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Yep. I was hoping it'd be out by Origins so I could pick it up there, but...well, we can't have nice things.
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Jun 29, 2014 05:56
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Kai Tave posted:There's actually a thread on RPGnet right now, something like "In Defense of the Murderhobo," where the OP is basically asking why so many characters have no family ties of any sort and are instead just wandering adventurers/vagrants pillaging tombs and killing monsters without end, and a lot of people have brought up the usual "well it's a reaction against GM fuckery in killing all your character's family/friends/loved-ones/pets/etc." but I think that when you boil it down the fundamental reason a lot of RPG characters don't bother with that sort of backstory is simply that the games themselves don't reward that sort of thing in any meaningful sense. It is always a little frustrating when ridiculously complex character backstories do not get used by the gamemaster; my group usually says ahead of time whether we are interested in running a game where your backstory matters or whether it is just "hey, time for fun, whatever." But again this comes back to why I love "play-yourself" gaming, because no matter who is running the game, you know dozens of potentially interesting story hooks to run with just based on what you know of someone's personality, likes, dislikes, fears, aspirations, dreams, et cetera.
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Jun 29, 2014 07:57
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Rand Brittain posted:The next book out for Ars Magica seems to be Faith and Flame: the Provencal Tribunal. It looks amazing, and oh my god it's going to be years before they put it out in PDF and I can actually read it. You could always offer to make them an ebook! 
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Jun 29, 2014 08:27
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Reene posted:The problem is D&D is so goddamn pervasive that its influence is felt across all manner of genres in all kinds of games, including poo poo like MUDs or other RPGs, to the point that it's almost impossible to get away from. I mean that kind of speaks to the power of D&D that it's managed to root itself so deeply into the general fantasy genre and the arena of RPGs that you have people frequently using tropes it invented without even realizing it. Hell the MUD I play has the D&D Religion problem to a T. You're right. The influence of D&D is pretty drat pervasive. The thing is, I don't see D&D, the game, as the problem. Its the people who are the problem. I've played a lot of D&D. Its what got me into RPGs and it was the only thing I knew for a long time. I'll play it in the future too. The rules aren't the best, but they are playable at least. The real problem comes with the people playing it. Take this whole Paladin must slaughter orc children thing. Does it say in the book that to be a paladin you must slaughter orc children? And even if it does say that it does, why should you feel obligated to follow that rule? I guess the player feels obligated to follow this rule because the DM said that not doing so would be against the Lawful Good alignment and the paladin would lose their powers. The problem here, as I see it, is the DM. The DM decided to force this on the paladin. Even if the rules said this, it still is under the control of the DM to not use this rule. Quarex posted:Many years ago one of my gaming buddies made the worrying revelation that a character background of "a happy life with living family" sounded original and compelling. It might not be the best way of resolving the "my character's family is dead or gone" issue, but in a recent game I'm in the reason my character has no family around him is because he's an rear end in a top hat that alienated them.
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Jun 29, 2014 08:48
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And here I am with one character who's actually just the latest in his family to work at the same company (Turnintrix's Atomic Robo game) and making another who's adopted a ridiculous number of kids off the street. In a cyberpunk setting. Not all of my characters have written down families, but I'm starting to get really glad I started TG late.
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Jun 29, 2014 08:58
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This may not be the right thread for this but I'm curious: How would you all go about running 1) a jousting tournament and b) a non-lethal melee or archery tournament in an RPG with no set rules for how to judge that kind of thing?
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Jun 29, 2014 09:04
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I'd ask the players to LARP it using pencils as lances.
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Jun 29, 2014 09:05
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It'd depend on how "no rules for this" the RPG is. I mean, theoretically in D&D you could use the standard d20 + attack modifiers vs. AC standard combat resolution mechanic (don't do this). Just in general though, I'd either assign or let the players assign their skill level in each aspect of the tournament (i.e. Bob the Builder is best at swords (#1), pretty good at riding a horse (#2), has a decent eye for aiming (#3) but isn't so hot on brawls (#4) or not looking like a tool at the dance (#5)), then use that to figure out who's going to do well in each segment. Add in a resolution mechanic for whatever the game uses by default to add some randomization, and let the dice/cards/whatever help sort it out. Or just pick whoever gives the coolest description of how they would win the archery competition, that works too.
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Jun 29, 2014 09:36
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RPZip posted:It'd depend on how "no rules for this" the RPG is. I mean, theoretically in D&D you could use the standard d20 + attack modifiers vs. AC standard combat resolution mechanic (don't do this). Just in general though, I'd either assign or let the players assign their skill level in each aspect of the tournament (i.e. Bob the Builder is best at swords (#1), pretty good at riding a horse (#2), has a decent eye for aiming (#3) but isn't so hot on brawls (#4) or not looking like a tool at the dance (#5)), then use that to figure out who's going to do well in each segment. Add in a resolution mechanic for whatever the game uses by default to add some randomization, and let the dice/cards/whatever help sort it out. If it's Pathfinder there are rules in Ultimate Combat. I'd probably just jam Charisma and Perform on top of regular attack rolls and mess it out that way for a d20 game.
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Jun 29, 2014 09:52
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Arivia posted:If it's Pathfinder there are rules in Ultimate Combat. I haven't read them, but I guarantee that the rules for this are poo poo.
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Jun 29, 2014 10:03
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Assume no rules. Archery, melee weapon, and animal handling skills exist, but for the sake of the contest aren't the best measures because the emphasis is on creating an interesting scene between characters with wildly divergent actual skill levels. I'm looking for ideas on how to have this play out in a game basically.
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Jun 29, 2014 10:18
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Reene posted:Assume no rules. One thing you can do is focus on social or otherwise non-combat conflicts, if the game supports those. For a tournament, maybe what matters is how well you can provoke your opponent, rouse the crowd, bribe the referee, or win the affection of the princess in the stands. A related alternative is to come up with little "side quests" that characters can complete regarding the tournament but are not related to the competitions themselves. In that case, bribing the referee or winning the princess' affection would be scenes unto themselves. The character who can successfully complete the most of them, or the best of them, has an edge in the tournament even if their fighting skills are poor. If you explicitly want to focus on the competitions themselves, one thing that springs to mind is using a diceless system in the vein of Nobilis: characters have a fixed pool of points. Spend points to complete a task. Whoever spends the most points, wins. Certain role-playing actions can replenish points, but never too many.
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Jun 29, 2014 11:08
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This is a pretty good round up of storygames, you probably know most of these but still pretty nice. http://lookspring.co.uk/once-upon-a-wonder-a-story-game-guide
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Jun 29, 2014 14:40
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DIY X-rated Buffy is such a bad description of Monsterhearts, drat.
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Jun 29, 2014 14:45
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Reene posted:Assume no rules. Personally I'd break it into stages. Depending on how big the event was it could be a lot of stages or just a few. For jousting and junk I'd have a 'pre-game' stage where the competitors describe what they're doing, scouting opponents, making bets, trying to psych someone out, loving with a rival, whatever they can justify to help give them some advantage or the like. Then you can move into the starting phase where the jousters preen and appeal to the crowd and all sorts of poncy poo poo like that to get the crowd on their side for a bonus. The general idea of those two is to give guys who aren't meat-shields ways to get an edge on things, and it fits the typical images of tournaments like that to be more than just two armored dudes bashing into each other, but rather a place knights and nobles and such can go to say "CHECK OUT HOW BIG MY DICK IS Y'ALL". Then for the joust proper I'd keep it simple, probably a basic attack roll, I wouldn't roll damage unless the dude was actually trying to hurt the other guy though. Instead I'd make it some kinda check to stay on if you got hit depending on what the character's skills were. Then they'd keep going until someone got knocked over. To keep the thing from going too long I'd add some penalties to the rolls depending on how much they got hit since obviously it'd be rough to stay on if you keep getting battered over and over. Basically I guess my point is these events should be more than the actual joust/archery/whatever. even dinky little local town festivals are ways for people to show off and look like cool guys, or make their rivals look like dorks The stuff like loving with guys you don't like or showing off to the crowd should give you bonuses to compensate for a lack of strength or the like. If your face dude who has super high charisma but kinda assy combat stats is jousting he should be going around loving with his opponent and showing off for the crowd and making that his big advantage.
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Jun 29, 2014 15:23
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In the joust, make an attack roll to see whether you scored a solid hit, and if you did, the damage roll, or something derived from it, becomes the DC for a Ride check to remain mounted.
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Jun 29, 2014 15:27
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Bongo Bill posted:In the joust, make an attack roll to see whether you scored a solid hit, and if you did, the damage roll, or something derived from it, becomes the DC for a Ride check to remain mounted. The entire joust being decided in two dice rolls seems, I dunno, anticlimactic somehow...
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Jun 29, 2014 15:38
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Mr. Maltose posted:DIY X-rated Buffy is such a bad description of Monsterhearts, drat. And completely accurate simultaneously.
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Jun 29, 2014 16:06
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Well, that's just for one tilt. Give them good armor and crappy weapons, and continue until somebody gets unhorsed, and you've got an easy-to-understand form of jousting that doesn't quite correspond to any historical sport, but is close enough for D&D. Maybe it is too simple, even for just representing one event among many, but there are other ways you can shake it up. One easy way to do it would be a scoring system. Break your lance? 2 points. Break your opponent's shield? 3 points. Unhorse your opponent? 4 points. Those numbers can be tweaked, of course. You roll both a sunder check and an attack roll, and before each tilt, you can choose +Something to Sunder and -Something to Attack, or vice versa. If you pass the sunder check, something breaks, but here's how to decide what: if you brace yourself extra hard against your shield, you get a bonus to AC; if you do this, your shield is what your opponent can break, but if you don't, it's their lance. You don't get your shield back once it breaks, but the sunder DC is harder for a shield. Y'know, things like that. Between PCs, the players can make choices like that every round, but NPCs will tilt the same way every time, so before the event you've got to scope out your opponent's strategy to gain an advantage over them. And obviously you've got to do this honorably! Additionally, you could let the competitors declare a choice of weapon, between a lance or a mace. Maces do more damage when they hit, but if one player has a mace and the other has a lance, the lancer rolls first instead of rolling at the same time. You may need to make the mace have a higher plus than the lance to make this an interesting trade-off, but this is basically the prisoner's dilemma. Maybe give a mace a much larger advantage to offset the fact that you can't break a mace the way you can a lance.
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Jun 29, 2014 16:10
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Bongo Bill posted:In the joust, make an attack roll to see whether you scored a solid hit, and if you did, the damage roll, or something derived from it, becomes the DC for a Ride check to remain mounted. This is totally the right way to do it - it's simple, fast and pretty thematic.
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Jun 29, 2014 16:48
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:And completely accurate simultaneously. If your Monsterhearts game is X-rated you're missing the point, though? Everybody sees the sex moves in these games and thinks they're there to facilitate getting your rocks off at a game table and I don't really know why.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:51
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Mr. Maltose posted:If your Monsterhearts game is X-rated you're missing the point, though? Everybody sees the sex moves in these games and thinks they're there to facilitate getting your rocks off at a game table and I don't really know why. Because it says sex right there! What else could it possibly mean, you swine?
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Jun 29, 2014 17:53
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Mr. Maltose posted:If your Monsterhearts game is X-rated you're missing the point, though? Everybody sees the sex moves in these games and thinks they're there to facilitate getting your rocks off at a game table and I don't really know why. Experience with previous written game material. It's a sad, sad publication history.
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Jun 29, 2014 17:54
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Because that is what happens in every RPG ever when you bring sex into the equation in any capacity and we would be better off either not including it 
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Jun 29, 2014 17:55
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Reene posted:Assume no rules. For NPCs write down a flat bonus for them before the tournament. Pcs will use a bonus determined by their ability and their preparations. Before the tournament there is a preparations phase where players can make a certain number of preparations. If there are multiple events they should have a number not equal to the number of events. If they are not all participating and instead have a champion then each player should get a chance to choose a single preparation. For each preparation give them a small bonus during the tournament. If they spend a non personal resource like money/favors give them a larger bonus. If they chose something that helps all the time in an event where there are multiple types of resolution (like the joust above) give them a smaller bonus. If the participant is skilled in the type of thing that the event is about give them one last bonus to everything in that event up to the bonus of an expensive preparation. All rolls during the tournament use the preparation based bonus rather then the bonuses the participants would normally use. To keep their maximum bonuses the participant and all of his aides must be present between rounds to maintain the preparations properly. If they do not some of the bonuses will go away during that round only. Then between rounds as appropriate for the number or rounds and intensity of the tournament throw in some of these events: Something goes wrong with some of the preparations and a replacement is needed. A profitable situation comes up, if one or more of the characters leaves then they can gain resources outside of the tournament (but they have less of a chance of winning the tournament) A heroic situation comes up, for instance: One of the losers of the tournament kidnapped the ruler's son and is trying to extort the tournament prize from him. If the participant leaves during these side-events they always make it back in time for the tournament but their bonus suffers a greater penalty then if an aide had taken care of the issue.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:04
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Mr. Maltose posted:If your Monsterhearts game is X-rated you're missing the point, though? Everybody sees the sex moves in these games and thinks they're there to facilitate getting your rocks off at a game table and I don't really know why. Yeah and that's what I mean with the simultaneously. It's very easy to get thrown off on the actual meaning.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:04
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Is the protocol for  in TG just to post in the chat thread? Because I obviously need to just stop talking about Exalted.
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Jun 29, 2014 18:33
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The world would most certainly be better off if literally everyone just stopped talking about Exalted, though.
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Jun 29, 2014 19:10
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Let's just make a new game without all the creepy stuff in and call it Embiggened.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:13
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Divide Exalted into a Fiasco playbook and a Golden Sky Stories alt setting.
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Jun 29, 2014 20:15
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Illustrious: The Pretension
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Jun 29, 2014 20:18
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Asymmetrikon posted:The world would most certainly be better off if literally everyone just stopped talking about Exalted, though. Exalted is a wonderful example of how not to do the things it's trying to do, though. It serves a wonderful role as a negative example. Is your game looking like Exalted? Then you should probably start pruning some creepy poo poo and take another look at your mechanics!
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Jun 29, 2014 20:19
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Night10194 posted:Exalted is a wonderful example of how not to do the things it's trying to do, though. It serves a wonderful role as a negative example. Is your game looking like Exalted? Then you should probably start pruning some creepy poo poo and take another look at your mechanics! It's also a wonderful example how people will gush on and on about a game's setting despite never playing or planing to play the game itself. Do forum goers talk on and on about reading the book, but never talk about playing it? Then you might have a problem. (To those out of the loop, when the game first launched, a bunch of people kept talking about how "awesome" the setting was, but few ever talked about playing it.)
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Jun 29, 2014 20:23
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Covok posted:It's also a wonderful example how people will gush on and on about a game's setting despite never playing or planing to play the game itself. Do forum goers talk on and on about reading the book, but never talk about playing it? Then you might have a problem. Although I understand and agree with you, I don't think any of us has played more than like half of all RPG books we've read. And that's being generous, since the advent of cheap games you find in the internet it's gotten way worse 
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Jun 29, 2014 20:47
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Cyphoderus posted:Although I understand and agree with you, I don't think any of us has played more than like half of all RPG books we've read. And that's being generous, since the advent of cheap games you find in the internet it's gotten way worse poo poo, I think I've played a total of two? games on my DTRPG account alone, much less piles of things from used bookstores/the LCS/random retailers or closing stores over the years in PHYSICAL form.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:34
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Cyphoderus posted:Although I understand and agree with you, I don't think any of us has played more than like half of all RPG books we've read. And that's being generous, since the advent of cheap games you find in the internet it's gotten way worse Y-yeah...I try, though. I've played a few games, but...yeah... This is not really a hobby that works well with our materialistic desire to buy new poo poo, is it? If you're not a fan of games with supplement treadmills, at least.
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Jun 29, 2014 22:37
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Now I feel weird for having played most of my library at least once. Not as weird as referring to my collection as a "library" does though.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:09
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Cyphoderus posted:Although I understand and agree with you, I don't think any of us has played more than like half of all RPG books we've read. And that's being generous, since the advent of cheap games you find in the internet it's gotten way worse Fortunately, my mind has rationalized this. The more games I read, the more DMing tools I have, and the better I understand what effect certain design decisions will have on my game sessions. Yes, that's it.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:24
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We've gathered a lot of people here who really love you. You need to understand that we love you, but you have a problem and it affects the lives of the people who care about you. Now, I think Phil has something he'd like to say to you.
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Jun 29, 2014 23:28
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Now I feel weird for having played most of my library at least once. This is one thing I really enjoy about playing Pathfinder, I can mix in stuff from my years of 3.0 and 3.5 supplements. Usually monsters, for some reason.
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Jun 30, 2014 00:10
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