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

[Ghostse]

My players said 5e is just as bad, but I don't agree. Still, game is going great.

5e can be worse, if the GM doesn't curate and put a recursion limit on magical tit-for-tat. PHB/Base rules only its not bad.

It seems daft that if the city watch bops a crook on the head with a truncheon, he's dead.

The difference between "unconscious" and "dead" is a pretty slim one. So the -2 is cover the added skill in pulling your punch just enough to put out their lights but not kill them. I don't like the way pathfinder handles it though because its both too small and too large of a penalty and ignores the target conditions; its a design decision, I get they are abstracting, and some people like it - I don't, but I also don't like a lot of design decisions in PF/PF2.

What I usually do if I'm going for "realism" is I introduce a "concussed" or "stupidified" state (because 'stunned' is usually a reserved keyword) where they can still see & hear, and make sounds, and roll a constitution save to see if they can crawl 5ft, but otherwise are effectively unconscious (helpless, unable to resist, etc). Unless I'm doing a system with 1-minute rounds, they are concussed for the combat.
But usually I am not running a system where it matters so I just ask the person doing the killing blow if they want to kill or incapacitate.

Should I make the weather more meaningful?

tl;dr: Unless you are doing a gritty low-fantasy campaign where a guy in plate in a november rainstorm can contract pneumonia (that is, exposure tables) its not going to matter.
In - well, technically all D&D WMPRPG editions but especially 4e & 5e - after a couple levels just normal weather effects are very easy for the party to negate; either they have access to magic or buying sniffle gear is a trivial portion of budget and just more trouble than its worth to track.
That is, you could say "If the party is in the rain without sufficient levels of gear, they gain a level of exhaustion (or can only gain 1/2 of the benefits of a long rest, etc)" but that usually only matters once and afterwards the party stuffs an oilskin tent into the bag of holding and its never an issue again.
So you need to either houserule out survival magic or make it more/as costly as buying & carrying supplies.

If you want to go full high-effort on having , you could have Random Encounter tables change for weather. When its raining/after a rain, more amphibious/slime/Fungal enemies, etc. But you'd need to sit and have a thunk about your world's ecology, and I will tell you its not a good effort/reward time investment so I wouldn't unless you get personal enjoyment out that and I personally do.

 

[King Dead]

5e can be worse, if the GM doesn't curate and put a recursion limit on magical tit-for-tat. PHB/Base rules only its not bad.

Are there any issues beyond countering counterspell? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but admittedly I'm not a munchkin that's trying to pull a fast one on my DM so I don't really look into that sort of thing.

In - well, technically all D&D WMPRPG editions - after a couple levels just normal weather effects are very easy for the party to negate; either they have access to magic or buying sniffle gear is a trivial portion of budget and just more trouble than its worth to track.

Now that I think about it, I'm guessing that's why the jungle hexcrawl in ToA is only set up for levels 1-5 or so. There are all kinds of hazards, weather included, and bad conditions can make it impossible for the party to get a long rest in. You have to keep track of your supplies, collect ample water, and try to avoid catching various jungle diseases. These are an issue at low levels, but by the time you're level 5, you should have the tools to deal with them. Leomund's Tiny Hut gives you a safe place to rest every night regardless of weather, you can find an alchemy jug in a temple puzzle that should give you ample fresh water every day (if you're not using it for mayo), and your healer should be able to handle ailments. Hell, the adventure specifically states that if the party starts at 5th or 9th level, they'll breeze through the hexcrawl and get to the action in the titular tomb faster, and that's fine.

So yeah, weather is something that's really not worth the effort to set up systems for. I do think that tying enemy spawns to weather conditions can work, though I think it would make more sense to just have that be flavor for particular encounters, rather than "roll for weather, if rainy then double the zombies."

 

[Ghostse]

Are there any issues beyond countering counterspell? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but admittedly I'm not a munchkin that's trying to pull a fast one on my DM so I don't really look into that sort of thing.

In addition to endless counterspell, IIRC there is some bullshit with some of the subclasses trying to be unique where its not grapple flow chart bad but it adds +'s and -'s depending on postition and circumstance and then subclass abilities that do shit like remove the attack bonus from being flanked but not the potential extra damage from sneak attack landing, etc. And other things that a PC can regularly deploy but activate on a trigger.

5e isn't my prefered system, and when I do one-shots in it is PHB only, so this is mostly 3rd hand grogging that I'm basing this on.

Leomund's Tiny Hut gives you a safe place to rest every night regardless of weather, you can find an alchemy jug in a temple puzzle that should give you ample fresh water every day (if you're not using it for mayo), and your healer should be able to handle ailments.
[ ...]
So yeah, weather is something that's really not worth the effort to set up systems for.

Again unless you/the party wants to make it something worth setting up systems for.

Some things I have seen that help are
- Magical interference that causes all magical food to come out rotted/magical liquids to come out stagnant and fowled/Magical shelter fairies spawn choking, spasming, and coughing blood.
- The Wizard cannot gain the benefits of a Long Rest if they don't cast the Magical Shelter spell from a scroll (or they start the day with that spell slot expended)
- Weather is magical, requires magical gear to negate, and the gear has durability. (Its a light rain; do I risk an attack penalty if I catch the sniffles or do I risk damaging the tent?)
- Require components for magical food/liquids. you need to feed your picnic basket organic matter. Your magic cup can purify water but you need to provide the water.

 

[Meat Target]

Any thoughts on the Blades in the Dark system? I have the rulebook, but haven't gotten into it yet.

Our usual DM has a baby on the way, so I wanna learn how to DM to take the burden off of him. I'm more interested in how to worldbuild, write a campaign, and roll with unexpected turns of events.

We're pretty rules-light. Our Prime Directive is "have fun and be funny".

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Any thoughts on the Blades in the Dark system? I have the rulebook, but haven't gotten into it yet.

It's a heist game which replaces all the fun of actually planning a heist with random dice rolls.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Overheard during character creation for Delta Green:

I could play an ATF agent. "Look out! A Hound of Tindalos!" *bangbangbang*

 

[Atlictoal]

Overheard during character creation for Delta Green:

Based. I always gravitate towards schlubby ATF guys when I get to play Delta Green.

 

[Not A Skinwalker]

Always play ICE agents, it's your job to stop illegal immigration by elder gods

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Based. I always gravitate towards schlubby ATF guys when I get to play Delta Green.

I'm playing a trigger-happy glowie-adjacent "security contractor" in our current game. My decision to go weapons free on a spoop with civilians in earshot nearly fucked up our very first op, but I managed to salvage some dignity with a hot streak of Driving rolls to escape from a horde of Injun ghosts in a Toyota Corolla Hybrid.

 

[2LtMashengo]

But wild magic really isn't a PF thing if I'm not mistaken.

It saw limited use as an optional ruleset in 1e, only a few areas of Golarion are subject to it and almost the entire maelstrom.

 

[Venom Paul]

Trying to get back into this after a long time. Has anyone else noticed a decline in the quality of online games? You used to be able to find decent games on /tg/, skype or irc all the time like 10-5 years ago. The problem was people flouncing but once you got used to rolling chars for games that never get played you could find actual games. Now it seems the games never get started at all. I hear irl tabletop is more alive than ever tho. So what changed w online?

 

[Brain Problems]

I don't know if this is the right thread or not, but today I went to a game store which I've patronized for around five years, and while browsing I started thinking about the possibility of running a Sunday game in the store since scheduling conflicts have put my weekday game in peril. The owner has said in the past that he'd be happy to host one.

The thought was becoming more concrete in my mind until I got to the counter and saw that one of the employees had trooned out. Huge record scratch in my head. Overweight, late 20s-early 30s, thick scene girl eyeliner, falsetto. It's a good thing so many spergs shop there because I couldn't make eye contact for more than a moment.

When I left I realized that the store should be busier since a lot of parents bring their kids there to play Pokemon and Digimon card games on Sunday. Could there possibly be some correlation between there being a creepy weirdo manning the counter and normal people not wanting their children in the building?

It would be a real bummer if this freak fucked up the store, but that is almost certainly what he's doing by driving away the bread and butter customers, and libs aren't going to go to a store more often just because there's a tranny working there — but the lib customers will flip out and make trouble if he is fired for any reason now. What a travesty.

Troons ruin everything.

No joke but I think a lot of FLGS discount the negative effect having an obvious lunatic working behind the counter has on your business. Even if it's in the mind of your average progressive who vocally champions who cool and diverse it makes the store, the lizard part of your brain is going, 'wtf that place is creepy for some reason, I think I'll just go to Giant Corporate Entity™ next time'.

And then get served by another troon there too

In other news: I think I've seen people reference it here but a friend of mine has someone in his gaming circle trying to organise Transformers TTRPG stuff and he was asking me for advice because apparently I know slightly more about this autistic hobby than he does but when it comes to these licensed games I have no clue about them. Is it any good? How the fuck do you make a TTRPG about goddamn transformers?

 

[2LtMashengo]

You used to be able to find decent games on /tg/, skype or irc all the time like 10-5 years ago.

I can't speak to the others, but /tg/ is full of discord trannies now. My group has gotten a few good players off of there, but you need to avoid anybody that uses discord like the plague.

 

[ZMOT]

My PathFinder 2 campaign is going well. The nested rules and conditions contains to be a pain in my arse. My players said 5e is just as bad, but I don't agree. Still, game is going great.

hm, which ones? stealth can often be a bitch to wrap your head around in my experience. dying/unconscious too.

One thing I'm noticing is that small errors and oversights are starting to add up. For example. Unarmed attacks have the "non-lethal" trait. Makes sense. Melee weapons can be non-lethal for -2. Makes sense. But clubs, staves, and even some monk attacks don't have it. Why? Not that it mattered. When the party found a guy they wanted to take alive, they decided to chop him to pieces and let the healer sort him out. It seems daft that if the city watch bops a crook on the head with a truncheon, he's dead. I house ruled that to any blunt simple weapon can be used non-lethal.

that's part of the rules being heavily "gamified" (see stealth), in reality every weapon can be used non-lethal depending how you use it, anyone getting more proficient with it should be even more able to pull it off. didn't come up often for me, maybe I play with too many murderhobos. otherwise I just apply the dying rules to NPCs (unless someone was retarded enough to turn the target into red mist with a nuke when the goal was to capture him). imo there's not much difference between knocking someone out and knocking him out so hard he might die, but as you said a healer is usually able enough to fix that on the spot (if the fight doesn't drag on too long that is).

Something I also discovered. PathFinder 2 has no wild magic table. Fan made ones I found on google are clearly copy pasted 5e tables with some of the keywords replaced. If anyone knows a good PF2 or system neutral one, I'm all ears.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1879

never read it, seems to be tied to the specific place

Related to that. Is there any way to make weather more meaningful? Should I make the weather more meaningful? I'm running a megadungeon (Abomination Vault) and other than perception penalties during fog, there's nothing really interesting I do with weather. The party spends so much time underground or in doors that wind and rain doesn't really do much. I've considered having rain increase the number of random encounters or undead spawns, but not sure about that.

frozen flame AP might have some rules, but not sure.
otherwise kingmaker has a chapter about it: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1897

but tbh being underground weather shouldn't matter much, unless you have some flash-flood happening or something (in natural caves for example). that's usually the point of taking shelter somewhere.

EDIT:

How the fuck do you make a TTRPG about goddamn transformers?

https://renegadegamestudios.com/game-world/transformers/transformers-roleplaying-game/

that's easy tho, if you want to keep it real you go with this:

 

[Atlictoal]

In other news: I think I've seen people reference it here but a friend of mine has someone in his gaming circle trying to organise Transformers TTRPG stuff and he was asking me for advice because apparently I know slightly more about this autistic hobby than he does but when it comes to these licensed games I have no clue about them. Is it any good? How the fuck do you make a TTRPG about goddamn transformers?

All I know is that the official Transformers TTRPG is by Renegade, who also made the Transformers deck-building game which I love, and it's part of their new system which is based on 5th edition.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

@Brain Problems The Robotic Age has rules for running transforming robots and is a pretty neat little system that can cover lots of different sci/fi settings.

 

[Bloitzhole]

Has anyone ever had a big town siege / battle? The final battle for this arc is coming up for the group I DM. This was their first proper DnD campaign and I'd like it to end on a high note, but I'm slightly uncertain on how to translate it into fun gameplay.

The module is "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" and since the finale in that book is just an endless slog of a dungeon crawl (even though a fish people / Sahuagin invasion is teased throughout the entire module), I will instead have the semi-prepared coastal town be attacked while the group has been lured away (which has resulted in our first highly unexpected player death when a 1 was rolled on the second death save. The sentence "Don't worry, just healing word me next round" is now a meme) and the players returning about an hour or two into the battle to reinforce the defenders and turn the tide. Think "Shadow over Innsmouth - The Siege".

I am considering them having to divide resources between different important points, deciding what to reinforce/where to help etc. with the major NPCs (or rather, the ones they actually like) being especially endangered every now and again. But I'm really, really open for input because I want this to matter for them but also be fun.

 

[Venom Paul]

I can't speak to the others, but /tg/ is full of discord trannies now. My group has gotten a few good players off of there, but you need to avoid anybody that uses discord like the plague.

Troons will corrupt everything that is sacred if they arent stopped.

 

[Martys_not_smarty]

Has anyone been keeping up with the developing news about Hasbro cutting ties with several different affiliations leading to their stocks plummeting?

 

[Ghostse]

In other news: I think I've seen people reference it here but a friend of mine has someone in his gaming circle trying to organise Transformers TTRPG stuff and he was asking me for advice because apparently I know slightly more about this autistic hobby than he does but when it comes to these licensed games I have no clue about them. Is it any good? How the fuck do you make a TTRPG about goddamn transformers?

You put it on cyberton and have vehicle/robot mode transformation stuff.

Has anyone been keeping up with the developing news about Hasbro cutting ties with several different affiliations leading to their stocks plummeting?

I haven't, care to give a run down?