TG August Cat Thread: it was like a sweaty danny devito

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG August Cat Thread: it was like a sweaty danny devito

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

so to give us an actual TG topic to discuss(as much as I'm loving the pet chat), here's a question, what are some original RPG settings you've seen on other sites that you'd want to run and/or play a game in?

some favorites of mine;

The City Built Around The Tarrasque- a D&D Campaign Setting centered around a city built around The Tarrasque after it was imprisoned centuries ago

Voices From Below and The Long Stairs
The Long Stairs: Second Landing
a pair of threads that's basically Special Ops in The Underdark

Transmissions From The Undead Apocalypse- a Zombie Apocalypse with the Undead being more of the Resident Evil sort than anything(with an underlying psychic/eldritch bent), with the survivors being in more direct contact with each other than what's the norm for this sort of setting

Mythos Supers: Oh What May Be Wrought With This Hideous Might- Superheroes with ties to the Mythos and all the horrible things that implies

Dreamers In The Dark- Inception meets Lovecraft's Dreamlands with a touch of Delta Green mixed in

The Manifold Worlds of Humanity- a setting inspired by Dune that takes off in some very unique ways, and is one of the most creative settings I've ever seen

Mortasheen- quite possibly the most unique "Mon" setting I've ever seen, created by my good friend Bogleech, with hundreds of unique monsters already described and beautifully illustrated, this one's going to be getting an official Tabletop RPG sometime in the future(although that might be a while as it's been in development since 2012)

unfortunately most of the other ones I've seen are ones that came from 4chan's /tg/ board so I'm hesitant to link any of those

# ¿ Aug 4, 2015 06:40

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:29

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

Elfgames posted:

I've always wanted to play in a Literal Points of light campaign

so basically Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles then?

# ¿ Aug 4, 2015 09:10

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

so I rediscovered these old advertisements for Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and I have to say I think there's the seeds for a Modern Fantasy campaign here;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5Mf2mp6fms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9zvIJyF4M8

# ¿ Aug 4, 2015 23:43

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

if anything gets done with this Redwall meets D&D idea, this better be a viable character option;

# ¿ Aug 8, 2015 06:08

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

The Vosgian Beast posted:

To make mice viable despite their smaller size, they all know Dark Rodent Magic.

Just do the Skyrealms of Jorune thing where your magic is more powerful the smaller you are, which is why humans can't use any.

nah if we follow even loosely how Redwall does Race/Species, Mice would be this game's equivalent to Humans in BX/BECMI/RC era D&D where they don't get a lot of special abilities of their own, but have access to a large number of broad class types, meanwhile most other Species would be limited to a handful of specific Racial Classes that are rather strong but usually in a much narrower manner than their equivalent Mice class would be(of course BX/BECMI/RC D&D normally limited non-humans to singular classes, but I think we can borrow one of Adventurer Conqueror King System's better ideas and have it so each Species has 2-4 to choose from), basically I'm saying let's use BX/BECMI/RC D&D as the base cause it's a system that works and is easily modified for our needs

also since we'd need to create a new setting for this anyways, I'm thinking Humans would be to the perspective of the Playable Species a race of Incomprehensible and nigh Unstoppable Giants who once ruled this world but have now dwindled to where seeing one is a momentous occasion to be marked in the records of the years that pass

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 02:21

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

Len posted:

I picked up Trail at Gencon after talking tot he writers a bunch. I'm still working through it but it sounds like it's going to be a solid game with a lot of fun.

And it better for all the hassle I went through buying it. The bank locked my debit card thinking it had been stolen.

that's why I always just pull cash out for Conventions

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 02:40

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

Len posted:

I've never had that happen before We've been going to Gencon since 2011 and Origins from 2006 to then. The real kicker was I failed the identification verification test over the phone and had to trek to an actual bank to fix the problem.

similar thing happened to my friend at Anime Expo this year, he went and bought like $150 worth of Art Books and then it took him like two hours to resolve things with his bank over the phone, meanwhile I just brought $260 from an ATM and lasted through the whole 4 day convention with minimal issue

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 03:29

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

Don't we have a Dungeon World thread this discussion should be taking place in?

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 05:02

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

Plague of Hats posted:

As with most of Dungeon World's greatest faults, the worst thing about its combat is that it is too similar to D&D the system instead of D&D the nostalgic experience.

you broke the tables with cuteness

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 06:36

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

Galaga Galaxian posted:

I'm looking forward to seeing the Band of Blades and Blades Against the Darkness hacks for Blades in the Dark for use in Dungeon Crawl games. I think its a much better fit for the genre than ApocWorld from which it descended.

Also its Cyberpunk hack, because why the gently caress isn't there a good lightweight cyberpunk game? Shadowrun is a god drat clunky mess, nevermind Cyberpunk 2020. [edit] And Eclipse Phase isn't my flavor of cyberpunk.

personally I think Cyberpunk needs at least some crunchiness to really work, of course I'll admit my preferences for systems is for them to have at least some crunchiness, extremely rules-light games I can't really wrap my head around(last time I tried to read FATE, which was admittedly a couple years ago, got a headache not very long into reading it), not to mention they just feel bland

again though that's just my opinion

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 08:00

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

Gravy Train Robber posted:

Are there any good superhero RPG systems that goons would recommend? I had the Marvel/Cortex game but never really wrapped my head around it, and I picked up Necessary Evil for Savage Worlds several years back but it generally felt like it was still missing something. I was having a conversation with friends about it today and realized I don't actually know too much about the genre options.

One of my personal favorites is an OSR game called Hideouts & Hoodlums which uses a modified version of the Sword & Wizardry rules to emulate Superheroes of the Golden Age of Comics, and overall I'd say it does a really good job emulating the genre(especially when you add in all the supplementary material), also it's pretty much the only Superhero RPG to make a class and level system work

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 11:17

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

Well my physical copy of Battle Century G came in today, and overall it's a pretty nice book(although it's kinda weird that a fair amount of the images in the book came out fuzzy and/or pixelated)

# ¿ Aug 10, 2015 22:43

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

FMguru posted:

Very different. There are 20 or so schools of magic (Air, Fire, Animal, Healing, Enchantment, Illusion, Necromancy, Summoning, etc.) each with 20 or more spells, and each school has its own progression tree. For instance, the basic skill in the Fire school is Ignite Fire, which is the prerequisite to learn Shape Fire and Create Fire, and you need both of those to learn Fireball or Flame Jet, and you need Flame Jet to learn Breathe Fire. Every school has its own tree - you don't get the powerful spells unless you spend the points to learn a bunch of lesser spells, and knowing powerful spells in one school doesn't help you at all to learn spells in another school (you can cast multiple exploding fireballs, but if you want to also throw lightning bolts you need to start out buying simple Air spells like Puff of Wind and work your way up the Air tree).

e: Here's the schematic of the Fire school

You can find all the schools laid out in http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/downloads/GURPS_Magic_Spell_Charts.pdf

I'm loving that GURPS has a Food College of Magic, although it's probably the school of magic that's the least useful to a player character by itself

EDIT: also looking over SJGames' site they barely have anything for GURPS in print, it's kinda ridiculous(too bad they continue to cling to running their own store, it'd be nice if they put their stuff on DriveThruStuff for On-Demand printing)

drrockso20 fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Aug 13, 2015

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 06:38

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

Carrasco posted:

Lovecraftchat a few pages ago reminded me, I read "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" recently and now I kind of wish that that had been the big influence on fantasy rather than Tolkien. Instead of humans, dwarves and elves in every setting it's humans, ghouls and cats.

a lot of Lovecraft's stuff is pretty perfect for D&D Fantasy(makes sense since his close friend Robert E Howard was one of the more important early influences on D&D), one could easily do an adventure based on Rats In The Walls or The Colour Out of Space(heck all you really need to do is tone down the madness stuff and most early Mythos stuff slots into D&D very easily)

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 07:12

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

Impermanent posted:

My favorite GURPS magic system was the hoodoo-inspired spirit summoning used in GURPS spirits.

GURPS was ahead of its time in many ways, and remains one of my favorite RPGs to this day due to its truly remarkable supplements. I don't play it anymore, because the system its share of barnacles and doesn't have any concept of balance or player-friendliness. The sub-systems in many of its supplements have ideas still haven't been replicated elsewhere, though.

clearly someone needs to make a more streamlined GURPS clone that's as compatible with it as legally possible(that or replicates as much GURPS content as possible)

Kai Tave posted:

Does GURPS come in a convenient pocket-sized format with illustrations by John Kovalic? No? Then SJG doesn't give a poo poo about it.

guess we'll have to wait for Steve Jackson to die and then hope someone offers to buy or liscence GURPS off SJG

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 07:42

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

Plague of Hats posted:

Considering SJG still releases micro-supplements through e23, they seem plenty dedicated to GURPS in the sense that they like it and want to support it, but also it's an RPG so it makes poo poo money.

they should really start hopping on the Kickstarter bandwagon, I bet a new edition of GURPS would make a butt ton of money since it's still a pretty big name

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 07:51

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

Kai Tave posted:

Honestly, considering that SJG has figured out what makes them a decent amount of money (i.e. not RPGs) and have stayed the hell away from the landmine-lined field of Kickstarter, they might qualify as the most business savvy tradgames publisher in existence at the moment.

but they have done several Kickstarters...

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 07:56

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

Come to think about it, one could probably squeeze Arkham County/Miskatonic Valley into a D&D setting pretty easily with only minimal changes depending on the setting's tech levels(mostly just replacing references to real world locations and people with appropriate local analogues), possibly sticking in similar "Lovecraft Counties" from other authors into nearby regions as well(like a version of Steven King's Maine or the various Mythos locations in Britain, or Imboca from the movie Dagon), as well as some of the various fantastical cities that come up in the Mythos that aren't in the Dream Lands like Irem or Ry'leh(not sure though if the Dream Lands should remain a separate but attached world like normal, or if it should be integrated into the normal campaign setting map, not to mention whether to include anything from Conan and other early periods in the Mythos as well)

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 15:31

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

gradenko_2000 posted:

There are even stats for Cthulhu in various D&D beastiaries!

That's ... that's not what you meant, did you

Well if the Mythos is included as part of the D&D milieu than one has to accept that it's critters need to be killable now(although a lot of them are quite killable even in the source material)

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 16:25

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

okay people find me a game that can pull this sort of campaign setting off;

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 01:12

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

Spiderfist Island posted:

Tenra Bansho Zero, maybe? I'm not too familiar with how it works in practice though.

that is a possibility as I do have a PDF copy from backing the kickstarter(although if I were to run it I'd need to pick up a physical copy)

Swagger Dagger posted:

Run it in GURPS

a possibility, although that relies on having to use potentially a lot of books

Meinberg posted:

Apocalypse World

got nothing against AW but it's way too light of a system for my tastes

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Literally any game system that isn't tied to a setting and even so with the right homebrew. Next.

wow way to be completely unhelpful and lazy, I was already aware of that possibility(one would have to be completely new to RPGs to not know that), was looking for actual suggestions, cause while I've got a couple ideas in mind, more would be welcome

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 01:41

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

Jimbozig posted:

Well Strike! has rules for fighting Titans and rules for motorcycle chases. So my completely unbiased and totally objective opinion is to go with that.

mind linking to where I can buy it, doesn't seem to be on DriveThruStuff/RPGNow

# ¿ Aug 14, 2015 02:57

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

bunnielab posted:

Yo I am still trying to decide what edition of D&D I wanna get back into. I have read the quickstart rules for 4th and 5th, and have acquired a bunch of the old 1ed books I have in storage somewhere. Now that there are two 1st ed PBP games I can get a refresher of that edition, but I would love a recommendation for a really good PBP game for 4th and 5th. Preferably ones that show off the mechanics well. Thanks dudes!

EDIT: I assume 2nd is much like 1st and 3rd is too weird to mess with.

Personally I'd suggest looking into BX/BECMI/RC era D&D or one of the OSR/Retroclones of it(several of which are available for free in PDF format)

# ¿ Aug 16, 2015 02:22

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

Helical Nightmares posted:

Try Dungeon Crawl Classics

http://slangdesign.com/rppr/2015/04/podcast-episode/rppr-episode-113-van-art-gaming/

http://actualplay.roleplayingpublicradio.com/2015/04/genre/fantasy/dungeon-crawl-classics-sailors-on-the-starless-sea/

I have to second this, not only because it's a great game(that's very well supported by not only it's publisher Goodman Games, but by 3rd party publishers, and by fans as well), but also cause it's an extremely beautiful book, and pretty much the only RPG books I can think of that look better are Limited/Special Edition affairs or are extremely high quality even by normal book publishing standards(like the Guide to Glorantha set)

# ¿ Aug 16, 2015 11:19

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

Evil Mastermind posted:

The 2014 Indie RPG Awards nominees have been announced. It's a pretty eclectic mix, but there's some cool stuff in there.

some interesting games on there, anyone have Cold Steel Wardens, cause that seems the most interesting one there to me

also on the topic of Cthulhutech, it's one of those things where the basic idea is solid, and it had a lot of interesting ideas, but turned out to be a mess, supposedly they're going to be doing a reboot with a new system in the relatively near future, and hopefully they'll both trim out the stupid parts and have a system that's actually functional(might run something in a modified version of Cthulhutech's setting using Battle Century G for the rules though)

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 09:07

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

The Vosgian Beast posted:

Boy I sure hope Romney doesn't win the election!

I liked that the servants of Shub Niggurath were literally sexy furries.

that'd be one of the things I'd be changing/throwing out

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 06:45

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

bunnielab posted:

Pouring over the old AD&D books has reacquainted me with the art of Jim Holloway, whom I never knew the name of but always loved his stuff.

I love everything about this, the focus on the moment everything goes sideways, the amazing facial expressions, I love it all. This is the art in rule books that excited my imagination, not the serious heros and villians, but the poor fucks who just wanted to make a few gold coins, frozen in the moment where they realized that maybe being a dirt farmer isnt so bad.

He also has contributed some art to Dungeon Crawl Classics, although I think I like Peter Mullen's art in that book the best

Ojetor posted:

I figure this thread might be the best place to ask this.

My friends and I used to play D&D 3e like 10 years ago during high school and college. We are looking to get back into RPGs, preferably a dungeon crawl of some kind with some good published adventures, because now with full time jobs and families it's a lot harder to find the time to prepare a custom adventure. Ideally it would also have decent balance between classes and engaging combat.

What's the murderhobo simulator with the best combat? From what I've read, 5e seems to be a regression to the bad parts of 3e. 4e seems well regarded, but we're not unwilling to try a non-D&D game if there is a better one out there.

If you want something modern then what the other's have said about 4th Edition is true(FantasyCraft is also worth looking into), if you want something old school however then I'd recommend one of the following; Basic Fantasy RPG, Adventurer Conqueror King System, or Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 23:59

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

I pretty much only played Mass Effect 3 for it's multiplayer, since I never got through the first two games(unfortunately I can't beat ME1 cause it's so drat boring from a gameplay perspective)

# ¿ Aug 22, 2015 11:16

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

Covok posted:

Random thought, but I'm surprised that the Elder Scrolls never made a cheap, cash-in TRPG. Seems right up their alley.

well here's a RPG that 4chan's /tg/ board made that looks decent; Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG

and a wargame for Elder Scrolls using WHFB as a base; Scrollhammer

moths posted:

The D&D arcade games taught a valuable lesson about how stupid that magic system would look in practice.

not sure what crazy nonsense you're talking about, those games are great

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 05:31

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

Covok posted:

It's not so much that I'm looking to play an Elder Scrolls TRPG as it is that I just am surprised an official one doesn't exist.

Also, I'm always envious at how good these fan project's layouts are. I really need to learn photoshop or something.

oddly enough the /tg/ projects that go beyond Pastebin or Google Docs tend to have really good formatting for the most part(Dungeons The Dragoning 7th Edition is surprisingly good looking for example, same with that Pokemon RPG they made, and that Evangelion one)

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 06:10

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 18:29

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

Covok posted:

Yeah, that. It would be nice to have more control on the process since handing it off to a layout guy, while is fine and has worked in the past, requires a lot of correspondence and leads to more than a few communication errors. Then again, I don't have experience with aesthetics in general, not just the program so it would also be a theory problem.

I've noticed and it always make me envious and a little confused. In regards to the later, I just mean that it's a lot of work to put into something you can't sell.

I figure it has to do with the communal nature of /tg/ projects, as they both quickly figure out what does and doesn't work, and will be absolutely vicious in mocking a bad layout in ways that even SA pales at doing

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 06:35

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