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Welcome to the Traditional Games chat thread! This is a place for:
Everyone is welcome to the chat thread, even non-TG regulars. You can find the 2020 thread here.
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Jan 2, 2021 18:48
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 23:39 |
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I played the first session of a 2 parter of Nice Marines today, and I think more people should play Nice Marines, it's a good game whose mechanics encourage fun times.
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Jan 2, 2021 18:56
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Man I need to start posting more again. I think I barely posted in last year's thread, let alone in general.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:13
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from the last thread:Boba Pearl posted:What's the best dungeon mapping software? tl;dr: Wonderdraft, Inkarnate, Dungeondraft, Photoshop/GIMP/Paint.NET, use other people's maps, use randomly generated maps, don't worry as much about making your own maps if you need a lot of them. Figure out your needs. Longer form answer below. --- What are you looking for here? Do you want to make your own maps for a specific game, or is it a module, or for a novel or something? Do you want to improve your maps for a game that relies on grid combat, like GURPS or D&D? If you want to make maps that look pretty good for dungeon mapping to use at a physical table with lots of rich image assets and you print everything out for us in color, then something like Dungeondraft is pretty okay. Otherwise, a free image editor should be fine. If you want to make battle maps that fit your specific vision on a virtual tabletop software that already allows for a grid projection like Roll20 or Tabletop Simulator, then I think you could take map assets and throw them onto there and do the grid projection and call it a day. "2 Minute Tabletop" is great for this and rather than spend time making my own maps, I stitch together maps and then use multicolored pens to customize or link them in a virtual tabletop. Campaign Cartographer 3 is mostly intended if you want to create things for publications and is mostly a CAD program. The "Tome of Ultimate Mapping" is very useful for teaching it, but it's primarily making publication-grade material and it requires a lot of time to learn and prepare maps. It's 'worth it' if you want to commit to making money with map design, but for everyday map creation tableside, I agree probably not worth it. For world maps, that also again depends. Wonderdraft is great, I hear good things about Inkarnate, but I also randomly generate world maps via Dwarf Fortress and then either redraw them for world maps or use as-is.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:15
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With Campaign Cartographer, turn off the sheet/layer effects until its time for the final render; those slow things down. And yes, one of the CC bonuses is you can use the maps you make in it in publications (need special permission for battlemaps - i.e. anything that's large enough that their assets could be easily ripped, but that's just a case of emailing and asking, no fees or anything.)
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Jan 2, 2021 19:45
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More like Twenty Twenty FUN!
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Jan 2, 2021 20:41
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Hi I am new user
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Jan 2, 2021 21:39
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I should post here more and not, like, once in a blue moon in the Age of Sigmar thread. My Lancer group has agreed to check out Wicked Ones, which is Blades in the Dark meets Dungeon Keeper. It's going to be every other week as one of your players is unable to make those days and we don't want them to miss too many games, so a side thing that can go on whilst they're away seems good.
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Jan 2, 2021 22:30
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I hope more boardgamers and miniaturers post in the new year. 
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Jan 2, 2021 22:39
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Evil Mastermind posted:Man I need to start posting more again. I think I barely posted in last year's thread, let alone in general. Please do. You’re a good poster.
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Jan 2, 2021 23:01
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DigitalRaven posted:Please do. You’re a good poster.
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Jan 2, 2021 23:07
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Trying to decide if I should sculpt non-existent Star Players for the upcoming Blood Bowl season. I feel like Ripper Bolgrot is an essential model to have onhand for my goblins, but there’s no stats available and the reduced Star Player options really hurt my odds. Either way, I feel like it’ll be fun to see if my group is willing to extend me the option of modifying things.
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Jan 3, 2021 00:14
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Is there a "tell me about your character" thread somewhere on this board, and if not is it something anyone's interested in?
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Jan 3, 2021 00:20
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mellonbread posted:Is there a "tell me about your character" thread somewhere on this board, and if not is it something anyone's interested in? I have embodied a sentiment of just post, the thread I made about megadungeons is pretty much 80% me talking to myself Tell me about your character though
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Jan 3, 2021 01:02
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FWIW I'm following your megadungeon post, I just don't have anything meaningful to contribute to it.
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Jan 3, 2021 01:04
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mellonbread posted:Is there a "tell me about your character" thread somewhere on this board, and if not is it something anyone's interested in? I mean I'm interested in hearing about your character but that feels like exactly the sort of thing that is interesting with the kind of infrequency that it's a good thing for the chat thread.
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Jan 3, 2021 01:14
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SkyeAuroline posted:FWIW I'm following your megadungeon post, I just don't have anything meaningful to contribute to it. nice Tulip posted:I mean I'm interested in hearing about your character but that feels like exactly the sort of thing that is interesting with the kind of infrequency that it's a good thing for the chat thread. After having spent a stint in the yob I think two main things: - better to post something than worry about if it will fly or not - better to post, and celebrate an attempt, anywhere, without barriers Very much the  energy but for TG/
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Jan 3, 2021 01:54
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unrelated but i decided to experiment with recording an intro piece of audio with a music bed for my saturday game to help rapidly onboard new players, since we lost 2-3 out of 5 and we need two more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbzWjFUUX24
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Jan 3, 2021 08:03
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So you need players? Consider me sizzled.
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Jan 3, 2021 15:16
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Mustache Ride posted:So you need players? Consider me sizzled. Send me a PM, I am indeed looking for 1 or 2 more players, but I was mostly just like "look, a thing!" The workflow was nowhere near as intimidating as I thought! 1. Record audio 2. Use something to level it 3. Download music from Youtube's music library that seemed thematically appropriate 4. Add music with 50% or less level respective to the spoken word with a fade out and fade in for the two segments 5. Use FusionCast (OS X only afaict) to automatically convert the audio with a cool image for Youtube 6. Upload 7. Use written script for subtitles and description 8. Done! Listen over and over and feel kind of satisfied with it The actual pipeline was quite fast, the longest bit was deciding the songs to use. I think I'll probably try to do this for all the games that I have active just because it is a fun thingamabob.
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Jan 3, 2021 19:28
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Are there any good sources for urban / sci-fi combat maps?
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Jan 3, 2021 19:39
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Zeerust posted:Are there any good sources for urban / sci-fi combat maps? I feel like maybe stealing maps from Super Robot Wars would work.
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Jan 4, 2021 04:02
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Legit tip: use RPGmaker for mapmaking. There are premade and fanmade tilesets of every possible terrain you would possibly want.
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Jan 4, 2021 13:00
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Tell me about your character, Trad Games Chat.
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Jan 4, 2021 18:32
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I'll have to come back to it once our new game starts. I've had kind of interesting characters in the past but none really worth storytelling about, besides one half-remembered Supers Revised character I'd be partially reconstructing in the process of telling.
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Jan 4, 2021 18:37
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This is a great idea for a thread but it leaves out those of us who perma-GM 
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Jan 4, 2021 19:03
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Drone posted:This is a great idea for a thread but it leaves out those of us who perma-GM
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Jan 4, 2021 19:07
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Drone posted:This is a great idea for a thread but it leaves out those of us who perma-GM Says "character," doesn't say NPCs are barred!
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Jan 4, 2021 19:16
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Drone posted:This is a great idea for a thread but it leaves out those of us who perma-GM You have stock NPCs that you run in every game? They're basically characters.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:37
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Drone posted:This is a great idea for a thread but it leaves out those of us who perma-GM There's a setting thread and a GM advice thread.
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Jan 4, 2021 19:54
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When I DM’d years ago I took to heart all the advice to not make NPCs that join the party and are basically your own little player characters because you will steal the spotlight from the players and ruin their time or something. Nowadays, my attitude is that they are loving players so who gives a poo poo. What are they gonna do, start GMing themselves? Lol, they aren’t even going to finish the player’s guide. I’m going to get in on that CharOp too and no one can stop me. I am a Chaos DM
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Jan 4, 2021 20:04
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aldantefax posted:from the last thread: Do Wonderdraft or Inkarnate or the like have any plugins for Modern/Cyberpunk stuff or is all fantasy?
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Jan 4, 2021 21:01
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fozzy fosbourne posted:What are they gonna do, start GMing themselves?
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Jan 4, 2021 21:08
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I've taken a page out of Spectaculars and basically stopped running with PCs. It's all GMCs for everybody.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:51
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mellonbread posted:"Inflict a DMPC on the players so one of them picks up DMing" is definitely a tactic. Heh. In my experience I could probably defecate on the table while wearing a funny hat and making a weird voice before people would commit to running traditional TTRPGs themselves. Seriously though, we’re approaching traditional TTRPGs again with some serious skepticism towards the folk wisdom surrounding best practices, especially stuff that is biased towards the player’s experience, because our collective experience is they are fun until the GM burns out and the game collapses. We have nothing to lose. If it turns out to not be fun again we can just stick with GM-less stuff like For the Queen and Archipelago, narrative / storytelling games, board games whatever.
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Jan 4, 2021 21:56
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I mostly agree with this take on adding a DMPC: https://blogofholding.com/?p=2572 I would also add to the list of reasons to consider it is that running a DMPC from time to time has let me and a couple of the more adventurous people in my group try different systems without having too few characters to fill assumed roles or run published content without a ton of surgery.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:26
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The group I played with back in high school had a rotating DM chair and thus whoever was DMing had their character essentially as a DMPC. It worked out well enough. I don't really miss many of the people from that group nowadays, but it was fun at the time.
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Jan 5, 2021 00:38
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DeathSandwich posted:Do Wonderdraft or Inkarnate or the like have any plugins for Modern/Cyberpunk stuff or is all fantasy? Dunno, it is whatever you wanna make out of it, probably: https://www.reddit.com/r/wonderdraft/comments/ao8hic/against_all_odds_i_made_a_modern_city_map_in/ I guess Wonderdraft has a reputation for not being modern friendly but it seems like this chum has figured it out. Cyberpunk (at least, aesthetically) is lighting heavy so unless you are comfortable with object source lighting your best bet is likely to crib blueprints and maps from published sources to accomplish your needs. I don't know anything about Inkarnate but since people refer to Wonderdraft as the "Inkarnate competitor program" then I'd assume it is similar in some ways but may not have object lighting support. Alternate suggestions for a modern / cyberpunk game: just take stuff from other people. Examples: GM move 1: Google maps. Look for cities that are not in your locale if you like. GM move 2: Public domain blueprints. Cyberpunk has to do with crawling around buildings and so on. https://www.archdaily.com/780312/these-are-the-best-architecture-images-from-the-nypls-new-public-domain-collection GM move 3: Make your own map using terrain bits in Tabletop Simulator and then "pose it" in the camera angle you want, then take a screenshot of it and print it out / use it in roll20/whatever vtt. You can even toy around with grids and lighting for this. This all comes down to: "what do you want to do with maps (not just yours, but anybody's maps)" "how much resources (time, energy, money, maybe) do you have to reasonably commit to this" If creating maps means "designing and creating maps from scratch for a specific thing you have in mind that is also able to be created in an efficient, approachable way in a very specific aesthetic style", then you may need to look at existing map inspiration for those as well, because no program will make a satisfying map for you in a short timeframe. Budget at least a couple of hours until you get the hang of it and get ready to do a lot of it before it feels comfortable.
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Jan 5, 2021 00:39
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Kyrosiris posted:The group I played with back in high school had a rotating DM chair and thus whoever was DMing had their character essentially as a DMPC. It worked out well enough. Ars Magica sort of formalizes this with troupe play; players don’t have a 1-1 relationship with characters, and this facilitates switching the storyteller (GM) role around as an option (but it’s not required). I have never played it so I could be mistaken about details. I feel like one of my groups is getting close to the point where we could probably try troupe style play with something narrative like PbtA or cortex. We’ve been leaning in to player author stance stuff in narrative games and the rules are light enough that I think players might feel comfortable adjudicating those games. We’ve also been playing a lot of fiasco and other GM-less stuff and I think that’s good cross circuit training, heh. I sometimes wonder what the TTRPG industry would be like if D&D started as something like troupe-style play. It seems like the old school open table style play, with players coming and going and no expectation of like a 2 year long epic Dragonlance style drama, was sort of close. But the game moved far away from that somewhere at the end of 1st/start of 2E.
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Jan 5, 2021 00:57
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 23:39 |
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fozzy fosbourne posted:Ars Magica sort of formalizes this with troupe play; players don’t have a 1-1 relationship with characters, and this facilitates switching the storyteller (GM) role around as an option (but it’s not required). I have never played it so I could be mistaken about details. Honestly I think moving away from troupe style dming was one of the biggest mistakes of Ars5. The game is very crunch intensive and having one DM for everything is a quick road to burnout, and it's intended to be more of a medieval wizard soap opera where you bounce around different characters and subplots and only occasionally have a 'main plot' session anyway. The idea was generally that the 'main' gm would run the main plot, and everyone else would rotate around running plotlines for the various story hooks that the characters and covenant took.
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Jan 5, 2021 01:28
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