General Tabletop RPG Thread

Fossilmaiden

Also known as "Because otherwise Alice will keep filling the Trash Heap with her dumb DnD thoughts."

But yes, anyway. Tabletop RPGs. DnD, Shadowrun, Magical Burst, Exalted, World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, whatever. Post your ramblings here. 

Fossilmaiden

As an aside, a couple of things that might be useful to people.

Roll20: A site designed for running games online through its own client. Has a load of usermade tiles, and SoundCloud integration. Kinda clunky at times, but hey, it's free, so.

Revolution Virtual Playspace: Basically it's Tabletop Simulator... for RPGs! Character sheets, lighting, models, yadayada. Downside is that it costs cashmoney.

Haven

So someone in my Iron Kingdoms group is starting an Inverse World game...that begins the day after our IK session. Am I up for a full weekend of gaming? Will I choose one over the other? Did we actually get a TPK last session and no one mentioned it? Or will I do neither and try to focus on getting my stuff together enough to finally run a game myself?

One-Winged Eagle

I like Inverse World a lot, but it's a little sparse. I basically use pretty much everything else Dungeon World with it.

One-Winged Eagle

Can I use this thread to post the stuff I write that I like?

Odradek

http://systemmasterypodcast.com/2014/10/18/synnibarr-preview-system-mastery-special-edition/ this is important

listen to this

One-Winged Eagle

This is an amazing thing you've shown us.

Fossilmaiden

MachSpeed said:

Can I use this thread to post the stuff I write that I like?

Sure, why not.

Anyway, I've been thinking about Acolyte of the Skin again. Honestly, the class would probably be fixable by just giving it 9/10 casting (skipping first level to prevent single level dips for the NA/Dex/Darkvision/Poison bonuses) and calling it a done deal. Its abilities aren't that  powerful, and you're gonna have every Paladin within 10000 feet on your back anyway.

Odradek

thenamelesssamurai

So, has anyone else played the The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game? This is probably one of my favorite TRPGs, just because it's easy to learn, relatively quick to make new characters and it lends itself to making home-brewed settings very easily.

One-Winged Eagle

Is that a dice pool game? I'm still waiting to be convinced by dice pool games.

Salix Babylonika

dice pool?

thenamelesssamurai

MachSpeed said:

Is that a dice pool game? I'm still waiting to be convinced by dice pool games.

Nah, it's an energy pool system. Basically, you have a pool of max energy points that you can use to spend doing actions and the higher your skills are, the more points you can put into an action in a turn, but you have a limited energy regen each turn, so you have to budget your points accordingly.

One-Winged Eagle

Witchy Jane said:

dice pool?

In a dice pool game, you have stats, and those stats define how many dice you roll to resolve a task. You take your dice, roll it, and then count the "successes," which is a specific set of higher numbers. 

Fate Core uses multiple dice for a roll, but that number of dice is always consistent, and it functions as a numerical thing, not a success thing, because the dice resulted is added to the stat.

Salix Babylonika

that sounds like it requires a lot of dice

thenamelesssamurai

Witchy Jane said:

that sounds like it requires a lot of dice

For some games it does. It's been a long time since I played Scion, but I thinking later campaigns got to like 20 dice in a pool per player.

Hexartes

tbh honest I can't even begin to understand how a rules heavy system would be conducive to storytelling

Actually nvm rules would create limitations that would lead to interesting stories, probably

But systems built around combat and competitive stuff don't really interest me because competition in an RP setting just kinda strikes me as... I dunno, inane?

Salix Babylonika

Well tabletop RPGs are, you know, games first and foremost.

Dungeons & Dragons has a ruleset for the same reason Chess does.

unless you mean something else? I dunno.

Salix Babylonika

Conjure Black Pudding is my favorite oddly specific Pathfinder spell.

Hexartes

Witchy Jane said:

Well tabletop RPGs are, you know, games first and foremost.

Dungeons & Dragons has a ruleset for the same reason Chess does.

Chess isn't about communal storytelling though. Any storytelling in chess is purely from emergent design, but tapletop games are about, to my knowledge, stories first and foremost.

Salix Babylonika

Tucker said:

Witchy Jane said:

Well tabletop RPGs are, you know, games first and foremost.

Dungeons & Dragons has a ruleset for the same reason Chess does.

Chess isn't about communal storytelling though. Any storytelling in chess is purely from emergent design, but tapletop games are about, to my knowledge, stories first and foremost.

ok so are you just like dismissing an entire medium here or am I missing something in your posts

Yarrun XIX

MachSpeed said:

Witchy Jane said:

dice pool?

In a dice pool game, you have stats, and those stats define how many dice you roll to resolve a task. You take your dice, roll it, and then count the "successes," which is a specific set of higher numbers. 

Fate Core uses multiple dice for a roll, but that number of dice is always consistent, and it functions as a numerical thing, not a success thing, because the dice resulted is added to the stat.

Sorcerer works like that, and I've played Sorcerer.

It's not bad? Admittedly, I never got the hang of the rolls.

Tachyon

It's OK to not be interested in a particular medium.

Really, it is.

Hexartes

Witchy Jane said:

Tucker said:

Witchy Jane said:

Well tabletop RPGs are, you know, games first and foremost.

Dungeons & Dragons has a ruleset for the same reason Chess does.

Chess isn't about communal storytelling though. Any storytelling in chess is purely from emergent design, but tapletop games are about, to my knowledge, stories first and foremost.

ok so are you just like dismissing an entire medium here or am I missing something in your posts

You are missing something. I don't know how dismissiveness could even be read into what I said, like, at all. I've played Dungeons and Dragons a bit, enjoyed it a lot, and have done similar things for a long time before then. I love this kind of thing.

Salix Babylonika

it is, that does not mean that I would like to see one I am interested in dismissed entirely.

my question was a question, not an accusation.

Salix Babylonika

Tucker said:

Witchy Jane said:

Tucker said:

Witchy Jane said:

Well tabletop RPGs are, you know, games first and foremost.

Dungeons & Dragons has a ruleset for the same reason Chess does.

Chess isn't about communal storytelling though. Any storytelling in chess is purely from emergent design, but tapletop games are about, to my knowledge, stories first and foremost.

ok so are you just like dismissing an entire medium here or am I missing something in your posts

You are missing something. I don't know how dismissiveness could even be read into what I said, like, at all. I've played Dungeons and Dragons a bit, enjoyed it a lot, and have done similar things for a long time before then. I love this kind of thing.

OK well I am not sure what you're asking then??

Hexartes

I wasn't asking anything. I stated that

Tucker said:

systems built around combat and competitive stuff don't really interest me because competition in an RP setting just kinda strikes me as... I dunno, inane?

and was trying to possibly jump start a productive discussion from that.

Tachyon

Tucker said:

I don't know how dismissiveness could even be read into what I said, like, at all.

Tucker said:

But systems built around combat and competitive stuff don't really interest me because competition in an RP setting just kinda strikes me as... I dunno, inane?

hth

not that you are being dismissive, just that it's really not hard to see where that reading came from

Salix Babylonika

In that case I really don't know what to say.

TRPGs do not strike me as (at least inherently) competitive. Some are, like Paranoia, but it's competition for the sake of mutual enjoyment, as opposed to anything where you're trying to win.

Nor do I think stories are necessarily the main point of TRPGs. I don't think they have a singular main point, being a sort of hybrid medium by nature.

You probably already know that the first editions of D&D sprang forth from Chainmail, a game with about as much emotional depth as Stratego.

Hexartes

I actually considered mentioning TRPG's roots in wargaming but I'm too tired to make long posts and don't feel like making dense points that make people mad.

Salix Babylonika

One thing that is competitive that I do find inane is the Killer DM phenomenon, but that's a niche case and most DMs are not actually like that, and indeed not all TRPGs even have a DM or DM equivalent.

Hexartes

But roots aside, from where I stand TRPGs are stories told through a mix of predetermination on the part of a GM and emergent stuff on the part of player action. I think competitive gameplay is better handled by video game RPGs, card games, board games, war games, etc. But mediums aren't necessarily black and white and there is some overlap.

From what I understand there is a sizable portion of people who are also bothered by a lot of modern TRPGs' focus on combat.

Hexartes

Witchy Jane said:

not all TRPGs even have a DM or DM equivalent.

This is news to me. I don't know how a TRPGS could even work if none of the players held any sort of guiding role, even if certain parts are split up between them.

Salix Babylonika

Well sure, but I'm still not sure what you're getting at?

Personally I find "classic" TRPGs that revolve mainly around dungeoncrawling (or analogues to it) very engaging, it's a mix of several-player game playing and group storytelling/worldbuilding. You can try to capture that in a video game (lord knows people have) but you usually have to sacrifice something or another. Roguelikes for example nail the actual mechanicals of something like D&D, but there's virtually no story to most, and even those that do have them, it's not really their strong suit.

Even if you're not in the camp that enjoys that, there are TRPGs that strip out one aspect or the other. A lot of "retroclones" of old D&D editions are all combat, whereas on the other end of the spectrum you have something like Wishing Engine which is almost all story.

One-Winged Eagle

Scion, Exalted, and the Old World of Darkness games tend to be very dice-heavy, sometimes including yes, up to twenty dice. The New World of Darkness is not that ridiculous.

I like Fantasy Flight's Star Wars game a lot, and that's a dice pool game, but that doesn't mean I'm completely sold on the concept of dice pools in general. The idea here is that you resolve a good chunk of situation with one big roll, and the Star Wars narrative of binary opposition plays out directly into the dice roll itself. 

Here's an online dice roller (link). As you can see, there are seven kinds of dice, and six are mirrored. Proficiency d12s are mirrored by Challenge d12s, the d6s are Ability and Difficulty, and there are Boost/Setback d4s. Only the Force d12s have no twin dice type. Each dice also has a few symbols, another kind of binary. Here's an explanation: 

It's a bit number-heavy, but I feel that after you get used to the symbols, you automatically know what they mean. Light Side and Dark Side of the Force in every situation, in every dice roll.

Salix Babylonika

Tucker said:

Witchy Jane said:

not all TRPGs even have a DM or DM equivalent.

This is news to me. I don't know how a TRPGS could even work if none of the players held any sort of guiding role, even if certain parts are split up between them.

I know they exist and have read about them but can't cite any at the moment, I know there's one that revolves around a formal ball.

They're very different experiences and I've seen people argue that they're a different medium altogether, but they're out there.

Hexartes

I guess then my problem is with ostensibly versatile systems that nonetheless focus mostly on combat? Nothing wrong with a dungeon crawler system focusing on dungeon crawling, I guess it's mostly about context.

Salix Babylonika

oh, like GURPS or something? (I've never actually played a GURPS game but I'm told it's not as universal as the name implies)

that is understandable.

One-Winged Eagle

The focus on combat is, actually, a pretty big thing in the community. In general, people want to have lots of choices and strategy in combat but boil down social interaction to either a skill roll or play it out in the "roleplaying."

People like me want to do things differently, and we have games that use the rules to guide play down more exploratory paths.

Salix Babylonika

Chuubo's Marvelous Wishing Engine is what I was thinking of a bit ago.

It's....hard to describe, but is not primarily combat-focused and my understanding is that it is often essentially iyashikei in game form.

One-Winged Eagle

There are loads of games out there that have narrative timing rules, or player negotiation rules, rules to shape the story and play. It's just that only the enthusiasts who are already invested pay attention to those. They're a very small community within an already-small community.

I have Chuubo, but I forgot to read it.

Salix Babylonika

Well yes, niche things are niche. 

TRPGs are niche already, and anything within them that deviates from medium standard is inherently going to be more niche than that. That's just kind of how these things go, unfortunately.

MachSpeed said:

I have Chuubo, but I forgot to read it.

I read the rulebook and did not understand it very well.

Salix Babylonika

I for one think that a game about the minutae of learning to be a wizard would be very interesting, but I have no idea how one would go about game-ing that, you know?

That's for minds more inventive than mine.

One-Winged Eagle

Tucker, I love my Polaris and my Fate Core and my Apocalypse World and my Dungeon World and my Burning Wheel and my Star Wars, but sometimes I just want to play DnD, you dig?

Salix Babylonika

Fatecore is my favorite subgenre of heavy metal.

Salix Babylonika

wait, stop, hold on, conversational pause

why is Kexruct's halloween name Tucker

you can't go as yourself for halloween, that's against the rules!

Hexartes

No, silly, I'm going as a tucker, or a tucian, a torturer of fabrics.

Salix Babylonika

then why is your avatar a coral????

One-Winged Eagle

It's actually a bunch of ladies sitting around a fabric-laden table.

Salix Babylonika

no, it's a coral that is shaped like a bunch of ladies sitting around a fabric-laden table.

Also, the ladies that it is shaped like are clearly hags. Look at them weave clothes of nightmare. Look at them weeeeeeeave.

Odradek

So this seems pretty cool https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1552912590/fellowship-a-tabletop-adventure-game