Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[TremendousBoredom]

>7 year old niece staying over for the afternoon
>Need to find something family friendly to have on TV in living room
>Find an old Ultraman collection DVD, put it on for background while I watch her and she helps me with some housework.
>She's...into it. Really into it.
>Get idea; dig out old Monsterpocalypse figures, tell her about them
>Little girl's eyes light up, especially since Shadow Sun Syndicate is basically the Ultraman faction
>Wants me to show her how to play with them next time she comes up.
>Corruption towards gaming Stage 1 complete....

The question becomes...what is her favorite Ultraman kaiju?

 

[The Seaman]

I've been running a Fallout game set in Detroit and it's been working out pretty well. The rules are easy to learn and it's good for games where you'll be expecting a lot of action. The core rulebook will cover about 90% of everything you need to make a Fallout game, but you'll have to homebrew the rest or get it off somebody else's homebrew. If you want, I can post my homebrew stats so you can get an idea of what you need to do or just use it for yourself.

For Fallout, you need to figure out what kind of enemies your players are going to encounter. The main point of Fallout is that humanity remains the same no matter what may happen to it and there will always be war despite this. So the question is who is going to be in Mexico City and what are they fighting over? It's mentioned in New Vegas that Mexico City wasn't hit too hard in the war. So maybe there's enough industry left intact that would give who ever controls it a clear advantage over their rivals. Your players could be mercenaries fighting for those fighting over Mexico City, or scavengers trying to get whatever they can get hands on while avoiding the major factions. For the who, I can't really answer because I'm not the most familiar with Mexico. The Cartels, the remnants of the Government, and the Catholic Church are the only ones I could think of for Mexico, so you should do some research. Be sure to have some smaller factions and groups as well. New Vegas did this really well, so replay it or read the wiki if you want a good idea Flesh them out, figure out how they would adapt to the post-apocalyptic environment, and give them some quirks and a reason to side with any of them. It also helps if you read some post-apocalyptic stories to get some inspiration. Fallout had a lot of influences so you might as well get some ideas from them. I recommend A Canticle for Leibowitz as a start.

As for DMing, I can give some general advice. Avoid sandbox games for your first time. Player agency may sound good, but more often than not they'll just wander aimlessly and get bored without a clear goal and obstacles. It can be as simple as getting rich or just killing a specific type of enemy (faction members, death claw hunters, etc.). Sandbox games are also more work than linear games so try keeping the plot simple. Be sure to be well read on the rules so you don't have to halt the game to look something up every couple minutes. For notes, I like to type up an outline of what's going to happen without getting too detailed. Your players might always find a way to accomplish something you didn't anticipate so you need to be prepared to improvise.

Hope this helps out, and maybe someone more experienced can help out as well.

A Mexican Wasteland would be quite interesting and i've already begun with my research but most of it was wondering how would mexico be in fallout since my country's situation during the 50's was unique.
For starters, there would not be a Carteles since they began to arm themselves just by the turn of the century with the war on drugs and all of that jazz. There would obviously be wealthy farmers from all the drugs the average american on the fallout timeline consumed before the great war so they would be quite different but still chem barons could be a thing and if i ever wanted to go north their interactions with the NCR would be entertaining.

When i thought of Mexico City after what Raul said i looked into it and the city would cave in if it ever was struck by any significant Nuclear blast. The city is made on top of fucking Jello and seing just how fucked up the city gets when a earthquake strikes then i was stuck between ignoring that and going with the city managing to survive for it to fall in the next 200 years it takes to get on with the current timeline (i could always make around Raul's time for a fun encounter and for my players to cause a time paradox if they kill him) or making something up with the metro system that runs underneath the city. So i decided on the latter and plan on the USA goverment to take into some renovation project of the metro system with social experiments integrated courtesy of Vault Tec.

Essentially another step in the exploiting of natural resources after the USA takes control behind the stage (the country wasn't fully anexxed in lore but i could always go against that) in the way that besides improving the metro system so it reached other parts far away and adding stations that worked as Fallout shelters for the elite and whoever was at a station during the bombing it also went deep underground to give support to the city at bedrock and to harvest the sweet water aquifers that gave the city and send it to the US like petrol was by pipes (this could be an excelent excuse to make it to the border if i ever went in that direction.)

This gives me two things, an endgame with a valuable resource underneath the city for the factions or the main bad guy to struggle for, a way to have a vault dweller substitute for my players to choose and give variety to the race pool, the origins and explanation for a Mexican Gov remenant who isnt that advanced as the Enclave was but it sure is to the raider groups that have managed to become organized groups after centuries with each their quirk (Indigenous, luchador and zarape gunslingers) and other groups that have taken culturally significant places as their base of operations.

There is a dark chapter of Mexico's history that was known as the Dirty War (guerra sucia) which was the goverment taking in the steps of older brother US and absolutely erradicating any sort of political opposition, it even had its own tiananmen square known as Tlatelolco Massacre, it happened in Tres Culturas Square on which its estimated close to 1500 people were killed by several goverment death squads. This shit was basically that Fallout 1 intro commercial of a Canadian Freedom fighter being shot at by power armor soldiers but in real life, most of this shit essentially writes itself given how fucking surreal the countrys history is.

Finishing this. I'll probably gut the Fallout Rough Riders homebrew for rules and equipment and start building up from there. I've already bought a copy of Canticle for Leibowitz after watching the Classic Fallout post mortem for stuff that inspired the game, I have also played enough FNV so that the main quest and several details are permanently burned into my psyche. For the PCs i'll make them to be a caravan group sent by someone (Mexican branch of Crimson Caravans?, other important Northern Mexican Wasteland faction) wanting to break into the Federal District Wasteland through a route different to the one that one used via an underground railway or smth.
Most of it isnt really pinned down and i need to finish both Leibowitz and Juan Rulfo's work to do really get the juices flowing.
Edit: If you could post your homebrew i would be extremely grateful.

 

[Snekposter]

One thing I'd like to add is there could be actual Enclave forces as an antagonist faction. Since Petro-Chico was an American business, could always have a few hidden bunkers and vaults of Americans (oil execs, essential personnel and their forces, security elements) and American tech stashed away down there. Could always have them pop up and out with T-51b suits at some point, with them unaware of things thanks to nukes taking out all communications lines, even the hardwired ones. I'm sure there's a few other places Americans could be stashed away in US-built bunkers the locals wouldn't have access or even awareness of. Could also have a BoS-type group pop up from some of those places as a result of "Nah, fuck that shit, they left us in Mexico, so we're fucking Mexicans now. And fuck every other Mexican who isn't us, because we're fucking Mexicans."

 

[Stalphos Johnson]

@Olivek reply bug got me

Here's my Autism compilation. Not the most well organized because I pasted from several different documents. I might have left some stuff out, but hopefully this helps.

 

[Cincinnatus]

Is anyone looking for a player for Thursday? I'm free all day and up for pretty much any game.

 

[Wormy]

The question becomes...what is her favorite Ultraman kaiju?

We only got through I think 6 episodes of the very first series, and was more taken with Ultra himself. She was especially amused by that noise he makes every time he suplexes or throws a monster. Still, if judging by which episode grabbed her the most it was Neronga, the one that absorbed electricity to become invisible.

I don't have Ultraman Ace though, so if I want to show her Doragoris ripping off the jaw of Murichi before peeling it like a bannana, I'll need to Youtube it.

 

[Gingervitis]

I have a dumb question that was probably asked already. Pre-5e ruining everything, what would you guys consider your favorite “official” D&D settings?

For me, it was always Ravenloft. That being said, Mystara is growing on me thanks to Mr Welch’s videos.

 

[Wormy]

For me, it was always Ravenloft.

Likewise, though not specifically for Ravenloft it'self mainly because I've always been a sucker for Hammer-horror style since I was a youngling. It did inspire my one and only homecooked D&D setting based on said Hammer movies. Centered around a Transylvanian-esque country caught between two major powers, one being a pious European empire with gunpowder and holy magic, and an Ottoman style power wielding alchemy and more classical spell casting. Said wars awakened dormant horrors and the country's ancient overlords as a third power just trying to kill off the living so their country can go back to being a quiet creepy place to sleep.

 

[Gingervitis]

Likewise, though not specifically for Ravenloft it'self mainly because I've always been a sucker for Hammer-horror style since I was a youngling. It did inspire my one and only homecooked D&D setting based on said Hammer movies. Centered around a Transylvanian-esque country caught between two major powers, one being a pious European empire with gunpowder and holy magic, and an Ottoman style power wielding alchemy and more classical spell casting. Said wars awakened dormant horrors and the country's ancient overlords as a third power just trying to kill off the living so their country can go back to being a quiet creepy place to sleep.

Ravenloft is great because you can insert their adventures, whether official or homemade, into literally any setting with zero work. All you have to do is add some shit about the mists and your party has their entire weekend booked fighting some gay puppet or Lord Soth.

 

[A Useless Fish]

I have a dumb question that was probably asked already. Pre-5e ruining everything, what would you guys consider your favorite “official” D&D settings?

The Planes. They have always been my favourite setting.

And honestly, the 5e system has really grown on me. It's just all of the official stuff, and a lot of the special snowflakes that came in thanks to Critical Role that I dislike.

 

[Gingervitis]

And honestly, the 5e system has really grown on me. It's just all of the official stuff, and a lot of the special snowflakes that came in thanks to Critical Role that I dislike.

Tbh, I’m on the same boat. I also don’t like how slow they release content. Not everything needs to be on the level of 3e, but for context, all the Mystara Gazetteers were released in two years, and those were each, at minimum, 64 pages apiece.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I have a dumb question that was probably asked already. Pre-5e ruining everything, what would you guys consider your favorite “official” D&D settings?

For me, it was always Ravenloft. That being said, Mystara is growing on me thanks to Mr Welch’s videos.

Greyhawk. It was the first world I played in, on the tail end of AD&D's product cycle, and even though I likely forgot most of it already it's still the one that comes to mind when I think D&D. There's something very comfortable about it.

Fuck, I need to go digging into my boxes, see if I can find my copy of Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. I'm nostalgic now.

 

[Abella]

We managed to have our campaign and the player in question decided to go ahead and let his character be changed and then he rolled up a mountain dwarf fighter without giving me or the other players any trouble. I let him know that he shouldn’t try to do stuff like that in the future because I’ll put my foot down.

 

[anti SJW]

Love Dark Sun.

 

[Gutpuke]

Love Dark Sun.

WOTC better keep their hands away from Athas.

 

[anti SJW]

WOTC better keep their hands away from Athas.

That's the thing. If current WOTC decides to put out Dark Sun, it won't be Dark Sun. It will be some sanitized political correct version.

 

[Coelacanth]

>7 year old niece staying over for the afternoon
>Need to find something family friendly to have on TV in living room
>Find an old Ultraman collection DVD, put it on for background while I watch her and she helps me with some housework.
>She's...into it. Really into it.
>Get idea; dig out old Monsterpocalypse figures, tell her about them
>Little girl's eyes light up, especially since Shadow Sun Syndicate is basically the Ultraman faction
>Wants me to show her how to play with them next time she comes up.
>Corruption towards gaming Stage 1 complete....

Great thing to get her into! Introduce her to Godzilla next.

I've been having a blast with my group and I've slowly been learning from the DM how to construct my own campaigns. They even expressed interest in a one-shot I plan to do as sort of a way of seeing if being a DM would be a good choice for me.

 

[Bleacher]

I have a dumb question that was probably asked already. Pre-5e ruining everything, what would you guys consider your favorite “official” D&D settings?

For me, it was always Ravenloft. That being said, Mystara is growing on me thanks to Mr Welch’s videos.

Eberron, by far. Pretty sure 5e ruined it or will be ruined soon.

 

[Corn Flakes]

That's the thing. If current WOTC decides to put out Dark Sun, it won't be Dark Sun. It will be some sanitized political correct version.

That's my hope for it. Greyhawk is my favorite but as my sperging about it here shows Dark Sun is up there for me. They might own the brand, but nothing they come up with in Current Year will ever carry the soul of Dark Sun.

 

[Airbrushed Van Art]

Anyone here thinking of backing that Blade Runner RPG Kickstarter from Free League?

I’m sorely tempted. The rules seem a lot simpler than Cyberpunk Red. But it looks like it might be too narrow of a concept…