I'm trying to remember... I think skype didn't used to let you share video if there were more than 2 people in a chat. Voice was roughly on par, from memory. (Last time I used either was about a year ago)
I only played one campaign in my life. It was DnD 3 (it was before 3.5 days I think) and the group was heavily combat oriented. we mostly hopped from combat to combat and that was it.
When the lion's share of the rules and almost all your character sheet and advancement options are combat-focused, you wind up with combat being the default mode at the table unless the group makes a concerted effort to do otherwise.
I can't say that I remember that fondly. On the other hand as far as roleplaying concerns I think I would be a poor player - I don't imagine things well and I certainly could not be a GM - I think my capacity to fantasize is limiting this.
@zespri You might want to try a mechanics-heavy system like 4e, so that you can ease into the role-playing elements more slowly without going "uuuuummmm" on your turn.
Or you might find that a system which provides a lot of RP hooks would be better; I know some people who get analysis paralysis and do better with low-crunch engines so they can put more of their brainpower into characterisation.
I also played a paranoia session or two. I don't think this was a full campaign (with the same group) and it was too hectic to my liking. I did not feel I'm having an impact on what;s happening around
I don't think I'm a very good GM. I made up a few adventures way back when I was just getting into RPGs, but since then I've used 99% published adventures. (and 99% played rather than GM'd)
In D&D 3.5 I made up all my own settings/adventures. In 4e I used the default setting and mostly re-skinned published adventures to fit a plot of my own design. In Fate I use a combination of group-designed settings/plots and premade adventures...
well, with computer games whenever it starts feeling like work I know it's time to take a break. with rpg that might be a bit harder as commitment to your group exists
@zespri My favourite style, when I can do it, is to do lightweight worldbuilding prep beforehand so that the world can respond to whatever the players throw at me.
It often means juggling multiple playstyles and expectations within a group, and a good bit of social engineering.
But in my experience the more a GM doesn't take that responsibility on himself and instead facilitates the entire group being part of the work, the healthier the experience will be for all involved.
(Remember, there are RPG engines which don't have a GM at all, and others which hand the players many of the responsibilities traditionally given to the GM.)
@zespri Not at all. I'm talking about what a group of friends should do anyway every time they do something together: work together to make sure everyone's having fun.
Anyway, I've had groups that could carry a story without me doing much except stepping in to occasionally adjudicate (we once didn't want to continue the plot because a player was absent, so they spent an entire session in a chicken-catching competition of their own invention). "Good GMs" create table-level environments that encourage and support fun play according to the needs and desires of their players and themselves. Full stop.
For me, that means inviting my players to be an active part of the dialogue and decision-making process so I'm not blindly guessing what they want.
I do not believe there's any special rule about minions not benefiting from thp. And unless it's a particularly weak power that hits them (though minion-clearer powers are there for a reason), thp won't save them.
They're notions which are very familiar to, say, 3.5 GMs.
They just aren't codified as elegantly in 3.5, where a lot of it is left for the GM to figure out.
A minion is a monster whose individual threat level is near-trivial but in groups can be threatening. A leader is a monster that can buff or heal its allies.
What I mean is, why should it matter whether an enemy is a "minion" or a "leader" when considering how a spell affects them? Spell gives them temp HP? They get temp HP.
That's because minion threat level is defined by their interaction with attacks, rather than by their level.
4e recognises that using extreme level disparity to create threat disparity (as 3.5 does) leads to all-hit and all-miss encounters which aren't fun.
So instead minions have the same basic attack and defence stats as anyone their level but their deal slightly less damage and are killed in one hit.
You have to pay attention to them and hit a level-appropriate defence in order to remove them, but they can be used in large numbers without overwhelming you.
The one-hit-kill is represented by giving them 1 hp.
Think of the conversation this way: "I'm putting a bunch of CR 1 goblins against my level 10 party, but I'm giving them a level 8 goblin cleric to buff them and keep them alive longer."
@Adeptus Also, there isn't really a set "fireball" spell, or "give temp hp" spell. Instead, monsters have powers (similar to the PCs). Just because one leader's power gives temp hp doesn't mean another leader's power can't give a bonus to defenses.
4e operates at a higher level of abstraction. The story of a "leader" monster is that it makes its allies fight better. Both thp and a bonus to defenses conveys that (as do bonuses to attacks or damage, though with a different tone).
My history of Catholicism is largely from the Catholic point of view (four years of Catholic theology and growing up on a Catholic island), with a smattering of Italian Renaissance art history perspective. So heresies in Western Europe/Britain are out of my bailiwick.
Yeah, they were like "Protestant reformation before it was cool". I'm trying to incorporate them in the computer strategy/RPG Crusader Kings II (properly, as they already are in the game but lack any defining features)
Well, I'm sure that Christianity SE either does a good job answering, or at least recognizes its value as a "good question" with more upvotes ;)
@BESW Shapechanging monster: wanders along the highways and byways in the guise of a knight or a rogue. Waits for people to approach it with quests, then turns into a dragon and eats them. Made by an evil wizard (of course) who was sick of people being sent after him.
Basically: if you've got something you want clever aspects on, think of them ahead of time. If you're using full skills for a fractal, assign them ahead of time.
I'm going to do some things then head home, but later when I get home I'm going to draft a question to ask what should be prepped in advance before a Fate game.
So, for instance, I expect these guys will be fought occasionally, so I've made them into supporting NPCs even though they're basically nameless in terms of plot significance: Weaponized Ordinary Machine for Building, All-Terrain High Concept: Digging Bulldozer on Legs Trouble: Unwieldy +4 Physique, +3 Shoot (sonic cannons), +2 Notice, +1 Athletics
And I've no idea if that's the right approach at all...
Because that is actually something I struggle with at the moment: What do I prep? How much do I prep? To what level of detail do I prep the things I am prepping?
We get questions from excited users who want to get started with roleplaying games, but mostly what we do is shut them down.
Me and my girlfriend wanna start playing where do we start?
I want to take part!
Also, we don't have an obvious FAQ. There's http://rpg.stackexchange.com/help and http...
I used to maintain fan-generated FAQs for a couple of game systems on my website. I plan to no longer maintain them. None of the information is proprietary.
Rather than have the information cast to the winds and only accessible via the internet archive, I have considered taking the most helpf...
Can anybody tell me from the top of their head (else I'll post a question) in which D&D 3.x book I can find the horse breeds for the Forgotten Realms setting?
This chat room is associated with the Stack site dedicated to tabletop/pen-and-paper RPGs, like Dungeons & Dragons. We range far off topic pretty regularly, though.
I've only once done part of a D&D session, at a con. And I liked it, but noone I know plays it and anyone I try to get into it lacks the patience to go through with it xD
Also, if it seemed like fun, you can probably look around for a group looking for a player. Assuming you live in anywhere more civilized and inhabited than @BESW does, chances are you'll find something.
I'm pretty sure Guam could be made into a wonderful adventure path, perhaps a post-apocalyptic scenario. The army bases, the radioactive debris in the harbor. R'lyeh. You know - the works!
We tried running a Pathfinder game set in Biblican Israel and Judea a year or two ago. It was a pretty good game, but Pathfinder carries with it a lot of D&D's pseudo-medieval baggage, and we carry a lot of it too, and it didn't sit too well with the setting for me.
Just yesterday we noted that a friend's rooftop sauna would be an ideal place to defend against a zombie apocalypse. Over 180 degree visibility, very little obstructions in 80m or so. Sniping time!
I wanted to set my Apocalypse World campaign in Finland (for locale bonus) or the Holy Land (for thematic bonus) but I ultimately decided to leave it up to my party where they are. They chose America, near Mississippi.
It basically is about a bunch of minors being the only people awake in the world. Implications ensue.
There's also one adult that can't sleep and is therefore conscious (while all the other adults are in a magical coma) but I didn't know how to introduce him in the previous sentence without implying further, worse implications.
--- By any chance, is anybody here a horse "expert"?
most faerunian races are very costly and have bonuses on top of the usual breeds, the MM-equivalent ones are just named once (and no reference to the breed they're inspiredd by is given). I need to write out a short description of a horse's build and personality that is both realistic, makes him prone to running away in panic at least once and makes him bold enough to be a warhorse.
Well normally I'd love to stick around but I have to get ready for work. Either way I'm looking into something for helping my sneaky archer dude be able to do some damage if he has to get up close and personal. If he does so, there's a good chance he's going to ensure that whatever he's going up to isn't able to move, let alone attack, so I'm looking for a good weapon to abuse via coup de grace.
Englishness Fun: provoke and evoke turn into provocative and evocative, not provokative and evokative. And, yet, this makes total sense, because provoce and evoce would be pronounced with an 's' at the end as in 'race', and provokative and evokative are not very English-looking at all.
Of particular interest are weapons that can be used one-handed, hidden relatively well, and are light, but I'll take a look at everything that's suggested. Weapon proficiency is not a problem for me in this since I don't intend to use it for much else besides Coup de Grace.
Right now I'm lookin...
Thanks :) I'll swing back in after work to check out and maybe hang a bit before I get back to working on my NWoD character, deadline for THAT one is tomorrow, there's no deadline on getting my D&D guy a good weapon since he's already in play and he's not in a position to shop right now (not unless a horde of orcs all wants to have tea or something and let the adventurers trying to kill them go back to town and resupply XD)
@GMNoob I have that somewhere. Didn't get far. My other favourite was Temple of Elemental Evil because it would let you make a few genuine decisions, including some which were hilariously dumb.
was this it?
(I entered "elemental evil" into the search in the top right, and sorted by newest. Though come to think of it you might be on your phone again!)
@JonathanHobbs Thanks, I happen to not be on my phone right now, but thank you for the benefit of the doubt. That search box is much too small on my screen.
@JonathanHobbs I happened to have logged into gog.com and noticed I own that game somehow, though I don't remember buying it. Was wondering if it was worth downloading.
@AsadaShino Aye, though now a days, a third world problem would be that the html1 version of the site doesn't display the search box in the right place :P
I knew Africa (and especially South Africa) recently begun having explosive growth in their mobile market, but I thought it was relatively new stuff! (though maybe also cheap)
South Africa has lots of modern new stuff. It's a first world country with a third world mentality. But in places like Somalia, or Kenya etc, the tribal areas have great phone service but bad 2g service.
So they have dirt cheap phones which cost $10 and and fancy SMS apps
I only know about this because I knew a guy working on a program where you sent an sms to a store and they would deliver food to your village and automatically take it out of your account, which you would approve by sending another sms to a confirmation number with a password
In many places in the Philippines they've skipped landlines entirely and gone from "no phones at all" to "cheap texting with cell phones charged off gas generators" without even getting any lined-in electricity.
My mother describes spending a week in a mansion with no electricity at a Ruhi institute learning site in the deep rural Philippines: at night after everyone was asleep, when the only light came from the stars, little islands of coloured light would spring up in the dark whenever someone's silent phone got a text.
When I was in Tanzania, the typical cheapo phones people used were slightly better than the one I had had only a few years before. Things advance fast.
That might be for the best. Luckily they're all CS students like me, I can drop them a warning on the IRC that they'll be "walked through" less and they'll have more responsibility of making choices from now on.
@GMNoob Would you mind telling me the name? :P If I want to try this game more if I can find others, I might as well familiarize myself with the rules and gameplay (even if this is digital) :P
Of particular interest are weapons that can be used one-handed, hidden relatively well, and are light, but I'll take a look at everything that's suggested. Weapon proficiency is not a problem for me in this since I don't intend to use it for much else besides Coup de Grace.
Right now I'm lookin...
