It's so nice starting a new game with new players. And even better that none of them are murder hobos. Nothing is worse than an intricately planned out political intrigue character that is reeeeeally important, but the murder hobo is on his phone not listen and then goes "fuck this guy let's kill him." Which has happened too many times with my old group
>>48143383
>Nothing is worse than an intricately planned out political intrigue character that is reeeeeally important
Agreed.
>>48143383
Me and my friends also started a campaign recently, I was 100% sure this would end up being a murder-'em-all run but so far, not a single thing has been killed. Granted, we just barely had our first session, but still. Was a pleasant surprise.
>>48143392
Cmon man the combat and stuff is fun and all but if done right (not complete, drawn out for ages "I want this kingdom to be destroyed but with words" crap) political intrigue can be awesome
>>48143383
> character that is reeeeeally important
This shouldn't give you problems if you designed your game well
> but the murder hobo is on his phone
What the actual fuck, do you really give your players the possibility to browse their phones while playing ? Holy shit
>>48143466
Political intrigue CAN be awsome, but 4 out 5 times it boils down to the GM wanking it over his super special villain character who's using politics as an excuse to act like a douche and ruin the game for everyone while being untouchable.
Then the GM throws a bitch fit when the players get sick of this shit and start planning to assassinate the guy, because suddenly MUH POLITICAL PLOTARMUR doesn't work anymore.
>>48143497
Well to be fair everyone else has the decency to put their phone's aside except for this one guy which is mostly why I don't play with him anymore, he's a bit of a dick
>>48143521
Very true, one of my old DMs did exactly that and it sucked. But my players seem to enjoy what I'm doing a lot so I'm happy
>>48143383
To be fair, if the characters on a political intrigue can be killed off to solve the problem, it's not a good one. The very essence of that kind of campaign is that the problems can't be solved just with violence, either because offing the wrong people will result in your defeat, or because offing anyone will result in terrible things for the PCs.
If your players try to murderhobo through this kind of scenario, don't be afraid to rain shit upon them until they realize just how badly they fucked up.
And, for murderhobos, that is, raining ridiculously overleveled enemies atop of them, and if they say it's unfair, explain that killing certain people has really nasty consequences, and they're gonna have to face them now.
>>48143674
I know exactly what you're saying but the thing is, I'm not saying offing important characters solved the problem, it fucks everything up and it's annoying for me and everyone else because I DO rain hell upon them as a consequence and thats when they say fuck this, have a hissy fit and stop playing for a month.
Scenario. A frail king too old to fight anymore who is the only person wise enough to govern all the realms in peace says something some what rude to the character. "Fuck him he's a dick I'm going to stab him and steal his jewellery". World is fucked now and in all out war
>>48143497
>do you really give your players the possibility to browse their phones while playing ?
Why does /tg/ hate phones? If the DM is talking to the group as a whole or directly to you, then yes, you should get off your phone. That also applies to combat, or any situation where your character is aware of the information the DM is giving.
But if my character is not even present in the current situation, and you have an issue with me replying to a text, you're a controlling wank stain.
>>48143813
Find players who are functional human beings, kick the ones who aren't.
>>48143813
>Scenario. A frail king too old to fight anymore who is the only person wise enough to govern all the realms in peace says something some what rude to the character. "Fuck him he's a dick I'm going to stab him and steal his jewellery". The player succeeds because the king doesn't have any guards and the player is a chaotic randumb faggot.
Yeah, I can see the problem.
>>48143813
Sidetrack the murderhobos. The asshole remark should be sweetened with an appeal for greed and power. Mention how there is a pirate hideaway that coincides with the his agenda and work on from there
>>48143830
Exactly, OP here and I thought that seemed like a bit of a weird thing to do. "Before every session starts everyone must put their phone's in this bag or we aren't playing!"
>>48143839
Precisely what I have done
It's all about the expectations set. For DnD, it will be a lot of murderhoboing usually. But in other systems, you might never kill anyone. In the VtM game I'm playing, I haven't killed more than perhaps 25 people in total. (Mostly just draining random pedestrians dry because I got thirsty.)
>>48143383
My biggest problem with the phrase
>intricately planned out political intrigue character that is really important
is that implies a GM more invested in their own NPCs and potential storylines than their players, which easily leads to being blind to the fact your players do not find your attempts at forming intrigue engaging.
Just because you find the inner workings of a particular government fascinating is no guarantee that any one else will.
>>48144829
It was more an example of when you put a lot of effort into something cool that keeps a good story going and is something that players who aren't murderhobos would be in to. But the one guy who just wants to kill and loot ruins it
>>48143383
>a game of political intrigue and sandbox storytelling
