Advice for a rookie GM with rookie players

[Duke Bushido]

On 7/3/2019 at 3:52 AM, dialNforNinja said:

a silhouette of him out of the side of a clear soda bottle and stuck it in a flattened blob of Green Stuff to switch the mini out with when he was invisible, so ...

 

 

All right folks, and thank you in particular for the idea, DialN, I present UltraViolent (sic), invisible assassin and death-dealing berserker:

 

 

Thanks again, DialN;  the youth group kids are going to love it! 

 

 

Duke

[Manic Typist]

On 6/29/2019 at 12:19 AM, ghost-angel said:

I recommend doing it this way: Attack Skill, this is calculated by adding your OCV to 11. Write it down. Do not do the math Every. Single. Attack. (whch, BTW, the old standard has you doing, it slows down play considerably. it's just bad.)

Just, have an Attack Roll. How much they make the roll by is the Target Number, which is the DCV. Know the target number, don't know it, doesn't matter. Add your modifiers to the result. Simple.

 

 

 

This got my thinking (dangerous habit, that). I want to test out describing it for one player in more D&D terms, since they haven't really learned their sheet super well (which is fine).

 

What if if I did "11-DCV = Armor Class/Difficulty Class, the number you have to beat by rolling UNDER. You increase that number via your OCV."

 

So, attacking a DCV 5 opponent? "11-5 = DC 6." You have to roll a 6-, if you for some reason had zero OCV. 

 

Anyone try something like this?

[ghost-angel]

It's got merit, but you're still in danger of two things I'm trying to avoid:

1) redoing the math every phase (or time the DCV changes)

2) Using information not on your characters, as a player, in front of you.

 

As long as we keep insisting on putting DCV into the equation the Player will needs information not in front of them. That's the whole point of the Attack Roll concept: it only requires information in front you, written down on your character sheet. You roll, you add your attack modifiers to the result. You tell the GM "I hit X" - the GM compares that to the Target DCV, if X is equal to or more than the Target DCV then "You hit the Target".

 

That is seriously the most important point I'm trying to convey: Players should only need information written down in front of them.

[dialNforNinja]

6 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thanks again, DialN;  the youth group kids are going to love it!

I know I love it! No thanks needed, it's what we're here for after all. I'm happy to help. On the subject of making stand-ups out of soda bottle plastic, I have a vague memory that is in fact the same kind of stuff Shrinky-Dinks used to be made out of, so while it would definitely need testing before you set your heart on it, you might be able to do that good old trick with it if you find the right oven temperature. I know that soda bottles actually start out as a thick little blobby thing attached to the molded neck and threads, then get heated and blown into a bottle-shape mold, so it is at least plausible.

 

Hm, yup, this video does a lot of it, though using the flat top/bottom of the kind of plastic bin fresh sandwiches and salad greens get sold in rather than a bottle for the literal copy-the-Shrinky-Dinks-commercial segment. It's way too hot for me to try it at the moment, but I have like three of those sitting in my trash right now

[Manic Typist]

1 hour ago, ghost-angel said:

It's got merit, but you're still in danger of two things I'm trying to avoid:

1) redoing the math every phase (or time the DCV changes)

2) Using information not on your characters, as a player, in front of you.

 

As long as we keep insisting on putting DCV into the equation the Player will needs information not in front of them. That's the whole point of the Attack Roll concept: it only requires information in front you, written down on your character sheet. You roll, you add your attack modifiers to the result. You tell the GM "I hit X" - the GM compares that to the Target DCV, if X is equal to or more than the Target DCV then "You hit the Target".

 

That is seriously the most important point I'm trying to convey: Players should only need information written down in front of them.

I agree 10000%. It also saves me as a GM that most precious thing: Time.

 

There are 4-5 players - they need to make it easy for me to do these things, and they should do this basic math themselves.

 

However, I do have one player who this still hasn't clicked for, so I'm willing to go a route where I announce it like D&D - "Give me DC 17 Strength check" etc.

 

At that point, all they need is on their sheet. It takes me a bit more time but it's still faster than explaining both approaches every session.