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Gritty Campaigns. How you play one?
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<blockquote data-quote="Josiah Stoll" data-source="post: 7453957" data-attributes="member: 6881836"><p>I took the Aether Charges rules from Planeshift: Kaladesh, and applied it to spell slots and limited-use abilities in addition to magic items. I flavored it as though the players were carrying a bunch of items that they could power with Aether.</p><p>Interesting effects I noticed: </p><p>-Prepared casters get weird with this system. If I were running this again, I’d definitely sink more time into exploring how they work beforehand.</p><p>-Strategy revolves around the “tactical nova.” Since there isn’t a “used per day” limit, the players quickly figured out how to conserve Aether, and burn a couple days’ worth in a heated battle.</p><p>-One resource pool made logistics beautiful.</p><p>-The players learned to take bribes. This is a huge difference from most D&D games I’ve played, which make the players look kind of incorruptible.</p><p></p><p>Other things I did:</p><p>-the game was set on Kaladesh, which in the M:tG lore had a fairly black and white morality system. I made the players the Consulate Enforcers (stormtroopers, basically), which let me flesh out traditional “bad guys” as underfunded and trying to hold an ungrateful country together. I portrayed the Renegades (revolutionaries) as wide-eyed idealists (lots of good sounding rhetoric, nothing practical)</p><p>-I gave all of the players an “escape button-“ a tool or spell that they could use to leave a situation if things really went south.</p><p>-I dispensed with the “XP=killing things” nonsense. Your level equals your rank in the Consulate security forces.</p><p>-I had three plots running at the same time: the players’ normal missions, which they did “on the record,” and got credit for; the one of the players turned a Renegade minion, and used him to get information about the Renegades.</p><p>-The Renegades talked a lot about this guy named N’Fesh. I made it VERY clear that the players couldn’t beat him in a fair fight. I also built him to be an absolute beast. </p><p>I’m really proud of my final session, because it felt very “end of season episode,” and demonstrated a lot of the things I liked about my system.</p><p>-The players learned where N’Fesh’s hideout was, but got cold feet going in. While they were wondering what to do, N’Fesh figured out where they were, and kicked their wall in. </p><p>-The player on lookout did some really awesome work with his crossbows: keeping N’Fesh pinned down long enough for the other players to get their gear.</p><p>-One of the other players saw a way to end this. He pulled all his political clout (which he had focused on building for most of the game) and ordered an air strike on the entire block. I played up the bureaucracy/red tape involved, which worked pretty well.</p><p>-The air strike was coming in, and one-by-one, the characters pushed their “escape” buttons.</p><p>-One of the players who hadn’t left yet (Battlemaster Fighter) realized that someone needed to keep N’Fesh here until the airstrike came in. He jumped into melee with N’Fesh, and every time N’Fesh would try to escape, he Tripping Struck. So N’Fesh beat him like a rug, but the Battlemaster held on until the airstrike came in and they were both buried under a mountain of rubble.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Josiah Stoll, post: 7453957, member: 6881836"] I took the Aether Charges rules from Planeshift: Kaladesh, and applied it to spell slots and limited-use abilities in addition to magic items. I flavored it as though the players were carrying a bunch of items that they could power with Aether. Interesting effects I noticed: -Prepared casters get weird with this system. If I were running this again, I’d definitely sink more time into exploring how they work beforehand. -Strategy revolves around the “tactical nova.” Since there isn’t a “used per day” limit, the players quickly figured out how to conserve Aether, and burn a couple days’ worth in a heated battle. -One resource pool made logistics beautiful. -The players learned to take bribes. This is a huge difference from most D&D games I’ve played, which make the players look kind of incorruptible. Other things I did: -the game was set on Kaladesh, which in the M:tG lore had a fairly black and white morality system. I made the players the Consulate Enforcers (stormtroopers, basically), which let me flesh out traditional “bad guys” as underfunded and trying to hold an ungrateful country together. I portrayed the Renegades (revolutionaries) as wide-eyed idealists (lots of good sounding rhetoric, nothing practical) -I gave all of the players an “escape button-“ a tool or spell that they could use to leave a situation if things really went south. -I dispensed with the “XP=killing things” nonsense. Your level equals your rank in the Consulate security forces. -I had three plots running at the same time: the players’ normal missions, which they did “on the record,” and got credit for; the one of the players turned a Renegade minion, and used him to get information about the Renegades. -The Renegades talked a lot about this guy named N’Fesh. I made it VERY clear that the players couldn’t beat him in a fair fight. I also built him to be an absolute beast. I’m really proud of my final session, because it felt very “end of season episode,” and demonstrated a lot of the things I liked about my system. -The players learned where N’Fesh’s hideout was, but got cold feet going in. While they were wondering what to do, N’Fesh figured out where they were, and kicked their wall in. -The player on lookout did some really awesome work with his crossbows: keeping N’Fesh pinned down long enough for the other players to get their gear. -One of the other players saw a way to end this. He pulled all his political clout (which he had focused on building for most of the game) and ordered an air strike on the entire block. I played up the bureaucracy/red tape involved, which worked pretty well. -The air strike was coming in, and one-by-one, the characters pushed their “escape” buttons. -One of the players who hadn’t left yet (Battlemaster Fighter) realized that someone needed to keep N’Fesh here until the airstrike came in. He jumped into melee with N’Fesh, and every time N’Fesh would try to escape, he Tripping Struck. So N’Fesh beat him like a rug, but the Battlemaster held on until the airstrike came in and they were both buried under a mountain of rubble. [/QUOTE]
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