Adding Flavor to 3e- Your Methods, Solutions, Philosophies

[hong]

So baddies are legit. This does NOT make them predictable or boring. Besides just playing around with flavor/descriptive text, there is an abundance of perfectly balanced Advancement Rules, Class Levels, Templates, Magical Effects and so forth which can be combined to make unique, unpredictable and potentially terrifying foes.

Yep. And heck, even if you don't have the time to build your own, there are more than enough NPCs and unique monsters in Dungeon and other published modules to fill the gap. All it requires is a willingness to do a bare minimum of legwork.

I find that a demonstrated policy of honesty makes my players much more willing to get involved in the game - something they don't understand is a potential mystery to unlock, NOT cause to start yelling 'Foul!' at the DM. They also don't assume "oh, he's just playing fast and loose with the rules again - it's not worth worrying about".

EXACTLY. Openness is a Good Thing in gaming, just as in real life.


Hong "this is why I never wear pants" Ooi

 

[Desdichado]

LOL

We have a smily for that now: ==>

 

[Gnarlo]

(Holy crap, I just realized how many food terms we use in reference to gaming...)

Which may help explain this Larry Leadhead cartoon

 

[hong]

I'm glad I don't have players like that. But I agree with Psion -- there's so much stuff in print that there's no way a player can know it all anymore. My solution for players who are deconstructing adversaries? Use adversaries with abilities they're not familiar with. For me, it's not too hard.

I have at least one player who's a bit like that. He knows the rules probably better than I do, and he's a dab hand at optimising his characters. I don't really mind if he knows what a certain monster is like, in fact I almost expect it of him. My sense of disbelief is not so fragile that it gets shattered if he knows to use magic missiles against a wraith, or not to use fireball against a red dragon. Overall, I trust him to play by the rules, and he trusts me to do the same.

Sometimes it does get jarring if he "looks behind the curtain" during play. I used the templates in SavSp to tweak some monsters once, and he mentioned it to the other players during the fight. But the problem here wasn't metagaming, meaning that he knew how the monsters were created. The problem was OVERT metagaming, meaning that he mentioned it during play, which made it difficult to maintain SoD. But he hasn't done that for some time now, and I think he realises it's a bit annoying for me if he talks about stuff like that in-game.

 

[Darklone]

Hmm. With such a player, I prefer to present the worst monster ever: Human NPCs. With money. And a huge organisation. Noooo way for the PCs to figure out what he can or cannot do.

 

[Desdichado]

I used the templates in SavSp to tweak some monsters once, and he mentioned it to the other players during the fight.

Sounds like you needed to stack three or four templates to throw him off the scent! Who's going to recognize something that's reptilian, half-fiendish, celestial and feral, especially if you don't name it, but just describe it?

 

[Belen]

Hmm. With such a player, I prefer to present the worst monster ever: Human NPCs. With money. And a huge organisation. Noooo way for the PCs to figure out what he can or cannot do.

The majority of my last campaign used this concept. Building the enemies every week without a computer was very time-consuming, especially since the campaign ran from 1st to 27th level.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

As a DM, I tend to get all retentive about the details of NPCs/Monsters. I like tweaking templates, feats and other bits. That's because I'm a geek with time on my hands. And I just love numbers, charts and tables....

After a monster is 'used', I'm happy to chat to anyone (and everyone ) about how its done. Even if they don't want me to.


As a player, I couldn't care whether its done like that or whether the DM just makes up all the numbers as they go... Or if it's something in between.

*As long as the game is fun.*

I've had good and bad games with both philosophies. Figure there's other things likely to impact on my enjoyment of the game more.

 

[Mac Callum]

I don't change the rules. There are so many templates, spell effects and PrC's that I don't need to. There's always something I can use to do what I want to do.

That being said, Templates, spell effects and PrC's are not flavor - they're rules. To add flavor you use things that have little/ nothing to do with the Rules. The PCs can be 10th level, or higher, and they may still have to bargain with the 5th level human Expert who's the elected head of the Banker's Guild to get a loan. He might even be a lousy banker, but a good politician. Or maybe he's a really good Banker, hate's being the Guildmaster, and keeps having it thrust upon him because he's good at it.

I also make a difference between roleplaying Orders/ Guilds/ Societies and rollplaying Prestige Classes. The Order of Archmages may have Wizard members, Sorcerers, even a Bard or two, and who knows how many different Prestige classes. But when you meet with any given Archmage you have no idea what class he is (even Wizards can take Perform as a x-class skill). When I describe NPCs I describe the things you would see if you actually met the person. This may or may not tell you anything about him.

And don't forget Skills. What skills a person has defines a lot of things about them. Not every Rogue is super-sneaky. Only the ones with MS/Hide are. Other Rogues may have Bluff/ Intimidate/ Forgery and UMD as their primary skills and be flashy characters - might even be dressed as a member of the Order of Archmages.

What Greatwyrm said for Campaign Settins goes for societies and groups within those settings, and the individual NPCs as well. Write them up. Get their interests, and describe it to the players. My players still remember the dwarf ranger who had an affinity for birds - he always had bird crap in he beard, and he didn't seem to mind. You can't find that in the Rules.

 

[diaglo]

...The problem was OVERT metagaming, meaning that he mentioned it during play, which made it difficult to maintain SoD. But he hasn't done that for some time now, and I think he realises it's a bit annoying for me if he talks about stuff like that in-game.

i have played with gamers like this over the last 3 years. their enjoyment is trying to deconstruct the monsters and .....even when they aren't involved in the encounter....tell everyone what they have discovered.

some of us may have also discovered the same thing. actually all of us have...but we try and stay in character.

these guys piss me off. and i'd beat the stuffing out of them if i wasn't a nonviolent guy.