Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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More like Twenty Twenty FUN!

# ¿ Jan 2, 2021 20:41

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:24

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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SkyeAuroline posted:

"Fantasy XCOM RPG" is something I'm interested in, though less "troupe play" and more "roll a new character if yours dies, otherwise keep a running cast" because the latter allows for running stories much better. "Force a fantasy tactical combat game into an intentionally loose narrative framework & break fundamental mechanics to get where you want to go" is not, and that's all that Band of Blades is. Some really good setting writing and ideas shoved into the absolute wrong framework for its goals. It could have been done well in a system that actually supported combat-heavy play.

See also: literally any high-budget 5e hack, from the opposite direction.

Are there any games that lean heavily into this with an explicitly enshrined in the rules B team? Your guy dies or is in recovery or just isn't suitable for the mission so you pick up a guy from the B team, but also there's rules and tables for what the B team gets up to on their missions?

# ¿ Jan 6, 2021 12:58

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Yawgmoth posted:

I never said that it was?

I think "here's how I would fix this bad rule" is a pretty integral part of any discussion around a given bad rule, because otherwise all you really have is grousing about Thing Bad. You can go off on why a rule is bad and what it does poorly, but eventually you gotta pony up and offer a fix or else you're just grousing about Thing Bad to no one's benefit. You address the criticism by addressing the problem itself, and the alteration of said rule for use at your personal table, i.e. a houserule, is how you do that.

Sometimes the best fix is Not Playing That Game

Also the complaint is the attitude of

fozzy fosbourne posted:

so it doesn�t matter

so providing the houserule isn't the fix

Splicer fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Jan 7, 2021

# ¿ Jan 7, 2021 21:27

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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aldantefax posted:

Does anybody have suggestions for effectively sorting and storing RPG books?

Since all the big format books have a specific size I was thinking about possibly getting more bookcases and the like, but I also don't know if that is really the stuff I ought to be doing in this small space I'm in right now. I have a bookcase which is pretty much overflowing at this point and a tall bookshelf that is overflowing with boardgames in the living room, but I'd like to pursue some upgraded solutions like maybe switching out my current bookcase for a longer one or maybe just swapping the whole business out for like a 5x5 IKEA combo grid or something to reinforce with wood glue (somewhat awkward to build though since I'll be moving in about half a year).

I have a growing list of books that are in various systems rather than just one, but I'd like easy access to all of them while I'm ruminating on design stuff.

Does US IKEA have platsa? If you get a bunch of the smaller moduler ones when you move they can be broken down into convenient (if heavy) individual moving boxes

Splicer fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Jan 8, 2021

# ¿ Jan 8, 2021 13:15

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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All of which is unfortunately useless if you just want to sit down and have a nice game of whatever rather than an extended teaching moment.

Don't get me wrong, I love learning new games and teaching people new games, but there's a reason why all my favourite games are either co-op or have a huge amount of indirect competition components.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2021 23:47

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:

That's a very cool concept. What do you think the implementation might look like?

All conflict resolution is based on searching for the most appropriate musical choice with the table voting on the winner

# ¿ Jan 14, 2021 12:16

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Star Trek Adventures except instead of dice everyone gets a flute

# ¿ Jan 14, 2021 12:32

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Jimbozig posted:

There are other mechanics attached to implement choice depending on your class. Sword alchemists smear potions on their blades while staff alchemists hurl flasks of potions lacrosse-style over long distances, etc.

Reskinning is absolutely a thing in my games, so if a player wants to play with wand mechanics but say they have a lightweight staff or whatever, that's absolutely fine. But there does need to be a default for ease of use and new players and just to keep the text understandable.

Players are choosing to go melee, to go ranged power, or to go for a versatile ranged option that isn't afraid of melee. But unlike Strike, this game does have a default setting and default fluff for everything. So it's important to have some grounding for this choice in the fiction even if people can reskin into whatever.

So... which feels like which to you?

Might help if you listed the third, for context.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2021 23:35

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Leraika posted:

It's, again, completely arbitrary, and I've found that saying 'this block of mechanics can only work for a staff and this block of mechanics only works for a wand' only turns off new players who have a specific concept in mind, even if you go 'oh but you can reskin to whatever you want' afterwards. There doesn't have to be a default! You could say 'boosting magic weapon' and 'mobile magic weapon' and get the same result.

Neither feels like a wand or a staff to me, and I suspect further conversation in this vein isn't going to be particularly helpful to anyone.

That's my issue too, none of these feel like one or the other so whatever gets assigned will be essentially arbitrary

When you make an attack with your X, you grant an Opportunity to everyone adjacent. <- this feels wandy
Using an attack action with your X ends your turn. <- this does not

you may take your attack action before your move action. <-this feels wandy
If you hit an enemy with an attack from your Y on your turn, they may not take advantage of Opportunities against you for the rest of your turn. <- this feels staffy

# ¿ Jan 14, 2021 23:58

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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aldantefax posted:

At my wizard school, everybody gets a gun at Grade 5.

At my gun school, everything Grade 5 or higher gets a wizard.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 21:56

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Glutes Are Great posted:

You won't believe what the forums software let's happen, I mean, we are lucky that this year when updating the copyright date the site didn't go down for another three days

Anyways I play a lot of board games and love shadowrun and other games and uhm let's see, recently we've played gloomhaven to test it out

I sometimes wonder if the load bearing slurs ever got fixed

# ¿ Jan 20, 2021 13:39

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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aldantefax posted:

Thread ideas:

- a thread for new thread ideas

I'd suggest a thread for new threads as a jury rigged notification system to let you know there's something buried on page 3 you might be interested in seeing.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2021 11:13

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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mellonbread posted:

There's a similar thing going on in the Rifters setting. The internet became so infested with self modifying viruses that nobody does any networking outside of airgapped, walled gardens.

In the third book of the trilogy, a character makes the mistake of briefly plugging her post apocalyptic survival van into the global telecommunications network. It's immediately hijacked by a murder virus that activates all the weapons systems and kills everyone in line of sights.

I don't remember if it's ever addressed why the network even still exists at all - who is maintaining the routers and transmitters whose only purpose is to transmit turbo-worms.

I have a weird feeling the answer involves bitcoin

# ¿ Jan 23, 2021 11:32

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Halloween Jack posted:

According to an apocryphal rumour, Firefly beat it to the punch. Always wondered if there was any truth to the notion that Firefly was somebody's Traveller game.

If you want to see where firefly came from watch alien resurrection

# ¿ Jan 27, 2021 10:05

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Arivia posted:

they is cool goon otspIII!

This is ludicrously fun

# ¿ Jan 29, 2021 19:59

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Evil Mastermind posted:

Something just occurred to me; despite everyone being in isolation for almost a loving year now, have we ever had a thread dedicated to solo rpgs/board games?

And then post in the new threads thread, I have a few board games with explicit 1 player modes

# ¿ Jan 30, 2021 13:52

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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El Grillo posted:

Does anyone know of a decent online multiplayer card game platform that my brother and I could use to play cribbage and other traditional card games with our 80+ year old dad? Does Tabletop Simulator have a decent card game mode?

boardgamearena.com is pretty good and has cribbage on it. Tabletop Simulator will do most card games fine with the basic deck of cards/hidden hands settings, but you'll need to enforce all the rules yourselves just like in real life. There's a bunch of workshop cribbage implementations.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2021 19:19

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Counterpoint: Do

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 16:57

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Nuns with Guns posted:

Lmao the other one they pitch about negotiating a peace between feuding Earth Kingdom communities is also literally the plot of the most-disliked episode of the original Avatar series. I understand the premise itself isn't bad, but come on you could find a million better callbacks to make.

Play star trek adventures! You can: have racist caricatures try to force your crew into marriage! Find a haunted sex candle! Bajoran politics!

# ¿ Feb 3, 2021 18:06

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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aldantefax posted:

Anybody playing any games recently? Just wrapped up another GURPS session and gonna run D&D tomorrow, then more GURPS on Friday. Hooray!

Going to be starting GM a STA game in the next couple of weeks, excited about that.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2021 23:04

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Len posted:

You guys are much better at naming things than I am, my next plot arc of Monster of the Week is taking place at a renaissance/larp festival in Kentucky. The gimmick of the place is that it's not people dressed as elves/goblins/etc larping what it's like to be in Ye Olde World but is instead actually elves/goblins/etc doing a reenactment

I need ideas for the various booths, performers, and foods that will be available

What are they reenacting?

# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 00:02

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Len posted:

Life as an elf/goblin/etc when you could just be yourself and not put on the illusion of being human

One of the players asked if he could get some character growth and pitched the idea of having an adventure focused on helping his younger brother deal with some poo poo. He gave me a brief list of things the npc is interested in (larping, fantasy settings, etc) and I kind of ran with it.

I talked to the player of the long term monster hunter and we decided that of course he would know a place with all of those things so Jack, Noah, and the little brother are going to this place for a fun filled bonding weekend.

Declan (grandson of Poseidon) felt personally insulted by not getting to kill Drago at MONSTERGEDDON so he asked Caren to find a place he could learn to kill a dragon. Caren slammed the first result on Google which is for just a renaissance festival and they'll accidentally end up at the same one as the rest of the party.

The villain of the piece is going to be a lich who is trying to get involved in local politics and take control. His phylactery is going to be at the bottom of an abandoned mine guarded by the ghosts of scab miners and the skeletons of strike breakers

Edit: I do not believe in subtext

Do any of the PCs know it's elfs and such or do they all think it's a normal renaissance festival?

Lost Property: Contains things you lost. Do not touch the exhibits.

A whole bunch of very mundanely named shops, like "Siobh�in's Grocery" or "Nails by Aiyana". Completely unremarkable outside the makeup and costumes. e: obviously they're not the owners' real names, they're not suicidal.

"Dragon Fighting Exhibition". Dragon themed arm wrestling competition or backyard MMA exhibition. A lot of the "costumed" attendees seem heavily invested in the outcome.

A facepainting booth. Get a new face for the day!

Splicer fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Feb 7, 2021

# ¿ Feb 7, 2021 11:30

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Nuns with Guns posted:

I've thought for a while that a Dark Souls-like game in pen and paper format would really suit Spellbound Kingdoms' fighting style trees really well. It's a good way to capture the "plan around potential outcomes, dodge, and attack appropriately" you get in the real-time combat of those types of video games, but in a more static format.

An issue with this, and it was a bit of an issue with 4E, is that things like dark souls rely on repetition in learning the attacks. You might face the same boss multiple times before you defeat them or go through multiple rounds just learning their tells. That doesn't translate well to tabletop because you're not really going to be fighting the same guy over and over and one fight lasting long enough to learn all the tells is a hell of a long fight.

Unless you mean exposing the combat matrix to the players from the beginning, that could work. Or you could reveal each segment as it's used.

Nuns with Guns posted:

Yeah, it feels like a perennial problem when you get tactical, ability-based games of "how do you stop the PCs from dropping all their supernova attacks turn 1 and obliterating the boss?" And I've seen games where they put a timer in place that incentivizes holding back or flat blocks you until a certain condition or stage is triggered in a fight, but I'd like to see more games where you're deliberately building on prior attacks you made, and where you might need to think tactically about how your attacks leave you open, or how you might need to swerve to a more defensive maneuver based on the active state of an enemy.

Something I've been tossing around for a while was a system where you use your at wills to build up points, and then spend those points to activate your encounter/daily equivalents (or at will riders or whatever). So for martials it would be something like "tactics" or "control" while spellcasters would "attune".

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 15:18

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Nuns with Guns posted:

That would be a cool thing to try, though it does run into the wider issue 4e has of defining and comfortably fitting each class into a designated role. Sometimes 4e was great about that (Defender mechanics) but other times they clearly struggled to define that niche (Controllers). It'd be a lot of work keeping all those roles consistently defined, balanced, and also unique on a per-class basis.

Bit of a miscommunication there: "attune" vs "tactics" are just arbitrary class-themed labels for the same universal mechanic of "Use weak power -> get pebbles -> User ear power again for more pebbles or spend pebbles to use strong power".

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 17:44

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Kestral posted:

On the subject of rarely-seen mechanics, what systems have good base-building / community-building subsystems? I know they're in Pendragon and Harn, and a little bit in Dungeon World, but I can't recall where else it's been done well.

Reign?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2021 14:13

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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My Lovely Horse posted:

Pedant is excellent. One I need to remind myself to use more often when the situation calls for it. And it comes from nothing worse than "teacher/schoolmaster" if wikipedia is to be believed (although in a few years we'll probably get "it's disdainful towards the idea of education and science" ).

Calling someone a pedant makes you sound like a pedant. So I'm all for it.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2021 11:24

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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mellonbread posted:

I like playing online, but I strongly dislike the way maps and tokens work in every virtual tabletop I've used. Nothing has ever come close to the ease of just drawing on a chessex grid with a wet erase marker and throwing down a couple random objects to sub for miniatures. I've tried hooking up a graphics tablet and using it in roll20, but you still have to wrestle with the clunky web interface. Tabletop simulator gets you part of the way there, but adds a lot of friction with the physics simulation - pieces falling through the table or ricocheting off each other and flying into space, an undo function which doesn't work because it's trying to remember the position of every 3D object.

All of this gets easier if you're working from pre-baked material and planned encounters. It's when you try to improvise that things get rough.

If you want to go oldschool scribbling on a grid https://www.owlbear.rodeo/ looks neat.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2021 21:36

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Needs an entry for "So my friends keep telling me that the recipe on page 53 is literally poison, and while yes there have been some deaths, a good cook knows how to work around that."

# ¿ Feb 22, 2021 21:23

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Oh no, my friend group star trek adventures interest check has suddenly jumped from "not quite enough" to "far too many".

# ¿ Feb 24, 2021 00:00

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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My Lovely Horse posted:

I think, on reflection, the basic problem always was that I had players who were dead set against sacrificing anything. Like, not just "it's poo poo if my character dies randomly" or "it's poo poo if a rust monster eats my sword" but also "it's poo poo if we take damage or have to spend daily spells." And it was starting to be like, if I can't sell you on the low stakes and the ebb-and-flow of a regular combat, how can I sell you on the high stakes of the plot?

RPG systems need to impose regular, tangible negatives as a standard part of play for a bunch of reasons, and D&D-alikes are not great at that...

...is as far as I got before I read the part about them getting mad about casting spells

# ¿ Feb 28, 2021 14:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Yawgmoth posted:

If it was just one player I would say "toss out the jackass and keep going" but it sounds like the whole table was just terrified of the idea of expending resources of any type, which makes me wonder how they function in real life. Like do they go around saying "I can't believe you expect me to spend money on food! It could be carrying salmonella!" or whatever?

It's me in a videogame RPG but pen and paper

# ¿ Feb 28, 2021 17:21

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Xiahou Dun posted:

I loathe the �D&D causes brain damage� thing because it�s ableist and facile, but it is true that only playing certain kinds of games exclusively can lead people to have some very weird and unhelpful expectations.

I've settled on "D&D as an introduction teaches bad habits" which still makes people very angry but :shrug:

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 11:18

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Plutonis posted:

It doesn't help with the impression outsiders have of this forum as being full of spiteful indie designers who hate the biggest market share owner.

Are you saying D&D as an introduction doesn't teach people bad habits?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 13:45

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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hyphz posted:

Neither TSR nor Paizo were giant when they started. Not that their existence as giants doesn�t make competition harder, but tactical design by small firms is totally possible.

TSR era D&D is a very different beast to 3.x+ D&D. Paizo became The Other D&D by piggybacking on WotC's work and grog outrage, with changing as little as physically possible being considered a good thing. That's a very different situation to trying to steal market share from D&D (and now Pathfinder) with "The game everybody knows, but good".

e: Which is why I really wish the not poop version of SotDL would come out so it wouldn't be "Do you want to play D&D but good? OK first off, please ignore all the poop jokes no wait come back"

Splicer fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Mar 1, 2021

# ¿ Mar 1, 2021 20:37

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Arthil posted:

They tried that though, and it was called 4th Edition. And then people got upset that it was "Just like World of Warcraft" and so we bounced back from a game focused on tactical combat and some semblance of balance to... 5th Edition.

But I suppose the thing is that, D&D being a big ol' stew of a little bit of everything is one reason it's so popular.

A stew would be fine but it's that hosed up shepherd's pie trifle from friends

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 01:18

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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CitizenKeen posted:

My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it.

I'd like other good monster manuals, because I'd like him to not grow too fond of D&D.

What are some awesome books of monsters that are encyclopedic both in their coverage and in their descriptions. Should be kid appropriate for sex and violence and spookiness (as appropriate as the 5th Edition Monster Manual is, because that ship sailed). Needs beautiful color pictures, obviously. Should be in print.

Any genre. Get at me.

Cryptozoologicon. A lot of big words though, and may cause age appropriate nightmares.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 3, 2021

# ¿ Mar 3, 2021 22:36

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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My Lovely Horse posted:

In my new D&D game my prospective Skaven player adjusted his concept towards being more party-friendly but still a rat person, mechanically simply a reflavoured halfling, and we said what the heck, halflings in our world are just ratfolk now, makes it all a little more unique.

Large, communal families, obsessed with food, hairy feet :hmmyes:

My Lovely Horse posted:

Then we hashed out the details and I got a sinking feeling as I realized we were making a race of literal rat people who were facing prejudice for their association with disease and pestilence, and who were, in a society modelled after medieval Europe, also traditionally that society's merchants and traders.

Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Mar 18, 2021

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 14:35

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Plutonis posted:

Gloss over what, doing actual good writing and worldbuilding? Wouldn't abandon those, they all make for good hooks.

It's the accidental antisemitic stereotypes plutonis

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 16:05

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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Plutonis posted:

It would be unfortunate if the ratkin were actually an evil race, but not if they are victims of bigotry and misfortune

So the Gorilla Men were once enslaved by the humans and are typically stereotyped as dull, brutish, and primitive haha no relax I see your concerns but these dark-skinned proto-hominids are actually surprisingly intelligent given their ape-like wait come back

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 17:54

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 15:24

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
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gradenko_2000 posted:

Men with guns bust in and interrupt the current goings-on

Let their suspicions guide you

An anonymous note reading "I know what you did"

# ¿ Mar 21, 2021 03:12

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Trad Games Chat: squabbled over drafts, forked, and disbanded

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