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Tabletop Games are RADch

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  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Aistan wrote: »
    It's just that i've been playing these games with these people for three years now and i'm not any better. This specific character for a full year. I had a week to come up with things to do in this interaction I knew was upcoming. And could think of shit-all and basically just sat in silence for the full three hour session.

    Can you ask the table for help?

    Steam ID: Webguy20
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  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Aistan wrote: »
    It's just that i've been playing these games with these people for three years now and i'm not any better. This specific character for a full year. I had a week to come up with things to do in this interaction I knew was upcoming. And could think of shit-all and basically just sat in silence for the full three hour session.

    What I would recommend is doing some forms of in-character journaling exercises outside of the game. Write a diary in-character after every session, covering how you felt about what happened during the session, what you did, stuff like that. Make a fake dating profile for your character, and answer all of those questions in character (or other take assorted quizzes - it can be a very weird but very fun experience to take a D&D class test in character).

    You could also pair this with some grounding exercises to use before you go to session. I don't have a lot of these that I've done for RPG stuff, but when I do theatre, I typically have a playlist (or at least a theme song). Make a playlist of music you think your character would listen to, and listen to it on your way to the game.

  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Aistan wrote: »
    It's just that i've been playing these games with these people for three years now and i'm not any better. This specific character for a full year. I had a week to come up with things to do in this interaction I knew was upcoming. And could think of shit-all and basically just sat in silence for the full three hour session.

    What I would recommend is doing some forms of in-character journaling exercises outside of the game. Write a diary in-character after every session, covering how you felt about what happened during the session, what you did, stuff like that. Make a fake dating profile for your character, and answer all of those questions in character (or other take assorted quizzes - it can be a very weird but very fun experience to take a D&D class test in character).

    You could also pair this with some grounding exercises to use before you go to session. I don't have a lot of these that I've done for RPG stuff, but when I do theatre, I typically have a playlist (or at least a theme song). Make a playlist of music you think your character would listen to, and listen to it on your way to the game.

    I took my own advice on this one, and apparently my Lawful (non-specific, but probably neutral) Human Fighter is actually a Lawful Good Human Paladin.

    Which was kind of what I expected - he was probably a LG paladin before he got kidnapped by the Fae, so his beliefs and the ways he would answer those questions fall more in that direction (although he was off by just one point in either category, and would have switched to a LN fighter if I'd answered a couple of questions differently).

    The quiz I took did stats as well, and they ended up pretty close to what's actually on the sheet. Some of them skewed a bit high, but typically still in the same modifier range (with some adjustment, as he's a DW character).

    Straightzi on
  • captainkcaptaink TexasRegistered User regular
    A kickstarter for Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants came across my twitter feed today. It looks pretty cool
    Mask Up. Spill Blood. Drink the Rich.

    Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants is a Forged in the Dark tabletop roleplaying game about building a rebellion that will overthrow the blood-soaked vampires that oppress and dominate your world.

    You are a brigand, a commoner radicalized by tragedy who has decided to forsake their old life and flee into the woods to plot a rebellion. Cardenfell is your home, a kingdom on the brink of open revolt against the vampiric nobles and factory lords who rule over it. All it will take is a single spark. Your spark.

    Whether you're robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, or assassinating vampires and drinking their blood, every move you make will take you closer to your goal: liberating your home from the vampiric scourge of blood rent and exploitation

    It is not subtle about eating the rich:
    Vampires are created through imbibing blood sterling, an alchemical mixture of silver and blood. Throughout the lands dominated by vampires, peasants are obligated to pay "blood rent." Paid in silver or blood, this vicious tax is paid to the vampire landlord who owns the land they live and work on. It is important to note that vampires are not born, forced into their life, or even incapable of leaving it. A vampire who stops drinking blood will find their power withers away and their mortality slowly returns, but most are unwilling to sacrifice the “gifts” of the blood, even if it means they would no longer need to feast upon their fellow man.

    Voluntary vampirism is an interesting twist.

    Art looks good:
    3ea70dd35a98ef1789a0936ef769a75b_original.jpg?ixlib=rb-2.1.0&w=680&fit=max&v=1600015165&auto=format&frame=1&q=92&s=9e5b6fc0c430ba25f2e43f5a2a07452c

    It calls itself Castlepunk, which is a term I've only heard in the past year, but I like it. Unlike Steampunk, it actually means the punk part, since you're Robin Hood style outlaws and revolutionaries.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Glal wrote: »
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    Maddoc wrote: »
    D&D is good at being D&D, and that's fine

    It's just rubbish at being anything else
    It's also rubbish at teaching you to play anything else.

    Which is why it's bad for D&D to be people's first roleplaying game.
    Hey, I resemble this remark!

    I own a bunch of fascinating settings I would love to DM, but because my own experience is 99% D&D I'm finding it very difficult to wrap my head around the mechanics that don't fit the D&D mold. Like the card combat in Mouse Guard, I can't tell if the mechanics are purely ornamental and the players are meant to be roleplaying their choices, or if there's a puzzle there to solve and I'm just not seeing it because I've not experience with the system. Or all the different "success in this range results in compromise instead" systems. How do I gauge what a fair compromise is?
    I'm too used to combat being a binary and have nothing to draw upon to gauge how it should work otherwise.

    Mouse Guard is hard mechanics that you then wrap a story around. Running a combat conflict is easy enough since you've got the RPS triangle of attack/defend/feint and then maneuvers on top of that. Other conflicts will usually tell you what the various player actions mean for the players, but the book does tend to leave the idea of what it means when Summer feints and maneuvers a little bit up in the air, usually because it's more situational. When trying to frame it, it helps understanding what it means when one side or the other's disposition runs out, and looking at the action as a means of accomplishing that.

    You are supposed to be roleplaying out your actions because describing how the situation looks is a way of hinting at people what your next secret cards are, and you can't actually do that unless you know what the PCs are doing, but it's usually not meant to be a means of gating participation in the conflict. Like, you're all trying to drive off a snake trying to eat Saxon. Of course you can do that, you're Mouse Guard, but describing how you help out gives you something to remember when awarding artha (fate and persona points) at the end of the session.

    Are you talking specifically about the minor/medium/major compromise layout in Mouse Guard or just compromise in general? I'm guessing "in general", so the key thing is to think about the dimensions of success - like, the patrol wants to arrive on time and uninjured, with the supply caravan intact. Compromises just give them some of the things they want but not all of them, and at least in Mouse Guard you're encouraged to talk with the players about the tradeoffs they want to make.

    Glazius on
  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Yeah I've been eyeing that one up myself.

    I mean, fae empowered revolutionaries trying to take on vampire princes is extremely my shit. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the playbook as mask thing, because it feels like most people I know would just end up taking the same mask every time, but it seems like a neat idea at least.

  • GlaziusGlazius Registered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Mahnmut wrote: »
    In DnD I'll try to describe doing something cool and then ten rounds of combat later I'm just like fuck it I hit it with a sword 7 damage, because that's all that really matters and describing superlative flips and twirls gets repetitive and affects nothing

    You can get here in Dungeon World; Dungeon World should have kept closer to AW's descriptive Harm clocks (at least for NPCs). You have to mindfully avoid situations where the players and the enemies are in a fictional stalemate until one side's HP finally runs out.

    Yeah, my GM has at times reacted poorly to the fact that we have three party members that can output a truly tremendous amount of damage (fighter, barbarian, ranger) and set us up against enemies with absolutely massive HP pools and no real alternate solution beyond powering through them

    Those fights are slogs, and I end up switching from fun utility fighter mode (lots of defend actions, spotting weaknesses in enemy fighting styles, intimidating my foes) into just maximizing damage

    Which sucks not just for me getting bored with Hack and Slash every turn, but for my GM as well, because I'm not about to fail a Hack & Slash the way I might a Defend or a Discern Realities or whatever

    Yeah, that's a bad call you can make running Dungeon World. Your GM should try running a fight like a Zelda boss - when you're fighting a giant you don't just hack 40 hit points out of its ankles, you hack 20 hit points out of a stab to the shoulder and then one to the eye, but you've got to lure the giant around so you can get into position to hit it, or climb something quickly while it's trying to tear you off.

  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Thanks. I'll try stuff and see if any of it works. Which is wildly out of character for me compared to doing nothing and then complaining about it again later.

    It's just never not been a discouraging process for me. Every part of it is cool an interesting up until I have to actually play it and make words come out of my mouth to explain what this other person is doing. What's on the character sheet doesn't matter because regardless of what is there it's limited by me the real person not knowing what to do in these situations.

  • ElddrikElddrik Registered User regular
    On the topic of Brinkwood, it's not my thing mechanically so I can't talk about how good those are (I have no idea if they're good or not), but it is extremely good thematically.

    The lead writer/developer is very much of the camp "I know writers who use subtext. They're all cowards."

    There's a stream of it being played on the San Jenaro CoOp twitch and there's a free playtest kit for it on itch.io.

    It's one of the games that really makes me wish I liked PbTA/FiTD mechanics. If you hate capitalism and like that kind of game, I recommend checking out the playtest kit at least.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Zonugal wrote: »
    As someone who used to perform improv comedy, while I think a book could contain useful passages I don't think reading up on improv is a good way to get better at it.

    You get better at improv by actively doing it over and over and over again.

    Yes! and ...

    ...

    ...line?

    Twitter! | Dilige, et quod vis fac
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I have made The Most Important Change to my Grand beast generator.

    Find and replace all instances of "The creature" with "The Beast"

    ...makes the entire thing way more punchy.

    The Zombie Penguin on
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  • Desert LeviathanDesert Leviathan Registered User regular
    In tonight's D&D session, GAVEL: the Bailiff, my Warforged Paladin, was able to declare candidacy for a vacant Town Council seat despite 1.) not actually being a citizen of this town and 2.) being a felon who was bailed out of prison literally the day before yesterday.

    His argument breaks down like this
    - It is a local custom to confer some traits of personhood to boats. Notably, boats have their names sanctified and recognized by a priest, much like organic infants, and receive full funeral rites when they are retired from service or lost at sea. If some rites are extended to boats and none are explicitly forbidden to them, then boats are legally people, for a value of personhood that apparently does not have to pay taxes to the empire or enlist in the draft.
    - One time GAVEL recovered a lost diving helmet by walking along the bottom of the ocean and then dragging it back to shore. Therefore, GAVEL is legally a marine salvage vessel.
    - In a rare example of a Reverse Sovereign Citizen Gambit, the local magistrate can't try GAVEL for his crimes because this is not a maritime court.

    He then convinced our Dragonborn Monk to also run for office, utilizing her status as a scion of a foreign royal family for a diplomatic exemption to citizenship, then doubling up with her status as the declared God and de facto congregational leader of a community of fifty kobolds who live in our backyard for a religious exemption. Do such exemptions make any goddamn sense? Who gives a fuck. GAVEL: the Bailiff is an employee of Acquisitions Incorporated and a Rank 2 Documancer, and what that means is he can sometimes twist the law into whatever shape he needs like a clown making balloon animals.

    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
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    that's exactly the kind of shit I like to hear about from Acq. Inc. inspired games

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • GlalGlal AiredaleRegistered User regular
    Glazius wrote: »
    You are supposed to be roleplaying out your actions because describing how the situation looks is a way of hinting at people what your next secret cards are, and you can't actually do that unless you know what the PCs are doing, but it's usually not meant to be a means of gating participation in the conflict. Like, you're all trying to drive off a snake trying to eat Saxon. Of course you can do that, you're Mouse Guard, but describing how you help out gives you something to remember when awarding artha (fate and persona points) at the end of the session.
    Aaah, see, this was the missing piece. From reading the rules (and watching some games on YT) I was having a hard time understanding what the GM is trying to accomplish and how the players are meant to counter them. Purely mechanically the rules looked like "you pick a card and they guess and hope they counter it", which made no sense.

    However, hinting as to what the enemy will do via roleplay and then relying on the players to intuit what will happen and counter it (and then RP back to describe how) makes perfect sense.

  • DrascinDrascin Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Aistan wrote: »
    It's just that i've been playing these games with these people for three years now and i'm not any better. This specific character for a full year. I had a week to come up with things to do in this interaction I knew was upcoming. And could think of shit-all and basically just sat in silence for the full three hour session.

    What I would recommend is doing some forms of in-character journaling exercises outside of the game. Write a diary in-character after every session, covering how you felt about what happened during the session, what you did, stuff like that. Make a fake dating profile for your character, and answer all of those questions in character (or other take assorted quizzes - it can be a very weird but very fun experience to take a D&D class test in character).

    You could also pair this with some grounding exercises to use before you go to session. I don't have a lot of these that I've done for RPG stuff, but when I do theatre, I typically have a playlist (or at least a theme song). Make a playlist of music you think your character would listen to, and listen to it on your way to the game.

    I took my own advice on this one, and apparently my Lawful (non-specific, but probably neutral) Human Fighter is actually a Lawful Good Human Paladin.

    Which was kind of what I expected - he was probably a LG paladin before he got kidnapped by the Fae, so his beliefs and the ways he would answer those questions fall more in that direction (although he was off by just one point in either category, and would have switched to a LN fighter if I'd answered a couple of questions differently).

    The quiz I took did stats as well, and they ended up pretty close to what's actually on the sheet. Some of them skewed a bit high, but typically still in the same modifier range (with some adjustment, as he's a DW character).

    I tried to do that test for myself on a lark, and wow, I am an absolutely suckass character.
    b3yqze5xd1m6.png

    I do appreciate when silly internet quizzes are not afraid to give you suckass answers, though!

    Drascin on
    Steam ID: Right here.
  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    Over in Critical Failures, we just officially concluded our run through of the 2004 Eberron adventure module The Forgotten Forge.

    The module is a brisk 11 pages long.

    It took us 89 days to complete.

    The sequel, The Shadows of War, is 33 pages long.

    So, if the players should opt to continue this story, we'd finish the next adventure module by... June 19, 2021

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    Zonugal wrote: »
    Over in Critical Failures, we just officially concluded our run through of the 2004 Eberron adventure module The Forgotten Forge.

    The module is a brisk 11 pages long.

    It took us 89 days to complete.

    The sequel, The Shadows of War, is 33 pages long.

    So, if the players should opt to continue this story, we'd finish the next adventure module by... June 19, 2021

    To be fair, it's not seeming likely that we'll have other plans that involve such things as "going outside" or "meeting socially" in the near future.

  • ZonugalZonugal (He/Him) The Holiday Armadillo I'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered User regular
    At the player's pace (8 days for one page of adventure module), to complete the entire proposed campaign, it would take us...

    The Shadows of War -- 267 days
    Whispers of the Vampire's Blade -- 259
    Grasp of the Emerald Claw -- 259
    Voyage of the Golden Dragon -- 259
    Eyes of the Lich Queen -- 1,051 days

    So, we'd finish up the entire thing by... Monday June 22, 2026

    Ross-Geller-Prime-Sig-A.jpg
  • GrogGrog My sword is only steel in a useful shape.Registered User regular
    seems brisk for pbp

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    My grand beast generator now has an option that amounts to the beast being X metaphorical kobolds in a trecnhcoat. Excellent, excellent.

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
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  • gavindelgavindel The reason all your software is brokenRegistered User regular
    My grand beast generator now has an option that amounts to the beast being X metaphorical kobolds in a trecnhcoat. Excellent, excellent.

    Does the beast generator have an option for the true monster to have been man?

    Book - Royal road - Free! Seraphim === TTRPG - Wuxia - Free! Seln Alora
  • WhelkWhelk Registered User regular
    gavindel wrote: »
    My grand beast generator now has an option that amounts to the beast being X metaphorical kobolds in a trecnhcoat. Excellent, excellent.

    Does the beast generator have an option for the true monster to have been man?

    Agreed, where are the Attack on Titan options??

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Someone introduced me to Torchbearer and part of the boring fluff and the fact it's left open lead me to put like 1000+ words to a rat species that is a weirdo, slightly dirty underground race but not fully skaven shitty plague boys.

    So please enjoy my take on the Roden.

    I have thought too much about fictional rat folk.

  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I think my self esteem is too low to do ttrpgs

    Or at least to run 'em

    I really want to though.

    I'm just awful at like being organized a lot of times and staying engaged some of the times.

    But most of all I'm worst at asking people to play with me

    Tallahasseeriel on
  • DenadaDenada Registered User regular
    Uriel wrote: »
    I think my self esteem is too low to do ttrpgs

    Or at least to run 'em

    I really want to though.

    I'm just awful at like being organized a lot of times and staying engaged some of the times.

    But most of all I'm worst at asking people to play with me

    This is the hardest part for me. I get incredibly self conscious being a grown adult asking people if they want to come play with me. It's really fun and I love GMing, but geez it's a full-scale assault on my anxiety sometimes.

    I don't know that I have any advice really. But I understand the feeling.

  • JacobkoshJacobkosh Gamble a stamp. I can show you how to be a real man!Moderator mod
    A year after making a thread about this game, I am finally getting busy prepping a Legend of the Five Rings game for my RL friends, and I'm very excited to hopefully be putting this system through its paces.

    But there's a lot of reading for me to do. This is my first major dip into the setting; I did run a short D&D 3.0 campaign in Rokugan when it was the official "Oriental Adventures" setting, but that was 15 years ago and the version in that book was abbreviated and changed around a bit to make it fit D&D. So I really need to get the world and the vibe straight in my head.

    Also, the FFG game is not a conceptually complicated system, but it's big, encompassing a lot of different things - investigation, supernatural fantasy (and outright horror, when dealing with the Wall and the monsters beyond), court intrigue with schemes and tittering gossip behind fans, normal RPG small-unit skirmish combat, formal one-on-one samurai dueling, mass battles and all-out war (in the core book, no less, instead of an afterthought in a supplement) - AND all of this has potentially a PvP element as the characters might want or need to hinder each others' efforts to pursue more personal goals, or duties given them by their lord or clan patron.

    So I need to read up on how all of that works, and get it straight in my head so running it becomes second nature. And while I do this, I'm also trying to come up with a campaign outline. I've got a basic premise that I'm actually happy with, which is nice, but I'm trying to find ways to expand it so it has room to accommodate all those things I listed above. I want to give my players the variety pack. Right now I'm leaning toward a kind of Bioware-ish campaign structure, where they'll find clues that lead them in different directions to different "hubs," and the hubs will center around different parts of the gameplay (so investigate the clue that goes down to the Wall, and they have to deal with big battles against monsters and samurai maddened by demons, while another clue might lead them to a Winter Court for palace intrigue, forbidden romance, and deadly poetry contests).

    rRwz9.gif
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Hmm I have a choice for my character. Playing a Paladin in D&D 5E and we just hit level 4. I could do the 2 stat increases and bring my Strength to 18 and my Charisma to 16, or I could take a feat looking at Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master, Tough, or the UA feat Eldritch Adept and get a warlock invocation.

    I know the straight stat increases would probably be better over all, but they feel less fun.

  • ToxTox I kill threads he/himRegistered User regular
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Hmm I have a choice for my character. Playing a Paladin in D&D 5E and we just hit level 4. I could do the 2 stat increases and bring my Strength to 18 and my Charisma to 16, or I could take a feat looking at Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master, Tough, or the UA feat Eldritch Adept and get a warlock invocation.

    I know the straight stat increases would probably be better over all, but they feel less fun.

    The going theory seems to be, if you have an excuse to dip into Warlock at all, you should take it. I tend to feel like that's a cheat unless there's a really good narrative reason, but only because I don't feel like those two classes get along well (again, narratively).

    Plus, like, the traditional original meaning of "warlock" is oath-breaker, specifically a religious oath. So that's probably a lot of the reason why I feel that way.

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  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Tox wrote: »
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Hmm I have a choice for my character. Playing a Paladin in D&D 5E and we just hit level 4. I could do the 2 stat increases and bring my Strength to 18 and my Charisma to 16, or I could take a feat looking at Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master, Tough, or the UA feat Eldritch Adept and get a warlock invocation.

    I know the straight stat increases would probably be better over all, but they feel less fun.

    The going theory seems to be, if you have an excuse to dip into Warlock at all, you should take it. I tend to feel like that's a cheat unless there's a really good narrative reason, but only because I don't feel like those two classes get along well (again, narratively).

    Plus, like, the traditional original meaning of "warlock" is oath-breaker, specifically a religious oath. So that's probably a lot of the reason why I feel that way.

    I had an Oath of the Common Man Paladin with a 2 level dip in Warlock. The RP reason being that my character made a bet with a Powerful fey being that an organized mortal populace would be a net positive for the world, where the Fey being thought that mortals organizing against the rich and powerful landowners and royalty would cause more chaos than it would solve (which would benefit them). So they Fey granted my character powers to make it happen, then sat back and watched. Unfortunately the campaign we were playing never really had any resolution on that plot point of the story, though technically he didn't die and the campaign wrapped up around level 10 so he could still be kicking around.

    webguy20 on
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  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Tox wrote: »
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Hmm I have a choice for my character. Playing a Paladin in D&D 5E and we just hit level 4. I could do the 2 stat increases and bring my Strength to 18 and my Charisma to 16, or I could take a feat looking at Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master, Tough, or the UA feat Eldritch Adept and get a warlock invocation.

    I know the straight stat increases would probably be better over all, but they feel less fun.

    The going theory seems to be, if you have an excuse to dip into Warlock at all, you should take it. I tend to feel like that's a cheat unless there's a really good narrative reason, but only because I don't feel like those two classes get along well (again, narratively).

    Plus, like, the traditional original meaning of "warlock" is oath-breaker, specifically a religious oath. So that's probably a lot of the reason why I feel that way.

    It can actually work for my character!
    I am a Paladin of Vengeance who made a bargain with some dark spirits in exchange for quick power in order to enact revenge and they often make me do...questionably immoral things.

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Is it crazy i'm considering trying to recruit another set of players for a live weekly/biweekly campaign in my setting? It's probably crazy, right?

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
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  • Hexmage-PAHexmage-PA Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Tox wrote: »
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Hmm I have a choice for my character. Playing a Paladin in D&D 5E and we just hit level 4. I could do the 2 stat increases and bring my Strength to 18 and my Charisma to 16, or I could take a feat looking at Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master, Tough, or the UA feat Eldritch Adept and get a warlock invocation.

    I know the straight stat increases would probably be better over all, but they feel less fun.

    The going theory seems to be, if you have an excuse to dip into Warlock at all, you should take it. I tend to feel like that's a cheat unless there's a really good narrative reason, but only because I don't feel like those two classes get along well (again, narratively).

    Plus, like, the traditional original meaning of "warlock" is oath-breaker, specifically a religious oath. So that's probably a lot of the reason why I feel that way.

    Personally the warlock is my favorite class in terms of flavor because there are so many beings mentioned in the history of D&D to choose from as patrons; archfey, demon lords, celestial paragons, archdevils, noble genies, archomentals, slaad lords, primordials, stars, etc. It's pretty much the alternative to the cleric for characters who serve those myriad powerful beings that aren't gods. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount included a section on setting-specific warlock patrons after the section on the gods, which I very much appreciated. I especially love the Eldritch Adept feat (which I hope will be included in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) because now even if I'm not playing a warlock or a multi-classed warlock I can take the feat and narratively justify it as minor aid from a warlock patron.

    Here's a short list of potential good warlock patrons drawn from D&D history:
    • Gwynharwyf, the Whirling Fury. A celestial eladrin barbarian who has led armies into the Abyss to fight the endless horde of demons, even once contributing to a successful assault on the forces of Demogorgon, Prince of Demons, in his own Abyssal domain. Those who draw power from her are ever vigilant against demons. She is also one of the highest members of the Court of Stars, the celestial eladrin court presided over by Queen Morwel.
    • Nahua, the Glorious Feathered Emperor. Greatest of the couatls who presides over the Cloud Court in the Astral Plane. He and the other exceptional couatls in his court frequently make contact with potential agents in the Material Plane for the sake of empowering them to fight evil. Those couatls who dwell in the Material Plane might be dispatched by their emperor to lend aid to worthy agents, though the innate powers of the feathered serpents allow them to act discretely and help mortals without revealing their true nature.
    • Sunnis, Princess of Elemental Earth. An archomental who looks like a woman roughly carved from stone, she played a pivotal role in the final battle of the War of Law and Chaos by doing battle against her evil counterpart Ogremoch, freeing her allies the Wind Dukes of Aaqa to attack and defeat the former Prince of Demons known as Miska the Wolf Spider. A tireless foe of evil, she is the enemy of the cruel dao, the demon lords Zuggtmoy and Ugudenk, the archdevil Dispater, and of course Ogremoch. Some stories even claim that she battled the tarrasque and used a magic item of her own creation called the Sands of Slumber, resulting in the legendary monster's inability to rampage for very long before going into dormancy.
    • Xalicas (technically Wildemount specific, but I'll include her anyway). A solar that was afflicted with incurable wounds while fighting against the forces of evil. Blinded, missing a wing, and unable (or perhaps unwilling) to leave the Material Plane, she seeks to atone for her failure and makes pacts with those who would aid her in her goals of fighting tyranny, preventing wars, and protecting the innocent.
    • Zaphkiel, the Watcher. Guardian of the Illuminated Heaven of Chronias, the summit of the Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia. He is the leader of the Celestial Hebdomad, all powerful celestials in their own right who protect the realms of Celestia. He is one of the oldest celestials in existence and has seen many things during his very long life. It is said that creatures not aligned with goodness are destroyed by his mere presence. His subordinates and the gods of Celestia are the only beings alive who have seen him.

    Hexmage-PA on
  • GrogGrog My sword is only steel in a useful shape.Registered User regular
    Bucketman wrote: »
    ...questionably immoral things.

    I know what you meant, but this made me picture evil demons exhorting you to bake a nice cake for your neighbour.

  • YaYaYaYa Decent. Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I’m getting ready to pitch a one shot to my usual D&D group, which means I have no ideas and plan to do almost no prep

    my usual MO is to show them new systems and force them to be collaborative and improvisational, last time I did this we ran Boy Problems which was a big hit

    what’re the hot new rules light one shots that I can look at? I’ve got a couple of Lasers and Feelings hacks on deck but that’s about it

    YaYa on
  • StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I'm running a game of Dead Channel for my group tonight, which fits that bill pretty well, although it's not super new I guess:

    https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/dead-channel/

    Edit: Oh if you want more CRJ based gameplay, I've been intermittently fascinated by Black Heart, the semi-sequel to Boy Problems, although I've not run it yet and I'm not entirely sure how well it actually plays

    Straightzi on
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    My Red Markets team this week ran into a stampede of vectors and desperately hot wired a mini cooper before that tide of hot infection washed over them. During which our Vet/Team Medic Otto cracked on stress and froze up. Thankfully already sat in the car.

    Then they found a prepper shelter of some obscure but rich twitch streamer that never got occupied. Picking up some guns and ammo before doing the actual job.

    Now they've plotted a score, brought a bio-fuel flatbed and this is my session notes for next week so far:

    Score: Steal Dr LowRespect’s Prepper stash of Gamer Fuel and Military Grade Ammo 16 bounty per haul. (9+7)

    Known complications: A shit load of freshly torpored casualties.

  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Good fucking god. I rolled 4 20s in one fight against my players today. Thankfully only two of those were actually for crits

    The players meanwhile got 3 crits, so go them. Including the paladin, which let her decapitate one of the catoctpus monsters they were fighting.

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
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  • Romantic UndeadRomantic Undead Registered User regular
    Good fucking god. I rolled 4 20s in one fight against my players today. Thankfully only two of those were actually for crits

    The players meanwhile got 3 crits, so go them. Including the paladin, which let her decapitate one of the catoctpus monsters they were fighting.

    I was on the verge of accusing our DiceBot of favoritism, but she redeemed herself after a bit so, we're good (for now...)

    3DS FC: 1547-5210-6531
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Good fucking god. I rolled 4 20s in one fight against my players today. Thankfully only two of those were actually for crits

    The players meanwhile got 3 crits, so go them. Including the paladin, which let her decapitate one of the catoctpus monsters they were fighting.

    I was on the verge of accusing our DiceBot of favoritism, but she redeemed herself after a bit so, we're good (for now...)

    Yeah, it was a little crazy. I'm pretty sure one of you DID accuse me of dicebot bribery at one point, which i mean, fair!

    Thankfully at least the other two 20s were grapple checks, and i still love that one of the party out-rolled a 20.

    Also just the hilarity of Mellys spending most of the fight grappled by the horrible catoctpus while it totally failed to hit her. Snake-tentacle fight!? She opened up the fight by shooting it's skull and vomiting poison all over it, got grappled, and they spent the rest of the fight mostly missing each other. Then it crit her, she stabbed it, and Roy bludgeoned it to death repeatedly with his oar.

    It's always fun as a DM to get to go "It's dead, tell me how" before the player even has to roll damage.

    ---

    For those curious:

    I used my Grand Beast Generator to make some critters.

    This time around it was Four-Limbed Racing Mollusc/Predatory Mammal Chimeras.

    So i described them as being big (Medium sized) cat creatures with mollsucy traits, and their tails being long prehensile tentacles. They could use the tails for grabbing things and chucking it at people, or just grappling onto prey. Or possibly grabbing and chucking prey, but the Phoebe's player dodged the monkey-yeeting, so well done her.

    Additionally they could jump into the air and roll into a ball before slamming into things 1/encounter. One of them actually hit with this and just wrecked Phoebe - crit on 2d8 is painful at level 3! Another one tried to do it to roy, but missed - and moved so far as a result roy got to smack it with an opprunity attack as it passed throguh his combat zone.

    Technically they were supposed to be wearing the flayed hides of their victims, but i totally forgot to add that detail. the perils of inventing on the fly, folks! Then again, they were being transported through town in the middle of the night before they broke out, so hey

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
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  • ChallChall Registered User regular
    Grog wrote: »
    Bucketman wrote: »
    ...questionably immoral things.

    I know what you meant, but this made me picture evil demons exhorting you to bake a nice cake for your neighbour.

    Warlock: Oh DARK LORD, grant me this power and I will do whatever you wish

    Dark Lord: BAKE A NICE CHOCOLATE CAKE FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR

    W: Okay... I will, but I thought I was talking to the Lord of Darkness and Treachery

    DL: YES, INDEED

    [The next day]

    W: Hello, neighbor, we don't talk much but I baked you a nice cake, I hope you have a good day

    Neighbor: But I have diabetes, and I can't eat gluten. And I'm allergic to chocolate

    Warlock: ....

    Dark Lord: MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This discussion has been closed.