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disposablewords posted:You could justify a funnel in any SF game/setting where you're military or at least military-adjacent, like in any Star Wars thing where you're part of the Rebellion. This sort of sounds like how to do Andor. Maybe each new PC, you define a relationship to the previous one?
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Sep 22, 2023 05:16
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Sci-fi funnels are ten a penny. Alien's already been mentioned, but any "there's something terribly wrong on the space station" plot will work. The threats just have to be numerous and instantly lethal rather than the usual "lose 10 of my 30 HP because I didn't spot the trap" stuff.
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Sep 22, 2023 11:24
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I read a cool sci-fi funnel where everyone was a convicted and memory-wiped felon on a failing space station. If they escaped and made it to the surface you could start any type of campaign you wanted. The best part was at the beginning, each character was given the option to reverse the mind wipe, at which point they learned they were some sort of space-hitler and were then executed for their crimes.
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Sep 22, 2023 14:41
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Man, has there ever been a tabletop module where the PCs start with amnesia and reversing it ends up being a positive development?
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Sep 22, 2023 23:31
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That's a really good question. I can't think of one but I'd love to be wrong.
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Sep 23, 2023 00:12
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I have a vague recollection of a Paranoia adventure where the players are brainscrubbed high clearance clones who can gradually get back high clearance skills if they manage to indulge in forbidden (to their newly red clearance'd selves) delights. Of course, it's Paranoia, so they're gonna get hosed sooner or later, but they don't get punished for having their memories return!
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Sep 23, 2023 01:00
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Capfalcon posted:I have a vague recollection of a Paranoia adventure where the players are brainscrubbed high clearance clones who can gradually get back high clearance skills if they manage to indulge in forbidden (to their newly red clearance'd selves) delights. That's the titular adventure in "WMD", which was a special book of extra-dark Straight missions. I was going to suggest it, but I don't think anything that happens in a Paranoia game could be considered a "positive development"
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Sep 23, 2023 01:04
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Antivehicular posted:Man, has there ever been a tabletop module where the PCs start with amnesia and reversing it ends up being a positive development? Psychosis: Ship of Fools. Still a strong contender for weirdest game ever.
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Sep 23, 2023 01:10
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I'm sure some folks here are into puzzles. I just got and played LOK It's great. It uses puzzles to teach you the rules to the puzzles. It gets pretty tricky, too. This puzzle in particular took me a looong time: 
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Sep 23, 2023 01:21
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The best amnesia module is still In Media Res
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Sep 23, 2023 01:24
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Thanlis posted:Psychosis: Ship of Fools. Still a strong contender for weirdest game ever. Oh poo poo, yeah. I have a copy of this and have always wanted to run it, but the combination of mechanics that would be a huge pain in the rear end to run in-person and other mechanics that would be a huge pain in the rear end to run online has kept me from wanting to do it in either environment. It occurs to me that I could maybe do something stupid with laying out the Tarot cards on my kitchen table and essentially run 20-Player poo poo-Talking Candyland: the RPG...
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Sep 23, 2023 01:32
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Jimbozig posted:I'm sure some folks here are into puzzles. I just got and played LOK Immediate, breathless purchase. Thank you!
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Sep 23, 2023 01:57
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Thanlis posted:Psychosis: Ship of Fools. Still a strong contender for weirdest game ever. I managed to play this at Gen Con one year. It sure is something.
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Sep 23, 2023 02:06
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Antivehicular posted:Man, has there ever been a tabletop module where the PCs start with amnesia and reversing it ends up being a positive development? Meguey Baker's Psy*Run. You're amnesiacs with psy-powers who begin play with fragments and clues pointing toward your old life, and the entirety of gameplay is running from the Men in Black / the army / evil corporate scientists while pursuing those hints and reassembling your old identity and reconnecting with your loved ones - while trying not to let your burgeoning power overwhelm you and cause massive collateral damage. Reversing your amnesia could mean you find out that you were Neo-Hitler, but it's probably going to mean that you remember your kids and your dog and have a happy reunion over the smoking wreckage of an MiB helicopter. Psy*Run is extremely good, and also has several excellent hacks, including playing X-Men universe mutants on the run from Sentinels, and a seasonally-appropriate zombie apocalypse hack.
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Sep 23, 2023 02:08
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Youremother posted:That's the titular adventure in "WMD", which was a special book of extra-dark Straight missions. I was going to suggest it, but I don't think anything that happens in a Paranoia game could be considered a "positive development" If memory serves, they're all the titular adventure, aren't they? I mean, that was the joke, anyway?
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Sep 23, 2023 02:30
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Antivehicular posted:Man, has there ever been a tabletop module where the PCs start with amnesia and reversing it ends up being a positive development?
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Sep 23, 2023 02:52
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Kestral posted:Meguey Baker's Psy*Run. You're amnesiacs with psy-powers who begin play with fragments and clues pointing toward your old life, and the entirety of gameplay is running from the Men in Black / the army / evil corporate scientists while pursuing those hints and reassembling your old identity and reconnecting with your loved ones - while trying not to let your burgeoning power overwhelm you and cause massive collateral damage. Reversing your amnesia could mean you find out that you were Neo-Hitler, but it's probably going to mean that you remember your kids and your dog and have a happy reunion over the smoking wreckage of an MiB helicopter. I can't believe I didn't think of that, and I will redeem my lapse by pointing it that it's actually called Psi*Run.
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Sep 23, 2023 03:02
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Shoot, I think I might own Psi*Run too. Is that the one where one of the Baker kids got cowriter credit? I think I might own too many games.
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Sep 23, 2023 03:36
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Capfalcon posted:If memory serves, they're all the titular adventure, aren't they? I mean, that was the joke, anyway? No, the other adventures in that book were the infamous Hunger, Hot Potato, and Infohazard. Every mission did have a thing in it that used the acronym WMD. Hunger had the "Whirlwind Miracle Destiny" food plan, Hot Potato's actual nuclear bomb Weapon of Mass Destruction, Infohazard had the Wireless Memory Downgrade virus, and WMD itself revolved around the weapon of memory destruction.
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Sep 23, 2023 04:20
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Antivehicular posted:I think I might own too many games. Woah woah woah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here - that is very dangerous train of thought! 
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Sep 23, 2023 05:43
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Antivehicular posted:I think I might own too many games. no 
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Sep 23, 2023 06:02
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Reminded that one of the premises of Changeling The Lost is that you've forgotten nearly all your memories of Arcadia, which is a very good thing.
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Sep 23, 2023 06:21
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Fireborn was about piecing your memories of being an Actual Dragon together in modern day (er, mid-00's) urban fantasy London.
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Sep 23, 2023 12:33
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I had a player drop out of my group awhile ago (6 of us counting myself) and have been thinking about a replacement. How do you guys feel about this process? Two of my players have a friend that they had mentioned to me as someone interested in playing awhile ago, but 5 players is my upper limit, both to host at my house and to handle in-game as the DM, so at the time it was a no. They mentioned that person would still be interested, but I have another friend (who happens to be friends with the same two players and therefore this will probably not be an issue, but that is beside the point) who I would prefer to invite to the game. I'm mostly used to playing with close-ish friends or acquaintances. I currently mostly host the game at my place, although we occasionally rotate, and definitely have the largest time investment for obvious reasons as the DM. I notice this makes me feel "entitled" to choose who I want to play with, but I also don't want to be a despot. I plan on talking to my group about it, but I'm the only forever DM and this has been their first group with the exception of one player, so I'm curious about how other people feel about this kind of thing with regard to their groups.
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Sep 23, 2023 22:24
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Capfalcon posted:If memory serves, Zorak of Michigan posted:I can't believe I didn't think of that,
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Sep 23, 2023 22:34
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Splicer posted:Are you all doing this on purpose to hurt me I thought about Psi-Run when I read the post, but couldn't remember the details.
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Sep 23, 2023 22:43
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Kestral posted:Meguey Baker's ...extremely good 
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Sep 23, 2023 22:50
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Tosk posted:I had a player drop out of my group awhile ago (6 of us counting myself) and have been thinking about a replacement. How do you guys feel about this process? Two of my players have a friend that they had mentioned to me as someone interested in playing awhile ago, but 5 players is my upper limit, both to host at my house and to handle in-game as the DM, so at the time it was a no. They mentioned that person would still be interested, but I have another friend (who happens to be friends with the same two players and therefore this will probably not be an issue, but that is beside the point) who I would prefer to invite to the game. I'm mostly used to playing with close-ish friends or acquaintances. The answer is pretty much always “talk it out like adults”, and you seem to be doing a good job so far.
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Sep 23, 2023 23:01
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Saying "I don't think I can run a game with more than five people" is pretty reasonable. No one likes being the wet blanket, but going past your limits is a really good way to burn out and not run the game at all.Splicer posted:Are you all doing this on purpose to hurt me I don't recall.
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Sep 24, 2023 04:43
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Leperflesh posted:There is not! I know a former cubing champ - actually I haven't talked to him in like four years, I should say hi to him - but I don't think I've ever seen cubing discussed in trad games. You're certainly welcome to! Thanks! I will get to working on a decent OP ASAP
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Sep 24, 2023 05:11
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What percentage of attempted campaigns actually get further than session 1 or 0? I constantly hear about flakes, no-shows, and bad fits, and it’s like drat how does anything get finished.
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Sep 24, 2023 14:30
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Pollyanna posted:What percentage of attempted campaigns actually get further than session 1 or 0? I constantly hear about flakes, no-shows, and bad fits, and it’s like drat how does anything get finished. the hardest part of rpgs, much like any social hobby is actually wrangling people consistently. free online games with strangers are basically playing the lottery though, I spent years trying to find a decent group.
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Sep 24, 2023 15:20
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Yeah, IME getting an RPG for an existing group is way more effective than getting a group for an existing RPG.
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Sep 24, 2023 16:05
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Pollyanna posted:What percentage of attempted campaigns actually get further than session 1 or 0? I constantly hear about flakes, no-shows, and bad fits, and it’s like drat how does anything get finished. I'd guess about 1/3 of the strangers I recruit for in-person campaigns never do more than two sessions. The campaigns continue on even after people drop out, so my "campaign attempt" percentage is 100% (4/4) so far. However, I could see maybe 1 in 6 of my in-person campaigns with total strangers not going for more than a session or two. Online-only campaigns will most certainly have much worse attrition. The exact rate will depend on DM and player expectations for sure; if the group only wants to play when everyone can make it, campaign death will happen much more easily. If it's important to you to play, then the expectations need to be set differently: e.g., the DM establishes that they're playing D&D every other week on Saturday at x:xx PM if at least one person shows up.
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Sep 24, 2023 16:55
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The old campaign-as-GM’s-pet-universe thing makes a lot more sense in that context. When dropouts and fizzles happen that often and the GM is the only common factor, then you basically have to limit adventures to one or two sessions. And continuity wouldn’t be via the party, but via the world parties adventure in. It’s been quite a while since I GMed, and I’m not gonna lie - BG3 makes me wanna run a few 5e adventures. But I’m not stupid, people are gonna drop out and groups are gonna fizzle. If there’s a way to play these modules such that groups are not expected to last more than one or two sessions, then I might be willing to risk it again. But I don’t do commitment! gently caress trying to get long-running campaigns going, it’s totally not worth it.
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Sep 24, 2023 19:04
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You build online groups that last by running a bunch of short games (1-4 sessions) and slowly building a list of people who didn't drop out who you like as a player and reinviting them to the next game, until you've got enough reliable players to run something long.
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Sep 24, 2023 20:09
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Antivehicular posted:Man, has there ever been a tabletop module where the PCs start with amnesia and reversing it ends up being a positive development? The Glass-Maker's Dragon for Chuubo's Marvellous Wish Granting Engine has several PCs with fairly substantial amnesia or misconceptions about their personal histories, and recovering those memories is difficult for them, but ultimately probably positive, from a personal development perspective.
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Sep 25, 2023 17:39
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Megazver posted:You build online groups that last by running a bunch of short games (1-4 sessions) and slowly building a list of people who didn't drop out who you like as a player and reinviting them to the next game, until you've got enough reliable players to run something long.
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Sep 25, 2023 18:27
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k so i did decide to check out mausritter due to mouseguard box sets being $100+ rn, and i actually really dig it, stylistically. i also play 5e with my other regular group now and am enchanted by this "osr" concept that mausritter i guess is. if i wanted to pivot from 5e to an osr at some point, which one is a good one to jump from 5e from? my players like rp, we play theatre of the mind combat, and the most exciting element of d&d for them is finding and defeating weird/awesome monsters. i also like the idea of getting so powerful you eventually have some sort of settlement + personal army whatever ala ad&d 2e like i used to play. recommendations?
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Sep 25, 2023 18:57
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hot cocoa on the couch posted:k so i did decide to check out mausritter due to mouseguard box sets being $100+ rn, and i actually really dig it, stylistically. i also play 5e with my other regular group now and am enchanted by this "osr" concept that mausritter i guess is. if i wanted to pivot from 5e to an osr at some point, which one is a good one to jump from 5e from? my players like rp, we play theatre of the mind combat, and the most exciting element of d&d for them is finding and defeating weird/awesome monsters. i also like the idea of getting so powerful you eventually have some sort of settlement + personal army whatever ala ad&d 2e like i used to play. recommendations? Old-School Essentials is the stock answer here, it is a well-made update of the old Basic/Expert ruleset. There are other OSR games that get weirder or rules-lighter if you are into that. Mausritter is based on Into the Odd, and ItO was also used to create Cairn, which is a rules-light fantasy OSR game.
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Sep 25, 2023 19:03
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