Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[The Rockafire Explosion]

View attachment 3537786

Another page from Radiant Citadel. I'd use that in my game as a place the player characters will destroy. But I'm not buying it.

You don't even need to sic a group of players with bad intentions on the place. Just use a modicum of common sense and ask simple questions, such as:

"What adventurer is going to use this place for any amount of trade or commerce when they'll just get taxed to oblivion, and how does it manage to survive that?"
"If they do decide to drop the equivalent of thousands of gold into the place, how does that disrupt the local economy?" (this is actually a pretty good question to consider about any game if you're aiming for some verisimilitude)
"When a high level party stomps through, geared well enough to truck a minor deity, and says 'nah fuck this commie bullshit, we ain't paying' how does the place respond?"
"How does this multiverse-spanning utopia protect itself from the other 900-ish threats in an average D&D game when it doesn't have a normal military by any standard of the game?"

I'm not bothering to read it either, so I'm sure the book handwaves all of these questions with the equivalent of "the city isn't an evil racist/colonialist empire of wypipo, so everything is automagically fine," but something like this setting falls apart under even the mildest scrutiny.

 

[Another Char Clone]

The new Star Frontiers sounds based, who's running it?

https://techraptor.net/tabletop/news/tsrs-star-frontiers-new-genesis-playtest-contains-racist-content

In a section about playable races, Subraces are explained further. It states that Subraces, "include the people created in a laboratory, such as the plant-based people. Other subraces have appeared naturally. Or with Humans, you can be African, Asain, Mexican, etc." This expressly describes African, Asian, and Mexican people as a lesser form of humanity." Once again, this is blatantly racist and plays into nazi eugenics.

Why are subraces even considered inferior? As a cat lover, I love all cats, including the tortoise subrace!

The Core Rules explaining Theology, the ability to understand religious organizations and hierarchies, describes "the practices of secret cults such as the Masons," echoing far-right conspiracy theories, as well as explicitly calling BLM and Antifa "radical things."

Wow man, I didn't know free masons and shit was far right. I'd probably be a meganazi knowing some inkling about how fractional reserve works.

When explaining a character's Looks stat, it states that a character with a Looks stat of 0 is seen as unbearably hideous. It states, "a good example of this is would be large noses or narrow noses, large lips or thin lips, oval eyes. The player can have a lot of fun with this aspect. Be creative." These descriptions are in line with negative stereotypes of Jewish people, Black people, and Asian people.

Tell me more about these stereotypes, for research.

In player race options, Gender options are "Male/Female no bonuses, and no Trans." Furthermore, there is red text attributed to one of the writers asking, "should we make a trans type race? Maybe 'transbots?'" Not only is this erasure of transgender people, but it also blatantly "others" those who identify as transgender.

[Transformers pun]

 

[The Ugly One]

You don't even need to sic a group of players with bad intentions on the place. Just use a modicum of common sense and ask simple questions, such as:

"What adventurer is going to use this place for any amount of trade or commerce when they'll just get taxed to oblivion, and how does it manage to survive that?"
"If they do decide to drop the equivalent of thousands of gold into the place, how does that disrupt the local economy?" (this is actually a pretty good question to consider about any game if you're aiming for some verisimilitude)
"When a high level party stomps through, geared well enough to truck a minor deity, and says 'nah fuck this commie bullshit, we ain't paying' how does the place respond?"
"How does this multiverse-spanning utopia protect itself from the other 900-ish threats in an average D&D game when it doesn't have a normal military by any standard of the game?"

I'm not bothering to read it either, so I'm sure the book handwaves all of these questions with the equivalent of "the city isn't an evil racist/colonialist empire of wypipo, so everything is automagically fine," but something like this setting falls apart under even the mildest scrutiny.

Libs never even bother to answer these kinds of questions when they talk about how theyr'e going to build a magical fairy kingdom in Minneapolis, let alone when there aren't any actual laws of nature to follow.

 

[Malagor the dank omen]

Damaged characters work in games where nobody makes it to high level without taking some shots like that. ACKS is a little more forgiving on death and dying than basic B/X, but the price of survival is usually some semi-permanent damage (some can be cured with regeneration spells at high levels). But nobody makes it to 7th level without losing an eye, or a hand, or getting a disfiguring scar, etc, especially because you only get those things by being lucky. The alternative is a new character sheet.

Dark Heresy is like this. After 4 or 5 campaigns you can expect at least 2 people to rack 1 malignancy from being careless around chaos corruption events, either lowering their stats or making them addicted to drink tears or collecting eyeballs. Thankfully, insanity is more common and forgiving, which gives a lot more play with that such as people believing they are invincible or speaking to their own delusions.

Plus, sometimes characters when they take crit damage rather than losing an eye/leg/arm or ending up blind/deaf/retarded they can be horribly disfigured, which lowers their charisma stat permanently to 10. Thankfully, this can be fixed over time if you have the right psychic in the team or bionics.

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

View attachment 3537786

Another page from Radiant Citadel. I'd use that in my game as a place the player characters will destroy. But I'm not buying it.

"The worst offenders are sentenced... wherein the criminal is subjected to a ritual that prevents them from repeating their crime..."

...is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously close to "praying the gay away"?

 

[Adamska]

"The worst offenders are sentenced... wherein the criminal is subjected to a ritual that prevents them from repeating their crime..."

...is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously close to "praying the gay away"?

It can be construed as such, and I rather hope that Wizards gets shat on for that too.

This Radiant Tropico book sounds more and more like what happens when retards try to build a utopia without thinking the more I read about it.

 

[Corn Flakes]

"The worst offenders are sentenced... wherein the criminal is subjected to a ritual that prevents them from repeating their crime..."

...is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously close to "praying the gay away"?

I see less "praying the gay away" and more Ludovico technique in that punishment.

Also, removing someone's free will and then exiling them. Now that's something Good Guys™ always do, right? Fuck taking responsibility for the worst criminals your civilization birthed and raised, just dump them onto the rest of the world like the trash they are. All that because the writers can't admit that some people just can't be out in the streets and that incarceration is a necessary evil.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

"The worst offenders are sentenced... wherein the criminal is subjected to a ritual that prevents them from repeating their crime..."

...is it just me, or does that sound suspiciously close to "praying the gay away"?

In a lot of settings using mind affecting magic like that, even on criminals, is considered a capital crime.

Hell, doing that is often considered explicitly evil as it's seen as destroying free will as given by the Gods.

Do they do it Clockwork Orange style?

I dare these fuckers to explain how it's different than Clockwork Orange for some of the bullshit they'll be doing that ritual for.

"You misgendered a sparkly tranny. You will no longer be able to say someone's gender or deadname!"

"You said a racial slur!"

"You committed a hate crime against elves!"

"You defended yourself from a nobleman out to rape you!"

 

[Big Nasty]

I gotcha covered
View attachment 3537537

That dude looks like he's from (ADF) Phil's old Deviantart account.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Another session, another complaint from the history nerd. This time his complaint was that two handed weapons are actually fast and agile when used with the right HEMA technique, not the slow, unwieldy, choppy things they are in games and films. He quickly dropped it though. Maybe he's finally figured out no one is putting up with his shit.

Do they do it Clockwork Orange style?

That's how I'd do it if I ran this. I think labelling the ritual chamber "room 101" would be too obvious, but then the module isn't exactly subtle.

 

[knightlautrec]

Plus, hilariously enough, tranny character is the doctor of the group and the guy brough up an entire narrative about being the son of an overbearing conservative mother and a sleazeball father. And now the troon whores himself out and deals drugs to pay for his horsepiss that has been taking since 12 years old. He overshared a lot of his character just in the first session to the point i was fed up since then. Specially because i rather discover characters through their actions rather than giant dollops of angsty backstory dropped in a single go.

I don't get this. At all. Because this shit is pretty normie in the setting. Profane? Yes. Normal? Also yes. It's like. Getting surgery to be your idealised self is a key theme of the game and the pursuit of that (whether or cosmetic or hardware) moves you further away from your human self. The self image is King and superficiality the soup de jour and giving you moral questions of being the same human the more you replace and upgrade. Like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses and his 'same broom he's had for 20 years. Had 10 different handles and 9 different heads but it's the same broom...'

Now if he'd argued his parents were anti augmentation you could say they might be against any sort of upgrading but to be against troons themselves probably wouldn't be a mindset they have. It would be a blanket dislike of all augs.

The thing is - trannies fit into cyberpunk. I'm fine with them (oddly) because the whole point of the game is pushing humanity past a point it maybe should not go. And questions of 'why' that your character should grapple with. Trannies in cyberpunk are not things to aspire to. They're profane monuments to wrecking the natural born self. Nothing to be admired. They're just a self centred simulacrum the same as those going full Borg - basing their self on the physical rather than the real soul. More shiny augs means more happy? Right?

If your GM isn't stressing that aspect of the game then they're absolute dogshit. You should always seek to give your players subtle regrets after they invariably do a 'SHINY SHINY I HAVE ENOUGH MONIES FOR CYBERK LEGS' shit when they have the eurobucks after a job. Phantom pains, dreams, memories that assault them. A feeling of lesser, calousness that creeps into your psyche. Is our body us or is it simply meat and our self is the consciousness solely?

The troon needs to shut up though. And stop hogging the spotlight. It's obvious they have main character syndrome. And I would cap them for the sheer self centred cheek cuz it's rude etiquette in a group. You can do it bro. I believe in you.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

I don't get this. At all. Because this shit is pretty normie in the setting. Profane? Yes. Normal? Also yes. It's like. Getting surgery to be your idealised self is a key theme of the game and the pursuit of that (whether or cosmetic or hardware) moves you further away from your human self. The self image is King and superficiality the soup de jour and giving you moral questions of being the same human the more you replace and upgrade. Like Trigger from Only Fools and Horses and his 'same broom he's had for 20 years. Had 10 different handles and 9 different heads but it's the same broom...'

Now if he'd argued his parents were anti augmentation you could say they might be against any sort of upgrading but to be against troons themselves probably wouldn't be a mindset they have. It would be a blanket dislike of all augs.

The thing is - trannies fit into cyberpunk. I'm fine with them (oddly) because the whole point of the game is pushing humanity past a point it maybe should not go. And questions of 'why' that your character should grapple with. Trannies in cyberpunk are not things to aspire to. They're profane monuments to wrecking the natural born self. Nothing to be admired. They're just a self centred simulacrum the same as those going full Borg - basing their self on the physical rather than the real soul. More shiny augs means more happy? Right?

If your GM isn't stressing that aspect of the game then they're absolute dogshit. You should always seek to give your players subtle regrets after they invariably do a 'SHINY SHINY I HAVE ENOUGH MONIES FOR CYBERK LEGS' shit when they have the eurobucks after a job. Phantom pains, dreams, memories that assault them. A feeling of lesser, calousness that creeps into your psyche. Is our body us or is it simply meat and our self is the consciousness solely?

The troon needs to shut up though. And stop hogging the spotlight. It's obvious they have main character syndrome. And I would cap them for the sheer self centred cheek cuz it's rude etiquette in a group. You can do it bro. I believe in you.

No.

People want to have shiny cyborg legs and stab bad guys with katanas.

Trying to implement overwrought melodrama everywhere will just have groups implode.

Always remember, melodrama in small doses. Small doses. Don't slather it everywhere.

 

[knightlautrec]

No.

People want to have shiny cyborg legs and stab bad guys with katanas.

Trying to implement overwrought melodrama everywhere will just have groups implode.

Always remember, melodrama in small doses. Small doses. Don't slather it everywhere.

>subtle regrets

I did say subtle. Games can have an undercurrent of actual depth without saturation. I didn't advocate telemundo.

 

[Grotesque Bushes]

So, I definitely have my own thoughts on the matter but I'm curious as to what everybody else thinks:

We all heard about how 5e combat is so. damn. slow. Why do you guys think that is, exactly? HP bloat, something wrong with the action economy, too many save vs. half damage rolls, something else...?

I'll pipe in as someone who has minimal 5e experience and instead spent years playing other RPGs.
I've played a druid in 5e for a couple sessions. The average combat was the group Vs 6-8 dudes. My attacks and small spells would do 5-10 damage a pop, utility spells would have people reroll dice and were mathematically beneficial, big damage spells would do like 20-30ish. An average mook would have about 30-40 hp, big dudes about 100 or more, my character had high double digits hp as well. Combat takes ages because it's designed to take ages, the hp pools on both sides are large and damage is low. In wfrp or cp2020 of I break a chair over a dudes back i can reasonably expect him to go down in one or two hits, in DND if I do that to another player his biggest threats to life are old age and malnutrition.

 

[Brain Problems]

I'll pipe in as someone who has minimal 5e experience and instead spent years playing other RPGs.
I've played a druid in 5e for a couple sessions. The average combat was the group Vs 6-8 dudes. My attacks and small spells would do 5-10 damage a pop, utility spells would have people reroll dice and were mathematically beneficial, big damage spells would do like 20-30ish. An average mook would have about 30-40 hp, big dudes about 100 or more, my character had high double digits hp as well. Combat takes ages because it's designed to take ages, the hp pools on both sides are large and damage is low. In wfrp or cp2020 of I break a chair over a dudes back i can reasonably expect him to go down in one or two hits, in DND if I do that to another player his biggest threats to life are old age and malnutrition.

I think the issue isn't the health pools per se because ideally the HP of everyone is kind of climbing commiserate to damage output capability (this relies on the DM knowing what he's doing though and balancing the encounters). Sure the enemies have more health but now your rogue is doing hilarious sneak attack damage, the fireball is being cast and doing like 100 damage spread out across all those idiots that stayed too close etc. The problem in my opinion is when you have turn after turn go by where players and monsters keeping whiffing on attacks and PCs somehow forget what their capabilities are in-between rounds and all those moments of dithering add up but I haven't played enough other games to know if there's another system that somehow accounts for solving bad dice rolls.

I do like the DM calling a fight early if it's clear the PCs have or are going to win and the rest of it is doing clean-up.

 

[Coelacanth]

UKu4ujFwEmypJw-n.mp4

Meanwhile, in a party consisting of mostly spellcasters and one barbarian:

The other guy who wanted to be in our campaign finally finished his exams and will be joining us next session. It'll be fun to see his character's reactions because one of our old party members gave into her dhampir hunger and went on a massacre where there were multiple witnesses, multiple victims and the death of a young paladin who was travelling with the group. The kicker is that just a few sessions prior she'd fed on this guy's character and he'd confided this to her believing that it had been a really bad nightmare. It's going to be great!

 

[Mr. Manchester]

View attachment 3537786

Another page from Radiant Citadel. I'd use that in my game as a place the player characters will destroy. But I'm not buying it.

When the players start destroying the city you can challenge them by having the councils and organizations, in their desperation, unshackle an ancient champion from a bygone era.

Spoiler

 

[George Lucas]

I think the issue isn't the health pools per se because ideally the HP of everyone is kind of climbing commiserate to damage output capability (this relies on the DM knowing what he's doing though and balancing the encounters). Sure the enemies have more health but now your rogue is doing hilarious sneak attack damage, the fireball is being cast and doing like 100 damage spread out across all those idiots that stayed too close etc. The problem in my opinion is when you have turn after turn go by where players and monsters keeping whiffing on attacks and PCs somehow forget what their capabilities are in-between rounds and all those moments of dithering add up but I haven't played enough other games to know if there's another system that somehow accounts for solving bad dice rolls.

I do like the DM calling a fight early if it's clear the PCs have or are going to win and the rest of it is doing clean-up.

Unless the enemies are actually braindead (not just unintelligent; everything has a fight-or-flight instinct) or they are fighting for honor or some shit, if the fight becomes favored for the PCs I will have the enemies run (and take whatever loot they can with them). It’s an ad-hoc morale system basically.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I haven't played enough other games to know if there's another system that somehow accounts for solving bad dice rolls.

There are some. I was reading Worlds Without Number recently, and that has a rule it calls "shock damage" where missed melee attacks still do minimal damage, and fighters have an option to turn a miss into a hit. Savage Worlds loves giving players re-rolls, which combines with the general high chance to hit wildcards have to make long strings of misses rare.

Though in my experience 5e combat rarely goes on for more than a few rounds anyway, and I can't think of a time a single combat hit half a dozen rounds. I still think the problem is the time it takes to go around the table, not the amount of turns.

 

[Ghostse]

I think the issue isn't the health pools per se because ideally the HP of everyone is kind of climbing commiserate to damage output capability (this relies on the DM knowing what he's doing though and balancing the encounters). Sure the enemies have more health but now your rogue is doing hilarious sneak attack damage, the fireball is being cast and doing like 100 damage spread out across all those idiots that stayed too close etc. The problem in my opinion is when you have turn after turn go by where players and monsters keeping whiffing on attacks and PCs somehow forget what their capabilities are in-between rounds and all those moments of dithering add up but I haven't played enough other games to know if there's another system that somehow accounts for solving bad dice rolls.

I do like the DM calling a fight early if it's clear the PCs have or are going to win and the rest of it is doing clean-up.

OS games (and many games that claim an OSR label) attempt to achieve their balance via raw probability. There is odds the dice give you better results, worse results, or about as good of a result and you expected, and what that one roll of the dice says happens, happens. Sometimes its wildly good, somethings its unexpectedly bad. Don't like it? Shouldn't have touched the dice, shouldn't have played the game.

Modern games - especially D&D 4e/5e - attempt to achieve their balance via complexity and probability manipulation. And this is where the huge HP tanks come in. The idea is that a critical hit from the monsters is big set back for the party - but you need to factor in if a non-critical hit was a big or little one, the cumulative effect, and factor all that in, and you're left with a huge HP tank.

(I'm not talking about 3.5 because while its got some of the sins of 4e/5e w/r/t this, they are much, much less and has easier, more accessible methods for GMs to manipulate the numbers to do what they want. Also I should add while I talk up OSR, I acknowledge that in general I prefer probability manipulation systems - giving everyone levers to pull generally makes the game more fun. And it sort of sucks when it all comes down to a single dice roll, and it fucks you. The problem is systems usually go to far, and you end up with combats that are three hours long because everything is TOO balanced.)

I do like the DM calling a fight early if it's clear the PCs have or are going to win and the rest of it is doing clean-up.

I take a look at what is going on, and how important the battle is. If all the big hitters are down, and its a battle the players are going to be able to take a long rest after, I just ask "You guys going to take a long rest after this, right? Alright, you win... this guy and this guy got away, but the rest are dead."
If its in the middle of a dungeon where the damage to the party might actually change how ragged they are at final boss... when its down to just a couple annoying enemies I'll usually say "Alright, you guys are going win. If you want to wrap this up, this guy is probably going to last two more turns, his guy three. If you're willing to just let them hand out 5 attacks, we can wrap this up and end it."

Which is one of the other things I hate about Munchkins: the only players I've had reject this offer were munchkins, so we spend another hour going around the table because they think they can beat the market.