A Thread For Random RPG Musings

[Old Man]

10 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Why loot? Perhaps your players are explorers? Perhaps they are trying to find a lost road, town or Civilization? Perhaps they’re trying to chase down a (or many) Macguffins before Big Bad does? I have Silver Elves as in Elves that carry silver because silver is effective against magical monsters in D&D. You could have a patron which feeds info the players.

 

I've always been fond of quests for non-loot.  The secret phrase to unseal a magical gate.  A pass through the mountains to enable civilians to trade or escape.  Tracking the last party of adventurers that went looking for one of these things and disappeared.  Hunting down the evil creature that (it is assumed) murdered the crown prince.  Et cetera.

[tkdguy]

Quests without loot are a non-starter for a lot of players. I once wrote a horror game where the PCs were supposed to help a cursed village. None of my players in that group would do it without any sort of reward, not even the ones playing supposedly good characters.

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed.

 

Perhaps,it is the brand,of adventure fiction that I grew up on (five you a hint: as a kid, I really,thought isometrecs were going to be _the_ key to body-building ), but even as a player way back when, I always thought the "heroes" should be upstanding and definite (though not necesarrily clear-cut) "good guys" who were simply incapable of murder hobo-ing or randomly plundering for days on end; people who would gladly take on a quest slightly more noble than "jump into this cavern. Kill everytjing in it, and take its gold."

 

I expect that the early patterns of D and D are one of the (several) reasons I do not like D and D tonthis day.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

12 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I've always been fond of quests for non-loot.  The secret phrase to unseal a magical gate.  A pass through the mountains to enable civilians to trade or escape.  Tracking the last party of adventurers that went looking for one of these things and disappeared.  Hunting down the evil creature that (it is assumed) murdered the crown prince.  Et cetera.

I forgot one idea I gave too is the dwarves to find a new passage that leads to the outside world.

[Ninja-Bear]

11 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

I expect that the early patterns of D and D are one of the (several) reasons I do not like D and D tonthis day.

 

 

I think it also comes down to how advancement works. If you only get advancement for killing then killing is the goal. If only gold is for advancement then killing is less emphasized but still there. Interestingly Holmes  has that XP can be awarded for outwitting a monster and I believe overcoming an obstacle. It really comes down to how you reward the players actions.

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed completely.

 

It was simply that my earliest experience with D and D- to include my second try a couple of years later, with a DM who used every published module he could get his hands on- boiled down to kill it and take its gold.  Ultimately, those were the only ways to gain XP.    much like I always felt a random "encounter" could be "you see tracks" or "you see two cubs playing on a distant meadow,"  I always felt that "defeat" was not necessarily a synonym for "kill."

 

unfortunately, nothing in the early material backed the idea up. 

 

 

 

once PCs could,be given an XP value, it got really ugly with certain players.

[Ninja-Bear]

It seems that there are people who feel that even though you play an OSR, you can change the XP rewards to suit your tastes.

[Duke Bushido]

No doubt; no game is immutable, particularly if something stands in way of enjoying the game.

 

I hit me as I was reading your reply that the most likely reason I never got into the old school revival is that, between Champions 2e and Traveller LBBs and pocket box Car Wars (and Truck Stop) as my go-to games even today, there is no "revival" for me.  I didnt leave the Old School.

 

Help!  I'm stuck out here with John Connely!

 

 

[death tribble]

with horror there is also a culture shock. I played D+D for years and you shepherd the characters and you get healing. Then you play Cthulhu. Monsters can kill you pretty easily but you get machine guns ! Which don't work against certain ones and you go mad as you learn more.

And LARPing is different again. I have played Vampire as a LARP and enjoyed it.

[Old Man]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I think it also comes down to how advancement works. If you only get advancement for killing then killing is the goal. If only gold is for advancement then killing is less emphasized but still there. Interestingly Holmes  has that XP can be awarded for outwitting a monster and I believe overcoming an obstacle. It really comes down to how you reward the players actions.

 

Excellent point, but the players themselves also have a say.  The one thing that I can remember that really motivated players more than kewl lewtz was revenge.  In this instance the PCs, shortly after exiting some dungeon when they were weakened and tired, were ambushed by a rival group of adventurers that quickly incapacitated the PCs.  They were the 'honorable thief' type so they didn't kill anyone or even take anything other than whatever macguffin was the object of the quest.

 

My god did the other players go full jihad.  Anything and everything else that was going on in the campaign was dropped in favor of hunting down and murdering that other party with extreme prejudice, which they did.  It was a little disturbing, but it also became an awesome addition to the campaign as the GM had the leader of the other party make his escape, so that he could show up now and again with a new group of adventurers every few sessions.

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

[Ragitsu]

On 10/16/2022 at 10:52 AM, Cygnia said:

 

 

That reminds me of...

 

...ah, I found it at last.

 

[tkdguy]

Turn your local area into a fantasy campaign!

 

 

[Ragitsu]

Speaking of which: my neck of the woods is much more interesting in Shadowrun.

[Old Man]

4 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

Speaking of which: my neck of the woods is much more interesting in Shadowrun.

 

Is there any area that isn't more interesting in Shadowrun?

[tkdguy]

23 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Is there any area that isn't more interesting in Shadowrun?

 

More interesting, probably. Better, not so much.

[Ragitsu]

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Is there any area that isn't more interesting in Shadowrun?

 

My particular patch of dirt needs all the help it can get.

[tkdguy]

You can also use World of Darkness and/or Highlander settings to spice up your local area. I ran such a crossover in the 90s.

[BNakagawa]

21 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Turn your local area into a fantasy campaign!

 

 

Back in the day Mike Gray, one of the original Guardians, ran a fantasy hero game set in a fantasy version of the Bay Area.

[Ninja-Bear]

Isn’t that what Gygax did originally? 

[BNakagawa]

On another tack, there is a discussion about AI and its impact on generating artwork that can be used in RPGs. (a lot of groaning about what it does in terms of putting artists out of work)

 

On the other hand, if you look at AI chatbots and look at the expert systems/algorithms that look at your buying history, viewing history, engagement history and pick what ads to show you, what suggestions to show you on amazon or what ends up on your facebook feed, I think there is a distinct possibility that you could generate an AI game master that could start with a seed of your favorite media, some Q&A about themes and tone and end up spitting out a game tailor made to cater to your tastes. Obviously, more difficult when playing in a group setting because it's hard to please everyone, but still an intriguing concept.