- Joined
- May 25, 2024
Yeah don't really recommend being a Drake, they're better as antagonists IMO. Since they represent a Great Dragon, but aren't quite at the level of one, so you can actually kill them and live.
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
- Thread starter Surtur
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- Dec 28, 2014
Random dumb shit AI spat at me.
Some of the analysis actually made sense. I'm just kind of amused the AI was totally okay with introducing "dumbfucks" and then "paladins" as factions in some situation.
It definitely thought paladins and ninjas would be natural allies.
Some of the analysis actually made sense. I'm just kind of amused the AI was totally okay with introducing "dumbfucks" and then "paladins" as factions in some situation.
It definitely thought paladins and ninjas would be natural allies.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
I don't know if they do or not. I assume they're a noob like me, saw the whole "cyberpunk + fantasy races" and just assumed cyborg dragon/dinosaur men were a thing.
Fair enough. If it's that specific of a thing, I'll say no. Maybe I can find a way to justify it with Cyberpunk esc extreme body mods. But...
Gave Ranraku Arcology a skim and it's more of a setting than an adventure. There are a few adventure ideas provided, but the book seems to mostly a mix of fiction and setting material. If anything, the outlined adventures are a bit basic and are a waste of the setting. (They are rescue a guys girlfriend, rescue a news crew, and retrieve some data.)
I personally would find it more interesting as a survival megadungeon. Almost like Dredd, Chopping Mall, or Bioshock, where the PCs are trapped in the arcology and the only way to escape is to beat the AI.
Supposedly, there is a canon timeline of adventures. Specifically Chicago becoming "bug city" and then being nuked off the map. This runs into the Pathfinder problem of having to figure out "when" to set it, and if major conflicts are resolved.
On that topic, does Renraku Arcology have a "canon" ending?
It's looking more and more likely that, if I ever do run shadowrun, I'll homebrew the setting a bit.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Universal Brotherhood (which covers what happens to Chicago) and Brainscan are probably the best OG adventures for SR. I'd also recommend Mercurial and Harlequin/Harlequin's Back, although I'll admit part of that is because I do love that crazy elven motherfucker. While not an adventure per se there's also a section of events in Storm Front that make great plot hooks for making your own from the time he basically declared a one man war on one of, if not the, most powerful dragons in the world which ended with them going 1v1 in downtown Denver (the fact he wasn't immediately one shot is a testament to how powerful that crazy bastard is)
There's rules for multiple flame based spells and actual flamethrowers, however probably the most fitting is the Critter Power: Elemental Attack, which is used to represent a bunch of similar natural weapons including breathing flame ala hellhounds
Lofwyr didn't kill Dunkelzahn. Unlike Epstein, Dunkelzahn actually did kill himself. Lofwyr has however definitely killed other dragons including his own brother Alamais
They're also, as I went into in a previous post in this thread, mechanically kinda shit.
Renraku Arcology Shutdown is the background sourcebook explaining what's going in general. Brainscan is the book with the actual adventures in it. Similar to how Bug City is a background book explaining Chicago and then Universal brotherhood contains the actual adventures
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- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Apologies for the double post, I forgot this bit on my earlier post and it's already quite long so I don't want to edit it to add more.
There isn't a way to do flame breath by RAW with SURGE but there are a couple of ways to do it.
1)Allow the character to take the Elemental Attack Critter Power as one of the metagenetics they have to take, at the cost of karma and maybe add a time/usage limit (eg there's an acid spit attack one that is limited to once every half hour at most)
2)If the character is a mage they can take the flamethrower/fireball spell and just fluff it as their breath weapon
3)If not a mage there is an implantable flamethrower cyber-weapon
As the other poster noted though being draconic looking in Shadowrun should come with some downsides, which are even noted in the rules themselves:
That's not to say you/they shouldn't do it, just it's something you should be aware of. Done properly you can even use it to enhance the RP side of things. For instance if the character has the physical aspects of being a dragon like the skin and stuff, but not the ability to breathe fire, that could be a motivation to become a runner (who are generally outcasts anyway), letting them get the resources so they can get a flamethrower implanted, or enhance themselves in other ways. After all if you're gonna get shit for looking like a dragon, might as well be able to dish some back out.
If the player really wants to be a dragonborn-esque character there actually is a lore friendly way to do it in Shadowrun, SURGE. SURGE is a magical phenomena that introduced a bunch of magical mutations. Some became new metaviarants entirely eg hobgoblins are a subset of orks, and some were just weird and whacky one offs ie a regular elf might get feathers or gills or some shit. There is a specific dragon skin one as well as stuff like claws/fangs.
There isn't a way to do flame breath by RAW with SURGE but there are a couple of ways to do it.
1)Allow the character to take the Elemental Attack Critter Power as one of the metagenetics they have to take, at the cost of karma and maybe add a time/usage limit (eg there's an acid spit attack one that is limited to once every half hour at most)
2)If the character is a mage they can take the flamethrower/fireball spell and just fluff it as their breath weapon
3)If not a mage there is an implantable flamethrower cyber-weapon
As the other poster noted though being draconic looking in Shadowrun should come with some downsides, which are even noted in the rules themselves:
That's not to say you/they shouldn't do it, just it's something you should be aware of. Done properly you can even use it to enhance the RP side of things. For instance if the character has the physical aspects of being a dragon like the skin and stuff, but not the ability to breathe fire, that could be a motivation to become a runner (who are generally outcasts anyway), letting them get the resources so they can get a flamethrower implanted, or enhance themselves in other ways. After all if you're gonna get shit for looking like a dragon, might as well be able to dish some back out.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Yes, but counterargument: Cathyl.
Lofwyr is a shitstain and I'm surprised Hestaby hasn't found a way to get rid of him for confirming every single one of the absolute worst stereotypes out there. Even by megacorp standards S-K and Lofwyr manage to stand out as especially terrible, simply because your typical CEO will just kill you and dump your body somehow if you fuck up, not eat you. If anyone is going to incite a desire for Total Dragon Death among metahumanity its going to be him, and Hestaby is smart enough to realize the dragons won't win that fight, not when the last one that decided to go on a rampage wound up with what was left of them turned into magical components by Aztechnology.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
She tried at the beginning of the Dragon Civil War. She even single-handedly destroyed S-Ks Middle Eastern headquarters (while not killing a single person) as a demonstration. Unfortunately as the saying goes if you come at the king you best not miss, after that she was stripped over her lairs, her hoard was divvied up by the other dragons and the Shasta Shamans were scattered.
Not quite. The dragon that got cut up was Dzitbalchén who was accused of blowing up the Azzie-Yucatan peace conference which also (maybe)killed the head of Aztechnology. The one that famously went on several rampages was Sirrurg and while Aztechnology did, technically, eventually bring him down, he vanished before they could do anything further:
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Was that confirmed in a book?
That's probably kinda the whole point.
Like others have said, it's a setting book and is from a time when setting/campaign books did their job. Adventure modules exist, but there aren't as many of them as you'll find for something like D&D or pathfinder because they're just not as necessary. Once the party at the table has gotten a few missions under their belt, there's probably enough emergent storytelling going on from that alone to keep things going for quite a while compared to a lot of fantasy settings where "ok, we slew the evil goblin lord, freed the town and... there's nothing else to do here so we ride off to the next peasant village" type shit that's generally encouraged. What happens when someone slips up and the safehouse gets exposed and then shot up? The local crime elements(this could be anything from other corporations, gangs, activists, politicians, etc.) taking notice of this new group in the area getting shit done? Some local bullshit gets taken out and now there's a power vacuum? Not everything the party needs to deal with is someone handing them a job.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Honestly I'm not sure. It's been forever since I read them so I can't be sure if they ever explicitly state it in the Dragon Heart novels, or if it's just constantly, heavily implied. Same with a lot of the sourcebooks around that time Like Dunkelzahn's Will since that were written from an in-universe perspective, so I'm guessing not. I do know it was confirmed IRL by various FASA staff who were involved in writing it.
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- Joined
- Mar 6, 2024
Fair counterpoint, and I know it was well-researched considering your profile picture.
Personally I hated this since it takes away so much in the way of flavor. I want my different things to be different. Not gray stat blobs with the racial special rules being the main determinant.
Race/class pairings are iconic for a reason.
Oh also booming blade and greenflame blade (and the other sword cantrips iirc) started in sword coast adventurer's guide. They're definitely strong. I used them a lot playing Swordmage in 4th ed.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Oh, less than you'd think. There's not much art of her out there compared to the main cast and I'm more into sharp-dressing white-haired gals with bob cuts than rustic farm workers.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
What do you guys think of Year Zero Engine games?
What are some good one-shot games you'd recommend?
Any recommendations on what I should run for people new to RPGs? Setting and rules.
Any fun positive/heroic/upbeat settings?
Without powerleveling too much, I'm likely going to be running one shots for a while. I want something easy to run and play. I like Savage Worlds, but I'm looking for something else. I've ended up looking into Alien RPG, which in turn led me to Year Zero Engine games like Twilight 2000 and Forbidden Lands. On paper this sounds like what I want. Savage Worlds style simplicity with faster character creation and none of the issues that trip people up. There doesn't seem to a be a setting neutral version however.
On a side note, I find it strange how many YouTubers dislike Twilight 2000, calling it too depressing. For those that don't know (I didn't) the game is set in the year 2000. The soviet union didn't collapse, and nukes were exchanged. You play as soldiers in Poland trying to survive as civilization collapses around you and the remnants of the remaining forces action without orders. I assume they are lefties, or virtue signaling about Ukraine or something because that setting doesn't sound too out there. YouTubers also don't like that Mutant Year Zero and Forbidden Lands allow you to work with slavers.
I've been looking for settings, and I'm getting a bit tired of everything being various flavours of horrid and depressing. A setting doesn't have to sunshine and rainbows, but something that isn't all death, toil, making rent, and dying from infected mosquito bites would be nice. Eberron, Starfinder, things of that nature.
I'm also looking for settings that don't require genre knowledge. In the past I've had players confused by the concept of Mr Johnson or have no idea what a Lovecraft even is.
If it matters. There's a guy I know who I think has RPG recruitment potential. He enjoys mini wargames, but doesn't know the first thing about fantasy, cyberpunk, or nerd shit in general.
What are some good one-shot games you'd recommend?
Any recommendations on what I should run for people new to RPGs? Setting and rules.
Any fun positive/heroic/upbeat settings?
Without powerleveling too much, I'm likely going to be running one shots for a while. I want something easy to run and play. I like Savage Worlds, but I'm looking for something else. I've ended up looking into Alien RPG, which in turn led me to Year Zero Engine games like Twilight 2000 and Forbidden Lands. On paper this sounds like what I want. Savage Worlds style simplicity with faster character creation and none of the issues that trip people up. There doesn't seem to a be a setting neutral version however.
On a side note, I find it strange how many YouTubers dislike Twilight 2000, calling it too depressing. For those that don't know (I didn't) the game is set in the year 2000. The soviet union didn't collapse, and nukes were exchanged. You play as soldiers in Poland trying to survive as civilization collapses around you and the remnants of the remaining forces action without orders. I assume they are lefties, or virtue signaling about Ukraine or something because that setting doesn't sound too out there. YouTubers also don't like that Mutant Year Zero and Forbidden Lands allow you to work with slavers.
I've been looking for settings, and I'm getting a bit tired of everything being various flavours of horrid and depressing. A setting doesn't have to sunshine and rainbows, but something that isn't all death, toil, making rent, and dying from infected mosquito bites would be nice. Eberron, Starfinder, things of that nature.
I'm also looking for settings that don't require genre knowledge. In the past I've had players confused by the concept of Mr Johnson or have no idea what a Lovecraft even is.
If it matters. There's a guy I know who I think has RPG recruitment potential. He enjoys mini wargames, but doesn't know the first thing about fantasy, cyberpunk, or nerd shit in general.
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2024
Never heard of it, but after a quick read from various sites it seems that it's easy to play and has flexible systems to mess around with, with each game being not too different from each other mechanically but different enough to not feel like you're playing the same exact game. Forbidden lands doesn't have zone based movement but I believe the others do. Apparently certain resources require rolling dice to see how many resources to get and how much of said resource you use up or something. Another person mentioned that have to roll a lot of dice and you might fail your rolls often anyway due to how the system works but I can't say for certain.
Overall I can't really find many people with bad experiences with it so I guess you should at least try out one of them. Alien and Forbidden Lands seems to be the most positive.
Answered your own question really, most Jewtubers don't like to think about anything bad unless its against someone they don't like. They rather black and white where they're on the white side.
Fucking...so that's not too depressing but Twilight 2000 is? Some people...probably goes back to what I just wrote and they're upset they can't enslave people they don't personally like or try to roleplay a slaver slowing seeing the light and becoming a liberator. Or ERP reasons, these people are probably degenerates.
You'd know, because terminally online armchair politicians will let you know if they're virtue signalling.
Christ. It's not even an age thing given how much Eldritch shit is in media these days, this is just willful ignorance. As for Mr.Johnson, that's a bit more understandable, if you're referring to my nigga from the Muppets.
More of a historical guy I take it? Does he play any vidya or watch movies that you can use to help him get into TTRPGs? I would recommend easing him into those genres in the future (I mean, how many games aren't heavily nerd shit) with games that are enjoyable but don't go too autistic into nerd shit (which is pretty hard given who makes these games and for who). Tunnels and Trolls maybe? It was made buy a guy who found the rules for D&D (I believe this was OD&D since TnT was released in 1975) Or perhaps-may Allah forgive me for uttering its name-D&D 5e. But without all the other shit they want to you buy, just straight base 5e with some minor changes you might want to make to ease your friend in. Hell the Alien TTRPG you mentioned might be perfect since it has a good source material (the original movie, if he hasn't watched the movie he should be beaten) and from what I'm reading is easy to get into, has pre-made scenarios for less GM work, and has mechanics that allows the player to add on to the conflict by themselves with stress dice. Forbidden Lands too, hell maybe even Twilight 2000.
If he ends up not being into any nerd shit (despite being a wargamer lol) you can try more grounded things like Fiasco which doesn't even need a GM, Beyond the Wall might help with it's more tame fantasy and more strategic style of gameplay (you're friend might be well suited for it since the main gameplay loop is making your village stronger and protecting it from dangers from what I'm reading). Also comes with "character playbooks" that are similar to pre-mades but still require you to fill things out. Essentially it gives you your job, purpose, story beats, whatever the fuck but lets you fill everything else out, so a good middle ground and helps makes your player more engaged with their character. It's OSR though so keep that in mind. RuneQuest might be good too but I haven't played that, but it's made by Chaosium so it's probably good.
I would also recommend your friend to do his own research and find out which games he might like the most, of course you'll have to help guide him. Throw some suggestions and briefly explain what they are but make him actually look at what you show him so he'll get a better understanding of it. Blackgate will definitely help, has all kinds of neat shit but...maybe it might overwhelm him. So here are my final questions:
What kind of person is he?
What war games does he like?
What Setting(s) does he usually play? More details will help.
While looking for more examples I came across this...thing. I'll let you read it for yourself but here's some choice words:
Basically a post-apocalypse game made by people who are queer, for queers, about queers and their queerness, queerily. And of course they mostly mean lesbians (butch dykes specifically) given the images I'm painfully looking at. Did I mention they're queers and this is a queer game for queer people to be queer? Wait a second...this looks familiar.
MOTHERFU-
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- Joined
- Apr 17, 2022
But there one, its called Year Zone Engine, you can get if for free. I want to get the Invincible RPG to see if can work with Super Powers, because SW Super Powers Companion is kinda of... Broken.
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Blarmed&Dangerous
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2015
The biggest hangup I have with Twilight 2000 - beyond that I don't feel the system has enough statistical granularity - is how rate of fire works.
Basically, if you're firing anything more than single shots, you can choose to a roll a number of ammo dice iirc up to the weapon's RoF. Any roll of 6 is an additional nearby target or additional damage, but whether you get any 6s or not, the total of all your ammo dice is how much ammo you expended.
Or in other words, in this game where you're counting every bullet and ammo is a rare commodity, you will never get more than two hits out of seven shots.
And look, I get it, full-auto is really more about suppression, but the thing is that it's not just LMGs with RoFs, it's semiautos too, and there's no modification to this roll, so no matter how good your guy is, no matter what the circumstances are, if you mag dump your pistol into a bathroom stall full of dudes, you're still getting max two hits.
Basically, if you're firing anything more than single shots, you can choose to a roll a number of ammo dice iirc up to the weapon's RoF. Any roll of 6 is an additional nearby target or additional damage, but whether you get any 6s or not, the total of all your ammo dice is how much ammo you expended.
Or in other words, in this game where you're counting every bullet and ammo is a rare commodity, you will never get more than two hits out of seven shots.
And look, I get it, full-auto is really more about suppression, but the thing is that it's not just LMGs with RoFs, it's semiautos too, and there's no modification to this roll, so no matter how good your guy is, no matter what the circumstances are, if you mag dump your pistol into a bathroom stall full of dudes, you're still getting max two hits.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
never heard of them, but if its the same system as the new Aliens RPG:
System is well-liked but seems to have short life span - there isn't much if any opportunity for progression, the Alien game is hyper focused on "Marines vs Xenomorphs", very tactically and mechanically shallow.
My favorite non-B/X system for one-shots is MazeRats.'
Oh god lol. But my nigga you left off the best part
ahahahahahaha. "shared gming" and "diceless PbtA"
YOU FAGGOTS THIS IS JUST COLLABORATIVE STORYTIME.
RULES ARE OPPRESSION, BIGOT
Oh god, this Leaf faggot needs some MAID. Its a tranny (hence the focus on lesbianism)
There is this
The power of wicca will turn me in a beautiful woman who can have all the lesbian sex I want!Variations on Your Body said:
Fucking lol. No wonder this nigga deep into escapism.
Also
Grooming allegations inbound.
This faggot also lists their address as "Treaty 6"; this is a faggot attempt to reference places by Indian names, missing our incredibly racist and insenstive that is because the tribes in "Treaty 6" were all killing each other.
TTD.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
The only game that uses it I'm remotely familiar with is the Alien RPG, which uses it fairly well but I think it's customized for the game proper and not a base system. I consider it to be good for short runs and one-shots, and it breaks down if you want to have a longer game. Looking into it, it seems to be a more competent PbtA, since it's simple enough to change quite a bit between each game that uses it.
Forbidden Lands, Mutant, Alien, and others all use it, but the games change a bit to customize it for the style of play.
Have little to no issues with it tbh.
Ironically Shadowrun is perfect for one shots and round robins. Blades in the Dark also does it pretty well too since heist games work real well for that sort of thing.
I also do think short chronicles using the Storyteller system does pretty well, though the king of one-offs is Call of Cthulhu IMO. It's perfectly capable of allowing the GM to horrifically kill you, and you feel like a badass if you can force the monster or the end to wait just that while longer.
A fun one I also used to like playing was Everyone is John, and another really good game like that is Lunch Rush, which I found it a pretty bad Jewish TTRPG series but was such a rough diamond I snipped and saved it as a pdf just to have on hand for if I can't run my campaign or want something short.
I find one-shots or "Pilot Campaigns" work best for these sorts of things since if they don't give a shit it's not a big deal, and it also means you the GM don't burn a lot of assets.
Honestly the player often brooks to the GM's personal taste, so the second half of this question's basically not really easily answerable. For friendliness and getting to know it quick, you want something fairly light, so something like the Storyteller system isn't too hard to learn. Or hell, just use a Year Zero game; Alien's quite intuitive and simple on the player's end.
Mmm... I don't know too many off the top of my head since I just tend to make shit up rather than rely on splats, but I do know that you could use the Innocents rulings for the World of Darkness if you want to play it more cheesy. Also there's the comedy of playing Street Fighters as vigilantes I reckon.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
Powerlevel incoming. I've mentioned this guy in other threads.
Guy used to be a 40k fan. Had a massive space marine army, and supposedly used to collect model trains. For some reason around 2018, he sold his entire collection. Now he plays Bolt Action and builds model planes. He was showing me his Imperial Knight. It was almost a mini-diorama with a detailed base, and he started giving me some backstory about how he imagines it as a Space Wolf aligned house.
Basically, he collects minis and has headcanon for them. Sounds like perfect RPG fodder. But he's never heard of DnD (or knows the name but doesn't know what it is), hasn't heard of cyberpunk as a genre, etc. He has an Xbox, but the only game I've seen him play is Microsoft Flight Simulator. I suspect he likes Predator and Harley Quinn, but I'm not sure. He also seems to struggle with games with complex rules in Bolt Action.
You can tell why I was looking into Alien and Twilight 2000.
I have physical copies of DnD beginner box, Starfinder, and Basic Fantasy. I know Knave and Savage Worlds well enough I can run them without reference.
Another problem is that we'll be isolated as a group. It will be me (the GM), him, and his GF.
I can believe it. It's similar to the game Arkham Horror, which is a RPG-like board game that uses a similar mechanic with 5 ups being a success (6 up if you're cursed).
Not sure how this will work for YZE games. With Arkham players can piss away turn after turn not achieving anything, so I houseruled the dice a bit.
Twilight 2000 uses a Savage Worlds like system of changing die size. In SW, the target number is usually 4, and you have an extra d6 for most rolls.
It's a term from Cyberpunk games (Shadowrun I think) and refers to an anonymous middle man who represents client.
In one of my spy games, the PCs were recruited by a Mr Johnson type figure. One of my players, who wasn't familiar with spy and cyberpunk cliches, kept wanting to follow up with Mr Johnson, get to know them, help them out, etc. And this was someone who knows escapist fiction.
What are round robins?
- Joined
- May 25, 2024
Why not just run Deathwatch or other 40k rpg?
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
Concur.
@Judge Dredd just run Deathwatch/Dark Heresy/Only War/Wrath&Glory since he's like half way there.
People take turns being GM.