|
  I can upload the character tokens pdf if you're interested. But yeah if you have a laptop using an online tabletop tool like roll20 would be cleaner/cheaper. Tablets would work better with their multitouch and apps like 3D Virtual Tabletop vvvvvvvv Jackard fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Sep 26, 2014 |
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 15:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 00:08 |
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:There are for face-to-face games, and not all of us have laptops, that's why I'm looking at physical objects. We are also playing face to face, and it's only my laptop that is used to manage the battle (the players just point to where they want to move).
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 16:03
|
|
|
I made up a bunch of great character stand-ups / miniature replacements for super cheap: I pasted a printout of the Baldur's Gate portraits to a pizza box, glued a nice sheet of parchment paper to the other side, and then cut them all apart. Instead of buying stands, pick up a box of binder clips, attach one to each bottom, and then pull the silver "handles" out. I'll post some photos and write up a guide when I get home, it's a good alternative.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 16:28
|
|
|
moths posted:I made up a bunch of great character stand-ups / miniature replacements for super cheap: I pasted a printout of the Baldur's Gate portraits to a pizza box, glued a nice sheet of parchment paper to the other side, and then cut them all apart. Instead of buying stands, pick up a box of binder clips, attach one to each bottom, and then pull the silver "handles" out. That's so genius, so grog, and so cheap. I love everything about it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 22:28
|
|
|
What I just did was make a new image in paint.net with their character portraits and overlaid circles that fit into a square for the playing field, then printed that out. For enemies I used the same style of tokens, but with symbols on them to represent what type they were. I'll just upload them so you can print and use them, I guess.  Shields for tanks, swords for dps, bows for ranged, wands for spellcasters, a 1x1 and 2x2 size stars for boss fights/leaders, and claws for stalkers or predator enemies. Fold the little corners upwards to make the paper tokens easier to pick up. I might have resized it at some point before printing at home, so maybe you need to scale it up/down a bit for the tokens to match whatever size your boards' square are. Just replace the party tokens with your own party and you're set! It cost me approximately 0 euros and an evening's work. Being a student ain't free, and these kinds of ideas are born out of a tiny budget and a great need/want for something. 
Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Sep 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 00:38
|
|
|
Here are some 1" Diablo 3 tokens I printed up Jackard posted:If you have a lot of time and are willing to spend 20-30 dollars, follow this guide to make tokens that you can combine with magnets and a magnetic dry-erase board.  The protectors form a thin solid dome, they are not flat. Jackard fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Sep 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 21:24
|
|
|
Hey, I've tried searching the thread but perhaps I've missed it. Does anyone here know where to get some good star maps for a galaxy style game. One that is not labeled would be great. I've found some pictures but they're really tiny. If anyone has an idea or a direction to point me in, I'd be grateful.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 21:36
|
|
|
I am Communist posted:Hey, I've tried searching the thread but perhaps I've missed it. Does anyone here know where to get some good star maps for a galaxy style game. One that is not labeled would be great. I've found some pictures but they're really tiny. If anyone has an idea or a direction to point me in, I'd be grateful. http://travellermap.com. Though it's labelled and traveller specific.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2014 21:54
|
|
|
How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:00
|
|
|
I am Communist posted:Hey, I've tried searching the thread but perhaps I've missed it. Does anyone here know where to get some good star maps for a galaxy style game. One that is not labeled would be great. I've found some pictures but they're really tiny. If anyone has an idea or a direction to point me in, I'd be grateful. I had a similar problem a while back, and never did find a great solution. Best I got was a generic 'field of stars' image, with locations marked over the top in photoshop (paint woulda worked fine, too):  Depends how much detail you want on it?
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:11
|
|
|
FirstPersonShitter posted:How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran. That's basically it for me, if not even less. If an idea grabs me, I'll work to flesh it out, but otherwise I just go in with vague plans and improv. It helps that I play super simple systems where you can stat things on the fly.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
FirstPersonShitter posted:How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran. This depends heavily on the game. For Dungeon World, I do practically nothing, ever. Then I make the players come up with stuff. Edit: obviously I have to write fronts, but all I really do is run with whatever the players do in the first session. Like, they'll tell me who the villains are and what their goals are, so why bother really prepping? For 4th ed D&D, I make interesting battle maps and set-piece encounters for whatever kind of thing I have in mind for the story. Then I don't worry too much about the story because the players will do whatever they want anyway and reskinning is easy. I'll make a few NPCs and a sketchy plot, but never for more than a couple of sessions ahead. For AD&D/Hackmaster dungeons, I make detailed maps with lots of detailed tricks, traps, encounters, and weird stuff in them, which frankly takes forever. For BECMI I do detailed dungeon/trap/encounter maps but way less spergy, making sure that the dungeon design accommodates "You died. Rejoin the party as soon as you roll up a new guy" and other lighthearted stuff. For AD&D/Hackmaster wilderness areas, I draw a hex map, then I make encounters and interesting places. Then I don't place them on the map and instead use a random "encounter" table to determine where things are during play, because the result is the same and I don't waste effort by having stuff they'll never see if they go west at the start. The idea of it is that all this stuff exists but nobody's sure where it is - it gets discovered during play either by stumbling across it or by finding a map or getting directions (which are in the format of "3 hexes to the northwest" in my notes but look thematic in-game). This takes way less time than doing it "right", but still takes forever. When I play FATE I do it like I used to to WoD - make interesting antagonist/ally NPCs with related backstories, write a few hooks to get PCs talking to them, and then wing it. e: I once ran an AD&D game with zero prep, using the random dungeon generator. It worked and all the players had fun, but I'll never ever try it again. It was an absolute shitload of clusterfuck bullshit on the DM side. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:22
|
|
|
FirstPersonShitter posted:How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran. I'm in the same boat, a relatively new GM running 13A by the seat of my pants. I'm experienced with roll20 if you need help with macros, they can really speed things up. If anyone else has or knows of sandbox aides I would be appreciative
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:31
|
|
|
FirstPersonShitter posted:How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran. This was for running a FATE-based game, but should apply more generally. I had a bunch of stock minions/nps - "bodyguard", "sniper", and so on, enough to run a combat on the fly in most situations, and beyond that I worked out the main adventure hook ("blow up the x", etc) and who was important in the area (Johnny Disposable is a conman who'll try and steal X from the PCs, the fighter's guild has a monopoly on Y). Most things you can wing, and I reckon it's better for the story that you do wing it, even if you need to take a minute to figure things out once in a while (ideally while the PCs are
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 01:41
|
|
|
Thanks for all the token/counter advice, guys! I bought my washers yesterday, gonna try making some of them this week. On a different note, since Fate (Accelerated) came up, something I cannot grok with the system is setting Target Numbers. Like, players have one approach that's set to 3 right off, and Fudge dice average +1/-1, but the game also has this "ladder" going up to 7 saying how well they did a thing and I'm finding it really confusing compared other systems like "roll over a DC", "roll under your attribute", or FU's 1d6 resolution or *World's miss/yes-but/hit.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 02:33
|
|
|
The ladder is just a way to gauge how high a DC is - "you'd have to be epic to do X". Fate (and accelerated) characters are powerful, so they really can expect to pull 'epic' and 'legendary' stuff off if they put all their resources into it. To set the number needed, you just think how good you'd need to be to pull something off ("You'd need to be a great mechanic to change a car's engine in a day!"), look that up on the ladder (I'm gonna say 4, but that's without actually looking at the ladder), and tell the players what they need. The player rolls their skill/approach, invokes aspects if they want, and compare the result to what they needed. If you're having difficulty with it, you're probably overthinking it, or being misled by how powerful starting characters are compared to most systems.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 02:39
|
|
|
If I just want a single roll from anyone I usually default to rolling against +2 for standard risky stuff and +4 if it's something really tough or ballsy. If it's a roll meant for a specific character to deal with, I start at one higher than the intended approach and wiggle from there based on how hard it should be for that character.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 02:50
|
|
|
sebmojo posted:http://travellermap.com. Though it's labelled and traveller specific. Hmm, this is neat but I think I might find an art style galaxy and maybe do like: petrol blue posted:I had a similar problem a while back, and never did find a great solution. Best I got was a generic 'field of stars' image, with locations marked over the top in photoshop (paint woulda worked fine, too): This basically. Though I wish I could do better  . I don't need absurd detail but I'd like it to look sort of galaxy-like. Thanks anyhow guys!
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
Lynx Winters posted:If I just want a single roll from anyone I usually default to rolling against +2 for standard risky stuff and +4 if it's something really tough or ballsy. If it's a roll meant for a specific character to deal with, I start at one higher than the intended approach and wiggle from there based on how hard it should be for that character. I get why you do that, and I've done it a lot myself, but it does bug me; 'hard' stuff stays at 'a bit more than your skill' no matter how skilled the person rolling, and so on. I get the game reasons (it's no fun for Dr. Medicdrug if she rolls against 'pitiful' 90% of the time), it just bugs me that there isn't a Fair And Consistant Equal Difficulty Based On Skill. Insert bad german accent. That's all, just needed to vent at that. My immersion!
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 03:57
|
|
|
I think the important thing is to match the challenge to the desired die roll. It does suck for Dr. Medicdrug to roll against 'pitiful' skill checks, that's why you don't have her dosing out aspirin, you have her excise nanotechnology exploding cancer cells from her patients.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 04:05
|
|
|
FirstPersonShitter posted:How much planning do you guys do prior to a game? I've been running a 13th age campaign for 5 sessions now, and it's my first time ever GMing, and so far I've basically just made crude roll 20 maps, encounters and had a vague plot for each session then more or less made poo poo up when I actually ran. Yes. Sometimes I have an idea of a set piece I want events to get to, and I'll jot down some ideas for making that interesting, but heavy prep is rarely necessary.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 04:07
|
|
|
Yeah, good call. It's just a bad habit I see myself falling into at times, where the DC is automatically "a bit challenging" whenever [random] happens.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 04:07
|
|
|
I am Communist posted:Hmm, this is neat but I think I might find an art style galaxy and maybe do like: Spore may save the day:  Or, just google image search "spore galaxy map" for all kinds of stuff that probably fits your needs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2014 16:08
|
|
|
May have been asked already, but what's a good way to introduce TRPGs to people who vaguely know that Dungeons and Dragons is a thing? I'd especially like to know if there's any way to get around the stigma that tabletop games of earned.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 17:09
|
|
|
If they play table top games in general (catan, etc): DnD 4E with pregens (don't let them anywhere near feats!) If they play CRPGs: DnD 4E with the online character builder If they have seen people "play dungeons and dragons" on TV (Community, Big Bang Theory etc): Dungeon Word, DnD 5E maaaaaybe. Just my bad opinion though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 17:40
|
|
|
Something light on rules like Dungeon World or 13th Age. Definitely not 4e, too slow and crunchy
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 17:48
|
|
|
My opinion is "don't start them on D&D" because there's a lot of games out there. I'm running Inverse World for some friends. One of them is totally new to tabletop games and was completely uninterested in standard elf/orc/wizards fantasy. The other has only ever played D&D and had basically no intention of going back. After IW's done we're moving on to either Legends of the Wulin or Feng Shui because those both caught their eye. If they are interested in regular fantasy settings, 13th Age or Dungeon World are pretty good picks depending on how involved you want the rules to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 17:51
|
|
|
It depends how they feel about D&D -- if they've heard about it and think it sounds cool and would like to try it out then I would advise getting them started on Dungeon World and sell it to them as 'D&D but
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 18:04
|
|
|
Whybird posted:It depends how they feel about D&D -- if they've heard about it and think it sounds cool and would like to try it out then I would advise getting them started on Dungeon World and sell it to them as 'D&D but FATE seems like a good way to hook new people, and also a good way to weird out people who have been playing crunchgames all their lives. It is the double-edged sword of good RPGs. I've found that FATE is really easy to teach to people. "Well, your character can try to do pretty much anything you can think of, but they are really good at doing the things that are written down on here. Also, because of the nature of the setting, ________ is possible if you have a Stunt that says it is." I've found that it's also much easier for people to wrap their heads around than Fiasco, because it doesn't demand quite as rigid of a structure of "scenes". The table can toss around probing questions and course-of-action debates, and then I can come in with a solid "Okay, but what is the actual goal you have in mind here" to frame a scene around it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 18:34
|
|
|
MizPiz posted:I'd especially like to know if there's any way to get around the stigma that tabletop games of earned. I'd avoid d&d definitely, and start with a more story-based game - fiasco is pretty much ideal if the group have seen any cohen brothers films, or dungeon world if you wanted something more traditional.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
I've gotten two groups started on TTRPGs with BECMI retroclones, but only because they were video game RPG players that really wanted "stats" and "combat" and the familiarity of something resembling an Infinity Engine game. I suppose Dungeon World would have been an even better choice under some different circumstances.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2014 20:45
|
|
|
Running Dread this week and thinking about using Beneath The Full Moon as a base. Any advice on swapping the Grand Canyon for the Boundary Waters? Thoughts on swapping the Monster of the Week for something more ghost story? My other (more ambitious) idea is that the game starts when players get off the water after a week-long trip, but no one is there to pick them up. After a 1-2 day hike back to town, they find it's been Silent Hill'd. I would need a way to force isolation in an empty town that should hold several thousand people/several hundred cars. And also connect the characters to the town when they would otherwise just be passing through on the way back home.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 15:41
|
|
|
Oh I'm dumb. The correct answer is a modern retelling of Algernon Blackwood's The Wendigo. Duh.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 17:46
|
|
|
I'm doing a galactic game, too. It's like Treasure Planet and Spelljammer put in a blender with Dungeon World. It's been fun so far, but I'm looking for ways to help make the galaxy feel like a cohesive, interesting setting that my players will give a drat about. Starting with a galactic map would be a good idea. Anyone have experience running spacefaring games (fantasy or science fiction) who can offer advice for how to make something so large and varied feel more like a living world? Bad Munki posted:Spore may save the day: This is pretty neat. A galactic map would be a good starting point, I think.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 18:38
|
|
|
Harrow posted:I'm doing a galactic game, too. It's like Treasure Planet and Spelljammer put in a blender with Dungeon World. It's been fun so far, but I'm looking for ways to help make the galaxy feel like a cohesive, interesting setting that my players will give a drat about. Starting with a galactic map would be a good idea. I'm in the process of making my own, since there's nothing out there that can do what I need, or if it does looks incredibly busy and confuses your "Average Player". I may post a mockup if its a success.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 19:23
|
|
|
I am Communist posted:I'm in the process of making my own, since there's nothing out there that can do what I need, or if it does looks incredibly busy and confuses your "Average Player". I may post a mockup if its a success. Depending on the specifics of your campaign, your galaxy is gonna be mapped in certain ways, too. For example, if FTL technology requires stationary wormholes/warpgates to move beyond a certain distance, you're going to want to map based on those, with lines connecting each gate. If any given starship contains its own independent FTL drive, though, that's when you have to figure out actual distances between points of interest, or at least some kind of metric for determining the "navigational difficulty" or whatever that a crew faces when attempting to warp from point A to point B.
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 19:40
|
|
|
I am Communist posted:I'm in the process of making my own, since there's nothing out there that can do what I need, or if it does looks incredibly busy and confuses your "Average Player". I may post a mockup if its a success. Yeah, having a map will probably be helpful for both me and my players. My big concern is making sure the Galaxy is as cohesive and "alive" of a setting as I know I could make a single content or even a planet. Given the dozens and dozens of inhabited worlds out there and the fact that each "episode" of this campaign seems to be taking them to a new world, I'm not too sure how to give it real weight without boring them with infodumps (which wouldn't actually make things more weighty anyway, because they'd just tune out like any sensible person).
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 21:00
|
|
|
Harrow posted:Yeah, having a map will probably be helpful for both me and my players. Star Trek and similar shows usually dealt with it with the "Planet of Hats" trope: each planet has a worldwide, coherent culture defined by something specific and easy to digest. While this is a bit of a cliche and outdated way to handle things, it does show a relatively easy way to quickly create new worlds: find some defining feature of the next episode that you want it to cover and build around that. You could even make it so they only deal with one nation on a planet rather than the entire planet somehow having a worldwide culture that everyone follows. You can also look at alternate history and sci-fi fiction and take their depictions of culture. Like maybe a world where (like in Logan's Run) everyone is euthanized by the state at a certain age as a form of population control....and maybe they don't take kindly to visitors being older than the prescribed killing age?
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 21:17
|
|
|
Harrow posted:My big concern is making sure the Galaxy is as cohesive and "alive" of a setting as I know I could make a single content or even a planet. Given the dozens and dozens of inhabited worlds out there and the fact that each "episode" of this campaign seems to be taking them to a new world, I'm not too sure how to give it real weight without boring them with infodumps (which wouldn't actually make things more weighty anyway, because they'd just tune out like any sensible person). Ashen Stars (space-opera freelance police, written by Robin D. Laws) has a chapter on generating planets for your game. It's called "Worlds are Stories". I recommend reading it. To quote a summary box from the book:
|
|
#
?
Oct 6, 2014 21:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 00:08 |
|
|
While I haven't done a massive sci fi epic, what I find helps make a place feel lived in is to remember to include a handful of smaller, easily digestible details and concepts within your massive epic. A sprawling timeline full of all the wars between species x and y has plot hooks, sure, but it can be really dry to your players. So remember to think of things like what species y does for pop culture that species x finds massively offensive to their religion or something else like that. Something your players can grab onto really quickly.
|
|
#
?
Oct 7, 2014 03:43
|
|
