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

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

If I was GM, I would pat you on the back for your resourcefulness, ingenuity, and brazen, brass, balls. I'd also be laughing my butt off.

 

[Adamska]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

That's his damn fault for not having more things to do or just rolling with it. I'd have applauded and had you guys try and teach the sewer goblins how not to be sewer goblins if you didn't want them to do sewer goblin things most likely given you stumbled onto Kingdom Building by accident.

Also I'm getting a nice runthrough of some pretty terrible hottakes from a Superhero RPG made by the guy who made Big Eyes, Small Mouth. I think the winner is magical arab land that is not xenophobic and closed off refusing to send aid to stop the coof or Floyd dying from OD neck stomping time. Yes, that's a thing and my brain hurts.

 

[Naitsirhc Rodriguez]

Apologies if this has been asked recently but how have people here found new groups to play with? My tabletop experience basically crashed with the rona with most of my old group either moving or giving up on the hobby altogether, my old DM for example joined the Navy and is now in some submarine last I checked. I'm loath to use online playerbases like Rolld20 cause in my experience those places are filled with the dangerhairs and loonies too bizarre and autistic to play with a group IRL. Should I bite the bullet and play online or do you guys have any advice for finding players/groups in real life?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Some minor 6e leaks:
In 6E the role of Dungeon Master will be broken down into separate components enabling multiple people to engage in non-player activities. There will be a Dungeon Project Manager (DPM), a Dungeon Technician (DT), and a Dungeon Operations Executive (DOE).

The DPM is responsible for sourcing all assets, enemies, dungeons and setting materials for each session. These responsibilities will be carried out across a variety of digital and physical media, so a focus on game knowledge is crucial for this role. Whether the DPM creates any of these assets themself is entirely up to their discretion. With a divided DM workload, such a task has never been easier. However, given the massive amount of pre-constructed assets available for free (or for purchase), it may not even be necessary.

The DT is a simpler, foot-in-the-door sort of role for Dungeon Leadership. As DT, your primary responsibility will be to playtest and organize. Ensuring sessions occur regularly and on schedule without ruffling too many feathers is a delicate matter. Playtesting each session in mockups with the Player's character sheets will ensure the DPM has done their job appropriately. Key insights from this phase of Dungeon Production should determine the following: Did each Player Character get a Moment to Shine (MtS)? Did the skill checks/challenges provide an appropriate balance of tension and success? Will each player have roughly the same amount of speaking time over the course of the session? Lastly, were the rewards satisfying without causing balance issues? Compile notes and refer back to the DPM with any urgent issues or Dungeon Change Requests.

The DOE is sort of like the DM of olde, but without all that tedious prep and design work. Here you can focus on being a performer. Master of a thousand characters, both big and small. Instead of worrying about the intricacies of yet another dungeon crawl, dedicate that time to voice work and immersive characters to really make the session come alive. Immersion is your focus, and snacks are your secretary. If the DPM and DT have done their work correctly there will be few if any curve balls thrown your way. Instead of leaving a session up to the dice, you can finally invest yourself in the games plot without fear of abrupt changes.

That sounds insanely complicated and pointless since you still have one dude organizing all this shit because letting any of the players in will spoil any surprise.
It wouldn't surprise me that this is what Critical Roll does and WotC thinks that's a reasonable demand for normal people.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

That sounds insanely complicated and pointless since you still have one dude organizing all this shit because letting any of the players in will spoil any surprise.
It wouldn't surprise me that this is what Critical Roll does and WotC thinks that's a reasonable demand for normal people.

I've heard of duel GM setups before; one running the crunch and the numbers, the other handling the actual storytelling. Having a third just seems like overkill.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I've heard of duel GM setups before; one running the crunch and the numbers, the other handling the actual storytelling. Having a third just seems like overkill.

But what does the first one do during actual gameplay? He already knows possible encounters so it would be hard to let him in without accidental spoilers.
Why not have an online calculator of battle toughness with modifiers to balance it out?

 

[Corn Flakes]

That was just satire, guys. If anything Wizards wants to make the game fully GM-less. A multiplayer choose-your-own adventure without any need for arbitration or creativity, so the players must always buy the next book in order to have any content.

As for dual GMs, that's what my GM and I do for demo games at cons or stores: the GM handles the game, I help players with any rules questions and having their combat actions prepared for when it's their turn so the game doesn't have to stop every round so Jimmy the Barbarian can go "umm... aaah... I, um... okay, I hit him with my axe!".

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

But what does the first one do during actual gameplay? He already knows possible encounters so it would be hard to let him in without accidental spoilers.
Why not have an online calculator of battle toughness with modifiers to balance it out?

The first GM is the one rolling all the dice totals and modifiers, and handling the rolls for NPCs, enemies, incidental situations, etc., and are the ones that tell the players what to role. They are also the "rules" GM whose probably sitting with a big book/PDF in front of him, so any rules questions, conflicts, or situations where something esoteric comes up will be handled by him. The second GM controls the actual flow of game, the story, NPC dialogue, descriptions of rooms and items, etc. Its a setup that allows a more experienced GM to handle the crunch for a less experienced GM who may not be used to it or know the rules inside and out, or may just be used in a situation where a GM just wants to tell a certain story or weave an adventure, but doesn't care about the minutiae or crunch to learn the system inside and out, so someone handles it for them.

That was just satire, guys. If anything Wizards wants to make the game fully GM-less.

Such games do in fact already exist. Battletech tried something like this as an alternative to the actual official roleplaying game.

 

[Corn Flakes]

The first GM is the one rolling all the dice totals and modifiers, and handling the rolls for NPCs, enemies, incidental situations, etc., and are the ones that tell the players what to role. They are also the "rules" GM whose probably sitting with a big book/PDF in front of him, so any rules questions, conflicts, or situations where something esoteric comes up will be handled by him. The second GM controls the actual flow of game, the story, NPC dialogue, descriptions of rooms and items, etc. Its a setup that allows a more experienced GM to handle the crunch for a less experienced GM who may not be used to it or know the rules inside and out, or may just be used in a situation where a GM just wants to tell a certain story or weave an adventure, but doesn't care about the minutiae or crunch to learn the system inside and out, so someone handles it for them.

In fairness, that's less a feature of any given system and more a set up to help teach new people. It's a good trick, although it might be a little difficult to get GMs trained in that style to grasp the interaction between roleplay and crunch once they start flying solo.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The first GM is the one rolling all the dice totals and modifiers, and handling the rolls for NPCs, enemies, incidental situations, etc., and are the ones that tell the players what to role. They are also the "rules" GM whose probably sitting with a big book/PDF in front of him, so any rules questions, conflicts, or situations where something esoteric comes up will be handled by him. The second GM controls the actual flow of game, the story, NPC dialogue, descriptions of rooms and items, etc. Its a setup that allows a more experienced GM to handle the crunch for a less experienced GM who may not be used to it or know the rules inside and out, or may just be used in a situation where a GM just wants to tell a certain story or weave an adventure, but doesn't care about the minutiae or crunch to learn the system inside and out, so someone handles it for them.

But once again, what kind of mega autist would take the role of sitting on the side waiting for shit to happen (which, depending on the game, might be never)? It makes sense for Critical Roll to do it since they pay the guy a wage, but in ordinary groups it's basically volunteering to do the accounting for everyone.
But even if you had this guy with you, the chance for bad communication to fuck everything up is extremely high. For example, the encounter GM is thinking about Dark Souls while the narrative GM is thinking of MCU.

 

[BlazikenLover]

Some minor 6e leaks:
In 6E the role of Dungeon Master will be broken down into separate components enabling multiple people to engage in non-player activities. There will be a Dungeon Project Manager (DPM), a Dungeon Technician (DT), and a Dungeon Operations Executive (DOE).

The DPM is responsible for sourcing all assets, enemies, dungeons and setting materials for each session. These responsibilities will be carried out across a variety of digital and physical media, so a focus on game knowledge is crucial for this role. Whether the DPM creates any of these assets themself is entirely up to their discretion. With a divided DM workload, such a task has never been easier. However, given the massive amount of pre-constructed assets available for free (or for purchase), it may not even be necessary.

The DT is a simpler, foot-in-the-door sort of role for Dungeon Leadership. As DT, your primary responsibility will be to playtest and organize. Ensuring sessions occur regularly and on schedule without ruffling too many feathers is a delicate matter. Playtesting each session in mockups with the Player's character sheets will ensure the DPM has done their job appropriately. Key insights from this phase of Dungeon Production should determine the following: Did each Player Character get a Moment to Shine (MtS)? Did the skill checks/challenges provide an appropriate balance of tension and success? Will each player have roughly the same amount of speaking time over the course of the session? Lastly, were the rewards satisfying without causing balance issues? Compile notes and refer back to the DPM with any urgent issues or Dungeon Change Requests.

The DOE is sort of like the DM of olde, but without all that tedious prep and design work. Here you can focus on being a performer. Master of a thousand characters, both big and small. Instead of worrying about the intricacies of yet another dungeon crawl, dedicate that time to voice work and immersive characters to really make the session come alive. Immersion is your focus, and snacks are your secretary. If the DPM and DT have done their work correctly there will be few if any curve balls thrown your way. Instead of leaving a session up to the dice, you can finally invest yourself in the games plot without fear of abrupt changes.

I hate how close this sounds to software development and as someone else said, wouldn't surprise me if this is how critical role works, which would make sense since it's a business and the sessions are scripted.
Honestly, I believe that if the casual/normalfag money doesn't dry up by the time they release a new edition they will go more rules lite or freeform.

 

[ReturnedHermit]

I hate how close this sounds to software development and as someone else said, wouldn't surprise me if this is how critical role works, which would make sense since it's a business and the sessions are scripted.

Remember: players are stakeholders
All jokes aside, I'm sure CR works like any other tv show and should be treated as such.
People have a very linear analysis when it comes to Wizards' intentions for the game in future editions. Sure, it may become simpler, but finding ways to sell books to people who won't even show up to sessions will make $, and that's what counts at the end of the day. It started with Player's Handbook + Dungeon Master's Guide, why not add more "required" books? You mentioned software development, I consider the future of D&D to be something like Adobe software licensing.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

But once again, what kind of mega autist would take the role of sitting on the side waiting for shit to happen (which, depending on the game, might be never)? It makes sense for Critical Roll to do it since they pay the guy a wage, but in ordinary groups it's basically volunteering to do the accounting for everyone.

You'd be surprised. Some guys really like crunching numbers.

But even if you had this guy with you, the chance for bad communication to fuck everything up is extremely high. For example, the encounter GM is thinking about Dark Souls while the narrative GM is thinking of MCU.

Like in all things, communication is integral to this type of setup, but that's the case with tabletop roleplay in general; even in a game with one GM and two players, the GM and the players need to be on the same page about what type of game their playing, whether they are playing a Sci-Fi horror in the vein of the first "Alien" movie, or a run and gun action story in the vein of the second "Aliens" film. If you have good GMs that communicate their intentions well, this should never be a problem. If either one of them doesn't, well, it was probably not going to be a very good game even with one GM.

In fairness, that's less a feature of any given system and more a set up to help teach new people. It's a good trick, although it might be a little difficult to get GMs trained in that style to grasp the interaction between roleplay and crunch once they start flying solo.

I've also heard it used in situations where you have a GM who just really doesn't care to actually deal with the system itself and wants someone else to handle it so they can focus on the roleplaying aspect. Just depends on the situation what the GM wants in game and what he's willing to handle.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

That's fantastic, say hi to Meepo for me

 

[The Ancestor]

Has anyone tried the Witcher tabletop? I’m really into cyberpunk red but I’m wondering if it’d be easier to get friends into that one. We’re all new to tabletop but I have more friends who played Witcher than liked 2077.

 

[Fictional Character]

That's his damn fault for not having more things to do or just rolling with it. I'd have applauded and had you guys try and teach the sewer goblins how not to be sewer goblins if you didn't want them to do sewer goblin things most likely given you stumbled onto Kingdom Building by accident.

Also I'm getting a nice runthrough of some pretty terrible hottakes from a Superhero RPG made by the guy who made Big Eyes, Small Mouth. I think the winner is magical arab land that is not xenophobic and closed off refusing to send aid to stop the coof or Floyd dying from OD neck stomping time. Yes, that's a thing and my brain hurts.

What Superhero RPG is that? Asking for a friend. (And also for myself.)

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Has anyone tried the Witcher tabletop? I’m really into cyberpunk red but I’m wondering if it’d be easier to get friends into that one. We’re all new to tabletop but I have more friends who played Witcher than liked 2077.

No, but I've read some of the sourcebook via PDF.

 

[Coelacanth]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

I would've been laughing my ass off if I were your GM. I get that there's a lot of prep involved when making dungeons but what's wrong with simply taking the dungeon and using it for a different part of a campaign? I'd simply recycle bits and floor plans from the skipped parts to cut out a decent chunk of work I'd have to do in the future.

 

[EnemyStand]

Made a DM ragequit today. It was my second time playing a barbarian in 5e and we’re playing Sunless Citadel. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to be run but basically we met a bunch of Kobolds who ask us to help them get a baby dragon back for them that some goblin’s stole. So we go after the goblins and after impaling one on my sword we intimidate them into taking us to their leader, a hobgoblin on a throne in a room with a big pit. We try to negotiate but he wants money, so I throw him into the pit without warning. He falls 80ft and dies. His guards attack me and they all also get tossed down the pit. This continues until the goblin’s give up. However each goblin that doesn’t answer me how I want them to or so much as looks at me wrong also gets chucked in the pit until all that’s left are subservient goblins. I am now the goblin king and we take the dragon back to the kobolds and forcefully broker peace between the kobolds and goblins under threat of chucking more things down the pit. By doing this we skipped 80% of the dungeon apparently. DM was literally losing his shit.

Geez, what a baby. You'd think it was the first time the PCs took things off the rails. Doesn't matter what system it is, players have this wonderfully annoying habit of fucking up things in the ONE way you didn't prepare for. It's a bloody sixth sense. You either learn to improvise or you stop GMing, that simple.