Michael apologises for leaving the episode to languish in his inbox past the deadline. It may be related to the bad attack of Renovation his landlords put him through.
This month, Mike and Roger once again attempt RPG-a-Day as RPG-a-Minute.
Regarding challenge rating, I have been running a D&D 2024 game and I have found the encounter creation guidelines quite useful. I could not figure them out in the 2014 edition, but the new one is quite straight forward. As a tool, it gives me some guiderails that I can choose to ignore if I want them to have an especially easy encounter or one I would expect them to run away from.
Relatedly, I had originally planned to use milestone character advancement, but the players wanted individual xp awards. This means that players who miss sessions can have their PCs miss out on xp. It also allows me to give bonus xp if the player submits something for the campaign, such as world background information or session write-ups. This does mean I have to count up all the xp of the monsters they defeated, but Iâve found this quite straight-forward and quick.
Regarding Destiny: Iâm rather fond of the WFRP approach to this - your characters all have a slighty vague fate that you define during character creation. Most of the time it turns out to be nonsense, but if your character manages to die in a way that could be seen to fulfill the prophecy, your next character gets a modest experience boost. It doesnât add any effort for the GM if they donât want it to, but it does provide a bit of an opportunity for roleplaying, as wel las taking away the sting of losing a character.
Regarding âDoes Hasbroâs D&D sell to old players?â - well, if you live in an area with gaming clubs you will find thereâs an endless supply of newbies who want to play D&D 5e and have no concept of playing anything else. Some veterans (like myself, who spat on class & level based games as a student) pick up the new books and maybe a scenario/campaign to run so they can encourage the newcomers to the hobby, and try to tempt them to something else.
Regarding the aftermath of a âgood warâ being the best time for adventurers - while you may think the second world war is best for this, I think the Vietnam war is better, because in 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didnât commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no-one else can help - and if you can find them, maybe you can hireâŚ
Your wish is granted @MichaelCule - there is indeed a fantasy variant of Gumshoe One-to-One coming, called The Paragon Blade, and it is currently available for pre-order.
DCâs varied incarnations of the Blackhawks after WW2 are another useful take on âadventurers seeking Adrenalin after a war that no one prosecuted them for their actions duringâ
They even ran 1944 to 1989 in non-contiguous fashion from DC so thereâs some legit late pulp, red scare, silver age nonsense (starfish man is a personal favorite), and then the 80âs Howard Chaykin take that explicitly drops in Mary Astorâs Brigid OâShaughnessy in his mini-series which makes a kind of ouroboros since Blackhawk first showed up in Quality Comics a couple of months before that version of Maltese Falcon appeared and the series that came after looks at 1950âs saucer scare with lenses from after the grey alien was blasted out by Spielberg
For a story of bored/out-of-work war veterans turning their skills to lively peacetime use, you canât do better than The League of Gentlemen â the 1960 movie, that is.
Regarding characters who get too powerful to keep adventuring, bear in mind thereâs the risk of being called out of retirement in their old age to kill a dragon. HwĂŚt!
And, chaps⌠I have to say this, and please imagine a centurion has you by the lughole: itâs in mediaS res. Sorry, the ghost of my old Latin master wouldnât leave me alone if I didnât mention it.
Re Brindlewood Bay, for a single game, I would be fine with learning after the fact that the mysteryâs solution had been derived wholly from player ideas, but I wouldnât want to play knowing from the beginning that the players would be defining reality. (Possibly I am misrepresenting the game.)
At a guess because you lose the sense of there being some sort of reality behind the story. My players (Drak especially) accuse me of being out of tune with the co-creation and âdefine the truth by playingâ schticks of modern gaming and always having a pre determined ending in mind.
I canât deny it but I regard it as a default placeholder just in case the players donât come up with anything.
I see the virtue but I donât really plan far in that direction; itâs not that my games donât have combat, but itâs very much only one option, and my regular players tend to enjoy other things too.
(My rule of thumb for GURPS experience awards is â3XP for showing up, 1XP if you made me corpse during the sessionâ.)
My understanding, having skimmed the rules and listened to some play recordings, is that the latter is explicitly how it worksâthough you have to get a certain amount of metagame âcluesâ before you can go to the conclusion.
Donât presume that using a tool such as this is about combat being the only option. Suppose you are running GURPS, say Urban Horror and Investigation. At some point, you want to create the sewer monster or the vampire and its minions or the demon that the teenage wizard summoned. You can plan for non-combat ways for the PCs to eliminate the threat, but if they go in with tommy guns and dynamite, how tough do you make it? Having guidelines is useful. Very few games give them.
