- The most wealthy and influential figure in the setting was like some kind of 80's Madonna/Cyndi Lauper mall teen when contact with the outside world collapsed, but now she's more or less Aunty Entity through a filter of bubblegum punk. Her power stems from the fact that her gang's hangout spot was near one of the main drinking fountains, and she was able to direct her crew of roller skate barbarians to sabotage or commandeer other drinking fountains until a large region had to come to her for water. She's a relatively compassionate figure for this sort of setting, who ensures that people with extraordinary needs due to age or health are cared for, but everybody else has to pay dearly.
- There are six major tribes that took up residence in the six largest Department Stores. Each of these stores carries clothes that represent a combination of three virtues - Style (you better believe having a fresh look will play a key role in your survival prospects), Cost (each of the stores has fabrication machines that must be fed materials to produce goods, with some requiring larger quantities or higher qualities of material), and Durability (how easily can your clothes be modified into Armor without ruining the look). So each of the six would have a rank of 3 in one trait, 2 in another, and 1 in the last. There is a seventh store full of clothing with balanced attributes (2s in all categories), but it is considered neutral ground at the center of the Battle Mall, and all factions have access to their fabrication machines. Clothing from smaller stores may go outside the maximum 6 point value, but is much more rare.
- There is an arcade that is vast beyond all imagining. The clan of semi-feral Lost Boys who live here ran out of quarters ages ago, but still find the lights and noise of the demo videos comforting. They have developed a style of unarmed combat from imitating the Mortal Kombat machine that is deadly, if flawed. There is an ancient Sinistar machine in the deepest depths of the arcade that they worship as a Demon Oracle. Interestingly, this is the largest culture in the Battle Mall that is at all male-dominated, and has by far the most imbalanced gender ratio. But because they have no tolerance for Adults, young men are regularly harried from their ranks to go petition some other clan for membership. They keep their numbers up mainly by recruiting runaways, but also occasionally through kidnapping.
- The food court was once the most hotly contested region. It's a wasteland now. Only the bravest scavenger crews venture in looking for ketchup packets and plastic straws. No people live there, but some thing does. There are stories of a second food court that is still pristine, but if it exists, it is beyond the Vale of Haunted Mannequins, the Clan of the Cutlery Store, the Spencer's Gifts, and other perils beyond imagining.
- Wishing Fountains are seen as shrines to the mad god of this place. The coins of the ancient civilization have no real value any more, and are seen as mere curiosities, left in the fountains to corrode. Instead, people throw in small personal tokens - pieces of jewelry, the severed finger of an enemy, a punch card for the pretzel hut that is only two punches from a free pretzel. A secretive order of monks clean the fountains out and perform strange rituals with the offerings, but even the most hardened Mall Marauder would hesitate before harming one of these individuals, as they have displayed strange abilities to grant fair or foul luck.
Fuuuuuuck I wanna play this.
If you're taking requests...tell us about Chuck E. Cheese.
Hmm. We've already established hackable robots are a thing here. But I don't want to just directly lift Five Nights at Freddy's, or dilute the creepiness of the Vale of Haunted Mannequins. Maybe the Clan of the Pizza Critterz Family Fun Center have used their mascot costumes to create deadly battlesuits? You're like "Oh look, it's a lovable cartoon dog! Hello! Will you be my friend?" but then the steely-eyed warlord prince piloting it is like "There is no friendship for outsiders, only EXTERMINATION!" and all the hidden harpoon launchers emerge from its fur.
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
- The most wealthy and influential figure in the setting was like some kind of 80's Madonna/Cyndi Lauper mall teen when contact with the outside world collapsed, but now she's more or less Aunty Entity through a filter of bubblegum punk. Her power stems from the fact that her gang's hangout spot was near one of the main drinking fountains, and she was able to direct her crew of roller skate barbarians to sabotage or commandeer other drinking fountains until a large region had to come to her for water. She's a relatively compassionate figure for this sort of setting, who ensures that people with extraordinary needs due to age or health are cared for, but everybody else has to pay dearly.
- There are six major tribes that took up residence in the six largest Department Stores. Each of these stores carries clothes that represent a combination of three virtues - Style (you better believe having a fresh look will play a key role in your survival prospects), Cost (each of the stores has fabrication machines that must be fed materials to produce goods, with some requiring larger quantities or higher qualities of material), and Durability (how easily can your clothes be modified into Armor without ruining the look). So each of the six would have a rank of 3 in one trait, 2 in another, and 1 in the last. There is a seventh store full of clothing with balanced attributes (2s in all categories), but it is considered neutral ground at the center of the Battle Mall, and all factions have access to their fabrication machines. Clothing from smaller stores may go outside the maximum 6 point value, but is much more rare.
- There is an arcade that is vast beyond all imagining. The clan of semi-feral Lost Boys who live here ran out of quarters ages ago, but still find the lights and noise of the demo videos comforting. They have developed a style of unarmed combat from imitating the Mortal Kombat machine that is deadly, if flawed. There is an ancient Sinistar machine in the deepest depths of the arcade that they worship as a Demon Oracle. Interestingly, this is the largest culture in the Battle Mall that is at all male-dominated, and has by far the most imbalanced gender ratio. But because they have no tolerance for Adults, young men are regularly harried from their ranks to go petition some other clan for membership. They keep their numbers up mainly by recruiting runaways, but also occasionally through kidnapping.
- The food court was once the most hotly contested region. It's a wasteland now. Only the bravest scavenger crews venture in looking for ketchup packets and plastic straws. No people live there, but some thing does. There are stories of a second food court that is still pristine, but if it exists, it is beyond the Vale of Haunted Mannequins, the Clan of the Cutlery Store, the Spencer's Gifts, and other perils beyond imagining.
- Wishing Fountains are seen as shrines to the mad god of this place. The coins of the ancient civilization have no real value any more, and are seen as mere curiosities, left in the fountains to corrode. Instead, people throw in small personal tokens - pieces of jewelry, the severed finger of an enemy, a punch card for the pretzel hut that is only two punches from a free pretzel. A secretive order of monks clean the fountains out and perform strange rituals with the offerings, but even the most hardened Mall Marauder would hesitate before harming one of these individuals, as they have displayed strange abilities to grant fair or foul luck.
Fuuuuuuck I wanna play this.
If you're taking requests...tell us about Chuck E. Cheese.
Hmm. We've already established hackable robots are a thing here. But I don't want to just directly lift Five Nights at Freddy's, or dilute the creepiness of the Vale of Haunted Mannequins. Maybe the Clan of the Pizza Critterz Family Fun Center have used their mascot costumes to create deadly battlesuits? You're like "Oh look, it's a lovable cartoon dog! Hello! Will you be my friend?" but then the steely-eyed warlord prince piloting it is like "There is no friendship for outsiders, only EXTERMINATION!" and all the hidden harpoon launchers emerge from its fur.
More than that, each of the Mascots has taken on a archetypal, avatar-ish quality.
There are only so many Mascot suits, and they go only to those who most embody the spirit of that Critter. When one Rider dies, a trial is held within the Family Fun Center to see who is worthy to take up the mantle.
Similarly, settings that are too inhabited (and our favorite settings often are, but Forgotten Realms is a great example) are going to be far too constraining to allow a group or a GM to really spread their wings.
"Overly inhabited world" is actually my only really big complaint about Birthright.
Worlds designed for adventure in the D&D style need a frontier. They need wilderness to explore and to be threatened by. If the entire world is already explored and settled, it greatly restricts the adventure opportunities available to PCs, and just as importantly, it removes the ability for the PCs to make a mark on the world in the same way that you can with exploring wilderness.
(Birthright has a very tight setting conceit, and it being all settled isn't a problem for its intended use, my complaint about it specifically in the case of Birthright is just that it keeps the world from being a good general-purpose world and ties it too much to only being playable in its one style. Though I do like that style and the setting, I just wish it was more general-use.)
On prep in general: I probably favor prep a lot more than most people here, but the point of prep is to help you run the game without needing to delay and and while remaining consistent with your style of game. If that requires no prep for you, then there's no need to do prep. My most common prep is background work; it's easier for me to improvise/adjudicate based on the PC's actions if I already know beforehand what was there without them doing anything. My second most common prep is drop-in encounters or locations; I don't necessarily write up "this is specifically the lair of the goblins in this area and here is what they do and so on", but I might write up "this is a generic goblin lair". Then, if I need a lair, I'll just drop in the one I prepared. (Personally I like to have a lot of these ready so I can drop in whatever is appropriate for the PC's actions, rather than having just 'this is the encounter for the night no matter what you do', but there are a wide variety of ways to do it.)
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a bunch of self-contained, unrelated little bits prepped, and then using your prep + session actions to create a coherent result. I think it's important to leave room to adjust on the fly, unless you can reliably predict exactly what your players will do at all times, and leaving blank spots in the parts you can improvise with preparation for the parts that take a while is a great way to do that.
- The most wealthy and influential figure in the setting was like some kind of 80's Madonna/Cyndi Lauper mall teen when contact with the outside world collapsed, but now she's more or less Aunty Entity through a filter of bubblegum punk. Her power stems from the fact that her gang's hangout spot was near one of the main drinking fountains, and she was able to direct her crew of roller skate barbarians to sabotage or commandeer other drinking fountains until a large region had to come to her for water. She's a relatively compassionate figure for this sort of setting, who ensures that people with extraordinary needs due to age or health are cared for, but everybody else has to pay dearly.
- There are six major tribes that took up residence in the six largest Department Stores. Each of these stores carries clothes that represent a combination of three virtues - Style (you better believe having a fresh look will play a key role in your survival prospects), Cost (each of the stores has fabrication machines that must be fed materials to produce goods, with some requiring larger quantities or higher qualities of material), and Durability (how easily can your clothes be modified into Armor without ruining the look). So each of the six would have a rank of 3 in one trait, 2 in another, and 1 in the last. There is a seventh store full of clothing with balanced attributes (2s in all categories), but it is considered neutral ground at the center of the Battle Mall, and all factions have access to their fabrication machines. Clothing from smaller stores may go outside the maximum 6 point value, but is much more rare.
- There is an arcade that is vast beyond all imagining. The clan of semi-feral Lost Boys who live here ran out of quarters ages ago, but still find the lights and noise of the demo videos comforting. They have developed a style of unarmed combat from imitating the Mortal Kombat machine that is deadly, if flawed. There is an ancient Sinistar machine in the deepest depths of the arcade that they worship as a Demon Oracle. Interestingly, this is the largest culture in the Battle Mall that is at all male-dominated, and has by far the most imbalanced gender ratio. But because they have no tolerance for Adults, young men are regularly harried from their ranks to go petition some other clan for membership. They keep their numbers up mainly by recruiting runaways, but also occasionally through kidnapping.
- The food court was once the most hotly contested region. It's a wasteland now. Only the bravest scavenger crews venture in looking for ketchup packets and plastic straws. No people live there, but some thing does. There are stories of a second food court that is still pristine, but if it exists, it is beyond the Vale of Haunted Mannequins, the Clan of the Cutlery Store, the Spencer's Gifts, and other perils beyond imagining.
- Wishing Fountains are seen as shrines to the mad god of this place. The coins of the ancient civilization have no real value any more, and are seen as mere curiosities, left in the fountains to corrode. Instead, people throw in small personal tokens - pieces of jewelry, the severed finger of an enemy, a punch card for the pretzel hut that is only two punches from a free pretzel. A secretive order of monks clean the fountains out and perform strange rituals with the offerings, but even the most hardened Mall Marauder would hesitate before harming one of these individuals, as they have displayed strange abilities to grant fair or foul luck.
Fuuuuuuck I wanna play this.
If you're taking requests...tell us about Chuck E. Cheese.
Hmm. We've already established hackable robots are a thing here. But I don't want to just directly lift Five Nights at Freddy's, or dilute the creepiness of the Vale of Haunted Mannequins. Maybe the Clan of the Pizza Critterz Family Fun Center have used their mascot costumes to create deadly battlesuits? You're like "Oh look, it's a lovable cartoon dog! Hello! Will you be my friend?" but then the steely-eyed warlord prince piloting it is like "There is no friendship for outsiders, only EXTERMINATION!" and all the hidden harpoon launchers emerge from its fur.
More than that, each of the Mascots has taken on a archetypal, avatar-ish quality.
There are only so many Mascot suits, and they go only to those who most embody the spirit of that Critter. When one Rider dies, a trial is held within the Family Fun Center to see who is worthy to take up the mantle.
" BEHOLD, THE EIDOLON OF THE FLUFFY BUNNY!"
"Huh. Ok, yeah, I guess I see it. Ha ha!"
"ARE YOU READY, BUNNY-LORD, TO BRING WAR TO OUR ENEMIES?!"
"Whaaa...?"
"ARE YOU READY TO USE YOUR BUNNY GIFTS TO RAMPAGE, TO CONQUER, TO MAIM, AND TO KILL!?"
"... aaat the Hell??"
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
- The most wealthy and influential figure in the setting was like some kind of 80's Madonna/Cyndi Lauper mall teen when contact with the outside world collapsed, but now she's more or less Aunty Entity through a filter of bubblegum punk. Her power stems from the fact that her gang's hangout spot was near one of the main drinking fountains, and she was able to direct her crew of roller skate barbarians to sabotage or commandeer other drinking fountains until a large region had to come to her for water. She's a relatively compassionate figure for this sort of setting, who ensures that people with extraordinary needs due to age or health are cared for, but everybody else has to pay dearly.
- There are six major tribes that took up residence in the six largest Department Stores. Each of these stores carries clothes that represent a combination of three virtues - Style (you better believe having a fresh look will play a key role in your survival prospects), Cost (each of the stores has fabrication machines that must be fed materials to produce goods, with some requiring larger quantities or higher qualities of material), and Durability (how easily can your clothes be modified into Armor without ruining the look). So each of the six would have a rank of 3 in one trait, 2 in another, and 1 in the last. There is a seventh store full of clothing with balanced attributes (2s in all categories), but it is considered neutral ground at the center of the Battle Mall, and all factions have access to their fabrication machines. Clothing from smaller stores may go outside the maximum 6 point value, but is much more rare.
- There is an arcade that is vast beyond all imagining. The clan of semi-feral Lost Boys who live here ran out of quarters ages ago, but still find the lights and noise of the demo videos comforting. They have developed a style of unarmed combat from imitating the Mortal Kombat machine that is deadly, if flawed. There is an ancient Sinistar machine in the deepest depths of the arcade that they worship as a Demon Oracle. Interestingly, this is the largest culture in the Battle Mall that is at all male-dominated, and has by far the most imbalanced gender ratio. But because they have no tolerance for Adults, young men are regularly harried from their ranks to go petition some other clan for membership. They keep their numbers up mainly by recruiting runaways, but also occasionally through kidnapping.
- The food court was once the most hotly contested region. It's a wasteland now. Only the bravest scavenger crews venture in looking for ketchup packets and plastic straws. No people live there, but some thing does. There are stories of a second food court that is still pristine, but if it exists, it is beyond the Vale of Haunted Mannequins, the Clan of the Cutlery Store, the Spencer's Gifts, and other perils beyond imagining.
- Wishing Fountains are seen as shrines to the mad god of this place. The coins of the ancient civilization have no real value any more, and are seen as mere curiosities, left in the fountains to corrode. Instead, people throw in small personal tokens - pieces of jewelry, the severed finger of an enemy, a punch card for the pretzel hut that is only two punches from a free pretzel. A secretive order of monks clean the fountains out and perform strange rituals with the offerings, but even the most hardened Mall Marauder would hesitate before harming one of these individuals, as they have displayed strange abilities to grant fair or foul luck.
Fuuuuuuck I wanna play this.
If you're taking requests...tell us about Chuck E. Cheese.
Hmm. We've already established hackable robots are a thing here. But I don't want to just directly lift Five Nights at Freddy's, or dilute the creepiness of the Vale of Haunted Mannequins. Maybe the Clan of the Pizza Critterz Family Fun Center have used their mascot costumes to create deadly battlesuits? You're like "Oh look, it's a lovable cartoon dog! Hello! Will you be my friend?" but then the steely-eyed warlord prince piloting it is like "There is no friendship for outsiders, only EXTERMINATION!" and all the hidden harpoon launchers emerge from its fur.
More than that, each of the Mascots has taken on a archetypal, avatar-ish quality.
There are only so many Mascot suits, and they go only to those who most embody the spirit of that Critter. When one Rider dies, a trial is held within the Family Fun Center to see who is worthy to take up the mantle.
" BEHOLD, THE EIDOLON OF THE FLUFFY BUNNY!"
"Huh. Ok, yeah, I guess I see it. Ha ha!"
"ARE YOU READY, BUNNY-LORD, TO BRING WAR TO OUR ENEMIES?!"
"Whaaa...?"
"ARE YOU READY TO USE YOUR BUNNY GIFTS TO RAMPAGE, TO CONQUER, TO MAIM, AND TO KILL!?"
"... aaat the Hell??"
There are strict hierarchies based on assumed relationships between the Critterz.
Fluffy Bunny leads us into conflict. We follow Fluffy Bunny into darkness.
Banjo Bear does not lead, but when Banjo Bear speaks, all listen.
Birthright isn't really meant to be a "go forth and adventure" kind of setting, though.
It's more like "thing happened and we need an elite team of do-gooders to solve a problem."
Oh, I agree. It was never intended to be a general-use setting; it was very specifically designed to be a political intrigue/war/other civilized problems game.
I just like the setting and wish it was more generally usable, instead of being so tightly focused, so I could run it more often.
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
Ok character concept:
A terribly introverted joined Trill with four prior hosts who were all incredibly gregarious. They have friends and lovers all over the galaxy but their first response to meeting any of them is "Oh no, nononono"
A terribly introverted joined Trill with four prior hosts who were all incredibly gregarious. They have friends and lovers all over the galaxy but their first response to meeting any of them is "Oh no, nononono"
Isn't that kinda close to Ezri? She was like super awkward where Jadzia was charming and Curzon was... yknow
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Eberron is by a wide margin my favorite official D&D setting, due in large part to how it favors adventure hooks over a meta plot and named NPCs.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
A terribly introverted joined Trill with four prior hosts who were all incredibly gregarious. They have friends and lovers all over the galaxy but their first response to meeting any of them is "Oh no, nononono"
My friend had a similar-ish idea for his character. He's playing a Trill dude who was a regular bro who was never a candidate for the Joining; a gifted engineer, but ordinary in all other respects, and who has trouble socializing. His wife, though, was joined and both she and her symbiont were super-successful overachievers with a stack of degrees and friends all of the galaxy. Then they were on an away mission together and she was fatally injured, and the only way to save the symbiont's life was to join it with my friend's character, who wasn't in any way prepared.
So now he has the memory of his marriage from both sides, and on top of that the crushing burden of all these new expectations, with all these people eagerly wondering when he/the symbiont is going to write his next masterpiece or win his next Nobel Prize. So he has basically barricaded himself in the engine room while the symbiont tries to coax him into living a fuller life.
Jacobkosh on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Weisman is a very smart dude, but you can tell that wisdom is hard-won. I mean, just look at Shadowrun and BattleTech/MechWarrior. What's the core fantasy of Shadowrun? Is it modern magic or supertechnology? What's the core fantasy of BT/MW? Is it giant mecha fights or running a mercenary company? They're good games, but they both suffer from a bit of opacity for the audience as to their intended "core fantasy." BattleTech without RPG elements, however, is excellent. There's no question what it's about and it's pretty good at what it's about.
Oh, just to be clear, the list was mine (original idea do not steal); the first point, about core fantasies, was Weisman's.
I don't think he was suggesting (nor do I think it's the case) that it has to be some three-word elevator pitch like "driving a robot" and I definitely don't think having other things in the setting detracts from that! Shadowrun is magic and cyberpunk and the interesting thematic and gameplay parallels that you can draw between them (like how corporations and dragons are both giant inhuman monsters that exist only to hoard wealth).
I take the point more to mean that the interesting part of the setting needs to be something that the audience can actually see or play. Like, a fantasy setting whose only difference from regular D&D is that the gods work differently is going to feel like D&D for 3/4 of the classes.
Jacobkosh on
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
It kind of snuck up on everyone! Star Trek hasn't had a super-great history with RPGs. There was a FASA game in the 80s that was more of a wargame than an RPG and did the grognard thing of trying to make Star Trek more militaristic and right-wing. There was an RPG in the late 90s by Last Unicorn Games that was pretty good but it had very 90s, cluttered rules and the company promptly went out of business before they could put out more than a few books. Then Decipher, who made the licensed Peter Jackson LOTR RPG, took a stab at Star Trek by converting the LUG game into Decipher's house system but that also didn't last long. So there hasn't been an official Star Trek RPG since like 2003.
This company, Modiphius, just sort of popped up on the scene couple of years ago and aggressively starting picking up licensed IP - Conan, John Carter, Mutant Chronicles, Infinity, and like...Kung Fu Panda? For real. In the middle of all this, they snagged the Star Trek license, but all their other games were in various stages of development and I think the announcement got lost in the shuffle. The core book only came out in PDF this July and it's only now starting to be available in print at local game shops.
But it seems like it might be the game to break the curse. It's a really great system and they have an aggressive schedule of supplements planned, and it's mostly stuff I actually want to see for once! - although I will leave the Delta Quadrant sourcebook on the shelf :razz: - and the devs are pretty accessible on forums and reddit and have answered a bunch of my questions. Fingers crossed.
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Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
Guys my most favourite boardgames is getting an expansion and is going from four players to five players and I am unreasonably happy about this, as my biggest complaint is that four players can feel a little exclusionary.
Which game?
Inis.
They are also going to add seasons into the game, which I am a little unsure on, and each season effects the game differently, summer for examples allows troop movement on any card.
so I realized strength rogues can still be a thing in 5e because sneak attack only requires a ranged or finesse weapon - it never specifies you have to use your dex modifier for the attack
this is basically a reason to make a dwarf or half-orc rogue (going by the PHB races) etc.
Doobh on
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so I realized strength rogues can still be a thing in 5e because sneak attack only requires a ranged or finesse weapon - it never specifies you have to use your dex modifier for the attack
this is basically a reason to make a dwarf or half-orc rogue (going by the PHB races) etc.
Yup. IIRC one of the builds out there is a strength rogue using a shield to knock enemies prone and then stabbing them with sneak attack
I once knew of the Star Trek RPG when I was deep in WEG's SW
And one of the people we had in the group had a few of the books but he made fun of how it was the 60's trek and who he wanted more of a universe they had in Next Gen
and I vaguely remember him showing me the Klingon book and talking about how the ones in the RPG were neat but very different from what was on TV and the movie that came out the previous year
Wow that was 19 years ago and yet it feels like a whole other life
We just finished a session that was a big long "tournament" arc featuring teams of Halloween monsters
The skeleton team had a skeleton centurion, a skeleton riding a skeleton unicycle, and a guy wearing a black sweatsuit with a skeleton printed on the front
The finalist team was a scientist and her two lab assistants who she had hired to help her make a Frankenstein's monster that she intended to turn into the ultimate boyfriend
There's a bit of issue with metaplot, players choice and spoilers with Golarion though.
Irissen is a good example. Every 100 years the royal lineage gets toppled by the Baba Yaga and a new daughter gets installed.
But if you read PFS lore.... The current queen has been ruling for 104 years. No explanation given.
Only if you play the relevant adventure path, all the way at the end of book 6 does this get resolved into one of many avenues, but to not spoil this the writers for organised play keep it static.
Funny you mention this since I'm running said AP for my group in a couple of weeks
It's my first time GMing in a decade and apparently I picked an AP with a famously lethal first adventure
Remember that all rules are guidelines in the end.
If you think something is not fun, change it.
Read the paizo subforum on where other GMs struggled, and tweak some enemies.
But the reason dice are important us because it can move narrative into a place that wasn't desired. A game where you win all the time isn't earned either. That lowly orc that crits with his battle axe can change a story.
Oh yeah I already know I'm not going to be as hard on my players with weather effects as the game suggests, and I did 25 point build so hopefully that'll even things out too.
The most important thing is I set the roll20 page's description to "Stop, collaborate and listen! Ice trolls back with a brand new mission!"
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Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
Are we including wargames in this general tabletop discussion?
Also also, a couple of weeks ago me, my two brothers and my oldest brother's family all had a game night! We played Sushi Go! Betrayal at House on the Hill, and Exploding Kittens! It was great. I lost Sushi Go! I was with the non-betrayers in Betrayal and we won by the skin of our teeth and I got a smooth win in Exploding Kittens through sheer force of will and bluffing acumen, and not luck at all.
We're looking to get together at least once a month and I'm hoping to get some Catan in next time.
Wargames are the best games.
I agree! I'm just starting to put together my Dropfleet Commander stuff and because my brother has an interest in the UCM it sort of looks like I'm going be Scourge. I have extra sprues for one cruiser and some frigates for the PHR and Shaltari so I'll probably put some of those together after I watch some stuff about them but I don't know how much I might want to get into those fleets. Shaltari for instance seem super complicated to play.
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
so I realized strength rogues can still be a thing in 5e because sneak attack only requires a ranged or finesse weapon - it never specifies you have to use your dex modifier for the attack
this is basically a reason to make a dwarf or half-orc rogue (going by the PHB races) etc.
Most grappling builds dip into Rogue for one level or more.
So yeah, strength rogues are definitely a thing.
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Metzger MeisterIt Gets Worsebefore it gets any better.Registered Userregular
I think skeletons would be the most fun to fight out of lower level fantasy bad guys. Like, goblins/goblinoids and your various "monstrous" humanoids are just trying to get by you know? And everything else is basically animals, and what kind of asshole just rolls up on a rabbit with an iron mace?
Skeletons are, ostensibly, animated by the will of an evil wizard or curse or whatever, and are thusly outside the natural order, but they also fly apart when you hit them and clatter around like a bunch of goofs. Skeleton massacre is basically like the fantasy equivalent of spending a day playing paintball or something.
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MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
In this scenario the "rabbit" has usually just made the jump from hunting the village's goats to hunting the village's children and elders, so a relatively aggressive approach feels warranted.
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
That said, there's few tricks more fun for a DM than getting the party to kill a dangerous animal and then pulling back the curtain on the beast's three adowable hatchlings/cubs/etc.
I think skeletons would be the most fun to fight out of lower level fantasy bad guys. Like, goblins/goblinoids and your various "monstrous" humanoids are just trying to get by you know? And everything else is basically animals, and what kind of asshole just rolls up on a rabbit with an iron mace?
Skeletons are, ostensibly, animated by the will of an evil wizard or curse or whatever, and are thusly outside the natural order, but they also fly apart when you hit them and clatter around like a bunch of goofs. Skeleton massacre is basically like the fantasy equivalent of spending a day playing paintball or something.
how fleshist of you to assume those skeletons don't have anything going on other than marching for the evil overlord
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Hmm. We've already established hackable robots are a thing here. But I don't want to just directly lift Five Nights at Freddy's, or dilute the creepiness of the Vale of Haunted Mannequins. Maybe the Clan of the Pizza Critterz Family Fun Center have used their mascot costumes to create deadly battlesuits? You're like "Oh look, it's a lovable cartoon dog! Hello! Will you be my friend?" but then the steely-eyed warlord prince piloting it is like "There is no friendship for outsiders, only EXTERMINATION!" and all the hidden harpoon launchers emerge from its fur.
More than that, each of the Mascots has taken on a archetypal, avatar-ish quality.
There are only so many Mascot suits, and they go only to those who most embody the spirit of that Critter. When one Rider dies, a trial is held within the Family Fun Center to see who is worthy to take up the mantle.
"Overly inhabited world" is actually my only really big complaint about Birthright.
Worlds designed for adventure in the D&D style need a frontier. They need wilderness to explore and to be threatened by. If the entire world is already explored and settled, it greatly restricts the adventure opportunities available to PCs, and just as importantly, it removes the ability for the PCs to make a mark on the world in the same way that you can with exploring wilderness.
(Birthright has a very tight setting conceit, and it being all settled isn't a problem for its intended use, my complaint about it specifically in the case of Birthright is just that it keeps the world from being a good general-purpose world and ties it too much to only being playable in its one style. Though I do like that style and the setting, I just wish it was more general-use.)
On prep in general: I probably favor prep a lot more than most people here, but the point of prep is to help you run the game without needing to delay and and while remaining consistent with your style of game. If that requires no prep for you, then there's no need to do prep. My most common prep is background work; it's easier for me to improvise/adjudicate based on the PC's actions if I already know beforehand what was there without them doing anything. My second most common prep is drop-in encounters or locations; I don't necessarily write up "this is specifically the lair of the goblins in this area and here is what they do and so on", but I might write up "this is a generic goblin lair". Then, if I need a lair, I'll just drop in the one I prepared. (Personally I like to have a lot of these ready so I can drop in whatever is appropriate for the PC's actions, rather than having just 'this is the encounter for the night no matter what you do', but there are a wide variety of ways to do it.)
I don't think there's anything wrong with having a bunch of self-contained, unrelated little bits prepped, and then using your prep + session actions to create a coherent result. I think it's important to leave room to adjust on the fly, unless you can reliably predict exactly what your players will do at all times, and leaving blank spots in the parts you can improvise with preparation for the parts that take a while is a great way to do that.
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
" BEHOLD, THE EIDOLON OF THE FLUFFY BUNNY!"
"Huh. Ok, yeah, I guess I see it. Ha ha!"
"ARE YOU READY, BUNNY-LORD, TO BRING WAR TO OUR ENEMIES?!"
"Whaaa...?"
"ARE YOU READY TO USE YOUR BUNNY GIFTS TO RAMPAGE, TO CONQUER, TO MAIM, AND TO KILL!?"
"... aaat the Hell??"
It's more like "thing happened and we need an elite team of do-gooders to solve a problem."
There are strict hierarchies based on assumed relationships between the Critterz.
Fluffy Bunny leads us into conflict. We follow Fluffy Bunny into darkness.
Banjo Bear does not lead, but when Banjo Bear speaks, all listen.
Oh, I agree. It was never intended to be a general-use setting; it was very specifically designed to be a political intrigue/war/other civilized problems game.
I just like the setting and wish it was more generally usable, instead of being so tightly focused, so I could run it more often.
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
A terribly introverted joined Trill with four prior hosts who were all incredibly gregarious. They have friends and lovers all over the galaxy but their first response to meeting any of them is "Oh no, nononono"
Isn't that kinda close to Ezri? She was like super awkward where Jadzia was charming and Curzon was... yknow
can I play with you?
My friend had a similar-ish idea for his character. He's playing a Trill dude who was a regular bro who was never a candidate for the Joining; a gifted engineer, but ordinary in all other respects, and who has trouble socializing. His wife, though, was joined and both she and her symbiont were super-successful overachievers with a stack of degrees and friends all of the galaxy. Then they were on an away mission together and she was fatally injured, and the only way to save the symbiont's life was to join it with my friend's character, who wasn't in any way prepared.
So now he has the memory of his marriage from both sides, and on top of that the crushing burden of all these new expectations, with all these people eagerly wondering when he/the symbiont is going to write his next masterpiece or win his next Nobel Prize. So he has basically barricaded himself in the engine room while the symbiont tries to coax him into living a fuller life.
Oh, just to be clear, the list was mine (original idea do not steal); the first point, about core fantasies, was Weisman's.
I don't think he was suggesting (nor do I think it's the case) that it has to be some three-word elevator pitch like "driving a robot" and I definitely don't think having other things in the setting detracts from that! Shadowrun is magic and cyberpunk and the interesting thematic and gameplay parallels that you can draw between them (like how corporations and dragons are both giant inhuman monsters that exist only to hoard wealth).
I take the point more to mean that the interesting part of the setting needs to be something that the audience can actually see or play. Like, a fantasy setting whose only difference from regular D&D is that the gods work differently is going to feel like D&D for 3/4 of the classes.
I HAVE NO HONOR
you have NO honor
YOU have no honor
you have no HONOR
It kind of snuck up on everyone! Star Trek hasn't had a super-great history with RPGs. There was a FASA game in the 80s that was more of a wargame than an RPG and did the grognard thing of trying to make Star Trek more militaristic and right-wing. There was an RPG in the late 90s by Last Unicorn Games that was pretty good but it had very 90s, cluttered rules and the company promptly went out of business before they could put out more than a few books. Then Decipher, who made the licensed Peter Jackson LOTR RPG, took a stab at Star Trek by converting the LUG game into Decipher's house system but that also didn't last long. So there hasn't been an official Star Trek RPG since like 2003.
This company, Modiphius, just sort of popped up on the scene couple of years ago and aggressively starting picking up licensed IP - Conan, John Carter, Mutant Chronicles, Infinity, and like...Kung Fu Panda? For real. In the middle of all this, they snagged the Star Trek license, but all their other games were in various stages of development and I think the announcement got lost in the shuffle. The core book only came out in PDF this July and it's only now starting to be available in print at local game shops.
But it seems like it might be the game to break the curse. It's a really great system and they have an aggressive schedule of supplements planned, and it's mostly stuff I actually want to see for once! - although I will leave the Delta Quadrant sourcebook on the shelf :razz: - and the devs are pretty accessible on forums and reddit and have answered a bunch of my questions. Fingers crossed.
Inis.
They are also going to add seasons into the game, which I am a little unsure on, and each season effects the game differently, summer for examples allows troop movement on any card.
Satans..... hints.....
C'mon down to Houston we play at the FLGS
Trek at FLGS in Houston, you say...
Which store? I probably can't play right now anyway, just curious.
This apparently happened, according to the game designer involved:
Paramount: "This economic system in the game makes no sense! The game has to be canon and this can't be canon!"
Game designer "Uh, I just wrote down what the show bible says."
That's a somewhat longer commute than I had anticipated.
this is basically a reason to make a dwarf or half-orc rogue (going by the PHB races) etc.
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
It’s not really my game to invite to though, and I think we’re full now. But if anyone ever wants to board game or tabletop here let me know.
Yup. IIRC one of the builds out there is a strength rogue using a shield to knock enemies prone and then stabbing them with sneak attack
I once knew of the Star Trek RPG when I was deep in WEG's SW
And one of the people we had in the group had a few of the books but he made fun of how it was the 60's trek and who he wanted more of a universe they had in Next Gen
and I vaguely remember him showing me the Klingon book and talking about how the ones in the RPG were neat but very different from what was on TV and the movie that came out the previous year
Wow that was 19 years ago and yet it feels like a whole other life
who wants to fight a bunch of skeletons?
Go down in the skelepits and just start swinging.
Who's in?
it's like you never biology.
The skeleton team had a skeleton centurion, a skeleton riding a skeleton unicycle, and a guy wearing a black sweatsuit with a skeleton printed on the front
The finalist team was a scientist and her two lab assistants who she had hired to help her make a Frankenstein's monster that she intended to turn into the ultimate boyfriend
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Funny you mention this since I'm running said AP for my group in a couple of weeks
It's my first time GMing in a decade and apparently I picked an AP with a famously lethal first adventure
Whoops
If you think something is not fun, change it.
Read the paizo subforum on where other GMs struggled, and tweak some enemies.
But the reason dice are important us because it can move narrative into a place that wasn't desired. A game where you win all the time isn't earned either. That lowly orc that crits with his battle axe can change a story.
The most important thing is I set the roll20 page's description to "Stop, collaborate and listen! Ice trolls back with a brand new mission!"
I agree! I'm just starting to put together my Dropfleet Commander stuff and because my brother has an interest in the UCM it sort of looks like I'm going be Scourge. I have extra sprues for one cruiser and some frigates for the PHR and Shaltari so I'll probably put some of those together after I watch some stuff about them but I don't know how much I might want to get into those fleets. Shaltari for instance seem super complicated to play.
Most grappling builds dip into Rogue for one level or more.
So yeah, strength rogues are definitely a thing.
Skeletons are, ostensibly, animated by the will of an evil wizard or curse or whatever, and are thusly outside the natural order, but they also fly apart when you hit them and clatter around like a bunch of goofs. Skeleton massacre is basically like the fantasy equivalent of spending a day playing paintball or something.
how fleshist of you to assume those skeletons don't have anything going on other than marching for the evil overlord
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