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

  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
On a side note, it's been a while since I went on the site, and I just noticed Keith Baker put out another 5e Eberron sourcebook, Chronicles of Eberron. Anyone taken a look at it? I'm a fan of the setting and enjoyed perusing Exploring Eberron, so I might pick this one up as well.
I have not, but if you do give it a read, let us know.

I remember giving Exploring Eberron a skim, and while I liked some of the artwork, most of the book seemed to be a rewording of what was available already. There was an unofficial book expanding on The Mournland that had some interesting stuff in it, but I've not played Eberron since so I don't know if I'd actually use it.
 
And then there is all the ways you could change up the nature of the cosmology itself. Most RPGs, particularly medieval RPGs, follow the Dungeons and Dragons setup of creating a polytheistic world and assuming that this polytheistic viewpoint is correct. No game has ever attempted to change things up on that front really, which is especially egregious for medieval fantasy games because the region and time period they are ostensibly based on was monotheistic in belief, and the culture of the societies they portray is generally a medieval Christian society in all the important ways except the Christianity, even though it doesn't make sense for it to function that way, but the settings don't really do much with the polytheistic setup they've created.

It may do better to move away from the polytheistic cosmology and change things up. For example, having the main setting be monotheistic and having the monotheistic viewpoint be correct. "Pagans" worship other gods, but those "gods" aren't gods at all, but demons who lead people astray to chase false idols and cause mankind to lose faith in the one true God. This idea actually comes from the Bible itself, and was downright copied by Paradise Lost. You could also have actual "devil worshippers" who outright get the most depraved abilities, in addition to the followers of false religions that get abilities from their "gods".

If you want to keep the polytheism, but don't want to do the same old thing, you could change up the polytheistic nature of the setting itself. For example, most RPG settings with religion, like Dungeons and Dragons, take a hard polytheistic stance. In hard polytheism, the "gods are distinct, separate, real divine beings, rather than psychological archetypes or personifications of natural forces. Hard polytheists reject the idea that "all gods are one essential god" and may also reject the existence of gods outside their own pantheon altogether." A setting could instead have a "soft" polytheistic stance instead, where the "different gods may either be psychological archetypes personifications of natural forces, or as being one essential god interpreted though the lenses of different cultures (e.x. Odin, Zeus, and Indra all being the same god as interpreted by Germanic, Greek, and Indic peoples respectively) – known as omnitheism. In this way, gods may be interchangeable for one another across cultures."

If you want to mix the Monotheism with the Polytheism, so you could have a medieval Europe analogue with a Christian analogue, while still allowing for other religions in your world, you could have the main society follow Henotheism, whereby there is the worship of a single, supreme god, but the existence or possible existence of other deities is not denied. Zoroastrianism was a famous real world example of this. You could also have the setting follow Monolatry, whereby there is the belief in the existence of many gods, but with the consistent worship of only one deity. Or, if you want to get even more esoteric, you could have the main setting follow Kathenotheism, where there is a succession of supreme gods, but you only worship one god at a time, with each deity treated supreme in turn.

Of course, if you want to downplay the role of God or gods in your setting, you could make your setting pantheistic, so that creation and the cosmos itself is god, or you could make your setting Panentheistic, where the divine is part of the universe, but also extends outside the universe, Note, that this is mainly about how your setting cosmology actually works; you could have different societies still have their own gods, and even have clerics or shamans who have spells, but these spells are given based on their personal faith, not based on a personal relationship with a god.

If you want to get even more esoteric, you could make you setting's cosmology autotheistic, which would hold the belief that " divinity, whether also external or not, is inherently within 'oneself' and that one has the ability to become godlike." Buddhism and Jainism are real life examples of this form of theism. This doesn't have to be as egoistic as it sounds, and it could allow clerics of every faith to power their magic from their "god", when it really comes from divine power within them.

And, finally:
There wouldn't be atheists or agnostics.
In a setting with open divine power, there couldn't be agnostics, since everyone knows that God or gods exist. Same with atheism. But, non-theism, a simple lack of belief in belief in God or gods, would still exists. You may have those who acknowledge that God/gods exists, but simply refuse to worship him/them, or show a lack of interest in doing so. You could have people who follow misotheism, and profess actual hatred for God or gods in the setting, or those who are maltheist, believing that the divine powers exist, but are wholly malicious towards man. You could also have people who follow Dystheism, believing that the divine powers are not necessarily wholly good, but may be considered evil. If you want to go hardcore, you could have one of these negative beliefs be wholly correct.
 
I had an atheist cult in one of my worlds. They believed the gods were frauds. This was obviously incorrect and they were persecuted a lot, but oddly, only by religious followers, not by the gods themselves. They were actually founded by one of the prankster gods as a joke.

This group was a source of deliberately annoying NPCs.
 
@The Demon Pimp of Razgriz Thief: The Dark Project kinda went in the direction of what you're describing and had a mainline religious order (The Hammerites) operating as the de facto state religion while you had hippie R E T V R N pagans who worshipped the devil (Trickster) opposing them. Although you could argue this was just two monotheistic religions fighting for supremacy but whatever, the world building in those games was top-notch.
 
My current setting has devils being a bit "nicer"
They may be impressed by the resolve of a mortal or find their actions greatly amusing and pledge to help them. Being turned into a tool or weapon is a common form of punishment for fiends and celestials, they can't move by themselves in that form so once an adventurer finds them they will be willing to make pacts or alliances, of course these could end anytime with the weapon forcing the adventurer to stab himself after a disagreement so having your ideals or personality be compatible with the sentient weapon is important.
Demons I am not sure about, they haven't shown a whole lot other than enemies in combat, yugoloths are mostly mercenaries, with some of them being more ambitious and having goals such as wiping out the other fiendish races or unifying the lower planes.
As for the gods, there is the great architect who claims to have made the universe and can be really brutal with those who disagree with him. It is believed the real creator left long ago and this is just someone impersonating it. He is mainly worshipped by humans, dwarves and a few other races.
Dragonborn and kobold deities are heroes who ascended to godhood long ago, aarakroca and kenku "gods" are more focused on the sun, weather and the arts. Lastly, the natives of the south american inspired lands worship gods heavily tied to the elements, some of which demand live sacrifices, there is a god of death too who got a few human and dragonborn colonist worshipping him, he is not evil and his followers are more interested in studying death to help people afflicted with diseases
Overall nothing revolutionary or unique, just what I like
 
Most of my games take place in a single land mass which is currently in the middle of a very stagnant civil war. Long story short there are two people who say they're king that also happen to both be going through various internal problems that has resulted in them having the two weakest armies of all the other regions/noble houses. As a result the other noble houses and various powers in the realm are just ignoring them. The largest region has been taken over by a conglomerate of various guilds which are more interested in acquiring wealth and power than a slap fight between two idiots.

My favorite guild so far is the Diabolists Guild. At the core of their operation, they make contracts with devils for other people and happen to be very good at it. It's all risk management and they tend to put other people's souls on the line before they actually use their own. They're also called in to write contracts between other guilds and supply high profile lawyers which they have an excellent reputation for. Obviously, being directly associated with hell has caused some setbacks with public relations but the results don't lie so even the guilds that pay service to the good gods tend to use them for their mundane services from time to time.

They also have the true names of several lower level devils members get access to at various levels, most of them are well guarded corporate guild secrets. A true name gets leaked from time to time resulting in several very upset imps. I assume greater devils use them as a subtle threat to their inferiors all the time.

Once the party got powerful enough they Diabolists Guild attempted to offer them a free association, which allows someone to pay for various services and gives them access to a country club. They tend to do that when a group of people gets really dangerous as to make sure they don't have an adventuring incident. The party has currently thwarted their attempts at offering them free perks with their almost supernatural ability to be aloof to just about anything I get excited about. They still make for a nice backdrop and if the party ever gets dragged into court I'm sure they'll be offered representation for a fee.
 
A true name gets leaked from time to time resulting in several very upset imps. I assume greater devils use them as a subtle threat to their inferiors all the time.
I remember reading in the Pathfinder Princes of Darkness book the idea that lower-level fiends will sometimes deliberately "leak" their true names to get exposure.
 
Another thing I did that was fun, but sadly the campaign died before it went anywhere, was a sort of gnostic setting that Devils are by themselves not "evil" - they are completely amoral. They just barter with mortals for power, and its the mortals who do all the fucked up shit with that power. The Devils, being extraplanar, just don't don't see any difference between making a pact to gain the intelligence to cure a plague and making a pact to genocide a whole town full of orphans.
So while making pacts with Devils is viewed as dangerous heresy, that's because it results in someone getting corrupted by power.
tl;dr the difference between a Devil and an Angel is the Angel will say "no".

Demons however are twisted creatures that are death rattles of the primordials. And again, they aren't exactly "evil" (they lack of the presence of mind for "evil"). The the Gods have contracted out keeping the demons imprisoned to the Devils , because the devils experience no ill-effects from the Abyss. The devils were on board because they use the demons as powersources. and sometimes there's a reactor leak or an escape.
 
A pretty easy way to monotheize or even Christianize a setting is to replace "gods" with angels and saints. They could pray for their intercession, for example St. Eustasius could lift magical darkness or St. Tatiana could destroy a golem. People playing in a fantasy version of the real world could also enjoy a bonus to their prayers if they are in a region which is special to that saint.
 
A pretty easy way to monotheize or even Christianize a setting is to replace "gods" with angels and saints. They could pray for their intercession, for example St. Eustasius could lift magical darkness or St. Tatiana could destroy a golem. People playing in a fantasy version of the real world could also enjoy a bonus to their prayers if they are in a region which is special to that saint.
I'm actually doing exactly that in my own worldbuilding notes : the continent worships a singular goddess with plenty of her own domains, while the cults of saints act as the patrons of other domains. Clerics then tend to be those dedicated to their specific saints and invoke them in using their powers. Of course, faith magic is partially based upon strength of belief and the human gestalt, so virtually any religious faith could obtain legitimacy if enough people believe in that being; this is also the rule that leads to Saints becoming true intermediaries, so it all blends together for some interesting faith dynamics.
 
I'm actually doing exactly that in my own worldbuilding notes : the continent worships a singular goddess with plenty of her own domains, while the cults of saints act as the patrons of other domains. Clerics then tend to be those dedicated to their specific saints and invoke them in using their powers. Of course, faith magic is partially based upon strength of belief and the human gestalt, so virtually any religious faith could obtain legitimacy if enough people believe in that being; this is also the rule that leads to Saints becoming true intermediaries, so it all blends together for some interesting faith dynamics.

If you're doing that, I highly recommend you look into the Medieval practices of Saints Relics, and the monasteries built around reliquaries of various saints that practically became their own little cults. If you want to lean heavy into a Divine campaign, it provides a diverse set of Origins and if especially if you're doing Monotheism, relics/reliquaries can provide unique treasure drops. Maybe spending 4 hours in deep prayer focusin on the finger of St. Hildebrae provides an extra 1d6 of HP healed per day.

Reliquaries (obtaining them for personal shrines or obtaining a saint's body [or at least a majority of one] to found a monestary) can also be a source of conflict.
There were lots of medieval squabbles over reliquaries over purported powers and to capture the flow of pilgrims on pilgrimages, imagine if the relics had actual, provable, reliable powers.
 
You know i just realized something, theres also been an MMO since 3.5 for dnd.

DnD MMO
NWO

If the retard in charge wants to make an mmo so fucking badly FUCKING MAKING ONE.
 
Hello, do people find ttrpg games to play in this thread? Similar to 4chan's Game Finder threads? Or is this thread only for discussion of ttrpgs? Sorry for confusion.
No, we just bitch and complain. This is the thread for reliving past glories and bitching and complaining about the worthless scumbags who ruined RPGs, and never even played them in the first place.
 
Bit off topic but the game I'm a player in is cancelled for a session. One guy turned to the group and asked if anyone was going to run a one shot instead. I didn't have anything prepared, but I was wondering if you guys do?

Do you keep an adventure in mind in case you're called on to DM short notice, and if so, what is it?
Absolutely. The good ol peasant one shot. Make a bunch of shitty premade characters on flashcards. Shitty as in, level 0 peasants with minor gimmicks to differentiate them. Tell them they have been cursed with immortality as a joke. Make them responsible for either dealing with something the main party caused, or dealing with something the main party will come across.

Then they run around causing problems and having trouble dealing with the utterly and absurdly deadly world around them. It allows you to make a lot of stupid puzzles too and combat when the average hp pool is <10 is hilarious.
 
A pretty easy way to monotheize or even Christianize a setting is to replace "gods" with angels and saints. They could pray for their intercession, for example St. Eustasius could lift magical darkness or St. Tatiana could destroy a golem. People playing in a fantasy version of the real world could also enjoy a bonus to their prayers if they are in a region which is special to that saint.
Which is exactly what the western RPG video game Darklands did.
 
So I heard the other day, the DnD Beyond servers crashed. Lots of players didn't know how to play because the digital sheet and tools did all the calculations for them.

Pretty ironic since WOTC ran this ad in the 2000s when World of Warcraft was all the rage and those servers were crashing.

s-l1600.jpg
 
So I heard the other day, the DnD Beyond servers crashed. Lots of players didn't know how to play because the digital sheet and tools did all the calculations for them.
it's also really the only way to play online, since wizards doesn't do pdfs, so if you want all that nice dead tree in digital form you better splurge for beyond. you could buy stuff on roll20 or whatever, but I don't think it supports the sharing features dnd beyond has (if you have a sub the DM can grant access to his books, char sheets might be free).

Hello, do people find ttrpg games to play in this thread? Similar to 4chan's Game Finder threads? Or is this thread only for discussion of ttrpgs? Sorry for confusion.
there is a gamefinder thread I think, but it's pretty dead. by the nature of the farms lot of people rather not connect to anything outside.
 
it's also really the only way to play online, since wizards doesn't do pdfs, so if you want all that nice dead tree in digital form you better splurge for beyond. you could buy stuff on roll20 or whatever, but I don't think it supports the sharing features dnd beyond has (if you have a sub the DM can grant access to his books, char sheets might be free).
5e.tools works pretty well. I really like the way everything is organized.
 
Back
Top Bottom