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Azran posted:Here's the totality of my group's slang: Like friends, I totally would love to play other dumb pretend games with you, but no I ain't driving an hour and a half in LA traffic for d&d 5e
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Feb 22, 2020 00:52
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I wondered why the Giga-Robo core box weighs so much until I opened it: That's a lot of plastic. (Not pictured: a lot of cardboard off to the side for the game board and components, too.)
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Feb 22, 2020 11:36
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all RPGs are D&D all video game systems are Nintendos these are the truths of the world
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Feb 22, 2020 15:13
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sexpig by night posted:all RPGs are D&D My 3DS is a Game Boy. So is my Nintendo Switch, but only in handheld mode.
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Feb 22, 2020 15:52
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food court bailiff posted:My 3DS is a Game Boy. So is my Nintendo Switch, but only in handheld mode. When I was assigning what the HDMI channels were on my Roku TV, the only Nintendo-y thing available was "Wii" and it got stuck in my head whenever I switch to the Switch, so my Switch is a Wii now.
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Feb 22, 2020 16:52
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Blades in the Dark is popular round here, right? Been reading the rules and I do quite like the sound of it, it does remind me of what I like about white wolf d10 a lot. May try running a game of it. Anybody played Scum and Villainy, Band of Blades or Girl by Moonlight?
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Feb 22, 2020 21:04
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Does anyone have a link to a really good, simple write up for an X card procedure? I'm running a couple games at GaryCon and I just want something I can print and use at the table. I really don't anticipate needing it but I want everyone to feel safe.
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Feb 22, 2020 22:28
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The creators have a few suggestions at http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg
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Feb 22, 2020 23:54
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https://twitter.com/TheEldritchTomb/status/1231308211258568705 I know SA is all "blehhh zweihander" and whatnot, but this is actually VERY BIG news for me: Because of changes in the Grim and Perilous Library's licensing conditions, I'm able to sell my flagship product Carrion Crows: Folio Edition again! I've got some more news coming, but if you like your dark fantasy to be about marginalized people forming communities for themselves while an empire dies, and building that community from selling cursed artifacts and monster organs, this is the setting for you. Edited: Old Link Machine Broke, new link is here sasha_d3ath fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 00:15
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I can't really judge the dude for doing marketing, honestly. It's better than sitting back and then complaining about why his game isn't selling.
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Feb 23, 2020 10:12
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TK_Nyarlathotep posted:I know SA is all "blehhh zweihander" and whatnot Is it? I've never heard of it.
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Feb 23, 2020 14:46
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Gort posted:Is it? I've never heard of it. Dude who makes it was incredibly annoying about "marketing" it, to the point of getting run off SA immediately and banned from RPGnet for a total inability to stop posting thinly veiled (or not even veiled at all) "buy my book"s in the main discussion forum. He's toned it way down, though that might just be because he's been kicked out of everywhere with anything resembling moderation. I recall he still manages to be a little gross with it sometimes when a controversy happens and he'll tweet along the lines of "trans right are human rights…also please buy my game!" Not a complete monster, but a real annoying poo poo nonetheless. The game is mostly a "just fine" rip-off of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition, cramming like the original core rules plus half a dozen supplements into 500 or 600 pages. The only really offensive thing about it is the overt laziness of lifting in-jokes and story hooks directly from WFRP without changing a thing, like the "small but vicious dog" inventory item or, IIRC, the rat-catcher profession that's a bunch of paranoiacs who are right about the evil ratman empire lurking beneath city streets. Not even a hint of trying to be oblique and "pay homage", just straight up transplanting a joke/reference/plot point from someone else's books. Luckily, I guess, it's only a handful of things. Oh, I also heard Dark Astral, the rules expansion to try to make it work for Warhammer 40k, kind of just plain sucks for reasons I can't remember. Since he isn't/can't be an annoying poo poo as much as he used to and his game is neither amazing nor laughably terrible, he and it don't come up all that often anymore. That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Feb 23, 2020 |
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Feb 23, 2020 15:43
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I recently began running a Pendragon campaign and am looking for some advice around running it. We've had 2 sessions, the first one was just chargen and the in second we did the intro adventure from the rulebook as well as the 485 stuff from the Great Pendragon Campaign, which is basically the video game style introduction of "here's all the mechanics in the game". I'm looking for some advice and resources for running the game. The Battle system is pretty confusing. I kinda muddled my way through it but I could tell the players were not that engaged, having their options seemingly be limited to "I attack again" and "I retreat" (485 has them seconded to an NPC rather than leading their own unit). Admittedly I was less than perfectly prepared for this. Any advice for making battles fun and engaging? Regarding player character families, I think it'd be hugely helpful to have a family tree character sheet-style handout to get my players thinking about the dynastic aspects of the game. Any good printable forms for this? We had 2 potentially interesting family events in the first winter session - the death of a sister and the disappearance of a grandfather, but that random roll introduced those people and I think without the players having something written down those events will just kind of get lost.
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Feb 23, 2020 16:16
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That Old Tree posted:Dude who makes it was incredibly annoying about "marketing" it, to the point of getting run off SA immediately and banned from RPGnet for a total inability to stop posting thinly veiled (or not even veiled at all) "buy my book"s in the main discussion forum. He's toned it way down, though that might just be because he's been kicked out of everywhere with anything resembling moderation. I recall he still manages to be a little gross with it sometimes when a controversy happens and he'll tweet along the lines of "trans right are human rights…also please buy my game!" DARK ASTRAL In the grim future of Dark Astral, there is only war. The solar system is spread apart into warring fiefdoms, technology has gone by the wayside and become an extreme luxury, education is fleeting and knowledge is reserved for the powerful – meaning science and medicine lag behind. Religion and superstition reign. This is a campaign setting that’s deeply entrenched in superstition and subverted ideals, despite the staggering height of technology. Dark Astral is the Renaissance era transplanted into the theater of the Vault of Night: foolhardy Shadowbrokers, corrupted Klergists, insane Psykonauts, hedonistic Technokrats, sanguine Manhunters and ravaged Astrotemplars all have their niche, even if their sailing ships are replaced by space arks and bows with laser rifles. In Dark Astral, don’t use traditional science fiction terms: aliens are called The Other, gravity is called Ætherea, planets are called Dominions, spaceships are called Arks, stars are called Mirrors and space itself is called the Vault of Night. In the uncharted territories in the Vault of Night, there are not galaxies, but Wytch-spirals. Instead of black holes, there are the starless wells called Dark Astral. It is the far future, but in a not-so-distant past of the one we recognize as the Renaissance. Following the desecration of the garden world of Eden, the people fled in a massive diaspora through the Vault of Night, under the auspices of an immortal Technokrat named Sol Invictus. In the grim darkness, a new Jerusalem was erected, a pinnacle of humanity’s greatness. As time progressed, the memory of Eden was lost to a new dawn, regarded barely as a faint echo in Sol Invictus’ convocations. As humanity’s faith and culture spread to new dominion worlds, so did the threats of an unknown universe unfold. An unforeseen enemy emerged from the vastness of the Dark Astral - an uncharted sector in the Vault of Night. Civilization was threatened by what was simply called “The Other”. Not even the godhead could protect the people from the horrors to come. Unable to cope with the wrath of The Other’s legions, survivors of New Jerusalem congregated in the Last Cathedral, pleading to a dying Sol Invictus for answers. The Astrotemplars of the godhead interpreted the grim omens. Humanity was tasked with a holy quest, commanded to make pilgrimage back to Eden. Gathering the best and brightest, a massive ark known as Outremer (pronounced Oh-trey-mere) was built in the few short years to follow. Housing nearly ten million souls and two of every beast, it raised anchor, departing New Jerusalem shortly before it was destroyed by The Other’s infernal weaponry. It took nearly three generations for the ark’s survivors to find the path back to Eden. But it was not the Eden spoken of in the sermons. An aurora of shimmering pink light surrounded Eden, an emerald jewel encircled by a haze of dark Magick. Passing through the whorl of chaos, Outremer nearly disintegrated as it hurdled towards Eden. Nearly broken, remnants of the ark and a mere fraction of humanity survived the impact. They had escaped The Other, yes but the Hospitaliers’ prayers to Sol Invictus were left unanswered following their arrival. Had they ventured too far beyond? Was this the Eden prophesied of? Left with no choice, the Outremer followed protocols given to them by the godhead. Eden became their new home. Now, nearly three generations later, the massive city known as Outremer stands as a bastion against the Hinterlands. Beset on all sides by Mutants, the survivors try to eek out a desperate existence, devoid of Sol Invictus’s divine voice. The ruler of Outremer, the Elector-Prelate, hides behind his guard of Astrotemplars. His supplicant Hospitalier Klergists send countless adventurers on ‘Crusades’ into the surrounding wilderness for the glory of Outremer. This world is not safe and it is not kind, but it is the only one they know.
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Feb 23, 2020 16:32
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Hostile V posted:DARK ASTRAL And I thought I was a bad writer holy poo poo
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Feb 23, 2020 17:17
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Hostile V posted:DARK ASTRAL lol loving Christ
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Feb 23, 2020 18:03
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That Old Tree posted:lol loving Christ What I don't get is if you're going to just rip 40k wholesale then why would you include absolutely trash stuff like calling stars "mirrors" and calling gravity "Ætherea"???
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Feb 23, 2020 18:20
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Clanpot, since I directed you here, also look for the GM advice thread somewhere here
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Feb 23, 2020 18:27
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What’s frustrating to me is that I like the idea of a Renaissance future setting in ‘the Vault of Night’ with a distant home planet of Terra-Eden, aliens are The Other or Cacogens, and society is a decadent and collapsing empire. But for that I’ll just play Troika! And any other game that’s inspired by the Book of the New Sun. Stapling that stuff to 40K makes all the fun touches worse. In comparison Troika! has phrases like ‘the hump-backed sky’ and ‘the places between the spheres’ and ‘golden barges that sail from world to world’ and it’s all very fun. I love that kind of science fantasy... when it’s not a thin veneer over the infinitely less charming 40K setting and also inexplicably all set on a single planet fighting orcs/mutants.
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Feb 23, 2020 18:57
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But...isn´t "Renaissance ...IN SPACE!" just what Fading Suns already does, and way better at that?
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Feb 24, 2020 08:57
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Mr.Misfit posted:But...isn´t "Renaissance ...IN SPACE!" just what Fading Suns already does, and way better at that? I just mean I'm a sucker for fun science fantasy vocabulary and settings that want us to perceive technological novae as weird and new again. This does not succeed in being that, but it gestures vaguely at it.
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Feb 24, 2020 10:49
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Clanpot Shake posted:I recently began running a Pendragon campaign and am looking for some advice around running it. We've had 2 sessions, the first one was just chargen and the in second we did the intro adventure from the rulebook as well as the 485 stuff from the Great Pendragon Campaign, which is basically the video game style introduction of "here's all the mechanics in the game". I'm looking for some advice and resources for running the game. Welcome to GPC hell my friend. Ignore the scripted yearly events /campaigns unless you think they're noteworthy. 70% of the time they're not, or could be condensed into something cooler. For battle specifically, don't use the full rules from either 4th or 5th edition, unless your players are really into that level of simulation and boredom. Have NPC commanders stick to Charge->Melee->Retreat->Charge, unless there's a specific reason otherwise (like a cool ambush or a surprise reinforcement).Think of battle like salt on a meal. A little seals the deal, but too much will ruin the whole dish. The excitement in battle isn't whether your players will die or fight good, its the risk that they're enduring to get to the good stuff. A good battle should have personal interest, potential gain, or a kickass badguy. Also, gloss over healing when it makes sense and keeps things moving. Risk aversion is a real thing when anyone is one critical spear from death away. Risk aversion is the devil, and the opposite of what you want your cool knights to be thinking. General advice. Toss out whatever about Pendragon gets in the way. There's no reason to feel obligated to use the full battle, family, magic, horse breeding, orchard raising, etc. systems more than think you group is enjoying them. Think of all those systems as optional. Not necessary unless you think group could really use a 12x12 chart on what sort of food is served as third course of a grand (rank 5) feast. The feast cards are awesome though, definitely look into those. Focus on what grabs your players here and now. The GPC is a long burn, but if you make someone wait three sessions before they get any sort of high note in a campaign beyond being a armored murderer with airs, you hosed up. Use Apocalypse-world style prompts to have the characters generate points of interests and conflict for you. Why does the Earl hate your character? Why is there a big question mark a peg up your family tree? What did your cousin do to piss off a dragon? What scary thing are your fief's leader's busting down your hall's doors' to bitch about? Focus more on what makes an individual knight tick over "ye olde lord said scout / beat peasants." The whole random-chart rolling part of the GPC and Pendragon in-general is better thought of as a GM-aide or an emergency backup plan. Build flexible plot points and antagonists that can spread across many of your knights' motivations and interests. Use the Feng Shui rpg's motto as your commandment: the Ninja Rule. Whenever things are getting boring, or your players are getting stuck, a van full of ninjas shows up to cause trouble. The GPC variant of that is a raiding party full of Saxons. Nothing gets my players more roused up than some blonde assholes burning down their land.
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Feb 24, 2020 11:10
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Watch out for cutscenes in the GPC, especially when Uther goes on tour with Excalibur and the PCs are still relative nobodies. I think you need more buyin than people generally have at that stage of the campaign to get them really invested in them. ( Or find the relevant clip from Excalibur and play that) I mostly gloss over manor stuff because my players would have varying amounts of interest in it, with only one really keen. I do however use the family events table every winter because it's led to most of our more personal RP moments. (Mostly involving Religious knight's family)
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Feb 24, 2020 11:38
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I really want to run Pendragon some day specifically so I can ask my players to roll to Hate Saxons. Goddamn Saxons.
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Feb 24, 2020 16:42
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What sick monster would throw out the orchard-raising mechanics?
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Feb 24, 2020 17:03
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Joe Slowboat posted:What’s frustrating to me is that I like the idea of a Renaissance future setting in ‘the Vault of Night’ with a distant home planet of Terra-Eden, aliens are The Other or Cacogens, and society is a decadent and collapsing empire.  The problem with most games that try to do this is that they either a) immediately explain the pseudoscience behind all the mystery, a la Monte Cook, or b) just blatantly rip off 40k or Dune.
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Feb 24, 2020 17:18
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Halloween Jack posted:
I really enjoy a certain degree of alienation, cultural subjectivity, and frankly too-clever-by-halfness in SFF, and so I love TTRPG settings where the players get deep into the local culture, vocabulary, and ways of thinking. Not necessarily morally, but just in terms of how the world is understood. There just aren't a ton of games that go all in on that in a way I find particularly engaging and also are fun to play.
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Feb 24, 2020 18:51
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Personally, I basically always do some combo of Session 0/PBtA player-questions for world-building for a lot of things unless we're really, really going off of something well known because like loving hell I can get all my players to read in depth on the setting. Like, I love Mage : the Awakening with all my heart, but I've never gotten to really run a game getting into the politics or the guts of the setting just because I'm the only one who is gonna read the books so anything in the plot has to be introduced/exposited organically. As much as I love a lot of settings, anything too lore-dense is just impossible for me to get to the table. Bully to the groups that are willing to do background research in the off-time to understand the setting, I'm super jealous, but I have never experienced such a thing. Even running Dresden Files where a good 2/3rds of the group had read some of the books was a stretch.
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Feb 24, 2020 19:03
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For my long Awakening game I opened with a session zero and also the PCs were relatively new Mages, and then as they dug into the world and their mysteries I layered in bits of the metaphysics and history session by session in character and out. The players will never be as obsessed with the setting as I am, but they developed specific elements they cared deeply about and specific vocabulary they used and found compelling.
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Feb 24, 2020 20:04
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Sometimes, I ask myself if I am, in fact, too extra. Other times, I do as I have done and released a playbook for a non-existent PbtA game that is also a frank discussion of depression and self-loathing in the online age. Anyway, check it out if you want to feel very sad!!!
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Feb 25, 2020 05:01
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Nuns with Guns posted:What sick monster would throw out the orchard-raising mechanics? I don’t know. That has always been the most important part!
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Feb 25, 2020 05:11
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Arthil posted:I can't really judge the dude for doing marketing, honestly. It's better than sitting back and then complaining about why his game isn't selling.
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Feb 25, 2020 10:11
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Warthur posted:I've witnessed him actively sockpuppeting to spread false rumours about Cubicle 7 around the time of the WFRP4 release, which I absolutely judge him for.
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Feb 25, 2020 13:24
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The guy's background is in advertising so it's not very shocking that he's got no qualms about promoting his stuff as cynically and aggressively as he can. It's great he's supportive of minority creators and such, and I'm happy for TK, but I do kind of figure (like That Old Tree said) the motivation behind his trumpeting of progressive causes is the same as most other promotional things he does.Arivia posted:I don’t know. That has always been the most important part! I do admit I take a weird glee in all the manor management subsystems (though a lot of the more complex stuff is sequestered in the Book of the Manor/Book of the Estate splats.) Pendragon is like Ars Magic in that way, I guess. It's got a lot of nerdy bookkeeping but you trade that off with period of going out and doing cool magical poo poo. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Feb 25, 2020 |
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Feb 25, 2020 13:46
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This is all sounding like that gamerprinter guy who would just plug his Kaidan: A Japanese Ghost Story setting in every single thread on RPGnet regardless of the topic. He was funny.
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Feb 25, 2020 15:14
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Halloween Jack posted:This is all sounding like that gamerprinter guy who would just plug his Kaidan: A Japanese Ghost Story setting in every single thread on RPGnet regardless of the topic. He was funny. its 100% that but more acceptable for some reason i guess
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Feb 25, 2020 15:28
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At least gamerprinter made an original (if almost comically inept and derivative) product. Zweihander is literally an earlier version of WFRP with the serial numbers filed off. It's a straight-up retroclone.
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Feb 25, 2020 15:59
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Zaphod42 posted:Blades in the Dark is popular round here, right? Been reading the rules and I do quite like the sound of it, it does remind me of what I like about white wolf d10 a lot.
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Feb 25, 2020 19:48
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Ilor posted:I've both played and run Blades in the Dark, and I've played Scum and Villainy. There's a lot to like about the system, though the settings tend to occupy this uncomfortable middle ground where there's enough detail to give you some inspiration, but not enough to provide real verisimilitude. There's a lot of "It's up to your GM!" kind of stuff in there, which frankly feels kind of lazy. If your group or GM are good with filling in those gaps, though, you can have a lot of fun with it. Yeah I'm pretty used to improv as a dm and have been running a white wolf d10 game with a lot of the same "fail-forward" mentality as blades already, its a bit intimidating but I am excited to try it. I think we're gonna try scum and villainy this weekend. I've been watching cowboy bebop, outlaw star and firefly for ideas. I do really wish the game had stats for other ships, and also examples of gear you could acquire beyond the starting sets. Feels a little empty there. But I can invent some of my own pretty easy, and I do like house rules. The faction system in particular is brilliant, using that and clocks basically does what I've been doing in D&D and D10 but in a more formal way, I love it. There's a lot of burden on the DM to improvise, but on the flipside there's like almost no expectation of DM prep? And I've been struggling to find the free time lately so I think this may work really well. It'll be my first time playing a forged in the darkness game and DMing at the same time, but I've been watching the Blades campaign on youtube run by the author and I think I have the rules all down.
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Feb 25, 2020 20:25
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Yeah, I found I had to do very little prep-work when running BitD. And yes, make clocks for all kinds of poo poo. Whipping out a clock and checking off a couple of ticks on it is a great consequence when players hit a partial success or a full-on failure.
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Feb 25, 2020 20:44
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