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

[Judge Dredd]

It seems just as "racist" as it was before. Is it purely just the word "race" that they wanted rid of?

Yes.

AND THEN once they had an inch, they demanded a mile by wanting racing alignments and bonuses removed.


Supposedly early DnD had stat maximums for sex too, but that was before my time.

 

[robobobo]

The whole taking stats away from race thing 5e is doing is just flatly retarded. It can sort of get by if all of the races are humans but with pointy ears or whatnot and you squint real hard, but once you have weird shit running around like golem people or minotaurs, you cannot tell me that the 9' tall dude with biceps bigger than my head does not have a strength bonus.

 

[Ghostse]

To me, these are basically the same. For the same reason. It's stuff that isn't in any way time sensitive.

For me, the difference is Nintendo direct is 100% just consoomers being told what product to get excited for. You can't even play the games, you can just edge in your cockcage by massaging your prostate.

With the DLC you can at least play the game. And if the dude is a mega fan of the game that just dropped DLC, I'm going to make allowance for that. Same if some dude was Celtics mega fan wanting to skip/move/shorten game night because they're in the playoffs.

Or I guess:
If they are wanting to drop D&D everytime any game releases DLC, that's disrespectful and I'd probably just end up firing them as a player. If its a couple of titles they are very clearly into and they let me know several weeks in advance "I want to just scream in rage at my TV for a week as I get cheap shotted" I'm going to respect that since that's going to be a very low-cadence event.

To my basketball example, its the difference between: "I want to skip D&D to watch my favorite team play" - that's fine, I can work with that, this is a special one-time event and I get wanting to watch live with your other sportsball fans. "I want to skip D&D to watch the NBA finals regardless of who's playing" - not fine, inconsiderate because as you point out, they can just want the replays.

What do you guys think of YouTuber flovour-of-the-month games? Why do they generate hype? And are they worth the hype?

"Why do they generate hype" is easy: the companies bribe the influencers to hype their shit. The same reason they stop playing the games after about a week. You can see the same sort of thing with vidya streamers: they'll get sponsored, play a game, maybe even really enjoy playing or play it for a couple weeks even after the sponsor deal runs out, but they'll move on to next product (that pays them or is popular enough to bring in views)

And no. They are not worth the hype. You can some times get some good ideas or components, but they will all fade and you're left with another game you'll never be able to convince anyone else to play.

And now, it seems like everybody and their dog is obsessed with Mothership,

It was an old kickstarter full of megapozz. They had an interesting idea of skill ranks, but the system seemed broken as fuck and not something you could really steal or adapt beyond the general concept.
But what really killed it for me was it was lazy.
The concept was it was supposed be Scifi space adventures to the tune of Alien or the like, where the horrible monster chases and kills some of them -which sounds fun - but because of this they never gave any stats to the Alien Menace. It was just a bunch of shitty art and vague descriptions of how the monster could attack/be a threat and maybe a suggestion at a weakness. No stats, no attacks, no weakenesses, just "lol idk make shit up" - which I can respect, but not what I'm paying 50-100 dollars for you lazy mother fuckers - because the monster was supposed to be unkillable/unstoppable/unescapeable until the GM decided it was time which isn't supposed to be till Act III.
Which on one hand I get, on the other "why just just skip to act III if there's no fucking point to the rest of the game"

It seems just as "racist" as it was before. Is it purely just the word "race" that they wanted rid of?

Yes. Exactly this.

In short, these changes are being made due to exogenous reasons and they manifest in recognizable ways. As a counter example, take Battletech? It’s an incredibly diverse setting where you have massive interstellar empires that all got that way by gobbling up ethnic enclaves. But it was built from the ground up to be that way and the rationale is internally originating and consistent. WotC and Paizo are doing this for exogenous reasons, thus making it so that reality intrudes into fantasy when people play these games for a fantasy that intrudes into reality.

Additionally, Battletech was of the melting pot of the 80s where if interstellar travel is a thing, it makes total sense that beyond insular noble lineages, you'd have a lot of cultural interchange.
And they also made the setting TRULY diverse. You had blonde-haired blue-eyed noble families in the Japanese & Chinese influenced states. The vaguely roman themed state had hispanics and chinese nobility. The Germanic state had a buffer state of Swedish-Japanese origin. but no niggers because they were too stupid to take into space thank god

So plenty of very mixed ancestry minor nobility as well, where the creators took the concept of Medieval Europe/Byzantine family tie & origin cluster fucks and just expanded to global scale, and being modern/futuristic it works and makes sense.
(additionally, the fact that the combat was done with giant robots means that you could have women and men compete on equal footing without being to try to hand wave biological reality, so lots of cool, bad ass female characters that aren't just shoe horned in.)

vs. Trying this in a fantasy setting where 98% of the population would never travel more than 20 miles from the place they were born. Cultures are supposed to be homogeneous and largely isolated because of this, with urban life expectancy less than in the country side because of the filth and disease. It just doesn't work conceptually. And you can't do things like Battletech where you can extrapolate a modern group to logical or illogical conclusions. Fantasy is going back into the past so you need think about origins not results.

I’m talking about stat bonuses. Those can now be freely assigned instead of the customary “elves get +2 dexterity, dwarves get +2 constitution, etc.” that got changed to “put stat bonuses where you want them” and it was done for exogenous reasons and everyone can see it.

The correct way to do this really to all three: Race, Ancestry, and Background.
Selecting your race should give you base stat boost, Ancestry should enhance those or redistribute if you want to buck the trend, and background should be a reflection of both these.

A dwarven miner from a pure dwarf bloodline that lives deep under the mountains would probably have different stats than a dwarf smithy from a town near humans (or filthy knife-ears).

4e Essentials had the sort of right idea where you had a fixed stat boost and one you selected from a list of options, but it didn't quite work as implemented because it just encouraged min-maxing. Some of the 4e races were too powerful for floating stats, others really needed it.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

The correct way to do this really to all three: Race, Ancestry, and Background.
Selecting your race should give you base state boost, Ancestry should enhance those or redistribute if you want to buck the trend, and background should be a reflection of both these.

The Dark Eye 5e more or less does it with its Race, Culture, Profession split, but that's an expansive point buy system with no real classes and the cultures and professions are more like quick buy sets of skills and advantages. And I appreciate that the rulebook devotes a few sentences to why a profession like Pastry Chef might end up being an adventurer and what skills a Pastry Chef can bring to a party.

 

[2LtMashengo]

their jewish masters tell them to push the message

Spoiler: :politisperg:

The game was rigged from the start. That's why Mr. Potato head looks like Groucho Marx.

 

[LovisXVI]

The whole race discussion really makes me appreciate the fact that races in Shadowrun remain far more essentialist than any D&Derivative has ever been, with hard LIMITS to the attributes based on race. Orks and Trolls (and even moreso with some subtypes) are literally dumber and less charismatic than Humans, Elves and Dwarfs, and all these metatypes are less distinct from each other than the separate species of Derivative and Dull settings.

 

[LordGord]

This video is complete seething from a retard

 

[Judge Dredd]

Related to the flavour of the month TTRPG discourse. Something I've seen twice now is talk of the "pro active" RPG group. While it sounds good on paper, I've never seen it work in practice.

The most famous one was the so called "West Marsh" way of running things that was discussed a lot years ago, and today I saw a review of a DM guide that talked about asking the party to set goals for themselves and DM just referees it, instead of having the DM create things for the players to do.

West Marshes never worked for my groups because people wouldn't schedule games, and if someone isn't present they are reluctant to play at all.

The closest I can think of to a pro active game is a megadungeon or hex crawl, but even that has an initial hook to get the players to explore, and the DM still has to seed the world, create dungeons, etc. The idea of a DM just playing the monsters and NPCs and everything else is handled by the players doesn't seem viable.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Related to the flavour of the month TTRPG discourse. Something I've seen twice now is talk of the "pro active" RPG group. While it sounds good on paper, I've never seen it work in practice.

The most famous one was the so called "West Marsh" way of running things that was discussed a lot years ago, and today I saw a review of a DM guide that talked about asking the party to set goals for themselves and DM just referees it, instead of having the DM create things for the players to do.

West Marshes never worked for my groups because people wouldn't schedule games, and if someone isn't present they are reluctant to play at all.

The closest I can think of to a pro active game is a megadungeon or hex crawl, but even that has an initial hook to get the players to explore, and the DM still has to seed the world, create dungeons, etc. The idea of a DM just playing the monsters and NPCs and everything else is handled by the players doesn't seem viable.

You can make it work but you need players who are 1 - invested in their characters, with clear goals for them (fame, justice, glory, money, women, land, any combination thereof) and 2 - not afraid to ask the GM questions and negotiate some ideas. Unfortunately, those are fairly rare out there. Our GM was a player in a West March game ages ago, and I think he put it best: "it's a campaign for GMs, by GMs".

 

[GhastlyGhost]

-SNIP-

You, as the GM, are still responsible for populating the world. It's just that the players would be deciding what to engage with, and setting the schedule for engagement.

 

[Brain Problems]

Related to the flavour of the month TTRPG discourse. Something I've seen twice now is talk of the "pro active" RPG group. While it sounds good on paper, I've never seen it work in practice.

The most famous one was the so called "West Marsh" way of running things that was discussed a lot years ago, and today I saw a review of a DM guide that talked about asking the party to set goals for themselves and DM just referees it, instead of having the DM create things for the players to do.

West Marshes never worked for my groups because people wouldn't schedule games, and if someone isn't present they are reluctant to play at all.

The closest I can think of to a pro active game is a megadungeon or hex crawl, but even that has an initial hook to get the players to explore, and the DM still has to seed the world, create dungeons, etc. The idea of a DM just playing the monsters and NPCs and everything else is handled by the players doesn't seem viable.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you point, I think the best thing to do is kinda like what you have to do for more open ended games like Curse of Strahd for example, which is that you need to have built a world that functions and the players have goals and most importantly clear direction on where to go/what to do next and just organically establish the rest based on their actions. If you know how a town they're gonna visit works and the players have a reason to be there and do things within the context of that world you'll find that not only do the players react appropriately, but as a GM/DM so do you!

Unless you've got a party of phone watching disconnected murder hobos, if you build it they will come. It's just doing the initial leg work for building the world but I think you'll find that if you're homebrewing a scenario and let your imagination go wild and remember to connect things to things for the players, they're going to really enjoy themselves exploring it.

 

[AnOminous]

This video is complete seething from a retard

Varg literally did nothing wrong.

The whole taking stats away from race thing 5e is doing is just flatly retarded. It can sort of get by if all of the races are humans but with pointy ears or whatnot and you squint real hard, but once you have weird shit running around like golem people or minotaurs, you cannot tell me that the 9' tall dude with biceps bigger than my head does not have a strength bonus.

It's like having Kzinti in a game and pretending basically weighing 500 pounds and having Wolverine claws for fingers isn't going to give any kind of combat advantage. Or letting you play a female Kzin when they're canonically non-sapient. (Though I might actually allow the latter if there were an explanation like being some kind of genetic freak and she would almost certainly have been kicked out of Kzin society.)

Or a superhero RPG where nobody has any special abilities. Harrison Bergeron: the RPG.

 

[Corn Flakes]

It's like having Kzinti in a game and pretending basically weighing 500 pounds and having Wolverine claws for fingers isn't going to give any kind of combat advantage. Or letting you play a female Kzin when they're canonically non-sapient. (Though I might actually allow the latter if there were an explanation like being some kind of genetic freak and she would almost certainly have been kicked out of Kzin society.)

And that's why they're trying to turn every single race into just slightly different variants of humans. Take that picture of the "dwarves" working the forge a couple pages back. There's nothing about these characters that's truly dwarven outside of their heights. They're just short humans. There's no drinking a whole barrel of alcohol and getting only slightly tipsy (hell, no alcohol at all in view), there's no reaching into the forge with just a pair of tongs and no gloves and being fine, there's no operating with only the light of the forge because you have darkvision.

They treat different races as if they're just different cultures. That's what happens when you call any difference between species "bioessentialism" and then reeeee about it until it gets removed.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

They treat different races as if they're just different cultures. That's what happens when you call any difference between species "bioessentialism" and then reeeee about it until it gets removed.

Fantasy eRaceure.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you point, I think the best thing to do is kinda like what you have to do for more open ended games like Curse of Strahd for example, which is that you need to have built a world that functions and the players have goals and most importantly clear direction on where to go/what to do next and just organically establish the rest based on their actions. If you know how a town they're gonna visit works and the players have a reason to be there and do things within the context of that world you'll find that not only do the players react appropriately, but as a GM/DM so do you!

That was my thinking as well.

But the carify a bit for the point in bold, I'll break it into 3.

1. In the Curse of Strahd, there is still a clear goal, and the DM still creates Strahds castle, the town, the NPCs, the win condition, etc.
2. The "West Marsh" style game. @Corn Flakes had an interesting answer about it being a game for DMs. Here the DM just creates the world, and can even do so on the fly using a bunch of random tables. But the DM is still seeding the world with monsters, treasure, and events that trigger on certain dates. Megadungeons do the same thing, but in a single structure instead of an expanse of winderness. This was talked about years ago as the solution to schedule problems as it puts the burdon of orginising the game on the players, though in practice I've never seen it work. Depending on the scenario, there may or may not be a win condition like killing a specific monster or recoving a certain artifact.
3. The recent "pro-active" discourse video is like West Marsh on steriods, and seems to be arguing that, instead of the orginisation being put in the hands of the players, it's the creativity and world building. All the DM needs is the monster manual and some general ideas of NPC personalities and faction goals in order to referee them correctly. Everything else is on the players, which doesn't seem viable at all to me. Again, @Corn Flakes gets my noggin jogging with the idea of the players and DM negotiating ideas, which could be applied to the world itself.

 

[Corn Flakes]

The recent "pro-active" discourse video is like West Marsh on steriods, and seems to be arguing that, instead of the orginisation being put in the hands of the players, it's the creativity and world building. All the DM needs is the monster manual and some general ideas of NPC personalities and faction goals in order to referee them correctly. Everything else is on the players, which doesn't seem viable at all to me.

That's just trying to jam the "collaborative storytelling!" bullshit from PbtA and its ilk into D&D, where "everybody has a say on the story and the setting!". It's the biggest square peg trying to fit into the tiniest round hole.

 

[AnOminous]

Fantasy eRaceure.

They're eliminating dwarves. Why do these ACTUAL LITERAL NAZIS hate dwarves so much?

 

[LovisXVI]

That's just trying to jam the "collaborative storytelling!" bullshit from PbtA and its ilk into D&D, where "everybody has a say on the story and the setting!". It's the biggest square peg trying to fit into the tiniest round hole.

I dislike using mechanics for it, any good GM knows how to take recommendations or ideas from the players on the fly, and I often will farm out ideas to them. You can treat the group as a sort of "writers room" situation, with the GM as the showrunner, but a GM must remain at the root, the dictator and autocrat over all the universe, elsewise things can get muddled and indecisive. The closest you can get to actual equal collaboration is when you have a rotating GM and the responsibility for reigning things in moves around, like in the relay or west marches styles of campaign.

 

[Ghostse]

When I've done "west march" sort of stuff, you just create a setting and let the players figure out what interests them, but you need to have something ready to happen if the players are at a loss or otherwise idling. Its also a good idea when the players have somethign they want to do, put some time pressure on it - either they stick with it, or the situation resolves without them, usually not to their benefit.

D&D is run best when its a dictatorship, but even dictators have advisors and have to listen to the people.

 

[Adamska]

They treat different races as if they're just different cultures. That's what happens when you call any difference between species "bioessentialism" and then reeeee about it until it gets removed.

They actually don't even do that since they're also trying to blobify and turn all of the races into the same californiaslop culture, since they all look, dress, and act the same now and everything too usually.

Again, Wizards is the SpecEd course or Antarctica posting at Hasbro; they legitimately don't send their best there purposefully.