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Plutonis posted:Oh yeah Spelljammer was cool I love it dearly.
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Feb 23, 2017 17:40
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One of the things that pissed me off about 4e's production is we never got a real Spelljammer book. Everything about the fourth edition was perfect for a revival of the setting, but they only threw us a few bones here and there without giving us the meat.
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Feb 23, 2017 17:50
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God, imagine a 4e Spelljammer with a ship design and combat system as robust as 4e's combat. 
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Feb 23, 2017 17:53
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4E Spelljammer would've ruled. Then again, anything 4E would've ruled.
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Feb 23, 2017 17:54
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Asimo posted:Spelljammer was objectively horrible. Kwyndig posted:Everything about the fourth edition was perfect for a revival of the setting 
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Feb 23, 2017 17:58
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I actually really like Mystara.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:01
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Travelling now, but I always liked Fading Suns blackjack style rolling, where rolling under your skill was a success, but higher rolls were better successes. What's the math on that?
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Feb 23, 2017 18:02
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Also the Points of Light "setting" ruled in the sense that you could do whatever you wanted with it. Beyond a few defined areas the whole thing was open to modification. You could easily run a Nentir Vale starting adventure and expand into whatever homebrew nonsense you wanted. I loved that about it.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:04
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Halloween Jack posted:I actually really like Mystara.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:10
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At its best, Mystara is like Warhammer in that it takes a really facile concept like "this country is fantasy not-a-European-country" and runs with it until it becomes very fun in its own right. And it does stuff that's out of the box for that kind of thing--whereas Warhammer has not-Vikings, not-Slavs, and not-Renaissance-fencers, Mystara has medieval Poland and Iroquois.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 18:22
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Serf posted:Also the Points of Light "setting" ruled in the sense that you could do whatever you wanted with it. Beyond a few defined areas the whole thing was open to modification. You could easily run a Nentir Vale starting adventure and expand into whatever homebrew nonsense you wanted. I loved that about it. I like the pantheon for PoL, particularly that the god of the sea (Melora) wasn't evil (compare @ FR) and the only one that had kind of a shoehorned-in set of domains was Sehanine. I also like that there isn't much redundancy/overlap with the gods, whereas FR has like 3 deities loosely affiliated with nature, IIRC.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:29
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Asimo posted:Mystara is like 60% forgettable generic fantasy tolkein crap and 40% absolute amazing. There was unusual character options in some of the supplements that haven't really been repeated in D&D since (Immortals, anyone?), let alone various craziness like flying continents and crashed spaceships and basically everything to do with the hollow world and its divine T-rex creator.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:40
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Gods who share a portfolio make sense if they're in different pantheons. Which is something that D&D is terrible at, building actual distinct religions. Sure, your gods are 'real', but everybody believes their gods are real, why the hell else would they worship them (outside of FSM and modern Satanism). None of the pantheons actually feel like something that would have evolved over time like a real polytheistic religion, and they usually don't come with even a basic amount of faux holy text for RP purposes.
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Feb 23, 2017 18:40
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Kwyndig posted:Gods who share a portfolio make sense if they're in different pantheons. Which is something that D&D is terrible at, building actual distinct religions. Sure, your gods are 'real', but everybody believes their gods are real, why the hell else would they worship them (outside of FSM and modern Satanism). None of the pantheons actually feel like something that would have evolved over time like a real polytheistic religion, and they usually don't come with even a basic amount of faux holy text for RP purposes. Well, I mean, no poo poo. Polytheistic religions form as a result of gods blurring into each other and getting mixed up or equated with each other as proselytizing efforts, turning into demons because the dominant religion doesn't like them, and so on. D&D gods are beings that exist and exert an influence on the world first, and have religions form around them second. To make D&D religions behave like real-world religions and make sense you'd either need no gods, gods who are invisible and non-interventionist, or (ugh) gods who are subject to human beliefs about the gods.
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Feb 23, 2017 20:38
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The problem is that for D&D (and most bad fantasy asettings), they just go with the "pile of gods" thing where you just make gods for whatever concepts you think you need gods for, regardless if the overall setup makes sense or not. One of the (many) things I appreciated about Eberron was that it was polytheistic, and each religion was very distinct from the others.
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Feb 23, 2017 20:41
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Evil Mastermind posted:One of the (many) things I appreciated about Eberron was that it was polytheistic, and each religion was very distinct from the others. Eberron deities also fall into the non-interventionist category Tuxedo Catfish mentioned. Except for notable exceptions that were elevated to deity status, and who also happen to have the most aggressive followers. They still don't behave like traditional D&D gods, pushing their portfolios and granting spells directly. Because Eberron implies the simple power of belief in divine entities (or really any strong devotion) is enough to channel divine energy. The massive pantheons of deities in Forgotten Realms was never a huge issue for me. But I like mythology and reading about polytheistic religions. Any issues with D&D gods seems like an unfortunate outgrowth of the way fantasy and morality get applied differently with every rulebook writer
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Feb 23, 2017 21:11
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Any suggestions for a good reasonably widely played game that doesn't get bogged down in obnoxious planning and trying to mine various info from the GM? I like combat, I love a good RP, but I lose my mind when we're sitting there for 10+ minutes like "do I see X" "do I know Y" type stuff. As much as I love character development and a good story, when I get bogged down in this kind of stuff I get impatient and wanna burst out like "UGH I SHOOT THE GOBLIN OKAY, CAN WE GET ON WITH IT"
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Feb 23, 2017 23:28
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Seems like a social problem more than one with the game system, really.
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Feb 23, 2017 23:35
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I think I get what you're saying, and IME it happened when we had a group that was used to playing old-school D&D without a skill system, and hoped that they could sort of wheedle their way into accomplishing everything outside of combat without rolling by describing exactly how they do everything. At some point we had to just say "Your Thievery skill determines exactly how well you climb up into a 2nd story window; don't describe to me exactly how you're placing your feet on a lintel." Edit: Also, this tends to come out in people who have been trained by a Gotcha Killer Dickbag DM. You may just have to promise the players that you're not looking to punish them for not being obsessive-compulsive. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Feb 24, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 23:44
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Any suggestions for a good reasonably widely played game that doesn't get bogged down in obnoxious planning and trying to mine various info from the GM? Blades in the Dark, maybe?
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Feb 24, 2017 00:02
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The GUMSHOE games are all about "you are an expert in this field, and you know this. Here is your clue"
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Feb 24, 2017 00:07
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The "widely played" qualifier makes that one a toughie
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Feb 24, 2017 00:10
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Countblanc posted:The "widely played" qualifier makes that one a toughie I was going to post something similar. Plenty of games out there are good for that sort of thing. Widely played ones? Not so much.
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Feb 24, 2017 00:23
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Dr. Doji Suave posted:I am looking for a place to provide easy to find information based on my game world to my players in my three games. Images are only for maps, really just need a place to put a bunch of text. I know of Obsidian Portal but is there any other alternative? I was using a Google Doc but it's become too unwieldy with the amount of information available. Epic Words is like Obsidian Portal's somewhat more stable brother. It has campaign wikis and everything, too.
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Feb 24, 2017 01:22
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Any suggestions for a good reasonably widely played game that doesn't get bogged down in obnoxious planning and trying to mine various info from the GM? Like others have said, players getting bogged down in minute details is something you'll get in any game until you have a sit down and tell them to relax. There are games that allow players to fill in holes in the setting/characters/their own plans in various ways, but if it's a severe disruption as it is, the problem player will find ways to demand more information. it can also help to learn the interests of both the players and their characters so you'll have a list of answers to the common questions ready. You can even include relevant details as part of the narration when they enter a new area. If someone's getting bored enough that they're lashing out, that's probably a sign one person is demanding too much spotlight
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Feb 24, 2017 02:55
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Here's a broad question - what your opinions on high quality pre-made adventures (both actual adventures, and adventure components)? I'm trying to find commonalities, so I'm open to suggestions from all sorts of different systems.
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Feb 24, 2017 03:35
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I can't ever see myself using more than, maybe, a generic pre-designed map or layout. The old D&D adventures where it's like "read this descriptive passage when the players get to X" seems unimaginably intrusive.
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Feb 24, 2017 03:56
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  Here's hoping it gets made!https://ideas.lego.com/projects/165437
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Feb 24, 2017 04:06
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Helical Nightmares posted:
As much as I like this idea, it'd cost a lot. I thought about this and compared sets of comparable size and figured the cost would be at least $300.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:09
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I can't ever see myself using more than, maybe, a generic pre-designed map or layout. The old D&D adventures where it's like "read this descriptive passage when the players get to X" seems unimaginably intrusive. I definitely agree with you - it's not my regular playstyle at all, but I bet that some people still use them.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:15
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slap me and kiss me posted:Here's a broad question - what your opinions on high quality pre-made adventures (both actual adventures, and adventure components)? My opinion is that there aren't very many high quality pre-made adventures out there. Adventures and pregen characters are like two areas that almost all RPGs universally falter in imo.
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Feb 24, 2017 04:43
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Kai Tave posted:My opinion is that there aren't very many high quality pre-made adventures out there. Adventures and pregen characters are like two areas that almost all RPGs universally falter in imo. Does "not many" mean that you know of a few decent ones, or are you just hedging your bets and assuming that somewhere out there someone managed to put something together well?
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Feb 24, 2017 04:51
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slap me and kiss me posted:Does "not many" mean that you know of a few decent ones, or are you just hedging your bets and assuming that somewhere out there someone managed to put something together well? Everybody has nice things to say about the Great Pendragon Campaign though I've never actually played it myself. Umm...Madness at Gardmore Abbey was also supposed to be good. And from personal experiences One Shots for Unknown Armies 2E had at least two or three decent one-shots (and some that aren't so hot). Beyond that I'm legitimately struggling to think of any premade RPG adventure that I've played or read through that didn't seem dull or miserable.
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Feb 24, 2017 05:02
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Most of the adventures I like are outlines - like Eyes of the Stone Thief for 13th Age, or Harkwood for GURPS Fantasy. I think most of the adventures make the mistake of doing most of the work for GMs when the really just need to do the heavy lifting for the more work-intensive parts, like encounter design or setting material.
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Feb 24, 2017 05:33
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I hear Zeitgeist for 4e is good
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Feb 24, 2017 05:37
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Alien Rope Burn posted:encounter design
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Feb 24, 2017 05:45
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Some favorite adventures/campaigns/scenarios for various RPGs that I've played or run: Pendragon: Great Pendragon Campaign Runequest/Glorantha: Griffin Mountain, Borderlands & Beyond D&D: Night's Dark Terror Tuxedo Catfish posted:I can't ever see myself using more than, maybe, a generic pre-designed map or layout. The old D&D adventures where it's like "read this descriptive passage when the players get to X" seems unimaginably intrusive. Only assholes use adventures like that. They're a bunch of notes someone else wrote that you club into submission and use as best fits your group and their gaming style. The idea that adventures are straitjackets to be used out of the box as is or totally rejected has always been baffling to me. The RPG police aren't going to arrest you if you take Keep on the Borderlands and totally gently caress around with it. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Feb 24, 2017 |
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Feb 24, 2017 05:45
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Countblanc posted:I hear Zeitgeist for 4e is good
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Feb 24, 2017 05:54
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Lightning Lord posted:Only assholes use adventures like that. They're a bunch of notes someone else wrote that you club into submission and use as best fits your group and their gaming style. The idea that adventures are straitjackets to be used out of the box as is or totally rejected has always been baffling to me. The RPG police aren't going to arrest you if you take Keep on the Borderlands and totally gently caress around with it. See everybody always says to just use published adventures like this but even the most creatively bankrupt nerd is capable of whipping some "go find the magic whatever" plot off the top of his head in five minutes and jamming a bunch of random encounters together which is about the level of quality of most published adventures, so why would you pay however much money someone's charging for the privilege of something you have to sit down and hammer into shape when you could have just cut out the middleman and saved that money for beer? The ideal selling point of published adventures has, in my mind, always been the notion that you would want to sit down and not have to gently caress with it, it just works out of the box with maybe some minimal tweaking for your group, not something you have to chop away at and fix all the holes and okay, now it kinda sorta works.
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Feb 24, 2017 06:01
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Kai Tave posted:See everybody always says to just use published adventures like this but even the most creatively bankrupt nerd is capable of whipping some "go find the magic whatever" plot off the top of his head in five minutes and jamming a bunch of random encounters together which is about the level of quality of most published adventures, so why would you pay however much money someone's charging for the privilege of something you have to sit down and hammer into shape when you could have just cut out the middleman and saved that money for beer? The ideal selling point of published adventures has, in my mind, always been the notion that you would want to sit down and not have to gently caress with it, it just works out of the box with maybe some minimal tweaking for your group, not something you have to chop away at and fix all the holes and okay, now it kinda sorta works. I want to run an underground city adventure in D&D for my friends on Friday. It's been a super busy week at work, and it's Wednesday, I have a little time today and tomorrow night. I have a copy of the Lost City banging around. These friends have never played it, and it's an adventure I enjoy and have run before. I sit down and go over the adventure again, making new notes, maybe looking at my old ones for stuff I want to reuse. I draw up a premise to introduce the new characters. It took me a couple hours total and now I have Friday's session at the very least worked out. This is something that has happened to me btw. Doesn't mean I'm never going to create my own scenarios. That turned into an entire campaign incidentally. It's not that complicated.
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Feb 24, 2017 06:08
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