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

[Snekposter]

So, I just had a thought. With Orcs now Mexicans... why not have a campaign centered entirely around dealing with a bunch of bandidos plaguing the nearby towns?

Bonus points if you use Pathfinder and everyone plays Gunslingers.

 

[Corn Flakes]

So, I just had a thought. With Orcs now Mexicans... why not have a campaign centered entirely around dealing with a bunch of bandidos plaguing the nearby towns?

Bonus points if you use Pathfinder and everyone plays Gunslingers.

I'd go for the players embarking in a crusade led by Knight-General Pershing, in search of renowned Orc warlord Tusko Villa.

 

[AnOminous]

So, I just had a thought. With Orcs now Mexicans... why not have a campaign centered entirely around dealing with a bunch of bandidos plaguing the nearby towns?

Bonus points if you use Pathfinder and everyone plays Gunslingers.

Go back and do real OG and make the border war original TSR's Boot Hill. Gygax was even personally involved in that.

 

[titty skeleton]

"Don't rail road your players, there's this thing called a sandbox". and gushing about how she'd never thought about letting the players direct the action of a campaign.

This doesn't surprise me with 5e players since at no point has any published adventure besides Strahd or I believe Tomb of Annihilation done any particular work on introducing the players to sandboxing or even encounter tables. Strahd handles it by having some encounter tables to roll on but not too many, I believe ToA is the same. I'm not even sure if the DMG outlines the idea of hexcrawls or sandboxing in a general sense. I'd have to check.

Published adventures overwhelmingly seem to follow the adventure path or linear point to point story route. New players coasting into 5e have no IDEA about the hexcrawl, the sandbox, the concept of overland travel unless the module explicitly includes the mechanics or mentions them. Players starting with 5e are seldom introduced to any of the different methods of play beyond being segued from combat to combat with some token expositional social encounters between.

I'm not at all surprised that a random e-celeb touted as an authority or a figurehead for modern D&D knows fuck all about it. I'd bet she'd struggle to explain who Gygax or Arneson were or what they actually did. I doubt she's ever laid eyes on the 3rd edition books. I doubt she knows the differences between 3rd and Pathfinder, or if she's ever considered playing a 3rd era game. Not because she's a woman but because she's a 5e player- and an 'influencer' to boot. While she may be passionate enough about the game to run an entire channel about it I doubt she progresses past the surface level or experiments with the game beyond emulating Critical Role stuff. If the idea of sandboxing is some genuine revelation and not just played up for the camera to buy the book she's definitely not doing advertising for I see no reason not to cast doubt on her.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

So, I just had a thought. With Orcs now Mexicans... why not have a campaign centered entirely around dealing with a bunch of bandidos plaguing the nearby towns?

Bonus points if you use Pathfinder and everyone plays Gunslingers.

That's just buying into it. Try going back to old school. Look up classic dnd orcs and try to really bring them to life, figure out how the old school fantasy felt and what made them tick. Would be more interesting.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

That's just buying into it. Try going back to old school. Look up classic dnd orcs and try to really bring them to life, figure out how the old school fantasy felt and what made them tick. Would be more interesting.

Meh in my experiences Tolkein and the orcs most derivative of his are murder hordes that are inherently violent from their upbringing and/or genetics and their incel rage gods which is pretty uninteresting. They make an OK low level adversary and that's about it. Warhammer greenskins at least play the trope for laughs by just making them chavs but I think the only other take on orcs worth aping is Warcraft's "Kind of violent noble savage Indians that got tricked into drinking demonic monster energy and are now descending as a horde on other people because fuck them"

 

[Ghostse]

I'm not even sure if the DMG outlines the idea of hexcrawls or sandboxing in a general sense. I'd have to check.

It does not. There is an "Wilderness Kit" with a hex map and some miniscule resources (and a gorgeous DMs screen). Even this kit doesn't do much other than lay out the barest concepts of overland travel with a handful of tables. Otherwise the DMG covers some theoretical concepts like travel distance, forced marches, getting lost, weather, having a Ranger means you can't get lost unless magic is involved. But those are more about how much a trip costs the party vs any sort of exploration; it assumes the party knows where they're going and gives DMs a way to simulate what the trip was like (and modules to hook into that for random encounters, etc.).

Its an improvement over 4e's stance of "The players just show up at the next interesting event because after level 3 they are millionaire demigods" but not really by much. Its basically 3.5's level of toolkit for Overland travel.

Sort of to earlier points about Railroading being all a 5etard knows.

 

[Corn Flakes]

I think the only other take on orcs worth aping is Warcraft's "Kind of violent noble savage Indians that got tricked into drinking demonic monster energy and are now descending as a horde on other people because fuck them"

How racist of you.

Orcs in Warcraft have done nothing wrong and they have always been perfectly honorable and wouldn't hurt a fly.

Or so Blizzard retconned them into. Fuck these guys.

 

[The Ugly One]

Published adventures overwhelmingly seem to follow the adventure path or linear point to point story route.

Having run some of these, hex crawling & a story-driven campaign are incompatible. You need a reason to go exploring, and in a story campaign, the players want to follow the breadcrumbs to get to the next story beat, not wander around in a randomly generated world.

 

[Overly Serious]

It does not. There is an "Wilderness Kit" with a hex map and some miniscule resources (and a gorgeous DMs screen). Even this kit doesn't do much other than lay out the barest concepts of overland travel with a handful of tables. Otherwise the DMG covers some theoretical concepts like travel distance, forced marches, getting lost, weather, having a Ranger means you can't get lost unless magic is involved. But those are more about how much a trip costs the party vs any sort of exploration; it assumes the party knows where they're going and gives DMs a way to simulate what the trip was like (and modules to hook into that for random encounters, etc.).

Its an improvement over 4e's stance of "The players just show up at the next interesting event because after level 3 they are millionaire demigods" but not really by much. Its basically 3.5's level of toolkit for Overland travel.

Sort of to earlier points about Railroading being all a 5etard knows.

This recalls to mind the One Ring rpg for Tolkien adventures in which there are detailed rules for travel. And I don't mean of the "riding horses travel 24 miles per day" type. You fill out a journey log with sections such as the year, the season, who you are appointing your guide, who is hunting for food, etc. And woe betide the party who skimped on putting points in Travel.

The game is oddly charming and very well suited for Tolkien adventures. Mechanically speaking, you can see how the hobbits relished the Prolonged Rest at Rivendell to reduce their Fatigue points.

 

[JJLiautaud]

This recalls to mind the One Ring rpg for Tolkien adventures in which there are detailed rules for travel. And I don't mean of the "riding horses travel 24 miles per day" type. You fill out a journey log with sections such as the year, the season, who you are appointing your guide, who is hunting for food, etc. And woe betide the party who skimped on putting points in Travel.

So its basically the old British Military Manuals Tolkien took his figures from in game form? Interesting.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

Meh in my experiences Tolkein and the orcs most derivative of his are murder hordes that are inherently violent from their upbringing and/or genetics and their incel rage gods which is pretty uninteresting. They make an OK low level adversary and that's about it. Warhammer greenskins at least play the trope for laughs by just making them chavs but I think the only other take on orcs worth aping is Warcraft's "Kind of violent noble savage Indians that got tricked into drinking demonic monster energy and are now descending as a horde on other people because fuck them"

Let Dnd orcs be dnd orcs. Literally nothing that stops 'insane warrior race worshipping evil gods' from being a good low, mid and high level antagonist. In DnD the only thing that stops it is that you don't get a large level spread for a single monster faction which is an easy fix.

'Everyone is sort of human' is fine but it's also like 99% of all fantasy and science fiction.

This recalls to mind the One Ring rpg for Tolkien adventures in which there are detailed rules for travel. And I don't mean of the "riding horses travel 24 miles per day" type. You fill out a journey log with sections such as the year, the season, who you are appointing your guide, who is hunting for food, etc. And woe betide the party who skimped on putting points in Travel.

The game is oddly charming and very well suited for Tolkien adventures. Mechanically speaking, you can see how the hobbits relished the Prolonged Rest at Rivendell to reduce their Fatigue points.

On a tangent behold:

Guy rediscovers moderate creativity and it blows his mind.

 

[JJLiautaud]

So its basically the old British Military Manuals Tolkien took his figures from in game form? Interesting.

https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1343&context=journaloftolkienresearch

Speaking of which it was more than just the manuals he learned from.

 

[AnOminous]

https://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1343&context=journaloftolkienresearch

Speaking of which it was more than just the manuals he learned from.

He had some personal experience. In particular, he was in the horrendously brutal Battle of the Somme in WWI.

 

[JJLiautaud]

He had some personal experience. In particular, he was in the horrendously brutal Battle of the Somme in WWI.

That I know but in one of his letters I think he talks about where he gets his figures on how far his characters and armies can march in a day a week and so forth, he fudges the numbers up a little bit the Ride of the Rohirrim to aid Gondor is a little faster than the Mongolians could ride and Aragon and Company move a little faster than humanly possible.

 

[Overly Serious]

So its basically the old British Military Manuals Tolkien took his figures from in game form? Interesting.

Actually no, I think you may have missed my point. Unless you're commenting on the grounded realism of it in which case yes, it has that, but I'm not saying it's merely more accurate and detailed than say D&D, that's not where I'm coming from. Travel is an integral part of The One Ring and not a matter of more detailed numbers. In fact, the number side of things is fairly light - choosing a route, counting the number of hexes, making some rolls based on fairly simple tables.

But depending on your skill rolls you're going to have encounters, you're going to accumulate fatigue, you might in extremis, be injured or get lost or go hungry. A wise party might look at the journey and decide it's too much and maybe they shouldn't take that as the crow-flies route but follow the river South so they can break their journey at Tharbad or realise that they really don't want to cross that pass in Winter and be urgently trying to make it before the end of Autumn. There's the notion of Perilous Areas - are you absolutely sure you want to try and go via Moria?

It leans a little more to the narrative than the simulationist approach which is my preference, but not overmuch and honestly I can't fault it for capturing the theme of the books which is walking.

 

[AnOminous]

That I know but in one of his letters I think he talks about where he gets his figures on how far his characters and armies can march in a day a week and so forth, he fudges the numbers up a little bit the Ride of the Rohirrim to aid Gondor is a little faster than the Mongolians could ride and Aragon and Company move a little faster than humanly possible.

Fiction always fudges stuff at least a bit.

It has to be fun to read after all.

 

[ZMOT]

I'm not even sure if the DMG outlines the idea of hexcrawls or sandboxing in a general sense. I'd have to check.

iirc dnd next had some stuff that never made it into the 5e DMG, like exploration rules. I had some stuff written down about it in the past but it's buried somewhere and I cba to shuffle through several external drives...

A player who has not turning up finally quit. My remaining PCs are over level but are hesitant to push forward undermanned.

late reply, but if that's only for combat just scale the encounter down. if you design it on the fly it's no difference, otherwise remove some enemies/apply weak templates (not sure but it's one of those things foundry could probably automate). that's where the more rigid math is an advantage.
adding a DMNPC or companion would just bloat the time fighting imo.

 

[Overly Serious]

Guys, guys, guys - the only overland rules you'll ever need are right here:

 

[Alabama Gamer]

I think my Rogue Trader players might be brain-damaged. I ended up doing a whole dungeon crawl on a Feudal World for Gygax Day, which they completed last session. They decided that they were going to spend most of it getting caught in narrow chokepoints by Feral Orks and not retreating, half the time without their Ogryn in front. The stupid thing was that they didn't get punished for it. Some of these Orks were bigguns with Big Choppas that deal 2d10+5 damage (before factoring in armor) when your average PC's health is going to be between 6 and 10, but said Orks couldn't land an attack to save their lives. Only one of the PCs (aside from the Ogryn) got chunked hard enough to go into Critical Damage and got saved by the Magos having a medical mechadendrite handy, when statistically at least two of them should have had to burn Fate to avoid dying. I'm worried this has taught them some bad habits, which is why the next session will feature a random encounter of 1d6 purestrain genestealers in the ship's air vents.