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

Starting up a Pathfinder campaign with my one friend DM'ing soon, it's gonna be a blast. My guy is a dragonborn cleric who worships Apsu, the waybringer, the maker of all. I described him as a cross between a Christian youth pastor and a 40k space marine; he's a proponent of truth and justice and good sportsmanship and anyone who follows the path of evil belongs on a cross. The DM set up a thing in Facebook messenger where every player had a private 1-on-1 prologue campaign with him, just to establish who each character is and how they fit into the story; if I ever DM a game, I'm stealing the fuck out of that because holy jesus did it get fun after we got into the swing of things. A lot of it was just coming up with creative insults; my guy got kidnapped by a gang of thugs looking for something to sell to a Prince Humperdink-esque lord who liked hunting rare and exotic game. So I'm all chained up in the back, trying to convince passerby that these gang of ruffians intend to probe my scaly orifices, in hopes that the religious zealots of the empire will have them executed for being degenerates. Just had a blast with it, and the proper campaign hadn't even started yet. Anyone looking to DM, I highly recommend you do something like this, especially since it gives you a chance to show off all the worldbuilding a detail that will be inevitably ignored when the actual campaign gets underway

Aw, didn't have the Gaunt explode into acid just to teach them not to dumb shit?

Anyone putting together a group/party for online games? I'd love to play but don't have a lot of resources near me. I'm generally available all day Tue/Wed/Thu and every other day after 1400 Alaska Standard Time.

Gonna try and run a game of Mage the Awakening. It's a d10 dice pool system, success based, all that nWoD/CofD goodness, in which you play Mages, people who have awakened to the true nature of reality and signed their name one of the 5 Supernal Watchtowers, thus giving you the ability to do Supernal Magic. Primarily, a mix of investigation and intrigue, unless people stat themselves for combat in which case I'll throw them a bone. Discord voice chat for OOC, roll20 text chat for IC. Probably 11AM GMT-7, Mondays, going for 4-ish hours. DM on Discord if you're interested.(Rats#9479) Plot Hook: Since you awakened, not too long ago, it's been hard to ignore the giant glowing orb that floats over the middle of the city whenever you look at the world through Mage Sight. Nobody was quite sure what it was, for a long time, but now, it's beginning to crack. Many think it's an egg, and on hatching will release some sort of creature, be it friendly or hostile. Others think it might be a weapon, and when it finishes 'hatching', the city will be destroyed. Whatever the case, strange occurances have increased since the cracks appeared. Plenty of mysteries await investigation. More detailed setting rundown: Ages ago, everybody had access to magic, and lived in a city known by modern Mages as Atlantis. Then, the Exarchs came to power, 10 mages who ascended to the Supernal Realms by climbing the Celestial Ladder and then destroying it. Their ascension granted them godlike power, but destroying the ladder created a rift, known as the Abyss, between the Supernal Realms and the Fallen World, preventing most mortals from Awakening. The Supernal Realms are a set of 5 parallel dimensions comprised of symbols of things which exist in the Fallen World(the real world); where in the real world you would see an old man with a limp and a cane he uses to walk, in the Supernal Realm of the Primal Wilds, he's represented by the symbol for human, as well as the symbols for 'old', 'male', 'impaired leg', etc, appended to him. Supernal Magic is symbolic magic; you affect things by interacting with the symbols that represent them in the Supernal Realms. To heal this old man's leg, you cast a Perfecting spell that removes the impairment. If you wanted, you could make him a woman or change his skin color by casting a Weaving spell to change the appropriate appended symbols. Or, you could turn him into a dog by casting a Patterning spell to change 'human' to 'canine'. As a Mage, you have Mage Sight, which alerts you to any active uses of magic(even non-supernal magic), and can also be used to analyze anything in the Fallen World through aSupernal lens; Time Sight could be used to see where someone is going, or where they've been, and when they got the injury that resulted in that limp in the first place.

I've somehow managed to lose my regularly used set of dice. While waiting for newly ordered ones I have to use cursed dice. Even after sealing their evil away 4 years ago they still manage to wreak havoc.

I recently got to play the official Expanse RPG at our local RPG group. They're currently kickstarting it. Apart from D&D and it's various relatives I've only played the (really fun) Firefly RPG so far and I fucking love the Expanse universe (more than Firefly even), so I expected this to be even better, but I'm very disappointed by the system. It's a 3d8 system which really reduces variance and most rolls are very, very average. The only interesting part is the "drama die" which can be used to do stunts. But the stunts are hardcoded in the system and for non-combat are only "+1 on the next roll", "You are faster", etc. Really boring stuff. The only punishment for bad rolls is losing fortune or just not managing to do what you want. It makes for a really mediocre playing experience in my opinion. In comparison the Firefly system used a really interesting system where you got to add dice for your different skills, the situation, your background etc. You could argue which dice you wanted to use. They were different sizes and you only used the best rolls, so you were encouraged to get as many big dices as possible, to counterbalance that every 1 (used or not) had a possible consequence which the GM could buy with story points, you could also use your background to your disadvantage in exchange (an injury, an NPC not trusting you, etc) for story points. With the story points you could buy additional circumstances or equipment. For instance during a stealth mission I could have bought fog cover or silent shoes or something along those lines. This resulted in really varied and creative gameplay where the Expanse system produced nothing but samey, mediocre gameplay. At the same meeting another group was playing the official Dragon Age RPG with the same system and they were just as disappointed.

Newest corpse in the Cyberpunk game. Players were tasked with retrieving a radioactive rabbit. Instead one player decides to: 1- Blow high grade cocaine into the rabbits face, causing it to become the single most dangerous rabbit in history 2- Successfully grab it and stuff it inside his protective suit 3- Try to shoot the rabbit as he's blowing more coke onto it When the rabbit takes damage or becomes stressed, it emits a stronger level of radiation. The coke also acts as a stress critical. When all was said and done and the rabbit was sans skull, it was emitting 18Sv. Gave him acute radiation poisoning, so it's safe to say he isn't using that character anymore.

Thinking about getting into DMing. I like doing a lot of worldbuilding for fun as a side thing and have pretty extensive experience as a player already. For my normal D&D group, our DM is fantastic and will pretty much always be DM, so I don't have an actual group to play with atm. I've got an encounter rolling around in my head already, so I'm probably gonna try and do a casual 1 on 1 thing with my girlfriend just to get the hang of things. I plan on using 5e. Anyone have any tips or advice?

I don't have anything setting specific, but generally I have a little check list I do before each session. 1: What should happen in this session? Should the overarching plot advance and the stakes escalate? Should we focus on character development? Do the players want a combat? 2: I find a way to make whatever should happen in this session have a logical basis in whatever happened last session. This doesn't have to be a complete asspull, but quite a bit of the time it is. Don't worry about it, you can fix it in post. 3: You're there to tell a neat story and challenge the players, so do that. If something would compromise either of those things, remove it or work around it. Don't argue with rules, make a call and move on, you can look it up after. 4: No "No". Your job isn't to stop the PC's killing themselves, your job is for everyone (including you) to have fun. You're not telling a story, you're collaborating in a story. Let the players do what they want, and try to keep everything in sync with them. Suggest alternatives if they're really going off the deep end, or have a "hold my beer" moment. Your call. 5: Your job really isn't to stop the PC's killing themselves. You have a theoretically endless spool of rope, and the PCs are always busy tying it in knots and sometimes it goes around their neck and sometimes they jump off tables. 6: Have a list of generic names and places on a bit of paper to draw from. If your players see you constantly adapting and rolling with the punches, they'll do the same and everybody wins. Taking a break and thinking "Hmnmm what's this guys name? Hmmmm" is the worst thing you can do, because it takes everyone out of the game. 7: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Had a game of D&D 5e last night with some friends and we got to the fourth session of this semi-serious homebrew campaign with our level 4 party. One of them made literaly Dio Brando as a joke character and he was a chaotic neutral barbarian with a noble background. Players in this tale: A human barbarian (Dio, that one player who always does stupid reckless shit and the main character of this story) A dragonborn eldritch knight (me) A half-orc monk who is pretty much a masked wrestler and had this entire build about grappling. A tiefling lore bard who never seems to pay much attention. And a gnome warlock of the archfey who was still catching up in the story since they missed the last two sessions. Session was already a chain of ridiculously stupid shit the barbarian got away with, this includes but is not limited to: 1: Eating a fucking mimic that he killed after being nearly eaten by it himself. 2: Command our bard to have the Owlbear with the crown of madness attack him for some reason. The owlbear crit rendering him unconcious leaving me to finish the beast off. 3: Adopted a owlbear cub after we slew his mother because he clearly knows how to take care of one (picture related) https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/201153/7e482ba3-d8f5-4698-a187-540e92c4bb06/Owl fucking bear(lowerres).png Fast forward later into in the session, we got in a fight with two wyverns and a half dragon and with the help of a npc managed to take one of the flying lizards out. -Party really low on health, -Half-dragon had fire breath ready (monk could grapple him but it would provoke an attack of opportunity from the wyvern) -The remaining wyvern was slightly wounded, hovering above a cloud of daggers spell from our bard and had it's strength saves hexed by our warlock. -We had a plan to have Dio grapple the wyvern so we could hit it and maybe kill it bevore the half-dragon would attack so I cast jump on Dio. -He rolled a nat 20 on the athletics check, as he jumped up to the wyvern he cut it's wings off, grabbed it by the head and tail and piledrived it into the cloud of daggers on the earth below it pretty much gibbing the poor beast. -The monk used this opportunity to quickly grapple the half-dragon who instantly surrendered after seeing it's remaining guardian being eviscerated by a really strong nobleman. -We get to their hoard and helped ourself to some magical items (I got the alchemy jug) -At the end the DM let us do one more roll to see if we find one more item. -The monk rolled a nat 20 and got the 'Deck of Many Things'. -Dio, obviously being in the right state of mind (he chanted 'USE THE DECK' for about three minutes) decided it was a great idea to take the deck and pull a card from it while he and pretty much everybody else in the party was still really low on health from our previous battle. -He pulled the skull, a avatar of death itself appears and he's forced into a one on one duel. -The avatar outrolled him on initiative and critted him with it's first attack, instantly killing the barbarian noble and stealing his soul. -We divided his belongings, (I made sure to take the deck to ensure nobody else was going to die to it's campaign derailing powers) and threatened the surviving half-dragon to make sure this noble man shall be remembered here till the end of time. -That owlbear cub lost it's parent twice that day. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/201153/0c46399a-b970-45f6-b316-e582ef96b782/image.png

Is this an in person game or an online game? Do you need to replace him? Your campaign sounds fun.

In person. We've decided to give him one last try regardless of his dickishness, and considering that was his only offense. Though at this point I highly doubt he'll be making a return. As for... Fun? It seems like everyone has been enjoying it, but they're also not the ones trying to manage the game so they turn to silly antics. This campaign has taken off worse than a plane with no wings, and the fact that they even made it to the rabbit was a result of 4 failed sessions. There is an exceptionally good chance I will be killing characters next session.

Whenever I get down a rabbit hole like you are, I remember that while a nice overarching story could be fun for the players, ultimately they just wanna do cool shit and have fun with friends. Think of something that would make the game fun for YOU and work from there. Always. If youre not having fun, it doesnt matter.

i realise this is a 3 month old post but i've only ever played on tabletop - i DM for a group of 5 every so often and i am somewhat of an eternal DM people have already mentioned it but yeah, i build as i go along, but there are three things that i find invaluable some sort of grid mat/roll (i use a fabric one that i don't draw on because I use physical props) easily readable character tokens (I use the pathfinder pawns sets, as they're a cheap way of getting lots of props) J E N G A B L O C K S so my setups look like this usually - not much to look at but my players like it (typically the table grid doesn't get used unless I need to do big open caverns in which case I use the jenga blocks to make cavern walls) https://imgur.com/a/Zww5zmY

By no means am I spiraling or not having fun though. I've been consistently able to piece together missions or stories for them based on what they've been doing and it's entertaining. It's made especially great because they're all getting in character, which shows me that they're having fun with it. Cool shit happens and I'm not even the one initiating it. My favorite so far is the fact that the Techie passed high DC checks to create $500,000 worth of high grade cocaine. Now, while every mission I give them is underway, they all make an active effort to try and sell the product and build up their rep. I have stuff already prepped and ready to make their drug dealings more interesting in the future. I'm not killing them off just to bring gravity or because I want to. Combat in Cyberpunk 2020 is outstandingly lethal. Last session ended with the players in a firefight with 7 gang members, and one player had already been blasted by critical full auto fire totaling to 208 damage... Thaaaaaaank fuck he chose to get behind something, because the mass majority of the damage was absorbed by his cover.

by chance it's actually pretty well timed to be fair We all recently picked up tabletop simulator and that's given me a much better idea of how you're supposed to really play it over tabletop - and we're going to meet up some time in September all being well and have a session across a real tabletop. I've picked up a set of dice and I've got a few weeks to work out a session, hopefully concluding my current TTS based arc by then.

Y'know, we all sometimes play despicable amoral/immoral characters. For the most part we all know what lines should and shouldn't be crossed. I guess however one of my players doesn't understand that saying "I'm going to shoot [Female Player] in the back of the head and fuck her body" is going way fucking beyond the drawn line.

Me (DM) - "I'm just playing my character" Do you get that in your group too?

@_maverick_ Hasn't been used by them as an excuse, yet. He wasn't confronted about what he said then, but now that the other three players had said something about it without me asking I'm going to have to. I get the feeling he doesn't exactly care to be in the game like the last guy. Session started out by simply asking him to roll a new character and instead gives me the most stubborn runaround about not wanting to because he doesn't understand the game. I've offered several times to help him create a character and understand his role prior to this, but he asserted that he was beginning to understand and that he would read some of the lore to get into it. Never did of course. The other guys though have been great, and they seem to really like it so far. I've been talking with them and we've all been progressively learning the system and lore together which gets us all pretty much on the same page.

Remind me our first DnD 3.5 group, with some guys that weren't 18, but beyond annoying to interrupt every time someone was trying to talk. Not only that, but we were like 7 players. At some point in the game we met a female NPC and someone said "WE SHOULD RAPE HER!". Our last game with that group is were everyone got killed in a temple with overpowered Naga like creatures, along with poison filling the room ,that one idiot that though it was a good idea to immobilize the whole group against them. I'm happy that our DM ended the game like that.

Ooh, sharing stories of murderhobos? I didn't personally witness this one but the DM and I are good friends so he relayed it. Public pick-up D&D here. He had a table full of newbies. They had been invited to a nobleman's feast and, having some time to kill, decided to go hunt for crime. They eventually found some in the form of an 8-year old girl picking pockets. She pleaded with the players to let her go and that she was sorry. The party's warlock decided decapitating her was a better option. In the city square, mind you. Surprise, the warlock got arrested. The party paladin tried to bribe the guard and, when that didn't work, tried to Sacred Flame his ass. Also arrested. Next morning, the warlock gets executed and the paladin gets his hands cut off. The DM decides to let him cast mage hands as a cantrip so he can still cast spells. His fellow party members decided he was now to be a 24/7 target of hand jokes. This all reached its apex when they were to go down a pit where the only way of entrance was a rope. Once again becoming the target of hand jokes, the paladin flung himself into the pit, fell 20 feet onto a ledge, broke his legs, crawled over and threw himself off again. The paladin joined the rest of us some time later while his buddies never showed up again, calling the DM cruel. Which he is but uh...

There's being immoral in a fun way, where everyone in the group is just joking around with it. And then there's basically sexually harassing another player. That's borderline illegal tbh.

That campaign from that post I made two weeks ago ended up getting a reboot and I decided I was going to make a new token for my dragonborn fighter. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/201153/a9d3c98f-0ac8-42de-8d03-f12e25fe1e7d/Placeholder token ULTRA HD.png It's already off to a nice start with a party of a fighter, a monk and three warlocks who may or may not end up plotting against each other.

I've never DM'd but I would like to one day so I started to brainstorm a campaign. I wrote this, lemme know what you think The surrounding terrain is dry and mountainous, a treacherously steep wasteland of howling winds and swirling dust. The air around the pass shimmers with heat distortion, and the land offers little to no shade or flora to provide relief from the relentless sun. Even the continuous torrents of hot wind does nothing to soothe the scorching heat. The path before you is walkable, but often structurally unstable, rugged and abundant with gaps and crevasses large enough to swallow a caravan where the path has crumbled to the valley below. PC's suffer a -1 DEX penalty while exposed to the wind. PC's wearing Heavy armor suffer -2 DEX and -5 move speed while exposed to the wind. All PC's drink from their waterskins twice as fast. The fauna here are vicious - only the most dangerous predators thrive in these parts, and locals of the towns behind you have warned the region is teeming with the likes of harpies, mountain trolls, and desert yeti. Some locals swear eye-witness accounts of earth and air elementals, others deny them and accredit the encounters to the delirium and the harsh winds and heat of the pass. It isn't unheard of for parties to go missing and never return. Welcome to the Swirling Pass, prepare accordingly.

couple of things to think about, whats drawn the PC's here? rumours of treasure? locating a missing person? something in one of the PC's dreams luring them? from your current description it doesn't sound like a nicest holiday destination

Oh yes, did not mention story. I was just building an interesting environment and was going to plan on that later. I think I am going to have them take the pass as the only path to SOMEWHERE, just don't know what yet. May incorporate some kind of hidden legendary town and a missing artifact or something

As a fellow DM, I pose THE important question that players in general create: what if they choose to do something else?

Pray you don't have Players like mine who basically don't acknowledge the concept of food and water. "YES, you CAN eat nothing but half meals every day, but you'll be very unhappy doing so." *shrugs* "unhappiness doesn't effect us." Or in the same vein, ripping off a dead horses leg and chowing down like it's one of those street fighting games where you pick up fried chicken from a trashcan. Or better yet. "you're out of food" *druid casts goodberry* I FUCKING HATE that spell

"Turn back or you will be hit by artillery in 10.. 9.. 8.." Kidding of course. My group is pretty easygoing for the most part so if I throw a quest in their face they'll probably take it no questions asked but for this reason I'd like to have a rough world map with various dungeons/encounters set up in advance that I can shoehorn in to fit their proper environment. I'm not really sure how else I could go about it

Should've posted this last week since this is technically when it happened, but the session ended with me in this situation (entirely my fault, as a player I think this is great): https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/608/f6516147-ca2a-4176-b58e-10df1460421d/image.png I admit that I metagamed slightly afterwords and figured out what it was, but only to see just how fucked I was, never to change what my character would do or inform other players. And how fucked am I? Statistically speaking from what I guess is a likely sequence of events and all hits being average, I have about one-hundredth of one percent chance to live.