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

[strawberry15]

Won't have to, Bloodlines II will do that for me. Actually not even, it's already doing that:
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Would be based if they were self-aware. Fag rep is a blood sucking, man killing (pun intended) vampire definite terrorist.
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Kek.

Virgin Rudi only wishes to be as chad as Cristiano.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

I think you're missing the problem, which is that 3.5 skills are so narrowly defined that, despite how many they are, they don't really cover everything, and you often end up feeling like you need custom skills. 5e skills are broad enough that there's little need to expand the list.

Because in 3/3.5, everyone was trying to use it to do everything. The easy fix there was to introduce new skills to do new things... like use a computer or navigate a modern beauraucracy. A different skill set with better, broader definition can and was done for the 3.5 derived games of the era.

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Virgin Rudi only wishes to be as chad as Cristiano.

Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the meme on this one?

It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t real.

 

[strawberry15]

Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the meme on this one?

It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t real.

This was made by the vtm community that wanted to make fun of v5 when it first released. Thats all to it. They asked for it the moment they published v5 and hurt locker( a supplement for CoD where you use your phone against a vampire to remind them about your safe space and give them damage by cancelling them on social media.)

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

Spoony old review of 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons oddly aged like fine wine, and he accurately predicted 5E more than once. His hot take is 4E, not a bad game. It's a bad D&D game. But if it didn't have the D&D license, the tabletop community would've been more accepting of 4E. Spoony warned AD&D fans would end up being screwed over. Because if it tends to continue. D&D will be so Casualized. No one will be able to build a unique character or undergo a challenge just to be killed. Also, armor and weapons are far less special in 4E because you no longer have to work for gold. The game starts off by giving all the characters 100 gold. You can buy plate armor right away. Spoony accurately predicted the 5E characters would all be played like borderline superheroes. His most controversial take is admitting he would still play with 4E rules rather than the third edition rules.

 

[Henri Barbusse]

My ideal system would be some sort of logarithmic/rank progression (takes more points to go from 2->3 than 1->2) and maybe some sort of skill rank.

Pendragon skill system is pretty great. It's a simple d20 roll under your skill. Progression is that if you get a 'check' for your skill (generally left up to GM to decide when that happens which is a bit of a weakness, but can be amended), you roll the skill in your Winter Phase bookkeeping and if you fail the roll, the skill goes up (or if your skill is 20 or higher, it goes up on a roll of 20. Getting skill to 20 makes fumble impossible, skills over 20 have a higher chance of critting.

To cut down on randomness, you get to train during Winter Phase and get either 1d6+1 points to distribute between skills under 15 or increase a skill of 15 or more by 1 up to 20.

It even has your background affect skills in that the expanded character creation adds cultures. The Cymrics (default culture) have Lance Expertise which basically rolls three skills into one (Lance, Spear and Great Spear). Other cultures get different bonuses: Aquitainians, for example, get their Romance and Courtesy skills rolled into one. Which is much less useful, but Cymric knights are supposed to be the best by design.

I think the fundamental problem with D&D skills is d20 vs target pass/fail isn't a very good skill system, but the designers of the game have, for the last 25 years, felt a relentless need to unify everything under the same engine. It works well enough for combat (but isn't particularly good for that, either).

d20 is just way too swingy and it never really worked well for me unless it was a roll under system. Sometimes I wonder how much would using 2d10 instead of 1d20 change things, but never enough to do even the most cursory math.

In the end, I can't remember any system that had a fantastic skill system. It's relatively easy to abstract comparative combat abilities and how difficult a task with dynamic difficulty like attacking an enemy is, but not so much specific non-combat abilities like skills.

HERO System 6E does, but that's a system that puts a lot of work onto players. The skills in it are supposed to be used in heroic play, rather than superheroic and it shows. The basic system is 3d6 roll under with 11- being the 'average' roll. You can spend 1 point on a skill to make it 8-, 2 points total to make it 11- and 3 points total the skill roll your stat roll. (Each skill is keyed to a stat and stat roll is 11- at 10 in a stat and it goes up by 1 for every 5 points in a stat).

After that you can buy skill levels for 2 points per +1 or penalty skill levels for 1 point per +1, but penalty skill levels only mitigate penalties. There's an 'Everyman skill' option that's just skills that get the 8- rank for free.

The Skills book just expands for it a lot and has a ton of examples and modifiers for the skills. For example, it's -8 to Charm when trying to seduce a completely biologically incompatible alien.
It also has four pages devoted to mutual intelligibility of pretty much every real life language that has at least a million speakers.

The Bases book expands on it by letting you purchase facilities in your base that help with Skills. Like a state-of-the-art Surgery room for Medicine rolls or a specialized library for specific Knowlegde skills.

You usually want to stack modifiers and the easiest way is to use extra time. If an action takes one turn (12 seconds), you can take an hour to get a +4 or +5. It's simple to adjudicate and easy to calculate, since you never work with big numbers. For things like picking locks, I personally allow adding the bonus after the roll as in "You're two short, so do you want to spend 30 minutes picking the lock or do you try something else?"

High-power superheroic characters are built with so many points that they often get 18- roll on skills with just their base stats, so the system kind of falls by the wayside at that power level. Superman doesn't defuse a bomb, he takes it and flies so high that it harms no one when it detonates.

 

[Corn Flakes]

HERO System 6E does, but that's a system that puts a lot of work onto players. The skills in it are supposed to be used in heroic play, rather than superheroic and it shows. The basic system is 3d6 roll under with 11- being the 'average' roll. You can spend 1 point on a skill to make it 8-, 2 points total to make it 11- and 3 points total the skill roll your stat roll. (Each skill is keyed to a stat and stat roll is 11- at 10 in a stat and it goes up by 1 for every 5 points in a stat).

After that you can buy skill levels for 2 points per +1 or penalty skill levels for 1 point per +1, but penalty skill levels only mitigate penalties. There's an 'Everyman skill' option that's just skills that get the 8- rank for free.

The Skills book just expands for it a lot and has a ton of examples and modifiers for the skills. For example, it's -8 to Charm when trying to seduce a completely biologically incompatible alien.
It also has four pages devoted to mutual intelligibility of pretty much every real life language that has at least a million speakers.

The Bases book expands on it by letting you purchase facilities in your base that help with Skills. Like a state-of-the-art Surgery room for Medicine rolls or a specialized library for specific Knowlegde skills.

You usually want to stack modifiers and the easiest way is to use extra time. If an action takes one turn (12 seconds), you can take an hour to get a +4 or +5. It's simple to adjudicate and easy to calculate, since you never work with big numbers. For things like picking locks, I personally allow adding the bonus after the roll as in "You're two short, so do you want to spend 30 minutes picking the lock or do you try something else?"

High-power superheroic characters are built with so many points that they often get 18- roll on skills with just their base stats, so the system kind of falls by the wayside at that power level. Superman doesn't defuse a bomb, he takes it and flies so high that it harms no one when it detonates.

Just making sure: what are those skill modifiers applied to? The number you have to roll under?

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Just making sure: what are those skill modifiers applied to? The number you have to roll under?

Yeah. So for example, a character with 13- basic roll, trying to pick a lock with -5 complexity and taking two increments of extra time for +2 would try to roll 10 or less.

 

[Ghostse]

Pendragon skill system is pretty great. It's a simple d20 roll under your skill. Progression is that if you get a 'check' for your skill (generally left up to GM to decide when that happens which is a bit of a weakness, but can be amended), you roll the skill in your Winter Phase bookkeeping and if you fail the roll, the skill goes up (or if your skill is 20 or higher, it goes up on a roll of 20. Getting skill to 20 makes fumble impossible, skills over 20 have a higher chance of critting.

That sounds pretty interesting. I wouldn't mind a little gradiance to the trade off but sounds promising to be sure.

 

[LovisXVI]

d20 is just way too swingy and it never really worked well for me unless it was a roll under system. Sometimes I wonder how much would using 2d10 instead of 1d20 change things, but never enough to do even the most cursory math.

Anydice puts out graphs, hell I made one for all d20 replacements just now

 

[ZMOT]

d20 is just way too swingy and it never really worked well for me unless it was a roll under system. Sometimes I wonder how much would using 2d10 instead of 1d20 change things, but never enough to do even the most cursory math.

biggest difference is that 2d10 are a bell curve, a d20 is flat (which is why it's swingy).
personally I prefer 2d10 or pools since there are theoretically more options to modify and change the outcome, it's also feels more natural that most of the time your roll will end up somewhere in the middle with some outliers instead all over the place all the time.

d20 is usually roll+modifier, which leads to mostly 3 outcomes
a) swingy as fuck, result is all over the place
b) modifier is so high it makes any randomness pointless
c) sometimes (but not often) it hits that sweet spot where b) doesn't apply yet and it has enough of an effect on a), but MUH NAT1 still applies (anything you do has a 5% of failure minimum).

another thing with d20 in my experience that results are fixed "in math", meaning more modifier or conditions, maybe advantage/disadvantage (which can be a bit too powerful or meaningless depending on the situation)
a pool theoretically lets you manipulate the dice directly in other ways (lot of boardgames do it for example). imagine a skill letting you flip a d6 on the opposite side. or have different dice colors that count as different resources etc. you simply got more stuff to do and change, even physically.

that being said I can't really remember any big creative ideas in rpgs with dice mechanics, maybe because it's too "gamey" for some. I think one of the new "content creator 5e alternatives" is using 2d10, but haven't kept up with that in months. mcdm is 2d6 or 3d6, but I'm not really following that since it seems way too overhyped and I don't think he'll be able to stick the landing anyway.

Dude I didn't even know the trailer for BL2 even came out until like 6 months after the fact, I never had hope for BL2. And every development for the game they showcase digs them a deeper hole. They made an update 2 months ago and the interest was just nonexistent, Paradox even said the game is more a "spiritual successor" than a sequel since they knew it wasn't going to be anything like BL1 or live up to it. They're fucked and they know it, they're just trying to salvage as much of the investors money as possible while trying this mysterious, totally real "modern audience."

don't they just want to get it out the door and then abandon the IP? vaguely remember some recent news about that.

 

[strawberry15]

That sounds pretty interesting. I wouldn't mind a little gradiance to the trade off but sounds promising to be sure.

Greg Staffords Pendragon is a blast. He was one of the best in the industry and Pendragon is his lovechild. Acpolish phd candidate even used his game in his historical research.
Sometimes the campaigns are railroad, sometimes it is gonzo, sometimes it is weird. In the middle of an adventure book you might find rules that should have been in the core, or suddenly you are taught about how to praperr a spicy wine in your kitchen similar to the ones in medieval times or how to ride your rouncy in a thick forest etc.

 

[Ghostse]

The thing I like about d20 as a GM is it very easy and intuitive to adjust numbers up and down. Every number is +-5%. Even most d100 systems use even 5/0%.

The thing I dislike like about most pool systems is that moving up or down the bellcurve is unequally powerful in often subtle ways. One of the many things I hate about PtbA is they don't bother telling players or GMs how much more powerful a +2 is over a +1, and how strong a +1 is. I can't back of the envelope tune a bell curve system.

As for giving people a lot of options to fuck with dice, that works well in narrative systems where you roll very seldomly and each roll determines who is narrating what happens for the next 10 minutes or so. But even a simple "Advantage/Disadvantage" and situational +1/+2 really disrupts some players' flow. I don't want a 5 minute "Wait! Hold on! I'm flipping my red dice. Now I'm changing the gold dice for my exploding die." exchange every time someone swings a sword.

I get why players like fucking around with dice, or if you are running stock module with players who aren't going to try to break the simulation bell curve is better. But when it comes to actually running a module with real humans players, the ability to be flexible and do things off the cuff without turbofucking the mechanics is much better than what has the best probability spread in a sterile environment.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

The thing I dislike like about most pool systems is that moving up or down the bellcurve is unequally powerful in often subtle ways. One of the many things I hate about PtbA is they don't bother telling players or GMs how much more powerful a +2 is over a +1, and how strong a +1 is. I can't back of the envelope tune a bell curve system.

This is exactly what I like about dice pool systems. Back in my college RPG club, one of my players was a stats major and he rand the numbers for the system and whipped out a chart at the table, thus leading to the inevitability that he'd make decisions based upon his chance of success. I was not happy.

 

[Corn Flakes]

The thing I like about d20 as a GM is it very easy and intuitive to adjust numbers up and down. Every number is +-5%. Even most d100 systems use even 5/0%.

The thing I dislike like about most pool systems is that moving up or down the bellcurve is unequally powerful in often subtle ways. One of the many things I hate about PtbA is they don't bother telling players or GMs how much more powerful a +2 is over a +1, and how strong a +1 is. I can't back of the envelope tune a bell curve system.

As for giving people a lot of options to fuck with dice, that works well in narrative systems where you roll very seldomly and each roll determines who is narrating what happens for the next 10 minutes or so. But even a simple "Advantage/Disadvantage" and situational +1/+2 really disrupts some players' flow. I don't want a 5 minute "Wait! Hold on! I'm flipping my red dice. Now I'm changing the gold dice for my exploding die." exchange every time someone swings a sword.

I get why players like fucking around with dice, or if you are running stock module with players who aren't going to try to break the simulation bell curve is better. But when it comes to actually running a module with real humans players, the ability to be flexible and do things off the cuff without turbofucking the mechanics is much better than what has the best probability spread in a sterile environment.

Actually, since we were talking about the issues of d20 systems and how swingy they are, do we know of any d20 systems that go even further with unifying mechanics and add an additional Xd4, Xd6 or Xd8 + Stat Bonus damage-style roll to skill checks for things like luck or degrees of success?

I had to wake up way too fucking early to walk the dog so it might not be all that coherent, but I suppose the idea is that one way to counter how swingy the system is is to constrain the difficulty of skill checks to the same range as AC as a simple pass-fail, and have how successful you were if you passed be defined by the second roll. It's probably completely unnecessary, but it feels like it would be a better solution to those "social combat" minigames people keep trying to bolt onto d20 systems. Just make it literal social combat, with the Persuasion/Intimidation/Sense Motive checks being the attack rolls against 10 + the target's Charisma.

 

[FatR]

Regarding the OSR debate of the last few pages. While OSR output is preferable of the mix of soy and unspeakable tranny fluids that is modern DnD and its mainstream clones, let's not pretend that there is any deeper design philosophy behind it than "old good, new bad" that only can fly because yes, this time new is really bad.

Early DnD is chock full of cludgy design decisions that were forgivable back then, when people made their first fumbling attempts to write TTRPG rules. Not so much now. For just a few easy examples: THAC0, the saving throws system, the initiative system, dubious choice of a settung-specific magic system. Assuming we want to stick with relatively low fantasy, then replacing them with something more intuitive and, hopefully, more mathematically sound, while keeping reasonable (for a certain playstyle) assumptions underneath, like a RNG that's restricted, but not so harshly restricted as in 5E, or simplicity of generating characters, would not have been difficult, and would have greatly improved the game. The OSR crowd just does not want to do this for the same reason a subset of gamers slurps heavily pixelated graphics.

And of course a true OD&D successor would be a modular system allowing people to play fantasy on both extremes of power using the same set of rules, just with more add-ons as you powerscale into the realms of gods and immortals. Not this can be expected any time soon. BECMI itself was not exactly a satisfying example of it. that's why people mostly remember it for low-level dungeoncrawls. There is zero hope of any game designer known today even trying to accomplish anything so ambitious.

 

[Gingervitis]

You don't, actually. I tried getting involved with various games over discord and stuff with organized groups, big meta-campaign stuff (which I love conceptually) and every single fucking time I got partied with a troon and every single fucking time they did something grossly inappropriate like constantly try to start erp shit.

I have lost my fucking mind with 1) how often I have to deal with this shit 2) how horribly fucking out of line it always is 3) how, in light of 1 & 2, normies fucking manage to ignore the obvious connection between troonery and perversion.

You don’t even want to be in a group with someone who knows a troon. I got kicked out of a group once because of drama with a troon that wasn’t even part of the game. They’re the spotted lanternflies of hobbyist groups.

 

[Atypical Dog]

It's probably completely unnecessary, but it feels like it would be a better solution to those "social combat" minigames people keep trying to bolt onto d20 systems. Just make it literal social combat, with the Persuasion/Intimidation/Sense Motive checks being the attack rolls against 10 + the target's Charisma.

D&D rap battles in the 'hoods of Sigil sounds like a hilarious one-shot. Or part of a Gangs of Sigil kind of game.

 

[Battlefield2142EU]

Outside comical levels, woke shit, political correctness and ugly characters. 6E kept hyping up the two new campaign settings. Anyone has any predictions of what the two new campaign settings will be like? I have 4 predictions. Feel free to rate my predictions on the scale of 1 to 10. 1 is not very likely. 10 is very likely.

1. I think the most likely new setting is Hasbro/WOTC turning the 80s Dungeons and Dragon cartoon into their own setting. The new cartoon setting will also serve as a woke reboot of the 80s cartoon.

2. I still think and hope they won't touch the Dark Sun setting. But I think Hasbro will demand a mature setting. Hasbro has an adult board game devison. That's why I think one of the new settings will be safe edgy and probably be a hell setting. Think Dungeons and Dragons meet Hazbin hotel/Helluva boss.

3. WOTC/Hasbro are so creatively bankrupt. I wouldn't put it past them outright ripping off Shadowrun cyberpunk setting.

4. Dungeons and Dragons but set in modern times. Good excuse to appeal to hipsters with coffee shops, defund the police propaganda, anti-capitalism themes, BLM and tranny politics. With a Donald Trump wizard as the main villain.

 

[Fagnacious D]

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Outside comical levels, woke shit, political correctness and ugly characters. 6E kept hyping up the two new campaign settings. Anyone has any predictions of what the two new campaign settings will be like? I have 4 predictions. Feel free to rate my predictions on the scale of 1 to 10. 1 is not very likely. 10 is very likely.

1. I think the most likely new setting is Hasbro/WOTC turning the 80s Dungeons and Dragon cartoon into their own setting. The new cartoon setting will also serve as a woke reboot of the 80s cartoon.

2. I still think and hope they won't touch the Dark Sun setting. But I think Hasbro will demand a mature setting. Hasbro has an adult board game devison. That's why I think one of the new settings will be safe edgy and probably be a hell setting. Think Dungeons and Dragons meet Hazbin hotel/Helluva boss.

3. WOTC/Hasbro are so creatively bankrupt. I wouldn't put it past them outright ripping off Shadowrun cyberpunk setting.

4. Dungeons and Dragons but set in modern times. Good excuse to appeal to hipsters with coffee shops, defund the police propaganda, anti-capitalism themes, BLM and tranny politics. With a Donald Trump wizard as the main villain.

>That Artwork

I want to go back

 

[Ghostse]

Actually, since we were talking about the issues of d20 systems and how swingy they are, do we know of any d20 systems that go even further with unifying mechanics and add an additional Xd4, Xd6 or Xd8 + Stat Bonus damage-style roll to skill checks for things like luck or degrees of success?

There was something discussed in here, I think it was PF2e that had "Luck Dice" where you got a d4 everytime you failed you could add to a d20 roll.

luck or degrees of success?

hm. You've just given me a idea for something fun. Adjust DCs by (1d6 - 3) or (1d6 - 4) depending on how nice I'm feeling so the DC swings around a bit.

Though I think probably like every round initiative, great numerically but utterly impractical to implement.