TG Chat Thread 2017

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dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

starkebn posted:

The Hobbit rules, TLotR drools

Silmarillion is transcendent.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 15:08

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:49

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Serf posted:

If you have to teach your kids D&D at least teach them 4E.

As diehard a 4e'er as I am, I'm teaching my kids on Mentzer Basic as soon as the younger one can read a bit.

Covok posted:

A kickstarter just finished on just that book: Cortex Prime. They already have an SRD ready.

Also, if they are using PledgeManager or BackerKit, see if Cam will allow late pledges. By the end of the campaign, there was an obscene amount of interesting setting hacks included with the basic $10 PDF pledge.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 21:45

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Harrow posted:

However I will defend iced tea, but I won't defend d20. I got nothin' nice to say about d20 really.

I have nothing ice to say about d20 or tea.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 17:38

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Okay, so I'm adding this to my list of "helpful sites for game prep." A cool fantasy city generator.

https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

example output:

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 15:22

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Wait, did I see right on RPGnet that Stewart Wieck died? I am not finding anything else about this. Is this legit?

# ¿ Jun 24, 2017 03:40

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

gradenko_2000 posted:

Goon Project? Win an Ennie?

I have an Ennie... :smuggo:

... that I got when I visited the potter who used to make them, and he had a silver-painted spare...

It's a pretty sweet oversized ceramic d20. I think the new ones are fancier; this was a looong time ago.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 14:13

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Dagon posted:

I bought a pile of magic commons for cheap on ebay, and went to town with a 1" hole cutter and keep them semi-organized in coin pages in a binder.

If I'm feeling fancy, I glue them to 1" zinc washers that were a couple bucks for a hundred at any hardware store.

Dude, I got a ton of 1" washers for my games, and they annoy me daily with the alea tools markers.

You see, the alea tools have a tiny neodymium magnet in the middle. Washers have a big hole in the middle. So the washers will never sit cleanly on the center of the magnets; they will slide off to one side or another.

Look for ... heck, I forget what they are called - maybe blanks? 1" metal discs.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2017 16:49

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

ImpactVector posted:

I'd say washers are perfectly fine if you're not using the status markers though.

Totally fine, yep. I'm just giving a heads up because the alea markers are pretty common. And great, too. They just don't always work together.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2017 17:22

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

ESPN made an ad about NERDS and how Sports D&D is a lot less nerdy than Elf D&D (...or, uh, in this case LARPing).

https://twitter.com/espn/status/887416889059815424

Nerds overanalyze dumb ad and make really long, over-detailed articles about it.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?4306-ESPN-Calls-Role-playing-Bad-Fantasy#.WXlbbZczqM8

# ¿ Jul 27, 2017 04:24

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

That Old Tree posted:

Late to the party (I guess?), but I got around to reading 7th Sea 2E, and now I'm ordering a physical copy it's so good. I had such low hopes, even with some of the names that have been attached to the game, the only reason I have a PDF of it is because my friend wanted the book for his birthday. But, goddamn, this is like anti-Wickian in every way, and directly answers every criticism my shallow remembrance of first edition can recall. I feel like there would've been more conversation about this, but the whole thing seems to just be quietly and competently grinding away at its massive million-dollar stretch goal list. What gives?

Speaking only for myself, I found myself utterly uninspired by the rules system. It just leaves me cold.

Like it hits the spot between too many and too few rules, while those rules also don't seem to work, and simultaneously expecting a lot out of the GM.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2017 15:43

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

So I am not all to familiar with modern/supernatural RPGs, and I'm looking for recommendations.

I've been kicking around a campaign that will go straight into the modern kinds of high-weirdness supernatural/pseudoscience stuff - kind of a full-on theosophy/hollow earth/Lovecraft/ufo/cryptid/ancient alien/etc. campaign.

I am positive that there is tons of support for a game like this, but I really only have the Lovecraft part covered and I'm looking for something a little more pulp-ish.

What would be a good system for it? I am leaning towards something like Savage Worlds, but am open to other suggestions!

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 16:21

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Haystack posted:

So, the basic question here is: who are your PCs, and what are they going to be doing?

Good point. I tend to fall back on a 'shadowy investigative organization' structure to help put the characters together, and to drive the campaign forwards.

It works for TV, it can work for me.

ImpactVector posted:

Not sure if you've used it before, but SW is kind of a mess IMO. The tactical combat is really boring and has a really high character building skill ceiling.

And depending on what power level you're playing at, you have to be ready for players to churn through characters as they get hurt because the healing rules are pretty strict.

I have and I didn't particularly hate it. It was simple and pulpy, which is why I'm considering it, but I'm not especially wedded to the system.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 16:51

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Wow, thanks for all the suggestions.

Mostly I am seeing Fate (maybe Atomic Robo) and Gumshoe Esoterrorists. With maybe Unknown Armies thrown in.

I'll check out Esoterrorists first - it seems to be the most direct comparison, and I haven't run Gumshoe yet. Thanks, all!

# ¿ Aug 3, 2017 18:08

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Arivia posted:

Oh my god Strike has literally nothing to do with conspiracy gaming. Holy poo poo. It's a bad 4e clone. You're acting like the d20 fans back at the turn of the millennium - it's the only answer and perfect for everything! How many years since then have RPGs been working to prove that isn't true and you need to find a system that actually matches the game you want to play? The Strike cheerleading squad really needs to shut the gently caress up.

I am not considering strike for this, but also please shut the gently caress up about strike.

Atomic Robo is looking good so far. I am however totally unfamiliar with the source material.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 00:42

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Kai Tave posted:

It's also pretty legit when you take context into account and realize that dwarf74 is someone with a lot of experience running D&D4E under his belt so the potential argument of "but Strike forces you to reskin everything" is nothing he isn't familiar with and capable of doing if it's the game he's after (which it isn't so whatever).

Right. I love my tactical combat, but it's not necessary for every game.

Strike was a totally reasonable suggestion, since I didn't really specify that tactical combat wasn't what I was looking for, here. I get plenty of that in my 4e games, and I prefer to switch up styles regularly.

quote:

There's also a game called Hollow Earth Expedition. I have never played it or even read it so it could be complete fuckin garbage for all I know, apparently it uses some kind of dice pool system where evens count as successes and odds count as nothing, beyond that I have no earthly idea how good it is, but it's definitely a game that exists.

I have heard of it but know nothing about it.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2017 16:30

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

drrockso20 posted:

So with D6 Star Wars that marks at least three major systems available for free in a somewhat legal fashion, anyone know of any more besides;

1) D6 Star Wars

2) Marvel TSR

3) Talislanta

Talislanta is the only one of these which is legitimately up for free. The other two, I just don't think anybody has bothered to C&D.

But I can add Powers and Motherfucking Perils to the list, avalon hill's foray into the boxed set rpg world. http://powersandperils.org

I did an F&F for it around, oh, 2012 and it's a wonderfully bizarre game that's very early 80's, with design elements that I've never seen before or since.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 13:00

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

unseenlibrarian posted:

The Marvel TSR one at least has permission from Wizards. Whether it or the Star Wars D6 one has permission from Disney, on the other hand...

The 80's were weird, but I have to believe the licensing of Marvel's characters was more complicated than that. I'm not worried about the game system, I'm wondering about the names and likenesses of billion-dollar franchise superheroes

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 14:02

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

mango sentinel posted:

Marvel in the 80s was owned by a movie distribution company owned by Roger Corman, I could see them doing dumbshit things. Hell when they got bought by some genius businessman at the end of the 80s, he was the smart guy that licensed the characters to Universal theme parks in perpetuity. Marvel had no idea how to actually manage IP until Disney bought them.

Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not saying it's impossible. But I also don't really believe that WotC could - for example - start up a brand new print run of the Marvel Superheroes box set.

Oh here we go. Right at the bottom:

"TSR is a registered trademark owned by TSR Inc. TSR inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a division of Hasbro, Inc. Names(s) of character(s) and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are Trademarks and � of Marvel Characters, Inc. and DC Comics, and are used without permission, for educational purposes. This site is NOT a for-profit enterprise, and does not make money. It provides resources to players of a game no longer being produced."

...yeah, they just haven't been C&D'd yet. If you want this stuff, I'd save some local copies.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2017 14:33

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Liquid Communism posted:

It needs rules work. They rushed to get the main book in print for GenCon last year, and as a result the Duelist system is just plain badly integrated and the ship system non-existent.

Love the setting, though.

I may have mentioned it before, but something about the entire rules system just hits a squishy spot between rules-light and rules-heavy, and it honestly doesn't look like it does either very well. It also seems to be more demanding of the GM to come up with a list of consequences ahead of any rolls; I didn't find the guidance in the rulebook very helpful at all.

I dunno; I don't regret backing it, but I'm in no hurry to run it.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2017 17:20

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

gradenko_2000 posted:

War of the Burning Sky was a third-party adventure path for both 3e and 4e, though I believe the 3e version is better

I have the 4e conversion, and it's janky as all hell. If you run it, expect to rewrite all the monsters.

quote:

Zeitgeist is another third-party adventure path, this time for Pathfinder, 4e, and I believe also 5e. I've heard very good things about the 4e version in this case.

We're on Adventure 12 right this moment, out of 13. It's amazing, and I will be sad when it's over.

quote:

4e had a similar thing going on:
Keep on the Shadowfell
Thunderspire Labyrinth
Pyramid of Shadows
King of the Trollhaunt Warrens
Demon Queen's Enclave
Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress
Death's Reach
Kingdom of the Ghouls
Prince of Undeath

Apart from H2 and P2, these are very, very bad adventures unless you are only there for a long series of barely-connected set-piece battles.

quote:

I believe Shadow of the Demon Lord has its own 1 to 10 campaign by now, but Serf would know more about that

Tales of the Demon Lord. Notably, the entire thing is under 50 pages.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 13:39

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

gradenko_2000 posted:

Star Wars SAGA was good, and it was just 3.5 in space... soooooooooo...

I thought so at the time, but it has not aged well, and the Force math is just about unpardonable.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2017 17:21

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

So I am hearing various reports that Starfinder is basically nothing new under the sun(s), and is pretty much "Pathfinder in Space" without much in the way of innovation or streamlining.

This sounds suspiciously like exactly what I'd expect out of Paizo, so I'd like to hear some goonsensus.

e: Like, is this designed to appeal mostly to the Paizo faithful, or is it an attempt to reach out to the broader gaming base that thinks Pathfinder is poo, like myself?

dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Aug 22, 2017

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 19:01

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Cease to Hope posted:

jesus christ it has plain old 3x3 d&d alignment

Holy poo poo this is the Pathfinder-est thing ever.

And that example of play is :ironicat:

So what I'm getting is yes, it really is just PF in space, and that any innovation is only relative to PF itself and the numerous d20 games that preceded it.

Hard pass.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 20:03

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Pope Guilty posted:

Pelgrane's got a Bundle of Holding which is the entire run of The Esoterrorists for $20.

Yup! This was recommended to me several times in this thread, so I grabbed it and now I really, really want to run it.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 13:53

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

gradenko_2000 posted:

The Esoterrorists always struck me as the pulpy HRT/SWAT-team equivalent to Delta Green's nihilist X-Files vibe.

And I do want to run it, too.

Yeah, it's darker than I'd planned on going, but it's solid and close enough to the themes I wanted to capture.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 17:11

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Hostile V posted:

The Book of Unremitting Horror has some fascinating monsters (the Organ Grinder, the Torture Dogs, the Shattterer) and some other monsters I will never use (the Man at the Bar, the Blossomer, the Snuff Golem). It is an impressively creative book and also not a book for people might be squeamish about abusive content. I would say that's generally worth the price of admission.

The Mystery Man can go eat a dick, though. He sucks.

Yeah, it's a lot more outright regular, disturbing, and/or body horror than the kind of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, mixed with aliens, reptoids, deros/hollow-earth residents, etc. that I was originally going to lean towards.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 19:43

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Halloween Jack posted:

It's super weird to me that horror is now "Lovecraftian" if the monster has tentacles or is a living shadow or whatever, or if it's just considered especially weird for whatever reason. Like, Silent Hill isn't cosmic horror. It's intensely anthropic horror. Or for a particularly ghoulish example, Carcosa, where the unknowable Lovecraftian entities demand sexy naked virgins for some reason.

No, I was originally going for literal cosmic horror - unknowable alien beings from beyond time and/or space, whose very existence demonstrates the futility of human existence.

(Tentacles optional)

In Esoterrorists, the horrors seem a lot more personal and directly malevolent.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2017 16:47

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

DocBubonic posted:

The horrors in Esoterrorists is definitely humanistic, even though the monsters resemble Lovecraftian ones. If the Gumshoe system works for you, you could always borrow what you need from Trail of Cthulhu (like the monsters themselves) and adjust it to the time period your game is set. Also on the Pelgrane site there are links to converting CoC material to the Gumshoe system (if you have CoC material on hand).

Actually, the strength of the Esoterrorists material has convinced me that it's worth trying out directly, so I'm putting my original ideas on the back-burner and might drop some of them into other upcoming campaigns.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2017 20:50

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Halloween Jack posted:

Pretty much everything about Numenera can be summed up as "FATE D&D done by someone who doesn't get FATE or anything that isn't D20."

To be fair, that's also the target audience.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2017 15:44

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

So hey, I ran No Thank You Evil for my two sons (6 & 7) and a friend's kids (7 and 4, with help from mom) and it was a pretty great time. The rules are nice and simple - simplified Cypher, which is just fine for kids - and the whole vibe was a blast.

The hardest part of running for kids is striking a good balance between a collaborative group story with rules, and an anything-goes let's-pretend brainstorming session where everyone does their own thing. I think they mostly got the hang of it by the end of Dragonsnot Falls - everyone wanted to play again but, man, I was exhausted worse than in any game I've run for grown-ups.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 01:34

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Flaggy posted:

I just picked this up for my kiddo, any tips I should know starting out?

The biggest thing is pretty much what I laid out, above. It's a weird tightrope to walk when 3 kids are totally into the story, and the 4th one wants to sidetrack everyone to get concrete so he can build a ramp for his Cool Car buddy.

The trick, of course, just like for older people, is not to shut it down, but to redirect it. Make that concrete part of the goal or something, and some rad jumps the celebration. Stuff like "inventory" is a challenging concept for a group of kids, so I wouldn't push it too hard. It's hard to explain what 'collaborative storytelling' is to a group of kids who are mostly used to self-guided solo storytelling, without any guidelines or rules. Go with the flow, but lead them together, if that makes sense.

The game is not challenging, by design, and the characters are fairly well over-prepared for anything that may come their way. The rules are incredibly easy, and probably resemble what the Cypher System would have looked like before Monte decided it needed to use a d20 instead of a d6. (Cypher is crap, but this is for kids, and it's easy to understand.) There's simply not enough challenges in an hour or half-hour of time for them to ever run out of their little tokens to spend - and if they do, they can always Have Fun and get them all back.

Prompt them to Be Awesome and help their friends.

It's best with at least 2 players, because of this. Having one grown-up helping the players is a good idea, too.

Get the box set; the cards are a great visual aid for getting everyone started, and the little tokens help even non-readers get their feet wet.

funmanguy posted:

First suggestion, be sure to have fun! Second suggestion, absolutely no loving WIZARDS!

Nobody in my game used their knack for anything other than style, and none of the companions' cyphers got used either. Probably that's a result of the age ranges and the relative difficulty of the adventure, though.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 05:29

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

drrockso20 posted:

Why would your eating habits get you banned from a Discord server?

IIRC it was eating loose beef, like an animal

(I don't know what 'loose beef' means or why eating it could be bad, though, so, uh....)

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 16:04

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Subjunctive posted:

I ran it this weekend for my girlfriend, her 7-yo, and my 9-yo.

My advice is to read the guide throughly because the organization is utter poo poo and there's no index. (I'm still not totally sure I understand how Fun regenerates).

It was fun!

Since the default seems to be that you're not keeping characters between sessions, I don't think you need to worry about Fun regenerating. Advancement and whatnot are optional rules.

The adventure book has the players getting a point of Fun at the end of each adventure, so I think that's probably how it regenerates. Like I said, before, I'm struggling to see how anyone could spend more than 1 Fun for a normal 30-60 minute session, though.

Maybe that's because I ran it with 4 players, though.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 16:45

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

hyphz posted:

Here's a bunch of NTYE fixes I wrote elsewhere:

If we get more rules-y in the future, I'll keep these in mind.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2017 17:18

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Nuns with Guns posted:

As a point of clarification, Red_Mage vanished but in retrospect Gau is the most likely one to have run off with all the money.

When one dude vanishes completely and the other sticks around, I'd say this is an unlikely assertion.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 20:46

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

FMguru posted:

He actually wrote multiple books of (generic, systemless) DM advice:

I used to have this one. IMO, it was notable mainly for the long essay in back, where Gary explains the benefits of RPGs, and how all the accusations of satanism are ridiculous.

FMguru posted:

Tell me more of your full set of Gord the Rogue novels.

Not only do I have a full set of Gord the Rogue novels, Sea of Death is signed by Gygax himself. :smugwizard:

(Sea of Death is actually not so bad; it's a nice, pulp-y, action novel where you can almost hear the dice rolling in the background. The later books get progressively more gonzo, to the point where Gord and his bard friend are killing demons in the thousands - the bard with sweet guitar licks, and Gord shooting lasers from his sword. I am not making this up.)

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 19:25

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

LongDarkNight posted:

That sounds like some weeabo fightan magic.

Gord was weeaboo before there was weeaboo

Drizzt ain't got nothin on Gord.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 20:13

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Kwyndig posted:

The Warhammer RPG sound neat but I don't think this version breaks a lot of new ground in fantasy play except for by having you start as pig farmers and beggars.

Oh, it's not ground-breaking, but it plays its genre well. With that said, there's some clever stuff there. There's a hit location system that's not too cumbersome, and not a giant pain in the rear end. There's a crit system that's also good. The profession system is well-done, though progress can take a long time after the first profession.

The magic system is interesting and dangerous, although there's good odds the players will not interact with it significantly. (They almost certainly won't at the outset of the game.)

It's still a mid-00's game, with some clear roots in the d20 system, but it's solid for what it is.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 06:02

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Cease to Hope posted:

WHFRP 1e (which is what I played) and 2e are less "GRIM DARK IN A WORLD OF GRIM DARKNESS AND YOU WILL DIE" and more "Monty Python's Life of Brian the RPG".

This is very accurate. There's chaos stuff - it's part and parcel to the setting - but it's more geared towards dark comedy. While it kind of depends on authors, the game does not take itself super seriously.

The system also includes Fate Points to save you from certain death, and a fairly forgiving (if random) chargen system that lets you fix a broken stat.

I'm re-reading now that I got the bundle, and it's better than I had remembered. Of course, the main issue I had with it didn't show up until play - combat can turn into a big whiff-fest, unless you are paying close attention to special actions (aiming, all-out attack) and tactics (ganging up on people). And don't have most enemies parry; it makes stuff drag.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 18:20

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:49

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Oh! One important thing about WFRP2e is that the first published adventure - Ashes of Middenheim - gates the entire adventure behind a roll that nobody might succeed at.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 22:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2017

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