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

[TheDarknessGrows]

Settlers of Catan post. Disregard as needed.

I have the base game and the Seafarers expansion, plus both 5/6 player kits. Been reading that Seafarers pairs well with Cities and Knights and also Traders and Barbarians. Regardless I picked up Cities and Knights because it looked cool and was the logical next choice.

As we learn the new expansion, I would like to begin prepping for a larger, unified game with the base set and Seafarers plus C&K and eventually C&K and T&B.

• What do I need to know?
• Have any of you done the big setup before and do you have tips or useful house rules?
• Is this even worth my time?

What I have read leads me to believe that this combo is a winner. And also to fold the Fishermen of Catan scenario into the general rules. Also I should avoid the pirate expansion for the purposes of the giant game, but am open to buying it as a separate Catan game.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

People play anything more than base-Catan?

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

Settlers of Catan is kinda funny in the sense, it's one to two games (the other being Battletech) that is still being brought and played in my neck of the woods. 2023 really fucked over D&D since it was pulled out of most stores in my area

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

Has anyone else here looked into Dungeon Synth?
I kinda mess around and browse the genre a bit here and there. Lately I've just been writing scenarios and stuff around the odd little track titles on the albums.

DS is a genre more filled with crap than most since many musicians are just making filler for RP sessions or trying to scam people into buying cassettes. Quality musicians like Borg or Dryads are a rarity.

 

[GhastlyGhost]

The last time I ran with dungeon synth music in the playlist, over half of it ended up being Age of Empires 2 tracks.

 

[Chadikus Maximus]

Settlers of Catan post. Disregard as needed.

I have the base game and the Seafarers expansion, plus both 5/6 player kits. Been reading that Seafarers pairs well with Cities and Knights and also Traders and Barbarians. Regardless I picked up Cities and Knights because it looked cool and was the logical next choice.

As we learn the new expansion, I would like to begin prepping for a larger, unified game with the base set and Seafarers plus C&K and eventually C&K and T&B.

• What do I need to know?
• Have any of you done the big setup before and do you have tips or useful house rules?
• Is this even worth my time?

What I have read leads me to believe that this combo is a winner. And also to fold the Fishermen of Catan scenario into the general rules. Also I should avoid the pirate expansion for the purposes of the giant game, but am open to buying it as a separate Catan game.

I remember back when I still had friends we would play Catan and the expansions pretty regularly its honestly a lot more fun then just base Catan just be prepared the games can run a lot longer then base Catan.

 

[LobsterBoy669]

Settlers of Catan post. Disregard as needed.

I have the base game and the Seafarers expansion, plus both 5/6 player kits. Been reading that Seafarers pairs well with Cities and Knights and also Traders and Barbarians. Regardless I picked up Cities and Knights because it looked cool and was the logical next choice.

As we learn the new expansion, I would like to begin prepping for a larger, unified game with the base set and Seafarers plus C&K and eventually C&K and T&B.

• What do I need to know?
• Have any of you done the big setup before and do you have tips or useful house rules?
• Is this even worth my time?

Two things you need to know: the game is going to take fucking forever, and you're gonna need a big ass table.

It's really fun though, it's totally worth it.

 

[Gingervitis]

Settlers of Catan is kinda funny in the sense, it's one to two games (the other being Battletech) that is still being brought and played in my neck of the woods. 2023 really fucked over D&D since it was pulled out of most stores in my area

Do you Catan?

 

[anti SJW]

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

Do you Catan?

Used to before work fucked things up

 

[ZMOT]

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.

that's how pf2 does it actually. they didn't just rename race into ancestry, they kinda split it into backgrounds as well (which leads to easy "ABC chargen" marketing buzzwords).

for example dwarf gives you +con/+int/free, but -cha because dwarves are grumpy gits. backgrounds usually gives you the choice between 2 boosts 1 free, with some skill training and feats depending on the fluff. classes itself only add skills/feats.

min-maxing still happens of course, but you want to max your key attribute anyway (and the math somewhat expects you too). there's a variant of picking any 2 boosts and no flaw if you want to be a special snowflake, which might get more in that direction (especially combined with free archetype), but like any rules depends how you run it.

 

[Overly Serious]

In my homebrew system, I had a simple Species + Background combo that you picked at character creation. Species had any inherent traits such as lower move speed for dwarves. And background gave you things like bonus skills. Simple and logical. I do recall a very Progressive player being delighted at my use of the term "species" in my rules. I didn't get why at the time because to me it was simply a good term. They couldn't interbreed with each other so they weren't races. If I'd introduced variants like "deep dwarves" and "hill dwarves" for example, I'd have probably called them sub-species. Though I handled that sort of thing via Background as the better fit, typically.

I've long wanted to tidy that system up and publish it. It was excellent and far better than 5e in terms of tactics, nuance and balance.

 

[anti SJW]

From Rob Kuntz, someone who helped make original Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Ghostse]

that's how pf2 does it actually. they didn't just rename race into ancestry, they kinda split it into backgrounds as well (which leads to easy "ABC chargen" marketing buzzwords).

for example dwarf gives you +con/+int/free, but -cha because dwarves are grumpy gits. backgrounds usually gives you the choice between 2 boosts 1 free, with some skill training and feats depending on the fluff. classes itself only add skills/feats.

min-maxing still happens of course, but you want to max your key attribute anyway (and the math somewhat expects you too). there's a variant of picking any 2 boosts and no flaw if you want to be a special snowflake, which might get more in that direction (especially combined with free archetype), but like any rules depends how you run it.

They only do Race + Class with a background as an afterthough add on like 4e did.
The 'ancestry' section is just which optional feat chain you want available based off your race.

The race feat progression just felt like half-hearted attempt to try to expand racial options.

PF2e backgrounds just had a bunch of free-form fluff shit that seemed ripe for rules lawyer slapfights with the wrong group.

Honestly I'm usually infavor of "Race as a Class" when there's a feat progression for racial abilities/traits.

 

[Abella]

View attachment 6171464

From Rob Kuntz, someone who helped make original Dungeons and Dragons.

The biggest thing about the way they’re trying to erase Gygax from the game is that they waited until he was dead to defame him. If he wasn’t a white Christian conservative man they wouldn’t try so hard to erase him. It’s part of not just trying to make D&D into a lifestyle brand but try to make everything as sanitary as possible in order to cast as wide of a net as possible and get as much money as possible. That’s why they try so hard to appeal to brown people and homos like they do.

 

[filthypenguin]

The system has paid for itself as I understand it, but it just doesn't have the market penetration PF1e got, partly because minus true believer paizo koolaid drinkers it hasn't even been able to convert the PF1e player base let alone 5e tards.

PF2e has overtaken PF1e, I believe it's the second most popular TTRPG.

Like someone else already pointed out, that 5e is significantly more popular than 3.5 or PF1e ever were. If PF2e is twice as popular as PF1e it still doesn't touch 5e.

I think PF2e is in a pretty good place. PF1e was the most popular TTRPG at the time (3.5) but better. 3.5 was a game you won during character creation, PF1e gave you more options. PF2e is the most popular TTRPG (5e) but better. 5e is a much simpler game where people play whatever they want for flavor reasons. PF2e is the same game but you can actually play whatever you want because it's balanced, and it's even simpler for the DM because there's an actual complete ruleset and the prewritten adventures can mostly be run as written with little to no prep.

I think the actual problem that PF2e has is that people coming from 5e don't know how to play TTRPGs. 5e's CR is so broken that DMs are used to ignoring it, which party wipes players. Players are used to always winning via DM fiat, so they party wipe when they don't understand basic tactics.

They only do Race + Class with a background as an afterthough add on like 4e did.
The 'ancestry' section is just which optional feat chain you want available based off your race.

The race feat progression just felt like half-hearted attempt to try to expand racial options.

PF2e backgrounds just had a bunch of free-form fluff shit that seemed ripe for rules lawyer slapfights with the wrong group.

Honestly I'm usually infavor of "Race as a Class" when there's a feat progression for racial abilities/traits.

They do ancestry, background, class. Background is basically afterthought unless you're playing an AP. Ancestry is split into race and heritage, and provide an option for an extra attribute boost at the cost of a different attribute, in addition to racial feats, some effects like dark vision, etc. Heritage usually gives you some minor thing like a elemental resistance or something and unlocks a few feat options, or you can choose halfelf, halforc, teifling/asimar, changeling, etc as your heritage so you can do things like dwarf/elf or gnome/orc or goblin/dhampir. The actual racial differences are mostly in the feat selection, but you get feats that must be spent on ancestry specific feats, so race ends up being more impactful than in 5e (or even pf1, where you almost always play human or samasarian).

 

[The Ugly One]

If he wasn’t a white Christian conservative man they wouldn’t try so hard to erase him.

Gygax wasn't "conservative."

5e's CR is so broken that DMs are used to ignoring it, which party wipes players. Players are used to always winning via DM fiat, so they party wipe when they don't understand basic tactics.

I ran 5e for a decade and never had this problem. The CR system doesn't work as written, but it is not hard at all to figure out if a group of monsters is way beyond what the players can handle by eyeballing it. You pretty much had to do the same thing in AD&D.

 

[Joshua Connor Tomar]

The biggest thing about the way they’re trying to erase Gygax from the game is that they waited until he was dead to defame him. If he wasn’t a white Christian conservative man they wouldn’t try so hard to erase him. It’s part of not just trying to make D&D into a lifestyle brand but try to make everything as sanitary as possible in order to cast as wide of a net as possible and get as much money as possible. That’s why they try so hard to appeal to brown people and homos like they do.

Does destroying legacy and attacking the dead actually sell the product to anyone? I know some pretty pozzed faggots (though probably not coastally levels) and couldn't imagine them giving a shit even if they went full hotep and claimed DND was stolen from the black man.

Isn't it just destroying the past for destroying the past sake?

 

[AnOminous]

Gygax wasn't "conservative."

He was a Jehovah's Witness (until they were too weirded out by his "Satanic" game) and a Libertarian (as in a member of the party).

 

[Ghostse]

PF2e has overtaken PF1e, I believe it's the second most popular TTRPG.

X to doubt on that. Curious on the source.
I have only actually met one person interested in PF2e. All the other Pozzocucks are still on PF1e.
I have physically encountered more people playing AD&D2e than PF2e since its release.
Online is different, but actually met them.

I think the actual problem that PF2e has is that people coming from 5e don't know how to play TTRPGs. 5e's CR is so broken that DMs are used to ignoring it, which party wipes players. Players are used to always winning via DM fiat, so they party wipe when they don't understand basic tactics.

While you aren't wrong, the other issue is that it has all problems of 4e and 5e. It has the very autisticly exact keywords and action economy of 4e but issues with vancian casting and ambigious wording on spells/feats from 5e.

They do ancestry, background, class. Background is basically afterthought unless you're playing an AP. Ancestry is split into race and heritage, and provide an option for an extra attribute boost at the cost of a different attribute, in addition to racial feats, some effects like dark vision, etc. Heritage usually gives you some minor thing like a elemental resistance or something and unlocks a few feat options, or you can choose halfelf, halforc, teifling/asimar, changeling, etc as your heritage so you can do things like dwarf/elf or gnome/orc or goblin/dhampir. The actual racial differences are mostly in the feat selection, but you get feats that must be spent on ancestry specific feats, so race ends up being more impactful than in 5e (or even pf1, where you almost always play human or samasarian).

You're right, i forgot they were first past the gate in cucking under on Race.
PF2e is full of a lot of good ideas but flat execution. Hertiage and racial progression are nice concepts but they just don't deliver imo.