-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Piratecat's Updated Story Hour! (update 4/03 and 4/06)
- Thread starter Piratecat
- Start date
- Status
KidCthulhu
First Post
Nail said:
I thought cohorts were supposed to help their leaders thru challenging situations......
Actually, he helped a great deal, in a "throw the baby in the water to teach it to swim" way. Here's Nolin, full of moral quandries about the proposal. On the one hand, there's the valuable information this woman possesses. On the other, there's the moral vacuum that is sex without caring. On the other hand, she is beautiful and desirable, in a scary kind of way. And on the fourth hand, Malachite will definitely get snarky about another morally questionable action taken just to get information.
But this is really an over intellectuallized analysis. What was really going through Nol's mind was "Look at those. How is she keeping them in that blouse? Er, what? Night with you? [gulp] ok."
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
I had a dream last night that there was a new drow book coming out entitled "T*ts, Treason and Treachery." This has got to be related.
And in case anyone is curious (and God help you if you are), we use the "fade to black" method for this sort of thing. Our game tends to be in the PG-13 range, with occasional R ratings for violence, mature themes, and braless marilith.
And in case anyone is curious (and God help you if you are), we use the "fade to black" method for this sort of thing. Our game tends to be in the PG-13 range, with occasional R ratings for violence, mature themes, and braless marilith.
Graf
Explorer
So I'm working on a new world. I've become a bit of a dungeoncraft devotee (especially rule number one). Most of the most successful DMs I know Schrödinger a lot (i.e. making multiple possibile reasons for something and then waiting until the last minute to pick which one). But my big make-up-stuff instincts are kicking into full gear and I'm worried I'll wind up tripping myself up later or putting lots of stuff out that won't really advance the game.
Pkitty said, in reference to the Sir Ghouleax situtation, that he doesn't Schrödinger so much. Everything happens for a specific reason and its laid out in advance.
Putting this all together I got a bit curious about Spira.... Pkittys never mentioned that its a golden age, or that it's a pale shadow of a previous age, or a renessance of thought is occuring or anything like that. Do you think about things like that?
How much about Spira do you have worked out? About its past and future? Do you keep things deliberately vague in your mind and notes and just add in stuff as it's nessessary?
(the last question is a bit non-senseical I suppose. Alkin's throat didn't exist when the Defenders were fighting dopplegangers at the Manticore.)
[If this has already been answered somewhere then sorry, I haven't really come across much on the boards, the thread-of-which-can-not-be-spoken, or the web.]
Pkitty said, in reference to the Sir Ghouleax situtation, that he doesn't Schrödinger so much. Everything happens for a specific reason and its laid out in advance.
Putting this all together I got a bit curious about Spira.... Pkittys never mentioned that its a golden age, or that it's a pale shadow of a previous age, or a renessance of thought is occuring or anything like that. Do you think about things like that?
How much about Spira do you have worked out? About its past and future? Do you keep things deliberately vague in your mind and notes and just add in stuff as it's nessessary?
(the last question is a bit non-senseical I suppose. Alkin's throat didn't exist when the Defenders were fighting dopplegangers at the Manticore.)
[If this has already been answered somewhere then sorry, I haven't really come across much on the boards, the thread-of-which-can-not-be-spoken, or the web.]
Sialia
First Post
Well, P'cat will mostly have to answer this himself, but I can add in that before he began the campaign, there was a previous campaign he ran in this world. It was very different, and he set the "new" campaign a good ways removed from the other one in time and space. The Defenders did pass the place where the other campaign occurred, once. It was an odd visit--that place had different Local Gods, and a peculiar culture. It was a place rich in history, most of which didn't really matter to us, and so we took what we needed and moved on.Graf said:
Also--and I'm not really sure whether it had any bearing on the previous campaign or not--the one piece of history we knew about at the outset was that some "Mage Wars" had happened a long while back. Arcade was fond of reading about them. Dylrath once lost his mirror in one of the many wild magic zones left over as a result of that terrible time. And Lord Crafter Ioun (who we met much much later) had been a participant in them.
There was never any mention of "golden ages" or anything like that, but we were all sure glad we weren't alive during the "bad old days" when there were dangerous things like Mage Wars, and the Tyranny of the Academy of Flamecraft, and things like that.
So there was always was sense that history had occurred, and that it was occasionally important to us, but had left evidence of its passing here and there. Remember, we were low level yokels at the beginning. Events that had shaped the world were things we learned about after they were long over, rather than things we caused.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
The campaign setting was specifically designed to be rough-n-tumble. I have another "civilized" continent (Shelantry) to the west that has never entered into gameplay. The Gods in my current game are ones that took hold on the "wild" continent (Abbathia, where my game takes place) when settlers first came over fleeing the rigors of civilization. When the "civilized" continent devolved into mage wars during a time of high magic, a number of the wizards fled eastwards to Abbathia - and the war followed them there. They made peace for a time, but things broke down once again, and many of my campaign's dungeons and artifacts are relics from that earlier era. For reference, Ioun was considered one of the weakest and least politically competent of the Archmagi, and as far as the group knows he's the most powerful wizard alive on the continent today.
Sialia had some of the details a little off. My first campaign was set about a hundred years previously in and around Corsai, back before I added much style to the place. It lasted about 3 years of weekly play, and had a smaller scale than the current game. The locations have overlapped, though.
For instance, the place where the Aeotian church's Army of the Sun is now fighting the Necromancer Kings is the same meteor crater where the old game's devilworshipping chief campaign enemies were placed. (I didn't rewrite history with the new campaign; the new inhabitants slaughtered the old inhabitants.) Over the years I've had a few "easter eggs" from the old game, including some magic items and PC cameos.
Graf's question is an interesting one, and worth pulling back the curtain for. I never make up anything that I don't specifically expect to be brought up in the game. Huge sections of map? Blank, spotted with a few generic cities, until those cities become Plot or someone heads that way. Huge sections of history? Undefined and amorpheous, until the history becomes relevant. I find that if I try to make this stuff up out of context, I get bored and the material gets boring. Far better for me to do it dynamically.
I seldom "Schrödinger," in that I plan for specific eventualities in the game about 2-3 games out, and I know what the bad guys are planning with any ongoing plot. Those plots usually advance regardless of character involvement, but are changed by the PCs getting involved. For instance, if the Defenders hadn't taken out the ghouls and the necropede at Hundle's Crossing, I have a pretty good idea of what that army would have done. But I'm not bothering to worry about what is happening in Velendo's home town, unless and until it becomes relevant to the plot. I think that's probably a weakness as a DM, but I find it helps me keep my eternally multiplying plot threads under control.
The trick is making sure that this is never evident to your players, and that you are rigorous in keeping internal consistency with what you've already decided. I may not know what's down in unmapped territory, but I have a general idea of something cool that can hold the PCs' attention long enough to map out everything else around that area. Likewise, I know enough about my world that if the PCs question someone who I never expected to have a speaking role (as they did the other week), I know their motives and what they would be aware of.
Sialia had some of the details a little off. My first campaign was set about a hundred years previously in and around Corsai, back before I added much style to the place. It lasted about 3 years of weekly play, and had a smaller scale than the current game. The locations have overlapped, though.
For instance, the place where the Aeotian church's Army of the Sun is now fighting the Necromancer Kings is the same meteor crater where the old game's devilworshipping chief campaign enemies were placed. (I didn't rewrite history with the new campaign; the new inhabitants slaughtered the old inhabitants.) Over the years I've had a few "easter eggs" from the old game, including some magic items and PC cameos.
Graf's question is an interesting one, and worth pulling back the curtain for. I never make up anything that I don't specifically expect to be brought up in the game. Huge sections of map? Blank, spotted with a few generic cities, until those cities become Plot or someone heads that way. Huge sections of history? Undefined and amorpheous, until the history becomes relevant. I find that if I try to make this stuff up out of context, I get bored and the material gets boring. Far better for me to do it dynamically.
I seldom "Schrödinger," in that I plan for specific eventualities in the game about 2-3 games out, and I know what the bad guys are planning with any ongoing plot. Those plots usually advance regardless of character involvement, but are changed by the PCs getting involved. For instance, if the Defenders hadn't taken out the ghouls and the necropede at Hundle's Crossing, I have a pretty good idea of what that army would have done. But I'm not bothering to worry about what is happening in Velendo's home town, unless and until it becomes relevant to the plot. I think that's probably a weakness as a DM, but I find it helps me keep my eternally multiplying plot threads under control.
The trick is making sure that this is never evident to your players, and that you are rigorous in keeping internal consistency with what you've already decided. I may not know what's down in unmapped territory, but I have a general idea of something cool that can hold the PCs' attention long enough to map out everything else around that area. Likewise, I know enough about my world that if the PCs question someone who I never expected to have a speaking role (as they did the other week), I know their motives and what they would be aware of.
Last edited:
Let me just hijack this thread for a moment to agree completely with PC. I don't think you need to "Schrodinger" (love that term BTW) to have a dynamic world.
The key is understanding the motivations and plans of other people involved in the story enough that you can react organically to what the players do. Put the same effort into your bad guys and other important actors as you do with your own characters.
The great thing about this is that when the players do something completely unexpected (as they inevitably do), you get to be delighted rather than annoyed. You just put on your "playing the evil mastervillain" hat and ask: "Well, what do I do now to continue my nefarious plans?" When you answer that question, you have to do it based on the knowledge, experience, and personality of the person involved, but it is one of my favorite rewards as a GM.
/hijack
Great story as always, my three-legged friend.
The key is understanding the motivations and plans of other people involved in the story enough that you can react organically to what the players do. Put the same effort into your bad guys and other important actors as you do with your own characters.
The great thing about this is that when the players do something completely unexpected (as they inevitably do), you get to be delighted rather than annoyed. You just put on your "playing the evil mastervillain" hat and ask: "Well, what do I do now to continue my nefarious plans?" When you answer that question, you have to do it based on the knowledge, experience, and personality of the person involved, but it is one of my favorite rewards as a GM.
/hijack
Great story as always, my three-legged friend.
KidCthulhu
First Post
[blows dust off desiger hat]
PC's world is a little like the renderer tricks most first person shooter games use. There's walls, rolling terrain or fog just at the horizon, to keep the game engine from having to compute too many polygons at once. But the stuff that's going on the foreground is so interesting and deadly that you don't spend a lot of time wondering why you can't see for a half a mile away. When you run to that area, the world will be there.
[/hangs designer hat back up in the closet]
PC's world is a little like the renderer tricks most first person shooter games use. There's walls, rolling terrain or fog just at the horizon, to keep the game engine from having to compute too many polygons at once. But the stuff that's going on the foreground is so interesting and deadly that you don't spend a lot of time wondering why you can't see for a half a mile away. When you run to that area, the world will be there.
[/hangs designer hat back up in the closet]
- Status
Similar Threads
