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

[Abella]

The introductory 5e boxes are all ass and the only decent thing to come from them are the dice and blank sheets. Not enough to warrant $20, especially not the phandelver booklets and the essentials campaign.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

Heads up for anyone who doesn't know; 2d4chan, the non-editable backup of 1d4chan, has moved to a new domain, 1d4chann. Spread the word.

 

[JJLiautaud]

Heads up for anyone who doesn't know; 2d4chan, the non-editable backup of 1d4chan, has moved to a new domain, 1d4chann. Spread the word.

All the internal links are broken.

 

[Gingervitis]

Heads up for anyone who doesn't know; 2d4chan, the non-editable backup of 1d4chan, has moved to a new domain, 1d4chann. Spread the word.

hopefully they can let us edit 1d4chann so that it can replace the newer, corporatized 1d6chan

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

All the internal links are broken.

In page links work fine. It seems to only be the simple search function at the top of the page that's wonky, since it links to the old 2d4chan pages. But the advanced search page which lists all the relevant choices seems to work fine, as it uses in page links.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

5e is just all kinds of a mess when you start really examining how certain abilities and spells can interact with each other.
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Feeblemind targeting Charisma goes back to 3E, when the sorcerer was introduced as an arcane Charisma based caster. Can't have them sidestepping feeblemind.

 

[East_Clintwood]

So one of my groups is trying to rope me into playing Deadlands, and not even Classic or Reloaded, but the new one. I haven't looked at it in the couple of years since release, so I've been reading the books again, and holy shit I forgot just how genuinely bad it is.
Even assuming you leave aside the retarded and pozzed new story, the rules themselves are shit, I mean they utterly fucked up guns of all things. Surely if there's one fundamental you need to get right about a Wild West game, it'd be guns right?

 

[Judge Dredd]

Even assuming you leave aside the retarded and pozzed new story, the rules themselves are shit, I mean they utterly fucked up guns of all things. Surely if there's one fundamental you need to get right about a Wild West game, it'd be guns right?

What did they do?

 

[East_Clintwood]

What did they do?

They added a whole bunch of choices, but most of them don't make any sense. Lets look at the weapon tables:


Why would you ever take a Dragoon when an Army is only a dollar more, and much better since it's a cartridge weapon, meaning it doesn't have cripplingly slow reloads. By the same token, why is a Peacemaker identical stats-wise to the Army, except costing $3 more?


Notice how the Lightning/Rainmaker/Thunderer are identical (minus price) despite being 3 different calibers? In fact the only difference is the ammo for the Thunderer is slightly more expensive since it's classified as a large pistol, rather than small. However even there we're only talking about it being $1/50 rounds more expensive. More importantly there's the Starr revolver which gives you more damage, but is the second cheapest of the bunch.



I wonder, should I choose the 7 shot repeater, or the more expensive, much slower to reload, but otherwise identical single shot weapon? Also why is the LeMat Carbine cap and ball, but the LeMat pistol isn't?



Why is the Rifled Musket 1/3 the price of a non rifled one? Why doesn't the rifled musket have any AP when the non-rifled one does? Why is a musket the same price as a #73 repeater? Unless you desperately need the ammo compatibility between the '73 and the Frontier, or are absolutely convinced that having 15 rounds instead of 11 is somehow critical, the Bullard is offering you an average of ~2 damage more, why would you choose not to take that?

The only ones that make even a modicum of sense are the pepperbox/derringers and shotguns.

Here at least there's some choice, where you can go for concealability, damage, ammo capacity or the extra melee damage.


Leaving aside the stupid revolving shotgun (because Reload 3 is a killer), there's once again a nice actual trade-off. Do you want the extra potential damage from giving 'em both barrels at once, or the extra bit of magazine capacity from the lever action.

However now we get to the true pièce de résistance of this shitshow. Notice how we have some "black powder" weapons and some weapons can be gotten as the older "cap and ball" version, for a bit cheaper? At no point, anywhere in the book (or indeed in the Savage Worlds Core Rulebook), does it actually explain what that means (ie that cap and ball are just black powder + percussion caps rather than using a flintlock). In fact other than in the weapon entries themselves the only mention for cap and ball is the ammo table:

because it doesn't say anwyhere that cap and ball are also black powder weapons that means by RAW, black powder weapons use shot + powder, but cap and ball weapons only use percussion caps to fire which makes zero fucking sense (obviously they should need shot + powder + percussion caps)

 

[JJLiautaud]

However now we get to the true pièce de résistance of this shitshow. Notice how we have some "black powder" weapons and some weapons can be gotten as the older "cap and ball" version, for a bit cheaper? At no point, anywhere in the book (or indeed in the Savage Worlds Core Rulebook), does it actually explain what that means (ie that cap and ball are just black powder + percussion caps rather than using a flintlock). In fact other than in the weapon entries themselves the only mention for cap and ball is the ammo table:

Also I might add at this point in history almost all flintlocks have been converted to percussion cap because of reliability and ease of use.

 

[Quintus]

So one of my groups is trying to rope me into playing Deadlands, and not even Classic or Reloaded, but the new one. I haven't looked at it in the couple of years since release, so I've been reading the books again, and holy shit I forgot just how genuinely bad it is.
Even assuming you leave aside the retarded and pozzed new story, the rules themselves are shit, I mean they utterly fucked up guns of all things. Surely if there's one fundamental you need to get right about a Wild West game, it'd be guns right?

I didn't even know there was a version other than classic and reloaded. Sucks they made it bad. Although one thing I noticed running classic is they constantly switch between male and female pronouns every other section. So seems the seeds where already there. It throws me off to this day even after a year.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Unless you desperately need the ammo compatibility between the '73 and the Frontier, or are absolutely convinced that having 15 rounds instead of 11 is somehow critical, the Bullard is offering you an average of ~2 damage more, why would you choose not to take that?

Strength minimum. Though I forget what failing to meet the minimum does for ranged weapons. I think for melee weapons it caps the damage and denies special features, but it's been a while since I read Savage Worlds of any time, and haven't touched these new books.

Although one thing I noticed running classic is they constantly switch between male and female pronouns every other section. So seems the seeds where already there. It throws me off to this day even after a year.

There was one RPG that did this (I forget which, might have been Savage Worlds but don't quote me on that) and they were using the programming documentation standard where a male programmer writes code for a female user. In the case of the RPG is a male DM and a female player. I think the only Deadlands I've read is Reloaded, not 100% sure.

At no point, anywhere in the book (or indeed in the Savage Worlds Core Rulebook), does it actually explain what that means (ie that cap and ball are just black powder + percussion caps rather than using a flintlock).

I hate it when games do this. I don't know if it's bad editing, bad game design, or both.

One of the books I find myself coming back to when playing OSR games is Old School Essentials. Not for the game itself, but it includes rules that are often omitted from other games.

One of the most consistently omitted rules that even OSE doesn't cover is retreating. Sounds easy, and lots of games (especially OSR games) point it out as an option, but when the encounter is "you are surrounded by a pack of wolves", what does that even mean? The wolves will clearly outrun them, and the party wouldn't run away unless they're outmatched. The only advice to just let the party get away, but that doesn't fix the problem mechanically. Especially when a spell "forces the target to retreat".

Edit: OSE Advanced does cover retreat, under "fleeing" or "evasion", but it's a weird percentile system with tables based on movement speed and group size. It's not practical at the table, but at least it's something

 

[East_Clintwood]

Strength minimum. Though I forget what failing to meet the minimum does for ranged weapons

-1 to attack rolls for every die step between your actual str and the minimum str of the weapon.

I hate it when games do this. I don't know if it's bad editing, bad game design, or both.

It's absolutely both.

 

[Not Who You Think]

Has anyone here come across a decent system that doesn't use an XP/levelling system for character progression?

Specifically looking for ones where PCs would advance through getting better gear, items that provide a permanent/temporary stat boost, or more natural means of acquiring skills/abilities rather than relying a numbered XP/levelling system.

I am also interested in ones you've played that weren't very good. In any case, I would be curious to know the pros and cons of this type of system from those who have experience.

Any insight is appreciated.

 

[East_Clintwood]

Has anyone here come across a decent system that doesn't use an XP/levelling system for character progression?

Specifically looking for ones where PCs would advance through getting better gear, items that provide a permanent/temporary stat boost, or more natural means of acquiring skills/abilities rather than relying a numbered XP/levelling system.

I am also interested in ones you've played that weren't very good. In any case, I would be curious to know the pros and cons of this type of system from those who have experience.

Any insight is appreciated.

Shadowrun uses a system called karma instead. Basically at the end of a run you get karma from the DM and whatever in-universe payment (cash/gear etc). Karma is then spent directly to improve your attributes/skills buy positive qualities/remove negative qualities. However there's also a variable time requirement to getting new shit, to represent training/learning etc. Sure you want to be stronger but that would take gym time etc. Alternatively some stuff can be increased by spending money (and a bit of time).

For instance lets say you're playing the stereotypical pistol using combat character. After a run you could spend a bunch of karma and time and effort working out to make yourself faster (gotta be quick on the draw, right?) then spend a bunch of time at the range practicing to raise your shooting skill. Alternatively if you have the money/in-game connections you could buy yourself some wired reflexes cyberwear, and a fancy new smartlinked gun and get better that way.

 

[Ghostse]

Has anyone here come across a decent system that doesn't use an XP/levelling system for character progression?

Specifically looking for ones where PCs would advance through getting better gear, items that provide a permanent/temporary stat boost, or more natural means of acquiring skills/abilities rather than relying a numbered XP/levelling system.

I am also interested in ones you've played that weren't very good. In any case, I would be curious to know the pros and cons of this type of system from those who have experience.

Any insight is appreciated.

You can effectively do this in 4e - cap/static levels, but give the PCs progression via gear.

I did similar in a 4e campaign, where I soft capped players at level 5, hard capped them at lvl 8, but kept giving them better gear and stat-boost-in-lieu-of-level for 9+.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

In 5e maintaining concentration on a spell is not an action of any kind. It's a response to 3e casters being able to maintain several long duration spells at a time. You can maintain a grand total of one concentration spell at a time and you can be knocked out of it upon taking damage and by failing a constitution save.

 

[AnOminous]

In 5e maintaining concentration on a spell is not an action of any kind. It's a response to 3e casters being able to maintain several long duration spells at a time. You can maintain a grand total of one concentration spell at a time and you can be knocked out of it upon taking damage and by failing a constitution save.

Is that really different than in previous versions? Because I seem to recall lengthy spellcastings also being disrupted by taking damage even early on, and you also lost the spell and had to re-memorize it.

 

[Ghostse]

Hey Niggers. I just realized Its been over a year since Woketards of the Coast at the behest of their corpomasters shit the bed so hard they pissed away nearly 25 years of community and creator good will chasing dimes and wokie points by fucking with the OGL.
Wizards CONTINUES to fuck up on the monthly, but figured it was worth generating actual content instead of shitposts to do a quick round up of the various projects that were rage-spawned.

Here's the ones I was aware of:

Old School Essentials - abandoned OGL excise given the lack of Wizards IP in their repacking of 1E, choosing instead go masturbate to mushrooms. They felt confident enough the danger had passed to do reprints of OSE books. Creator still beating off about fungus, onlyfans Kickstarter yet to come.

Pozzo - Degenerate faggots, but Made the Open RPG Creative License - the ORC - and then patented it so an un-alterable copy exists in the US Patent office. Pozzo are faggots but they actually made something good, useful, and un-pozzed. No content clause, no community behavior guidelines, release your Fellowship of the Turner Diaries game with the ORC. The ORC has seemingly become the defacto standard alternative license for anything not still sucking 5e dick. I don't play PF/PF No. 2, so didn't keep a close watch on them removing OGL content but given they seem to be able to find their ass with both hands so they can take nigger dick in it I'd imagine its fully complete by now.

Kobold Press - They are faggots, but at least in mostly the pitcher-not-the-catcher sense. I.e. when talking about caving to wokies and getting rid of race, they.... actually make a fairly good case (while avoiding that they could have kept "Race" and just had lineages for the core race types)

Spoiler

[Jeff] “Race” as a concept in RPGs is something that doesn’t quite work right. If your dwarf character was an orphan raised among halflings, why would he know how to use a battleaxe? That’s a weird disconnect, and one we can fix.

[Celeste] Once upon a time, we only had three or four novel series to turn to when we needed definitive facts about what a fantasy race called an elf or a dwarf was.

And those novels became the foundation for how we thought about fantasy. With good reason!

But the fantasy genre has exploded beyond that source material. We have more stories than ever featuring and focusing on fantastical people. And honestly, it no longer makes sense to say, “A-yup, being a dwarf means you’re really good at swinging axes.” Any heroic fantasy adventurer can learn to swing an axe.

So! We started doing the thing that science fiction figured out a long time ago: defining different types of creatures by super neat biological adaptations like breathing in water, not needing to sleep, hyper-sharp senses, the ability to see in the dark, etc. Once those inborn traits were established, we could create heritage options to represent learned behaviors.

But as much DNA as sci-fi and fantasy share, they still feel different. We need to maintain what makes fantasy feel like fantasy. So rather than turn “race” into “species” (my preferred term was phenotype, but somehow that didn’t catch on), we settled on “lineage.” In a bigger, weirder fantasy idea-space than Tolkien created, we need ideas that are more encompassing.

Decoupling biological and learned traits in this way allowed us to create yet another opportunity for players to enrich their character’s backstory. Which is always a great thing in our book.

But then they proceed to fuck it all the way up and let out their inner soyfag.

Spoiler

Having ability scores pumped or junked according to race is something we heard a lot about from fans.

Here’s the thing. It is ridiculous to say that every human in the real world is exactly as strong, fast, or charismatic as every other human. It doesn’t take a game designer to tell you that. Sure, some folks are born with an aptitude for certain skills or talents, but ultimately, the choices we make in our lifetime determine our overall “statistics.”

You might be born with a powerful frame, but you must spend years training and exercising to become a professional weight lifter. Some people are born with great instincts, but true wisdom is only gained through experience.

If you follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion, you’ll likely end up asking the same question we did: Why design mechanics that force a person (whether a human, a dwarf, an elf, etc.) to have statistics that don’t reflect the abilities they’ve spent a lifetime cultivating?

It’s certainly easier to say, “All orcs are strong,” and never have to learn or think about orcs any other way. But! In a world where we’re forging more human bonds and telling more human stories through our non-human characters, making sweeping assumptions about how all members of a species are or aren’t is a disservice to the fantasy genre at large and the stories we can tell at our own tables.

Anyway, They were working on a product "Core Fantasy Roleplaying" they would release under a Black Flag license. They have changed tack; they abandoned their own license for the ORC and rebranded their system as Black Flag Roleplaying.
Looking briefly, its 5e with some bolted-on Home brew and concessions to wokies - there are sub classes, Races are now "lineage", You have a heritage, and then a background. "Feats" are "Talents" and they treat them like PF2 treats feats (pick from this list of class/race features on level) which never really jived with me. There is also a "Luck point" system - when you fail, you get a luck point but can only have 5. You can spend luck points to add a bonus to a d20 roll.

Any other OGL excise projects anyone else remembers?
The internet seems to have forgotten. 5e Kickstarters are just as numerous and at most you are seeing dual SRD/ORC licensing.


Grogging about BFR:
There's actually a fair bit I like about the system. Race/Heritage/Background are decent, but I feel Heritage & Background are too similar and cover the same ground. I also feel that backgrounds should have class restrictions more than racial restrictions. Or arguably treat background more like 3.5 prestige classes - instead of pick background, chose from these advantages, you could pick any background that matches things you have selected and get more advantages.
i.e. instead of selecting "Soldier" background and getting to chose Medical, Atheltic, Survival, or Animal handling proficiencies, have Soldier background require a martial class, a certain level of armor/weapon proficiency, and probably a minimum str score.
(plus If you were dedicated, you could use this system to help generate high level NPCs as well by having backgrounds you wouldn't be able to meet as lvl 1, and have that help flesh out NPC backgrounds or player who are in a up-leveled campaign)

There is also further grogging I could do about how its a modern RPG issue where instead of adjusting your character to match your stats, you have a special character in mind and want the stats to match that character concept, and if that's actually a problem, but I'll stop there.

And I just generally dislike "main class then a sub class" method of classing. As we've seen how that plays out from WotC: its just a module/supplement creator arms race to have your module introduce the next new busted meta. Nothing wrong with specialization options or fully-formed class remixes, but the Subclass shit is lazy DBZ powerscaling; there's never any trade off for subclass besides "I didn't pick a more powerful one" and not all subclasses are created remotely equal.

Biggest issue I think I take with it though its called Black Flag Roleplaying and isn't pirate themed.

 

[BlazikenLover]

In 5e maintaining concentration on a spell is not an action of any kind. It's a response to 3e casters being able to maintain several long duration spells at a time. You can maintain a grand total of one concentration spell at a time and you can be knocked out of it upon taking damage and by failing a constitution save.

The book also says the DM could decide that some environmental effects can force saves

The DM might also decide that certain environmental phenomena, such as a wave crashing over you while you're on a storm-tossed ship, require you to succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to maintain concentration on a spell.

It's a shame they didn't try harder with the optional rules or suggestions, what few attempts there were beyond the PHB and DMG mostly sucked (XGtE was such a disappointment with its downtime rules). I really came to appreciate little things like this since they are rather simple to use and make the combat less static, I have seen one too many homebrews or third party content with neat ideas but whose execution ends up being complicated and/or obnoxious.