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

[Booger1488]

Bitch thinks Eberron is the darkest D&D setting.

Laughs in Ravenloft

 

[Henri Barbusse]

Vlad Drakov doesn't go around raping peasants and acting like a Feuhrer, it's now Vladeska Drakov being the worst evil girlboss ever.

This one is the most stupid for me, since part of Vlad's curse is supposed to be that he's this powerful man warlord whose territory is surrounded by lands ruled by women and weak effeminate men he despises, yet he always fails when trying to conquer them. Literally the worst character to turn into a girlboss.

Adam's existential crisis in Lamordia is now changed to some lesbian undead golem fleeing her psycho lesbian ex (perhaps the realest nod to real life here).

The execution is dreadful, but I can see the point here, since the original Lamordia was pretty much just Frankenstein with no twists to it.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

This one is the most stupid for me, since part of Vlad's curse is supposed to be that he's this powerful man warlord whose territory is surrounded by lands ruled by women and weak effeminate men he despises, yet he always fails when trying to conquer them. Literally the worst character to turn into a girlboss.



The execution is dreadful, but I can see the point here, since the original Lamordia was pretty much just Frankenstein with no twists to it.

They took one step forward and two steps back. The description of 5e Lamordia is actually fantastic as it's steampunk meets mad science, but with the threat of freezing cold and starvation thrown in (yeah, I think they merged old Vorostokov with old Lamordia). Unfortunately, Viktra Mordenheim is yet another one of the rude GENIUS womyn girlboss running wild in NuRavenloft, only distinguishing factor being she is the MAD SCIENCE!!! genius, while nuIvana is the CHEMISTRY!!! genius, etc.

Oh, and I forgot: walking dead rape pill Dominic D'Honoire of Dementlieu is now Saira, actually a pretty good Darklord with a reimagined Dementlieu as a land of twisted Cinderella tropes... but they could have just created a new domain, sigh. The pirate of Blaustein that kills all his wives is now tortured by the wives, because women are stronk and can never lose, and the fascinating domain of Hazlan is completely stripped of caste differences, the homophobia behind Hazlik's tattoos or his desire to use his assistant's body as a vassal, and other problematic stuff - Hazlan is now a domain that is simply just torn apart by wild magic (yes, Ravenloft is high fantasy now with magic flying everywhere).

 

[Judge Dredd]

She is a big fan of Eberron. Of course. Is there a genre hipsters ruined more than Steampunk?

I didn't play when it released in 3e, but the only people who care about Eberron today are retarded genderspecials.

All this content and it's just a vehicle for trannies to harp on what pronouns a changeling or warforged uses. It's hard to be an Eberron fan.

What? Did I trip and land in another dimention where Eberron is a completely different thing?

If I had a DM that acted like Halfling hobbies.

She doesn't even get the lore right. She seems to miss large chunks of it like the Dreaming Dark and The Emerald Claw, and what's more, she misses the philosophy of it. As White Slaad said

This is a setting precision made for the sole purpose of putting Player Characters into dungeons and wild adventures: there is nothing that exists for a reason other than to have a DM make something out of it.

This is why when Keith Baker answers Eberron questions, he always stresses "YOUR Eberron", since Eberron is designed to tune things as you see fit. "People" seem to get upset about the Emerald Claw being described as "nazis from Raiders of the Lost Arc", and take that to mean they are literal nazis or struggling trying and humanize them. No. They are meant to be a mortal, tangible, morally petty threat that the heroes they should have no qualms about killing. As he says in this post: https://keith-baker.com/ifaq-ec/

I want to drill down on the narrative purpose of the Order of the Emerald Claw. There are MANY villains to choose from in Eberron. On one side of the spectrum we have the Lords of Dust and the Dreaming Dark. Both of these organizations are extremely powerful.

THE ORDER OF THE EMERALD CLAW are classic pulp villains. When they are described as “Nazis in Indiana Jones Movies” the emphasis is on IN MOVIES, not “historical Nazis.” I think a better comparison is Cobra Command from the GI Joe franchise. The Emerald Claw doesn’t have the support of any nation. There is nothing sympathetic about its agenda. The Emerald Claw serves a narcissistic lich who is willing to drown innocents in blood if it helps her get the power she seeks. And like the Cults, the Emerald Claw is a “Monster of the Week” villain.

We never expect players to have any question that opposing the Emerald Claw is the right thing to do, any more than GI Joe will ever say “Huh, Cobra might actually have a good point” or than Indiana Jones will say “Maybe we SHOULD give the Nazis the Ark of the Covenant this time.”

The whole article is great and worth a read if you want campaign villain ideas, either for Eberron or to steal for another setting. It's in stark contrast to Pathfinder where the villains are all marvel super villains, most of which were killed off in canon adventures.

The solution to this is to only allow animal people races of things furries don't like. I allow sasquatch-ape people and frog-men as races in my game which, even if I wasn't playing with other kiwis, would preclude pretty much every furfag on the internet. That and I made my sneaple (snake people) more people than snake.

I don't know. Furries would play a frog man.

 

[Quintus]

I can't believe that forgot to mention this. But I had another character death in the Darksun game. They were fighting what were essentially Ushabti from Warhammer fantasy. They each had a magic item and one of them had a sort of mini-vorpal greatsword. It could trigger on any crit not just a nat 20 but you had to roll to confirm and the extra damage if you don't was not as high. Anyway one of the brawlers got bisected and died instantly. I was a little worried because I thought the player might get upset since she's a little fragile. But to her credit she took it in stride. It's nice to see people improve. Though I'll miss the character.

 

[Deus Exica]

The solution to this is to only allow animal people races of things furries don't like

Beast races work, usually, if you emphasize the beast part and keep them from being sparkledog OCs. That may just be how I feel though because the first character I ever played long-term with was a kobold rogue.

It's kind of the same thing with goblins and Tieflings now. Do everything in your power to make them be more aligned with monsters than quirk chungus fetish-bait and most of the people who would be drawn towards playing shit like that for fetish reasons will avoid your game.

Goblins are little pillagers, generally quite dumb, and ally themselves with the forces of evil. You'd be wise to assume the worst out of any goblin you encounter, and if a goblin is acting altruistically, you can rest assured it is out of personal gain above all else.

Similar for Tieflings. If you bring me a quirky quip lord homosexual devil person with bright skin who is shunned by society but also totally a good guy who wants to show up those meanie racists I'm going to tell you to play something else.

 

[The Ugly One]

The original 3rd and 3.5th ed Ravenloft, all the stuff I still have, can be too edgy to the point of comedy at times, but they have everything that has been shaved away in present day Ravenloft.

You can't have bad guys being actually bad in modern RPGs because it's too "problematic." So now we're in this weird place where the wokies have made a cartoon supervillain out Hitler, yet if you had a fictional villain who did any of the actual things Hitler did, you'd be accused of being a Nazi yourself for having such a deeply problematic villain. This just makes RPGs worse because a setting can't feel real. Everyone has to be a woke cartoon character, because reality itself is too problematic to inform a game.

Also, Ravenloft was originally 2e, not 3rd.

 

[strawberry15]

I can't believe that forgot to mention this. But I had another character death in the Darksun game. They were fighting what were essentially Ushabti from Warhammer fantasy. They each had a magic item and one of them had a sort of mini-vorpal greatsword. It could trigger on any crit not just a nat 20 but you had to roll to confirm and the extra damage if you don't was not as high. Anyway one of the brawlers got bisected and died instantly. I was a little worried because I thought the player might get upset since she's a little fragile. But to her credit she took it in stride. It's nice to see people improve. Though I'll miss the character.

very happy for you. hope they will improve further.

 

[Maverick Vile]

But DM that thinks combat is boring? Why the fuck you are even playing Dungeons and Dragons in the first place?

It's very odd considering the beginnings of the hobby are extensively recorded as having been developed from tactical wargames.

Want anyone more proof of how badly WOTC neutered Ravenloft as a setting? She makes Ravenloft videos. It's Halfling Hobbies' second favorite setting, yet she is clueless that Ravenloft is supposed to be a dark setting. She complains Ravenloft isn't dark or scary enough at times.

I admittedly only have secondhand knowledge of Ravenloft settings, but from every account I have heard from players and DMs from my 3rd ed days have described it as Silent Hill. The world in the campaign is literally built upon suffering and mental anguish, to the extent that if any of the dark lords start to move past their vicious cycles of self-destruction, the powers that be of Ravenloft freak out and start panicking because the very fabric of reality hinges on them being broken individuals

There is no D&D setting more misunderstood than Eberron. It's not even steampunk (but it's close enough at a glance). I didn't play when it released in 3e, but the only people who care about Eberron today are retarded genderspecials. This is a setting precision made for the sole purpose of putting Player Characters into dungeons and wild adventures: there is nothing that exists for a reason other than to have a DM make something out of it. All this content and it's just a vehicle for trannies to harp on what pronouns a changeling or warforged uses. It's hard to be an Eberron fan.

I've admittedly never looked into Eberron more than reading up on the warforged and occasionaly reading the "x creatures in Eberron" entries in the monster manuals, but it sounds like it's supposed to give the DM a lot of tools for campaign hooks. I was considering suggesting the Planescape setting because I always considered it the ultimate setting for getting the players into any situation you want, but it would make the special snowflake xim/xer characters a thousand times worse because it's also the Super Smash Bros. of D&D, encouraging the players to pick any race across the multiversal expanse of D&D because it's technically possible for them to be kicking it in Sigil. I suppose giving players way too many options to make obnoxious characters is the other edge of the sword of giving DMs a lot of freedom to get plyers to adventures.

These are theater kids who watch Critical Role and want to play Critical Role, DnD is just the unfortunate excuse they need to get together and have their amateur improv drama sessions.

Theater kids have absolutely infested the hobby. The only ttrpg content I seem to run into on the Internet is the theater kid tourists making the same hack "lol, horny bard" joke for the thousandth time, or old-head AD&D guys talking about how esoteric and player-adversarial earlier editions of D&D were. I can't really relate to the oldheads having grown up with 3rd ed, but I far prefer them to the theater kids just treating a game night as an opportunity to make tiktok content while playing "babby's fist ttrpg" 5th ed.

Similar for Tieflings. If you bring me a quirky quip lord homosexual devil person with bright skin who is shunned by society but also totally a good guy who wants to show up those meanie racists I'm going to tell you to play something else.

Dude, what happened to fucking Tieflings? They started off as cursed halfbreeds, usually born of demon rape, forever being subjected to living in the shadow of their cosmically-evil parentage and what worrisome implications that might foretell. Now they're basically all bright red devilboy twinks with permanent shit-eating grins more likely to get upset for not having their proclivity for anal sex recognized at every social interaction than the fact that their dad is a Lord of the Nine Hells.
EDIT: I blame Hazbin Hotel for this travesty.

 

[The Ugly One]

"People" seem to get upset about the Emerald Claw being described as "nazis from Raiders of the Lost Arc", and take that to mean they are literal nazis or struggling trying and humanize them.

The woke struggle to humanize literal, actual human beings from real human history, but shit their pants and call you a racist when you refuse to try and humanize orcs.

 

[EleventySeven]

Any other races you'd recommend? Call me curious.

The orange-pendek and the vanara for the ape men, Grippli for the frog men. Fish people but only either human/elves + fins merfolk or deep-one style fish people. This is either side of the zora danger zone. That strategy with the humans + fins only works with fish people, by the way. Do it with dog or cat people, and you still attract the furries and the weebs. I also allow minotaurs cause I think they're cool, and there's far more people who'd want to play one because it's a cool monster race and not so much the furries, but you will need to watch this one.

Pathfinder also has a race of hereditary were-creatures called Skinwalkers which are usually fine since you can't be in the wereform forever, people are fucking terrified of that form, and the humanoids only have vague resemblances to their associated animal.

It's like surgery, gotta know what to keep and what to excise on a case by case basis if you can't trust your players.

Beast races work, usually, if you emphasize the beast part and keep them from being sparkledog OCs. That may just be how I feel though because the first character I ever played long-term with was a kobold rogue.

It's kind of the same thing with goblins and Tieflings now. Do everything in your power to make them be more aligned with monsters than quirk chungus fetish-bait and most of the people who would be drawn towards playing shit like that for fetish reasons will avoid your game.

Goblins are little pillagers, generally quite dumb, and ally themselves with the forces of evil. You'd be wise to assume the worst out of any goblin you encounter, and if a goblin is acting altruistically, you can rest assured it is out of personal gain above all else.

Similar for Tieflings. If you bring me a quirky quip lord homosexual devil person with bright skin who is shunned by society but also totally a good guy who wants to show up those meanie racists I'm going to tell you to play something else.

All of this is good advice. I sort of allow Gnolls on a limited basis but they're straight up tribals who don't speak common and you have to commit to the African accent to play one.
As for goblins, I went for honor-bound, horselord hobgoblins in my world over goblins. Goblins are subservient, a natural slave and minion race. Goblin "heros" on the side of evil or good are extremely rare and actively shunned by their people and goblinoid society in a way hobgoblins and bugbears aren't. A fun side-effect is the goblins make for even better comic relief without removing goblinoids as a real threat in the players' minds.

Funny Tiefling story. We did an april fool's day session a couple years ago where I had my players make characters opposite to their current ones and left what that meant up to their interpretation. The guy playing the purposefully milquetoast, generic, gray-robed, lawful good, old man cleric made a hyper-flamboyant tiefling edgelord sorcerer. And this man, having once been a theater kid, knew how to ham it up to eleven. It was good for the one session he existed. Never underestimate the quality of the reformed theater kid as a player.

 

[Broadside]

Beast races work, usually, if you emphasize the beast part and keep them from being sparkledog OCs. That may just be how I feel though because the first character I ever played long-term with was a kobold rogue.

It's kind of the same thing with goblins and Tieflings now. Do everything in your power to make them be more aligned with monsters than quirk chungus fetish-bait and most of the people who would be drawn towards playing shit like that for fetish reasons will avoid your game.

Goblins are little pillagers, generally quite dumb, and ally themselves with the forces of evil. You'd be wise to assume the worst out of any goblin you encounter, and if a goblin is acting altruistically, you can rest assured it is out of personal gain above all else.

Similar for Tieflings. If you bring me a quirky quip lord homosexual devil person with bright skin who is shunned by society but also totally a good guy who wants to show up those meanie racists I'm going to tell you to play something else.

D&D should really take a look at Warhammer Fantasy for how to do novel beast races well (Skaven and Beastmen being good examples)

 

[AnOminous]

You can't have bad guys being actually bad in modern RPGs because it's too "problematic." So now we're in this weird place where the wokies have made a cartoon supervillain out Hitler, yet if you had a fictional villain who did any of the actual things Hitler did, you'd be accused of being a Nazi yourself for having such a deeply problematic villain. This just makes RPGs worse because a setting can't feel real. Everyone has to be a woke cartoon character, because reality itself is too problematic to inform a game.

Amazing. Because Strahd was one of the most complex and memorable characters in his first appearance in 1983 or so, and the module was a great play especially if you threw in a bit of atmospherics like lowering the lights. We also started by watching the original Evil Dead.

 

[Wendyverse Enjoyer]

D&D should really take a look at Warhammer Fantasy for how to do novel beast races well (Skaven and Beastmen being good examples)

I think the biggest issue with beast races is when people overly humanize and modernize them too much. From Dragonborn to Lizardfolk, even Kolbolds and Gnolls. There has to be a beastly element that makes them unique from just a standard human-like race such as Halflings, Dwarves, and even humans themselves. They can be fun, but the races have unique cultures that can be tailored around them to differentiate themselves from just being a human with scales or fur.

In my group's game; our Dragonborn are of Three kinds.
1. Children of Tiamat - Chromatic Dragonborn:
All chromatic dragonborn all hear the call of the Dragon Queen. Their blood are connected to her and it manifests in many ways. Some will seek to become Half-Dragons, ascending into a more draconic being. (Cyanwrath and Rezmir in hoard of the Dragon Queen / Rise of Tiamat).

2. Children of the Golden Dragon, Volo - Metallic Dragonborn:
These dragons were born from the magics of the Drakhorn and the first Metallic dragon; Volo. They are mortal beings, typically humans who willingly pledge themselves to the golden dragon and turn into a metallic dragonborn. Bound to a dragon of righteous worth, but even they have a very sordid, bloodied history.

3. Skags - The dragonborn children born of mixed broods.
Skags are the interminging of Dragonborn courting, mating, and bearing children of other chromatic or metallic creeds. Often having muddied scale colors, far less vibrant than their typical heritage. Coming in shades of orange, bronze, rustic browns, even black and grey colors. These dragonborn don't heed Tiamat or Volo as intimately as their counterparts. And are often seen as unwanted; resigning themselves to lives of piracies and seafaring as no land cares to keep them.

Our Tiefling race is drastically different from people born from the hells, we went in the direction that our Tieflings are or were demonic worshippers who adopted features based on the demons they faithfully followed. Instead of these multicolored horn-hellions. They can be drastically unique, mostly being humans as humans are the most populated race. But a tiefling in our world could be a half-orc or elf. Worshipping Orcus adopts the more standard tiefling look. Goat horns, leathery reddish skin. while those who worship Mohgma will lose their hair, have magically glowing eyes, having pallid gaunt skin tones, and the like.

The beastial races like Lizardfolk are primitative and do not mix well with developed societies; even the most intelligent Lizardfolk are rudementary at best. But their innate lifestyles to the swampy wilds make them a very spiritual people, and lethal hunting creed. Often aspects of nature, spiritual faith, or a worldly worship of elements. By keeping them distinct, and incorperating the beastly quirks, feralness, and struggles they may come across. Can come out as comedic, or dangerous to the group.

 

[Maverick Vile]

The woke struggle to humanize literal, actual human beings from real human history, but shit their pants and call you a racist when you refuse to try and humanize orcs.

They've blown so far past humanizing orcs that now we're having to entertain whether or not mindflayers are categorically evil. Some faggot on youtube was making the rounds earlier this year "um-actually"ing about how there are no evil races, and twisting himself in knots to defend his ludicrous position against the mindflayer. Even setting aside that all mindflayers are card-carrying villains and typically slavers, you would never be able to have an ethical society of mindflayers, at least not one capable of reproducing at replacement level. Mindflayers reproduce by implanting a tadpole into the ear of a host. The tadpole then eats the host's brain and attaches itself at the brainstem, forcing a metamorphosis into a mindflayer, afterwhich it still needs a steady diet of sapient brains at a rate of at least 1 per month, and even that is to stave off starvation. Ideally, they'd prefer once every 2 weeks. You'd be extremely taxed playing a lawful good mindflayer having to wander from township to township asking around for deathrow inmates and asking if you can pretty-please eat their brains, all the while praying to your god that you get jumped by a band of irredeemably evil bandits on every trip. Now imagine doing that for every mindflayer in a whole city.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

So, they turn DnD 5e into FAPP? Or Fursona? Or that one Werewolf: the Apocalypse game I had a long time ago?

Where are the apocalypse surprisingly doesn't have a bunch of idiots like vampire the masquerade then again I've really not been able to find many werewolf the apocalypse games.
I did play 1 silver Fang who was an orphan who was constantly being stalked by people insisting that he was a werewolf and just said they were crazy people.
And it worked because it was a newly established pack he also went on an epic quest to find his gleeve.
This whole back story how he figured out he was a werewolf is basically he murdered a **** ton of people in the war in Iraq there's basically a war veteran who joined the army due to the War on Terror.

That's actually what I like about werewolf apocalypse you can put modern politics into your setting and make it make sense somewhat

 

[White Slaad]

They've blown so far past humanizing orcs that now we're having to entertain whether or not mindflayers are categorically evil. Some faggot on youtube was making the rounds earlier this year "um-actually"ing about how there are no evil races, and twisting himself in knots to defend his ludicrous position against the mindflayer. Even setting aside that all mindflayers are card-carrying villains and typically slavers, you would never be able to have an ethical society of mindflayers, at least not one capable of reproducing at replacement level. Mindflayers reproduce by implanting a tadpole into the ear of a host. The tadpole then eats the host's brain and attaches itself at the brainstem, forcing a metamorphosis into a mindflayer, afterwhich it still needs a steady diet of sapient brains at a rate of at least 1 per month, and even that is to stave off starvation. Ideally, they'd prefer once every 2 weeks. You'd be extremely taxed playing a lawful good mindflayer having to wander from township to township asking around for deathrow inmates and asking if you can pretty-please eat their brains, all the while praying to your god that you get jumped by a band of irredeemably evil bandits on every trip. Now imagine doing that for every mindflayer in a whole city.

It's a day that ends in "Y," so I'm down for alignment sperging. I seriously question the type of people who apply this moral relativism to D&D. I assume they suffer greatly from Theorycrafter-Who-Never-Actually-Plays-the-Game Syndrome. Even if we accept the logic, how does it make the game about killing monsters better? Not that I'm opposed to a twist being that a mindflayer or other evil creature is more agreeable than others or even good, especially if I'm playing something goofy like Spelljammer, but that should be a playful inversion of the expectation that they are evil.

 

[AnOminous]

Even setting aside that all mindflayers are card-carrying villains and typically slavers, you would never be able to have an ethical society of mindflayers, at least not one capable of reproducing at replacement level.

I'm going to disagree since they're always or almost always Lawful Evil and Lawful implies some sort of rule-based ethics, even if those very rules are morally abhorrent. They quite simply view their prey as no more than animals and would laugh at the concept they have "rights" of any sort.

Also this whole transformation into a mind flayer thing is nuDND bullshit imo. Illithids were inherently extremely racist/speciesist and the idea of a mere human ever ascending into being a mind flayer would have been abhorrent to the ones I had in games. They had absolute contempt for humanity, and it wasn't an ignorant contempt, it was from eating their memories and emotions when they ate their brains.

This is a capital-E Evil race. Period. Anyone who talked that shit is a retard.

 

[Booger1488]

They've blown so far past humanizing orcs that now we're having to entertain whether or not mindflayers are categorically evil. Some faggot on youtube was making the rounds earlier this year "um-actually"ing about how there are no evil races, and twisting himself in knots to defend his ludicrous position against the mindflayer. Even setting aside that all mindflayers are card-carrying villains and typically slavers, you would never be able to have an ethical society of mindflayers, at least not one capable of reproducing at replacement level. Mindflayers reproduce by implanting a tadpole into the ear of a host. The tadpole then eats the host's brain and attaches itself at the brainstem, forcing a metamorphosis into a mindflayer, afterwhich it still needs a steady diet of sapient brains at a rate of at least 1 per month, and even that is to stave off starvation. Ideally, they'd prefer once every 2 weeks. You'd be extremely taxed playing a lawful good mindflayer having to wander from township to township asking around for deathrow inmates and asking if you can pretty-please eat their brains, all the while praying to your god that you get jumped by a band of irredeemably evil bandits on every trip. Now imagine doing that for every mindflayer in a whole city.

Do you have a link to that video? I'm interested to see what kind of arguments this guy would be making.

Vlad Drakov doesn't go around raping peasants and acting like a Feuhrer, it's now Vladeska Drakov being the worst evil girlboss ever.

TBH I quite like the change from Falkovnia being a medieval military dictatorship to a zombie apocalypse setting, though I guess it would have been better to create a wholly new domain. One where a dictator enforces martial law upon his people to fight the threat of the undead horde, yet doesn't realise everything he does is futile as the horde will always return.

Some of the decisions they made in that Ravenloft book make me wonder which retard is running things at WOTC. They spend all their time shitting on the original settings and "updating" them for modern globohomo while ignoring any of the actual nuggets of god ideas present. For example, Cyre 1313 - a ghost train from Eberron merits only a short paragraph, while they can dedicate a whole section to Barovia which already has a whole fucking adventure book.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

It's a day that ends in "Y," so I'm down for alignment sperging. I seriously question the type of people who apply this moral relativism to D&D. I assume they suffer greatly from Theorycrafter-Who-Never-Actually-Plays-the-Game Syndrome. Even if we accept the logic, how does it make the game about killing monsters better? Not that I'm opposed to a twist being that a mindflayer or other evil creature is more agreeable than others or even good, especially if I'm playing something goofy like Spelljammer, but that should be a playful inversion of the expectation that they are evil.

If I'm not mistaken mind players literally implant a small parasite into someone's head and it literally eats the brain and creates another mind flam.

Also the idea of a good aligned beholder is an interesting idea simply due to the fact that it's a rare occurrence if every beholder is capable of good and it's not an extremely uncommon thing to happen it undermines why it's interesting