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

[Ghostse]

Lakal actually, part of the reason I got googling was this bit where the other gods used her remains to create a barrier against the far realm, but couldn't find anything on that.
Thanks for the answer, I got more or less the impression that nentir vale made for a good sandbox/starting point for DMs yet at the same time the bits about settlements being slow to communicate and the lack of kingdoms/states made me think "this must have nagged lore autists to no end" although I get it, adding kingdoms with defined borders to your open ended setting goes against the idea

The "Points of Light" (official name of the extended sandbox IIRC) was about a world recovering from the collapse of the Empire's capital roughly 100 years ago - basically post-Rome Europe and Nerath is like Poland or Scotland, where it was remote even on a good day so less affected by implosion (except they were dealing with their own shit, and now dealing with it on their own)

In my campaigns, I usually turn it into a 'magical apocalypse' where they essentially unleashed the arcane equivalent of an EMP that shutdown or disrupted nearly all magic, but the effects are waning (especially that far from an epicenter) and that means that magical items are slowly turning back on, which is why towns havven't formed around Basket of Plenty owners.

Anyway, In the official canon, the Nentir fell under the auspices of The Barony of Therund. Therund is a large city that didn't get completely fucked (but arguably would have recovered faster if they'd been hit harder). Its mentioned in passing in lore & background through the original official 1-10 campaign, and then the players go there for their first 11-20 jaunt to demonstrate that going up to Paragon means you are dealing with national and not just regional matters now.

They had a lot of fun stuff in Nentir - in the Dragonborn/Tiefling wars, Nentir was under the Tieflings (but not developed) and there are some Tiefling-founded cities still around, one of them not completely fucked. They had a setting for a ruined one that was just on the other side of the mountains, Vor Rukkoth, which is actually a really interesting concept but the official setting guide was way too barebones.

The Nentir was designed to fit into a world map, and to my knowledge that was only used/published as the game board for what was effectively D&D Risk. You can find the world map and see how things fit together including "Here be Dragons" regions for shit like Temple of Elemental Evil.

The biggest issue with the Nentir setting is the timeline is fucky; example in official lore 250 years ago the area was run by a Minotaur kingdom (someone in the 4e team had a wolfaboo's furry boner for Minotaurs) full of Erathis-worshiping Civilized Minotaurs that collapsed due to the Demonic Shit they had gotten up to in the places no one was watching. which is recent enough Dwarves and High-elfs (Eladrin) would remember it, but its temples and cities are super dilapidated and there are nearly no minotaurs left. So I usually tack a "0" on to the end of that 250 and basically edit the lore to be that when Bael'Turath rolls in, the degenerated reminants of the Minotaur collapse are there, Bael Turath originally oppresses them as filthy demon worshippers (instead of 100% based devil worshippers) but is forced to make a deal with them as war with Arkhosia takes a tilt to Arkhosia, and they get completely wiped out by an Arkhosian strike force.

edit: I guess the Feywild and Shadowfell are also not well implemented if you start to actually start poking them; the Feywild is trying to bolt chaotic-douchbag Celt theology onto the Greco-Roman-Judeo pantheon and it doesn't quite sync with especially the low-grit of early levels PoL, and the Shadowfell can never decide if the tone is Spirit Halloween-Spooky, Gothic Horror, or Existential Dread.

 

[BlazikenLover]

Thanks for the info, lore is still super confusing, I looked up nerath and it comes up in the forgotten realms wiki which mentions how its deities were summoned to help in the dawn war. Then it goes to mention the dragonborn empire of arkhosia and tymanther and the tiefling empire of bael turath as being part of Nerath, but if you look up Tymanther it is located in faerun and the citations page says this

The ancient empires of the dragonborn and tieflings seems to be a reference to Arkhosia and Bael Turath, two ancient empires that existed in the world Nerath. While Nerath is the setting of "core" 4th Edition, and there is no evidence in Realmslore of said empires existing in the past history of Abeir-Toril, the lore of said empires mentions that they build some colonies in other worlds and planes. Perhaps the history of these ancient empires was learned by the dragonborn and tieflings of the Realms from these places

I get that 4e was unpopular and that they wanted to remove any references or mentions to it and its associated materials early on 5e's run while wanting to salvage some bits (the dawn war, gods, dragonborn and tiefling lore, etc) and that I shouldn't think too hard on this but man, what a mess it is to try and make sense of.

 

[MISTER-CREEPMAN00]

Any Tabletop Games that isn't D&D or Pathfinder?

 

[Ghostse]

I get that 4e was unpopular and that they wanted to remove any references or mentions to it and its associated materials early on 5e's run while wanting to salvage some bits (the dawn war, gods, dragonborn and tiefling lore, etc) and that I shouldn't think too hard on this but man, what a mess it is to try and make sense of.

I was an SRD player for most of my 3.5 campaign so never got into the Forgotten Realms lore except as much as it related to 4e/PoL but as I understood it the 4e lore was meant to be separate, more like a parallel universe, but with lots of regions set asside that could either be adapted or explicitly had the same names of famous module locations. And I thought the Dawn War and Bael Turath/Arkhosia were from the prime FR lore and borrowed by 4e's lore. It's like if you made an alternative earth were WWII happens but you have shit like Germany is in Africa, and in the after math you make a bunch a geographic scrambles so the world is completely different 1000 years later.


So, and sorry if I mix some of this shit (especially times) with my default homebrew/headcannon lore fixes.....
Long long long ago there's the gods and primordials. They fight a war, Gods win but while the war is basically over there's still some shit that goes on since a lot of the primordials are merely chained/confined - are still just as dangerous after being killed - until nearly present day.
And in the aftermath you have a bunch of gods that have died and other entities pick up their portfolios. Or you have gods like Torog who are twisted by the experience into shadows of their former selves. You also have shit like Nerull, the old god of death (who was a human slew the earlier god of death, Aurom, to become a god and bribed the pantheon with Aurom's portfolio to be accepted) who was playing both sides getting murked by his waifu slave and no one being that tore up about it.
Which is one of the problems with lore; The Raven Queen was an Eladrin and the Eladrin were shown to be well advanced by the time she dies and Nerull forces her to be his consort, but the Eladrin were created by Correllon to fight the Primordials. Which on its face isn't a problem because the Dawn War was a slapfight/proxy war for a long time before it escalated to God Slaying so sure on a God's time scale you could have 60,000 year old civilization by the time someone throws the first punch.... but Nerull was a human, already a God when the Raven Queen died, AND playing both Primordials and Gods against each other to channel maximum souls to his realm.
To the point where when he got murked the former pergatory Pluton is unmade and the Shadowfell is created from the wreckage

You also have the Elemental Evil Eye, named Tharizdun, who tried to bring in the Far Realm. His name hasbeen erased from history and exists in only the deepest reaches of the world (and the DMG)

The Dawn War's worst excesses are ended by the Primal Spirits of the material plane - locally more powerful than God or Primordial they enacted the Primal Ban, basically divine START, which prevented gods and primordials from being able to physically manifest on the material plane; the Elemental Chaos and Astral Sea are still fair game, but the gods and primordials are forces to act through Mortals.

You've got a long period of Gods slap fighting over creation, and the occassional previously imprisoned or slain Primordial getting loose and causing some shit until stopped, and the Evil Gods getting up to some evil shit especially the Demons; Azmodeus is allowed to get away with his shit largely because his purview includes keeping the Demons in check.

In this intervening time frame, Vecna somehow reverse engineers what Nerull did to become a god himself.

So then 1,000 years ago you have Bael'Turath and Arkhosia fight their 100-year war to mutual destruction. The Nerath Kingdom, later Empire, arrises out the power vaccuum. Sometime after you have the Winter War which is the last (for now) battle of the Dawn War where the corpse of the Primordial Prince of Ice corrupts one of the Dead Gods' wives to try to freeze the world. It is barely stopped.

310 years ago, sustained and lasting Human colonization of Nentir begins.

Then 250 years ago The minotaur kingdom fell.

Then 100 years ago, Nerath fell apart due to nobles squabbling over who would be king. There is a massive explosion due to a wizard doing some shit. Like "there is now a several mile wide circular harbor where there used to be city" sort of explosion. And that more or less brings us to today.

There is so much other shit going on, like Acerak and Vecna, and Hobgoblin empires and undead invasions, but those just sort of fit in "where ever".

Also checking to make sure I wasn't completely off my nut, I see that Nerath is confirmed as a parallel reality to Toril, even if they are twinned.
Penny Arcade of all fucking properties is weirding the lore because their fanwank Acquisitions Inc started in 4e and makes lots of 4e/Nentir references till the cut over to 5e.


ANYWAY
This is a long, long way to say:
4e is a fucking mess because they Kitchen Sinked the setting. They tried to add everything while leaving room for you to add everything else. So the best thing to do is just lean into that - take what you like, toss the rest. The lack autistic, accurate time keeping means you can just grab events and say "this was 100/1000/10000 years ago" and it won't matter over much.
4e is one of those settings where the more lore you TOSS the better it gets.

And it works because the individual narratives they crafted around the specific events & threads are really, really good. Just the bigger picture is a fucking shitshow.

 

[King Dead]

My understanding (gleaned entirely from reading about Nentir Vale on the 1d4chan wiki, so it's fine if I'm wrong) is that it was built first and foremost to be the default setting for 4e, illustrating changes made like the shift from Great Wheel to World Axis cosmology, but that's about it. It wasn't really created by some turboautist building an entire universe in his head, it was just there to act as a barebones starting point that DMs could build off of. It was only later that they started to fill in some more stuff and flesh out some details to the setting, which is probably why it feels all jumbled and chaotic; nobody had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with it, so they just threw in whatever (like the minotaur wanking).

But then they more or less abandoned it when 5e rolled around and threw everyone back into the Forgotten Realms. I don't think it's even been mentioned in any capacity since the DMG, and only as an example of how to make a pantheon.

 

[Ghostse]

My understanding (gleaned entirely from reading about Nentir Vale on the 1d4chan wiki, so it's fine if I'm wrong) is that it was built first and foremost to be the default setting for 4e, illustrating changes made like the shift from Great Wheel to World Axis cosmology, but that's about it. It wasn't really created by some turboautist building an entire universe in his head, it was just there to act as a barebones starting point that DMs could build off of. It was only later that they started to fill in some more stuff and flesh out some details to the setting, which is probably why it feels all jumbled and chaotic; nobody had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with it, so they just threw in whatever (like the minotaur wanking).

But then they more or less abandoned it when 5e rolled around and threw everyone back into the Forgotten Realms. I don't think it's even been mentioned in any capacity since the DMG, and only as an example of how to make a pantheon.

That might be accurate? Again, most of my 3.5 career was with the SRD so there was no/minimal lore. I recognized most of the big names (i.e. Moradin, Kord, Pelor) from the material so I just assumed how they were presented in 4e is more or less how they were in Forgotten Realms D&D and that's why everything was fucked.

I mean what I know of the background of 4e is gleaned from forums grogs so....

Shit like the Far Realms & Orcus was meant to explain why you could have Worshippers of Pelor & Azmodeus on the same team. And why the evil gods didn't HAVE to be red-headed step children; the big dwarven city in 4e had a Gruumsh holy site located in the middle of it with enough power the Moradin Temples had to come to a ceasefire with the Gruumsh cult to allow Gruumsh clergy and a limited number of worshippers to move between the gates and the temple unmolested.
Again, its a kitchen-sink sandbox meant to let you create whatever situation you wanted with little need to create - you just toss what you don't like. They give you a block of marble, just remove everything that isn't the sculpture.

 

[Pendulous Dong]

New edition of ChromeStrike is out.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Any Tabletop Games that isn't D&D or Pathfinder?

I run Rifts and Rifts: Chaos Earth. Why?

 

[BlazikenLover]

I guess I get the picture of points of light now, thanks.
Still on the topic of lore: I am very confused by "alternate prime material realms" specially when both spelljammers and planar travel come up. What is supposed to be an alternate prime material? A planet within the same crystal sphere or one within a different sphere?
But more importantly, are all inner and outer planes the same for each prime material? Let's say my character who's in toril travels to the plane of fire, if you were to do the same in oerth would you go to the exact same plane of fire?

 

[King Dead]

I guess I get the picture of points of light now, thanks.
Still on the topic of lore: I am very confused by "alternate prime material realms" specially when both spelljammers and planar travel come up. What is supposed to be an alternate prime material? A planet within the same crystal sphere or one within a different sphere?
But more importantly, are all inner and outer planes the same for each prime material? Let's say my character who's in toril travels to the plane of fire, if you were to do the same in oerth would you go to the exact same plane of fire?

Okay, so here's my understanding of how WotC handles this whole multiverse thing. Standard disclaimer: I could easily be wrong.

So each individual setting for D&D (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, etc.) has its own individual Prime Material, the Earth-equivalent that at least 99% of players' adventures will take place in. Each of these settings also has the standard cosmological planes: the Feywild, the Shadowfell, the Ethereal Plane, the Elemental Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, and the Positive/Negative Planes. Such planes do not link up with planes of other settings, so no, you can't just boop from Toril to Oerth by going to a shared Plane of Fire, you'd just end up back in Toril if you aimed for the Prime Material. You'll need to use a spell like plane shift to make it happen, which is a lot safer than going someplace that's completely on fire.

Spelljammer does make things a little murkier when it introduces the concept of additional planets, but these are all additional parts of the setting's Prime Material. Anything in the bubble of Wildspace surrounding the setting's star can be considered Prime Material, it just takes more effort to get there than walking from one town to the next. Put another way, you're not going to find Krynn in the same Wildspace system as Toril because they're two different settings and thus in two different systems (Krynnspace and Realmspace).

Spelljammer also provides an alternate means of traveling between Prime Material spheres, and that's by traveling on the Astral Sea with a spelljammer. You basically exit the bubble of Wildspace surrounding your solar system, sail the currents of the Astral Sea, and slip into the bubble of another system. This is helpful if you don't already have a way to get to said Prime Material (plane shift requires a fork previously tuned to the plane you're trying to get to), but of course you run the risks of space travel.

Of course, the other way is to go the Planescape route and take a trip through Sigil to get where you need to go. You've got other multiversal weirdness there, but hey, that's half the fun.

There are a few settings that don't follow these rules exactly:

• As mentioned above, Nentir Vale uses the World Axis cosmology by default, but you can convert it to Great Wheel if you want. Otherwise, it's identical.
• Dark Sun only has connections to its Elemental Planes, the Gray (the afterlife), and the Black (the shadow realm). The close proximity of Athas to its Elemental Planes is part of why it's so fucked up. The Gray effectively seals off Athas from the rest of the D&D multiverse, and while it is possible to reach, it's very difficult.
• Eberron follows its own cosmology altogether, nicknamed the Orrery. It has an Astral Plane, an Ethereal Plane, and a Plane of Shadow, but the Prime Material is also surrounded by thirteen other planes that revolve around it. Some regions have close links to certain planes that will enhance effects related to that plane. And if a plane is coterminous with the Prime Material, it's possible to simply walk from one to the other. It is also deliberately sealed off from the rest of the multiverse, taking considerable effort to reach from another Prime Material.

Naturally, you can also ignore all of this and use your own rules because it's your game and you can do what you want, but this is how it's set up by default to my knowledge.

 

[2LtMashengo]

Any Tabletop Games that isn't D&D or Pathfinder?

Lately I've been running Delta Green, that's been the most fun for myself. I find that there's more direct interaction between players than with my PF game, though that might just be my group and how they approach the different systems/settings.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

So I've been reading through Delta Green: God's Teeth after hearing about how heckin gross and ick it is. And feeling quite intrigued because of that. And I feel very underwhelmed. The DTRPG page, synopsis for the book, and the first page of the book warn about how this is so off putting and grimdark and needs all these trigger warnings. Which makes out the book to be the second coming of FATAL. But actually reading the book, you are constantly presented with the psychological horror version of a cock tease. Let me explain.

But for real, I am somewhat interested in lifting scenarios from that module, through I don't know if they're actually good in the gameplays department or just your usual linear collect-a-clue then storm hideout deal (like with some of the previous DG modules).

Pls reply so I can post THAT, otherwise I'll wait till we're back on clearnet.

 

[krautkid]

So I've been reading through Delta Green: God's Teeth after hearing about how heckin gross and ick it is. And feeling quite intrigued because of that. And I feel very underwhelmed. The DTRPG page, synopsis for the book, and the first page of the book warn about how this is so off putting and grimdark and needs all these trigger warnings. Which makes out the book to be the second coming of FATAL. But actually reading the book, you are constantly presented with the psychological horror version of a cock tease. Let me explain.

What a disappointment to read. I can say without a doubt Delta Green has some of the most enjoyable and complex and adult supplements I've played in TTRP.

It seems very silly to water down their own brand and game with this hand wringing behaviour. This 'very bad thing we mustn't name' could work if it was supernaturally affecting things - like in a cosmic sense you cannot speak or acknowledge it and it's a black hole of an experience for all participants. But that doesn't sound like that's what it is. And that's...man. If they don't want to allude to child abuse then why even include it as the crux? Just do something else and stop watering down the impact of the game.

Delta Green is supposed to be harrowing and compelling. It should make you feel bad and creeped out, questioning your morals. If you don't feel like taking a swig of whiskey and sighing after a session of the game? Arguably, it isn't Delta Green imo.

 

[Steinercard]

But for real, I am somewhat interested in lifting scenarios from that module, through I don't know if they're actually good in the gameplays department or just your usual linear collect-a-clue then storm hideout deal (like with some of the previous DG modules).

Pls reply so I can post THAT, otherwise I'll wait till we're back on clearnet.

It's similar to Impossible Landscapes in that if you approach it right it's a sandbox with an objective to accomplish in each act. That some would accuse of being railroaded if you have a bad GM who just plays it RAW. Like Impossible Landscapes part of the horror is manipulating players to do very specific things that are then called back to in later acts. And it's really easy to see that as the GM forcing you to do things a certain way. But a good GM who knows how to improvise, adapt and create things for themselves knows when to guide the players along a path without them even realizing it.

I still think Impossible Landscapes is the absolute GOAT Delta Green campaign if not the best horror RPG campaign ever made. God's Teeth could've dethroned it if the author didn't write in such a naval gazing self censoring way. TELL ME WHAT'S ON THE FUCKING TAPE, WHAT'S IN THE FOLDER, WHAT THE SOCIAL WORKER SAW AT THE FUCKING ORPHANAGE! Or your personal horror is just a vague nothingness that fills space and is useless.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

It's similar to Impossible Landscapes in that if you approach it right it's a sandbox with an objective to accomplish in each act. That some would accuse of being railroaded if you have a bad GM who just plays it RAW. Like Impossible Landscapes part of the horror is manipulating players to do very specific things that are then called back to in later acts. And it's really easy to see that as the GM forcing you to do things a certain way. But a good GM who knows how to improvise, adapt and create things for themselves knows when to guide the players along a path without them even realizing it.

I still think Impossible Landscapes is the absolute GOAT Delta Green campaign if not the best horror RPG campaign ever made. God's Teeth could've dethroned it if the author didn't write in such a naval gazing self censoring way. TELL ME WHAT'S ON THE FUCKING TAPE, WHAT'S IN THE FOLDER, WHAT THE SOCIAL WORKER SAW AT THE FUCKING ORPHANAGE! Or your personal horror is just a vague nothingness that fills space and is useless.

I was rather disappointed in IL, tons of stuff to interact with but ultimately ultra-linear and rather shallow. Like you could run the game with a full murderhobo party because despite being a high art investigative campaign the actual problem solving boils down to combat and failing sanity checks.
The meta aspects kinda reminded me of Undertale's nice boy route without the actually interesting grinding route.


What was I going to post about the new one? Oh right

Spoiler: This

Special Vignettes
As in “The Long Years,” a few scenes help establish
what the “off” years were like. Put each Agent through
one of the special vignettes to make clear they are be-
ing called back into a deeper service than the Program.
It doesn’t matter whether the Agents are the original
Teeth or replacements. All of them are chosen now.
God’s Teeth is about the intersection of a cos-
mic agenda and stupid human cruelty. One of those
intersections is the year 2020. The special vignettes
take place sometime during the Covid-19 pandemic,
between January and July of 2020. The pandemic
is still new. Some people still hope that Americans
will agree to contain it. The full, lethal extent of the
Trump administration’s corruption is only beginning
to become plain.

For the most part, these vignettes happen to the
Agents. The Agents are victims or witnesses. Lack of
agency can frustrate players. Play each vignette as
quickly as you can.
A topic as immediate and devastating as the
pandemic is risky. As always, ensure all the players at
the table feel safe. Establish boundaries. Avoid causing
real-world pain.
Empty Streets
Ask where the Agent lives and with whom. Then ask:
“Why were you out late one night, walking during the
shutdown? What drove you to break isolation?” Let
the Agent answer.
Then begin to describe the area through which the
walk takes the Agent.

In the weeks that follow, news coverage of the
event gets picked up by a number of websites in the
extreme-right blogosphere. The Agent’s and Bond’s
participation in this media frenzy is not needed or
even very much appreciated. Pundits have linked
this occurrence to the “30 to 50 feral hogs” meme of
August 2019.
Right-wing political agendas use the event to spin
what was once the most embarrassing justification for
unrestricted gun laws on record into a salient, pro-
phetic call for self-reliant, heavily armed home security.
If the Agent does not agree to this exposure, it doesn’t
matter. The Agent’s public denial of the narrative gets
them dismissed as a Deep State crisis actor. A number
of GoFundMe pages are launched for the benefit of
both the Agent and the Bond, without the consent of
any party receiving the charity. While a number of the
crowd-funding campaigns are outright frauds, enough
donations trickle in to the Agent (no matter how they
may try to stop them) that they can now afford two
Major-level requisitions. It still requires a successful
Criminology test to find a source for equipment not
legal for a civilian to own.
The Agent loses 0/1 SAN from the unnatural as
they struggle with the realization that this is how the
force beyond gives gifts.

Yeah the author's a huge covidian and it's kinda funny he puts the theme of child abuse into a book when he almost certainly made whatever students he was responsible for (he's a teacher) through the full Fru hysteria experience.

There's also a pretty goofy image of a dude being chased by a bear but I won't bother uploading it when the site is like this.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Any Tabletop Games that isn't D&D or Pathfinder?

Poker.

Our DM discovered FFXIV and suddenly every fight was a savage raid.

I thought the whole "TTRPGs these days are just WoW" was a myth grognards told themselves when no one wants to play their character meat grinder games.


Despite my best efforts, no Halloween one shot this year. We did play some Mansions of Madness, which is kind of nice as a consolation prize.

I'll spare you the lengthy rant, but it's really strange trying to play RPGs post OGL. A lot of people used it as an excuse to leave, but the few that remain now exist in their weird limbo where they won't play 5e, but they'll only play 5e. This leads to strange conversations.
"Want to play in my new campaign?"
"Sure. What system?"
"Haven't decided yet."
"Nah. I'm busy."

 

[krautkid]

I was rather disappointed in IL, tons of stuff to interact with but ultimately ultra-linear and rather shallow. Like you could run the game with a full murderhobo party because despite being a high art investigative campaign the actual problem solving boils down to combat and failing sanity checks.

I actually have to defend it since my group finally finished it a month or so ago after a good year of playing it intermittently. I can honestly only actually recall two instances of combat in the entirety of the run. 1. When we escaped the Asylum (actually escaped...we think...) and contacted our handler who promptly sent a team to kill us because 'Uh oh you touched the supernatural goo time to contain you' and 2. Towards the end with the WW parts. That was genuinely it. I think I fought a paper tiger made from a book by running away iirc. And yeah I will conceed. The sanity issu become apparrent towards the end when we were all too sane and wandered the outercity until I finally failed some rolls. But on the other hand, it did make my second character creatively scratch away at his own sanity once he realised that was the issue - wanting to help cost him a lot mentally.

Like everything it hinges upon your groups approach and your GM to improvise. So yeah. You could murder hobo but that isn't satisfying at all. And I never felt railroaded. We had an excellent GM who rolled with all our weird punches including my first character who went absolutely bonkers, made his way up to the Night Floors, found his bottle and put it into a safe deposit box in a bank downtown mistakenly thinking it would let him live forever... and then decided to go to the dance. I did everything sort of via notes, the other three in my party were so incensed over blowing up the 'doorway' so nobody could get trapped again that they didn't notice I was just gone.

There's a ton of good stuff in there, but it is ultimately down to the person running it and your table to push the narrative and get invested in the search for Abigail. I have been blessed with a good table for Delta Green and CoC admittedly. And I was curious to hear that my DM's other table didn't really get into it at all while ours ate it up and really enjoyed it.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Like everything it hinges upon your groups approach and your GM to improvise. So yeah. You could murder hobo but that isn't satisfying at all.

Well yeah it wouldn't be satisfying outside of doing a speedrun for the lulz but the problem is that since the actual problem solving aspect is so thin a team completely disinterested in the artsy fartsy aspects can still force their way through and may do it better than a team of nerds since the problems you'll face involve either combat or trying to fail san rolls.
And guess what gives you FREE san loss, that's right, Executing innocents!

Like everything it hinges upon your groups approach and your GM to improvise. So yeah.

More than it should, among other things my GM had to make a new ending so it's not just "clock strikes, campaign ends" .

And I never felt railroaded. We had an excellent GM who rolled with all our weird punches

I think I had a good GM but as you get farther in you realize how little what you do matters, (inb4 that's the theme, dnd fags write adventures where nothing you do matters in their sleep),
you can investigate every Asylum staffer for example, but ultimately it all depends on whether you go there at the right time and the status of the NPCs or their relations don't matter.
Then it's off to C-Ville and you're just moving from setpiece to setpiece like it's CoD.

 

[Ghostse]

Okay, so here's my understanding of how WotC handles this whole multiverse thing. Standard disclaimer: I could easily be wrong.

That covers my understanding as well with more details re: Spelljammer than I had.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Had a very silly one-shot for Halloween. We all played traditional(ish) spooky monsters preparing a dungeon for a crawl by some adventurers. We had to test the traps, design a puzzle, help a sphinx with his riddles, help the lich bard who was providing the background music get his groove back, torture Glimbo for reminding us he existed, distribute the treasure, open a gate to Abaddon, and evict the purple-skinned squid-headed man on level 12 before the college of wizards who lived on the coast sent us another Scroll of Cease and Desist. Our party consisted of Pharaoh Imnothotep XXVIII, Chad Thunderknot the werewolf, Martín Calavera the skeleton alchemist, and Frederick the Krueger. We had a vampire lined up, but tragically Count Nose Feratu's player was sick and couldn't make it.