- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Something tells me the naga took Many Tongues to mean something physical and not verbal...
Fucking bards.
Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
- Thread starter Surtur
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Fucking bards.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Honestly, I think the DM picked four and handed them out randomly. If he was thinking ahead, then my boon does make sense due to the fact my friend died, so having that safety net would mean a lot to my character in his quest to stay alive long enough to bring him back to life.
Funnily enough, the ranger remembered her boon last session when we needed to communicate in secret, and said she had excellent tongue skills. We told her to never phrase it like that again, after snickering about it like little kids, of course.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
Played a game of Warhammer Fantasy 4e last night and really liked it. We sat down and just ran through character creation and it only took an hour, and most of the time was us shooting the shit and telling old stories. That and everyone just starting to figure out the rules made it feel like it went really fast, I feel like someone could roll up a random guy pretty fast once you know what you're doing.
The party were all just passing through a halfling town during pie week, which is where the halflings go insane and gorge themselves on pies. We were chosen to judge the pie eating contest in which one of the halfings cooking was being controlled by a tiny skaven like in ratatouille. After losing the contest he drove his halfing away and stole the prize pig of the festival though a hole in the ground. We ran down into a small dungeon, fought some skaven, got injured and confronted the controlled halfling who begged us for help while walking toward us with a knife.
The dwarf trollslayer chopped off his head. This was actually really neat because the dice dictated it. The crit specifically said his head flew off in a random direction, placing the evil miniature rat man in a random square along with how much blood splattered everywhere (all over the party). The other combats had blood spraying everywhere and brutal sounding injuries. Great time all around.
I'm sure there were smaller rules we missed here and there but just the basic way we played was a lot of fun. I feel like it's simple enough to get started with a lot of other stuff to dive into once you get a handle on the game. Tempted to pick up the book.
The party were all just passing through a halfling town during pie week, which is where the halflings go insane and gorge themselves on pies. We were chosen to judge the pie eating contest in which one of the halfings cooking was being controlled by a tiny skaven like in ratatouille. After losing the contest he drove his halfing away and stole the prize pig of the festival though a hole in the ground. We ran down into a small dungeon, fought some skaven, got injured and confronted the controlled halfling who begged us for help while walking toward us with a knife.
The dwarf trollslayer chopped off his head. This was actually really neat because the dice dictated it. The crit specifically said his head flew off in a random direction, placing the evil miniature rat man in a random square along with how much blood splattered everywhere (all over the party). The other combats had blood spraying everywhere and brutal sounding injuries. Great time all around.
I'm sure there were smaller rules we missed here and there but just the basic way we played was a lot of fun. I feel like it's simple enough to get started with a lot of other stuff to dive into once you get a handle on the game. Tempted to pick up the book.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2022
To comment on the discussion of "racism" as far as fantasy races go: why is it okay to say that any German soldier "following orders" during WWII was evil is fine, but saying an orc following his tribe's warlord is evil is okay? It makes no sense. They're a humanoid race, with seemingly the same amount of free will as humans, or surface elves, or any other fantasy race. An orc may be an artist or a poet by his nature, but forced into warfare by the expectations of his tribe. So why is that racist?
This entire idea that orcs or drow are inherently racist is rooted in old school racist ideals, ironically. A drow is just an elf with charcoal black skin. An orc is just a big humanoid with gray skin and tusks. If you look at those creatures and think "well clearly they're a stand-in for black people," the issue is not with those races, the issue is with you.
Fact is, drow live in a society that worships an evil spider goddess. Orcs live in a "might makes right" society. If these retards would take even a second to think about these factors, they'd realize the interesting story potential. Maybe there's a male drow that understands the matriarchal society they've built around Lolth and rejects it, choosing to leave and pick his own path in life. Maybe there's an orc that wants to be a poet, but can't pursue that dream because his people value warfare too much, so he chooses to just leave his people behind to pursue his dream.
In both cases, the problem is not the race, the problem is the society in which those races live in. But I guess that's too much nuance for retards that see black skin and think "tHiS muST meAN bLaCk pEopLe!"
This entire idea that orcs or drow are inherently racist is rooted in old school racist ideals, ironically. A drow is just an elf with charcoal black skin. An orc is just a big humanoid with gray skin and tusks. If you look at those creatures and think "well clearly they're a stand-in for black people," the issue is not with those races, the issue is with you.
Fact is, drow live in a society that worships an evil spider goddess. Orcs live in a "might makes right" society. If these retards would take even a second to think about these factors, they'd realize the interesting story potential. Maybe there's a male drow that understands the matriarchal society they've built around Lolth and rejects it, choosing to leave and pick his own path in life. Maybe there's an orc that wants to be a poet, but can't pursue that dream because his people value warfare too much, so he chooses to just leave his people behind to pursue his dream.
In both cases, the problem is not the race, the problem is the society in which those races live in. But I guess that's too much nuance for retards that see black skin and think "tHiS muST meAN bLaCk pEopLe!"
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
One of them is an evil group of murders, the other is a low intelligence group of violent thugs.
I mean, I treat them both as black people because of the obvious parallels, but odd the anti-racist faction came to the same conclusion. Makes a body wonder.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
Orcs were created to be evil and are inherently evil and therefore it is okay to kill them all.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
To elaborate on what @AnOminous said: you're talking about free will, but in many of those cases these races are created, often by the Gods themselves, to be what they are. They don't get free will, not as we think about it. They're doing many things humans would normally not do due to their very nature. For instance, humans can be violent but for most of us we'll try to address conflict with a peer adversary verbally before resorting to fisticuffs. After all, talking or even shouting is a lot less painful and dangerous than actually fighting. For an orc on the other hand, disregarding your own safety and just trading blows as the first recourse can be not just culturally but biologically standard procedure. It's literally how their minds are structured.
I really wish more games had fantasy races with actual teeth to their characterization. Forget furry races and associated freakshit, a dwarf or an elf's psyche should be borderline incomprehensible to a human based on their biology alone. An orc would be a complete sociopath at best, and a monster at worst. I know I fellate Dark Sun enough in this thread, but really love what they've done with the dwarves and the elves. Dwarves specially. That level of autism is just plain fun to play with.
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- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
Fantasy is mythic. Drow are elves that were twisted by an evil god into a perverted form. Orcs are created by Gruumsh for world conquest, judged by him for their prowess in battle, and praised by him when they destroy the works of Corellon, especially the hated elves.
That is their problem, not "society."
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2015
Just give the orcs red hats that say "Make Faerun Great Again". Now it's totally fine to kill them.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2022
Regardless of the disagreements, I think we can all agree with this: no matter the reason they're evil, just let orcs and drow be fucking evil. To cowtow to dumb asses that see an orc or a drow being evil and say "Dat's rayciss!" is completely fucking stupid.
Also absolutely agree with the notion that fantasy races need to be more alien. In current day they're all "human, but..." and it's lazy and fucking lame.
Also absolutely agree with the notion that fantasy races need to be more alien. In current day they're all "human, but..." and it's lazy and fucking lame.
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2018
Comparing orcs to nignogs is insulting the original inspiration for orcs which was WWI Germans. If you want a better comparison you gotta go with Robert E Howards Picts of Hyperboria there's your nignog parallel.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
Try earlier with Kaiser Wilhelm's Hun Speech.
It was a direct call to fuck the Chinese up as badly as Attila had fucked up Europe, so that a thousand years later the Chinese would still hold the Germans in dread. If you ever want to know where Germany went wrong, just look at King Willy.
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2014
Which I always thought was weird because Picts are group of white people, they were related to Celts or something. Probably wrong about the details. Howard definitely slaps them in the jungle and has them huck spears though. I guess that was what they were like in the Hyborian age. He might have described them as black though, seems like something Howard would do.
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2018
I'm not sure about the whole black thing either but the comics and old savage sword magazine showed them more like an almost homo sapien, a sort of last of the missing links that some human concepts down such as fucking and killing.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
Part of the problem is there doesn't seem to be a "Pict" other than they sort of came to be after the collapse of the Roman empire in modern day scotland.
The Picts didn't seem to have a particularly strong 'ethnicity' and seem to have been "Briton inhabitants who weren't Roman", or they may have just been a clan that manuevered themselves to be the 'elites' of a rather wide area. They got hammered by the vikings, then the arrivals of the Scots, and as shit continued to degrade the Picts just got split apart and refocused into different ethnic groups allied with the closest power. The Pict's artistry seems to have been subsumed by the Celts/Scots.
They have a reputation as being barbaric half way because they were rather uncouth and helped speed the collapse of Roman Britain, and also because they had a significant naval presence and may have gotten (either deservedly or otherwise) some the early viking incursions blamed on them. It might be deserved because they ran the Naval trade on eastern Briton, and the difference between a merchant and a pirate was very thin. Its not inconceivable that some Pict sea goers made temporary cause with some of the early vikings.
The Picts also seemed to be largely pastural, and many of their settlements were essentially deevolutions into iron-age dwellings, which didn't help thier case any.
tl;dr: They were the eastern Irish.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2022
What's your favorite encumbrance system in a TTRPG? Most systems seem to gravitate towards either "autistically track every pound of shit you're carrying" or "lol make it up."
I'm really looking for something where the size of an object factors into how encumbering it is rather than just how heavy it is.
I'm really looking for something where the size of an object factors into how encumbering it is rather than just how heavy it is.
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2017
One of the OSR type systems I saw pitched around here had in interesting encumbrance system which was your character sheet had a picture of a backpack and players had to draw in how their gear would fit inside. Major downside with it that I saw was there wasn't a good "stencil" system for common gear.
I lean towards a OSE "coin" encumbrance system where gear is given a value in coins (and packs given capacity in coins) and while weight factors in primarily the bulk of an object also plays in.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
They were also night raiders and as a result had a habit of painting themselves black with ash to aid in concealment. I believe some Germanic tribes also painted themselves in ash, although that was generic war paint and not night camo.
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2014
I generally didn't get too obsessed with the minutiae of stuff like that because I never really found it fun or interesting. I'd just assume a ten foot pole was something collapsible for instance, etc. Unless something was absolutely implausible like carrying a giant statue of an elephant in your backpack no big deal.
I also made bags of holding pretty common.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2020
I've been a fan of the inventory slot system you see in some of the more "modern" OSR games. You get X items (or bundles of items) you can bring with you, plus your equipped gear, and that's that. At the GM's discretion you may also have a couple small items that would be relevant to your character's backstory or class. And that's it. It might seem limiting at first glance, but in our group's experience it was interesting to have to plan out who's carrying the adventuring kit (a grabbag of useful items), who's bringing the extra rations, who's got the extra 50ft coil of rope, etc.
Treasure also gets treated the same, so no carrying the entire dragon's hoard in our pockets unless we have a cart or five and time to actually retrieve all that stuff. It's a simple system, but it scratches the inventory autism while being reasonably quick so we've been sticking with it for the past two years or so.
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