I'll throw in my usual suggestion of Don't Rest Your Head. It shines brightest when the GM knows his players really, really well (for the purposes of getting under their skin and providing appropriately painful choices) and with just one player that makes things a little easier.
Also, the traditional start of a group is the GMing running a series of personalized one-on-one scenes for each player, the GM tips suggests continuing those solitary-character serial scenes is a fine way to run an entire campaign, and the rules for PCs doing something as basically cooperative as aiding one another's actions is firmly optional, so it's got a fair amount of single-player-ism in mind from the get go.
Also, nice and simple d6 mechanics so you don't need to buy any funky dice, and the system is easily ported to scenarios other than the typical "insomnia grants you spooky super powers" setting if you'd like something different.
Edit: Also, a free starter pdf with complete, up-to-date-ish rules: The Bad Man
For the stuff like Call of Cthulhu I can't see any kind of starter stuff, is it more of a buy the rulebook and take it from there kind of situation?
There are two versions of the basic rules for free on this page. The 7th ed QuickStart rules take minutes to create an investigator and have a classic starter adventure included.
Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it, who around here is interested in potential Exalted 3E online games? I'm thinking more SKYPE/chat software what-not. But still. Gauging interest in the PA crowd.
PSN ID - Mostlyjoe Steam ID -TheNotoriusRNG
+1
Options
HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it, who around here is interested in potential Exalted 3E online games? I'm thinking more SKYPE/chat software what-not. But still. Gauging interest in the PA crowd.
I had a lot of fun playing Exalted but the 2e crunch became an infamous nightmare. Is there anywhere I can go to find good information about what's different in 3e?
While goofing around on the internet and in the sourcebooks for my Dark Heresy campaign I've discovered I have an erotic love for random generator tables and all that they stand for.
Is there some great big central source for these things? I'm talking NPS generation, plot generation, planet generation, city generation, monster generation, everything must be randomly generated.
Exalted is a modestly interesting setting -- in 2001 it may have been exotic but these days it's easy to dismiss it as a Sino-Greek mashup setting (it's a bit more Forgotten Realms than that in reality, of course). It was White Wolf's attempt to drain audience from Wizards and D&D, so it was of course "darker and edgier than your daddy's D&D" although that is probably grossly understating how dark and edgy D&D was when it first hit tabletops. As far as draining audience, it was vastly less successful than Wizards' own attempts to decimate its audience, so it's hard to say whether it met its intended goals. It did give the Storyteller audience a solid fantasy game to play, of course, but that probably wasn't an initial goal.
No announcements vis-a-vis Exalted have been made to indicate it's going to meet the December 2014 release date that has been talked about, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I imagine they had to send a lot of art back because it was too bikini-clad, so that would cause delays that would be difficult to gauge.
But I have no doubts, whatsoever, that this edition will be another "wait for the major errata" editions. That won't stop people from trying to play it, of course. But I suspect that audience will be notably smaller than the one that tried to play Exalted before 2.5e, and that one was notably smaller than the one that tried to play Exalted 1e (hence the "it will be more like 1e was meant to be!" pitch that has been spewed frequently).
I know I will be playing it at some point, but I imagine we're going to delay at least until Sidereals are available as playable characters.
Ex3 has been vastly more playtested than the previous editions and the developers have all stated that they agree the previous editions had heavily flawed systems from the get go. All the playtesting reports so far have said that the system works very well and is very balanced while also being fast paced and enjoyable to use.
So I am wondering where you are getting your idea that people will need to wait for a major errata seeing as that flies in the face of, well, everything we have seen about the game so far, including the (justified in my view) "we aren't going to preview stuff because you'll just see it without context and tear it apart while making load of incorrect assumptions so just wait for the goddamn game" attitude of the devs.
I mean really at this stage I just get the impression that you personally don't like Exalted and are poo-poohing the new edition as a result, which seems very unfair bearing in mind that it hasn't come out yet. Plus I imagine we will see a PDF in the next few months as all the writing is in editing and the layout/art is currently being sorted and actually a lot of it has been done (I've seen some myself).
+1
Options
Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it
Did they make some kind of announcement? On the schedule it's still in the "On the Horizon" section.
They are past red lines. And they will release a pre final PDF before last edits. So in the next few months is possible. That said I'm gauging interest before it drops.
Because I've seen the materials. Unless they've gone completely back to the drawing board following the leak and the significantly more brutal feedback that generated, this isn't an engine that's going to last long when exposed to a less "polite" player base than the small playtest group (and the small group motivated to look at the leaked materials). It's the same issue Blood & Smoke had, and the same issue that's par for the course with games that take a loose "common sense" approach to defining mechanics. (You quickly realize this is, at best, a foolhardy way to approach game design for an audience you have to -- by the nature of paid development -- pay attention to when they complain about how exploitable something is, particularly when it's written into the rules in an 'incontrovertible' way.)
Whether I like or dislike Exalted in broad terms isn't germane to the conversation, and shame on you for attempting to make it so.
Whether I like or dislike Exalted in broad terms isn't germane to the conversation, and shame on you for attempting to make it so.
Like I said, that's the impression I've got. Even before the leak occurred you were critical of OPP's ability to make a playable game. It's pretty germane to the conversation if you are criticising the game based on a past dislike for previous editions, and it's no skin off my nose if you don't like that.
EDIT: That said, if you aren't then you aren't, and that's fine. I disagree and would prefer to be cautiously but solidly optimistic, but you are allowed your opinion for sure.
I've got quite a few sets from Dwarven Forge, and they're awesome! But I don't use them much anymore, and they were hella expensive. If you've got more time than money, I'd suggest looking into papercrafting / print-and-play tiles.
I've got quite a few sets from Dwarven Forge, and they're awesome! But I don't use them much anymore, and they were hella expensive. If you've got more time than money, I'd suggest looking into papercrafting / print-and-play tiles.
The original DF stuff was ... Well, I looked at it, said, "That's really awesome!" and then looked at the price: "... but not that awesome!"
The stuff from their kickstarters is much, much cheaper (especially if you don't get it painted, just the base tone), and as long as you don't mind re-arranging a smaller set of tiles and not having your entire dungeon, etc., laid out at all times, you can get pretty far with not all that many.
Print-and-play tiles can be pretty awesome, too - I like Fat Dragon Games's stuff, but I don't know how it compares to other offerings.
I've got quite a few sets from Dwarven Forge, and they're awesome! But I don't use them much anymore, and they were hella expensive. If you've got more time than money, I'd suggest looking into papercrafting / print-and-play tiles.
The original DF stuff was ... Well, I looked at it, said, "That's really awesome!" and then looked at the price: "... but not that awesome!"
The stuff from their kickstarters is much, much cheaper (especially if you don't get it painted, just the base tone), and as long as you don't mind re-arranging a smaller set of tiles and not having your entire dungeon, etc., laid out at all times, you can get pretty far with not all that many.
Print-and-play tiles can be pretty awesome, too - I like Fat Dragon Games's stuff, but I don't know how it compares to other offerings.
I never knew about Print and play stuff. My world just grew by 3 sizes!
My 13th Age didn't come... I got a text saying that it wasn't delivered cause there was no one home to receive it. But there was no notice on my frontdoor or in my mailbox. They've never had a problem with leaving it on my frontstep before. Which means the postal worker delivered the mail at our kiosk, then drove around, looked at the stairs to my apartment, said nope not today, and just drove off.
*grumble*
I set asside valuable time I could have spent playing Destiny time to read that!
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it, who around here is interested in potential Exalted 3E online games? I'm thinking more SKYPE/chat software what-not. But still. Gauging interest in the PA crowd.
I maintain my stance that as soon as we get playable 3E materials(that playtest leak is far from playable in any meaningful way), I'll be up for running a game, or playing in one if that's a more convenient option(but frankly I prefer running to playing these days)
EDIT: Note that I think this is going to be a colossal trainwreck, but I'm running a campaign of Anima: Beyond Fantasy with a rotating cast of 13 players so trainwreck is something that I feel confident in handling.
I've got quite a few sets from Dwarven Forge, and they're awesome! But I don't use them much anymore, and they were hella expensive. If you've got more time than money, I'd suggest looking into papercrafting / print-and-play tiles.
The original DF stuff was ... Well, I looked at it, said, "That's really awesome!" and then looked at the price: "... but not that awesome!"
The stuff from their kickstarters is much, much cheaper (especially if you don't get it painted, just the base tone), and as long as you don't mind re-arranging a smaller set of tiles and not having your entire dungeon, etc., laid out at all times, you can get pretty far with not all that many.
Print-and-play tiles can be pretty awesome, too - I like Fat Dragon Games's stuff, but I don't know how it compares to other offerings.
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it, who around here is interested in potential Exalted 3E online games? I'm thinking more SKYPE/chat software what-not. But still. Gauging interest in the PA crowd.
I maintain my stance that as soon as we get playable 3E materials(that playtest leak is far from playable in any meaningful way), I'll be up for running a game, or playing in one if that's a more convenient option(but frankly I prefer running to playing these days)
EDIT: Note that I think this is going to be a colossal trainwreck, but I'm running a campaign of Anima: Beyond Fantasy with a rotating cast of 13 players so trainwreck is something that I feel confident in handling.
it'd be pretty fun to get some game on with you again Rainy! i'm all about trying new stuff, broke or not, so i'll at least be playing SOME exalted 3e
that being said, I'm fairly sure it's going to be busted somehow unless they actually got folks to put the system through serious mechanical duress and not the playtest group that thinks Sail charms are awesome
I'm getting the Dark Sun itch again, and I'd like to get a look at it before I choose a system.
If you buy the book, you get the PDF. I THINK the orders have shipped, but I've been reading my friend's PDF for ages.
There's a bunch of classes, quite a few monsters (especially undead, metallic dragons, devils, and elementals), multiclassing, and quite a bit of world-building stuff such as guides to some of the big cities.
The classes are good - necromancer, druid (which is more of a set of druidic choices that is similar in range to all the 4e PHB2 Primal classes - you could make a melee bear-dude, a geomancer, an elemental caster, a healer, and more), chaos mage (mad), commander (4e warlord), monk, and occultist.
But there's not loads there that is Darksunable. The Druid is a big deal for Dark Sun, and the monk. Not sure about the other stuff.
I played Dark Sun with the 4e Player's Guide as a sourcebook, and the Dark Sun hack for Dungeon World as the system. It was bloody excellent, and it was only one guy in my group who tipped the balance to us playing 13th Age.
I have the urge to run an Iron Kingdoms game as a PbP here on the forums. I've never run a play by post before, but hey...you've got to start somewhere, right? Why not here.
Assuming there is enough interest, we'd start with the newest published module, Bitter Medicine, and see where it goes from there.
Okay. Now that Exalted 3E pdf is close enough I can finally taste it, who around here is interested in potential Exalted 3E online games? I'm thinking more SKYPE/chat software what-not. But still. Gauging interest in the PA crowd.
I maintain my stance that as soon as we get playable 3E materials(that playtest leak is far from playable in any meaningful way), I'll be up for running a game, or playing in one if that's a more convenient option(but frankly I prefer running to playing these days)
EDIT: Note that I think this is going to be a colossal trainwreck, but I'm running a campaign of Anima: Beyond Fantasy with a rotating cast of 13 players so trainwreck is something that I feel confident in handling.
I will run 3E when it comes out, if only because I want to explore the game so much
I have the urge to run an Iron Kingdoms game as a PbP here on the forums. I've never run a play by post before, but hey...you've got to start somewhere, right? Why not here.
Assuming there is enough interest, we'd start with the newest published module, Bitter Medicine, and see where it goes from there.
Any takers?
Yeah, I think I might be interested in that. I never did get that foulmouthed, French-speaking arcane mechanic out of my system.
ManOHokutoKnight of the Bloody FistRegistered Userregular
I was wondering if anybody could recommend a rules lite superhero RPG . I want to run a game about super-crime in 1980's Florida with lots of ninjas and drug trafficking. I have the DC adventures book but I'm looking for something relatively simple to introduce my players to a modern hero game as we've mostly played Fantasy games so far. And finally I've only run a game once and it was the black crusade sample adventure it went great but i'm a little nervous about a scenario where the PCs have to control their violence.
Posts
For the stuff like Call of Cthulhu I can't see any kind of starter stuff, is it more of a buy the rulebook and take it from there kind of situation?
Also, the traditional start of a group is the GMing running a series of personalized one-on-one scenes for each player, the GM tips suggests continuing those solitary-character serial scenes is a fine way to run an entire campaign, and the rules for PCs doing something as basically cooperative as aiding one another's actions is firmly optional, so it's got a fair amount of single-player-ism in mind from the get go.
Also, nice and simple d6 mechanics so you don't need to buy any funky dice, and the system is easily ported to scenarios other than the typical "insomnia grants you spooky super powers" setting if you'd like something different.
Edit: Also, a free starter pdf with complete, up-to-date-ish rules: The Bad Man
There are two versions of the basic rules for free on this page. The 7th ed QuickStart rules take minutes to create an investigator and have a classic starter adventure included.
Cthulhu rules
I had a lot of fun playing Exalted but the 2e crunch became an infamous nightmare. Is there anywhere I can go to find good information about what's different in 3e?
Did they make some kind of announcement? On the schedule it's still in the "On the Horizon" section.
I was a huge fan of Exalted's first edition. I basically missed D&D 3.0 because I was busy playing Exalted.
I played mostly with friends online, in AIM chat rooms. I can't imagine how cumbersome that system would be using physical d10 dicepools.
Is there some great big central source for these things? I'm talking NPS generation, plot generation, planet generation, city generation, monster generation, everything must be randomly generated.
hAmmONd IsnT A mAin TAnk
No announcements vis-a-vis Exalted have been made to indicate it's going to meet the December 2014 release date that has been talked about, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I imagine they had to send a lot of art back because it was too bikini-clad, so that would cause delays that would be difficult to gauge.
But I have no doubts, whatsoever, that this edition will be another "wait for the major errata" editions. That won't stop people from trying to play it, of course. But I suspect that audience will be notably smaller than the one that tried to play Exalted before 2.5e, and that one was notably smaller than the one that tried to play Exalted 1e (hence the "it will be more like 1e was meant to be!" pitch that has been spewed frequently).
I know I will be playing it at some point, but I imagine we're going to delay at least until Sidereals are available as playable characters.
So I am wondering where you are getting your idea that people will need to wait for a major errata seeing as that flies in the face of, well, everything we have seen about the game so far, including the (justified in my view) "we aren't going to preview stuff because you'll just see it without context and tear it apart while making load of incorrect assumptions so just wait for the goddamn game" attitude of the devs.
They are past red lines. And they will release a pre final PDF before last edits. So in the next few months is possible. That said I'm gauging interest before it drops.
Whether I like or dislike Exalted in broad terms isn't germane to the conversation, and shame on you for attempting to make it so.
it looks like my revolving-DM game of 5e is becoming me running a campaign
to that end i want to order some excellent fantasy terrain that's good for 1-inch square grid combat, especially buildings (particularly ruins)
any suggestions on where i should look?
Like I said, that's the impression I've got. Even before the leak occurred you were critical of OPP's ability to make a playable game. It's pretty germane to the conversation if you are criticising the game based on a past dislike for previous editions, and it's no skin off my nose if you don't like that.
EDIT: That said, if you aren't then you aren't, and that's fine. I disagree and would prefer to be cautiously but solidly optimistic, but you are allowed your opinion for sure.
Dwarven Forge's kickstarted stuff is now available for normal purchases; the first set was dungeon stuff, the new set is caverns.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
The original DF stuff was ... Well, I looked at it, said, "That's really awesome!" and then looked at the price: "... but not that awesome!"
The stuff from their kickstarters is much, much cheaper (especially if you don't get it painted, just the base tone), and as long as you don't mind re-arranging a smaller set of tiles and not having your entire dungeon, etc., laid out at all times, you can get pretty far with not all that many.
Print-and-play tiles can be pretty awesome, too - I like Fat Dragon Games's stuff, but I don't know how it compares to other offerings.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
While we're talking 13th Age, my Limited Edition Bestiary arrived on Monday and it is pretty sweet.
Unfortunately two guys were sick so I didn't actually get to play 13th Age on Monday like planned, but that's a different problem.
Tabletop:13th Age (mm-mmm), D&D 4e
Occasional words about games: my site
I never knew about Print and play stuff. My world just grew by 3 sizes!
*grumble*
I set asside valuable time I could have spent playing Destiny time to read that!
The Terraclips Dungeon stuff is aces but becoming hard to find (at least in the UK) as it seems to be abandoned.
A bit fiddly at set up but you can make some neat stuff. I'm very happy with it.
I maintain my stance that as soon as we get playable 3E materials(that playtest leak is far from playable in any meaningful way), I'll be up for running a game, or playing in one if that's a more convenient option(but frankly I prefer running to playing these days)
EDIT: Note that I think this is going to be a colossal trainwreck, but I'm running a campaign of Anima: Beyond Fantasy with a rotating cast of 13 players so trainwreck is something that I feel confident in handling.
oh my god, this stuff is incredible.
it'd be pretty fun to get some game on with you again Rainy! i'm all about trying new stuff, broke or not, so i'll at least be playing SOME exalted 3e
that being said, I'm fairly sure it's going to be busted somehow unless they actually got folks to put the system through serious mechanical duress and not the playtest group that thinks Sail charms are awesome
I'm getting the Dark Sun itch again, and I'd like to get a look at it before I choose a system.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Yes.
I think around Gen Con though I got a Kickstarter copy so I'm not positive on the date.
If you buy the book, you get the PDF. I THINK the orders have shipped, but I've been reading my friend's PDF for ages.
There's a bunch of classes, quite a few monsters (especially undead, metallic dragons, devils, and elementals), multiclassing, and quite a bit of world-building stuff such as guides to some of the big cities.
The classes are good - necromancer, druid (which is more of a set of druidic choices that is similar in range to all the 4e PHB2 Primal classes - you could make a melee bear-dude, a geomancer, an elemental caster, a healer, and more), chaos mage (mad), commander (4e warlord), monk, and occultist.
But there's not loads there that is Darksunable. The Druid is a big deal for Dark Sun, and the monk. Not sure about the other stuff.
I played Dark Sun with the 4e Player's Guide as a sourcebook, and the Dark Sun hack for Dungeon World as the system. It was bloody excellent, and it was only one guy in my group who tipped the balance to us playing 13th Age.
Crossposting from the SE++ D&D thread. Holy shit that review...
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
I have the urge to run an Iron Kingdoms game as a PbP here on the forums. I've never run a play by post before, but hey...you've got to start somewhere, right? Why not here.
Assuming there is enough interest, we'd start with the newest published module, Bitter Medicine, and see where it goes from there.
Any takers?
I will run 3E when it comes out, if only because I want to explore the game so much
Yeah, I think I might be interested in that. I never did get that foulmouthed, French-speaking arcane mechanic out of my system.