- Joined
- Nov 20, 2018
Since we are talking about RPG channels, has anyone heard of Seth Skorkowsky? He mostly covers Call of Cthulhu but his channel has covered D&D and other rpgs.
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
- Thread starter Surtur
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- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
I have. Used to watch him a lot back in the day. Some of his old list videos appear to be missing, or at very least I can't find a favourite where he gives examples of characters that don't match a themed campaign, like a detective campaign with Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, and WWE superstart HHH. The war stories videos can be fun too.
For whatever reason I stopped watching him. Maybe the skits got to be to much, maybe it was choice of adventures, or maybe I just got bored of him. I don't know.
For whatever reason I stopped watching him. Maybe the skits got to be to much, maybe it was choice of adventures, or maybe I just got bored of him. I don't know.
Battlefield2142EU
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2022
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2023
How do you keep fuckers in a dungeon? It's dimensionally locked, I've got a team of ogres burying the door as they disintegrate it and have an undead minion dig it. The world hates them. If they get out I've shat the symbol of the dungeon on their throne and stole their shit.
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2018
That shit with Desna, Sarenrae, and Shelyn is annoying as fuck. I bet they forgot to add how Cayden Cailean hits on all three regularly (which Desna is stated as being particularly charmed by).
Are we talking PCs or antagonists? And what level? Because even with things like dimensional lock, if the PCs have full access to their abilities and gear, it's logarithmically harder to keep them locked down as they advance.
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2017
If you've got PCs hellbent on escaping the scenario you've set for them get just as creative and I dunno, have a dragon or lich come and drop a mountain on top of the exit, just use your imagination.
At some point the PCs should understand that you spent time making something interesting for them and stop being goofballs trying to avoid content because reasons but if they're going to do whatever to escape you either let them play things out (are they actually casting disintegrate? how many times can they do that a day? do they have a lodestone?) or stop it one way or another.
Unless this campaign is completely anti-railroading and you're fine with them doing whatever, I just know even my goofball PCs eventually after doing dumb shit recognise okay, yes, we should do this section that is clearly defined as an encounter area rather than just waste everyone's time with some total nonsense. Whatever is the most fun I guess.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
A few things for this post. What system would you run Visionaries in? What 80s and 90s cartoons would make for good or bad games? And what are some pet peeves with RPGs?
For the first question, I had an off hand idea for a Visionaries one shot. No one seems to be game for it, but it got me thinking how best to run it. For those that don't know, it was a cartoon in the 80s about knights that could transform into holographic animals.
The animal they got was based on their personality. So the brave man could turn into a lion, the coward could turn into snail, the strong man could turn into a bear. My first thought was traditional RPGs like DnD, PathFinder, and Savage Worlds, but the animal stats clearly favour certain beasts so that wouldn't work. Rules lite systems have the opposite problem by having no reason to use the animal form because there's no mechanical benefit to doing so. My best guess would be to use the rules lite systems are rely on RP to carry it, but thought I'd ask you guys.
Related to that, what shows do you think would make an interesting RPG? I could see adapting a super hero game or even Savage Worlds to a MASK themed game, but you'd have to figure out vehicle combat. I'd heard someone ran a vehicle heavy game in Palladium and had a good time so maybe something like that would work.
The third thing is more of a rant. In Mecha and Monsters Evolved, the pre-written campaign mentions stock load-outs that are not listed anywhere, and at one point the players are rewarded with mech upgrades, but there's no rules for that either. I'm guessing the DM is supposed to make them up. It's a simple game, so writing up a bunch of stock load-outs should only take a few minutes each, and upgrades I can just let the players take an extra system or two, but isn't the point of a pre-written scenario to do the work for the DM?
I also don't like it when modules have no wiggle room for failure.
For the first question, I had an off hand idea for a Visionaries one shot. No one seems to be game for it, but it got me thinking how best to run it. For those that don't know, it was a cartoon in the 80s about knights that could transform into holographic animals.
Related to that, what shows do you think would make an interesting RPG? I could see adapting a super hero game or even Savage Worlds to a MASK themed game, but you'd have to figure out vehicle combat. I'd heard someone ran a vehicle heavy game in Palladium and had a good time so maybe something like that would work.
The third thing is more of a rant. In Mecha and Monsters Evolved, the pre-written campaign mentions stock load-outs that are not listed anywhere, and at one point the players are rewarded with mech upgrades, but there's no rules for that either. I'm guessing the DM is supposed to make them up. It's a simple game, so writing up a bunch of stock load-outs should only take a few minutes each, and upgrades I can just let the players take an extra system or two, but isn't the point of a pre-written scenario to do the work for the DM?
I also don't like it when modules have no wiggle room for failure.
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2021
Well it would depend on the circumstances. I personally see no issue with my players deciding to cut their losses and come back later. Obviously if the issue is time sensitive that should be enough to keep them in until the end. If they leave and come back to a dungeon, maybe the defenders are now better prepared. If they decide to avoid something completely, you can always save it for later and drop story hooks about it occasionally.
This is pretty much how I look at it. Most of the games I run are pretty hands off. I have a story that the party is encouraged to engage with. There are random rumors and side quests that have nothing to do with the main story littered about. I have had times where they just go off for several sessions doing whatever they wanted. Eventually they'll be reminded by an NPC, a random world event, or themselves that they have something they're supposed to be doing.
Battlefield2142EU
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2022
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
I skimmed his original announcement and explanation on how the mechanics worked and I was baffled. He claimed the worst thing in a D&D game is missing or something to that effect.
No, fuck that. If you want to reduce RNG, make damage a flat value. Hitting a difficult target is exhilarating, the problem is then rolling 1s for damage. The moment he ignored that is when I realized he has no idea what he's talking about.
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2018
Evil Genius Games, which had its own well-received game system in Everyday Heroes and licenses to make TTRPGs for everything from Rambo to Highlander and Escape From New York, is now on life support apparently thanks to its CEO being a VC and Web3-obsessed techbro who didn't pay his people.
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
It's actually because he wants it to be this epic and grandiose clash of good and evil; it was inherent in MCDM's design and it was why I had absolutely no interest in it. It was mostly focused around being bad-ass and combat, and it nails those aspects. Problem is I'm a dungeon and exploration sort of guy.
He barely focused on that at all, and that's in my opinion one of the most fun aspects of DnD; it's taking your greedy or curious idiot of a PC and delving into the darkest depths, or exploring a long ruined realm. Be it for profits, doing good by your people, to find an artifact to become some horrid warlord monster, or just out of curiosity, I like exploration and dungeons. I like the part where you stagger into ruins built by hands and a people that are alien to your own. I love the thrill of uncovering the forgotten and learning more about what was. I love the stalking threats that walk the halls in the dark shrouds that they call home.
That's my jam. Combat's more a fun thing to add into for me. So I had no interest whatsoever when I saw how it was described, and it's on them for buying without thinking.
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2019
Imagine tanking your company over NFTs of all fucking things. At least when Loren Coleman almost killed CGL with his
robobobo
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2014
The founder was apparently an Amazon techbro from the linked post, so there's no telling whether he was retarded enough to actually believe that a mishmash of scammy buzzwords was a gateway to success, or was just cynically using the buzzwords to milk money out of moronic investors. I could believe either.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
Missing was a problem in 4e because once you expended your Encounter or Daily, that was it, no do-overs. The tactical nature of the game meant you'd spend a long time obsessing over the right ability to use, then...oops, rolled a 5, mark off that power. Turn's over. It basically took one of the most unpopular mechanics of AD&D, the save-or-suck spell, and made it the sole mechanic of the game. I don't think the solution there is to make everyone always hit. A simple fix is to make most powers activate "on your next hit." E.g. I declare I'm using Villain's Menace, and maybe it takes 2-3 rounds to pop off because I keep missing, but at least I don't declare, roll, miss, and lose my daily.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
Another solution is to not load every player's turn down with a million effects, rolls, markers or calculations to begin with.
To take this further, his entire premise is flawed. He looks at "players waiting 20 minutes for their turn, and then missing and getting frustrated" and assumes that missing is the problem. Instead of, you know, someone waiting twenty fucking minutes for their turn. This is Dungeons & Dragons & Knockoffs, not BattleTech. If the round is taking that fucking long to be processed, either the players are already disengaged and not planning head, the GM sucks, the system has too many moving parts, or any combination of the above.
Colville heard the complaints of 5e players about how combat took too long, and decided to fuck with the most core mechanic in the game instead of finding ways to get the game to run faster. In fact, he made a game that runs slower, and that is mathematically solved. Players can basically look at any encounter and calculate exactly the minimum amount of turns necessary to beat it, the only variance being the damage dice themselves. Idiot.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
Yeah, there were really two problems. One is that your turn was too complicated. The other is that most of your abilities were one-offs that you lost with a single bad roll. At least with AD&D, once you'd leveled up a bit, you had a few chances to land Hold Person or whatever. With 4e, your daily was once a day, no ifs, ands, and buts, and if you rolled poorly, you lost it for the day.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
Unpopular opinion here, but I think it could work.
Sorry to simp for Savage Worlds yet again, but chances to hit in that game are higher as a base. To pull some numbers out of my arse, if DnD has a 50% chance to hit, SW has 75%. There's a lot less dead turns where characters are just swinging past each other turn after turn. That's not to say it never happens. There are boss fights over on turn one, and a single mook that goes on for a dozen turns of missing back and forth. But turns are also shorter, and there's lots of ways for players to mitigate bad rolls like wild attacks and bennies.
I've also played board games that "auto hit". I think it's Descent where you roll damage vs the enemies armour dice. Hell, I'm fairly sure I've mentioned the idea of auto hitting as a house rule here before and you guys gave solid suggestions, so I don't think it's automatically a bad idea.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Outside of a couple hell games supposed to be completely sadistic and deadly (like Coc), I didn't like characters dying in droves. I'd almost always give L1s some nice buffs to get past the retarded "you got bitten by a housecat and died" bullshit. Also even in fairly tough games I would often use fairly time-consuming character generation to establish who's this guy and what he's doing, so I would want to get some play out of a character.
Another possibility is making resurrections or healing really common and easily come by but that seems to cheapen the game.
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2020
That's not completely true. 4e daily powers essentially all had some benefit on a miss, like half damage or like your example of Villain's Menace still gets a buff against the target on a miss, or some dailies, mostly Martial ones though, had the reliable keyword which means they weren't expended on a miss. There were essentially 0 dailies that were "Oh I rolled poorly so I get exactly nothing".