Forgot to respond to this.
So the movie CaddyShack was nearly unscripted. The script was more liner notes and the actors were largely left to come up with their own dialogue. Or american reality shows (Big brother, survivor, real world) where the actors are taken aside and told to start a fight or that this or that is going to happen. no one is writing dialogue but they aren't actually being caught by surprise.
Critical Role is doing the same thing.
So no one is given lines to memorize, but Laura Bailey has been told "Jester is going explore her origins" or the Barbarian & Monk are told "Ok, this episode you're going to get to lez it up, but awkward and quirky like the straights like their gays."
Much like laughing about Elves being small dicked cucks, my distain of CR is more performative than actual.
I don't dislike Critical Role so much as I hate the people it convinces they want to play D&D, and the way it does that. Matt Mercer (with a paid crew) is a inventive DM and more importantly gives the players the game they (are paid to) want. But its harder to rage at the larger, nebulous forces in society so when a Theater Major leaves a game they should have never joined, there's usually a hearty round of "Fuck Matt Mercer".
Chatting with one of the guys in my group last night, he had just about the best description of Critical Role I've ever heard: Critical Role is to actual RPG sessions what Top Gear/Grand Tour specials are to road trips. Exaggerated, scripted, and entirely designed to entertain an audience even if it's at the expense of the participants.
Do you guys use any mapmaking software for your campaigns? I have been using dungeon painter studio for years, but as of late I feel it is really limiting so I have been looking at alternatives.
After many years I decided to give inkarnate another go: it is browser based and honestly not bad for regional or world maps, but they started selling subscriptions and now got even less objects/tiles available for free than they did before.
Wonder draft seems like a more advanced Dungeon painter studio, but I have yet to try it (license costs 20 dollars and i am not sure if they got a demo)
Lastly I tried to simply draw on sai2 with my tablet but I wasn't too satisfied with the results
For what scale of maps?
For encounter maps, I just build them in my VTT (MapTool) since I found I get much better performance when I do that and I don't need to go overboard. If I start with good assets grouped right, I can build an encounter in about 20 minutes that I'm not embarrassed. But I'll usually put on some music or an audiobook and go for an hour or two, or more, getting everything just so.
Only real complaint I have with MapTool is limited layering, only 3 layers (4 if you count the hidden GM). But I've learned to deal with that.
For City/Region/World...
I have a Wonderdraft license and backed Other World so I have used their beta.
I seem to remember Wonderdraft had a demo. I'm only so-so on them; the interface is a little unintuitive for what I use it for. they also have some issues (or at least I do) with fractal control (I tend to end up with a lot of sharp corners on my continents in Wonderdraft) But they have an active Reddit and I've seen some really slick looking maps come out of them. I've made a few town/city maps with it and they came out looking ok. Wonderdraft also has the bonus of lots of artists offer art packs that support Wonderdraft. (Downside: looks like they changed the directory structure sometimes the packs say they support wonderdraft but they don't work)
I think I'd like them better if I was using it more often, but for $20 I can't complain too much.
Edit: Oh yeah, one other pain point - you can't drop files in on the fly. If you want to drop something new in you have to exit and relaunch to reimport everything.
Other World (I have no idea if you can even buy in) is a couple's labor of love and its pretty good for continental/regional maps. Their big thing is brush level support and they have pretty good autoleveling for grouped assets. (Place new trees in a group, and it will move some of them back) and good fractal tuning but not much else.
Inkarnate seemed to have pretty good quality assets and brushes, but were too limited for generation for what I needed and I'm opposed to subscription stuff. I was able to toss together a small town map very quickly though. Their brushes for dirt roads were also wonderful. I think the fact that all their assets are licensed makes it a big draw for people wanting to publish maps in games and modules, and I don't really care about that.
For world maps, like globes, I've heard good things about Fractal Terrains. Haven't messed with it or ProFantasy's other products but I haven't heard anything negative.
I was going to pimp Dunjinni for their community and assets, but it looks like they shit themselves a few months ago. Which isn't a big surprise, I remember I was going to buy a license a couple years ago to try them out and discovered that their storefront wasn't working.
I've heard good buzz about MapForge but that ... I think it was subscription? I checked it out and thought it was kinda cool and passed, I don't remember why.
I've also got a Dungeon Designer 3 license from a humble bundle I've never used because of the bullshit redemption process. If no one else can provide input and folks are curious I can probably get assed to install it and give my impressions.
The big thing I have learned is that unless you are doing truly high-speed shit, the software doesn't matter too much as long as it supports layers and ability to right-size imports. (A blend tool also helps). Everything else is getting comfortable and using it.
For what scale of maps?
For encounter maps, I just build them in my VTT (MapTool) since I found I get much better performance when I do that and I don't need to go overboard. If I start with good assets grouped right, I can build an encounter in about 20 minutes that I'm not embarrassed. But I'll usually put on some music or an audiobook and go for an hour or two, or more, getting everything just so.
Only real complaint I have with MapTool is limited layering, only 3 layers (4 if you count the hidden GM). But I've learned to deal with that.
For City/Region/World...
I have a Wonderdraft license and backed Other World so I have used their beta.
I seem to remember Wonderdraft had a demo. I'm only so-so on them; the interface is a little unintuitive for what I use it for. they also have some issues (or at least I do) with fractal control (I tend to end up with a lot of sharp corners on my continents in Wonderdraft) But they have an active Reddit and I've seen some really slick looking maps come out of them. I've made a few town/city maps with it and they came out looking ok. Wonderdraft also has the bonus of lots of artists offer art packs that support Wonderdraft. (Downside: looks like they changed the directory structure sometimes the packs say they support wonderdraft but they don't work)
I think I'd like them better if I was using it more often, but for $20 I can't complain too much.
Other World (I have no idea if you can even buy in) is a couple's labor of love and its pretty good for continental/regional maps. Their big thing is brush level support and they have pretty good autoleveling for grouped assets. (Place new trees in a group, and it will move some of them back) and good fractal tuning but not much else.
Inkarnate seemed to have pretty good quality assets and brushes, but were too limited for generation for what I needed and I'm opposed to subscription stuff. I was able to toss together a small town map very quickly though. Their brushes for dirt roads were also wonderful. I think the fact that all their assets are licensed makes it a big draw for people wanting to publish maps in games and modules, and I don't really care about that.
For world maps, like globes, I've heard good things about Fractal Terrains. Haven't messed with it or ProFantasy's other products but I haven't heard anything negative.
I was going to pimp Dunjinni for their community and assets, but it looks like they shit themselves a few months ago. Which isn't a big surprise, I remember I was going to buy a license a couple years ago to try them out and discovered that their storefront wasn't working.
I've heard good buzz about MapForge but that ... I think it was subscription? I checked it out and thought it was kinda cool and passed, I don't remember why.
I've also got a Dungeon Designer 3 license from a humble bundle I've never used because of the bullshit redemption process. If no one else can provide input and folks are curious I can probably get assed to install it and give my impressions.
The big thing I have learned is that unless you are doing truly high-speed shit, the software doesn't matter too much as long as it supports layers and ability to right-size imports. (A blend tool also helps). Everything else is getting comfortable and using it.
Thank you, and I am mostly looking for town maps, for encounter maps dungeon painter studio can get the job done, what I find irritating is the lack of tiles and assets which sure you can import but packs on the steam workshop are few and I can never seem to find something close to what I need. I think the forums had a post with all sorts of assets packs but that was for the online version, not to mention the forums were removed after the steam version released.
I think I'll suck it up, hunt down individual asset and make my own packs and if I am still not satisfied I'll try out wonderdraft. Speaking of, i see the same company put out dungeon draft which is more for dungeon and cave maps?
Thank you, and I am mostly looking for town maps, for encounter maps dungeon painter studio can get the job done, what I find irritating is the lack of tiles and assets which sure you can import but packs on the steam workshop are few and I can never seem to find something close to what I need. I think the forums had a post with all sorts of assets packs but that was for the online version, not to mention the forums were removed after the steam version released.
I think I'll suck it up, hunt down individual asset and make my own packs and if I am still not satisfied I'll try out wonderdraft. Speaking of, i see the same company put out dungeon draft which is more for dungeon and cave maps?
Yeah DungeonDraft is more for encounter maps, though you can make some town/region maps if you can grab Tom Cartos's DD assets. He made some nice town asset packs awhile back but you'll need to sub to his Patreon to get access. Beware that if you grab his comprehensive pack, it's like a good 3GB worth of assets. It's also easy to find free asset packs since a lot of people have picked up this software. DD does take awhile to boot up if you add too many asset packs.
Wonderdraft is pretty good, but I would say it depends on what asset packs you can get ahold of. Caeora makes some really nice ones. Worst case scenario, Photoshop and some free assets can also do the trick.
Thank you, and I am mostly looking for town maps, for encounter maps dungeon painter studio can get the job done, what I find irritating is the lack of tiles and assets which sure you can import but packs on the steam workshop are few and I can never seem to find something close to what I need. I think the forums had a post with all sorts of assets packs but that was for the online version, not to mention the forums were removed after the steam version released.
I think I'll suck it up, hunt down individual asset and make my own packs and if I am still not satisfied I'll try out wonderdraft. Speaking of, i see the same company put out dungeon draft which is more for dungeon and cave maps?
Yeah DungeonDraft is more for encounter maps, though you can make some town/region maps if you can grab Tom Cartos's DD assets. He made some nice town asset packs awhile back but you'll need to sub to his Patreon to get access. Beware that if you grab his comprehensive pack, it's like a good 3GB worth of assets. It's also easy to find free asset packs since a lot of people have picked up this software. DD does take awhile to boot up if you add too many asset packs.
Wonderdraft is pretty good, but I would say it depends on what asset packs you can get ahold of. Caeora makes some really nice ones. Worst case scenario, Photoshop and some free assets can also do the trick.
+1 for Tom Cartos' assets. He has a free town/urban asset pack, and I THINK its included in WonderDraft (that or it had Wonderdraft support .... look, I got it in my wonder draft install)
Chatting with one of the guys in my group last night, he had just about the best description of Critical Role I've ever heard: Critical Role is to actual RPG sessions what Top Gear/Grand Tour specials are to road trips. Exaggerated, scripted, and entirely designed to entertain an audience even if it's at the expense of the participants.
That's actually a very apt metaphor - if you've got people who watched Top Gear and decided they wanted to do a road trip with you based solely on watching Top Gear, no one is going have a good time.
"Why is everyone pissed that I filled the car with water? This is a road trip isn't it? Why is this taking longer than an hour?"
In the RPG scene and era that I started playing in, this kind of stuff was often derisively referred to as "Pigfarming".
Pigfarming, as a style, is all about being the polar opposite of epic high fantasy. Low fantasy, low magic, realistic career building campaigns. "Grind & Slog" instead "Hack & Slash" if you will. A "pigfarmer" could either be a GM that rans these types of campaigns or the typical low-powered character that you'd play in them.
Do you guys use any mapmaking software for your campaigns? I have been using dungeon painter studio for years, but as of late I feel it is really limiting so I have been looking at alternatives.
After many years I decided to give inkarnate another go: it is browser based and honestly not bad for regional or world maps, but they started selling subscriptions and now got even less objects/tiles available for free than they did before.
Wonder draft seems like a more advanced Dungeon painter studio, but I have yet to try it (license costs 20 dollars and i am not sure if they got a demo)
Lastly I tried to simply draw on sai2 with my tablet but I wasn't too satisfied with the results
For battle maps, I'm mostly a hideous monster and just find ones that fit my purpose and then just upload them. For custom stuff I usually just use the inbuilt stuff from Roll20. I also do like using dungeon generators from time to time.
World maps vary. I used to make them myself in MSPaint using the TACOS scheme from alternatehistory. But nowadays it varies on the setting. I can and do literally use Google maps.
Do not emulate my map making if you like making them.
Changing subjects, can someone give me a basic run down of the mechanics for B/X? I know it's basically a new take on the first edition of D&D, but I've only flipped through these books once and it was close to 20 years ago. What's the core mechanic there? Are there as many tables as I remember there being? I know that race and class were actually the same thing, so you were an elf or a fighter, not both, but I don't remember anything of the system itself and I can't get the books right now.
Changing subjects, can someone give me a basic run down of the mechanics for B/X? I know it's basically a new take on the first edition of D&D, but I've only flipped through these books once and it was close to 20 years ago. What's the core mechanic there? Are there as many tables as I remember there being? I know that race and class were actually the same thing, so you were an elf or a fighter, not both, but I don't remember anything of the system itself and I can't get the books right now.
Do you guys use any mapmaking software for your campaigns? I have been using dungeon painter studio for years, but as of late I feel it is really limiting so I have been looking at alternatives.
After many years I decided to give inkarnate another go: it is browser based and honestly not bad for regional or world maps, but they started selling subscriptions and now got even less objects/tiles available for free than they did before.
Wonder draft seems like a more advanced Dungeon painter studio, but I have yet to try it (license costs 20 dollars and i am not sure if they got a demo)
Lastly I tried to simply draw on sai2 with my tablet but I wasn't too satisfied with the results
So I was up until 3 AM reading this, and I always wake up early because I'm the liaison with some offices in Europe in Asia. This is going to be an extra-coffee day.
It was an interesting read, though. Seeing all those mechanical elements that got dropped or iterated through the years until we got to 5e was quite interesting. Elves having built-in level adjustment was also neat. The system still feels a little simplistic to me, but I really like that it's not shy about allowing players to hire help. Spellcasters being unable to move, having to declare their spells ahead of time, and being easy to interrupt, though? I really like that one. Makes casting a spell a much more tactical and risky maneuver.
So I was up until 3 AM reading this, and I have always wake up early because I'm the liaison with some offices in Europe in Asia. This is going to be an extra-coffee day.
It was an interesting read, though. Seeing all those mechanical elements that got dropped or iterated through the years until we got to 5e was quite interesting. Elves having built-in level adjustment was also neat. The system still feels a little simplistic to me, but I really like that it's not shy about allowing players to hire help. Spellcasters being unable to move, having to declare their spells ahead of time, and being easy to interrupt, though? I really like that one. Makes casting a spell a much more tactical and risky maneuver.
Plus those Caster-tier Hit Dice, and no cleric prayers until 2nd level. And casters taking the most XP to level.
Don't forget that B/X were the first two books. Basic was Level 1-3, E(X)pert was 4 to level cap, but most just merge them. After that, you were supposed to move onto the next book, Companions (Which is why everyone gets a fucking Keep or equvialent) where adventures were to have the party + thier hangers-on in small scale war to take you to level 25. To be followed with Masters, where you have become a hero like Cuchulainn and get to level 36, and finally Immortals where the players were to have ascended to literal godhood.
Spellcasters being unable to move, having to declare their spells ahead of time, and being easy to interrupt, though? I really like that one. Makes casting a spell a much more tactical and risky maneuver.
You know, one of those annoying fads that I associate with 5ed D&D is the "pet adventures" campaign style, where you play as different dog and cat breeds but with the standard classes.
You know, one of those annoying fads that I associate with 5ed D&D is the "pet adventures" campaign style, where you play as different dog and cat breeds but with the standard classes.
Never heard of that one before. That's advanced autism right there. Either closeted furries or r/childfree regulars who are totally fine with being genetic dead-ends.
You know, one of those annoying fads that I associate with 5ed D&D is the "pet adventures" campaign style, where you play as different dog and cat breeds but with the standard classes.
Depends. I know there's something like that with Call of Catthulu, but that one is designed more to be a shitpost about why cats act like they see ghosts and shit and run around randomly.
Maybe some really big autist saw that game and thought "yeah this will work".
You know, one of those annoying fads that I associate with 5ed D&D is the "pet adventures" campaign style, where you play as different dog and cat breeds but with the standard classes.
You know, one of those annoying fads that I associate with 5ed D&D is the "pet adventures" campaign style, where you play as different dog and cat breeds but with the standard classes.
Fucking Crittercal Role fans trying to roll up freakshit in my Incredible Journey campaign, wtf is wrong with playing a cat or dog instead of having to be a special snowflake?
oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com
