Implementing something new into your home group’s role-playing game may be different than incorporating it into a game somewhere else.

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Welcome first time emailer, Lucas.  Writes in on Power of Mooks

First time mailing in. My name is Lucas, from out in the middle of Nebraska. 

I have enjoyed many systems that use cannon fodder mechanics. Like you mentioned savage worlds, 4e dnd and pulp Cthulhu. 

Another system 13th age takes it a bit farther. You have minions and mobs. basically a mob represents a group of minions. So when your group of adventures find the mysterious portal under the church leads to lab with an army of undead the heroes had to fight there way back out… Ironically when the bbg attempted to summon his army of the dead in the final encounter and dust and bones fell out of the portals… The players cheered in laughter.

Another awesome mob battle that was in my mind supposed to take an hour or two was done in 5 minutes. This has a little bit of a setup but here it goes. 

When the hordes of the Star spawn come running down the mountain from the shard of the living moon god attempted to claim the world against the combined army of the dwarves king, the elf queen, the crusader, the emperor and the platinum dragon. As a GM you have your hopes up for a really epic battle. It was nearing the end of the campaign.

 

And then was the heroes Chaos Mage. In 13th age the chaos mage based on what you roll odd or even you then had to pull chips out of a bag that would cause a variety of different effects.. 

 

A natural 20 leading to the stars of line, pulling a black chip… Players lol…and luck… The player had top initiative. Then the player made the roll and he got quite and then just started laughing… I had seen this character do some weird and funny stuff through the campaign including once turning everybody blue. 

So he quickly rolled his damage. And then inform me how it worked. 

I then been described hopefully something Michael Bay would be proud of and the sky burned in explosions of raining fire and chain electric reactions coursing through The horde.

Basically if a mob it’s composed of many minions and if one minion would take enough damage to kill it it would Arc over into the next minion killing that one. Which results in entire mountain exploding as the fires of hell itself incinerated The horde. It’s one of those proud moments as a GM to just witness complete and absolute anarchy and chaos at the table. As everything you step up, all the descriptions everything setting up to that moment is gone in 5 minutes… It was awesome and they finished the campaign that night. 

Thanks for letting me ramble..

Keep up with the awesome..

Lucas from the middle of Nebraska

Trailhead on forums comments on RPG Purge

Hello fellow BSers – Regarding Episode 332 Unloading Gaming Gear aka culling your collection – Alex Radcliffe of BoardGameCo. recently posted a video about How to Get Board Games to the Table and I found that the principles he presented in this video helped me think more clearly about my RPG collection. If you think wisely about the games that you acquire, you will have less trouble with managing the size of your collection. And some of these principles can be used to evaluate the games you already own to decide what to keep vs. what to unload.

So, you ask, what are these principles?

1 – Don’t buy games that will be hard to get to the table. Or, in this context, don’t keep games that are hard to get to the table. (Unless you can use them as source material for games you can get to the table.)

2 – Capitalize on the excitement – i.e. play that new RPG while it’s still fresh and you are excited about it. You are probably less likely to play a game that you bought a few years ago and is just sitting there gathering dust on your shelf. The initial excitement has worn off. Are you honestly ever going to play that? If not, let it go.

2a – Don’t get too many games at once. This one resonates for me with all the RPG PDF bundles I purchased last year. Most of those games I haven’t even looked at, let alone read through. Some of them I haven’t even downloaded. I don’t regret these purchases as they supported charities, but still, buying a lot of games at once creates an instant backlog of unplayed games. At least they are PDFs, so they aren’t taking up space on my shelves, but they are still inventory and do weigh on my mind. (See The Minimal Mom’s video on A Key Lesson on Inventory for her thoughts on the mental toll of keeping excess inventory.)

3 – Read the rulebook, and do it again. If you do want to get an RPG to the table, whether it’s new to you or one that you’d like to play again, the better you know the rules, the easier it will be to get the game up and running.

4 – Set the game up – or in the RPG context, create a few characters, run a demo combat and/or social encounter. Learn the mechanics by playing through them, either solo or with your gaming group. If you are trying to decide whether or not to keep a game, take it out on a test drive. Or if you are trying to decide whether or not to acquire a new one, look for a quickstart to try before you buy.

5 – Know your group dynamic. What kinds of genres do they like? How crunchy or narrative of a system do they prefer? Do they prefer one-shots, short campaigns, or longer campaigns? Defined settings and scenarios, or open worlds? Certain RPGs lend themselves to different game lengths and playing styles, so these types of questions can be helpful when deciding whether to acquire a game, keep one you have, or let it go. Does your group even like trying new RPGs, or would they prefer to stick to what they know?

I thought these ideas from BoardGameCo. were applicable to thinking about what RPGs to acquire and what RPGs I own that I want to keep or unload. I hope these are helpful to others, as well.

Best regards,

TrailHead

Isaiah comments on forums about Mooks

Loved the episode, helped me think outside the combat box in regard to how I can use some minions.

I often fall into making social encounters about some conflict with a single actor, an influential NPC or organization, to sway a third party’s perspective. It could be a battle of the bands, an internet debate, a dinner party, a performance. The players RP, make skill rolls, some complications happen, they adjust and RP and roll and either 1) move something like an old school reaction roll chart in their preferred direction, or 2) outperform the antagonist’s skill checks. They win, the crowd loves them, the internet makes memes about them, they get the backing of an influential group, the critics write a glowing review, whatever.

The episode had me thinking about how to use minion-type extras in scenarios featuring social conflict. Social minions could be a rock band’s fans, internet comment board posters, a Noble’s flunkies, the audience watching the Passion Play of the Apotheosis of Sigmar. I’m think of assigning an action or two, like throwing underwear, applause (or booing), trolling, gossiping, or other behavior to the minions.

This would give the PCs another, relatively mild, complicating factor with which to contend. I think it would add an extra layer and enable some other activities on the part of the players. And even those easy checks can be failed sometimes, which can be played for laughs or a success-at-cost (or an even worse failure) depending on the tone and how the overall conflict plays out.

Blake Ryan sends over a quiz for Brett and BS’ers

1-Name 3 of the Circle of Eight on Greyhawk

2-In Vampire the Masquerade, what is Auspex?

3-In Call of Cthulhu, Who wrote or translated the Necronomincon?

4-Name one of the countries near the Rift Canyon in greyhawk

5-In the World of Darkness, what is Pentex?

6-In Call of Cthulhu, who allied with the Deep Ones?

7-What was the rain of colorless fire on Greyhawk?

Die Roll

  • From Akodoken…Magpie Games has secured the license to create a RPG covering both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. More info here
  • 10 of the Best Fantasy Map Generators and World-building tools, here
  • Mystara fans, Vaults of Pandius website. Getting unreleased Mystara product from Jeff Grubb – ENWorld
  • Midnight RPG, hinted by Edge Studios, overseer of Genesys/Star Wars

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About the Author
The 'S' of Gaming and BS podcast. Besides producing and hosting the show, Sean enjoys long walks on the beach, running rpg's, and killing player...characters.