Tabletop RPG "mega” thread :teehee

[chronovore]

I loves me some tabletop RPGs. I haven’t regularly played face to face in ages, but I do have a Google Hangouts-based group which plays for two hours every week. It’s a far cry from the 6~8 hour sessions I enjoyed in college, but it keeps the addiction from going full-blown.

During a recent trip to the USA, I had an former player from my old campaign tell me I am still the best Game Master he’s ever played with, and it was just a huge thrill for me that he still remembered our games, and that they were remembered fondly.

Is anyone else here into traditional RPGs?

If you were, but no longer play, why is that?

Also, feel free to use this thread as a catch-all “Let me tell you about my character” thread.

[Eric P]

i currently DM DnD 5th Ed with some people at work.  It's pretty fun.

I like the weird and wild stuff that doesn't get played very often, which is a shame.  I have a shelf of DnD which has everything from BEMI box sets, AD&D, 2nd Ed, 3.5 and boxed sets like Dark Sun, Hollow Earth, Starjammers and Raventloft) but I also have a shelf full of OSR stuff like Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Torchbearer, Kult, Call of Cthulhu 6th ed, Eclipse Phase (amazing horror Sci-Fi), Night's Black Agents, Dread, Dogs in the Vineyard, Fiasco and more.

If you like RPGs check out Bundle of Holding which is like Humble Bundle except for RPGs.  It's usually amazing.

They're currently doing a bundle for the Laundry Games and also a second bundle for Torg.  TORG!  https://bundleofholding.com/index/current

I love systems and attempts to model reality so I love reading RPG books as I can sometimes get the quick dopamine hits from that like when i actually get to play.

[Kara]

Jay Dub's thread to shine.

[Kara]

OT: I only really give a shit about FFG's 40K games atm. I find they blend the "you are already dead" style of Chaosium's Cthulhu game with made up names you can actually pronounce. Plus one of their products more or less invalidates the notion that you can't play PnP with chaotic evil PCs.

[CatsCatsCats]

I have an informal 4E group that rarely meets. Dwarf cleric

[Kara]

I tried so hard to get into D&D stuff but the rules seem so archaic. I wanted to learn so I could understand games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights better but I gave up on that shit.

Listen and watch the Penny-Arcade D&D stuff. I hate to rec their shit, but you'll get a grasp of how a game should operate instead of looking at a bunch of crunch and getting overwhelmed.

[chronovore]

“Crunch and overwhelmed” pretty much describes our weekly game. It’s especially difficult to stay with, because the DM is an engineer who wants to make sure the rules are respected, and who wants to stay strictly with the adventure module, while I’m a fan of improvising when the players go off the rails from the planned adventure.

And we all know that’s “when,” not “if.”
I’m also really curious about FFG’s Star Wars game and its weird dice system.

[Phoenix Dark]

One of my regrets is that I never got into tabletop RPGs as a kid. Back when I collected comics I'd sometimes see people playing D&D at my local comic shop, and sometimes would chill and watch some of it.

There's a comic shop about 6 minutes from my place now...I bet they play tabletop shit there. I'll have to stop buy and try to get into it.

[chronovore]

I hope you do. It can be a lot of fun, though like online games, it is more fun by far with a group of friends than a group of randoms. You should try sitting in with randoms, and if you get even an inkling of what makes it great, invite friends over to play something simple you run for them.

[Kara]

“Crunch and overwhelmed” pretty much describes our weekly game. It’s especially difficult to stay with, because the DM is an engineer who wants to make sure the rules are respected, and who wants to stay strictly with the adventure module, while I’m a fan of improvising when the players go off the rails from the planned adventure.

And we all know that’s “when,” not “if.”

Someone else should volunteer to DM, this sounds way unchill.

Or, conversely, insist on playing Paranoia.

[chronovore]

It’s just barely chill enough to qualify as chill, while still not feeling chill.

I also come from a background where character death is very, very uncommon (no Resurrection), while this DM is fine with Resurrection and has also TPK’d a previous group through misadventure which cascaded out of a series of statistically unlikely and player-unfortunate die-rolls.

Your suggestion to have someone else volunteer is the same conclusion I came to. I’ve been reading my new copy of FATE CORE and plan to run something there. I’d hoped to use FATE to run for my kids as well, who have loved a couple improv’d games I ran for them, but FATE is a little too meta for my 10-year-old.

[chronovore]

Session today, our DM seemed much more open to improvising. We ran into an old semi-enemy who was trying to flee. Instead of killing them, we ended up hiring them. Pretty sure that solution wasn't anywhere in the module.

[chronovore]

My Google Hangouts D&D/Pathfinder group had the Worst Session Evar. We had a minor misunderstanding at the outset of the session, and the DM (possibly drunk) decided to fixate on this misunderstanding as a catalyst for every other problem with the game which had reached saturation in his mind.

End result: We’re abandoning the campaign to start something simpler, with which our DM is more comfortable (the new DnD edition) so we can focus on more beer-n-pretzels style campaigning.

Sheesh, though; what a fucking drag.

[Human Snorenado]

Our Pathfinder group lost two members at the beginning of the year, which wasn't a big deal because they were the two least involved in the game (younger players, first timers, etc) and we had SEVEN fucking party members, which is just too many.

But, we've been sporadically playing (just 3 game sessions this year when I'd really like to do once every 3 weeks or so) because of schedules and the fact that while I love him to death, and have been friends with him for over 20 years, our DM is easily overwhelmed and spends too much time pre-planning sessions.

So, I'm thinking about picking up my DM hat almost 20 years later and running a 5th edition game.

[chronovore]

Is your current, overwhelmed DM writing the campaign, or working from a module?

[Human Snorenado]

I think he's adapting from modules. Honestly, knowing him it probably wouldn't matter if he was just running straight from modules- he's just the sort of person that needs a fuckton of time to sit around and do basically nothing or he whines about being overwhelmed. He and his wife have a graphic design company and she basically has to nag him to death to do work, and it still takes him 3 times as long to get it done as it should, if they're lucky.

[chronovore]

Yikes.

Yeah, our DM is self-employed as well, and it is crazy how things take him forever. "Tasks will expand to fill all available time," and all that. I'm hoping our situation gets solved by the DM being more comfortable with the new system, but I suspect the problem is more personal. 

Good luck with your DM effort.

[chronovore]

Vin Diesel DMs a game, just for you:

http://a-dire-fawn.itch.io/diesel-dm

From this article:
http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/27/8674087/vin-diesel-dungeons-dragons-calm

[Yulwei]

Played this with my family two or three times when I was a teen. I had an immense amount of fun. Time to look into this tabletop thing again

[chronovore]

Games Workshop games, or licensed versions of them, are the real deal.

[chronovore]

My weekly virtual-tabletop game had a meltdown a few weeks ago, the tl;dr result of which was abandoning the rules-heavy Pathfinder campaign and a restart in a shiny, new DnD 5 game.

Our first session was a couple days ago. We finalized first-level characters, figured out the high concept of the rules, and got into our first fight.

Heaps of fun!

[Kara]

Games Workshop games, or licensed versions of them, are the real deal.

I wanna play one of the Fantasy Flight Games... games really bad.

[Kara]

In Deathwatch, for example, you can roll a SPEHS MEHRINE who upon failing an insanity check slips into speaking High Gothic and no one understands him. I WAS BORN TO ROLE PLAY A CHARACTER FROM THAT CHAPTER OF THE ADEPTUS ASTARTES. :'(

(This would be like a Roman legionnaire speaking Classical Latin, though not entirely similar as knowledge of High Gothic exists with some frequency in the Adeptus Terra.)

[chronovore]

http://www.dorkly.com/post/72105/out-of-context-dungeons-and-dragons-quotes-is-my-new-favorite-thing

[chronovore]

[studyguy]

You know I always wanted to try one of these table top things.
I've never had the kind of friends who are interested in that shit.

[Kara]

People play on Skype or Mumble, you could probably get in on that.

[chronovore]

There's also Roll20.net which is built around getting disparate groups virtually together.

[Madrun Badrun]

You know I always wanted to try one of these table top things.
I've never had the kind of friends who are interested in that shit.

I always wanted to play D and D too but never had any friends.

[chronovore]

http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/06/20/11-ways-to-be-a-better-roleplayer/

I liked this quite a bit. So many times, there are players who want to convey that they're the solitary, brooding type by just sitting there quietly during the session. That's not a silent and brooding character, that's a silent and brooding player.

[chronovore]

https://imgur.com/gallery/Cvrey

[chronovore]

http://nerdist.com/watch-vin-diesel-play-dungeons-dragons-as-the-last-witch-hunter/

The Vinmeister role-playing to promote his movie. How. Cool. Is. This?

[Joe Molotov]

http://nerdist.com/watch-vin-diesel-play-dungeons-dragons-as-the-last-witch-hunter/

The Vinmeister role-playing to promote his movie. How. Cool. Is. This?

This was his birthday cake this year, lol.

https://www.facebook.com/VinDiesel/photos/a.101465923312.101581.89562268312/10153582925078313/?type=1&theater

[chronovore]

https://medium.com/@ken.burnside/for-good-men-to-see-nothing-c1be3e65c52f#.x3erp5h9e
I loved this:

If you’re reading this article, you game because you like to be “the one who confronts the monsters.” Here’s a chance to do it in real life, and the things I’ve written above are your weapons and special gear to do the job well.

The article which inspired his response is also very moving, and either anger or shame inducing depending on one's history:
http://latining.tumblr.com/post/141567276944/tabletop-gaming-has-a-white-male-terrorism-problem

[chronovore]

My DnD 5e game is still going. The DM has not had another breakdown, so that's a plus. In fairness, he is much more comfortable with 5e than Pathfinder. I was about to say he seems to be trying to not actively overwhelm us, but then he got all the PCs in a hallway and fireballed it through an undead flying skull, so we're back to feeling like he's trying to kill us.

I haven't run anything further with my kids, but I've got the Beginner Boxes for both FFG's Star Wars Edge of the Empire and Pathfinder, so I'm hoping to run one of those.

Also found out there's a Kansai-based game group, though they seem more active in Kobe than in Osaka.

Lately I got in touch with a friend of mine from my brief tenure at CSULB, and he's not only hardcore back into RPGs but also running a moderately popular podcast:

http://www.happyjacks.org

The Actual-Plays are pretty good, but it's more the metacommentary in the weekly drink-beer-and-talk-about-games podcast that keeps me intrigued and anxious to find a group with which to play.

[chronovore]

https://mythjae.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/fated-3/


If the Bore actually tabletopped...

[chronovore]

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/fiction-faves-rpg-book-bundle

Humble Bundle has a great set of SFnal based RPGs on sale this week. The $1 level gets you GRRM'S ASOIAF rulebook, Stross' Laundry rulebook, and Atomic Robo.

If you like Dresden, you can get digital copies of both core game books for US$15.

[fistfulofmetal]

So as I said in another thread, my girlfriend and I recently bought the Pathfinder Beginners Box and we're looking to start some games soonish. I'm interested in being the GM.

I think we'll just do the included adventure first to get our feet wet but I fully intend to create my own game. Any helpful tips for me? I've also been listening to Adventure Zone and Friends at the Table to get an idea about how a GM does their thing. I really like how FatT weaves storytelling into their games.

[chronovore]

I'll check out Friends at the Table and Adventure Zone. Thanks for the heads-up.

I've been listening to Actual Play podcasts from RPPR and Happy Jacks RPG Podcast. The latter originated as a GM advice podcast, so have a listen to those if you like. The early ones are jam-packed with good advice.

Are you a first-time GM?

The best advice is to respect your players' autonomy, and allow them to come up with solutions which aren't covered in the source material, module, or whatever you'd thought of on your own. Frequently my players came up with better ideas than I had, and the campaign benefited from adopting their facts over mine, as long as everything made cohesive sense.

Can't wait to hear how it turns out for your group.

[fistfulofmetal]

Last night we finally finished creating our characters. Had a bit of difficulty with it. We finished then looked it over and thought it looked odd, then compared it to the premade characters and a bunch of stuff wasn't adding up. It took about another hour of both of us reading the guidebook and going back and forth until we figured out what we did wrong. But now it's all done.

It's good that I went through and created a character even though I plan to GM. Now I have a better understanding about how the characters work. Also understand gear works and how damage works.

[fistfulofmetal]

After going back and forth I've decided that just going through the provided Pathfinder campaign will be too boring for us so I'm gonna dive right in and create my own even if it ends up being a disaster.

I've started detailing the locations and NPCs and have the basic plot down. I'm trying not to over document everything so things can be a little loose. I've also built in a little murder mystery side quest which I think is cool but they may never even find LOL

[fistfulofmetal]

I finished the first draft of my campaign which will probably just be my campaign. It's 12 pages with a bunch of random stuff. I'm not sure a lot of this will work but I figure what the hell. I didn't put the side-quest in yet but I'll just write that up later. If anyone wnats to take a look it can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ucgwORr2RUioW0lXuuDZgXx8geCoSiQkUyBRhQ_u1e4/edit?usp=sharing

[chronovore]

Neato.


I can't read the whole thing right now, but I did notice you're using Perception checks to reveal information to the players. I've listened to a lot of podcasts lately where GMs have eschewed Perception checks in favor of divulging any plot-critical information automatically. They can reward high Perception characters by revealing it to them, or through them.


It's a good way to keep the action from stalling because your group failed their Perception checks.

[fistfulofmetal]

I can see that, yeah. Though in the cases I use it for I'm only doing it for information the players can get earlier than I would reveal to them anyway. So in one instance if they pass the check they know earlier that one NPC was manipulated into fighting the PC's and they might be able to use that to talk their way out of it. That's info they would have got anyway after the fight.

So it's like a little benefit for having those stats.

[fistfulofmetal]

We did our campaign yesterday! It went pretty well overall. I kept it mostly linear and the players didn't go off track too much so I did a good job at steering them in the correct direction. A few times they would waver and I was able to think on my feet and get them the information they needed to proceed.

There was a problem with the final battle. My enemies were wayyy too hard. Their AC was too high and nobody could hit anyone. A few times I had to nerf them and in one instance I actually had to gamble that I would wiff a roll and the result ended up being a friendly fire that lead to one of the enemies dying. Though in the end they managed to succeed.

The two puzzles I created worked better than I expected. The first was a puzzle where the players needed to use a magic mirror to peak into a bubble dimension to find an object and then literally reach into the mirror to pull it out. They actually caught on pretty quick and solved it. The second puzzle was a bit harder which required them to go through a series of portals in a specific order and they weren't getting the clues so I had to nudge them a bit. But overall it went well in that respect.

One thing that I will need to do more of is create scenarios where the players and actually role-play. There wasn't a lot of down time to learn anything about their characters.

It was fun! Now I have to get to work on creating the next campaign.

[chronovore]

How many hours did you end up playing?

[fistfulofmetal]

How many hours did you end up playing?

Little over 5 hours.

[chronovore]

That's a good length of time to play. Going much shorter than that doesn't leave time for player shenanigans or socializing. Or, rather, the shenanigans become the focus instead of the game.


My current group is playing D&D 5E for 2 hours a week. One of our constant struggles is to get the game going on-time and moving quickly. Last night we lost ½ an hour to teleconferencing problems. The previous session was 45 minutes of nerding out. Unsurprisingly, the 75-90 minutes of actual gaming session did not see much accomplished.

[fistfulofmetal]

For our next session I'm trying to open things up a bit. One thing that I keep going back to is the idea of not actually scripting a linear campaign but rather building a world for the players to do things in.

So I'm thinking of creating a decently fleshed out town. Giving the players a clear objective then dropping the players into the town and seeing what happens.

My thinking is that if I have properly fleshed out the location, given the NPC's enough depth and dropped enough resources into the world they should be able to reach their goal. Everything that then happens will be dictated by who they talk to and where they go.

It seems like a difficult thing to construct but I'm super interested in seeing how it all works.

[chronovore]

If you build an entire city, odds are that your players will --without knowing you've invested all that time-- pick up and leave for a new city.


In that case, use all your NPCs and establishments in the new city.


The best-laid plans never survive contact with the players.

[fistfulofmetal]

Hey chrono, I'm working out the finale of my next campaign and I want it to be set in a huge manor. I want it be basically "being stuck in a single location with monster loose" scenario.

I'm starting to think about how this could work but I'm not 100% sure yet. You have any ideas? I'm gonna completely map out the manor (in fact I may just make it the Resident Evil mansion...) but I don't know how I can do the mechanics of the monster being around and a threat.

I'm thinking that the PC's will need to accomplish 2 or 3 goals to lure the monster to a specific place to do a thing, something that they'll know about.

[chronovore]

Hey chrono, I'm working out the finale of my next campaign and I want it to be set in a huge manor. I want it be basically "being stuck in a single location with monster loose" scenario.

I'm starting to think about how this could work but I'm not 100% sure yet. You have any ideas? I'm gonna completely map out the manor (in fact I may just make it the Resident Evil mansion...) but I don't know how I can do the mechanics of the monster being around and a threat.

I'm thinking that the PC's will need to accomplish 2 or 3 goals to lure the monster to a specific place to do a thing, something that they'll know about.

Wow, that's going to be challenging! Horror is difficult to pull off in an RPG, which typically tend to be wish fulfillment and power fantasy oriented. Horror is about tension and feelings of helplessness. Then again, what I understand about Resident Evil (I'm not a fan of the series) is that the PCs are powerful but have limited resources, and Pathfinder/D&D are all about controlling your players' access to their special abilities, which can only be used daily, per encounter, per session, etc.


So if you can keep them from hoarding their abilities, get them to spend to survive, and then keep them on the edge of feeling powerless, you have half of it solved.


The other problem is suspense. Give foreshadowing of the main encounter. You can do this literally by showing them the monster from afar, through gratings. You can give them a forensic check on victims they encounter. You can have them enter a room just as the door on the far side is closing, or having an elevator arrive at a different floor, just as they discover it. Hinting at things moving around them, letting them know that the other forces are aware of them, will keep them on edge.


You can also look at Dread, a mechanic using Jenga to accomplish horror-story type goals. You could mix this into your system, or even just do your Resident Evil adventure as a side thing, unattached to your regular campaign.


Hope this helps!

[chronovore]

Tiny update for me: Met a roleplaying dude in Osaka. Sounds like his group is playing a couple times a month, but their current game is already bloated with 7 players. I'm hoping they decide to break into two simultaneous groups, so I'd make it two groups of four -- pretty good to have a GM with three players.

Also trying to start a new campaign with my aging college group. Two of the players married each other after college, and their daughter has now LEFT for college, to give you an idea of how long ago this game was. The players are all up for it, but since we're mostly tech professionals, scheduling is difficult.

My D&D 5e group is still going on weekly, and it's improved a bunch since the time our DM was overwhelmed with Pathfinder's rules minutiae.

In case I haven't posted this here, or the rest of you have forgotten the last time I posted it:
http://larptrek.com
A fumetti webcomic where the  ST:TNG crew is roleplaying DS9.

...GOLD.

[chronovore]

Hey, Fistfull, how did your finale end up going?

Update for my groups: Haven't spent any more time with the Osaka RPG guy, but we're staying in touch on Twitter.

My 2-hour a week group planned a heist, but the DM had tummy troubles and cat troubles and we had one week where two people couldn't make it, so we haven't managed almost any progress in two months. I can't remember what our heist plan was. There is no way this will end well. We play in a few hours, so I'll report back just how much comedy ensued.

The college gang, on the other hand, has been super receptive and we have run two sessions – three if we count character generation – and it has been an absolute blast. We're all old and weary now, but the game has a fantastic, comfortable vibe similar to what we loved about playing together in college. We've had to skip a session, and I'm hungry to run the next one at the end of this week.

Maybe one of the best things about the FATE CORE system we're using is the acknowledged nature of just how collaborative the nature of tabletop role-playing games are. When we sat down to make the game, we discussed setting, scope, tone, and even what major themes and entities would be involved. Really inspiring.

[chronovore]

Ooh, forgot to post what I meant to:

Savage Worlds bundle is available for what the Savage Worlds PDF or softcover usually sells for:
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/EastTexasU

[fistfulofmetal]

We just had our finale last night. After several week delay one of our four players had to back out so we continued on with three and I decided to hit the accelerator to the end. We had a good time, but I severely underestimated how long it would take. I think I need to narrow the focus a bit so we don't end up going on 3-4 month spanning adventures. I also cut the entire Resident Evil finale because it would ahve taken waaayyy too long. I'll bring it back for the future.

I'm debating switching things up, whether we convert to DnD legit, or Dungeon World, or the full version of Pathfinder. Going forward I'm going to start having the players encounter more weird things. Not just standard fantasy. I have a few ideas including introducing some weirdly technologically advanced Orcs from the north,

[chronovore]

Glad to hear your group found its way to the adventure's end.

I hear really good things about Dungeon World, but don't own it and haven't played in it. Apparently it's well-designed and even has ways for making failed dice rolls fun.

My FATE CORE game is going well. We'll be having our 3rd or 4th session this week, with a wrap-up that I hope to figure out in the next day or two. It has been REALLY fun to play with my old college group, and I'm grateful that the internet has allowed all of us to collaborate again despite time and location differences. Just a heap of fun.

[Madrun Badrun]

Been watching Critical Role like crazy.  Lot it.  Wish my pathfinder group would start up again

[chronovore]

Been watching Critical Role like crazy.  Lot it.  Wish my pathfinder group would start up again

Why not hit them up about it?

Or start your own game, with blackjack and hookers?

[Madrun Badrun]

We'll start up again in the late summer.  Our DM is going to be in another city and a player in India/Japan for a month.  We're also going to try to set it up so everyone can take turns DMing.