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

Judge Dredd said:
This is a recurring problem, and why I'm not using a favourite like Savage Worlds. I'd play vanilla 5e but it's slow and cumbersome, so I'd likely homebrew away some rules myself. I was hoping that Nimble would be a near universal conversion, but it's not that. One red flag is that it seems to have been the flavour of the month when it was announced like every other 5e killer/"real 6e". Which might be another way for me to sell it. Unofficial 6e. Like you say, they might not go for that.

It's a problem because I can't think of what other [BRAND] games exist. There's DnD, Pathfinder, PbtA, and that's about it. Maybe CoC? Then there's settings like Strahd and Warhammer I can sell people on. I came across a game called Outgunned a while back, and despite interest, no one could agree on a time and interest fizzled out before I got it to the table.
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I understand your issue with Pathfinder 2e. Or 1e, for that matter. But what, exactly, is too mathematically complex about 5e? What's the issue that's bleeding you players?
 
Corn Flakes said:
I understand your issue with Pathfinder 2e. Or 1e, for that matter. But what, exactly, is too mathematically complex about 5e? What's the issue that's bleeding you players?
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5e and player bleed are two different, but connected topics.

5e
The game is too damn slow, and has a lot of feels-bad moments for my players as a result. If they're waiting 15, 20, even 40 minutes for their turn to come around, just to roll a 2, or worse cast a spell that saves, it leads to grouchiness. There's also nothing to do when it's not their turn, so zoning out is common, especially if they've been hit with a disabling effect like Hold Person.

Individually each of my rules issues can be house ruled around. Hit point bloat? Always use the minimum. Initiative? Skip it. Goodberry nullifying the nature survival campaign? It's banned. Combat trick like a trip or shove? Make up what makes sense and look it up later. But as @Ghostse said, at some point there's no point playing 5e because you've houseruled everything.


Player Bleed
Before the OGL debacle, I had a feeling that people were losing interest in DnD (and TTRPGs in general) and were looking for an out, but were obligated to their current campaigns. Then the OGL happened and basically everybody is gone. Recruitment was always an uphill battle at the best of times, but now people seem to have left the hobby. I've lost players over the course of the PF2 campaign. As mentioned previous, of my three current players, I won't be surprised if some leave after the campaign is done.

Recruiting replacements is theoretically possible, but it's difficult. @Adamska said it best when he said that players are only interested in popular [Brand] so trying a niche system with a homebrew setting isn't going to fly. I doubt I'm going to get people to play Acktung Cthulhu or Castles & Crusades any time soon. "Never say never", but they just said it twice so what do they know.

And when I say popular, I don't mean "popular on fringe internet forums", I mean "popular with normies who have a casual interest in RPGs". This severely limits my options. I had a friend guy that doesn't seem to read the internet suggest the DnD 2024 PHB. No thanks.

Ghostse said:
I don't think 5TD or just "hardcore" mode really fixes the issues with 5e if you want to get off Fantasy Super Heroes.
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I'm fine with fantasy super heroes. I enjoy it. I do simp for Eberron after all. I know that's more fantasy Indiana Jones, but don't tell the players that.

Gingervitis said:
I feel like there needs to be a bit of balance. People don’t want to go through a character meat grinder every session (though admittedly, a oneshot in the Tomb of Horrors doesnt sound too bad), but there are zero stakes in 5e, to the point where there are stories of players crying like literal toddlers when a character dies. In that regard, I wonder if max HP at level 1 and death’s door rules are the best way to go about this.
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And some of it makes sense. Not crying like toddlers, but I've heard stories of people playing the same campaign for 20 years. I'd be pissed if my character of 20 years was killed off due to some bad rolls out of my control, or some nonsense puzzle based on insane troll logic.

Ghostse said:
By the time you "Fix" 5e you have remade the game.
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This. I think this might be why Nimble and DC20 are basically different games that happen to share some vague similarities to 5e. It's like the Ship of Theseus. If you replace every rule, is it still 5e?
 
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Gingervitis said:
I was talking about fixing OSR
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I mean part of it is a player's initial character should be lvl 3 (lvl 1 is a punishment for dying without a henchman). But, depending the group/dungeon I usually just hand out D[MAX] - 1 hp per level to players because the extra HP probably isn't going to save them from doing something massively retarded but might prevent them from getting taken out by a cheap shot.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
And some of it makes sense. Not crying like toddlers, but I've heard stories of people playing the same campaign for 20 years. I'd be pissed if my character of 20 years was killed off due to some bad rolls out of my control, or some nonsense puzzle based on insane troll logic.
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Those campaigns are a bit different in that while they take place in the same world, they’re not playing the same characters for 20 years. They have different characters, swapping them out as necessary and retiring them after a certain point (whatever that point may be)
 
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Ghostse said:
I mean part of it is a player's initial character should be lvl 3 (lvl 1 is a punishment for dying without a henchman). But, depending the group/dungeon I usually just hand out D[MAX] - 1 hp per level to players because the extra HP probably isn't going to save them from doing something massively retarded but might prevent them from getting taken out by a cheap shot.
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I can attest to every last HP mattering even at high levels, as the final encounter of one campaign came down to a single HP.
 
Judge Dredd said:
Recruiting replacements is theoretically possible, but it's difficult. @Adamska said it best when he said that players are only interested in popular [Brand] so trying a niche system with a homebrew setting isn't going to fly. I doubt I'm going to get people to play Acktung Cthulhu or Castles & Crusades any time soon. "Never say never", but they just said it twice so what do they know.
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I'm running an only war campaign right now and I can't keep slots open for morning day before people jump in but then again no one really runs only war so I guess that's a niche game but there's a lot of people interested in it
 
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Sargon's wife's son said:
The first only war campaign I played in we literally did that with the rebels and turns out the governor was actually a prick so we are went back up to the ship talked to the interrogator he went a bit nuts we dressed up in basically pimp outfits and murdered the entire aristocracy of the planet.
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In @Alabama Gamer 's Rogue Trader Game, we had the Gretchin revolutionary committee show up in a friendly orc's vessel so we went in to help them clear out the revolutionaries. We met the Red Grot and my rogue trader, a monarchist and feudalist at heart, pretended to parlay with the grot before blasting him in the face. I bought quickdraw just to do something like that, totally worth it. No war crimes in space since no one knows what Geneva is.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
However, it claiming to be 5e compatible might be enough to get the normies to at least give it a look.
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ironically normies wouldn't even know the difference, you could sell them fucking gurps as dnd 6e "preview" or whatever. and even if they complain just say you call every ttrpg "dnd" just like they do!

anyway, for 5e there's a5e: https://www.levelup5e.com - never played it, can't say how much it sucks (or doesn't). don't hear a lot of complaints so either it's serviceable or no one plays it.
one of the offshots after the OGL debacle is ToV, apparently it doesn't re-invent the wheel like the others and it's still close to 5e, so maybe worth a look: https://www.talesofthevaliant.com/

outside of that it sounds more like your players don't know what they want, if they can't stand crunch or aren't in it for the ttrpg-freedom just give them a boardgame and be done with it. doesn't even need a GM so everybody's "on the same side" which can be a nice change...
 
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Second Missing Primarch said:
40K and Age of Sigmar both have TTRPGs, Wrath and Glory for 40K and Soulbound for AoS. A lot of people still prefer to run the old 40K games like Dark Heresy, Black Crusade, Deathwatch, and Rogue Trader. I like Dark Heresy well enough, but I've never messed around with the newer games.
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Wrath and Glory has been affectionately nicknamed WanG, which should give you an estimate of the regard in which it is held. The new *new* 40k game, Imperium Maledictum, I am not familiar with. However, from what I have heard, it is actually quite good, but suffers greatly from being a system that tries to be generic within a setting as broad as 40k. My advice: stick to the FFG games. Unless you have a deepseated respect for intellectual property law coupled with a terminal allergy to tablet computers and printers, go with the FFG games. Everything in any given one of them (aside from the Dark Heresy 1e psyker rules, I mean Jiminy *Christmas*) rules is 95% compatible with all the others.
 
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What are some common RPG things (at least according to randos and people on the internet) that you don't care about or don't do?

Asking because I was watching a RPG review and they were praising the number of NPCs with lengthy backstories and ties with other NPCs and... I just don't bother. I tend to forget names and personality traits, so I either paint with a broad brush, or use characters from games and films. This works really well if I play online as I can steal from British TV shows noone has heard of.

Ditto with monsters. As long as I have a decent selection for the biome, I can make do with standard stat blocks most of the time, and can make up stuff I don't have.

I also don't get the obsession with random tables. They can be good between sessions for breaking writers block, but I'm not rolling new NPCs at the table or generating encounters on the fly. Even things like the weather I will roll in advance for the month and just strike out as I use them.
 
I used random tables to determine shop wares ('can we find a magic potion or three in this large town?' 'Probably, lemme roll...') and for amusing random magical effects ('why is that man dual wielding wands of wonder?') That's pretty much it.

When it comes to NPCs, the question is: is it relevant to the adventure or campaign? Adding background to the Wolf King Harkon that he detests magic users is useful, especially if the party is trying to sweet talk him; they may need to leave the wizard in his quarters during negotiations. But faffing around for background on random shopkeeper #121 is just masturbation.
 
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EleventySeven said:
In @Alabama Gamer 's Rogue Trader Game, we had the Gretchin revolutionary committee show up in a friendly orc's vessel so we went in to help them clear out the revolutionaries. We met the Red Grot and my rogue trader, a monarchist and feudalist at heart, pretended to parlay with the grot before blasting him in the face. I bought quickdraw just to do something like that, totally worth it. No war crimes in space since no one knows what Geneva is.
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It's sad that the uh company that was producing only war lost the license because they started doing Star Wars stuff and GW cried about it and through a hissy fit and said they couldn't produce anymore GW branded products


Alabama Gamer said:
Wrath and Glory has been affectionately nicknamed WanG, which should give you an estimate of the regard in which it is held. The new *new* 40k game, Imperium Maledictum, I am not familiar with. However, from what I have heard, it is actually quite good, but suffers greatly from being a system that tries to be generic within a setting as broad as 40k. My advice: stick to the FFG games. Unless you have a deepseated respect for intellectual property law coupled with a terminal allergy to tablet computers and printers, go with the FFG games. Everything in any given one of them (aside from the Dark Heresy 1e psyker rules, I mean Jiminy *Christmas*) rules is 95% compatible with all the others.
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Yeah I hate wrath and glory I looked at it never wanted to run it ever again the newest stuff is tone down and is for the people who are droopy eyed on with children when it comes to rpg


Judge Dredd said:
What are some common RPG things (at least according to randos and people on the internet) that you don't care about or don't do?

Asking because I was watching a RPG review and they were praising the number of NPCs with lengthy backstories and ties with other NPCs and... I just don't bother. I tend to forget names and personality traits, so I either paint with a broad brush, or use characters from games and films. This works really well if I play online as I can steal from British TV shows noone has heard of.
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Basically 90% of modern DMS are really bad writers and can't understand how to create anything of their own and just run modules I blame Matt Mercer who I'm going to punch in the face if I ever mean a convention for ruining DND and bringing all these subhuman theatre kids into it


Judge Dredd said:
Ditto with monsters. As long as I have a decent selection for the biome, I can make do with standard stat blocks most of the time, and can make up stuff I don't have.
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When I created a lot of stuff for rpg I liked writing a general description about a monster's personality and its behaviour and that's about it



Judge Dredd said:
I also don't get the obsession with random tables. They can be good between sessions for breaking writers block, but I'm not rolling new NPCs at the table or generating encounters on the fly. Even things like the weather I will roll in advance for the month and just strike out as I use them.
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I really don't use random tables I just throw random dice randomly doing the sessions and just make it up as I go along
only war actually has some fun random tables especially with having random large amounts of enemy reinforcement show up out of nowhere one session my party got really unlucky kept falling one roll.

And that's how I went through three characters in three sessions 'cause my character was the frontline melee fighter.

Generally one of the things that annoys me is people not showing up and not giving you a heads up when they're not going to make it were people signing up for games and instead of saying why they have an issue with how you're dming just leaving out of the blue but on the opposite side of the coin is people who pester you after leaving the game and then insult you about leaving and your personality after you barely met.
Seriously if you just met someone through a website and you've only played DND with them and you don't know much about them I don't think you should be making judgement calls about their personality
 
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