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

[Alabama Gamer]

Back in the day I would have probably allowed such a character, although I would have warned that literally everyone else would want to kill you.

Funny thing, in one of our secondary games we had a character like that, except with the strange caveat that the player himself was the one saying "You should all want to kill me." Our group runs a regular game on Saturdays (we're hitting our second anniversary next week), and on Sundays and Mondays runs either Pathfinder APs or one-shots in various other systems like Dark Heresy, Delta Green, and (in one disastrous case) Paranoia XP. Currently our "regular" Sunday game is Strange Aeons, the CoC-themed Pathfinder AP. Weirdly, despite the fact that the AP is by default about as deadly as your average CoC module, the starting characters are uniquely tied to the story. To elaborate a bit, You eventually find out that your initial party were all thugs of the local lord, Count Lowls, who became obsessed with his investigation into the occult. The party wound up imprisoned in an asylum after an experiment gone wrong wiped their memories. Without GM fiat it's extremely unlikely that more than one or two PCs will make it out of the mental asylum in which you start the adventure alive. Anyway, the guy who is normally our GM was a player in this campaign, and his first character was a Chaotic Evil vivisectionist alchemist who followed Haagenti, demon lord of alchemy. IIRC as soon as he could he took a level in a divine prestige class so he could deepen that connection. I think he was just acting out because of Forever GM Syndrome, because OOC he told us "I'm perfectly okay with you killing my character whenever you think it necessary." Fortunately, it never came to that, because he died from his injuries in an assault on a mansion filled with Hastur cultists without the need for any sort of encouragement on our part.

 

[AnOminous]

I think he was just acting out because of Forever GM Syndrome, because OOC he told us "I'm perfectly okay with you killing my character whenever you think it necessary." Fortunately, it never came to that, because he died from his injuries in an assault on a mansion filled with Hastur cultists without the need for any sort of encouragement on our part.

I was also forever GM but I would play in other GMs campaigns, usually as exactly this kind of "you should kill my character" type, an absolutely obnoxious asshole. My general schtick would be to be a character who knew the location of the treasure or some other vital information, but to be a complete dick, so part of the ability to win the mission involved putting up with me at least until they got the information.

Thanks to the paladin who was always in the party, the whole "let's just torture him" argument didn't work. And I'd always torment that guy. Mocking him for his weakness.

I have definitely mentioned this before but on one occasion, some other NPC (I generally played as a substitute for a character who would otherwise be an NPC) inadvertently revealed the exact information that was the only reason the party hadn't already killed me.

So everyone looked at me immediately, realizing we don't need this asshole any more. I mocked the paladin, saying "you can't kill me, that would be evil!" And he said "I'll atone tomorrow." Then he did what needed to be done.

That wasn't even my most obnoxious character, though.

 

[Ghostse]

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.

OSE/BX includes a lot of good ideas that aren't wholly baked, like keep-building. You are given just enough starter material and examples you can use them to expand on what you're given. The overland section of OSE is very much that. Its definitely not fully formed (But due to holding to rigorous time/resource accounting, more integratable) but there's enough to give a decent DM the guidelines they need to make it do what they need it to do.

I understand that its much better than 5e's rules, and better integrated than "you are demigod above such trivial mortal concerns by level 6" 5e's, but I sort of consider that the bare minimum level. I understand games like Ruinmasters do it better by having hexcrawl and dungeoncrawl flow from the same system.

And lets be honest, having a looser system you customize to your group is really the best RPG, but sometimes you just want to eat and don't want to have to cook. Especially for a group of people you aren't sure of yet, or who cant/don't want to commit the time/attention needed to fully benefit from that sort of mutual adaptation, you just want something that comes out of the box fully formed.
And of course you can bolt-on very timers and checks, but that will have mixed results.

When I tried to put a survival timer (island explodes) on one of the first 5e one shots i ran, it really stuck out just how awful 5e was about time keeping. The times were basically "Round" "A Fight" "Short Rest" "Hour" "Over an hour" "Long Rest" "Day" with so much wiggle room the players were either in no danger of time or the time goals were impossible. No super close tension, no hoping to pick up an extra couple of minutes with a critical success on a search.

To say nothing of "If you don't give the party one long rest chance or everything is completely fucked if one combat goes bad. But if you do give them a long rest, any sort of reward for careful management of resources is practically nullified.

 

[Corn Flakes]

And lets be honest, having a looser system you customize to your group is really the best RPG, but sometimes you just want to eat and don't want to have to cook.

That's what modules/premades and talking to other GMs are for, really. You can also very easily reuse mechanics that worked in previous adventures, and only just re-skin them if you can spare the effort. My GM has this set of rules for foraging that he likes to apply whenever we end up spending too long in a single dungeon/cave, usually involving a couple simple deduction puzzles to make sure these mushrooms we just picked aren't poisonous. (Hint: check the monsters' pockets/stomachs.)

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

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.

Folca is simultaneously the most intensely edgy, and the most intensely terrifying thing Paizo every produced, and they are pussies for getting rid of him.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

All this talk of evil PCs makes me think of the game I'm running now. Long story short the party has descended into the depths of wickedness to the point where adventurers and heroes are going to show up and will try to kill them. Admittedly, I'm used to throwing evil things at the party myself.

A little background. They're elves from a forest that got a horrific plague and they are all victims of it. They act like alien monsters to the rest of the world (which I love) but are on the cusp of complete madness. They're basically okay with doing evil things as long as it helps the work toward their goal of finding the Elf King, which was an offshoot knowledge check which has driven the campaign for at least a year (as games should go). In their quest they have formed a cult where miserable people are willing to give up their soul, executed and tormented the slightest of offenses to anything elven, and at one point murdered a kid and ate him. Unquestionably evil.

What I ask of you is what should I send after them? They're the bad guys at this point but they travel a lot. The paladins and angels are obvious but if you have any ideas I'm very open to them. Keep in mind that they whole heartedly believe they are doing the right thing, it's a long story but strangely enough they're not entirely wrong. In any case, anyone with any sense of right and wrong would want to see them dead.

 

[Kane Lives]

All this talk of evil PCs makes me think of the game I'm running now. Long story short the party has descended into the depths of wickedness to the point where adventurers and heroes are going to show up and will try to kill them. Admittedly, I'm used to throwing evil things at the party myself.

A little background. They're elves from a forest that got a horrific plague and they are all victims of it. They act like alien monsters to the rest of the world (which I love) but are on the cusp of complete madness. They're basically okay with doing evil things as long as it helps the work toward their goal of finding the Elf King, which was an offshoot knowledge check which has driven the campaign for at least a year (as games should go). In their quest they have formed a cult where miserable people are willing to give up their soul, executed and tormented the slightest of offenses to anything elven, and at one point murdered a kid and ate him. Unquestionably evil.

What I ask of you is what should I send after them? They're the bad guys at this point but they travel a lot. The paladins and angels are obvious but if you have any ideas I'm very open to them. Keep in mind that they whole heartedly believe they are doing the right thing, it's a long story but strangely enough they're not entirely wrong. In any case, anyone with any sense of right and wrong would want to see them dead.

Presumably 5e, but you could also have revenge-seekers after them. Probably in the form of undead revenants who will not rest until the party is dead. (Makes for a cool recurring antagonist too, since you can never truly kill revenants iirc.)

Another idea is a rival (potentially evil) faction, who do not like them shitting on their turf. That opens up a lot of possibilities too, ranging from dragons who had enough of elves killing their rightful tributes, to some Illuminati tier group of mages who just don't want the Elf King found for whatever reason.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

All this talk of evil PCs makes me think of the game I'm running now. Long story short the party has descended into the depths of wickedness to the point where adventurers and heroes are going to show up and will try to kill them. Admittedly, I'm used to throwing evil things at the party myself.

A little background. They're elves from a forest that got a horrific plague and they are all victims of it. They act like alien monsters to the rest of the world (which I love) but are on the cusp of complete madness. They're basically okay with doing evil things as long as it helps the work toward their goal of finding the Elf King, which was an offshoot knowledge check which has driven the campaign for at least a year (as games should go). In their quest they have formed a cult where miserable people are willing to give up their soul, executed and tormented the slightest of offenses to anything elven, and at one point murdered a kid and ate him. Unquestionably evil.

What I ask of you is what should I send after them? They're the bad guys at this point but they travel a lot. The paladins and angels are obvious but if you have any ideas I'm very open to them. Keep in mind that they whole heartedly believe they are doing the right thing, it's a long story but strangely enough they're not entirely wrong. In any case, anyone with any sense of right and wrong would want to see them dead.

Considering what they are doing, probably more than a few governments want them dead.

I mean, the potential is endless. Professional assassins, the occasional knight errant, bounty hunters, or even traditional heroic adventurers are not beyond the pale.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Folca is simultaneously the most intensely edgy, and the most intensely terrifying thing Paizo every produced, and they are pussies for getting rid of him.

I unironically agree. All of the daemons are representations of various horrific deaths, from the genthodaemons (made of scorched flesh and barbed wire, representing the hopeless deaths of soldiers in total war) to the hydrodaemons (made of bloated corpses, representing those who died by drowning). We are talking about the publishers who invented the Mustard Gas Elemental, after all. (One book in the Reign of Winter AP involved the party being transported to Civil War era Russia in order to kill Rasputin, to free Baba Yaga, it's a long story, and I forget the exact nature of the monster in question but it was basically a Mustard Gas Elemental, and said book is objectively the best Pozzo content ever if for no other reason than the fact that it features a miniboss fight with the Tsar Tank prototype). Death by CSAM can't be any worse than death by Mustard Gas Elemental, and while I can't exactly fault Pozzo for drawing the line there, I might respect them a bit more if they hadn't. At least they could have worked the retcon into the lore. Imagine if there had been an entire section in a revised Book of the Damned Vol. III in which Ragathiel (patron of hitting evil in the face with swords, fire, and swords that happen to be on fire) personally slays Folca. Now that would be a worthy retcon.

EDIT: Do I get to add myself to my own quotes file? Because I feel that

and that's assuming that Father Highestsavesintheparty, Lord of Onlypersonwithanythingresemblingaproperteleportspell, bites it

while tempting fate more than a wee bit is pretty inspired.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Folca is simultaneously the most intensely edgy, and the most intensely terrifying thing Paizo every produced, and they are pussies for getting rid of him.

Ten years ago I'd agree with you.

But these days I get enough child abuse stories out of the fucking news, I don't want to think about that in my RPGs.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Ten years ago I'd agree with you.

But these days I get enough child abuse stories out of the fucking news, I don't want to think about that in my RPGs.

Yeah, anyone that came to my table wanting to play a character worshiping that shit would be promptly kicked.

 

[LobsterBoy669]

With all this talk about evil player characters, I feel the need to share the story of the best evil PC I've ever seen.

So, to keep this brief so it's not an unbearably long story: it's our first time playing 5e. I'm the forever DM but, gracefully, actually get to play this time, and I play as a half orc paladin. The other members of the group consist of a human barbarian, a half elf rogue, a drow warlock, and the evil character here, a human warlock.

We're playing, and we're all acting exactly as one would assume. I'm smiting, the barbarian is proving how strong he is, the rogue is doing some fun scheming to earn money, and the drow warlock is being an edgelord spellblade type character. But the human warlock is doing some very strange stuff. He's being charitable. He's helping people. Hell, he's acting more like a traditional paladin than my character (to be fair I picked Vengeance as my subclass, so that's not entirely suspicious).

Of course we're all wondering what exactly he's planning. The DM has told us that when it comes to out-of-combat RP stuff, if we want or need to do so, we can text him what we're doing so the other players aren't aware of actions we're taking. This is obviously a good thing. I mean we've got me, mister "smite all evil," and a rogue that just wants to make coin. Using texts just prevents meta gaming altogether and also allows for big revelations as the campaign progresses.

Well, mister human warlock uses this quite a bit for his "charitable" actions. His patron (a Great Old One) is said to be a being known as "He Who Loves." According to him, this being only wants to help people, so they may know the purity of true love. We were, again, very skeptical, but he has at this point given no obvious signs of betraying us. And I mean, he's doing good, so we're all just kinda giving him the side-eye at this point.

So the game goes on for many months, and many crazy things happen that I won't cover here, until finally, we reach the final battle. We're all high level, and now we have to face a pretty insane final boss: a Balor with tons of class levels wielding the Sword of Kas and The Book of Vile Darkness. It's a crazy fight. We somehow manage to take him down, with most of the party either unconsciousness or close to it. My paladin has fallen unconscious because, while he dealt the last big blow to the demon, the resulting explosion (fucking Balors man) knocked him on his ass.

The human warlock, mostly unscathed because he wisely chose to stand in the back and shoot blasts at the demon, walks up and proceeds to double tap me to make sure I'm dead, because of all the characters I'm the only one that would and could have stopped him. He then grabs the Book of Vile Darkness and writes his patron's name in the book. Turns out that was his plan the entire time. By doing so, he bridges the gap between the planes and allows his patron to cross into the material plane. And that's where the campaign ended: with the sky turning red, massive tentacles filling it as they reach down to collect the faithful that the human warlock had been cultivating for the entire campaign through his "charitable" actions. I don't care if my character got fucking merced, it was awesome. The next campaign, which I ran (because I'm the forever DM as I said lol), used that event as a starting point because it was just so good.

 

[Ghostse]

Ten years ago I'd agree with you.

But these days I get enough child abuse stories out of the fucking news, I don't want to think about that in my RPGs.

I think there's a difference between "We added this horrible being to the cosmology", "we added options to make evil NPCs that prescribe to this so you can murder them" and "Here are options for PCs who want to worship it".

 

[Corn Flakes]

I think there's a difference between "We added this horrible being to the cosmology", "we added options to make evil NPCs that prescribe to this" and "Here are options for PCs".

Absolutely, there is. I just don't want to engage or even think about the subject while playing my games. Personal preference. Call me a fucking wimp if you will. I'll readily play an adventure where we hunt down and bring to justice (or the woodchipper) a kiddy-diddler, but having a whole fucking deity dedicated to it and an accompanying cult to them is enough to make shit not fun for me. I've got a young niece I love very much, and I already worry enough for her in this degenerate world we live in (thankfully her parents are keeping her mostly away from the internet), I don't enjoy being reminded of it in my Kronk-hit-man-in-funny-hat-with-axe game.

 

[Ghostse]

Absolutely, there is. I just don't want to engage or even think about the subject while playing my games. Personal preference. Call me a fucking wimp if you will. I'll readily play an adventure where we hunt down and bring to justice (or the woodchipper) a kiddy-diddler, but having a whole fucking deity dedicated to it and an accompanying cult to them is enough to make shit not fun for me. I've got a young niece I love very much, and I already worry enough for her in this degenerate world we live in (thankfully her parents are keeping her mostly away from the internet), I don't enjoy being reminded of it in my Kronk-hit-man-in-funny-hat-with-axe game.

For me its one of those "How prevalent is this/how much thought went into this?" and I feel that Original Pozzo version hit that just about perfect: its a minor evil entity, the ritual makes sense for the being, and isn't overly detailed/doesn't feel like someone was page-setting with one hand. Its evil, meant to be evil, and its worshippers do evil shit. Players have something to track down and stop, and can feel very unconflicted when they go full Inquisition on the cult and anyone who enabled it.

Anyway, I think @40 Year Old Boomer summed it up pretty well:
Come to my table with a PC worshipping that shit, and you're being shown the door.

 

[ZMOT]

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.

that's how it's usually works tho, unless you want to get more hands-on with the flow and design and meticulously plan it all out. if that's what you're looking for this might be of use:

(posting a lot of videos because that's what I mostly watch these days instead of hollywood goyslop)

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.

for the longest while thought the same, but it's an alternative between full grid and theater of the mind. it's like movies and books, in a movie everybody sees the same, knows the same, which can be boring (ever noticed how most LOTR stuff now looks like the fucking jackson movies?). in a book it's all in your head, but if the book is written like shit, it will utterly fail at conveying it's content. same applies to GMs, with the added problem you have to get everyone to see the same thing (and what's important), not just you as a reader.
cards, drawings etc have enough ambiguity for everyone to be on the same page but still make up his own mind. also has the advantage that others can contribute - a highly detailed gridmap doesn't leave much room for that, TOTM is most of the time the whole table watching the GM come up with shit. putting cards on the table and have players react to them, without even explaining what it's actually supposed be or how it all interacts can lead to some fun outcomes.
drawing maps on a sheet of paper works similarly, but in the end is usually just lines on paper (unless you wanna go all out with decoration), they don't really say much. and I'm usually too lazy for that.

like everything else it needs the right group (and I'd say system) for it. think of it like dixit, very simple but lot of room, and not for everyone.

ICRPG just builds on that with it's own system, simplifying a lot of things (think I said it before, probably too simple for some). still lot of good ideas in there, and the GM section has a good chunk about design and concepts etc. which applies to any game.
it's also pretty concise, alternatively you can just watch the dude's stuff (goes over icrpg here)

 

[Pendulous Dong]

I love 3d6 so much bros

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

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.

I would want to see the build on that last. Undead enjoy a swarm of immunities that cripple the toxicant's poison touch as well as blanket immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also affects objects.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

People who go on about Folca remind me of the sort of person who bitches about Lovecraft being racist. The outrage seems performative after a while because the only real solution to their anguish is to just get over themselves and move on, and they refuse to do it.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

I would want to see the build on that last. Undead enjoy a swarm of immunities that cripple the toxicant's poison touch as well as blanket immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save unless it also affects objects.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist/discoveries/paizo-alchemist-discoveries/celestial-poisons-su/

The alchemist is able to infuse poisons with celestial power so they can affect evil creatures that are normally immune to poison. Any poison the alchemist administers to a weapon can affect undead and evil outsiders, bypassing their inherent immunities. Magical effects that negate poisons still apply. If a creature fails its save, the poison acts as normal, but may have no effect on the creature, depending on the effect of the poison (such as dealing Constitution damage to undead).

Since the Toxicant can administer a use of his poison to a weapon instead of making a touch attack, he can share it around the party. And, even if your GM makes the strictest possible interpretation and rules that Celestial Poisons won't make the undead vulnerable to certain conditions, there is still a very good one that the Toxicant can take. Dazed. Give the entire party Daze-coated weapons and they can effectively stunlock anything undead you come across.