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PnP RPGs OT || Come play the REAL RPGs

H

Huw_Dawson

Member
CornBurrito said:
Uh technically "properly" skill rolls have no fumble in DND.
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True, but it's a commonly used optional rule (and is an actual rule in other systems, like 13th Age).

All I'm saying is that the dice provide guidance for the story, and a critical 1 can be as fun as a critical 20 if done properly.
 
H

Huw_Dawson

Member
I had a rough session on Sunday. :( Left me feeling pretty bad as GM. It was definitely my fault. Very slow paced and badly thought out. Had a long chat afterwards, learned a lot.

The Kickstarter of the week is Savage Rifts. It's got 100k already on an initial goal of 8k. I'm waiting until the last day as usual before backing.
 
D

Dreavus

Member
I don't know how large the intersect between the audiences is, but that's cool as hell. I could see them doing this kind of thing for other settings too.
 
N

Nairume

Banned
Huw_Dawson said:
I backed the Savage Rifts Kickstarter yesterday.

Does anyone know much about Savage Worlds? How does it play?
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It's really simple and straight forward. Skills and attributes are all handled as die types (d4 being weak/bad at something, d12 being strong/good at something). Most rolls are against a target of 4 (though difficulty can up it). Basically the only thing difficult to get used to at first is what it does instead of hp (a three step wounds thing that gives you negative modifiers to your rolls), but even that gets pretty easy to grasp after toying around with it.
 
H

Huw_Dawson

Member
It is a shame this thread is so quiet. NeoGAF is massive - there has to be more than ten people who play tabletops here. :p

New DMs and GMs have a great new tutorial series on Youtube btw, courtesy of Matt Colville, long-time GM and Turtle Rock Studios' lead writer. Running the Game: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_

I think the thing I like most about this series is its intent - it wants to inspire you to become a GM, and to keep going if you are. Colville is very good in front of a camera and his combination of great examples, compelling arguments and pleasent demeanour make these vids super entertaining.

Also he makes me want to buy a DSLR to do my own Youtube stuff with and that makes my wallet have a sad.
 
M

Megalosaro

Banned
Huw_Dawson said:
It is a shame this thread is so quiet. NeoGAF is massive - there has to be more than ten people who play tabletops here. :p

New DMs and GMs have a great new tutorial series on Youtube btw, courtesy of Matt Colville, long-time GM and Turtle Rock Studios' lead writer. Running the Game: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_

I think the thing I like most about this series is its intent - it wants to inspire you to become a GM, and to keep going if you are. Colville is very good in front of a camera and his combination of great examples, compelling arguments and pleasent demeanour make these vids super entertaining.

Also he makes me want to buy a DSLR to do my own Youtube stuff with and that makes my wallet have a sad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Matt has been doing a great job with his series. He's pretty easy to watch.
 
B

benicillin

Banned
Huw_Dawson said:
It is a shame this thread is so quiet. NeoGAF is massive - there has to be more than ten people who play tabletops here. :p

New DMs and GMs have a great new tutorial series on Youtube btw, courtesy of Matt Colville, long-time GM and Turtle Rock Studios' lead writer. Running the Game: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_

I think the thing I like most about this series is its intent - it wants to inspire you to become a GM, and to keep going if you are. Colville is very good in front of a camera and his combination of great examples, compelling arguments and pleasent demeanour make these vids super entertaining.

Also he makes me want to buy a DSLR to do my own Youtube stuff with and that makes my wallet have a sad.
Click to expand...

Matt Colville is so great, I've loved watching his videos. Highly recommended.
 
Xisiqomelir

Xisiqomelir

Member
Gave 5th edition a try as a player, it's a solid entry and a real D&D. You can read back ITT for my opinion of 4/$ Ed

Though our DM is new, he made a more than decent effort. My friend thoroughly enjoyed the versatility of her Gnome Bard, and I'm having a great time with my Light domain Cleric.
 
M

Megalosaro

Banned
Looks like the next adventure is storm kings thunder. Level 1 to 11. Sort of a sequel to tyranny of dragons and remaining of against the giants.


Even better, Volo's Guide to monsters. Part monster Manuel, part lore book. Also contains rules for monster races such as orc and goblins
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
DM'd my first session with a group of players I got together at work. We only got an hour in (We'd made characters at our previous session last month), but that was enough to rescue a kid who fell down a crevasse, beat up some bat swarms, and make it back to the surface with mysterious scrolls they found. Off to a good start!
 
D

dude

dude
Huw_Dawson said:
I had a rough session on Sunday. :( Left me feeling pretty bad as GM. It was definitely my fault. Very slow paced and badly thought out. Had a long chat afterwards, learned a lot.

The Kickstarter of the week is Savage Rifts. It's got 100k already on an initial goal of 8k. I'm waiting until the last day as usual before backing.
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Hey, I know it's late, but still - Listen, I've been GMing for years, and I still mess up quite a bit. It happens, sometimes you're not in the zone, you didn't have enough time to prepare, the players didn't flow with your ideas etc. Gather feedback, learn from it. Some of the biggest step I took as a GM were after the worst sessions I ever ran.
 
M

Muddimar

Member
dude said:
Hey, I know it's late, but still - Listen, I've been GMing for years, and I still mess up quite a bit. It happens, sometimes you're not in the zone, you didn't have enough time to prepare, the players didn't flow with your ideas etc. Gather feedback, learn from it. Some of the biggest step I took as a GM were after the worst sessions I ever ran.
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I can second this advice. I recently had a "bad game" as well. Life was busy and my game was rushed. I told myself I could "wing it", but boy did I fail hard. On the plus side, we ended up switching over to Star Wars RPG for a session which gave me time to recover and gain a sense of direction. I ended up bouncing back like a champ, and now my game is running smoothly.

Being a GM is a huge commitment, that is often overlooked by the players. They don't see all of the time and brain straining thinking that goes into campaigns. I casually ended up telling my players the amount of time I put into one of the games, I think it gave them some perspective.
 
H

Huw_Dawson

Member
Thanks guys. My players do give feedback that they think I am very introspective. I learn a lot from rough sessions. It does suck being unhappy at the table and the players sort of being let down.
 
V

Vagabundo

Member
I've been DMing for 25 years and I still regularly fuck up. It certainly get easier, but its so easy for it to go wrong.

Had a decent good session last week though. Everyone is at 4th level and they are just about to finish off the BBEG of Reavers of the Harkenwold. They found a secret stairs to his bed chamber where he was meeting with some Hobgoblin mercenaries and ambushed him.

They dogpiled him and one barred the door. And I groaned as they all nova'ed, and I thought it was a bit of an anticlimax, but once the bad guys got a go things swung back. We stopped mid fight.

Looking forward to finishing this adventure. it's been about eight months since we started it.
 
N

Nairume

Banned
Megalosaro said:
So...

I'm Confused about the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPG. Is it three games? Can you splice them together?
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It's basically three separate variants of the same rules for playing underworld/smuggler/fringe-type games, rebellion type games, and Jedi-focused games. They can be played together, but are intended to be played on their own.

In theory, having Jedi partitioned out into their own thing isn't actually a terrible idea, since solves the age old problem of trying to balance Jedi against everything else (mind that the two non-jedi games do let you play force users, just not fully trained Jedi). The other two games be separate from each other probably was a bit too much in separating things out, since they don't really seem to be terribly different in comparison to the Jedi book.
 
K

Keasar

Member
GAAAH!

The Fabolous Art of Trudvang was a thing and I had no idea about it! I need to get myself a copy of it! The art from the Swedish Drakar och Demoner RPG books are some of the most beautiful I know, no other game have ever achieved putting onto the paper the beauty of Scandinavian forests and mythological beasts.
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
fifth-edition-foes-cover.png

^Anyone have any impressions on this one? More monsters piques my interest, but at a glance it seems like the production values are kind of low for the asking price with nothing but B&W interior with wildly varying art styles between entries.

Still, I get waaay more mileage out of stuff like this and books of extra spells and whatnot than I do out of adventure modules...

EDIT: Alright, I had a chance to leaf through this, and holy shit how do they think they can ask $15 more than what the Monster Manual goes for on Amazon for this?
  • Very first monster, the aaztar-ghola is variously "the aaztar-ghola," "the aaztar-Ghola," and "the Aaztar-Ghola." Also says "ghouls under this affect."
  • A couple of monsters later, the Aranea is labeled "Arenea" in the header.
  • I saw at least two monsters that had the same art, only flipped.
  • There are some things in here that are already in the Monster Manual, i.e. the Axe Beak.
  • There're like... half a dozen variants on zombies in this. And do we need a Gallows Tree and a Hangman's Tree in the same book?
  • Terribly sloppy page layout from time to time. Some have this massive picture that takes up a third of the page and leaves no room for lore, and sometimes a listing will spill over into the next page and the header for the following listing is like an inch lower than normal.

I'd have qualms paying them half the asking price for this. : /
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Need some advice, PnPgaf.

I started a new game up two weeks ago. My player group is made up of two really close friends, three acquaintances, including one couple, and, somewhat unexpectedly, my daughter. The couple I had only met a couple of times before starting the game, and was disappointed when one of them canceled at the last minute...but, ya know, stuff happens. Not the end of the world.

It was a blast. Probably the best first session of a new campaign I've ever had. We all agreed that this was a good time to meet (Sunday afternoons) and that we'd meet every other week on the same time/day.

I realized I had fucked up later that night - I couldn't meet this weekend (the weekend of the 18th) because it's Father's Day weekend and I was planning to hit the coast with my family. I certainly wasn't going to cancel on my dad on Father's Day for D&D! Everyone seemed cool moving the game out one week.

I checked in with everybody to make sure next week is still good earlier today. Immediately heard from the couple that one of them couldn't make it (same person who didn't make it to the first session), and could we maybe move it one week out? Well, no, we couldn't - that's the weekend of the fourth and half the group has plans that weekend (including me). And another guy couldn't come the week after that...and could we maybe move it to this Friday...or that Friday...and on and on and on. I checked out of the conversation eventually to spend time with my family and because it really wasn't going anywhere.

I'm a little torn on what to do here. I feel like this great game we have going is going to quickly fall into that classic trap of trying to schedule around everybody and having the game totally fall apart. The solution seems obvious enough to me: this person who can't make it next Sunday is just going to have to deal with missing out and I hope she can come next time. On the one hand I feel like it's kinda my place as DM to say, "No. Sorry guys. Let's just stick with what we planned because that seems best for everyone. People are going to miss sessions sometimes, it's just going to happen, or we will never get anywhere." On the other hand I don't want to cause any needless resentment or anything, and I did contribute to this situation myself by saying I would be available this weekend, forgetting my Father's Day plans.

I feel like the gentler alternative is to endure all this rescheduling nonsense but to make it crystal clear at the next session that it isn't going to happen again, we are going to make a schedule and stick to it unless it's something like half the group that can't make it. I might not have been firm enough about it at the end of the first session.

What do you guys think? Tell this woman that she's shit-outta-luck this time, hope to see her next session? Or put up with the attempts at rescheduling just this once? I feel like most everyone in the group is saying they want everyone to be there, but it's possible some people are holding back because they're expecting me to say something, right?
 
B

Bear Force One

Banned
I'd go with the former in thia case. Make it super.clear that you'll miss her and that you're excited for her return. Then give her the chance to come up with a cool reason her character is unavailable temporarily so she still has some agency.
 
U

ultron87

Member
I tried Shadowrun for the first time yesterday as an intro game at a con. I loved the world and the way magic works (where you can do it as much or as powerful as you want, but it might melt your brain) but it felt like there were too many rolls involved in everything that happened. Rolling like 15D6 to dodge something is cool, but storytelling wise it isn't that different from rolling a few. So yeah, super into cyberpunk/magic, but I'm currently in a "less dice" direction.

I should look at The Sprawl. It sounds up my alley from what I've heard on Friends at the Table.
 
K

Keasar

Member
If anyone is interested there is a Kickstarter going on for the English edition of the Swedish RPG Symbaroum: Thistle Hold: Wrath of the Warden, an adventure book for the game Symbaroum.

Haven't had a chance to look into the game much but have had some interest in it with its focus on exploring a dark mysterious forest filled with remnants of an ancient civilization as a dark fantasy RPG. Has very pretty art as well.
 
A

Armoured Priest

Member
ultron87 said:
I tried Shadowrun for the first time yesterday as an intro game at a con. I loved the world and the way magic works (where you can do it as much or as powerful as you want, but it might melt your brain) but it felt like there were too many rolls involved in everything that happened. Rolling like 15D6 to dodge something is cool, but storytelling wise it isn't that different from rolling a few. So yeah, super into cyberpunk/magic, but I'm currently in a "less dice" direction.

I should look at The Sprawl. It sounds up my alley from what I've heard on Friends at the Table.
Click to expand...

Also got to play Shadowrun for the first time on Saturday (July 2nd). Watched Johnny Mnemonic before hand.
 
U

ultron87

Member
I'm running my first session of The Sprawl tomorrow! This will be the first thing I've run in the Apocalypse World system, so I'm a little nervous about running that kind of game which feels pretty different than the DnD style stuff I've DMed before. I've listened to a bunch of The Sprawl being played on Friends at the Table so I think I have a decent idea at how it should go. Really I'm just super excited to run something in a non fantasy setting and in a less rules heavy system.
 
M

Megalosaro

Banned
My group is starting to finish lost mines of phandelver.

Debating what to do next:

a) homebrew. I've been coming up with a new setting. Not sure if that is something my players would go for though.

b) pre existing campaign. I have curse of strahd, out of the abyss and princes of the apocalypse.

I like both ideas. But preexisting campaign's are a lot of work.
 
A

Armoured Priest

Member
Megalosaro said:
My group is starting to finish lost mines of phandelver.

Debating what to do next:

a) homebrew. I've been coming up with a new setting. Not sure if that is something my players would go for though.

b) pre existing campaign. I have curse of strahd, out of the abyss and princes of the apocalypse.

I like both ideas. But preexisting campaign's are a lot of work.
Click to expand...

I'd go with Curse of Strahd. I'm not terribly familiar with the new version, but when I ran my group though Phandelver, I did an adaption of the original Ravenloft module and ran them through that. It actually dovetailed nicely into it
I made one of the long sword +1s they found the sword macguffin from the original Ravenloft adventure

It was interesting setting up that castle in roll20...I feel I came up with something rather spectacular, though.
 
T

TheWorthyEdge

Member
Currently running a Star Wars Role-playing Game Campaign based off of Forces and Destiny. Going super well, and the first session was fun as all hell.
 
B

Bear Force One

Banned
Megalosaro said:
My group is starting to finish lost mines of phandelver.

Debating what to do next:

a) homebrew. I've been coming up with a new setting. Not sure if that is something my players would go for though.

b) pre existing campaign. I have curse of strahd, out of the abyss and princes of the apocalypse.

I like both ideas. But preexisting campaign's are a lot of work.
Click to expand...


Check out this article. https://merricb.com/2015/09/03/what-to-play-after-finishing-the-dd-starter-set/
 
K

Keasar

Member
A new Kickstarter of a Swedish RPG now being released in English called Coriolis from the people who made Mutant: Year Zero. I backed the Swedish edition of this game because Coriolis is one of my favourite game worlds back when I got the first edition of the game. It is a middle eastern inspired sci-fi adventure set around the space station of the same name. It has gorgeous art and is a very interesting setting and this time the game is supposed to be much easier to play (FATE inspired rule system). The first edition was a bit heavy on the rules by comparison with tons of charts etc.
uJQatJP.jpg
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M

Megalosaro

Banned
Anyone have experience with the one ring? I love tolkien... that said, I'm not sure if I would play a middle earth rpg. Dnd had that niche covered imho. But I would love to see the books for the lore material
 
M

Mike M

Nick N
Huw_Dawson said:
Is the V:TM PDF bundle on Humble Bundle worth buying? Is the game any good?
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Man, World of Darkness was so my jam in high school...

Looks like the bundle is for the Revised edition, which is the edition prior to the current New World of Darkness lines (which are kind of an alternate reality version of the World of Darkness or something? Like Ultimate Marvel vs 616 Marvel, back when that was still a thing). I also think there's supposed to be a new edition of the original WoD Vampire coming down the pipeline, but god only knows when that will be.

$15 for the core rule book and guides to the Camarilla, Sabat, and Anarchs alone is a pretty solid buy. All the clan books would be gravy on top of that. The Storyteller's Handbook is kind of disposable, the Book of Nod is a book that exists in the fiction that details the history of Cain and doesn't have any actual game mechanics in it, and Mind's Eye Theater is the LARP version of the game that is kind of... not good... but I've always found the idea of LARPing to be mortifying.

Vampire was pretty middle of the pack for me for World of Darkness games I enjoyed ("Hey guys, anyone want to play Wraith? No? Okay... that's cool..."), but it was very much up my alley back then. If you like the Blade or Underworld movies, this is very much in the same vein.
 
U

ultron87

Member
Ooh, Roll20 got a licensing thing with WOTC for official DnD 5E stuff. So you can buy the adventure there and it includes all the characters and maps and items and etc right in the program. They've made a really great tool so it's cool to get such a big deal partnership.
 
U

ultron87

Member
Played a session of Fall of Magic last night: http://heartofthedeernicorn.com/product/fall-of-magic-scroll-edition/

It's really more a collaborative story telling game than a traditional RPG but it's really cool. I splurged and got the edition that comes with the physical scroll and coins that you use as the map for the game and it is soooo gorgeous. You can also play with the PDF that would also work, I'm sure, especially if you play online.

It is a rules light scene telling game where you move your group gradually across a map. It gives you a premise, "Magic is dying and the Magus with it, so you travel to Umbra where Magic was born", place names, and scenes in those places and you make a story from those with the rest of the table. It lets you freely develop your characters and the actions that take place and encourages setting up half formed ideas and questions without answering them immediately. It's a little intimidating at first, but my group at least got into it pretty quickly and put together a cool little tale.

One thing I really liked is the character creation project where you pick a specific name and title from the map. So you can be a "Golem of Ravenball" or an "Heir of Stormguard" but it's up to you to define what those mean. I was gonna pick golem and play an actual magical construct, but someone else picked it first and made their character an assassin who is nicknamed "The Golem" for their hardness when killing. So I pivoted to a different concept and can use that first idea some other time.

It was real fun to develop something as a group instead of it being one DM setting up the world. I think I'm gonna look into other similar games like Microscope and The Quiet Year now, since this one was a hit with my group.
 
U

ultron87

Member
At Gen Con I tried out Call of Cthulhu, Blades in the Dark and Psi-Run all of which I'd never played before.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of CoC and rolling 1-100 is kind of neat. I'd be very interested to see how the Sanity mechanic comes into play over a campaign, since it didn't really matter in a one shot.

Blades in the Dark is super cool. It's kind of like Dishonored: The RPG. It's pretty Apocalypse World-ey, which is good, and I really like the setting with its spooky industrialness. The actual adventure wasn't the most interesting thing because the GM set it up where we had to discredit a political rival, so we basically ended up dumping a body in his office and being done with it. Wasn't exactly the grand heist the game seems to encourage. I did enjoy playing it. I really want to run it now.

Psi-Run is a very small thing. The dice rolling mechanic is interesting where you roll a pool of dice and assign them to various slots to determine your result. So if you roll a 5, 4, 2 and 1 you'd need to put those in Outcome, Chase, and Harm slots. So you could accomplish your goal, but have pursuers catch up. Or get hurt pretty bad, but accomplish your goal. Or fail, but not get hurt or caught. Led to cool choices, though you almost always accomplished what you were doing since you're gonna roll a 4-6 on 1 out of 4 or 5 dice most of the time.

I also learned about Dread, which is the horror RPG that uses a Jenga tower for action resolution and holy crap I wanna play that.
 
B

Bear Force One

Banned
Megalosaro said:
I'm not usually fon of this party dnd stuff.. but thsee look cool.

http://cubicle7.co.uk/ogl-omg-adventures-in-middle-earth-coming-soon/

I love me some Tolkien, so these will be bought.

http://geekandsundry.com/matthew-mercer-and-green-ronin-announce-the-critical-role-campaign-setting/

I'm kind of over Critical Role tbh. Mostly because of its fans. But this book v should be awesome. That may is writing it is cool.

Plus we have Volo and storm king soon
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What is the issue with the Critters?
 
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