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i still like how shadow of the demon lord handles it. 1 adventure = 1 level
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May 10, 2018 14:01
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Serf posted:i still like how shadow of the demon lord handles it. 1 adventure = 1 level serf in likes something about shadow of the demon lord shock
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May 10, 2018 14:14
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One more tip if you use XP for 4E, or any system really: if you add up at the end of a session and they run a miniscule amount short of the next level, like half an encounter's worth or so - just let them have that level right then. Make up something they could reasonably get bonus XP for, or take it out of next session's XP if you must, but don't leave them hanging. Or tell them to prepare for a levelup and announce that you're going to do it right after next session's first encounter. I've done that - the group had decided to save an obvious boss room for later, we ended up a tiny amount short, and I thought it would have felt silly if they could just start the next session saying "hey, we all got fresh Daily powers, let's do that boss after all." And they all agreed, too.
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May 10, 2018 14:15
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm very blessed to be in groups where everyone uses roll20 macros to maximize their turn-taking potential. 
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May 10, 2018 14:16
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Sadly, the appropriate thread died, so I will go ahead and ask here... I need some GODBOUND campaign seed ideas. Anyone got any percolating?
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May 10, 2018 14:21
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Fuego Fish posted:Completely and utterly unrelated to this, my X-Men game has been running for 220 days now. It's no Blackbird Dreaming, but I think that might be at least a personal best That's over half a year, so good job. Most games are lucky to last a month.
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May 10, 2018 14:21
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dwarf74 posted:Sadly, the appropriate thread died, so I will go ahead and ask here... You're in luck. Okay, it's space. Every planet has its own Gods. But there's also Interstellar civilizations and most people kind of reject the gods existence. But there are billions of Gods all over the universe. And they often travel the universe like Thor from Marvel Comics. And the universe is kind of like a classic 70 Science Fiction with species everywhere and super technology. So you play these gods and demigods from Pantheon's all across the universe as you travel across the universe.
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May 10, 2018 14:25
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Official summaries of FATE have always come across to me as incredibly terrible at selling FATE. Because they focus on selling it as narrative and flexible, it often comes across like "Sure, you can tag whatever, whenever." While also being weirdly focused on having rules for things that many GMs would prefer to just handle by fiat. If you follow me so far, you're probably familiar with the infamous debate on how setting someone on fire and then tagging the Aspect "On Fire" would be handled mechanically.
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May 10, 2018 14:26
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Fuego Fish posted:Completely and utterly unrelated to this, my X-Men game has been running for 220 days now. It's no Blackbird Dreaming, but I think that might be at least a personal best It has been pretty great and people should read it
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May 10, 2018 14:33
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I'm so glad that this 4e game I'm in since 2016 is still strong
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May 10, 2018 14:45
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Covok posted:You're in luck.
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May 10, 2018 14:52
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dwarf74 posted:Sadly, the appropriate thread died, so I will go ahead and ask here... The one that I mean to use if I ever get around to running Godbound is 'The Liberation of Ulstang Skerries' or whatever that place is called. The PCs are all from that area, the witch-queen is unhappy that they exist, go. Unread vikings all over the place.
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May 10, 2018 15:03
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Divine Youtubers from the Bright Republic, performing miracles for the clicks. Remember to like and subscribe to join the cult!
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May 10, 2018 15:27
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potatocubed posted:The one that I mean to use if I ever get around to running Godbound is 'The Liberation of Ulstang Skerries' or whatever that place is called. The PCs are all from that area, the witch-queen is unhappy that they exist, go. Unread vikings all over the place. I hope I can work the Skerries into it though, because ... well undead vikings, you know?
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May 10, 2018 16:23
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lofi posted:I understand the appeal, but I think it might be an impossible goal - balancing one-vs-many and accounting for that one friend who sucks at this and varied fights and varied party composition and so on seems beyond the scope of any real system. This is like saying that cooperative board games are impossible because they can't account for that one guy whose favourite game is Diplomacy and always wants to betray people in the end. Like, if that guy is your friend, don't play co-op games with him. Play co-op games with other people. The appeal of tactical combat in an RPG is exactly the appeal of tactical combat in Gloomhaven. It's something that is fun in and of itself. Everything in Gloomhaven outside of combat basically sucks compared to what a human GM could do. A human GM wouldn't say that when you see a person stealing vegetables, you only have two choices: chase them down and turn them in, or join them in stealing vegetables. A human GM would be able to weave together personal goals with ongoing plotlines. A human GM could make puzzles that weren't trash. A human GM could make gimmicky combats where the gimmick has some flexibility. All of these things are improvements over what Gloomhaven can do with a couple of decks of cards. The ideal tactical combat RPG for me is one that has tactical combat as good as Gloomhaven, with better character balance, and with a human GM to make the non-combat stuff good.
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May 10, 2018 16:40
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I don't think that's a big enough reason to have a human gm though. Those could easily be separate "modes". As the gm, I'd rather they use the board game once combat starts and resolve it themselves while I go have a smoke. I don't think they gain much from having me arbitrate their grid combat - just call me in once it's done and use the rpg part during the sections between combats. I think that's better for all players - combat can be more complicated and interesting when is explicitly designed to be runnable by the participants, and the gm gets to do the gm thing during the times when that consists of more than "the 9th goblin also attacks".
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May 10, 2018 17:09
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i very much enjoy running tactical combats, so i would like it if games kept having that in there
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May 10, 2018 17:13
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I don't think that's a big enough reason to have a human gm though. Those could easily be separate "modes". As the gm, I'd rather they use the board game once combat starts and resolve it themselves while I go have a smoke. I don't think they gain much from having me arbitrate their grid combat - just call me in once it's done and use the rpg part during the sections between combats. I think that's better for all players - combat can be more complicated and interesting when is explicitly designed to be runnable by the participants, and the gm gets to do the gm thing during the times when that consists of more than "the 9th goblin also attacks". it really is that simple
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May 10, 2018 17:20
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:and the gm gets to do the gm thing during the times when that consists of more than "the 9th goblin also attacks".
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May 10, 2018 17:20
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Getsuya posted:You should try Golden Sky Stories as well at some point. It’s pretty much peak feel-good RP. It was cute the time you tried talking up GSS to the guy who translated it. Don't worry I already have it and backed the recent kickstarter at a tier where I could get physical copies of the core book and expansion.
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May 10, 2018 17:23
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Yawgmoth posted:if your combat is boring then stop designing combats that are boring I think gloomhaven has more interesting combat than, well, anything with dnd by the name. I think 90% of monsters would be easy enough to automate and I'd be a lot more interested and focused if I were only managing the ones who do interesting and narratively-significant things. (4e would be good for this with its monster-roles.) I think there's room for grid-combat at the tabletop, but computers are a lot better at running it than humans are and I'd personally rather write a short piece of code to describe what, say, wolves do in combat than manually move them around each time myself.
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May 10, 2018 17:30
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Nuns with Guns posted:It was cute the time you tried talking up GSS to the guy who translated it. Don't worry I already have it and backed the recent kickstarter at a tier where I could get physical copies of the core book and expansion. Now we just need someone to run it. It’s tragic how few GSS games have been run around here. I think there’s only been 3 ever?
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May 10, 2018 17:48
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I don't think that's a big enough reason to have a human gm though. you're talking about GMing as if it were a burden and a chore, that's counterproductive at best you GM 4E because holy poo poo, you get to make encounters and try to dunk on your players (blindfolded and with one hand behind your back, of course, but it's all by design)
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May 10, 2018 18:11
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dwarf74 posted:I think I've settled on Ancalia. I took the excuse to grab it, and I'm really very impressed. Can I ask what you see in it? I guess, for me, the issue I have is just Dark Souls doesn't seem a good fit for a game of Godbound. Even if you're playing Lesser Godbound from the Deluxe Edition hacking section, I think you'd just be too OP. Also, I ran Godbound once, but we ran into a problem where combat got boring. My theory is because everyone was 1st level and its Basic D&D combat so they couldn't do a ton of cool poo poo before running out of Effort. But maybe you have some thoughts on it?
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May 10, 2018 18:12
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also GMing is honestly easier than designing things in, like, loving Neverwinter Nights campaign editor or whatever
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May 10, 2018 18:13
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I want to try Strike again, but the customizability feels like I really have to build a lot of the game myself. It's daunting to read through a lot of subsystems that are mostly optional.
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May 10, 2018 18:15
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:you're talking about GMing as if it were a burden and a chore, that's dumb Tuxedo Catfish posted:also GMing is honestly easier than designing things in, like, loving Neverwinter Nights campaign editor or whatever
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May 10, 2018 18:38
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Getsuya posted:Now we just need someone to run it. It’s tragic how few GSS games have been run around here. I think there’s only been 3 ever? :/
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May 10, 2018 18:40
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Covok posted:Can I ask what you see in it? I guess, for me, the issue I have is just Dark Souls doesn't seem a good fit for a game of Godbound. Even if you're playing Lesser Godbound from the Deluxe Edition hacking section, I think you'd just be too OP. We're coming back to it after a one-shot. We had a good time with it last time; the players were unanimous when we had a "what's next?" discussion. I'm game because it's going to be a shorter campaign - something like 2-3 months. And I dig the basic game conceits and the setting. If combat gets dull, I'll do what I can to spice it up.
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May 10, 2018 18:54
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You guys were awesome and deserve a GM who can actually put in the hours. I’d love to be a player in a GSS campaign but I need to accept that I’m never going to have the time to run one.
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May 10, 2018 18:57
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I also think the experience is better for players if simple monsters behave simply ... I think there's room for grid-combat at the tabletop, but computers are a lot better at running it than humans are and I'd personally rather write a short piece of code to describe what, say, wolves do in combat than manually move them around each time myself.
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May 10, 2018 19:09
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Getsuya posted:Now we just need someone to run it. It’s tragic how few GSS games have been run around here. I think there’s only been 3 ever? I've run three myself, so it's got to be at least double that.
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May 10, 2018 19:12
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I don't think that's a big enough reason to have a human gm though. Those could easily be separate "modes". As the gm, I'd rather they use the board game once combat starts and resolve it themselves while I go have a smoke. I don't think they gain much from having me arbitrate their grid combat - just call me in once it's done and use the rpg part during the sections between combats. I think that's better for all players - combat can be more complicated and interesting when is explicitly designed to be runnable by the participants, and the gm gets to do the gm thing during the times when that consists of more than "the 9th goblin also attacks". Oh yeah, I didn't mean "they literally play Gloomhaven." The GM needs something to do, obviously. Halloween Jack posted:I want to try Strike again, but the customizability feels like I really have to build a lot of the game myself. It's daunting to read through a lot of subsystems that are mostly optional.
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May 10, 2018 19:17
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I think the combat part is a bit of a burden - it's not the highlight of a session for me. Most of the in-combat decisions are easy as the GM, and that makes them not-so-interesting to me. Certainly it varies from combat to combat, and combat with an obvious narrative stake beyond "you live because you won the combat" is by far the best, but it's a little hard to come by for me. Exploring strange places, talking to people, planning and execution of stealth missions, etc are all super-fun to GM in comparison. I think 4e shifts focus even more towards combat, and so while I have no doubt that it's the most interesting form that D&D combat can take, I'll probably never play it because it amounts to more of the thing I don't really care much for running. Overall I kind of agree with the sentiment that the tabletop isn't really the best way to play x-com and I'd rather lean harder on the types of gameplay that the tabletop format excels at than play even Really Good tabletop x-com. You play 5e don't you? That might be part of why you're not that engaged in the combat. It also might just be worth trying some rpgs that don't treat combat like a tactical wargame like D&D does thanks to its origins. Getsuya posted:You guys were awesome and deserve a GM who can actually put in the hours. I’d love to be a player in a GSS campaign but I need to accept that I’m never going to have the time to run one. I'll probably run it eventually but I don't enjoy pbp so I'm not going to be running it on here.
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May 10, 2018 19:41
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Covok posted:Can I ask what you see in it? I guess, for me, the issue I have is just Dark Souls doesn't seem a good fit for a game of Godbound. Even if you're playing Lesser Godbound from the Deluxe Edition hacking section, I think you'd just be too OP. The Ancalia gazeteer has some huge supernatural threats that can stand up to mid-to-late level Godbound. But I think the core appeal of Ancalia is that it's such a lawless, helpless place that Godbound can do a lot of good work there without ticking off a higher authority.
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May 11, 2018 00:58
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Along with the talk of Superhero games, I just got an email by Mophidius today about the release of City of Mist https://www.cityofmist.co/ http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/225177/City-of-Mist-Core-Book  quote:Superhero Noir Geek & Sundry's review quote:“Pitch-perfect blend of superhero and noir tabletop RPG... The mechanics are simple yet INCREDIBLY robust." ONE SHOT podcast published a couple of episodes with the system. http://oneshotpodcast.com/podcasts/one-shot/173-city-of-mist-part-1/ quote:“[City of Mist] combines everything that’s great about Apocalypse World with everything that’s great about FATE... look at the art, and see why I want this beautiful game on my shelf." I haven't explored this product at all, but it might satisfy someone's desire for narrative vs mechanical complexity in a Superhero RPG.
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May 11, 2018 02:05
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City of Mist is... a very pretty book. The system is literally just Fate + PBTA but they manage to gently caress it up pretty consistently. Your character is defined by four archetypes that, when taken together, give you a bunch of power tags that you can use when making your rolls. The issue is that... that's all there is. You just roll + Power for almost everything in the game, where your Power is how many tags you can argue are relevant to the action at hand. Death spirals are a big thing (though the game doesn't seem to realize this), as your tags get damaged and become unusable, and recovering them is a dicey task. Your character can "die" and unleash their power in a big display to come back, but this mechanic is never acknowledged as being pivotal. Your character concept is going to be changing constantly as you are forced to make this move and discard an archetype for a new one pretty regularly. I'm pretty disappointed in the final product, which reminds me of the FFG Star Wars books: lovely products with high production values but garbage systems.
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May 11, 2018 02:11
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dwarf74 posted:Which part? Godbound or Ancalia? I guess the other issue was that my Godbound game (outside one player having a busted microphone that ended up killing the entire game and, frankly, that was my fault) had trouble challenging the players. I would throw really insane poo poo at them like a Godbound turning an entire city they called home into a spiral mountain into the sky with a full dungeon inside and...the players would just try to find ways to circumvent the whole thing. Which, sure, I get it: that's my bad. But it also was just kind of hard to make challenges sometimes.
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May 11, 2018 02:26
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Covok posted:I guess the other issue was that my Godbound game (outside one player having a busted microphone that ended up killing the entire game and, frankly, that was my fault) had trouble challenging the players. I would throw really insane poo poo at them like a Godbound turning an entire city they called home into a spiral mountain into the sky with a full dungeon inside and...the players would just try to find ways to circumvent the whole thing. Which, sure, I get it: that's my bad. But it also was just kind of hard to make challenges sometimes. It's a challenge, but I dug it.
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May 11, 2018 02:56
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Serf posted:City of Mist is... a very pretty book. The system is literally just Fate + PBTA but they manage to gently caress it up pretty consistently. I was suspicious since this seems like one of the most ambitious systems I’ve ever seen, and it’s written by new developers.
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