Questions about very "low" level adventures.

[Death_Jester]

For Example: the players are fighting some bandits and one hits a character for 12 points of damage. Since the most that any first level commoner willl have is 7 hps this will put the character in the negatives and well on his way to dying. The character could spend a luck point and avoid the situation all together. "Maricalilously the bandit missed you." That would be for this round only however. If the player did not get the point (. . .he he) he would be subject to spending another when he takes enough damage in the future that would kill him. If there are no more luck points then the player is dead. End of discussion.

For rewards in the game I will use a system of fortune points that characters can use in any situation. The fortune point will allow rerolls for any kind of roll. The forture points will be award for acomplishing a goal for the game.

Something else I was thinking of for the fortune points is that the player using the point can only use it to help someone else in the party. Hopefully this will create the feeling of friendship for the chracters that will allow the game to grow in the directions I want.

More later.

 

[Death_Jester]

Request for Feedback on new rules

Greetings to all that are reading this little diary. I have been thinking and have talked to my wife about the fortune points. She seems to think they are a good idea. But she has some reservations about the issue, as they may become a blackmail tool for some players. A kind of help me or I wont help you kind of thing. This is the total opposite of what I want them to be but I can see situation happening too. So I would ask the readers what could I do to prevent this kind of situation from happening in the game? Just outlaw that kind of activity outright exerting my authority as DM or is there a subtler way of manipula. . . er helping the players see my point of view.

Something else I would like some feedback on the fortune points and how they are used. I was thinking of allow the players to only spend the points on each other but what if they could spend them on themselves to allow them to get a single re-roll of a dice or spend it on others to get an 'automatic' success. That way they have a choice as to how to use it but the choice would be theirs.

So to repeat the luck points can only be use to save the life of the player that is spending the luck point. It can only be used in situations that would lead to immediate death situation.

Fortune points would be used to either allow the spending player a chance to re-roll any die roll except ability generations rolls and hit points. Or the player could spend it to allow someone else an automatic success at "ANY" task or roll.

Or

Fortune points can only be use to allow another player an automatic success in any task.


So what do you think the best way to handle this would be? Remember that the goal is to build teamwork and get the players to care about each other. So let me know what you think.

 

[Death_Jester]

Brief back-story of the Kid’s Campaign.
Mr. Vile used to work for Mr. Demon before Mr. Demon was imprisoned. Mr. Blacksheep cheated on his wife with one of the PC’s mothers in the village. While working for Dr Demon, Mr. Vile killed Mr. Blacksheep’s wife and the aunt of one of the players. No one knew that the killer was Mr. Vile. The village blamed Mr. Blacksheep of killing her and drove him out of the village. Escaping the wrath of the villagers Mr. Blacksheep became a wondering adventurer living the best as he could. He became a Bard and returned only long enough to try to kill Mr. Demon. As Mr Blacksheep believed that Mr. Demon was the killer. Mr. Blacksheep only managed to imprison Mr. Demon with the help of his adventuring group. After leaving the area the second time he told his adventuring friends about his love child and made them swear to bury him in the village. Mr. Blacksheep’s house had fallen into ruins in the passing few years and recently the ghost of Ms. Blacksheep has started to show up.
About 5 years ago the Black Tongue kobold tribe has shown up within a days walk of the village. They were pushed here by a powerful group While they have not made a move against the village they are a source of worry for the village Magistrate.

 

[Imperialus]

One question though. How do you allow players to play races other than humans? It works all well and good to have all the characters come from the same small village if they are human but what happens if one person wants to play an elf, one a dwarf three humans and a halfling?

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Imperialus,

In my games, even though they will be played in the Forgotten Realms, there is a rule that only one player can play an Elf, a Dwarf, a Halfling and/or other non-human race. So in the party we can have one Elf and one Dwarf and one Halfing but the rest will be humans to balance things out. To me the non-human races are rarer and therefore less available as a player chracter option. This also allows the players that love to play those races to play them and the uniquess of them doesn't get lost in a party all the same race. There are other reasons I do this too. I have been in several groups where everyone only played Elves and Half-elves all the time. To me the elves are a rare, dying breed that only show up infrequently at best. Blame it on Tolkien's influence on my early years. Also, to me it seems that non-humans are somewhat broken/unbalanced. I want the default characters to be humans because most of the kingdoms we will be adventuring in will be the human kingdoms.

Now, to answer your question: The way I'll work any PC into the village is to talk to the person who's playing the demihuman character. We'll figure out a way to get that character from their homeland, wherever that is, to the campaign setting. This isn't strictly an isolated area - it'll be on a trade path and there will be demihuman races around. After all, it will be the Forgotten Realms, not Middle Earth, so there'll be a sizeable amount of nonhumans around that will come through the area. But like most of the things in my games, I'll negotiate and talk to my players and find out what they want, and we'll just make it happen. After all, I'm the GM - I can do that.

Thanks for taking the time to drop me a line, and understand that these are all just my views. Please leave any feedback on them and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

 

[Mistwell]

I adapted Gorgoldand's Gauntlet to be an adventure requiring very little to no combat (for a group of university students). It could easily be made into no combat if you wanted, since so much of it is traps and riddles and problem solving.

See this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=6112&page=1&pp=25&highlight=gauntlet

And if you have any interest in my adapted version (which has more non-combat stuff) I would be happy to email it to you. In the adapted version, one freshman student accidently releases a magical beast from the schools cages (where he was not supposed to be) and gets his friends to help him sneak away to retrieve the creature from where it wandered into the upperclassmen's final examine caves, which are otherwise off-limits to freshmen. The caves are already mostly set up to test the upperclassmen, so are full of riddles, problem-solving, non-lethal traps, and a bit of non-lethal combat (like rust monsters and such).

 

[Death_Jester]

Hello Mistwell,

Sorry it has taken me a bit to get back to you. I would love to see your write up of the adventure. I don't really like the background for the adventure but the idea of low level traps and the like to make things exciting for the players. If you could post it here that would be great.

I will continue my rambling thoughts on the background of the game in a bit. Right now I'm at work and that is always bad for trying think of gaming stuff.

 

[Death_Jester]

A while back Ms. Thief moved into the area and has been using Mr. Blacksheep’s old house as a base of operations in the area. While setting up shop she came across the ghost of Ms. Blacksheep. Ms. Blacksheep was unaware that she was dead and was very susceptible to Ms. Thief’s diplomacy/persuade skills. So without being aware of it the ghost of Ms. Blacksheep is working for Ms. Thief.

 

[Death_Jester]

After Mr. Blacksheep was accused of killing his wife Mr. Druid came to the village to dispel the evil of the event and bless the village. A few months afterward there was a population explosion as there were several children born the following year. The Black Tongue Kobolds were chased out of their home by a Dragon (Wyvern) that had moved into the area.