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

[JJLiautaud]

Does anyone have any good tips on running a military style campaign?

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Does anyone have any good tips on running a military style campaign?

Unless the players enjoy grand strategy and bean counting, have them play as irregulars.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Everyone holding hands and singing kumbaya is certainly an option if you want it to be, but that's just a little too saccharine for my tastes.

It's not that they have to sing kumbaya, it's that they should hate each other for reasons the players can interact with. If the PCs are dealing with a NPC that is simply "lol fuck elves", there's nothing interesting to do with that other than make the elf player stand outside.

If the NPC is a politician running on a "lol fuck elves" platform, AND is having an affair with a elf, then we have something to work with.

But if we remove racism as an option, we can get something even more interesting. The NPC is running on a anti-magic platform, but is also a black market scroll dealer. This adds even more options since the PCs might want those scrolls themselves.

it's a safe way to explore concepts that have become increasingly verboten in reality

I'm on the opposite side of the fence. People are sick of having to deal with American style racial politics bullshit at work, on the news, on TV, on the internet. Who wants that in their once-a-week DnD game?

Attacks in melee auto-hit and armor grants a melee DR instead of AC.

I considered this, but I might have to make minimum damage (eg. 1 always goes through) since if we assume 5ac from plate, and maybe a +1 ring of protection. All d6 and under attacks make him immune. Maybe that's a good thing so that a dedicated tank never takes damage from small things? It's why I considered making a resource you can spend to ignore attacks outright, but not sure.

For mooks, have the players roll a defense roll for the round instead of the mooks rolling attacks to speed up resolution.

What do you mean? A single defense roll for all mooks, or replace every attack rolls with the same number of dodge rolls?

 

[Corn Flakes]

I'm on the opposite side of the fence. People are sick of having to deal with American style racial politics bullshit at work, on the news, on TV, on the internet. Who wants that in their once-a-week DnD game?

See, that's what I don't get about your argument. Nobody is pushing for American-style racial politics bullshit. We're talking about history. And throughout the entirety of human experience, we have split ourselves based on looks, religion, place of birth, neighborhood... really, anything that can sets us apart, has done so. Excluding a fundamental biological element like race, one that results in distinct visual, physiological and psychologic differences between peoples? That's leaving a lot on the table.

This is not a "niggers are violent" "no they're not it's just society" situation. It's a "orcs have been blessed by their creator god with bloodthirst and cruelty so they can ravage the lands in His name" "yes, they have and we have their God's signature to prove it" situation. People with the ability to think will act in accord to a race's inherent characteristics when interacting with it. If you make it so nobody has any thoughts about your average dwarf, it means that either people are willfully ignoring how different a dwarf is to a human or goblin (which is far closer to modern racial politics), or everybody has the exact same psychology and culture.

Still, your game, your rules. Do your thing.

I considered this, but I might have to make minimum damage (eg. 1 always goes through) since if we assume 5ac from plate, and maybe a +1 ring of protection. All d6 and under attacks make him immune. Maybe that's a good thing so that a dedicated tank never takes damage from small things? It's why I considered making a resource you can spend to ignore attacks outright, but not sure.

Either have every attack deal at least 1 damage, or allow damage dice to explode. That last one gives you both critical hits baked into the system, and the benefit of weapons historically known for being good at looking for weak spots like daggers being far more likely to deal extra damage. A 1d4 dagger will deal 2d4 25% of the time (and 3d4 6% of the time), while a 1d12 greataxe will only give you 2d12 damage 8% of the time.

 

[Ghostse]

I considered this, but I might have to make minimum damage (eg. 1 always goes through) since if we assume 5ac from plate, and maybe a +1 ring of protection. All d6 and under attacks make him immune. Maybe that's a good thing so that a dedicated tank never takes damage from small things?

When I did this for an OSR one-shot (with 6 3d6, +1d6 freepoints eat your shitty rolls for stats), designed be fairly high the lethality:
- General rules: d4 for light weapons, d6 for normal, d8 for heavy (d2 for improvised). +1 circumstance bonus for things like readied ambush attack added to attack roll, -1 for things like opponent in heavy armor, +1 for magic weapons - that is you could roll a 10 on a d8. Rolling 8+ was a critical.
Ranged/Magic roll attacks (or targets roll saves) per normal and don't use these rules.
- STR mod added to total after the roll.
- On crit, 1+STR mod (min. 1) damage bypasses armor DR.
- Special rules: Fighters: Rolling 6 or above was considered critical. Thieves/Rogues: rolling 4 with dagger/light was a crit. Rolling 6 or above was critical if the target is distracted (thieves couldn't use heavy weapons, treated them as improvised weapons) On a light crit, 4+STR mod would bypass armor DR (i.e. -1 STR mod, 3 damage bypasses)
- GM can change up monster crit rates; ex Orcs/Ogres critted on a roll of 2+, goblins/kobolds could not crit in melee unless target is distracted, etc.
(There was also a hardness table I was using and there was a chance critting would shatter your weapon.)

It's why I considered making a resource you can spend to ignore attacks outright, but not sure.

Something I was thinking on, but never tested, was giving "armor points" that (as you said) could be 'spent' to block attacks. PCs could loot armor off dead foes to restore AP after fights and repair AP(trading time).

What do you mean? A single defense roll for all mooks, or replace every attack rolls with the same number of dodge rolls?

At the start of the round when there are mooks, all players roll one defense roll, its basically an inverse attack roll. Save vs. mooks, effectively. Succeed, mooks all miss you that turn. Fail, mooks do damage (average damage if its not already fixed). IF you want to be autistically fair, have your mook groups declare targets (at least behind screen) before players roll.

Its one of those things that is statistically fucked unless mooks have exactly a 50% hit chance, but it feels right.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Excluding a fundamental biological element like race, one that results in distinct visual, physiological and psychologic differences between peoples? That's leaving a lot on the table.

You can have different cultures. Thoughts and feelings on said cultures (even if they're negative). Even small things like turning up to a dwarven village and the tall characters having to duck to get into buildings work to add flavour.

What I'm saying is the traditional racial problems don't really add anything to the gameplay, at least in my experience. Even extreme examples like "dragonborn are illegal and killed on sight" destroy the believability of the world, and players just side step it. Like saving a slot for "disguise self", or else never take part in any city encounters.

This makes me wonder if 5e/PF1 is the problem. I know survival based games don't work in 5e due to PCs having so many options to bypass hunger, thirst, darkness, etc. So maybe it's the same with racism.

I never see gameplay cited as a reason to remove racism from the game though. It's always some political nonsense like "orcs are black people".

Something I was thinking on, but never tested, was giving "armor points" that (as you said) could be 'spent' to block attacks. PCs could loot armor off dead foes to restore AP after fights and repair AP(trading time).

I might give it a try then, see how it goes.

There was also a hardness table I was using and there was a chance critting would shatter your weapon.

The system I'm planning on using is Knave. One feature of that is you can choose to break a weapon to deal double damage. This means that some fighters go to dungeons with half a dozen dispossible weapons with the intention of burning through them early on.

 

[Ghostse]

This makes me wonder if 5e/PF1 is the problem. I know survival based games don't work in 5e due to PCs having so many options to bypass hunger, thirst, darkness, etc. So maybe it's the same with racism.

Yeah you have to add in a mechanism where getting removed from the city center was almost certain death like back in the day. Animals, bandits, invaders, disasters... and no state actors willing to lift a finger.

I might give it a try then, see how it goes.
The system I'm planning on using is Knave. One feature of that is you can choose to break a weapon to deal double damage. This means that some fighters go to dungeons with half a dozen dispossible weapons with the intention of burning through them early on.

The hardness table was more about making you think about your weapon vs your opponent's armor.

Just from when I was back of enveloping:
Cloth = 0AP, Leather = 1AP, Hide = 2AP, Chain = 3AP, Scale = 4AP, Plate = 5AP, light shield 1AP, Heavy shield 2AP.
If its magic it gets +1 AP. Varients and critical hits bypass AP, though you can still burn an AP to "decritical" it.

I was also working on armor having "repair points" - IE. Scale Mail having a repair point at 3AP due to its complexity; that means if you spend an AP and drop it to 3AP, until you get it to a proper blacksmith/anvil it can never go above 3AP. And naturally having a feat chain to mitigate that. I was also looking at moving towards, for magic armor, putting the "Magic AP" point at different places in the point spend - one the point is spent, the armor loses some or all magic power.

It also opened up options so that different armor types/origins would have different AP/Repair points. I.e. Dwarven scale mail doesn't have a repair point. Magic Elf Plate has two magic AP points instead of one. Etc.

And of course without a feat-chain, like armor could only repair like armor, meaning scouting and matching your load out to the enemies was important. And naturally feats to bypass this.

 

[AnOminous]

Somehow, I managed to get banned for fantasy racism. Played an elf and called drow a bunch of disgusting black creatures. Repeatedly. How the hell do you get offended by drow racism, they are one of the worst races in terms of lore and writing.

Well, they fucking are. Filthy drow scum. ALL elves not of the evil race feel this way. I am sorry you were banned for elf race realism.

Does anyone have any good tips on running a military style campaign?

Immediately kick out anyone with an unnatural hair color.

 

[Mobster Monitor]

Forgive me since I know this is more tabletop focused, but I wanted to ask if anyone here has played Temple of Elemental Evil (video game idk if it is a module) and cares to give their quick thoughts or recommendation?

3/3.5 edition is what I first started playing d&d with and I haven't gotten back into it since. I didn't know they made a crpg in that ruleset so I was looking into it. Seems okay but I have never heard of it until recently and that was only offhandedly.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Our expedition under da sea has been quite eventful. Two prominent opposed fishman politicians are trying to use us as mercenaries to accomplish their own ends, and while we'll do almost anything when the paycheck is 5k gp worth of pearls a pop, their motives were suspect even before we found two different fly-related magical items, one each at two different sites they asked us to clear of monsters.

Half the party also got the bends because of an ill-judged attempt to use a Magnificent Mansion spell to create lodgings for the night. The first part of the plan was smart enough, we used a Wall of Force spell to create a dome around us so that the water wouldn't completely flood the Mansion, then created the portal inside of it. We did not account for the fact that the pressure inside the Mansion would be surface-level. As we spilled through the portal, we each took 5 Con damage. Fortunately, my cleric is a Boy Scout in more ways than one, and had a few scrolls of Restoration up his sleeve for just this sort of occasion.

I made the GM slightly angy by trivializing a peer-level encounter (level 14) with a 2nd-level spell. Turns out that if you have Evil creatures whose main gimmick is mind control, a simple Communal Protection from Evil doesn't leave them with much.

The highlight of the session was probably the shaman baby-talking to the Small earth elemental he summoned because he saw that it only had 4 Int.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Forgive me since I know this is more tabletop focused, but I wanted to ask if anyone here has played Temple of Elemental Evil (video game idk if it is a module) and cares to give their quick thoughts or recommendation?

I haven't played the module, but from what I heard online about it, it's one of those infamous classic modules like Tomb of Horrors and Expedition to Barrier Peaks. But Temple of Elemental Evil's big claim to fame is it was delayed many times and was eventually written by someone else.

Edit for clarity: It was a sequel to a popular adventure written by Gary Gygax which ended with a "to be continued", but various legal troubles with TSR as well as Gygax being busy with other projects, it languished in development hell. Eventually the work was eventually assigned to another writer to finish based on Gygax's notes. All of this meant it was years between the release of the first adventure and Temple of Elemental Evil.

I assume it's good, given it's often held up with other classics and even got game adaptations and updates to new editions over the years.

 

[Ghostse]

Forgive me since I know this is more tabletop focused, but I wanted to ask if anyone here has played Temple of Elemental Evil (video game idk if it is a module) and cares to give their quick thoughts or recommendation?

I have not, but as I recall, on release the game was extremely buggy, and was (in short) overshadowed by Balders Gate, Planescape & Neverwinter.
If you want to play, supposedly fan-made patches and a full redo of the engine fix the biggest issues.

3/3.5 edition is what I first started playing d&d with and I haven't gotten back into it since. I didn't know they made a crpg in that ruleset so I was looking into it.

Neverwinter Nights: Am I joke to you?

 

[Mega Black]

See, that's what I don't get about your argument. Nobody is pushing for American-style racial politics bullshit. We're talking about history. And throughout the entirety of human experience, we have split ourselves based on looks, religion, place of birth, neighborhood... really, anything that can sets us apart, has done so. Excluding a fundamental biological element like race, one that results in distinct visual, physiological and psychologic differences between peoples? That's leaving a lot on the table.

That's where I am approaching it from. I think it is lame to deny your setting all this potential, and it doesn't necessitate American style self righteous pandering and groveling to le poor oppressed negro.

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

I have a very OSR view of fantasy racism, you should develop your racism in play and not worry about racial backstories.

 

[Pendulous Dong]

I've been going back on forth on how drugs should work in my system, and I've firmly settled on giving them zero drawbacks whatsoever and providing zero rules for addiction. My reasons are as follows:

1. Addiction rules are universally terrible. No system does it well, and having players just roleplay their character's addiction results in either the player scratching themselves and asking for more crack every five minutes, or else completely forgetting that they're addicted to crack until the GM reminds them.
2. Giving benefits to drugs with no drawbacks not only slims down how much room they take up on a page, it also speeds up gameplay because the player no longer has to keep track of the drawbacks.
3. Most importantly, removing drawbacks and addiction incentivizes characters to take drugs. You no longer do a cost/benefit analysis, you just do it. Eventually some characters are going to find themselves snorting a line of coke for the bonus every time they have to talk to someone, and THAT'S the real addiction mechanic.

I take a similar attitude to cybernetics. There is no cyberpsychosis that makes you go mad from interfacing too much with technology or turning yourself into a corporate product or cutting you off from the ancestor spirits or whatever bullshit excuse Cyberpunk and Shadowrun use. If a player installs a machine gun in their arm, they're going to look for any excuse to pull it out and use it.

 

[Dam Dhara]

I've been going back on forth on how drugs should work in my system, and I've firmly settled on giving them zero drawbacks whatsoever and providing zero rules for addiction. My reasons are as follows:

1. Addiction rules are universally terrible. No system does it well, and having players just roleplay their character's addiction results in either the player scratching themselves and asking for more crack every five minutes, or else completely forgetting that they're addicted to crack until the GM reminds them.
2. Giving benefits to drugs with no drawbacks not only slims down how much room they take up on a page, it also speeds up gameplay because the player no longer has to keep track of the drawbacks.
3. Most importantly, removing drawbacks and addiction incentivizes characters to take drugs. You no longer do a cost/benefit analysis, you just do it. Eventually some characters are going to find themselves snorting a line of coke for the bonus every time they have to talk to someone, and THAT'S the real addiction mechanic.

I take a similar attitude to cybernetics. There is no cyberpsychosis that makes you go mad from interfacing too much with technology or turning yourself into a corporate product or cutting you off from the ancestor spirits or whatever bullshit excuse Cyberpunk and Shadowrun use. If a player installs a machine gun in their arm, they're going to look for any excuse to pull it out and use it.

I personally prefer having simple rules for these as a way to remember players that the drawbacks do exist, although some flavor text in a book might be enough for that to happen. The main problem with addiction rules is how overly detailed they are and force you keep track of stuff.

I personally enjoy the way Metal Head does it: Drugs don't have any negative effects but once you use a specific drug 3 times, you have to start using it at least once every 3 days due to addiction. If you don't buy and use it mid-session but have money to do it, the Game Master will immediately take away that money from your sheet as your character buys and uses the drug without your control. The main negative consequence of this (besides money loss if your character doesn't get a doctor's help to go clean) is that your character becomes more susceptible to going berserk in combat (unable to do anything but attack) the more drugs you continue using. It's a generic drawback for all drugs, so each drug only cover a small space on pages.

 

[Ghostse]

I've been going back on forth on how drugs should work in my system, and I've firmly settled on giving them zero drawbacks whatsoever and providing zero rules for addiction. My reasons are as follows:

1. Addiction rules are universally terrible. No system does it well, and having players just roleplay their character's addiction results in either the player scratching themselves and asking for more crack every five minutes, or else completely forgetting that they're addicted to crack until the GM reminds them.
2. Giving benefits to drugs with no drawbacks not only slims down how much room they take up on a page, it also speeds up gameplay because the player no longer has to keep track of the drawbacks.
3. Most importantly, removing drawbacks and addiction incentivizes characters to take drugs. You no longer do a cost/benefit analysis, you just do it. Eventually some characters are going to find themselves snorting a line of coke for the bonus every time they have to talk to someone, and THAT'S the real addiction mechanic.

I take a similar attitude to cybernetics. There is no cyberpsychosis that makes you go mad from interfacing too much with technology or turning yourself into a corporate product or cutting you off from the ancestor spirits or whatever bullshit excuse Cyberpunk and Shadowrun use. If a player installs a machine gun in their arm, they're going to look for any excuse to pull it out and use it.

I like how the Fallout games handle it: get addicted and the bonus the drug gives is now a permanent penalty until you clean up.
For penalty tracking I'd have on the character sheet for each stat for penalties; if you are expecting drugs to be be a major part of your game I'd have it labeled "addiction penalties". I'd have an addiction worksheet/workspace - list your drugs, the penalties, and total it all up to apply the negatives to the stats.
You can also overload the system fairly easily to deal with things like "long term addiction" in optional rules -like if you want make a character with a long-term maintenance heroin addiction, just 1.5 or 2x the penalties.

The problem with what you're proposing "The player wanting to max stats is the real addiction" falls apart when there are literally no drawbacks to snorting coke. If its inconvenient to get their hands on crack, the players just won't do it this time.

but you do you.

I personally enjoy the way Metal Head does it: Drugs don't have any negative effects but once you use a specific drug 3 times, you have to start using it at least once every 3 days due to addiction. If you don't buy and use it mid-session but have money to do it, the Game Master will immediately take away that money from your sheet as your character buys and uses the drug without your control.

As an extreme short hand, that's a pretty good way to do it.

 

[Corn Flakes]

When it comes to stuff like cyberpsychosis I prefer when the rules are kept simple: just have it be an increasing penalty to self-control related checks depending on how much chrome the character is packing.

If the player wants to play around with hallucinations and other fun things like that, awesome. They can strike up a deal with the GM, maybe get some extra XP for roleplaying out of it. But if they don't, the crunch is quite simple: a Military-spec cyber-arm with built-in weapons might come with a -2 to Self-Control rolls that makes the character a little on-edge at all times. Maybe a little self-destructive. But that full-body replacement is going to make them a ticking time bomb to whatever vices they may still indulge in.

I personally enjoy the way Metal Head does it: Drugs don't have any negative effects but once you use a specific drug 3 times, you have to start using it at least once every 3 days due to addiction. If you don't buy and use it mid-session but have money to do it, the Game Master will immediately take away that money from your sheet as your character buys and uses the drug without your control. The main negative consequence of this (besides money loss if your character doesn't get a doctor's help to go clean) is that your character becomes more susceptible to going berserk in combat (unable to do anything but attack) the more drugs you continue using. It's a generic drawback for all drugs, so each drug only cover a small space on pages.

That's a pretty elegant way of doing it, I like it. An addiction like that only really matters when it's not being fulfilled, after all. Otherwise it just becomes part of their routine. Some things like compulsions really should be out of the players' hands, and if they complain... well, they're the ones who chose to give the characters those compulsions.

 

[Pendulous Dong]

The problem with what you're proposing "The player wanting to max stats is the real addiction" falls apart when there are literally no drawbacks to snorting coke. If its inconvenient to get their hands on crack, the players just won't do it this time.

Fair enough. I'll try the "if you do it X number of times" thing mentioned earlier, see how that works out. Another factor I used is to make it so that drugs take time to kick in, to further incentivize players to take them more often so as not to miss out on the benefits when a surprise situation pops up where they would be useful.

The goal I have is to be crunchy without being brutally, agonizingly slow. My point of reference on what not to do is Shadowrun, where there are rules for everything and the game refuses to let you be ignorant of even a single one of them, lest the whole thing fall apart.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Giving benefits to drugs with no drawbacks not only slims down how much room they take up on a page, it also speeds up gameplay because the player no longer has to keep track of the drawbacks.

Eventually some characters are going to find themselves snorting a line of coke for the bonus every time they have to talk to someone, and THAT'S the real addiction mechanic.

Genius.

I was going to suggest adding drawbacks, but I'm starting to like your version the more I think about it.

If you want drawbacks without the bookkeeping, how about having them be like functional alcoholics. They can take all the drugs they want, but if they encounter a cop or someone who has experience with substance abuse, then a bluff check to hide the signs of being high. Or if that's too much, let them get away with it until they're stupid enough to do drugs in the open.