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Has anyone played Shadows of Esteren? I know they have had several very successful kickstarters; I jumped in on one last year to get the setting book. Just recently began reading it and I'm... underwhelmed by the fluff/setting. Splitting your main continent into "Religious Country", "Traditional Country", and "Magic-Science* Country" was not what I was expecting from this setting. There are hints of the wilderness, uncertainty, dark-but-not-grimdark, and slight horror I thought I was getting but the generic stuff is more prevalent. I haven't gotten to the mechanics section yet so I'm curious for others' opinions. *the term used, "magience", sounds very dumb
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Mar 17, 2015 05:13
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Effectronica posted:I think this really deserves its own thread, but I'll say that I'd personally say (boy that's an ugly phrase) that a structured narrative, as you're describing it, is sort of a danger zone when it comes to a game's quality. Because on the one hand, I do believe it's possible to start out with "We're gonna use themes x, y, and z in this campaign" and have it work, but there's also the danger (and this is why I dislike fail-forward) of cutting away what makes RPG stories genuinely fascinating by killing the real suspense that emerges through play. Oh yeah, I don't think it's a good idea to do too much pre-structuring. I'm mostly talking about retroactive story-making ("we won that fight because we were brave") and making in-game choices specifically because you think they'll lead to situations that will create a more interesting narrative. Effectronica posted:More importantly, I think that what you're describing as two modes are more about how you play the character rather than the game. Oh, for sure. I'm not trying to make a claim that the RPG/Storygame hard divide is real, just that I think there's something to be lost by analyzing RPG table events too purely as "stories" (things that retroactively make sense of what just happen) rather than also as players being caught in the middle of everything and just kind of trying to keep up (stuff happening). Players experience RPGs as both, and RPGs should be judged both for how interesting their "look back on what happened and makes sense of it" stories are and by how engaging their "immediate (often mechanical or utilitarian) choices without thought given to the greater narrative" moments of experience are. Effectronica posted:Shall we take this to its own thread, or PMs if you'd prefer? If other people are interested in also weighing in on this I'd be up for another thread. I'm increasingly thinking we might not actually be disagreeing too much, except on semantics, though--I kind of want to call "the real suspense that emerges through play" something distinct from story (which I'm defining as something more retroactive), but I'm not going to say that you're wrong if you want to say that it falls under story's umbrella. That just means we're using different versions of "story", not that we disagree too hard about RPGs.
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Mar 17, 2015 06:19
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Man Dancer posted:I ran a session of Dungeon Crawl Classics at my game store last week and just went to the Purple Sorcerer 0-Level Party Generator and spat out 10 sheets of 4 random 0-level characters for my players to sift through. It was super easy and fast, the players loved their sets of 4 randomly-generated saps, while still being entertained when 50% of them perished. I thought having the players not go through the process of creating the characters themselves would lower their engagement and attachment, but really all the players needed to do was name the characters and posit a few relationships between them. I highly recommend it! This character generator got me interested in running DCC. What else do I need other than the main book? Do I absolutely need those weird dice? What's a good intro adventure?
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Mar 17, 2015 08:05
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clockworkjoe posted:This character generator got me interested in running DCC. What else do I need other than the main book? Do I absolutely need those weird dice? What's a good intro adventure? If you're willing to use a digital solution then no you don't need the weird dice. These Purple Sorcerer guys have even made a web-based/Android/iOS app that serves as both a dice-roller and as an automatic look-up of all the various tables of roll results. The corebook itself already has a level 0-1 adventure included.
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Mar 17, 2015 08:23
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OtspIII posted:If other people are interested in also weighing in on this I'd be up for another thread. I'm increasingly thinking we might not actually be disagreeing too much, except on semantics, though--I kind of want to call "the real suspense that emerges through play" something distinct from story (which I'm defining as something more retroactive), but I'm not going to say that you're wrong if you want to say that it falls under story's umbrella. That just means we're using different versions of "story", not that we disagree too hard about RPGs. I'd be interested in weighing in. I think this might belong in the game design thread?
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Mar 17, 2015 09:08
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I'd be interested in joining the storygames discussion, but if you do make another thread, could you please post a link to it here?
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Mar 17, 2015 09:11
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Concerning initiative chat, here's an alternate initiative system I've been thinking of: alternating initiative. Player side acts first. The players elect one of them to act, their action is resolved. Then the monster side acts, one of them taking action. This goes on until everyone has had a chance to act. The problem on the GM side is that the GM needs to keep track of each separate NPC to see if they've already acted. I'd recommend using some kind of visual aid, like tokens that can be turned upside down when a character has already acted. Alternately if you've got a fight with multiple groups of monsters, you might want to have each monster group act all at the same time, but that sort of messes up with the back-and-forth nature of this system. Also, I really like Old School Hack's initiative system: actions take place at certain point in the initative order, with higher priority actions going first (like Shooting happening before Fighting), and Initiative is a simple opposed d10 roll when it's important to know, say, who attacks first in the Fight segment. It also has a neat mechanic for concentration: most big spells and abilities are focused actions which start in the second segment but only go off at the end of the turn. If you take any damage in a segment before the ability goes off, you lose concentration and the spell or ability does not take effect. To make up for this there's a Protect action that anyone can use to divert attacks from their ally to themselves, and if any attack connects they get a free counterattack.
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Mar 17, 2015 10:03
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The latest Bundle is for Dying Earth, so I'm curious. Is anyone familiar? What's the game like?
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Mar 17, 2015 10:50
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Foglet posted:And the next Bundle of Holding presents to us The Dying Earth, yet another product designed by Robin Laws. ibntumart posted:I immensely enjoyed the two sessions of it I played back when it came out. I'm not sure how much was the GM and how much the mechanics, but I will say that settling encounters via subterfuge, seat of your pants rationalizing, or clever tricks seemed pretty natural during gameplay. My PC managed to never once directly engage in combat (or take responsibility for causing food poisoning in the city's militia) and hung out at a "The City Is Surely About to Be Conquered So Let's Get Blotto" party while the rest of the party foolishly manned the ramparts (they may have a bit guilty about the militia's lack of vitality post-lunch). FMguru posted:It's great but it's really focused on playing Dying Earth style characters having Dying Earth style adventures on the Dying Earth. e; someone also pointed out that it has three "levels" of play (petty conmen/thieves, gritty adventurers and politicking wizard nobles) and only the first one works really well, but I can't find the post that was mentioned in. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 10:55
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Cool, thanks. EDIT: WTF they got rid of Google Wallet support?
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Mar 17, 2015 10:58
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Now let me tell y'all about my excellent hamburger recipe. You just need a pint glass and 80 minutes of oven time.
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Mar 17, 2015 12:09
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FactsAreUseless posted:Now let me tell y'all about my excellent hamburger recipe. You just need a pint glass and 80 minutes of oven time.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:16
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Splicer posted:Who eats the hat?
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Mar 17, 2015 13:23
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What kind of glaze do you use.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:33
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Reene posted:What kind of glaze do you use.
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Mar 17, 2015 13:51
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I made a thread about storygames.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:01
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FactsAreUseless posted:Now let me tell y'all about my excellent hamburger recipe. You just need a pint glass and 80 minutes of oven time.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:04
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Plague of Hats posted:EDIT: WTF they got rid of Google Wallet support? Actually, Google got rid of Google Wallet support.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:21
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clockworkjoe posted:This character generator got me interested in running DCC. What else do I need other than the main book? Do I absolutely need those weird dice? What's a good intro adventure? You don't need the weird dice, but they're cool. Besides silly digital dice substitutes the main book includes a method for substituting the regular D&D die array for the Zocchi dice; Joseph Goodman posted:It is easy to substitute for the “funky dice” with a regular Having the physical dice in a face to face game also makes the dice chain mechanic easier to grok - several types of advantage/disadvantage cause you to roll the next higher or lower die type instead of using a modifier. Plus again, dice are cool! You don't need anything besides the main book to play, but if you feel like buying a module then I recommend Sailors on the Starless Sea for the o level adventure and following it up with People of the Pit or Intrigue at the Courts of Chaos. The modules for DCC really shine and are offbeat, weird and well produced. They also give a good idea for how Goodman sees the game working - Intrigue at the Courts of Chaos is a 1st level adventure that takes the PC's to another plane. Edit: The 0 level adventure that comes in the core rule book is good and I've run it three times now as a convention one shot. It is a neat little dungeon crawl with some cool spots for the GM to improvise and embellish, and the setup allows for an easy post-funnel time lapse to account for the pcs leveling up to 1st. The only thing criticism of it I'd offer is that it can run a little short. The guy who does the the character generator also writes adventures and his Sunken City setting/module series is pretty cool. Glorified Scrivener fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Mar 17, 2015 |
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Mar 17, 2015 14:23
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just  if you don't use the Dagon method for generating D&D stats
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Mar 17, 2015 14:45
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Captain Foo posted:just What method is this?
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Mar 17, 2015 15:31
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Davin Valkri posted:What method is this? 9 sets of 3d6 (or whatever), rolled in order and arranged in a grid with columns of Str, Dex, and Con, rows of Int, Wis, and Cha. Choose a number for a stat from its column or row, but each number can only be used once (IE the 18 you got at the intersection of Str and Int can only be one or the other).
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Mar 17, 2015 15:33
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Dagon posted:9 sets of 3d6 (or whatever), rolled in order and arranged in a grid with columns of Str, Dex, and Con, rows of Int, Wis, and Cha. Choose a number for a stat from its column or row, but each number can only be used once (IE the 18 you got at the intersection of Str and Int can only be one or the other). Everytime I hear a new trick to rolling ability scores, it makes me wonder why the person doing it is rolling at all. Honestly, this dagon method feels like someone wants point buy, but can't bring him or her self to let go of rolling.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:25
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I usually just always ask my players if they want point buy or rolled stats. If they go for rolled stats, the usual method is to roll three or four "arrays" of six numbers(either 3d6 or 4d6-drop-lowest, depending on what sort of mood/power level we're going for). Anyone can pick any of the arrays, numbers staying in the positions they're rolled, i.e. the first number rolled in a given array is strength, second is dexterity, etc., with the option to swap two. That way you get randomly rolled stats but no one is forced into being more gimped than the others.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:29
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I believe it was Arthur C Clarke that said, "any sufficiently averaged rolling method is indistinguishable from point-buy"PurpleXVI posted:That way you get randomly rolled stats but no one is forced into being more gimped than the others. Everyone rolls a set of numbers with whatever method. The players pick one person's set and everyone uses those, just changing which number gets assigned to which stat.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:36
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Dagon posted:9 sets of 3d6 (or whatever), rolled in order and arranged in a grid with columns of Str, Dex, and Con, rows of Int, Wis, and Cha. Choose a number for a stat from its column or row, but each number can only be used once (IE the 18 you got at the intersection of Str and Int can only be one or the other). i think the dice were something hilarious too, like 6d4+2l2 or something
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Mar 17, 2015 16:49
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Captain Foo posted:just No. 3d6 in order as Gawd intended.  All other stat generation methods, especially point buy, are sops to weaklings who can't handle having to play a character that isn't their special snow flake fiction crush of the moment. Even worse, other methods encourage players toward an egalitarian paradigm of thinking of characters as homogeneous collection of stats that are balanced in regard to one another, instead of the doomed individuals to whom the cruel fates have granted boons and banes in accordance with their whimsy. Or you know, whatever works are your table.
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Mar 17, 2015 16:57
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Glorified Scrivener posted:No. 3d6 in order as Gawd intended. Don't quit your day job just yet.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:04
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Effectronica posted:Don't quit your day job just yet.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:05
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I enjoy rolling dice and pretending to be a dwarf.  
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Mar 17, 2015 17:05
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3d6 in order is hilarious because if someone one manages to roll an awesome character they usually, instead of playing them like the superhuman badass hero that they are, they play them as a hyper paranoid nut who is afraid of death. However, my taste in game tone runs away from "amazing heroes doing badass poo poo" and more to "flawed fuckups getting in over their heads and making everything worse". One of the last games I played was a Shadowrun campaign that stated like the beginning of Reservoir Dogs, a group of strangers brought tighter for a job, totally gently caress it up, the Johnson killed off camera while yelling at them via comm, some serious dudes in chase, the escape van shot to hell and everyone with bleeding wounds. It only lasted like four sessions and each one saw a PC dying and then being replaced by some poor NCP the group roped into their troubles. It was super fun.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:13
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bunnielab posted:3d6 in order is hilarious because if someone one manages to roll an awesome character they usually, instead of playing them like the superhuman badass hero that they are, they play them as a hyper paranoid nut who is afraid of death.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:15
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Effectronica posted:but there's also the danger (and this is why I dislike fail-forward) of cutting away what makes RPG stories genuinely fascinating by killing the real suspense that emerges through play.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:39
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Ratpick posted:Concerning initiative chat, here's an alternate initiative system I've been thinking of: alternating initiative. Super Dungeon Explore uses this system. Whichever side wins initiative (an opposed Will roll using the highest value on each side) acts first. The Heroes (anywhere from 2-5) activate one guy, do all his moves and his actions, and then the Consul activates monsters. Each monster has a skull value ranging from 1 (mooks) to 4 (dungeon boss), and the Consul can activate four skulls worth at a time. Additionally, the Consul can spend tokens he got on the previous turn for activating extra skulls of monsters (usually only one or two more at a time unless the previous round was a real bloodbath). After everything's activated, then a new round begins with a new initiative roll. Now, SDE has a lot of failings, but the initiative system actually works pretty well. It lets you have some sort of focus on getting the first strike, since Will is an unimportant stat for 75% of the heroes, and most monsters don't use it, but after the initial opposed roll each round, it's all about decision making.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:52
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I did 3d6+6 chargen because brazilian gaming despises the weakness that is ingrained in our mainstream culture.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:29
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This may be the most work I've ever seen put into a heartbreaker. Seriously, I don't even know where to start with this.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:37
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Evil Mastermind posted:This may be the most work I've ever seen put into a heartbreaker. Seriously, I don't even know where to start with this. I do. Let's applaud them for going back to fighting-man, thief, and magic-user, and ditching the cleric completely
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Mar 17, 2015 19:41
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I justquote:The Fyxt RPG is the only gaming system you need! I just
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Mar 17, 2015 19:48
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Evil Mastermind posted:This may be the most work I've ever seen put into a heartbreaker. Seriously, I don't even know where to start with this. Well get yourself over to F&F and review that mess of a system for us, then.
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Mar 17, 2015 19:53
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| # ? May 25, 2024 17:17 |
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helpquote:Second, players are not limited to what kind of item an effect must be bound to. In most role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, only certain effects can go onto a certain item type or area. An item in Fyxt can have any effect that a player wants. So, instead of being forced to have a +5 weapon in another game to get a +5 to attack, a player can have Fluffy Bunny Slippers of Attacking +5. (The Fluffy Bunny Slippers of Attacking +5 hold a bit of the essence of a famous and particularly deadly bunny). where am i quote:Specifically speaking all characters within the Fyxt RPG must be able to perceive something in order to be able to react to it or interact with it. what's happening quote:Once you find you love the Fyxt RPG, you can increase your subscription membership level to enhance and expand your account. All premium paid subscriptions have access to all of the Fyxt RPG advanced options for character building, advanced game play rules, enhanced character sheets, fully unlocked content generators, and other premium content. As the subscription levels increase, the Account Features increase. You’ll receive more characters on your account, more character information, and increased Fyxt RPG Contribution limits. im scared
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Mar 17, 2015 19:54
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