Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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Absurd Alhazred: Mar 27, 2010; by Athanatos

Terrible snipe, never mind this.

Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 01:33 on May 21, 2022

# ? May 21, 2022 01:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 25, 2024 05:55

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Nickoten posted:

Besides using Saltybet as resolution, you could also use https://goblin.bet!

hell yeah this rocks

won a bet on a Werebear beating a Flesh Golem
lost a bet on an Earth Elemental losing to a Troll
lost a bet on a Wyvern losing to a Werebear
won a bet on a Troll beating a Werebear

# ? May 21, 2022 01:41

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

DQ's experience system and trying to buy ranks in Celestial Magic (Star Mage)...

I just remembered rolling on a table to get a special ability like planar fishing, rolling on a table to see if it worked, rolling on a table to see what I fished up.

# ? May 21, 2022 02:09

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Can't wait for my Call of Cthulhu 2e box set to arrive

# ? May 21, 2022 02:28

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

The New York Times has an article on stupid elf games today...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/21/style/dungeons-and-dragons.html

The New York Times posted:

Who�s Playing Dungeons & Dragons These Days? The Usual Fans, and Then Some.
The role-playing game has never been more popular, and players seem to be getting more out of it than ever before.

By Amelia Diamond
May 21, 2022, 5:00 a.m. ET
Everyone�s been playing Dungeons & Dragons without you: your co-workers, Anderson Cooper, Tiffany Haddish. More than 50 million people worldwide have �interacted� with D&D since it was created in the mid-1970s, according to its publisher, and while that number also includes movies, video games, books, television and livestreams, it doesn�t factor in the number of people reached over TikTok.

The infamous tabletop role-playing game became a household name when �satanic panic� � a general fear of satanic ritual abuse that caught fire nationwide in the 1980s � began to take root in the suburbs. Anything with even a remote whiff of the occult, from astrology to heavy metal, was suspect. Since casting spells during a game could label you a devil worshiper, a nerd or something in between, Dungeons & Dragons was banished to the underground.

As a universe of dedicated players expanded steadily in the shadows, the game popped up intermittently in the pop cultural consciousness: D&D was either alluded to or mentioned by name in TV shows including �That �70s Show,� �The Big Bang Theory,� �Community� and in the series finales of both �Buffy the Vampire Slayer� and �Freaks and Geeks.� Rivers Cuomo sings about the solace he found among his Dungeon Master�s Guide and 12-sided die in the Weezer song �In the Garage.� In �The Simpsons,� Homer tells his family that he played Dungeons & Dragons for three hours with a new group of friends � until he was slain by an elf.

But regardless of its pop culture appearances, the general public�s impression of the game had more or less remained the same: Dungeons & Dragons was for outcasts.

In the last decade, the tides of cool began to shift. Now, playing Dungeons & Dragons has become something of a social flex � the antithesis of the popularity contest that was the 1990s and early 2000s, an antidote to our more basic tendencies and cheugy proclivities.

�It�s hip to be a nerd now,� Stephen Colbert said in a 2018 interview with the actor Joe Manganiello, where they spent eight whole minutes of his talk show discussing their shared love of the game.

Marisha Ray, 33, a Los Angeles voice actor and cast member of �Critical Role,� one of the best known D&D livestreams, recalled a moment several years ago when she realized �the nerd kids� had become the entertainment industry. Enter a decade of Marvel films, including four directed by the Russo brothers, who grew up playing D&D. The Duffer brothers, the creators of the hit Netflix show �Stranger Things,� were influenced by tabletop role-playing games like D&D and Magic: The Gathering, the fantasy card game with its own rabid fan base. George R.R. Martin, author of the fantasy novel series upon which HBO�s �Game of Thrones� was based, is a noted J.R.R. Tolkien fan, and Tolkien novels are often cited as a gateway into D&D. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, were enormous Tolkien fans.)

But nothing proliferated the good word of D&D as effectively as the internet. Video game streaming platforms such as YouTube and Twitch showed gaming voyeurs just how fun the world of tabletop games could be. Online forums like Reddit, Discord and Twitter created digital homes for role-playing game subcultures to cross-pollinate and thrive, and from there, pieces of insider gaming lingo worked their way into the meme vernacular.

Add all of that to a nearly two-year stretch of our lives during which pandemic-induced isolation converged with a desperation for escapism, and there you have it: a potent spell to summon Dungeons & Dragons from the depths of our collective mother�s basement into its rightful place upstairs at the kitchen table.

Ellen Remley, 31, who works in creative marketing, was lured into the game by way of TikTok. �I think I liked one TikTok about D&D and then suddenly my entire For You page was posts about Dungeons & Dragons,� she said. From there, she found Dimension 20, watched �a lot of D&D content� and decided she wanted to play.

Game Time
This winter, I joined my very first D&D game at the Brooklyn Strategist, which describes itself as a �community board game store.� My character was a Level 2 paladin orc named Atlas (after my dog) who carried a great sword, had 19 charisma points and was able to conjure divine smite. My fellow players and I partook in �Curse of Strahd,� a fifth-edition fantasy-horror adventure that, in our case, began with a quest and ended on a cliffhanger, and since then I have not stopped wondering what might happen next.

That�s how it keeps you coming back.

A four-hour game is not uncommon. A typical D&D session takes at least three hours, and that�s just one chapter of a campaign that can last for months, if not a year. But that time commitment might not seem so intense when measured against the hours we spend on our phone, scrolling through Instagram or bingeing TV.

�Play is a part of the experience of living on this planet,� said Siobhan Thompson, 37, a cast member of Dimension 20, a popular comedic D&D livestream show on DropOut and YouTube. �The other stuff is so that we get to play, as far as I�m concerned.�

A quick playbook for those who haven�t delved into this world before: Players announce their characters, along with their characters� classes, levels and races � dwarf, elf, halfling, gnome, dragonborn. With the help of an evolving rule book, seven polyhedral dice, quick addition skills and flexible imaginations, players determine their characters� backgrounds, strengths, moral alignments and traits. As you play, these identity elements factor into every decision your character makes (with rolls of specific dice, which determine the intensity and impact of the action you wish to take). The dungeon master is more an omniscient narrator than an in-game player; it�s the so-called D.M. who leads the players through the twisting, turning valleys of what�s to come.

The new guard will tell you that playing D&D is like doing improv around a table with your friends. A collective willing suspension of disbelief keeps the narrative moving; dice randomize the outcomes. And while it is, at its roots, a war game, the appeal is less about winning or personal scores. The consensus among players interviewed for this article is that the real-life magic is born out of the communal storytelling.

It�s about the journey, not the destination.

�New Blood and Air and Perspectives and Voices�
It�s the newer generation of players who make D&D � and tabletop role-playing games generally � what it is today.

Connie Chang, a 24-year-old game master who runs �a semi-Tumblr-famous D&D meme blog,� is the G.M. of Transplanar, �a non-colonial, anti-Orientalist� livestreamed game consisting entirely of players who are transgender and people of color.

�I really feel like marginalized people are the vanguard of making D&D blow up again,� Mx. Chang said. �People say �Stranger Things,� but I�m like, �Nah, it�s the queer community.��

�Within the community, it�s the Black folks, right?� Mx. Chang continued. �It�s the Asian folks. It�s the Indigenous folks. It�s the people of color who are really bringing cool, innovative, fresh, much needed new blood and air and perspectives and voices and ways of G.M.ing and ways of playing to the space that would shake up an otherwise stale play community, straight up.�

For all its fantastical otherworldliness, Dungeons & Dragons � created by Mr. Gygax when he was 36, and Mr. Arneson, at 27 � is deeply rooted in Eurocentric ideals of the Middle and Dark Ages. In interviews, players pointed to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien for inspiring entire races and subclasses within the D&D game that were built on racist tropes and reinforced harmful stereotypes. Players of different races, gender identities and sexual orientations cited instances of feeling unwelcome by legacy D&D players, by the game itself and by its history of straight white maleness and overt colonialism.

�D&D was originally published in 1974, so it�s very nearly 50 years old now,� said Ray Winninger, 55, the executive producer of Dungeons & Dragons. �And D&D is obviously not unique in this: We all try to tune our heads back to what pop culture was like 50 years ago. Obviously, things have progressed in a lot of ways since then, and in a lot of positive ways. And so, D&D wrestles with some of the same problems that any beloved franchise that�s that old has.�

Dungeons & Dragons recently outlined several diversity, equity and inclusion goals. A June 2020 blog post by Wizards of the Coast, the game�s parent company, acknowledged that �some of the peoples in the game � orcs and drow being two of the prime examples � have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated.�

A list of course corrections followed: The company changed �racially insensitive� text in recent reprintings of �Tomb of Annihilation� and �Curse of Strahd,� two D&D books that players use to run campaigns. The game said it was working with sensitivity readers, promised to �continue to reach out to experts in various fields to help us identify our blind spots� and vowed to seek �new, diverse talent� to join its staff and pool of freelance writers and artists.

For Ms. Thompson, the Dimension 20 cast member, Dungeons & Dragons �is absolutely real to me in a way that sometimes my real life is not,� she said. She described how, during a �Game of Thrones�-themed campaign that resulted in many character casualties, she found herself crying as if someone had actually died.

That kind of intense emotion is so widespread among tabletop role-playing games that there�s a name for it: �bleed,� referring to the way emotions can bleed over from make-believe into reality. The release is cathartic, but perhaps more therapeutic is the act of play itself. In interviews, many players described using Dungeons & Dragons to safely explore facets of their identity, to parse through the enduring existential question of all humankind: Who am I?

Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo, 34, an actor and dungeon master in Britain, has a tattoo of a character from one of their campaigns, who was made up of �all the bits of myself that I really wanted to aspire to be even more of.�

�I was in therapy at the time, and so much of my life has changed just because I was able to explore these big themes and tell these stories and understand myself through play,� they said.
Elise Portale, a 33-year-old social media manager, came out as pansexual � someone who is attracted to people regardless of sex or gender � by way of Dungeons & Dragons.

�I�ve played gay characters, I�ve played straight characters,� she said. �I�ve recently played a character who, just in the course of our game, became very sapphic. It feels like as I got comfortable with this character who I was playing in a lesbian role, I started realizing that maybe I feel this way too. And I think a lot of people gravitate toward that.�

Central to Dungeons & Dragons� appeal is its ability to foster community. Jimmy Doan, 42, a former �Wall Street guy� and Navy veteran who is now the community manager at the Brooklyn Strategist, said that for children in the store�s after-school program who are bullied or isolated in school, the game had become a safe haven, even a second home.

Adult players described the feeling of finally finding their niches in games like Dungeons & Dragons. They spoke of reconnecting with childhood friends over virtual D&D campaigns, of overcoming childhood speech impediments and strengthening social skills, all in the comfort of a welcoming space. They spoke of meeting significant others, making lifelong friendships, of finally finding their people.

�D&D has showcased that we are an evolved species,� Mx. Lewis-Nyawo said. �We want shelter. We want warmth. We want companionship. We want to be fed, hydrated. There are basic human needs, and I think storytelling is one of them.�

# ? May 21, 2022 14:04

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Glitch is:

i made a dadjoke about an NPC we just met, everyone cracked up -> i earn XP and the joke becomes true in the narrative

literally the core assumption of the game's metaphysics is that things aren't real until you notice them, the tone is deliberately at war with itself and can shift in emphasis as-needed, if anything you do is factually interesting to your table, retrospectively, there are mechanical rewards and consequences for it

Any chance you can give a side by side between Nobilis and Glitch? I've GMed Nobilis multiple times, but bounced off Glitch while reading it as it seemed just like Nobilis but with a slightly different perspective.

# ? May 21, 2022 15:27

Nuns with Guns: Jul 23, 2010; It's fine.
Don't worry about it.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

(Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dave Arneson and E. Gary Gygax, the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, were enormous Tolkien fans.)

lol noted lover of Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, Gary Gygax

e- having read the full thing now it would've been nice if it could've spent time taking a break from fawning adoration of D&D and how it pledged 2 years ago to "do better" to talk about TTRPGs that already are doing better, but that's apparently impossible. Too hard to contemplate. Can't be done.

Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 18:28 on May 21, 2022

# ? May 21, 2022 17:56

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

ninjoatse.cx posted:

Any chance you can give a side by side between Nobilis and Glitch? I've GMed Nobilis multiple times, but bounced off Glitch while reading it as it seemed just like Nobilis but with a slightly different perspective.

i mean there's a strong speculative argument that Glitch was just a test drive of the mechanics for Nobilis 4E so if that's your issue with Glitch, uh, just keep on skipping it and wait a few more months :v:

I find the themes and PCs of Glitch far more relatable though. There's a bit where the diegetic narrator in Glitch describes Nobles as "hyperactive children running around with their parents' guns" that made me cackle out loud, and more seriously the whole portrayal of Strategists as people rejected by reality itself but hanging on anyways really speaks to my experiences with invisible disabilities and depression without directly being a metaphor for either of those things.

# ? May 21, 2022 18:51

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Glitch describes Nobles as "hyperactive children running around with their parents' guns" that made me cackle out loud

ROFL

We give the players the ability to put out the sun right out of character creation.

...

That doesn't mean that they should.

# ? May 21, 2022 19:37

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Nuns with Guns posted:

lol noted lover of Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, Gary Gygax

e- having read the full thing now it would've been nice if it could've spent time taking a break from fawning adoration of D&D and how it pledged 2 years ago to "do better" to talk about TTRPGs that already are doing better, but that's apparently impossible. Too hard to contemplate. Can't be done.

To a lot of these knuckleheads, I imagine they were told about D&D. They might, if you pressed them, remember or be promptable that there was a Vampire one in the 90s too, that stil has live action games.

# ? May 21, 2022 19:38

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

Nessus posted:

They might, if you pressed them, remember or be promptable that there was a Vampire one in the 90s too, that stil has live action games.

Maybe once a Vampire novel makes the NYT bestseller list and gets an audiobook narrated by Ice-T. :v:

# ? May 21, 2022 20:06

Fake Name: Mar 6, 2009; "Han Solo, ha. If I'm around, you don't need that guy."

So apparently DriveThruRPG had a Security incident yesterday where a third party - quote from their support:

In the afternoon of May 20th, 2022, we had a security incident on site that we continue to actively investigate. We have no evidence that any customer account data was compromised.

A third party was able to set prices on titles that they were not authorized to modify, and they set the prices of many titles on site to free which led to some customers placing orders for free titles that were not meant to be free. We shut down the site shortly after this began to happen.

Any orders for products that were incorrectly set to $0 have been removed from customer accounts and will not be restored.

I chose an amazing time to buy something from Free League and claim the PDF version only to have it deleted from my account less than 12 hours later (luckily it just means I have to wait for the physical delivery). Apparently the only way to get your products back is to contact the publisher and ask them to re-issue the PDF to your account. No word as to whether any customer details were affected but it sounds like the attackers were just able to change the prices of products to be free.

# ? May 21, 2022 20:20

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

According to the DTRPG Discord they don't think any customer accounts were compromised. Although given that publisher accounts are just customer accounts with extra bells and whistles, who loving knows.

They're also not telling anyone which publisher(s) were affected, so that's probably why you have to get in contact with Free League to get your pdf again.

# ? May 21, 2022 22:50

feedmyleg: Dec 25, 2004

I know this is not really what this forum is about, but I'm not sure where else to turn for answers and I can't seem to unlock the Google codewords that reveal the answer.

My buddy and I play Rummy 500, and I ran into a situation last night that I didn't know the rule around. The discard pile was pretty big and at the beginning of my turn and I had one card in my hand. Discarding it would make a set in the discard pile. I drew a card from the stock only to find that it, too, would make a set if put in the discard pile.

I know I had to choose to discard one of them, but what happens next? I believe my opponent could pull the set from the discard pile if he notices it, but what are my options? Do I have to hope he doesn't see it and wait til my next turn to yank them myself? When am I able to snag them?

# ? May 25, 2022 12:54

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

feedmyleg posted:

I know this is not really what this forum is about, but I'm not sure where else to turn for answers and I can't seem to unlock the Google codewords that reveal the answer.

My buddy and I play Rummy 500, and I ran into a situation last night that I didn't know the rule around. The discard pile was pretty big and at the beginning of my turn and I had one card in my hand. Discarding it would make a set in the discard pile. I drew a card from the stock only to find that it, too, would make a set if put in the discard pile.

I know I had to choose to discard one of them, but what happens next? I believe my opponent could pull the set from the discard pile if he notices it, but what are my options? Do I have to hope he doesn't see it and wait til my next turn to yank them myself? When am I able to snag them?

There are a bunch of variations on rummy so I can�t be 100% sure according to the rules you use, but yes, you have to hope the other player doesn�t see it and wait until you�re next able to draw from the pile. In my experience playing tons of rummy 500, it is a fairly common situation if you�ve put down a lot of cards early and are waiting for one card in order to go out that you�re helpless to do anything but feed the other player points.

# ? May 25, 2022 13:03

feedmyleg: Dec 25, 2004

Alright, great, that's what I figured. And if he doesn't, then on the next turn I can just pull those three from the discard pile before I draw, right? I don't have to grab every card after the first?

# ? May 25, 2022 13:38

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

feedmyleg posted:

I know this is not really what this forum is about,

It's not not about this though.

# ? May 25, 2022 14:33

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

feedmyleg posted:

Alright, great, that's what I figured. And if he doesn't, then on the next turn I can just pull those three from the discard pile before I draw, right? I don't have to grab every card after the first?

According to the rules I play by, you have to grab all the cards from the last one added to the pile to the oldest one you're picking up. You also have to play the oldest card you pick up immediately. Again, many variations. Strategically, you can choose between discarding the card that would set up a set that goes back the furthest (so if the other player wants the set they have to grab a whole bunch of stuff) or the other card if it would leave the further back set available still (so they grab the set you just put in the discard pile, allowing you to grab the other set on your next turn).

# ? May 25, 2022 14:37

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

ninjoatse.cx posted:

We give the players the ability to put out the sun right out of character creation.

That doesn't mean that they should.

I wish I had a list of games that tell you how to destroy a celestial body in the chargen rules. Glitch, BESM, and Wild Talents, that's all I got so far.

# ? May 25, 2022 14:47

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Halloween Jack posted:

I wish I had a list of games that tell you how to destroy a celestial body in the chargen rules. Glitch, BESM, and Wild Talents, that's all I got so far.

If you count supplements, there�s always Iron Heart Surge in the Tome of Battle.

# ? May 25, 2022 14:49

potatocubed: Jul 26, 2012; *rathian noises*

10 Million HP Planet is all about destroying a celestial body. I'm sure I saw some Champions characters once that were designed with that level of power as well, as examples of why there's a limit on the number of disadvantage points you can take.

(I have never found any evidence of those characters existing anywhere else, but I know I'm not good enough at Champions to have made them up.)

# ? May 25, 2022 14:50

ninjoatse.cx: Apr 9, 2005; Fun Shoe

Rummy 500 trivia keeps the chat thread light on its feet.

# ? May 25, 2022 14:51

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Arivia posted:

If you count supplements, there�s always Iron Heart Surge in the Tome of Battle.

Well yeah, but that doesn't actually do that.

# ? May 25, 2022 14:55

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Halloween Jack posted:

Well yeah, but that doesn't actually do that.

one of the long-running jokes in a campaign I played in a long time ago was using Iron Heart Surge to do something that it technically couldn't after the errata, like turning off the sun, and the DM just rolling their eyes while we yukked it up

# ? May 25, 2022 15:02

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I ran a ToB game in a homebrew setting with custom races. One of them could turn into an ordinary animal of the PC's choice. I made the mistake of ruling they could use their powers in animal form. How much damage can a mouse do, right?

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

# ? May 25, 2022 15:11

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Halloween Jack posted:

I ran a ToB game in a homebrew setting with custom races. One of them could turn into an ordinary animal of the PC's choice. I made the mistake of ruling they could use their powers in animal form. How much damage can a mouse do, right?

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

So they at won at RPG's, is what you're saying. Seems to be working as God and man should intend.

# ? May 25, 2022 15:47

Tulip: Jun 3, 2008; yeah thats pretty good

Halloween Jack posted:

I ran a ToB game in a homebrew setting with custom races. One of them could turn into an ordinary animal of the PC's choice. I made the mistake of ruling they could use their powers in animal form. How much damage can a mouse do, right?

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

Feature not bug. If this kind of thing is a problem for the system it's the system's problem.

# ? May 25, 2022 16:52

feedmyleg: Dec 25, 2004

Arivia posted:

According to the rules I play by, you have to grab all the cards from the last one added to the pile to the oldest one you're picking up. You also have to play the oldest card you pick up immediately. Again, many variations. Strategically, you can choose between discarding the card that would set up a set that goes back the furthest (so if the other player wants the set they have to grab a whole bunch of stuff) or the other card if it would leave the further back set available still (so they grab the set you just put in the discard pile, allowing you to grab the other set on your next turn).

That's how I play during normal play, but if there's a set in the deck I once played with a friend who had a rule about being able to grab just those three cards from the discard pile, so I assumed that was "the" rule. Sounds like it's just something that may need to be established before play begins.

# ? May 25, 2022 17:03

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Halloween Jack posted:

I ran a ToB game in a homebrew setting with custom races. One of them could turn into an ordinary animal of the PC's choice. I made the mistake of ruling they could use their powers in animal form. How much damage can a mouse do, right?

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

"Mother, why do we count the Intermediate Grackle among the Six Fierce Beasts?"

"Sit, child, and let me tell you a tale..."

# ? May 25, 2022 17:24

Captain Walker: Apr 7, 2009; Mother knows best
Listen to your mother
It's a scary world out there

Halloween Jack posted:

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

Take notes for next time! The tiny bird has a dogfight with a much bigger and meaner flying enemy, a gargoyle maybe something, while PCs on the ground have to deal with moderately tough undead without air strikes every round.

Your only mistake was allowing the Tome of Battle in the first place.

# ? May 25, 2022 18:40

Siivola: Dec 23, 2012

Captain Walker posted:

Your only mistake was allowing the Tome of Battle in the first place.

The mistake was playing ~~3.5~~ D&D, adding the one notably good supplement is a reasonable correcting maneuver.

# ? May 25, 2022 18:43

SkyeAuroline: Nov 12, 2020

Brought it up in the BitD thread as well, but out of curiosity - has anyone given the new Tribe 8 edition playtest a go? My group is gearing up for it once schedules align (next couple weeks hopefully), just interested to see how other people's experiences align with what ours end up being. It's an odd choice of rules engine that I wouldn't have put at the top of my list for updating Tribe 8, but it may well work out.

# ? May 25, 2022 18:44

Otherkinsey Scale: Jul 17, 2012; Just a little bit of sunshine!

Halloween Jack posted:

I ran a ToB game in a homebrew setting with custom races. One of them could turn into an ordinary animal of the PC's choice. I made the mistake of ruling they could use their powers in animal form. How much damage can a mouse do, right?

The Swordsage player quickly worked out that being a tiny bird did not in any way inhibit him from using his Desert Wind powers, and started firebombing enemies left and right.

That sounds amazing.

# ? May 25, 2022 20:00

Helical Nightmares: Apr 30, 2009

Captain Walker posted:

Take notes for next time! The tiny bird has a dogfight with a much bigger and meaner flying enemy, a gargoyle maybe something...

How about something the players would not want to kill, like a flying cat, or maybe a swarm of them. Totally harmless to humanoid characters, assuming they don't distract from combat, but with the agility necessary that would put a spellcasting bird in serious check.

Maybe the next wizard antagonist has a flying cat as a familiar...

Edit: By flying cat I was really thinking of winged cat.

Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 21:11 on May 25, 2022

# ? May 25, 2022 21:08

Aniodia: Feb 23, 2016; Literally who?

Helical Nightmares posted:

How about something the players would not want to kill, like a flying cat, or maybe a swarm of them. Totally harmless to humanoid characters, assuming they don't distract from combat, but with the agility necessary that would put a spellcasting bird in serious check.

Maybe the next wizard antagonist has a flying cat as a familiar...

Edit: By flying cat I was really thinking of winged cat.

Owlcat gryphons, maybe? Sufficiently magical, while also being absolutely adorable and horribly vicious to anything smaller than it in it's airspace.

# ? May 26, 2022 02:52

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Aniodia posted:

Owlcat gryphons, maybe? Sufficiently magical, while also being absolutely adorable and horribly vicious to anything smaller than it in it's airspace.

I have never wanted so badly to snuggle something against my face while it claws the hell out of me.

# ? May 26, 2022 04:41

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Aniodia posted:

Owlcat gryphons, maybe? Sufficiently magical, while also being absolutely adorable and horribly vicious to anything smaller than it in it's airspace.

Owls also got real tiny brains so it would be possible to outsmart it.

But you'd have to actually outsmart it, it'd be really loving good at hunting a small animal in general.

# ? May 26, 2022 08:15

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Anybody have good asynchronous RPGs to play over text, discord, etc? I find pbp with traditional RPGs to be kids kludgey and boring, but I'm wondering if there's a good purpose-built system I'd enjoy sharing with other parent friends.

# ? May 27, 2022 01:29

Lumbermouth: Mar 6, 2008; GREG IS BIG NOW

I ran a Facebook megadungeon crawl in White Box for two years and the old school dungeon turn is almost tailor made for play-by-post. Doing a turn a day was a nice little bit of dungeon crawling on a lunch break or slow shift at work.

# ? May 27, 2022 01:55

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# ? May 25, 2024 05:55

UnCO3: Feb 11, 2010; Ye gods!; College Slice

PerniciousKnid posted:

Anybody have good asynchronous RPGs to play over text, discord, etc? I find pbp with traditional RPGs to be kids kludgey and boring, but I'm wondering if there's a good purpose-built system I'd enjoy sharing with other parent friends.

You could take a look at some of Dog Kisser's threads in the Game Room over the last few years for many games tailor-made for PbP, ranging from dungeon exploration to CYOAs to sci-fi races to weird comedy stuff. A lot of it's very CYOA-like or otherwise needs someone at the centre to run numbers and/or write the story.

For commercial stuff (fair warning, pretty much none of these work well for party-based adventures):

The Quiet Year and various hacks of it
Microscope, if you don't do Scenes and just stick to Periods and Events, and various hacks
probably any journalling game (most, probably almost all, are solo, but since most journalling games are prompts for creative writing it's pretty easy to play in tandem)
probably any epistolary game
Alone Among the Stars and various hacks (and Together Among the Stars and its hacks)
For the Queen and various hacks
Fall of Magic and Life on Mars
The Sundered Land game collection, mainly Doomed Pilgrim, which is specifically designed for PbP, but you could also play Caravan Guards, At Ends, or Warriors PbP pretty easily.
Exiles, by Joe Slowboat from here

For some self-promo, I have two 2-player discord/chat games, Over the Moon (romantic comedy-horror) and Contact from Unknown (urban legend horror), with demo .txt files and limited free copies of the full game, and a writing game called Like Skyscrapers Blotting Out The Sun that can be played online, asynchronously.

# ? May 27, 2022 02:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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