The Tabletop RPG Thread

[Ajar]

I can definitely find a Friday evening with a little planning. We'll see who else is interested!

I've played an arc of ICON ~1.4, and it was a lot of fun. The tactical combat captures the JRPG tactics vibes and feels super distinct from stuff like D&D 4E (which is actually still the weekly game I run). My 4E group is high enough level now that full tactical combat is reserved for plot-critical encounters only, with an escalation die to move things along. Yes, that means I mostly ignore the resource management aspect and my players get to nova in most encounters (but with the escalation die, they don't often do it on round 1!). The good news is, that's fun for them, so who cares about conserving healing surges or whatever. Other threatening situations are resolved with clocks.

 

[zakael19]

I can definitely find a Friday evening with a little planning. We'll see who else is interested!

I've played an arc of ICON ~1.4, and it was a lot of fun. The tactical combat captures the JRPG tactics vibes and feels super distinct from stuff like D&D 4E (which is actually still the weekly game I run). My 4E group is high enough level now that full tactical combat is reserved for plot-critical encounters only, with an escalation die to move things along. Yes, that means I mostly ignore the resource management aspect and my players get to nova in most encounters (but with the escalation die, they don't often do it on round 1!). The good news is, that's fun for them, so who cares about conserving healing surges or whatever. Other threatening situations are resolved with clocks.

That's the 13th Age thing right? Extra +1 each round?

Something kinda funny about DW combat: it's often just as long as 5e's normal engagements. We just tend to be hitting a culminating event like your combats are doing at high level 4e.

I've got a couple regular players who are down for DW one shots as well.

 

[GMBigKev]

r/lfg has been an absolute success for me, surprisingly enough. Yeah, I get a collection of people who think it's a 5e game despite how specific I am up front - but generally my posts have gotten good enough I get what I'm looking for in a few days.

For FITD/BITD, the BITD discord has a ton of games forming constantly.

I forget if you have an in person group, I'd also be happy to meet up somewhere for a one shot of DW/Homebrew World or similar if they want to try something!

I'm told I'm pretty good at this PBTA/FITD thing these days, and have taught a few people as well. You may have noticed I'm super passionate about stuff, lol.

My issue with r/lfg is that it's like 99% 5e and not much else.

ETA: And fuck me I hate running 5e...

 

[Telwar]

That's the 13th Age thing right? Extra +1 each round?

Something kinda funny about DW combat: it's often just as long as 5e's normal engagements. We just tend to be hitting a culminating event like your combats are doing at high level 4e.

I've got a couple regular players who are down for DW one shots as well.

One other nice thing that 13th Age does to let you use TotM is that AOE abilities target d# targets, to represent basically how many you were able to fit into the AOE. It's unclear if you use a map if it still would be like that, but whatever.

 

[kenada]

The idea of doing an Ars one-shot is neat, though I don’t think I really have the bandwidth/capacity right now.

---

I don’t have much to this discussion of tactical combat except that I prefer minis on a grid to theater of the mind for tactical games, and I don’t really consider any RPG to be doing it as well as a board game like Middara. I do prefer side-based initiative in RPGs to individual initiative. The latter’s just so damn boring. My game uses wave-based where people roll to see whether they go in the fast or slow wave.

My time has been pretty limited since the baby was born, so working on my game (and running it) is still on the back-burner. I have been doing some thinking about it though. Like attributes (because that’s an easy one to bike shed). I’m pretty sure I’ve finally abandoned the original six (D&D) attributes for: Might, Agility, Endurance, Logic, Wits, and Willpower. It’s splitting prowess/quickness/fortitude into physical and mental aspects. I also need to do some serious reading and thinking about how resolution works. Baker’s writing (such as “What is PbtA?”) is influential. I need to find time to read and write though.

 

[zakael19]

My issue with r/lfg is that it's like 99% 5e and not much else.

ETA: And fuck me I hate running 5e...

The games listed are, but people have been pretty responsive to my personal postings as a DM. r/lfgmisc is there as well, but nowhere near as trafficked.

Niche games also tend to have discords these days which has the benefit of self-selected participants. FITD, Dungeon World, His Majesty the Worm, Dolmenwood, etc - all have very active discords.

 

[pauli]

Busy couple of pages.

For TTRPG combat, there are plenty of legitimate places to land in between "tonight, after the poetry slam, my surrealist improv comedy troupe is settling the score with a gang of rabid mimes from the fae realm - winner takes all hats!" and "Silence! I am playing SIMULATED LIVE ACTION BATTLE CHESS on STEROIDS with my FRIENDS and I LIKE IT. Now TAKE COVER in your GRID SQUARE and give me [3d20kh2] pushups, NERD!" We can, in fact, all have fun in different ways.

(side note: more TTRPGs should involve players doing pushups)

I started, in the 90s, playing 2e with no maps, no minis, no measuring, just taking turns whacking goblins before they could whack us. And it worked! The rules were ponderously heavy to start with, we certainly didn't need anything making it slower.

I know there are people who are fully bought in on playing with minis, rulers, pen and paper, calculating by hand, and arguing about RAW. Maybe there's roleplaying in there too, maybe the whole campaign is Hero Quest. This is the experience they want, it makes them happy, and that is wonderful. Play the games you like, with like-minded players.

Personally, I don't have time in the day for a crunchy ruleset unless it's fully implemented and supported by a modern VTT, and the GM has structured the session to keep encounters high tempo and fluid. All of those numbers, all of the exceptions, all of the conditional modifiers - let a computer deal with the bullshit, players ought to be focused on the roleplaying and the tactical situation.

I could sit here and give a dismissive "play the character, not the class", or "If the rules don't further the roleplaying, get rid of the rules," but that's not really fair; the "combat is a structured puzzle and we are here to smash our way through it" thing is legit too. And, in the other direction, I'm not one for describing every stroke and parry or RPing my way through loosing every arrow - but if I'm going to get dragged into a fight, I am going to work through it playing a character as vividly as I can, engaging the character's priorities and motivations in a way that carries through into the next scene, rather than focusing on numerical outcomes. I think it took me 25 sessions of Stonetop to remember that my sword gets a +1 to damage.

I don't want to have to change mindset when the fight music starts. Looking at the crunchier campaigns I've been in since getting back into things, 4e combat was terrible for this, 5e was better, Pf2e was ok, and Fabula Ultima was fairly seamless. I think that as things got easier for me, they also got easier for the DM - less work required to make sure nothing was overlooked or overtuned.

 

[foto69man]

I'll put a plug in for something different, love me some Delta Green RPG.

 

[Telwar]

Quote from our PF2 game today, after the monk strayed too close to some puffball fungi while flanking the goliath spider, the goliath spider fled, and then "bled" (persistent void damage) out its one remaining HP.

Oracle: "Does anyone need healing?"
Monk: (raises hand)
Fighter: (raises pick)

Me: "The spider raises a pedipalp, actually."

 

[zakael19]

I'll put a plug in for something different, love me some Delta Green RPG.

I like the idea of DG, but not the system. I’d like to try Liminal Horror sometime, I hear the setting/dungeon it has that channels Control is really well done. I think there’s a DG equivalent as well.

 

[papadage]

What do you dislike about the system? I find d100 roll-under to be pretty easy to run.

On a personal note, I'll be running my first live PF2 game in years this week in NY. One Arsian is attending, and we'll be meeting at Hex & Co, where we can get a table and order food and drinks. So, logistics will be pretty straightforward. I am looking forward to playing again.

I've been using Remnote, an outliner-style note software for prep. It plays nicely with RPGs since each bullet point in my prep can be expanded into a full page of notes with links to stat blocks, and deep links into uploaded PDFs so I can use electronic docs without needing a lot of time to look for material in the books. I'll be drawing maps for now, but will look for a better portable solution for later.

Or maybe I'll scale snippets of the maps and print them out for now.

 

[zakael19]

Just to ask, what don't you like about the system? I find d100 roll-unders to be pretty easy to run.

I find high-GM authority/prep systems with static pass/fail mechanics uninteresting/unsatisfying right now.

 

[foto69man]

I find high-GM authority/prep systems with static pass/fail mechanics uninteresting/unsatisfying right now.

I run mine in a hybrid system on a D10 mixed in with a tabletop skirmish game, so the choices and outcome vary wildly.

But even normal DG I never felt like I railroaded the players or they were forced into anything?

 

[papadage]

That's my impression as well. Sure, there may be a ticking clock in the background, but the published adventures I've seen include a ton of threads and multiple paths to resolution, with players having agency to control how far they want to go in side-stepping the law or how fast they want to destroy their relationships to try and slow their slide into insanity.

 

[foto69man]

static pass/fail mechanics

I was thinking on it, and maybe you just had a bad GM.

Depending on how good or bad you pass or fail changing things every time. Asking a potentially hostile witness questions can have many many outcomes depending on if you Critically pass or Critically fail or all the levels in-between

 

[zakael19]

I was thinking on it, and maybe you just had a bad GM.

Depending on how good or bad you pass or fail changing things every time. Asking a potentially hostile witness questions can have many many outcomes depending on if you Critically pass or Critically fail or all the levels in-between

I’m speaking solely from the GM perspective. I don’t find static pass/fail skill systems, hidden information, high prep, task resolution play interesting to run right now. Thus, no interest in DG / BRP based stuff. I’ve read through God’s Teeth and a couple other of the modules for DG - and there’s some interesting ideas in there, but the core gameplay style of conversation just doesn’t grab me rn.

A big thing I enjoy in my games is that I get to be as surprised by the moment to moment gameplay as everybody else. I also enjoy spending a lot of my sessions asking provocative questions and getting cool answers that then drives play; I’m finding the rhythm of OSR unsatisfying right now because of how directional the conversation is.

 

[foto69man]

Just got my download for Mike Hutchinson's zine, The Crawling Chaos. Kind of a reverse rpg, where the DM is now the Narrator and the players are architects guiding the story through choices and the GM/Narrator has to roll and decide/pass/fail through the story to the enevitble conclusion (that only the players know).

Seems fun and cooky...be a good change of pace for some parties.

Drivethru RPG link

 

[papadage]

I had my first in-person session in years in NY last night after work at a game shop close to NYU. I am running players through the Pathfinder Beginner Box for the Remaster. On is an Arsian. Another, a friend of his, had a last-minute business trip, so he bailed but will join the next session. The third was a young person who joined through the local Pathfinder Society Lodge. W were to have a fourth, but she dropped out entirely due to personal commitments and matters we don't need to get into.

I brought my laptop with my notes, initiative and encounter trackers, dice, etc. After setup, introductions, and some brief summaries of the differences between PF and D&D, we had the two PCs introduce themselves into the setting and wind up in the same place in Otari, a seashore town with a fishery that was experiencing nightly incursions from the basement that need investigation.

There was a bit of cute RP, and the two-player characters (cat-folk Champion of Cayden Cailean, the god of drink and adventure, and gnome kineticist) offered to assist the fishery's owner with their issues. We only had about an hour and a half of actual play before breaking, and left off with them ready to begin their investigation.

I will publish my notes to Discord to have the third player get current and spend a few minutes on their introduction next time before we begin the descent.

--

Time to wake up the kids and get them to school and I'll give some personal thoughts later.

 

[papadage]

OK, so.... I have a few stream-of-consciousness thoughts about the session.

• I was nervous. After skimming the entire adventure, I had prepped the first few encounters. I took mid-detail notes on the first five encounters, set bookmarks to the encounter dashboard and initiative tracker, and had my dice and laptop ready to go. But it's been a while, and I need to get the DM muscles working again. That will come in time.
• I picked out a few NPCs to prep to guide the PCs and to be a source of information and resources. I listed a couple of adjectives describing their personalities and voices so I wouldn't need to pause and think about how to play them. That helped, but I am terrible at voice work when roleplaying, so they tended to sound too similar. I especially need to pitch my voice a tad higher for female NPCs.
• The younger player picked the Remaster Kineticist as their class. It's the one I know the least about. She has zero PF experience and this is a complex class. I'll need to bone up on it to help her get used to playing it. However, PF 2E is a very tactical game, so her not knowing the meta of the game will really hurt the party in combat. I spent a good amount of time talking about the three-action economy, the multiple-attack penalty, and how critical are more common due to being able to gain them with a roll of ten over the target and not only with a nat-20. I also mentioned that a good use of an action is to Aid or Demoralize or move to flank to make criticals easier.
• I need to bone up on traits for actions, so I don't rule incorrectly.

But then again, the Beginner Box gently walks everyone through the rules. I need to make sure the encounters are balanced for a smaller party and that the bosses can't one-shot a player, as that can be very frustrating to new players.

All in all, it was nice to nerd out once more with all my TTRPG stuff spread out on a table with real people again. And the store was nice. The back room had several tables, but the larger ones needed to be booked. It was a little louder than I like, so we'll have to see if we need to find a new setting.

I also need to clean out my DM's bag. There are too many dice, counters, metal fantasy coins, etc. I must travel lighter because I will take it to NY with my work backpack. If I can lighten the load, I can pack my work laptop in it, or better yet, try to stuff the few items and my second laptop into my Peak Design backpack since it's easier to carry. My DM's bag is a large vertical messenger, and while it's great on the road since it's TSA compliant, it's not great when walking any kind of distance in NY.

 

[zakael19]

In person seems like a cool fantasy ; ;.


I have, mostly, stopped trying to do voices. Occasionally the muse comes upon me unbidden, but without a trained set of chords running 3 games a week rapidly leads to a raspy voice, lol. I try and do a lot more describing these days between the bits of talking, especially useful playing over the internet. Eg: “her eyes flash furiously as your statement, his hands wash nervously as he looks to the side, she leans forward one hand on the table stabbing towards your chest with the other” etc.

I find back and forth of dialogue/speech only interminable, in part because I can’t visualize what the other character is doing.

 

[Telwar]

Man, I had lines practiced for one of the AV villains, and didn't get to use them because the party saw reason and had no scruples about giving a jackass over to Hell.

The Rules Lawyer has a video on the Beginner Box that talks about some of the flaws and suggested fixes for it (after another Creator's poor experience).

 

[papadage]

In person seems like a cool fantasy ; ;.


I have, mostly, stopped trying to do voices. Occasionally the muse comes upon me unbidden, but without a trained set of chords running 3 games a week rapidly leads to a raspy voice, lol. I try and do a lot more describing these days between the bits of talking, especially useful playing over the internet. Eg: “her eyes flash furiously as your statement, his hands wash nervously as he looks to the side, she leans forward one hand on the table stabbing towards your chest with the other” etc.

I find back and forth of dialogue/speech only interminable, in part because I can’t visualize what the other character is doing.

I try to play how my players enjoy doing it. So far, a couple of people seem to like a little dialog. It was only a few minutes, so it's not a big deal, and it's good for me to exercise some little-used RP muscles. Once the table is filled out, that may shift. My last group, oh so many years ago, would roleplay very little except for posturing as tough guys to local officials, much to my delight when they FAFO'd.

Man, I had lines practiced for one of the AV villains, and didn't get to use them because the party saw reason and had no scruples about giving a jackass over to Hell.

The Rules Lawyer has a video on the Beginner Box that talks about some of the flaws and suggested fixes for it (after another Creator's poor experience).

I saw that video and took a few notes. Based on the selected classes, I am also going to make some additional adjustments. So far, it's all martial, though both have healing, and the champion can handle some other threats. With really new players, I don't want to start tossing threats they cannot address in any way. After a few sessions, though, the training wheels will start coming off, and they can do some retraining to use Free Archetype to diversify their abilities a bit.

But simple stuff first.

 

[xcmt]

Man, I had lines practiced for one of the AV villains, and didn't get to use them because the party saw reason and had no scruples about giving a jackass over to Hell.

This is precisely the scene that my group's going to run into in tomorrow's session. I have been preparing scripts and answers and conversational contingencies and verbal daggers for months. I'm going to bury them in moral quandary. Opportunities for good roleplay have been somewhat limited in AV so I've been highly looking forward to this one.

Which means they will probably just pick a fight mid-conversation (again). They lost a PC the last time they took an optional Fiend fight, so I'm hoping this gives them enough pause to let me finish my pitch.

 

[Telwar]

I saw that video and took a few notes. Based on the selected classes, I am also going to make some additional adjustments. So far, it's all martial, though both have healing, and the champion can handle some other threats. With really new players, I don't want to start tossing threats they cannot address in any way. After a few sessions, though, the training wheels will start coming off, and they can do some retraining to use Free Archetype to diversify their abilities a bit.

But simple stuff first.

If you have not yet found this, this encounter tool is super awesome for adjusting encounters for level, party size, and difficulty. It also pulls up the stat blocks that you can put into OneNote or whatever. It can't make them Weak or Elite, that you need to get from Archives of Nethys.

 

[foto69man]

Huuuuge Delta Green RPG Humble Bundle right now. All the books, Roll20/VTT Assets, and a few extra novels thrown in. Good $25 deal

 

[zakael19]

This is precisely the scene that my group's going to run into in tomorrow's session. I have been preparing scripts and answers and conversational contingencies and verbal daggers for months. I'm going to bury them in moral quandary. Opportunities for good roleplay have been somewhat limited in AV so I've been highly looking forward to this one.

Which means they will probably just pick a fight mid-conversation (again). They lost a PC the last time they took an optional Fiend fight, so I'm hoping this gives them enough pause to let me finish my pitch.

I'm going to highlight this not to pick on/target you or anything but because I was just talking with my Tuesday group about how we've gotten in a rhythm of play that has some really solid back and forth around this concept of "roleplaying." Talk to a lot of OSR or narrativist folks, and they'd say that you're always roleplaying because you demonstrate and to a degree inhabit your character through play. From the D&D/conventional side (inclusive of PF, and other similar games that walk in from the more wargaming based rules side of the house), you hear and see a lot of this discussion that "I want to have space/time/chance to role-play" which tends to mean "I want space to stand around talking in character."

The specific mechanical split in Songs for the Dusk (like all Forged in the Dark) games between "action time" and "downtime" has allowed us to really delve into deep characterization and hefty stuff; and then as a couple of the players highlighted during end of session this week - go demonstrate who they are, or affect that, via the action packed "missions." I think that SFTD's elegant Memories + Belief Clock + Downtime actions with an emphasis on character scenes handles this in a better way then about any other system I've run so far, and it's interesting see other non-FITD games start to latch onto hard-framed character focused downtime these days as well (including some NSR and PBTA games I've seen recently).

I think more systems would benefit from a little "scenes around a campfire" or "hanging out at the bar reflecting" or "cooking a meal for your friends" & etc explicit mechanic that affects recuperation, because even in a dungeon crawl you can have space for that. In fact His Majesty the Worm, an NSR dungeon crawling game, does just that - you refresh Bonds between characters to spend at camp time to refresh abilities.

 

[papadage]

PF 2E has downtime rules and an exploration mode that can be used for RP. Many APs also have reputation or leadership score tracking built in, which are good hooks for RP. I like to have some RP and personal dynamics in my PF games. But you need buy-in from both the players and the DM.

I've played some BitD games where downtime if just a series of quick rolls for bookkeeping purposes before the next score.

 

[zakael19]

I've played some BitD games where downtime if just a series of quick rolls for bookkeeping purposes before the next score.

yeah I've seen that mentioned elsewhere too, and it seems to just skip over all the juicy bits of gameplay that drive home the costs of the scoundrel's life. But I guess in the same way some tables play D&D for the tactical wargame, some people play BITD for the criming hijinks.

PF 2E has downtime rules and an exploration mode that can be used for RP.

The games Im referring to use this stuff as part of the core loop like Blades. Then again, I get more requests and "stars" for "roleplaying time" from my players then anything else, so perhaps it's just the sort of people my games attract (5e-alike inclusive).

 

[papadage]

If you have not yet found this, this encounter tool is super awesome for adjusting encounters for level, party size, and difficulty. It also pulls up the stat blocks that you can put into OneNote or whatever. It can't make them Weak or Elite, that you need to get from Archives of Nethys.

I've been using this one. The only issue is that it's cookie-based, so when I add, remove, or change encounters or party members, I need to export the cookie text and re-import in the laptop browser. Otherwise, it's great.

 

[rtrefz]

I went to GaryCon this weekend. The event was much larger than expected!

Friday afternoon I played a 5e game based on Luke Gygax's setting. The game was fun, and it felt "old-school." Half the party was downed by the end session boss, and my character was down to 5 HP.

Yesterday I played a home brew game that was just bad, and a game of Pendragon. Pendragon was a lot of fun, even if my character was one-shotted in the first round of combat. I enjoyed the mechanics but combat is brutal.

I'm torn about going to GaryCon again. I had fun but I drove instead of getting a hotel room. This limited my gaming time. Also, I missed the game sign up start. There was very few games left by the next day.

 

[zakael19]

Pendragon sounds neat, they did a re-issue or new version or something recently right?

 

[rtrefz]

I think so, but I'm not sure.


In Pendrgaon, you have a rank of 1-20 in every skill. When you try to use the skill you roll a d20 and you want the roll to be less than or match your skill value. If it's a contested roll (like combat) the character with a roll closest to their skill level wins, but the loser still gets some sort of advantage. If your roll matches your skill ranking, it's a crit.

For example, I have a skill of 15 in charging, and my opponent has a 12. I roll a 7 and he rolls a 10. My opponent wins because his roll is closer to his skill value than mine. However, since I also succeeded I'm able to use my shield to block more of the damage.

 

[papadage]

6th Edition released about a year ago along with The Grey Knight campaign. They just released the Gamemaster's Handbook.

I've never played, but I do like the opposing passions in the game. It's cool how a PC can have a sliding scale between opposite motivations and travel along the continuum as they try to enforce or fight against their biases.

It's a nice way to seed both inner conflict in a PC and between PCs.

 

[rtrefz]

If I ever DM'd a game I'd steal the passions mechanic. I like how it provides a way to figure out how a character will react if the player has no idea. More importantly, it provides a way to flesh out your character's personality.

 

[papadage]

That's what I thought also once my new game moved to a longer-term status. At the very least, it's a good way to rack key NPC personalities. For players who struggle with roleplay, it's a quick guideline for personality past the single adjective description some players barely get past.

 

[Dragonscript]

My group just started Curse of Strahd, we have a discord channel dedicated to the campaign and the players use it for side chat roleplaying/table talk, so everyone is always roleplaying there, so it helps to not slow down the once-a-week gaming session.

 

[swiftdraw]

So the Traveller game ended over a month ago. Kind of an anticlimax, as after we resolved the immediate problem of an insane cruiser commander (the GM recited Gen. Turgidson “bodily fluids” speech with some setting specific changes in a scene between the cruiser captain and the PC army lawyer), the Navy showed up and took charge of the situation. Nothing really got resolved, no mysteries solved, just survived long enough for the calvary to show up. The group decided continuing the campaign really wasn’t feasible, so it ended with the characters going their separate ways for various reasons.

However, we managed to get the band together for a one-shot last Saturday. Basically, it was a “flashback” for a stop between the kaiju planet and Red Zone that never happened, but whatever. We had to deliver badly need supplies from the spaceport to a fortified island city via aerospace transport. Along the way, we had to evade the Vargr pirate Donny Havoc and his crew as well as deal with the machinations of Aslan business tycoon Shah Aewar. Anyone want to take a guess what the inspiration was for this little adventure? The DM could not convince any of us to attempt cloud surfing, much to his disappointment. We managed to complete the adventure in 7 hours and our erstwhile aircraft, the Salty Mallard, even landed with most it’s hull intact and 50% of it’s engines! It was actually fun, even if my character didn’t have too much to do besides trash talk the bad guys over the radio in a mocking faux French accent.

 

[zakael19]

So who's interested in a little Ars 1 or 2 shot try of some narrative D&D? Would love to get something together on a Friday .

 

[Ajar]

So who's interested in a little Ars 1 or 2 shot try of some narrative D&D? Would love to get something together on a Friday .

I'm up for this & free the next 2 Fridays. After that I'll likely be busy for a couple weeks with moving and travel.

 

[NewNinetyNine]

I'm up to three tables right now and am trying to fit all of the PF2E rules in my head, otherwise I would be game. Enjoy!