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

Seconding this, I've been using Microsoft OneNote for the most part but have never been able to nail down a good organizational scheme.

I've been using mine for a while and this is how it looks. https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/133737/a501e2aa-7416-4b98-9f3b-8c3b1a4eae0b/image.png

For the most part I've been copying other layouts that I've found. https://www.reddit.com/r/DMToolkit/comments/4yqnru/cryrids_5th_edition_onenote_templates/ http://i.imgur.com/uVJYDbE.png Just takes a little tailoring from there to get it to flow easily with.

Depending how you run things (physically or digitally) then it may be worth making yourself some sticky notes and putting them over the stuff you feel you don't need one of of the things I've done is just leave myself some tips on describing stuff, because all too often I have a picture in my head,but forget to describe it to players like many others, I've found Matt Mercer to be an immensely helpful resource for this kind of question and many others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRMVTmbe-Is&t=4s

What stage are you at? Are you at a conception level, or are you making fine details? The most important thing to do when you're worldbuilding is to determine if you're working backwards or forwards. If you're working backwards, you know how you want everything to end up, and all of the worldbuilding and history is in service of realising the result you already know you want. If you're going forward you're in for a lot more work. Things need to develop sensibly and dynamically. There're loads of images made on /tg/ giving you basic tips to follow here, but the core rule is to not get too attached to any one thing. It's very easy to let your innate preference of lolita forest elves show through and they become the dominant society, while other nations have no attention paid to them. Typically it's always best to work backwards. You're not Tolkien, you're making a game for your mates. Keep it simple, stupid. I've never used a GM screen, but these are the important things I have on a piece of paper in my notebook. "What do I want to happen this session?" "What do the players want to do this session?" "Are there any holes I can fit an existing NPC into?" If you've got a planned combat you want to do (with lots of enemies or contextual rules or something), then prepare that ahead of time. Draw out a little map if you need, and make sure you yourself know what you expect to happen, so that if it does, you're ready. You also always have a name of generic NPC names to slap onto faceless people for instant personality.

Running a custom universe Traveller game for coworkers next week, pretty hype to get started. I've written up some background on the universe, main details (how works, what most people know) which I'm gonna pass to the players on Monday, and a buncha Referee-eyes-only background stuff. Idea is to do the first session in a somewhat railroaded way to get the team to come together, after which I'm just gonna give them options on what to do and improvise the rest. Anyone here have experience running Mongoose Traveller 2e and got some tips/hints for me?

So not sure where else to ask, but i'm gonna be running a xcom themed pen and paper campaign for some pals and was wondering if y'all knew where to find some good alien figures? Preferably more traditional aliens since it takes place during the initial invasion. so thinking sectoids and thin men and such. already found plenty of figures that could work for advent.

Do you have access to a 3D printer? I'm sure there are dozens on Thingiverse.

5e Allow me to tell you about our Party's Rogue. (who was the infamous Dragonborn Monk player) He goes to a shop to sell some stuff because he is dangerously poor, he only has 11silver Hes going to sell 50ft hemp rope and a standard dagger. (good condition) The shop keeper looks over these two items Shopkeeper : "2 copper pieces." Rogue : "Can you make it 5 copper?" Shopkeeper : "Deal." And then he leaves. He's still complaining about not having money.

Simple. Let the lookout see the bandits coming. This rewards them for being smart by letting them know in advance that danger is coming, but they're still going to have to deal with it. The players probably aren't going to choose to just run, and even if they do you can have the bandits riding on horses- and if the players have horses too, and still for some reason decide to flee, well, either it's a chase scene or that's that and they don't get to finish exploring the dungeon. But more likely than not, the players will choose to hole up and fight. This is a chance for them to be creative with things like spiking doors and setting ambushes, and to feel the payoff of making a plan and having it work. That isn't a bad thing.

I feel like this is a decent place to pose this question: I'm in the process of writing a fantasy novel as part of my masters studies. Specifically, a comedy mock-epic. Something akin in tone to Ghostbusters or Venture Bros, rather than your usual TTG webcomic; a real world with real stakes, but the heroes just happen to be very silly people. I'm very much looking to capture that tone of goofball fuckery you get with tabletop games, where even if the setting is very dire, the tone is overall pretty lighthearted since, at the end of the day, it's a bunch of friends (possibly drunk) messing around with dice and snacks. As tabletop players, what would you folks say I should absolutely do/avoid when crafting my world to make this a setting worth messing around in?

Perhaps have most of the characters come from a culture that finds grim humor the highest form of humor- Then have another character who comes from a place that finds it completely morbid. Explore the way they interact and their mental processes as they come to terms with the others in their party as they battle through a perilous and lethal wasteland and do their best to keep their spirits high despite the dangers they face.

What kind of setting are we talking? Modern/High-Low Fantasy/Dark Fantasy/etc? How big is the "party"? Sounds like you (in simple terms) want a chaotic neutral/good group that isn't "lolrandum". Since it's a group of friends that know each other, trying to save the world, maybe they're constantly trying to one-up each other by doing things that go against the norm, with a dash of reckless disregard for other people sprinkled in? As long as they're not actively putting each other in harms way intentionally, or come across as having an intelligence of "6" (in D&D terms), they could just be your average D&D group without a paladin to hold them back.

No-one should intentionally set the goals of the party back by dickish behaviour. Like in Ghostbusters, Venkman plays around with Walker Peck but had no idea the extent of the guy's pettiness and he was being rude even before Venkman was. Being an idiot without the excuse of emotion just makes your characters look like idiots.

read these, these are about two levels more absurd than you ever want to go... mostly. There's good stuff in there but not necessarily anything you'd want to pick other than where things can go. Cups and Sorcery Series by Greg Costikyan Characters need to be completely distinct from each other, and each need at least one area of expertise or worldview unique to them by dint of personality or experience. Hard Ironic Juxtaposition works wonders for the establishment of persistence of disbelief, aka a character is explaining that this bread mold from ______ cures all kinds of infections and diseases and is met with incredulous derision and sarcasm by everyone else in the party, while meanwhile this castle stronghold they were trying to break into is currently being besieged at the front gate by a dragon melting the hinges so a minotaur can hammer the door down like a well oiled machine. As for humor, there's an asston of methods to pull from, one that would work for establishing 'an ordinary world with extraordinary circumstances' is a cold opening with very little humor until the proper setting reveal.

This all lines up more or less exactly with what I've got planned already, so that's super reassuring, thanks for the input! The main "party" consists of 6 main characters: Washed-up wizard, relic from the age when "adventurer for hire" was a more common, lucrative profession; basically The Dude crossed with bits of characters like Master Roshi and Ben Kenobi Dwarf fighter, a John Cena-level face, not super bright when it comes to most things but an outright prodigy when it comes to beating the shit out of things, a "Los Tiburon" type who will absolutely attempt to wrestle the monster Fish-person Princess; all of her people are reverse mermaids and she's half-human, so she's gone her whole life thinking she's a deformed freak despite being charismatic and pretty by human standards, uses elemental magic and is earnest/optimistic to a fault Halfling healer/ranger, the idea being that she's the one capable/workaholic person in a community of midgets who just farm potatoes and smoke pipeweed all day, is arguably the most sensible person in the entire party, but can't exactly turn it off Human thief, has the best "stats" out of anyone, but utterly abysmal luck; I really like Sterling Archer type characters who talk a lot of shit and are legit good at what they do, but end up suffering for their hubris later in more creative ways Dark elf necromancer, essentially a wannabe aristocrat who lives in a big empty manor and experiments with corpses all day, is an absolute queen bitch, but respects people who get results (I like the idea of him and the Halfling almost regarding one another as "doctors" in different fields of medicine) I've had a lot of fun plotting everything out, it's like a campaign where I'm the DM and all of the players at once.

I've used organic design wherever I can my entire career, and it's been an incredibly useful tool.

That's fucking brilliant. I'm so stealing this.

Thank you so much, that's a great answer. A few of my players have actually already complained about not being able to use their skills for making traps. That solves both.

Had my first ever DMing experience just a few hours ago in a Traveller-inspired universe game. Went pretty fucking awesome, the dice rolled quote unquote just right. Had a Big Bad Pirate Captain I wrote several pages of dialogue for. Setting took place in an interstellar cruise liner, basically. He was going to be taunting the players as soon as they made significant contact, while the ship was being boarded. I never could have expected the Navy-Career has-been alcoholic to break into the Captain's control room. Take control of the CIVILIAN CRUISE LINER. Successfully dodge several shots from the pirate ship. Get really close, then ask me "Does this thing have weapons?" "No, it doesn't" "Oh" Then two minutes later overload the civilian escape pod engines to use them as dumbfire missiles. Now, fucking I SWEAR TO GOD this ensued: I had him roll accuracy. He got 12. Fuck I rolled for the Pirate's reaction, got a 2. FUCK. Basically they were drinking coffee chilling, not expecting a CIVILIAN CRUISE LINER TO USE ESCAPE PODS AS IMPROMPTU MISSILES. Rolled the Pirate's dodge reaction again just Referee fiat, got a 2 AGAIN. SHIT So I thought, for the sake of the epic story, "If I roll a 2 again, then this is literally a sign from God". Snake eyes. The Pirate Captain sipped his coffee, wondering why Alpha boarding team turned radio silent a few minutes ago. He looked up through the transparent screens at the curious civilian ship he thought would just be a routine heist. "Well played" were his last words, as one escape pod overloaded the kinetic shields designed more for small point-defense weapons he usually had to deal with. As the second smashed through the engine bay, cutting power to the ship entirely. And as the third crashed through the transparent screens he was so fond of looking through. At this point I was hoping to just cut my losses. "The ship is now without power, it's prime for the taking" and with some questions and explanations, hoped for a "they look through the pirate ship and find the pirate captain's datalog, leading towards the Big Bad" Instead, the pilot guy in question rotated the ship around its long axis 180 degrees, and fired the last three drop pods into the ship. Rip literally everything I'd planned, but was pretty fucking awesome when it happened.

I've always wanted to give Traveler a try, but have been discouraged by the mountain of rules. Granted that's from Classic Traveler. On the more ranty side of things: I'm tired of playing goofy characters. Everyone else in the party loves the fuck out of them, but to me they become a drag after a few sessions.

I'm making it more bearable by throwing in a fucking MOUNTAIN of house rules tbh. I'm there more for the experience and to see where the dice take the plot rather than being a stickler for damage points and technicalities and rolling all the time. I don't do Initiative rolls because the flow of combat changes constantly. So basically I think of it as collaborative storytelling where I as the Referee keep it grounded, than a game system or something like that?

Hey guys, with Fandom fucking up their major DND wiki and removing a lot of non-srd shit, I took it upon myself to make a copy with all the good important shit on it that they removed because why not. https://connors-personal-dnd-5e.fandom.com/wiki/Connor%27s_Personal_DND_5e_Wiki If I miss anything just @ me and I'll get to fixing it but its protected all over so merry christmas.

Ohh, so that's why the Feat page was just listing Grappler Just assumed I caught the page mid rewrite and I just needed to refresh later

ALERT. ALERT. NEW ARTIFICER IS OUT. WE HAVE MOTHERFUCKING DROIDEKAS IN DND https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1822/8b288584-3b08-4a8a-a6de-ab2e0f152082/image.png

Sentry goin' up!

Pour one out for the Thunder Cannon then, guess the fantasy magic sniper rifle was deemed too silly to live

At least they have a blurb about "If your DM allows it, you get firearms proficiency and can use the guns in the book".

I've updated the wiki to include as many magic items from main books and supplements as possible. For now, the wiki is pretty much complete! https://connors-personal-dnd-5e.fandom.com/wiki/Magic_Items

I've added all that stuff to a monster list for 5e, using an Encounter Builder/Monster Index someone else made. Their version just had the core monster manual. Hit me up if you want it, dunno how easy it'd be to add to a wikia, since it's a spreadsheet.