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Covok posted:https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/452473/Far-West?src=hottest Last page into the top of this one. Edit : Lol. I appreciate the lovely snype and now my answer being inaccurate so much that I feel obligated to keep it.
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Sep 9, 2023 18:57
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SimonChris posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwxp-5QxR0 Yeah, I watched I want to say the first two seasons and liked them. Kind of fell off of it since my viewing habits changed, but they're a lot of fun. That being said, I'm not sure they were a good preparation for running the game myself?
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Sep 9, 2023 18:59
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Yeah, I watched I want to say the first two seasons and liked them. Kind of fell off of it since my viewing habits changed, but they're a lot of fun. Depends on what you need, I suppose. As someone who finds the lack of guidance on how to run scores to be my biggest issue with the game, I like a series that's just a collection of cool scores to draw inspiration from.
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Sep 9, 2023 19:07
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I've watched a lot of Blades APs over the years, so, a few thoughts on this. The two best Blades in the Dark APs are, unsurprisingly, the ones that John Harper ran. The original BitD playtest is the best of these by a significant margin, because every player in it is 100% engaged with the system and setting, and they're all experienced enough with the hobby to thrive on the sort of "no holds barred, bad things happen so use your Resistance rolls" GMing that Harper wrote Blades to accommodate. It's also a group of non-streamers, and it wasn't created as a show: it was a playtest they happened to record, with no intention of monetizing it, so it's the closest thing you're going to find to seeing the very best Blades GM on Earth running his game for a regular table, instead of an entertainment product. That said, it contains Adam Koebel so I suspect most people are going to skip it, which is a shame because once the rules they're playtesting reach a mostly-modern form fairly early on, it becomes the definitive Blades in the Dark AP. The RollPlay Blades game is a noticeable step down - the players are all streamers, and as such they can barely remember what advantage does in D&D 5e - but it's still Harper running it, which means it's a masterclass in how to teach people Blades and introduce them to the setting. Bonus points for the presence of Starcraft legend Geoff Robinson, RIP. Then there's Haunted City, which is the current hotness and heavily endorsed by Harper himself - you'll find him in the chat there most of the time. I put this below the other two not because it's worse, necessarily, but because of the format. The players in Haunted City are very, very good, but it's hampered by a strict two-hours-per-episode format that makes for snappy action, but doesn't reflect the realities of most people's actual tables. They have no room to breathe, and it shows. Thankfully, for a show full of actors, they're not comedians, and they take the game completely seriously. They also manage to rapidly learn the rules, which is how you can tell they give a poo poo.
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Sep 9, 2023 19:55
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Kestral posted:Then there's Haunted City, which is the current hotness and heavily endorsed by Harper himself - you'll find him in the chat there most of the time. I put this below the other two not because it's worse, necessarily, but because of the format. The players in Haunted City are very, very good, but it's hampered by a strict two-hours-per-episode format that makes for snappy action, but doesn't reflect the realities of most people's actual tables. They have no room to breathe, and it shows. Thankfully, for a show full of actors, they're not comedians and they take the game completely seriously. They also manage to rapidly learn the rules, which is how you can tell they give a poo poo. Haha, you've clearly not seen Ross do his thing. He's, like, an improv comedy MACHINE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChPw820yHFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e2o6x8mdL4 (But yes, he's also great at serious.)
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Sep 9, 2023 20:12
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Splicer posted:If you're looking for idea mines check our Star Realms and Legendary Encounters: Predator.
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Sep 10, 2023 01:33
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Megazver posted:Haha, you've clearly not seen Ross do his thing. He's, like, an improv comedy MACHINE: I need - need - the full version of this song. But yeah, better to say that the comedian at the table is indistinguishable from the other actor-types at their table in his approach to the game. You'd never know his improv comedy background if it wasn't occasionally brought up in the pregame chat. This is an incredibly refreshing change from... Yeah, every other comedian in an Actual Play that I can think of, who are all convinced that their duty at the table is to Make The Game Funny regardless of its intended tone (I'm looking at you, Friends at the Table, as a prime offender here). That's another reason why I have to advocate for the original playtest so strongly: it's not a cast, it's players, and they're on board with the creative agenda they've been told is part of the thing they're testing. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with making your Blades game a beer-and-pretzels jokefest or what-have-you - I wouldn't want to play at that table or listen to it on an AP, but it's not wrong per se - but any time you want to deviate from a setting and system's expectations, whether it's by hacking the rules or playing a different tone, it helps to know what the intended experience is supposed to be.
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Sep 10, 2023 06:33
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To me the biggest sin of Hack the Planet is that the mechanics are basically a search and replace clone of early BitD from a mechanic perspective and doesn't really try anything new. I liked the setting quite and story quite a bit, enough that I'd play it again even though I don't really like Blades that much.
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Sep 10, 2023 07:03
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very important tcg news https://twitter.com/Squiddytastic/status/1700573239725215750
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Sep 10, 2023 15:52
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Feels Villeneuve posted:very important tcg news For those without Xitter  Context: Recently in Yugioh, there was an archetype released called "Gunkan Suship", which is a bunch of battlecruisers themed around gunkan-style sushi. There are also a couple of support cards, like "Daily Special" and "Catch-of-the-Day", which basically let the player act as a sushi chef when resolving the effects of the cards. Likely because of this, a number of dedicated players have decided that they'll just straight cosplay as sushi chefs at major events worldwide. However, I haven't heard of any of them actually making sushi at the events, sadly.
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Sep 10, 2023 19:52
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Absurd Alhazred posted:It's draining to run in my experience. This has been my experience with every PBTA & derivative I've tried. They ask a lot of the GM and I feel exhausted after running them. The players seem to have fun, but I sure don't.
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Sep 10, 2023 20:02
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i love running pbta but the mental drain can be really signfiicant.
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Sep 10, 2023 20:13
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I remember the first time I read AW and thinking: this book talks about taking breaks during play a lot more than any other RPG book I've read. It becomes very clear why after a session or two. I am allergic to homework so I prefer the mental load to be in-session but it's not for everyone.
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Sep 10, 2023 20:18
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You are clearly all failing to use the most powerful GMing tool in PbtA: telling the players to answer the question they just asked you by repeating it word for word at them.
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Sep 10, 2023 20:24
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Turn their move back on them and Tell them the consequences and ask are the best MC moves, that is true. However I have come across a few players who just refuse to engage with the first one especially
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Sep 10, 2023 20:31
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Aniodia posted:For those without Xitter This rules on every level, I hope those chef players all make it to the top of the tournament and we get pictures of sushi chef cosplay Yugioh duels.
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Sep 10, 2023 20:33
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What I like about running PbtA is you don’t have to spend a bunch of time balancing encounters, and since you’re supposed to prep or improvise situations rather than plot, you can much more easily follow your players’ insanity. I’m not amazing on my feet so it’s a good stretch of my skills. I ran Scum and Villainy before starting Monster of the Week and I struggled a lot at first. I think getting comfortable with the format is partially inherent GM style and partially repetition. In my case it was realizing I need to prep more than the books claim I should. With Monster of the Week, you gotta have a more monster with a weakness in mind, witness NPCs to throw around, and I like to prep different locations and clues for players to discover, all of which can move around. The rest is just reacting to crazy poo poo players do, but I personally need more set up ahead of time to not feel like I’m scrambling the whole session.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:03
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A good rule of thumb is to prep for the stuff you struggle to improvise on the spot, yeah. My problem was, when it came to prep time (aka one hour before the session) I would never remember what I struggled with last session so I made a dedicated section for it in my session notes And when you're new or rusty with these types of games, just be honest with the players and tell them that the game asks the GM to improvise a lot and that sometimes you'll draw a blank and need to ask them for suggestions (players will come up with way more evil poo poo as consequences than you expect a lot of the time) or take a break to look up inspiration while they refresh drinks and snacks Tarnop fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Sep 10, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2023 21:05
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Yeah, I did something similar, tracking “misses.” For me it’s making interesting NPCs on the fly, and also making sure I hit the three-clue rule when there’s a mystery to solve. So now I just use Miro to create clues and NPCs and move them from location to location as the players move around and interact with poo poo. Let’s just say I have an extensive collection of NPC name generator bookmarks.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:08
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If you want to see just how much stuff you can hand off to players while still maintaining a coherent game about investigating mysteries, I highly recommend running a few sessions of Inspectres
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Sep 10, 2023 21:10
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Lemon-Lime posted:You are clearly all failing to use the most powerful GMing tool in PbtA: telling the players to answer the question they just asked you by repeating it word for word at them. And just asking questions in general. Make up a name on the spot, don’t even think who or what it could be, and shove it into an open-ended question as a presupposition ; “When did you first encounter Duke Ginormous?”, “Who runs the guzzaline trade in the Taiga of Tibias?”, “Why are you in a retrofitted school bus?”, etc. Just enough to give the player a jumping-off point and so you know what kind of information you’re gonna get back. Whenever I’ve been asked to run a PbtA with no prep (not rare), I just fire 4-6 of those around the group.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:16
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Man, I was approaching it all wrong when I tried to GM this poo poo. Maybe I *should* try to run PBTA given how much improv I do when I GM anyway.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:16
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Nessus posted:Man, I was approaching it all wrong when I tried to GM this poo poo. Maybe I *should* try to run PBTA given how much improv I do when I GM anyway. It’s liberating. I don’t write poo poo unless I actually want to.
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Sep 10, 2023 21:24
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Tarnop posted:If you want to see just how much stuff you can hand off to players while still maintaining a coherent game about investigating mysteries, I highly recommend running a few sessions of Inspectres With my group, the answer is basically 'None'. They do not want to guide the game at all except in PC/NPC interactions. This means that FATE, PbtA, and so many others are just off the table right away.
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Sep 10, 2023 22:59
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:With my group, the answer is basically 'None'. They do not want to guide the game at all except in PC/NPC interactions. This means that FATE, PbtA, and so many others are just off the table right away. That's fair. Inspectres is a low effort way to test this with any group because the book is short and the prep is "watch a lesser known x-files episode and write the plot summary on an index card" e: to test this with a group whose preferences are less clear, is what I meant btw, I'm not suggesting you run Inspectres for your group !
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Sep 10, 2023 23:04
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Nessus posted:Man, I was approaching it all wrong when I tried to GM this poo poo. Maybe I *should* try to run PBTA given how much improv I do when I GM anyway. The only thing I prep is a list of names and maybe a few custom moves for important people.
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Sep 10, 2023 23:04
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:Believe it or not, there are players out there who really don't like having a large amount of narrative agency. They like hard rails for many parts of a game, and that's fine. I wish there were more games that did the videogame "try thing get feedback" approach while providing screenwriter chits, like FATE. Slapping FATE points onto things was briefly the new hotness bit it never really matured before *world stole all the limelight. Modern gaming options seem to be either full collaborative screenwriting or full GM Perfect Arbiter. I just want a mechanically solid class based numbersgoup game with tactical combat and a bunch of content, where most interactions are a player saying "I try/do thing" and the gm saying what happens, and a decently integrated declarative points system for when they want to not do that. Splicer fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Sep 11, 2023 |
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Sep 11, 2023 00:41
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Capfalcon posted:The only thing I prep is a list of names and maybe a few custom moves for important people. Preparing a list of names is one of the more critical things for me as a GM. When put on the spot I can't come up with a name, let alone a good (setting appropriate) name. This is why name generators are my salvation. Even if their output is poo poo, I know I could do worse  .
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Sep 11, 2023 00:46
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Splicer posted:I think this is a very narrow definition of player agency. Player agency can come from your character's ability to affect the world as well as the player's ability to make declarations about the world. Everybody wants to have player agency, the question is how they like to exercise that agency. i saw this amazing quote a couple of hours ago and thought i'd share it. it's about player agency: Josh Kablack wrote: “Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game. In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.”
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Sep 11, 2023 00:48
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I'd like to know the context of the quote tbh
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Sep 11, 2023 00:52
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Arivia posted:i saw this amazing quote a couple of hours ago and thought i'd share it. it's about player agency: Sounds like he's mad
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Sep 11, 2023 00:53
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Feels Villeneuve posted:Sounds like he's mad he big mad. i think about 5e.
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Sep 11, 2023 00:53
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Arivia posted:he big mad. i think about 5e. he's definitely rolling with disadvantage
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Sep 11, 2023 00:58
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Starts with a false dichotomy which makes the rest seem whinier than baseline, and that's already not particularly convincing.
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Sep 11, 2023 01:25
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Let's not forget the true classic from years ago on this very forum (I don't have a link to the original on hand but trust me bro):quote:
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Sep 11, 2023 01:44
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Ferrinus posted:Let's not forget the true classic from years ago on this very forum (I don't have a link to the original on hand but trust me bro): lol holy poo poo 
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Sep 11, 2023 01:46
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For a very crunchy/tactical game I think it meets a generic player’s expectations that a GM it’s more of a rules adjudicator than someone who fudges poo poo (I tend to run more by the book when the book clearly expects me to) but just lol at that reaction
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Sep 11, 2023 02:12
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Ferrinus posted:Let's not forget the true classic from years ago on this very forum (I don't have a link to the original on hand but trust me bro): lol
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Sep 11, 2023 02:32
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November 2, 2017 is a day I will always remember. It was the day I became cynical, bitter, and distraught. You may call it an overreaction for me to feel this way simply because of the business practices of a single video game company, but let me explain what all of this means to me. My life was thrown off balance and I never regained my footing after that day, because I lost my ability to respect. An essential part of being human is to feel respect for those who may or may not be deserving of it. But it is equally human to feel painful disillusionment when someone or something you respected turns out to be much less than you thought. But the level of betrayal I felt when Paradox announced the new plan for FTL in Stellaris tore something from me that I'll never be able to recover. They tore away my ability to respect anything, and they tore away my ability to feel human. Paradox Interactive was a company I respected, and their employees were people I looked up to. Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis, Victoria, and Hearts of Iron were all quality game series that combined historical accuracy with sandbox game worlds. These games may have been cartoony and humorous at times, but deep down they were always realistic and crafted with a level of detail and skill that won appreciation from gamers all across the internet. Stellaris was their newest release, and the internet was in unanimous agreement that it was of unparallelled quality. Following it's long awaited release, Paradox began releasing quality DLC that raised the bar ever higher for Grand Strategy Games. Then the FTL changes for Cherryh were announced. This was not just an announcement of a DLC feature, it was announcement of Paradox Interactive's suicide. It was a change intended to completely disregard any scientific accuracy, and instead shock the entire world with its lunacy. Paradox Interactive had gone off the deep end and raised the middle finger to everybody who stayed loyal to them. They had announced that they didn't care anymore, that they didn't care for their community, and they were going to go out of their way to sabotage everything they had spent years creating. The pain I felt from this betrayal has destroyed me on an emotional level, and has deprived me of my primary source of entertainment. No longer can I play Grand Strategy games without remembering the day I ceased mattering to people I devoted myself to. Paradox had not just destroyed me or their company, they had destroyed the one force of stability in the world: Trust.
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Sep 11, 2023 03:03
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grogs.txt has entered the thread!
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Sep 11, 2023 03:06
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