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

[Brain Problems]

Oh, and another cool thing you can do? Learn how each category of monster progresses in their growth and then boost stats accordingly if they can't realistically take levels of characters.

Don't like how shit a Darkmantle is for your gigachad party? Use this tool kit and augment them as needed to make them rattle and startle your party. Up their size, add a couple HD, improve their damage based on size, and maybe add a new effect and boom. Same monster, but nastier due to being older or augmented by some asshole wizard eons ago and they bred true.

I love using monster base templates and just improving them with progression.

Cool link, thanks.

I like giving "legendary" actions to the boss mooks or tough guys. Big fan of PCs having an "oh shit" moment when the elite goblin suddenly does something really cool and unexpected.

 

[Wormy]

Every time I see what people are having to deal with how the races and classes are getting so watered down I keep thinking of this fucking comic.


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FAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE. If this was truly old school D&D you wouldn't be allowed to use an evil race like Orcs as PC's. *rimshot*

Also who's the little baby looking thing? A halfling?

 

[Gingervitis]

FAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE. If this was truly old school D&D you wouldn't be allowed to use an evil race like Orcs as PC's. *rimshot*

Also who's the little baby looking thing? A halfling?

I think it might be a half-orc and a halfling respectively

 

[Hikaru86]

Mercer should be running Storyteller.

Please, God, no. Imagine having LARPERs fucking everywhere because The Mercer Effect.

 

[Overly Serious]

@Steinercard I can't quote you because the post is too long but I have to say your story about the patrons and the rest of the PCs and how it all came together was very entertaining and I hope you continue to post updates. I want to say that this story actually made me enthusiastic enough to go write up a one-shot and run it for some people. It's years since I've actually GM'd and your post got me all enthusiastic to do it.

Top stuff!

 

[Gingervitis]

Please, God, no. Imagine having LARPERs fucking everywhere because The Mercer Effect.

Good. Then they won’t be infesting the rest of the TTRPG industry

 

[BoobWhiskers]

Good. Then they won’t be infesting the rest of the TTRPG industry

Regrettably, like the remarkable percentage of violent hulking MTFs in the Warhammer 40k fandom, I think it's perhaps a little late for that

 

[Wormy]

Please, God, no. Imagine having LARPERs fucking everywhere because The Mercer Effect.

That's a big old plate of NOPE with a side order of NOPE fries and NOPE on a waffle cone for dessert.

Regrettably, like the remarkably percentage of violent hulking FTMs in the Warhammer 40k fandom, I think it's perhaps a little late for that

So it's not just Imperial LARPER's in that fandom. Wonderful. Just all sorts of wonderful.

Just...please keep them out of OPR: Grimdark Future, please...

I think it might be a half-orc and a halfling respectively

"Half"? Someone's in big denial there.

And does that halfling have the downs?

 

[Tinfoil]

I walked into a toy store for the first time in many decades. I was a bit taken aback, because the store seemed closer something more adults that love Big Bang theory would enjoy than kids. Many crossover Monopoly games, lots of franchise Lego, Overwatch matchbox cars based on the characters designs? and massive 1000 piece puzzles. It seemed more geared towards adult collectors than kids.

Two things jumped out at me, however.

 

[ZMOT]

I walked into a toy store for the first time in many decades. I was a bit taken aback, because the store seemed closer something more adults that love Big Bang theory would enjoy than kids. Many crossover Monopoly games, lots of franchise Lego, Overwatch matchbox cars based on the characters designs? and massive 1000 piece puzzles. It seemed more geared towards adult collectors than kids.

remember most kids these days sit online getting groomed in minecraft and fortnite. retail stores in their limited space always had to carry what sells (on top of getting undercut online most of the time as well) - that's what's left of it.

 

[Brain Problems]

I walked into a toy store for the first time in many decades. I was a bit taken aback, because the store seemed closer something more adults that love Big Bang theory would enjoy than kids. Many crossover Monopoly games, lots of franchise Lego, Overwatch matchbox cars based on the characters designs? and massive 1000 piece puzzles. It seemed more geared towards adult collectors than kids.

Two things jumped out at me, however.
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Drizzt has been around for a long time. It and Ravenloft (and maybe others that I cannot think of off the top of my head) are half-decent takes on the fairly popular dungeon crawlers in a box games out there. I know that we use the Ravenloft minis more than anything involving the actual game.

The Stranger Things one is a pretty bog-standard and obvious tie in that I haven't played so cannot comment on quality beyond the obvious commercial appeal of the product.

Something I've heard but never verified is that Hasbro and distributors have certain requirements of retailers that essentially force them to stock or dedicate X amount of space/product to certain lines like Monopoly. I have no idea if they sell at all (they gotta, unfortunately) but it's a price of doing business. Tie-in products will always have an inherent selling advantage to normalfags hence the reason you see a bajillion versions of Risk, Munchkin, Monopoly, Love Letter etc. The average toy store will have the "big" names of the Parker Brothers/Hasbro stuff, maybe some vaguely more insular stuff like Catan, Ticket to Ride, Game of Thrones, Codenames etc. and possibly some hobbyist stuff but generally speaking if it's owned by Asmodee (and odds are it is) only the top sellers will be found there.

Just waiting until Asmodee gets purchased by Hasbro and yet another seal is broken in the Second Coming of tabletop Jesus.

 

[Ghostse]

Drizzt has been around for a long time. It and Ravenloft (and maybe others that I cannot think of off the top of my head) are half-decent takes on the fairly popular dungeon crawlers in a box games out there. I know that we use the Ravenloft minis more than anything involving the actual game.

I'll confirm both: they're decent games, and they are also great sources of minis for D&D (which I believe was the point)
There's a whole line: Ravenloft, Drizzt, Wrath of Ashardalon, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Annilihation, Lair of the Mad Mage.
These started to come out... I believe midway through 4e's run, and the most recent was in 2019. They are hypothetically interoperable (ie you can take heros and monsters from one edition and play with them in any other.
They are pretty fun cooperative games for 1 to 5 THREE. EXACTLY THREE players. You pull random tiles, find a random monster (or multiple random monsters) and try to complete an objective. A session takes about an hour.
The minis are also from Wizard's mini lines, so they are correctly scaled and have a good mix of creatures.

Temple of Elemental Evil introduced a progression mechanic that was pretty fun.

(Drizzt is kind of bullshit because the Drizzt hero is way OP.)

Something I've heard but never verified is that Hasbro and distributors have certain requirements of retailers that essentially force them to stock or dedicate X amount of space/product to certain lines like Monopoly. I

I've heard this verified multiple times by people. Hasbro dictates preferred pricing comes with minimum layouts to the big box.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I've heard this verified multiple times by people. Hasbro dictates preferred pricing comes with minimum layouts to the big box.

This is not new. I believe Marvel and DC run a similar scam, and it's one of the reasons comic books have fallen so badly. 'Sorry, if you want X new cool comic, you have to buy and stock 50 copies of shitty SJW theater comic.'

 

[Pentex]

Mercer should be running Storyteller.

Bite your tongue, xir.

Jason Carl is bad enough.

 

[Wormy]

Bite your tongue, xir.

Jason Carl is bad enough.

In fairness, he can't be any worse than Alex T when he was the top ST for the world game.

Man was a piece of shit in and out of the game.

 

[Pentex]

In fairness, he can't be any worse than Alex T when he was the top ST for the world game.

Man was a piece of shit in and out of the game.

I'm not a LARPer so I only know Alex T by name and that he was supposedly the hot shit in the Camarilla back in the 00s.

 

[Wormy]

I'm not a LARPer so I only know Alex T by name and that he was supposedly the hot shit in the Camarilla back in the 00s.

I was actually in a couple Camarilla sessions with him in the NRV domain. He's almost every "That Guy" gamer stereotype you can think of, treated his housemates like shit, and was straight up abusive to his wife. A couple of members of our group kept in touch with Heather T after she left him and said it was "A relief" to get away from that man. Fuck, gives me a bad taste even remembering that sack of snake feces.

 

[Fakenamemagoo]

There seems to be a lot of Lore surrounding this Alex T gentleman. Maybe I'm just too stupid, but Googles coming up with nothing. What was his deal?

 

[Wormy]

There seems to be a lot of Lore surrounding this Alex T gentleman. Maybe I'm just too stupid, but Googles coming up with nothing. What was his deal?

Abusive and controlling husband, cunt to his housemates, asshole to any out of town players to the point where if you go to one of his games and you're not part of the NRV proper, expect to just get put in a corner with your thumb up your ass while they engage in the plot.

 

[Dang Woodchucks!]

Every time I see what people are having to deal with how the races and classes are getting so watered down I keep thinking of this fucking comic.


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On the whole CR thing...

If you want to use low CR creatures to challenge a higher party, like others have said, just give them a few PC levels. Nothing is nastier than a kobold with 5 or 6 levels of vivesectionist or rogue or just plain fighter that the party ends up fighting in close quarters.

If you really want to bump it up, give them a Threat Rating. You can use it as a +1 modifier that they can use once per round. Or act as a dice pool. Or even add an extra d4 to damage per level of threat rating.

One thing I have noticed is that for some reason the players in a lot of the games I read posts about or watch on Twitch/YouTube seem to think that they can just rest for as long as they want, wherever they want, with no risk to the characters.

I hear a lot about action economy and resource economy, then they're getting all their spells and powers back after X amount of encounters.

You rarely see them push through, or keep going after X amount of encounters. Nope. Just "We rest" and "OK. All of your powers are back."

Fuck, makes me glad we have some time keeping stuff and some time dependent nerfing of stuff.

(Have fun memorizing your spells. You need 1 hour of rest, then 15 minutes per spell level PER spell of memorization, max of 8 hours of study, then a full 8 hours of rest. Of course, this counts for the NPC's too, resulting in some pretty tense runs)

So hypothetically it wouldn't be an asshole move to make upcoming encounters tougher if the party is just going to try and rest-scum to stay in perfect health?

That's a big old plate of NOPE with a side order of NOPE fries and NOPE on a waffle cone for dessert.


So it's not just Imperial LARPER's in that fandom. Wonderful. Just all sorts of wonderful.

Just...please keep them out of OPR: Grimdark Future, please...

I don't think those freaks really even play, much less read, they just heard secondhand that GW is """"inclusive"""", so they try to adhere to its fandom like tapeworms. OPR is safe... for now.

"Half"? Someone's in big denial there.

And does that halfling have the downs?

I believe the correct term is "gnome".