|
Bad news there, it has cyberspace you can go in, but basically it's just like being anywhere else, except now you gotta constantly succeed at various hard skills or you just die where you are (or get kicked out of cyberspace).
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2022 20:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 23:49 |
|
|
theironjef posted:you gotta constantly succeed at various hard skills or you just die where you are 
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2022 20:58
|
|
|
Based on jef's review, "all the big government groups and big businesses pulled out of cyberspace completely but just left everyone else having to carry on using it even though Cyberjobe can just one-shot them" is perhaps way too accurate as to what would happen if there was a major threat permeating the internet.
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2022 21:34
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:I did actually see the Lawnmower Man RPG in the wild at a game store in Charleston, South Carolina with a giant crease on the cover and marked down to like three bucks. close to the same here, but it was the Lawnmower Man miniatures set at a store in Greenville, SC and 50% off (after several years of being there)
|
|
#
?
Mar 1, 2022 22:44
|
|
|
I finally have a regular RPG group again, and everybody involved is actually pretty excited to just try out some one-shots or shorter campaigns in a bunch of different systems, which is refreshing. We've got a handful of options lined up already, but the group has said they'd like to eventually go back to a longer campaign, probably something fantasy or fantasy-adjacent. The thing is, I know I'm pretty burnt out on D&D 5th/Pathfinder and I think my group is too, but they want something that captures the magic of D&D without the heavy rule load and time-consuming combat that we tended to run into in 5th edition. I know for a few of us, there's an appeal to the "rulings not rules" approach of a lot of OSR systems, and that general aesthetic really appeals to most of the players, but I've never really run anything like OSE or Dungeon Crawl Classics. I suspect that my players are really drawn in by the aesthetics and the promise of playing D&D in a way that makes it feel kind of loose and chaotic and player-centric like it did back when we were all in high school and only half-understood the rules. What I worry about is that I think they may be put off by the more dungeon-crawl-centric type of play that a lot of OSR systems and modules seem to center around (and I should say, I get why, I remember playing early D&D systems, dungeons and exploration were most of the point). I also think they'll be less enthusiastic than they think when it comes to the resource management aspects. They are the type of players that usually prefer to handwave stuff like encumbrance, food stores, ammunition, etc. or I tend to abstract it in a broad way ("now that you've barricaded the chamber and set up camp for the night, you notice your food stores are getting dangerously low" kind of stuff). As a group, they tend to be much more interested in exploration and interaction with NPCs than with combat and the more numerically-centric rules systems. So what's a good system that sort of ticks all the boxes for them? I think D&D 5e is out, and even 13th Age probably has too much of a "modern D&D" feel for this group right now. I suspect the answer is Dungeon World but I also think they do actually want enough of the old-school D&D feel that they want to at least try some OSR systems/modules (as do I, I should say). I think I could get them on board with trying DCC at least once, I know the kind of weird, trippy fantasy feel and slightly gonzo playstyle would at least keep them through a module or two.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 18:01
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I finally have a regular RPG group again, and everybody involved is actually pretty excited to just try out some one-shots or shorter campaigns in a bunch of different systems, which is refreshing. We've got a handful of options lined up already, but the group has said they'd like to eventually go back to a longer campaign, probably something fantasy or fantasy-adjacent. Various PbtA games are gonna get thrown at you in a second (and they're probably gonna be good, I'm not not endorsing them), but you might want to try looking into Torchbearer. It technically does all the groggy bullshit of keeping track of torches and rations, but at a level that's pretty abstracted and via little mini-games or individual die rolls so you're not doing god drat arrow arithmetic. (e.g. your stuff is tracked on a cute little paper-doll style system of your belt pouches, "hunger" and "thirst" are abstracted conditions as narrative consequences, keeping track of the dungeon map is just a skill roll) Exploration and over-coming obstacles in the dungeon are the meat and potatoes of the game with actual fighting being it's own little mini-game that you then narrate the consequences of. Really invested in a super old school Fantasy Vietnamish feel, but the actual systems themselves are much more modernized. If I'm being honest, the aforementioned PbtA games will probably be closer to what you're explicitly asking for so give those primacy them ; I'm kind of purposely giving a slightly off recommendation in case that's your thing. Sort of like if you ask for a good Chinese restaurant and I pointed out a really great Korean restaurant.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 18:55
|
|
|
Run the DCC adventure sailors on a starless sea as a funnel. It's loving hilarious. Also, try a 1st ed module like hidden shrine of tamoachan or white plume mountain, they're almost rules free because the vast array of rules in the Dmg are mostly pointless bullshit you ignore, you just need attack rolls and saving throws which is like 4 pages.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 19:10
|
|
|
If Dungeon World is on the table, I would definitely recommend Fellowship. With the expansions (Inverse Fellowship et al.) it facilitates a lot of different fantasy campaign narratives, on top of actually being an excellent PbtA game. I didn't hear much about it - possibly because it appeared during the PbtA glut - but personally, I've had fun with Broken Worlds, which is another fantasy PbtA based on Kill Six Billion Demons and written by its author.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 19:39
|
|
|
You could look into Quest. It's kind of up its own rear end and is clearly cribbing from PbtA without ever acknowledging it but it's serviceable enough if you want fiction-first D&D-alike with low rules density.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 19:40
|
|
|
Quest isn't a bad shout. I came to recommend Fellowship as well, since that's my go-to 'D&D off-ramp game' these days.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:10
|
|
|
Cool, I'll take a look at those. Sailors on a Starless Sea is definitely on the table-- my players tend to be really averse to character death (as they tend to really get invested in roleplaying over the course of a campaign) but I think if they knew what they were getting into they'd have a grand old time with a funnel adventure. I think we'll be trying a couple other non-fantasy PbtA games at some point, so I may have a better gauge of whether Dungeon World is a good fit. It's hard to tell right now exactly what they want because a couple of them were in a 5e campaign with me (as a player) during the pandemic that was very rules-oriented so there was a lot of die rolling and the DM put forward a good story, but was very by-the-book, "find a rule that supports what you want to do and you can do it" kind of play, and I think we all burnt out on that pretty bad. I think really they want the style and atmosphere of classic or weird-fantasy D&D (which is why DCC seems like an obvious choice) but I don't know how much they will want to deal with actual number bookkeeping beyond equipment/hit rolls/saves/etc, especially things like encumbrance, torches, ammo, and possibly including actual combat positioning. Everybody is sick of map grids and tactical combat, I think they want more abstracted combat where they can just ask me "am I close enough to shoot the orc?" They're definitely more interested in a game where the rules are there more to generate random chance and limit their options in a way that makes coming up with a crazy solution feel fun and like they're overcoming problems through their own creativity, rather than from meticulous tactics or encyclopedic knowledge of rules. They especially want a campaign where the story is driven by their choices and not the other way around, which is understandable. I think they really want to feel free to wander around and do whatever they want, and I know they're all experienced enough with TTRPGs that they are going to keep in mind that I won't be able to generate a fully fledged haunted castle off the top of my head and not go wildly off into uncharted territory while expecting flawless content or whatever. The answer may be for us to find a system we like for the actual mechanical play, and I'll just have to crib ideas or stories from whatever system feels the most like it fits the style they want. I just know I won't have the time to devote to creating adventures out of whole cloth, so I'll have to at least steal heavily from existing modules.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:11
|
|
|
I just learned that John Wick's writing style has a name. It's called "broetry" and it's mostly a thing on LinkedIn. I felt compared to share this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:12
|
|
|
Dump Dungeon World for Homebrew World. Same concept, better PbtA integration. Fellowship is indeed fantastic, but it's more of an epic Lord of the Rings-alike. PCs start the game generally fated to win in the end. If you want the PCs to struggle while fighting goblins in a trash heap, look elsewhere. Xiahou Dun posted:Various PbtA games are gonna get thrown at you in a second (and they're probably gonna be good, I'm not not endorsing them) This is true, but the PbtA system has become so endemic that starting your group in a game that uses it makes it easier to pivot out of fantasy into something else. "Let's try this one game with teenage monsters/superhero sidekicks/fantasy WWI pilots/whatever" is a lot easier sell when everyone already knows how the game works.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:14
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:It's called "broetry" Anyway OP should also check out The One Ring, I think? Maybe? gently caress if I know I don't actually play cool games.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:18
|
|
|
Yeah PbtA in general is appealing because I think everybody's also tired of learning new systems (though I think that might just be a symptom of coming off a very rulebooky campaign) so it'd be nice to be able to just jump to different settings with minimal learning curve, especially because I think we're going to probably take turns GMing and all want to do different genres, lol. I'm not sure Fellowship is the way to go, I think everybody's pretty much done with epic world-saving fantasy, and really any kind of power-trip fantasy. They definitely want dungeons to feel mysterious and threatening, and for magic to feel like a big loving deal again. We had a lot of fun with 5e campaigns in the past (often in spite of the system or by ignoring large swathes of it, honestly) but it feels absolutely geared towards making players feel powerful right from the start. Which is good, because it mitigates some issues of players feeling like they're pretty useless for the first couple of levels, but I think my players would rather sacrifice powerful abilities for feeling like they're getting through challenges through good roleplaying or their own actual attention to detail and problem solving.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:23
|
|
|
If you want to use PbtA's mechanics to roll your own, take a look at Simple World. (Actually, even if you don't want to start from scratch, Simple World is an interesting primer in how PbtA fits together.) Just be aware that there are already plenty of low-to-mid fantasy games out there too, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel unless you just wanna.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:32
|
|
|
Mirage posted:If you want to use PbtA's mechanics to roll your own, take a look at Simple World. Well I'd very much rather not reinvent the wheel, no. Ideally we'll try DCC or something like it and it'll just be what everybody wants, or at most we just kind of ignore whatever mechanics don't interest the players or don't offer and interesting challenge. My worry is whether cherrypicking mechanics will trivialize part of the experience, though my players give me the impression that as long as I'm trying to be fair and make the game fun for all of us first and foremost, they don't really care that much about rules consistency, honestly.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:50
|
|
|
MockingQuantum posted:I finally have a regular RPG group again, and everybody involved is actually pretty excited to just try out some one-shots or shorter campaigns in a bunch of different systems, which is refreshing. We've got a handful of options lined up already, but the group has said they'd like to eventually go back to a longer campaign, probably something fantasy or fantasy-adjacent. I can't think of an out of the box solution in the OSR for what you're wanting but the things you are looking for are in OSR gameplay overall. Like, Worlds Without Number is a really good OSR system that has weird fantasy stuff and some fun combat and progression that's not that heavy, it also doesn't have grid based combat or even strict dungeon maps. I can't remember the way it does resource consumption but it's actually really easy to just count up resources as supplies counted in days and that kind of stuff. WWN has a free version, I would look at that, and it has TONS of tools to help you and the players sustain a long game. Oh, maybe the Black Hack and its usage dice? Or look at some GLOGs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 20:52
|
|
|
Sionak posted:I've also sold a few boxes to Noble Knight, during the pandemic. I was impressed. They make it pretty easy. How quickly did they get back to you when you contacted them, and how consistent was the communication? I sent them an email last week and I haven't heard back yet... e: they emailed me back right after I posted lol. hope to have all this stuff gone soon kalel fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Mar 3, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 2, 2022 22:13
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:I just learned that John Wick's writing style has a name. It brhymes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 00:30
|
|
|
Quest weirds me out because it makes you equally competent at every task in the game regardless of any circumstances. I get the benefit of having a fixed die roll, but it’s too excessively rules light even for me. Advantage and disadvantage could have easily been added, that’s what tiny dungeon (effectively) does.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 01:16
|
|
|
Anyone have opinions on the rpg Black Void published by Modiphius? 
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 03:29
|
|
|
Cross-posting from the Industry Thread in case people want to get in on these:potatocubed posted:I can confirm that there's another itch megabundle [for Ukraine] being put together at the moment containing video games and tabletop games, much like the BLM bundle from a couple of years ago. Closing date for submissions is tomorrow.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 15:29
|
|
.
|
Helical Nightmares posted:Anyone have opinions on the rpg Black Void published by Modiphius? I bought it and read through fluff sections. It does look like babylonian planescape for shitfarmers at first glance
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 17:46
|
|
|
What's the general mood surrounding GM-less games? I've finally gotten bit by the design bug again and want to take a crack at making a system I've had floating around for a bit, but something I can't decide on is the position of the GM. Not out of any sort of gameplay philosophy or mechanical necessity, but simply because of the reality at the table that I don't like always being forced into that role when I want to play an rpg and it'd be nice to just have a character again (this is actually one of the chief reasons I like Fellowship, I get to level up and make character build choices and stuff as a GM). But it's that same "table reality" that makes me second guess that, since as much as I believe thr ethos of "design the game you want to play", I also want to design the game others want to play, and I'm worried making a game GMless just instantly makes it a no-go for many people. Either because it's too weird or the thing I run into with PbtA games at the table sometimes, where there's a good number of players who expect a GM to provide a world for them to poke with a stick rather than contributing significant story or world building because of nerves/shyness, seeing that as annoying bookkeeping (while failing to realize the GM has to do it otherwise), or whatever. Just to be clear I'm certainly interested in what any given person's GamerFeels are regarding GMless games, but I'm mostly looking to know the broader temperature regarding them in rpg players as a whole. I'm not really keyed into the larger rpg social ecosystem so I really have no clue.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 19:59
|
|
|
Depends hugely on the nature of the system and the goal. GMless dungeon crawling is a big difference from GMless world history building.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:09
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:Just to be clear I'm certainly interested in what any given person's GamerFeels are regarding GMless games, but I'm mostly looking to know the broader temperature regarding them in rpg players as a whole. I'm not really keyed into the larger rpg social ecosystem so I really have no clue. Do you mean here at SA or everywhere? We are a pretty unusual cross section. I think you'll find a completely disproportionate number of people here who both know what No Dice No Masters is, and have played it, for example.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:23
|
|
|
Everywhere, yes. Perhaps excluding the DnD-lifers who just assume every game is DnD but worse.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:27
|
|
|
Let me cut to the chase. Read FrontEarth Striders. I think that will provide a perspective option for you that may be more appealing to some players. Actually everyone should read FrontEarth Striders.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:28
|
|
|
In the RPG groups I interact with, it's both a truism that nobody actually wants to GM they just do it because they got bullied into it or they like a system so much they're willing to suffer for it, and that nobody actually ever gets anything GMless off the ground. I've played a handful of GMless things and every single one of them has shot to the top of my favorite RPGs partially because they're GMless but it's still a struggle to actually get a GMless game going.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:28
|
|
|
hyphz posted:Depends hugely on the nature of the system and the goal. GMless dungeon crawling is a big difference from GMless world history building. Not dungeon crawling but something crunchier than the average PbtA system for example. So like players wouldn't be exploring predesigned grid map dungeons or whatever, but if the narrative called for a battle one player would be expected to take the role of the opponent NPC (the vast majority of conflicts would be 1v1 or 2v2 and over fairly quickly).
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:30
|
|
|
I adore GMing, Tulip.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:33
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:Everywhere, yes. Perhaps excluding the DnD-lifers who just assume every game is DnD but worse. Well in that case SA may be an okay cross section to check. My personal experience is: My players have played Fiasco several times and love it. (I've actually never played myself.) They didn't seem interested in DramaSystem. They get really excited when I do collaborative world building, but I've flubbed the campaign launch every time we did it. They also love PBTA. I don't think any of them are familiar with No Dice No Masters. I personally, would love to play a GMless game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I adore GMing, Tulip. oh for sure I know people who love to GM, and sometimes I even have sessions that I'm glad I ran, I was thinking more about the 3 groups I know from IRL so apologies for acting like i'm not part of the goon community of TTRPGs
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 21:15
|
|
|
Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn and IS: Starforged were written primarily as a solo/solitaire game making extensive use of oracle RNG tables and foremost just doing what feels right, but it can also be played by a group either “Guided” with a traditional GM or “Cooperative “ where there is no “GM” and instead the players work together to interpret oracle results or bounce ideas off each other. I am sure he wasn’t the first to implement the model, but I do hope more games start using this “cooperative” approach. No GM, just players working together to build the story for their characters. Pretty incompatible with my probably biased view of the cliche D&D style play though, but not necessarily, IMO, incompatible with crunchier/tactical systems. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 21:17
|
|
|
Consider whether you think your group would prefer GMless and GM-distributed systems. A GMless system would be something like Ironsworn, where random tables help push the story forward. GM-distributed has everyone building the world together and playing as both PCs and NPCs. Most games are a combination, but can tilt one way or another. Edit: Ironsworn, dammit. Mirage fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Mar 4, 2022 |
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 21:25
|
|
|
I think tactical Co-op vs. programmatic npc enemies is even the entire mode of play for Gloomhaven. Solo and you get Five Parsecs and its predecessors.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 21:25
|
|
|
Countblanc posted:What's the general mood surrounding GM-less games? I've finally gotten bit by the design bug again and want to take a crack at making a system I've had floating around for a bit, but something I can't decide on is the position of the GM. Not out of any sort of gameplay philosophy or mechanical necessity, but simply because of the reality at the table that I don't like always being forced into that role when I want to play an rpg and it'd be nice to just have a character again (this is actually one of the chief reasons I like Fellowship, I get to level up and make character build choices and stuff as a GM). You can have a game which operates under GMless principles but in which somebody can still assume the role of GM, at least to start. That's the principle behind, say, the idea of the Facilitator in Good Society, which is otherwise a fairly standard Belonging Outside Belonging type of game.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2022 21:42
|
|
|
Ultimately the GM role in most games comes down to some form of having, or pretending to have, hidden information. So the question is if you can create an RPG that doesn't require hidden information, which is tricky, because with no hidden information there's a limited ability to discover, and discovery is a key part of the appeal of interacting with fiction.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 23:49 |
|
|
Lovecraftesque and the games based on it (such as Bleak Spirit) solve that problem by giving every player hidden information. There's a whole discussion you can have about the nature of discovery in RPGs and how that works in different games, but it's late and I'm supposed to be doing something else. If I remember I'll come back and effortpost about it tomorrow.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2022 00:44
|
|