VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
Honestly LoW + SoS is the perfect worker placement game for me because it's my ideal combination of low downtime, max player numbers, and easy-to-teachability.
So my DM had to bow out after two sessions due to work scheduling, but one of the other players stepped up to be the new DM before I had to! Hooray! A couple of the other players were looking for a change from their old characters, and liked the vibe my Half-Orc Barbarian was putting off, so our new party is four Half-Orcs doing their clan's equivalent of that thing where Amish kids go into the city to decide if they actually want to be Amish or not. Since we're Half-Orcs in an Orc tribe, the elders have decided that we have to go hang out around Humans for a while to decide which side of ourselves we're more comfortable with.
We're pretty much the Ninja Turtles if they were a bunch of technophobic animists. I tried to talk everybody else into the Outlander background so we could use our respective Musical Instrument proficiencies to form a shitty band, but they weren't going for it.
- The Leader, Scar the Half-Orc Paladin: Oath of the Ancients, Acolyte, Warhammer & Shield, Neutral Good. (He's pretty much Samurai Captain Planet)
- The Loner, Dizzy the Half-Orc Ranger: Hunter, Criminal, Longbow, Chaotic Good. (More well-traveled and worldly than the other three, she's worked in the city before, in unsavory occupations that she now regrets)
- The Brains, Doc/Croc/Dot the Half-Orc Druid: Circle of the Land (Swamp), Hermit, Quarterstaff, Neutral. (Gender-fluid, goes by Croc on male days, Dot on female days, and Doc on other days.)
- The Party Dude, Tusk the Half-Orc Barbarian: Totem Warrior, Outlander, Greatsword, Chaotic Neutral. (Pretty chill guy, except when he's acting as the Mortal Avatar of the Great Mad Boar Spirit, as described a couple pages ago.)
Fun fact: I'm the only one who's played a Divine Spellcaster more recently than 2nd Edition. So of course the whole rest of the party goes in for it. At least my Barbarian won't lack for healers.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
My husband taught me to play Battletech with him last night, and we played a game. He picked a mech called a Panther because it's one of his favorite light mechs. I picked a mech called a Vindicator because it looked like it had a duck face so I could call it Scrooge MechDuck.
He proceeded to tear my mech apart through the game, blasting off one of my arms, blowing off my main weapon, nearly crippling both my legs, and at one point even sucker punching my mech in the back of the head so my pilot had to save or go unconscious. I continued to miss almost every attack, though I got in a lucky shot with a missile to his center torso. It stripped a good portion of his armor, but he was completely unphased by it. He didn't even both to move the next round because in his exact words, "I'm fine, you won't hit me there again."
So of course, from that point on the dice rolls decided that all of my missile attacks would go straight to center torso. And crit. I ended up winning my first game by blowing out his engines.
Before following any advice, opinions, or thoughts I may have expressed in the above post, be warned: I found Keven Costners "Waterworld" to be a very entertaining film.
Rpg thread, I'm at a loss. It looks like when I'm done running my current campaign I'm going to have to run the next campaign because the only person in my group who wants to run a game will only do it if we use roll 20 online so he can also invite 5-6 more people to play abd that sounds like a nightmare. I had an idea for d20 modem/urban arcana campaign but two of my players refuse to play in "that kind of world because I play games to escape" which kind of pissed me off but whatever....I'm just tired of the traditional forgotten realms and inner sea stuff.
What are some other campaign settings you guys think I should consider
Rpg thread, I'm at a loss. It looks like when I'm done running my current campaign I'm going to have to run the next campaign because the only person in my group who wants to run a game will only do it if we use roll 20 online
Rpg thread, I'm at a loss. It looks like when I'm done running my current campaign I'm going to have to run the next campaign because the only person in my group who wants to run a game will only do it if we use roll 20 online so he can also invite 5-6 more people to play abd that sounds like a nightmare. I had an idea for d20 modem/urban arcana campaign but two of my players refuse to play in "that kind of world because I play games to escape" which kind of pissed me off but whatever....I'm just tired of the traditional forgotten realms and inner sea stuff.
What are some other campaign settings you guys think I should consider
EXALTED.
...April fools!
A world built over an ancient civilization that contains a legacy of monsters sealed away within small objects, bound to serve whoever releases them into combat, Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh style.
A Gothic horror setting ruled by an actual cannibal who looks uncannily like Shia LaBeouf.
The players explore a spooky manor full of zombies, complete with complex puzzles, retreat being locked off step by step, and a powerful team of mercenaries funded by the original owners of the manor following them through to reach the treasure within.
Take a page from Dante's Inferno and send the players sightseeing on a trip through the layers of a Hell of your choice.
Maybe the group even has a powerful patron or some other form of diplomatic immunity such that most (though certainly not all) of the resident devils are way more interested in getting into their good graces, impressing them, or otherwise garnering their support or cooperation for their nefarious ways than in summarily executing them and stealing their souls.
The players can be simple planar tourists, try to plant the seeds of rebellion on the sly, enjoy unspeakable luxuries in return for putting in a good word for their devilish hosts, or try and find out the truth about that whole 'better to rule in hell than serve in heaven' saying everyone keeps mentioning.
+3
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Did someone called for The Setting Wizard?! *
*not actually a wizard, wizards are lame as hell
Give me any old dumb thing and I will, in the course of two to three hours, construct a fully formed but still partially assed campaign setting for you.
Perennial favorites include...
Terra Sonore, the Planet of Sound, a mostly traditional fantasy setting where every major NPC is based on a famous musician, with race denoting genres of music.
Sewer World, a collection of planar cities that are connected only by their ancient, labyrinthine sewer system that they all inexplicably have.
Actual Historic Europe, but there is magic I guess? Okay this one is pretty self-explanatory, I've just put an undue amount of work into it.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Anyways, @Bucketman, I've got a couple of questions for you:
What system are you using? If you aren't tied to system, what systems are you comfortable using? Setting is often dictated, at least in part, by system.
How many players do you have? How do they tend to play? Are they investigators, bruisers, talkers, et cetera?
What is the tone of your games? A lot of deep, in-character conversations about the true victims of war? An endless cavalcade of Monty Python quotes? Somewhere in-between?
What kind of setting do you want? You say that you're sick of FR - this is fair, FR blows - but why are you sick of it? If you were looking at doing an Urban Arcana game, was there a specific appeal that Urban Arcana had for you?
And finally, how weird do you want it?
+1
HawkstoneDon't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered Userregular
Rpg thread, I'm at a loss. It looks like when I'm done running my current campaign I'm going to have to run the next campaign because the only person in my group who wants to run a game will only do it if we use roll 20 online so he can also invite 5-6 more people to play abd that sounds like a nightmare. I had an idea for d20 modem/urban arcana campaign but two of my players refuse to play in "that kind of world because I play games to escape" which kind of pissed me off but whatever....I'm just tired of the traditional forgotten realms and inner sea stuff.
What are some other campaign settings you guys think I should consider
Move to Eberon and reskin all the modern stuff as steampunk/magitech.
Inside of a dog...it's too dark to read.
+1
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Yeah, I'd be happy to pitch settings and systems but answering those questions would definitely help narrow the field
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
I played Last Will last weekend. It was super fun but damn that manual did not lay things out well.
The premise is that your miserly old uncle has died, and is leaving his vast fortune to the nephew who he believes will most enjoy it. The goal of the game is to spend all of your starting money and if possible, go into debt. The person with the most debt (or least cash) at the end of the game wins. There's three basic ways to spend money:
Property: Buy some! Some of them cost oodles of money to maintain so you can burn down a big pile of money before selling it back at a very slight loss, and others you can buy and then leave to rot for an entire game so that when you sell it back to the bank it's worth nothing. You can't go bankrupt while you own property, so you have to be cognizant of the income you'll get when you sell it back to the bank.
Events: Going to the theater, throwing a lavish party, etc. Having fun costs cash! Have fun!
Permanents: Certain friends or services can be kept on staff and can be activated to spend modest amounts of cash. Carriages, school chums, etc.
Meanwhile, you have Companions that can join you on these adventures. Mansions can frequently be upgraded with Cooks to increase the maintenance costs. Sometimes you just really want to bring your two dogs with you when you go out to dinner and you have to tip the hostess in order to get her to go along with it.
It was fun trying to come up with basically a new accounting methodology to assist with the effort. NPV is meaningless when your rate is negative.
Man all ya'll talking about some games I love recently!
Race for the Galaxy! Maybe my favorite let's all hammer out a quick game, game. It's a bit of a pain learning all the symbols and the card pool but once you do it's so much fun. Biggest stumbling block for me was probably learning that the explore action is kind of a trap (unless you are fishing for a very specific card) and that trading is the name of the game to fuel an economy (which I guess makes sense when I type it out!)
And Battletech God I love Battletech. I have some ancient rulebooks for it and haven't played it in ages. I really should get the new starter set sometime. Maybe this summer. I just love how much it emphasizes speed and manuvere due to the way the to hit modifiers work and how weak back armor tends to be. I also just love that you can do things like build mechs in secret and not reveal what you have until you have to. 99 times out of 100 having a rear facing AC/20 is a mistake, but the one time it works the look on your opponent's face is worth it.
Ha ha! I'm putting together a strong novelty based economy! Got me a couple of blue planets, consumer markets, rakin' in those VPs!
Oh!
You already have 30 VPs?
Well. At least the people in my civilization will have a lot of fun gadgets to play with while you rule over them.
I have played race for the galaxy exactly twice, and roll for the galaxy many many times. I also have a friend who haaateesss roll and loves race, claiming it is less random and the more skilled player will win race. I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed beating him in that second game ever, using strats derived from my roll playtime.
They are both great games and this person is a good dude, it was just really satisfying to beat him on "his turf"
I feel like luck plays a decent role in Roll and Race, getting the right cards early that match your strategy in Race can make a huge difference in catapulting you ahead of everyone else.
I think that's part of the fun though, you are making good, meaningful decisions but a lot of the time in Race you just have to make the best of what you've got which helps keep each play feeling fresh.
Inquisitor on
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Rpg thread, I'm at a loss. It looks like when I'm done running my current campaign I'm going to have to run the next campaign because the only person in my group who wants to run a game will only do it if we use roll 20 online so he can also invite 5-6 more people to play abd that sounds like a nightmare. I had an idea for d20 modem/urban arcana campaign but two of my players refuse to play in "that kind of world because I play games to escape" which kind of pissed me off but whatever....I'm just tired of the traditional forgotten realms and inner sea stuff.
What are some other campaign settings you guys think I should consider
Man, you've hit the jackpot. "Guy who's not really clear on the unspoken social contract and wants to hijack the game," "the more players the better," and "I refuse to play anything but D&D" are all spaces on Bad Gaming Bingo.
Hey Jacobkosh was it you who was compiling the different themed RPG playlists?
I'm slowly trudging through the Shadowrun rulebook (just finished up combat) and could use some good cyberpunk music other than the NEOTOKYO soundtrack which I've basically had on repeat.
+1
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Hey Jacobkosh was it you who was compiling the different themed RPG playlists?
I'm slowly trudging through the Shadowrun rulebook (just finished up combat) and could use some good cyberpunk music other than the NEOTOKYO soundtrack which I've basically had on repeat.
Give me any old dumb thing and I will, in the course of two to three hours, construct a fully formed but still partially assed campaign setting for you.
Perennial favorites include...
Terra Sonore, the Planet of Sound, a mostly traditional fantasy setting where every major NPC is based on a famous musician, with race denoting genres of music.
Sewer World, a collection of planar cities that are connected only by their ancient, labyrinthine sewer system that they all inexplicably have.
Actual Historic Europe, but there is magic I guess? Okay this one is pretty self-explanatory, I've just put an undue amount of work into it.
A setting where spiders are the only universal currency and everything is exactly what it seems on a cursory glance
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
Give me any old dumb thing and I will, in the course of two to three hours, construct a fully formed but still partially assed campaign setting for you.
Perennial favorites include...
Terra Sonore, the Planet of Sound, a mostly traditional fantasy setting where every major NPC is based on a famous musician, with race denoting genres of music.
Sewer World, a collection of planar cities that are connected only by their ancient, labyrinthine sewer system that they all inexplicably have.
Actual Historic Europe, but there is magic I guess? Okay this one is pretty self-explanatory, I've just put an undue amount of work into it.
A setting where spiders are the only universal currency and everything is exactly what it seems on a cursory glance
That's pretty limiting, but okay.
In any economy, you have to take into consideration the people who provide the base materials for the currency. Typically this means whoever runs the mines, as we're dealing with a metal or precious stone based economy, but in this instance, things would be pretty different. We have two options here we need to consider first:
The currency is dead spiders.
The currency is still living spiders.
Obviously, the first option would be a lot easier to manage on a personal level. Carrying around a bag full of live spiders doesn't really seem like an efficient way to buy things. However, fuck the easy choice, let's do it.
So the currency is live spiders. How do you acquire live spiders? Well, you either have to catch them in the wild or you have to farm them. Spider farms would be a pretty logical thing to do at this point, especially for non-venomous, smaller varieties of spider.
However, value is based on scarcity, so the most valuable spiders are of course going to be the large and dangerous ones. Nobody wants to have a farm of garagantuan black widows, so that's the sort of thing you begin hiring specialized adventurers for. Obviously we have a capture vs kill thing going here, as a dead spider is worthless, so your average group of adventurers (read: the players) are going to have to have a decent supply of nonlethal takedown methods. Obviously it's better to kill a spider than die trying, so you'd still have some of your traditional weapons of war, which would also be pretty useful for fighting other things, but I think there would be a level of magitech that specifically developed for the capture of spiders. Lots of stungun and taser reminiscent things, as well as transport methods for large spiders - think portable holes that you can live in for a period of time.
Let's think beyond the races of man for a bit. Let's talk about goblinoids. They're classically an enemy of humans and other "good" races, but now we have a good reason. It's because they tame spiders. Goblins will ride the larger ones, while the smaller ones are trained by bugbears and gnolls as a form of vicious, venomous attack dog.
That's all for now, but I've got some more ideas percolating.
+16
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
edited April 2016
Side ideas to explore with an economy based on the Spider Standard:
- Carting around spiders to pay for things is a pain in the ass. For the wealthy, I imagine there would be some sort of banking system developed pretty quickly, so that you could buy things on Spider Credit.
- Spiders have a pretty short lifespan, but also produce a lot of young. If you're planning on holding on to your money for any period of time, you should probably be putting it into some sort of farming program. Those aforementioned spider banks would probably also function as spider farms. They might not give you the same interest that they're earning on your spiders, but they'll be guaranteeing your spiders and interest rate.
- Spiders are an important part of the ecosystem. When the spiders are effectively removed, what happens to the world around them? Obviously we'd be seeing a lot more flies, but we're in a fantasy world. We've got bigger spiders, and they in turn must have bigger prey. Are there spiders that are taking out dragons? Probably not full size ones, but those sweet little dragon wyrmlings? They're not getting snatched up anymore. How do dragons feel about this? Are there a lot more dragons? And of course extrapolate that to anything else spiders might eat.
- As I said before, farming large spiders is a pretty dangerous business. But someone's going to do it, and those spiders are going to need to eat. They probably eat some pretty big meals - those farmers are going to need to be feeding them dogs, horses, and, for certain unscrupulous farmers, much worse.
- Speaking of man-eating spiders, let's talk religion. A cult to a spider-deity is going to flush with cash. Add in an element of human sacrifice to keep their many limbed masters fed, and we've definitely got a good adventure hook going.
- On the other hand, a more benign spider-deity religion might be quite the opposite. They'd never use spiders to pay for anything, because they're a sacred cow. But these ascetic religions would still flourish. They have to know something that the rest of us don't.
Straightzi on
+9
Mojo_JojoWe are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourseRegistered Userregular
Well, that shows me
Homogeneous distribution of your varieties of amuse-gueule
0
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Super generalized conceptual writing is what I excel at
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
But crazy bullshit and reimaginings and stuff just happen accidentally if I think about them too long
+2
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Super generalized conceptual writing is what I excel at
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
The good news is that those are things you can work on and improve, though! Like, they're not innate talents, they're just craft skills that can be leveled up with a bit of practice. Check out Robert McKee's classic guide to screenwriting, Story, or more recently John Yorke's book Into the Woods. Obviously not all skills are fungible from like novel or screenplay writing to a collaborative process like gaming but they still have very good advice about how to pace, how to find the point of a scene, and so forth. There's also a lot of good RPG-specific advice - the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 4E has some really great suggestions, lots of White Wolf books have useful advice on narrative and atmosphere, and Robin Laws and Ken Hite do a podcast all about this sort of thing, how to plot mysteries and stuff, and it is a phenomenal resource.
0
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
does anyone bother to keep track of how many rounds a given player has on them
what if a gun jams
e: honestly I would be the worst dm
Poker Chips? If your gonna keep track of things by the numbers might as well use a system that doesn't involve writing and erasing on a character sheet constantly.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
+1
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Super generalized conceptual writing is what I excel at
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
The good news is that those are things you can work on and improve, though! Like, they're not innate talents, they're just craft skills that can be leveled up with a bit of practice. Check out Robert McKee's classic guide to screenwriting, Story, or more recently John Yorke's book Into the Woods. Obviously not all skills are fungible from like novel or screenplay writing to a collaborative process like gaming but they still have very good advice about how to pace, how to find the point of a scene, and so forth. There's also a lot of good RPG-specific advice - the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 4E has some really great suggestions, lots of White Wolf books have useful advice on narrative and atmosphere, and Robin Laws and Ken Hite do a podcast all about this sort of thing, how to plot mysteries and stuff, and it is a phenomenal resource.
Oh, I know how to write, don't get me wrong
My theatre degree required a fair bit of playwriting
alt post: that's some good April Fooling you're doing there.
Oh, I'd never really diss on wizards. Personal feelings aside, I'm not about to cross anyone who might have access to a permanent baleful polymorph spell.
Super generalized conceptual writing is what I excel at
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
The good news is that those are things you can work on and improve, though! Like, they're not innate talents, they're just craft skills that can be leveled up with a bit of practice. Check out Robert McKee's classic guide to screenwriting, Story, or more recently John Yorke's book Into the Woods. Obviously not all skills are fungible from like novel or screenplay writing to a collaborative process like gaming but they still have very good advice about how to pace, how to find the point of a scene, and so forth. There's also a lot of good RPG-specific advice - the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 4E has some really great suggestions, lots of White Wolf books have useful advice on narrative and atmosphere, and Robin Laws and Ken Hite do a podcast all about this sort of thing, how to plot mysteries and stuff, and it is a phenomenal resource.
Oh, I know how to write, don't get me wrong
My theatre degree required a fair bit of playwriting
It is just macro conceptual work that I excel at
Way back, like... 8 years ago in Critical Failures we had a PbP game in a blank setting, where there was basically nothing predefined other than "Standard Generic D&D Things exist" so the PCs could just make reference to names, locations, historical events and they'd just roll with it, and there was a group of people not playing, but reading the thread who would collect all these things and flesh them out into wiki entries. It was pretty fun.
+3
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Super generalized conceptual writing is what I excel at
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
The good news is that those are things you can work on and improve, though! Like, they're not innate talents, they're just craft skills that can be leveled up with a bit of practice. Check out Robert McKee's classic guide to screenwriting, Story, or more recently John Yorke's book Into the Woods. Obviously not all skills are fungible from like novel or screenplay writing to a collaborative process like gaming but they still have very good advice about how to pace, how to find the point of a scene, and so forth. There's also a lot of good RPG-specific advice - the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 4E has some really great suggestions, lots of White Wolf books have useful advice on narrative and atmosphere, and Robin Laws and Ken Hite do a podcast all about this sort of thing, how to plot mysteries and stuff, and it is a phenomenal resource.
Oh, I know how to write, don't get me wrong
My theatre degree required a fair bit of playwriting
It is just macro conceptual work that I excel at
Way back, like... 8 years ago in Critical Failures we had a PbP game in a blank setting, where there was basically nothing predefined other than "Standard Generic D&D Things exist" so the PCs could just make reference to names, locations, historical events and they'd just roll with it, and there was a group of people not playing, but reading the thread who would collect all these things and flesh them out into wiki entries. It was pretty fun.
I'm fond of doing this when playing generic fantasy games. I feel like maybe Dungeon World actively encourages it? I know @DE?AD's Hobgoblin game does as well. Unless the DM has a good reason for very specific setting requirements, I feel like player collaboration can help the world feel way more authentic than it might otherwise.
Posts
We're pretty much the Ninja Turtles if they were a bunch of technophobic animists. I tried to talk everybody else into the Outlander background so we could use our respective Musical Instrument proficiencies to form a shitty band, but they weren't going for it.
- The Leader, Scar the Half-Orc Paladin: Oath of the Ancients, Acolyte, Warhammer & Shield, Neutral Good. (He's pretty much Samurai Captain Planet)
- The Loner, Dizzy the Half-Orc Ranger: Hunter, Criminal, Longbow, Chaotic Good. (More well-traveled and worldly than the other three, she's worked in the city before, in unsavory occupations that she now regrets)
- The Brains, Doc/Croc/Dot the Half-Orc Druid: Circle of the Land (Swamp), Hermit, Quarterstaff, Neutral. (Gender-fluid, goes by Croc on male days, Dot on female days, and Doc on other days.)
- The Party Dude, Tusk the Half-Orc Barbarian: Totem Warrior, Outlander, Greatsword, Chaotic Neutral. (Pretty chill guy, except when he's acting as the Mortal Avatar of the Great Mad Boar Spirit, as described a couple pages ago.)
Fun fact: I'm the only one who's played a Divine Spellcaster more recently than 2nd Edition. So of course the whole rest of the party goes in for it. At least my Barbarian won't lack for healers.
I am the worst at galaxy racing.
Ha ha! I'm putting together a strong novelty based economy! Got me a couple of blue planets, consumer markets, rakin' in those VPs!
Oh!
You already have 30 VPs?
Well. At least the people in my civilization will have a lot of fun gadgets to play with while you rule over them.
He proceeded to tear my mech apart through the game, blasting off one of my arms, blowing off my main weapon, nearly crippling both my legs, and at one point even sucker punching my mech in the back of the head so my pilot had to save or go unconscious. I continued to miss almost every attack, though I got in a lucky shot with a missile to his center torso. It stripped a good portion of his armor, but he was completely unphased by it. He didn't even both to move the next round because in his exact words, "I'm fine, you won't hit me there again."
So of course, from that point on the dice rolls decided that all of my missile attacks would go straight to center torso. And crit. I ended up winning my first game by blowing out his engines.
What are some other campaign settings you guys think I should consider
Hey that could be...
NOPE NOPE NOPE.
What specifically about FR/Inner Sea don't you like?
EXALTED.
...April fools!
A world built over an ancient civilization that contains a legacy of monsters sealed away within small objects, bound to serve whoever releases them into combat, Pokémon/Yu-Gi-Oh style.
A Gothic horror setting ruled by an actual cannibal who looks uncannily like Shia LaBeouf.
The players explore a spooky manor full of zombies, complete with complex puzzles, retreat being locked off step by step, and a powerful team of mercenaries funded by the original owners of the manor following them through to reach the treasure within.
Maybe the group even has a powerful patron or some other form of diplomatic immunity such that most (though certainly not all) of the resident devils are way more interested in getting into their good graces, impressing them, or otherwise garnering their support or cooperation for their nefarious ways than in summarily executing them and stealing their souls.
The players can be simple planar tourists, try to plant the seeds of rebellion on the sly, enjoy unspeakable luxuries in return for putting in a good word for their devilish hosts, or try and find out the truth about that whole 'better to rule in hell than serve in heaven' saying everyone keeps mentioning.
*not actually a wizard, wizards are lame as hell
Give me any old dumb thing and I will, in the course of two to three hours, construct a fully formed but still partially assed campaign setting for you.
Perennial favorites include...
Truth.
Move to Eberon and reskin all the modern stuff as steampunk/magitech.
The premise is that your miserly old uncle has died, and is leaving his vast fortune to the nephew who he believes will most enjoy it. The goal of the game is to spend all of your starting money and if possible, go into debt. The person with the most debt (or least cash) at the end of the game wins. There's three basic ways to spend money:
Property: Buy some! Some of them cost oodles of money to maintain so you can burn down a big pile of money before selling it back at a very slight loss, and others you can buy and then leave to rot for an entire game so that when you sell it back to the bank it's worth nothing. You can't go bankrupt while you own property, so you have to be cognizant of the income you'll get when you sell it back to the bank.
Events: Going to the theater, throwing a lavish party, etc. Having fun costs cash! Have fun!
Permanents: Certain friends or services can be kept on staff and can be activated to spend modest amounts of cash. Carriages, school chums, etc.
Meanwhile, you have Companions that can join you on these adventures. Mansions can frequently be upgraded with Cooks to increase the maintenance costs. Sometimes you just really want to bring your two dogs with you when you go out to dinner and you have to tip the hostess in order to get her to go along with it.
It was fun trying to come up with basically a new accounting methodology to assist with the effort. NPV is meaningless when your rate is negative.
Race for the Galaxy! Maybe my favorite let's all hammer out a quick game, game. It's a bit of a pain learning all the symbols and the card pool but once you do it's so much fun. Biggest stumbling block for me was probably learning that the explore action is kind of a trap (unless you are fishing for a very specific card) and that trading is the name of the game to fuel an economy (which I guess makes sense when I type it out!)
And Battletech God I love Battletech. I have some ancient rulebooks for it and haven't played it in ages. I really should get the new starter set sometime. Maybe this summer. I just love how much it emphasizes speed and manuvere due to the way the to hit modifiers work and how weak back armor tends to be. I also just love that you can do things like build mechs in secret and not reveal what you have until you have to. 99 times out of 100 having a rear facing AC/20 is a mistake, but the one time it works the look on your opponent's face is worth it.
I have played race for the galaxy exactly twice, and roll for the galaxy many many times. I also have a friend who haaateesss roll and loves race, claiming it is less random and the more skilled player will win race. I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed beating him in that second game ever, using strats derived from my roll playtime.
They are both great games and this person is a good dude, it was just really satisfying to beat him on "his turf"
I think that's part of the fun though, you are making good, meaningful decisions but a lot of the time in Race you just have to make the best of what you've got which helps keep each play feeling fresh.
Man, you've hit the jackpot. "Guy who's not really clear on the unspoken social contract and wants to hijack the game," "the more players the better," and "I refuse to play anything but D&D" are all spaces on Bad Gaming Bingo.
I'm slowly trudging through the Shadowrun rulebook (just finished up combat) and could use some good cyberpunk music other than the NEOTOKYO soundtrack which I've basically had on repeat.
https://rpg-moods.obsidianportal.com/wikis/cyberpunk
A setting where spiders are the only universal currency and everything is exactly what it seems on a cursory glance
Fuck you!
alt post: that's some good April Fooling you're doing there.
That's pretty limiting, but okay.
In any economy, you have to take into consideration the people who provide the base materials for the currency. Typically this means whoever runs the mines, as we're dealing with a metal or precious stone based economy, but in this instance, things would be pretty different. We have two options here we need to consider first:
- The currency is dead spiders.
- The currency is still living spiders.
Obviously, the first option would be a lot easier to manage on a personal level. Carrying around a bag full of live spiders doesn't really seem like an efficient way to buy things. However, fuck the easy choice, let's do it.So the currency is live spiders. How do you acquire live spiders? Well, you either have to catch them in the wild or you have to farm them. Spider farms would be a pretty logical thing to do at this point, especially for non-venomous, smaller varieties of spider.
However, value is based on scarcity, so the most valuable spiders are of course going to be the large and dangerous ones. Nobody wants to have a farm of garagantuan black widows, so that's the sort of thing you begin hiring specialized adventurers for. Obviously we have a capture vs kill thing going here, as a dead spider is worthless, so your average group of adventurers (read: the players) are going to have to have a decent supply of nonlethal takedown methods. Obviously it's better to kill a spider than die trying, so you'd still have some of your traditional weapons of war, which would also be pretty useful for fighting other things, but I think there would be a level of magitech that specifically developed for the capture of spiders. Lots of stungun and taser reminiscent things, as well as transport methods for large spiders - think portable holes that you can live in for a period of time.
Let's think beyond the races of man for a bit. Let's talk about goblinoids. They're classically an enemy of humans and other "good" races, but now we have a good reason. It's because they tame spiders. Goblins will ride the larger ones, while the smaller ones are trained by bugbears and gnolls as a form of vicious, venomous attack dog.
That's all for now, but I've got some more ideas percolating.
- Carting around spiders to pay for things is a pain in the ass. For the wealthy, I imagine there would be some sort of banking system developed pretty quickly, so that you could buy things on Spider Credit.
- Spiders have a pretty short lifespan, but also produce a lot of young. If you're planning on holding on to your money for any period of time, you should probably be putting it into some sort of farming program. Those aforementioned spider banks would probably also function as spider farms. They might not give you the same interest that they're earning on your spiders, but they'll be guaranteeing your spiders and interest rate.
- Spiders are an important part of the ecosystem. When the spiders are effectively removed, what happens to the world around them? Obviously we'd be seeing a lot more flies, but we're in a fantasy world. We've got bigger spiders, and they in turn must have bigger prey. Are there spiders that are taking out dragons? Probably not full size ones, but those sweet little dragon wyrmlings? They're not getting snatched up anymore. How do dragons feel about this? Are there a lot more dragons? And of course extrapolate that to anything else spiders might eat.
- As I said before, farming large spiders is a pretty dangerous business. But someone's going to do it, and those spiders are going to need to eat. They probably eat some pretty big meals - those farmers are going to need to be feeding them dogs, horses, and, for certain unscrupulous farmers, much worse.
- Speaking of man-eating spiders, let's talk religion. A cult to a spider-deity is going to flush with cash. Add in an element of human sacrifice to keep their many limbed masters fed, and we've definitely got a good adventure hook going.
- On the other hand, a more benign spider-deity religion might be quite the opposite. They'd never use spiders to pay for anything, because they're a sacred cow. But these ascetic religions would still flourish. They have to know something that the rest of us don't.
I'm garbage when it comes to writing dialogue or a competent mystery or whatever
But crazy bullshit and reimaginings and stuff just happen accidentally if I think about them too long
The good news is that those are things you can work on and improve, though! Like, they're not innate talents, they're just craft skills that can be leveled up with a bit of practice. Check out Robert McKee's classic guide to screenwriting, Story, or more recently John Yorke's book Into the Woods. Obviously not all skills are fungible from like novel or screenplay writing to a collaborative process like gaming but they still have very good advice about how to pace, how to find the point of a scene, and so forth. There's also a lot of good RPG-specific advice - the Dungeon Master's Guide 2 for 4E has some really great suggestions, lots of White Wolf books have useful advice on narrative and atmosphere, and Robin Laws and Ken Hite do a podcast all about this sort of thing, how to plot mysteries and stuff, and it is a phenomenal resource.
it's heeeeeeeeeere
Poker Chips? If your gonna keep track of things by the numbers might as well use a system that doesn't involve writing and erasing on a character sheet constantly.
Oh, I know how to write, don't get me wrong
My theatre degree required a fair bit of playwriting
It is just macro conceptual work that I excel at
Oh, I'd never really diss on wizards. Personal feelings aside, I'm not about to cross anyone who might have access to a permanent baleful polymorph spell.
Way back, like... 8 years ago in Critical Failures we had a PbP game in a blank setting, where there was basically nothing predefined other than "Standard Generic D&D Things exist" so the PCs could just make reference to names, locations, historical events and they'd just roll with it, and there was a group of people not playing, but reading the thread who would collect all these things and flesh them out into wiki entries. It was pretty fun.
I'm fond of doing this when playing generic fantasy games. I feel like maybe Dungeon World actively encourages it? I know @DE?AD's Hobgoblin game does as well. Unless the DM has a good reason for very specific setting requirements, I feel like player collaboration can help the world feel way more authentic than it might otherwise.