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Siivola posted:Thank you! I got the STA starter set last year but was kind of turned off by the very D&D adventure. Still want to game some Trek tho, and I'm spending a lot of time at home at the moment anyway, so… Yeah, it's neat. They have a whole section dedicated to making your game session like an episode of Star Trek, including the 3 (or 5) act structure, building tension, scene transitions, and B plots. Oh, the system also uses a simplified generation of NPCs and Ships than STA, but if you want, you can use premade or generated NPC and ships from STA without any conversion if you want.
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Jul 19, 2023 17:52
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I guess.
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Doctor Zero posted:Yeah, it's neat. They have a whole section dedicated to making your game session like an episode of Star Trek, including the 3 (or 5) act structure, building tension, scene transitions, and B plots. Here's a maybe silly question, how do the generation tables for things like planets and NPCs compare to Starforged? It probably doesn't matter since I have both now anyway, but I haven't had much time to give Captain's Log a real read.
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Jul 19, 2023 19:37
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I'm kind of underwhelmed about Captain's Log's random generation tables to be honest. Without even comparing them to Starforged (which I don't think is particularly fair), they have this sort of half-baked feel to them that I just can't place. Some of them are original and creative (the ship quirk chart, which was just lifted from the STA Utopia Planitia supplement, is still great), but for whatever reason that may be entirely subjective something just feels slightly boring and uninspired about most of the other ones. It's most apparent in the character/ship creation section where they just created a big list of every single heritage/ship option without creating any kind of distribution or anything. Hell, Vulcans/Andorians/Tellarites are supposed to be the founding members of the Federation and a bedrock of any era, but they only show up in the Enterprise-era species table. Just feels like bad editing, I dunno. I find myself porting ship statblocks from STA into Captain's Log as well, mostly because I can't fathom how certain ship classes have the stats that they do in CL vs. STA. At first I thought they chose to buff ships in CL to compensate for not having other player characters in the party, but that doesn't really track... some stat blocks are basically untouched from STA, some are wildly buffed. Drone fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jul 19, 2023 |
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Jul 19, 2023 20:22
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Drone posted:I'm kind of underwhelmed about Captain's Log's random generation tables to be honest. Without even comparing them to Starforged (which I don't think is particularly fair), they have this sort of half-baked feel to them that I just can't place. Some of them are original and creative (the ship quirk chart, which was just lifted from the STA Utopia Planitia supplement, is still great), but for whatever reason that may be entirely subjective something just feels slightly boring and uninspired about most of the other ones. It's most apparent in the character/ship creation section where they just created a big list of every single heritage/ship option without creating any kind of distribution or anything. Hell, Vulcans/Andorians/Tellarites are supposed to be the founding members of the Federation and a bedrock of any era, but they only show up in the Enterprise-era species table. Just feels like bad editing, I dunno. This is a good assessment I think. Some tables are well developed like the star and solar system tables. There is distribution in those. The tables for races in the various eras I half baked, I agree. I almost thought they were placeholder tables that got into the final PDF. It would be easy to make your own table for those, or just pick whatever you want. If you're even halfway familiar with Star Trek, you'd probably just know what's appropriate (although I do love that they included the Kzinti!  ) Starforged is better, if nothing because it's not based upon d20. You could always use Starforged tables as well. That's, a great idea actually. E: I'm probably just a huge Starship nerd, but I wish they broke out the ship classes better. I would have gone with Enterprise, Discovery, SNW & TOS & TAS, TOS Movies, TNG & DS9 & Voyager & TNG Movies, Picard, Discovery If you're interested in some really nice ships from TOS & the TOS Movie Era, see if you can find some of the FASA Trek RPG sourcebooks, especially the Starship Tactical Combat Simulator system. Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Jul 20, 2023 |
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Jul 20, 2023 14:05
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Doctor Zero posted:Starforged is better, if nothing because it's not based upon d20. You could always use Starforged tables as well. That's, a great idea actually. That's actually what I was wondering but couldn't figure out how to word it. And that might be what I do when I get wrong and to playing Captain's Log
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Jul 20, 2023 14:16
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Look what came in the mail today I’m little sad that this has shown up Friday morning and Friday afternoon I’m heading off to spend the weekend with family who are visiting from another country. I’m taking it with me and hoping I get some quiet time, while sharing a room with my brother and nephew… I’m not that hopeful.
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Jul 28, 2023 01:48
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I picked up Captain's Log as well and pretty much have the same sentiments as the rest of the thread. I love the character generation and it looks like a good adaptation of the Star Trek Adventures rules for a solo AND streamlined experience. I admit, this is my first exposure to STA. I wish there was more to the gameplay loop. It follows the classic "narrate to a obstacle-> roll -> narrate to an obstacle". However, aside from the tables for specific things and setting information in the book, there is not a lot to help you with the "narration" bit. It could be that I have done most of my solo gaming with Mythic and then Ironsworn, but, man I would love some 'Trek-y" oracles. Oh, especially crew generators. I pretty much rolled some up on the fly (TOS Era, so 75% chance a crew member was human, 50/50 male female, found a name generator that had a large international pool of names to give me a name, rolled a focus and a value to give them a little personality.) I had a ton of fun making my character, getting my ship together, jankily rolling up a crew and rolling the first adventure premise. Then, as I started playing it felt like it was a LOT more free form and it was time for me to write up a Trek adventure. But I really like rolling on tables and oracles. Plus, making characters is a close second to actually playing RPGs as far as having fun with the hobby goes. As others have suggested, I'll probably use Starforged or even Mythic oracles when I need to ask a "what" or "why" question that I don't want to make up the answer entirely on my own. I'd be interested to hear if anyone here is playing and what sort of approaches they are taking.
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Aug 11, 2023 17:59
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Ubersandwich posted:I picked up Captain's Log as well and pretty much have the same sentiments as the rest of the thread. I love the character generation and it looks like a good adaptation of the Star Trek Adventures rules for a solo AND streamlined experience. I admit, this is my first exposure to STA. I'm probably (Maybe (Hopefully?)) going to give it a go this weekend. I'll most likely use the oracles from Starforged to supplement things. I'll probably run one of the mission prompts in the supplement they put out as like a one shot to get a feel for things first.
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Aug 11, 2023 18:33
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My hard copy is on the way. Definitely going to give it a shot when I get the dead tree version.
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Aug 11, 2023 23:34
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does Captain's Log enable you to play other published adventures solo?
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Aug 12, 2023 04:14
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I picked it up myself and am currently reading through it. I'm not especially familiar with STA material, but it does mention its intended to be compatible with STA stuff. I admit like a few others that I keep having to banish thoughts of substituting or comparing it with Starforged. 
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Aug 12, 2023 05:07
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A friend got me a copy from Gen Con along with the Lower Decks sourcebook (I adore it). I've since made plans to acquire the entire line *just* to supplement my Captain's Log playthroughs, and for Guided Play stuff with my friends. I really like the compatability but not adherence to STA, a system I bounced off of compared to the more fluid Captain's Log.
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Aug 12, 2023 06:24
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I had no idea it existed but I would absolutely love to play a Lower Decks campaign, the show is so incredibly fun. Going to have to think about buying it because I don’t have enough friends who still live here to play (then I’ll impulsively buy it at 2am some night and worry about the group later).
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Aug 12, 2023 07:47
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Fate Accomplice posted:does Captain's Log enable you to play other published adventures solo? Yeah. Totally compatible.
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Aug 12, 2023 14:14
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On a whim while reading Captain's Log, I decided to look into some recently created TOS Ship designs (as opposed my dusty old collection of Star Fleet Battles ships) and I found this thing, apparently from Star Trek Online (which I haven't played in 10 years): https://twitter.com/thomasthecat/status/1640260907329794049 I think I'm in love. The initial reaction of "oh what a dumb kitbash" swiftly gave way to "and yet..." and the more I look at it the more I love it. I guess I know what I'll use if I give Captain's Log a try. Someone apparently even made STA stats for it.
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Aug 12, 2023 19:38
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Aw yeah I like that ship, that's a cute little guy.
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Aug 12, 2023 20:52
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 https://sersavictory.itch.io/cyclic-dungeon-generation I have been reading about cyclic dungeon generation, which is a method for procedural dungeon generation that was originally developed for the video game Unexplored. However, it can be easily adapted for tabletop RPGs, and seems like it could be useful for solo gaming in particular. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 21:04
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^^^ that is awesome, thanks!Galaga Galaxian posted:On a whim while reading Captain's Log, I decided to look into some recently created TOS Ship designs (as opposed my dusty old collection of Star Fleet Battles ships) and I found this thing, apparently from Star Trek Online (which I haven't played in 10 years): I’m not a huge fan of the secondary hull swinging in the breeze like that, but she’s purdy. Oh hell. I’m going to have to fire up STO again to get starship glamor shots for my Captain’s Log campaign, aren’t I? 
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Aug 12, 2023 22:50
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Doctor Zero posted:Oh hell. I’m going to have to fire up STO again to get starship glamor shots for my Captain’s Log campaign, aren’t I? The small secondary hull was the part I really scoffed at originally but... I kinda like it for reasons I don't quite understand lol. You could go even further and use the character/officer creator to make your crew! 10 years ago when I played it on a whim I ended up making a collection of over 100 random crew members. You have me half tempted to try to dig up my old account now, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassle, and from what little I've heard over the years, the game doesn't sound like its in a very good place these days with its F2P/GAAS model with microtransaction crap (not to mention IIRC it was an early pioneer of the lootbox). edit: The other TOS-era ships from STO:       The big chonkster, the Atlas    And someone that needs no introduction:  
Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 23:16
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There is absolutely nothing better that STO for Starship porn, even to this day. And that's a great idea for the crew too! I got my hard copy, and spent some time rolling d20s to see what I could do, and .... it's good! I am really excited to play this. I decided on Human, because those race charts are really off the wall. If I went by my roll, I'm actually an f'ing Horta. haha , no. Background was Isolated Colony, Struggle and Hardship, Starfleet Upbringing, and To Create aspiration. Education was Starfleet Academy, Novice service length, Events: Betrayed ideals for a Superior, and Solved an Engineering Crisis. Ship is a Saber Class, with Improved Hull Integrity, and a finicky replicator that won't produce anything frozen (lol). I rolled Improved Hull Integrity for a talent. Looking at the Utopia Planetia book, that makes sense, and I'll go with adding the talents they have there - Improved Impulse Drive and High Power Tractor Beam. After thinking about it, I realized that a character I developed for a forums Star Trek RPG game here that never got going fits the bill perfectly. So, my character will be Lt. Teddy Galdi, newly assigned to the brand new USS Saberhagen to patrol along the [SOMETHING] border. I'mgoing to put the campaign after Wolf 351, but right before or after the Dominion War. I figure Starfleet would have most of the big ships tied up (or destroyed) for that, so the smaller ships have to fill in. Perhaps there are two other Saber Class ships partrolling the area as well. Not as a squadron, but would be cool to have some sister ships to run into. Teddy Galdi - Race: Iotian Stats to be determined, but I'm picturing him as Conn or Security (and on a 40 man ship, probably both) with a side of engineering, probably weapons systems. He's a fast talker preferring to talk his way out of violence, but no slouch in combat if it comes to it. Genial and trusting - probably to a fault since he's Ionian and he tends to be imitative and a little naive. His Starfleet upbringing would be from his planet idolizing Star Fleet after Kirk, Spock, and McCoy visited. I'll consider them an 'isolated colony' and there sure was plenty of civil upheavals to count as hardship. He aspires to be a writer (creative) and when he gets over excited he tends to slip into gangster lingo. He knows how to play Fizbin (both original, and simplified versions). The initial mission came up like this: Mission: Medical / Planetary Plague Theme: Transform / Marooned Shuttlecraft Advantages (rolled 20): Lucky Circumstances, Advanced Prototype Complications (another 20 LOL): Crisis of Conscience, Overworked Crew Interesting. So, what comes to mind is the USS Saberhagen is ordered to investigate a planetary distress signal from a world that little is known about. The signal implies there's a medical emergency and they need help. Upon investigating, they will find that shuttle carrying an experimental DNA gene treatment intended to be used for espionage crashed on the planet and the substance was released. It was designed to re-write DNA to let deep agents pass genetic scans and tests. (Probably Section 31) However, now it's spreading among the alien populace resulting in a plague that is randomly modifying their DNA to be Human, Vulcan, Klingon, etc. That should fit the bill. Lots of room for Overworking and a Crisis of Conscience. Lucky Circumstances will probably help resolve the situation. Perhaps a famous geneticist is on-board wanting to be dropped off at a nearby starbase. yeah... this is gonna be great! Doctor Zero fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 23:55
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I haven't rolled a mission yet, but I rolled up a Denobulan that I decided to make a science officer on an Olympic-class ship. Through the rolls, he ended up with two of his focuses being Torpedoes and Microbiology, so uh... Hope that doesn't have dark implications for his past...
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Aug 13, 2023 00:18
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SimonChris posted:
looking forward to watabou discovering this and adding it to his dungeon map generator.
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Aug 13, 2023 00:26
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Its interesting several of you are going to play just officers instead of the commander of a ship. I was going back and forth on that myself, I'm just not sure how easy it would be to keep a junior officer player character busy. Then again one of the advantages of the solo format is that you can skip large amounts of time if needed. Perhaps your character goes weeks or even months between being noteworthily involved in a major mission due to their skillset or circumstances.
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Aug 13, 2023 00:28
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Its interesting several of you are going to play just officers instead of the commander of a ship. I was going back and forth on that myself, I'm just not sure how easy it would be to keep a junior officer player character busy. Then again one of the advantages of the solo format is that you can skip large amounts of time if needed. Perhaps your character goes weeks or even months between being noteworthily involved in a major mission due to their skillset or circumstances. In my case, I think it'll be fine - my goal with this guy is to just do a mission or two to get a feel for things. Since so much of Captain's Log is formatted as writing your own Star Trek show, I guess this dude is the special guest who pops up for a few episodes a season. It also didn't feel right making him the captain because from the rolls, he came out strong on the sciencey end of things but not so much on the command or tactical side.
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Aug 13, 2023 00:58
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Cthulu Carl posted:In my case, I think it'll be fine - my goal with this guy is to just do a mission or two to get a feel for things. Since so much of Captain's Log is formatted as writing your own Star Trek show, I guess this dude is the special guest who pops up for a few episodes a season. If you move on to make a more command focused officer, you could always skip ahead a few years and your science character is now a senior Science officer (or even Chief Science Officer) of the new command officer's ship. That said its totally plausible for a Science or Operations department officer to eventually transfer to command and take up captaincy of a ship. Spock (Science) and Sulu (Operations) both do it. Crusher was captain of a medical ship in the final epsiode of TNG. TOS even had a captain wearing a Blue uniform (Captain Krasnovsky, S1E14, Court Martial) You could always slowly shift some of their points into command if thats the way you wanted to go. And its not like you need to have James T. Kirk's level of presence and command skill to be a captain. Galaga Galaxian fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Aug 13, 2023 |
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Aug 13, 2023 01:23
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Yeah, I just ended up with a dude who was stronger in science stuff and the career length roll got me 'novice'. Depending on how things go he might end up as an NPC in a longer campaign. Rolled up the first mission and got: code:
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Aug 13, 2023 01:51
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People really digging the Modiphius Captain's Log might enjoy the little indie journalling RPG of the same name. It's cheap as chips and gives a more narrative but also more guided journey. https://captainslogrpg.itch.io/captains-log
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Aug 13, 2023 02:05
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I do have to wonder if the person who created some of these 
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Aug 13, 2023 07:14
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Galaga Galaxian posted:I do have to wonder if the person who created some of these The random charts in Captain's Log were unfortunately created by someone who has never actually seen or used a random chart before, presumably. They're almost all bad for various reasons.
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Aug 13, 2023 08:07
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A bit worrying considered I read from a review that many are pulled from assorted STA books/supplements.
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Aug 13, 2023 08:58
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Drone posted:The random charts in Captain's Log were unfortunately created by someone who has never actually seen or used a random chart before, presumably. They're almost all bad for various reasons. I was v excited about STA Captain's Log as a project but yeah, these are some bad charts.
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Aug 13, 2023 12:00
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I plan on making better ones. That doesn’t violate some kind of copyright does it?
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Aug 13, 2023 18:55
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Doctor Zero posted:I plan on making better ones. That doesn’t violate some kind of copyright does it? Now obviously I'm not a lawyer but, I think that would only be a problem if you slapped a bunch of Captain's Log/Star Trek Adventure logos onto it and tried to sell it for money.
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Aug 13, 2023 19:30
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If nothing else, you could do (d2 - 1) * 20 + d20 and reroll on a total of 1 to avoid the curve while using the existing tables. A little annoying, but maybe tolerable.
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Aug 13, 2023 21:41
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Thats a complicated way of saying "Flip a coin and roll a d20, if tails, add 20. Reroll a 1."
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Aug 13, 2023 21:45
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Heh, it was more clear to my programmer brain, but yes, that’s the same thing.
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Aug 13, 2023 21:46
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Honestly just use an online RNG to generate a number between 2 and 40 if you don't care about probability curves. But then you don't get to roll dice and why else did we all buy all these loving dice?
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Aug 13, 2023 21:46
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I don't think it'd be terribly hard to rearrange the tables to cluster more common focuses near the middle and putting the more fringe stuff at the edges. It would take a bit of time, though. It is a bit of a headscratcher that this key principle of game design was overlooked.
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Aug 13, 2023 22:02
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HopperUK posted:Honestly just use an online RNG to generate a number between 2 and 40 if you don't care about probability curves. But then you don't get to roll dice and why else did we all buy all these loving dice? Yeah, I was providing the way to do it with dice since I personally use this hobby as a way to avoid screens, but an online RNG is definitely easier.
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Aug 13, 2023 22:03
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Some of the tables I'm gonna use the equivalents from Starforged. Or maybe use both, just based on how I feel. For some, like the Focus tables, I'd probably just pick what I want instead of rolling - When I get to doing a longer play, I'll probably go into it with an idea of the character I want to create, or through the missions I'll know better for how I want them to change. EDIT: I found this guy doing playthroughs of Captain's Log https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmdYnxbidhY I dunno if it'll help anyone else, but I haven't really done a solo RPG before it's it's helping me understand one way of playing it, which helps me. Cthulu Carl fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Aug 14, 2023 |
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Aug 14, 2023 00:38
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