Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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Gingervitis said:
I finally convinced my friends to let me run a magical girl campaign. The problem is, I never thought I'd get this far. It'll be my third time DMing, but the first time was a shitty dungeon crawl I made and the second time was White Plume Mountain. How do I write a story for a shortish tabletop campaign when all I have is a premise?
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Apart from ripping off other stories like was mentioned, you definitely want a session zero and use that for writing and detailing the story. Once you know who are the PCs' friends, family and so on, there's an easy hook. (And whether you're using a new system or hacking magical girls into system the group is familiar with, you want session zero to see if there's any potential mechanical difficulties.)

If your group is willing to go along with genre conventions, there's a lot of implausible coincidences you can get away with. The new fad at school is secretly a sinister plot. The new popular gacha game is sucking life out of players not just figuratively, but also literally. Every single school event is going to be targeted by the villains. It's fine in the genre for events to wait for the characters to tackle them.

Depending on how specific your premise is, it might be worth it to loosen the definition of magical girl to allow for multiple archetypes. Again, it depends on the group, but they might like having a group of reincarnated princess from an ancient kingdom/monster girl/space cop/exchange student from magical realm than four characters whose main mechanical differences are the element they're using.
 
Gingervitis said:
I finally convinced my friends to let me run a magical girl campaign. The problem is, I never thought I'd get this far. It'll be my third time DMing, but the first time was a shitty dungeon crawl I made and the second time was White Plume Mountain. How do I write a story for a shortish tabletop campaign when all I have is a premise?
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Apart from what everybody said (very good advice all around), I would suggest keeping the story relatively small in scope. At least a first. For some unfathomable reason the Evil Queen of the Underworld starts out her plans of world domination by attempting to take over the protagonists' school, neighborhood, or city. The closer the story feels to the characters, the easier it is for the players to feel attached to it, and for them to overlook the natural absurdity of the premise.
 
Corn Flakes said:
For some unfathomable reason the Evil Queen of the Underworld starts out her plans of world domination by attempting to take over the protagonists' school, neighborhood, or city.
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There's a Russian adaption of Snow Queen where a little boy hears about her for the first time, and mockingly says he will put her on the stove and make her the Puddle Queen. I always liked that.

Someone has foolishly attracted the ire of one of the many powerful forces you are better off not irritating, and their friends have to rescue them from that.

Ultimately, the villain comes to reluctantly admire the heroism of the main characters in their hopeless battle, and decides not to destroy them.
 
Gingervitis said:
I finally convinced my friends to let me run a magical girl campaign. The problem is, I never thought I'd get this far. It'll be my third time DMing, but the first time was a shitty dungeon crawl I made and the second time was White Plume Mountain. How do I write a story for a shortish tabletop campaign when all I have is a premise?
Click to expand...
Fictional Character said:
Apart from ripping off other stories like was mentioned, you definitely want a session zero and use that for writing and detailing the story. Once you know who are the PCs' friends, family and so on, there's an easy hook. (And whether you're using a new system or hacking magical girls into system the group is familiar with, you want session zero to see if there's any potential mechanical difficulties.)

If your group is willing to go along with genre conventions, there's a lot of implausible coincidences you can get away with. The new fad at school is secretly a sinister plot. The new popular gacha game is sucking life out of players not just figuratively, but also literally. Every single school event is going to be targeted by the villains. It's fine in the genre for events to wait for the characters to tackle them.

Depending on how specific your premise is, it might be worth it to loosen the definition of magical girl to allow for multiple archetypes. Again, it depends on the group, but they might like having a group of reincarnated princess from an ancient kingdom/monster girl/space cop/exchange student from magical realm than four characters whose main mechanical differences are the element they're using.
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There's definitely many Magical Girl Flavors you can use, in my opinion you can mix and match elements. Two series I like are Magic Knight RayEarth (essentially a Magical Girl Isekai where they obtain Elemetal Powers with their own gimmick weapon and God Mecha!) and Puella Magi Madoka Magica (which anyone that's seen knows the spoiler twists and how they could apply to a TTG).

You don't need to subscribe wholly to a single atmosphere, and most of all, keep it fun!
 
Thinking about running a few sessions of a hexcrawl sandbox game. Anyone have any recommendations on what system to use? Was looking at Five Torches Deep.
 
ZMOT said:
forbidden lands maybe?
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I'm glad to have participated in its Kickstarter. The box set has everything you need, except dice. The rules are simple and good. Character creation is quick and can be made even faster by using the random tables in the softcover "Legends & Adventures" book (included in the box). Although the world is basic fantasy, there are many little things that make the setting feel unique.

It would be easy to get up and running for "a few sessions" and just as easy to keep going further. Also, it helps that the player characters are nudged towards setting up their own base of operations after an adventure or two, adding to their buy-in of your adventures.
 
Juke and Jam said:
I'm glad to have participated in its Kickstarter. The box set has everything you need, except dice. The rules are simple and good. Character creation is quick and can be made even faster by using the random tables in the softcover "Legends & Adventures" book (included in the box). Although the world is basic fantasy, there are many little things that make the setting feel unique.

It would be easy to get up and running for "a few sessions" and just as easy to keep going further. Also, it helps that the player characters are nudged towards setting up their own base of operations after an adventure or two, adding to their buy-in of your adventures.
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Glancing through the rulebooks so far I'm liking what I see, especially in regards to character creation since I have a player that hates spending too much time on it for short campaigns. The only issue I see is that since I'm hosting via Foundry, I'm going to have to find a way to incorporate the card system which shouldn't be too hard with rollable tables. Thanks for the great recommendation!
 
Is it being clever as a Dm or being a dick if you are making traps where one of the traps is a false trap and not triggering it actually triggers the real trap?
 
Kyria the Great said:
Is it being clever as a Dm or being a dick if you are making traps where one of the traps is a false trap and not triggering it actually triggers the real trap?
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Little bit of both, I'd say. As with all traps it would do best as a "use sparingly" thing.
 
Dante Alighieri said:
Little bit of both, I'd say. As with all traps it would do best as a "use sparingly" thing.
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I feel traps should do the function like they do in real life and keep the invader on their toes and to defend critical locations where manpower might be in short supply and you have something worth defending as no one wants to turn their home into a hazard.
 
Waifuwars said:
Glancing through the rulebooks so far I'm liking what I see, especially in regards to character creation since I have a player that hates spending too much time on it for short campaigns. The only issue I see is that since I'm hosting via Foundry, I'm going to have to find a way to incorporate the card system which shouldn't be too hard with rollable tables. Thanks for the great recommendation!
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Forbidden Lands Card Combat | Foundry Virtual Tabletop

Forbidden Lands Card Combat, a Module available for Foundry Virtual Tabletop
foundryvtt.com foundryvtt.com
dunno if that works, but there seem to be a few modules.

Kyria the Great said:
I feel traps should do the function like they do in real life and keep the invader on their toes and to defend critical locations where manpower might be in short supply and you have something worth defending as no one wants to turn their home into a hazard.
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that's why you put mouse traps anywhere to foil trap sense, and later introduce the XXL version. "it's just another mouse trap".
 
Not every trap has to be direct-attack, either.

One trap in the current dungeon I'm running is rather ingenious; if the door is forced, it triggers a spell glyph that summons some nasties into the next room. The party luckily detected it but couldn't figure out how to disarm it.

So they lured the fucking gelatinous cube that was roaming the halls to come right up to the door, and bump up against it (triggering the trap). The nasties got summoned, looked confused, opened the door, and then it was mephits vs cube while the party watched.
 
Kyria the Great said:
I feel traps should do the function like they do in real life and keep the invader on their toes and to defend critical locations where manpower might be in short supply and you have something worth defending as no one wants to turn their home into a hazard.
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Wrong. Real men wire up all their entryways with claymores and S-mines.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Not every trap has to be direct-attack, either.

One trap in the current dungeon I'm running is rather ingenious; if the door is forced, it triggers a spell glyph that summons some nasties into the next room. The party luckily detected it but couldn't figure out how to disarm it.

So they lured the fucking gelatinous cube that was roaming the halls to come right up to the door, and bump up against it (triggering the trap). The nasties got summoned, looked confused, opened the door, and then it was mephits vs cube while the party watched.
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Traps are also great for reshaping the dungeon and splitting the party. Sure, everybody dodged that collapsing ceiling without damage... but now half the group is on one side, the other half is on the other, and trying to dig through the debris is only going to result in more collapses. The party is going to have to find a different path (and the GM needs to make an alternate path available) to get together before they can progress further.
 
IAmNotAlpharius said:
That’s something I like about the Mutants and Masterminds RPG. Taking disadvantages allows a player to take more powers at a cost. It also fits into the super hero or villain theme.
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Pretty standard for point buy systems, including HERO and GURPS.

Snekposter said:
Wrong. Real men wire up all their entryways with claymores and S-mines.
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Real men hang door curtains with strong magnets instead of beads. I'm sorry, but your weapon belongs to the doorway now.
 
MAPK phosphatase said:
Pretty standard for point buy systems, including HERO and GURPS.


Real men hang door curtains with strong magnets instead of beads. I'm sorry, but your weapon belongs to the doorway now.
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Would you recommend Hero? I never played it.
 
The things with traps is: They should make sense within the game world.
It's very tempting to put lethal traps all over the place and to make some place a giant labyrinth, but depending on the original function of that place, that can be rather silly.

Say, you have an old temple, where regular people come to worship a couple times a week, you don't put a maze in front of that temple and if you do, the correct path isn't particularly hard, cause you don't want your worshippers to end up lost in your maze. Similarly, traps on the wrong routes of that maze would not be lethal, cause you don't want to kill your own worshippers. If you have traps there, something to make sound would be more appropriate, so it could warn guards of someone approaching.
Secure areas where only a small group of people should enter are an entirely different thing, of course.

Traps to confine people are also always a good idea, but those need to make sense too. There's a Resident Evil movie where a pit drops intruders directly into a lab, which is just plain silly. Red Sonja has something similar, where a pit drops someone right into what looks like a break-room directly on top of a table, where guards sit and play cards.

And when it comes to labyrinths, a good strategy to make them more confusing is to not have them be stacked levels of mazes connected by stairs or slopes, have them be slanted and sloped, small stairs that incrementally lead up or down, so some floor might be above another floor at some places and on the same level or beneath it at others. Depending on the game and setting, magic doorways that lead the adventurers in circles are also a nice touch.

Ultimately, the more sense the place makes within its own logic, the better. It also adds a bit more "character" to the location, when it has a layout that reflects its original purpose and possibly how it was altered later on by other people to reflect their needs.
 
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