My role at the table is always "the person who comes up with too complicated of a plan". In my last game we needed to kidnap a guy and I put forward a plan to steal a tow truck, sabotage his car, intercept his call to the tow truck company and then bring him to a secret location to subdue him.
Krahulik suggested we wait by his car until he goes to it, punch him in the head and bundle him into the trunk. We did that instead.
You should play Shadowrun sometime.
Nobody should play Shadowrun, the system isn't made for it
Thought experiment - suppose you have a D&D-like
game with only arcane casters. Suppose you wanted them to each use a different stat for casting. 'Wizards use Int' is kind of an easy start, but then what? If 'Bards use Cha' then how would you fit both Sorcerers and Warlocks, or do you even try? Is there another type of arcane spellcaster that lends itself better to, say, Dex? Str? Wis?
What value do you get from having stats in this case, since each arcanist wants a different stat anyway? There's some details with choosing a secondary and tertiary maybe, but I think you'd have greater potential in abandoning the stat model in favor of something else.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
The way I deal with money is to ignore it until I want something, count up all the half-assed money notes at the bottom of my sheet, and then go either "Oh shit, I'm dead broke! Time to rob a bank!" or "Oh shit, somehow I've accumulated 40,000 GP in loose change! Time to impulse-buy a Triceratops!"
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
+9
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
My current character actually hates money and refuses to accept any.
Thought experiment - suppose you have a D&D-like
game with only arcane casters. Suppose you wanted them to each use a different stat for casting. 'Wizards use Int' is kind of an easy start, but then what? If 'Bards use Cha' then how would you fit both Sorcerers and Warlocks, or do you even try? Is there another type of arcane spellcaster that lends itself better to, say, Dex? Str? Wis?
in this instance i would put put sorcerers as strength. make them like the mastery of self power types. warlock could run on a lot of things but the idea of a con warlock that kind of pits their own health against magical powers could be done as an idea.
no idea about wisdom or dex.
Dexterity for a system where magic is all about extremely specific gestures, motions and dances. To perform The Sign Through Which The Stars Are Bound requires incredibly deft fingers and specific timing and positioning, lest the spirits being wrangled deliberately misinterpret what you're trying to achieve.
Dexterity is cartoon ninjitsu. Vanishing in a puff of smoke, funky gestures as Tube says, and leaping so good you’re practically flying.
I’d peg Wisdom as the Force, connecting with the world, lifting boulders with your mind, some future vision.
In fact the easiest route for stat wizards is Wire Fu all ‘round! Constitution sumo breathing fire and burning health to go that extra mile, demon-like swordsmen that can send shockwaves out far enough to cut clouds, intelligence chi breakers that strike chakra points to knock out giants...
Do they need to cast spells, or are magical abilities enough?
Does it have to be magic missile, or can it be vaguer/broader?
0
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Constitution mage is blood magic I guess, casting from hitpoints maybe? Or maybe you're possessed of a deep and terrifying inner power and unleashing it threatens to consume you.
It's all flavour, but you could tie spellcasting to any stat. Con mages were a thing in Dragon Age 2.
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
My character lives in the woods and gets drunk with animals.
What need could he have for silver coins!?!?!
+2
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Maybe I should have my character only accept platinum coins but only because they are simply the best coins for drinking games.
My Vampire character has the "destitute" flaw and can't hold onto money. Like they can take money from a guy and go and buy a thing with it, but they don't have anything more than what's on their person at a given time.
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
Constitution magic could allow you to burn a hit die to upcast a spell, but you still need to have spell slots of that level available.
Dexterity, I was thinking of using strings to craft runes on the fly, like an arcane cat's cradle. You'd need to be very deft to pull that off in the middle of a fight.
My Vampire character has the "destitute" flaw and can't hold onto money. Like they can take money from a guy and go and buy a thing with it, but they don't have anything more than what's on their person at a given time.
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
So im trying to think of a way to adapt such a wealth rating into d&d 5e because it seems it is easier to run an economy where there's massive wealth disparity with such a system.
My Vampire character has the "destitute" flaw and can't hold onto money. Like they can take money from a guy and go and buy a thing with it, but they don't have anything more than what's on their person at a given time.
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
So im trying to think of a way to adapt such a wealth rating into d&d 5e because it seems it is easier to run an economy where there's massive wealth disparity with such a system.
You could have a Wealth Point system where anything under your current Wealth Points you can find and purchase easily (assuming you're in the right place). Anything equal to or above your points reduces your points or is out of reach. Instead of 500gp at the end of the dungeon, the party comes back with enough stuff for everyone to increase their Wealth Points by X. Something like that seems simple enough. Then you can have a commoner with 1 Wealth Point who can get by day-to-day but anything extravagant is generally out of reach, vs a noble with 25 Wealth Points who never has to want for anything and can buy her nephew an elephant for his birthday without a second thought.
My Vampire character has the "destitute" flaw and can't hold onto money. Like they can take money from a guy and go and buy a thing with it, but they don't have anything more than what's on their person at a given time.
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
So im trying to think of a way to adapt such a wealth rating into d&d 5e because it seems it is easier to run an economy where there's massive wealth disparity with such a system.
You could have a Wealth Point system where anything under your current Wealth Points you can find and purchase easily (assuming you're in the right place). Anything equal to or above your points reduces your points or is out of reach. Instead of 500gp at the end of the dungeon, the party comes back with enough stuff for everyone to increase their Wealth Points by X. Something like that seems simple enough. Then you can have a commoner with 1 Wealth Point who can get by day-to-day but anything extravagant is generally out of reach, vs a noble with 25 Wealth Points who never has to want for anything and can buy her nephew an elephant for his birthday without a second thought.
This is essentially where my brain goes.
Possibly treating it almost like an ability score that's super variable. Certain purchases drive down your score, collecting enough treasure can increase it.
Commoner baselines at 8.
The biggest thing is figuring out what goes into what wealth rating
• Portfolio Proletariat: You
live paycheck to paycheck:
apartment, car, camping
equipment.
•• Middle Class: Nice apartment
or small house, several
cars, high-end equipment
••• Rich: Great condo or nice
house, luxury items, highend
equipment for several
people
•••• Wealthy: Mansion, helicopter
or private jet, very specialized
high-end equipment
••••• Ultra Rich: Many mansions,
“anything money can buy”
The first dot costs 5xp, the last dot costs 25xp. The total xp expenditure for the fifth dot is 70xp (which on the default xp gain is seventy games) so being that rich doesn't come easily. You could do some really bonkers dracula shit with 70xp.
0
Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
My Vampire character has the "destitute" flaw and can't hold onto money. Like they can take money from a guy and go and buy a thing with it, but they don't have anything more than what's on their person at a given time.
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
So im trying to think of a way to adapt such a wealth rating into d&d 5e because it seems it is easier to run an economy where there's massive wealth disparity with such a system.
For 5E some of the backgrounds have a Lifestyle section for them as well, perhaps that could be used as a foundation to build such a wealth system?
Just make Wealth an attribute or skill that you have to roll every time you want to buy something, and if you fail you simply don't have the available funds due to credit issues, not finding a buyer for your treasures, or etc.
That requires you to abstract shopping quite a bit, but still
I feel like those wealth descriptions could stand a little updating on the lower end
There's also zero dots, which is destitute; no money and no home. I feel like there's a pretty big 1.5 dot space there though. Like 15 xp in brawl represents taking some MMA classes and learning to handle yourself a bit. Going from destitute to "house, several cars, nice stuff" is a bit more of an arduous journey.
I think the disparity may be explained by the origin of the book being Sweden rather than somewhere more... capitalist.
I would just dump all my points into having money.
"Your a weak vampire with like no power!"
Yeah. but I own a castle and a car that looks like the one from Wacky Races
This is a legit and common archetype in that game. I don't think it's possible to start with 5 dots in resources from the start (you could probably end up with four with some finagling/min maxing) but yeah, pumping all your money into Backgrounds is definitely a workable build. The only real weakness is being somewhat lacking in personal power, so if another vampire can get past whatever protections you have in place, you could be in trouble. You'd also have trouble holding onto some of those dots if a vampire with better soft skills decided to take it away from you. For instance, if you have poor Charisma and Leadership skills, how are you going to prevent your Kill Squad leader from taking a better offer to betray you?
That is one of the problems I had about VTM and DAV
As why not play where you are a vampire just tossed into the mix with no guide to it you have no idea who sired you
He actually seems like he'd be a pretty effective character, he's all social but three dots in dominate will get you a long way and he has all the requisite soft skills of a corporate sociopath. He'd need to spend his XP building up allies, contacts and other backgrounds but otherwise this guy has got Rises To The Top written all over him.
I would just dump all my points into having money.
"Your a weak vampire with like no power!"
Yeah. but I own a castle and a car that looks like the one from Wacky Races
The mistborn RPG's character creation is explicitly designed for this:
Each character's creation budget is divided into your personal stats, your lifestyle/external stats and any magical attributes. With one of those areas getting to be strong, one average and one weak.
So you could be a Mistborn (chief magic bad ass) noble! But only a minor noble and your stats would be terrible when magic wasn't pumping them.
Or you could be a Copper burning Allomancer (who hides magical use from others who can detect it) with great stats that lets him swing a punch or charm an opponent but you'd be mostly living on a low income with few friends.
It's actually one of the neater and simpler ways of balancing out magical and external abilities vs just raw stats I've seen.
Posts
Nobody should play Shadowrun, the system isn't made for it
Two types of Bard:
Front Man - Charisma based attacks, more a force of personality than a competent musician
Virtuoso - Dexterity based attacks due to their skill with an instrument tuning them in to the rhythm of the universe
The idea is that you fuel your blasts with your bodies energy
I'm going to do something specific with druids, rangers (who will have access to 'primal magic'), and with clerics and paladins
I was just going over the class list in my head and realizing there were potentially going to be a lot of arcane classes
the two sheets I use both automatically track it
which is why as soon as I hit a city I tell the GM "yo, I'm putting most of this in a bank and carrying, like, 10 gp max"
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
Magic items? Well, those are different.
But coin currency & such? Nah, hates it.
Dexterity for a system where magic is all about extremely specific gestures, motions and dances. To perform The Sign Through Which The Stars Are Bound requires incredibly deft fingers and specific timing and positioning, lest the spirits being wrangled deliberately misinterpret what you're trying to achieve.
I’d peg Wisdom as the Force, connecting with the world, lifting boulders with your mind, some future vision.
In fact the easiest route for stat wizards is Wire Fu all ‘round! Constitution sumo breathing fire and burning health to go that extra mile, demon-like swordsmen that can send shockwaves out far enough to cut clouds, intelligence chi breakers that strike chakra points to knock out giants...
Do they need to cast spells, or are magical abilities enough?
Does it have to be magic missile, or can it be vaguer/broader?
Hates fiat currency, big proponent of the magical item standard
It's all flavour, but you could tie spellcasting to any stat. Con mages were a thing in Dragon Age 2.
What need could he have for silver coins!?!?!
I like the way money works in Vampire. You don't keep track of a specific amount, a dot of money represents "you can generally afford things at this level", so one dot is a standard working class income (you can afford most every day things but buying a car or a gun might be a big deal, you probably have somewhere to live) and five dots is a billionare (buying a particular thing will never be an issue).
Notably though, that money can't buy you things that would be covered by other "background" stats, if you want a private SWAT team to use as your kill squad, you'll still need to have Contacts (to know the shady people to call) and then buy points in Allies (to represent the team). Anything that you buy with Resources rather than xp will be pretty ephemeral and non permanent, so you might be able to pay some guy to fight by your side for a scene but you won't be able to put him on retainer.
Dexterity, I was thinking of using strings to craft runes on the fly, like an arcane cat's cradle. You'd need to be very deft to pull that off in the middle of a fight.
So im trying to think of a way to adapt such a wealth rating into d&d 5e because it seems it is easier to run an economy where there's massive wealth disparity with such a system.
You could have a Wealth Point system where anything under your current Wealth Points you can find and purchase easily (assuming you're in the right place). Anything equal to or above your points reduces your points or is out of reach. Instead of 500gp at the end of the dungeon, the party comes back with enough stuff for everyone to increase their Wealth Points by X. Something like that seems simple enough. Then you can have a commoner with 1 Wealth Point who can get by day-to-day but anything extravagant is generally out of reach, vs a noble with 25 Wealth Points who never has to want for anything and can buy her nephew an elephant for his birthday without a second thought.
This is essentially where my brain goes.
Possibly treating it almost like an ability score that's super variable. Certain purchases drive down your score, collecting enough treasure can increase it.
Commoner baselines at 8.
The biggest thing is figuring out what goes into what wealth rating
• Portfolio Proletariat: You
live paycheck to paycheck:
apartment, car, camping
equipment.
•• Middle Class: Nice apartment
or small house, several
cars, high-end equipment
••• Rich: Great condo or nice
house, luxury items, highend
equipment for several
people
•••• Wealthy: Mansion, helicopter
or private jet, very specialized
high-end equipment
••••• Ultra Rich: Many mansions,
“anything money can buy”
The first dot costs 5xp, the last dot costs 25xp. The total xp expenditure for the fifth dot is 70xp (which on the default xp gain is seventy games) so being that rich doesn't come easily. You could do some really bonkers dracula shit with 70xp.
For 5E some of the backgrounds have a Lifestyle section for them as well, perhaps that could be used as a foundation to build such a wealth system?
Twitch (I stream most days of the week)
Twitter (mean leftist discourse)
That requires you to abstract shopping quite a bit, but still
There's also zero dots, which is destitute; no money and no home. I feel like there's a pretty big 1.5 dot space there though. Like 15 xp in brawl represents taking some MMA classes and learning to handle yourself a bit. Going from destitute to "house, several cars, nice stuff" is a bit more of an arduous journey.
I think the disparity may be explained by the origin of the book being Sweden rather than somewhere more... capitalist.
"Your a weak vampire with like no power!"
Yeah. but I own a castle and a car that looks like the one from Wacky Races
This is a legit and common archetype in that game. I don't think it's possible to start with 5 dots in resources from the start (you could probably end up with four with some finagling/min maxing) but yeah, pumping all your money into Backgrounds is definitely a workable build. The only real weakness is being somewhat lacking in personal power, so if another vampire can get past whatever protections you have in place, you could be in trouble. You'd also have trouble holding onto some of those dots if a vampire with better soft skills decided to take it away from you. For instance, if you have poor Charisma and Leadership skills, how are you going to prevent your Kill Squad leader from taking a better offer to betray you?
As why not play where you are a vampire just tossed into the mix with no guide to it you have no idea who sired you
I know just I found no one willing to do that when I played
Still I really wanted to play VTR
He actually seems like he'd be a pretty effective character, he's all social but three dots in dominate will get you a long way and he has all the requisite soft skills of a corporate sociopath. He'd need to spend his XP building up allies, contacts and other backgrounds but otherwise this guy has got Rises To The Top written all over him.
The mistborn RPG's character creation is explicitly designed for this:
Each character's creation budget is divided into your personal stats, your lifestyle/external stats and any magical attributes. With one of those areas getting to be strong, one average and one weak.
So you could be a Mistborn (chief magic bad ass) noble! But only a minor noble and your stats would be terrible when magic wasn't pumping them.
Or you could be a Copper burning Allomancer (who hides magical use from others who can detect it) with great stats that lets him swing a punch or charm an opponent but you'd be mostly living on a low income with few friends.
It's actually one of the neater and simpler ways of balancing out magical and external abilities vs just raw stats I've seen.
And it comes with it's own theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDkp7GysvbY
Proficiency in cod pieces and/or ball handling is optional.
It seems like a fun game but Unique Deck Game is a dumb idea
It's FFG's new card game
Yonder thread has all the info you need