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

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I love that they think that "China Doll" refers to pollution goblin Chinese.

Not dolls made out the material known as china.

You now a combination of clay, kaolin, feldspar, and quartz, a high quality porcelain first made in China, which it is named after.

Fucking tards, man.

Looking at the dev comments
Just to help understand your concerns better, I have some questions:

1. The Horned Ones don\'t appear in the Open Beta core. Are you referring to older material, or did we miss something?
2. There isn\'t art in the Open Beta core. Are you referring to female art you found inappropriate from older material?
3. The mechanics are simulationist, not more indie narrativist. Is that what you mean by 90\'s?
4. What are you finding in this Open Beta package that you still find creepy? We\'ve gone through great lengths to mature the tone of the product and focus on what makes the setting cool, not the chock faction.

I\'m happy to hear that you like the new character advancement system. Now, your character advances much faster, and you have more ways to advance your character.

The latest Open Beta has all the rules you need to play now. You can still use V1 enemy stats, as they basically still work. Dhohanoids will be in a new iteration soon.

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts!
to that review it seems to be concerned with the open beta and not the quickstart which is annoying since I didn't bother looking for that PDF.

Girl on the QS cover has nice tits though.
2e waifu.png
 
Oh. Well. 5E ruined everything.
To be fair, I don't know why you'd be playing Tomb of Horrors in 5E. Every character has all kinds of heckin epic feats that can retard every single bit of danger in the module.

In a coincidentally related note, in my 1:1 time sandbox Savage Pathfinder campaign my group decided to go into the Tomb of Horrors. I put it there for more high level play but the group thought they were cool bad dudes and could get through it.

They are rolling new characters as we speak. They now know to check for fucking traps.
 
One of the guys switched over to being DM. Everything was fine until a couple of weeks ago when he didn't let us know if a session was on that day. I thought it was weird, but went into town anyway and found him at the shop we usually play at. I asked where the others were, to which he responded: "dunno" which raised my eyebrows a bit. Fast forward to almost closing time when the others show up - DM's gone to get a bite to eat while the other players ask me where he is. They assumed it wasn't on and held off until the TCG event the shop had in the evening and when we all confronted him about it, he literally said: "I didn't check discord lol."

When I got home I politely told him that I needed to know if we were playing because petrol in the UK is becoming expensive and it was practically wasted on that trip into town. He didn't really say anything. Another few weeks go by - a new shop has opened up nearby (we're basically located in a mall) and the owner's kids are running around, knocking things over, screaming and being hellspawns. I can't handle the noise because of an ear infection and have to leave. When I get home, I find that the DM has left a message in the chat saying "Yeah I'm not staying in this group. Hope you enjoy having other adventures together."

The three of us discuss it a bit, but ultimately the decision is made to disband the group. I of course ask them if I was the problem. If I'm being a douchebag IRL, I want to know so that I can make amends and be an adult about it, but the others didn't think I was and told me not to worry about it.

The problem is that I've seen them still playing Warhammer and things in the shop and certainly don't seem to resent the DM for just ditching us like that. And it stings.
Also being from the UK, I've had similar issues at times with people just ghosting and not telling me why. There's just something about the people of our country where they're non-confrontational, uncommunicative, and outright two faced. Well okay, it's mostly the middle class. Which annoys me as a working class bloke who just wants people to be straight with me about any issues. Just to get that sort of passive aggressive tutting, umming and ahing thing where they look at my shoes. My shoes must be so interesting for them.

For your situation in particular, I'm a bit suspicious they never at least offered to let you in on their Warhammer games. Even if you don't like Warhammer and refuse that would've at least been the polite thing to do. They could've at least been honest and said that they all game together even without the GM. Ditching you like that is really shitty and absolutely not normal behaviour. I do think in this case you'd probably be better off without them and should look for other games. If you want give GMing a go yourself you will absolutely find some people at your local game shop. You'll have lots of choice so if someone is being a cunt you can easily replace them. And once they know that, most people stop being cunts at your table. Just don't do 5e. It's too fucking bloated which can challenge even experienced GMs. I always recomend Savage Worlds Pathfinder or the endless OSR clones of Basic/Expert DnD like Old School Essentials if you want something familiar to 5E.
 
They are rolling new characters as we speak. They now know to check for fucking traps.
Tbh back in the day I always gave players a choice for ToH (or any of the really nasty S modules) either to play for keeps (and they got to keep the loot), or play it as a one-shot with the same characters, but it wouldn't be canon to the campaign and they didn't keep the loot.

I'd always warn them you seriously do not want to play this one for keeps.
 
@Steinercard oh god I know how that feels. British people genuinely don't like the idea of conflict - even if that means putting up with douchebags who are genuinely making life hell for everyone else.

For your situation in particular, I'm a bit suspicious they never at least offered to let you in on their Warhammer games.
The more I thought about it, the more it started to look like maybe I wasn't really accepted into the group. There were no real table rules and I was always the one asking if there was going to be a session that week, which you'd think would be something pretty important to discuss the night before our next session. One guy who was eventually kicked out for behaviour unrelated to the game was passively hostile about me being invited to the group and began ghosting for weeks a couple of months after I joined.

If you want give GMing a go yourself you will absolutely find some people at your local game shop.
Not that easy I'm afraid. All the local shops are either run by big names or have the ugly-ass LGBTQA+ pride flag front and center in the windows and would have me kicked out in seconds if I stepped an inch out of line. I'm literally fucked.
 
Is this like an island nation thing? The Japanese are the exact same way.
I think it's because the younger generations aren't taught how to deal with conflict or issues properly anymore. Getting into conflict as a whole is frowned upon even when it's the only option left, which is frustrating when you want to be civil and diplomatic about things.
 
Has anyone got any information for that Into the Mother Lands RPG yet? From what I heard, it apparently ended up getting handed over to a new publisher last May, due to some issues with the previous publisher; there's also been a lack of updates on the Kickstarter, as well as poor communications with their backers. Apparently, they have a release date for the game; anyone happen to have any more information on... well, anything?
 
DM: "[The map] is blank."
Me: [My character] holds it up and says, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
*beat*
DM: "For copyright reasons, nothing happens."
 
I think I'm going to scrap the Ravenloft one shot idea. There's just too much to it to run it as a one shot, and people won't commit to a month long mini campaign or an all day session. I put out invites for other one shots, but no takers so far.


I had a look at an issue of Dungeon Magazine recently, and it appears to mostly be an adventure anthology? I might give more of them a read some time. If there are any issues you think stand out in your memory, let me know and I'll put them at the top of the list. It's clearly very different from the recent DnD magazine I mentioned the other day (which I'm now convinced is mostly going to be PHB and DMG reprints).
 
I think I'm going to scrap the Ravenloft one shot idea. There's just too much to it to run it as a one shot, and people won't commit to a month long mini campaign or an all day session. I put out invites for other one shots, but no takers so far.


I had a look at an issue of Dungeon Magazine recently, and it appears to mostly be an adventure anthology? I might give more of them a read some time. If there are any issues you think stand out in your memory, let me know and I'll put them at the top of the list. It's clearly very different from the recent DnD magazine I mentioned the other day (which I'm now convinced is mostly going to be PHB and DMG reprints).
I'm telling you: if you ran lvl 0-3 (cool story hook, death house, Burgomeister's funeral/Strahd's appearance) you could would have a fun afternoon/night there and if you're lucky people would want to play the rest out. Death House is a fun little dungeon crawl but pretty nasty if you play it by the book.

But if people don't want to commit nothing you can do. Also, CoS is going to take you more than a month unless you're playing multiple times a week and have got yourself some power gaming no-bullshit PCs.
 
The newest player at my table weirds me out. I can't put my finger on it, but he reminds me of a hobo with his over-eagerness to please, shabby clothing, poor grooming, and missing teeth. He seems to be totally unable to learn the rules and I find myself having to explain things like how to roll for initiative at least once a session. The only thing he does which he can be called out for is not muting his phone or putting it on airplane mode like everyone else does, although I'm pretty sure that he's only pretending to get phone calls sometimes.
 
I sincerely hope none of you are the sorts of assholes who do this:
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My GM doesn't do that, but if he's giving you something that's supposed to be hard to fight you can bet your ass its stat block is not going to look like the one in the Monster Manual. He knows we all have our copies and that we're familiar with the stuff, so he always throws in a few surprises. Liches, older dragons and other ancient spellcasters in particular sometimes get to fling their own signature/customized spells at us. After all, when you've got literally nothing but time, you can practice a few new and exclusive tricks.
 
Tbh back in the day I always gave players a choice for ToH (or any of the really nasty S modules) either to play for keeps (and they got to keep the loot), or play it as a one-shot with the same characters, but it wouldn't be canon to the campaign and they didn't keep the loot.

I'd always warn them you seriously do not want to play this one for keeps.
I put the Tomb on my map as a kind of final boss. I even told the players this directly. It's got lots of cool loot but you can't just wander in there expecting to have a good time. It was designed out of pure nerdy spite by Gygax. Who could be a fucking cunt sometimes. As Dave Arneson could attest to. Now the players have learned their lesson they're much more careful in regular dungeons so I got some good out of their stupidity.

@Steinercard oh god I know how that feels. British people genuinely don't like the idea of conflict - even if that means putting up with douchebags who are genuinely making life hell for everyone else.


The more I thought about it, the more it started to look like maybe I wasn't really accepted into the group. There were no real table rules and I was always the one asking if there was going to be a session that week, which you'd think would be something pretty important to discuss the night before our next session. One guy who was eventually kicked out for behaviour unrelated to the game was passively hostile about me being invited to the group and began ghosting for weeks a couple of months after I joined.


Not that easy I'm afraid. All the local shops are either run by big names or have the ugly-ass LGBTQA+ pride flag front and center in the windows and would have me kicked out in seconds if I stepped an inch out of line. I'm literally fucked.

It's better to wait a while for a group you gel with than force yourself into a group full of shits you don't like. I've learned this lesson myself over the years. I've got a good group now. But I've had bad groups that made me want to completely stop playing TTRPGs as well.

I sincerely hope none of you are the sorts of assholes who do this:
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Not yet. Thanks for the idea.

In other news I've got a second 1:1 game with patron play. I'm doing a D6 Star Wars game set in the The Old Republic era at the onset of the Mandalorian Wars. I did this game in a weird way I will elaborate on when I can get round to it.

But the gist of it is that I got a group of 3 people who have never played a TTRPG before. But played lots of strategy games like X-Com and Command & Conquer. Alongside a bit of Warhammer. So to start off, I had them play commanders in Revan's army ( Revan and Malak are two of my normal regulars as patrons and another cool guy I know is playing Mandalore the Ultimate.) using the SWD6 wargame rules and doing something more along the lines of a traditional wargame campaign. Gradually adding RPG mechanics to flesh out the units the commanders have. A lot of this is already right there in the Wargame rules. You can name individual members, entire squads, give them abilities and so on. And now they've gotten to the point where particular characters the commanders control are going on solo missions using the RPG rules. The intent is to eventually have the commanders go off on their own at the end of the Mandalorian Wars with their actions having a knock on effect to other things going on in the galaxy. The patrons are already going a bit off canon with Malak deciding to go look for Infinite Empire artifacts for himself whilst Revan fights in the war. Could lead to cool things.
 
Death House is a fun little dungeon crawl but pretty nasty if you play it by the book.
I've avoided Death House. I've not heard much in the way of bad things aside from a forced death scene, but I've also not heard good things either. Whereas Ravenloft is known for it's classic encounters, Death House is known for being free and the official spooky one-shot for people who don't have time for Ravenloft. Which isn't a great place to be imo.

The problem is there are many system neutral classic horror adventures and even board games like Arkham Horror. Even if you want to stay within the realm of official 5e content, Secret of Saltmarsh had a 5e port called Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

My original goal was to run the classic module, not the whole 5e campaign, without cutting iconic scenes like the tarot reading.


I do have a glut of horror themed adventures, though I'm always after more.
 
I ran/played dnd for the first time Wednesday. I was stressed the fuck out trying to overprepare, but was pleasantly surprised how well everything went. Two of the four players made joke characters, but they seemed like they ended up getting into things. Running "Lost Mine of Phandelver" because I thought it'd be easier than creating my own adventure. Definitely feel more confident about freeballing things now though. I will say, the first session was pretty combat heavy so I'm still wary about how well things will run once they actually get into town.
 
I ran/played dnd for the first time Wednesday. I was stressed the fuck out trying to overprepare, but was pleasantly surprised how well everything went. Two of the four players made joke characters, but they seemed like they ended up getting into things. Running "Lost Mine of Phandelver" because I thought it'd be easier than creating my own adventure. Definitely feel more confident about freeballing things now though. I will say, the first session was pretty combat heavy so I'm still wary about how well things will run once they actually get into town.
A pre-written adventure will definitely help, but one thing to keep in mind when it comes to being a DM: no matter how much you plan, your players will end up doing something totally unexpected and possibly stupid. Be ready to improv at a moment's notice.
 
My player group are obsessed with selling people out and trying to manipulate others into doing everything for them. It's not a D&D dungeon crawl game, it's a more urban "do missions" style of game so there aren't a lot of constraints on them going 'off-book'. Their entire behaviour is to find the most powerful faction they can and suck up to it. They have tried to sell out every employer they have had and at every opportunity rather than engage with the adventure directly they will go and find some NPC or group and try to manipulate or lie them into doing the adventure for them. It hasn't worked once, it never will. But it is always their go-to behaviour. They are mostly young-ish (like late teens and early twenties) and it's half got me wondering if there's just something deeply wrong with them and our education system is just producing people whose only way of thinking is to work via authority and others with no self-reliance whatsoever.

Given I'm trying to run a game where there are lots of factions, various hidden schemes, etc. their reflex reaction of "I've learned something - let me run to the most powerful faction I can get to and see if they'll reward me for betraying someone to them or kill them for us" is pretty much incompatible with that.
 
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