I've been homebrewing a not-Shadowrun world for a while now and trying to sort out the system to use with it is the tough part. I'm only really familiar with d20 and Shadowrun's actual system is ah... a bit much. Figured I'd see what else is out there.
I've been homebrewing a not-Shadowrun world for a while now and trying to sort out the system to use with it is the tough part. I'm only really familiar with d20 and Shadowrun's actual system is ah... a bit much. Figured I'd see what else is out there.
I forgot how to lime things. But I lime this so much.
+4
Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
Are there any other RPGs that do the cyberpunk/fantasy blend like Shadowrun?
Rifts
Do not play Rifts
Savage Rifts on the other hand...
FFG's implosion is kinda souring me on sustained Genesys support. Mostly because it's one of those games I can only find interest for online. Locally my players snub it.
I've been kinda having a bit of an old school itch though.
Debating picking up CoC 7th, and Pulp Cthulhu. I think I can sell that to players. Or more Delta Green. Love me some Delta Green.
I completed most of the work on a fanzine for Delta Green RPG. I typed a beta version of all the content. The art is not done, however. Anyone wanna see?
Hitting the broken computer does not fix the broken computer. Fixing the broken computer, fixes the broken computer.
+4
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I completed most of the work on a fanzine for Delta Green RPG. I typed a beta version of all the content. The art is not done, however. Anyone wanna see?
I didn't know where else to post this, but this is the most 'general' of threads so I figured I'd dump it here. Has anyone here been to Gencon before? I'm going with two buddy for the full four days and was wondering if anyone had tips/suggestions.
To keep it more on topic, anyone been playing Pathfinder 2?
I didn't know where else to post this, but this is the most 'general' of threads so I figured I'd dump it here. Has anyone here been to Gencon before? I'm going with two buddy for the full four days and was wondering if anyone had tips/suggestions.
To keep it more on topic, anyone been playing Pathfinder 2?
Remember to buy event tickets. Gen Con lives and dies on those things. Small/Rare games are fantastically hard to get into but the big publishers tend to have huge groups.
Eat a real meal every day, one that involves like actual cutlery. Indy has some good food options downtown and generally the town is pretty friendly during Gen Con.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
After a little inspiration from being in a game that is very inconsistent in times we are actually able to play, I decided to cut down my big final campaign in a series of 3 down to three. I've been running Dark Heresy for 6 years from six adventures to three. One reason because I have always had a fear that one of the players would quit although they have been consistently joining in for like a year and a half now. They aren't flakey, we're both in a professional program and as such the game is put on hiatus until breaks. The two biggest reasons are that five of the six adventures would have been very linear and kind of had to be linear by the nature of their objectives and physical settings. They either had enclosure-heavy spaces (space satellite, Dark Eldar ship, thick road/river through a jungle) or had objectives where even when the setting was open the only thing to do was trudge closer to tat objective.
This is versus one that was very open and at least one I think will be very fun as they require the players to think for themselves and infiltrate an entire renegade world that wants them dead without their vast resources. They can win those back (the dragon, their gunship, their allies, their influence) and then use them in a much more open environment. Way long ago I had a friend that is notorious for starting campaigns up and then never continuing them past the first two sessions have a campaign where we were insurgents against a T'au occupation. That was a pretty cool idea and I hope to have some of that flavor here, although the acolytes on this renegade world are way, way more personally stronger and skilled than those grunts were.
In terms of allies, my biggest failing in the adventure with the Rook was the fact that there wasn't really a first act and he inadvertently became a really involved GMPC when I hadn't meant him to be one. I did another ally in the last adventure we just wrapped up and the fact that they mainly (and willingly) acted as a meat shield for the acolytes and let them make all the big decisions while offering them information and ways to move forward. They worked way better in not ruining the players' agency nor making a big deal of them. When it comes to the adventure we're doing in the summer, those friendly NPCs are going to be sidelined almost immediately after making a deal of them coming down with the player characters. They can be found again either as POWs or doing their own things and asked to help but won't be forced upon them.
I really like the idea of the adventure because they will be dropped somewhere in the world, quickly ambushed, and then make their way to a place by any means they want while being wanted by the renegade government. Had I had this adventure years ago I would not be confident enough to improvise based on what they would want to do. I am now.
In other news, I once commissioned art of essentially Dragon Stalinism propaganda
Also those kind of minimalistic PPSH looking guns are actually one-shot "thermal muskets" as I'm going to call them
Now I am making a whole thing of them in DnD. I am making essentially two settings that were meant to be slotted into any DnD game but now might be the start of an original setting I am creating. The two settings are based around a frigid land ruled by dragons and their thralls that rule as their submissive regents when the dragons are asleep on their hoards. The land which is called Scalovia and geographically is named "the cold reaches" is made up of two dozen city-states of dragons and these regent-thrawls that are rulers of extremely repressive authoritarian governments. They have strict hiearchies with the dragons at the top, the dragonborn/half-dragon nobility beneath their heels, and then every other race but especially kobolds underneath the dragonling heels. To the point that they send off kobolds to die by the hundreds of thousands in petty wars with barely enough equipment to survive even the winterlands. The second setting is essentially this setting post-revolution by basically Dragon Stalin with mutilated wings where the kobolds and lesser races are lifted up by him rising against the dragons and arming them with the secrets of combustion and gunpowder stolen from the gods of flame and stars. So instead of kobolds being sent out with a shield and spear they are levied up in great big line regiments to mass fire specialized thermal muskets made from the local resources and the dragon Stalin's knowledge to create other warmachines. After the revolution however, he devolves in to mass paranoia based around the amulet given to him by the god of death to protect him against the vengeful gods of fire and star and basically starts his own KGB/NKVD and carries out atrocities like the Katyn forest executions and the like. Right now, I'm in the process of making monster profiles for "Old Scalovia" before I move on to the Uhlion Republic.
Here's the full lore and a set of monster profiles. I don't GM dnd and don't know the balance like I do with DH. If there are things I should change or elaborate on the NPCs please let me know. https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2020/01/dprussrs-scalovia-part-1.html
@Kadoken You should fix the formatting in that blog post, the stat block stuff is close to unreadable.
-The hearthstone is way undercosted in general, magic stuff is really expensive or flat-out not buyable in 5e, for the most part (depending on setting).
-The stat block for the thrall mentions a start-of-combat intimidation test, which is not a mechanic in 5e. If you wanted to change that, I would suggest something like "intimidating this creature has a low DC unless it is in sight of a master" or something - remember that intimidation in DnD is not a contest, it's a check made by the intimidator.
-The rider statblock mentions a dragon color table, you should specify the page that's on in the PHB. Again you mention an intimidation test, which is not a thing - since it's a suicidal order, it would probably be a Wis save on the part of the thralls it's ordering. This is also probably an action of some sort (a bonus action maybe).
-The scalebound stablock mentions "intercepting a hit" which is not a thing per se, usually you need to specify that it alters targeting or damage and what types of attacks it works on (sounds like it would only be attacks and not save-based spells and abilities). I also think you don't need to include the bit about heavy armor, since it's a monster and doesn't need to adhere to the rules of the barbarian class.
-The chainbound should probably be resistant to nonmagical physical damage only, resistance to ALL physical damage is powerful and rare (it's basically the barbarian's biggest special feature).
-The regent-thrall statblock should specify the breath weapon and dragon color need to be the same. Also usually the spells are preset on casters (for the DM's sanity).
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
@Kadoken You should fix the formatting in that blog post, the stat block stuff is close to unreadable.
-The hearthstone is way undercosted in general, magic stuff is really expensive or flat-out not buyable in 5e, for the most part (depending on setting).
-The stat block for the thrall mentions a start-of-combat intimidation test, which is not a mechanic in 5e. If you wanted to change that, I would suggest something like "intimidating this creature has a low DC unless it is in sight of a master" or something - remember that intimidation in DnD is not a contest, it's a check made by the intimidator.
-The rider statblock mentions a dragon color table, you should specify the page that's on in the PHB. Again you mention an intimidation test, which is not a thing - since it's a suicidal order, it would probably be a Wis save on the part of the thralls it's ordering. This is also probably an action of some sort (a bonus action maybe).
-The scalebound stablock mentions "intercepting a hit" which is not a thing per se, usually you need to specify that it alters targeting or damage and what types of attacks it works on (sounds like it would only be attacks and not save-based spells and abilities). I also think you don't need to include the bit about heavy armor, since it's a monster and doesn't need to adhere to the rules of the barbarian class.
-The chainbound should probably be resistant to nonmagical physical damage only, resistance to ALL physical damage is powerful and rare (it's basically the barbarian's biggest special feature).
-The regent-thrall statblock should specify the breath weapon and dragon color need to be the same. Also usually the spells are preset on casters (for the DM's sanity).
Ah, that all makes sense and you are completely correct about the formatting. I have changed it.
-Should the heartshone be like 10 platinum or even higher since it's accepted even in lore that you need it to not die crossing from place to place and its formation is heavily guarded by the scale-princes?
-I will change that for the thrall and use your suggestion.
-Put the table number on there and changed the order for thrall-holdr
-Changed the wording for scalebound and got rid of the heavy armor bit.
-I changed the wording to specify resistance to nonmagical physical damage only
-Heh, I wish you were around in FFG when they made their npc psykers and just said "fuck it, choose four". I don't really play spell casters so what should a really powerful overlord wizard type have?
Kadoken on
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited January 2020
The transition between the blog software and the actual posts is not being consistent at all.
edit: Ah, gotta go into word and remove formatting and then redo stuff to fix it.
edit 2: Blogger keeps randomly changing the formatting to stuff I did not do. I almost want to go back to my original plan of just screenshotting the monster maker but then it makes editing really annoying.
You should ask the D&D thread for opinions on magic item cost and spell lists, I'm a relative newbie to actually playing it.
Unfortunately got sandbagged.
Thank you for all your help, though. Are the profiles above Regent-Thrawl still meh and should I strive to make them look like the Regent-Thrawl and Quickpad? Blogger has always been screwy and it’s often a fight between readability and space taken up. I’d move to a wiki but I feel like that format doesn’t quite work for the sporadic updates I do and plus I might confuse people with a new home for my Malice Overhaul posts which broke 1000 views by the way. Hopefully no one is using the word doc version because it is hopelessly outdated and I think I’m going to try to at least get the text updated today. Edit: Blog and word doc done. Both up to date and hopefully way more readable.
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
The SWN game I GM'd ended the same way (lasted two sessions). After smuggling a popstar onto a planet to avoid assassination attempts/rabid fans, the pilot decided that, hey, if we can smuggle people, why not illegal drugs? Followed by the gunner being like, hey, how about we steal these ship weapons on our way out? Things only started going south when they realized they didn't have any stealth skills, tripped several alarms, and then both got murdered by the other party members when space-police showed up.
Maybe make sure that your other party member's backstories don't involve "family was killed by pirates" when you try to make them involuntary pirates.
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
Must be the Stars Without Number season; I've been drawing up a game myself that'll be borrowing heavily from the Endless Space universe.
Anyone got a favorite adventure skeleton generator I could spin a few times for some ideas about a thing for them to do? I'm enjoying SWN's setting-generation but finding myself lukewarm at best about everything occurring to me for a Session 1 adventure.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
Must be the Stars Without Number season; I've been drawing up a game myself that'll be borrowing heavily from the Endless Space universe.
Anyone got a favorite adventure skeleton generator I could spin a few times for some ideas about a thing for them to do? I'm enjoying SWN's setting-generation but finding myself lukewarm at best about everything occurring to me for a Session 1 adventure.
Have you tried the Stars Without Number adventure skeleton generator? :P
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
Must be the Stars Without Number season; I've been drawing up a game myself that'll be borrowing heavily from the Endless Space universe.
Anyone got a favorite adventure skeleton generator I could spin a few times for some ideas about a thing for them to do? I'm enjoying SWN's setting-generation but finding myself lukewarm at best about everything occurring to me for a Session 1 adventure.
Have you tried the Stars Without Number adventure skeleton generator? :P
Sure have!
It's probably more a problem with my enthusiasm level for what I've got so far / desire to present something cool than it is a problem with the tools, but I really just haven't grabbed on to an idea I like yet. Can't hurt to look at more.
E: Lack of existing momentum, too. I'm certain, from past experience, I'll be able to roll along just fine once there's some existing narrative, but the Session 1 problem is one I've never been that good at solving.
My monthly D&D game wrapped up the campaign just before Christmas and we've started a Stars Without Numbers one.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
Must be the Stars Without Number season; I've been drawing up a game myself that'll be borrowing heavily from the Endless Space universe.
Anyone got a favorite adventure skeleton generator I could spin a few times for some ideas about a thing for them to do? I'm enjoying SWN's setting-generation but finding myself lukewarm at best about everything occurring to me for a Session 1 adventure.
Have you tried the Stars Without Number adventure skeleton generator? :P
Sure have!
It's probably more a problem with my enthusiasm level for what I've got so far / desire to present something cool than it is a problem with the tools, but I really just haven't grabbed on to an idea I like yet. Can't hurt to look at more.
E: Lack of existing momentum, too. I'm certain, from past experience, I'll be able to roll along just fine once there's some existing narrative, but the Session 1 problem is one I've never been that good at solving.
Wish I still had my notes, but my first session was based on (as above) smuggling an android jpop star from a deadbeat space station (where all the players just happen to be!) to [some other place] after her previous smuggler had a breakdown. Players rent a spaceship to take her out, only for the station to be attacked/destroyed by [faction] (in my case it was group of psychic Massai warriors). Players who don't take the bait are either A) destroyed or carefully funneled into the ship.
[Faction] then chases down the players for some ship to ship combat. If they lose, [Faction] boards to get an autograph and then leaves them to their business when they get an urgent call. Unfortunately, the [destination]'s only port is filled to the brim with fans (who know she's coming but not which ship), and the players have to find a way to get her planetside. I basically just let whatever plan they suggest first work. Add in some skill checks and you've got four hours of content plus a ship.
RIP in peace Bosco, who tried to dress himself up as a jpop star and rolled 1,1,1 to bluff the crowd, 1,1,2 on his reroll, and 1,1 to beg for mercy. Trampled by rabid otaku is a bad way to go.
I completed most of the work on a fanzine for Delta Green RPG. I typed a beta version of all the content. The art is not done, however. Anyone wanna see?
Hell yes I do. I got in big with Delta Green again recently.
Also...for reasons. Mythras.
PSN ID - Mostlyjoe Steam ID -TheNotoriusRNG
+1
Mostlyjoe13Evil, Evil, Jump for joy!Registered Userregular
To keep it more on topic, anyone been playing Pathfinder 2?
Trying to sometime this year. Got a bunch of Starfinder on my lap.
I was pretty much ready to write it off entirely until I started listening to Andoids & Aliens, which made the game seem a lot more palatable. I was also surprised at how popular it is, I work at an Amazon FC and we probably sold as many Starfinder products Q4 2018 as we did 5e Player's Handbooks.
I liked Starfinder when I ran it, but I think it really needs player buy in for the system (a little more than Pathfinder) and the starship combat isn't great. I think the setting is superb
I really want to play Pathfinder 2. Right now my group is playing a P1 adventure path but sometime this year I'll run something P2, even if I have to put an online group together (I'm just waiting on a couple of releases and to finish some other personal projects).
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I’m really interested in GURPS having gotten a little fatigued running DH2E for like six years now. It also has all the tools for my fantasy industrial revolution setting in it. Has anyone ever tried 4E and have ways to introduce new people to it and have it run at least semi-smoothly?
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited February 2020
Reading through GURPS and getting to play DH again, all the bad parts of the DH2E system kind of shine through and I don't think I like it anymore. I do not want to GM campaigns in it after I'm done with my two current campaigns, one I greatly shortened and one we're like three sessions from completing.
Basically, there are too many annoying little modifiers, the advancement system is too easy to use optimize a character to being very samey but only if you understand the aptitude system, the core stats and flat d100 is too random for doing simple stuff like just jumping over a thing, there is too much looking back in the book for every little thing in combat, there is too much bookkeeping on the players and gm, there are just too many things to get marginal bonuses from, and those optimizations mentioned before are often just ways to spend XP to ignore portions of the game like evasion or fear/suppression. I know from what I've read GURPS does not solve all of these problems but after six years this system has become cumbersome and I'm seriously considering putting any more 40k based things including current planets used in the FFG system into GURPS now. Especially with that 40k homebrew that is mainly references to existing stats in official GURPS supplements already there.
The core of my problem with every combat is this: Do a thing, okay, what range, attack type, modifications, size, location, aim, weapon quality, and relative talents do I have? So instead of saying, "I aim down the sights and shoot at the heretic," I have to go, "I shoot, okay, half action aim, single shot, short-range, +10 from size, +10 from RDLS, +5 from Custom Grip." Every time. I guess I could write it down and add and subtract at will but I also have to explain this to gm or if I'm the gm to the player every time. Then there's just troublesome stuff like overwatch, evasion stuff especially when it comes to psykana, influence, status effects (moreso when groups any larger than like 4 are affected at the same time), and stuff that's been annoying forever now brought more clearly into view. There's more than combat problems as well.
Not sure if I should ask here or the game design thread, but does anyone have either a good resource for or free software for making floor plans/battle maps for a modern or futuristic setting? Just about all the resources I've found online are geared towards fantasy settings generally or D&D specifically, and I need something Cyberpunky or Shadowrunny.
I tried scraping some stuff together in Paint but... well... it's Paint.
Have you considered using programs/apps that are used to design regular house floor plans?
There’s a lot of them out there, and the basic, uncompromising, artless look of them might actually fit in terms of modern theming. Throw on a filter when you’re done if need be.
Example:
I used Glitch Studio on my phone for the effects, but I’m sure there are better things out there. I don’t have a floor plan app but I think I’ll download some and get back to you.
Very disappointing, really enjoying their L5R system and was looking forward to more, especially with all the lore that gets included in the RPG books.
FFG has been doing really good work with their Genesys system and all its variants.
Literally the only reason why it's being ended is because the capitalist vultures on top feel they could be making more money making CCGs or miniature games instead of RPG books.
...Fuck, we never got an Android setting book for Genesys, did we?
FFG has been doing really good work with their Genesys system and all its variants.
Literally the only reason why it's being ended is because the capitalist vultures on top feel they could be making more money making CCGs or miniature games instead of RPG books.
...Fuck, we never got an Android setting book for Genesys, did we?
Posts
I've been homebrewing a not-Shadowrun world for a while now and trying to sort out the system to use with it is the tough part. I'm only really familiar with d20 and Shadowrun's actual system is ah... a bit much. Figured I'd see what else is out there.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
I forgot how to lime things. But I lime this so much.
Savage Rifts on the other hand...
FFG's implosion is kinda souring me on sustained Genesys support. Mostly because it's one of those games I can only find interest for online. Locally my players snub it.
I've been kinda having a bit of an old school itch though.
Debating picking up CoC 7th, and Pulp Cthulhu. I think I can sell that to players. Or more Delta Green. Love me some Delta Green.
Cool, how did it go? And how did they hear of it?
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
gib
To keep it more on topic, anyone been playing Pathfinder 2?
Remember to buy event tickets. Gen Con lives and dies on those things. Small/Rare games are fantastically hard to get into but the big publishers tend to have huge groups.
Eat a real meal every day, one that involves like actual cutlery. Indy has some good food options downtown and generally the town is pretty friendly during Gen Con.
Shower, wear deodorant
Carry antibacterial hand cleanser, use it a lot. Getting sick sucks
This is versus one that was very open and at least one I think will be very fun as they require the players to think for themselves and infiltrate an entire renegade world that wants them dead without their vast resources. They can win those back (the dragon, their gunship, their allies, their influence) and then use them in a much more open environment. Way long ago I had a friend that is notorious for starting campaigns up and then never continuing them past the first two sessions have a campaign where we were insurgents against a T'au occupation. That was a pretty cool idea and I hope to have some of that flavor here, although the acolytes on this renegade world are way, way more personally stronger and skilled than those grunts were.
In terms of allies, my biggest failing in the adventure with the Rook was the fact that there wasn't really a first act and he inadvertently became a really involved GMPC when I hadn't meant him to be one. I did another ally in the last adventure we just wrapped up and the fact that they mainly (and willingly) acted as a meat shield for the acolytes and let them make all the big decisions while offering them information and ways to move forward. They worked way better in not ruining the players' agency nor making a big deal of them. When it comes to the adventure we're doing in the summer, those friendly NPCs are going to be sidelined almost immediately after making a deal of them coming down with the player characters. They can be found again either as POWs or doing their own things and asked to help but won't be forced upon them.
I really like the idea of the adventure because they will be dropped somewhere in the world, quickly ambushed, and then make their way to a place by any means they want while being wanted by the renegade government. Had I had this adventure years ago I would not be confident enough to improvise based on what they would want to do. I am now.
In other news, I once commissioned art of essentially Dragon Stalinism propaganda
Now I am making a whole thing of them in DnD. I am making essentially two settings that were meant to be slotted into any DnD game but now might be the start of an original setting I am creating. The two settings are based around a frigid land ruled by dragons and their thralls that rule as their submissive regents when the dragons are asleep on their hoards. The land which is called Scalovia and geographically is named "the cold reaches" is made up of two dozen city-states of dragons and these regent-thrawls that are rulers of extremely repressive authoritarian governments. They have strict hiearchies with the dragons at the top, the dragonborn/half-dragon nobility beneath their heels, and then every other race but especially kobolds underneath the dragonling heels. To the point that they send off kobolds to die by the hundreds of thousands in petty wars with barely enough equipment to survive even the winterlands. The second setting is essentially this setting post-revolution by basically Dragon Stalin with mutilated wings where the kobolds and lesser races are lifted up by him rising against the dragons and arming them with the secrets of combustion and gunpowder stolen from the gods of flame and stars. So instead of kobolds being sent out with a shield and spear they are levied up in great big line regiments to mass fire specialized thermal muskets made from the local resources and the dragon Stalin's knowledge to create other warmachines. After the revolution however, he devolves in to mass paranoia based around the amulet given to him by the god of death to protect him against the vengeful gods of fire and star and basically starts his own KGB/NKVD and carries out atrocities like the Katyn forest executions and the like. Right now, I'm in the process of making monster profiles for "Old Scalovia" before I move on to the Uhlion Republic.
Here's the full lore and a set of monster profiles. I don't GM dnd and don't know the balance like I do with DH. If there are things I should change or elaborate on the NPCs please let me know.
https://darkheresychainsofmalice.blogspot.com/2020/01/dprussrs-scalovia-part-1.html
-The hearthstone is way undercosted in general, magic stuff is really expensive or flat-out not buyable in 5e, for the most part (depending on setting).
-The stat block for the thrall mentions a start-of-combat intimidation test, which is not a mechanic in 5e. If you wanted to change that, I would suggest something like "intimidating this creature has a low DC unless it is in sight of a master" or something - remember that intimidation in DnD is not a contest, it's a check made by the intimidator.
-The rider statblock mentions a dragon color table, you should specify the page that's on in the PHB. Again you mention an intimidation test, which is not a thing - since it's a suicidal order, it would probably be a Wis save on the part of the thralls it's ordering. This is also probably an action of some sort (a bonus action maybe).
-The scalebound stablock mentions "intercepting a hit" which is not a thing per se, usually you need to specify that it alters targeting or damage and what types of attacks it works on (sounds like it would only be attacks and not save-based spells and abilities). I also think you don't need to include the bit about heavy armor, since it's a monster and doesn't need to adhere to the rules of the barbarian class.
-The chainbound should probably be resistant to nonmagical physical damage only, resistance to ALL physical damage is powerful and rare (it's basically the barbarian's biggest special feature).
-The regent-thrall statblock should specify the breath weapon and dragon color need to be the same. Also usually the spells are preset on casters (for the DM's sanity).
I have the logo tattooed on my forearm
It went extremely well
We’re playing session 3 on Saturday
@Glazius
Ah, that all makes sense and you are completely correct about the formatting. I have changed it.
-Should the heartshone be like 10 platinum or even higher since it's accepted even in lore that you need it to not die crossing from place to place and its formation is heavily guarded by the scale-princes?
-I will change that for the thrall and use your suggestion.
-Put the table number on there and changed the order for thrall-holdr
-Changed the wording for scalebound and got rid of the heavy armor bit.
-I changed the wording to specify resistance to nonmagical physical damage only
-Heh, I wish you were around in FFG when they made their npc psykers and just said "fuck it, choose four". I don't really play spell casters so what should a really powerful overlord wizard type have?
edit: Ah, gotta go into word and remove formatting and then redo stuff to fix it.
edit 2: Blogger keeps randomly changing the formatting to stuff I did not do. I almost want to go back to my original plan of just screenshotting the monster maker but then it makes editing really annoying.
Unfortunately got sandbagged.
Thank you for all your help, though. Are the profiles above Regent-Thrawl still meh and should I strive to make them look like the Regent-Thrawl and Quickpad? Blogger has always been screwy and it’s often a fight between readability and space taken up. I’d move to a wiki but I feel like that format doesn’t quite work for the sporadic updates I do and plus I might confuse people with a new home for my Malice Overhaul posts which broke 1000 views by the way. Hopefully no one is using the word doc version because it is hopelessly outdated and I think I’m going to try to at least get the text updated today. Edit: Blog and word doc done. Both up to date and hopefully way more readable.
It's going to be a fun one. Just after we figured out what planet we were going to my pilot sold passage to some less than legal travelers who needed to get off planet quick. I tried to do it on the down low, but nooooooo. Everyone got bent out of shape when the nearly unconscious bleeding woman and her partner wandered into the docking bay. It's not like I sold space in any of their private rooms...
Comics, Games, Booze
The SWN game I GM'd ended the same way (lasted two sessions). After smuggling a popstar onto a planet to avoid assassination attempts/rabid fans, the pilot decided that, hey, if we can smuggle people, why not illegal drugs? Followed by the gunner being like, hey, how about we steal these ship weapons on our way out? Things only started going south when they realized they didn't have any stealth skills, tripped several alarms, and then both got murdered by the other party members when space-police showed up.
Maybe make sure that your other party member's backstories don't involve "family was killed by pirates" when you try to make them involuntary pirates.
Must be the Stars Without Number season; I've been drawing up a game myself that'll be borrowing heavily from the Endless Space universe.
Anyone got a favorite adventure skeleton generator I could spin a few times for some ideas about a thing for them to do? I'm enjoying SWN's setting-generation but finding myself lukewarm at best about everything occurring to me for a Session 1 adventure.
Have you tried the Stars Without Number adventure skeleton generator? :P
Sure have!
It's probably more a problem with my enthusiasm level for what I've got so far / desire to present something cool than it is a problem with the tools, but I really just haven't grabbed on to an idea I like yet. Can't hurt to look at more.
E: Lack of existing momentum, too. I'm certain, from past experience, I'll be able to roll along just fine once there's some existing narrative, but the Session 1 problem is one I've never been that good at solving.
Wish I still had my notes, but my first session was based on (as above) smuggling an android jpop star from a deadbeat space station (where all the players just happen to be!) to [some other place] after her previous smuggler had a breakdown. Players rent a spaceship to take her out, only for the station to be attacked/destroyed by [faction] (in my case it was group of psychic Massai warriors). Players who don't take the bait are either A) destroyed or
[Faction] then chases down the players for some ship to ship combat. If they lose, [Faction] boards to get an autograph and then leaves them to their business when they get an urgent call. Unfortunately, the [destination]'s only port is filled to the brim with fans (who know she's coming but not which ship), and the players have to find a way to get her planetside. I basically just let whatever plan they suggest first work. Add in some skill checks and you've got four hours of content plus a ship.
RIP in peace Bosco, who tried to dress himself up as a jpop star and rolled 1,1,1 to bluff the crowd, 1,1,2 on his reroll, and 1,1 to beg for mercy. Trampled by rabid otaku is a bad way to go.
Hell yes I do. I got in big with Delta Green again recently.
Also...for reasons. Mythras.
Trying to sometime this year. Got a bunch of Starfinder on my lap.
I was pretty much ready to write it off entirely until I started listening to Andoids & Aliens, which made the game seem a lot more palatable. I was also surprised at how popular it is, I work at an Amazon FC and we probably sold as many Starfinder products Q4 2018 as we did 5e Player's Handbooks.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
I really want to play Pathfinder 2. Right now my group is playing a P1 adventure path but sometime this year I'll run something P2, even if I have to put an online group together (I'm just waiting on a couple of releases and to finish some other personal projects).
Basically, there are too many annoying little modifiers, the advancement system is too easy to use optimize a character to being very samey but only if you understand the aptitude system, the core stats and flat d100 is too random for doing simple stuff like just jumping over a thing, there is too much looking back in the book for every little thing in combat, there is too much bookkeeping on the players and gm, there are just too many things to get marginal bonuses from, and those optimizations mentioned before are often just ways to spend XP to ignore portions of the game like evasion or fear/suppression. I know from what I've read GURPS does not solve all of these problems but after six years this system has become cumbersome and I'm seriously considering putting any more 40k based things including current planets used in the FFG system into GURPS now. Especially with that 40k homebrew that is mainly references to existing stats in official GURPS supplements already there.
The core of my problem with every combat is this: Do a thing, okay, what range, attack type, modifications, size, location, aim, weapon quality, and relative talents do I have? So instead of saying, "I aim down the sights and shoot at the heretic," I have to go, "I shoot, okay, half action aim, single shot, short-range, +10 from size, +10 from RDLS, +5 from Custom Grip." Every time. I guess I could write it down and add and subtract at will but I also have to explain this to gm or if I'm the gm to the player every time. Then there's just troublesome stuff like overwatch, evasion stuff especially when it comes to psykana, influence, status effects (moreso when groups any larger than like 4 are affected at the same time), and stuff that's been annoying forever now brought more clearly into view. There's more than combat problems as well.
I tried scraping some stuff together in Paint but... well... it's Paint.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
There’s a lot of them out there, and the basic, uncompromising, artless look of them might actually fit in terms of modern theming. Throw on a filter when you’re done if need be.
Example:
I used Glitch Studio on my phone for the effects, but I’m sure there are better things out there. I don’t have a floor plan app but I think I’ll download some and get back to you.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
It does give a cool retro-futurism vibe to it
Fantasy Flight Games Long Term Plan will Discontinue RPG Development
Very disappointing, really enjoying their L5R system and was looking forward to more, especially with all the lore that gets included in the RPG books.
Which is a shame. FFG was doing some cool stuff.
Literally the only reason why it's being ended is because the capitalist vultures on top feel they could be making more money making CCGs or miniature games instead of RPG books.
...Fuck, we never got an Android setting book for Genesys, did we?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
There is an Android supplement: Shadow of the Beanstalk