Tabletop RPG "mega” thread :teehee

[chronovore]

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/dungeon-classes

As a UCSC graduate and bleeding-heart lefty, this kind of thing actually occurs in my games. 

[fistfulofmetal]

My group is getting together again finally next weekend. Super excited because I'm building the next campaign to be less standalone that has a clearly defined end. Instead it'll be a constant progression from event to event to event.

I also started using a program called Scrivener which is a tool for writers to organize and design my game. It's super useful because it lets me organize characters, locations, scenes, and concepts super easily and efficiently.

[chronovore]

That's awesome!

How are you using Scrivener, specifically? I've seen many people go to Evernote for games, but this is the first time I've heard Scrivener referenced.

[fistfulofmetal]

That's awesome!

How are you using Scrivener, specifically? I've seen many people go to Evernote for games, but this is the first time I've heard Scrivener referenced.

here, take a look:



it's not perfect. I have some redundant stuff, like "Places" and "Locations/Characters" but I need to tie a person to a place and also a spot to put just general regions/locations. But you can see the structure to it. The program allows you to create scripts with specific formatting built in. It's pretty cool.

[Trurl]

Has anybody here played the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG? I ran a zero level funnel the other day where every player controlled 3 classless characters and it was a blast.

[chronovore]

Has anybody here played the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG? I ran a zero level funnel the other day where every player controlled 3 classless characters and it was a blast.

Huh, no. I assumed that was an "OSR" style thing, but I see it's based on the OGL instead. I don't mess with 3.5 stuff right now. I've got my hands full with a D&D 5e "proper" game (with an improper DM), and a text-only play-by-turn game using The Black Hack, which is an ultra-simplified version of AD&D.

How did it work out to have three characters played by each player? Is it role-playing heavy, or mainly just hack-and-slashy?

[Trurl]

Hack and slashy but in a quick and fun way.

I would say that it is definitely part of the OSR family. There are no feats, few class abilities, race-as-class, rulings over rules, a lack of a section on the character sheet called "skills," etc. As far as I can tell the only things that it took from 3e are  ascending ac, a unified mechanic and the the three saving throws.  Even the d20 mechanic is subverted somewhat because if you're in an advantageous situation you might get throw a d24 or d30 (this game uses an expanded dice chain to get a comparable effect to 5e's advantage system).

One of the great things about DCC is that that it eliminates minmaxing. In the first session players roll a handful of of level zero characters by doing 3d6 in order. This first session is super deadly and is called a funnel. Most characters end up with only 1 or 2 hit points and instead of having a class they just have a background like "potato farmer" and their weapons are trade tools like pitchforks. In a way there is less role playing because each player has 3 characters, but each of these characters is so much more relatable than a typical d&d superhero. By coincidence our group ended up with three dyers and and there was a lot of fun banter about that.

Other things that make DCC special: its warrior class has a super simple mechanic that allows players to do whatever crazy stunts that they can imagine.

Its magic system is mercurial. I'll just post this video to explain why that's cool.

[chronovore]

Between that red hat and the bottle of Jameson's in the foreground, I will definitely be watching that video over lunch.

[chronovore]

I watched this but forgot to write back:

I like his attitude, and agree that the usual representation in magic in D20/F20 games tend to be overly predictable and analytical, and also oddly unbalanced: the early game mage is a frail little creature who will get stomped by accident, an arrow intended for a different target. They are very fragile. Meanwhile, after level six or seven they tend to outpace the fighter class significantly.

 If I was running a DND like a campaign, I would think about adopting that book after his impassioned plea.

As for my own game, yesterday I ran the seventh or eighth session. It is very curious to see how my players game to compared when they were gaming in college. Many things are similar but so many other things are different.  As I said this is the sixth or seventh session, and we have only been running two hour sessions, so I was not handing out character progression until we finish this first scenario. I started the session yesterday with an offer to do character progression, but everyone was more hungry to continue the story. I was stoked and surprised.

[Trurl]

I listened to this episode of Tabletop Babble about the OSR today and recommend it:
https://dontsplitthepodcastnetwork.com/table-top-babble/2017/7/9/028-the-osr

Among other things they mention an alternative to a hexcrawl called a "point crawl" that sounds really interesting to me. As far as I can tell it means doing outdoor environments like a flowchart.

[Trurl]

I actually had a chance to get into DCC'S spell system and in practice it started to feel a bit too random. There were a lot of difficulties  that night that had nothing to do with the system so I'm not going to make a judgment and would love to give it another chance. Still, it was a reminder that randomness comes at the cost of agency and that it can go a bit too far.

The other problems include a lack of time so set up was rushed, we only had one book, I had very little time to prepare as a DM, and some of my players didn't seem to read the class descriptions that I printed off.

[fistfulofmetal]

I'm learning The Sprawl and planning on running a game in the next few weeks. Have some cool ideas on how to connect the Pathfinder fantasy world to a weird scifi cyberpunk world. The Sprawl seems like a neat game. Less rule heavy with more options and flexibility.

[chronovore]

I'm learning The Sprawl and planning on running a game in the next few weeks. Have some cool ideas on how to connect the Pathfinder fantasy world to a weird scifi cyberpunk world. The Sprawl seems like a neat game. Less rule heavy with more options and flexibility.

Have you met the Shadowrun world?

I'm not being facetious, FWIW. I know there was a kickstarted Adventure Game built on it, and there was an abandoned FPS theoretically based on the license years back, but as an RPG, it is the grandfather of the concept you're espousing.

[Madrun Badrun]

Critical Role is amazing


Also, would any of you be interested in a Bore pathfinder game in the new year? We can do it in a thread and just play over reply. 

[chronovore]

Critical Role is amazing


Also, would any of you be interested in a Bore pathfinder game in the new year? We can do it in a thread and just play over reply.

That could be fun! Are you volunteering to DM?

I'm not sure it's safe to put any Borito in an actual Father Mike dungeon, but carpe DM.

[Madrun Badrun]

Ya I could DM.  I'm thinking of making a campaign like Sliders where we keep shifting into other dimensions, so potentially we could make it semi-episodic and switch DMs, if others have a story to tell.

[Trurl]

I'd be interested in being a part of this if there's room at the table.  I've only ever played in person games.

[CrazyDiamond]

Anyone here into Vampire?

I want to start a campaign with a couple friends, but I've only DM'd online and it was kind of a mess. The thing ran from 3 years on and off and we still couldn't finish it. I think I might come up with a smaller plot to play through in a session or two to see if I'll manage to be a decent storyteller, and if it works start working on something bigger.

Also if you're taking juniors I'd like to play

spoiler (click to show/hide)

though I've never played Pathfinder or even D&D

[close]

[chronovore]

I played a couple White Wolf games back in college, but not as much as other systems. It was always a matter of it being a giant world with all kinds of stuff happening, but difficult to track across months' worth of sessions spaced weeks apart. It's probably the kind of game which could be EASIER to play-by-post, where we can go back and read the thread to catch up at any time.

[CrazyDiamond]

Yeah, all the chronicles I took part both as player and storyteller were online through a chat thing, so keeping logs helped. They did turn out to be too convoluted for their own good though, but half of that is my fault.

[chronovore]

It is an easy world in which to overly con-vo-lute. It's also harder to track if the GM has all the great stuff going on in their head but only gives the barest clue to the players. There should be a formal term for when the GM is too clever by half for the party, mainly by the GM's own poor communication.

[CrazyDiamond]

World of Darkness lore is fucking insane. It never ends and there's a lot dumb shit, and I never really dabbled much beyond Vampire. It's kinda overwhelming. Best to keep the crazy shit away.

These new campaigns I'm planning, if we ever go through with it, will be much more streamlined. I'll probably base it on New Orleans by Night.

[chronovore]

 Lore in tabletop games is a fascinating topic for me. I run a homebrew world, but I like reading other games’ backstory, and taking what I like from them. I think that’s the way it should be even when you’re running a game in a set campaign system. Take what you want, move along.

 People who get upset when the official lore is not adhered to, when canon is not present in their game, crack me up. 

The best scenario is that it’s everyone’s game together, the next best is that the GM running the game knows what’s best for the narrative… but some people act like they are going to have to submit their game experience to some higher authority who will grade it on the form and content like a graduate student’s thesis paper.

It ain’t going to happen.

[Trurl]

Any of you have experience using background music?

Tomorrow I'm going to play episodes of Hearts of Space and I think it should work pretty well.

[chronovore]

When I played in person, I used quite a bit of music, mainly Dead Can Dance, historical folk, and classical. I didn't change it up to match the current actions in-game, because (a) combat takes longer than a concerto, and (b) changing physical media breaks the mood more than having only-quasi-appropriate music playing.

I play remotely now, so it's more difficult than having a stereo in the same room with the group.

Roll20.com previously had a contract with SoundCloud to stream the GM's choice of music, but that functionality disappeared a year or so ago. Hilariously, SoundCloud had plenty of bad remixes of mainstream music, barely evading copyright problems.

[I'm a Puppy!]

I miss playing these. I had a resolution to start again, but finding a group would be difficult then to justify that much time away from wife and kiddles isn't something I want either. Wife said she'd be interested in playing with, but she's never done it and is still hazy on the concept. But I had a thought, I could DM a game, I've done that before. But what game would be
1) Good/easy for beginners
2) Doesn't have a huge cost of entry

I've DMed D&D and Warhammer 40k games and Shadowrun. So I think I could pick up a new game pretty quick. Any suggestions?

[chronovore]

 Both D&D and Pathfinder have online SRD websites which contain all of the rules. DN&D up to 3.5 still has all of their open gaming license content available for free as well.

Fate Core is my current jam, and the base core game is available for a pay-work-you-wanted price at DrivethruRPG.com

The light variant of the rules are Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE), which might also be PWYW pricing, AND is $5 for the print version.

There’s also GURPS Lite and Ultra-Lite for free.

All good choices. Pick yer poison.

[fistfulofmetal]

Games powered by the Apocalypse system are IMO the best for people who want a RPG experience but want something streamlined and easy for beginners and easy to setup. There's a bunch of flavors, Dungeon World for fantasy, The Sprawl for scifi/cyberpunk, Apocalypse World for post apocalypse... there's even a version for doing a monster of the week style adventure in the vein of Supernatural or X-Files

It's a super cool system where you only ever roll 2D6 + a modifier. The stats are only ever at most a +3 or a -1. Your actions are governed by a set of basic moves and some custom moves based on your class. The roll system has built in mixed success. So a roll of a 6 or less is a miss but a 7-9 is a hit, but with a catch, and a 10+ is a success. That's basically it. Everything filters down from that.

I've been running The Sprawl for awhile and it's fucking great.

[chronovore]

Still good:

[I'm a Puppy!]

You guys have links for these? 

Chrono, you got a link for the D&D stuff? I'd love to start another D&D campaign.

[chronovore]

Puppy, it’s also New GM Month! This stars have aligned!

https://newgamemastermonth.com/

Here’s the D&D freely available stuff:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/srd35

[I'm a Puppy!]

I would kiss you if you were just closer. D&D it is. Soo.....is there a good beginner campaign or should I stick to the basic town-inn-dungeon stuff?

[fistfulofmetal]

You guys have links for these? 

Chrono, you got a link for the D&D stuff? I'd love to start another D&D campaign.

The Sprawl: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/171286/The-Sprawl----MIDNIGHT

Dungeon World: http://www.dungeon-world.com/

[chronovore]

I would kiss you if you were just closer. D&D it is. Soo.....is there a good beginner campaign or should I stick to the basic town-inn-dungeon stuff?

 

I honestly improv every adventure I run, and have felt dissatisfied by every module my current DM has run us through, but I do believe they're fantastic seeds with which to START an adventure.

Google is as much your friend as mine, so I suggest doing what I just did and search for "free D&D adventures" and then just eschew anything referring to 4th edition (it was a system revamp which made it play like an MMO).

This Reddit thread even links to some of WotC's free assets:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/5qfxq0/any_good_free_campaigns/

Ooh, this tumblr, too:
https://dndadventuresonline.tumblr.com

[Madrun Badrun]

new campaign of critical role starts in 10 min

[Madrun Badrun]

So good

[chronovore]

Friends were nerding out online, so I made a comic of their dialog:

[fistfulofmetal]

I've been running my The Sprawl game for a few months and it's been going relatively ok. We've had some sessions that were not great but others that were super fun. My girlfriend is one of the players and last night we had a talk because she's been getting frustrated because she's been feeling like she has to do too much to get things happening. The other players kinda sit and won't do things unless she does and it's getting tiring for her because she doesn't feel like she can play her character as much. There's more to it than that, like there's a feeling that I pull my punches... which is def true. I'm notoriously bad at holding back or waiting to see what the players do for too long.

Last nights game was our "season finale" of sorts and the next time we play I'm gonna shift a bunch of things around. One of my plans is to stop presenting missions or jobs to the players that span 5-6 months of play. I wanna try to do more one-two-off scenarios so there's a more immediate reaction to the stuff they do.

I've also found that when I plop the players into a little playset scenario, they tend to have more fun vs. when I am getting into the lore and they're talking to characters so I gotta figure out how to spice that stuff up.

[shosta]

Friends were nerding out online, so I made a comic of their dialog:
(Image removed from quote.)

[I'm a Puppy!]

Actually, I ended up deciding on a pathfinder campaign. We'll start character creations today or tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

[chronovore]

I've been running my The Sprawl game for a few months and it's been going relatively ok. We've had some sessions that were not great but others that were super fun. My girlfriend is one of the players and last night we had a talk because she's been getting frustrated because she's been feeling like she has to do too much to get things happening. The other players kinda sit and won't do things unless she does and it's getting tiring for her because she doesn't feel like she can play her character as much. There's more to it than that, like there's a feeling that I pull my punches... which is def true. I'm notoriously bad at holding back or waiting to see what the players do for too long.

Last nights game was our "season finale" of sorts and the next time we play I'm gonna shift a bunch of things around. One of my plans is to stop presenting missions or jobs to the players that span 5-6 months of play. I wanna try to do more one-two-off scenarios so there's a more immediate reaction to the stuff they do.

I've also found that when I plop the players into a little playset scenario, they tend to have more fun vs. when I am getting into the lore and they're talking to characters so I gotta figure out how to spice that stuff up.

Throughout my career as a GM, it's ALWAYS been a problem to get the players to self-motivate. I wish they'd have more "this is my goal" and then I can put interesting stuff in the way, but they are much more responsive to me Raymond Chandler-ing them with a guy walking into the room with a gun fireball spell.

[Madrun Badrun]

critical role episode 2 in a few mins

https://www.twitch.tv/geekandsundry

[Trurl]

Actually, I ended up deciding on a pathfinder campaign. We'll start character creations today or tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

How did it go?

[Trurl]

Throughout my career as a GM, it's ALWAYS been a problem to get the players to self-motivate. I wish they'd have more "this is my goal" and then I can put interesting stuff in the way, but they are much more responsive to me Raymond Chandler-ing them with a guy walking into the room with a gun fireball spell.

Yeah, I have that problem.  I've run Dungeon World a few times and the problem REALLY shows up in that game.  When the first session is generated by me asking my players questions the result is that they're a group of petty thieves with petty enemies in a boring town.  They also seem to get annoyed when I kept pushing them to explain the bonds between their characters in interesting ways.

DW did work a lot better when I ran it with a crazy world that was thought up before the session along with some interesting enemies.  But to be fair that was also for a different group composed of people who also DM.

Basically DW seems pretty cool but it asks for a lot of creativity and motivation from the players.

[fistfulofmetal]

Yeah games like DW and The Sprawl need you to have a lot of creativity and a group that is will to work with you.

Thankfully, I also think that the Apocalypse World does lend itself to fun combat playgrounds because of how moves roll into other moves so if players respond to that kind of stuff you can lean in that direction.

[chronovore]

Yeah.

One of my players is an improv comedian and recovering thespian who is tremendously creative. He recently asked me if there was additional room to explore his character's wife's murder. Which is unsolved. And hasn't been touched since character creation. Which I've brought up at least three times in the campaign.

"Yes. Yes, there is."

At this point, I'm just happy he has finally taken the bait clue.

[fistfulofmetal]

That's cool, I'd love for my players to do that kind of thing. One of the biggest problems I see is that my players don't know how to become their characters, or take the initiative to do things they want to do. They just wait for me or someone else to act.

When I developed the framework for my current campaign I tried to front load a shit ton mysteries and things for players to explore... and they never did anything with it and I spent the entire campaign trying to figure out how to engage them.

The last session I completely ripped up the world and I'm going to go in another direction when we get back to it next month and I'm hoping I can pull them in a bit more.

[chronovore]

That's cool, I'd love for my players to do that kind of thing. One of the biggest problems I see is that my players don't know how to become their characters, or take the initiative to do things they want to do. They just wait for me or someone else to act.

When I developed the framework for my current campaign I tried to front load a shit ton mysteries and things for players to explore... and they never did anything with it and I spent the entire campaign trying to figure out how to engage them.

The last session I completely ripped up the world and I'm going to go in another direction when we get back to it next month and I'm hoping I can pull them in a bit more.

One thing that's helped me is engaging them in-character. If they say, "I want to buy a set of magic armor."

"Okay, you find an armory which has a wizened little gnome running it. He has a bright blue beard. He says, 'Oy dere misser, what d'ye want?!'"

By confronting them with NPCs in-character, they'll respond in their own character rather than, "I ask him about armor."

Occasionally it takes a couple lines of the gnome talking for them to take up the hint, but it happens.

If you meant about looking into their own characters backstory, yeah, me too! I think EVERY game has trouble getting its players to self-motivate. I think part of the problem is that GMs ALWAYS know more about how their world works than the players, by definition.

[I'm a Puppy!]

Actually, I ended up deciding on a pathfinder campaign. We'll start character creations today or tomorrow. We'll see how it goes.

How did it go?

It went pretty well. Haven't started the campaign yet. But the character creation went pretty well. The only sticky widget was choosing feats. There's just so many. I sorta liked how we did it for Warhammer where you just rolled for it. Much faster.

[Trurl]

Yeah, feats in Pathfinder can be overwhelming especially if you allow all of them.

The crazy number of feats is part of the tradition of 3rd edition D&D that Pathfinder inherited.  Part of the idea is just to allow a lot of customization, but I think that some of the difficulty is on purpose. There was an idea that after playing a few times players would develop an expertise in what feats go well together and that this expertise should be rewarded.  A lot of people really like this and enjoy taking the time to create powerful characters.  On the other hand, over time people who focus on the the character creation game will completely outclass people who are just picking features that sound cool.  This can be mitigated by either having a party that are all either power-gamers or not power-gamers, or by some creative DM fu.

[I'm a Puppy!]

So we've had about 3 playing sessions. It's gone pretty well. I think the group is trying to get accustomed to each other and me as a GM. I tend to go with a story and an arch with different paths and a mystery to try and solve so it's more than just "It's a tavern, do you go to the dungeon? Or to the spooky forest?" But they're learning. We're all learning.

[chronovore]

Yeah, feats in Pathfinder can be overwhelming especially if you allow all of them.

The crazy number of feats is part of the tradition of 3rd edition D&D that Pathfinder inherited.  Part of the idea is just to allow a lot of customization, but I think that some of the difficulty is on purpose. There was an idea that after playing a few times players would develop an expertise in what feats go well together and that this expertise should be rewarded.  A lot of people really like this and enjoy taking the time to create powerful characters.  On the other hand, over time people who focus on the the character creation game will completely outclass people who are just picking features that sound cool.  This can be mitigated by either having a party that are all either power-gamers or not power-gamers, or by some creative DM fu.

It's true.

Our previous game in Pathfinder, we had a bird-man alchemist made by a player who knew the rules very well, and then the rest of us jackasses with our bog-standard characters. It was a bit overwhelming when he'd be quaffing this and regurgitating it after getting the effects, so he could cast XYZ spell and blah-blah-blah, and the rest of us were using are turn to "attack with sword… I miss" or alternately, "I hit, so here's 1d8."

There are certainly places where min-maxers are benefiting from their expertise in any system, but d20 stuff, I always feel it's more readily apparent.

[chronovore]

[Trurl]

I loved the couple interviewed in this episode of tabletop babble.
https://dontsplitthepodcastnetwork.com/table-top-babble/58

It made me want to hug my waifu

[I'm a Puppy!]

Had a good session yesterday. It was fun. But my players really don't get the concept of running away. It makes things interesting.

[chronovore]

Had a good session yesterday. It was fun. But my players really don't get the concept of running away. It makes things interesting.

players NEVER run away. most of the time they assume that the GM is running something that is scaled to their party's power. but even if the GM goes out of their way to show them that the Ancient Polychromatic Dragon wielding a Vorpal Katana is BEYOND THEIR POWER LEVEL, they'll still think they're supposed to figure out how to beat it.

[Trurl]

Had a good session yesterday. It was fun. But my players really don't get the concept of running away. It makes things interesting.

players NEVER run away. most of the time they assume that the GM is running something that is scaled to their party's power. but even if the GM goes out of their way to show them that the Ancient Polychromatic Dragon wielding a Vorpal Katana is BEYOND THEIR POWER LEVEL, they'll still think they're supposed to figure out how to beat it.

This is the only kind of metagaming that bugs me.  Mostly because the assumption is wrong.

[chronovore]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/21/21st-may-warhammer-adventures-tales-for-younger-readersgw-homepage-post-1/ 

Warhammer Adventures is an exciting new range of books coming next year for boys and girls aged 8-12 years old featuring younger protagonists having thrilling adventures and facing off against dangerous enemies.

Warhammer Adventures stories are written by best selling authors with experience of writing fantastic fiction for younger readers, and will be the perfect way to introduce your children, siblings, nieces, nephews and other young fans in your life to the hobby you love – and to give them their first look at the awesome worlds of the 41st Millennium and the Mortal Realms.

Neat-o. I'm pretty curious about this. 

Also noteworthy, it's not just YA, but it's also the first time I think I've seen non-white 40K characters, and rarely non-males, so now EVERYONE can be a heretic! YAY!

[I'm a Puppy!]

oh nice. I've always preferred 40k, but good to see table top RPGs having a bit of a revival.

[Kara]

I'm not trying to insinuate that 40K doesn't have a chronic representation problem but one of the most famous series Black Library ever put out had prominent characters who were people of color. (Midas and Medea Betancore in Eisenhorn)

It's actually kind of damning that Dan Abnett is the most progressive writer they've ever published. (The sequel to Eisenhorn was somewhat about being differently able.) The next closest is... ADB and he foregrounded the rampant child abuse in the universe while writing some questionable depictions of women.

Anyway, I look forward to Disney buying Games Workshop and shitting out Horus Heresy movies in 15 years. The books might actually be done by then.