D&D 5e: Nobody Talks about D&D - Games

[QUOTE=DeeCeeTeeBee;50362061]Topic of online tabletops has come up so I thought I'd give my input. Me and some friends shelled out for the ultimate version of FantasyGrounds, and have played through an entire campaign and a about half a dozen one offs with it (easily over 100 hours). We decided to actually move from FG to Roll20 for the next campaigns. FG, while pretty with a lot of automated stuff, feels cumbersome and outdated. Even if you carefully set up an entire character sheet, fill in your weapons to the point where you seperate individual full-attack attacks in to their own attacks (so you can roll them on different enemies rather than just one as part of a full attack) and have easy to read hotkeys for everything, you will find yourself getting frustrated when modifiers come in to play, as you'll have to type in the difference between what your hotkey is set to and what your new roll will be (without the hotkey telling you; so you'll have to open your sheet, find your weapon, and do some basic math to figure out what modifier you need) then roll your thing. Meanwhile, if you know what the final roll you're making should be (eg, +17) all you need to do on Roll20 is type just that. Then there's the DM side of things, having to input everything in to FG before it's actually usable (which makes perfect sense, it can just get tedious if you quickly need something and have come to rely on FG automatically processing things like saves, spell resistance, DR and so on). FantasyGrounds doesn't even have a map ping. The simplicity of Roll20 has won us all over. Many of the players use HeroLab to add modifiers and conditions to their character, so when they know exactly what they should be rolling, Roll20 is so much smoother to use. Oh, and Roll20 now has its own character sheet and supports custom hotkeys that are easier to edit than FantasyGrounds. For the price tag attached to FG, you'd think they're update their program to feel like something not stuck in 2004.[/QUOTE] My group actually migrated from roll20 to tabletop simulator you don't get any fancy auto-calculation, but that's what we rely on sheets for, we mostly just love the physicality of it all and the huge amount of customization and fun stuff you can do. plus, we have a shitton of quality of life features and set-up is lightning quick, just google a battle map, upload it to the table (literally two clicks) and turn on the resizable grid, same thing can be done with huge boards, character pieces, even custom 3d tokens carved out of transparent PNGs on the fly. [t]http://i.imgur.com/YnUC6L9.jpg[/t] Plus they just integrated lua scripting not too long ago so you can probably code automated rolling into the game if you really wanted too.

Actually what I kind of want is a cross between Tabletop Simulator and Roll20 - and in a sense, Gmod. What I'd like is basically all the convenient shit of Roll20 (built-in character sheets, dice rolling, distance measures, etc.) but with the added benefit of a 3D virtual environment which the GM can set up using basic architectural pieces, 3D primitives with basic transforms and different textures you can choose, and other prefab props and stuff. It would be a lot more difficult to find the 3D content to provide for this though, I guess, so something like Roll20's token search wouldn't quite do.

[QUOTE=DeeCeeTeeBee;50362061]Topic of online tabletops has come up so I thought I'd give my input. Me and some friends shelled out for the ultimate version of FantasyGrounds, and have played through an entire campaign and a about half a dozen one offs with it (easily over 100 hours). We decided to actually move from FG to Roll20 for the next campaigns. FG, while pretty with a lot of automated stuff, feels cumbersome and outdated. Even if you carefully set up an entire character sheet, fill in your weapons to the point where you seperate individual full-attack attacks in to their own attacks (so you can roll them on different enemies rather than just one as part of a full attack) and have easy to read hotkeys for everything, you will find yourself getting frustrated when modifiers come in to play, as you'll have to type in the difference between what your hotkey is set to and what your new roll will be (without the hotkey telling you; so you'll have to open your sheet, find your weapon, and do some basic math to figure out what modifier you need) then roll your thing. Meanwhile, if you know what the final roll you're making should be (eg, +17) all you need to do on Roll20 is type just that. Then there's the DM side of things, having to input everything in to FG before it's actually usable (which makes perfect sense, it can just get tedious if you quickly need something and have come to rely on FG automatically processing things like saves, spell resistance, DR and so on). FantasyGrounds doesn't even have a map ping. The simplicity of Roll20 has won us all over. Many of the players use HeroLab to add modifiers and conditions to their character, so when they know exactly what they should be rolling, Roll20 is so much smoother to use. Oh, and Roll20 now has its own character sheet and supports custom hotkeys that are easier to edit than FantasyGrounds. For the price tag attached to FG, you'd think they're update their program to feel like something not stuck in 2004.[/QUOTE] I gave up on automated tables too, although that's mostly been the fault of Hero Lab. I don't have a strict rule of allowed books for my Pathfinder games (only that I have access to it, because I keep master versions of the player characters), so we're working with the community data sets and then all the paid sets I have, which totals out to hundreds of Pathfinder/3.0/3.5 sources. Automated virtual table tops simply can't keep up with how much content we're working with anymore. Most of them barely have the core rule book going, meanwhile in Hero Lab we're sitting at 3,000+ feats, 213 classes and 6,000+ spells to name a few. Too much gets lost in translation and exporting that [I]back[/I] into Hero Lab after a game is just an impossible nightmare. So I gave up on that shit. The Tactical Console serves well enough anyway since HL already automates everything but the actual rolling.

[QUOTE=ElectricSquid;50363052]Actually what I kind of want is a cross between Tabletop Simulator and Roll20 - and in a sense, Gmod. What I'd like is basically all the convenient shit of Roll20 (built-in character sheets, dice rolling, distance measures, etc.) but with the added benefit of a 3D virtual environment which the GM can set up using basic architectural pieces, 3D primitives with basic transforms and different textures you can choose, and other prefab props and stuff. It would be a lot more difficult to find the 3D content to provide for this though, I guess, so something like Roll20's token search wouldn't quite do.[/QUOTE] Well TTS already has most of these actually. The workshop has a few automated rollers already plus some coded star wars sheets, you can just hold 'tab' and itll bring out a measuring stick, and you can upload .3ds files straight from the internet and load it into the game, even texture them too if you have the texture file. the picture I posted has about 2600 physics objects, and more than 2/3rds of that are custom models. I also just integrated a new feature into our table, a 'shrinker' that, on the press of a button, will shrink everything in the center table to a small platter on the DM's table, which can be 'unshrunk' and placed back on the main table. custom model menu: [t]http://i.imgur.com/dHwmhc6.png[/t]

Easily the best things about Roll20 are the dynamic lighting (if you pay), the 5e SRD integration, and the [URL="https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/3359533/5e-shaped-3-dot-2-0-plus"]5e Shaped Sheet[/URL]. Drag and drop a monster from the SRD onto a character sheet, and you have an instant, fully macro-ed statblock to use. Players can drag spells and equipment off the SRD and have instantly filled out descriptions and macros. With Dynamic Lighting, you can set it up so each player only sees what their character can see, making torches more important and variable sight levels much more impactful and easier to manage.

Thought I'd share this because I'm having a lot of fun brainstorming a session for my 5e group that's not plot or setting-tied, so anyone could use my idea that likes it. (And maybe it's been done before, or is similar to something you can point me to for more ideas!) I love the idea of a Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion that went wrong, old and rotting magic, and in this particular Mansion the wizard who created it was murdered when his court-jester went mad. The mansion is now entirely under the power of the Jester, and it roams the local area appearing as a thick cloud of mist that rises to form towers and spires in the air. Travellers who enter the fog never return, of course, and either your party hear such rumours and choose to seek out the mists, or the mists are simply an encounter that may occur as they travel in certain zones. I'm not interested in forcing the party to explore the strange mists, but if they do- the rest of the session will be centred on their breaking out of it. If the party enter the mists they become trapped inside the Jester's Mansion, their clothing changing into clown and harlequin apparel, their weapons replaced with balloons, flowers, endless handkerchiefs and fake rubber swords. They meet the mad Jester, who claims that if the party serve him as entertainers in the Mansion for three nights he will reward them with great riches, and set them free. Of course, serving him is not so easy, as the Jester is entirely manic and will delight equally in killing them for hesitating as seeing them perform: picture knife-throwing contests with spinning wheels and gladiatorial matches against the Jester's pet monsters. However if they will not serve him they will be trapped there forever until either they find a way to break the curse and leave, or the Jester will succeed in murdering them and turning them into marionette doll servants (of which he already has a few). The Jester cannot simply be killed and will reappear, bloodthirsty, the next morning if the party succeed in killing him the previous night. The mansion either turns into playing the Jester's game, risking their lives along the way, and being let out after three days, or fighting him and discovering how to truly kill him and break the curse of the Mansion in order to leave. What's more fun is the setting, whether the Jester is forcing the player's through ever more violent performances with them, or the party are fleeing through them, the Mansion features a camp of circus tents, a fortune teller for whom I will use real Tarot cards, a mirror-room (containing a ghost that will battle the players as their own reflections) a hedge-maze, a giant chess set, a menagerie of fantastical beasts, and a stage within the mansion's feast hall. (much of this has been inspired by Karazhan) In order to not write a [I]complete[/I] wall of text I haven't gone into detail on everything, but that's the basic idea. Excited to see how my player's take this.

[QUOTE=BarnacleDrive;50364776]Thought I'd share this because I'm having a lot of fun brainstorming a session for my 5e group that's not plot or setting-tied, so anyone could use my idea that likes it. (And maybe it's been done before, or is similar to something you can point me to for more ideas!) I love the idea of a Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion that went wrong, old and rotting magic, and in this particular Mansion the wizard who created it was murdered when his court-jester went mad. The mansion is now entirely under the power of the Jester, and it roams the local area appearing as a thick cloud of mist that rises to form towers and spires in the air. Travellers who enter the fog never return, of course, and either your party hear such rumours and choose to seek out the mists, or the mists are simply an encounter that may occur as they travel in certain zones. I'm not interested in forcing the party to explore the strange mists, but if they do- the rest of the session will be centred on their breaking out of it. If the party enter the mists they become trapped inside the Jester's Mansion, their clothing changing into clown and harlequin apparel, their weapons replaced with balloons, flowers, endless handkerchiefs and fake rubber swords. They meet the mad Jester, who claims that if the party serve him as entertainers in the Mansion for three nights he will reward them with great riches, and set them free. Of course, serving him is not so easy, as the Jester is entirely manic and will delight equally in killing them for hesitating as seeing them perform: picture knife-throwing contests with spinning wheels and gladiatorial matches against the Jester's pet monsters. However if they will not serve him they will be trapped there forever until either they find a way to break the curse and leave, or the Jester will succeed in murdering them and turning them into marionette doll servants (of which he already has a few). The Jester cannot simply be killed and will reappear, bloodthirsty, the next morning if the party succeed in killing him the previous night. The mansion either turns into playing the Jester's game, risking their lives along the way, and being let out after three days, or fighting him and discovering how to truly kill him and break the curse of the Mansion in order to leave. What's more fun is the setting, whether the Jester is forcing the player's through ever more violent performances with them, or the party are fleeing through them, the Mansion features a camp of circus tents, a fortune teller for whom I will use real Tarot cards, a mirror-room (containing a ghost that will battle the players as their own reflections) a hedge-maze, a giant chess set, a menagerie of fantastical beasts, and a stage within the mansion's feast hall. (much of this has been inspired by Karazhan) In order to not write a [I]complete[/I] wall of text I haven't gone into detail on everything, but that's the basic idea. Excited to see how my player's take this.[/QUOTE] sounds great how hardcore are you gonna be on the punishments tho

[QUOTE=Chayste;50364804]sounds great how hardcore are you gonna be on the punishments tho[/QUOTE] It depends because it'll be a fine balance between encouraging the party to refuse to keep taking part in the games and actually making it morally impossible. I think in the first day or two disappointing the Jester means being picked on- the one who is forced to wear a dunce cap, the one who is designated as a silent mime for the rest of the evening, to being locked in a cage in the menagerie, being strapped to a spinning wheel for knife practice (whether or not the party is present, who knows. All out punishments means all out war from the Jester, his marionette dolls and the statues in the mansion. But I'm imagining the final day will require the group to turn on a single member, who really risks dying unless there are some spectacular rolls. (And by dying I mean dropping to 0 hp, so if the party risk it all they can still turn and fight the Jester if they don't pull it off and have to stabilise a party member.) It's all very situational though, and I suppose how far the punishments go depends a lot on how the party reacts and how willing they seem to play along. I'm still planning this plenty.

Today in Shadowrun, the team tries to sell explosives and gets raided by the ATF. Everyone rolls like shit unless it's an armour or dodge roll, the only ATF agent without a gasmask fumbles a teargas grenade and drops it after pulling the pin, their customer's hired goons all get wrecked by two flashbangs, even more missing, the mage summons an earth spirit that shoots rock spikes at the ATF, the decker loses all his rolls by exactly one hit every time, the melee adept doesn't move out of the tear gas and ends up crying on the floor, the shooty adept shoots an agent with a ballistic shield in the dick and leaves him also crying on the floor, the decker finally hacks an SUV and tries to run someone over but he doesn't know how to drive but through sheer luck hits the guy and instantly kills him, the melee adept has passed out by this point and the shooty adept puts their gasmask on and drags her out.

I had this idea for a villain, who'd be some kind of evil entity whose mind was imprisoned in another plane of existence. Various villains are trying to pull him into the main plane and if any of the heroes attempted to peer into his prison world they'd have a violent psychic confrontation with the entity. The idea would be that after this confrontation this entity would have some connection to the player like a curse. The main issue is that I don't really know how to best manifest this in gameplay outside of some really annoying debuff or just having the entity whisper "Yesss, gooood" every time the player acted like a dick.

[QUOTE=Archimedes;50368959]I had this idea for a villain, who'd be some kind of evil entity whose mind was imprisoned in another plane of existence. Various villains are trying to pull him into the main plane and if any of the heroes attempted to peer into his prison world they'd have a violent psychic confrontation with the entity. The idea would be that after this confrontation this entity would have some connection to the player like a curse. The main issue is that I don't really know how to best manifest this in gameplay outside of some really annoying debuff or just having the entity whisper "Yesss, gooood" every time the player acted like a dick.[/QUOTE] If the entity is at all capable of mind control, you could take a page from Demon the Descent and, once per session, have the character take some minor, seemingly innocuous action against their will, that may or may not help out the entity in the long run. EG putting something metal in their right pocket, which comes up next session when the group passes over a big pit with a barely-walkable path across it, and a big magnet on the right hand side. :dog:

[QUOTE=Rats808;50368975]If the entity is at all capable of mind control, you could take a page from Demon the Descent and, once per session, have the character take some minor, seemingly innocuous action against their will, that may or may not help out the entity in the long run. EG putting something metal in their right pocket, which comes up next session when the group passes over a big pit with a barely-walkable path across it, and a big magnet on the right hand side. :dog:[/QUOTE] I like this idea a lot. I think it could work well if this corruption allowed the user some limited access to (pre-chosen) Warlock cantrips and spells since that class ties in well with the idea of communing with higher beings. Maybe toss in some really high DC wisdom saving throws to feel less like mind control and more like an intense outside desire and you'd have yourself some bonafied eldritch corruption right there.

Hey guys, just dropping this here. That guy I repped a few weeks ago is looking to start up a website to help DMs find adventures for their games. He already has a small team together it seems. Would be nice to see if this comes to fruition. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIyLvicSu78[/media]

[QUOTE=Nerts;50367661]Today in Shadowrun, the team tries to sell explosives and gets raided by the ATF. Everyone rolls like shit unless it's an armour or dodge roll, the only ATF agent without a gasmask fumbles a teargas grenade and drops it after pulling the pin, their customer's hired goons all get wrecked by two flashbangs, even more missing, the mage summons an earth spirit that shoots rock spikes at the ATF, the decker loses all his rolls by exactly one hit every time, the melee adept doesn't move out of the tear gas and ends up crying on the floor, the shooty adept shoots an agent with a ballistic shield in the dick and leaves him also crying on the floor, the decker finally hacks an SUV and tries to run someone over but he doesn't know how to drive but through sheer luck hits the guy and instantly kills him, the melee adept has passed out by this point and the shooty adept puts their gasmask on and drags her out.[/QUOTE] Cats don't know what tear gas is. I was just roleplaying... honest.

[QUOTE=UzumakaiPatch;50370500]Cats don't know what tear gas is. I was just roleplaying... honest.[/QUOTE] A lesson was learned.

[QUOTE=Nerts;50372107]A lesson was learned.[/QUOTE] She even had a gas mask on her person. Shame Neko never told the cat what all this equipment was for.

So tell me this guys, what makes "political intrigue" a red flag to so many people?

[QUOTE=axelord157;50372627]So tell me this guys, what makes "political intrigue" a red flag to so many people?[/QUOTE] It's pretty hard to GM right, and usually means lots of talking and not much hitting things and fireballs, not so much "red flag" as just not what they want to play.

[QUOTE=axelord157;50372627]So tell me this guys, what makes "political intrigue" a red flag to so many people?[/QUOTE] Well as a player, when some one says they want to do a game involving political intrigue a few negative things come to mind. 1. The kinds of characters you can create are a lot more limited, as a campaign involving political intrigue as a core element will make the players focus on more social characters in-order to not be gimped towards social challenges. Ex: A barbarian at a tea party is hilarious, but ultimately out of place. Under those kinds of situations, from my own experiences, warrior like characters will be often left out, or forced to entertain themselves (often derailing what a DM intends to happen in the meantime while they spout exposition). 2. Lack of combat is also a major turn off, as hinted before. Political intrigue games tend to not focus on combat that much and if there was to be combat, generally its not very epic in terms of the variety and kinds of encounters. Political intrigue generally plays with the tools of sabotage, theft, and subtle murder, along with the namesake, politics. Not to say that these are bad by any means, but the appeal is limited for a lot of people. Players who seek games with at least a moderate combat focus will also be turned off, just because sessions won't often include combat of any form (unless player generated). 3. The third major point that I can come up with is that there are heavy role play elements for these kinds of games. For a lot of players, heavy RP is a big hurdle for them, especially if they are just starting out with PnP. Some players also just plain suck at it too, either by meta gaming or just through sheer lack of practice (among a myriad of alternate possibilities). These reasons above don't even account for a poor GM, who can't write a good story or make things interesting for all the players. But even with all those hurdles, I don't have a doubt that with the right GM and set of players, you can get genuinely interesting tales, like something akin to Game of Thrones if we go with a fantasy setting.

I imagine one way to get the 'lack of combat' hurdle would be to do something akin to Troupe Play; have the players all role up 2 characters, maybe more: one social-focused character, who is their actual character, and then what I've heard some people call "Grogs", less-important characters that they control in any scene their main character isn't in. Use the main character for all the social intrigue stuff, and send the Grogs out to handle the enacting of whatever plans the social characters make.

[QUOTE=Rats808;50373213]I imagine one way to get the 'lack of combat' hurdle would be to do something akin to Troupe Play; have the players all role up 2 characters, maybe more: one social-focused character, who is their actual character, and then what I've heard some people call "Grogs", less-important characters that they control in any scene their main character isn't in. Use the main character for all the social intrigue stuff, and send the Grogs out to handle the enacting of whatever plans the social characters make.[/QUOTE] This is sorta how I handle the way IMN characters work: Everyone gets to control a Squad Leader for combat purposes and Department Leader to make game-changing decisions.

[QUOTE=UzumakaiPatch;50372172]She even had a gas mask on her person. Shame Neko never told the cat what all this equipment was for.[/QUOTE] I thought that much was just assumed :frown:

I'm gonna pose some questions to a few of our friends and see if we should discuss one of our friends being 'That Guy'. I noticed one of our players was really irritated by his behavior this session and we had a scenario earlier on in this campaign where one player got drunk out of game and chewed out 'That Guy' for how he was playing his character. How would you guys approach something this?

Anyone know a good way to keep a party full of neutrals travelling together? Most of my players are either chaotic or true neutral and I need a good excuse for why they're travelling together.

[QUOTE=L'Citizen;50375525]Anyone know a good way to keep a party full of neutrals travelling together? Most of my players are either chaotic or true neutral and I need a good excuse for why they're travelling together.[/QUOTE] Money? Most dnd parties can be considered mercenaries in some sense, so just having all players meet as part of some kind of contract and then have them stick together after that is pretty simple. If they're more about just being nomadic or traveling then you could say the group met each other on the road and stayed together for safety in numbers. Group likes to travel together for company and one day walks into town a little low on funds, takes a job at a local tavern to pay for rations and water, adventure starts.

Does any of you have the/one of the Fallout PnP systems laying around or know where I can find one? I'd be interested in running a Fallout game, but kinda need the system for it in order to do it. I believe some guys ran one for FP'ers, so you guys might still have it?

I do have an unfinished fallout rpg, but I doubt it's the one you're thinking of, since I remember someone making one before me.

There was an official one which was basically the PC game but with a d100 instead of an RNG, Caister(?) on here did a rebalance of it though, since it was pretty janky.

[QUOTE=L'Citizen;50375525]Anyone know a good way to keep a party full of neutrals travelling together? Most of my players are either chaotic or true neutral and I need a good excuse for why they're travelling together.[/QUOTE] Geas.

[QUOTE=Sunkite;50376590]Does any of you have the/one of the Fallout PnP systems laying around or know where I can find one? I'd be interested in running a Fallout game, but kinda need the system for it in order to do it. I believe some guys ran one for FP'ers, so you guys might still have it?[/QUOTE] Core Rulebook: [url]http://fallout-rpg.narod.ru/PnP.html[/url] Guns & Ammo, an expansion which overhauls most of the equipment in addition to some other neat tweaks: [url]https://mega.nz/#!m4Q13ZTY!FAlkRIx6UmkSWng-4vsWirSsY763B7mzTuhpDkLCeR8[/url] (can't find the original source anymore) [QUOTE=Sunkite;50377810]Thanks a bunch![/QUOTE] You are welcome :wink: