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Sep 25, 2015#1

Dei

I can't find the old D&D thread and I have other things to do with my day, so I'm starting a new thread!

To ask for advice!

I'm trying to set up a giant heist adventure for my Pirate D&D group. We haven't had a game in a month and a half because of life conflicts and I still can't figure out how I want to do it, so I am shoving in some filler for my game tonight, but does anyone have any good ideas? I don't want to make it skill challenge night, but I'm running short on ideas, and I really want it to be epic.

Sep 25, 2015#2

Gruebeard

Asking advice at noon for your game that evening? I'm glad to know I'm not the only procrastinating DM.

Sep 26, 2015#3

Dei

Nope I put it off for a couple of weeks by using side plot

Sep 26, 2015#4

AshburnerX

As someone who plays a lot of Payday 2, I find it's actually a great example of how to set up heists (being a game about pulling off Heists). So here are some ideas from there...

- Give them a reason to want to pull a big score. Money is good, but getting back lost items is better and revenge is the best of all. Think Ocean's 11: most of the guys were on board simply to get rich and pull off the heist of the century but Ocean was in it to FUCK OVER Terry Benedict. He would have given up the entire haul just to do that. In other words, motivation is key.

- Force them to make a proper plan. Not just "We go in and get it" but an actual plan. Half the fun of pulling off a heist is in figuring out how you're going to do it. Have them pull favors for info, shake down guys on what might be inside the vault, etc... maybe even give them a map of the place they are robbing. Of course, maybe the map isn't entirely up to date...

- If they are going to need outside help to do it, then it's side adventure time. For example, in Payday, Dallas and the crew have been wanting to get Hoxton out of prison for awhile, but it's not until the mastermind planner known only as The Dentist drops the prison transfer schedule in their laps that it suddenly becomes possible. But this help comes at a price: he wants his payday too. How does this apply to your game? Don't be afraid to make it impossible without help, but make it possible to FIND that help. Maybe your crew needs a distraction? A way in? Well the rivals of the local pirate group are willing to help out, but they need this thing done... and paying off the town guard to drag their feet in responding is a tried and true method of evading the law.

- Always have a Plan B: if a Heist suddenly goes loud/wrong, you need to know exactly how much force you can throw at your group and still have them succeed. Also, the force should escalate as they waste more time at the scene: start with low ranking guys on the scene, but next come heavies checking the alarm and finally the town guard elite out for blood. Punish them for being stupid, but don't wipe them in the process.

- Make sure they have an escape plan. Getting the loot is only half the battle... you need to get it OUT without dying in the process. It should never be a leisurely stroll out the back... make them have to consider dumping the loot and making a run for it.

Sep 26, 2015#5

Dei

So right now, I have them on a sidequest which will end with them getting a tip that an object they have been looking for was sold to a dwarven noble. The point of the sidequest is both that end point, and raising their infamy as pirates, since lately they have been doing way less piratey things due to party personality conflicts (characters, not the players).

Also right now, one of the players, who is the captain of the ship, is cursed by a coin he picked up out of a tainted fountain, and is becoming increasingly erratic. They have actually picked up about three extra crew members along the way, with at least one still waiting in the wings (that they know about at least) as I weave the story around them.

We actually do pretty well with straight RP sessions as well, since enough of the players have enough quirks built into their characters that they are willing to make use of to make it interesting.

My biggest concern is not turning it into a night of skill challenge after skill challenge, followed by woo we got the loot yay.

Sep 26, 2015#6

AshburnerX

Dei said:
My biggest concern is not turning it into a night of skill challenge after skill challenge, followed by woo we got the loot yay.

Fundamentally, if they need to overcome a static issue (locked doors, traps, convincing NPCs, etc) then yes, it's all skill challenges. But that's only if you only give them one way to do it. Maybe they need a key from a guard to get the door open because it's some special lock... sure, they could just pick pocket the key or kill him for it or talk him out of it or bribe him or whatever and roll some dice, but they could also make it look like someone already got past the door to get HIM to open it (all kinds of voice throwing magic) or they could avoid it by some other means.

The issue here is how smart are the players? If they are smart enough to think of a way past a challenge that doesn't require dice, then you are good. But if they are only going to do it the most obvious way, then it's THEIR fault for being tedious and boring, not yours. Just be sure to include lots of traps/doors that don't involve them just picking a lock and traps complicated enough that disarming them quickly is not an option and you should be good ether way.

Sep 26, 2015#7

Gruebeard

Perhaps you could work it out so the heist requires hitting at least two separate locations. Like, say, they need to intercept( and fight) some couriers to get a password and take their badges. They use those to get into a warehouse they can sneak, talk or fight through. Past that is the where the loot is, protected in some way to require the skill challenges, although a raised alarm from before could force a chase as the guards protecting the loot evacuate it an an effort to keep it out of the PCs' hands.

Sep 26, 2015#8

Ravenpoe

Dei said:
So right now, I have them on a sidequest which will end with them getting a tip that an object they have been looking for was sold to a dwarven noble. The point of the sidequest is both that end point, and raising their infamy as pirates, since lately they have been doing way less piratey things due to party personality conflicts (characters, not the players).

Also right now, one of the players, who is the captain of the ship, is cursed by a coin he picked up out of a tainted fountain, and is becoming increasingly erratic. They have actually picked up about three extra crew members along the way, with at least one still waiting in the wings (that they know about at least) as I weave the story around them.

We actually do pretty well with straight RP sessions as well, since enough of the players have enough quirks built into their characters that they are willing to make use of to make it interesting.

My biggest concern is not turning it into a night of skill challenge after skill challenge, followed by woo we got the loot yay.

The last thing the group should hear before they all die horrible deaths should be "Oh, did I forget to mention that it's guarded by a dragon? Because it's guarded by a dragon."

Sep 26, 2015#9

Gruebeard

Oh, a when I said "intercept the couriers" I really rather meant "hijack a courier ship" because that's quite piratey.

Sep 26, 2015#10

Jay

My two favorites rogues are Simkin and.... this random story I read on Reddit a year ago and saved.

I hadn't even recognized the seeds the party rogue was planting throughout the campaign until they all came together in perhaps the most amazing heist I've ever played through. To be fair, I was quite thoroughly involved in a sub-plot involving a few other characters' backstories at the time, when I should have been involving the rogue more. Luckily, he made his own fun.
The party was working for a collector of many fine pieces of ancient art from a long dead elven empire. Statues, vases, various gem-laden trinkets, and so forth. Mundane, but beautiful and priceless. The party was more or less a glorified treasure-hunting team, combing ancient trap-laden ruins for plunder.
The rogue started his whole heist idea while I was describing the gallery of this collector. When they visited, they were searched at the door for anything suspicious; the rogue's lockpicks were confiscated, which maybe elicited a challenge, something for the rogue to prove, I don't know. Glass cases (all locked) containing all these priceless artifacts, including one black-bronze figurine of a gryphon that he was particularly interested in. I should have recognized from the outset that he was after his own personal Maltese Falcon.
Over the course of several adventures, the rogue built up a web of connections within the collector's employ, and buddied up to the collector himself. I thought nothing of it; it was nice to have a player so interested and invested in my campaign and the NPCs for once. I was forced to keep track of the little guys I made; the butlers, the cooks, the maids, the clerks. I fleshed out a small city because of the rogue's lust for details about everyone that worked the day-to-day for the collector's personal museum.
He had a keen interest in wood crafting, dumping many points in wood carving. I thought it a bit absurd, but he played it off as nothing more than a roleplaying reflection; a harmless, curious hobby of the character and nothing more. He went so far as to purchase masterwork tools for his trade, joining the local guild of wood crafters and discussing it with even more NPCs, peers in the 'hobby' of his character.
And then all at once, it was time for him to put his plan in action. During his downtime, he declared that he spent a lot of time visiting the collector's gallery, and carving replica figurines out of wood of the various artwork he had seen, roleplaying that each time he paid a little more careful detail to what he was making. And then he made the gryphon, and went so far as to decide he was going to make it a masterwork piece of art. I allowed this, naively. Every artist needs a masterpiece, after all.
The rogue needed a way into the estate, under cover of darkness, past the patrolling guards, while the party was distracted, without tripping the magical and mudane wards protecting the priceless art pieces inside their little glass boxes. To do this he:

made friends with the trusted clerk of the gallery, became close drinking buddies with him

waited until the day of a noble's gala that the collector had made public intention to attend

'requisitioned' the party's wand of dispel magic (much to the chagrin of the cleric for some reason), bought a scroll of alarm

made sure the party was going to attend the gala, made sure to point out that, publicly, he would be attending in his finest clothes, and would be arriving late

visited clerk friend in his office, informed him that after the gala, they ought to go drinking, and sleight-of-handed the lock on the window open without the clerk noticing

convinced the women of the manor to get cozy with the household guards that night

Everything was written down on paper before the session had begun, in a series of prepared notes. I feel like he waited a few sessions until the timing was perfect (the gala) and then put his plan into motion.
At nine bells, in the blackness, with the manor all but empty and the guards snogging in the bushes with the chambermaids, the rogue made his way to the clerk's office. In through the window, out of the office into the gallery, a dispel magic to shut down the basic Alarm that had been set up; he made his way to the glass display case where the gryphon figurine sat. He spent a few minutes disabling a few traps, unlocking the case; he swapped the figurine for the wooden one, locked it all back up, reset the traps, cast Alarm and slipped out the window again. The entire process of swapping the figurines took about ten minutes, from start to finish.
He didn't say a word while doing this, merely passing the notes to me, and waiting for my response. I told him to roll dice as required, and then gave him a nod (of course I did, the little min-maxer couldn't fail at his tasks) and continued running the gala for the rest of the party members.
Eventually the rogue made it back to the party's apartment, put the bronze statue in his personal chest, changed clothing and attended the gala. The party was none-the-wiser, and I was thoroughly impressed.
A few sessions later in the campaign, the rogue and the collector were together in private, when the rogue presented him with the bronze figurine. He made up some story to the collector describing how he recognized it in an acquaintance's home, and stole it back for him. The collector, obviously was flabbergasted (who wouldn't be), and said "There's no way! My figurine is in the case and hasn't moved!"
The truth comes out, the one in the box is a fake, the real one is replaced, and the rogue is given the replica (a masterwork piece of art in its own right) and a substantial, hefty reward for loyalty and friendship of the collector.
The party was floored OOCly when I explained to them what happened on the night of the gala. That was the happiest time I've ever DMed anything ever.
tl;dr - party rogue was awesome, pulled off an amazing heist, and didn't kill anyone in the process. Not even the party knew what happened.

Sep 27, 2015#11

PatrThom

That's some primo quality RPing.

--Patrick

Sep 28, 2015#12

grub

Does anyone have experience playing D&D via Skype? Everyone else in the game will be in the same room but me. We were going to set up a webcam so I can see the board for combat and just voice chat the rest.

Is there any complications or things we may not have thought of?

Sep 28, 2015#13

evilmike

grub said:
Does anyone have experience playing D&D via Skype? Everyone else in the game will be in the same room but me. We were going to set up a webcam so I can see the board for combat and just voice chat the rest.

Is there any complications or things we may not have thought of?

Sep 28, 2015#14

grub

I love that comic, but I was hoping for real experiences.

Sep 28, 2015#15

Vrii

We did that over the summer, one guy on skype and the rest of us in the same room - it works fine, but if your DM has access to a laptop or something, using roll20.net at the same time can make things a lot smoother with dice rolling, maps and the like.

May 22, 2016#16

Cheesy1

My brother is going to soon be running a game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth 3rd Edition. We'll be the crew of a Final Fantasy-like airship. I'll be playing the catgirl mechanic.

May 29, 2016#17

PatrThom

Cheesy1 said:
My brother is going to soon be running a game of Big Eyes, Small Mouth 3rd Edition. We'll be the crew of a Final Fantasy-like airship. I'll be playing the catgirl mechanic.

I had no idea crewing an airship meant hiring so many catgirls you have to hire a mechanic just to service them all.

--Patrick

May 29, 2016#18

AshburnerX

PatrThom said:
I had no idea crewing an airship meant hiring so many catgirls you have to hire a mechanic just to service them all.

--Patrick

May 29, 2016#19

Cheesy1

May 29, 2016#20

Null

[DOUBLEPOST=1464565401,1464565099][/DOUBLEPOST]

May 30, 2016#21

Jay

Vrii said:
We did that over the summer, one guy on skype and the rest of us in the same room - it works fine, but if your DM has access to a laptop or something, using roll20.net at the same time can make things a lot smoother with dice rolling, maps and the like.

It's seriously great, I play weekly with a group and it runs perfect with little work.

I don't remember what we used to work with in the HF group but it was a pain to setup.

Jun 15, 2016#22

Jax

Just started playing D&D for the first time with some friends. We've been playing board games for a while and one of us was invited for a session once, and got us all enthusiastic about it.

After some practice sessions to get the hang of things (and dying a lot), we've just started our main campaign. So far, so good! Although some still have trouble saving the few abilities or spells we have at low level for when it matters; they get bored quickly with just attacking and casting cantrips over and over again and go all out whenever there's an encounter :/

Jun 21, 2016#23

Frank

Some people don't care for them, but the first two episodes of the Penny Arcade Acquisitions Incorporated they've recently done are all about planning a heist and could give you, @Dei, some pointers. Also, the Kris Straub intro in the first episode is adorable.

Jun 21, 2016#24

Dei

I am long past the heist part of my game. Also I watched them the day they came out.

Jun 21, 2016#25

Frank

Dei said:
I am long past the heist part of my game. Also I watched them the day they came out.

Yeah, I've not been on the ball reading the forum lately. I just realized how old the thread was.

Jun 21, 2016#26

Jay

Fuck Scott Kurtz

Jun 21, 2016#27

PatrThom

The thread may be old, but some things haven't changed.

--Patrick

Jun 21, 2016#28

DarkAudit

Nothing about Straub will ever be adorable. Haven't forgotten. Haven't forgiven.

Jun 21, 2016#29

Jay

Also, since my last gaming with Shadowrun, the juices of DMing a pen & paper is flowing, maybe Shadowrun itself though I clearly have no experience with it or with 5th edition..

mmmm

Jun 21, 2016#30

Dei

I would play a HF RPG as long as I don't have to DM, because I'm already DMing 5th.

Jun 22, 2016#31

Jay

How do you find it?

Jun 22, 2016#32

Frank

I'm currently DMing a 5th campaign. It's very easy. Some guys in my group were dudes who liked multi-classing 900 times and they're not the biggest fans, but I love the simplification of most of the rules.

I hated 2 wizard/3 dragon-slayer/2 fighter/2 mage slasher/4 dragon-mage knight of red stones

Fuck off.

Jun 22, 2016#33

Dei

I mean, you can still multiclass in 5th, but yeah, the rules are much more straight forward.

Jun 22, 2016#34

grub

I 'm currently playing a 5e Lvl 9 Rogue Thief and love it. We're just starting Rise of Tiamat.

Jun 22, 2016#35

AshburnerX

Multi-classing in 5th is kind of a mixed bag: on the one hand, there is basically no reason not to be a pure Fighter if you want to be a Fighter. Applying even just two feats to a fighter can result in something that can do 8d10+5d12+80 damage a round to a single target, apply several effects, ignore all but full cover up to 400 ft away, and essentially fall from orbit and survive... and do all of the twice a rest. Some of the other classes are just as good and that's straight out of the main book.

On the other, some multiclass builds are just utterly better than pures. There is no reason to be a Lvl 20 Tempest Cleric when a 6/14 Tempest Cleric/Evocation Wizard gets better lightning spells (Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are not in the Cleric spell list) and more utility without losing any of it's melee effectiveness. Sure, you'll never cast a 9th level spell but that hardly matters when you get two free maximized chain lightnings and one free maximized Cone of Cold a rest and you can still bump THOSE into 9th level damage.

But that's all high level theoreticals. In a less high powered game, you will NEVER have these kinds of abuses.

Jun 22, 2016#36

Jay

As someone who likes story-lines and lore for party members, pretty fucken hard to work with monk/mage/rogue BS some people pull off in their game builds.
What the fuck is a Cleric/Wizard anyways? The concept of that is just stupid.

I guess that's a question on what the DM allows in his/her game.

Jun 22, 2016#37

Dei

Cleric/Wizard can make sense depending on your deity, but it means you have to have points in int and wisdom.

My party's bard multiclassed to sorcerer just to get some party AE going on.

Jun 22, 2016#38

Frank

Mechanical min-maxers are the worst.

I said it.

Jun 22, 2016#39

AshburnerX

Jay said:
As someone who likes story-lines and lore for party members, pretty fucken hard to work with monk/mage/rogue BS some people pull off in their game builds.
What the fuck is a Cleric/Wizard anyways? The concept of that is just stupid.

I guess that's a question on what the DM allows in his/her game.

Ehh... I can justify the Cleric/Wizard multiclass: A hedge wizard who specialized in weather spells for his community grew to appreciate and, eventually, grow to worship the destructive and cleansing nature of the weather he created. One night, a vision of the god of storms appeared and spoke to him, beckoning him to a higher calling. He now serves the temple of Thor as a prophet, providing succor to the needy and 1.21 gigawatts to the guilty.

Or, fuck, maybe he was just a lay member of the church for years, helping them out with various wizardly tasks (such as identifying items or crafting potions) they needed as part of his commitment to his faith. He eventually heard the calling of Thor and became a full fledged member of the church later in life, using his arcane training to bolster his divine magic. That backstory is so positively mundane that it basically happens in the real world with actual priests.

Really, there are a lot of ways to play such a simple multiclass, storywise. It's the guys who want 3 or more classes that you need to worry about.

Jun 23, 2016#40

Gruebeard

One of these days I'm gonna make a 3rd edition character with a different class for every level.

I mean, I've done a 4th level monk/cleric/rogue/barbarian, and I gotta tell you, that flurry of sneak attack punches were even more fun once I was raging.

Even had some lore behind it, creating a monastic tradition that encouraged the embrace of chaos, a paradoxical philosophy which would inevitably draw its adherents toward a chaotic alignment and thus be ineligible to continue as a monk, instead finding their own path. The most successful adherents would have very few monk levels.

Jun 23, 2016#41

grub

For my Rogue I've considered multiclassing, but it's too hard to give up the 1d6 sneak attack every 2 levels. I'm also eagerly waiting for reliable talent (take 10 for any proficient skill).

Jun 23, 2016#42

Soupy

I've had some students ask me to run a D&D club for them the last few years (Grades 5-8) and for next year i've been using the 5e players handbook to guide them through character creation. Been really fun thus far. Having never played D&D before it's been a learning process for sure, I started with 4e a few years back for my first group and used the podcast Critical Hit as inspiration as I went through the 4e Red Box stuff with them. Lately been listening to a lot of The Adventure Zone podcast on my commute to work which is a 5e podcast by the McElroy Brothers and their dad if anyone is familiar with their other podcast: My Brother, My Brother and Me.

I've found that lots of kids are interested at first, but then shy away when it's not that instant button push reward that they're used to. Having to actually build a character and problem solve is extremely foreign and difficult for many kids. Luckily for some, it just comes naturally which is great.

Jun 23, 2016#43

Jay

Dei said:
Cleric/Wizard can make sense depending on your deity, but it means you have to have points in int and wisdom.

My party's bard multiclassed to sorcerer just to get some party AE going on.

This is fine, a bard is supposed to be able to perform a few spells and playing a sorc is perfect. I'm just talking about unorthodox mix-max bs.

Has anyone played a Shadowrun game? How does it work? Does it play well?

Jun 23, 2016#44

grub

I haven't played Shadowrun since 1998, it involved a lot of d6's but the setting was great. I doubt the mechanics are the same.

Jun 23, 2016#45

Null

grub said:
I haven't played Shadowrun since 1998, it involved a lot of d6's but the setting was great. I doubt the mechanics are the same.

This. The setting is awesome.

The mechanics are generally terrible in previous generations. For instance, you could very easily find yourself in a situation where you could literally not injure an opponent. For example, one adventure's final enemies was a fairly young Western Dragon. What made him almost unkillable was that he had Hardened Armor as an innate ability. To explain, that means that his natural armor worked like vehicular armor: You added his armor rating (8) and body attribute (12) together, giving you 20. You immediately subtracted that from your weapon's power. There was 1 weapon in the game with a damage rating over 20: the Assault Cannon, which was 22 Deadly. So your 22 was reduced to 2. Fair enough, you can still technically injure him. How do you try and bump that up? Well, you can use your own successes to boost the damage. Say your Mercenary or Street Samurai using the Assault Cannon has a gunnery rating of 6, you can roll 6d6 to determine your successes. There are a goddamn FUCK TON of modifiers, but let's just use the base Target Number of 4. So, 6d6, 4+ is a success. Assuming average distribution, you get 3 successes. That's 1 additional level of damage, because for every 2 successes, you increase the level of damage to the next higher: Light to Moderate, Moderate to Serious, Serious to Deadly. So the base damage type was Deadly and you've got one level on top of that, right? Wrong, because Hardened Armor also reduces the damage by 1 level (hence, light weapons will never do any damage). Still, your additional successes make sure he's still got to resist a Deadly wound, which will incapacitate him. Even better, you can use your combat pool, and allot extra dice, up to your skill rating, to your attempt. So that's another 6d6, so instead of 3 successes, that's a whopping six successes! So that's Deadly++ for him to resist. But here's the bad part: The dragon's Target Number to resist is 2. So he gets 12d6 to resist damage automatically, and for every pair of d6s that he rolls a 2+ on, it lowers the damage by one level, from Deadly to Serious, Serious to Moderate, Moderate to Light, and Light to No Damage. Assuming average distribution, all but 2 of the dice would be 2 or better (Defender wins the tie), so with 10 successes, he'd reduce the damage 5 levels, so Deadly++ becomes Deadly+, becomes Deadly, becomes Serious, becomes Moderate, becomes Light. You inflict a Light Wound. Except you don't, because the dragon has a combat pool too. He can spend another 12 dice to resist each round. Even if he rolls ten 1s and two 2+, he still takes ZERO DAMAGE.

Jun 24, 2016#46

AshburnerX

There's a reason they had to build what is essentially a combination nuclear/viral bomb to take out the dragon that rampaged through Europe in Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Jun 24, 2016#47

Null

AshburnerX said:
There's a reason they had to build what is essentially a combination nuclear/viral bomb to take out the dragon that rampaged through Europe in Shadowrun: Dragonfall.

Yes, but that was a GREAT Dragon, this was supposed to be a young one, and also, you had to slay the dragon to complete the module (if you didn't, he would devote his considerable resources to hunting the team down and really making them a personal project, IIRC).

Jun 24, 2016#48

Jay

Has it be improved since?

Jun 24, 2016#49

Null

Jay said:
Has it be improved since?

I don't know. I think they released a 5th edition recently?

Jun 25, 2016#50

J

Jebus

Null said:
This. The setting is awesome.

The mechanics are generally terrible in previous generations. For instance, you could very easily find yourself in a situation where you could literally not injure an opponent. For example, one adventure's final enemies was a fairly young Western Dragon. What made him almost unkillable was that he had Hardened Armor as an innate ability. To explain, that means that his natural armor worked like vehicular armor: You added his armor rating (8) and body attribute (12) together, giving you 20. You immediately subtracted that from your weapon's power. There was 1 weapon in the game with a damage rating over 20: the Assault Cannon, which was 22 Deadly. So your 22 was reduced to 2. Fair enough, you can still technically injure him. How do you try and bump that up? Well, you can use your own successes to boost the damage. Say your Mercenary or Street Samurai using the Assault Cannon has a gunnery rating of 6, you can roll 6d6 to determine your successes. There are a goddamn FUCK TON of modifiers, but let's just use the base Target Number of 4. So, 6d6, 4+ is a success. Assuming average distribution, you get 3 successes. That's 1 additional level of damage, because for every 2 successes, you increase the level of damage to the next higher: Light to Moderate, Moderate to Serious, Serious to Deadly. So the base damage type was Deadly and you've got one level on top of that, right? Wrong, because Hardened Armor also reduces the damage by 1 level (hence, light weapons will never do any damage). Still, your additional successes make sure he's still got to resist a Deadly wound, which will incapacitate him. Even better, you can use your combat pool, and allot extra dice, up to your skill rating, to your attempt. So that's another 6d6, so instead of 3 successes, that's a whopping six successes! So that's Deadly++ for him to resist. But here's the bad part: The dragon's Target Number to resist is 2. So he gets 12d6 to resist damage automatically, and for every pair of d6s that he rolls a 2+ on, it lowers the damage by one level, from Deadly to Serious, Serious to Moderate, Moderate to Light, and Light to No Damage. Assuming average distribution, all but 2 of the dice would be 2 or better (Defender wins the tie), so with 10 successes, he'd reduce the damage 5 levels, so Deadly++ becomes Deadly+, becomes Deadly, becomes Serious, becomes Moderate, becomes Light. You inflict a Light Wound. Except you don't, because the dragon has a combat pool too. He can spend another 12 dice to resist each round. Even if he rolls ten 1s and two 2+, he still takes ZERO DAMAGE.

It's a lot less complex now. They did release 5th edition i think around a year and a half, maybe two years ago now.

There's two damage tracks: Physical and Stun. Physical deals with damage from guns, blades, explosions, etc.; whereas Stun deals with damage from fists, kicks, blunt weapons, concussion grenades and shock weapons. Magic can be either, depends on the spell. It's essentially your hit points.

Combat works like this:

1. Attack declares his attack.

2. Attacker rolls his relevant Combat Skill + the associated Attribute plus any modifiers. For example, if he's attacking with a Pistol and he has a Pistol skill of 4 and an Agility rating of 5 he'd roll 9d6. Anything on a 4+ is a hit. Total up the number of hits.

3. Defender makes a defense test. He has a couple of options on how to do this but the standard test is to roll his Reaction + Intuition attributes plus any modifiers. 4+ is a hit. Total up the number of hits. If the defender scores more hits than the attacker, the attack misses. If the attacker scores exactly the same number or more hits than the defender, the attack hits. If the attacker scores more hits than the defender, the excess number of hits is added to the damage value of the weapon. For Example, an Ares Predator V pistol has does 8 Physical damage. If the attacker scored 2 hits more than the defender, the total damage from the pistol would be 10 Physical.

4. The defender tries to resist the damage. He makes a Body + Armor Value roll. Each hit (4+) cancels out 1 point of damage. Whatever's left over is applied to your damage track. Depending on how badly the defender rolls here, even a pistol shot can really fuck you up in this game. Average person who's not a Troll will probably have a Physical damage track of 10-12 usually.

That's the basic gist of it. There's obviously various modifiers that can affect those rolls but the sequence of events is always the same.

Jun 25, 2016#51

Null

Jebus said:
It's a lot less complex now. They did release 5th edition i think around a year and a half, maybe two years ago now.

There's two damage tracks: Physical and Stun. Physical deals with damage from guns, blades, explosions, etc.; whereas Stun deals with damage from fists, kicks, blunt weapons, concussion grenades and shock weapons. Magic can be either, depends on the spell. It's essentially your hit points.

Combat works like this:

1. Attack declares his attack.

2. Attacker rolls his relevant Combat Skill + the associated Attribute plus any modifiers. For example, if he's attacking with a Pistol and he has a Pistol skill of 4 and an Agility rating of 5 he'd roll 9d6. Anything on a 4+ is a hit. Total up the number of hits.

3. Defender makes a defense test. He has a couple of options on how to do this but the standard test is to roll his Reaction + Intuition attributes plus any modifiers. 4+ is a hit. Total up the number of hits. If the defender scores more hits than the attacker, the attack misses. If the attacker scores exactly the same number or more hits than the defender, the attack hits. If the attacker scores more hits than the defender, the excess number of hits is added to the damage value of the weapon. For Example, an Ares Predator V pistol has does 8 Physical damage. If the attacker scored 2 hits more than the defender, the total damage from the pistol would be 10 Physical.

4. The defender tries to resist the damage. He makes a Body + Armor Value roll. Each hit (4+) cancels out 1 point of damage. Whatever's left over is applied to your damage track. Depending on how badly the defender rolls here, even a pistol shot can really fuck you up in this game. Average person who's not a Troll will probably have a Physical damage track of 10-12 usually.

That's the basic gist of it. There's obviously various modifiers that can affect those rolls but the sequence of events is always the same.

Yeah that's a lot simpler. Here's how it was in 2E:

1. Roll initiative, which is your Reaction + 1d6, unless you're augmented, via cyberware, magic, or being a physical adept, or are a creature with it's own initiative modifiers. A street samurai will generally have have an initiative score of 10+3d6 (due to Wired Reflexes II), everyone else is usually around 6+1d6. The highest initiative determines the number of phases that action occurs in. So, assume average rolls, the Street Samurai will have an initiative of 21, most others will have an initiative of 9. You get to act on your initiative phase, and again if your phase minus ten is still above zero. To wit, the Street Sam will act on phase 21, phase 11, everyone else will go on phase 9, then the Sam will act again on phase 1.

2. People declare their intended actions, slowest to fastest. This allows characters who act first to react to slower characters who haven't acted yet.

3. Attacker declares his attack. Let's say the corporate combat mage is preparing a manaball to blast the group with; the Street Sam decides for his first phase to shoot at him with his SMG, firing a burst.

4. Attacker rolls his relevant Combat Skill + any combat pool they decide to use. Street Sam has a Pistol Skill of 6 and he uses 6 points of combat pool (you can use up to your skill rating), letting him use 12d6. 4+ is a success, so on average, 6 successes. Each 2 successes increases the damage code one step. Normally, a SMG would do 9M(moderate) damage, but as a burst, it becomes 12S(serious). That becomes 12D(Deadly)++.

5. Defender makes a defense test. The power of the attack is reduced by armor, so if the mage is wearing a ballistic jacket or lined coat, that's 4 points of ballistic armor. So that's 8D++. To resist, the defender uses his Body rating + armor rating + combat pool. Body 4 + Armor 4 + 4 dice of combat pool, means 12d6. But he only succeeds on a 8+. So, average distribution means 2 sixes, which get rerolled; we'll be generous and say both are 2+. That's 2 successes to reduce damage. However, that's not enough to knock the damage below Deadly, and the mage is out of the fight (possibly dead).

Jun 29, 2016#52

Jax

I've recently ventured into the realm of D&D with a group of friends, we've been playing board games for a while and one of us got in touch with D&D, to which we decided to try it. I'm pretty excited, been wanting to try it for a long time (but previously lacking friends who share the interest). We're doing 5e, and after some initial test runs (where lots of us got killed), we now have the following party:

- A Gnome Sorcerer
- A Tiefling Paladin
- A Half-Orc Monk
- A Dwarf Tempest Cleric
- A Half-Elf Bard (me)

I know, should be interesting, right?

Jun 29, 2016#53

Eriol

Jax said:
I've recently ventured into the realm of D&D with a group of friends, we've been playing board games for a while and one of us got in touch with D&D, to which we decided to try it. I'm pretty excited, been wanting to try it for a long time (but previously lacking friends who share the interest). We're doing 5e, and after some initial test runs (where lots of us got killed), we now have the following party:

- A Gnome Sorcerer
- A Tiefling Paladin
- A Half-Orc Monk
- A Dwarf Tempest Cleric
- A Half-Elf Bard (me)

I know, should be interesting, right?

Very very balanced I'd say. Maybe slightly melee-weak, but maybe not. Should be quite interesting.

Jun 29, 2016#54

Bubble181

Eriol said:
Very very balanced I'd say. Maybe slightly melee-weak, but maybe not. Should be quite interesting.

Yeah, the Cleric and Paladin might have to take up the front line role a bit...But they should be capable of it.

Jun 29, 2016#55

Gruebeard

I wanna play that half orc monk.

Jun 29, 2016#56

Bubble181

Gruebeard said:
I wanna play that half orc monk.

Played it, didn't care much for it. Only low level, though....And low level monks are just sucky versions of fighters.

Jun 29, 2016#57

Gruebeard

Bubble181 said:
Played it, didn't care much for it. Only low level, though....And low level monks are just sucky versions of fighters.

Yeah, but . . . Ninja!

Jun 30, 2016#58

Jax

Yeah, I was a bit worried about the melee (and specifically, meat shielding

), but so far we've managed with relative ease, even without the Cleric (who wasn't present at our first real session).

There's been a lot of tweaking since the initial introduction, for example the Dwarven Cleric was at first a Gnome Cleric Trickster, because she found the idea funny that a small, sweet, and usually Good/Lawful creature & class would cause all kinds of havoc and mischief. I'm very glad she changed it to Dwarven Tempest Cleric for a much needed frontliner.

Same goes for the other party members, I think the most fun they've had so far is conceiving the characters with as much sillyness or contrast they can think of (lol @ Tiefling Paladin and Half-Orc Monk with a Criminal background), and then there's me: a controller and very much optimization nerd (hence the Half-Elf Bard). The Sorcerer was a martial class at first as well (I think a Rogue), but she missed a lot of attacks and wanted some blasting power to deal with physical damage resistance. I was very glad to have another spellcaster on board, and now with the Cleric we should do fine with all types of magic casting.

What did surprise me after we started, is how few spells the spellcasters have available at low levels. During the testphase I blew through all my spells which all fizzled because of an invisible magic barrier (yay..), then there was nothing else to do but either cast cantrips or venture into melee combat. With the first part of our campaign, I started out as a spy on the enemies' side and managed to talk my 'allies' into attacking the group of adventurers in very bad ways, which was very fun to do

. But now we're facing a probably long run of encounters and I'm not sure how to manage the few spells that I have and what to do when I'm not casting (Vicious Mockery over and over seems kinda dull and I'm not too confident in melee combat..)

Jun 30, 2016#59

Bubble181

In 5E, a lot of spells are Encounter or return upon a Short Rest - which is just 5minutes, really. The amount of spells is pretty OK, I think.
Alternatively, retool someone to a Warlock, get back nearly all spells on a short rest. MUHAHAHA.

Jun 30, 2016#60

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
In 5E, a lot of spells are Encounter or return upon a Short Rest - which is just 5minutes, really. The amount of spells is pretty OK, I think.
Alternatively, retool someone to a Warlock, get back nearly all spells on a short rest. MUHAHAHA.

That's very class-dependent, not spell-dependent. For example, Warlock gets everything back on a Short Rest which is AT LEAST an hour long, not 5 minutes (PHB 186). But Wizards and a few others have various forms of "recovery" which work on short rests, and thus let you get some slots back between long rests.

Being that "encounter" is not a time frame in 5E, are you thinking of 4E? I've heard (never played it) that some things are like that there.

Jun 30, 2016#61

Bubble181

Eriol said:
That's very class-dependent, not spell-dependent. For example, Warlock gets everything back on a Short Rest which is AT LEAST an hour long, not 5 minutes (PHB 186). But Wizards and a few others have various forms of "recovery" which work on short rests, and thus let you get some slots back between long rests.

Being that "encounter" is not a time frame in 5E, are you thinking of 4E? I've heard (never played it) that some things are like that there.

Eh, I'm probably mixing the two of them up, yes, it's clearly been far too long since I've played

Jun 30, 2016#62

AshburnerX

I'm also pretty sure you're only allowed one Short Rest inbetween Long Rests, or that the features that return things on a Short Rest usually only work once a day.

Jun 30, 2016#63

Bubble181

AshburnerX said:
I'm also pretty sure you're only allowed one Short Rest inbetween Long Rests, or that the features that return things on a Short Rest usually only work once a day.

What? No. The DMG says 2 SRs per day (lunch and dinner, basically) is the "norm" classes are balanced around (but more or less are okay). Allowing only one SR a day would weaken a Warlock quite a bit.

Jun 30, 2016#64

AshburnerX

Bubble181 said:
What? No. The DMG says 2 SRs per day (lunch and dinner, basically) is the "norm" classes are balanced around (but more or less are okay). Allowing only one SR a day would weaken a Warlock quite a bit.

Ah, so it's answered in the DM guide. I only have Player's Handbook.

Jun 30, 2016#65

Frank

Bleh, they're finally releasing another Monster Manualish book and it's totally Forgotten Realms centric.

Boo Forgotten Realms! Enough with the Forgotten Realms source books.

Jun 30, 2016#66

AshburnerX

Frank said:
Bleh, they're finally releasing another Monster Manualish book and it's totally Forgotten Realms centric.

Boo Forgotten Realms! Enough with the Forgotten Realms source books.

I really wish they'd buckle down and get some Ravenloft stuff out. Always been my favorite setting but it seems to get the short end of the stick.

Jun 30, 2016#67

Frank

AshburnerX said:
I really wish they'd buckle down and get some Ravenloft stuff out. Always been my favorite setting but it seems to get the short end of the stick.

They did just put out the Campaign book.

Jun 30, 2016#68

AshburnerX

Frank said:
They did just put out the Campaign book.

Did they? Nice. Didn't even know it was getting one.

Jun 30, 2016#69

Frank

http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/curse-strahd

Apr 3, 2017#70

Frank

A) I want a 5th Edition Planescape book. I FUCKING WANT IT. DO IT! FUCK!

B) I just bought this:

Amazon product

Really stoked for it. It's a behemoth 5th edition bestiary. I am a sucker for bestiaries.

Also, I just got asked to DM a new group of players so I know it's going to come in handy. I haven't DMed in years.

Apr 3, 2017#71

Frank

It's really professionally made and the art is great.

Also, apparently Nicol Bolas is in it:

Apr 3, 2017#72

AshburnerX

I'd prefer a Ravenloft book myself, but at least we got Curse of Strahd.

As for Planescape 5th edition... now would be the time to do it, with the HD remaster of Planescape: Torment on the way.

Apr 3, 2017#73

Gruebeard

AshburnerX said:
I'd prefer a Ravenloft book myself, but at least we got Curse of Strahd.

Yeah, that's what the Planescape book will look like, too.

Apr 4, 2017#74

Frank

Gruebeard said:
Yeah, that's what the Planescape book will look like, too.

I'm fine with it. Have you looked at stat blocks for AD&D Planescape stuff? They're so obtuse.

So, has anyone watched the C-Team? It's Kris Straub, Amy Falcone, some dude I don't know and someone I'm going to have to try to get over having an ultra-crush on Kate Welch D&Ding as Acquisition's Inc. franchisees with Jerry Holkins DMing. Good stuff generally.

I'm seriously in total love with Kate Welch.

Apr 4, 2017#75

Gruebeard

Frank said:
. . . Kate Welch . . .

*googles*[DOUBLEPOST=1491329138,1491328983][/DOUBLEPOST]Yeah, I wouldn't cut my hair for her.

Apr 4, 2017#76

Dei

Gruebeard said:
Yeah, that's what the Planescape book will look like, too.

I feel like Curse of Strahd had enough info in it to make your own campaign. You didn't HAVE to follow it's story. Maybe I'm just used to always having to improve off notes because parties are untrustworthy.

Apr 4, 2017#77

Gruebeard

Dei said:
I feel like Curse of Strahd had enough info in it to make your own campaign. You didn't HAVE to follow it's story. Maybe I'm just used to always having to improve off notes because parties are untrustworthy.

Yeah, that's how they've been writing these things: half adventure, half setting. Out of the Abyss is very much part Underdark sourcebook, it even has a little section on all the various shrooms to be found.

Apr 4, 2017#78

Dei

Speaking of source books...

*maniacal laugh*

Apr 4, 2017#79

Frank

You monster.

Sent from my LG-D852 using Tapatalk

Apr 5, 2017#80

Frank

Shit, is Tomb of Horrors in Tales from the Whatever that just came out? I have a copy of that still in an Amazon delivery box.

Apr 5, 2017#81

Dei

Frank said:
Shit, is Tomb of Horrors in Tales from the Whatever that just came out? I have a copy of that still in an Amazon delivery box.

Yep.

Apr 6, 2017#82

Jay

I gotta back into this.

Apr 6, 2017#83

Frank

I am on a roll. Just bought the 3.5 Book of Vile Darkness.

Why, CAUSE. I'M FUCKING EEEEEVIL.

I've blown way to much money on D&D shit this month. There goes my PS4 next month.

Apr 6, 2017#84

Gruebeard

Frank said:
I am on a roll. Just bought the 3.5 Book of Vile Darkness.

Why, CAUSE. I'M FUCKING EEEEEVIL.

I've blown way to much money on D&D shit this month. There goes my PS4 next month.

I've got that same book, for that same reason

Apr 6, 2017#85

Cheesy1

So hopefully we're going to finally get started playing my brother's game of "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" fairly soon.
He's done a couple of sketches of our characters based on our descriptions of them:

My catgirl mechanic, Niz:

And my brother's friend's airship captain and all around scoundrel:

Apr 7, 2017#86

Null

Cheesy1 said:
So hopefully we're going to finally get started playing my brother's game of "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" fairly soon.
He's done a couple of sketches of our characters based on our descriptions of them:

My catgirl mechanic, Niz:
View attachment 23592

And my brother's friend's airship captain and all around scoundrel:
View attachment 23593

Nobody flirts with Catgirls like Gaston!

Apr 7, 2017#87

AshburnerX

Null said:
Nobody flirts with Catgirls like Gaston!

Was gonna say. It's like Gaston went to see Hamilton and got some fashion ideas.

Apr 7, 2017#88

Cheesy1

LOL, first time my brother showed me that picture, I told him it had a Gaston-like vibe to it!

Edit:
The character is suppose to be pretty full of himself and is self-serving to the core.

Apr 7, 2017#89

Null

No one sails through the skies like Gaston,
No one spreads women's thighs like Gaston,
No one hijacks a blimp like Gaston,
No one beats up a pimp like Gaston,
For there's no one as squirrely, destructive and surly,
Oh what a guy,
That Gaston!

Apr 11, 2017#90

Frank

I'll take this as a big fucking hopeful maybe.

Apr 11, 2017#91

Eriol

Frank said:
I'll take this as a big fucking hopeful maybe.

Fair enough, though I'd say that they have to answer that way for all inquiries. At the same time, given they don't have to answer at all, it's somewhat hopeful.

OTOH though, you can run a PlaneScape-type 5E campaign right now if you want to. The basics about the multiverse, Sigil, etc, is all in the DMG. It's just they don't have a released module you so right now you'd need to write it yourself.

Apr 11, 2017#92

Dave

So what's the best program to use to make custom character sheets? There's a lot of choices but they all seem to need you to have some sort of advanced degree to use.

Apr 11, 2017#93

Frank

Eriol said:
Fair enough, though I'd say that they have to answer that way for all inquiries. At the same time, given they don't have to answer at all, it's somewhat hopeful.

OTOH though, you can run a PlaneScape-type 5E campaign right now if you want to. The basics about the multiverse, Sigil, etc, is all in the DMG. It's just they don't have a released module you so right now you'd need to write it yourself.

I don't own the Planescape books either and they're plenty super expensive now. I hate digital for my reading too so I COULD just download a torrent of all the books, but I just don't like doing it.

Apr 11, 2017#94

Eriol

Dave said:
So what's the best program to use to make custom character sheets? There's a lot of choices but they all seem to need you to have some sort of advanced degree to use.

I think that the ones here work just fine: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

Form-fillable PDFs. You have to do the calculations yourself, but that's not a big deal IMO. And when I level up enough (proficiency bonus for instance), then I just update it and print out a fresh sheet.

Apr 11, 2017#95

Dei

I had a really good spreadsheet for filling out the character sheets for 5e, but now that I can fill one out in about 5 minutes on the fly from doing it so often, I'm not sure where I put it. Please hold.

Apr 11, 2017#96

Dave

Eriol said:
I think that the ones here work just fine: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets

Form-fillable PDFs. You have to do the calculations yourself, but that's not a big deal IMO. And when I level up enough (proficiency bonus for instance), then I just update it and print out a fresh sheet.

Not for D&D. Custom character sheets, not D&D character sheets.

Apr 11, 2017#97

Eriol

Dave said:
Not for D&D. Custom character sheets, not D&D character sheets.

Ah, sorry, wasn't understanding. Can't help you there. I took what you said as "custom vs premade" not "custom game"

Apr 12, 2017#98

Gruebeard

Dave said:
Not for D&D. Custom character sheets, not D&D character sheets.

Do you mean you're looking for something better, more efficient, than Word or Excel? Maybe try Publisher or a similar, Non-Microsoft program.

Or Corel Draw or the like.

Apr 12, 2017#99

Dave

Gruebeard said:
Do you mean you're looking for something better, more efficient, than Word or Excel? Maybe try Publisher or a similar, Non-Microsoft program.

Or Corel Draw or the like.

Something like the Corel Draw thing, only a program that doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out. I looked at the Word/Excel route but they look like they were done in Word or Excel, if you get my meaning.

Apr 12, 2017#100

drifter

Adobe Illustrator is actually pretty simple if all you need is words and boxes, although InDesign would probably be the proper Adobe program for your needs. I imagine Corel Draw probably isn't that bad either, just the interface can seem overwhelming at first.

Apr 12, 2017#101

evilmike

Dave said:
So what's the best program to use to make custom character sheets? There's a lot of choices but they all seem to need you to have some sort of advanced degree to use.

What effect are you hoping for?

Apr 12, 2017#102

Gruebeard

Dave said:
Something like the Corel Draw thing, only a program that doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out. I looked at the Word/Excel route but they look like they were done in Word or Excel, if you get my meaning.

Aye. I get your meaning.

A simpler Corel Draw is what I figured you were looking for.

I don't actually have any suggestions other than to google a simpler Corel Draw.

Apr 12, 2017#103

MindDetective

Why not just do it as a Google Drawing? From Google Drive: New > More > Drawing

I suspect it will handle everything you want it to do.

Apr 13, 2017#104

Jax

Dave said:
Something like the Corel Draw thing, only a program that doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out. I looked at the Word/Excel route but they look like they were done in Word or Excel, if you get my meaning.

If you want something simple and easy to use, but better looking, you might also consider PowerPoint. It's often associated with those boring and tacky looking presentations, but it's incredibly simple in creating and moving around text boxes and images, yet you can make some really cool stuff if you put a little effort into it.

Apr 13, 2017#105

PatrThom

I've had plenty of success just in Paint-type programs, though vector ones (Illustrator, etc) are probably the best. Libreoffice has a module named "Draw" that will probably fit the bill, though I don't know how easy it is to use.

--Patrick

Apr 13, 2017#106

Gruebeard

Jax said:
If you want something simple and easy to use, but better looking, you might also consider PowerPoint. It's often associated with those boring and tacky looking presentations, but it's incredibly simple in creating and moving around text boxes and images, yet you can make some really cool stuff if you put a little effort into it.

Heh, if I knew of a way to export the the results to a printer friendly format I'd have suggested using the UI designer in Android Studio. Just using textviews and imageviews should get the job done well.

Apr 13, 2017#107

ncts_dodge_man

Does anyone do any online RPGing (roll20 or whatever)? My gaming group has pretty much stopped (we tried to get a game started in December but that pretty much ended up not going anywhere) and I don't really know any other people that game in the area. There are a couple of gaming stores that I've thought about going and visiting to see if there's something to join, but there's something to be said about sitting in a comfy chair for several hours to game (what I'm used to) vs sitting in a hard chair at a gaming store.

Apr 13, 2017#108

Jay

I don't but I've been looking it with interest.

I'd like to join a 5e game sometime in fall.

Apr 14, 2017#109

AshburnerX

I'd be up for some online dice rolling too. I know there are SEVERAL programs to do it with, all of them with their own advantages, but generally the best of them cost actual money (or worse, a sub fee) and it's hard to get people to buy into them. But I can't exactly blame them ether when guys like Fantasy Grounds want upwards of 3-400 dollars for ALL of the 5E stuff in their program.

It's generally cheaper to just buy digital books from RPGNow or like sites, then use a free program and just do your best.

Apr 14, 2017#110

Denbrought

Ditto on being interested, though I usually prefer play-by-post to remote sessions (or a mixture, with combat handled using the latter), since it can fit into people's schedules much easier.

Apr 14, 2017#111

MindDetective

Denbrought said:
Ditto on being interested, though I usually prefer play-by-post to remote sessions (or a mixture, with combat handled using the latter), since it can fit into people's schedules much easier.

I'd be very down with this.

Apr 14, 2017#112

ncts_dodge_man

The one thing I do like about roll20.net is that you can play for free and have a centralized section for doing maps and dice rolls.

If someone would be willing to be the DM, I'd love to play 5E with people on weekends (maybe once a month or twice a month as weekly just isn't something I'd have much available time to be able to commit to).

Found a relatively nice 5E Excel generation sheet (but looks like it's Excel) at http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1234 and a nice JavaScript/PDF one at (looks lke actual sheets - and is pay what you want) https://www.dmsguild.com/product/193053 if anyone'd be interested in them.

Jul 5, 2017#113

Dei

If you play your D&D with maps instead of theater of the mind, and you don't have billions of dollars to spend on minis, I love these. You can print them on cardstock and make use of your random pennies.

Jul 5, 2017#114

Frank

We don't have pennies anymore in Canada. THANKS FOR NOTHING.

Jul 5, 2017#115

Gruebeard

Frank said:
We don't have pennies anymore in Canada. THANKS FOR NOTHING.

What? I've got a piggybank full of them. I'm hoarding them for when (if) they become a collector's item.

Jul 5, 2017#116

Denbrought

Frank said:
We don't have pennies anymore in Canada. THANKS FOR NOTHING.

Here's 10lbs of them for about 70 moose napkins.

Jul 5, 2017#117

Eriol

Dei said:
If you play your D&D with maps instead of theater of the mind, and you don't have billions of dollars to spend on minis, I love these. You can print them on cardstock and make use of your random pennies.

I saw that underneath the most recent OOTS comic. I was intrigued. @Dirona, do you already have access to this? You kickstarted his thing. Was this in the rewards?

And IMO this type of thing is even MORE useful in "theatre of the mind" because then you can visually represent monsters. Minis are often "imprecise" on the table, and thus work best to show the "general" relationship between where things are in a fight, and thus are great for theatre of the mind, and actually I'd say "less great" for super-precise map-lawyering.

Jul 5, 2017#118

Jay

We need to run a D&D game again.

Jul 5, 2017#119

Dei

I'd play, but not DM, because I already run a game for adults who are too busy, I don't need to have another story I can't advance and the party can barely remember.

Jul 19, 2017#120

Denbrought

Starting a new D&D 5e game tomorrow with a bunch of people me and my SO met while boardgaming. I'm playing a half-orc War Cleric (with the concept of all-out Survival as his deity and a blood-covered fist as his holy symbol). His lowest stat is a 14, so that'll be nice.

We're supposed to bring some kinda token to represent the character, so I spent this evening learning how to use Inkscape, and riffing off of Rich Burlew's tokens. It's not amazing, but considering none of it is traced (except for the cut-out+coin template), I'm pretty happy. Lineart only because my printer is B&W.

Jul 19, 2017#121

Gruebeard

A braid. Really? Your half-orc braids his hair? I'd think it ought to be a greasy, tangled mess clotted with dried beer and puke, stained with the spattered sinew and blood of fallen foes.

Jul 19, 2017#122

Denbrought

Gruebeard said:
A braid. Really? Your half-orc braids his hair? I'd think it ought to be a greasy, tangled mess clotted with dried beer and puke, stained with the spattered sinew and blood of fallen foes.

14 Charisma, and brought up by a human mother who saw any sign of orc-like behavior as a reminder of her rape.

Edit: He did end up raised by an orc from puberty onwards though (tl;dr; got lost in the Underdark), but old habits die hard, and was betrayed by said orc eventually--cementing the idea of his orcish side being more of a taint than anything else.

Jul 20, 2017#123

Gruebeard

Oh. You made up background for your half-orc war cleric.

Mine was just a collection of numbers.

Jul 20, 2017#124

Denbrought

Gruebeard said:
Oh. You made up background for your half-orc war cleric.

Mine was just a collection of numbers.

If it's not a one-shot or murder-hobo game, I usually prepare a birth-til-now report and character goals. Helps the DM by giving them ready-to-go adventure hooks and NPCs for when the party finishes/derails/pauses whatever story was planned.

This guy wants to 0. survive, 1. reunite with his mom, 2. gather enough strength/gold/allies to 3. raze the family estate and execute the family for exiling his mom after the orcs attacked.

Jul 20, 2017#125

Dave

Lowest stat is a 14?!? What kind of Monty Haul game is this? Good lord!

Jul 20, 2017#126

Denbrought

Dave said:
Lowest stat is a 14?!? What kind of Monty Haul game is this? Good lord!

4d6-drop-lowest ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ STR 15 (17 due to h-orc), DEX 14, CON 15 (16 due to h-orc), INT 14, WIS 16, CHA 14.

Monty Haul refers to loot, not stats, as far as I know.

Jul 20, 2017#127

Dave

Even using that metric your rolls are curiously high. Were I the GM I'd be suspicious.

http://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

Jul 20, 2017#128

Denbrought

Dave said:
Even using that metric your rolls are curiously high. Were I the GM I'd be suspicious.

http://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

I'm assuming you've never witnessed multiple 18's on 3d6-in-order generation? Dunno what to tell you, I rolled what I rolled, in person at the session 0. FWIW the dice came from a local store, and are the ones used to generate all (N)PCs for D&D games I GM. No noticeable high/low stat trends over the 8-ish years they've been in use.

Jul 20, 2017#129

Eriol

Dave said:
Even using that metric your rolls are curiously high. Were I the GM I'd be suspicious.

http://anydice.com/articles/4d6-drop-lowest/

I like that kind of statistical analysis on dice rolling.

In the game I'm running now, I did the normal 4d6 drop, but if something was WAY too low (somebody rolled up a 5 on a stat) I told them to just re-roll it. One person got insane stats (lowest was 12 or something, and a lot of 15+ after race added), and another got middling, but they're going with it.

@Denbrought I can't imagine playing with in-order generation. /shudder

Jul 20, 2017#130

Dave

I have seen multiple 18's rolled. By repeatedly hitting F5 or reroll until I got that. Just saying you should play the lottery.

Jul 20, 2017#131

Dei

I had a friend in college (back during 2e) roll such ridiculous stats that he just made a paladin.

Jul 20, 2017#132

Denbrought

Dave said:
I have seen multiple 18's rolled. By repeatedly hitting F5 or reroll until I got that. Just saying you should play the lottery.

Hah, I have fond memories of spending an hour generating my Baldurs Gate characters like that. I've never won anything on the lottery (that's @Tinwhistler 's job).

Eriol said:
@Denbrought I can't imagine playing with in-order generation. /shudder

You should look up DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics), the entire system is balanced around it. You make PCs by generating 2-6 3d6-i-o 1d4HP level 0 peasants, throwing them at a deadly situation, and graduating the survivors to level 1

Overall, 3d6 in order is great when you don't come in with a character set in stone, and when the campaign's theme/tone is not heroics.[DOUBLEPOST=1500564793,1500564686][/DOUBLEPOST]

Dei said:
I had a friend in college (back during 2e) roll such ridiculous stats that he just made a paladin.

I was able to roll a Paladin one time in 2e, juuust squeaked by the minimums. That was a fun game, until the DM decided to Ravenloft us... So much level drain...

Jul 20, 2017#133

Jay

I need to get into 5th Edition now that Leyla is manageable. I'll look for a game to join come September.

Jul 21, 2017#134

Eriol

I rolled an NPC last night with the standard "4d6 drop lowest". Their stat rolls came out (raw, before race) as this: 17, 14, 14, 14, 13, 12

Strictly speaking, this NPC wasn't supposed to be an adversary. Should they be now? :awesome:

Jul 21, 2017#135

ncts_dodge_man

Kinda almost have to with those kind of stats...

Jul 21, 2017#136

Dave

I have to apologize to @Denbrought. I set up an Excel sheet that rolled 4d6 and removed the lowest just to check. I had 9 sets of stats showing and it only took me 5 refreshes to get a stat block that the lowest was a 13. And then two refreshes later it happened again. Now, I never once saw one that had a lowest stat of 14, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to have 1 die land differently to make that difference.

I apologize for besmirching your good name.[DOUBLEPOST=1500651053,1500650692][/DOUBLEPOST]Spoke too soon.

Jul 21, 2017#137

Denbrought

Understandable. I'd be suspicious if a player brought that from home. Hence why I like doing randomized char gen in person. My favorite system (Unisystem) is point-based, though, which gets around those issues.

First session went well, DM is a novice (as is half the party) but he's keeping up really well.

Aug 28, 2017#138

Frank

So I downloaded the PDF for Starfinder (have the book pre-ordered from Amazon, but won't see it for a couple of weeks). What a monster.

I'm 9000% a sci-fi guy and I really Paizo's work but man, this stuff is like MAJORLY complex, especially after getting used to 5e. The rules are THICC. The corebook weighs in at 500+ pages. As much as I'd like to play this, I REALLY don't want to GM it and I doubt I'll be able to find someone to take up the monumental task of learning all the ins and outs of vehicle combat, space combat, vast, vast class options and such. I still really want to play it though.

Each player has stamina points that you exhaust before getting to your hit points. You have an energy AC and a kinetic AC. There are tier after tier of weapons, armor, power armor and all the weapon classes and armor types have levels in addition to everything else on top of a massive, massive modding list for them. There's a huge cybernetics ruleset, huge starship ruleset, small vehicle ruleset, combat, skills etc. It's all based on Pathfinder's 3.75 approach. The setting is the future of the Pathfinder Golarion setting, so it's got magic to boot on top of everything else.

Shit is dense.

Aug 28, 2017#139

Bubble181

Obvious Reply is Obvious, but GM'ing a completely new; complex system really is easiest if you can take it one step at a time. A short campaign of 4 sessions with an end goal of "get off the planet" so you can avoid all starship/vehicle combat, a strict no-magic-this-time house rule to limt another whole system, perhaps a plain pre-made mini campaign,...
Start small and work up to the whole world and system, or you'll just get hopelessly lost.

Aug 28, 2017#140

Frank

Caveat, I also don't want to GM at all. I'm tired of it. I just want to play. Shitty part is is usually I'm the only one who can buck up the effort to do it.

Aug 30, 2017#141

Officer_Charon

Seems almost RIFTS-like, with that double-stack of AC to keep track of..

Sep 4, 2017#142

Null

I wish I could get past my own bad ideas.

Like, I had an idea for a flavor book for RPGs on how different races and cultures would craft swords and armor, based off real-world techniques. For example, the swordsmiths of Toledo, Spain, were some of the finest in the world of their age. Part of what made their blades so good was how they improved their steel. They'd make standard bloom steel, then bury the ingots for two or three years. The corrosion would eat away the impurities of the steel, leaving a much stronger ingot of steel behind, which was then dug up and used to make blades. Now, to me, that's perfect for Elves, since time isn't as much as a factor to them.

That kind of thing. I mean, I know there's no market to it, and cultures aren't the same for each game world, but... eh, it's an idea that won't leave me alone.

Sep 7, 2017#143

Frank

So finally got the Starfinder book and man am I in. It's so goofy, yet totally rad. So, in the solar system Pathfinder takes place in there's a planet of undead. In Starfinder, some unknown number of years in the future, those undead are just as much a starfaring species as any of the rest of the pact worlds of the Golarian system.

They have such vessels as the Thaumtech Omenbringer battleship:

This is so silly it's amazing. I fucking love it.

Other undead vessels.

Just wonderful. You have me again Paizo. I already pre-ordered every book upcoming in this setting.

Sep 8, 2017#144

Bubble181

Just like with the Borg, I don't understand why they'd pressurize/life support anything on their ship. They don't need it. Unpressurized ships open to the air are cheaper, easier to launch, less likely to have catastrophic breaches, much harder to board/capture for the enemy,...
I mean, an undead troop transport? That could pretty much just be an engine with a couple of long poles attached to it. Everybody hold on tight for the next 6 months!
I do like the design and aesthetic, though.

Sep 8, 2017#145

Eriol

Bubble181 said:
Just like with the Borg, I don't understand why they'd pressurize/life support anything on their ship. They don't need it. Unpressurized ships open to the air are cheaper, easier to launch, less likely to have catastrophic breaches, much harder to board/capture for the enemy,...
I mean, an undead troop transport? That could pretty much just be an engine with a couple of long poles attached to it. Everybody hold on tight for the next 6 months!
I do like the design and aesthetic, though.

The Borg question I can "answer" somewhat: your troops need to be hardier to "live" in vacuum than if you only make them resilient when needed.

Setting aside First Contact's "outside" scene the way it was shown (which wouldn't work for numerous reasons unless the borg troops were running with shields on for pressure 100% of the time) their ships are pressurized because the biological bodies they have wouldn't survive in vacuum very well. And "hardening" all of their troops in such a way that they would (running forcefields all the time for instance) would be too power-intensive. So the least "cost" is to pressurize your ships where your crew is, and only use your "forcefield EVA" ability when strictly needed.

A worse problem for the Borg's depiction: why do they have buttons and consoles on their ships? Like ever? They can interface to their ships without such, so why don't they? They did this OK (mostly) at the beginning of Trek, but even in The Best of Both Worlds, they had Locutus looking at a "display" rather than just "in his head." Most of the rest of it is good, but that scene "broke the wall" so to speak, and by Voyager they're pushing buttons and shit on the ships. Which they shouldn't have to do at all.

BSG did this somewhat better (it was all across the map, so I'm not going to say it was ALWAYS better, just in this specific case) as the Cylons don't have always-on-wifi (the Borg do), and thus they need physical contact, but even then they put their hands in the "goo" and then communicate like machines with their ships.

Sep 8, 2017#146

Frank

Bubble181 said:
Just like with the Borg, I don't understand why they'd pressurize/life support anything on their ship. They don't need it. Unpressurized ships open to the air are cheaper, easier to launch, less likely to have catastrophic breaches, much harder to board/capture for the enemy,...
I mean, an undead troop transport? That could pretty much just be an engine with a couple of long poles attached to it. Everybody hold on tight for the next 6 months!
I do like the design and aesthetic, though.

I mean, the undead of Eox are sentient, so just hanging them off the bottom of a ship for months on end is probably shitty.

The pressurized parts of the ship are likely for the benefit of their pact world allies. Eoxians are allied with the humans, dwarves, elves, etc of the Golarian system and it's allies.

Sep 8, 2017#147

Bubble181

Frank said:
I mean, the undead of Eox are sentient, so just hanging them off the bottom of a ship for months on end is probably shitty.

The pressurized parts of the ship are likely for the benefit of their pact world allies. Eoxians are allied with the humans, dwarves, elves, etc of the Golarian system and it's allies.

Well, that makes sense; I'm not used to undead with living allies.

Sep 8, 2017#148

Gruebeard

Bubble181 said:
Well, that makes sense; I'm not used to undead with living allies.

There's a whole 'nother question, too - does an undead's body function in extreme cold?

Sep 8, 2017#149

Gruebeard

Frank said:
. . . Starfinder . . .

So, I was just browsing through the SRD, and I see that androids gain a +2 bonus on saves vs disease.

Like, weird.

Sep 8, 2017#150

Null

Gruebeard said:
So, I was just browsing through the SRD, and I see that androids gain a +2 bonus on saves vs disease.

Like, weird.

You've never heard of a computer virus?

Sep 9, 2017#151

Gruebeard

Null said:
You've never heard of a computer virus?

Aye, but it looks like they're talking about biological diseases, because it says the bonus doesn't apply if it's meant to affect constructs.

This is the wording:

"They receive a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against disease, mind-affecting effects, poison, and sleep, unless those effects specifically target constructs."

These androids are more like cyborgs.

Sep 9, 2017#152

Frank

They're artificial constructs, but you don't know how advanced they are. They have biological as well as mechanical parts but they're completely artificial.

Sep 9, 2017#153

Null

Organic computers. Wetware. Totally artificial, but living tissue - probably vat-grown.

Oct 22, 2017#154

ncts_dodge_man

Got to play my first game of D&D 5E on Roll20.net last night, using Discord for voice chat and roll20 for the dice rolls and such. I just answered a LFG posting and was chosen to be able to join.

I decided I wanted to try something completely different - since picking up doing RPGs in 2001, in D&D I'd normally play fighters or barbarians, but had dabbled some as a ranger and a cleric, while in other systems I'd play various other stuff. So, for this game, I'm playing a Tabaxi (from Volo's Guide - basically a humanoid leopard) Warlock with the ArchFey as my patron, which we started off at second level. I messed up my first round of combat as I didn't correctly read the casting time for my two main combat spells - Hex (bonus action, but accidentally read as action) and Eldtritch blast (action).

The first session was a lot of fun - we had a very good DM and the rest of the group was great to play with once we got warmed up to each other, which is great since none of us knew each other (all of us are in different parts of the US). We did got enough XP rewarded at the end of the session to level to 3rd - looking forward to being able to use the Book of Shadows (Pact of the Tome) with being able to choose any three cantrips from any spell listing.

Roll20's interface started off as a little clunky when you're used to playing with paper and dice, but after playing that first session, it got better as time went along - I adjusted some of the spells that do things in different ways into their own parts (ex: Hex - I have one for casting it and one for dealing the damage). I did like using Discord for the voice and text chat (we used the message option for DM to player confidential information). The two together worked out quite well - I'd recommend it as a player.

Oct 25, 2017#155

Bubble181

Ah, the Warlock. My character of choice...Though I haven't played in far too long.

Have fun! Don't forget to horribly overpower your Eldritch Blast!

Nov 2, 2017#156

ncts_dodge_man

Not sure how many people watch Critical Role, but here's a tribute (spoilers if you haven't watched the last of the 115 episodes):

I can't wait until they start again in January.

Nov 2, 2017#157

Dei

ncts_dodge_man said:
Not sure how many people watch Critical Role, but here's a tribute (spoilers if you haven't watched the last of the 115 episodes):

I can't wait until they start again in January.

The one shots they have been doing while Matt and Marisha were on their honeymoon are amazing. Travis is up tonight.

Nov 2, 2017#158

ncts_dodge_man

Dei said:
The one shots they have been doing while Matt and Marisha were on their honeymoon are amazing. Travis is up tonight.

I'm not denying that the one-shots aren't amazing, I just really like the longer story arcs that Matt had - the Chroma Conclave, the guest characters, the intertwining of the player's backstories into the overall story, and taking on

Vecna

made me want to keep watching to see what happened next - it's basically watching an improv TV action/drama show.

Nov 22, 2017#159

Frank

Just got Xanathar's Guide to Everything and it's a fucking fantastic expansion source book for 5th edition. It expands options, like good sourcebooks do, but it also clarifies and expands on the basic stuff from the DMG, acting as almost a printed FAQ from Wizards of the Coast's point of view. I've only just started skimming through it, but I'm impressed so far. It's not quite as rad as Volo's Guide to Monsters, which was so coloured with flavour from Volo and Elminster and made even the most boring of monsters from the Monster Manual (giants) rad.

I was a bit bummed I didn't get the cool looking limited cover I saw in the game store here, but paying half price on Amazon was hard to beat.

Nov 22, 2017#160

Eriol

Frank said:
Just got Xanathar's Guide to Everything and it's a fucking fantastic expansion source book for 5th edition. It expands options, like good sourcebooks do, but it also clarifies and expands on the basic stuff from the DMG, acting as almost a printed FAQ from Wizards of the Coast's point of view. I've only just started skimming through it, but I'm impressed so far. It's not quite as rad as Volo's Guide to Monsters, which was so coloured with flavour from Volo and Elminster and made even the most boring of monsters from the Monster Manual (giants) rad.

I was a bit bummed I didn't get the cool looking limited cover I saw in the game store here, but paying half price on Amazon was hard to beat.

I'm glad you're liking it, but just don't let the horrific new spell identify rules creep into your game. Confirmed via Twitter too. Basically, requiring an Action (yes your full action) or reaction to identify means it's functionally impossible to do it with the character actually counterspelling, as they don't get back their "action budget" until it's their turn, so how often do they go through their turn in combat and not use EITHER of their action AND their reaction? That's almost never. It gets into things like one player identifying and another counterspelling, but think of the "timing" of that in RP terms. It just breaks flow badly too. Also lots of crap (very well identified in that linked thread) about how you must cast every spell in secret (DM and player) to prevent abuse of this mechanism as well.

Most of the bad (sans slowdown) would have been gone if they'd just said identifying it was a roll, but a free action. That wouldn't stop some of the bullshit, but it would at least not gimp counterspelling in general.

TL;DR; This rule won't be at my table @Dirona, @HCGLNS, or @Squidleybits. DM Fiat.

Nov 22, 2017#161

HCGLNS

Cornpop counterspells = stab

Silver counterspells = stab

Torrin counterspells = bite

Sildar counterspells = ROUNDHOUSE!!!

Nov 22, 2017#162

Eriol

HCGLNS said:
Cornpop counterspells = stab

Silver counterspells = stab

Torrin counterspells = bite

Sildar counterspells = ROUNDHOUSE!!!

True enough, it's not exactly a big issue in our campaign until Silver gets 3rd-level spells (Druids (and thus Torin) don't get counterspell, unless it's a Circle spell, which seems doubtful), which would be in quite a while, so it isn't something to worry about anyways. But if an NPC gets it, I'm also not going to be an asshole with these rules either.

Nov 22, 2017#163

Dei

A lot of the new racial feats are flat out copies of the innate racials from 4e but *shrug*

Nov 22, 2017#164

Dave

So my group met last Sunday. I had a HUGE overland campaign written out. They are tasked to travel South to a city that lies about 3300 miles away. Instead, they traveled North and found a ship that was willing to take them around the continent. It shaved about 50 days off of their trip and caused me to reevaluate what the "set" encounters were going to be. A young Mist Dragon clawed its way up the side of the ship and my son cast a pain spell on it as soon as its head popped over the side. In my game you start casting on your initiative phase and each level of the spell takes 2 phases. So he started on an 18 (on a d20) and cast the spell at 3rd level, which means the spell fired of at phase 12. The dragons's init was an 11. All rolls are done in plain view, including saves, and the dragon failed. It let go of the ship and splashed back down into the water, unable to do anything for 3 rounds. By that time they'd cast Gust of Wind and the ship had taken off like a bat out of hell.

Man I've missed gaming...

Nov 22, 2017#165

Denbrought

I forgot how annoying drunk/stoned players are. Was persuaded to pause my (decade-old) table sobriety rule for a one-shot DCC game, and Jesus Christ... They pretty much forced themselves into a TPK. Rule is back in effect.

Nov 22, 2017#166

Eriol

Denbrought said:
I forgot how annoying drunk/stoned players are. Was persuaded to pause my (decade-old) table sobriety rule a pause for a one-shot DCC game, and Jesus Christ... They pretty much forced themselves into a TPK. Rule is back in effect.

This kind of thing may get "interesting" when pot is legalized in Canada next year...

Nov 22, 2017#167

Denbrought

Eriol said:
This kind of thing may get "interesting" when pot is legalized in Canada next year...

I wouldn't recommend it. Outside medical users (who seem to be vigilant/mindful about undesirable effects), I've only seen it greatly diminish people's capacity to pay attention to the game outside of rolling dice and reacting to direct prompts. My experience is with about a dozen players on pot, and about twice as many on (noticeable quantities of) alcohol.

Nov 22, 2017#168

Eriol

Denbrought said:
I wouldn't recommend it. Outside medical users (who seem to be vigilant/mindful about undesirable effects), I've only seen it greatly diminish people's capacity to pay attention to the game outside of rolling dice and reacting to direct prompts. My experience is with about a dozen players on pot, and about twice as many on (noticeable quantities of) alcohol.

I was (mostly) kidding. Our games take long enough as it is, so having anybody (let alone multiple people, or the GM) stoned seems counterproductive.

Nov 22, 2017#169

Frank

Denbrought said:
I forgot how annoying drunk/stoned players are. Was persuaded to pause my (decade-old) table sobriety rule for a one-shot DCC game, and Jesus Christ... They pretty much forced themselves into a TPK. Rule is back in effect.

Fucking this.

Nov 22, 2017#170

Frank

Eriol said:
I'm glad you're liking it, but just don't let the horrific new spell identify rules creep into your game. Confirmed via Twitter too. Basically, requiring an Action (yes your full action) or reaction to identify means it's functionally impossible to do it with the character actually counterspelling, as they don't get back their "action budget" until it's their turn, so how often do they go through their turn in combat and not use EITHER of their action AND their reaction? That's almost never. It gets into things like one player identifying and another counterspelling, but think of the "timing" of that in RP terms. It just breaks flow badly too. Also lots of crap (very well identified in that linked thread) about how you must cast every spell in secret (DM and player) to prevent abuse of this mechanism as well.

Most of the bad (sans slowdown) would have been gone if they'd just said identifying it was a roll, but a free action. That wouldn't stop some of the bullshit, but it would at least not gimp counterspelling in general.

TL;DR; This rule won't be at my table @Dirona, @HCGLNS, or @Squidleybits. DM Fiat.

I can see where he's coming from. Though, I doubt it's that big of a deal. I've literally spent 60+ levels playing a wizard in D&D (my favorite class) and I think I've counterspelled maybe twice in all those years.

Luckily, being D&D, you can just ignore it.

So, I've skimmed more of the book and I gotta say, I think wasting nearly 20 pages on random name tables was a HUUUUUUUUUGE waste of space. Were they really that hurting for content? They only put out like one or two sourcebooks a year now.

Nov 22, 2017#171

AshburnerX

Frank said:
So, I've skimmed more of the book and I gotta say, I think wasting nearly 20 pages on random name tables was a HUUUUUUUUUGE waste of space. Were they really that hurting for content? They only put out like one or two sourcebooks a year now.

And this sourcebook was just the "finalized" version of most of their Unearthed Arcana anyway. There is nothing "new" in this book, it's all stuff from the website with maybe a few alterations.

Nov 22, 2017#172

Squidleybits

Eriol said:
I was (mostly) kidding. Our games take long enough as it is, so having anybody (let alone multiple people, or the GM) stoned seems counterproductive.

I would be hilarious for me to watch though!!!

Nov 23, 2017#173

Eriol

Squidleybits said:
I would be hilarious for me to watch though!!!

Might be interesting as a penalty for your character/self.

"Your character gets hit by a mind-altering spell. They're sluggish and confused. Now IRL, take 4 drags on this joint. I'm not letting you metagame out of this one!"

Seems like it could be very interesting. Bad too, but potentially interesting.

Dec 11, 2017#174

GasBandit

Dunno if anybody posted this already in the last 5 pages, but it seems handy for this sort of thing: http://donjon.bin.sh/

It generates worlds, inns, dungeons, etc.

Dec 15, 2017#175

Dei

We just successfully had D&D 2 weeks in a row! It's a Christmas miracle!

Dec 16, 2017#176

Dirona

I'm looking for a RPG setting, and I don't know what rule-base it might be in.
Not sword and board, magic and fantasy, a bit more real-world-ish. But peeps can still have odd/special abilities. Preferably human-only or limited other "races," and something that lends itself more to narrative/puzzle-solving than combat.

I feel like I'm looking for GUPRS? But that seems overly complicated for a one-off, suggestions?

Dec 16, 2017#177

PatrThom

Gamma World? Paranoia?
Nah, too post-apocalyptic.

--Patrick

Dec 16, 2017#178

Dei

FATE is a good system for that, and I think you can get the core rules free online?

Dec 16, 2017#179

Dirona

Dei said:
FATE is a good system for that, and I think you can get the core rules free online?

I like free! To the Google!

EDIT to add:
Fate Accelerated looks pretty much perfect for what I was looking for. Or at the very least, can be made to fit very very easily. Sweet!

Dec 16, 2017#180

GasBandit

I love GURPS.

Dec 16, 2017#181

Dei

Dirona said:
I like free! To the Google!

EDIT to add:
Fate Accelerated looks pretty much perfect for what I was looking for. Or at the very least, can be made to fit very very easily. Sweet!

Dec 22, 2017#182

Null

So I'm banned from commenting on Palladium's FB page. Apparently my posts about having 5 of the 7 books they promised as Summer 2017 in their mid-July update now slated for sometime in 2018, and how that means they need better management and to stop posting unrealistic release dates that they have zero chance of meeting, were not appreciated.

Yes, I was trolling them, and they're not wrong, but they do need to get their shit together.

Dec 28, 2017#183

Dirona

Question for those with more tabletop experience than me: Have you played anything based on Savage Worlds? How do you like it? (I just came across it, and it looks interesting.) Any suggestions for learning more about the system?

Dec 28, 2017#184

AshburnerX

Dirona said:
Question for those with more tabletop experience than me: Have you played anything based on Savage Worlds? How do you like it? (I just came across it, and it looks interesting.) Any suggestions for learning more about the system?

I know Deadlands and it's spin-offs play really well under Savage Worlds, but they were also made by the people who made Savage Worlds so they were uniquely suited to it and the system itself actually draws a lot of inspiration from Deadlands Classic (Bennies are basically Fate Chips for example).

If it helps, the base rules are free. If you end up liking them, the core rulebook is currently 9.99 as digital.

Dec 28, 2017#185

Denbrought

Dirona said:
Question for those with more tabletop experience than me: Have you played anything based on Savage Worlds? How do you like it? (I just came across it, and it looks interesting.) Any suggestions for learning more about the system?

I like Savage Worlds, though I prefer to run/play Deadlands with the older rules. It feels like a more on-rails version of Unisystem, with extra crunch in the combat section (I'd shy away from it if you prefer theatre-of-the-mind combat as opposed to minis). Great (like Unisystem) for plugging in your own campaign worlds, particularly if you can find the sourcebooks covering the type of game or time period you're shooting for.

Dec 28, 2017#186

AshburnerX

Denbrought said:
I like Savage Worlds, though I prefer to run/play Deadlands with the older rules. It feels like a more on-rails version of Unisystem, with extra crunch in the combat section (I'd shy away from it if you prefer theatre-of-the-mind combat as opposed to minis). Great (like Unisystem) for plugging in your own campaign worlds, particularly if you can find the sourcebooks covering the type of game or time period you're shooting for.

I too appreciate Deadlands Classic for what it is, even if combat can take forever sometimes. However, Deadlands: Noir is Savage Worlds based and doesn't have Classic rules, I believe, so I'm sort of forced into it.

Dec 28, 2017#187

Denbrought

AshburnerX said:
I too appreciate Deadlands Classic for what it is, even if combat can take forever sometimes. However, Deadlands: Noir is Savage Worlds based and doesn't have Classic rules, I believe, so I'm sort of forced into it.

Yeah, Classic is like flavortown compared to SW. Sort of a product of its time. Never played Noir, but I'd be tempted to ruin it by half-assing a conversion to Classic

Dec 28, 2017#188

AshburnerX

Denbrought said:
Yeah, Classic is like flavortown compared to SW. Sort of a product of its time. Never played Noir, but I'd be tempted to ruin it by half-assing a conversion to Classic

It's neat. It's Deadlands, but during the Great Depression. Lots of big changes to the setting because of it.

Jan 17, 2018#189

Frank

So, on Saturday, I begin running a new campaign in D&D with some old buddies. I know they won't get to it in the first session, but I intend to have them meet an eccentric lich pretty early on who's going to take an interest in them. I'm having a lot of fun goofily practicing his mannerisms and speech patterns. I'm trying to not to use the expletive Christ, but rather some old Faerun god but that's hard. It's the only good thing Far Cry 4 did for me, the lich is very inspired by Pagan Min. Undoubtedly evil, very evil, chaotic evil even but charming and tricksterish. He's very old and very bored.

The initial quest involves a play on the headless horseman, involving a nightmare and animated armor.

Here's their patron, that I doodled up instead of doing paperwork the other day.

Jan 21, 2018#190

Frank

Had a hell of a time getting them to roleplay and had to just take over moving the story along as they would let everything come to a standstill too often, but I'll pry some characterization out of their cold dead hands.

Jan 21, 2018#191

Frank

I wish there was more quality printed 5E material.

I own the Tome of Beasts and it's great, but there's not a whole ton of good, PRINTED, non-WotC material.

Jan 21, 2018#192

Dei

Frank said:
I wish there was more quality printed 5E material.

I own the Tome of Beasts and it's great, but there's not a whole ton of good, PRINTED, non-WotC material.

http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0[DOUBLEPOST=1516523946,1516523879][/DOUBLEPOST]Though, I guess you mean that you can buy in a physical only format, then sure. But I feel like there's more than you think.

Jan 21, 2018#193

Frank

Dei said:
http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_0_0_0_45462_0_0[DOUBLEPOST=1516523946,1516523879][/DOUBLEPOST]Though, I guess you mean that you can buy in a physical only format, then sure. But I feel like there's more than you think.

Lots of PDFs sure, I just love packing my dumb game bookshelf with books. I like printed stuff. It's my dinosaur showing.

Jan 21, 2018#194

Soupy

I got approved to run D&D as an elective for my school for 3 weeks. While other kids are out skiing, skating, bowling, etc... I'll have a group of 5 interested kids for 3 hour blocks each Thursday of those 3 weeks. Putting my extreme n00bie dm skills to the test! I run a regular D&D club in the school however we only get 40 min breaks to play which makes everything kinda rushed for a real experience. I'm super pumped!

Jan 23, 2018#195

Dei

Frank said:
I wish there was more quality printed 5E material.

I own the Tome of Beasts and it's great, but there's not a whole ton of good, PRINTED, non-WotC material.

Jan 23, 2018#196

Frank

So dorky and lame.

Backed.

A lot of people who I like are involved.

Feb 10, 2018#197

Frank

I just spent the last 6 hours writing stuff for tomorrow. DM's work is never done. I think I'm just gonna adapt other people's dungeons and stuff from here on out. I just don't have the time to build one myself. Even with Donjon and Kobold Fight Club making the rolling random stuff MUCH easier.

Feb 10, 2018#198

Dirona

Never heard of KFC before - bookmarked!

Feb 11, 2018#199

Frank

My traps were perfect. They ran into one. Searched dilligently multiple times where there were no traps. Eventually forgot. Ran into another.

So you walk up to the sarcophagus?

Yeah.

Right up to it?

Uh yeah, I wanna see what's inside.

Make a dex save.

Jun 21, 2018#200

Dei

Stonehaven Miniatures has a Kickstarter ending soon, I love all of their minis and they have always been great on Kickstarter.

Jul 20, 2018#201

ncts_dodge_man

Back to Critical Role, it looks like the team is really coming together now, though, like I've seen on the CR Reddit, it's too bad that it took

the capture of Fjord, Jester, and Yasha plus the death of Mollymauk

to cause it.

Jul 20, 2018#202

Eriol

ncts_dodge_man said:
Back to Critical Role, it looks like the team is really coming together now, though, like I've seen on the CR Reddit, it's too bad that it took

the capture of Fjord, Jester, and Yasha plus the death of Mollymauk

to cause it.

Considering past history...

"Death is but a door. Time is but a window. I'll be back."

...is always possible, especially with that character.

Jul 21, 2018#203

Dei

Today I stopped by the FLGS near the gym my daughter was going to, and asked for a source book by it's correct name and pronunciation, and the cashier was falling all over himself to tell me that they have Adventurer's League every Wed and that the first time you go is free. Which is great, but it reeked of desperation. Whether because they really need more people to show up or because I'm a woman, I do not know.

Jul 21, 2018#204

Cheesy1

Got to finally play a session of D&D for the first time in decades. My brother, his wife, a friend of mine, random interested newbie, and I played a short adventure run by a local game shop. These are the characters my brother and I were playing: twin Halfling brothers Nod (my brother) the rogue and Lad (me) the bard:

Jul 23, 2018#205

Eriol

I DM'd my first Adventure's League game last week. Was kinda sweet. I'd DM'd home stuff before, but this was the first AL I'd done as a DM. Was filling in, since our regular DM got a new job, and it is playing hell for when he can be there at.

Still, got some sweet DM rewards too, which let me take a few characters out of the doldrums of 1st level, which in itself was very nice and worth it.

Aug 4, 2018#206

ncts_dodge_man

Back to Critical Role again,

They killed Lorenzo, avenging Molly!!!

Aug 22, 2018#207

Dei

Aug 27, 2018#208

Gruebeard

I'm gonna wind up using today's XKCD as a dungeon map, where each room's icon describes a trap, such as the old greased floor in the North:

Oct 16, 2018#209

Frank

College Humor jumping onto the liveplay D&D train. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a seemingly pretty rad DM on top of being their best new cast member in years.

The miniatures and extra added art and such are great. The party's miniatures in particular are straight wonderful.

Oct 17, 2018#210

Dirona

Fighting a young white dragon tonight, everyone had unleashed on it (we're level 3ish), the monk "I'm going to whack it with my stick!" DM: "you're going to bibbity bobbity bop it with a stick?!" Monk: "maybe not"

Oct 18, 2018#211

Gruebeard

Dirona said:
Fighting a young white dragon tonight, everyone had unleashed on it (we're level 3ish), the monk "I'm going to whack it with my stick!" DM: "you're going to bibbity bobbity bop it with a stick?!" Monk: "maybe not"

I can't tell if your DM is Higgins or Higgins impersonating Bill Cosby.

Oct 18, 2018#212

Dirona

Gruebeard said:
I can't tell if your DM is Higgins or Higgins impersonating Bill Cosby.

Surprisingly, not Higgins in this case. This was at a different game that @Eriol DMs 1/2 the time and another guy DMs the other 1/2. It's... interesting.

We may have committed an act of genocide last night against a bunch of helpless goblin commoners. It was near the end of the session, and I'm a little fuzzy on exactly what went down.

Oct 18, 2018#213

GasBandit

Dirona said:
We may have committed an act of genocide last night against [...] goblin(s)

Oct 20, 2018#214

PatrThom

This is a real thing you can buy (once they are back in stock).

--Patrick

Oct 24, 2018#215

Frank

If all you kids haven't picked up a copy of Art and Arcana, you're doing yourself a disservice. Might be the prettiest, most interesting D&D related book ever printed. It's a God damn masterpiece.

Oct 24, 2018#216

Gruebeard

That seems like the sort of thing someone will give me at ~~Christmas~~ Holidays so I'm gonna hold off.

Oct 24, 2018#217

Dirona

Again with the goblin commoner genocide! This group is brutal. One of the players has a hated race feature of "goblin" and they are super committed to that rp-ing feature.

Oct 24, 2018#218

GasBandit

Dirona said:
Again with the goblin commoner genocide! This group is brutal. One of the players has a hated race feature of "goblin" and they are super committed to that rp-ing feature.

Oct 26, 2018#219

Frank

Dei said:

Again, thanks for hipping me onto this Dei. It just came in the mail today. I was like, "What the fuck is this? Another book I don't remember ordering."

It's a phenomenally gorgeous book. It's been an awesome week for me when it comes to D&D books.

Oct 26, 2018#220

Denbrought

Really looking forward to this expansion. The middle tiers have some good stuff for people that don't already own the DCC rulebook.

Oct 26, 2018#221

Dei

Frank said:
Again, thanks for hipping me onto this Dei. It just came in the mail today. I was like, "What the fuck is this? Another book I don't remember ordering."

View attachment 27852

It's a phenomenally gorgeous book. It's been an awesome week for me when it comes to D&D books.

I got mine this week too.

Oct 26, 2018#222

Frank

Corgipede and Conglomodog are now my two favourite D&D monsters ever.

Oct 27, 2018#223

Cheesy1

Played an Adventure League session this afternoon for the first time. Our DM had us start our characters at Level 2. I ended up making a Firbolg Barbarian/Druid with a Native American flare to him, saying his clan had a symbiotic kinship with a human tribe of a similar nature. Had him be the sole survivor of an attack of unknown entities on the two peoples thanks to his human friend pushing him out of the way down an steep embankment, knocking him unconscious. Had a lot of fun, even had an old timer who seemed to suffer from Parkinson's join us, and he was rolling insane with his fighter!

Oct 29, 2018#224

Eriol

Cheesy1 said:
Played an Adventure League session this afternoon for the first time. Our DM had us start our characters at Level 2. I ended up making a Firbolg Barbarian/Druid with a Native American flare to him, saying his clan had a symbiotic kinship with a human tribe of a similar nature. Had him be the sole survivor of an attack of unknown entities on the two peoples thanks to his human friend pushing him out of the way down an steep embankment, knocking him unconscious. Had a lot of fun, even had an old timer who seemed to suffer from Parkinson's join us, and he was rolling insane with his fighter!

If they started you at level 2, they are "bending the rules" more than a bit on Adventurer's League rules. Some other DMs will ban your character from their table since they didn't start at 1. If you don't advertise it though, nobody will care. I'm just warning you that it could be a thing.

And I have no idea what would happen at "more organized" events, like Epics. Do they review everybody's sheets there?

I'm glad you had fun man, I'm just worried about your character's future, that's all. I want you to KEEP having fun. Many AL rules are (unfortunately) about not having fun.

Dec 15, 2018#225

Cheesy1

Just finished our first story arc today. Really enjoying my Firbolg Barbarian Druid, changing into a bear then raging into battle is nice. My brother has a Human Divine Sorcerer Paladin and his wife is a Tabaxi Arcane Trickster Rogue.

Dec 17, 2018#226

ncts_dodge_man

Ran a second session for a friend of mine (who hasn't played since 2E in the 80s), his sons (15 and 8), and my son (10) - playing through the "Lost Love" saga available on DMs guild. Currently playing through the second adventure ("The Parched Moss") so they were a group of 3x 2nd level human fighters (the kids), a 2nd level human cleric (my friend), and a npc 1st level human wizard (from the adventure). I haven't run anything in D&D since the 3.5 Ed days about 8 years ago, so I'm no expert at running, but I almost killed one of the kid's characters.

They came upon two worgs that were destroying an abandoned wagon. One of the kids moved their fighter up towards the two worgs but none of the rest of the group did. So, the two worgs attacked the fighter and one of them critted on the attack - took them from 24 HP to 3 in one attack. The other one legitimately missed, so they survived the encounter, but they did learn a lesson about how dangerous things can actually be - they'd been kinda breezing through the other stuff in the adventure. They took the next battle against a devil dog much more seriously and they seemed to feel a lot more rewarded when they finally took it down. Part of the breezing through is it's their first time playing D&D but I was also rolling pretty cruddy for their opponents until then.

Dec 17, 2018#227

GasBandit

ncts_dodge_man said:
One of the kids moved their fighter up towards the two worgs but none of the rest of the group did. So, the two worgs attacked the fighter and one of them critted on the attack - took them from 24 HP to 3 in one attack.

Whuf, sounds like it almost went full "goblin slayer episode 1."

Dec 22, 2018#228

Cheesy1

So today our group returned to the local major city after a grueling end to our last quest last weekend. While shopping at a local magic items shop, our Tabaxi rogue (my sister-in-law) decides to start stealing random items. She does so very successfully, and one of the items is a small deck of cards which she proceeds to draw the top three cards from while no one else notices: Throne, Flames, Moon.

She has just activated three cards from a Deck Of Many Things. All three cards disappear in different fashions. Immediately a courier appears to deliver a sealed letter to her. Our paladin (my brother), takes the letter and opens it for her. Because HE opened, HE is now a lord and has inherited a keep about a day's journey away. Suddenly after that, the rogue feels very great, almost as if she could do anything. And then that's when she, the paladin, and my character are hit with fireballs from two barbed demons stepping out of a nearby portal. They inform us that a certain devil sends his regards and begin to attack us.

One latches onto the rogue, and before we can kill him, he rips her apart. With her last dying breath, she wishes she wouldn't die. Suddenly the world resets to right before she died, but with all of our health restored. We are able to defeat the demons this time, and after our wizard interrogates the rogue for a while, he realizes what's going on. She has two wishes left from the "Moon" card, so she uses her second one to negate the threat of the devil and his minions on her permanently. She now has one wish left which she still has not used.

So yeah, was an eventful day today to say the least!

Mar 2, 2019#229

Denbrought

Friends group is looking at restarting our long-running AD&D 2e Greyhawk game (mentioned here) after a 3-year hiatus. This time it's not a half-hearted hurrah, the players (sans my ex-wife) are pretty stoked, and there's a new face (old mutual friend) that we'll be bringing in.

Anyhow, I wrote up a party roster to refresh everyone's memory a bit (I'll try and write a "the story up to now" too), and woof! We've had 7 players (3 active, 1 undecided, 3 retired) 11 player characters (3 active, 1 on leave, 5 retired, 2 dead), 2 henchies (both active), and 3 animal companions (all 3 on vacation so they don't get murder-fucked in the Bright Desert). There's so many good memories and stories in these character sheets. For reference, the longest-running character (new characters come in at "party's average experience") is just north of 200,000 XP.

Mar 17, 2019#230

Cheesy1

A breakdown of the characters I'm currently playing:

Stalking Bear:
Barbarian/Druid Firbolg. My main character in the first game we play on Saturdays.
Character Sheet: https://ddb.ac/characters/7541171/ah8gBj
Hero Forge Mini: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=3214434

Vanya Flynn:
Paladin/Rogue Half-Elf. My B-Team character in the first game.
Character Sheet: https://ddb.ac/characters/9704510/1o2RML
Hero Forge Mini: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=3952466

Rudigar Mughouse:
Monk/Bard Halfling. My character from the second game we play on Saturdays.
Character Sheet: https://ddb.ac/characters/7542373/tTvUd9
Hero Forge Mini: https://www.heroforge.com/load_config=3408759

May 19, 2019#231

Dave

Had our game today. We meet every other week for about 6 or 7 hours. On the first day they gave me character backgrounds and I've tied them in to the game at various times. There's one guy whose background was that he was from a noble family who had been assassinated by a Halfling assassin. He's been searching since then. He was getting information back that his father had survived the attack, but had yet to travel back home. Today they were going on a quest that was close to the place but not quite all the way there. The place they did travel through, though, was the mountain town Tyrus had stayed and trained before moving north. So he was coming home to a place where he was comfortable and well known. But since it had been years, he knew very few people. The place had grown and fortified. He finally found someone he recognized (I had him roll a percentile as to how close they were - 91) but that guy didn't recognize him and when they talked the guy had a different voice.

Then they caught someone spying on them and accidentally killed the person. They tried to grapple but instead ended up doing too much damage. The person changed upon death. Yup. Dopplegangers. (Changelings in this game.) Circumvented everything the player thought he knew and just threw everything into a blender. It was glorious. And yes, this has been planned for over a year and the realization dawning on his face was amazing. Was it a Halfling assassin? Is his father actually alive or a changeling? Who can he trust?

Beautiful. I got called names. As a GM there's no higher compliment.

May 19, 2019#232

Dei

Dave said:
We meet every other week for about 6 or 7 hours.

WTF is this sorcery and can you share?

May 19, 2019#233

HCGLNS

Dave said:
Had our game today. We meet every other week for about 6 or 7 hours. On the first day they gave me character backgrounds and I've tied them in to the game at various times. There's one guy whose background was that he was from a noble family who had been assassinated by a Halfling assassin. He's been searching since then. He was getting information back that his father had survived the attack, but had yet to travel back home. Today they were going on a quest that was close to the place but not quite all the way there. The place they did travel through, though, was the mountain town Tyrus had stayed and trained before moving north. So he was coming home to a place where he was comfortable and well known. But since it had been years, he knew very few people. The place had grown and fortified. He finally found someone he recognized (I had him roll a percentile as to how close they were - 91) but that guy didn't recognize him and when they talked the guy had a different voice.

Then they caught someone spying on them and accidentally killed the person. They tried to grapple but instead ended up doing too much damage. The person changed upon death. Yup. Dopplegangers. (Changelings in this game.) Circumvented everything the player thought he knew and just threw everything into a blender. It was glorious. And yes, this has been planned for over a year and the realization dawning on his face was amazing. Was it a Halfling assassin? Is his father actually alive or a changeling? Who can he trust?

Beautiful. I got called names. As a GM there's no higher compliment.

It was Simkin!

May 19, 2019#234

Frank

Dei said:
WTF is this sorcery and can you share?

Times a trillion.

Jun 2, 2019#235

Dei

My new prized possession

Jun 2, 2019#236

Frank

That's super kickass. Like, super duper kickass.

Jun 4, 2019#237

Frank

https://www.gameontabletop.com/cf194/kingmaker-10th-anniversary.html

This is cool, glad I was told about it before the end of the campaign. Definitely picking up the core hardcovers.

Oh cool, they're adding in the Bloom stuff from the video game into the main adventure. That's pretty BA.

Jun 4, 2019#238

PatrThom

Frank said:
That's pretty BA.

I know what you’re actually saying, but this sentence still puts a picture in my head of a scowling Mr. T, only with mascara, eye shadow, lipstick, etc.

—Patrick

Jun 18, 2019#239

Frank

I just got the Ack Ink source book. I can't believe Scott Kurtz was so up his own ass he didn't want to be a part of all this.

Jun 18, 2019#240

AshburnerX

Frank said:
I just got the Ack Ink source book. I can't believe Scott Kurtz was so up his own ass he didn't want to be a part of all this.

I can't find reference to this book. Is this the right title?

Jun 18, 2019#241

Cheesy1

AshburnerX said:
I can't find reference to this book. Is this the right title?

https://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/acqinc

Jun 18, 2019#242

AshburnerX

Oh ACQ Inc! Okay. Yeah... what's wrong with Scott? I mean, sure... he only has that gig because of the PA crew, but you'd think he'd be willing to do stuff for... money.

Jun 19, 2019#243

Frank

The book is really detailed on running your own franchise of Acq Inc, including details on the dumb jobs you have, funny backgrounds, really goofy spells (like Jim's Magic Missiles, that don't auto hit, hit for more damage but explode in your face if your roll a 1) etc.

And a sample adventure going through your initial trial job interview.

Jul 9, 2019#244

Dei

Since I am doomed to forever DM and never be a PC, MAYBE IT'S TIME I CASHED IN.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ssional-dungeons-dragons-master-hosting-games

Jul 9, 2019#245

AshburnerX

Dei said:
Since I am doomed to forever DM and never be a PC, MAYBE IT'S TIME I CASHED IN.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...ssional-dungeons-dragons-master-hosting-games

It's... not a terrible idea? Lots of people love of the game, but don't have the necessary skills to actually DM a game. People who can run GREAT campaigns are few and far between. People -will- support that shit, or we wouldn't have stuff like HyperRPG, Critical Role, and such. And I'm betting Matthew Mercer could charge thousands of dollars for a campaign and some folks WOULD pay it.

Jul 9, 2019#246

Dei

AshburnerX said:
It's... not a terrible idea? Lots of people love of the game, but don't have the necessary skills to actually DM a game. People who can run GREAT campaigns are few and far between. People -will- support that shit, or we wouldn't have stuff like HyperRPG, Critical Role, and such. And I'm betting Matthew Mercer could charge thousands of dollars for a campaign and some folks WOULD pay it.

I know PA has auctioned off a game DMed by Chris Perkins for Child's Play and it's sold for a ton.

That said, I think anyone has the skills to DM. It's more about courage to step up.

Aug 7, 2019#247

ncts_dodge_man

Oct 27, 2019#248

HCGLNS

Went old school, rolled 6 3d6 and got myself 13 11 10 10 10 4.

Making a heavy armour wearing wood elf cleric that kills everyone screaming GOD WILLS IT!

Oct 27, 2019#249

Ravenpoe

HCGLNS said:
Went old school, rolled 6 3d6 and got myself 13 11 10 10 10 4.

Making a heavy armour wearing wood elf cleric that kills everyone screaming GOD WILLS IT!

So as long as no one yells god wills it, they can live.

Dec 2, 2019#250

Dave

Not sure how interested anyone is in D&D 5e but for today only - until Dec 3 at 5 am EST - ALL books are $20.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace?utm_source=email&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=cyber-monday

Dec 2, 2019#251

MindDetective

Dave said:
Not sure how interested anyone is in D&D 5e but for today only - until Dec 3 at 5 am EST - ALL books are $20.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/marketplace?utm_source=email&utm_medium=promo&utm_campaign=cyber-monday

Note that these are ONLY the digital content on dndbeyond and not the physical books or even pdfs. I use dndbeyond exclusively so I bought one book today but I don't recommend it for anyone not planning to use dndbeyond for running or participating in campaigns.

Dec 2, 2019#252

PatrThom

So wait, is it EACH e-book is $20? Or is it a bundle of ALL of them together for $20?

--Patrick

Dec 2, 2019#253

AshburnerX

PatrThom said:
So wait, is it EACH e-book is $20? Or is it a bundle of ALL of them together for $20?

--Patrick

Each book. It's still a scam, but it's the best discount we've gotten in awhile.

Dec 2, 2019#254

MindDetective

They have bundle prices too.

Dec 2, 2019#255

Dave

MindDetective said:
Note that these are ONLY the digital content on dndbeyond and not the physical books or even pdfs. I use dndbeyond exclusively so I bought one book today but I don't recommend it for anyone not planning to use dndbeyond for running or participating in campaigns.

I did not see this. Damn. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

Dec 2, 2019#256

AshburnerX

To be fair, D&DBeyond isn't bad? Like, I use an account for making characters and they put Unearthed Arcana (beta stuff) up pretty quickly and you can set up a campaign that allows everyone in it to use access the books you've bought. If you're playing with people across the country/world, that's helpful. It's just lacking a good tabletop simulation program to make it great; MapTools and such are still better in that regard.

But you have to trust that D&DBeyond is going to be around for years to really get the most out of it.

Dec 2, 2019#257

Dei

D&D Beyond honestly enrages me because I have all the physical copies of the books yet am still expected to pay twice if I want to use an online character builder. I miss the free one from 4e. :/

Dec 2, 2019#258

AshburnerX

Dei said:
D&D Beyond honestly enrages me because I have all the physical copies of the books yet am still expected to pay twice if I want to use an online character builder. I miss the free one from 4e. :/

I agree this is a stupid problem, but it's sort of mandated by the actually book makers and sellers... they are afraid that if people can access all the information digitally in one place, people will stop using the books. This is part of the reason why the Beyond prices for books are outrageous; they can't directly compete against their own sellers without angering them.

This is bullshit reasoning though, because they are disregarding the people who live outside of places with good internet that NEED the books to play. They will always have a market.

Dec 2, 2019#259

MindDetective

Dei said:
D&D Beyond honestly enrages me because I have all the physical copies of the books yet am still expected to pay twice if I want to use an online character builder. I miss the free one from 4e. :/

Well, it isn't owned by WotC. It is an independent company that licenses the content. It was owned by Twitch at one point (and thus Amazon) but has been sold to another company (I don't recall who atm.) The point is, they don't have any way (or incentive) to give you access to their tools just for buying the books from somewhere else.

If all you need is a character generator, there are tons of free ones out there.

Dec 2, 2019#260

MindDetective

AshburnerX said:
I agree this is a stupid problem, but it's sort of mandated by the actually book makers and sellers... they are afraid that if people can access all the information digitally in one place, people will stop using the books. This is part of the reason why the Beyond prices for books are outrageous; they can't directly compete against their own sellers without angering them.

This is bullshit reasoning though, because they are disregarding the people who live outside of places with good internet that NEED the books to play. They will always have a market.

That's not all it is, though. As I described above.

Dec 2, 2019#261

Dei

MindDetective said:
Well, it isn't owned by WotC. It is an independent company that licenses the content. It was owned by Twitch at one point (and thus Amazon) but has been sold to another company (I don't recall who atm.) The point is, they don't have any way (or incentive) to give you access to their tools just for buying the books from somewhere else.

If all you need is a character generator, there are tons of free ones out there.

It's irrelevant. The point is that I refuse to use it because I have no intention of buying things twice.

Dec 2, 2019#262

MindDetective

Dei said:
It's irrelevant. The point is that I refuse to use it because I have no intention of buying things twice.

That's fine. And perfectly reasonable. But it shouldn't enrage you. Just because you own the DVD of your favorite old movie, it doesn't seem reasonable to be enraged at Amazon because they will sell you a digital copy.

Dec 2, 2019#263

Dei

MindDetective said:
That's fine. And perfectly reasonable. But it shouldn't enrage you. Just because you own the DVD of your favorite old movie, it doesn't seem reasonable to be enraged at Amazon because they will sell you a digital copy.

Not the best example, since most physical media these days also comes with a digital copy.

Dec 2, 2019#264

MindDetective

Dei said:
Not the best example, since most physical media these days also comes with a digital copy.

That's why I specified old movie. And it should illustrate the point just fine.

Dec 2, 2019#265

Dei

MindDetective said:
That's why I specified old movie. And it should illustrate the point just fine.

There's a difference between repurchasing something that's old in a new media vs. what D&D Beyond wants. It would irritate me less if they had a flat subscription model that would allow me to just jump in and use their online tools, but instead I'd have to shell out hundreds of dollars outright to use their online tools at the level of the books I have already spent hundreds of dollars on. I think it's a terrible business model.

Dec 2, 2019#266

MindDetective

Dei said:
There's a difference between repurchasing something that's old in a new media vs. what D&D Beyond wants. It would irritate me less if they had a flat subscription model that would allow me to just jump in and use their online tools, but instead I'd have to shell out hundreds of dollars outright to use their online tools at the level of the books I have already spent hundreds of dollars on. I think it's a terrible business model.

Or you aren't the target customer.

Dec 2, 2019#267

Dei

MindDetective said:
Or you aren't the target customer.

True, the target customer is people who are willing to spend 100s of dollars just because they are told to.

Dec 2, 2019#268

MindDetective

Dei said:
True, the target customer is people who are willing to spend 100s of dollars just because they are told to.

In exactly the same way that WotC told you to spend all your money on their books. Gosh. What a sucker

Dec 2, 2019#269

Dei

MindDetective said:
In exactly the same way that WotC told you to spend all your money on their books. Gosh. What a sucker

Except I can more effectively share books with people than I can with D&D Beyond. And I don't have to worry about the services being shut down and everything being gone.

Dec 2, 2019#270

MindDetective

Dei said:
Except I can more effectively share books with people than I can with D&D Beyond. And I don't have to worry about the services being shut down and everything being gone.

Well, duh, they are different products. That's true for games, movies, and digital content everywhere. But my point was nobody tells anyone they have to buy either one. The sarcasm, in case you missed it, was because your claim was utterly ridiculous.

Dec 2, 2019#271

Dei

Saying that I'm not their target audience is also equally ridiculous.

Dec 2, 2019#272

MindDetective

Dei said:
Saying that I'm not their target audience is also equally ridiculous.

I disagree. You own the books already. You don't need their content. I won't buy Dungeon of the Mad Mage physically because I own it on dndbeyond. Their tools w not their product. They are included with the content. As I said before, the tools exist elsewhere.

Dec 2, 2019#273

Dei

MindDetective said:
I disagree. You own the books already. You don't need their content. I won't buy Dungeon of the Mad Mage physically because I own it on dndbeyond. Their tools w not their product. They are included with the content. As I said before, the tools exist elsewhere.

If you think they aren't trying to get people to buy both, you are shockingly naive. The tools they try to sell may be available free online, but that doesn't mean they don't push the shit out of the "ease of keeping track of your characters" etc etc.

Dec 2, 2019#274

MindDetective

Dei said:
If you think they aren't trying to get people to buy both, you are shockingly naive.

I think they are happy to have people buy both, but I don't think they are specially targeting people who already own the books.

Dec 2, 2019#275

Dei

MindDetective said:
I think they are happy to have people buy both, but I don't think they are specially targeting people who already own the books.

The biggest advertising I see for D&D Beyond is for character generation and tracking. That is the thing I always see pushed the hardest. That tells me that they are going for the tool appeal over trying to snag people who don't already own physical books.

Dec 2, 2019#276

MindDetective

Dei said:
The biggest advertising I see for D&D Beyond is for character generation and tracking. That is the thing I always see pushed the hardest. That tells me that they are going for the tool appeal over trying to snag people who don't already own physical books.

I only ever see ads for the content. *Shrug*

Dec 2, 2019#277

Dei

But we're back to the whole

"Their tools are not their product. They are included with the content "

I too purchased their product, but I don't have access to their "official" tools because I didn't purchase them digitally. If you are going to argue that the books are the product and the tools are just there because the books are, it's not the best way to back yourself up. I have to use fan made tools unless I want to pay twice. Yes, tools exist on the internet without D&D Beyond, and I can use them. But I am locked out of the official brand, because there is no way to access the tools without the digital content purchase to back it up.

Dec 2, 2019#278

AshburnerX

Honestly, what this really shows is that WotC/Hasbro should be doing this in house, just to avoid the issue entirely.

Dec 2, 2019#279

Dei

What this really shows is that big corporations ruin everything. :awesome:

They should have just made the books be their own digital market, and the tools be a flat fee, or a subscription model. (Or made them free but lololol)

Dec 2, 2019#280

MindDetective

Dei said:
But we're back to the whole

I too purchased their product, but I don't have access to their "official" tools because I didn't purchase them digitally. If you are going to argue that the books are the product and the tools are just there because the books are, it's not the best way to back yourself up. I have to use fan made tools unless I want to pay twice. Yes, tools exist on the internet without D&D Beyond, and I can use them. But I am locked out of the official brand, because there is no way to access the tools without the digital content purchase to back it up.

You didn't buy their product. You bought WotC's product. You don't get to watch Star Wars on Amazon just because you bought it digitally on Google. Dndbeyond is a different retailer than wherever you physically bought your books.

Dec 2, 2019#281

MindDetective

Dei said:
What this really shows is that big corporations ruin everything. They should have just made the books be their own digital market, and the tools be a flat fee, or a subscription model. (Or made them free but lololol)

Just wave their magic wand and it's done. Lololololol

Dec 2, 2019#282

MindDetective

AshburnerX said:
Honestly, what this really shows is that WotC/Hasbro should be doing this in house, just to avoid the issue entirely.

Everyone wants competition until they want to blame the big companies. The fact is, Wikia (who owns dndbeyond now) has enticing services to lure people in to buy their product. And those services wouldn't exist at all with just the physical books. Dei isn't owed a damned thing by dndbeyond or WotC.

Dec 2, 2019#283

Dei

MindDetective said:
Just wave their magic wand and it's done. Lololololol

We're clearly not going to agree because I think it's an abhorent business practice to charge full price for a digital book you aren't even allowed to download. And it's not really *competition* when the digital services were outsourced.

Dec 2, 2019#284

MindDetective

Dei said:
We're clearly not going to agree because I think it's an abhorent business practice to charge full price for a digital book you aren't even allowed to download. And it's not really *competition* when the digital services were outsourced.

- What the market will bear.
- huh?

Dec 2, 2019#285

MindDetective

Also, dndbeyond prices their content below the list price of the books. And on Cyber Monday, they are still about $10 less than the hardbacks. I definitely wouldn't pay for both. But claiming it is full book price for undownloadable content is patently false.

Also, you CAN download it and use it offline in the dndbeyond app, which is free.

Jan 27, 2020#286

HCGLNS

Ran a solo campaign with my son, went well. He is a human paladin named Rex with his trusty attack cat Puh.

Jan 29, 2020#287

Dirona

I'm DMing my first ever public D&D game tonight!

Aaaaaaaah!!!

Jan 29, 2020#288

HCGLNS

When and where?

Jan 29, 2020#289

Squidleybits

Dirona said:
I'm DMing my first ever public D&D game tonight!

Aaaaaaaah!!!

Awesome! Let us know how it goes!

Jan 30, 2020#290

Dirona

HCGLNS said:
When and where?

Monster Comics downtown, 6-9pm. We play there most weeks.

Squidleybits said:
Awesome! Let us know how it goes!

It went well. Peeps seemed engaged and seemed to have fun. I got positive feedback at least, and it was less terrifying once I got going than I thought it was going to be.

Feb 7, 2020#291

Dave

Looking for a Pen & Paper module that is a good, old-fashioned dungeon dive. No political intrigue, no over-arching storyline. Just a group, a dungeon, and bad guys.

Feb 7, 2020#292

ncts_dodge_man

Dave said:
Looking for a Pen & Paper module that is a good, old-fashioned dungeon dive. No political intrigue, no over-arching storyline. Just a group, a dungeon, and bad guys.

World's Largest Dungeon?

Feb 7, 2020#293

Dei

Dave said:
Looking for a Pen & Paper module that is a good, old-fashioned dungeon dive. No political intrigue, no over-arching storyline. Just a group, a dungeon, and bad guys.

I assume you already know about the existence of dmsguild.com and are just trying to find a specific module. But if you don't, there you go.

Feb 8, 2020#294

MindDetective

Dave said:
Looking for a Pen & Paper module that is a good, old-fashioned dungeon dive. No political intrigue, no over-arching storyline. Just a group, a dungeon, and bad guys.

That pretty much describes Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Feb 8, 2020#295

figmentPez

I can't get this to embed:

"D&D is a satanic cult"

Discover topics like dnd, cute, dungeonsanddragons, and the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered entertainment destination. Lift your spirits with funny jokes, trending memes, entertaining gifs, inspiring stories, viral videos, and so much more from users like thislooksfun.

imgur.com

Feb 8, 2020#296

DarkAudit

Can't post that link as image or media.

Feb 8, 2020#297

GasBandit

Looks like the imgur backend is being shitty again. Workaround for the meantime is to change "gallery" to "a" in the URL

so

Code:

https://imgur.com/gallery/cGwR7Wj becomes https://imgur.com/a/cGwR7Wj

Feb 8, 2020#298

PatrThom

GasBandit said:
Workaround for the meantime is to change "gallery" to "a" in the URL

Yeah, we've discussed this before in the forum bugs thread.
Also, when on mobile, broken imgur links can frequently be fixed by replacing the "m." in the URL with "www."

--Patrick

Feb 8, 2020#299

GasBandit

Hrm, it actually looks like there's some sort of link previewing feature in the new version of Xenforo that is overriding the media embed plugin. I noticed it when I posted a link to a CNN article. I haven't figured out how to configure it not to do that for imgur, yet.

Mar 30, 2020#300

Frank

Are they doing Spelljammer!!!!????

Nope, it's the Magic the Gathering plane Theros, which is greek mythology based.

Sigh.

Apr 2, 2020#301

figmentPez

Apr 3, 2020#302

AshburnerX

That's my experience with Tabletop Simulator as well; everyone's doing board games.

Apr 3, 2020#303

PatrThom

figmentPez said:

Rehosted

--Patrick

Apr 20, 2020#304

Shawn

Did anyone here in the forums ever get into the FFG Star Wars RPGs? Edge of the Empire, etc.

Aug 2, 2020#305

Cheesy1

My character for my brother's campaign. Playing him as Charlie Sheen as a goatman.

Rholias

Aug 2, 2020#306

GasBandit

Cheesy1 said:
My character for my brother's campaign. Playing him as Charlie Sheen as a goatman.

Rholias
View attachment 34836

A Rogue/Bard? Not a warlock?

Aug 2, 2020#307

Cheesy1

GasBandit said:
A Rogue/Bard? Not a warlock?

My plan is to make him a Swashbuckler/College of Swords Pirate. Panache from Swashbuckler combined with the flourishes from College of Swords so he can push and run around opponents one-on-one more easily.

Sep 6, 2020#308

figmentPez

Former Halforumite Tyson Hesse is playing some D&D:

Sep 6, 2020#309

PatrThom

He'll wakka you good!

--Patrick

Dec 3, 2020#310

Shawn

I was able to get a spot on Will Nunes' commission list after several months and had him create my droid marshal that I've played in a few FFG SW games.
Honestly came out better than I ever thought it could.

Aug 27, 2021#311

Cheesy1

So when do the Taco Bell ones come out?

Arby’s Made Its Own Dungeon & Dragons Dice

Aug 27, 2021#312

HCGLNS

Played 5 Minute Dungeon last night it was fun and we won!

Sep 10, 2021#313

phil

Critical Role just played a one shot that featured a hacked version of the game my friend from elementary school made!

Reddit - criticalrole - [CR Media] The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey | One-Shot Live Discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/criticalro...edia_the_nautilus_ark_a_johnson_corp_odyssey/

They didn't directly credit him on air or anything which kinda sucks but still! Sorry if this isn't the best thread for this but just wanted to brag about my bud!

Sep 18, 2021#314

Shawn

Hoping for the forum's help with a short story.

I'm going to run a Ravenloft game in a few days and I want to open the campaign with a creepy fairy tale.

The idea I have for it is a standard 3 fools and a clever man scenario.

A stranger offers each of the men a wish, but the clever man knows this is a witch who will devour any man she grants a wish for.
The 3 fools wish away and the clever man either refrains to wish or makes a clever wish that would absolve him of being eaten.
In the end the clever man wakes up the next morning to find he is being carted away in an animal cage by the witch, his family near him either also caged or already prepared for cooking.
He asks why she would take him when there were three fools basically throwing themselves at her oven. In response she says "The foolish are plentiful and lack pleasant taste. But a clever man is a savory banquet."

It's essentially where I want things to go. Just a quick tale to set the dark mood of Ravenloft. I'll probably call it a Barovian Fairy Tale.
I'm just trying to think of some elements to add that will make the twist even more hopeless. Maybe something that the clever man does that really makes you think he has the witch beat, only to find out later that it only sealed his doom.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions you guys post.

Sep 18, 2021#315

AshburnerX

Shawn said:
Hoping for the forum's help with a short story.

I'm going to run a Ravenloft game in a few days and I want to open the campaign with a creepy fairy tale.

The idea I have for it is a standard 3 fools and a clever man scenario.

A stranger offers each of the men a wish, but the clever man knows this is a witch who will devour any man she grants a wish for.
The 3 fools wish away and the clever man either refrains to wish or makes a clever wish that would absolve him of being eaten.
In the end the clever man wakes up the next morning to find he is being carted away in an animal cage by the witch, his family near him either also caged or already prepared for cooking.
He asks why she would take him when there were three fools basically throwing themselves at her oven. In response she says "The foolish are plentiful and lack pleasant taste. But a clever man is a savory banquet."

It's essentially where I want things to go. Just a quick tale to set the dark mood of Ravenloft. I'll probably call it a Barovian Fairy Tale.
I'm just trying to think of some elements to add that will make the twist even more hopeless. Maybe something that the clever man does that really makes you think he has the witch beat, only to find out later that it only sealed his doom.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions you guys post.

A possible twist could be that they wished "to be spared the same fate as the last three", not knowing that the witch was going to let the fools go and only eat them. Or perhaps the wish was something like "I wish I was back with my family" and that's what drags the family into this too, with the moral being something like "a man should face his fate alone, bravely, even if he's sure to die".

Sep 18, 2021#316

Shawn

AshburnerX said:
A possible twist could be that they wished "to be spared the same fate as the last three", not knowing that the witch was going to let the fools go and only eat them. Or perhaps the wish was something like "I wish I was back with my family" and that's what drags the family into this too, with the moral being something like "a man should face his fate alone, bravely, even if he's sure to die".

I like that first twist a lot. A morale would be fun too but I feel like even a morale gives a shred of hope when I want to leave the audience with none. Basically I just want the morale to be "well... fuck"

Sep 18, 2021#317

ncts_dodge_man

It could also be that the foolish men are served to the witch's pets as their meal and the wise man and his family as her meal....

**edit** - to make it even darker, the family could be made into appetizers and the wise man the main course...

I've been running a Hunter: The Reckoning game since January and tonight's the final battle between my mortal players and the head vampire antagonist...

Sep 18, 2021#318

HCGLNS

First guy wishes for more money than he can count, hets buried to death in gold.

Second guy wishes to be the most powerful man in the world, gets transformed into a hulking brute. Avalanche of gold from the first guy kills him quickly.

Third guy wishes to be desired and irresistible to all who see him, gets raped by a moose.

Fouth guy wishes to die surrounded my his loved ones in the future.

Sep 18, 2021#319

Shawn

HCGLNS said:
First guy wishes for more money than he can count, hets buried to death in gold.

Second guy wishes to be the most powerful man in the world, gets transformed into a hulking brute. Avalanche of gold from the first guy kills him quickly.

Third guy wishes to be desired and irresistible to all who see him, gets raped by a moose.

Fouth guy wishes to die surrounded my his loved ones in the future.

Oh gawd. So many great options.

Sep 18, 2021#320

HCGLNS

To make mine even sicker, 1st guy gets the gold, second guy gets the power, third guy gets the irresponsible nature. Hulk kills 1st guy because what is wealth without being able to protect it, then in a fit of lust knocks over mountain of gold while pursuing the third, killing them both.

Sep 18, 2021#321

PatrThom

ncts_dodge_man said:
**edit** - to make it even darker, the family could be made into appetizers and the wise man the main course...

To make it EVEN darker, the clever man could be made the honored guest at her banquet (technically “Have him for dinner”) and be forced to participate in the consumption of the others. Then finish with him begging for her to kill and eat him so he does not have to live with the horror of what he has just done, and have her reply, “Oh, but you said you desired a long, healthy life, and I would hate myself if I did not follow through. So! Ready for seconds?”
Better yet, he remains her captive and so has to join in all her remaining banquets until he finally dies of natural causes.

—Patrick

Sep 18, 2021#322

Shawn

I may go with the "I wish to not share the same fate as the first three".
He thinks he's being clever and avoiding his fate. He sleeps soundly knowing that he's beaten the witch.
But in the morning we discover she let the other three go and has just collected him. Not only is a clever man tastier, but if he was REALLY clever he wouldn't have tried to outsmart her by making a wish at all.

Sep 21, 2021#323

Frank

Rad. Legitimately the coolest weird off-Dragon they've come up with.

Sep 21, 2021#324

Shawn

Frank said:
Rad. Legitimately the coolest weird off-Dragon they've come up with.

Whelp... I'm never sleeping again.

Oct 23, 2021#325

Cheesy1

The game shop that my brother, his wife, and I used to play D&D at just started its monthly Adventurers League games again.
This is my newest character from today:
Lozzo

Oct 24, 2021#326

Shawn

Cheesy1 said:
The game shop that my brother, his wife, and I used to play D&D at just started its monthly Adventurers League games again.
This is my newest character from today:
Lozzo
View attachment 39240

Nice. That from hero forge? What does the mini look like? I wanted to use this but the quality of the minis never seemed to match up to the quality of the character designed in the program.

Oct 24, 2021#327

Cheesy1

Shawn said:
Nice. That from hero forge? What does the mini look like? I wanted to use this but the quality of the minis never seemed to match up to the quality of the character designed in the program.

This a screenshot of a possible figure from them, yes. I've ordered a few from them before. Decent quality, but certain poses lend themselves to possible break points if you're not careful. My brother learned that the hard way with one of his figures from them. The pose of this character would be one of those I would need to be careful with if I did decide to order it. And the new "colored plastic" ones are very expensive, which is what is currently making me cautious about pulling the trigger.

Oct 25, 2021#328

Shawn

Cheesy1 said:
This a screenshot of a possible figure from them, yes. I've ordered a few from them before. Decent quality, but certain poses lend themselves to possible break points if you're not careful. My brother learned that the hard way with one of his figures from them. The pose of this character would be one of those I would need to be careful with if I did decide to order it. And the new "colored plastic" ones are very expensive, which is what is currently making me cautious about pulling the trigger.

I think I decided not to do it when I saw what their final products looked like. They were not as detailed as they look in the CG rendering.

Oct 25, 2021#329

Tinwhistler

Shawn said:
I think I decided not to do it when I saw what their final products looked like. They were not as detailed as they look in the CG rendering.

When I finished my first book, I got a Hero Forge miniature made of my main character. It was neat, but as others have said, I was a bit bummed about the quality. I'd bet if you just bought the STL files and had them printed at higher resolution elsewhere, it'd be better. But...the cost. ugh

Nov 14, 2021#330

HCGLNS

Hardcore rolling!

Dec 2, 2021#331

figmentPez

Buckle up and grab your popcorn for this thread:

I'll try to update if anything truly outrageous pops up later in the month.

Dec 2, 2021#332

MindDetective

I saw that ad too and it looked very sketchy. Ended up making my own with minis and dice and some reusable advent boxes.

I'll definitely check back as they continue to open them.

Dec 5, 2021#333

figmentPez

figmentPez said:
I'll try to update if anything truly outrageous pops up later in the month.

Slightly strange:

Dec 15, 2021#334

figmentPez

Sketchy knockoff advent calendar update:

The most interesting item so far has been:

But most of the doors have been dinosaurs in plastic eggs.

Also, someone else on Twitter got the same calendar!

Jan 11, 2022#335

Shawn

I have been having quite a good time with my in-person Curse of Strahd game and would love to DM it again with a new group of folks who have never played the adventure. Would anyone be interested in an online game of Curse of Strahd (D&D 5E) perhaps on a twice a month schedule?

Jan 11, 2022#336

HCGLNS

I'm listening.

Jan 11, 2022#337

Dirona

Hello!! Yes please. I have technically played some of this campaign, but it was in bits and pieces.

Jan 11, 2022#338

Shawn

Would anyone else be interested? A group of 4-5 would be best.

Jan 11, 2022#339

Tinwhistler

I'm interested.

Jan 11, 2022#340

ncts_dodge_man

Having recently played CoS with an online group, it's a fun adventure to play... Have fun, players..

Jan 11, 2022#341

Frank

If it's in the evening, I would 100% love to play. I haven't D&D'd in SO long.

Jan 11, 2022#342

Shawn

That's four. Room for a 5th if anyone would like.

Jan 11, 2022#343

HCGLNS

Good group so far, cleric of Bast, hobo ranger, bard and cleaver wielding paladin.

Jan 12, 2022#344

D

Dubyamn

Depending on days I'd be down to clown.

Jan 13, 2022#345

HCGLNS

Hmmm so many weird and wonderful ideas in my noodle.

- badger riding gnome cowboy
- Lennie Small goliath berserker
- human monk based on professional wrestler Sabu
- tabaxi bard based on Tigger
- human necromancer / surgeon / actuary

Feb 8, 2022#346

HCGLNS

I am thinking of something different. A monthly DND 5E game amongst forum members. 4 5th level characters, premade and absurd.

Max Muscle - Male Human CG Paladin, very strong, very stupid, very loyal, loves his sister unconditionally and trusts her implicitly, desperately trying to gain the affection of Bobbi-Joel

Agatha Darkness - Female Human LE Wizard, very smart, very evil, met Max in a tavern and convinced him she was his sister as she needed muscle, by saying "I'm your sister Agatha! I've searched so long to find you!", is masterminding the overthrow of the local, regional, global, planar governments, the brains of the operation

Brently Elf - Male Elf LG Monk, really likes kicking things, is great at scrounging up anything you need, just never ask how

Bobbi-Joel Elf- Female Elf NG Bard, the heart and soul of the group, a volksmusik singer her proud Bavarian heritage is welcome in any tavern, tragically beautiful she is constantly trying to avoid the attention of Max, except when she needs muscle, she looks after her brother Brently, as he is want to get into trouble from time to time with his kicking and scrounging

Now, the different part, any one can play any character during the game, the monthly sessions are one shots and kitsch. And we can play out the set up for the adventure in a play by post thread here on the forums. If more people want to join a session than are characters, the they become an equally absurd recurring character. Continuity is optional

Feb 11, 2022#347

GasBandit

I've been trying to like Dyson Sphere. It should be right up my alley. It's right there with Factorio and Satisfactory and all that jazz. But I think the problem is there's too much manual labor to do to get to the automated stuff.

For example, the planet I'm on doesn't have titanium or silicon. You need both those things to build interplanetary power and item transference structures (which is kinda important to get a dyson sphere going). There are two other planets in my starting starsystem, and one has titanium and the other has silicon.

So basically at this point, I'm having to load up on fuel, fly 5 AU to another planet, dump all the fuel on the ground, pick up an armful of silicon (or titanium if it's that planet), then fly back (and hope I don't screw up the navigation because changing course without loads of fuel is slooooooow). Then repeat for the other resource.

I mean, really, incorporating the new resources into my existing factory structure would have already been challenging and tedious if it was on the same planet, much less having to fucking carry it bucket by bucket across the solar system.

I've finally just come to admit to myself I'm not having fun playing it.

In other news, I got to round 98 on Unpoppable/Hard difficulty on Bloons TD 6. I needed round 100 to win. NNNNNNGGGHGHHHHHHHH

Feb 26, 2022#348

Frank

Just got another delay email for my backing of the Pathfinder Kingmaker 10th Anniversary (the 10th Anniversary was 2019) Adventure Path hardcover. It's years late now. I notice that Paizo has no trouble putting out tons of PFv2 books and Starfinder crap, announced well after this project. Starting to feel scammed.

Basically fuck Paizo.

Mar 1, 2022#349

Far

I dunno where else to put this, here makes the most sense. It's sort of art so could go else where.

Going to be running a 5E campaign for some people I know and I think I've nailed down the map of the continent that it will center on.

Inkarnate - Create Fantasy Maps Online

Create fantasy maps online. With Inkarnate you can create world maps, regional maps and city maps for dungeons & dragons, fantasy books and more! FREE SIGN-UP!

inkarnate.com

Mar 4, 2022#350

ncts_dodge_man

Ahh... Lizardfolk... (found online but thought I'd share).

Mar 4, 2022#351

General Specific

Shawn said:
Hoping for the forum's help with a short story.

I'm going to run a Ravenloft game in a few days and I want to open the campaign with a creepy fairy tale.

The idea I have for it is a standard 3 fools and a clever man scenario.

A stranger offers each of the men a wish, but the clever man knows this is a witch who will devour any man she grants a wish for.
The 3 fools wish away and the clever man either refrains to wish or makes a clever wish that would absolve him of being eaten.
In the end the clever man wakes up the next morning to find he is being carted away in an animal cage by the witch, his family near him either also caged or already prepared for cooking.
He asks why she would take him when there were three fools basically throwing themselves at her oven. In response she says "The foolish are plentiful and lack pleasant taste. But a clever man is a savory banquet."

It's essentially where I want things to go. Just a quick tale to set the dark mood of Ravenloft. I'll probably call it a Barovian Fairy Tale.
I'm just trying to think of some elements to add that will make the twist even more hopeless. Maybe something that the clever man does that really makes you think he has the witch beat, only to find out later that it only sealed his doom.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions you guys post.

So going back and reading this thread while bored at work and I instantly came up with an idea for this. I know it's months late, but I'd like to put it down anyway.

Clever guy asks the witch what her wish would be. She says, "To be out of this cursed swamp*!" So his wish is that the witch would be "Out of this cursed swamp." Twist is that she had actually been cursed to stay in the swamp and forced to grant others' wishes. She worked out pretty quickly she could grant them however she liked. The curse meant she could only use her magic to free herself if someone made an appropriate wish. Now that she is free, she acts grateful, transports the man home, and the next morning he finds himself and his family bound as described.

* - I picked "swamp" randomly, it can be changed to whatever serves the setting

Mar 5, 2022#352

GasBandit

I am SO rusty at Killing Floor 2. Popped in to just blow off some steam, and I used to be able to solo on the hardest difficulty ("Hell on Earth") pretty reliably... but I was struggling on "Suicidal" (second hardest) even on my best class (a 25 berserker that's been prestige ranked 5 times - the most you can). Clearly too much bloons and Vermintide has made me soft. Gotta get that murderfocus back.

Mar 6, 2022#353

GasBandit

A buddy of mine wanted to try out The Forest, so I started up a dedicated server.

It's VERY buggy but pretty engaging. For those not familiar with it, it's a survival/crafting first person game where you are the survivor of a plane crash way out in the forest. Complicating your survival is that apparently there are tribes of feral cannibals in said forest. Beyond surviving, you are also tasked to learn the fates of the other passengers on your flight (one of the first things you find in the plane wreckage is the passenger manifest), and of course, find out why there are cannibals and why some of them seem to be growing extra limbs.

If anybody wants in let me know, I'll send you the password to get on the server. It's a lot more blood-and-horror than Valheim (and most other survival-crafters for that matter).

Mar 10, 2022#354

HCGLNS

"The players can't ruin my plans if I don't have any plans." ~ ancient Dungeon Master proverb.

Mar 12, 2022#355

figmentPez

D&D item idea:

One of those travel sewing kits with cards of thread, buttons, needles, etc.

The Deck of Mendy Things

Apr 13, 2022#356

ncts_dodge_man

DnD News: WOTC is buying D&D Beyond. I'm actually a little surprised that it took 5 years for this to happen.

Apr 13, 2022#357

Far

I had no idea they didn't already own it.

May 14, 2022#358

figmentPez

Holy shit, the dice people are making these days are bonkers!

Ghost Ship giant D20 glow in the dark.jpg

Ghost Ship giant D20 glow in the dark 02.jpg

Ghost Ship giant D20 glow in the dark 03.jpg

Giant Artisan d20 - Ghost Ship $195 (but sold out)

EDIT: Beware of cheap knock-offs

May 17, 2022#359

evilmike

figmentPez said:
View attachment 41532

This reminds me of Aaron Allston's classic player breakdown:

A third early attempt at archetype classification was made in 1988 by author and game-designer Aaron Allston, who included a list of the Types of Champions Players in Strike Force, his award-winning campaign supplement for that game. The list applies to players of nearly any Tabletop RPG, and has inspired terminology used in many later discussions, though it is phrased in terms that make it most applicable to superhero games. In the form found in the most recent edition of Strike Force, the types are:
- The Builder, who wants to have an impact on the world.
- The Buddy, who comes to the game to be with their friend(s), and while they're having fun, they're not as deep into the game as everyone else.
- The Combat Monster, who wants combat, pure and simple; their fun is wrapped up in beating the bad guys.
- The Copier, who is interested in recreating a character based on something they've seen in other media, and thus can be counted on to make a character who is (for example) a Batman clone or a Spider-Man homage.
- The Genre Fiend, who wants to model everything after established genre tropes, and is disappointed when the GM veers from the genre norms.
- The Mad Slasher, who kills everything that moves, no reason needed.
- The Mad Thinker, who seeks clever solutions to in-game problems.
- The Plumber, who wants intricate characters with deep, complicated backgrounds and motivations, and expects exploration thereof.
- The Pro from Dover, who desires a character who is the best in their field, whatever that field happens to be.
- The Romantic, who player focuses on relationships and character interaction.
- The Rules Exploiter, who is primarily interested in bending the rules in order to min/max their character as much as possible.
- The Showoff, who seeks the most spotlight time for their own character, usually at the expense of the other characters.
- The Tragedian, who wants their character to suffer, and to play that suffering out.

(TVTopes)

Though having some aspects of both The Plumber and The Tragedian, everyone always classified me as The Mad Thinker.

Anyone else have a classification they wish to share?

May 17, 2022#360

Tinwhistler

evilmike said:
This reminds me of Aaron Allston's classic player breakdown:

A third early attempt at archetype classification was made in 1988 by author and game-designer Aaron Allston, who included a list of the Types of Champions Players in Strike Force, his award-winning campaign supplement for that game. The list applies to players of nearly any Tabletop RPG, and has inspired terminology used in many later discussions, though it is phrased in terms that make it most applicable to superhero games. In the form found in the most recent edition of Strike Force, the types are:

The Builder, who wants to have an impact on the world.

The Buddy, who comes to the game to be with their friend(s), and while they're having fun, they're not as deep into the game as everyone else.

The Combat Monster, who wants combat, pure and simple; their fun is wrapped up in beating the bad guys.

The Copier, who is interested in recreating a character based on something they've seen in other media, and thus can be counted on to make a character who is (for example) a Batman clone or a Spider-Man homage.

The Genre Fiend, who wants to model everything after established genre tropes, and is disappointed when the GM veers from the genre norms.

The Mad Slasher, who kills everything that moves, no reason needed.

The Mad Thinker, who seeks clever solutions to in-game problems.

The Plumber, who wants intricate characters with deep, complicated backgrounds and motivations, and expects exploration thereof.

The Pro from Dover, who desires a character who is the best in their field, whatever that field happens to be.

The Romantic, who player focuses on relationships and character interaction.

The Rules Exploiter, who is primarily interested in bending the rules in order to min/max their character as much as possible.

The Showoff, who seeks the most spotlight time for their own character, usually at the expense of the other characters.

The Tragedian, who wants their character to suffer, and to play that suffering out.

(TVTopes)

Though having some aspects of both The Plumber and The Tragedian, everyone always classified me as The Mad Thinker.

Anyone else have a classification they wish to share?

I used to be at one point the Mad Thinker, and the Combat Monster+Rules Exploiter at another. These days, I'm more of a pure RPGer. The way I approach games these days doesn't fit into those categories. Instead, I treat my character like I would a character in a book I'm writing: I try to figure out a plausible enough backstory to get them to where the story starts (but not "The Plumber" levels of detail) and then I make all of my decisions based solely on what I feel the character would do under those circumstances and with that background. For me, the fun these days isn't in points (levels, xp, gold, whatever) but in the improv of a totally different personality from that personality's point of view to the best of my ability.

May 17, 2022#361

evilmike

It wasn't that I was trying to be the Mad Thinker. I was happy being the guy with the detailed backstory/tragic past/secret power that almost never got mentioned (because what's the point in having character depth if you dump all of your info in the first 20 minutes of the first game session?) It's just that my Mad Thinker nature would always shine through. We were a group of mostly engineering students, playing in superhero or sci-fi games, so problem solving was often the default. I was also the senior GM of the group, which meant that, when I was playing in someone else's game, I had experience out thinking them.

Sep 20, 2022#362

Frank

Hey, my Pathfinder Kingmaker 10th anniversary stuff showed up, years late, but here it is.

Oh of course they fucked up the fulfillment, of course they did.

Oct 16, 2022#363

figmentPez

Link

The tweet isn't from the person who made it, and they sadly don't know who to give credit for such a monster of a build.

Oct 20, 2022#364

@Li3n

Oct 27, 2022#365

figmentPez

Hasbro Reveals Dicelings, New Toys That Transform From Dice to Dungeons & Dragons' Monsters

Dec 22, 2022#366

figmentPez

Is the icing in your decorating kit too runny to turn a gingerbread house into a tower? Just go horizontal and build gingerbread D&D terrain!

Jan 6, 2023#367

@Li3n

Jan 14, 2023#368

@Li3n

You know, this makes me wonder if Paizo saw some signs a few years ago, and that's the real reason why they did 2e even though they originally promised they wouldn't do new edition when 1e came out:

Paizo commits to legal battle against Wizards over the future of Pathfinder and D&D

RPG publisher steals the initiative along with allies Kobold Press, Chaosium, and Legendary Games

www.polygon.com

Jan 14, 2023#369

phil

@Li3n said:
You know, this makes me wonder if Paizo saw some signs a few years ago, and that's the real reason why they did 2e even though they originally promised they wouldn't do new edition when 1e came out:

Paizo commits to legal battle against Wizards over the future of Pathfinder and D&D

RPG publisher steals the initiative along with allies Kobold Press, Chaosium, and Legendary Games

www.polygon.com

Maybe. Good on them for going to bat over this. The whole debacle has been just insane. All the lies and spin coming from wotc has been wild and incredibly off putting.

Jan 14, 2023#370

HCGLNS

It is some what amusing that a Pen & Paper game maker forgot that we could play the game with just pens and paper. We don't truly need your digital subscription to manage our stuff.

Jan 14, 2023#371

@Li3n

phil said:
The whole debacle has been just insane. All the lies and spin coming from wotc has been wild and incredibly off putting.

Hasbro with former M$ management...

HCGLNS said:
We don't truly need your digital subscription to manage our stuff.

The worse parts where not even about that.

Even during the Golden Age of comics, when artists that where not Bob Kane got screwed over all the time, no one ever attempted to get them to sign over previous rights if they wanted to continue working with a company.

Jan 14, 2023#372

HCGLNS

@Li3n said:
Hasbro with former M$ management...

The worse parts where not even about that.

Even during the Golden Age of comics, when artists that where not Bob Kane got screwed over all the time, no one ever attempted to get them to sign over previous rights if they wanted to continue working with a company.

I was referring to the worlds response. It was leaked that one of their primary metrics was D&DBeyond subscriptions, so everyone just noped out and referenced OGL 1.1 as the reason why. Oops.

Cancelled D&D Beyond Subscriptions Forced Hasbro's Hand

Swift consumer action prompted Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast to to scrap licensing updates. The players aren't done yet.

gizmodo.com

As always currency communicates!

Jan 14, 2023#373

@Li3n

HCGLNS said:
I was referring to the worlds response. It was leaked that one of their primary metrics was D&DBeyond subscriptions, so everyone just noped out and referenced OGL 1.1 as the reason why. Oops.

Ah, you meant that it was easier for people to quit it in protest, because they can still play either way, so it's not much of a "sacrifice".

True...

Jan 14, 2023#374

Shakey

Their push for digital first with the dragon lance release, and their plans to continue that with more micro transactions, just left a bad taste with me. It feels like they’re completely abandoning the local game shops, and I have a feeling it will backfire on them in the long run. Digital is convenient, and I think it should be an option, but don’t abandon what got you there.

Jan 14, 2023#375

Dave

I missed the boat getting Ironwood ready for publishing. I'd have given it away for free.

Jan 14, 2023#376

Krisken

Legal Eagle weighs in.

Jan 14, 2023#377

HCGLNS

Basically, lawyers have hoodwinked users for years. OGL was never legally necessary, but they convinced us it was. Rules never have been able to be copyright. Thanks accountants!

Jan 14, 2023#378

Krisken

Yup, pretty much. They relied on confusion on what could be copywrited for a lot of it, as well as having money for lawyers. Typical capitalist big company BS.

Jan 15, 2023#379

@Li3n

I mean, the OGL was an attempt to distance themselves from TheySueRegularly...

And you can easily see that they knew it was unlikely that they could actually win a legal battle with anyone that could afford it about the copyright for what was in the SRD by the fact that they kept "Product Identity" monsters (aka what the lawyers thought they could legally protect) out of it, even though some of those where even clearly copied from somewhere else (which is why some ppl just used other names for them).

That being said, youtube is proof enough that the OGL did help the community grow because of the lack of wrongful removals, frivolous suing etc.

Jan 15, 2023#380

@Li3n

Part 1: Copyrightability of #RPG Stat Blocks #DnD #copyright #iplaw

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | FAQ/FRI I received an email from Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”) demanding that I take down my one-stop stat blocks. Unsurprisingly, the email didn’t provide an …

gsllcblog.com

Part 2: Copyrightability of #RPG Abilities and Spells #DnD #copyright #iplaw

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | FAQ/FRI In case it isn’t clear, WotC does not endorse this post or any work I’ve created. My use of their trademarks is purely to identify the subject of this …

gsllcblog.com

Part 3: The Damage Done by the Otherwise Ineffectual Open Gaming License #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | FAQ/FRI If you enjoy this post, please retweet it. This is the last in a series of three posts on the copyright misuse of Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”). Much o…

gsllcblog.com

Part 3.5: A Mild Retraction That Makes Matters Worse for #WotC #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | FAQ/FRI Some excellent commentary on Part 3 from a reader uncovered an error and a weakness that deserve examination. Neither the error nor the weakness signif…

gsllcblog.com

Part 4: FAQ/FRI #DnD #copyright #iplaw #ogl

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | FAQ/FRI In case it isn’t clear, Wizards of the Coast (“WotC”) does not endorse this post or any work I’ve created. My use of their trademarks is purely to iden…

gsllcblog.com

Jan 15, 2023#381

@Li3n

And:

Court rules in favor of cloned tabletop game - No protection under US copyright law

A final decision has been handed down in the 2-year copyright infringement case involving the card game Bang! and its clone, Legends of the Three Kingdoms. The backstory Back in 2014, the creators of the card game Bang! filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Chinese company Yoka Games...

strebecklaw.com

Jan 17, 2023#382

Shakey

Ooof, are they really going to try to charge $30 a month for access to DnD beyond and an AI DM?

Jan 17, 2023#383

PatrThom

Shakey said:
Ooof, are they really going to try to charge $30 a month for access to DnD beyond and an AI DM?

I'm sure they will...at first.

--Patrick

Jan 17, 2023#384

AshburnerX

Shakey said:
Ooof, are they really going to try to charge $30 a month for access to DnD beyond and an AI DM?

It's still easier than finding a GM in your area/community that isn't a creep and less expensive than hiring a professional GM to run for your group.

Jan 17, 2023#385

Krisken

Not just that, but all players would need a subscription.

Jan 17, 2023#386

Shakey

AshburnerX said:
It's still easier than finding a GM in your area/community that isn't a creep and less expensive than hiring a professional GM to run for your group.

I get that, but you’d think it would be better to make it easier and less intimidating to DM than to replace the DM with a computer. Otherwise you’re just creating a coop video game.

Jan 17, 2023#387

Frank

They lost 40,000 subs over this.

Jan 17, 2023#388

HCGLNS

I'm seeing AI DMs might be more of a soft rope thing.

Jan 18, 2023#389

ncts_dodge_man

Interesting - WotC finally said something - Kyle Brink, the Executive Producer for D&D.

First thing: "First, though, let me start with an apology. We are sorry. We got it wrong."

Jan 18, 2023#390

Krisken

That is a way better statement than the last one put out by Wizards. We will see what happens going forward here.

Jan 18, 2023#391

Frank

They still claim it was a draft, when companies already had it ready to sign. They're still lying.

Jan 18, 2023#392

ThatNickGuy

Jan 19, 2023#393

@Li3n

Frank said:
They still claim it was a draft, when companies already had it ready to sign. They're still lying.

I mean, no company will ever say "Yeah guys, we totally tried to pull a fast one on you, you got us!".

Jan 19, 2023#394

GasBandit

Jan 19, 2023#395

HCGLNS

Frank said:
They still claim it was a draft, when companies already had it ready to sign. They're still lying.

Did they though? More people are reporting they got sent unique contracts to sign individually and a copy of the draft ogl to pursuade them.

Jan 19, 2023#396

@Li3n

Man, they really want to de-authorise the 1.0a:

Starting the OGL ‘Playtest’

In this article, you can review a draft of OGL 1.2, submit feedback via survey, and learn about a Creative Commons license that puts D&D's core mech...

www.dndbeyond.com

And the irrevocable part seems to me that would work just like how they're treating the 1.0a OGL, meaning that they will still be able say you can't use OGL 1.2 for new content after (effective date), while setting precedent...

Jan 21, 2023#397

@Li3n

Jan 22, 2023#398

@Li3n

An interesting post about the history of DnD lawsuits and why the OGL was made in the 1st place:

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

And quoting it just in case:

Why The OGL 1.0a Is Important, Part Nine Hells: the System Reference Document and getting off Lorraine Williams' Wild Ride

OGL

Okay, so this is coming up because I'm getting the impression from some posts that a lot of redditors and readers still don't quite understand everything the current OGL covers and what it applies to. It's not just "rules" or the right to contribute - there's a definite question of intellectual property, and access to it, involved.
In The Beginning, There Was Dragon
So first, we need a little bit of background: from its inception and up through the 90s, Dungeons and Dragons was considered its own, wholly-protected intellectual property. While it did borrow liberally from the public domain, there was also a lot of original creative work involved. Many elements of it were at least partially original creations of the various contributing authors (which ended up under the ownership control of TSR, Inc. as an entity) and many of the leaders involved, both Gary Gygax and later Lorraine Williams, considered a lot of elements to be integral parts of the IP that couldn't be copied, even in part. You'll hear today that "rules can't be copyrighted", but that was a lot less clear when D&D was younger, and a number of D&D court cases, as well as cases in adjacent industries, helped establish that precedent (much to the annoyance of TSR's leadership).
Lorraine Williams, you see, was especially litigious about this, and often locked horns with Gygax when he attempted to spin up alternatives to D&D, or even just contribute D&D material outside of TSR's control. TSR also had a tendency to sue people who strayed what they thought was too close to D&D's intellectual property - be it with squid-faced brain eaters, flying eyeballs with tentacles, or what have you. Except that, of course, this is where some kind of nasty intersecting of intellectual property law could happen.
Take, say, well, dragons. TSR obviously cannot copyright "dragons" conceptually. They're public domain, the idea has existed for almost as long as the written word. Well, what about dragons of specific colors? Well, no, you pretty obviously can't paint a dragon red or green and lay claim to all such dragons. A red dragon that breathes fire? No, I'm afraid the Beowulf Dragon has you beat to the "fire-breathing dragon" by more than a millennium. Ditto a poison-breathing dragon, with Fáfnir coming in to be the spoil-sport this time.
Okay, but... what about a system of colored dragons, with the red dragons, for example, breathing fire, having crested horns, tending to live in mountains, having an inclination to terrorize and "rule" land tyrannically and chaotically, and their hoard of wealth mostly consisting of physical valuables, coinage, and abducted maidens? With green dragons contrasting by being generally rhinoceros-like in hornage, preferring arboreal domains, having a poisonous or acidic breath, and taking far less interest in pillage and murder and instead preferring to focus on the "hoarding" of knowledge and secrets...?
This all starts to become a lot muzzier, doesn't it? You would think that, sooner or later, the exact expression of "a dragon" would become something unique to D&D. But where exactly does it begin or end? What part, what expression of "dragon" can D&D truly lay claim to? You could make a perfectly good-faith claim that the D&D chromatic system, with its quite detailed and delineated definitions of how various dragons live and operate, is a unique enough expression of "dragon" to be a protected part of the intellectual property and copyright. But you can also put forth an argument, in just as good faith, that the concept of "dragon" is so ancient and prevalent, so integral to the concept of fantastical stories, that any and all expressions of "dragon" must still fall under the concept of scènes à faire and are essentially protected by public domain - the most TSR could lay copyright claim to would be specific dragon characters created for their works, like Takhsis or Gwyneth.
Williams' Wild Ride
Needless to say, while I'm not sure dragons specifically came up (that's a question for someone like Shannon Appelcline), TSR of the 80s and 90s tended to take positions more aligned with the former, that their expressions of various things were integral and unique to the D&D intellectual property and covered by copyright, and that they had a right to deny others the use of these expressions. As a result, TSR of this era tended to be Lorraine Williams' Wild Ride - the company was constantly embroiled in legal action to assert its claim over various tabletop gaming and fantasy elements, and wildly oscillating between victories and embarrassing defeats. The culmination of all this was the incredibly memorable episode of Lorraine Williams and Rob Repp suing the entire internet - issuing cease and desist notices, with full intention to follow through, to virtually every fan site and bulletin board with D&D content. And they even went out of their way to make clear that this wasn't just about FTP distribution of book scans and whatnot; they were absolutely, unambiguously, going to go after people offering free homebrew scenarios, monsters, and the like because they dared to use D&D stats and reference rules in D&D rulebooks. TSR was asserting that they, and only they, had the right to license out the essence of D&D and say who could and could not produce D&D-adjacent content, free or otherwise.
As you may imagine, the entire venture was a complete fiasco, and was a bit of a landmark for the idea that rules are a process not subject to copyright, and for fair use in general. While TSR ultimately "won" in some regards and a fair bit of content got taken offline, it left players and potential users utterly furious with their behavior in a way that echoes and perhaps even eclipses today's OGL 1.x furor. And that much bad blood led to, well, less product leaving the shelves because people had a bad taste in their mouths and way less collaboration and homebrew happening.
So many of the lawsuits of the Wild Ride Era were ultimately devastating to the company - a number of them may have been "wins", but in the end so many millions of dollars disappeared down largely unnecessary legalistic black holes in order to exhaust competition that, as soon as Williams v Interbutts contributed to a sales slump and difficulty in making good on payments to Random House, that was the nail slammed into TSR's coffin so hard, the coffin did a 1080 in the air and landed perfectly in its grave. There were a lot of other contributions to that era being a "wild ride" - the "core team" of Planescape asserts that Sigil was a reflection of how TSR felt internally at the time of Planescape's publication - and we haven't even touched on some of the wild shit like TSR being a major bootlegger of Lord of the Rings stuff back when the American LotR rights were still in a bizarre legal limbo, but the lawsuits were incredibly prominent in the minds of the public and were generally known to have been a contributor to TSR's rocky history and D&D's sometimes-rough publication history.
Which, in the late 90s, left new owners Wizards of the Coast in a bit of a pickle.
Dancey's Sleight of Hand
So, in 1997, WotC found themselves in possession of, even then, still the most prominent name and brand in table-top roleplaying, even if the fiascos and publication troubles of the last few years had left it feeling rather dented. A lot of questions hung in the air; was WotC going to be as litigious as TSR had been? Did the game even matter to them, with Magic undergoing its first true wave of explosive popularity? What form would updates to the game take? And, seriously, how were they going to handle TSR's old litigiousness, and how would those old questions shape things going forward?
Because, you see, despite the astounding amount of litigation coming out of Lake Geneva, a lot of the more foundational questions were still not entirely settled - just where did the D&D IP begin and end? How much could they lay claim to the expression of a "dragon"? A "dark elf"? A "demon"? And even if they did get "settled", that was no guarantee it would really remain settled forever; a challenge could come up years later claiming the original decision was in error, and a new judge could rule a different way. In some ways, litigious or no, it felt like D&D might be in some level of legal limbo forever.
And so Ryan Dancey, one of the architects of WotC acquiring both TSR and Five Rings Publishing, had an idea: an Open Gaming License with a System Reference Document.
Now, we should make it very clear here that Dancey's motivations here were anything but totally altruistic. If anything, the man's own words make it all seem fairly scuzzy: he was hoping to help the game catch on to such a degree that the sheer volume of content produced for the game would muscle competing systems into the margins of the market. And yet, at the same time it was a genius solution to several issues at once, including one TSR had but recently authored for themselves: WotC would put together a System Reference Document for D&D's new edition, and anything in this "SRD" would be completely free for anyone who agreed to an extremely lightweight Open Gaming License simply by putting the relevant text of the OGL in their work - no need to even consult with WotC ahead of time.
And sure, this SRD included all the basic rules, things like feats, a lot of the core game crunch from the Player's Handbook. But it also included a huge number of elements of D&D that had previously been tightly controlled portions of the intellectual property.
Like, that whole previous example with dragons? Yeah, the classic chromatic and metallic dragons, and brief descriptions for how they work and operate, are right there in the SRD. This turns the whole previous problem on its ear - the question of precisely how much "dragon" WotC can own is now moot, because they have assembled this specific Expression Of Dragon, and if you agree to a lightweight license that makes easy provision for you keeping all expressions of your own Product Identity under full ownership and control, you can use this given Expression Of Dragon however you like, with no royalties, commission, or expectation of external control. Want to just make them brutish animals? Go for it! Incredibly sophisticated draconic politics? Have at it! Rather than try to fight people over Whose Dragon Is It Anyway, they were providing a template for what Dragon could be that anyone could use essentially for free, and could help define what "dragon" was in the modern zeitgeist (and if this ended up making people curious about that game that has both dragons and dungeons, well, that's just nifty, isn't it).
And the thing is, it hardly stopped at dragons. The SRD was a bit of a shocker when it was revealed in 2000, because it felt a little bit like Dancey & co. had kinda decided to give away the farm. The only D&D creatures not covered by the 3.0 (and slightly revised 3.5) SRD, as stated in the OGL 1.0a's Product Identity section, were beholders, gauths, carrion crawlers, displacer beasts, githyanki & githzerai, kuo-toas, mind flayers (including the term "illithid"), slaadi, umber hulks, and yuan-ti.
You know what is in the SRD? Drow. The Literal-Ass Drow. Including the very term "drow".
Like, it has to be remembered that this was coming out at what was still the absolute peak of The Drizzt Frenzy - R.A. Salvatore's books were pretty much one of the few aspects of D&D that was still firing on all cylinders at this point, and now here comes Dancey and the gang just saying that the drow are basically open-source and that anyone who wants to make some (non-Drizzt) Drow Content™ to keep those Drizzt Fanboys satisfied can just go for it. No royalties, no negotiations, no nothin', just go bonkers so long as you leave The Boy Himself (or his direct supporting cast) alone without a separate IP license. The TSR of yesteryear would have violently asserted that the specific form of "dark elf" the Drow represented was a part of the IP worth assiduously protecting, and now WotC's just givin' 'em away.
Also shocking was the inclusion of a huge raft of planar entities, including basically all of the classic Manual of the Planes/Planescape demons and devils, right down to the specific terms used for each kind. You explicitly couldn't call them "tanar'ri" or "baatezu" (those terms being specifically called out as Product Identity once more), but an ice devil was indeed A Gelugon, as insectoid and spear-using as ever, and if you felt like having Explicitly A Babau fistbump Explicitly A Marilith in whatever you were making, nobody was stopping you. You can't have these barbazu and lemures hanging out in the Nine Hells of Baator or the hezrous and nalfeshnee chilling in the Infinite Layers of the Abyss, but if you want Nonspecific Hell and the Nonspecific Abyss to be in conflict, sure, go for it. You want them to both team up against Nonspecific Heaven, which has Explicitly D&D Planetars And Solars defending it? That works too! Also crucially, tieflings and aasimar - entity-types and terms that had previously been explicitly part of the Planescape setting and D&D IP, easily to the level of at least illithids - were now explicitly part of the SRD and thus the OGL, and were free for anyone to use conceptually. The rules in the SRD even included "playing as beings from the monster list" rules, making explicit that they were effectively okay for player use, never mind the permission to get creative with SRD entries if you wished! All together, this has been one of the most successful examples of the OGL - tieflings especially are nearly part and parcel of fantasy now, and even OGL stuff that often leaves the dragons and demon at home will often have a little tiefling or aasimar involvement.
And the best part of all this? The sheer breadth, and ease of implementation, of the OGL and its SRD made it an extremely attractive option for public homebrew sharing. No longer did you need to worry about the owners of D&D coming to break your door in for daring to refer to Armor Class - just make sure the OGL text is visible somewhere on your website, and you're free to get down with all this as much as you like!
And we haven't even talked about things like all the classic D&D spells being included in the SRD, meaning that anyone using the OGL is as free to use the D&D-specific versions of these concepts as they like - but we're going a bit long, and you get the idea, so it's enough to say it's there.
The whole thing was an incredible sleight of hand by Dancey - insidious in ways, no doubt, but in so many others, it fixed all the problems TSR had gotten itself into over the past fifteen years. These expressions of public-domain-adjacent concepts were now free to use with the lightest of strings attached (thus rendering other determinations of their legal status just about moot and offering a guarantee that no legal challenge would come anyway if used with the license), the entire Internet Homebrew issue was resolved, and now the game could have all kinds of content made for it that WotC didn't have to lift a finger for. It was a perfect way to finally get the game off of Lorraine Williams' Wild Ride.

Which is all an aspect of why some of us are worried about recent events.
OGL 1.Whatever and Chris Cocks Wanting To Ride Once More
So a lot of hay has been made about the other problems with "de-authorizing" the 1.0a OGL and what that might mean for small publishers, somewhat larger publishers, legacy publications, how much rules can even be copyrighted, et cetera. Any "de-authorizing" of 1.0a, assuming such a move survives a legal challenge, would perforce include de-authorization of the 3.5e and 5e System Reference Documents, and the free use of all the material within that could otherwise be proprietary property of Wizards of the Coast.
There have been indications that this is something of a motivator for the current executives of Hasbro and WotC - the original leak had WotC talking about how "the Open Game License was always intended to allow the community to help grow D&D and expand it creatively; it wasn’t intended to subsidize major competitors" (which, you know, we can see isn't true, as Dancey would have loved to have competitors feeling forced to play in D&D's playground and make product supporting it), which feels in significant part like a complaint that potential competitors are getting to use so much "established D&D IP" for free.
(To my own, Pathfinder CRPG-loving butt, that feels more specifically like a complaint about Wrath of the Righteous and how it uses basically every demon in the SRD and then some, but that certainly can't be the only trigger.)
Now, we don't have an SRD for OneD&D yet since that game isn't finished, which is perfectly fair, but it isn't very hard to imagine that document pulling in the number and kinds of creatures available for free significantly (the 5e SRD was already quite a bit thinner than the 3.5e one, and already removed all references to aasimar). And one of the main reasons to de-authorize 1.0a before cooking up a new OGL would be if you didn't want any valid SRDs out there that offered certain parts of the IP for availability over your new one. So it doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to imagine that, yeah, part of the plan here is to significantly pare back what parts of the D&D IP are available "for free". They'll want to defend exclusive future use of those IP Elements.
They want to start putting the Wild Ride back together.
Except... it feels like a real question as to whether CEO Chris Cocks and his team understand why the OGL was assembled in the first place.
Like we've established: the OGL 1.0 and 1.0a were assembled and released in the way they are not just to benefit "the community" and "the fans", or even "help WotC get market dominance"; it was also intended to help shield WotC and D&D. It was a solution to legal questions that had dogged the franchise for a decade or more. It was a tool to help re-establish confidence in the brand at all after a farcically disastrous legal maneuver. It has helped to keep D&D relatively free of legal entanglements for more than twenty years now. And it isn't like America and the rest of the anglosphere has become less litigious; if anything, the atmosphere is just as spark-heavy as it was in the 80s and 90s. Abandoning the existing OGL in such an environment so stridently feels... at the absolute best, recklessly cavalier. Is Hasbro really ready to face potential legal challenges again? Are they going to try and regulate what gets posted outside of D&D Beyond and the DM's Guild in a way that TSR once tried to?
Are we, potentially, facing a scenario of Cocks v. Internet?
That question aside, of course, there's also the fact that entities and concepts that have been available to us for twenty years might now go back under a much heavier sort of IP protection. The current OGL 1.2 proposal is already levying heavy restrictions on what a VTT can show, including magic missile as a now-infamous example; but after twenty years of vrocks, ghaeles and annis hags being available in the form they are, what will it mean for us to simply lose access to them? A very great many of you reading this message have grown up entirely in the shadow of the D&D OGL; the creatures and concepts within have been available for people to use for as long as you've been alive. Is losing that...okay? At what point does something basically-freely-available become more than just the property of one corporate entity?
Justin Alexander is referring to it as "an act of cultural vandalism", which is still a hair strong for me personally, but I understand where he's coming from. From their time in D&D and being experienced through that lens, through the length of the OGL and being woven into so much of the fabric of the tabletop experience even outside of the specific D&D wheelhouse, the SRD's content has become a part of the wider fantasy culture. The D&D chromatics are very much a standard for Fantasy Dragons now, whether that be a good or bad thing in one's eyes. The devils and demons are often what people think of when they think of fantasy representations of those beings. The idea of tieflings crops up all over the place now. All of this is as much part of a shared vernacular as armor class or hit points are. And now we stand to lose it.
So if that's important to you, make sure you speak up. Not just in surveys, but here, on Twitter, in Discords, at your tables. Hell, drop letters in WotC's mailbox. Let them know you want the spirit and content of the old SRDs preserved.
Because we stand to lose a lot in getting back on the Wild Ride.

Jan 27, 2023#399

Bubble181

Sounds about right.

Jan 27, 2023#400

ThatNickGuy

Palladium: No, you can't do the thing because our system is out dated from the 80s, never been updated, and we didn't consider anyone doing the thing.

(Alternatively, yes, you can do the thing but it's a horribly broken and confusing process so you might as well skip doing the thing.)

Jan 27, 2023#401

HCGLNS

Ooo we should play Paranoia! Boost moral!

Jan 27, 2023#402

PatrThom

HCGLNS said:
Ooo we should play Paranoia! Boost moral!

We're all security clearance red on the inside.

--Patrick

Jan 27, 2023#403

AshburnerX

Feng Shui: Yes and in the most cinematic way possible.
Blades in the Dark: Is this something your character is supposed to be good at? Then yes. If not, you've got at least a 50% chance.

But for real... Feng Shui is the best system that no one plays.

Jan 27, 2023#404

figmentPez

Bubble181 said:
View attachment 43687

Sounds about right.

Here's a better quality version:

Jan 27, 2023#405

Shakey

Huh, looks like they backed down for now.

OGL 1.0a & Creative Commons

Over the past few weeks you, the community, have made your voices heard. And we’ve listened. OGL 1.0a will remain untouched AND the entire SRD 5.1...

www.dndbeyond.com

Jan 27, 2023#406

GasBandit

Shakey said:
Huh, looks like they backed down for now.

OGL 1.0a & Creative Commons

Over the past few weeks you, the community, have made your voices heard. And we’ve listened. OGL 1.0a will remain untouched AND the entire SRD 5.1...

www.dndbeyond.com

GasBandit said:

Jan 27, 2023#407

@Li3n

True, but releasing the 5.1 SRD under Creative Commons means it's safe from any future attempts: https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/39j2li89/SRD5.1-CCBY4.0License.pdf

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Obviously they can still try to pull some BS for the next edition, but it will probably end up just as well as 4th Ed.'s license did...

Jan 27, 2023#408

Shakey

Yeah, I have no expectations that they’ll let this go forever. I’m still very skeptical of their DnD beyond plans.

It is nice to see some more attention on smaller games. Pathfinder burned through what is typically an 8 month supply of books in 2 weeks, and I’m sure others saw a good bump as well.

Jan 27, 2023#409

Krisken

Yeah, for now, but I have no doubt this is the ultimate goal.

Jan 27, 2023#410

Frank

Burn through loads of community good will, do likely irreparable damage to your whole brand, accomplish fucking nothing.

Yup, that's WOTC alright.

Jan 28, 2023#411

@Li3n

Frank said:
accomplish fucking nothing.

I don't know about that, 4e already accomplished bringing us Pathfinder, and this whole thing helped Pf2e (and other system) sales... that's something.

And 5.1 SRD being CC, a license they don't control, means they can't fuck with it in the future.

But, of course, it would also help if they did the same for the 3.5 SRD... and maybe even the older TSR editions.

Then they can do whatever stupid shit they want with the new edition. Trying to fuck over all the possible competition to avoid a new Pf situation (and even retroactively making Pf unlicensed) was the unacceptable BS. Everything else is BS you should just avoid giving money to.

Jan 30, 2023#412

Shakey

I got a call from my sister the other day.
“Can you talk to my son about playing DND? His therapist thinks it would help him develop social skills, and we’re worried he’s isolating too much. His therapist hosts games, and his school has a club too.”

I did, and it sounds like he’s willing to try it out, which is good. But it makes all the drama as of late all that much more frustrating.

DnD is finally at a place where it’s not only socially acceptable, but it’s used to help people in therapy situations as well. I don’t think any other rule system will have that kind of reach. It’s too bad WoTC execs don’t realize what they have.

Jan 30, 2023#413

Tinwhistler

Shakey said:
I got a call from my sister the other day.
“Can you talk to my son about playing DND? His therapist thinks it would help him develop social skills, and we’re worried he’s isolating too much. His therapist hosts games, and his school has a club too.”

I did, and it sounds like he’s willing to try it out, which is good. But it makes all the drama as of late all that much more frustrating.

DnD is finally at a place where it’s not only socially acceptable, but it’s used to help people in therapy situations as well. I don’t think any other rule system will have that kind of reach. It’s too bad WoTC execs don’t realize what they have.

Unlike when I was a kid and the conversation would have gone a totally different direction.

Chick.com: Dark Dungeons

Debbie thought playing Dungeons and Dragons was fun...until it destroyed her friend.

www.chick.com

Feb 3, 2023#414

Shakey

Paizo has a ton of Pathfinder digital books in a Humble Bundle if anyone’s interested in checking it out on the cheap.

Humble RPG Bundle: So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder by Paizo

We’ve teamed up with Paizo for our newest bundle to help you get started in the Pathfinder 2nd Edition TTRPG, including the digital Beginner Box, core rulebook, Adventure Paths, and more.

www.humblebundle.com

Feb 14, 2023#415

Dirona

So I'm working up the final set of clues and the encounter gauntlet for a homebrew D&D game, and I haven't looked at this in months (probably the better part of a year), I have no idea what I was planning and I can't read my notes. I have a general idea, but no specifics.

My imagination is tapped out, and I'm terrible at clues and mysteries at the best of time, so... now seems like a good time to try out ChatGPT. And I get what the hype is about now.
Is it going to win any writing awards? No!
Does it need to? Also no!
Was it enough to get me started and fill in some blanks with some neat flavour text? Absolutely!
Will I break down and use it again next time I get stuck on a similar task? Damn right skippy! (Barring any weird privacy or ethics stuff coming up between now and then, of course.)

It's a weird experience seeing quest prompts and box text get created before your eyes with just as much skill(?) as what I can muster.

I also asked it to write some poetry and it wasn't terrible.

{Aside: Does my job feel threatened? Not really? I can see this kind of thing being used to write serviceable sermons and speeches, but I think (hope?) they'll lack the personalized touch that something written just for that community at that time possesses. [she says while knowing damn well she's recycling a 3 year old sermon this coming Sunday because she ran out of hours in the week to write a new one.]}

Mar 1, 2023#416

Frank

Paizo has taken a hardline stance against AI.

Mar 2, 2023#417

@Li3n

Frank said:
Paizo has taken a hardline stance against AI.

They're really going to regret this when the robot overlords take over...

Mar 21, 2023#418

HCGLNS

I have a dice problem, I can't remember where the rest of them are located....

Mar 21, 2023#419

PatrThom

HCGLNS said:
I can't remember where the rest if them are located....

Failed your perception check, didja?

—Patrick

Mar 22, 2023#420

MindDetective

Yeah....that's too many dice!

Mar 22, 2023#421

Frank

God I miss table top roleplaying, God I don't miss DMing.

Mar 26, 2023#422

HCGLNS

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Mar 29, 2023#423

Frank

No wonder every big roleplaying group out there has dropped Wyrmwood as a sponsor.

'Everything Is a Story' Inside Wyrmwood Gaming's Narcissistic Funhouse

A culture of unprofessionalism and disrespect at Wyrmwood Gaming goes beyond allegations of sexual assault.

gizmodo.com

Apr 2, 2023#424

HCGLNS

HCGLNS said:
Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Apr 22, 2023#425

GasBandit

This guy just dropped 200 maps free to download on his patreon (does not require subscribing)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/collection-of-me-81735334

Jul 31, 2023#426

Tinwhistler

I've been playing 5e with some people a friend introduced me to.
I have discovered a definite pattern to the game over the last 3-4 months. I call it "The Hamster Wheel of Adventure."

Jul 31, 2023#427

PatrThom

This also coincidentally works for paychecks and budgeting.

--Patrick

Nov 7, 2023#428

Vrii

Nov 11, 2023#429

Shawn

Playing Star Wars FFG online the other day on a West-march server. Joined a Rebel mission that was a direct follow-up to a war-meeting where we decided that our best course of action of getting help from inside a heavily secure location was to speak to someone on the inside (effectively a "I know a guy" scenario). The GM often liked to point out in his tone how silly that "I know a guy" option was, but he planned out a mission around it anyway.
We found out the mission was basically us being arrested and processed into an Imperial work prison very in line with the one seen in the Andor series, but where the temperature controls could be turned off to cook the inmates due to the facility built inside a volcano instead of the electric floor thing. We were not informed by our superiors if there was any kind of extraction plan in motion by them.
The GM's tone was also implying that this was a very silly and dangerous idea, even suggesting that my character's cybernetics would be confiscated during processing and likely never seen again because a few are illegal.

We decided to back out of the mission and take the bare minimum of XP awarded for the session because 1) as it is a west-march the campaign going forward is not dependent on our characters surviving or making it out. They are therefore expendable. 2) His tone suggested we were dumb for trying it at all.

After we backed out he revealed that some prisoners were going to help us. I asked if in this case we could use the meta knowledge of that to go forward with the mission so not to undo all the hard work he clearly put into it, and I got a snappy "nope. Too late" response.

I get his side as meta gaming is typically a "no no" in RPing, but to a degree there is always meta-gaming involved: Our characters do dangerous things all the time because we have the understanding that there is a chance they may be successful at it. In this case we backed out because the GM's tone kinda made us rethink our choices and look at this even more from the perspective of our characters who were basically hearing "you'll be imprisoned for up to 5 years just so you can talk to someone inside. You down?".

Overall any game is supposed to be fun for everyone playing. If you have to meta game a little bit to make that happen and give the players the encouragement to be heroic then I say do it.

Nov 11, 2023#430

D

Dubyamn

I always go into games with the belief that the GM isn’t setting me up for a terrible death. At least if I’m not playing Paranoia. Cause it’s supposed to be fun for everybody and a tpk is fun for nobody.
It’s metagamey but you don’t play rpgs to play a guy who tops out in middle management because he never takes risks in his life.

Nov 11, 2023#431

HCGLNS

=hides the Sorry About The TPK cake purchased before the session began=

Nov 30, 2023#432

HCGLNS

U.S. Postal Service Reveals Additional Stamps for 2024 - Newsroom - About.usps.com

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, the U.S. Postal Service announced four new stamp subjects for 2024. This group, along with the stamps announced in October, make up only a partial list, with more to be revealed in the weeks and months ahead. All stamp designs are preliminary and subject to change.

about.usps.com

Dec 7, 2023#433

Krisken

MCDM's new fantasy RPG which is in development is now up on Backerkit for anyone interested.

Feb 12, 2024#434

HCGLNS

D&D Next, One, 6th ed, 50th (whatever they want to call it) PHB drops 2024-09-17.

Feb 13, 2024#435

Dave

Yeah not doing this again.

Feb 13, 2024#436

Frank

Yeah, not really into edition churn when it comes to TTRPGs anymore.

Feb 13, 2024#437

HCGLNS

Frank said:
Yeah, not really into edition churn when it comes to TTRPGs anymore.

5e is 10 years old, making it the second longest edition. Only AD&D is longer at 12.

I'm actually impressed that power creep didn't kill it sooner.

Feb 13, 2024#438

Frank

I'm old so it doesn't feel that long and half that time was pandemic time that barely counted anyways.

Feb 13, 2024#439

chris

Frank said:
half that time was pandemic time that barely counted anyways.

Oh, we all wish

Feb 13, 2024#440

Shawn

Been playing Star Wars FFG for years now. Still love it. They updated the company to Edge Studios but they are just reprinting the books.

Feb 13, 2024#441

HCGLNS

Frank said:
I'm old so it doesn't feel that long and half that time was 45th POTUS time that barely counted anyways.

Adjusted it lasted forever.

Mar 12, 2024#442

Dei

Anyone trying out Daggerheart?

Mar 13, 2024#443

ncts_dodge_man

Dei said:
Anyone trying out Daggerheart?

It's an interesting concept - not sure if I want to play it just yet, but then again, I don't have a ton of free time to try it out.

CR did a session zero and a one-shot of it:

Mar 13, 2024#444

Shakey

It looks like it’s trying to make every encounter feel super epic and remove any chance at having a character die unless the player wants it to. Which is fine if that’s what you’re looking for. I don’t know if it would be my cup of tea, but I’ll be watching it.

The best quote I heard on it was something like “It feels like a game made for grand moments that will make for a great streaming show.” I can’t remember where I heard it, or if it’s even correct. But, that is probably what they’re going for.

Mar 13, 2024#445

Dei

I think the point is to be less combat forward and more RP forward, leaving most of character creation moldable in the hands of the player.

I did character creation with my normal D&D group last night and we all had a really good time coming up with experiences and connections as a group.

Combat feels easier to balance now, as enemy actions are tied to player action, so you aren't just making 20 enemy moves while everyone at the table falls asleep, with GMs having the ability to jump in with extra attacks if combat needs more spice, the idea of successes and fails having potential consequences depending on if you roll a hopeful or fearful result makes things more interesting than "I rolled a 2."

I personally love the death system. Games that are RP forward make you way more attached to your character and their story, and the player having the choice on what happens is a big part of collaborative storytelling.

Mar 19, 2024#446

HCGLNS

Jim Ward, D&D og has passed

His stuff was top notch. RIP

Apr 1, 2024#447

klew

Just donated to my local indie bookstore, wonder if I can take them before they make it to the used section (I work there, we can occasionally take donated books before they get to the floor)

Apr 9, 2024#448

Dei

Using this thread cause I'm not sure where else it would fit.

What D&D podcasts are people listening to (if any)?

I dropped Critical Role years ago because it started feeling too arduous to keep up with. It took me a bit to start listening again but now I've picked up a bunch.

My favorite by far is Worlds Beyond Number, but I also listen to Dimension 20, Not Another D&D Podcast (NADDpod), and my teen's favorite Just Roll With It.

Mostly just looking to see if anyone else wants to nerd out about podcasts.

Apr 9, 2024#449

MindDetective

Dimension 20 is about all I have time for but I dabble a bit with Oxventure on Youtube

Apr 9, 2024#450

AshburnerX

The only live play I keep up with is Dice Funk.

May 6, 2024#451

figmentPez

Fantasy weapon concept: Twin chakram with a lifesteal effect that causes them to glow bright red. Call them Cherry Lifeshavers.

May 9, 2024#452

Dave

Was watching someone on Twitch today. He was talking about how he was running his game and the players found this quaint little town but something was absolutely amiss. They were terrified of this little cottage just outside of town. The party went to investigate and found absolutely nothing. The vegetation around the cottage was chewed up and trampled, but it wasn't in any discernable pattern. The house was well stocked but it didn't seem anyone lived there. And it had several magical things like a stove that gave off no heat but cooked when you placed pans on it or the basin that always produced fresh water. So the players made it their base of operations in the area.

Couple nights later the moon rose and the house changed. It grew to several times its size and it became a death trap for the players inside, basically an escape room. When they finally got out they realized...

It was a werehouse.

May 9, 2024#453

evilmike

Dave said:
Was watching someone on Twitch today. He was talking about how he was running his game and the players found this quaint little town but something was absolutely amiss. They were terrified of this little cottage just outside of town. The party went to investigate and found absolutely nothing. The vegetation around the cottage was chewed up and trampled, but it wasn't in any discernable pattern. The house was well stocked but it didn't seem anyone lived there. And it had several magical things like a stove that gave off no heat but cooked when you placed pans on it or the basin that always produced fresh water. So the players made it their base of operations in the area.

Couple nights later the moon rose and the house changed. It grew to several times its size and it became a death trap for the players inside, basically an escape room. When they finally got out they realized...

It was a werehouse.

I blame Amazon.

May 10, 2024#454

@Li3n

Aug 11, 2024#455

HCGLNS

Aug 11, 2024#456

HCGLNS

Dei said:
Using this thread cause I'm not sure where else it would fit.

What D&D podcasts are people listening to (if any)?

I dropped Critical Role years ago because it started feeling too arduous to keep up with. It took me a bit to start listening again but now I've picked up a bunch.

My favorite by far is Worlds Beyond Number, but I also listen to Dimension 20, Not Another D&D Podcast (NADDpod), and my teen's favorite Just Roll With It.

Mostly just looking to see if anyone else wants to nerd out about podcasts.

A reddit post led me to that video with Deborah Ann Woll, turns out she made a video series called Relics snd Rarities where she DMs and it's good.

Aug 12, 2024#457

Shakey

HCGLNS said:

That whole podcast episode is great. Definitely recommend listening to the rest of it.

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