Man, that’s some hardcore GM work you put in. Congrats!
Sometimes that happens just because the player is trying to solicit response/feedback from the other players, but if it is awkward for them nobody responds, which just makes for more insistent performance trying to get a response. Its an awkwardness feedback loop.
Yeah. Honestly, it’s one of those things I should have probably touched base on in-game, but, as the above illustrates, I was drowning a bit in juggling All The Things and missed how that was hitting at the table, and that it was continuing OOC during the break. It’s pretty much exactly what the table safety tools were meant to correct, but I also sorta forgot to delve into them for this session like I usually do.
I think the player’s probably a decent dude who wanted to have a prototypical “do anything for love, except he’s a naive himbo who’s def gonna get taken advantage of a few times first” kinda protag, and just went about it in an awkward way. I mean, lose points for not being able to read the crowd and playing up some kinda ick tropes, but, compared to some of the wildly inappropriate shit I’ve seen at the table, he’s pretty mild, hah.
The female PC’s player’s main thing was more like, “I was very annoyed, and mostly don’t want anyone else to have to go through that in the future,” which is pretty fair.
It’s definitely an. . . unwise amount of work, hah. But it brings me a lot of joy, and if it does the same for the folks at my table, I think it’s all pretty worth it.
This was definitely a case of a game that had a ton of pre-work slipped into it – future sessions should be a lot simpler to manage, since all of that stuff’s done now.
Then again, next season, we’re likely gonna have the players chasing down a new lead on the beastfolk-populated Koumazcot Isles, so, brand new setting again :D
Will do! They have done quite a lot of work to bring the brutality and increased lethality to 5E. Once I’ve read more, I’ll comment on it. I’m sure combat will remain slower paced than in the original though.
Exactly. And it’s for the setting and stories I backed it. As I mentioned in another thread, it’s easy to get players to sign up for a 5E table. Running 5E adventures in this setting should be great. I’m looking forward to the Throne of Thorns campaign getting published for 5E too.
Wow. Much respect to you for joining that endeavour and putting in that much work. Sounds like it seriously paid off. Considering how much I over prepare a simple prewritten scenario, I’d never be able to do anything like that.
Really glad to hear the players were so engaged and having so much fun.
You almost lost me with that name, but given the sheer awesomeness of everything else you wrote, I’ll allow it. :)
That was so much fun, Armando! Please keep posting about your GMing, with as much detail as you can care to write, because that was a fascinating read.
-Tom
One of these days I’m packaging up all my thoughts on the process and dumping them out for broader consumption. Honestly, if you stick to a reasonable schedule and everyone contributes well with their individual talents, putting together a 4-tables-a-week SOP three months out of the year, every year, is very doable. Requires a lot of team players to come together and be willing to share vision, and obviously you only gotta go that big if you’re planning to routinely run for 20+, but point is, past a certain point, the actual complexity doesn’t scale much more; you just need more GMs to offer tables each week.
If it makes you feel any better, the table reaction was a pretty even split between hearty laughter and seething rage!
I really need to get into more of a habit of doing AARs, because my inability to concentrate on writing while people are talking means I take almost no notes mid session. Capturing detail while it’s still fresh is vital, in that case, especially in a shared enterprise like AD,A, where what happens at my table can have major impact on GMs running at the next session.
For instance here, the PCs opted to spare Read Nell. The DM team had been planning a bit of a gang treadmill for the season as a running joke, replacing the Read Nell Gang with the Red Nails (nail studded club wielders) and eventually the Sanguine Knell, an actually kinda scary demon worshiping cult gang. Read surviving puts an interesting twist into the war for control of the city’s criminal underworld and maybe gives the heroes an ally against the next gang up step up.
Or someone for us to kill offscreen to establish threat…
Huh, Monte Cook Games just launched a KS for The Old Gods of Appalachia, what looks like a modern, Applalachia-focused Vaesen. Apparently it’s based on the eldrich horror-anthology podcast of the same name (who are also the primary writers on the RPG), which I’ve never heard of, but sounds cool. I searched the podcast thread, but there’s no mention around here. Anyone familiar? I liked the horror anthology podcast The Magnus Archives, and this sounds similar, but maybe without the meta-narrative?
I mentioned wanting a US American focused Vaesen setting in last year’s RPG thread, so I’m at least a little interested. Although, this is heavily Eldritch/Lovecraft inspired rather than the folkloric/Over the Garden Wall setting I’d hoped for. Looks like it has its own system too (Cypher). I’m totally unfamiliar with the podcast, but it must be pretty well regarded based on the amount of money it’s raking in.
Here’s a link for the curious:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/old-gods-of-appalachia-roleplaying-game
It isn’t a new system, Cypher is the system MCG first developed for Numenara, and has been used for a few of their other games. It’s its own thing. And while this is eldritch horror, as far as I can tell, it has no references to Lovecraft- it’s their own creation (much like The Magnus Archives). Apparently, all the writers for the series (30+ episodes or so, at this time) are from Appalachia (various parts), and it is heavily based on the local folklore and events, just reinterpreted in a new mythological way. Seems neat.
That makes more sense. I skimmed the ‘introducing the Cypher system’ part and read it to mean the game was introducing a new system rather than the book introducing players to an already extant system.
I am not current on Old Gods of Appalachia but it’s very cool from what I’ve listened to. Cypher seems like a poor fit and I suspect is because Monte Cook came to them, rather than the other way around, but who knows.
To be honest, I don’t remember the mechanics of that system at all. I read the orignal Numenara books, but never played, and it’s been so long that it’s all gone from my head. That said, yeah, I’d have expected a more narrative-driven system, he probably did approach them.
Hearing the Old Gods of Appalachia announcement was a weird coincidence for me. I have just started listening to the podcast because literally yesterday the Kickstarter PDF for Trophy Gold was released for backers and in its Media Touchstones section it was mentioned:
I’m interested in the idea of eldritch Appalachia, but I am not a fan of Cypher at all.
Hopped onto a smalltime podcast, Dungeon Master’s Toolkit Podcast, to talk about the experience of designing a PbtA game, running games with lots of emotional buy-in, relearning to love D&D, and minmaxing GenCon. If you’ve got an hour to burn, give it a listen!
Excellent Podcast. Dulcet tones, too.
That was a fun listen. My eyes tend to glaze over when PbtA is discussed as the system doesn’t appeal. But just like the post your made earlier, it’s interesting to hear you talk about what does and doesn’t work for you and your players; also what you can learn from various systems.
If you want to read another good example of fail forward system, check out the Broken Compass system Marcus and I have mentioned before in these threads.
Action heroes don’t feel or look stupid when they attempt something and fail the roll. They still look great doing their thing. But the consequences aren’t quite what they expected.
Also, our DM is pretty good at incorporating failing forward in our Curse of Strahd 5E campaign.
It wouldn’t do to bring the often investigative sandbox to a halt when a roll is failed. Definitely a good technique to work on.
Anyhoo, thanks for the link. I enjoyed it!
Kinda continuing the conversation in the DnD2024 thread about content creators, these guys are excellent. In fact, I hadn’t even seen the below video (and I have seen most of their stuff) and the suggestions by Jim are exactly what I did to prepare for my open world/discovery/low fantasy campaign.
They have dropped off a bit since Pruitt stopped contributing/appearing in the videos. Big loss.
I guess Paizo just announced year-long event for Starfinder.
In a catastrophic instant, travel through the faster-than-light Drift realm failed, with travelers vanishing in mid-flight, communications scrambling, and the Drift’s progenitor god Triune falling mysteriously silent. In the aftermath, empires cling to far-flung holdings, opportunists exploit the chaos, and everyone demands to know what triggered this Drift Crisis and how they can solve it.
Kicks off with a sourcebook, then a pair of Adventure Paths - Drift Crashers and Drift Hackers. And in more weird "backwards compatibility voodoo, Paizo is claiming to make it work with all previously published Starfinder products and provide dramatic hooks so a GM can smoothly use them.
Paizo also announced Starfinder Infinite, their partner portal for selling fan-made creations.
I’ve never tried Starfinder. I’m honestly not sure I’d like it since it’s so much like Pathfinder.