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

[40 Year Old Boomer]

It's been more or less said multiple times, but evil characters require a lot more nuance than goods or neutrals. Do enough good that it furthers your ends while also making yourself popular and likable enough to draw suspicion away. There's a big difference between Killmore Bloodmaw geeking the local lordling and seizing control vs Swordo McJolly spending the previous six levels helping out the locals before exposing the local lord and his retainers as infernalists led astray and into sin by the court wizard who turned out to be a demon summoning necromancer, he has all the evidence right here and why would he lie when he stopped the dryads from attacking our woodcutters and he won the pie eating contest at the harvest festival and we shared so many pints?

 

[Adamska]

Honestly just sounds like you guys don't like playing evil in general given how many caveats you guys keep adding on and panicking over group dynamics in general.

It's cool; my hang-up is you won't catch me dead playing Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance setting games most likely; I didn't like the former due to shoving itself down my throat in DM's Guide, and the latter is due to the dumb quirks in setting.. Different strokes and all that jazz.

 

[Meat Target]

It's been more or less said multiple times, but evil characters require a lot more nuance than goods or neutrals. Do enough good that it furthers your ends while also making yourself popular and likable enough to draw suspicion away. There's a big difference between Killmore Bloodmaw geeking the local lordling and seizing control vs Swordo McJolly spending the previous six levels helping out the locals before exposing the local lord and his retainers as infernalists led astray and into sin by the court wizard who turned out to be a demon summoning necromancer, he has all the evidence right here and why would he lie when he stopped the dryads from attacking our woodcutters and he won the pie eating contest at the harvest festival and we shared so many pints?

Honestly just sounds like you guys don't like playing evil in general given how many caveats you guys keep adding on and panicking over group dynamics in general.

It's cool; my hang-up is you won't catch me dead playing Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance setting games most likely; I didn't like the former due to shoving itself down my throat in DM's Guide, and the latter is due to the dumb quirks in setting.. Different strokes and all that jazz.

Our group always plays cartoonishly evil characters. We would get kicked out of a game parlor for the horrible shit we do in campaigns.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Its also got... the Intra-party conflict problem. Intra-party conflict can be lots of fun, hidden traitors, trading barbs, setting each other up, dicking each other over just because, etc. If you have the right people doing it, its great.
But all it takes is one person taking the wrong thing the wrong way, and now in-game conflict is real-world slap fights and arguments and the party collapsing. So its just not worth the risk or the head ache.

I mean the easiest way to avoid that problem that I've seen implemented is that dicking over someone in the group is a no-no, but anybody outside the group is fair game. You may chide, shit talk and jostle each other, but when push comes to shove, you have each other's backs, and you won't stab each other in those backs.

 

[Fictional Character]

The average party is ostensibly good or neutral aligned and they're already murderhobos.

I really like the bit about alignment in one of manuals for the old Wizardry games that roughly goes: Good character helps an old lady cross the road. Neutral character helps an old lady cross the road if he's going the same way. Evil character helps an old lady cross the road if he's getting paid for it. The evil they all fight against helps an old lady halfway across the road.

 

[Brain Problems]

>be playing the curse of strahd campaign (I know, I know) with group of friends
>a bit of homebrew mixed in
>we're level 3, still in the starting village
>shady old woman going around selling meat pastries
>as a lawful good monk I find that suspicious and try to intervene
>it's actually a night hag
>me and another player are teleported to the night hag coven
>two other night hags
>ffffffffuuuuuuu
>with a bit of luck (and the DM okaying our inventive attempts at escape) we manage to get out

it were human flesh pastries, I was right in the end tho.

How is CoS anyway? A friend is saying he will be joining a session of it in the coming days and I've always wanted to get a taste of it but my utter contempt for Wizards and their ability to handle Ravenloft without fucking it up has me worried for his mental safety.

 

[DJ Grelle]

How is CoS anyway? A friend is saying he will be joining a session of it in the coming days and I've always wanted to get a taste of it but my utter contempt for Wizards and their ability to handle Ravenloft without fucking it up has me worried for his mental safety.

We're not yet very far (Due to a homebrew prologue that was planned to take a single session but took three) but so far I like it.
It's less sword and sorcery and more dark gothic horror. Think vampires and graveyards with a medieval gothic window. Transilvania, not western knights& castles.

 

[JektheDumbass]

So I'm going to be running Shadowrun 6e soon. Anything I should know beforehand? Right now I'm just using the core rules for ease of learning.

 

[EnemyStand]

So I'm going to be running Shadowrun 6e soon. Anything I should know beforehand? Right now I'm just using the core rules for ease of learning.

Lore wise or mechanics wise? That's a broad question, so boiling it down would be helpful.

 

[JektheDumbass]

Mechanics wise. I fully intend to wing it when it comes to lore, but mechanical knowledge is harder to fake.

Edit: to narrow it down, I guess good rules of thumb for setting number for of hits when the players try something not covered in the rules, things that the mechanics are awkward in resolving where it's not obvious beforehand. Also any pre-published modules for beginners?

 

[Ghostse]

Honestly just sounds like you guys don't like playing evil in general given how many caveats you guys keep adding on and panicking over group dynamics in general.

From my couple of times running (or more accurately, starting to run) Evil, you somewhat ironically need a group where everyone trusts everyone else. I think if took players from the groups I've played with I could build a party that would work (As in, players who'd have right personality and also want to play an evil campaign), but every group I've DM'ed there's minimum one player who would either not want to play evil or shit it up - either going full guroedge lord or just being a random murdercheese sociopath.
So I don't like playing evil games enough to just implode a group. If you've got a group you can do that sort of thing with, I can see that changing the calculus.

And Dragonlance is where the Kinder menace originates, that's an automatic no-go.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

but every group I've DM'ed there's minimum one player who would shit it up - either going full guroedge lord or just being a random murdercheese sociopath.

I think you just need better friends. Back in college, I ran with guys I knew wouldn't do shit like that, and even years later, when we started running games again, I knew they would be good for it and wouldn't give any game those kinds of problems.

 

[EnemyStand]

Mechanics wise.

I do 5e but I'll try to give some general tips.
-Learn magic and Matrix rules like you're an autist. It's the hardest part of the game so learning it will make your life easier.
-Use the Rule of 12 when statting combat. Random Security Guard #5 doesn't need a whole stat block. Just make him good at what he's good at.
-Vehicle stats on the other hand are extremely important.
-Learn to improvise. The runners will ALWAYS attack the problem in the ONE way you didn't plan for.
-Print maps and mark the locations of cameras and stuff on them. It'll maker your life easier even if it's a theater of the mind set up.
-NPCs should be somewhat memorable if the runners are meant to interact with them a lot. Pick one or two quirks.
-Make sure your runners actually use their contacts, and have their contacts use them. Great plot hooks.
-Most importantly, this is not D&D. Fighting is best used as a last resort or in the Sprawl somewhere. Plan the game like a puzzle the characters have to solve, and don't put in stuff they can't handle (i.e. If there's no mage don't drop in a bunch of magical security or if there's no hacker don't assign datasteals).

I fully intend to wing it when it comes to lore, but mechanical knowledge is harder to fake.

Okay, hopefully all your players are new because Shadowrun lore autists are obnoxious as hell. Trust me on it.

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot. Going along with the "It's not D&D" point, runners may have very good reasons for refusing a job. Have a couple missions ready to go, or go full expert mode and just start pasting new names on the only job you did make. For example, earlier in the thread I mentioned my group was given a job to steal a flatvid that may or may not have a blood magic ritual on it. The client's some weeb but it would also make sense if the client was from Aztechnology, the Atlantean Foundation, or even the Draco Foundation.

 

[JektheDumbass]

Okay, hopefully all your players are new because Shadowrun lore autists are obnoxious as hell. Trust me on it.

Yeah, we're all new. Also all tabletop lore autists are obnoxious as hell to be fair. In a different group it took me like 15 minutes to convince someone that a Trudvang dark elf (Korpikalli) has nothing to do with a d&d dark elf (drow). I still don't think he was convinced, I think he just stopped talking (my autism is superior it would seem).

 

[EnemyStand]

Yeah, we're all new. Also all tabletop lore autists are obnoxious as hell to be fair. In a different group it took me like 15 minutes to convince someone that a Trudvang dark elf (Korpikalli) has nothing to do with a d&d dark elf (drow). I still don't think he was convinced, I think he just stopped talking (my autism is superior it would seem).

Ha! What a noob. Everyone knows drow are totally different than the Norse idea of Dark Elves! He must be a real loser. Hahahaha...

 

[Snekposter]

Honestly? Vigil will almost certainly get a splat that does all of these things, even if Deviants does kind of shit. The reason there's so many Hunter Organizations is because of new splats or series that merit it. Cheiron Group for example probably would get pretty hard into them for example since it's literally what they do. Find monsters and mangle them for profit via the research.

Oh, I know about Cheiron, but the overall power level there is a bit below something like Deviant, IIRC. Big guns and body armor go a long way, but IIRC Deviant lets the player go even bigger thanks to superpowers. Its kinda like how yeah, you can run around with .45's and stuff no problem in CP2020, but you only get to properly use the really nice stuff like .300 Winchester Magnum battle rifles and 15mm AT rifles if you borg out.

I very much am reminded of the time I played in an all evil game and the campaign ended effectively because we killed a merchant a few sessions in. My memory of it is shaky, but what I do recall is that the DM expected us to let him live. I believe he had an item we were required to grab; there was some reason that was above "lolrandom" we attacked him. I don't remember the event since it was minor, but it was us just casually disposing of him that made him realize he didn't want to run an evil game.

I mean, fair enough on that remark. Was a bit of a letdown though since I barely got to use my thief mugger. One of these days I should probably knuckle down and play Rogue or Bard again when we get back into the DnD or Pathfinder 1.0; I always have fun with those.

Honestly, anti-hero or otherwise "gray" games where the party has defined objectives but leeway to do dubious things in pursuit of them can work just fine as far as evil goes. I've got a character close to that thief/mugger archetype in a game that's been on hold thanks to COVID, and one of things I want to do with him is bust a guy out of prison who was arrested in connection with a plot to nuke a major city. I mean, yes, he's undeniably guilty, but he was duped into it by an evil sorcerer and he's a friend of a friend. What's going to be really fun is that he's going to be getting the VIP treatment during transportation due to being a 200+ year old elvish kung fu master, so the party will likely have to take down some borged-up C-SWAT on prisoner duty.

On an unrelated note God, I love urban fantasy for how utterly ridiculous yet manageable things can get with a good GM.

 

[Coelacanth]

I've plucked up the courage to take part in a one-shot session next week. It's taken a couple of years, but I feel that it's time for me to try my hand at ttrpgs again.

 

[Lonestar]

I've plucked up the courage to take part in a one-shot session next week. It's taken a couple of years, but I feel that it's time for me to try my hand at ttrpgs again.

Hope it goes well, I'm in a similar boat as I haven't really played for years and the friend I plan to play with has no experience at all. Hopefully it goes well, I think she wanted to play D&D both to try it for the first time and to hang out as she recommended her place rather than the park we usually go to for hiking.

Also does anyone have any recommendations or things to watch out for with two player D&D?

 

[Neo-Holstien]

Hope it goes well, I'm in a similar boat as I haven't really played for years and the friend I plan to play with has no experience at all. Hopefully it goes well, I think she wanted to play D&D both to try it for the first time and to hang out as she recommended her place rather than the park we usually go to for hiking.

Also does anyone have any recommendations or things to watch out for with two player D&D?

Two player DnD's are something I have some experiences with, like all pen and paper games they are made and broken by your players I have a few examples and the lessons I gleamed from them (you may read the situations differently)

A more dialogue based Champaign

Spoiler: Example 1: sophistry

In this DnD I DMed for my brother and a friend, they had a duo worked out, my brother was a silver tongued Sophist who would lie and cheat people, and the friend was his dumb as bricks bodyguard. I tend to have a open world approach to DnD, drop them in and have an emergent story form from their actions, in this example my brother got out of a fire early on by lying to the public, this caused a number of deaths leading to a trial, the conflicts should always play to their strengths and skills after all. To add to the comedy I structured it like a Chevy Chase film where every situation is a result of the previous resolution; to escape a fire he tricks people into taking dangerous actions to better his chance of survival, they are put on trail for the mal effects of this action, the lord of the city pardons them if they join his court as a specialist in a field neither of them have any experience or knowledge, etc. The success of this format is reliant on the ability of you two to bounce off each other in humorous ways, thus if you want to go this route, you should think about who she is and what her thought process is.

A mechanical based Champaign

Spoiler: Example 2: Galactic Ace

When my brother and I were in middle school, he DMed a game where I was the Commander of a wing of space pilots, and the Champaign was sequence of interesting combat scenarios similar to the Ace Combat series, but perhaps this is not the right choice given the circumstance. Unless she is really into game mechanics this may well be to autistic.

A drama based Champaign

Spoiler: Example 3: Le Chevalier de Burgundy

A different friend of mine wanted to write a short story and wanted the main character to seem natural, so a long dramatic plot filled with romance, betrayal, friendship, and gallantry was played out. This one defiantly requires a mountain of time and sweat, but if you can get her hooked, this is probably the most effective way to get some one to enjoy a game of DnD. Motivation and a color cast are well beyond my ability so newbies beware, this is not for the imaginarily impaired

I am sure you have something in your head, but the most important thing is to make sure she is at least engaged with the story and having fun.

 

[Lonestar]

I am sure you have something in your head, but the most important thing is to make sure she is at least engaged with the story and having fun.

I'm aiming for a mixture of your first and second example, more open ended with relying on the characters finding themselves in a scenario and figuring out what to do, although my idea for the first session had much less of the first one. The main idea is

Spoiler

The two start in a more frontier outpost/village, has a small tavern and a smalltime supplier. The area has a small soldier camp that usually only has one or two guys but now it has many more led by some big time fag who bitches about how he's to good for the job and how he's stuck with a bunch of inept recruits.
The guy will be in the bar, head hanging and clearly troubled and hopefully it moves in the direction of talking to him. Basically a good bit of bones and meat keeps going downstream via the river some miles to farms and stuff. He has to deal with it but the scouting squads he sent to search are recruits who can't even go a few minutes without flagging each other. He'll lend three recruits with the goal of finding the source which he mentions is probably upstream, paying with coins from the recruits wages. Hopefully they hike upstream, find a bunch of bones clogging up the water near a cave and go inside. Inside are encounters with these sewn together grotesque meat monster midgets made of now rotting flesh held together by skin from various things like humans and animals. The first encounter being four of the midgets, then five (or toned down to three) with traps, then a much larger meat monster and finally some necromancer wizard guy who's extremely weak but uses a fear spell right as they enter so he can try and run out of the room (despite there being only one entrance). Most of that is to show how combat works and the nature of some creatures, as the zombie things will be attracted to the soldiers musket noises.
I fully expect a one or two of the soldiers to be dead by the end.

I can do pretty well at telling who she is and her general thought process (I think) as she's a lot like me, which is both good and bad. Good as I can guess what she might do, bad in that she's quite quiet. I'm not too worried if it veers off course since I'm pretty decent at improv, I'm more worried that she might be reluctant to speak