Guarding the Horses

[John Rickards]

> Who guards the horses? Heck that's an easy one. For us it's always the
> characters of the players that are missing for the current gaming
> session. That way we(or I as the DM) need not explain that they fell
> out of the sky right into the middle of an adventure, they had simply
> been taking their turn with the horses.

What a cool idea. I don't use 'dungeons' as such, but that's a first
rate plan. I wish I'd thought of it! ;-)

John Rickards

"Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then
the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a
different universe."
"And now you kill the lambs," whispered Dardalion.
"No, priest. No one pays for lambs."
- David Gemmel, Waylander

[Jose Armando M. A. Porto]

Guarding the horses??? Let the horses go... When we get out the dungeon,
we can steal another ones... :-)

[ ] `s

Banff Delwynndun The elf..

- -----Original Message-----
From: Tripp Elliott
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Date: Domingo, Outubro 12, 1997 02:28
Subject: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Guarding the Horses


>Matthew Speer wrote:
>
>> The other option is to forgo the solo adventuring. Perhaps you have some
>> lieutenants that won't let you go anywhere without at least your personal
>> bodyguards (those people you get as described in the rulebook). You
travel
>> around the countryside with these guys, then when you get to the dungeon
crawl
>> (for instance) you leave them outside and brave the underground evils
>> yourself. It would solve a problem I always had, who guards the damn
horses
>> when your all underground?
>
>Who guards the horses? Heck that's an easy one. For us it's always the
>characters of the players that are missing for the current gaming
>session. That way we(or I as the DM) need not explain that they fell
>out of the sky right into the middle of an adventure, they had simply
>been taking their turn with the horses.
>
>In BR the how to drop players in and and out gets a little easier
>sometimes. Ii had a group of my players DEEP in a dungeon at the end of
>a gaming session, but when it came time for our next session, three
>players couldn't make it(our group is rather large). Luckily for me,
>one of them was a halfling, so obviously that character and theother two
>had to head off to the ShadowWorld for some, as yet, unexplained reason.
>
>Ok, enough on my methods for handling this mundane problem.
>
>How does everybody else do it?
>
>Tripp
>************************************************** *************************
>>'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.

[Tripp Elliott]

Matthew Speer wrote:

> The other option is to forgo the solo adventuring. Perhaps you have some
> lieutenants that won't let you go anywhere without at least your personal
> bodyguards (those people you get as described in the rulebook). You travel
> around the countryside with these guys, then when you get to the dungeon crawl
> (for instance) you leave them outside and brave the underground evils
> yourself. It would solve a problem I always had, who guards the damn horses
> when your all underground?

Who guards the horses? Heck that's an easy one. For us it's always the
characters of the players that are missing for the current gaming
session. That way we(or I as the DM) need not explain that they fell
out of the sky right into the middle of an adventure, they had simply
been taking their turn with the horses.

In BR the how to drop players in and and out gets a little easier
sometimes. Ii had a group of my players DEEP in a dungeon at the end of
a gaming session, but when it came time for our next session, three
players couldn't make it(our group is rather large). Luckily for me,
one of them was a halfling, so obviously that character and theother two
had to head off to the ShadowWorld for some, as yet, unexplained reason.

Ok, enough on my methods for handling this mundane problem.

How does everybody else do it?

Tripp

[Tripp Elliott]

John Rickards wrote:
>
> > Who guards the horses? Heck that's an easy one. For us it's always the
> > characters of the players that are missing for the current gaming
> > session. That way we(or I as the DM) need not explain that they fell
> > out of the sky right into the middle of an adventure, they had simply
> > been taking their turn with the horses.
>
> What a cool idea. I don't use 'dungeons' as such, but that's a first
> rate plan. I wish I'd thought of it! ;-)
>
> John Rickards

That's what's cool about mailing lists. What seemed obvious to us
totally escaped you, and at the same time, I've seen other folks
describe things on here that I am sure they have been doing since day 1,
and I look at them, hit my head, and say duhh, why didn't I come up with
that one.

Anyone else have any little tricks like this one that they use while
DMing?

Tripp

[Neil Barnes]

Tripp wrote:
> That's what's cool about mailing lists. What seemed obvious to us
> totally escaped you, and at the same time, I've seen other folks
> describe things on here that I am sure they have been doing since day 1,
> and I look at them, hit my head, and say duhh, why didn't I come up with
> that one.
>
> Anyone else have any little tricks like this one that they use while
> DMing?

When I'm running combat I get the players to roll their initative and then
count up from one, with players calling out as their actions come up. The
advantage of this method is that after you've done it a few times, you
only have to start counting firmly & loudly, preferably during the middle
of a PC argument for the players to realise that their under attack. The
couple of seconds panic that you can get is priceless.

neil

[Tripp Elliott]

Neil Barnes wrote:
>
> Tripp wrote:
> > That's what's cool about mailing lists. What seemed obvious to us
> > totally escaped you, and at the same time, I've seen other folks
> > describe things on here that I am sure they have been doing since day 1,
> > and I look at them, hit my head, and say duhh, why didn't I come up with
> > that one.
> >
> > Anyone else have any little tricks like this one that they use while
> > DMing?
>
> When I'm running combat I get the players to roll their initative and then
> count up from one, with players calling out as their actions come up. The
> advantage of this method is that after you've done it a few times, you
> only have to start counting firmly & loudly, preferably during the middle
> of a PC argument for the players to realise that their under attack. The
> couple of seconds panic that you can get is priceless.
>
> neil

We use this method too. I know some recommend having all players
announce their intentions and then rolling initiative, but we just wait
until their segment and have them announce what they are doing.

This method works well with spells as well. If a 4 segment spell starts
on segment 2, then in segment 2 the caster announces he/she is starting
a spell, and on segment 6 he announces the results. Likewise a 4
segment spell started on segment 8 resolves on segment 2 of the next
round. For spells that wraparound rounds, the second round the caster
gets no actions.

For fighters and archers with multiple attacks, we roll multiple
initiatives and attack when each of them comes up. If the same number
is rolled for both attacks, one of them is demoted a segment.

I am considering adding in the weapon speed factor to this, but have not
announced it to my players yet. I figure it will help the characters
with the lighter not-so deadly weapons feel that they are doing a good
job.

Hope this gives more ideas,

Tripp