D&D and Tabletops RPGs V7: Yes you can talk about tabletops other than D&D - Games

Except "Stick it to the man!" is where the "punk" part of Cyberpunk comes from. That, and, y'know, the corps/rich old people walking all over the little guys to make money, which is a thing in Shadowrun. 4th Edition got a little into post-cyberpunk, but 5th chopped that 'post-' off and dove right back in.

Eh, I've noticed that most punk parts of cyberpunk just devolve into the characters inevitably burning out because there is no hope. In that case, SR doesn't really follow the cyberpunk conventions, because it always has a degree of hope about to happen: "Good" dragon getting elected a president, AIs trying to make the world a better place, you can still go off and live in a jungle because they haven't all been cut down yet because the environmentalists keep summoning forest spirits. Most of my SR experience is with 4th, so I am not exactly up to date with 5th retcons.

Forests are still there because mist werecheetahs/lynx/panthers will literally blend you into frappe before you can raise a weapon, Scaled Obama got blown up, captain juggalo the astral shitposter got foiled in his msterplan to unshackle magic, and basically the only places that aren't owned by some megacorporations are said bespoke Sprit Dance lands and forests and places where Insect Totems quite literally block out the sun. There's still hopeful places and things, but the onus is solidly on the player/party to make difference in keeping those things alive and changing the other things for the better.

I remember playing a Shadowrun campaign once. My guy was a Menahune, basically a subset of Dwarf from Hawaii that specialized in water magic. He had a robotic arm and could cast a spell that caused the targets to uncontrollably cum in their pants (I think it was called Blissful Touch or something like that). Also, being a Shadowrunner, he had to have a secret hacker callsign, so naturally he went by "Big Bruddah" It was a really absurd game, we ended up fighting Clippy from Microsoft Word because we clicked on a prompt in session one that allowed him to infect all world technology and evolve into a Skynet-level super-virus. As I recall, it ended on a sequel hook with most of society being destroyed (since Y2K basically happened) as we rode off on the back of some big creature (I can't remember if it was a dragon or a pteradactyl), looking to start a new life on a faraway island.

Depending on edition, the spell's called either Orgasm(anything pre-5e) or Ecstasy(5e). Or, for the aoe variant, Orgy and Opium Den, respectively.

Running a game for the first time and it's Only War. Anyone got some tips or resources when it comes to makin' maps?

Controversial answer here, maybe, but badly. 5e is a return to form for D&D, with everything stripped down and a new focus on storytelling and less bloat. Shadowrun on the other hand is all bloat all the time. Whats worse is they recently had their own 5th edition and the only thing thats really changed is character creation. Which is fucking silly cause its the second biggest ttrpg out there, and yet they refuse to make their game even the tiniest bit accessible to newbies. We’ll just have to wait for Cyberpunk: Red this winter to get out kicks.

Opium Den, that's what it was! Helped us out more than you'd think, but less than you'd hope.

Ive run Only War twice now and Ive got one key takeaway. Keep encounters small and deadly. Every encounter should be your squad against another squad or two. Maybe three if theyre taking them by surprise or are heavily fortified. Why? In a game like DnD, where adventurers are valiant heroes against mindless hordes, your mooks can operate without intelligence. But in Only War, the enemy is just as skilled as you. As a GM, you need to use actual tactics and skill against your players, and for this to be manageable, the numbers need to be low.

What the fuck even is shadowrun? Are these real spells?

Oh, my bad, I had the 5e name wrong. https://i.imgur.com/UMfkgHx.png

Time to switch from D&D too Shadowrun now...

This is my girlfriend's Catfolk character in a Pathfinder campaign we're both in. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2232/08ea3662-f978-4f5d-88c1-8022f3097dfb/jess jess cat.jpg

a kittendale dancer?

Amazon may have accidentally leaked tomorrow's D&D announcement: a source book for the Ravnica setting. Which is pretty groovy if you ask me.

Long post about the stupidity of our dragonborn monk. Players enter the Elven city have an meeting with the king to try and open up the trade routes he has blocked off. The city is ruled by the king, and his council all consisting of Nobel born high society He'll only think about it if they get rid of a problem in his city. Town guard recruited the players as deputies to help find a serial murderer who has killed 8 people Seeing as they aren't from the city, they can be certain it's not them. They where given clear instructions to not overstep their authority. They are deputies. Long story short they wait for another couple nights for the murderer to strike so they have fresh clues. (All they know right now is that he only targets wood elves and he never strikes in the same place twice.) The party spreads themselves out around the city. (They have fantasy walky talkies) The DRAGONBORN MONK goes to the noble high estates. In the dead of night when everyone sleeps the murderer strikes The dragonborn monk starts running around the Nobel looking out for anything out of place, he sees; in contrast to every other Nobel house an estate with all its lights on. He goes up to the guards out front and DEMANDS to be let in. They tell him no. He shows his "badge of authority" They tell him to politely fuck off as the town guard has no authority in the Nobel district as privately recruited guards patrol every house and the king let the houses have the final say with what goes on in their walls He then explains the situation, saying that he wants to speak with the lord of the house and ask him what he knows about the murders. The guards consider this and one of them goes to get the head butler, who will know what to do. They ask him to wait there. The dragonborn monk complies... For three seconds... and as soon as the doors are open he forces his way inside, pushing over one of the guards to get past into the estate The estate goes on full alert. Weapons out, a chase begins. Chaos .. An ancient stained glass Window is jumped through, carpet is torn up, walls are scratched and guards are bruised. Please keep in mind, the murder happened only about three minutes ago by now and about 3 miles away from his location The only reason he visited this estate is because it had it's lights on. That's it... Anyway, dragonborn monk escapes and the next day the investigation begins in earnest. They find clues to show that the murderer is likely to be a servant of a Nobel house, most likely to be kitchen staff. The other party members all go round to all the Nobel's houses and start asking to question the staff, masking their intentions as giving advice to the lower class elves. While trying to find the elf that matches what they are looking for. No prizes for guessing where I choose to place the villain. All clues pointed to the same house the Dragonborn monk Assaulted his way into. The lord was furious that a deputised guard would have the nerve to break into his home.. And it was at this point the argument started.. Db: "I didn't break into his home!" Me: you where LITERALLY breaking and entering" Db: I'm allowed to force my way in if I suspect something. Me: "what the fuck gives you THAT impression!?" Db: "this badge!" We explain to him (or at the very least TRY to) that what he did was a crime. He committed a crime. The badge gave him the authority to ask questions only. He is not a town guard. He is not allowed to assault innocent people, break into homes because he "suspects something" Back to the story, the lord of the house will only allow the players to question his staff, if they bring the dragonborn monk to him So he can face punishment for his crimes. Db: "This is STUPID! I didn't do anything wrong!" Me: yes you DID, you broke into their home, you Assaulted a guard, you broke their property!" Db: "but they are obviously hiding the killer!" Me: "that doesn't make what you did RIGHT, besides which you have no way of having known that at the time!" Which is true, they only found that out the next day. We all sigh. They know the lord will probably torture him, so the plan they developed was pretty good. POLYMORPH THE 14 YEAR OLD WARLOCK GIRL TO TAKE HIS PLACE IN THE TORTURE Yeah no moral problem there. This_is_fine.png they do so, she gets fucking tortured to shit, branding, scales ripped out, tail cut off. The works. And after she was inevitably found out, she suffered more. The party reported back to the guard to relay everything that happened. The guards knew that what the dragonborn monk did would spark fury in the eyes of the king, so they HAD to place him under arrest. He was salty as fuck. He didn't stop muttering (in real life ) that laws where stupid. Trying to be defiant to the end tried to argue that he wouldn't escape that they could "trust him" The guards where having none of it, they counter argued that they couldn't trust him now because he already broke the law Trying to be defiant to the end, he bent the bars of his jail to "PROVE" That he'll stay put. He broke himself out of jail a few hours later Finally the murderer was caught, alive, surprisingly enough. All the party was brought before the king (court, in this case) But both the dragonborn monk and the murder where in chains. After the evidence was presented to the king and council, the council quickly passed verdict, the king agreed and the murderer was promptly executed to the resounding cheers of the citizens. The dragonborn monk had all his crimes read out. Assault, breaking And entering, theft, (he stole a sword from the house) resisting arrest etc He argued against every one of those charges The final judgement was that he would be branded as a criminal, and exiled from the city forever. Which he still thinks is GROSSLY unfair We ended there, but his final comment about his situation still makes me laugh. "Laws are dumb... So what am I now, Chaotic good?" I think it's about time the infamous dragonborn monk departs for a while.

I hope you replied with something along the lines of 'no, chaotic stupid'.

I was inspired to make this image with the help of the GURPS Character Sheet: https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/189882/5b118977-0260-4df7-96c1-2a830c83eecf/image.png

Anyone know of any rpg communities or places to find reliable people to play with?

Reliable players are gold. You can only find them by playing with lots of people and picking the best out of the bunch. However: did you mean irl, or online? Because irl there's not much that can help, save for going to your local game store and getting luck. For online? There's roll20, I suppose, with very mixed quality players.

1st game of Cyberpunk the Fixer deliberately ignores glaring plot hook, gets promptly killed and eaten at cannibal cult night club that I randomly rolled for city encounter.

Just online. IRL stuff has had to be put on hold for now unfortunately, so I need my fix. I'm wondering if there are any little Discord groups or anything that focus on rpg's?

Isn't this pretty much par the course for tabletop groups? This has basically consistently been my experience since I first started playing D&D. It's the exact reason I stopped bothering wasting my time and effort trying to make a fun and engaging campaign.

No, this is why you have out-of-game talks with the group about the expectations of the campaign. (and also why I advocate for just starting the party out having already taken the initial plot hook rather than starting them off in a tavern and giving them the hook to grab) I have had many fun and engaging campaigns in tabletop, you just need to both find the right players and talk to your players about the game.

Not usually, the guys I play with are pretty good about it sans this one guy. He's a good friend of mine always knee deep in dipshittery but I've come to expect that of him. I'll forever and always create plot hooks, but whether or not they take them doesn't bother me. Most of every session I run is made up on the spot except for a few ideas beforehand. I prefer them to make decisions like that because that allows me to get the creativity flowing and make things work a bit more dynamically. The glaring plot hook that the Fixer ignored was that one of his (And the mafia he belongs to) best informant was found dead in a dumpster behind his hideout jammed with a shit ton of syringes. Instead the Fixer went inside the informants hideout and set it on fire, destroying money, weapons, and a few other things. Because of his actions, his own mafia group is now going to be on his ass since he was the last person to see him alive. Not to mention there were numerous homeless people who saw him there, and they'll talk for money or to get their next fix. Actions have repercussions or rewards and I can easily accommodate depending on what they choose to do. As much as I want people to take the plot hook I never force it on them because if they don't want to do it, they simply don't want to do it. I let them run mostly free with chances littered around and it's entirely up to them to pick.

So I DM'd only war for the first time. Two of the guardsmen played rock paper scissors to see who got to kill a bleeding out hormagaunt. The one who won tried to crush it with his body weight repeatedly until the sergeant sliced it's head off. Then later this same guardsman put a krak grenade down a bleeding out hormagaunt's mouth to blow it up and spray viscera everywhere. Just another day in the guard.

Only if the people you game with are idiots.

Unfortunately that seems to be the case with my friends when it comes to D&D. Then there's the one guy who one of my friends always invites even if told not to who is so lazy he has never even read the rules and pays basically zero attention to what's happening. Really don't even get the point of him wanting to paly in the first place and everyone who isn't the guy who keeps inviting him agrees he brings down the game for everyone.

Looking for Players Looks like I've got time to organise and run an RPG group. Burned out GM's especially welcome... if we get enough we'll have a refuge of people who respect your time as much as you do. 7pm UK | 2pm EST Sunday or Saturday Game would be either Mouse Guard or Blades in the Dark. Mouse Guard is a nice little system that rewards, encourages and assists bringing your characters to life. Setting is kinda like attack on titan with little mice. Blades in the Dark is unique in that your criminal party/gang also has a class and levels up. Amazing setting is a bit like Dishonoured, Thief or Peaky Blinders with compelling low-magic. If you're interested add me up on discord. Staines#3444

Still looking for a couple more.