/tg/Station 13

by **XSI** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 12:54 am #195724

Charisma dump stat done right

High Priest Mafallia: The Priest looks at you and smiles, before giving off a Cackle "I'd ask if you wish to join us, but it looks like you are prepared for a Fight!"
Sorceror: "Silence, fiend!"
"Attack!"
Martial: "The only joining that happens here is our steel with your flesh!"
Cha dumpstat druid: "I don't like you!"

by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 1:08 am #195730

The first session is uploading now. This link will work for downloading it in a moment or two.

Size is 105mb MP3. Clocks in at just under two hours of gameplay. Check out the intrepid SecurTech officers as they investigate a seemingly perfect murder.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9xvdnb0cl2qg ... 1.mp3?dl=0

by **Ricotez** » Fri Jul 15, 2016 1:21 am #195737

>perfect murder
>the murder weapon was an industrial jackhammer

by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 6:24 pm #197198

I would define a perfect murder as one that gets carried out without witnesses or leaving evidence at the scene.
Whether you poison someone or explode them into a million parts doesn't make a difference IMO.

At any rate, GAME SOON

by **Wyzack** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 7:08 pm #197201

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot 100% on being able to actually play again this week, as much as I want to. Might be able to swing it for tomorrow night if anything

by **Screemonster** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:02 pm #197208

An0n3 wrote:I would define a perfect murder as one that gets carried out without witnesses or leaving evidence at the scene.
Whether you poison someone or explode them into a million parts doesn't make a difference IMO.

At any rate, GAME SOON

Leaving evidence is one thing, leaving useful evidence is another thing entirely.

CSI: we found a knife at the scene! There's no prints on it, but it matches the stab wounds on the victim perfectly.
Detective: So what does that tell us?
CSI: That this was the murder weapon.
Detective: well no shit

by **Ricotez** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:08 pm #197209

the industrial jackhammer left a trail that we've already partially followed, it was easy to find out where it came from. it's not exactly a common tool

that was more my point than that someone was (over)killed with a fucking jackhammer

by **ShadowDimentio** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:33 pm #197210

As soon as I got a more detailed explanation for the mortal wounds (he had his head smashed in went to he had his head smashed in with something really powerful and with a specifically shaped bit on the end) I immediately figured it was a jackhammer.

by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:34 pm #197211

You guys have reached a bunch of conclusions after using deduction and investigative skills on bits of evidence.

You've concluded he was murdered with a jackhammer after looking at his wounds, impressions left at the scene, and then correlating it with the victim's workplace and going with what is the most readily available object that could be responsible for such a thing. I'm not saying that conclusion is right or wrong, just saying that you've had to go through some hoops and make some judgements to get where you are.

As an aside a tool like that is actually pretty common on Ceres. The planetoid's economy revolves around mining up ice and siphoning water out of the core. You'll find similar examples of that kind of device in every warehouse and export business.

by **Ricotez** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:38 pm #197212

would be amazing if the jackhammer turns out to be a massive red herring and some chump just forgot to put it back

by **Timbrewolf** » Wed Jul 20, 2016 8:49 pm #197214

Going forward I'm going to implement a rule that anyone trying to repeat a skill test that someone else has recently attempted will have an added penalty to it proportionate to the degree of failure from the previous attempt(s).

This is to prevent situations where everyone may consider spamming skill rolls on something in an effort to make a higher check through sheer luck or just brute-forcing certain things in the environment. I usually try to account for multiple routes through adventures so if someone doesn't have a skill to use a certain thing, or a certain check fails, there is still a back-up route to the conclusion that just doesn't use that specific thing as a plot point. Think of it as the "Deus Ex" approach of game design, except instead of Stealth/Combat/Charisma you have Charisma/Technology/Intuition. Something like that. You wont really see much of that actually happening in front of you unless I just start showing you the adventure write-ups but just trust me that it's there.

An example of the ruling in effect would be like meeting an NPC who doesn't want to let you guys in somewhere. Player B is the group's best talker, but Player A is impatient and wants to get in anyway. He fails the attempt to get in, with a degree of failure of 15. When Player B arrives if they attempt the same check to try to talk their way past the NPC the difficulty will increase by a factor of at least 15. This should encourage people to attempt multiple checks rather than just repeating the same ones while also giving a more concrete penalty for failure and giving people a reason to maybe not just throw the dice at everything. This also adds a time imperative to things, giving you a strategy to play around running the clock on certain things you may have messed up previously so you can attempt them again.

The book itself simply states that a character attempting to repeat a skill check that they've failed gets a cumulative -10 penalty on each test (-10 on the first, -20 on the second, and so on) but doesn't seem to indicate whether that should apply to the entire group or not. Even if it did, it doesn't seem to couch much fear of failure on its own. Since this game lacks the tense feeling that you may end up dead at any moment or that failure is going to cost humanity the entire universe, I figured adding a little extra challenge to the regular skillchecks you guys are making may make things a bit more tense while also giving you each your own niche to shine in. You'll be a bit more dependent on one another and your individual specializations should come out more in play.

From a narrative perspective we get more instances of people screwing things up actually furthering the story somehow. From the previous example Player B failing a negotiation with a bouncer at a club may prompt Player A to try bribing them instead, or intimidation. It will prevent lukewarm OOC interactions like "I try to network them" "You fail" "Okay well I will try to network with them instead" "You pass" "Okay we're in". Someone playing with a sensitive piece of hardware trying to work out what it functions and failing then hands it over to someone else, who now has to deal with how complicated it is ontop of the fuckups from the previous player should lead to some more dynamic IC interactions.

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:05 am #197237

Someone teach me how to play tabletop games ok

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:23 am #197241

What game? I bet we totally could

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:26 am #197242

Probably I'm pretty smart. I don't have a computer right now though so it'd have to wait I just wanted to make my intent to learn known. I've only ever played DH first edition and AFMBE before and both was a long time ago. I asked azari to teach.me to play mutants and masterminds but he's too busy so I said ok I will find someone else

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:12 am #197248

I know mutants and masterminds! It is a fun system, but it is so easy to horribly break that it says right in the rules that all characters and abilities need gm approval. Let me know and I will dust off my pdfs

by **THE MIGHTY GALVATRON** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:20 am #197251

Wyzack wrote:I know mutants and masterminds! It is a fun system, but it is so easy to horribly break that it says right in the rules that all characters and abilities need gm approval. Let me know and I will dust off my pdfs

I've never played Muttons and Metastasis and have been wanting to. Let me know if you guys ever get anything off the ground.

by **Incomptinence** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:42 am #197252

I would like to tabletoppy too but eh time zones.

Mutants sounds fun

by **Screemonster** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:02 am #197264

not being able to tabletop with people is basically the worst thing about working a rotating shift

fuck weeks for having a prime number of days that doesn't fit into any repeating pattern other than 7

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:07 am #197267

Do you have third editin wyzaxk that's the one I have pdfs of

by **Screemonster** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:13 am #197271

I found my old copy of Big Eyes, Small Mouth that's been out of print for fuckin' years. My old group never even used to use it for animu themed stuff, it was just a really quick universal system that didn't need a fuckin' spreadsheet to stat up a car UNLIKE SOME UNIVERSAL SYSTEMS

there was a supplement for pokemans style games as well and the front cover was literally a cockfighting ring

by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:24 am #197306

If we play Mutants and Masterminds are we going to make self-insert superheroes?

Can I be the RULES LAWYER who debuffs or negates enemy powers by arguing about how imbalanced or improbably they are given an arbitrary rules-set?

"So you have the ability to turn anything you touch into ice? Where does the molecular energy you siphon from things go? Shouldn't you be burning up?"

His powers of doubt are so strong he was able to undo the moon landing.

by **DemonFiren** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:59 am #197315

In return I would respond that I vent that excess heat into the bodies of people asking dumb questions.
I suspect this might turn this guy's powers against him.

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 1:52 pm #197355

An0n3 wrote:If we play Mutants and Masterminds are we going to make self-insert superheroes?

Can I be the RULES LAWYER who debuffs or negates enemy powers by arguing about how imbalanced or improbably they are given an arbitrary rules-set?

"So you have the ability to turn anything you touch into ice? Where does the molecular energy you siphon from things go? Shouldn't you be burning up?"

His powers of doubt are so strong he was able to undo the moon landing.

sounds like a ranged weaken (superpowers) effect limited to targets he can communicate with and possibly requiring a knowledge check so he can adequately complain about the laws of physics .

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:36 pm #197358

So it turs out i don't have those PDFs anymore, i shall acquire them later this evening. Is there anything particular rules-wise that you are having trouble with? If i recall correctly several basic things in the system were incredibly poorly explained

by **Jazaen** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:38 pm #197359

I think I have Mutants and Masterminds 3ed collection stashed somewhere, want me to find it?

EDIT: Found them, but it's 232.41 MB total, so it will take a while before it uploads.

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 2:48 pm #197361

I was just going to LEGITIMATELY ACQUIRE them online

An important thing to note about this is that your party needs to want to play superheros or else the whole thing falls apart. The combat system does not really lend itself well to a traditional RPG style game. When we ran it one of my players was really in to it and made a pretty cool batman/rorshcach expy who has split personality disorder, one side was his normal everyday self, and was a brilliant engineer who made all kinds of crazy gadgets for his psychotic other half, the Mask. He did this on the condition that the Mask would not kill criminals whenever possible. It was kinda 2edgy but really cool and he really enjoyed the game.

My other players were either kinda ambivalent about it or really did not like it, trying to make characters that were OP as shit or didnt really fit the setting. We ended up dropping it soon after but I will never forget The Mask jumping out of a crashing helicopter with the VIP they were trying to save, using his wrist mounted grappel guns to spiderman between two buildings, dislocate both of his shoulders in the process, and end up smashing through a 10th floor glass window into an office building. Then he just kinda smashed his shoulders back into place and busted out with the guy. It was real fucking cool.

Shit now i feel like i want to run this again YOU GUYS WHY

by **Jazaen** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:09 pm #197363

Suuuuuuure. Legitimately acquire. Right.

Anyway, https://www.dropbox.com/s/40zxhaio5yv4y ... d.zip?dl=0 is the collection.

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:30 pm #197364

Also hot damn my group is really enjoying warhammer fantasy 2nd ed. More than they have any other RPG in a long time. Could just be because we went on a 8 month or so hiatus of games but everyone seems really invested, no one messes around on their phones the whole time and people actually put effort into their characters stories. Combat is mad deadly and the prefab adventure has a lot of other intruigue based challenges. I wonder how the party is going to deal with the inevitable betrayal of a guy they thought was a trusted ally.

by **EndgamerAzari** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:39 pm #197369

Has anyone died from falling off a horse yet?

Also, I'd love to be in a MM game, though my schedule is pretty tight for the next few months.

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 3:41 pm #197370

No one has died yet actually, but our berserker dorf miner has come close multiple times. Also our halfling feildwarden nearly got oneshotted by a cultist sorcerer of tzeench, if i had rolled higher on one of my two damage dice she would have had to burn a fate point

by **XSI** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:29 pm #197374

So my pathfinder game lost yet another player
This time because of two reasons
1. They weren't all that interested in PF in the first place and just wanted to roleplay. (And lewd roleplay too, they wanted to fuck the succubus but the group luckily convinced them that this was a bad idea)
2. They were pissed at how slow things were going, and at the same time didn't want to play for longer than 2-3 hours at a time

So now I am the only frontline of a group of squishy casters again
Druid can wildshape so I guess he can work as backup frontline

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:39 pm #197375

That's why I don't play pathfinder. On /tg/ they have to have 3 different pathfinder threads at a time because of fetish posters and weebs. Also I do want to play a superhero, comic books are cool.

by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:39 pm #197376

There's nothing a Druid can't do.

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:41 pm #197379

Wear metal armor.

by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:42 pm #197381

Who needs metal armor when you can have BEAR ARMOR

by **Jazaen** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 4:57 pm #197385

If they like Warhammer RPG, you might want to try Witcher RPG, since those two are supposedly very similar.

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:18 pm #197388

In 3rd edition Druids were crazy OP, not sure if pathfinder reigned that in at all. Never cared for them though, i always preferred ranger because FIGHTAN WILDERNESS SHERIFF is a fucking awesome trope.

I have likewise heard good things about the Witcher RPG, but i know the Old World setting a hell of a lot better than the witcher setting so i doubt we would make the switch

by **XSI** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:32 pm #197395

Not at all
Druids remain top tier and can do everything they want to, but they do need to build for it at least a little bit. And the druid in my group is caster oriented with some summonning bonusses.
He can just slap down a wall of dire creatures to serve as tanks if it was really needed

Metal armour or not makes no difference for them either, there's enough non-metalic alternatives to things to make it so that they can use the same quality of gear. Just a little bit more expensive

by **ShadowDimentio** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 5:53 pm #197400

A level 20 5E druid is virtually immortal. They have a 125 temp HP buffer that refreshes every turn, very good stats across the board with only CHA and INT (the two stats that never get called for saves) getting dumped.

If you ever have to fight one you'd better fucking pray the GM will throw you a bone.

by **Timbrewolf** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:34 pm #197408

Isn't a level 20 monk actually mechanically unkillable?

I seem to remember in past editions them getting some trait that makes them straight-up ignore death as well as becoming ageless, not needing food/drink, etc.

by **Wyzack** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:37 pm #197425

The benefits of a pious life. One thing i really like about 5th is how each class has a couple interesting archetypes, and one of the paths for monk is FUCKING DRAGON BALL Z STYLE MOTHERFUCKER. At its highest levels you can fly and fire kamehameha waves.

Being a Paladin is fucking balls to the wall awesome though. I basically 420 purge it every day, plus i just hit level 10 so it is mechanically impossible for me to be afraid of anything. Fast approaching spess mahreen tier ass kicker. The one thing that bothers me about the Paladin oaths is that at max level the vengence dickhead oath gets to turn into a fucking angel with impressive wingspan and shit and the Devotion oath just gets to emit light and sword real gud. Kinda fucking sucks

by **ShadowDimentio** » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:31 pm #197439

Wyzack come SPACE COPS you shill

by **Jacough** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:34 am #197539

I want to see if I can get some people in on some Cyberpunk. When I was in rehab I managed to get one of the house managers and a couple of people to try a session which ended up being pretty entertaining. Did a sort of test scenario to kind of introduce them to it.
> Scenario: Break into a small office building and steal some floppy disks containing corporate information for reasons
> Team consisted of me as a meditech with no real combat skills but pretty skilled in first aid and drug making, one guy as a russian fixer who was sort of the talker, specializing in intimidation and information gathering so basically an asshole, the house manager as a big African biker nomad who didn't speak English who despite being a towering brute had a big heart, and the last guy being a solo who's arm was blown off by his pissed off sister and replaced with a cybernetic arm with blades
> Intended for this to be kind of a sneaky operation so fixer dude tries to convince the receptionist that we're new guards and that we hadn't gotten our badges yet
> Did I mention that one of our team members was a big nomad biker who didn't speak English?
> Make it a difficult skill check since none of us look like corporate guards (not to mention the fact the house manager brought his assault rifle with him) which he fails
> Point out that his character is more intimidation focused than persuasion focused and he should try something more like that
> He takes this as a cue that he should grab her by the hair and hold her hostage at gunpoint
> That's an uh easy check which he passes... in front of security cameras
> Guards storm the lobby with SMGs and handguns
> We ended up having to shoot our way through
Highlights included:
> House manager fucking splattering a guard's head with a burst shot, showering the guard next to him with blood (had the guard roll for a skill check to see if he was stunned by it, which he failed)
> Fixer using the receptionist as a human shield which resulted in her getting shot in the chest and her left arm being blown off
> Solo shooting a guard in the arm with his SMG, blowing it clean off and killing the guard the next round
> Me missing every fucking shot because I had no points in handgun and not exactly the best reflexes

Shit was fun. Miraculously I was the only one who got shot. A round from an SMG punched through my kevlar vest a bit and put me in serious condition. Might have fucked up with the rules a bit though because there were a lot of limbs getting blown clean off.

Also when I rolled the character history for the house manager I got a toy for his valued possession so I made that a pair of sock em boppers since I named his character cock puncher.

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:47 am #197546

why were you in rehab

by **Screemonster** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:50 am #197547

because he didn't say no, no, no.

by **Super Aggro Crag** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 1:59 am #197552

yea but

playin cyberpunk is like the worst thing to do in rehab

cyberpunk is like 90 percent drugs, crime, and hookers.

by **Timbrewolf** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 5:04 am #197583

I've always wanted to try Cyberpunk but every time I try to crack the rulebook and start learning the system I quickly gravitate back towards Shadowrun or Eclipse Phase. They both seem to overlap the core concepts of Cyberpunk but each offers that and. Shadowrun smooshes some fantasy stuff in there while Eclipse Phase doubles down on the FUTURE.

Systems I would really like to actually get a game of in:
Call of Cthulhu
Cthulhu-Tech 2.0
More D&D 5E in my life
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire
Degenesis
Car Wars

by **Screemonster** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 6:02 am #197595

to be honest you could just use EP or Shadowrun for the system and swipe the setting from old-school cyberpunk where it's the year 2020 and a whole megabyte of portable storage is holy fuck futuretech

by **Ricotez** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 11:46 am #197640

Call of Cthulhu

now there's a system I want to give a go

Spoiler:

by **XSI** » Fri Jul 22, 2016 12:44 pm #197653

An0n3 wrote:Systems I would really like to actually get a game of in:
Call of Cthulhu

Yes please