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

[Alabama Gamer]

That's another, related thing. Unlike modern day where you can dye your head purple and slouch around with your gunt hanging out, PCs in RPGs are typically in a line of work where their bodies are their primary asset. Even the wizard in the back is traveling long distances in rough terrain, sleeping in caves, carrying all their shit on their back, etc, and unless they're magically levitating themselves and their stuff everywhere, they're probably getting far more exercise than an easy 80% of modern people in industrialized countries. If you can't carry your food and supplies while walking twenty miles a day in a fantasy setting, you have a significant problem. Your average adventurer is probably skinny with muscles like piano wires, no flabbos and definitely no non-functional limbs. People who are not strong and healthy can't even get from point A to point B in a fantasy world, much less feed themselves off the land and still be in shape to fight for their lives day or night.

Well, the Magical Cripple is a very old trope in fantasy. The blind seer, the lame warrior, the wizard tormented by post-nasal drip, and so forth. To a point, I think it ought to be allowed. Heck, Pathfinder has an entire class dedicated to being Magical Cripples, and it's one of the most interesting and flavorful ones. The problem is that you can't do anything interesting character-wise with that if there's a 50gp magic wheelchair that eliminates the effects of the injury entirely.

On the subject of magic, there's an interesting treatment of the place that magical healing on the scale we're discussing might have in society in Kingmaker. (It's in the vidya, which radically expanded on certain characters. Whether it's in the AP, IDK.) The best character in the game, Jubilost Narthropple, is a gnomish author and explorer whose works have a very populist bent. He wears glasses. At one point, you can ask him, hey, why don't you just go to a temple and pay a cleric to restore your eyesight? He explains that while the cost of such a spell is chump change for people like you and him, for most of his audience it's more money than they've ever seen together in one place. He hasn't gotten his eyes healed because he wants his readers to be able to relate to him.

Now  that's interesting. Magical healing is effective, but beyond the means of most people, to the point that wearing glasses is symbol of poverty rather than wealth. And that's just for a minor spell. If you want something like Regeneration to make yer leg grow back, well, there's very few clerics in the world even capable of doing that, let alone willing to do it for free. Even if they're good and charitable people, spell slots that high are an incredibly limited resource, and High Cardinal Facetiousname genuinely does have better things to do with his one 7th level spell a day than curing some gimpy peasant. With that same spell slot he could heal a dozen wounded soldiers or end a drought.

 

[Ghostse]

Well, the Magical Cripple is a very old trope in fantasy. The blind seer, the lame warrior, the wizard tormented by post-nasal drip, and so forth. To a point, I think it ought to be allowed. Heck, Pathfinder has an entire class dedicated to being Magical Cripples, and it's one of the most interesting and flavorful ones.

And in real life, you got dudes like Ivar the Boneless https://allthatsinteresting.com/ivar-the-boneless

 

[anti SJW]

Inb4 Grand Wizards of the Coast starts editing the text on old sets of MTG.

 

[Ghostse]

Also you have things like the "Crippled Smith" because the ancient greeks didn't understand what heavy metal poisoning was. They just saw that all the best, most experiences metal smiths... their legs were all 'tarded. They didn't understand accumulation of heavy metals = nerve damage = non-functional legs, they just saw "Cripple = Awesome at smithing".

 

[robobobo]

Magical cripples are not, typically speaking, functionally crippled. The blind kung-fu guy isn't randomly walking off of cliffs or into walls because he's got some Daredevil shit going on or something, so at the end of the day they would play identically to any other characters. As long as someone's crippletude is not needing a modification in the game and is just an interesting roleplay quirk, I wouldn't object to it. Like if someone was playing a necromancer who always rode around on a throne made of skeletons that walked for him, I would let them roll with it as long as they didn't start making up bullshit where it gives them some kind of free in-game advantage. Something like the magic levitating self-propelled ramming wheelchair, they'd better cough up the money to buy; as soon as it impacts gameplay, that shit ain't free.

 

[Hikaru86]

This is so tiresome...

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

View attachment 5000297
This is so tiresome...

WTF is this stuff?

Let me guess, Girlboss shows that Huwyte Male Fighter that she knows it all.

 

[PaladinBoo]

View attachment 5000297
This is so tiresome...

I am so sick of girl boss characters. There are so many RPG horror stories of Mary Sue girl bosses that I can't help but cringe when I hear a story about one. Women who make such characters tend to try to compensate for something. As for myself I've found myself mostly playing male characters now. I don't know why but I've found them to be more fun to play as. I think it may be because the "stronk girl boss who don't need no man and puts the boys in their place" trope is leaving a bad taste in my mouth and now I find myself cringing when playing as a female character.

In other funny news, Super Mario Bros. made 31M on it's opening day. Meanwhile the D&D movie only made 37M on it's opening weekend. Also, Mario had a 50M less budget then the D&D movie which cost Hasbro and WotC 150M to make and other 150-200M in ads. WotC and Hasbro were so hoping this would be the start of a D&D Cinematic Universe and now those hopes are dashed. This movie is going to lose money. Couldn't have happen to more deserving companies.

 

[King Dead]

Magical cripples are not, typically speaking, functionally crippled. The blind kung-fu guy isn't randomly walking off of cliffs or into walls because he's got some Daredevil shit going on or something, so at the end of the day they would play identically to any other characters. As long as someone's crippletude is not needing a modification in the game and is just an interesting roleplay quirk, I wouldn't object to it. Like if someone was playing a necromancer who always rode around on a throne made of skeletons that walked for him, I would let them roll with it as long as they didn't start making up bullshit where it gives them some kind of free in-game advantage. Something like the magic levitating self-propelled ramming wheelchair, they'd better cough up the money to buy; as soon as it impacts gameplay, that shit ain't free.

Like many things when it comes to your character, you should always run it by your DM first. Figure out if it fits into the world they're building, and if it doesn't, see if you can find a way to make it work. A character with a physical handicap can add to the roleplaying experience, but it needs to make sense in the context of the world at large, especially when magical healing is a thing. Make sure that it's not so debilitating that they couldn't feasibly be an adventurer. You can get away with more if the character uses magic, perhaps weaving that into their backstory ("I became an artificer because I want to replace my lost arm"). A martial character...could be done, depending on the handicap, though you may have to accept some sort of penalty to your attack rolls.

It's absolutely retarded to create an entire ruleset around handicaps, though. A barbarian in a wheelchair is gonna do jackshit for a party beyond amusing imagery.

---

Well, my D&D group hasn't played in a while, which is partly my fault, partly a series of real-life events getting in the way. (For the latter, weddings can really take up a lot of your free time.)

Spoiler: table woes

The party got barely a quarter of the way through the second level of DotMM, and I felt myself losing interest something fierce, dreading the fact that there were still twenty-one levels of this to go, not including any trips the party might make to Skullport. As cool as some of the lower levels can get, it was beginning to get repetitive and tiresome: party goes down a hall, enters a room, I describe what's in it, things happen, repeat for a few hours until we stop playing.

I think the biggest issue I've been having is that nobody really has much of an attachment to anything in the campaign. We didn't do Dragon Heist beforehand because we didn't have that book, so the party started at level 5 and just came together and started dungeon diving. Characters didn't really have any thought put into them; one member made a pun on "expendable" for his character name. Although the sourcebook does have various plot hooks to develop, I haven't really had a chance to do so, so pretty much the only reason the party's going down there is because it's there. There's not a lot of roleplaying going on, mostly combat with the occasional puzzle to solve, which doesn't do much for my creative side.

Thus, I told the group I was just not really in the mood to keep DMing it for now and asked if someone else would step up. The former DM has been trying to figure out a way to unfuck our previous campaign, but hasn't really met with success (despite months having passed). Others expressed some interest in DMing, but nobody's made a move. So we're just kind of in limbo.

I feel bad that I'm a big reason why our sessions have ground to a halt, but a megadungeon really isn't the sort of campaign that interests me as a DM. I only agreed to give the previous DM a break, and increasingly that's feeling like a mistake. Not that he was being cruel and tricked me or anything like that, just that if I'm going to DM, it needs to be something that both I and the players enjoy.

So I guess the question I have is, have any of you run campaigns that you just lost interest in? Did you find a way to make it work, or did you drop it for something else?

 

[Adamska]

It's smarter to just drop the campaign and go with a new one if you find you can't really enjoy a dungeon delve. You might want to try and figure out what sets tend to make you the most interested in continuing, since that's quite infectious. If you have a habit of losing interest, then plot for campaigns that tend to be shorter instead. Brief one shots or shorter campaigns with little "book ends" that can work as endings..

If it's just burn out? Sometimes you just "let it lay fallow" and put it on pause for a new campaign instead. I did that with DnD for a while and ran Cyberpunk instead. If it's just burn out in general, since it can happen, you just need to stop GMing for a bit.

 

[Corn Flakes]

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This is so tiresome...

Is that Sheila? The wallflower whose entire character development was coming into her own and becoming more independent and less reliant on other people? Really? They couldn't even be bothered to get Diana to do it? You know, the smart and outspoken black girl?

Oh, we're heading towards another fucking Velma situation with this, aren't we?

 

[Hikaru86]

Is that Sheila? The wallflower whose entire character development was coming into her own and becoming more independent and less reliant on other people? Really? They couldn't even be bothered to get Diana to do it? You know, the smart and outspoken black girl?

Oh, we're heading towards another fucking Velma situation with this, aren't we?

And i think she is Ranger now. And her and Sheila probably switched personalities.

Btw... Isekai logic.

Now they want to stay in the fucking Magical Death World from Hell, and got ISEKAI'D from The Realm to Forgotten Realms. Hank is complete right at begin fed up with the group BS.

The hacks even watched the older cartoon? Bob had friends in Earth, Preston and Diana had cursed dick/vagina, she is Monk. Sheila is the one with "weird nature conection" because the whole "can talk to faeries". Diana is the second team leader in case of Hank getting busy with some sidequest.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Just dropped in too say the Grand Wizards of the Coast banning Miscegination in D&D based and red pilled.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

@King Dead I lose interest in stuff I'm running all the time. I usually try to give it a session or two before I talk about taking a break or switching over because more than once right when I start thinking about it I'll have a really good session and be all about what I'm running again. One thing that's helped is that I try not to write too far into the future in case I take an interest in something and want to drop an adventure hook about it, that's not for everyone though.

Log story short you can either dip into something else or just completely change the dungeon/module you're running so it's more interesting to run. Hell if the game just ends up with them running off to do something else and leaving the dungeon forever that might work out all right. If they come back later as higher level people and start mudhole stomping the place that might be kind of fun. Maybe throw in rival adventurers or something.

 

[anti SJW]

 

[PaladinBoo]

Is that Sheila? The wallflower whose entire character development was coming into her own and becoming more independent and less reliant on other people? Really? They couldn't even be bothered to get Diana to do it? You know, the smart and outspoken black girl?

Oh, we're heading towards another fucking Velma situation with this, aren't we?

This is what Grand Wizards of the Coast and others like Disney believe that this is what women want. They believe that women hate men, that they want stronk girl bosses who emasculate the men and seeing men get humiliated and put in their place. No woman, other than middle age ham planets that smell of cat piss and wine, want this. Women can't stand girl boss characters. The names they call them is usually "cunt" and "bitch". Also, a good indicator to the type of stuff women like is books. In the books that are popular with women they tend to like stories where men take charge, are courageous, roguish, protective and have a bit of a soft and vulnerable side to them. Women don't like seeing men get emasculated by women and women upstaging the men. The fact that those in the entertainment industry keep trying to push this on women despite it failing time and again is the definition of insanity.

 

[Ghostse]

Well, my D&D group hasn't played in a while, which is partly my fault, partly a series of real-life events getting in the way. (For the latter, weddings can really take up a lot of your free time.)

It is the DM's job to make sure all the players at the table are having fun. The DM is also a player.

I've not exactly lost interest in a campaign but trying to figure out good places for it to go became a chore. I think everyone sort of lost interest (and some of the group had a new kid so it was harder to block out table time) and the game just dissovled.

One of the things you can do for a dragging mega dungeon is introduce alternate mechanics. Maybe another party of evil adventurers has cleared out levels 7 through 15 and instead of a slow crawl you have the fantasy equivalent of a running gun battle.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Paizo has released a draft of the ORC License for public comment. Surprisingly, the creative director wasn't prevaricating: there isn't the faintest whiff of a morality clause.

Some interesting points:

• The license has no controlling organization explicitly so that it cannot be politicized.
• The license cannot be revised, amended, or revoked.
• The license is designed to discourage litigation.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Paizo has released a draft of the ORC License for public comment. Surprisingly, the creative director wasn't prevaricating: there isn't the faintest whiff of a morality clause.

Some interesting points:

• The license has no controlling organization explicitly so that it cannot be politicized.
• The license cannot be revised, amended, or revoked.
• The license is designed to discourage litigation.

That is encouraging, to put it mildly.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Also, their legal team did something positively adorable. The official FAQ document is not called the FAQ, it's called the Answers & Explanations document, abbreviated AxE. That makes it "The ORC AxE".