Tabletop General

[Armhulen]

Bottom post of the previous page:

>it's hilarious for that guy to use a literal 4th wall break (or at least lean on it) but me replacing two swords for a longsword is something worth

hmmmmmmmmm

[DemonFiren]

Bop, I'm so sorry.
So very sorry.

[Armhulen]

Maybe I'm an asshole but I think you should run

[XSI]

Alternatively, sit back, stop taking it all seriously, and watch it in a way similar to how one watches a trainwreck

[Qbopper]

I spoke with the DM and I don't feel like transcribing the logs but I think both parties overreacted

I'm still standing by the fact that I think it's a little ridiculous to outright use the DM's name as your character (well, slightly changed, but still blatantly obvious) but it is what it is, I don't really have a right to have a stick up my ass about it

[Armhulen]

I spoke with the DM and I don't feel like transcribing the logs but I think both parties overreacted

I'm still standing by the fact that I think it's a little ridiculous to outright use the DM's name as your character (well, slightly changed, but still blatantly obvious) but it is what it is, I don't really have a right to have a stick up my ass about it

run while you still can, DnD isn't some prissy MEME game

[Qbopper]

I've played before, I had a good time, I just hope the DM picks up on the stuff I put down in my backstory and does something with it because I left it very open ended so she could do something with it if she wanted to

[Alipheese]

I spoke with the DM and I don't feel like transcribing the logs but I think both parties overreacted

I'm still standing by the fact that I think it's a little ridiculous to outright use the DM's name as your character (well, slightly changed, but still blatantly obvious) but it is what it is, I don't really have a right to have a stick up my ass about it

run while you still can, DnD isn't some prissy MEME game

But it is.
gurps masterrace.

[DemonFiren]

dungeons and dragons sounds like scaly bdsm
gurps sounds like indigestion

[ShadowDimentio]

gurps masterrace.

I will fucking execute you

[InsaneHyena]

>Be cleric
>Me and half the party is suffering from AIDS
>There's no known cure.
>Have to constantly spend my highest level spell slots just to keep it from killing us
>Just learned that it will spread from us to the rest of the party in six days, unless we find the cure
>Not even sure if my magic is doing anything

Life is pain, famalams.

[ShadowDimentio]

Lesser restoration purges disease, if you have no level 2 spells or don't have lesser restoration you're either a failure as a cleric or your GM is a huge faggot for throwing disease at you at like level 1.

[XSI]

I've played before, I had a good time, I just hope the DM picks up on the stuff I put down in my backstory and does something with it because I left it very open ended so she could do something with it if she wanted to

You naive man. Treasure that innocence
From my experiences GMs don't read backstories. Or think about ways to include the players and their contacts etc into the story. Story exists, you are a separate entity running through the story.
Sucks really

[Screemonster]

speak for yourself, I'm a lazyass GM and I love it when players do my worldbuilding for me

I had a player once who'd come up with all sorts of massive backstories for his characters usually with pretty decent villains in them and I loved teasing the fucker with hints that the bad guy in question might still be around, getting him to lead the entire party on massive wild goose chases about how serious a threat this dude is

sometimes it would actually be the guy

[XSI]

That's just my experience as a player

As a GM, I try to always connect the players to the world and to pay attention to their backstory

[InsaneHyena]

Lesser restoration purges disease, if you have no level 2 spells or don't have lesser restoration you're either a failure as a cleric or your GM is a huge faggot for throwing disease at you at like level 1.

It's not a disease, it's an incredibly potent curse from setting's equivalent of Nurgle. I'm about to get Remove Curse, but I'm 99% sure it won't work either.

[Screemonster]

True.

Something like this format might work pretty well for that.

Hell, it's about the only sort of campaign I could actually possibly play in with my work schedule.

[ShadowDimentio]

If it's a curse then remove curse will work, it's literally its only function. If it doesn't you're very fucked.

[Armhulen]

If it's a curse then remove curse will work, it's literally its only function. If it doesn't the GM's very fucked.

fixed

[Qbopper]

I've played before, I had a good time, I just hope the DM picks up on the stuff I put down in my backstory and does something with it because I left it very open ended so she could do something with it if she wanted to

You naive man. Treasure that innocence
From my experiences GMs don't read backstories. Or think about ways to include the players and their contacts etc into the story. Story exists, you are a separate entity running through the story.
Sucks really

2/2 DMs I've had so far have done this

granted one wasn't DND but still

[ShadowDimentio]

True.

Something like this format might work pretty well for that.

Hell, it's about the only sort of campaign I could actually possibly play in with my work schedule.

If you want to run a West Marches game you damn well better be a grizzled veteran GM or else your players will fucking hate you. Those kinds of games require a the touch of master in order to make them not hilariously unbalanced, with either random encounters annihilating the players or players not giving a single fuck about anything and sprinting through everything.

[Screemonster]

True.

Something like this format might work pretty well for that.

Hell, it's about the only sort of campaign I could actually possibly play in with my work schedule.

If you want to run a West Marches game you damn well better be a grizzled veteran GM or else your players will fucking hate you. Those kinds of games require a the touch of master in order to make them not hilariously unbalanced, with either random encounters annihilating the players or players not giving a single fuck about anything and sprinting through everything.

It's basically similar to the format we had going for the old White Wolf RPGs (in my case, Changeling) that I used to be involved in.
The default setting of the game was some "safe" location that was relatively isolated from any plot that might be happening unless the players fucked up in a massive way so if people wanted to just show up and be in-character and sit in a bar in-character and get drunk in-character and not actually touch any plot then that was fine 'cause that didn't actually require any kind of skill checks or anything else that might require a GM's attention so we just let them be, and then people who actually wanted to do something would pick one of the random plothooks (or something they decided to do on their own initiative) and party up to go poke at things. It's more the short, episodic format composed of whoever could make it that day that I was talking about rather than specifically the west marches setting itself.

[ShadowDimentio]

It's basically similar to the format we had going for the old White Wolf RPGs (in my case, Changeling) that I used to be involved in.
The default setting of the game was some "safe" location that was relatively isolated from any plot that might be happening unless the players fucked up in a massive way so if people wanted to just show up and be in-character and sit in a bar in-character and get drunk in-character and not actually touch any plot then that was fine 'cause that didn't actually require any kind of skill checks or anything else that might require a GM's attention so we just let them be, and then people who actually wanted to do something would pick one of the random plothooks (or something they decided to do on their own initiative) and party up to go poke at things. It's more the short, episodic format composed of whoever could make it that day that I was talking about rather than specifically the west marches setting itself.

The premise is good and sounds easy on paper but execution is fucking hellish.

The basic premise of "safe space surrounded by the unknown" is pretty simple, but it's an extremely perilous tightrope to walk when you start populating the unknown with enemies and encounters, because if you fuck up and make it to hard or frustrating you get a TPK and your players want to strangle you.

Worse yet, if you have a rotating group of players it's effectively impossible to balance things beyond a vague feel because depending on the robustness of the characters and the situation they're put in it could go absolutely any which way.

[Super Aggro Crag]

"safe space"

Gb2 tumblr

[Drynwyn]

It's basically similar to the format we had going for the old White Wolf RPGs (in my case, Changeling) that I used to be involved in.
The default setting of the game was some "safe" location that was relatively isolated from any plot that might be happening unless the players fucked up in a massive way so if people wanted to just show up and be in-character and sit in a bar in-character and get drunk in-character and not actually touch any plot then that was fine 'cause that didn't actually require any kind of skill checks or anything else that might require a GM's attention so we just let them be, and then people who actually wanted to do something would pick one of the random plothooks (or something they decided to do on their own initiative) and party up to go poke at things. It's more the short, episodic format composed of whoever could make it that day that I was talking about rather than specifically the west marches setting itself.

The premise is good and sounds easy on paper but execution is fucking hellish.

The basic premise of "safe space surrounded by the unknown" is pretty simple, but it's an extremely perilous tightrope to walk when you start populating the unknown with enemies and encounters, because if you fuck up and make it to hard or frustrating you get a TPK and your players want to strangle you.

Worse yet, if you have a rotating group of players it's effectively impossible to balance things beyond a vague feel because depending on the robustness of the characters and the situation they're put in it could go absolutely any which way.

I've run West Marches style games before. Shadow is correct, for West Marches games run in Dungeons and Dragons. For other systems, it's significantly less challenging.

Now, I do consider myself a damn good GM. I've been running games for 11 years, and in way too many different systems (Have a list, with remarks on some of them): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qNy ... sp=sharing So although I think running a West Marches game is pretty doable, I don't necessarily have a good sense of what it's like for a novice. That said:

Among all those systems, I'd have to say that D&D ranks noticeably below average at suitability for a West Marches game (applies more to some editions than others, but what I'm about to say is broadly applicable to 3rd through 5th edition). Here's why:

-D&D has a very broad power range for PC's from level 1 to 20. What's more, just two or three levels is very meaningful, and can and will nullify the cleverest tactics and the best of luck. That means that it's hard to throw together parties that are internally balanced, and hard to balance the world, because the spectrum of power is so broad.

-D&D doesn't offer good ways to "punish" (i.e, harm) characters short of killing them. Injuries don't last, curses aren't hard to deal with past low levels, and disease is wholly ineffective against characters with more than a few levels. That means a lack of methods to very fucking clearly signal that an area or task is out of the PC's league, and a lack of good ways to motivate players to be cautions short of actual character death (which, in West Marches style, all too often means you just lose a player.)

-It's the far opposite of a specialized game. Skills exist, but there's only one major, mechanically detailed task, fighting, and everyone is a "fighter" in the sense of them having meaningful combat abilities. So one party isn't much better than any other at any particular task (though more balanced or coordinated parties will still be better overall). Especially since in several editions, skills take a backseat to utility magic in out of combat roles. That removes a lot of incentive for cooperation.

For anyone looking to run a fantasy West Marches game, I would recommend Burning Wheel as my first choice. GURPS would be usable, but also super rulesy.

Just thinking about this now, but the Dark Heresy 2E system would also work pretty well for a West Marches style of game set in the 40k-verse. Damn, that'd actually be very cool. Hm. Not necessarily the exploration, but the player-set-schedule and such.

[XSI]

-D&D doesn't offer good ways to "punish" (i.e, harm) characters short of killing them. Injuries don't last, curses aren't hard to deal with past low levels, and disease is wholly ineffective against characters with more than a few levels. That means a lack of methods to very fucking clearly signal that an area or task is out of the PC's league, and a lack of good ways to motivate players to be cautions short of actual character death (which, in West Marches style, all too often means you just lose a player.)

This is because in D&D, everyone and their mother can resurrect the dead. Dying in D&D is not a big deal because it just means having to find a cleric/druid/whatever else is in your setting to bring you back
But for that, most of the time you will need the body. And the majority of things that kill people tend to do nasty things with the body or are dangerous enough that grabbing the body and taking it home is not an option

So basically, failure in D&D is not an option. Both it and Pathfinder are systems that rely heavily on the GM making fitting encounters for the group, rather than making a world and letting the players loose on it.

That said, I've played in a similar format in Shadowrun. It worked well up until people decided they weren't actually interested in Shadowrun and just wanted to shoot things. So instead of Shadowrun sessions they just started playing video games together. And then it was just me and the GM left

[ShadowDimentio]

>It's hard to hurt the players without killing them

I thought about that for a while before I started GMing myself in a game where the players dying throws the story for quite a loop, and then arrived to a solution: Should a character die, the players may, in lieu of dying, roll a d6 and a d4-1. The d6 selects which primary attribute the character loses, and the d4-1 is how many points they lose permanently. After they've lost their points, they wake up at half health, having hit their second wind.

Depending on their luck they could take a pretty sizeable hit to a stat or lose absolutely nothing. Bam, way for players to not die and a way to inflict permanent damage if they badly fuck up.

[XSI]

Thats worse than death in D&D/Pathfinder though

As mentioned, the game appears designed around reviving people being an option. Permanent loss of stats means they're fucked harder than if they would just die and have to wait for a revive. If they lose one or two points off their dumpstat, then they'll be fine. If they lose even a single point of their most important stat they will never again be as good as they used to be. And this will lead to them dying more often because they're worse at their job
In the same way, losing your gear is more trouble than losing your life. A revive tends to cost a few thousand in materials and some time to find a sufficiently high level caster to do it. Your gear is worth much more than any revive ritual, and for most games that last more than a few months your gear will be worth more than the cost of several wish spells

[ShadowDimentio]

Meanwhile, I'm making a dungeon. Dungeonbuilding is fun, especially since so far every dungeon has had a distinct "feel". So far there's been one giant dungeon with just one floor but a ton of area, a dungeon with three areas connected by a hub, and a rather linear dungeon that's a tower.

Good times. Pics are of the tower, WIP, lightning dungeon. Three floors down, three to go.

Spoiler:

[Super Aggro Crag]

Put some goblins

[ShadowDimentio]

No goblins only robots constructs.

[Screemonster]

then put robolds
or kobots

[XSI]

Looks like Dorf fort but you forgot to place workshops

[InsaneHyena]

Hallelujah. Remember how I complained about half the party being infected with AIDS? We're finally cured. Took Greater Restoration to do it.

[Qbopper]

well this game is fun so far, though I can''t help but be annoyed that the DM isn't letting us do checks properly

eg. "you smell something REALLY bad" - I ask "can I do a nature check to see if I know what could be causing it?" she says "no use a different skill"

that isn't really how skill checks work, if I'm doing something wrong you just let me roll and then give me a generic "you don't notice anything" or whatever (from my understanding at least, that's how my two other games have gone irl)

it's not terrible though, still enjoyable

edit: I think she just made the party roll one by one to see if there's an encounter

?

Edit 2: yeah it's going better than this post suggests

[ShadowDimentio]

Meanwhile in the adventures of Ace Caster Ino, we cleared a missing person quest and discovered the princess was having people with debts bought out into slavery and tortured by feeding them peppers for a while and then releasing them. After some consideration, we decided to let her go considering we were gonna get paid regardless.

Apparently in the source material she was actually torturing them for reals but the GM changed it to fit the lighthearted nature of the rest of the game, and I told him that was smart because if there was actual torture going on I would have executed the princess without a second thought, but that woulda been bad because apparently she was plot important.

[ShadowDimentio]

Holy SHIT lizard man just figured out how to kill magic gas god.

Okay so a few sessions ago lizard man learned a new rule about the god crystals, that they're effectively magic batteries. When full they release magic at the first exposure to it, however there are also depleted crystals that do the opposite-- absorbing magic whenever exposed to it.

I only just realized how fucking important that was. The magic gas god is 99.99% magic, if I made a weapon out of depleted crystal then it would absolutely gouge him, incorporeal or not. Further, by simply fashioning the crystals into my clothes they'll make me virtually magicproof, his ONLY strength, at the cost of not being able to use magic armor.

The best part: We already found a massive depleted crystal the size of a room with enough to last me forever.

Plan so far: Get a NPC I met lass session to teach me how to process depleted crystal, run to the ruins and gather depleted crystal, run to a town and make antimagic armor, harpoons, and bombs, and finally have a showdown with magic gas god and evil swordswoman.

The ending to the campaign is coming way sooner than I or the GM expected, hah. And he just gave me some fancy magic item to "turn me into a weapon to fight the old gods (god crystal magic)".

[DemonFiren]

Expect DM asspull because you're a filthy ligger.

[Super Aggro Crag]

Are you allowed to use that word

[ShadowDimentio]

I already told the GM and he was like "Oh shit I didn't think of that, nice idea"

Current plan: Get my antimagic gear.

Go to the city where evil swordswoman and gas god are waiting for me

Lie and say I heard that a NPC who stole a ton of god crystals from us and ran was in a swamp we avoided earlier, an excellent lie because it makes sense, it's the direction he was spotted heading

Once we're in the depths of the swamp provoke evil swordswoman into trying to kill me by confessing I took so long because I got arrested and spilled the beans on all the crimes she's done, that all of her assets were claimed, her allies outcast her, and she's now wanted by THE LAW (all lies).

Easily defeat her because she's terrible at combat outside of melee and can barely move in the swamp, and get her to call out magic gas god to save her from the spear-chucking ligger and his pet gargoyle

Smile as my trap card is triggered, go into overdrive and lob five bombs at the gas god before he realizes how fucked he is while my gargoyle steals evil swordswoman's bag holding all of her emergency gear and teleport scrolls, preventing her from escaping

Anhillate magic gas god as I constantly duck underwater in the muddy depths of the swamp, breaking line of sight so he can't cast spells at me and can't try to acid-absorb me because the water is in his way and gas and water don't mix

Ascend like fifty levels as I do the unthinkable and kill the gas god with merely my ligger cunning

Offer to spare evil swordswoman as she has a mental breakdown because the stupid water-loving spear-chucking ligger she had virtually no respect for just killed the person she worshiped as a god who was like level 20+

Win everything forever

[ShadowDimentio]

Update: Ligger > Fart god

[Professor Hangar]

My players:
'...I just noticed that this campaign has a recurring theme of every body of water trying to kill us.'

I suppose it got literal with the water elementals, but still. What do you expect in a campaign setting based on northern Australia plus extinct megafauna, dinosaurs and rogue robots?

[ShadowDimentio]

What the hell setting are you in?

[Screemonster]

> northern australia
> containing water

normally it's the opposite problem that tries to kill you

[Professor Hangar]

Where do you think all the crocodiles live? There's bits where you can get boiled to death. It's central Australia where you gotta worry about literally dying if your car breaks down.

It's a custom setting inspired loosely by colonial Australia, Mesoamerica and the Lost World, where gutsy, desperate adventurers can make it out with massive heaps of gold if they don't get eaten or torn to pieces first. The party has had to run like hell from Old Chomper, the resident elder Tyrannosaurus a few times now.

Ever seen the Jumanji cartoon? It's a bit like that.

[InsaneHyena]

My players:
'...I just noticed that this campaign has a recurring theme of every body of water trying to kill us.'

I suppose it got literal with the water elementals, but still. What do you expect in a campaign setting based on northern Australia plus extinct megafauna, dinosaurs and rogue robots?

[youtube]OdM4QTuE3hc[/youtube]

[Professor Hangar]

I forgot to mention mermaids and sharkfolk also play prominent roles!

[Wyzack]

What system? Also are there flintlock firearms y/n this is important

[XSI]

Guns in PF, assuming its PF, are incredibly overpowered

>Hit on touch AC instead of regular AC
>4x crits

[Drynwyn]

They're only touch attacks in the first range increment. And they take more than a free action to reload (usually, there are tricks), which prevents making full attacks. Plus they're LOUD.

[Professor Hangar]

D&D 4e, please restrain your autistic fits at such a revelation. With a lot of homebrew.