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

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I've been going back on forth on how drugs should work in my system, and I've firmly settled on giving them zero drawbacks whatsoever and providing zero rules for addiction. My reasons are as follows:

1. Addiction rules are universally terrible. No system does it well, and having players just roleplay their character's addiction results in either the player scratching themselves and asking for more crack every five minutes, or else completely forgetting that they're addicted to crack until the GM reminds them.

I did this in a campaign:

1. Make a CON save. If you didn't take drugs, you go into withdrawal. Disadvantage on ALL d20 rolls until you get a hit, which just brings you to normal
2. If you succeed on the CON save, you're normal, and drugs give you advantage on ALL d20 rolls

As the addiction progresses, the save DC gets higher. It was actually a lot of fun. The drugs were expensive, so they did end up committing crimes to feed their addiction until they realized the drugs were ruling them and they needed to find a way to break the addiction.
 
I've been going back on forth on how drugs should work in my system, and I've firmly settled on giving them zero drawbacks whatsoever and providing zero rules for addiction. My reasons are as follows:

1. Addiction rules are universally terrible. No system does it well, and having players just roleplay their character's addiction results in either the player scratching themselves and asking for more crack every five minutes, or else completely forgetting that they're addicted to crack until the GM reminds them.
2. Giving benefits to drugs with no drawbacks not only slims down how much room they take up on a page, it also speeds up gameplay because the player no longer has to keep track of the drawbacks.
3. Most importantly, removing drawbacks and addiction incentivizes characters to take drugs. You no longer do a cost/benefit analysis, you just do it. Eventually some characters are going to find themselves snorting a line of coke for the bonus every time they have to talk to someone, and THAT'S the real addiction mechanic.

I take a similar attitude to cybernetics. There is no cyberpsychosis that makes you go mad from interfacing too much with technology or turning yourself into a corporate product or cutting you off from the ancestor spirits or whatever bullshit excuse Cyberpunk and Shadowrun use. If a player installs a machine gun in their arm, they're going to look for any excuse to pull it out and use it.
From a rule standpoint I wouldn't be much help. Think if I ran a game where a character started to use a lot of drugs I would probably shoot from the hip with addiction. Throw comments like, "you haven't used in a while and you really want to" or "you'll probably die if you don't do that combat drug". I'd kind of expect that the player would play along with it too. The PC shouldn't be doing whatever drug you give them because they are avoiding some penalty, it's because they want to.

Not sure the player should even have access to addiction rules anyway. Someone who isn't an addict doesn't know what it's going to be like when they become one. Why should the player? No one chooses to become an addict because they know they'll get a boost to their reactions at the cost of a -1 to their perception or constitution for a month. It's supposed to sneak up on them.

There's also a bunch of fucked up stuff involved with drugs, like other users and dealers. With that you have a wealth of opportunities to throw in NPCs that the rest of the party, ones that the party might hate but that one addict PC might really like. That one fucking asshole he defends even though he's constantly starting shit and stealing stuff. Just can't trust the asshole but he's the only way the one PC is getting space smack, warpstone dust or whatever. The whole situation is made of adventure hooks.

So in the end if it were me I would play it almost completely by ear. If a penalty needs to come up then I would google the withdrawal symptom of whatever is close to what the PC is doing and impose something on the fly (brutally), might not even be the same every time because it probably isn't in real life. Long story short, have fun with it and make fun of drug addicts through roleplaying.
 
Speaking of drugs, one silly aspect of Pathfinder is that objectively drugs are just better for poisoning people than actual poison. Poisons (even if you use the optional rules from Pathfinder Unchained, which make them less difficult to track and more efficacious) aren't very useful. They're expensive and the save DCs are pretty low, and you have to build a character pretty much exclusively for poison use in order to get any sort of use out of them. Drugs, conversely, have no such restrictions. They're much cheaper, often have similar effects, and - here's the kicker - don't allow a save to resist the effects RAW. Coating a dagger in opium is both more dangerous and more cost-effective than coating it in something like giant wasp venom.

EDIT: I wish to note in passing the example of one hilarious and viable poison build, the toxicant-archetype alchemist. Properly built, a toxicant can stunlock vampires and liches, creatures that would normally be utterly immune to poison. In fact, because of certain wrinkles in the rules, said vampires and liches would be easier to poison than living creatures of the same level.
 
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I made an observation recently from GM'ing a new group at a club. Historically I've run games for mates and this is only the second time I've ever just put out a call and said "anybody want to play _______" and taken responders. Anyway, as a consequence I now have a group that are noticeably younger than I am in age. They're not teenagers, they are adult, but there's still a significant age gap.

Anyway, I don't know if that's the source of the disconnect or if it's other social factors or I've just always been exceptional (every sense of the word). But what I like in a game is firstly a genuine challenge, I typically want a character who isn't powerful in relation to the world he lives in and my character motivations are almost never about wealth or money. I just find that rather shallow compared to more complex character motivations. My group are all very much "I want power. I want to take people's stuff. I don't want consequences".

As a result, I have and am considering just ditching it. I'm the GM but I just can't really relate to that being fun. I keep setting up games with mysteries and powerful factions they have to work their way around or negotiate with. And they just want to bang into them headfirst and then they die. It feels like an irreconcilable disconnect. They just don't find fun what I find fun. One of them kind of does but, tying into my theory, he is also the closest to me in age.
 
Kill drows. Behead drows. Roundhouse kick a drow into the concrete. Slam dunk a drow baby into the trashcan. Crucify filthy drows. Defecate in a drows food. Launch drows into the sun. Stir fry drows in a wok. Toss drows into active volcanoes. Urinate into a drows gas tank. Judo throw drows into a wood chipper. Twist drows heads off. Report drows to the IRS. Karate chop drows in half. Curb stomp pregnant drows. Trap drows in quicksand. Crush drows in the trash compactor. Liquefy drows in a vat of acid. Eat drows. Dissect drows. Exterminate drows in the gas chamber. Stomp drow skulls with steel toed boots. Cremate drows in the oven. Lobotomize drows. Mandatory abortions for drows. Grind drow fetuses in the garbage disposal. Drown drows in fried chicken grease. Vaporize drows with a ray gun. Kick old drows down the stairs. Feed drows to alligators. Slice drows with a katana.
 
As a result, I have and am considering just ditching it. I'm the GM but I just can't really relate to that being fun. I keep setting up games with mysteries and powerful factions they have to work their way around or negotiate with. And they just want to bang into them headfirst and then they die. It feels like an irreconcilable disconnect. They just don't find fun what I find fun. One of them kind of does but, tying into my theory, he is also the closest to me in age.
Some fags just want to play Fantasy GTA with cheats on.
 
I made an observation recently from GM'ing a new group at a club. Historically I've run games for mates and this is only the second time I've ever just put out a call and said "anybody want to play _______" and taken responders. Anyway, as a consequence I now have a group that are noticeably younger than I am in age. They're not teenagers, they are adult, but there's still a significant age gap.

Anyway, I don't know if that's the source of the disconnect or if it's other social factors or I've just always been exceptional (every sense of the word). But what I like in a game is firstly a genuine challenge, I typically want a character who isn't powerful in relation to the world he lives in and my character motivations are almost never about wealth or money. I just find that rather shallow compared to more complex character motivations. My group are all very much "I want power. I want to take people's stuff. I don't want consequences".

As a result, I have and am considering just ditching it. I'm the GM but I just can't really relate to that being fun. I keep setting up games with mysteries and powerful factions they have to work their way around or negotiate with. And they just want to bang into them headfirst and then they die. It feels like an irreconcilable disconnect. They just don't find fun what I find fun. One of them kind of does but, tying into my theory, he is also the closest to me in age.

I blame the way media is set up now. Save scumming, online walkthroughs, capeshit films. No one wants to be challenged.
I'm with you (with the exception I like my character to be a little more powerful compared to the rest of the world.

Its not just younger players, but its a lot more younger players.
I had a player who would get bored, do monkey-cheese shit, and then surprised pikachu when there was consequences or when I would say "i'm not wasting time, the cops are getting you. You can roll a dex to see how long it takes/how angry they are with you". Another was shinning on a NPC (the NPC wanted to use their familial connections to further their business interests) by getting the NPC to provide them all sorts of help, and the player clearly had no intent to deliver of their end - and they got pissy when the NPC stopped being helpful until the player started showing some real evidence of holding up their end of the deal.
Bitch, YOU wouldn't have fallen for such an obvious case of being used, why do you think an NPC described as crafty, clever, and smart would?

OTOH this is where OSR generally helpful as gate keeper. Either they are OK with a goblin taking out their wizard with a rock and see it as something to overcome, or they declare its bullshit and leave.

my advice would be move away from a campaign and move to One Shots/Megadungeons. Try to recruit more players until you have a couple more who aren't just looking for gameshark Fantasy GTA.
 
The drugs were expensive, so they did end up committing crimes to feed their addiction until they realized the drugs were ruling them and they needed to find a way to break the addiction.
Rehab could be a creative catch-22 within the fantasy genre; people generally agree between separating psionics and magic, so there wouldn't be any easy to-go scroll to remove addiction. The team would have to find a psyker to instantly solve your issues (which could potentially only be mind flayers in some settings), but doing this will mildly scramble the brain. Maybe your team can possibly (un)voluntarily exile your friend to a monastery, which may do nothing but make the character resentful of a deity, to completely switching to an adjacent class (Druid to cleric, knight to paladin, etc) and worshipping the god.

On the other hand, devoting someone to an evil god all about indulgence might turn a negative into a positive. He becomes psychotic (before becoming catatonic) if he doesn't take an immensely expensive drug, but he gains meth-head strength and durability for an hour or so. When your dudes get big, you can give him a dialysis machine filled with meth to keep him functional, even if he still steals from the ketamine hobo.
 
On the other hand, devoting someone to an evil god all about indulgence might turn a negative into a positive. He becomes psychotic (before becoming catatonic) if he doesn't take an immensely expensive drug, but he gains meth-head strength and durability for an hour or so. When your dudes get big, you can give him a dialysis machine filled with meth to keep him functional, even if he still steals from the ketamine hobo.
Play early Chaosium games, where in CoC for instance every spell you can cast causes more harm to you than the enemy, every bit of knowledge you get costs you sanity (none of which you can ever get back) so by the time you figure out what is even going on you are completely insane.

Or the Stormbringer world, where every major power is usually on immense amounts of drugs, whether they are Melniboneans or Pan Tangians, and without them they are nearly helpless from the beginning, so they are almost all drug addicts, with massive negative effects from not taking them, and eventually barely even normal with taking them.

Never mind that most magic in that game involves binding demons into objects. If they're intelligent, they absolutely hate you for doing that and will seek revenge.

Even the dumb barbarians generally have drugs for going berserk.
 
If you want drawbacks without the bookkeeping, how about having them be like functional alcoholics. They can take all the drugs they want, but if they encounter a cop or someone who has experience with substance abuse, then a bluff check to hide the signs of being high.
This is much more in line with the vibe I'm trying to go for. Thanks man.
 
I was pretty much on point with our DM handling the jungle exploration aspects of Tomb of Annihilation, or rather, giving up on handling them. According to him, as is typical of 5e sourcebooks, there weren't rules on how to calculate various conditions, so it was basically a "make it up as you go" sort of thing. Along the way, we've acquired enough items and spells that most of the jungle hazards are no longer a threat. Our ranger can forage food for us every day, the alchemy jug we found gives us enough water every day (and if we need more, we still have rain catchers), and with the wizard having Leomund's Tiny Hut, we can get a long rest without having weather interrupt it. So now we're just exploring without issue unless something noteworthy comes up, like crossing a desolate area that can't be foraged in.

We've also added a paladin to our party because we've got a new player, and so far everything seems to be going smooth since the player is a lot like the rest of us. Glad for that, I'd hate to be one of those horror stories. I still intend on aiming for a decent amount of healing spells since the others are primarily concerned with combat, but I feel a little less pressure to. Our party is basically a small army now; between five PCs, two higher-level NPCs, and a triceratops, we're doing pretty well. I'm guessing the DM's probably going to scale up the combat encounters from here on out, though hopefully he doesn't accidentally overdo it.

ETA: If I were going to give advice to someone planning on running this adventure, I'd probably tell them to do away with the survival aspects. The hexcrawl already takes up a decent amount of the first chunk of the campaign, and that's with just the basic "are you lost/can you chart the hex/did you get a random encounter" rules. Throwing in weather, disease, and excessive inventory management adds a bunch more things you need to roll for and keep track of, and it quickly bogs the game down.

If you really want to try, then make sure you run through the basics with your group before you get started, and see what they think. Maybe they'll be game too, but if not, don't feel like you should do it anyway. That sort of campaign appeals to some players, but not all. Yeah, I know, maybe most players are pussies that don't know how good they have it, but if WotC isn't going to bother to create a decent survival system for their adventure, it's probably not worth bothering.

If both you and the players agree, then this is one campaign I would highly recommend doing digitally so you can stay organized. My DM might have been overdoing it a bit, but he had pages and pages of notes behind the screen at all times (no I didn't look but it was hard not to notice). He at least did the map digitally, so that was smart. But if you find it's getting tedious and not fun, don't be afraid to drop the survival stuff so you can stick to the meat of the campaign. As mentioned above, within a few levels, your players should have the resources to avoid those hazards anyway, so you're really not losing much if you stop keeping track early.
 
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don't be afraid to drop the survival stuff so you can stick to the meat of the campaign.
It can be hard to cut that stuff. In part because the problem is 5e is a slow game, and in part because that stuff adds a lot of flavour.

I ran a game set in a mountain. I had even downloaded third party rules for proper spelunking and climbing. But the game was running so slow I had to cut all the travel stuff and trim down the adventures in some cases.
 
If both you and the players agree, then this is one campaign I would highly recommend doing digitally so you can stay organized. My DM might have been overdoing it a bit, but he had pages and pages of notes behind the screen at all times (no I didn't look but it was hard not to notice). He at least did the map digitally, so that was smart. But if you find it's getting tedious and not fun, don't be afraid to drop the survival stuff so you can stick to the meat of the campaign. As mentioned above, within a few levels, your players should have the resources to avoid those hazards anyway, so you're really not losing much if you stop keeping track early

As a DM, I would advise that unless your system is designed for Exploration/Hexcrawl or integrates it tightly (and I'd argue D&D THE WORLDS MOST POPULAR ROLEPLAYING GAME, especially past 1e Advanced, definitely isn't) you try to do as much overland away from the table as possible using txt/email/discord whatever.
Even when you run into wandering monster threats, I would advise unless there's something for the party to gain/learn/interact with, combats be turned into "Skill Check using your Attack/Spell, ok here's the results" - especially for WMPRPG 3e and above.

Going through - not under, over, or around - the whole thing soup-to-nuts no shortcuts really is a more rewarding and visceral adventure experience. All that said....

But sometimes at the end of the day (and especially if combat can't be streamlined) when the artificially presented challenges are very clearly nothing more than an annoyance to the band of demi-god murderhobo sociopaths you've turned lose on an unexpecting fictional land, its in everyone's best interests to just turn shit into a skill check with a gradient of consequences.

As I would tell my players "Ok yes you can fly and do all manner of other bullshit, but you don't have the slots to keep flying 24/7. Even if you did, you've got to sleep sometime. You can either accept these random events happen to occur when your character isn't ready for them (I don't think you're going to zoom to 250ft to take a shit) and we follow the consequences flow chart in the module, or I have to start getting creative with the threats & consequences and WHY they are only happening when the party is at its absolute weakest. Before you answer, think really, really hard on if you want me to start getting creative and what it will entail if I do - or if you just want to roll a survival check with advantage, deal with any listed consequences, and keep moving."
 
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It can be hard to cut that stuff. In part because the problem is 5e is a slow game, and in part because that stuff adds a lot of flavour.

I ran a game set in a mountain. I had even downloaded third party rules for proper spelunking and climbing. But the game was running so slow I had to cut all the travel stuff and trim down the adventures in some cases.
You know, after years of calling 5e a slow game it was only after my group started running OSE one-shots to get used to the system that we realized just how slow 5e is. Once we got used to the different initiative system, that game flows so much faster. No calculating bonuses, checking maneuvers, waiting for reactions, or counting resources. Just declare your attack, move if you want/can, roll your 1 hit, and move on. It's really refreshing.
 
You know, after years of calling 5e a slow game it was only after my group started running OSE one-shots to get used to the system that we realized just how slow 5e is.
For me, it was Savage Worlds, with the slowest thing in that system being initiative. Just recently I ran a one shot on VTT. An OSR system called Knave. It was very fast, so much so that we kept having to wait for people who got up to take a piss or whatever between turns because they're used to doing something once every 20-40 minutes, not once every minute or less.

As a DM, I would advise that unless your system is designed for Exploration/Hexcrawl or integrates it tightly (and I'd argue D&D THE WORLDS MOST POPULAR ROLEPLAYING GAME, especially past 1e Advanced, definitely isn't)
In Old School Essentials there are procedures for dungeon crawling and hex crawling that 5e never really talks about, like the concept of a dungeon turn being what makes things failing rolls you can try repeatedly meaningful. The rules for hex crawling in OSE are less than 100 words, and the detailed rules fit on two A5 pages. Meanwhile, 5e is three giant A4 tomes and it barely gets a mention (or if it does, I forgot).

I'd argue the OSR community has fixed and refined these rules over time. Things like count downs instead of random encounters, or the concept of travel stances. These concepts are simple enough to steal, but as already discussed, 5e renders the concept of survival obsolete so it's not worth the effort.


Speaking of which. Supposedly Bx DnD has good dungeon design rules, and ADnD expanded on them but made them unwieldy in the process. I've seen the ADnD dungeon generators, but can't find the Bx rules. The closest I've found is a blog post that simplified the treasure tables.
 
In Old School Essentials there are procedures for dungeon crawling and hex crawling that 5e never really talks about, like the concept of a dungeon turn being what makes things failing rolls you can try repeatedly meaningful.
5e doesn't talk about a lot of things, and when it does is it's usually shit. it's one reason I loathe 5e because it wastes my fucking time either way.

anyway, if you really want to run a hexcrawl in 5e there's this: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/46020/roleplaying-games/5e-hexcrawl

I'd still pick another system, since 5e (or other "heroic high fantasy" stuff like pathfinder 2e) doesn't really work with the nitty-gritty of wilderness survival, and making it work is usually not worth it when I can just grab forbidden lands or one ring and run it out more or less out of the box and be done with it.

Speaking of which. Supposedly Bx DnD has good dungeon design rules, and ADnD expanded on them but made them unwieldy in the process. I've seen the ADnD dungeon generators, but can't find the Bx rules. The closest I've found is a blog post that simplified the treasure tables.
if you got OSE you don't really need to go back any more, the gain is minimal imo. however it might be worth checking out ICRPG, it has a damn good GM section (look for 2e core, not master edition which cut stuff in way that makes it worse).
another good resource: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon
 
if you got OSE you don't really need to go back any more, the gain is minimal imo.
The dungeon design tools in OSE are basically place some rooms, then roll on a bunch of d6 tables to see if it contains monsters, treasure, traps, or a combination of those. There's not really a lot to it, and I'd argue it's too vague to be useful except maybe for restocking.

it might be worth checking out ICRPG,
I never really looked into Index Card RPG (I assume that's what ICRPG is) because I found the idea of a deck of cards with pictures to act as DM prompts to be lacking in terms of gameplay. I'll give it a look if I see it around.
 
I made an observation recently from GM'ing a new group at a club. Historically I've run games for mates and this is only the second time I've ever just put out a call and said "anybody want to play _______" and taken responders. Anyway, as a consequence I now have a group that are noticeably younger than I am in age. They're not teenagers, they are adult, but there's still a significant age gap.

Anyway, I don't know if that's the source of the disconnect or if it's other social factors or I've just always been exceptional (every sense of the word). But what I like in a game is firstly a genuine challenge, I typically want a character who isn't powerful in relation to the world he lives in and my character motivations are almost never about wealth or money. I just find that rather shallow compared to more complex character motivations. My group are all very much "I want power. I want to take people's stuff. I don't want consequences".

As a result, I have and am considering just ditching it. I'm the GM but I just can't really relate to that being fun. I keep setting up games with mysteries and powerful factions they have to work their way around or negotiate with. And they just want to bang into them headfirst and then they die. It feels like an irreconcilable disconnect. They just don't find fun what I find fun. One of them kind of does but, tying into my theory, he is also the closest to me in age.
Guessing 10ish+ years as the gap?
Part of it, not to stereotype, is the gratification angle. Most RPers of any age want a feeling of achievement and that advancement usually needs to come in a mechanical format. The adoration of a small village in ass fuck nowhere means little. It gets worse with younger or emotionally immature players (I prefer the former, the latter are likely to never learn).

It's a tricky one. Not certain if you're in a system where things like circumstances bonuses and the like are doable but maybe start giving them that sort of thing? So if they've recently handled a serial killer plaguing a certain area if they're doing social rolls in that region give them a buff. Means a lot of book keeping for you but it can help.

Good luck with it.
 
My GM just vetoed my Exalted of Folca build. I can't believe the no-fun bastard.

Folca was the short-lived daemon harbinger of child abuse that was decided to be too edgy even for Pathfinder lore and thoroughly retconned. His domains were Charm, Evil, Travel, and Trickery, his subdomains were Daemon, Deception, Exploration, and Lust, and his Areas of Concern were "abduction, strangers, and sweets". His unholy symbol was an outstretched skeletal hand holding a handful of candy. His "divine obedience" (an action that a character with one of several divine-related prestige classes must perform daily in order to get the full benefit of their class features) was "Stalk a child and make him witness or endure a horrifically brutal event. Promise him that you will return, and then release him with that haunting thought."

About the only thing that I can say in Pozzo's defense for this is that from the very start of the PFS lore daemons were established to be literally the most horrible things in existence. The only thing that could get archons (LG) and demons (CE) to work together was the threat of daemons eating reality. (The tl;dr here is that for various esoteric reasons souls in Pathfinder lore basically follows a magical version of the water cycle. Souls are created in the Plane of Positive Energy, go to the Material Plane, are incarnated, live, die, and go to the Boneyard, where they are sorted into the various Outer Planes based on their actions in life. From there, they become petitioners and outsiders, and most gradually fade into the background energy of their plane, where they become quintessence: the fundamental building blocks of spiritual reality. The Maelstrom sucks away the quintessence from the edges of the Outer Planes, feeds that into the Plane of Positive Energy, and so the cycle continues. Daemons are universally reviled because they eat souls. They're reviled by everyone else to the point that by unilateral agreement the gate from the Boneyard to Abaddon (the plane of the daemons) is bracketed by a demon (CE) and a devil (LE), each of which will exhort a Neutral Evil soul to declare for either the side of Law or Chaos in its last moments of decision. All the other forces of the universe would rather see a soul in the possession of the demons than snuffed out in its entirety.) So the publication of this particular bit of lore was nothing but an incredibly ill-judged attempt to put mechanics to the most abominable behaviors imaginable as part of a splatbook on evil outsiders.
 
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