana are still with the boat, and apparently planning to make off with it, I explain the situation and offer them all positions on the ship and an equal share of the loot. They refuse, telling me that they can simply take what they want as I have no authority over them. I try and gauge what they actually want out of the situation, Scraps seems motivated by greed and Ordieth by a desire for respect, and try and negotiate and explain to them that we all need one another.

    (And here we get the problem of an evil party. Nobody actually wants to form the party, even when it is in our mutual best interest to work together. We kept the argument in character, but after about an hour of this I saw we were boring / frustrating people, and I kind of broke character and said we should table the argument for later... or just hand-waive it.)

    We see the townsfolk getting a posse together to find the missing druid, and Fritz suggests that we find him for them. Ordieth and Scraps are reluctant, but we explain that they will be rewarded with the town's people's respect and with food respectively.

    We journey to the druid's hut, and find an orcish slaver squatting in it. He claims it was abandoned when he found it, and I tell him he is free to go, but he decides to pick a fight. I trip him and push him into the fire, and he moves to call his riding drake over to him, but scraps grabs him by the throat so he can't speak and chokes the life out of him. In the battle, his hunter ally takes a shot at Ordieth, but then when the orc dies decides to flee. We free the slaves and they take the drake with them. We offer them a position with our crew, but they instead decide to return to the circus they originally came from. We search the house and find a good bit of treasure, mostly herbs and potions, but no sign of the druid. There is a journal which predicts the unseasonable storm our ship was caught it and talks about how the forest spirits are misbehaving, but there is no sign of the druid.

    Fritz is able to see that some of the trees appear to be bleeding to those with second sight, and we follow the trail of bleeding trees deeper into the woods. We are ambushed by a swarm of dog-sized spiders, and we drive them off, but not before their poison does a number on us.

    (Remember how I said it was weird that everyone was focusing solely on will-saves? Well, yeah, this is why that's a bad idea. Low fort saves across the board meant that poison really kicked our asses.)

    We eventually find a corrupted totem that is drawing all of the local animal spirits into it. When we move to interfere with it, it manifests a guardian, a composite animal made from all the spirits of the forest. It has the size of a moose, the strength of a bear, the shell of a turtle, the ferocity of a cougar, the speed of a deer, the senses of a wolf, and the leaping ability of a rabbit. We send the zombies after it, but it simply leaps away before it can be surrounded, and when half the zombies are killed Ordieth calls them off. Scraps and I approach it alone, and we make several attempts to trap it, Fritz creates a force field above it, Ordieth freezes the ground below it, and Scraps tries alternating tripping it and climbing onto its back, but the creature is simply too agile for any of these schemes to work. I do my best to keep its attention while Scraps flanks it. Eventually I go down, and Tiana uses the last of her magic to keep Scraps standing long enough for him to slay the beast by driving a sharpened anchor through its carapace.

    (This was a frustrating fight. An enemy that is both super tough and super mobile isn't fun. But, I wanted a higher difficulty, so I suppose I can't complain.)

    When the beast it killed, the totem is destroyed and a wave of unholy energy rolls out over the land. It is made of wicker and bones, and we return it to town.

    We limp back to town, all of the caster's totally out of spells and both of the melee at negative HP.

    The town's barber / surgeon is able to identify the bones as belonging to the druid based on a broken rib that was the result of a kick from a horse in his youth. We have no leads as to who killed the druid or created the totem, but with its destruction the spirits of nature are freed and fertility is returning to the region.

    I visit the alchemist and by several potions of anti-venom, healing, and invisibility to undead. I also visit a naturalist and talk about starting a colony of scavenging crabs in our bilge, we have a lot of rotting bodies and I foresee a need for a lot of skeletons in the future.



    So, that was the session. Not perfect, but perfectly adequate for a first outing, and if every session goes this well it will be a fine campaign and a nice break from GMing for me.

    Any thoughts, questions, or suggestions?
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  3. - Top - End - #243
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    HalflingRogueGirl

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Was your problem with starting on the skill challenge that it was mandatory, that the DC was too high, or that it had penalties for failure? You only address the last in your post, but a skill challenge with no consequence for failure sounds like a waste of everyone's time.
    All advice given with the caveat that you know your group better than I do. If that wasn't true, you'd be getting advice face-to-face. So I generalize.

    Quote Originally Posted by Venger View Post
    are you asking us to do research into a setting you wrote yourself?

  4. - Top - End - #244
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Hellpyre View Post
    Was your problem with starting on the skill challenge that it was mandatory, that the DC was too high, or that it had penalties for failure? You only address the last in your post, but a skill challenge with no consequence for failure sounds like a waste of everyone's time.
    Basically, it just went back and forth and ate up a lot of time.

    There were consequences for failure, althiugh we weren’t clear about what they were at the time.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  5. - Top - End - #245
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    GrayDeath's Avatar

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Sounds very much in World logical to me.

    You are alone on a ship on the ocean.

    Since none of youc an fly or transform itno fish or whatever, this is the only way, and failing always should have consequences.

    But overall it seems to me that for a first time DM, this is looking very good.

    Good luck to you all that it stays that way!
    A neutron walks into a bar and says, “How much for a beer?” The bartender says, “For you? No charge.”

    01010100011011110010000001100010011001010010000001 10111101110010001000000110111001101111011101000010 00000111010001101111001000000110001001100101001011 100010111000101110

    Later: An atom walks into a bar an asks the bartender “Have you seen an electron? I left it in here last night.” The bartender says, “Are you sure?” The atom says, “I’m positive.”

  6. - Top - End - #246
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I did my best to defer to Brian, but I am not sure how to handle that in the future.
    Ask Brian. I'll suggest the counterpart to a "swear jar", that you drop a quarter into every time you do it; when it's full, you buy the group pizza.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Tiana, pixie priest, healer, and trickster
    I hadn't caught that your healer is also your frailest member.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Fritz, one of our only surviving passengers, uses subtle magic to hold the ship together.
    Why subtle? Was he hiding his talents? If so, is he still doing so?

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    (OOC: This was a long skill challenge. It was fairly poorly designed, as there was a penalty for failure and as new characters we don't have great scores, which meant that it was long, frustrating, and used up a disproportionate amount of our party resources. Still, it wasn't terrible, and was fine for a first time DM, and I did my best to keep Bob from bitching).
    You didn't like it. What about the rest of the table?

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    (And here we get the problem of an evil party. Nobody actually wants to form the party, even when it is in our mutual best interest to work together. We kept the argument in character, but after about an hour of this I saw we were boring / frustrating people, and I kind of broke character and said we should table the argument for later... or just hand-waive it.)
    I don't need to say it, right?

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    We offer them a position with our crew,
    We? Or you? Has the group taken on your mantra?

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    talks about how the forest spirits are misbehaving, but there is no sign of the druid.
    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    We eventually find a corrupted totem that is drawing all of the local animal spirits into it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    It is made of wicker and bones,
    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    The town's barber / surgeon is able to identify the bones as belonging to the druid
    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    the spirits of nature are freed and fertility is returning to the region.
    Um, continuity?

    So, have crops only been failing since the Druid disappeared? If so, in what way were the spirits misbehaving beforehand? Crazy questions: do forest spirits naturally misbehave, and could the misbehaving forest spirits have made the corrupt totem themselves? Assuming the answer to both is "no", then why would whatever caused the spirits to misbehave in the first place have allowed them to return to normal so easily?

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    (This was a frustrating fight. An enemy that is both super tough and super mobile isn't fun. But, I wanted a higher difficulty, so I suppose I can't complain.)
    Describe what "hard, but not frustrating" would look like, to you.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I visit the alchemist and by several potions of anti-venom, healing, and invisibility to undead. I also visit a naturalist and talk about starting a colony of scavenging crabs in our bilge, we have a lot of rotting bodies and I foresee a need for a lot of skeletons in the future.
    So, did you get to make use of your downtime action advantage?
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-01-13 at 11:38 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #247
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    zinycor's Avatar

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Seems like the game went quite well, Did you enjoy the experience? Did the other players seem to have fun in the end?
    Last son of the Lu-Ching dynasty

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  8. - Top - End - #248
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Talakeal's Avatar

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by GrayDeath View Post
    Sounds very much in World logical to me.

    You are alone on a ship on the ocean.

    Since none of youc an fly or transform itno fish or whatever, this is the only way, and failing always should have consequences.

    But overall it seems to me that for a first time DM, this is looking very good.

    Good luck to you all that it stays that way!
    Its not that the situation is bad; its just that the way the mechanics worked meant that it dragged on.

    Basically, the ship had a condition track, every success moved it up one step, every failure moved it down one step, and it had to get ten points in either direction for the challenge to succeed / fail. And since we all had right around a 50% chance to succeed on any given skill test, we basically spent an hour just going back and forth around the middle.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Ask Brian. I'll suggest the counterpart to a "swear jar", that you drop a quarter into every time you do it; when it's full, you buy the group pizza.
    Do I put a quarter in every time I answer a question at all or just every time I give a different answer than Brian?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I hadn't caught that your healer is also your frailest member.
    Actually the necromancer is our frailest member, its just that he usually has either me or an undead protector to guard him.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    You didn't like it. What about the rest of the table?
    I didn't say I didn't like it, I said that it wasn't well designed and dragged on far too long as a result. For example, every failed roll took away a success, and since my character didn't have a 50% or better chance of succeeding at any of the skills that were required, the party would literally have been better off if I wasn't there.

    Bob bitched about it, but then again Bob bitches about most things, so no surprise there.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    We? Or you? Has the group taken on your mantra?
    Mantra?

    That's kind of a weird question though, and something I hadn't thought about. In this particular case I suppose it means I, as I am the one with the highest charisma and therefore do most of the negotiations with NPCs, but I haven't really thought about referring to the group as "we" before; it seems pretty common both in telling stories and at the table; for example one player will announce "we go back to the inn" and if none of the other players object it is assumed the party as a whole goes along with the plan.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post

    Um, continuity?

    So, have crops only been failing since the Druid disappeared? If so, in what way were the spirits misbehaving beforehand? Crazy questions: do forest spirits naturally misbehave, and could the misbehaving forest spirits have made the corrupt totem themselves? Assuming the answer to both is "no", then why would whatever caused the spirits to misbehave in the first place have allowed them to return to normal so easily?
    That is strange, but I don't think its a plot hole. There is clearly more going on here than we have seen, for example we have no clue who actually killed the druid and created the totem, I assume we will investigate further next session.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So, did you get to make use of your downtime action advantage?
    No. I dropped my character's wisdom and raised my charisma instead.

    Edit: Forgot to respond to one question; in my system wizard's can save a spell slot by making an effect appear to come about through natural means, similar to coincidental magic in M:tA. It is a tactic used heavily by starting characters who don't have the spell slots to spare, or the strength to fight off an angry mob if someone takes offense at their magic.
    Last edited by Talakeal; 2020-01-14 at 08:14 AM.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  9. - Top - End - #249
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Sounds like it went well, and you seem a little overly critical here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I didn't say I didn't like it, I said that it wasn't well designed and dragged on far too long as a result. For example, every failed roll took away a success, and since my character didn't have a 50% or better chance of succeeding at any of the skills that were required, the party would literally have been better off if I wasn't there.

    Bob bitched about it, but then again Bob bitches about most things, so no surprise there.
    And what did Brian think, did he also realize it wasn't working properly? As long as he tries to imrove, I think you should cut him some slack, even though everything isn't perfect now.

    I would be more worried about your fellow party members, and their seemingly lack of buy-in to a group game...

  10. - Top - End - #250
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Pelle View Post
    Sounds like it went well, and you seem a little overly critical here.

    And what did Brian think, did he also realize it wasn't working properly? As long as he tries to imrove, I think you should cut him some slack, even though everything isn't perfect now.

    I would be more worried about your fellow party members, and their seemingly lack of buy-in to a group game...
    Absolutely agree with everything here.

    I am intentionally being critical so we have something to talk about. As I said above, I enjoyed the game and would be happy with the campaign if every session goes as well, although I will probably get pretty frustrated if I have to spend an hour every session watching a condition track bounce back and forth for an hour and then spending another hour trying to talk the other players into going along with the adventure.

    Brian made the sailing mini-game on the drive over and admits he didn't think it through, so that's perfectly understandable.
    Looking for feedback on Heart of Darkness, a character driven RPG of Gothic fantasy.

  11. - Top - End - #251
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    RangerGuy

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Yeah, skill challenge mini games may sound fun in theory, but I think it's really easy for them to end up with the players making no real decisions. Just roll skill again and again with no reason to change what you do, that gets boring fast.

    Try have a conversion with the rest of the party to see if they agree that they are supposed to engage with what the GM has prepped or not. It looks like they don't, and that's fine. It just means that it's not worth it to prep for these people and the GM should just expect improvise instead.

  12. - Top - End - #252
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Flumph

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Its not that the situation is bad; its just that the way the mechanics worked meant that it dragged on.

    Basically, the ship had a condition track, every success moved it up one step, every failure moved it down one step, and it had to get ten points in either direction for the challenge to succeed / fail. And since we all had right around a 50% chance to succeed on any given skill test, we basically spent an hour just going back and forth around the middle.
    As the first thing in an adventure, this probably wanted some kind of mercy feature. Something like only two consecutive failures move you down the track, the first one you just don't make progress.

    Fundamentally something like that has to be designed to assume success because, well, if you don't then the game doesn't happen.

  13. - Top - End - #253
    Barbarian in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    When I do skill challenges, the party tends to "succeed" regardless of whether they make their rolls or not. The majority of the mini-game is figuring out who to assign to what tasks (there are always multiples at any given time) and what resources to expend. If no resources are expended willingly, then I tend to filter down to taking HP or giving exhaustion, assuming failure on a roll. That said, I don't know how well such a skill challenge would work with your group, Talakeal.
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  14. - Top - End - #254
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Scripten View Post
    When I do skill challenges, the party tends to "succeed" regardless of whether they make their rolls or not. The majority of the mini-game is figuring out who to assign to what tasks (there are always multiples at any given time) and what resources to expend. If no resources are expended willingly, then I tend to filter down to taking HP or giving exhaustion, assuming failure on a roll. That said, I don't know how well such a skill challenge would work with your group, Talakeal.
    Likely poorly, as they have proven violently allergic to negative consequences for their actions or choices.

    The rare skill challenges I do tend to be more branching trees - multiple ways to bypass an obstacles with player choice on which to try. The net success/failures at the end of the set-length challenge determines what resources are expended (or regained sometimes).

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    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    So, I've been thinking about this skill challenge, and how poorly it modeled in-game reality.

    You're on a sinking ship. By default, the condition track should not sit still - it should degrade every "turn"/action phase/whatever.

    Character actions should almost never make the ship sink faster. It should almost never be optimal for someone to say, "nah, you guys have got this, I would just be underfoot, I'll sit this out", as was the case for Talakeal's character. This was quite literally an "all hands on deck" situation. More hands should have made the work lighter.

    So, at the simplest, I might try… every "turn", the ship degrades 2 steps. Every turn, every character (and zombie!) can attempt a relevant ship check to improve the ship 1 step.

    A more advanced system might allow really good rolls / more critical actions to increase the maximum number of steps gained (or even change the rate of progress lost!), or to limit the maximum number of gains from certain repeated actions (you can bail water infinitely, but there are only 3 patchable holes, for example). And to better model how long different actions take.

    Thoughts?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pelle View Post
    Try have a conversion with the rest of the party to see if they agree that they are supposed to engage with what the GM has prepped or not. It looks like they don't, and that's fine. It just means that it's not worth it to prep for these people and the GM should just expect improvise instead.
    +1 this.

    Although I might use words like "linear adventure" and "sandbox" and "plot hooks", to try to get all of the players and the GM on the same page regarding expectations for the game. Because, right now, it sounds like maybe 2 people were expecting a high Participationism linear adventure, while 2 people were expecting either a sandbox, or better plot hooks.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-01-16 at 07:29 AM.

  16. - Top - End - #256
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So, I've been thinking about this skill challenge, and how poorly it modeled in-game reality.

    You're on a sinking ship. By default, the condition track should not sit still - it should degrade every "turn"/action phase/whatever.

    Character actions should almost never make the ship sink faster. It should almost never be optimal for someone to say, "nah, you guys have got this, I would just be underfoot, I'll sit this out", as was the case for Talakeal's character. This was quite literally an "all hands on deck" situation. More hands should have made the work lighter.

    So, at the simplest, I might try… every "turn", the ship degrades 2 steps. Every turn, every character (and zombie!) can attempt a relevant ship check to improve the ship 1 step.

    A more advanced system might allow really good rolls / more critical actions to increase the maximum number of steps gained (or even change the rate of progress lost!), or to limit the maximum number of gains from certain repeated actions (you can bail water infinitely, but there are only 3 patchable holes, for example). And to better model how long different actions take.

    Thoughts?
    Mathematically, this won't really fix the fundamental problem that this kind of 'roll to move along a track' mechanic amounts to waiting for a random walk to reach a boundary. Which means it takes time proportional to distance squared (e.g. if the skill challenge is on a track with 10 states, it takes ~25 steps rather than ~5 steps to get to either end from the middle if it's balanced around a 50% success rate).

    I'd tend to do something more like, stage the failing ship issue relatively close to an island or other nautical feature, and you have a fixed number of intervals during which you can either try to accumulate enough successes to stabilize the ship outright (at a fairly high difficulty), spend successes to secure cargo (so if the ship ends up sinking, you have supplies wherever you end up), save or help crewmembers who are in peril due to capsizing/etc events, put out a fire that is causing cumulative damage/increases in difficulties over time (with a risk that if it goes totally unaddressed, it hits the powder room), or change the ship's heading in the hope that you can e.g. beach it before it sinks entirely. These different actions would depend on different methods of contribution - not just skills, but spells/etc could give automatic successes if they're appropriate to the specific sub-situation (say, you get to add your skill check to the total pool needed to repair the ship, but a Repair spell grants a fixed +5 per spell level)

    So in 5 rounds, the situation will be definitively resolved one way or another. But the players have to basically make judgement calls - is it feasible for us to go all-in and try to salvage the ship entirely? Or do we need to go for the lower-risk goal of directing the ship to the nearby island? In that case, how should we prioritize the various things that are going wrong along the way?

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    , while 2 people were expecting either a sandbox, or better plot hooks.
    Possibly, but I think it's also a case of unrealistically high expectations. Sure, if the GM enjoys and have time to make a heavily prepped sandbox and is good at making plot hooks, that's cool. But a more fair to the GM approach is to help find reasons for why your character wants to engage with what the GM has had time to prep if you want prepped content.

    Based on previous threads it seems like some of the players have mutually exclusive expectations; a mix of "don't tell me what my character should do, then I'm going to do something completely different" and at the same time expecting fair, perfectly balanced encounters and adventure days. If you do your utmost to avoid the designed challenges then you should also be fine with unbalanced encounters, IMO.

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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    So, I've been thinking about this skill challenge, and how poorly it modeled in-game reality.

    You're on a sinking ship. By default, the condition track should not sit still - it should degrade every "turn"/action phase/whatever.

    Character actions should almost never make the ship sink faster. It should almost never be optimal for someone to say, "nah, you guys have got this, I would just be underfoot, I'll sit this out", as was the case for Talakeal's character. This was quite literally an "all hands on deck" situation. More hands should have made the work lighter.

    So, at the simplest, I might try… every "turn", the ship degrades 2 steps. Every turn, every character (and zombie!) can attempt a relevant ship check to improve the ship 1 step.

    A more advanced system might allow really good rolls / more critical actions to increase the maximum number of steps gained (or even change the rate of progress lost!), or to limit the maximum number of gains from certain repeated actions (you can bail water infinitely, but there are only 3 patchable holes, for example). And to better model how long different actions take.

    Thoughts?
    Basically, the DM tried to modify the mechanics for a chase scene to represent getting a damaged boat into harbor before it sinks. In a normal chase scene, all of the fancy tricks carry a penalty for failure, and the DM did much the same. Unfortunately, he didn't include a basic run equivalent action (bailing water perhaps?) for untrained characters to do without risking the cost of failure.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Although I might use words like "linear adventure" and "sandbox" and "plot hooks", to try to get all of the players and the GM on the same page regarding expectations for the game. Because, right now, it sounds like maybe 2 people were expecting a high Participationism linear adventure, while 2 people were expecting either a sandbox, or better plot hooks.
    I don't think plot hooks get more urgent / clear than "You are stuck in a small town where everyone is starving, the townspeople think its connected to the missing druid and are looking to form a posse to investigate."

    I am kind of miffed at my party members. Originally I wanted to play the "dragon" character, but everybody wanted to play outcasts with no social skills or grand plans, so I remade my character to function as the party leader / face, and now everyone is grumbling about wanting more authority / respect and not wanting to listen to anyone.
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    My advice is to focus on the new player if he comes back, try to be the example and focus on being a team player. Hopefully this will be enough and at the very least you will get a decent game partner.
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    Default Re: How to prevent one of Talakeal's Gaming Horror Stories: PC Edition

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    Mathematically, this won't really fix the fundamental problem that this kind of 'roll to move along a track' mechanic amounts to waiting for a random walk to reach a boundary. Which means it takes time proportional to distance squared (e.g. if the skill challenge is on a track with 10 states, it takes ~25 steps rather than ~5 steps to get to either end from the middle if it's balanced around a 50% success rate).
    "If the mechanics are the same, then it will have the same mechanical issues" is tautologically true. However, if you say that, you must have missed how my mechanics differ.

    Add 9 copies of Talakeal's character to the old skill track, and it makes the boat more likely to sink; add 9 copies of Talakeal's character to my progress track, and it makes the boat more likely to survive.

    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    I'd tend to do something more like, stage the failing ship issue relatively close to an island or other nautical feature, and you have a fixed number of intervals during which you can either try to accumulate enough successes to stabilize the ship outright (at a fairly high difficulty), spend successes to secure cargo (so if the ship ends up sinking, you have supplies wherever you end up), save or help crewmembers who are in peril due to capsizing/etc events, put out a fire that is causing cumulative damage/increases in difficulties over time (with a risk that if it goes totally unaddressed, it hits the powder room), or change the ship's heading in the hope that you can e.g. beach it before it sinks entirely. These different actions would depend on different methods of contribution - not just skills, but spells/etc could give automatic successes if they're appropriate to the specific sub-situation (say, you get to add your skill check to the total pool needed to repair the ship, but a Repair spell grants a fixed +5 per spell level)

    So in 5 rounds, the situation will be definitively resolved one way or another. But the players have to basically make judgement calls - is it feasible for us to go all-in and try to salvage the ship entirely? Or do we need to go for the lower-risk goal of directing the ship to the nearby island? In that case, how should we prioritize the various things that are going wrong along the way?
    I mean, what I would actually do would be very different, too - I was just aiming to stick with the "track" tech (in case it mattered to Talakeal's system), and see if it could be implemented better.

    Is that irrelevant? Should I explain how I would handle it in general?

    Quote Originally Posted by Pelle View Post
    Possibly, but I think it's also a case of unrealistically high expectations. Sure, if the GM enjoys and have time to make a heavily prepped sandbox and is good at making plot hooks, that's cool. But a more fair to the GM approach is to help find reasons for why your character wants to engage with what the GM has had time to prep if you want prepped content.
    That's… within the zone of what I intended my comments to encompass.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pelle View Post
    Based on previous threads it seems like some of the players have mutually exclusive expectations; a mix of "don't tell me what my character should do, then I'm going to do something completely different" and at the same time expecting fair, perfectly balanced encounters and adventure days. If you do your utmost to avoid the designed challenges then you should also be fine with unbalanced encounters, IMO.
    And, if so, that's something I'd like them to get out of that conversation.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Basically, the DM tried to modify the mechanics for a chase scene to represent getting a damaged boat into harbor before it sinks. In a normal chase scene, all of the fancy tricks carry a penalty for failure, and the DM did much the same. Unfortunately, he didn't include a basic run equivalent action (bailing water perhaps?) for untrained characters to do without risking the cost of failure.
    That is a very interesting take on ship challenges. Or skill challenges. Either one.

    I don't think in terms of a linear progress track, so… I've never considered the necessity of an explicit "run" action before? I guess I've allowed "I (untrained) assist x action" - like, "I carry stuff to them, to make it go faster".

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I don't think plot hooks get more urgent / clear than "You are stuck in a small town where everyone is starving, the townspeople think its connected to the missing druid and are looking to form a posse to investigate."
    Eh, to play devil's advocate, not really. We don't know the area; they do. We don't know the Druid, or the local spirits; they did. We are intruding foreigners; they are locals. There are so many reasons that the party should not be interfering / should leave this clearly vital quest to those more qualified. It's pure hubris for the party to get involved in local religious matters.

    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    I am kind of miffed at my party members. Originally I wanted to play the "dragon" character, but everybody wanted to play outcasts with no social skills or grand plans, so I remade my character to function as the party leader / face, and now everyone is grumbling about wanting more authority / respect and not wanting to listen to anyone.
    Did they tell you that you needed to be the leader / face? One of my favorite parties (my BDH party) would struggle with trivial social tasks, like not being run out of the town that we just saved. It was bloody awesome - literally, on both counts!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "If the mechanics are the same, then it will have the same mechanical issues" is tautologically true. However, if you say that, you must have missed how my mechanics differ.

    Add 9 copies of Talakeal's character to the old skill track, and it makes the boat more likely to sink; add 9 copies of Talakeal's character to my progress track, and it makes the boat more likely to survive.
    That kind of difference only really matters in cases where varying the number of characters that are available to participate is something that you can make active decisions about. In this scenario, the ship has the crew it has, and if this skill challenge is worth running then the numbers should be in an interval where failure is actually possible. So in that case, the thing you describe (-2 each round, p(success) of +1 per person) is going to have a fixed number of people, which means that there is some set of DCs and +'s/-'s that would produce the same distribution of success/failure as well as challenge length as your system.

    So adding that kind of shift doesn't really resolve the thing where this skill challenge went on and on without really concluding.

    I think the real design error in this sort of track-based skill challenge framework is that basically once you have the set of participants and the parameters of the challenge (# of successes needed/# of failures allowed/etc), the outcome or distribution of outcomes is pretty much fixed (barring intentional bad choices on the part of the players, like using a skill where the expected result will be worse than doing nothing for example). So you're taking however long it takes in order to do what could be summarized by a bit of math and rolling a percentile check. In order to make it worthwhile to play through, intermediate results should lead to cases where new decisions have to be made. To make it really meaningful, those decisions should not just be a matter of optimizing a mathematical function, but should involve some degree of prioritization or the possibility of contrast between personal goals of the participants (so that the players don't just need to decide how to get what they want, but they have to decide how to navigate the compromise between what they want, what they can have, what the risk is, and what others might want).

    Otherwise, it risks feeling like you're watching the DM take an hour just to roll a die.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NichG View Post
    That kind of difference only really matters in cases where varying the number of characters that are available to participate is something that you can make active decisions about. In this scenario, the ship has the crew it has, and if this skill challenge is worth running then the numbers should be in an interval where failure is actually possible. So in that case, the thing you describe (-2 each round, p(success) of +1 per person) is going to have a fixed number of people, which means that there is some set of DCs and +'s/-'s that would produce the same distribution of success/failure as well as challenge length as your system.

    So adding that kind of shift doesn't really resolve the thing where this skill challenge went on and on without really concluding.

    I think the real design error in this sort of track-based skill challenge framework is that basically once you have the set of participants and the parameters of the challenge (# of successes needed/# of failures allowed/etc), the outcome or distribution of outcomes is pretty much fixed (barring intentional bad choices on the part of the players, like using a skill where the expected result will be worse than doing nothing for example). So you're taking however long it takes in order to do what could be summarized by a bit of math and rolling a percentile check. In order to make it worthwhile to play through, intermediate results should lead to cases where new decisions have to be made. To make it really meaningful, those decisions should not just be a matter of optimizing a mathematical function, but should involve some degree of prioritization or the possibility of contrast between personal goals of the participants (so that the players don't just need to decide how to get what they want, but they have to decide how to navigate the compromise between what they want, what they can have, what the risk is, and what others might want).

    Otherwise, it risks feeling like you're watching the DM take an hour just to roll a die.
    Well, let's poke at those assumptions.

    -----

    You are assuming x characters. I am not.

    In the original system, the optimal choice was for Talakeal's character to sit out, so (x-1) characters.

    With my proposed changes, x characters would be better than (x-1).

    Further, there is no guarantee that all the PCs participate. The Necromancer was hidden; the passenger could have roleplayed being shell shocked or something.

    The most likely fail state under the original system was "Talakeal's character participates, plus bad luck". The most likely fail case under my system was "one or more PCs sit this out".

    The optimal answer under the old system was "Talakeal's character sits this out; other characters expend resources". The optimal answer under my system would have been… everyone participates, and increases the number of participants if able (animate dead, summoning, whatever).

    -----

    You think it is optimal for there to be a risk of failure via the dice. I think it is optimal for there to be a risk of failure by player choices (and for that risk to map logically to in-game reality, rather than be a "gotcha").

    -----

    You believe in there being interesting decisions throughout. I… could go either way. Note that Talakeal lamented the lack of a generic option (for different reasons, granted). Still, some players enjoy choices, others enjoy the grind.

    -----

    Yes, if I modeled this from scratch, it would involve numerous issues and resources. You have cargo. Is it a resource (lumber to patch holes), an objective (valuables to sell later / provisions to eat later), or an obstacle (it's weighing the ship down, causing you to sink faster)? Well, it's all of those, but it's up to you to realize that, and decide what to do about it.
    Last edited by Quertus; 2020-01-17 at 02:30 PM.

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    Big problem for me was the dissonance (and to a lesser extent boredom) involved in doing nothing, but me participating was actively annoying the rest of the group as I was hurting their chance of success.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Big problem for me was the dissonance (and to a lesser extent boredom) involved in doing nothing, but me participating was actively annoying the rest of the group as I was hurting their chance of success.
    Does the system have something similar to a help action? For whenever your particular skills don't fit.

    Now, being a muscular character as you describe I would imagine your character would have plenty of useful things to do, I don't really see how your character could be considered useless?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Big problem for me was the dissonance (and to a lesser extent boredom) involved in doing nothing, but me participating was actively annoying the rest of the group as I was hurting their chance of success.
    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    Does the system have something similar to a help action? For whenever your particular skills don't fit.

    Now, being a muscular character as you describe I would imagine your character would have plenty of useful things to do, I don't really see how your character could be considered useless?
    ...Nor how your character participating in the festivities could hurt the party's chances of success.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord of Shadows View Post
    ...Nor how your character participating in the festivities could hurt the party's chances of success.
    Failures took away a success, and I had less than a 50% chance to succeed at any of the applicable skills.

    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    Does the system have something similar to a help action? For whenever your particular skills don't fit.
    Sort of. I could have been standing around giving orders for a slight bonus, but from an RP perspective that would have looked really bad. The whole idea of the scenario was to reinforce trust in one another, so I went below deck to pump out water while leaving the ogre in charge; me standing up top barking orders while keeping my hands clean would have really undermined the scenario imo.

    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    Does the system have something similar to a help action? For whenever your particular skills don't fit.

    Now, being a muscular character as you describe I would imagine your character would have plenty of useful things to do, I don't really see how your character could be considered useless?
    Logically no. As it was, the DM called for an athletics skill test, and I have less than a 50% chance of success on athletics.
    Last edited by Talakeal; 2020-01-17 at 04:33 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Sort of. I could have been standing around giving orders for a slight bonus, but from an RP perspective that would have looked really bad. The whole idea of the scenario was to reinforce trust in one another, so I went below deck to pump out water while leaving the ogre in charge; me standing up top barking orders while keeping my hands clean would have really undermined the scenario imo.
    Couldn't you be up there shouting inspiring words, singing a working song or doing anything else than barking orders to give this slight bonus to the others? Because yeah, shouting orders is kinda problematic, specially since your character doesn't know the first thing about navigating, But there other ways to be charismatic or expressing leadership without being in command.



    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Logically no. As it was, the DM called for an athletics skill test, and I have less than a 50% chance of success on athletics.
    Weird for your character to be so bad at athletics. I imagined it would be one of her strong points.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talakeal View Post
    Big problem for me was the dissonance (and to a lesser extent boredom) involved in doing nothing, but me participating was actively annoying the rest of the group as I was hurting their chance of success.
    I had misunderstood - I thought your failure was annoying you, not that it was annoying the other players. Ugh.

    Well, make lots of notes, and consider whether this is how you want your system to operate.

    … is this idea of a skill challenge success track even from your system?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I had misunderstood - I thought your failure was annoying you, not that it was annoying the other players. Ugh.

    Well, make lots of notes, and consider whether this is how you want your system to operate.

    … is this idea of a skill challenge success track even from your system?
    It was a modified chase scene. Normally those who fail would fall behind, but wouldn't Actively hold the rest of the group back.


    Quote Originally Posted by zinycor View Post
    Couldn't you be up there shouting inspiring words, singing a working song or doing anything else than barking orders to give this slight bonus to the others? Because yeah, shouting orders is kinda problematic, specially since your character doesn't know the first thing about navigating, But there other ways to be charismatic or expressing leadership without being in command.

    Weird for your character to be so bad at athletics. I imagined it would be one of her strong points.


    It would be nice, but there just weren't enough skill points to go around, especially after the DM told me I needed crafting skills.
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