Great GM - Crafting Cool RPG Encounters - Game Master Tips GMTIPS
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- čas přidán 2. 06. 2024
- How do you create cool RPG Encounters? What is a cool encounter versus a mundane encounter? Some thoughts on the matter!
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Whenever I have a dragon, I telegraph the breath weapon by having the dragon inhale at the end of its turn, to give the player a choice: stay and get one more attack, or run for cover.
Once I had a goblin directing bugbears while staying back and trash talk the players. They were so ready to kill him after they dealt with the bugbears.
Good one, might be even better if he _got away_ He could be an ongoing opponent.
Rolling Breath Weapon recharges at the end of the dragon turn is great, I do that for anything bellow Adult Dragons...
It was great the first time my group met an actual adult dragon, they were so used to knowing when they were gonna breathe that the first time a dragon just went "okay my turn, FIRE!" everyone lost their shit xD
A little off topic, but.. it's really pleasant to listen to you talk.
It's because he's British. I think.
Excellent speaking voice. I've been waking up to these as DM training. It's a great way to start your day.
Then you can say... He has been a cool encounter 😁
I'm literally so impressed, because even the automated subtitles are accurate. usually those are more or less useless but for him they seem to understand almost 100% of what he's saying. I'm so amazed.
As a Floridian who just evacuated from Hurricane Irma, I have to say weather is an amazing environmental factor. Maybe hold a fight in a windstorm that gives a character a movement bonus should they move in one direction, but a movement penalty should they move in the opposite. Or have your indoor environment slowly filling up with water while the storm batters the outer structure. It would certainly be eerie, should the wind begin gusting from one direction, only to stop and become dead silent, and then begin gusting just as strongly from the opposite direction, after a period of abnormally still calm. You could even add in the birds hiding in the eye of the storm, or being conspicuously absent before the storm arrives.
Pompano Beach, here. You nailed it.
In my game they just found out that the Elven Kingdom at the South of the map has declared war on the Orc Kingdom on the top North.
One day later, I said a wind began blowing in the town they're at, South-North wind. For 2 In-game days, I played a sound effect, getting incrementally louder and louder. It made it hard for the Warlock to use his newly found Broom of Flying, it forced the Druid to give up training her baby pet owl to fly, almost pushed over, broke and killed the petrified statue of a friend they were trying to save...
On the third day, they see a gigantic cloud moving in the enormous air corridor created by the wind, at a sickening speed, and the Druid put the things together and, horrified, told the group what it was: the elven army, marching North with dozens of thousands of druids, using a terrifying mix of Wind Walking and Control Weather to fly through the sky. When the group found that out, everyone was like "this is so messed up".
They had been looking forward to meeting the only Orc civilization on the map, and now they're all afraid there won't be much of it left by the time they get there.
That's brilliant! What a buildup. No doubt they'll be really paranoid about every weather change for a while after this.
Extreme cold is interesting too:
Fortitude saves vs frostbite, wind effects, slippery ice triggering balance checks; the ranger can track enemies through snow, etc.
I wasn't very eager to watch any videos on GMing, but I'm glad I did. GMing is such a complicated, unique process for each person, and to be completely honest, your tips have been a great help. Thank you for producing these videos. You're entertaining to listen to, the advice you give is either really good or inspires me to change some things, and I love how you give examples to explain things. Well done; you've got my Subscribe.
Another way to make encounters interesting is foreshadowing. Example: Overwhelming villain, who normally wipe your party out but is caught off guard and greatly disadvantaged, and flees before being defeated. After PCs have beefed -up, given the, the real encounter with the villain.
The best encounter I've ever played is on a ship battle with pirate Orcs. It was pretty mundane to begin with, but then when shooting a fire arrow I rolled a 1 and hit a barrel of oil. Chaos ensued.
My group held down a giant crablike monster while water boarding it with whiskey. Our mage boosted the effect of the alcohol and we killed it from alcohol poisoning.
How come you're always the right man, at the right moment, with the right topic? 👍
People don't always remember how the environment can play an critical part on the encounter.
Don't just throw them in a natural cave with nothing but stone.
If it's occupied by orcs, for instance, throw some spikes in the walls where corpses are spiked, a campfire, chains on the walls and some loose stones. You give this elements to the players so them can get creative instead the old hit-roll-hit-roll-hit thing.
Even in open spaces, give them a patch of sand they can decide to grab and throw, a heavy branch that is almost broken for archers to try to drop on top of the enemies, rocks to hide behind...
Once my players fought in the middle of a storm, and I made a system to get the chance of a lightning striking in a random square on the map; the Druid could roll Nature checks instead of her Action to sense the next strike, so the fight ended with her yelling where roughly a lightning would fall in the next 6 seconds, and the Monk pushing a Troll directly in the area, poor thing got liquefied xD
That's the spirit!
Love the storm idea!
Natural stalagmites and stalactites make great places for players to seek cover and snipe at certain enemies, but they never even try it lol.
Players wrapped up a 6-month campaign fighting BBG in a volcano w a lava river dividing the PCs & BBG. Several difficult minions attacked PCs, & one large fire elemental in animated armor dived into the lava. PCs were surprised but fought on. 4-5 rounds later, lava explodes, because elemental triggered the magma pool deep inside the volcano! Random boulders (dice) falling from the ceiling, lava spreading, made for some awesome geography!! One player figured out how to use the boulders to his advantage, killing the remaining giant construct. Mini minion tried to escape, “Master! Save me!” But BBG escapes with his equipment & a beloved dragon (they were trying to save her).
Players had so much fun that they asked me to keep going - expand & extend the campaign into the larger world! Love that kind of response!!
The trick is conveying to the players how these cool areas work. If you don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on those dwarven forge terrain tiles, using multiple vertical levels can be tricky. I’m sure there are lots of factors that went into this, but I’ve had a hard time even conveying the concept of an open ballroom with a balcony running around the edge
wrathanet I can’t afford environmental pieces either. BUT, I used varying sized dice as boulder, shot glasses & clear dice boxes so creatures flying above, & smaller open boxes turned sideways to indicate 2-story structures & balconies.
I'd say that key to a cool combat is variety. In the end of the first chapter of the campaign, the PCs were going to retrieve an item from a mine master. Instead of going alone and try to fight their body guards by themselves, the PCs gathered a bunch of miners and went to cause a riot in this master's mansion
The first encounter was a series of combats between hordes: Miners vs Guards. Each PC was guiding their horde and attack at different places: Two stormed the front and the other went to the back.
After that, the players went upstairs on their own and a Darkness spell was cast. The PCs were ambushed constantly, so the combat become more of a cautious advance, with more trap checking and perception checks, with bursts of action between longer moments of slow advance.
And the final encounter was an all out mano a mano between the PCs and the main body guard in a mansion that was burning down to the ground with the floor crumbling beneath them.
The whole thing lasted around 4-5 hours and eventhough it was mostly combat, it didn't feel prolonged.
The combat that my players liked more so far was a boss fight that had a magical effect separating it into two overlapping fights. There were six players and each turn two were rolled randomly (one had a personal connection to the boss and always was on the first map) and fought in the boss one, the others were in the other fighting his ghoul and ghast minion. And since they were actually two different versions of the same map, the movement was kept but the boss was in a different place than his minions, so every turn they risked to have to adapt to the new map and lose it all right away the next turn.
Matteo Bortolotti THATS wild! A dreamscape version of the same environment can have similar effect, or, chars in dream have more HP there, but 50% of dream damage does real damage to their real bodies.
So far, probably my favorite encounter that I made for my players was this:
My party consisted of a 4th Level Eldritch Knight Fighter, 4th Level Life Cleric, 4th Level Beastmaster Ranger, 4th Level Lore Bard and 4th Level Berserker Barbarian.
I put them against four 4th level Lore Bards and one 4th level Wild Sorcerer. I wasn't expecting too much to begin with, thinking my players would steamroll them after a few turns. Usually when I had a balanced party against their party, they would win handily.
This time it was the opposite. Definitely do not underestimate four characters with cutting words, healing word and shatter. To make things interesting as well, they were fighting at the edge of a large drawbridge, and they nearly knocked one of the players into the water below using Thunderwave. He managed to grab onto the edge and pull himself up and kept himself into the fight. They forced the players to use up almost all their spells and abilities and knocked at least one of them unconscious for a short time. They won out in the end, and they seemed pretty satisfied when they finally did win. That's the kind of reaction I want from just about every fight they do.
All your tips to prepare encounters really help man ^^
Last encounter my group had was against a Medusa and a Maedar, and it was really fun for everyone.
Best thing is that the rule that the DM must always be ready to improvise never was applied in my games as much as this session, they had the chance to spy on the Medusa in commune with her Demi-God master, who they have brushed with a few times in the past... I had a whole scene scripted and practiced for them to listen to the conversation, a bunch of exposition that would be vital for their future, and it all went downhill because upon getting to the front of the Medusa's lair, instead of sneaking in to feel the landscape, the Thief, passionate about recently watching Doctor Strange, bellowed "MEDUSAS! I'VE COME TO BARGAIN!"
Having to find a way to still get the most important information across only based on scenery elements and the behavior of the couple of enemies in the middle of combat was some of the hardest and funnest mental gymnastics I've ever done at the table.
The tips about using the environment were the most valuable, the encounter took place in a Castle that has a scar in the tissue of reality, leading straight to the Abyss. Any players getting within 50 feet of the gateway would be charmed and tempted to jump into it, and hear the voice of the deity in the back of their mind calling them in, the panic on the table when the Monk and the Paladin (all the group had for Tankers) got charmed in the same round and the other two had 1 action each to find a way to stop them from killing themselves was amazing.
Mordirit Epic!
Yea it's so easy to look at all these HUGE rosters of amazing fun and cool monsters and enemies and get really focused on them instead of all the other factors of what makes encounters truly memorable and distinct. Great video with lots of great ideas man, good job!
Sort of like how while the last encounter was with a fire breathing flying minotaur, and his pet winged hydra, most of the party more clearly remember that time our Half Giant Viking got his ass kicked by a chair
This was great. Especially the first part - I am a new DM and concerned about having "cool" encounters, so the advice to make a mix of encounters is helpful.
Might be your best video yet.... I'm playing in 7 hours and I'm using some of this.
I use time pressure modifiers modifiers a lot in my games; and I found that using time-based checks rather than success-based checks worked wonders in these (especially with a roll&keep system): will the PCs be fast enough at climbing that wall to catch up on that thief? will the rogue manage to unlock that door before the ceiling crashes down on their heads? will the party find the book they're looking for before the guards find them? It's a really good method to build up tension for an encounter as the adrenaline fuelled players start loosing time with every action.
As usual...great info! Keep it coming...my players will either hate me or love me for it...either way, they will not be bored.
An interesting idea I had, make an encounter where the goal isn't as simple as "kill the monster." Have encounters where, for example, the goal is to steal a certain item from a dragon hoard without being killed because the PCs are far to weak to kill the dragon in question.
One of my favorites I was doing a pirate game and Decided I wanted my players to be mythic. I had them go on a tresure hunt where one of the players compass got charged after he placed it on a strange stone in dungeon. The compass lead them to a temple in the mountains of this island where they were faced with several skill challenges before they the final chamber had a giant crystal creature whose torso connected to a golden cube that gave of light. The room is filled with dead men encased in crystal. After the melee characters started fighting the crystal creature a few of the crystallized men animated and attacked the back line, and the melee guys started to realize that when they got hit they started grow Crystals where they got hit. it was a fun encounter.
MenacingScone Interesting idea! Was the glowing stone the artifact that turned hits to crystal?
Backstory. I've run a couple games in the past but I've never considered myself a good GM. Usually I end up running something when I want to introduce my friends to a system I love with the hope that one of them would want to take over and run them.
Thanks to your videos I feel comfortable giving it a proper go. So I'm running 7th sea 2nd edition. This is the first time I have been excited for a game in a long time.
Thanks for all the effort.
Now if only someone local wanted to run L5r.
One encounter I ran, was a battle with an agent sent by a cult to infiltrate a dinner party, and when the party discovered him, he revealed himself as a chronomancer and froze time temporarily. The party had to succeed on con throws to free themselves for their turn. It created a cool fight, because the party really needed to plan spacing due to the fact that projectiles only moved when time wasnt moving for the person who fired (yeah, it doesnt make sense but it was cool in practice)
@Squish God, that sounds a lot like the game Super Hot. did you perchance take inspiration from that?
@@masonnash9396 honestly no, but in hindsight that's pretty much exactly how it worked lol
The Darthvader comment rang home (as I’m doing that exact thing on Saturday with an NPC boss on a ship (with dozens of smaller NPC’s with 1 hit point who will attack in waves and a huge monster ) I hope my players don’t see this.
Thanks for the great video
How can you make the inn that much more... INNteresting!!! 😂😂😂
My latest game consisted of the party having a picnic the the desert with a caravan. Giant ants attacked because they wanted the food and one of my players decided to befriend it and somehow convinced the rest of the party to join him. They started murdering everyone in the caravan as the ants were trying to kill them and another player ended up having a pose-off with the ant queen as a distraction to blast it with point-blank magic. Once most of the people and the ant queen were dead they stole a cart and raced out of there with one of the ants as a new pet. They started fighting over the crown that they looted from the queen and one of the players died before someone took the crown, crumpled it, and threw it out of the cart because no one deserved it. Needless to say, my games have been very interesting and full of encounters like that.
Thanks as always for the great content, dude! Your stuff always offers some great thoughts on running games.
Amazingly good episode thank you!
Thank you. Finding this video was very timely for my preparations!
You're a genius! Im so happy i stumbled upon your channel :)
Always good advice! Posted to PGMS. Thanks :)
Thank you so much for posting this! It was very helpful in writing a one-shot recently and I'm sure what I gleaned here will be useful in many combats to come.
Wow! The great videos just don't stop! I learn so much I can hardly keep up. Fantastic work. Thanks for doing this.
I love your videos, they are great and help us to see the importance of thinking and preparing! You explain things in any easy to understand way. I just wish they were twice as long! Thank you for sharing your experience and wisdom.
Great tips!
Wonderful video. Great examples that inspired me and gave me tools to make encounters more entertaining.
One of my favorite videos so far. :O
The favorit encounter i have ever made was bloody insane, i had a joker like villain, that attacked the base of the heros. He had Flying speakers (that where also bombs) that blurtet out "Ride of the Valkiry", "Wilhelm Tell" and "Cancan" depending on the enemys he sent (most of them moving bombs in some kind), while he was dancing and singing on a near rooftop. It was insane but the player loved the entier chaos. It was a great end to that storyarc.
Can I get some creative criticism for an idea I want to try? I want to have an encounter, where the party fights a dark reflection of themselves (think Dark link lookalikes of themselves). Of course the party is going to assume that trying to kill their shadow doppelgängers is the way to deal with them, but the damage the doppelgängers receive will also accumulate on themselves. I’m trying to think of a small hint to give to the pcs that they have to accept their darkness and that is the way to defeat them. I was thinking of having one their doppelgängers say after taking a hit, “look at them, they’ll never accept us.” Just looking for some feedback to see if this may be too convoluted or is a cool idea.
Keeghan Hendricks Thanks for the idea! One of my friends is playing a Dark Genasi, and when I make this encounter, I will fudge initiative so he goes first, and when he attacks, his doppelganger will say: Strange, out of all the people, I thought you would understand. I think this might spark discussion, and maybe even integrate them in the plot if they help and accept them, with them being "invisible helpers" that make things more convenient. I think this is a nice concept. Great work!
To be completly honest I would stay far away from "phychological" fights like that.
Make a single answer the only answer in a game like DnD will in my experience lead to 2 things. Either the PC's get it and defeat it right away and it will be a pretty uninteresting encounter.
Or they will not be able to figure it out and you either have to pull something out of your ass or let them die..
If you want to do an encounter like that I would make it a bit more open ended or at least forshadow a hell of a lot! Maybe do something like let the shadow people come out of a cursed mirror and if they destroy the mirror the copies will disapear as well.
Then it might be more of a "How can we destroy the thing they are trying to protect without hurting them at the same time?!"
Also one thing..don't let the awful status effects like being stunned, paralyzed or being forced asleep hit the PC's too often. Seriously nothing worse as a player than not being able to play the game for several rounds! Use it sparingly!
Just a bit of spit balling just be careful with single answer puzzles because no matter how obvious it seem to you..it most likely wont be for your players.
Holy badass ideas batman! This has been a fantastic resource for me! The next step is balancing it out so I don't routinely have party wipes XD
Some fantastic ideas here, it'll help me no end.
Super cool!!! 😎😎 😎 I just love this! ❤ Simple ideas, so easy to apply, yet they make the game sooo much more interesting. I will apply this now to most of my central events. My sci-fi planet will be COOL!
Cool background!
Subtitles be like, "Welcome to another episode of how to be a great chin."
So the Besbin encounter was cool because the facilities were used to freez stuff in carbonite. :D
"Lava, if you must" ... I must!
how can I make traveling from one destination to another more interesting?
Shockwave69 RANDOM ENCOUNDER !!
yeah, obviously. That's not what I meant
Shockwave69 lots of opportunity for RP. Describe the scenery, make your player recount their characters favorite memory in that biome. I.e hunting with uncle, playing in a creek, mountain climbing. Who is cooking dinner? Roll to see how it turns out. Always ask if the players want to speak about anything to create that "road trip" feel. Ask a question that the characters talk about: "what do you want to do when to retire from adventuring?" "What's your family like?" "Orcs, am I right?" "What did you make of (name of npc)". This will pass the time and help cultivate an atmosphere of meaningful characters with important back stories. It is also helpful to get your players talking like this so you can find what they think is important.
In a campain : Side quest which sparks something in the character of your less interested pc, that put them in the spotlight. It can be a lost child on the side of the road, brigands but the group has been decimated by something unknown, a solitary house in a field, burning high and loud with purple fire.... Spooky with kindness : a village where everybody is too nice with them.
Only at the end they find it relate in some way to their main adventure. The tomb was the burial of the villain father, the rescued damsel know the secrets passages of the tower for she was the prince's confident (his taylor's daughter), the dragon's weakness is honey, a riddle, a tale, allies that will come back a month later to free them once they're captured...
Travel by see : uncharted island, underwater exploration
Desert : lack of water because the Oasis were poisoned
Chased by bounty hunters is actually pretty cool too, gonna use that one ^^
TL;DR : something unusual and different (break the genre and code you're playing with), character spotlight, relate to background and reveal link to main adventure, have benefits come back much later
I usually timeskip and allow players to do one action per day such as training or conversation, then give a one-time or temporary bonus to the skill they train. Nothing big, just a little +2 bonus or a reroll, maybe give them a d6 to add to one skill check. It encourages a little pre-planning by the players, and gives skills a nice little bump.
Planning on doing a rogue trader role play (Sci fi, warhammer thing), how do I make non spaceship encounters that the players do not see coming from a mile away.
It should depend on the enemy if he has or has not the same disadvantages, most of the time they will want to manipulate the battlefield to their advantage after all. For example my players fought a frost dragon in its layer, the dragon had a lot of advantages there for example blind sight in the heavy fog that.
I made an encounter where my players had to fight 1 bandit captain and 9 bandits that rushed out of the forest cause they refused the toll and threatened the captain. They felt like they where dead the whole time but i knew they would be fine. Then I made a character that is a towering 7'11" ft. Tall and they couldn't hurt him unless they stopped fearing him and concentrating on defeating him instead of concentrating on not dying. I know the rule is 70% chance to win 30% chance to lose. But make it feel the other way around. But I prefer 70%30 win/lose but I want it to feel like they only have 10% to win and 90% to lose even though I know the out come before they do. And my pcs love it
In this difficult terrains or weathers, should I ask for abilities checks? or just narrate that someone was effected by the terrain?
what do you think about moving the plot to a location, where it was not originally supposed to be?
We were playing a game and players decided, that they would not follow the main storyline and stop the black chariot from bringing more corpses to a cult, that planned to defeat local forces with an undead army, and decided to instead explore a local cursed lighthouse. after they were done with that I said that they see the black chariot arriving, stopping near a cliff and the teamster(hope that is the right word) started to throw dead bodies down the cliff. (where the cultist took the bodies to their hideout) They were not supposed to meet him there originally, but only I knew the original location for that encounter, I had a map of a dungeon and the encounters prepared, but I felt the main story was moving a bit slow. after the session I felt that the encounter was forced. But the players liked it, because my DMPC/advisor type got run over by the chariot.
This is a good channel
"... or lava, if you *must*"
What's this guy got against lava?
idk about him but for my friends and me lava is a bit of a no no. because in one of our earliest campaigns we had to fight a giant monster in a room almost filled up with lava and our characters would have to jump over the giant lava stream to get to the enemy. but because they were just so scared of instantly dying in lava, only one of us managed to actually get to the monster, which by then had completely crushed our bard. it was terrible and I believe nobody of us wants any lava in their way anytime soon. it was, however, a very memorable fight.
(still impressed tho about the fact that we killed this thing with just spells and range attacks and then basically throwing random things at it. our warlock eventually threw a love potion because of the chunky bottle...ah good times.)
Lava is just instant kill 🥲
Maybe the traven is a mimic?
An interesting encounter can also be one that is much easier than it seems.
I blame that on the D&D 3.5 Leviathan.
My players have found themselves in the City of Brass and have to break into an efreeti's vault. What are some cool ideas for encounters or designs that you would include?
A gold golem that activates when they try to chip him/loot him to get the extra gold (just do a tiny change to a golem of the appropriate level). A fire-protected ice-based/damaging creature that the Efreet enslaved to kill his competitors. A giant Mimic (always a joy to find one). Piles of gold falling when the monster moves through them, maybe trapping PCs if they fail a dex check. A trap that pours lava on to the vault, but so slowly that the PCs have some turns before being incinerated (they could climb piles of gold to get extra time). A trapped Djinni that got so mad that just rambles riddles and forces the party to answer them "or else", just to reveal he just feels lonely (but will defend himself if attacked). Something you like so far?
Well, i do not agree that the ennemies should have the same handicap. sometimes it is kind of a natural that, for exemple, a creature that sees through de darkness will attack during the night. Or a sea monster will try to fight in water event if your players need to breath. Or, one of my favorite is, the harpies attacking while your are climbing the mountains (Used as a last resort against players who think they are invicible hehehe :) ).
And of course the opposite can happen. If your players are planning to kick some vampire asses, they better come with a plan that involve fighting the creature in day light or maybe in the universe you are playing vampire simply vanish when exposed to the sun so that's even a better way of winning the fight by not fighting at all !
I am not very good at stats to adjust encounters, so i prefer to use the situation to give handicap or bonuses to balance the odds. which is in my opinion even a better way than just changing the strengh of a creature because that is not always universe-friendly. A deadly creature IS deadly, i don't want to make it "not so deadly" just because my player don't have the level yet. I'll go for something less deadly and/or put the battle in a way that they have an advantage so they can win against that ennemy that they migth not defeat in a "lined" battle.
Those are all good, thematic encounters, but to offer them as alternatives shows that you missed part of the point, here. Every example you gave is just a combat where the PCs have a disadvantage. Overcoming those disadvantages may make those encounters memorable, but if you use the same "trick" every time, of just giving the PCs a handicap, they could start failing to stand out from one another. If the PCs go into every encounter just wondering what difficulty they are going to have to overcome, it can get tiresome. I've felt this as a player.
I think the biggest point I am taking away from this episode is to vary your encounters. For a "cool" encounter, we want to surprise the players with circumstances they couldn't predict. Players expect a monologue from the Big Bad, but not from a seemingly random brigand. A fight where only one side can see is one thing, but in that rare instance when neither side can see, you get very different interactions and players start to come up with interesting ways to communicate or feel their way around. You sound like you know how to put together an encounter of appropriate challenge, but this is all about finding a next step to take.
Well, of course i'm not saying the opposite, you can have situation where every one has a hancicap or a bonus. i was just arguying on one specific sentence in the video. i agree with pretty much every thing else.
I could never make my player go in encounters like that all the time. it's very situationnal and i'm not very good at forcing situation.
But as a player i've been in too much battles where the only thing to do was rolling the basic attack and block. so i try to give my players other options and reward them for it (maybe i just do it too often and they are not trying to fight anymore but finding the other option, that might be my problem :) )
Second reason i use those "tricks" is because i'm bad at stats and i'm against stats modification (to a certain degree) because if a dragon is supposed to be a feared creature that bring death, i don't want to break the concistancy of the universe by "creating" one that is "weak".
maverik744 it sounds like perhaps the issue is not that you can't use handicaps to the PCs but not NPCs, but perhaps the better way to say it is "use those handicaps but make sure that you use them sparingly and allow the PCs to overcome them if they have a clever idea."
If they are fighting creatures that can see in darkness and a PC takes a turn to Light a Sunrod, that negates the benefits and PCs won't necessary think about it immediately.
In one of my sessions one of my players (a naga) had made a really nasty rat stewon board of their ship. Everyone bolted to the sides of the ship to vomit but then see i pirateship in the distance. So as they prepare to be attacked one of them decides to launch the stew onto the other ship. It more or less acted as teargass for the pirates and they either jumped ship or couldnt hit anything...so in the end with the help of a burning arrow they set tge stew on fire and as it reached the powder storage...BOOM! And that was all within maybe 5 turns but damn it was fun xD
I would love a video on Starfinder, whenever that comes out!
How do I introduce a new world to the players? The world in question is full of mystery, the players get here by some "teleportation shenanigans" and their goal should be discovering what happened to it in the long forgotten past. So I would just spoil important plot points by simply telling them the starting location is a HUGE castle.
So how should I start a campaign when introducing completely new worlds/planets/planes of existance?
Is there some way that I could translate something like Destiny raid mechanics into an encounter? I've been toying around with making something like the dog garden encounter from the D2 leviathan raid. I'm just having trouble figuring out how to make it clear to my PCs what they need to do without feeling like I'm railroading them.
Would you please sign up to be David Attenburoughs understudy?
the funny thing is that i just watched a CZcams campaign where they made their DPS 30 ft tall
Like just for the background.
I had a cool encounter ruined by my friend being kicked out of there house.
or not just having wolves attack you but surround you waiting for a opportune moment to strike,
I’m going to make an encounter at a desert oasis with a Venom Troll with some Troglodytes, after that a poisonous Water Weird rises from the oasis for a mini boss fight
Or even a necromancer controlling a Flesh Golem in a thunderstorm in front of a haunted mansion, remember that the Flesh Golem gets healed by electricity
Lava if I must? If I must? Of course I must! LOL
i like that volcano with enemies trying to hold them there so everyone dies
Ounce my team saw a cult fanatic and attacked them so I made him randomly summon astral skeletons that went by the minion rule and then upon his near death his soul linked with the last 2 astral skeletons and ran away and then the barbarian used a javelin that he never used and threw it and now it talks and returns when thrown and my players talk about it abunch
I have a question, since I have a party who are about 4-3 level, and they are exploring "Dragon forest". I want to throw a wyvern in there, but I am afraid that they are going to die. BUT! I have made it already clear that this campaing is going to be dark souls -ish. What should I do?
SiberHavoc Go for it and if it really is bad, throw a Deus ex, I wouldn't rely on it too much though because your players might lose that sense of mortality, but I'm getting off track here
I'd suggest either make it a weaker wyvern (younger, sick, etc) or provide additional options for the characters (cover bonuses, escape routes, surprise attack). Or you could make it a chase scene where the characters flee from the wyvern after it demonstrated its massive power.
In dark souls, i've learn to die until i won. well since they migth not have that "chance" to come back to the bonfire, they should "be more careful". now, how do you make a wyvern (that is a deadly, strong creature) a killable "boss" or "mini-boss" at least i guess.
Well, step one : is the wyvern in a good physical situation ? it could have a unhealed wound, a part where they is not scale so that's a weak spot they will have to aim (may be the wyvern knows it and will be more likely to protect itself rather than slashing ragefully).
maybe it is sick ? yes, sickness is a thing that exists even for fantasy creatures ! (maybe it cannot fly or breath fire due to the wound/sickness)
step two : is it adult ? very young ? very old ?
step three : will they encounter it once at last or several time ? what if they have to "stand" like 3 or 4 round on the first encounter then the wyvern flies away to it's nest !
step four : in the nest may-be it has an egg or something that it is protecting so it will not chase them to death.
step five (my least favorite) : well, just downgrade the stats or give them a strong ally that will tank or deal a lot of damage to the creature. (like another wyvern ? XD)
IMO the best way to make an encounter feel "high stakes" is to have the monster deal lots of damage if it hits, but have less health. maybe indicate a "weak spot" that they can hit if they crit that deals even MORE damage than a normal crit
Easy, use some kind of crocodile (for example) with wings and claws, and describe it as a "river wyvern" or some shit like that. This kind of tiny changes always work for me: my players can say they killed a dragon and I get to give them a leveled encounter. Another way is you can always determine that when they deal enough damage the wyvern tries to escape to fight another day, that makes him a nemesis which will come back more than once to bit them in their asses and they will LOVE it.
My last game I had the boss battle on a frozen rooftop with a pool.
Never related to you more guy then when you said "tweet channel"
IMO and I’m a word: movement, stakes, and problem solving.
You mean a tweet that you twote. One must always use the right tense.
Video starts at 3:20
so in my game there is the ability to make a deal with the devil and i am not a manipulative person what is a good way to manipulate people in signing
Have the devil appear before seemingly impossible encounters (that the devil himself might have had a hand in pushing the party into). Look at Gaunter O' Dimm in Witcher 3 for inspiration of a great "devil dealing" character
power, money status, regular demon stuff or if any of your players have personal goals try and factor that into a deal "Oh your looking for a lost lover?" "Well He/She may or may not be trapped in an extradimensional demi-plane I just so happen to know where to find the frequency for.... All you need to do is sign..."
Maybe the Devil disguises himself as a normal merchant, who want your players to sign a contract with quite the fine print.
You may have a NPC who already signed a contract and is forced to pretend its a great opportunity. Maybe the NPC doesn't know the consequences yet and really believes in what he/she tells you. See the contract in "Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica" for reference.
i will get to seeing what Gaunter O'Dimm has to offer.
@ShinijiKudo
i am not a big fan of the devil disguising himself i prefer they know it is the devil they are making a deal with
The enemies should not have terrain handicaps when operating in their lair/home terrain.
...also, no encounter will be cool if the GM is not into it.
You must be enthusiastic and passionate about presenting and running the encounter.
THAT"S the secret sauce.
So this was one of my first games when we were in a spider cave and there were spider eggs in there so I decided to stab it with by rapier. Not the greatest idea considering since I blasted into the wall after a spider shot webs at me and I was stuck to a wall 20 feet up for multiple turns then I managed to break out of the webs then I died of fall damage. Then eventually got a good constitution roll and the spiders then attacked the rest of the party. Then I was praised as the hero of the town of cerula and my party mates were just the adventurers with the greatest adventurer ever “Retardian Elchapo!”
I love your videos but I’m watching this one on my big ass TV and it looks like your face is too close to the camera I feel like were sitting face to face.
Starfinder is crap to be honest
larhs o kabalarhs
GAHHH, WHITE DWARFS COLLAPSE INTO NUTRON STARS, NOT BROWN DWARFS, BROWN DWARFS ARE FAILED STARS! GAH
Shhh... Who cares? ;)
I apologize if this seems racist, but is this a second channel for Shadiversity? I mean no offense by this at all.
Was i the only one to catch the error in his facts about whote and brown dwarf stars??? A white dwarf if it collapses creates one of 2 things depending on how far into its life cycle it is if its younger say 30 billion years it may collapse into a.neutron star if it outters layers mass isnt too much for.it but if its older and has more.heavy elements in its outter layers it may collapse into a black hole thatll survive probably a few.billion years before evaporating niw if its core and its outter layer say in eqaulibriaum till it runs its cycles then a white dwarf will expand into a red giant for a few.billion years then collapes back into a brown dwarf or dead star a brown dwarf can have averahe temperature as cool as our planets avaerage temperature or maybe a few degrees centegrade lower sorry for the long wall of text im a physics student but im too lazy to check grammer or spelling hehehe
I'm only commenting because you obviously want someone to acknowledge how clever you are. I'm glad your vast wealth of knowledge on the lifecycle of stars finally found a use and validated your deep, profound studies of the heavens above.
Anthony Bernardo hehehe i really enjoy your use of sarcasm and side pricks here i was high when i wrote that comment and when i get high i get long winded and become more like a teacher than a studenr
First of all this could easily have been half as long and contained the same amount of actual advice. Second, who calls Daleks "day-liks"??
He falls into the trap that most average GM's do and that is: an encounter does not have to mean combat. For an average GM combats and encounters are synonyms but this is not true. Be careful what you watch/read online, this guys is not an "expert" just someone with an opinion. Find your own style and if you need some inspiration don't just watch guys like this, maybe read a novel otrcomic book or watch a movie.