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

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Gnomes: Travel the seas, sailors since the gods chose where their people would dwell. Blue-Foot are ocean fleet gnomes. Green-Foot are the river gnomes. Dirt-foot are ones who live on dry land.

Halflings: They travel in massive caravans, constantly on the move. They are the primary trade consortiums out there. You have the various X-foot for each consortium, Copper-foot for those who have small little trade caravans of like 1-10 wagons, and stone-foot for those who prefer cities, towns, farms.

Kobolds are shy and reclusive. Well, there's two types. The asshole ones that scream "WE WUZ DRAGONS AND SHIT!" and burn everything, and the quiet ones who do stuff like sewer work, sweeping the streets, menial labor.

Elves and Dwarves are old friends. Other than that, except attitudes, they're pretty much the same. Wait, there's two different types: Shorties and Longshanks. The short ones are usually more friendly and travel, the Longshanks stick to their Alfhiems.

Drow are albinos.

Orcs are lawful evil, but come in 2 flavors. Crazy Orcs, those are the ones who live in the woods and kill everything, and the civilized orcs.

I've got a few other, but hey...

 

[Absolute-Despair]

Fellow GMs and DMs of Amalgamated Tolkien-inspired Gygaxian High Fantasy games everywhere...! What are some races and monsters you've put your own spins on to make them something... perhaps similar, but also their own things?

I'll offer one of my own to get things started: Kobolds! The trusty kobold has already had a couple of different forms throughout the years, but for a long time they've kind of suffered from being Notblins. Basically a goblin, just... not. Small, low-threat tribal humanoids who jump at you and fill you full of arrows and spears, maybe they have a shaman or a wizard, you know the routine. And we've already got Goblins.

So I started with the "kobolds are dragon-kin" concept that has become the norm these days. They're a created race, but created from the blood and life energy of a dragon, to serve that dragon. They didn't evolve or get created by a god. And they aren't just scaly goblins. They're long-limbed, can go on two legs or four, lean, strong, stealthy, with claws and bite attacks and a prehensile, whip-like tail. They're smart enough to use tools and speak languages, but they rarely do either... at least, not around outsiders. They can see in the dark better than almost any other race, they mostly live in caves, they can climb walls and even crawl along the ceiling, and they have elemental attacks based on the type of dragon that created them... 90% of dragons in my game are fire dragons, the other types are quite rare. So most kobolds have a molten lava bite and some of them can spit globs of magma.

The dragons can create more if they need to, but they breed on their own - most kobolds are males, and females fill a queen-like role, mostly being protected and producing more kobolds. Because they're a magically created race, they can breed without much worry about incest problems. They mature in a year, but keep getting bigger as long as they live. This means a single pregnant female kobold can replace a cleared out warren in only a few short years. Worse, from the perspective of adventurers and the everyday inhabitants of the world, they have the Jurassic Park Frog DNA issue - in the absence of any females, a male will slowly shift to female. Worse still is that when that happens, will lay a single clutch of self-fertilized eggs... Which means it doesn't even have to be a queen that survives. Merely any single kobold. If there's any upside, they're fairly short lived - male kobolds probably won't live much past twenty years, although females are another issue - like dragons, they're effectively immortal, unless killed, and like all kobolds, they keep getting bigger and stronger. This means some old kobold queens that have been alive for hundreds of years are quite smart, big enough to be mistaken for small dragons, and very much a threat in their own right if attacked.

In terms of how they fit into a fantasy ecosystem, they have a few roles. Their primary role is lair guards and general servants for dragons. They're viscous ambush predators, fairly hard to kill, are smart enough to do things like sort a dragon's treasure or guard hostages, can dig out tunnels and caves, and breed rapidly. And they are instinctively loyal to the dragon who created their bloodline - and any kobold will automatically recognize the dragon that created their bloodline. Outside of a dragon's layer, they are occasionally sent on raids to nearby settlements to steal gold and gems, ambush caravans, and all the same basic things Kobolds were used for. But more bloodthirsty and more dangerous. Because of their similar ecological niche (caves, mountains, underground areas in general) and both races being interested in the precious things found in the earth, kobolds and dwarves have a much strong animosity for each other in my world than dwarves and goblins... Dwarves are one of the few races who really understand that kobolds aren't just vicious animals, but rather very intelligent, cunning, dangerous foes.

If it isn't obvious yet, I basically turned kobolds into a high fantasy xenomorph analog.

When it comes to Trolls I like to think of them as having regeneration so great that if they do not injure themselves frequently they will eventually become an immobile cancerous mass called troll spires, which turn to rock in direct sunlight, as a result they are exceedingly aggressive and will attack nearly anything larger then themselves. They mostly reproduce sexually, but can reproduce asexually through their rapid regeneration under specific circumstances.

 

[Ghostse]

Gnomes: Travel the seas, sailors since the gods chose where their people would dwell. Blue-Foot are ocean fleet gnomes. Green-Foot are the river gnomes. Dirt-foot are ones who live on dry land.

In any sane setting, gnomes are homeless wandering travelers because any race with an INT over 2 that they come across attempts to genocide them.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Most gnolls in the world have abandoned the worship of the demon lord Yeenoghu in favor of the Unamused God of Laughter. The party encountered them once and they made mean jokes and laughed at them. The party thought they were pretty cool and the two groups just sort of parted paths. Their leader sounded like my best Gilbert Gottfried impression, which wasn't good but the joke landed.

They're still tremendously evil, they just like to mock people relentlessly before hunting them down later. The party just happened to fuck off to something more dangerous.

 

[MembersSchoolPizza]

In any sane setting, gnomes are homeless wandering travelers because any race with an INT over 2 that they come across attempts to genocide them.

In my setting, gnomes are a sort of protected... mascot or pet or something for wood elves. They see them sort of like humans view halfling. And the comparison is fairly apt... My gnomes are the classic knee-high types with long white beards and pointy hats that live in little stone houses in the woods. They're mostly homebodies, mostly want to be left alone, and for the most part can't defend themselves against anything much more dangerous than a fox or racoon. I do borrow just a little of the "tinker gnome" idea, but they aren't insane steampunk idiots, they're just really, really good at woodland camouflage, trap building, and things like that. Really, painfully good.

They're not really adventuring types, and for the most part adventurers will never interact with them, although rangers and druids may from time to time. And I usually don't bother to stat them up, because it comes up so rarely, but the ones that have any sort of skills of note would be some form of ranger, druid, bard or thief. Not illusionists, although they have a little innate illusion magic. A lot of humans consider them a myth that rangers talk about from time to time. I just happen to have a fondness for garden gnomes in real life...

Which is I guess almost the opposite of my initial thought - my gnomes are so stereotypical you could use a coffee table book about them as a reference guide, but they're mostly a background element in the game.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Fellow GMs and DMs of Amalgamated Tolkien-inspired Gygaxian High Fantasy games everywhere...! What are some races and monsters you've put your own spins on to make them something... perhaps similar, but also their own things?

My GM did something interesting with the ogres in his dark fantasy setting. They are still large and dim brutes, but instead of reproducing sexually, they dig a large pit in their lairs and throw fresh corpses of sentient beings into the pit to fester and rot. Once the pit is full enough of corpse-sludge, the ogre opens its veins and mixes some of its own blood into it. Within a day or two, the sludge coalesces into a new ogre, which then leaves to build its own den.

That aside, the ogres had some level of regeneration and could heal even lost limbs by dipping into their corpse pit. They even carried traces of whatever powers the sentients used in its making had, like minor magic abilities if enough spellcasters were thrown into the pit. The main thing is that the corpses had to be fresh. As in, still warm and full of blood. So the ogres had a habit of kidnapping people, and only then digging their holes. We had a couple one-shots where the party had to go rescue people kidnapped by an ogre before the ogre finished its pit and killed all its captives.

 

[Snekposter]

Yeah but they were capable of pumping out super weapons and sheeit on land, sea or in the air can urban orcs say the same?

I mean... technically they could pump out superweapons, yes. Less than 500 in total, though.

 

[Ghostse]

Most gnolls in the world have abandoned the worship of the demon lord Yeenoghu in favor of the Unamused God of Laughter. The party encountered them once and they made mean jokes and laughed at them. The party thought they were pretty cool and the two groups just sort of parted paths. Their leader sounded like my best Gilbert Gottfried impression, which wasn't good but the joke landed.

They're still tremendously evil, they just like to mock people relentlessly before hunting them down later. The party just happened to fuck off to something more dangerous.

If I'm doing a Gnoll-heavy setting, I usually have Yeenoghu as a twisted part Hyena/Part crow-vulture creature who rose from demonhood to something approaching godhood by eating one of the gods that fell in the Dawn War. In this expanded canon, he's more about hastening decay with the unintended consequence of bringing about rebirth.

They naturally sacrifice and eat their enemies - but they need the corpses to ripen a bit by rotting. This makes gnoll activity easy to detect. And also makes a handy excuse for the Gnolls to knock out instead of instantly killing the party in the event of a TPK; the party is strong, so they should be brought to the pack leader for HER to sacrifice and turn into rippened carrion to eat.

Gnolls usually serve as mercenaries and look for weak/decaying cities/kingdoms/civilizatiosn to topple. The Gnolls are usually all about Gnolls #1, but will work with anyone who can fight, and respect strength.

Basically the worst stories of Mongols on their worst behavior, dialed up a notch or two, and having decided that riding horses are for "pussies".

 

[Adamska]

Fellow GMs and DMs of Amalgamated Tolkien-inspired Gygaxian High Fantasy games everywhere...! What are some races and monsters you've put your own spins on to make them something... perhaps similar, but also their own things?

My take on Kobolds in the past are that they actually were once something approaching a fairly advanced and civilized race. At their peak, they were the lower nobles and masses of the Draconic Empire of old. The Dragons effectively served as the ruling or priestly caste; with each city often being ruled by only a couple of them. However, this was ages and ages ago. The Dragons were defeated by the Elves in an apocalyptic war for both of them, and they have been swept and conquered repeatedly by other races due to their body type.

Nowadays, they are petty squabbling tribes and a few petty kingdoms they still have who remember and try to draw back to the Draconic empire. They often still worship dragons, based mainly on which ones their ancestors followed. The Dragons split by color and luster during the ending stages of the war, and this sticks with their kind. Metallic Kobolds dislike Chromatics, and vice versa due to those decisions. The most organized of the lot tend to be Metallics, but again, they have to rely on engineering and tools to resist other peoples.

Culturally, they're very Iranian inspired, particularly Persian with Sarmatian tones.

In one of my earlier settings, I once made Dwarves essentially Egyptians, meaning they wuz kangz and sheeit. This also meant they were quite focused on mortuary cults, and their God of the Dead was the chief deity. They both carved out hills but also made extremely large stone cities for the time, though their time was an age past. When my party was mucking about timeline wise, they were the resentful underclass to a batch of Aasimar, Elves, and Humans that conquered them centuries ago, as the bootleg Ptolemies they were. A fading race seething with their time going by to the younger races.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Anybody else ever seen a wokeshit tabletop that didn't have normal humans as the political whipping boys?

I think you might be reading too much into it. Though I always think it's weird that black people are orcs instead of human.

If anything I notice it the other way around. Fantasy games have "stock black person" in the roster. One of the most jarring was a 1950s sci-fi RPG that had a black woman on the cover that seemed to have dropped out the 1970s. Even then, it's hard to tell what's wokeshit and what's a reference to the DnD cartoon.

 

[The Ugly One]

Just had a kind of shitty D&D experience today.

So, long story short today I took part in an adventure, against my character’s will, involving an elf player who has a long history of causing problems and then dragging others in to fix her problems while providing little to no help and no context. This particular adventure is no different.

Player is being a faggot. A PC whose entire raison d'etre is to ruin other people's fun is being run by a human being who is just being a faggot.

Turns out it’s the work of some super powerful and evil celestial bard who shows up and starts talking about how he’s going to drain our souls. So, he casts Animate Objects and suddenly the tavern which we had established prior to this session had no weapons and such hanging on the walls is practically an armory. So he surrounds himself with shields and is somehow in full cover at all times thanks to this but also able to opportunity attack anyone who attacks his shields if they try to move away implying that the full cover only exists when it benefits him.

It sounds like the DM might also be a faggot. I'm guessing this "Animate Objects" also didn't have Concentration.

The fight wears on for a while with the wizard refusing to use any useful spells, mostly just buffing herself and standing off to the side despite being higher level than the rest of us by a lot

This is what faggot players do.

. Meanwhile myself and the Paladin are having to handle the front line. What’s worse is the bard’s “Animate Objects” keeps letting him make more and more objects every single turn including at one point four suits of armor. Now, what’s worse is these suits of armor for no reason in particular were also given the Riposte ability. All this and it seems the bard has Legendary Restistance… except only when I Stunning Strike it and never when anyone else makes it do a save…

DM faggotry afoot!

So I and the Paladin start discussing what a suspicious and untrustworthy person the wizard is only to be berated by the DM out of character for our supposed witch hunt on the wizard.

Oh yes, the DM is totally being a faggot. As is the wizard player.

So what has happened here is that the DM and this player have agreed behind the scenes to have this awesome and totally rad betrayal plot. Except it's not really going very well. It's just annoying you guys and making the game unfun, and you've figured out that the wizard has some Big Secret and probably just doesn't need to be in the party. But that would ruin the DM's plan, so he's trying to force you back onto the railroad he's created.

It sounds like the problems are the DM and the wizard player, and it's best to find another group if they won't cut the faggotry. Tell them this shit isn't fun.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I've finished a one-shot. It was a hex crawl with two small dungeons so I expected it to take a couple of sessions.

It took two months.

Spoiler: How it went

As is the way with my games, recruited a full party, only two turned up on game day. I upped their level to compensate. By the end I think one of the players was just there to humour me, but the other had fun. I learned a lot.

There's a monster that the module assumes will stalk the players and is described to be a consistent threat (kind of like The Terminator), only for the PCs to take it out in straight combat their first encounter with it. I learned that high stats, legendary resistance, and a ridiculous HP pool isn't enough to make something a near unstoppable threat. In future I'll have it either be immune to damage, or killing it only puts it down temporary unless they do something special.

The module has some friendly adventurers the party can meet, and assumes the PCs will have a friendly chat and move on. In practice they asked to team up, and looking at the situation there's no reason for the NPC to say no. I had to stat them between session. I used to be against hirelings because nameless goons shouldn't be cannon fodder and NPCs should never steal the limelight from the players, but having a character or two they can leave to babysit NPCs or take care of mundane tasks while they do important things helped the game.

I don't like random encounters. Having to roll a d6 to see if something happens sounds good on paper but in practice it leads to long stretches of fuck all happening, with some of the more interesting encounters being missed. I think in future I'll use the d6 to see how many hexes until the next encounter, instead of relying on a 1 in 6. This could be a side effect of the adventures small size and some lucky rolls, but another module I want to run has important NPCs hidden behind random encounters. I'm homebrewing that out at very least.

We used the OneDnD playtest rules. I might have mentioned this before, but I think I like more than 5e. The wokeshit is bad and some of the changes are questionable, but it seemed to run well.

I'd like some advice. A player wants to use an existing character for my next campaign. I'm trying to think of a story reason to de-level him from 12 to 1. I proposed having him beaten by his backstory nemesis so bad it returns him to level 1, or having him be level drained by some monster, but we both agreed those options were a disservice to the character. He's a dragonborn fighter if that matters.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

I've finished a one-shot. It was a hex crawl with two small dungeons so I expected it to take a couple of sessions.

It took two months.

Spoiler: How it went

As is the way with my games, recruited a full party, only two turned up on game day. I upped their level to compensate. By the end I think one of the players was just there to humour me, but the other had fun. I learned a lot.

There's a monster that the module assumes will stalk the players and is described to be a consistent threat (kind of like The Terminator), only for the PCs to take it out in straight combat their first encounter with it. I learned that high stats, legendary resistance, and a ridiculous HP pool isn't enough to make something a near unstoppable threat. In future I'll have it either be immune to damage, or killing it only puts it down temporary unless they do something special.

The module has some friendly adventurers the party can meet, and assumes the PCs will have a friendly chat and move on. In practice they asked to team up, and looking at the situation there's no reason for the NPC to say no. I had to stat them between session. I used to be against hirelings because nameless goons shouldn't be cannon fodder and NPCs should never steal the limelight from the players, but having a character or two they can leave to babysit NPCs or take care of mundane tasks while they do important things helped the game.

I don't like random encounters. Having to roll a d6 to see if something happens sounds good on paper but in practice it leads to long stretches of fuck all happening, with some of the more interesting encounters being missed. I think in future I'll use the d6 to see how many hexes until the next encounter, instead of relying on a 1 in 6. This could be a side effect of the adventures small size and some lucky rolls, but another module I want to run has important NPCs hidden behind random encounters. I'm homebrewing that out at very least.

We used the OneDnD playtest rules. I might have mentioned this before, but I think I like more than 5e. The wokeshit is bad and some of the changes are questionable, but it seemed to run well.

I'd like some advice. A player wants to use an existing character for my next campaign. I'm trying to think of a story reason to de-level him from 12 to 1. I proposed having him beaten by his backstory nemesis so bad it returns him to level 1, or having him be level drained by some monster, but we both agreed those options were a disservice to the character. He's a dragonborn fighter if that matters.

Could say the character has amnesia, maybe he remembers some stuff like his adventures and what happened but its really hazy and he has to relearn how to fight. Might be kind of neat if he picked a different class this time around to represent his new adventures teaching him different things. The background nemesis or some other event could have caused it, deal with the fey, did something bad like the nameless one, drank himself into oblivion like Harry Dubois, all sorts of stuff. You don't even need to figure it out right away, really. Also you just have free adventure hooks because a memory could pop up about a thing you want the party to go do.

 

[Ghostse]

I'd like some advice. A player wants to use an existing character for my next campaign. I'm trying to think of a story reason to de-level him from 12 to 1. I proposed having him beaten by his backstory nemesis so bad it returns him to level 1, or having him be level drained by some monster, but we both agreed those options were a disservice to the character. He's a dragonborn fighter if that matters.

Take a page from the Nips.
He was hit by a cart while saving a orphan, and woke up summoned to another world.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Might be kind of neat if he picked a different class this time around to represent his new adventures teaching him different things.

Might try this. One thing I've had on my mind for a while is a forced multiclass game. PathFinder 2e has the architype system for themed campaigns, and I've been in games where players wanted to multiclass but didn't want to give up on some sweet class abilities, extra attacks, and spell slots to do it.

The background nemesis or some other event could have caused it

That's the part I'm trying to figure out. Having him get bitch slapped so hard he forgets everything is at best unsatisfying and at worst an insult to the character. Your other suggestions are good. I will have to run those by him.

Take a page from the Nips.
He was hit by a cart while saving a orphan, and woke up summed to another world.

Same setting as the previous game unfortunately.

I did suggest an isekai game once. Wanted to do a Those Who Hunt Elves type thing (I've not read it, but know the general concept. Fighting fantasy creatures with modern weapons.). No takers unfortunately.

Now that I type that out, I realize I've just described Rifts.

 

[Ghostse]

Same setting as the previous game unfortunately.

I did suggest an isekai game once. Wanted to do a Those Who Hunt Elves type thing (I've not read it, but know the general concept. Fighting fantasy creatures with modern weapons.).

1) Body-swap. Double Dragon has his body stolen by the Big-bad. This could make fights very interesting "Get him! But not too much! I need that body later"
2) Go God of War II; manipulated to piss off a god who divinely depowers him.
3) Iskeai but parallel universe. The settign is the same, but slightly different!
Then just go full hack and reveal its just a post apocalyptic restroation of the original setting. Planet of the Knife-ears.
4) Previous adventure was all just a dream. He will never have sushi ever again.
5) He realizes that nothing before was real. It was all just interactive theater a la "The Game" or the fictional thing Bill Murray was signed up for in the "Man who knew too little", but now a real threat has shown up and he's got to actually save the world.
Or alternatively, he's a LARPer and everything that happened before was in the context of the LARP. "My LARP character is a Lvl 12 fighter!". For bonus points, he's a Dragotaku who named all his LARP attacks and as he levels up he yells out his weeb-cringe names.

 

[Randall Fragg]

I'd like some advice. A player wants to use an existing character for my next campaign. I'm trying to think of a story reason to de-level him from 12 to 1. I proposed having him beaten by his backstory nemesis so bad it returns him to level 1, or having him be level drained by some monster, but we both agreed those options were a disservice to the character. He's a dragonborn fighter if that matters.

His character became a political power player/minor noble and stopped adventuring for a few years. He had a keep to manage, local disputes to meditate, and feasts and celebrations to attend. He didn't keep up training and he's aged, so his muscles and skills have become rusty due to not being used for so long.
Maybe as 'compensation' have his character have actual social standing as an aristocrat?

 

[Čmarobnjak]

 

[Ghostse]

View attachment 3974109

Better question:
Why the fuck would a goblin wear a helmet?

 

[Corn Flakes]

Better question:
Why the fuck would a goblin wear a helmet?

So they make a funny bell noise when you smack them with a mace.