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I know this may be a joke, but I have used timers to great effect in the past. One instance comes to mind:
My players were looking for a missing child. They suspected a kidnapping. The Druid had transformed into a wolf, and was using scent to track the suspected kidnapper. The trail led them to the edge of a lake. In the middle of the lake, they could see a man in a rowboat. He had rowed out to the middle of a lake, and was in the process of dumping a squirming sack overboard. The players heard my description of how the sack hit the water, floated for a few seconds while it thrashed around, then sank below the surface.
The players fell into analysis paralysis. Would it be best to row out and stop the kidnapper? Focus on retrieving the sack that obviously had the kidnapped child in it? Risk splitting the party to do both simultaneously? While they were bickering about what to do, I quietly started a timer and set it in front of my DM screen. It was a not-so-subtle “you’re all wasting time arguing while a child is literally drowning” reminder.
The party saw me set the timer down, a silent beat passed as the realization hit, and then the entire party immediately sprang into action. Everyone piled into the rowboat on shore, while the paladin was asking to make a strength check to shove off and get the boat into the water. He rolled a natural 20, so the boat skipped a few times across the surface before the warrior took over rowing with a constitution check. He rolled a natural 19. They made it to the middle of the lake very quickly. The Druid wildshaped into something aquatic (I think a dolphin?) to go diving for the child, while the warrior and sorcerer piled into the kidnapper’s boat to prevent his escape. While all of that was going on, the paladin was making constitution saving throws to swim out to the middle of the lake (in heavy armor, I might add) to be on standby in case the child needed healing.
I didn’t actually intend on using the timer for anything. But the simple fact that I had it running pushed them into action. It was a powerful reminder that their characters wouldn’t have the time to fully analyze the situation and arrive at a plan of action by committee.
Can I use my sneak attack? No? Damn. Ok does an 8 hit. What does before modifers mean?
Ouch, ow. Stop, please
This is something I do find a bit annoying with other players I’ve played with. I can accept it if they are playing for the first time, but by level 10 you should already know what spells you took and what they do at minimum.
by level 10 you should already know what spells you took and what they do at minimum
As often as not, the control wizard is trying to figure out if they can drop the AoE template to just hit the bad guys. Blaster Casters tend to have less of a problem because every turn is “Does it have fire resistance? Yes: Magic Missile / No: Scorching Ray”
The really annoying wizards are the Summoners, because “it’s my turn so let me add another 1d4+1 turdlings to the battle field and take 6 attacks with the gumbas currently out here”.
Plan your next turn before it’s your turn!
I did but then the sorcerer changed the whole situation with his bullshit!
I think this whole situation improved considerably when everyone became invisible. See? No one is around now, combat complete
sorcererDMI’ll also spot you that turn one is generally basic bitch shit.
It’s turn seven, when the wizard has gone through six prior Save or Sucks only to find out the DM has introduced another creature on which none of them work that they’re fumbling around for options.
This almost never works out because by my next turn, the battlefield is completely different than what it was when I ended my previous turn.
Your GM must be some kind of tactical genius then, seeing as how they’re playing all the monsters and probably don’t need to spend all that much time deliberating all their individual turns.
It’s more the sorcerer and warlock using magics that alter the very fabric of reality.
Yeah, I’m sure eldritch blast gets more complicated after the first dozen times.
This is why I’m respeccing as a rogue this week.
Bold of you to assume I know what my fighter is rolling.
A d20. 🤷♂️
I think it’s a d12 and then some 3rd grad math homework I didn’t do.
That’s if you hit them. You gotta see if you hit them first.
Ohhh, that’s the d20 and then uuhhhhh… proficiency then ummmmmmm. Dose 11 plus 3 plus something else hit?
This is why I suggest every caster either has note cards for their spells or a tablet with their spells bookmarked.
It’s fireball. It’s just gonna be fireball. Just roll your 8d6.
Yeah, you make a personal spellbook. No PHB spellbook. That way you only have 4 or 5 pages to thumb through. If you can’t devote that much personal time to the campaign, you can’t devote that much time to the campaign.
I don’t give a shit about how large is the room
This reminded me of a time our rogue fell into a pit trap that had a pair of mimics down there. The first turn it was clear the rogue was going to die without some help and nobody wanted to join them in the pit of dying. Me and the other sorc looked at each other, “hey rogue, you picked improved evasion right?”, fireball o’clock
Did the rogue make it?
They did! Improved evasion is so OP we were way less of a threat than getting Eiffel towered by mimics
Unless some cataclysmic event has befallen the battlefield or a primary target or ally just died your turn should be no more than 1 minute at the longest.
I’m in a weird spot rn where I’m nostalgic for playing on roll20 because I wanted the ‘genuine experience’ of playing in person.
your turn should be no more than 1 minute at the longest
“I cast Invisibility”
“You can’t”
“Yes I can”
“No, you can’t, you’re in the Antimagic Field”
“No, I’m not. I’m on the edge of the field. Look at the table.”
“There’s still a corner of the field in the square.”
“Then I don’t stand in that corner.”
“The rules say it doesn’t matter.”
“No they don’t. It has to occupy at least 40% of the square.”
“Yes it does. Look, its right here in the DM’s guide.”
“That’s the 4.32 manual. You need to check the rules updates from 4.71”
“I’m not using 4.71 rules.”
“You referenced a 4.82 rule just a turn ago!”
“No I didn’t, that was a house rule.”
“That’s not anywhere in the house rule guide! I was just reading it before I cast my spell.”
“Well, I sent out an email two months ago.”
“GUYS! Just make a decision and move ON!”
“Okay, fine. I take a five foot step and cast Invisibility.”
“My hydra gets an AoO. I roll a 43 and deal 290 points of damage. Your wizard dies.”
“THIS IS BULLSHIT!”
Just let them cast the spell and labour under the misapprehension they are invisible until they pass a perception roll.
“I cast invisible”
“The hydra takes an AoO”
Queue from the top
It’s the same argument. The fundamental problem is that magic as a system doesn’t play well with rules as a concept
swing a sword four times
My group: “You guys make it to level five before the campaign falls apart?”
don’t most people start out in level 5?
I’ve always started lvl 1, I didn’t even know ppl started at higher lvls
Almost all campaigns I ran I’d have them start level 3-5 depending on what stories I wanted to tell. Pathfinder 1 the first couple levels are trash anyways and I personally felt like I didn’t have much interest with my own characters until I could see their unique abilities start to come online, so that’s where I liked to start players in my own campaigns
I am utterly perplexed as to why people keep posting this image with text that implies that we’re supposed to sympathise with the mass murdering serial rapist.
It’s ok it’s a TV show and he was just acting.
Always seen this meme format posted, no clue what it’s supposed to be from
It’s from Jessica Jones, a very, very good show. David Tennant plays a man with mind control powers who uses them in all of the worst ways you can possibly imagine. It’s technically a Marvel comics thing, but the creators were given total carte blanche and went deep into the absolute nightmarishness of the subject matter. It’s basically a mix of detective noir and horror. Tennant and Ritter both deliver incredible performances and the show really plays with the abject terror of living in a world with superhumans in it. It’s like a version of Invincible that refuses to ever undermine the horror by cracking a joke.
Tenant does such a good job with the role that I legitimately had a hard time watching him as other characters for a while after. Kilgrave is so fucking vile on so many levels, but is still a fully fleshed out awful character by the end, and Tenant absolutely nails it.
It’s a ridiculously good performance and I think it really shocked a lot of people who only knew him from Doctor Who.
I’ve always said that it takes a genuinely good person to play a truly repugnant villain, and by all accounts that’s Tennant through and through.
Totally the same. Between this and him as Crowley in good omens I have a hard time seeing him as anything but these 2 characters.
If you want a less explicit example of what he does that doesn’t really spoil anything, he picks some random family’s house as a base and tells the kids to stay out of sight. Iirc they just stand in a closed closet because they can’t disobey.
From Jessica Jones, the guy has a superpower where what he speaks is treated as a command by the one hearing it.
They aren’t familiar with Kilgrave and just make the meme based off the image and their interpretation of it
i just assumed it was the Doctor ranting at someone at the end of an episode
It only implies that if you’ve watched the show. Otherwise its a picture that says 10,000 words.
The fact that people see the emotion over the lore just shows the acting was good IMO.
Why would you use an image as a meme format if you didn’t know where it came from? That’s an incredibly bad way to communicate. You’re basically saying “Yes your Honor, but you see I was deliberately being an idiot.” Like, that doesn’t make it better.
You don’t have to know the history of every meme that you post.
Go have a juice box buddy. You’ll feel better.
But I’m the caster, I couldn’t possibly sympathize for a lowly fighter!
“NOW, JESSICAAAAA!!!”
this is why ttrpgs should not be so combat-focused.
I tend to find an 2:1 or 3:1 combat/non-combat gives people a good mix of the action/adventure elements and the high drama. Combat just tends to take longer than drama, so even when you try to minimize it, you can often find yourself in a time-suck.
I also tend to feel that any “withering encounter” should resolve as soon as the players are more-or-less assured of victory (like, 2-3 turns, unless things go disastrously wrong for the players). Big center-piece boss battles can take longer, but need some kind of high drama element (exploding volcano, NPC dangling off a cliff, evil wizard powering up a death ray, etc) that (a) gives players a puzzle or drama point to resolve and (b) gives someone an opportunity to do something passionate or wacky (swinging in on a chandelier, flinging themselves on a hand grenade, asking their beau to marry them in the middle of a sword fight).
Any encounter that’s just “roll the dice, pass the turn” is a waste of everyone’s time, IMHO.
combat’s fine if you need actual strategy, like in pathfinder
Depends on the players. Some want to play pretend. Some want to play XCOM with dice.
I’m the asshole that likes a fine, precariously balanced mix of PORQUE NO LOS DOS
I would 100% play a decent XCOM tabletop rpg
I think you can have combat focused stories as long as your combat mechanics are lightweight and fast.
When I switched out my Shadowrun game to The Sprawl, and then eventually a homebrew, I actually got less afraid of letting combat happen because I knew it wouldn’t eat up ninety percent of the session. By volume of time spent, combat became much less of each session, and yet conversely combat could happen at any time and every scene could feel like a fight might break out because there was no sigh “Roll for initiative…”
With fast, lightweight combat mechanics (especially ones that do not have an initiative system) you get to weave violence into the substance of your story constantly, without the system taking place of the storytelling.
That’s not to say that less combat focused games are a bad thing. The other big change I found was that it was also much easier to run sessions where no fighting occurred, because I didn’t have to figure out how to fill the several hours that should have been taken up by a fight, and the players never felt like there was a difference between fighting and talking and everything else. It all just became part of the broader texture of the story, so a session with no fighting didn’t feel weird or out of place.
hm.
i do own the sprawl, and i don’t remember why now but that book made me uninterested in pbta as a whole. maybe i’ll go back to it.
Every player is different, every DM is different. Thats why communication at the top is important, if you want to get heavily in to character and roleplay a detective mystery in the tavern, let your DM know that.
