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

[EleventySeven]

Every sci-fi setting from Star Trek to 40k was "godless optimism" or "godless nihilism". He only settings he likes are The Space Trilogy and Fallout Esquestria. I don't know why that setting is so popular or how Christian it is.

Should have just suggested to run in the Firefly setting where all the good guys are Christian and the bad guys are atheists or demon worshippers.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Speaking of which. The Christian right wing can fuck off from RPGs. No, scratch that, they can have the ruins of what remains of this dead hobby.

Seeing how the Christian rite created TTRPGS are no you people can go die in a hole.

Evangelical Protestants always have hated Catholic right wingers orthodox Christians and everyone who wasn't the weird form of Protestant.
Most of the big metal acts were made-up of Catholics.

 

[Adamska]

Seeing how the Christian rite created TTRPGS are no you people can go die in a hole.

Greg Stafford, the shamanist who cooked up Glorantha, RuneQuest and whose efforts are why you have Beast Men in Warhammer and who is directly responsible for why Call of Cthulhu exists due to the D% system, and HG Wells, an agnostic and atheist who has published one of the first rulebook on minis gaming which would inspire games like Chainmail, would disagree with this take.

TTRPGs are neat in that they can potentially appeal to anyone, regardless of belief. The issue is when said belief, no matter what form of it, is sanctimoniously shat all over you. Be it leftist agitprop, or fake affinity faith LARPing, it's all shit.

 

[Judge Dredd]

In all honesty? If he’s that fucking autistic, give him an ultimatum. The two things that you mentioned are incredibly niche. Tell him to get comfortable with something that other people would actually like playing or he can go kick rocks.

Already did.

AToW is turbo mega autism crunch, Destiny is rules lite story game mode. Disregard both and acquire Classic Battletech RPG/Mechwarrior third edition. It’s the best supported and smoothest functioning system.

You’ll hear some people recommending second edition, don’t listen to them. It’s inherently broken because almost every roll operates off of one attribute.

Huh. I had no idea these games existed, let alone that they were different from each other.

I had always heard Mechwarrior was tied into the wargame, which itself was the same game from the 80s where a 2v2 could take 3-6 hours to play out and impenetrable levels of autism. Alpha strike being a completely different wargame with no ties to BT or MW beyond the setting.

Is it too much to ask how these systems work, and what the differences are? I assume 3rd is the game I always heard about? Again, I thought BT was just re-prints/re-edits of the 80s game so had no idea that was more beyond that.

One of my players got into a Lancer game recently and is loving it.

Should have just suggested to run in the Firefly setting where all the good guys are Christian and the bad guys are atheists or demon worshippers.

Not a bad idea. I'd be down for that. I've not seen Firefly yet, it's been on my list for years. I did suggest Star Gate and he had no idea what it was about. I wonder if it's worth plundering old stuff like Captain Scarlet and not telling anyone.

Seeing how the Christian rite created TTRPGS are no you people can go die in a hole.

I find your terms acceptable.

The normies have fucked off, and most of what's left is grognards grumbling about anything that isn't 3.5 and people who have ideological brain rot.

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

Greg Stafford, the shamanist who cooked up Glorantha, RuneQuest and whose efforts are why you have Beast Men in Warhammer and who is directly responsible for why Call of Cthulhu exists due to the D% system, and HG Wells, an agnostic and atheist who has published one of the first rulebook on minis gaming which would inspire games like Chainmail, would disagree with this take.

The entire concept of space marines is ripped from conservative nudist Robert heinlein yes you can be a conservative nudist you can also be a national socialist nudist it was actually a pretty big thing in Nazi Germany.
The entire concept of high fantasy was created by a fundamentalist Catholic.
The only person who the left can claim is left wing is actually the original creator of wargaming h. g. wells.

HP lovecraft was an extremely conservative person who didn't like homosexuals new to duplicitous nature of the Jew the homosexual and the porch monkey.

It's funny that everyone always brings up warhammer but all the creators of it were apolitical normies.

And I'm tired of Japanese style smut invading design style.

I find your terms acceptable.

The normies have fucked off, and most of what's left is grognards grumbling about anything that isn't 3.5 and people who have ideological brain rot.

There's no ideological brainwash people who are right wing don't constantly throw our politics into our creative works if I showed you some of the stuff I worked on over the years you'd be like oh I thought you were a fundamentalist Christian yeah.
The left is incapable of being non ideological and the creative endeavours even HG wells is propagandist works are filled with his own personal beliefs and about as subtle as a hammer once you realize what he's trying to say.
He also is the father of Fabian socialism so him and the rest of the Fabian society which later created globalism can die in a hole

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Congrats on finally getting your pink triangle!

 

[ZMOT]

the whole discussion is moot since MUH LEFT MUH RIGHT is relative to begin with. lovecraft wasn't some alt-right incel going against the current zeitgeist at the time, the was pretty much part of it, just like tolkien etc. creatives were also always outside norm in one way or another, however being atheist and believing whatever is still far from the leftist wokeshit we have today that has infest whole swaths of society. I highly doubt they were ok with trooning out kids.

 

[The Bogwater Rises]

I have a major solution: Just don't be a complete cunt to people and know when to hit the bricks. It's worked for me so far.

Anyway, I have purchased too many Starfinder books not to run Starfinder. I would love some recommendations, advice, or pitfalls to avoid. If that advice is "Don't run Starfinder" TOO LATE.

It is 1E I haven't seen and 2E stuff. Is that even really a thing?

 

[ZMOT]

I have a major solution: Just don't be a complete cunt to people and know when to hit the bricks. It's worked for me so far.

Anyway, I have purchased too many Starfinder books not to run Starfinder. I would love some recommendations, advice, or pitfalls to avoid. If that advice is "Don't run Starfinder" TOO LATE.

It is 1E I haven't seen and 2E stuff. Is that even really a thing?

depending who you ask sf 1e is an improved or worse version of pathfinder 1e, after the OGL debacle and since people asked for it repeatedly sf 2e is based off pahtfinder 2e. so depending what you're looking for 2e can be worse than 1e or the other way around. 2e is currently in playtest, you can grab it here: https://paizo.com/starfinderplaytest (the scenarios are paid tho, unless you know where to look).

one general advice is to run it more as some gonzo scifi and not taking it too seriously (especially in regards to item values), more dnd in space than star trek or expanse.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Congrats on finally getting your pink triangle!

What does that mean anyway? I know it's for "disruptive guests" but how do people get that?

I have a major solution: Just don't be a complete cunt to people and know when to hit the bricks. It's worked for me so far.

Anyway, I have purchased too many Starfinder books not to run Starfinder. I would love some recommendations, advice, or pitfalls to avoid. If that advice is "Don't run Starfinder" TOO LATE.

It is 1E I haven't seen and 2E stuff. Is that even really a thing?

My first bit of advice. Don't run Starfi- erm feild! Yeah, field...

How is the tech book? Last I heard it was being playtested and the mech class was broken maths wise. Like you had a whole formula with divisions in order to do an attack. Also, how is drift crisis?

As for running it. I tried to run against the Aeon Throne. The first book is good, but the adventures are over tuned and assume an optimal party. ACs can quickly outscale the parties ability to match. I'm talking needing to roll a nat 17 just to hit type situations. The second book railroads hard and is easy to softlock if your players go off script. It's what happened to me.

Other SF adventures I've skimmed appear to have the same issue as later Paizo stuff. A series of books that feel as though they didn't talk to each other. As a result, a lot of PF2 stuff requires major re-writes to be workable. The space trucker campaign begins to go off into bullshit land however.

Building space ships is a huge pain in the arse. Use a stock one if it can and allow players to edit it. Unless they like autistic crunch in which case let them do it and check their work later.

Run space battles RAW on a hex grid. The rules sound incredibly complicated, but once you're playing they flow quite well. All it really comes down to is players choose a chair, and run through those actions. Some players might complain how it's "2D" but most are willing to go along with for gameplay purposes.

One pitfall I didn't figure out a fix for. Differentiating between shop items and what can be crafted/printed. The costs are the same, and if they have a crafter on board there's no reason not to craft everything. I gave them a discount at the shop for helping the shop keeper. Maybe they should be the same. Not sure.


As for 1e vs 2e. I haven't played 2e. But 1e is like a half-way point between PF and PF2. There's clearly some ideas being tried in SF that would form the backbone of PF2.

 

[AnOminous]

He's a lefty retard so I put up with a lot of his bullshit, but when he lets a "chaotic good" paladin get away with mass murder because it was of the city guard, the CAPTAIN of which was corrupt, I draw the line.

Sorry, I would have drawn the line at "chaotic good paladin." There is no such thing. Even an evil paladin must be lawful evil.

 

[ZMOT]

As a result, a lot of PF2 stuff requires major re-writes to be workable. The space trucker campaign begins to go off into bullshit land however.

fwiw if pf2e is anything to go by there will be people doing that for you, probably already on it. otoh sf was never as big as pathfinder, so who knows...

 

[The Bogwater Rises]

one general advice is to run it more as some gonzo scifi and not taking it too seriously (especially in regards to item values), more dnd in space than star trek or expanse.

I was going to ask "Who the fuck looks at Starfinder to run super serious RPGs?" but I realize people look at it as a universal system not Starfinder, made to run Starfinder games. But yeah my plan is for it to be a Space Opera/Science Fantasy game which the setting and system seem super geared for that. I have barely played Pathfinder so I don't really know the rules. Fuck I thought I hated DnD(Pathfinder) and D20 systems because of a years-long string of bad GMs, but a recently fun GM had me enjoying a DnD sesh.

As for running it. I tried to run against the Aeon Throne. The first book is good, but the adventures are over tuned and assume an optimal party. ACs can quickly outscale the parties ability to match. I'm talking needing to roll a nat 17 just to hit type situations. The second book railroads hard and is easy to softlock if your players go off script. It's what happened to me.

I've seen a lot of talk about how the "adventure books fall off" and I rarely run an RPG book exactly as it is written due to the fact my "I'm totally a writer who never fucking write guys, trust me" autism takes over and I make a big adventure. I'm going to do one of the super beginner-friendly books, but retool it to allow for a grander narrative. I do want to do Junker's Delight and plan to really dig into that shortly. I plan to start somewhat small and build later.

I was planning on allowing modifications to base ships unless one of my players is like "I'll figure this out" because the base stuff seems fine and not too hard. Just something that takes time to really master.

I don't have the "Tech" or "Drift Crisis" books. I physically have the Core, Players Op Manual, Alien Archive 1&2, and the Armory. I could defo find more digitally and will over time. It's just I've picked up all those books I listed from some game shops and bookstores for pretty cheap.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

What does that mean anyway? I know it's for "disruptive guests" but how do people get that?

His case was wishing for TERFs to get raped by feminine tranny cock and other assorted spergery.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I don't have the "Tech" or "Drift Crisis" books. I physically have the Core, Players Op Manual, Alien Archive 1&2, and the Armory. I could defo find more digitally and will over time. It's just I've picked up all those books I listed from some game shops and bookstores for pretty cheap.

Same. "Pocket edition"s are great and something Paizo doesn't get enough credit for.

I've seen a lot of talk about how the "adventure books fall off" and I rarely run an RPG book exactly as it is written due to the fact my "I'm totally a writer who never fucking write guys, trust me" autism takes over and I make a big adventure.

The first book is a good jumping off point. The PCs are making a delivery to a backwater colony and hoping to meet an old friend there. On arriving they find the colony taken over by the Aeon, which I rare as basically star wars storm troopers. Basically overthrowing the small force keeping the colonists prisoner. It's revealed the old friend was taken off world, along with an experimental ftl engine. Great fun. Would recommend.

The second book is them giving chase. It assumes PCs would talk to certain NPCs when there's no real reason to do so. Followed by a prison break. This is where the game off the rails for me and I couldn't really recover. Wouldn't recommend.

One thing I remember reading somewhere (might have been an interview with one of the writers) was they had an issue with the size of the engine being inconsistent across books that they managed to fix just before release. To me that's damning for how little communication between writers that the major mcguffin isn't consistent.

I'm going to do one of the super beginner-friendly books, but retool it to allow for a grander narrative.

Which books are those?

 

[The Bogwater Rises]

Same. "Pocket edition"s are great and something Paizo doesn't get enough credit for.

Oh shit yeah I should get some of the Pocket Editions of stuff. Thanks for the reminder.

Which books are those?

I was planning on running "Into the Unknown" and work into following that up with "Junker's Delight" and probably just pull from other adventures but start doing my own stuff after those.

 

[The Ugly One]

HP lovecraft was an extremely conservative person who didn't like homosexuals new to duplicitous nature of the Jew the homosexual and the porch monkey.

Why do you write like you're having a seizure?

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

I was going to ask "Who the fuck looks at Starfinder to run super serious RPGs?" but I realize people look at it as a universal system not Starfinder, made to run Starfinder games. But yeah my plan is for it to be a Space Opera/Science Fantasy game which the setting and system seem super geared for that. I have barely played Pathfinder so I don't really know the rules. Fuck I thought I hated DnD(Pathfinder) and D20 systems because of a years-long string of bad GMs, but a recently fun GM had me enjoying a DnD sesh.

The poor people's Wizards of the coast sci-fi setting proves that they're incapable of creating anything that isn't a 3.5 knock off all it is is Pathfinder copy pasted with some sci-fi elements thrown in I played literally one campaign of it and I hate it every moment of it luckily the DM kick me out because I said this system is terrible and we should play stars without numbers.

 

[Chucklenuts]

Sorry, I would have drawn the line at "chaotic good paladin." There is no such thing. Even an evil paladin must be lawful evil.

yeah. whole thing was a shitshow from top to bottom. That character started out as a fighter but the DM basically forced him to reclass via mcguffin after he was too useless. campaign did plot 180s like 3 times. One of the funny things is, one of the characters was supposed to be non-binary, but neither the DM or player cared enough and after about 2 sessions everyone just referred to the character as he.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Quote from one of my Rogue Trader players: "We're going to put a daemon in a servitor, and the servitor in a battlesuit. It's the heretek turducken."