RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
So in the Forgotten Realms pantheon, there's a lot of lore about what happens to the souls of those who have been corrupted or bargained their soul to various devils and demons and such, but I've been looking for information about the afterlife for just plain-old regular folks.
Does anyone have references or info on what happens to a person's soul in D&D when they die? I've found conversations about the Fugue Plane and the River Styx plays a pretty prominent role in the lore about the Blood War in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but not a ton of specific info yet about what a typical sequence of events might be for the recently departed.
After a lot of brainstorming, I decided Southern Colorado is the best location for this Mage story.
Doobh, keep out, spoilers abound!
The tricky thing about designing a Mage game is that Awakened Mages are incredibly rare. The books have put the ratio as high as 1 mage for every 100,000 sleepers, or as low as 1 mage for every 3 million sleepers. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to set the ratio, but I do know that unawakened members, possibly with training in lesser supernatural arts than Sphere Magic, will make up the bulk of most groups. Fortunately, the Colorado Springs area has a couple features that could serve to concentrate Mages. In particular, I think Pike's Peak is going to be host to a web of Tradition-controlled Nodes, and the Air Force Academy is going to be swarming with Technocrats, particularly the NWO. I think the strongest overall Technocrat presence is the Syndicate though, because of a number of local issues that feel like their style. I've got ideas for local influence for all the Traditions except the Euthanatos and the Akashic Brotherhood.
Here's a summary of the stuff I'm thinking about sprinkling around the map. I could probably spin a full story out of most of these points, so I'll keep them sketchy for now and fill them in depending on where her character's interest goes.
Pike's Peak: The mountain figures into the creation story of the Tabeguache Ute, and is probably host to multiple strong Nodes. I'm doing research to put together a Dreamspeaker Elder who will probably be one of the most potent local Mages, a grandfather figure to the community, but one with enough responsibilities as caretaker of the mountain that he can't just storm in and solve everybody else's problems
Witches of Manitou Springs: It's a little town, but with a vibrant Wiccan and Neo-Pagan population. Doobh's character has an "aunt" (actually an ancient Verbena who's been keeping watch on her family line for generations) who I think I'm going to place here, at the center of a local coven of Verbena and Cultists of Ecstasy. Probably two or three other much lower powered Awakened members, and a bunch of aware-but-not-awake acolytes.
Tesla's Labs: In real life, the government repossessed and tore down Tesla's lab in Colorado Springs. In the Mage universe, Tesla was canonically a Son of Ether, and I think he managed to hide some sweet weird science shit that later Etherites have come back for. The Etherites and the Verbena probably get along fine by virtue of not being involved in each other's business often enough to grow irritated with each other, but that Dreamspeaker Elder probably has a lot less patience with them.
Hermetic Vampire Hunters in Denver: Further north, I think there's a large cabal of young Hermetics (possibly with one or two members of other Traditions) waging war with deeply entrenched Tremere Vampires and their Camarilla allies, and they're doing so in a way that is seriously endangering their secrecy. This is because when I lived downtown I ran a short-lived Mage game with this exact plot, and I liked the NPCs enough to want to re-use them. There are also local Vampire legends from around Grand Junction and Boulder that I can draw from, but I never spent any time in those parts of the state.
The Immortal of Mile High Stadium: There was a homeless guy I knew named Eric, who had come to Denver from Minnesota to see the Broncos play against his beloved Vikings, lost his bus ticket home, blamed the Broncos for it personally, and decided to devote the rest of his life to screaming abuse at Broncos fans who came to tour the stadium. Security mostly ignored him unless it was game day, and let him dumpster dive for leftover concessions food. I bought him a sandwich every time I saw him, and tried my best to get him in contact with organizations that could help him get on his feet, but he was enjoying himself too much being a Powerful Chaos Entity. I think there may be a local supernatural entity, not a Mage, based loosely on him.
Corporate Farms vs. Family Farms: Out towards Lamar and West Kansas, or down in the San Luis Valley, agriculture is a big deal, and it's rapidly being swallowed up by huge conglomerates. This is interesting because the conflict it suggests to me is inside the Technocracy itself - Syndicate vs. Progenitors. The Progenitors have theoretically noble goals of maximizing food production and engineering superior crops, but they're not integrated into the community, and it's easy for them to lose perspective and treat these subjects purely as science puzzles without regard for how people's lives are impacted. Meanwhile the Syndicate figures out how to squeeze every last drop of profit out of it, even to the extent of opposing Progenitor innovations that are better science, but poorer business.
Legal Weed: This was initially hailed as a victory by the Cult of Ecstasy, but the The Syndicate, Progenitors, and NWO quickly shifted gears to subvert that win. Now it's just another tool for concentrating wealth and pacifying sleepers. Progenitor-modified strains induce a deeper stupor and inhibit creativity, and the NWO cheerfully compiles all the purchase records waiting for the day when they can use the disparity between State and Federal law as a justification for mass-incarceration.
Tech Bubble Craters: Denver is the epicenter of a lot of dumb short-lived tech startups, and I think the instability of these markets may be a symptom of conflict between the Virtual Adepts and the Syndicate. I don't think the VAs have much local presence to speak of, but the physical location of their bodies has always been the least important part of their operations. Hermetics of House Thig may be taking advantage of the volatility to indulge in a little technomantic chaos magic under the radar as well.
The Pueblo Tarantula Migration: When I lived in Pueblo, I encountered an apparently regular phenomenon of a mass tarantula migration that was so thick that it looked like a grey-brown river blocking the road to Pueblo West. Cars would drive through because that was the only road, tarantulas would get pulped, and then coyotes and wild dogs would come gorge themselves on the dead tarantulas until they got sick. And then because they were all barfy and disoriented, they'd get hit by cars too. And then carrion birds who were smart enough to not eat the tarantulas directly would come eat all the coyote carcasses. It looked like a scene directly out of Hell, and locals informed me that the river of carnage wound right past the Colorado State Mental Health Institute, where they had to cover all the windows on that side of the building every year so that the patients wouldn't see this bonkers shit and freak out. What I'm saying is that there's a fucking Marauder at work in Pueblo, only in Real Life.
Evangelical Mega-Churches: These are a Syndicate front designed to subvert people's faith into a worship of capitalism itself. But they've been extremely cautious, and their influence is almost imperceptible. There's an NPC I've got in mind who's a Celestial Chorus mage, an itinerant preacher who thinks he's figured out what's going on but hasn't figured out how to convince anyone else. This gives me an opportunity to draw more directly on my experience being a mormon missionary in the area 18 years ago, which is obviously a period of my life that I have complicated feelings about, but not 100% negative ones. This front also seems like a good place for some Nephandi subversion.
The Air Force Academy: The Technocracy loves the academy. A lot of Intelligence officers are trained here, and that's prime NWO recruiting ground, while the Void Engineers similarly pick the best and brightest out of pilot training. Iteration-X is neck deep in military industrial contracting, with the Syndicate gleefully throwing an obscene portion of the US annual budget at them. And the Progenitors can run their super soldier projects with an endless stream of able-bodied volunteers. On the other hand, the Order of Hermes has a long history of plucking recruits out of officer's clubs and academic secret societies, especially Houses Flambeau, Janissary, and Tytalus. The JAG office may be infiltrated by House Quaesitor as well.
NORAD: Everybody knows they've got a bunch of bunkers in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for if DC sinks into the ocean or the sun goes out or whatever, and that they're watching for alien invaders just as much as for North Korean nukes. NORAD is a hotspot of Void Engineer activity, but they're too busy watching for threats from Beyond to get involved in local stuff much. I think some extremely weird shit is going on behind the scenes here, and the Umbra around both the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and the Peterson Air Force Base should be well-documented no-man's-lands.
Cryptids in the Umbra: There have been Bigfoot sightings, but big deal, there are Bigfoot sightings everywhere. There have also been Dinosaur sightings up in Pagosa Springs and down in Pueblo, so I think the local Umbra may be home to some kind of Raptors, and then there's the story of a thing called the Slide Rock Bolter that's like a Killer Whale that clings to mountainsides and then attacks people surfing on avalanches.
Desert Leviathan on
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
So in the Forgotten Realms pantheon, there's a lot of lore about what happens to the souls of those who have been corrupted or bargained their soul to various devils and demons and such, but I've been looking for information about the afterlife for just plain-old regular folks.
Does anyone have references or info on what happens to a person's soul in D&D when they die? I've found conversations about the Fugue Plane and the River Styx plays a pretty prominent role in the lore about the Blood War in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but not a ton of specific info yet about what a typical sequence of events might be for the recently departed.
If they worship a god and are roughly in line with the expected alignment and behavior types, they get drawn into that god's domain. Otherwise, they go to one of the outer planes associated with their Alignment. The god's domains are usually within the respective aligned planes, so the only real difference is if there's anyone from your faith to meet you, or if you just show up at whatever the port of entry to the plane is and get to hang out in the parts that aren't any god's specific territory. Alignment by plane goes like this:
If they're an Elf, they reincarnate, because the Elves have been exiled from the presence of their gods and can't return to live with them yet.
Desert Leviathan on
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
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
So do they still travel to the Fugue Plane outside of the City of Judgement and wait for their deity to come get them while baatezu try to bargain with them into becoming lemures and stuff?
I've got a game this weekend in which my character is going to have a very stern conversation about the afterlife with another player who has been manipulating souls for his own ends, and as a lawful good cleric my dude has serious problems with this sort of behavior. I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about this in preparation, and want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row.
So do they still travel to the Fugue Plane outside of the City of Judgement and wait for their deity to come get them while baatezu try to bargain with them into becoming lemures and stuff?
I've got a game this weekend in which my character is going to have a very stern conversation about the afterlife with another player who has been manipulating souls for his own ends, and as a lawful good cleric my dude has serious problems with this sort of behavior. I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about this in preparation, and want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row.
Not 100% sure. The Forgotten Realms afterlife got extra complicated because 4E decided to try to reconcile the World Tree cosmology with the Great Wheel cosmology from Planescape. I'd assume any part of things that used to be present in FR is still functional unless explicitly contradicted, and I don't remember reading that the City of Judgement isn't a thing any more.
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
After a lot of brainstorming, I decided Southern Colorado is the best location for this Mage story.
Doobh, keep out, spoilers abound!
[Removed to limit the temptation]
Are you telling me that there's no magic shit going down at Casa Bonita?
That's just every day, average, purely mundane mortal bad taste?
Sorry, I have limits to my suspension of disbelief.
I never got to eat there, so I can't say if it's legitimately supernatural or just another tumor of the Syndicate's influence like any other tacky overpriced tourist-trap. I can tell you that the Beau Jo's Pizza where me and another missionary completed the 12-14 lb. Pizza challenge is a nexus of unspeakable chaotic energy, though.
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
Cutting Words + Mass Cure Wounds just saved 3 party members from death so certain that the DM was messaging the individual players telling them to start considering their new characters.
The aboleth was very surprised, almost as much as my bard who didn't know he could do magic like that. Then the Aboleth experienced the wonder of our barbarians GWM crit.
I've only met him once, and it was at a board game day he hosts so often. He seemed generally okay but also a jerk who gets mad if people "aren't playing the game right" in a way that means they are trying to stop him from winning immediately with moves that are against their intimidate self interest.
Is there an official banner saga rpg or is that some kinda homebrew thing?
Also Adam sounds like a tool.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
There's no official Banner Saga RPG, so I'm guessing they're working with a pre-existing ruleset. I don't think they've announced what that is going to be though.
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
I find people who make and run games have Opinions(tm) on how games should be run. You can talk about them to a point, but you also have to know when to walk away from the discussion.
In other news, 4e went pretty well. The party found a goblin dig site with dinosaurs. Talar the Elf Ranger gave no damns about acrobatics and walked across rickety board bridges like they stone paths, which ruined the blasting crew’s strategy of peppering the heroes from afar. Both the Hexblade and Ranger made diving attacks on enemies that tried to escape via the lower level of the room with some success.
After dispatching the ambushers, the party backtracked to explore a secret door they noticed while heading down the corridor. After finding a sleeping goblin, Talar is instructed by the others to gut him (obviously his first time getting the drop on an enemy) unfortunately, his attempt to reenter the room quietly failed, stubbing his toe on a chest and awakening the goblin chieftain, who howled for help and made for an escape. Cue waves of goblins rushing the party, while the chief peppered them with crossbow fire. The heroes fought bravely, turning the tide as Balasar tapped into a source of power he’d long let lie dormant. (for good reason, as the voice in his head reminded him) The rotund goblin chief fled to another location as his men fell, but a quick search of the area proved fruitless, as well as being unable to open the chest in the chief’s quarters. (Despite Balasar’s efforts to break it open)
Feeling pressed for time, the heroes rushed back to another side passage they’d located leading downwards, the worked keep giving way to a natural cave dripping with rockery and swarming with rats. Sticking close together, the party located a room marked “Keep Out. Really”. A check inside found a pool with a small island, treasure and bones scattered about. Talar ordered the retreat before the party’s fate ended similarly. Following the flow of cave South, the heroes found a series of burrows and pit traps, a dead creature of unknown origin at the bottom of one. Undeterred, belueving the death cult to be in this direction, they press on...
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Adam Koebel is one of the best streaming GM right now, and definetly one of the most influent regarding the indie scene. He's been with Roll20 and with RollPlay for years now.
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
you're not wrong, revolvers are noted for being reliable and generally accurate. the line of thinking is that in north america, semi autos were coming into their own in the 30s, the 1911 had been around for a while seen a war, gained much love, police were still carrying revolvers mostly at this point because if you had a dud round another trigger pull was all you needed to fire again, you didn't have to clear the chamber or anything.
Following what i have just been calling The Convergence i imagine people fell back onto a lot of military weapons, so a lot of semi autos and thompsons around, civilian revolvers kind of fell to the wayside. Mass production still isn't back some 40 odd years later, but small scale production is, and now there's new guns designed to take the same magazines as your carbine, so a back up weapon with okay reliability and 30 rounds is a pretty compelling choice over a 6 to 8 round revolver. Though I imagine revolvers still play a big role for cops, who likely aren't going to carry around giant magazines.
i spend, too much time reading and learning about guns, is what i am saying.
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AuralynxDarkness is a perspectiveWatching the ego workRegistered Userregular
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
you're not wrong, revolvers are noted for being reliable and generally accurate. the line of thinking is that in north america, semi autos were coming into their own in the 30s, the 1911 had been around for a while seen a war, gained much love, police were still carrying revolvers mostly at this point because if you had a dud round another trigger pull was all you needed to fire again, you didn't have to clear the chamber or anything.
Following what i have just been calling The Convergence i imagine people fell back onto a lot of military weapons, so a lot of semi autos and thompsons around, civilian revolvers kind of fell to the wayside. Mass production still isn't back some 40 odd years later, but small scale production is, and now there's new guns designed to take the same magazines as your carbine, so a back up weapon with okay reliability and 30 rounds is a pretty compelling choice over a 6 to 8 round revolver. Though I imagine revolvers still play a big role for cops, who likely aren't going to carry around giant magazines.
i spend, too much time reading and learning about guns, is what i am saying.
You can honestly go pretty deep on guns (or engines) and it's a little weird to me that there's a tendency in the RPG world to downplay that and relegate it to the realm of Fighter Business.
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
you're not wrong, revolvers are noted for being reliable and generally accurate. the line of thinking is that in north america, semi autos were coming into their own in the 30s, the 1911 had been around for a while seen a war, gained much love, police were still carrying revolvers mostly at this point because if you had a dud round another trigger pull was all you needed to fire again, you didn't have to clear the chamber or anything.
Following what i have just been calling The Convergence i imagine people fell back onto a lot of military weapons, so a lot of semi autos and thompsons around, civilian revolvers kind of fell to the wayside. Mass production still isn't back some 40 odd years later, but small scale production is, and now there's new guns designed to take the same magazines as your carbine, so a back up weapon with okay reliability and 30 rounds is a pretty compelling choice over a 6 to 8 round revolver. Though I imagine revolvers still play a big role for cops, who likely aren't going to carry around giant magazines.
i spend, too much time reading and learning about guns, is what i am saying.
You can honestly go pretty deep on guns (or engines) and it's a little weird to me that there's a tendency in the RPG world to downplay that and relegate it to the realm of Fighter Business.
that is true of any weapon. you eventually have to just draw a line. my plan is like, Light Pistol (.32 or .22) Heavy pistol (9mm or .45), and .357 magnum as basically the only hand gun options rifles are mostly 30-06, but there is variance in there, and really it isn't worth getting too into the weeds on this. it's largely a narrative game system.
Yeah, you can always go deeper into minutia with everything. But like, do we need to know how many rivets are on this tank for this game? Do we need different weapon stats for every Oakeshott blade?
I mean, if that's the focus of your game sure, but you always have to decide where you draw the line for your game.
Personally I like broader strokes Light/Heavy Pistol for example, and then let players flavor what their light or heavy pistol is from there.
i remembered that .357 magnum existed before history diverted in this game, so hey, that's neat. Though i am picturing it now as coming back as a good light rifle round instead of a self defense handgun rounds. cause when you have reliable .45 pistols, why would you go to a revolver when both make people go away forever.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
you're not wrong, revolvers are noted for being reliable and generally accurate. the line of thinking is that in north america, semi autos were coming into their own in the 30s, the 1911 had been around for a while seen a war, gained much love, police were still carrying revolvers mostly at this point because if you had a dud round another trigger pull was all you needed to fire again, you didn't have to clear the chamber or anything.
Following what i have just been calling The Convergence i imagine people fell back onto a lot of military weapons, so a lot of semi autos and thompsons around, civilian revolvers kind of fell to the wayside. Mass production still isn't back some 40 odd years later, but small scale production is, and now there's new guns designed to take the same magazines as your carbine, so a back up weapon with okay reliability and 30 rounds is a pretty compelling choice over a 6 to 8 round revolver. Though I imagine revolvers still play a big role for cops, who likely aren't going to carry around giant magazines.
i spend, too much time reading and learning about guns, is what i am saying.
You can honestly go pretty deep on guns (or engines) and it's a little weird to me that there's a tendency in the RPG world to downplay that and relegate it to the realm of Fighter Business.
One of the reasons that, to my mind, it's generally not worth the effort is because there's very little granularity in the amount of damage firearms do (absent considerations of marksmanship). You can literally just denote pistol, rifle, and shotgun ammo and you've done a good job from a simulation perspective.
Yeah, you can always go deeper into minutia with everything. But like, do we need to know how many rivets are on this tank for this game? Do we need different weapon stats for every Oakeshott blade?
I mean, if that's the focus of your game sure, but you always have to decide where you draw the line for your game.
Personally I like broader strokes Light/Heavy Pistol for example, and then let players flavor what their light or heavy pistol is from there.
I think the main way this kind of thing goes Weird is when one particular weapon (or kind of weapon) gets all detailed and realism-based in its rules while the rest is still super abstract or gamist-system-based.
its not so bad these days but 5e D&D still has the weird thing where they get a bit nitpicky about reload times on crossbows while still having bows be Dexterity based weapons (when, in a realism based system they would require more upper body strength than any other weapon in the book)
A person of average strength could actually use a pretty heavy draw weight bow, if they're dexterous enough to use the proper muscles
I mean even starting the argument means one is implicitly endorsing a realism-based or simulationist kind of game system. In which case I would strongly argue against using D&D at all. But in that case...
no. no they could not. A war bow is in the 100+ lb draw weight range at the low end. Even into the 150 or 180 lb range. Not a chance could someone use that as a weapon without being exceedingly strong. Even if they could pull back the arrow a bit (and probably not full back to the ear as they should) there is no way they could do so and also aim reliably. They would more likely end up hurting themselves.
Well, it helps that the write up is for the PC race kobolds. enemy kobolds would be a little different and likely in direct service of a dragon, and therefore working to further their goals.
And dragons are right assholes, so that tends to reflect poorly on all kobolds. On their own they're just kind of there, doing their own things.
of course now i'm picturing like a half dragon gangster with a small pack of kobolds doing mafia shit. dwarven shop keep closing up shop for the night when these finely dressed storm kobolds walk in. "Oh crap, it's the Grixkisly Brothers"
Adam Koebel is one of the best streaming GM right now, and definetly one of the most influent regarding the indie scene. He's been with Roll20 and with RollPlay for years now.
One of my favorite thing about Adam is that he's one of the toughest GMs I've ever seen* regardless of whether he's playing OSR/D&D or narrative games. It really puts the idea of narrative games as being success-generators into the ground.
*though he would describe it as just playing by the rules of the game.
A person of average strength could actually use a pretty heavy draw weight bow, if they're dexterous enough to use the proper muscles
I mean even starting the argument means one is implicitly endorsing a realism-based or simulationist kind of game system. In which case I would strongly argue against using D&D at all. But in that case...
no. no they could not. A war bow is in the 100+ lb draw weight range at the low end. Even into the 150 or 180 lb range. Not a chance could someone use that as a weapon without being exceedingly strong. Even if they could pull back the arrow a bit (and probably not full back to the ear as they should) there is no way they could do so and also aim reliably. They would more likely end up hurting themselves.
There is scant evidence of bows with draw weights over 100 pounds, it's always conjecture of 100-180 pounds
look at conan the barbarian, if you look like him, sword hits 100% of the time.
also, i think i am nearing a point where i can just throw this idea entirely into the wild and hope for the best. I am a shit ass gm so i was never going to run this thing, why have i been doing this?
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
look at conan the barbarian, if you look like him, sword hits 100% of the time.
also, i think i am nearing a point where i can just throw this idea entirely into the wild and hope for the best. I am a shit ass gm so i was never going to run this thing, why have i been doing this?
I don't really believe that you're a bad GM.
You might be an unpracticed GM, but that's not the same thing as being bad. You might not be confident about it; also not the same thing as being bad. There's a lot of things you might be and there will always be room for improvement, but that's not the same thing as being bad!
I've been GMing for almost 20 years and there's still plenty of places for me to improve. What's really important is that you listen to your players and work together to make a game that everyone enjoys, and as long as that's your goal and you work towards it, I don't think it's possible to be a truly bad GM. I don't think things like being caught by surprise and needing to say "I don't have this prepared, give me a few minutes" (or even having to end the session early) make you a bad GM. The things that make people bad GMs IMO are really group-dynamic problems; refusal to listen to players, refusal to respect players, that sort of thing.
I feel that anyone who is willing to respect their players can be a good GM. That's really the #1 rule, and as long as you're doing that, you're good in my book.
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
To my mind Dexterity/Agility is how well you can hit, Strength/Power is how hard you hit. All weapons would have a base damage roll based on type, and your attribute modifiers would apply directly to to your rolls, so if you've got 14 Strength and 18 Dexterity as a sneaky ranger, your 1D4 dagger gets a (+2) to damage, and you get a (+4) to hit on your D20 attack roll. If you've got 20 Strength and 8 Dexterity as a tanky brawler, your two-handed greatsword gets a +5 to its 2D6 damage roll, but you cop a (-1) to hit on your D20 attack roll. For ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, I would still use the strength as a damage adder, because the stronger you are, the higher your draw strength can be, so you can use heavier projectiles and they will fly faster, resulting in more damage to the target.
Someone should open a maniticore manicure store that also features pretty adornation for the stinger. There ain't a manticore in all the land who'll mess up their claws and stinger by attacking townsfolks. That was a lot of money!
1 2 3 boom manticore problem solved forever.
The problem is you need to certify as a general laborer and power tool usage
Edit** goddammit im beaten by at least 5other posts that were better
To my mind Dexterity/Agility is how well you can hit, Strength/Power is how hard you hit. All weapons would have a base damage roll based on type, and your attribute modifiers would apply directly to to your rolls, so if you've got 14 Strength and 18 Dexterity as a sneaky ranger, your 1D4 dagger gets a (+2) to damage, and you get a (+4) to hit on your D20 attack roll. If you've got 20 Strength and 8 Dexterity as a tanky brawler, your two-handed greatsword gets a +5 to its 2D6 damage roll, but you cop a (-1) to hit on your D20 attack roll. For ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, I would still use the strength as a damage adder, because the stronger you are, the higher your draw strength can be, so you can use heavier projectiles and they will fly faster, resulting in more damage to the target.
Infinity does this: Each type of attack has a stat for it's actual skill usage and a stat that determines bonus damage. For melee and guns it's a seperate stat from the accuracy one and for hacking and social attacks it's the same one.
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Does anyone have references or info on what happens to a person's soul in D&D when they die? I've found conversations about the Fugue Plane and the River Styx plays a pretty prominent role in the lore about the Blood War in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, but not a ton of specific info yet about what a typical sequence of events might be for the recently departed.
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Doobh, keep out, spoilers abound!
Here's a summary of the stuff I'm thinking about sprinkling around the map. I could probably spin a full story out of most of these points, so I'll keep them sketchy for now and fill them in depending on where her character's interest goes.
Witches of Manitou Springs: It's a little town, but with a vibrant Wiccan and Neo-Pagan population. Doobh's character has an "aunt" (actually an ancient Verbena who's been keeping watch on her family line for generations) who I think I'm going to place here, at the center of a local coven of Verbena and Cultists of Ecstasy. Probably two or three other much lower powered Awakened members, and a bunch of aware-but-not-awake acolytes.
Tesla's Labs: In real life, the government repossessed and tore down Tesla's lab in Colorado Springs. In the Mage universe, Tesla was canonically a Son of Ether, and I think he managed to hide some sweet weird science shit that later Etherites have come back for. The Etherites and the Verbena probably get along fine by virtue of not being involved in each other's business often enough to grow irritated with each other, but that Dreamspeaker Elder probably has a lot less patience with them.
Hermetic Vampire Hunters in Denver: Further north, I think there's a large cabal of young Hermetics (possibly with one or two members of other Traditions) waging war with deeply entrenched Tremere Vampires and their Camarilla allies, and they're doing so in a way that is seriously endangering their secrecy. This is because when I lived downtown I ran a short-lived Mage game with this exact plot, and I liked the NPCs enough to want to re-use them. There are also local Vampire legends from around Grand Junction and Boulder that I can draw from, but I never spent any time in those parts of the state.
The Immortal of Mile High Stadium: There was a homeless guy I knew named Eric, who had come to Denver from Minnesota to see the Broncos play against his beloved Vikings, lost his bus ticket home, blamed the Broncos for it personally, and decided to devote the rest of his life to screaming abuse at Broncos fans who came to tour the stadium. Security mostly ignored him unless it was game day, and let him dumpster dive for leftover concessions food. I bought him a sandwich every time I saw him, and tried my best to get him in contact with organizations that could help him get on his feet, but he was enjoying himself too much being a Powerful Chaos Entity. I think there may be a local supernatural entity, not a Mage, based loosely on him.
Corporate Farms vs. Family Farms: Out towards Lamar and West Kansas, or down in the San Luis Valley, agriculture is a big deal, and it's rapidly being swallowed up by huge conglomerates. This is interesting because the conflict it suggests to me is inside the Technocracy itself - Syndicate vs. Progenitors. The Progenitors have theoretically noble goals of maximizing food production and engineering superior crops, but they're not integrated into the community, and it's easy for them to lose perspective and treat these subjects purely as science puzzles without regard for how people's lives are impacted. Meanwhile the Syndicate figures out how to squeeze every last drop of profit out of it, even to the extent of opposing Progenitor innovations that are better science, but poorer business.
Legal Weed: This was initially hailed as a victory by the Cult of Ecstasy, but the The Syndicate, Progenitors, and NWO quickly shifted gears to subvert that win. Now it's just another tool for concentrating wealth and pacifying sleepers. Progenitor-modified strains induce a deeper stupor and inhibit creativity, and the NWO cheerfully compiles all the purchase records waiting for the day when they can use the disparity between State and Federal law as a justification for mass-incarceration.
Tech Bubble Craters: Denver is the epicenter of a lot of dumb short-lived tech startups, and I think the instability of these markets may be a symptom of conflict between the Virtual Adepts and the Syndicate. I don't think the VAs have much local presence to speak of, but the physical location of their bodies has always been the least important part of their operations. Hermetics of House Thig may be taking advantage of the volatility to indulge in a little technomantic chaos magic under the radar as well.
The Pueblo Tarantula Migration: When I lived in Pueblo, I encountered an apparently regular phenomenon of a mass tarantula migration that was so thick that it looked like a grey-brown river blocking the road to Pueblo West. Cars would drive through because that was the only road, tarantulas would get pulped, and then coyotes and wild dogs would come gorge themselves on the dead tarantulas until they got sick. And then because they were all barfy and disoriented, they'd get hit by cars too. And then carrion birds who were smart enough to not eat the tarantulas directly would come eat all the coyote carcasses. It looked like a scene directly out of Hell, and locals informed me that the river of carnage wound right past the Colorado State Mental Health Institute, where they had to cover all the windows on that side of the building every year so that the patients wouldn't see this bonkers shit and freak out. What I'm saying is that there's a fucking Marauder at work in Pueblo, only in Real Life.
Evangelical Mega-Churches: These are a Syndicate front designed to subvert people's faith into a worship of capitalism itself. But they've been extremely cautious, and their influence is almost imperceptible. There's an NPC I've got in mind who's a Celestial Chorus mage, an itinerant preacher who thinks he's figured out what's going on but hasn't figured out how to convince anyone else. This gives me an opportunity to draw more directly on my experience being a mormon missionary in the area 18 years ago, which is obviously a period of my life that I have complicated feelings about, but not 100% negative ones. This front also seems like a good place for some Nephandi subversion.
The Air Force Academy: The Technocracy loves the academy. A lot of Intelligence officers are trained here, and that's prime NWO recruiting ground, while the Void Engineers similarly pick the best and brightest out of pilot training. Iteration-X is neck deep in military industrial contracting, with the Syndicate gleefully throwing an obscene portion of the US annual budget at them. And the Progenitors can run their super soldier projects with an endless stream of able-bodied volunteers. On the other hand, the Order of Hermes has a long history of plucking recruits out of officer's clubs and academic secret societies, especially Houses Flambeau, Janissary, and Tytalus. The JAG office may be infiltrated by House Quaesitor as well.
NORAD: Everybody knows they've got a bunch of bunkers in the Cheyenne Mountain Complex for if DC sinks into the ocean or the sun goes out or whatever, and that they're watching for alien invaders just as much as for North Korean nukes. NORAD is a hotspot of Void Engineer activity, but they're too busy watching for threats from Beyond to get involved in local stuff much. I think some extremely weird shit is going on behind the scenes here, and the Umbra around both the Cheyenne Mountain Complex and the Peterson Air Force Base should be well-documented no-man's-lands.
Cryptids in the Umbra: There have been Bigfoot sightings, but big deal, there are Bigfoot sightings everywhere. There have also been Dinosaur sightings up in Pagosa Springs and down in Pueblo, so I think the local Umbra may be home to some kind of Raptors, and then there's the story of a thing called the Slide Rock Bolter that's like a Killer Whale that clings to mountainsides and then attacks people surfing on avalanches.
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If they worship a god and are roughly in line with the expected alignment and behavior types, they get drawn into that god's domain. Otherwise, they go to one of the outer planes associated with their Alignment. The god's domains are usually within the respective aligned planes, so the only real difference is if there's anyone from your faith to meet you, or if you just show up at whatever the port of entry to the plane is and get to hang out in the parts that aren't any god's specific territory. Alignment by plane goes like this:
Celestia - Lawful Good
Bytopia - Lawful/Neutral Good
Elysium - Neutral Good
Beastlands - Neutral/Chaotic Good
Arborea - Chaotic Good
Ysgard - Chaotic Good/Neutral
Limbo - Chaotic Neutral
Pandemonium - Chaotic Neutral/Evil
Abyss - Chaotic Evil
Carceri - Neutral/Chaotic Evil
Hades - Neutral Evil
Gehenna - Lawful/Neutral Evil
Baator (the Nine Hells) - Lawful Evil
Acheron - Lawful Neutral/Evil
Mechanus - Lawful Neutral
Arcadia - Lawful Good/Neutral
Outlands - True Neutral
If they're an Elf, they reincarnate, because the Elves have been exiled from the presence of their gods and can't return to live with them yet.
I've got a game this weekend in which my character is going to have a very stern conversation about the afterlife with another player who has been manipulating souls for his own ends, and as a lawful good cleric my dude has serious problems with this sort of behavior. I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading about this in preparation, and want to make sure I've got my ducks in a row.
Not 100% sure. The Forgotten Realms afterlife got extra complicated because 4E decided to try to reconcile the World Tree cosmology with the Great Wheel cosmology from Planescape. I'd assume any part of things that used to be present in FR is still functional unless explicitly contradicted, and I don't remember reading that the City of Judgement isn't a thing any more.
That's just every day, average, purely mundane mortal bad taste?
Sorry, I have limits to my suspension of disbelief.
The aboleth was very surprised, almost as much as my bard who didn't know he could do magic like that. Then the Aboleth experienced the wonder of our barbarians GWM crit.
So what's Adam's deal? All I know him from is when he got mad on Twitter about the idea of fudged rolls.
So my grievances with him rank as Petty.
Also Adam sounds like a tool.
Revolvers are, to my limited understanding, more reliable and easily fixed. There's a lot of extra little moving bits in a magazine fed semi automatic weapon that a revolver doesn't necessarily have. If major industrialized production isn't a thing in your world, and repairing guns isn't a thing you can do everywhere, having a reliable revolver you can kick around for a long time makes some sense, but again I'm speaking with very limited experience there.
In other news, 4e went pretty well. The party found a goblin dig site with dinosaurs. Talar the Elf Ranger gave no damns about acrobatics and walked across rickety board bridges like they stone paths, which ruined the blasting crew’s strategy of peppering the heroes from afar. Both the Hexblade and Ranger made diving attacks on enemies that tried to escape via the lower level of the room with some success.
After dispatching the ambushers, the party backtracked to explore a secret door they noticed while heading down the corridor. After finding a sleeping goblin, Talar is instructed by the others to gut him (obviously his first time getting the drop on an enemy) unfortunately, his attempt to reenter the room quietly failed, stubbing his toe on a chest and awakening the goblin chieftain, who howled for help and made for an escape. Cue waves of goblins rushing the party, while the chief peppered them with crossbow fire. The heroes fought bravely, turning the tide as Balasar tapped into a source of power he’d long let lie dormant. (for good reason, as the voice in his head reminded him) The rotund goblin chief fled to another location as his men fell, but a quick search of the area proved fruitless, as well as being unable to open the chest in the chief’s quarters. (Despite Balasar’s efforts to break it open)
Feeling pressed for time, the heroes rushed back to another side passage they’d located leading downwards, the worked keep giving way to a natural cave dripping with rockery and swarming with rats. Sticking close together, the party located a room marked “Keep Out. Really”. A check inside found a pool with a small island, treasure and bones scattered about. Talar ordered the retreat before the party’s fate ended similarly. Following the flow of cave South, the heroes found a series of burrows and pit traps, a dead creature of unknown origin at the bottom of one. Undeterred, belueving the death cult to be in this direction, they press on...
you're not wrong, revolvers are noted for being reliable and generally accurate. the line of thinking is that in north america, semi autos were coming into their own in the 30s, the 1911 had been around for a while seen a war, gained much love, police were still carrying revolvers mostly at this point because if you had a dud round another trigger pull was all you needed to fire again, you didn't have to clear the chamber or anything.
Following what i have just been calling The Convergence i imagine people fell back onto a lot of military weapons, so a lot of semi autos and thompsons around, civilian revolvers kind of fell to the wayside. Mass production still isn't back some 40 odd years later, but small scale production is, and now there's new guns designed to take the same magazines as your carbine, so a back up weapon with okay reliability and 30 rounds is a pretty compelling choice over a 6 to 8 round revolver. Though I imagine revolvers still play a big role for cops, who likely aren't going to carry around giant magazines.
i spend, too much time reading and learning about guns, is what i am saying.
You can honestly go pretty deep on guns (or engines) and it's a little weird to me that there's a tendency in the RPG world to downplay that and relegate it to the realm of Fighter Business.
that is true of any weapon. you eventually have to just draw a line. my plan is like, Light Pistol (.32 or .22) Heavy pistol (9mm or .45), and .357 magnum as basically the only hand gun options rifles are mostly 30-06, but there is variance in there, and really it isn't worth getting too into the weeds on this. it's largely a narrative game system.
I mean, if that's the focus of your game sure, but you always have to decide where you draw the line for your game.
Personally I like broader strokes Light/Heavy Pistol for example, and then let players flavor what their light or heavy pistol is from there.
I think the main way this kind of thing goes Weird is when one particular weapon (or kind of weapon) gets all detailed and realism-based in its rules while the rest is still super abstract or gamist-system-based.
its not so bad these days but 5e D&D still has the weird thing where they get a bit nitpicky about reload times on crossbows while still having bows be Dexterity based weapons (when, in a realism based system they would require more upper body strength than any other weapon in the book)
realism-based systems
gamist systems
pick one
I mean even starting the argument means one is implicitly endorsing a realism-based or simulationist kind of game system. In which case I would strongly argue against using D&D at all. But in that case...
no. no they could not. A war bow is in the 100+ lb draw weight range at the low end. Even into the 150 or 180 lb range. Not a chance could someone use that as a weapon without being exceedingly strong. Even if they could pull back the arrow a bit (and probably not full back to the ear as they should) there is no way they could do so and also aim reliably. They would more likely end up hurting themselves.
I’m imagining something like this and it’s wonderful.
One of my favorite thing about Adam is that he's one of the toughest GMs I've ever seen* regardless of whether he's playing OSR/D&D or narrative games. It really puts the idea of narrative games as being success-generators into the ground.
*though he would describe it as just playing by the rules of the game.
There is scant evidence of bows with draw weights over 100 pounds, it's always conjecture of 100-180 pounds
I can bench press more, therefore I am more accurate when I swing a longsword? Eh, okay, whatever, if you say so DnD.
also, i think i am nearing a point where i can just throw this idea entirely into the wild and hope for the best. I am a shit ass gm so i was never going to run this thing, why have i been doing this?
I don't really believe that you're a bad GM.
You might be an unpracticed GM, but that's not the same thing as being bad. You might not be confident about it; also not the same thing as being bad. There's a lot of things you might be and there will always be room for improvement, but that's not the same thing as being bad!
I've been GMing for almost 20 years and there's still plenty of places for me to improve. What's really important is that you listen to your players and work together to make a game that everyone enjoys, and as long as that's your goal and you work towards it, I don't think it's possible to be a truly bad GM. I don't think things like being caught by surprise and needing to say "I don't have this prepared, give me a few minutes" (or even having to end the session early) make you a bad GM. The things that make people bad GMs IMO are really group-dynamic problems; refusal to listen to players, refusal to respect players, that sort of thing.
I feel that anyone who is willing to respect their players can be a good GM. That's really the #1 rule, and as long as you're doing that, you're good in my book.
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
The problem is you need to certify as a general laborer and power tool usage
Edit** goddammit im beaten by at least 5other posts that were better
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Infinity does this: Each type of attack has a stat for it's actual skill usage and a stat that determines bonus damage. For melee and guns it's a seperate stat from the accuracy one and for hacking and social attacks it's the same one.