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

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So he was the Paul Heyman of ttrpg's when Heyman was running ECW that aside still doesn't feel like he deserves half the vitriol he does for shit that seems like it was all done internally on a business level.
Paul Heyman the most ethical business owner in pro-wrestling and Jew on this planet. Defending new Jack and later proving innocent probably cost him ECW but he still did it anyways.
 
And exactly what did Gary *do* to deserve such a shunning other than being of the generation that were just a bunch of old white guys who were into Avalon Hill WWII and medieval recreation games and asked the question "hey these tanks and planes are all fine and dandy but what if they were trolls and dragons from Lord of the Rings? wouldn't that be something lets make some rules for that".

I once asked a good friend of mine who knows a lot more about old school dnd the same question. He never mentioned the "misogyny" thing others talked about. But he did mention his religious views. Apparently gygax is considered racist because the different races being inherently better or worse at some things is racist? I can't say I really see the logic of that but whatever. Also, certain races being inherently evil was something he brought up. Another thing I don't really get, considering things like gnolls and orcs were made by evil gods to serve them.
 
I once asked a good friend of mine who knows a lot more about old school dnd the same question. He never mentioned the "misogyny" thing others talked about. But he did mention his religious views. Apparently gygax is considered racist because the different races being inherently better or worse at some things is racist? I can't say I really see the logic of that but whatever. Also, certain races being inherently evil was something he brought up. Another thing I don't really get, considering things like gnolls and orcs were made by evil gods to serve them.
The obtuse one dimensional answer is he created a haven and outlet for the alt right to simply exist.
 
Was talking with a friend who told me about how there was a TPK for his group last session. No my game. Two words:

Bedroll Mimic.

They all failed perception checks when it came time to turn in, no one noticed the real bedrolls were replaced by mimics. Said the DM was good about giving warnings, ect. there was no ill will.
 
For people who care:

DiceDepot.com the guys who leased the GameScience IP and molds from GameScience, is doing an inventory clearing from their Brick & Mortar that shut down over pandemic. There were going to to do a 12 days of christmas sale but sounds like they said "Fuck it, 30% cyber monday"

In the meantime 11/27/2023 I think will mark the first time I have ever authorized 30% off any purchase on Dice Depot. So enjoy a deep discount and pick up some dice early, there are several games on the website as well that may be a great bargain at 30% off since that should more than cover shipping in the lower 48 states anyways. If you like Star Wars there are Star Wars Legion and X-Wing Miniatures as well as Wizkids miniatures we had left from the Brick-n-Mortar D&D in-person days.

Basically comb through the digital bargain bin and get some cheap dice. You think you have enough but deep in your heart you know you don't.
 
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Dungeons and Dragons postage stamps

Screenshot_20231130_175716_Chrome.jpg

I have to say, I think that's pretty cool.
 
For people who care:

DiceDepot.com the guys who leased the GameScience IP and molds from GameScience, is doing an inventory clearing from their Brick & Mortar that shut down over pandemic. There were going to to do a 12 days of christmas sale but sounds like they said "Fuck it, 30% cyber monday"



Basically comb through the digital bargain bin and get some cheap dice. You think you have enough but deep in your heart you know you don't.
Kinda mad I missed this since I wanted a good set of dice now that I'm gonna be playing in person.
 
Kinda mad I missed this since I wanted a good set of dice now that I'm gonna be playing in person.

They are still offering pretty decent prices on dice, I see chessex 7-sets for less than $4.

If you are looking for something that looks baller (or you just hate tables) Die Hard Dice make a solid product that's also a joke about the fuckers being heavy. Their Drakona series will get everyone jelly, they have scales molded onto the dice surfaces, they look cool as hell, better than the pictures on the D20/D6 - but you can only roll one at a time.
Diehard also makes poly dice, and they're solid but they are spendy without really bringing anything to the table; the colors aren't super cool, they aren't even the "dense polymer" chessex tried for a while
If you want to save money you can get chinesium knock-offs on amazon.

Game Science is back in business since Dice Depot gave back the rights to Louis Zocchi. The website is super wonky and the business is Louis' family filling orders. But he's having some health problems so if you want to do a feel good for the holiday....
Only thing I'd 'yeeeeee...' on, other than the prices, is that it seems every time I've ordered from the product has been a little more fucked up, i.e. mold scars needing filed, etc.

You can also get some stone dice off amazon. I got a set of Lapiz dice a few years ago mainly as a joke & DM-flex, but they've actually become my go-to dice. I would shill the shop provider I used, but they went out of business/shut down by the time I went back to order another set.
They are heavier than polydice, but lighter than metal, so they feel great in your hand but you don't need fling them to get a roll out of them.
Only down side is that like metal dice you can't more than one at a time, but unlike metal dice where you'll just slightly fuck them up you might chip or crack the stone ones.

I use a mix of my lapiz dice with my game science dice - mainly my Lapiz d20 for d20 rolls and the d6 or d8 for damage, and supplement whatever else I need with the game science. I have a 2nd set of game science in case I need extra dice, and a set of chessex as assistant deputy back up dice. And a set of Diehard I bring out for "DOOM ROLLS".
(I've got more but that's what I pack in my travel kit)
 
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You can also get some stone dice off amazon. I got a set of Lapiz dice a few years ago mainly as a joke & DM-flex, but they've actually become my go-to dice. I would shill the shop provider I used, but they went out of business/shut down by the time I went back to order another set.
They are heavier than polydice, but lighter than metal, so they feel great in your hand but you don't need fling them to get a roll out of them.
Only down side is that like metal dice you can't more than one at a time, but unlike metal dice where you'll just slightly fuck them up you might chip or crack the stone ones.
My friend had a set of stone dice that he was super proud of, took good care of them and used a dice tray and everything. Then one day the d20 accidentally rolled off the table and chipped, and after that his enthusiasm for D&D started to fade. He doesn't even use dice anymore, just a dice rolling app.

Am I saying that he had previously infused those dice with a part of his soul, and when they were damaged it also damaged him on a spiritual level, sort of like a lich's phylactery? No, but I'm not not saying it either.

As for me, I have two sets: a Chessex set I got over a decade ago at Dragon Con and a set recently gifted to me that has little rubber ducks in each die. Why, I don't know. I might look into a set of stone dice myself, but part of me still wants those damn Arby's dice for the sheer ridiculousness. Sadly, the eBay prices are still pretty ridiculous, and I'm not up to spending $50 just for a set of cheap novelty dice.
 
To cut a long story short, I'll be running a one shot with a modern theme. Players are average joes. I'm going to be re-theming some existing content. I'd like to consult the council of Kiwi's for ideas about plot, and how to run a "funnel" adventure.

Mechanically, it's a trap heavy dungeon crawl with a few small monsters. The PCs are attacked by stalked by a bigger monster that picks off NPCs/PCs throughout. The PCs are put into the maze with the monster during the opening narration.

What I don't have is a motivation for the villain to do this. Him just wanting to feed the monster feels a bit weak, but it'll do in a pinch.


My main concern is how to run a funnel adventure. I'm not sure how to make the PCs frail enough that they'll lose a few PCs without making everything a one hit kill. The main advice I see is "d4 hit points", but that seems incredibly precarious unless I obviously fudge dice. The other is that monsters run away after killing a PC or two, which again feels forced. I could be over thinking it though.
 
My main concern is how to run a funnel adventure. I'm not sure how to make the PCs frail enough that they'll lose a few PCs without making everything a one hit kill. The main advice I see is "d4 hit points", but that seems incredibly precarious unless I obviously fudge dice. The other is that monsters run away after killing a PC or two, which again feels forced. I could be over thinking it though.
Have the monsters be solitary and interested in eating more than killing. They killed one PC? Cool, they'll now drag the PC's corpse off somewhere safe where they can eat in peace, then either come back for more later, or stay out of the fight while other monsters keep stalking.
 
My friend got them from DND Dice, he bought each of our group a set for our birthdays (or belated birthdays) this year. One of us got hedgehogs, another got dinosaurs, and I forget what the others got (duck set I got is here). The d20s are a little bit larger than normal to accommodate the stuff inside, but they're otherwise the same as any other set. They have a pretty damn big variety of styles, including metal and gemstone, and I'm eyeing sets like this one that have a liquid core inside that swirls when they stop rolling.

What they say is true, you can never have too many dice.
 
My friend got them from DND Dice, he bought each of our group a set for our birthdays (or belated birthdays) this year. One of us got hedgehogs, another got dinosaurs, and I forget what the others got (duck set I got is here). The d20s are a little bit larger than normal to accommodate the stuff inside, but they're otherwise the same as any other set. They have a pretty damn big variety of styles, including metal and gemstone, and I'm eyeing sets like this one that have a liquid core inside that swirls when they stop rolling.

What they say is true, you can never have too many dice.
Hell yeah that's awesome
 
To cut a long story short, I'll be running a one shot with a modern theme. Players are average joes. I'm going to be re-theming some existing content. I'd like to consult the council of Kiwi's for ideas about plot, and how to run a "funnel" adventure.

Mechanically, it's a trap heavy dungeon crawl with a few small monsters. The PCs are attacked by stalked by a bigger monster that picks off NPCs/PCs throughout. The PCs are put into the maze with the monster during the opening narration.

What I don't have is a motivation for the villain to do this. Him just wanting to feed the monster feels a bit weak, but it'll do in a pinch.


My main concern is how to run a funnel adventure. I'm not sure how to make the PCs frail enough that they'll lose a few PCs without making everything a one hit kill. The main advice I see is "d4 hit points", but that seems incredibly precarious unless I obviously fudge dice. The other is that monsters run away after killing a PC or two, which again feels forced. I could be over thinking it though.

@Corn Flakes has it right with the mechanics - the monster pulls the victim away to eat them (or carried them to its nest to lay a larva in their brain; you could have brain-wormed fallen as additional hazards, and maybe have some way of killing the brain worms so the PCs might get some limited revives)

For the reasoning:
- The monster needs living human victims for whatever reason. (see: hosts for young)
- Cult member ritualistically feeding his "god".
- Guy is a just a fucked up vore fetishist
- Military Bioweapon trials route
- Alien collaborator seeing if the alien terror soldiers will be able to live on earth.
- Or take the predator formula and flip it around: aliens that pit other sentient life against the most deadly alien beasts to see which is the strongest. You could add in some SciFi bullshit about "If they can't collaborate to kill the Zarg, they are too disharmonous for contact"
- Bumfights meets Bugfights
- Go for a lake placid meets crazy cat lady route; Crazy Cat Monster lady who died and now the hungry monster is stuck in her house.
- Heist-gone-wrong route; there's a thing to be stolen, but the guard dog is a 20-foot tall Facereaper.

Also for a funnel, characters are supposed to die constantly. I wouldn't even do 1d4 if you're just running a monster-funnel. Take a cue from the serial killer asymetric games, give the PC 1 HP and let them be "mobile but heavily injured" at 0HP. IF you're going to have body armor, etc just have it act like OSR shield rules where it shatters and takes the hit for the character.
 
My friend had a set of stone dice that he was super proud of, took good care of them and used a dice tray and everything. Then one day the d20 accidentally rolled off the table and chipped, and after that his enthusiasm for D&D started to fade. He doesn't even use dice anymore, just a dice rolling app.

Am I saying that he had previously infused those dice with a part of his soul, and when they were damaged it also damaged him on a spiritual level, sort of like a lich's phylactery? No, but I'm not not saying it either.

As for me, I have two sets: a Chessex set I got over a decade ago at Dragon Con and a set recently gifted to me that has little rubber ducks in each die. Why, I don't know. I might look into a set of stone dice myself, but part of me still wants those damn Arby's dice for the sheer ridiculousness. Sadly, the eBay prices are still pretty ridiculous, and I'm not up to spending $50 just for a set of cheap novelty dice.
I actually wanted to get a pair of rubber duck dice but something tells me the little figures inside might make them unbalanced
 
I have a story about a game I played on Thanksgiving weekend. A guy from my main group who we haven't played with because he has moved kind of far away to live like a normal person reached out to me and a friend of mine asking if we wanted to play a characters that would attack the party. He's running the pathfinder 1e Way of the Wicked module and the party has inhabited a dungeon and have filled it with traps and things.

The important thing about this is that two of the characters in that game are my regular game night bros. The campaign itself has been a railroad to hell and we were begged to murder them so that once they were all dead they could bow their heads and say, "no man, we're all dead. We can play something else now?" Being a powergaming cunt I happily agreed to the session that was to happen three months later which I promptly forgot about. What remained of it like two days before the session and my friend backed out. After much procrastination I woke up early and hungover on Thanksgiving Sunday and scribbled together a team based on the Fantastic Four (at the GM's request, the original plan was for me and my friend to play Jules and Vincent from pulp fiction).

Started the fight off in a bad place because I was supposed to be just an encounter, just one where I was quietly supposed to try to pull out all the stops on killing the party as per two of the member's request. We didn't switch to a battle mat for two rounds and as a result my 'THE THING' who was a monk with stone skin got mooked. Had a couple rounds where not a lot happen until my complete and utter bullshit Human Torch (a crossblooded Red Dragon/Gold Dragon sorcerer started fireballing. At this point the two friends who wanted to be killed got scared and fought as hard as they could, which was great. Resulted in the sweet spot of autistic pathfinder combat. People going over the tiniest specifics of pathfinder rules, running around corners, using weird little tactics to fuck over the enemy. One of those nice 5 hour super involved everyone gives a shit combats.

End if the fight was neck and neck, I'm not sure who would have taken it to be honest. Just to brag, I had lower stats, was a level lower, shit for resources and the party each had a wraith to attack is with but as stated... I am a powergaming cunt. At that pivotal moment two large CR demons showed up and joined the fight which meant I was fucked. In the GM's defense, I think the module had that written in and the guy has done a shit ton of prep work for it. He was also home for the holidays and we were playing in his mom's basement while she played with her grandkids which was pretty wholesome. I wasn't supposed to win and accepted my death as an encounter like a man, but not before...

My last fireball outright killed my first regular group member, dropped him to -40 or something, pure death. Dropped my other group member to exactly negative to his con (which is death), and the DM granted him a once in a game boon of "just for this session you're neg your con- 1...". However I still had The Invivible Woman, who was just a druid who wild shaped as a small elemental and had a high stealth and a massive AC provoke from the enemies surrounding my Mr. Fantastic Alchemist. Moved her to provoke as feigned last hurrah, burning all their attacks of opportunity. I then looked at my two regular gaming friends and said, "I told you I would kill you motherfuckers" and let Mr. Fantastic whip a bomb killing the other guy. The two other players were left injured but alive which they were very happy about.

The beauty of that session was seeing the two guys who begged for death scrambling to survive despite bitching and moaning about their good friend running a railroaded game. Now the one is having his brain put into a robot for whatever campaign reason he had and the other is thinking of what he wants to do when he gets brought or maybe playing something different that fits into what they've seen better. I told the GM to just invite me and hopefully the original friend back the next time he wants to scare them, because next time I'm doing my Pulp Fiction shit.
 
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