Random RPG thoughts

[Ikoma]

Amen. Last session of my current tabletop (MS Teams) game, one of the ultimate bad guys' lieutenants revealed the ticking clock, even if they were a little vague about the deadline. My players response has been... intense. They very much want to know what 'by the end of the year' means. Calendar year? One year from now? Other? It's great!

[tombombodil]

I will say an extreme microcosm of this was the first time I ever ran Silent Memories for a group of unexpecting friends. When I narrated the opening and concluded it with "core ignition in t-minus, 3 hours." and then pulled out a digital clock and started a literal timer. It was one most memorable and "oh shit" moments that group had ever experienced.

Props to ya boi

[Chad]

[Ikoma]

OK... my Google-fu is coming up a little light. So I turn to the forum for assistance....

Last session my party saved the local Countess and newest Baron during a fealty ceremony. Countess offered the party anything within her power to grant. Party surprised me by asking for land of their own. I know this is an old school D&D reward. I did it myself decades ago. I'm just... this party never struck me as being interested in that kind of reward. But hey, I'm firmly in the camp of giving players what they ask for (unless there is a good and specific reason not to) and there is no reason in this case. In fact, their request makes a lot of sense. This new Barony is literally being carved out of the wilderness and brought into 'civilization'. So the Countess turned to the new Baron and gave him a (polite, firm, diplomatically stated) suggestion (order) to give the party a land grant. Great... end of session. The party has been knighted and made the lowest level of nobility and the land grant is being drawn up (to give me time to figure out what to do with this opportunity).

Now, teenage me would have just made something up. Me now wants to have a little more... historicity to the land grant. So I've been hunting for information on the whole process as it would have gone down in history and I'm not finding any great online resources. But maybe my search terms are bad. Does anyone have any links they can suggest? Ideas?

[tombombodil]

OK... my Google-fu is coming up a little light. So I turn to the forum for assistance....

Last session my party saved the local Countess and newest Baron during a fealty ceremony. Countess offered the party anything within her power to grant. Party surprised me by asking for land of their own. I know this is an old school D&D reward. I did it myself decades ago. I'm just... this party never struck me as being interested in that kind of reward. But hey, I'm firmly in the camp of giving players what they ask for (unless there is a good and specific reason not to) and there is no reason in this case. In fact, their request makes a lot of sense. This new Barony is literally being carved out of the wilderness and brought into 'civilization'. So the Countess turned to the new Baron and gave him a (polite, firm, diplomatically stated) suggestion (order) to give the party a land grant. Great... end of session. The party has been knighted and made the lowest level of nobility and the land grant is being drawn up (to give me time to figure out what to do with this opportunity).

Now, teenage me would have just made something up. Me now wants to have a little more... historicity to the land grant. So I've been hunting for information on the whole process as it would have gone down in history and I'm not finding any great online resources. But maybe my search terms are bad. Does anyone have any links they can suggest? Ideas?

I would imagine that to get a detailed answer, you would need to pick a specific country and a specific period of history, and search for those laws for that place and point in time and then model your fictional version of it after that. Laws for land ownership and succession had some commonalities broadly I'm sure, but I imagine that a lot of it was highly regionalized and changed a lot over time and in different governments/kingdoms/etc

Also you'll almost certainly need too use google scholar or a similar resource to find info this specific.

[zircher]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_charters

[Ikoma]

Man, I got a situation with one of my players and I am just struggling to help him out. He's the player newest to the roleplaying hobby and he's got an intense 'shiny addiction'[1]. He sees the other players doing cool things and he wants to be able to do THOSE cool things too. Plus the cool things he gets to do as his PC. I am a firm believer in sharing the spotlight and I try really hard to give each PC the occasional situation where they get to shine. That includes this player. And he loves the moments when his character (Ranger in first campaign, Artificer in this campaign) gets to show off the cool things they are set up to do. But the minute another PC in the campaign gets to do something awesome, I *know* I am gonna get a follow up chat after the game asking how he can get his PC to do the same awesome thing. "Should I multiclass Barbarian?" "Should I swap my spells?" "Should I take a different feat so I can wield two weapons?" "How can I get a familiar? Yeah, I know I already have my Steel Defender, but Perric can fly and they have a telepathic connection!"

I also like to rotate taking advantage of each PC's weakness. It helps give the other PCs a chance to be the hero and it lets everyone be in the 'needs to be rescued' category. Builds team camaraderie in my experience. This player hates it. Another guaranteed chat after the session about how he can tweak his build to avoid that weakness.

Any ideas for how to help him out? I've had several conversations with him during these after-session chats explaining how he *can* try to mimic the other PC's strength but also weakening his own PC's strengths. I've point blank explained my GM philosophy regarding this (described above) and he agrees. It's just that in the moment, he wants to cool thing too and has to be talked down repeatedly.

[1] I don't know what else to call it.

[Lord Foul]

Well, since you've already had the conversation on multiple occasions and it clearly isn't getting through, I'm not sure there's much you can do.

I'd maybe try easing back on the "helpful" suggestions when he asks, instead going progressively more for the "Well... no, not really, as that's Jim's big speciality and I wouldn't want to spoil that for him by letting you copy him. How about you try to develop in some way nobody else has yet?" Do that a few times and he may start to realise that his desires actually have a negative impact on the other players.

[John]

Explain the subtle differences between playing to win and playing to get invited back next time, and what to do when those priorities conflict.

Word of caution, people who don't figure this out instinctively by the time they're about 12 don't have a great record of figuring it out ever.

[tombombodil]

Word of caution, people who don't figure this out instinctively by the time they're about 12 don't have a great record of figuring it out ever.

In my experience this is profoundly true, and I would even broaden it to just being polite and thoughtful in general.