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

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

There is a section in one of the old 3.5 books.

IT was called "Gestalt Characters" and might work. Not between systems, but between tech levels.

You'd use standard d20, then d20 Modern, then d20 Future.

It'd actually work out pretty well.

If that's what you're looking for, that is.

 

[EnemyStand]

A question for veteran DMs/GMs/anyone else who bloody well feels like answering...

Got this idea for a grand campaign that's going to involve a major twist, to the tune of Quantum Leaping the party. Setting is heavily modded Spellslinger for anyone familiar with that 3.5 "Six-Shooters and Sorcery" module from eons ago. Timey wimey reincarnationy shizzle will be happening, hurling them back into a 'standard' DnD era as ancestral versions of who they're playing.

Beyond the risk of severe whiplash from the course change, I am concerned with how much I should let them know about this beforehand. What I want to do is pass out a bunch of pre-gen sheets for them at the end of the session where the Quantum Leap event occurs, based heavily upon the role they're already filling in the party (basically, take their Spellslinger character and convert it to standard 5E) and be like, "right, here's your new you; keep the old 'you' handy, but look over the new you and let me know what changes need made to make you happy." I figure this is a terrible idea and I should have them do it themselves, but that seems like it's ruining Christmas morning by telling the kids what presents they're getting.

Thoughts? (Beyond "WTF is wrong with you, do not do this you fucknut?!" I mean.)

I had to mull this one over to make sure I understood what you're trying to do, and I have to say absolutely not.

First, the Quantum Leaping to new characters will just piss everyone off. The munchkins won't be able to min-max, the theater kids got attached to their concept just to be told they're not using it, and the casuals will just be hopelessly confused having to learn new mechanics constantly. Unless you're running with a crew of turbo autists with terminal alt-itis and high level grasp of the rules, no one will have fun and just feel frustrated. Unless you and your friends are the above turbo autists and you can ignore this point.

Second, don't swap systems each game. That goes beyond turbo autism into the realms of 1E mega boomers, and it smacks of some greybeard trying to teach people why making seven new characters a session is fun. Pick a system that works for you and your groups and just use the one. I don't care if you all are so autistic you can personally attest to each flavor and texture of each individual color in a Crayola 240 color pack, no one wants to keep up with the rules like that unless you all have every rulebook ever made memorized.

Third, you're going to just spring this on your party with them having no clue you're doing it until the Quantum Leap stuff happens? Never mind, do it and record it. I've never seen a GM literally get lynched before and it should be good for a laugh.

 

[God of Nothing]

There is a section in one of the old 3.5 books.

IT was called "Gestalt Characters" and might work. Not between systems, but between tech levels.

You'd use standard d20, then d20 Modern, then d20 Future.

It'd actually work out pretty well.

If that's what you're looking for, that is.

ah, multiclassing without being shit at both things

 

[The Ugly One]

A question for veteran DMs/GMs/anyone else who bloody well feels like answering...

Got this idea for a grand campaign that's going to involve a major twist, to the tune of Quantum Leaping the party. Setting is heavily modded Spellslinger for anyone familiar with that 3.5 "Six-Shooters and Sorcery" module from eons ago. Timey wimey reincarnationy shizzle will be happening, hurling them back into a 'standard' DnD era as ancestral versions of who they're playing.

Beyond the risk of severe whiplash from the course change, I am concerned with how much I should let them know about this beforehand. What I want to do is pass out a bunch of pre-gen sheets for them at the end of the session where the Quantum Leap event occurs, based heavily upon the role they're already filling in the party (basically, take their Spellslinger character and convert it to standard 5E) and be like, "right, here's your new you; keep the old 'you' handy, but look over the new you and let me know what changes need made to make you happy." I figure this is a terrible idea and I should have them do it themselves, but that seems like it's ruining Christmas morning by telling the kids what presents they're getting.

Thoughts? (Beyond "WTF is wrong with you, do not do this you fucknut?!" I mean.)

Don't do this. If you want to run a 5e vanilla campaign, just do that. If you do the basic Quantum Leap idea, do it without pregens. End of the session, with the time warp or whatever, and tell people to come back with new sheets, "an ancestor of your current character. Level [N]."

 

[Big Nasty]

I'm curious - which edition of Traveller is good to start as a freshman in GMing? I heard that while the Mongoose 2e is pretty good, it is also horrendously edited and hard to get in terms of space combat. I heard good things about Mega Traveller, but the age may have put the system though the grinder of being little bit rusty mechanically.

You may want to check out a Traveller clone called Cepheus Engine, specifically a variant called Cepheus Light.

 

[Ghostse]

Don't do this. If you want to run a 5e vanilla campaign, just do that. If you do the basic Quantum Leap idea, do it without pregens. End of the session, with the time warp or whatever, and tell people to come back with new sheets, "an ancestor of your current character. Level [N]."

Depending on the length of time player are expected to play them, Pregens are OK. If its just like one or two sessions, like the Pregens have a quick scene to play, its fine. Any longer than than that... well, you really need to rework your narrative. But If you won't do that, then the players should be building (or at least having major design input) into the characters they'll be stuck with for a month or more.

I've had players play pregens for 1-3 sessions (or 1 fight) backstory sections. Depending on your party it works.
For example, they had a very straight forward "Save the princess" plot, and as a fast way of getting the players upto speed on how the royal court worked. Instead of a whole protocol sheet and NPC descriptions/relationships, the players played a group of royal guards the night the princess was abducted. I framed it as "Your contact starts to tell you the story of how the Princess was abducted. He turns to you, hand gripping his goblet and begins 'It happened two nights ago, when the moon was full. It was a night like any other, and none of the guards on duty had seen anything out of the ordinary..." then I had the players roll a d6, and passed out new (simplified) character sheets (ie no inventory, only listed score mods, etc) for one of the guards and told them very quickly who they were going to be playing for the next session (which dragged out to two because my players are slow)

If the players tried to do something a guard wouldn't do, I'd just tell them "Your training as a royal guard stops you from raising your hand and calling out 'What's up my, Nigga?' as the king walks by", and usually just roll on (which I dislike doing , but as a one session, [which my slow ass players dragged to two sessions] putting them on some sticky rails is fine)

They were of course railroaded to failure, but the players did very good as guards. One of them managed to beat their death saving throws and and another actually survived, so those guards were available for questioning by the party when they arrived at the royal court. One of the players managed to land a crit on the BB's Captain who was running the abduction, so when the players fought the captain he had a bloody bandage on and was missing hitpoints because he was still injured.

Player reaction varied. Players were initially so-so on having to swap out for guards, one of them sort of bitching a lot. They accepted it when I told them it'd just be a temporary thing, and once they shut up and went with it, they were pretty into being guards by the time the big fight started, though the fight with the abductors... they knew the princess was going to get carried off so they thought nothing they did mattered at all and so there was player frustration and especially as things started to go wrong.
But then when the party got to the royal court the players stood up an clapped really, really liked it when the King brought out the surviving guards for the party to question and that realized having living witnesses gave them intel on who they were going after and the players who had played the guards had fun talking to their alternative selves (I'd made sure to take note of anything the players did to add personality to their temporary characters and mirror it when I RPed them) or when they saw the bloody arm of the guy who lead the raiders because they realized that their actions had mattered. Like really good player engagement when those happened.

OTOH I've also had that just not work, usually because the players just refuse to adapt to their new characters. In which case nothing to do than just wrap it up quickly.

 

[Abradolfus_Linclerson]

@Fakenamemagoo, @Ghostse, @40 Year Old Boomer, @Jet Fuel Johnny, @EnemyStand, @The Ugly One:

Thanks all for your feedback.

Re: Your Concerns:
1) System Swap: That's not something I'm planning on and probably could have clarified this in the original post. There isn't going to be any system swapping--I kludged together a "5E Spellslinger" conversion that's probably horribly imbalanced and will make my life a living hell, but I passed it out to the folks in the group and asked the rules lawyer-y types to give it the ol' stinkeye and let me know.
2) MinMaxers: I think I'm probably the biggest minmaxer out of the group, or close to it. I do see where the issue with making them a 'new' character could be an issue. That point in the story is a long way off so perhaps I can have a sit-down with them and plan something out when (if) we get so far. I really do want to keep it as much of a surprise as possible, though...
3) Timey Wimey Shizzle: See the tism spoiler block below if you care. Otherwise, I'll just say it's not something I want to undertake lightly and I think it could be fun. The other option is for the party to find an ambulatory MacGuffin and take second fiddle to that, which I think would be even worse.

Spoiler: Behold the Tism

Spoiler: Display Tism Y/N?

Spoiler: I Warned You

H'okay, so, here's the deal:
Spellslinger magic doesn't work like magic back in ye olden days and the gods are silent. The module never attempts to explain this, so I came up with the idea that its cause was this necromancer-sorcerer-king of awesome power trying to Golden Throne the god of death and usurp him. King Douchebag and the God of Death are locked in an eternal struggle for control over his powers, and the sight of this caused the other gods to "Nope!" the fuck out of the Prime Material due to fears that the cure (them intervening) could be worse than the disease. Think the Valar and the War of Wrath sinking Beleriand if you're a Tolkien faggot like myself and you'll have an idea why the gods are sitting this one out. They don't want someone else to figure out how to do this and try it on them, and they're not sure if they can intervene without murking boatloads of mortals in the process.

Enter Arkhosia and Bael Turath and their respective falls. The Territories (the setting for Spellslinger, which is totally not the eastern US, the Spellslinger guys swear) were the farthest flung outposts of their empires before the war broke out between dragons and devils. Right around that same time, though, the above BBEG decided that the Territories belonged to his people and his people alone, and that all the invaders could better serve as zombie thralls. The Turathi and Arkhosian colonial troops banded together and waged war against the natives and their god-king. They couldn't stop him, but they did manage to achieve a Sealed Evil in a Can semi-victory, preventing him from completing his apotheosis. Fast forward a few thousand years, and his malign influence is seeping out of the Gray Hills (the not-Appalachians) to cause the undead scourge talked about in the game module because the ancient wards are starting to wane and so on. Between the falls of the two great empires, the fallout of the war with the undead, and plain ol' boring passage of centuries, all knowledge of the colonies in the Territories was lost. There are hints of a civilization (or more than one) here and there in the Territories in the form of old weird ruins, but little else.

Enter the party, to investigate odd happenings on the frontier, eventually being drawn to a major battlefield of the end of the three-way war between the natives, Arkhosians, and Turathi. They find a gaggle of warforged (which are only supposed to be the most recent invention of the gnomes and dwarves) of assorted makes and models, not quite dead but not quite alive either because of the damage they've sustained. Cue timey wimey shizzle, and a series of adventures in the 'current' time with six guns and broke-ass magic, and back in the day, where they get to see and experience/participate in the great war and unravel the mysteries of A) WTF is going on in the present B) WTF is causing this and C) WTF are there assorted warforged several thousand years older than they're supposed to be. Once the past story is told to the point of the great battle they stumbled across to start all this, I'm thinking of gestalting the characters, or something, because like I said: these are reincarnations of their former selves rather than just ancestral figures. Shameless thievery from Dragon Age: Origins and this guy from a forum game years ago making his warforged a Mass Effect 2 Shepard expy to make warforged the product of fusing soul to machine, partially dead warforged because the 'soul' had escaped and crazy interactions with the party because their past lives are manifesting and yadda yadda yadda.

...I should prolly just try and make a novel of this idea, huh?

 

[Ghostse]

@Abradolfus_Linclerson
You are quote bugged, I will once again reiterate if you are going to be changing the game rules, only change them to vanilla 3.5.

I will also say, once again:
This timeywimey body swapping shit sounds great behind the screen; really switch up my players! Change shit around! Really subvert those expectations.

Now want I want you imagine is this situation being inverted on you. At a whim, the Players can suddenly change the narrative on you. You were DMing magical 6-guns, and now the players inform you they have voted and the adventure has now swapped to the highseas pirates. You need to now reskin all adventures and come up with a new cast of villians. Except the players have already decided what the villains would be. They agree they'll get back to the original plot at some point - they have offered you no firm end date or condition for when the swap back will occur. Oh also they want you to use a new system one of hem hacked together. No you can't make any changess, you must run it RAW.
This is what you are doing to your players.

 

[EnemyStand]

The sticking point still stands that you're just dropping it on your players out of the blue. This is a big thing that totally changes the game 100%, so your players need to be on board for it. You may have put more thought into it than most GMs would, but surprises like that aren't fun if your players get invested in one type of game and then have the rug pulled. If you must have your characters in a been there, shaped history plot then time travel would be less fucky.

I repeat: time travel, the fuckiest of all fucky plots to do well would be less fucky than your plan.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

A question for veteran DMs/GMs/anyone else who bloody well feels like answering...

Got this idea for a grand campaign that's going to involve a major twist, to the tune of Quantum Leaping the party. Setting is heavily modded Spellslinger for anyone familiar with that 3.5 "Six-Shooters and Sorcery" module from eons ago. Timey wimey reincarnationy shizzle will be happening, hurling them back into a 'standard' DnD era as ancestral versions of who they're playing.

Beyond the risk of severe whiplash from the course change, I am concerned with how much I should let them know about this beforehand. What I want to do is pass out a bunch of pre-gen sheets for them at the end of the session where the Quantum Leap event occurs, based heavily upon the role they're already filling in the party (basically, take their Spellslinger character and convert it to standard 5E) and be like, "right, here's your new you; keep the old 'you' handy, but look over the new you and let me know what changes need made to make you happy." I figure this is a terrible idea and I should have them do it themselves, but that seems like it's ruining Christmas morning by telling the kids what presents they're getting.

Thoughts? (Beyond "WTF is wrong with you, do not do this you fucknut?!" I mean.)

First off, this sounds like a lot of extra work on your part and extra work is one of my blood enemies. If you enjoy doing it it's not work though. I would also say that you're playing with fire by switching over to 5e from a 3.5 game. Party might get excited about playing something a little more complex and switching out might be disappointing, you could probably just keep the premise and add guns. Pathfinder did an ooookay (?) job with them, not perfect but okay. They attack touch ACs at a certain range.

One advantage to having the party sliding/quantum leaping is that you can wrap up that arc any time you feel like it. If the party really doesn't like the idea of their soul being thrust into a man with downs syndrome you can shorten the arc down to a session or two and just leap them back and do something a little more traditional. Might be interesting to make it a side thing where they spend more time in their normal bodies investigating exactly why it's happening. Or if they're like my current party, they'll just accept that they're special and not bother.

I'm still toying around with the idea of just straight up having Sam Beckett leap into some NPC the party knows and he just has to stop something awful from happening without telling them. It'll probably remain in my back pocket for when I've painted myself into a corner and need to nudge the party in a certain direction.

 

[Adamska]

Something like jumping to a new character and time is fun for a session or two, so long as I as the player know something like this is going to happen. It also works as a B-plot sort of thing that happens every now and again. But again, this is only if player me is aware of this.

Also it sounds like you might have too much at once you want to do with that time period. Word of advice: kill that urge. Something like this only works for short periods before the players want to go back.

 

[Mega Black]

Also it sounds like you might have too much at once you want to do with that time period. Word of advice: kill that urge. Something like this only works for short periods before the players want to go back.

Shit's too complex, I agree. Rework your campaign into smacking orcs with big weapons. Trust me, your players will prefer that.

 

[EnemyStand]

Shit's too complex, I agree. Rework your campaign into smacking orcs with big weapons. Trust me, your players will prefer that.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here or not because let's be honest, with PCs it could easily be a serious comment.

 

[Mega Black]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic here or not because let's be honest, with PCs it could easily be a serious comment.

Yes and no, honestly, most of the fun I've had in campaigns have been with simple plots and motivations. My DM tries to mix things up and it usually falls super flat, getting to kill a monster is usually just more fun.

As a DM I find that creating an interesting HOOK and then segueing into more typical DND stuff tends to work best. Character hopping and time travel and controlling multiple characters... eh. Sounds interesting in theory, but this is a game where it's difficult to get people to play one character consistently. I just see it as being a nightmare unless you get everyone on board one hundred percent the whole way.

 

[Ghostse]

Shit's too complex, I agree. Rework your campaign into smacking orcs with big weapons.

Still too complex. Recommend reworking to eating crayons and a random table telling them what flavor of crayon they ate.

Something like jumping to a new character and time is fun for a session or two, so long as I as the player know something like this is going to happen. It also works as a B-plot sort of thing that happens every now and again. But again, this is only if player me is aware of this.

A session or two surprise diversion should be alright. But then you need to make sure the PLAYERS know this temporary and has a definite stop point and clear, simple to understand and readily acchievable goal they are supposed to accomplish.
The thing that really gives me serious pause on Abradolfus' plan is the trip to the past is open ended, with complex multi-tier goal and no clear method to achieve it. That and the system switching which I pray to Grognard Jesus he's been talked out of.

You don't need to tell them the end goal before you swap them or that-secondimmediately, but if they have been in the swap for an hour of play time and don't know how to make it stop, you have fucked up (unless you are punishing them. in which case, well done).
Even if players aren't down with what you're doing they'll put up (if not shut up) for a session, they won't put up with it if this looks like this the campaign now.

-When I had the players play the guards it worked because they had a clear goal (guard the princess, try to minimize how bad the BBEG wrecks you), they knew it was temporary (flashback ends when the princess is abducted).

-When I had my party mind swap with their rivals, it worked because they had clear goals (get back to original body), they knew it was temporary (all signs point to getting the things needed to repower the mindswap machine at the end) and no Dr Who bullshit time travel. Plus their characters were right there.

-When I had my party do magical VR, they had a clear goal (Find out what happened to the Dawn War Macguffin) and the knew it was temporary (haha like how is Arcane simulation even real. Nigga just walk outside of the arcane circle, like nigga just open your eyes haha)

 

[Corn Flakes]

Still too complex. Recommend reworking to eating crayons and a random table telling them what flavor of crayon they ate.

Ah, I see you too played with Marines.

A session or two surprise diversion should be alright. But then you need to make sure the PLAYERS know this temporary and has a definite stop point and clear, simple to understand and readily acchievable goal they are supposed to accomplish.

Doing parallel things can also work fine. A couple years back we had two players going AWOL for a month while the rest of the group was still available. The GM had us running through a side adventure over four sessions, the outcome of which eventually affected the main campaign. So long as people know it's not permanent, they're usually fine with detours like that.

 

[SheerHeartAttack]

Yeah I quit a game when my DM pulled time travel crap on me. Though to be fair this was after a long slew of bullshit he pulled on me and another player, which included said player being off on their own detour on the other side of the planet for most of the second campaign we played and pulled mind control crap on that player (apparently Neurolinguistic Programming isn't self-help bunk but turns teenage girls into Black Widow assassins).

Anyway detours like that can work as long as the party knows and is okay with it. For instance I'm playing in an Only War game and we just took a detour to help out an Imperial Dreadnaught from a Tau ambush. We also started that game with a one shot where we played Krieger pregens on that same planet and our actions were used in Tau propaganda. But yeah, switching systems like that will be a pain unless you can really finesse the transition between the two systems.

So really the big take away is that the players should know what's going on and have agency in the matter.

 

[Gingervitis]

>be me
>finally get a B/X game going with 5 friends
>manage to do so without anyone alerting the tranny
>today, the afternoon before the game
>two players drop
>running B/X with three players
>The only one in the area that is interested that I know is the tranny

I hate how people just drop games last minute, I hate trannies most of all, and I hate how everyone I could talk to about this is either liberal, doesn’t know what D&D is, is convinced that I overreact, or some combination of the above. How do you guys even get irl games nowadays?

 

[Corn Flakes]

How do you guys even get irl games nowadays?

I've got a group I've been with for over 10 years, and another group I've been with for at least 6.

So... can't help you there, buddy. Good luck.

 

[EnemyStand]

>be me
>finally get a B/X game going with 5 friends
>manage to do so without anyone alerting the tranny
>today, the afternoon before the game
>two players drop
>running B/X with three players
>The only one in the area that is interested that I know is the tranny

I hate how people just drop games last minute, I hate trannies most of all, and I hate how everyone I could talk to about this is either liberal, doesn’t know what D&D is, is convinced that I overreact, or some combination of the above. How do you guys even get irl games nowadays?

I make based friends. Find a game store with a lot of Bolt Action players.