The amount of times my phone has decided that was the appropriate word astounds me. So I would daresay it's likely the same phone in a different case haha
My D&D game is going to be starting again shortly! Am excite.
I kinda want to talk to the GM and ask him to start with a drill. You know. "TO ARMS! BATTLE STATIONS!" and all that sort of excitement, since we left it at the edge of a war. Then reveal it was just a drill
Don't worry @daze413 or @miniman, it won't affect our schedule :)
Anyone have good experience with "The homebrewery"? I'm getting something that looks good on screen but that gets strange when ported to pdf. (Images bleeding across pages, sizes off, &c.)
Nvm--I'm an idiot. Pdf-converter was defaulting to landscape.
speaking of experiences -- how best can I edit the GnomeStew foldable-mini PDFs without a copy of Adobe Acrobat handy? (keep in mind, I'm typing to you from a Debian Linux box :P)
@Magician the train would probably sound different if it got closer though (the horn sound definitely is diff up close, and you also have the various mechanical noises)
By the end of the night, when we finally got down to sleeping, a few of the girls started hearing shuffling sounds in the bushes. All being in the same tent (a 6-man tent if I remember correctly - so we were able to sleep without rubbing elbows too vigorously), this was upsetting a few of the other patrons who were attempting to sleep.
I attempted to calm them, telling them it was likely just a Wallaby or some sort, but they were convinced it was a tiger or some such (I live in Australia btw).
"There's something in the bushes... there's something in the bushes!"
Then, amidst all this, not a foot away from my head, an insane cackling bursts through the tent. Within an instant I was on my feet, with a spare tent pole in my hands "THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE F***ING TENT!"
At this point, one of the girls turns off her 5am alarm. The cackling abruptly stops.
Needless to say I think my reaction put them at ease. I suppose it said that if there was any actual danger, I'd at least be able to react quickly.
I think, however, if my phone started hooting, I don't think I'd be able to stop my self from beating it until it stopped.
General question to put to the room - I have spoken to my GM about this, and he understands the issue. I feel like he is capable of handling the situation, but I also feel like there that I can do as the "problem player" as it were.
Basically, at the end of a long day, my brain tends to switch off. This is also when we do our weekly game. My "role" tends to always be the same - the fighter. I have a hard time contributing to investigation or problem solving, and often have to remind myself of what the ultimate goal is; why we were sent here; why we can't just leave, etc. Sometimes I often just lose focus and come back missing a whole half hour of gameplay.
General question to the room: is this too much info to throw at a player out-of-session? For context, we've spent two weeks playing a module set in the area and this week will start the hardcover (Tomb of Annihilation) campaign, expecting to run ~9 mo. About half the paragraphs in the "People of Chult" and "Port Nyanzaru" sections vary from player to player.
I don't interrupt and try and just suggest the whole "why don't we just leave", or whatever, because the other players do enjoy all that side of things. I am involved in combat, or anything that does directly involve me, but other wise, I just drift off.
@nitsua60 Well my discussion with the GM pointed out that he has identified my role in the group - the Fighter, or the "hitter". Basically the guy that finds it easier to solve problems by punching through things rather than finding our way around them
As well as the fact that my back-tracking and trying to find out what is happening would be a bit annoying to the rest of the group. They haven't said anything, but If the roles were reversed I would have some minor annoyance at having to remingd me again, what we're doing
@NautArch Well, yes, but I would say that I would have a hard time doing so. Like I said, my brain tends to simply switch off after a long day at work
@Ben Bluntly: have you said to the other players "hey, all: I enjoy coming here and relaxing and zoning a little bit and participating in combats. Is that a problem for anyone, if I'm drifting during other scenes?"
@nitsua60 not at all. that's a very short intro with some new purchase options. Definitely not overwhelming.
@Ben Thinking that you need to find something to clear your head. You're going from work, to errands, and straight to gaming. You don't have time to kind of reset yourself and get yourself in the right frame of mind.
@Ben what if you asked the game to start 30 minutes later? And then you carve out time to relax, or exercise, or something to refresh you so that you can be present.
@NautArch Intent is to give a baseline for flavor that I know I won't get across in narration/descriptions, to put a list of the items into their hands, and to sew some hooks. Thanks for taking a look!
@NautArch They've already made the characters--the same ones we've been playing with a few weeks. So some of the seeds are intentionally chosen, some randomly.
@NautArch That is usually what happens, but it seems that the game always starts at least an hour after whenever the latest person arrives. Everyone has their own lives and such, so sometimes we might be a little late, but I think that's what the GM wants - a period of time for everyone to chill, get relaxed, before we start the game.
@NautArch I think it might be a good idea to talk to the group about it though. I know the issue is apparent, so it'd be worthwhile discussing a set start time.
@Ben definitely good to talk with the group. They'll appreciate your openness and wanting to improve and maybe all of you can help figure out a way to bring you in.
@nitsua60 I find it tends to work out pretty well - the players who pay attention and want to know as much as they can are generally the ones who end up setting the party's direction anyway.
@Ben You could "soften" the approach a bit with something like "hey, all, I'm just realizing that I [playstyle], and I'm worried it's impacting [X]. I think I'd be better ready to play if we moved the start a bit."
I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a party that managed to pick an official leader. But at the same time, I don't think I've ever seen a party that didn't have an unofficial leader.
@Miniman In one game, I was the tank, but a background character, in another, again, the Tank, but seemingly far more charismatic/cinematic, and apparently the one that everyone else turned to to decide what happens next
As long as I'm slacking, I also got an RL game going. Out of the Abyss with a bunch of my neighbor-friends. I don't think it's a good fit for them as they don't really think about the game, they're more of a beer-and-pretzels group, which, the way I run OotA, will get them killed
They were perfectly content with the Orc killing the Myconid Sprout- who, if you ever played the module, is basically the neuralink of the group, allowing the PCs and NPCs to communicate without language barriers
Growing up, I lived in an area that was a popular place for escaped convicts to go. But that was because they were visiting their mothers. The police would show up, the mom would give them something to drink while her son finished his snack, and then they'd take him back to prison.
Also,..... My mom worries ten times more about my sister than she ever did about my brother and I ( and my sister would probably be the most likely of us to just rip the guy apart in that situation)
@trogdor Right. This is one of those things where my wife and I will sometimes disagree. If there's absolutely nothing I can do, I'd rather not know until later. She'd rather know as soon as possible. And we both reflexively treat each other via the golden rule. Which strains our ability to make it to a golden anniversary =)
I told her, and let her know all the details (Spoke to my sister, let her know what the situation was, told her to stay in the house etc.) That way mum knows that the situation is under control, and no one is in immediate danger
It's odd because you wouldn't normally see it that way. They seem like mum would be the one locking don the house, changing the locks, and dad being "It's ok, no one got hurt" [turn on the tv and yell about how the government idsn't doing their jobs]
The only reason I know this is because I've lived with them for so long. Anyone other than family would think the reverse
@trogdor First time meeting a college girlfriend's family: dad, all 6'6" 280# of him, comes to the door and extends his hand. "Hi nitsua, I'm Dominic. You can call me Mr. Smith. I've got a shovel, a shotgun, and a lot of land."
@Ben My plan? There's a reason I've remembered that line of Dominic's verbatim. And that I bought a (non-functioning) shotgun so I could say it with a straight face =|
I brought home one of my friends one time, and we caught my father and 2 of his other gun-loving friends casually making rounds for their M4A1s... on the dinner table
My DnD party suggested replacing Inspiration by a d4 bonus to a roll, with each character having a pool of d4's that can be saved until needed. Any obvious caveats we should be aware of?
I see a possible pitfall in "Inspiration inflation" where the GM starts awarding inspiration by twos or threes when one doesn't seem to be enough, and then everyone has a guaranteed success or two in their pocket.
As the bard player, I also worry it's lurching on my territory.
Well, except if one character has several d4's in storage and uses them all at once, but that's a problem of it's own... it's not dramatic if it's essentially guaranteed to succeed.
@kviiri You should check how that affects dice rolls: anydice.com/program/d0d0/graph/normal (it's much more underwhelming than getting advantage on a roll)
If inspiration lets you re-roll after seeing the initial result, then you never waste it on a roll you would've succeeded on otherwise--it might not help, but you only ever use it when you need it.
If inspiration is declared before rolling, then you can roll two high and waste it.
By comparison, +1d4 will ALWAYS give you at least +1 on your roll.
So, BESW and I play in the Fate system, which you might've heard of. This is a system where ordinary dice rolls are only done about half the time; the other half of the time we're spending Fate tokens to boost our rolls after seeing the results. (In D&D equivalents, we'd be spending tokens for something like a +5 bonus or for a reroll, and can spend multiple tokens.) The system is pretty much about accumulating and spending tokens, and on using them for other things than rolling.
If I were a player in that d20 + however many 1d4s you want to give me, I'll be doing as much as I can to get as many of those I can, and spending them all the time. You'll be giving me a +3 bonus on most rolls if I have a semi-reliable way to gain 1d4s, and you can bet I'll spend as much as possible on anything important.
So, be aware you'd be changing the game's dynamics quite significantly, because those 1d4s are a pretty big deal.
Fate makes us want Fate dice, but that's good, since we get Fate dice for specific concrete things like accepting complications, setback, or defeat. They're a bribe to have us accept things that create dramatic stories, which is what we're playing Fate to get.
Inspiration is sort of a poor man's Fate token to begin with, since it's there to encourage desired narrative goals. (But it shoots itself in the foot on several design fronts.)
I don't really agree on a lot of things this party wants to do, but the thing is, I'm already wasting most of my "legitimate whining" credits on bigger issues, so I'm a bit dry here :<
@kviiri If your players are trying to add a lot of new fun stuff to the game to make it funner for them, maybe there's other games that'd fit them better.
@BESW Oh yeah, that too! "Here is a game about doing cute stuff. When you do cute stuff, others can give you points called dreams. You use the points to get things." Suddenly people are actively seeking to do cute stuff.
Speaking of weird mechanics, I got an idea earlier today to hack the CthulhuTech dice pool mechanic for a spiritual sequel to Surgadores: Rocket Surgery.
@doppelgreener Well, they're adding stuff alright (while protesting against inclusion of other stuff), but I just don't think their ideas are that well thought-out for solving the issues we have.
@kviiri Gotcha. Could always say "okay, let's try three sessions with the 1d4's and see how they work out, and if we'd like to keep going with them, or modify how we use them, or drop them."
@doppelgreener Even more than that! Dreams are spent only to improve relationships, which gives you more ability to do pre-ordained specialty effects, and gives the other character more ability to do improvised skill-like stuff.
TBH it's likely to be a minor change because we hardly ever use the current inspiration system, and I believe it's for reasons that this change won't impact.
@doppelgreener I have to re-read CthulhuTech, but the basic concept is, you roll a lot of dice but before you roll you declare what kind of results will count toward successes: straights, matches, pairs, etc.
The kind of result you choose influences your success rate, but the more difficult things you can choose will cause you to have more effective successes if you do succeed.
So, for example, I could say "I will succeed with a straight" and roll:
@doppelgreener I'd like to try out Fate or Apocalypse World with these people, the problem just is that most of them have very little RPG experience outside Deadlands:Reloaded and DnD. After that, the idea of "trying out a new system" might sound a bit scary, because their entire sample is mechanically complex monstrosities.
Well, reasonably complex. Apart from having race-or-class-specific mechanics, DnD is pretty straightforward in most ways compared to the fiddliness of SW.
@BESW I've tried, but they're skeptical it could work with so little :P they need actual gameplay, but are reluctant to give away sunken costs in DnD to give it a shot. At least until this campaign is over.
A friend of mine has also very recently tried Blades in the Dark for the first time, which is @JuneShores's favorite introductory RPG. He was super doubtful beforehand, but had a blast. June on the other hand has played it a lot and loves it. (I've never played it myself.)
Like, "pick them up in two hands" amounts of dice sometimes, and not actually hard to count since IIRC you're just looking for anything that's a 4, 5 or 6 -- so you take those aside (or just remove the 1, 2 and 3 results) and count what you've got. The GM's told you that you need at least a certain number (2 thru 5) so you just stop counting once you reach that number.
@doppelgreener I never was particularly fond of the "Laser Feelings" rule of the original, it seems to fire too often. I wonder how one could change it...
> If you roll your number exactly, roll again and check for success as if you were doing the opposite of your current action (over your number if you were using LASERS, under if you were using FEELINGS). If the re-roll is also a success you get LASER FEELINGS.
In the few games of L&F I've played, players got annoyed by Laser Feelings because they're not successful dice and thus hampered them in doing what they wanted to achieve.
Asking the GM a question is awesome because it gives you agency beyond your character.
"Why does the ship only have one working nacelle?" is a great question to ask of a ship that previously hadn't been established to be in good or bad condition.
> Laser Feelings (modified): You start with one Brainwave. Put a d6 down with the 1 face-up to represent them. When you roll exactly your number on any of your dice, after determining your level of success, roll another d6. If the result is more than your number of Brainwaves, you get LASER FEELINGS, and get +1 Brainwave. You can spend 5 Brainwaves instead of rolling to get an automatic Critical Success on an action.
Hmm. CthulhuTech is a bit different than I remembered. You add up all the dice that fall into the set you declared.
> • You can take the highest single roll. • You can take the highest set of multiples and add them all together. • If you get to roll three or more dice, you can take the largest straight and add those dice together.
Compare the sum to the target difficulty.
Also if your sum is 10 or more over the target, Good Things Happen. If more than half of your dice are ones, Bad Things Happen.
Oh, and it seems to let you choose which to do after the roll? Boo.
You're a Mythos game about a technological golden age built on the back of tenuous pacts made with half-understood Entities with unknown agendas. Give your mechanic a little bit of a gamble, eh?
I just want to make a game about performing delicate surgery with military-grade explosive weaponry, and I'm going to make it more uncertain than your horror game.
Okay, math. What's the biggest number of d12s I can use the above mechanic for without making the first option always a poor choice?
@BESW Having thought about it, I'm concerned with picking before I roll: given the uncertainty it might as well just be an arbitrary dice mechanic built into the game. There's no practical difference between "count your dice by this measure of success" and "pick one of these measures of success, then roll" except that the second makes me spend some mental energy weighing up an entirely illusory agency mechanic.
Like, "if you go with the highest single roll, then succeed or fail [other thing] happens which would never happen if you choose something else."
You know how Surgadores has you define a handful of narrative things about your character and give each a numerical value that ties into the resolution system?
I think I'm gonna do the same, but tie each narrative element to a resolution choice.
So when you say "I'm going to use my bazooka," you also mean "I'm going to sum the highest set of multiples."
Is there anything the rules for 5E that prevents people from using a versatile weapon two-handed during their turn, and simply swapping their shield back at the end of the turn for the AC boost?
@DrRDizzle Glad to be of service :) I think it's weird how DnD 5e has this, err, rather strict guideline on equipping/stowing shields but is rather vague in terms of holding everything else.
@kviiri That's the thing, really. Most actions that aren't hitting things, casting spells or moving aren't covered by action economy in 5E, so I assumed this wasn't either. I know people tend to dislike 4E, but the idea of minor actions was actually really good.
Huh, TIL. 4E was my first real experience of any tabletop role playing game, so it's always occupied a soft place in my heart (even if I do understand the criticism of every class being a wizard).
I started in 3.5 and found 4e a welcome change. "Every class a wizard" is superficially true, but the variations between classes and variants lent, in practice, a distinctly different feeling to each.
Even with a class that's usually pretty homogeneous, like Fighter, 4e managed to create real diversity of play experience. I was impressed.
Eventually I realized that I my desired play experiences ran against bone-deep D&Disms regardless of edition, but 4e's focus and coherence helped me see past edition to the shared themes between editions.
I played in 4e for almost two years and had a great time. My biggest complaint is that I feel so satisfied with the experience that I have no urge to return to it--I got everything I wanted out of the game with one long-form campaign from levels 1 to 30.
I do feel like I could get more out of 4e personally
however, I don't need to get more out of it
if I want to got to a relatively simple combat system game though, I don't know of any system designed better for that (at least to my personal tastes) that I have played before or since 4e
To be fair, its introductory days were a lot more... sparse... than when we started playing. In that context it would have been easier to miss the complex potential in the nascent system.
If we want a D&D-like mechanical experience rather than just a D&D-like setting, I'd go for 13th Age.
But if we wanted to play more discovery or politics or something rather than dungeon-crawling....
I don't particularly need a D&D-like mechanical experience for POL.
I'd be game for, like, playing a group of cartographers who get paid to map places so dangerous just about no other cartography group would want to touch the job with a ten-foot pole.
Completing the job takes a lot of thrilling heroics and compromised mental faculties for self-preservation.
(by "thrilling heroics" mostly the running away parts)
I used to try to pull off complex stuff like power dynamics between noble houses in DnD 4e. The players disliked it, so I keep it in the background now
There can be a degree of disconnection between "what the players do" and "what the world is doing". It's like an action movie where the motivations are something elaborate, political and economical, but aren't really explored in great depth.
I played a PF campaign in DD4's setting (or at least it was DD4's map and the GM told us it was DD4's setting) and it was full of very powerful NPCs working in mundane taverns (I exaggerate a bit, but not that much)
I've started running some board games every other thursday at work with the hope that I can interest folks in doing some RPG (but it's pretty doubtful)
Sort of, but not really. The adventure was an amalgamation of two adventures I've run in the past. The ring is a Ring of the Ram, which is one of my favorite items to give out, and the Village of Hommlet is an old 1e module. I'm not sure I'll run the moathouse that came with it though.
I had a ring of the ram once, but had to give it up. Overall, I wasn't totally in love with it, but it was a great way for my paladin to get a good ranged attack.
The first part is almost over, after getting stretched way beyond what I intended. Now the second part is beginning, and I think it's going to be the greatest DnD I'm ever going to master for anyone, but on the other hand I'm weary of the system...
I'm struggling on whether I want to just toss out my plans for the second part of the campaign and play something else, or try to bear with it until the bitter end.
