Pen and Paper D&D

[proudft]

My DM asked everyone to bring him copies of our character sheets to our game tonight.  Should I be worried? 

Odds of party being captured and stripped of their gear rising!

[Sheepherder]

Or he's making doppleganger versions of each character and he's going to co-opt players into being fifth columnists.

If it were my game I'd take each person aside one by one, assign each a doppleganger, and give all of them the mission of covertly sabotaging the party.  For the lulz.

Then after the intermission I'd cut to the dungeon as the players, stripped of their gear, are arriving one by one as prisoners of separate parties of dopplegangers.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Or he's making doppleganger versions of each character and he's going to co-opt players into being fifth columnists.

If it were my game I'd take each person aside one by one, assign each a doppleganger, and give all of them the mission of covertly sabotaging the party.  For the lulz.

You know, that would be hilarious and fun to try doing.  There is one guy would absolutely excel at doing that and he'd enjoy it all the way to the bank.  Luckily he's playing a barbarian this time around instead of a rogue type, not that him causing chaos is lessened by his character choice.

The DM definitely has plans for us and now that things have started moving again, it should be fun.  The party has been stuck in the only town around for miles because of bad luck and economy.  It's situated next to a huge gorge (think Grand Canyon) which is filled with gems and other loot but guarded by "dragons".  This had the net result of skewing their economy severely, meaning we ran into "Oh, you'd like dinner tonight?  No problem, that'll be 400 gold.  Each." all over the place.  So we've been waylaid from our quest and just started on a mission into the gorge to protect miners and we've had our first glimpse of the "dragons" in there.  Tonight will be fun.

[Sheepherder]

Best way might be to get the players attempting The Great Escape while their dopplegangers are out in the world at large performing shenanigans, with the implication that the prison break is in the past and the doppleganger FUBAR is the present, when in actuality it's the other way around.  Plus, once you free the players you can have angry mobs try to burn them.

[Strazos]

Maybe he wanted to have a copy so he could make pretty copies using Wizards' tools.

[Bunk]

Usually its just so that the DM can take note of what you have, make plans on the sort of things you might need, and being able to point out that you are currently carrying around 485 lbs of equipment. With 12 strength.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm pretty sure it's to make sure he knows what everyone has.  Plus he's been strict on the encumbrance rules as well.  And this DM isn't as harsh on us as a previous one used to be, where asking for a copy of our sheets was a guarantee your character was about to die.

[Bunk]

I'm having a blast with my current Pathfinder character. He's basically a goblin version of Belkar. Rogue 4/Ranger 2 duelweilding/throwing dagger specialist. It's amazingly easy to sneak attack things to death when my partner, a rotund drunken monk, spends all his actions judo throwing mosters in to a prone and flanked position between us. There are other party members, but we mostly ignore them.

[Morat20]

I'm having a blast with my current Pathfinder character. He's basically a goblin version of Belkar. Rogue 4/Ranger 2 duelweilding/throwing dagger specialist. It's amazingly easy to sneak attack things to death when my partner, a rotund drunken monk, spends all his actions judo throwing mosters in to a prone and flanked position between us. There are other party members, but we mostly ignore them.

I tried something similar with a friend. Backstory of two soldiers, legionaire-style shield-companions. Basic fighters, some well chosen feats (and a few realistic, if custom ones) -- taken apart, we were shit fighters. Togther, we were a mini-fucking shield wall, or one guy with a big-ass shield and another with a spear.

It was a pretty good balance, actually, since if combat split us apart we went from "effectively untouchable machines of death" to "clumsy targets"

Edited to add: Specifically, we were overpowering working in tandem. When we couldn't, which the GM tried to make happen all the time, we generally got the shit knocked out of us. Was fun to play brothers like that (yes, actual brothers) and absolutely HAVE to cooperate and trust totally another player to be useful. Led to some fun moments where it was very much self-sacrificing to protect your partner.

[Polysorbate80]

The party ranger got himself captured by the enemy last night and decided to make a new character rather than staging a rescue.  Problem is, he wound up with three different character concepts he couldn't decide amongst, so he wants to try a "split personality" character (he admitted to having been watching United States of Tara.)

Personality 1 is a cleric/stormlord.
Personality 2 is a ronin, who also thinks he's female.
Personality 3 is a reaping mauler.
He also added 4th personality, which is a 12th level aristocrat (NPC class.)

The idea is that he wants to roll randomly each day to see which personality/class is in effect.   Each will have different feats and skill points, only accessible by the active personality.  His maximum hp will change based on which class he is on a given day.  His armor will work for all four classes, but his weapons or other gear may not--there's enough overlap between classes I don't think I need to worry about him getting undergeared.  The cleric prays for spells, so he'll still be able to pick them up on days he's active.

It sounds interesting, so long as he's fully prepared with all four characters at all times so it doesn't turn into a bookeeping nightmare, and I'm inclined to let him give it a try.  

Any potential pitfalls y'all can think of that need to be addressed?

*edit: four characters, not 3 :P  math is hard, Barbie...

[Mazakiel]

I ran a game for awhile where one of the PCs did the split personalities thing.  It was a big pain in the ass to handle, and that was with only two to deal with.  I personally decided to never allow it or anything like it again in any games I was running, and I'd honestly not be too thrilled to have to deal with it if it was a party member either. 

[Strazos]

I don't see the problem - just make him handle all the bookkeeping and come with all 4 character sheets updated each session.

What would be MORE interesting is if you forced each personality to level separately. 

[Stewie]

As a DM, thats the only way I would allow that. Player has to keep track of xp each encounter and level each "personality" seperately.

Also Bunk, from here on out, nothing but huge spiders and snakes for you guys. no more tripping!!

[Bunk]

As a DM, thats the only way I would allow that. Player has to keep track of xp each encounter and level each "personality" seperately.

Also Bunk, from here on out, nothing but huge spiders and snakes for you guys. no more tripping!!

I was going to add more details about what type of tag team manuevers we have planned, but then remembered that you read this board...

[Ingmar]

As a DM, thats the only way I would allow that. Player has to keep track of xp each encounter and level each "personality" seperately.

That's essentially the same as not allowing it, since the character would fall behind pretty rapidly and be unable to meaningfully contribute.

I think it is a pretty silly idea anyway, though, and shows something of a misunderstanding of how mental illness works besides. 

[Lantyssa]

I think it'll only work if y'all are huge into RP, and don't mind the headaches it will cause.  Though all of them being unusual classes also makes me rub my temples at the imagined headache.

[Bunk]

Yea, it will be tough. I'm having a hard enough time with being a Goblin that's pretending to be a Dwarf that got turned in to a Goblin.

[Simond]

Cheap version: He's only actually one class, he just hallucinates being the others and just thinks he has their skills/powers/etc.

[Lantyssa]

It has the potential for hilarity, but are the others going to tolerate him being not just useless 3/4 of the time but potentially an actual detriment?  (I don't know your group.  Some places it works, some it doesn't.)

[Morat20]

I was reading a book, and the following line (about the main character, whom you later learn is almost an avatar of the God of Destruction), which went roughly "You leave her [the main character] alone, and when you come  back you'll find her in the smoking rubble of  your homelands, looking apologetic".

We're looking at a new game soon, and the idea of playing a character who -- despite being incredibly lawful good -- can't help but sow utter chaos in his wake is rather interesting. The GM likes the idea of a character who is destined, practically, to stumble into plots, old mysteries, hidden secrets -- and whose solutions tend to leave chaos, fire, and anarchy despite the best intentions in the world.

Not sure we can make it work, stick to a believable lawful good alignment, and still play the whole "I sense weakness/lies/impurity and my first instinct is to destroy it" and have it work.

[Goumindong]

Simple version.

Have the people you help out do terrible horrible things. The Paladin saves the Kingdom from a terrible Dragon! But the Dragon was able to wreak havoc on a neighboring kingdom's army and now the Kingdom you saved has become a bit "opportunistic"

[bhodi]

There's plenty of evil that a Lawful Good character can do "For the greater good".

[Reg]

The idea of the kinds of character you guys are describing is interesting but I don't think they're really practical as player characters. They'd make more sense to me as NPCs under the direct control of the DM.  As player character I think they'd suck up a ridiculous amount of the DM's attention and in the case of the chaos-cursed Paladin would have vastly more power over the game world than any of the other player characters.  In my experience situations like that don't make for happy gamers.

[Polysorbate80]

It has the potential for hilarity, but are the others going to tolerate him being not just useless 3/4 of the time but potentially an actual detriment?  (I don't know your group.  Some places it works, some it doesn't.)

I know you're referring to Simond's version, but just to comment this guy isn't even our first "split personality", although the guy who did it before was a cleric who kept pretending to be clerics of any deity except his own.  We've also had shit like the hippie werebear pirate, the dire werewolf "detective", the awakened parrot thrallherd complete with pirate thrall so he'd have a shoulder to ride around on, the pixie monk, the awakened horse tattooed monk, the lizardfolk wu-jen who'd enlarge himself to godzilla size, the "glam-pire", the gold dragon reaping mauler...

We're mostly ok with "odd."  

[Morat20]

There's plenty of evil that a Lawful Good character can do "For the greater good".

Yeah, I'm just looking more for 'unintended consequences' which really puts a massive burden on the GM to alter things on the fly. The other "character idea" I had was for the GM to create a character for me, give it to me as "you're suffering massive amnesia" and gaining a level is a mix between 'remembering' and 'what I've done'.

Not as much Planescape Torment as it sounds, as I mostly am thinking "Here's some stats, a skill or two based off your level that is basically "shit you  might spontaneously remember when pressured" and a bagfull of gear that I have no idea what it is, how it works, and whether it's important.

Other than class and character skills ("Am I smart? Strong? Do I appear to be able to move things with my minds? What's this shiny, glowy silver wand in my pack? Why does it buzz when I flip the button?"), I can just play confused and flail around, and let the GM handle leveling.

[Strazos]

You could play the Chaos Paladin as having crazy stuff happen when he rolls a 1 or 2....or even a 20. 

[Lantyssa]

We're mostly ok with "odd."

Ah, cool then.  A group that tolerates the weird stuff is fun.

Just by myself I've had a bunch of 'memorable' characters.  Some of the things my group comes up with make them look boring.  But we've been gaming together for almost twenty years.

[Sheepherder]

Yeah, I'm just looking more for 'unintended consequences' which really puts a massive burden on the GM to alter things on the fly.

In combat or in terms of RP stuff?

[Morat20]

Yeah, I'm just looking more for 'unintended consequences' which really puts a massive burden on the GM to alter things on the fly.

In combat or in terms of RP stuff?

RP stuff. Plot development, that sort of thing. Kinda of a more amusing "Road to hell is paved with good intentions" sort of thing. Agent of Destruction is one way of putting it, but Agent of Change is another. The Create/Preserve/Destroy concept works pretty simply -- destruction come in, wiping away the old (with Preservation keeping anything 'good') and then Creation rebuilds.

Without the other two, the character's just a font of chaos. Killing off the evil ruler and coming back a year later to find the country is run by, I dunno, a congolomerate of theives because they were the only ones willing to step up and try to keep the kingdom running, meaning I'm dodging assasins and living some weird Ankh-Morpork world trying to figure out what happened to the lovey kingdom of artisans and philosophers I'd freed from their cruel ruler.

[Lantyssa]

An Agent of Change and Destruction.  So, Chaotic Evil.

[Sheepherder]

RP stuff. Plot development, that sort of thing.

NPC Inquisitors and Avengers hunting you because of your uncanny (bad) luck.  Make them do anything to get at the player, and make any friendly NPC townspeople attempt to stop the assassination/execution.

[Strazos]

I'm trying to goad some friends into playing 4e again and Skyping me in. If it happens, I'd really like to give the Avenger a try - pretty awesome from what I remember demoing once.

[Rendakor]

To my fellow DMs, what's your DMing style? When I was younger (and mostly a player) our games were mostly sandboxes; we'd start play with a map and some backstory and just go do whatever based on our character concepts. Nowadays I'm finding that as I DM, my players (some who I've been playing with for years, others who are newish to P&P games) prefer a more directed experience. Throwing them out there with "Ok you're in this town, what do you want to do?" has them bored and starting trouble, while running a scripted campaign (complete with questgivers, breadcrumbs, etc.) seems to grab their attention better.

[Kail]

Generally, I try to sandbox things, but make sure there's an obvious goal.  Build the world, build a conflict that the players have to resolve, build a bunch of situations and characters which could help or hinder the quest, and let the players chose their direction.  As long as you have a sufficiently strong overall goal for the players, it keeps things moving, keeps players from feeling railroaded, and is more fun for me as a GM (I enjoy coming up with characters and situations more than I enjoy meticulously designing encounters and loot tables and so on).

I've never been able to get scripted quests to work.  Someone always pooches something beyond revocery, and then I'm stuck making shit up off the top of my head again anyway.  So you end up with this epic intro and building tension and everything goes great and then there's a snap and the campaign reels around chaotically for a session or two until it begins to sputter out weakly.  It leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouths.

[Ratman_tf]

Linear has it's uses. If you don't give the players some structure, they can't make meaningful choices in what their character do.

The beginning of a campaign is the best place for a script. That way the players have clear goals. Then, as you say, during the session, you sprinkle in hooks and leads, treasure maps, NPCs with problems, etc to give them options on what they'd like to do. Major branches and choices are best placed at the end of a session, so you have time to flesh out the choice they made between sessions.

The Alexandrian has gone into some detail about adventure structures. I'm finding his stuff pretty useful.

http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/prep-scenario.html