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

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The Ugly One said:
You can't reenact Robert E. Howard novels using any D&D rule set (for one thing, Conan is a very low-fantasy sort of story), and I don't believe you've ever even tried to, let alone found 3.5 adequate to the task and gave up in frustrated when trying to run your annual Conan simulator in 5e. Have you ever even read a Conan novel, for that matter?
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I mean, devil’s advocate- I could see a low fantasy sword and sorcery game being run with something like D&D 0e (or in my case, Swords and Wizardry). It would take a bit of finagling, mind. You would need to remove/replace demihumans and replace the cleric with a sorcerer-priest or warlock class. But it could work.

Hell, I don’t even think you need to restrict the wizard or the cleric-replacement. Epemitreus shows up in a dream Conan has in Phoenix on the Sword, and he’s a perfectly nice guy. And Pelias is only ambiguously evil. Sure, the vast majority of wizards are evil. But the vast majority of people aren’t the main characters.
 
Overly Serious said:
Might it be an idea to keep the specifics private and just send out to people via DM who are confirmed to be in the game? Or are you intending this to be a general use voice server for people?
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Appreciate the concern

Yes I was hoping to set up a general voice chat for people to use to play what ever games they want, I was thinking about whoring my self out as a freelance GM to run what ever people wanted even if i have no Idea what I'm doing I'm willing to learn
 
Gingervitis said:
I mean, devil’s advocate- I could see a low fantasy sword and sorcery game being run with something like D&D 0e (or in my case, Swords and Wizardry). It would take a bit of finagling, mind. You would need to remove/replace demihumans and replace the cleric with a sorcerer-priest or warlock class. But it could work.

Hell, I don’t even think you need to restrict the wizard or the cleric-replacement. Epemitreus shows up in a dream Conan has in Phoenix on the Sword, and he’s a perfectly nice guy. And Pelias is only ambiguously evil. Sure, the vast majority of wizards are evil. But the vast majority of people aren’t the main characters.
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There are a couple different low fantasy d20 games out there. The idea that you can't do a low-fantasy d20 game if to-hit bonuses never exceed +11, which is what that other guy was saying, is absurd.
 
FatR said:
Now, please tell me, why heroes in DnD, whose abilities and written and intended can greatly overshadow most of the people mentioned above (at least without the latter's plot devices) should find shanking kings to be so inherently difficult?
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Because a story about endlessly shanking kings would be boring, and if allowed freehand regicide that's all the usual murder hobo group would do.

When Conan just bundles up a bunch of logs and random timbers to make the evil king believe he has seige engines and send his army out, that's a great story moment. But trying to get players to pull of something like that is practically impossible and doesn't play out the same way.

ZMOT said:
since I was the one who made the initial example, I want to inject: if the king is that high level, why does he need the heroes?
my point was rather cramming everything into numbers and then trying to make sense of it like the average /tg/ "stat me" thread, you'll inevitably need some suspension of disbelief (and gm fiat) or divorce from the numbers to some degree.

that's all. :drink:
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Either the king is not high level and just has retainers (of which the party are just one more group) or he is and is prevented by various matters of state or statecraft. The king needs unalligned adventurers to go take care of an issue in the DMZ becasue he can't send soldiers without causing a diplomatic incident.
Which the party will inevitably cause a much worse one, sure. But there was a chance they wouldn't.
 
ZMOT said:
since I was the one who made the initial example, I want to inject: if the king is that high level, why does he need the heroes?
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I usually had excuses for that when someone retaining the heroes was incredibly powerful in his own right. Like an extremely powerful wizard who could cast devastating and even reality-bending spells, but was tied to a specific place. This particular dude was nearly a lich, but not actually undead. He had just ensorcelled his tower with anti-aging magic to the point if he left it, he would die immediately.

Or for "kings" (I would usually use dukes and barons and lower nobility for low level teams), they could either be political leaders with no real fighting ability, too busy keeping their territory running, or even just cowards.
 
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Ghostse said:
Which the party will inevitably cause a much worse one, sure. But there was a chance they wouldn't.
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Paladin: "Okay, guys, remember, we're on a clandestine mission..."

Thief: messes with the box they were specifically told not to touch, unleashing Yeenoghu upon the world.

Paladin: By St Cuthbert's cudgel, if I had a SP for every time you did that...
 
Overly Serious said:
TBC, this isn't me entering into the discussion on either side, but Monte Cook took a crack at Conan style D20 with his Iron Heroes line:
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Had some great ideas mechanically and a real Robert E. Howard vibe. Magic was low-key and associated with evil, armour existed but wasn't typical. So not lines of knights in platemail so much as a "secret of steel" sort of vibe. I never got to play it so I can't speak for how balanced it got as you went on but the character classes were very specialised and barring the sorcerer which was explicitly discouraged for players, heavily focused on martial classes. You had a barbarian class which received tokens when injured, an armiger class focused on defence, the harrier which was an absolutely great hyper-mobile class, the executioner which did very narrow focused, very high damage, an archer class which was quite deadly. I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who got to play it. I'd have loved to but never got the chance. It looked like the best D20 variant to me, though. Much more interesting than regular D&D. Very, very Conan feel.
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That sounds interesting. As someone who greatly prefers martials and low magic I might have to take a look look into it.
 
The Ugly One said:
Paladin: "Okay, guys, remember, we're on a clandestine mission..."

Thief: messes with the box they were specifically told not to touch, unleashing Yeenoghu upon the world.

Paladin: By St Cuthbert's cudgel, if I had a SP for every time you did that...
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I had a campaign where it sort of became a running gag that every time they went on a mission it resulted in a total catastrophe, to the point the duke's advisor was like "remind me why we're always hiring these guys?"
 
If you're in a world where people are dungeon-running their way to demigodhood, it's a safe bet that the currently sitting king of whateversville is not a pencil-necked level 1 nobody for any random adventurer to wander in and depose. That sort of low-hanging fruit would've been plucked decades ago, and you could bet that any current ruler would by necessity have a whole suite of assassination countermeasures in place, because anyone who didn't would be long dead. Even if the ruler themselves are not formidable fighters, they'd have to be charismatic or skillful enough to have that sort of person in their service, and intelligent enough to hold onto their power.
 
robobobo said:
If you're in a world where people are dungeon-running their way to demigodhood, it's a safe bet that the currently sitting king of whateversville is not a pencil-necked level 1 nobody for any random adventurer to wander in and depose. That sort of low-hanging fruit would've been plucked decades ago, and you could bet that any current ruler would by necessity have a whole suite of assassination countermeasures in place, because anyone who didn't would be long dead. Even if the ruler themselves are not formidable fighters, they'd have to be charismatic or skillful enough to have that sort of person in their service, and intelligent enough to hold onto their power.
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I would also add that, sometimes, the king IS a pencil-necked level 1 nobody, and this is a surefire way of realizing that he's not the true power behind the throne. I bet decking worthless kings out in magic items, armor, and weapons, giving them flashy magical courtiers to vaguely hint at them having powers, and other fantasy specific pomp is a big part of signaling to adventurers that this king isn't worth attempting to overthrow.
 
Chadikus Maximus said:
Appreciate the concern

Yes I was hoping to set up a general voice chat for people to use to play what ever games they want, I was thinking about whoring my self out as a freelance GM to run what ever people wanted even if i have no Idea what I'm doing I'm willing to learn
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I remember a discussion on RPG.net (pit of the underworld that it is) about paid GMs. Nascent capitalist that I was I saw no problem with it if players were willing to pay and given a GM can end up putting a huge amount of work into running a game. It was kind of a shrug thing for me. But by the gods did the concept make some people angry.

Quintus said:
That sounds interesting. As someone who greatly prefers martials and low magic I might have to take a look look into it.
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If you run it, please let me know how you found it. It looked very interesting. Whilst mechanically utterly different, my homebrew system was partially inspired by the class archetypes. Harrier looked like it would be great fun to play.

AnOminous said:
I had a campaign where it sort of became a running gag that every time they went on a mission it resulted in a total catastrophe, to the point the duke's advisor was like "remind me why we're always hiring these guys?"
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I had a group where after a couple of such things I pretty much told them: "Look, you're not smart enough to play in one of my games and I don't want to dumb my game down enough for you to survive an adventure". And that was pretty much that.
 
EleventySeven said:
I would also add that, sometimes, the king IS a pencil-necked level 1 nobody, and this is a surefire way of realizing that he's not the true power behind the throne. I bet decking worthless kings out in magic items, armor, and weapons, giving them flashy magical courtiers to vaguely hint at them having powers, and other fantasy specific pomp is a big part of signaling to adventurers that this king isn't worth attempting to overthrow.
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In fact, that was one of the things that was done to increase a ruler's prestige in real life. Deck them out in the shiniest armor/clothes, spread stories and tell tales of the ruler's great exploits and how he killed a bear with his bare hands or how he's so virile his wife couldn't walk for a week after their nuptials, and pile on ever more impressive titles related to whatever victories he may have achieved, no matter how tiny. Meanwhile the king is just a skinny dude under all that padding.

The difference is that in D&D authority does equal ass-kicking and stats don't have a bearing on one's appearance so even the pencil-necked guy on the throne might still be a level 14 fighter with 20 dexterity, 18 constitution, and enough magical items under his regal robes he can turn into a blender three times per encounter (and has two legendary actions to boot). Or maybe he is just a level 2 fighter, but the wizened vizier standing right next to the throne (who's been there for at least three generations of kings) is a level 15 sorcerer who's reaping the benefits of power without the burdens of leadership.
 
Overly Serious said:
I remember a discussion on RPG.net (pit of the underworld that it is) about paid GMs. Nascent capitalist that I was I saw no problem with it if players were willing to pay and given a GM can end up putting a huge amount of work into running a game. It was kind of a shrug thing for me. But by the gods did the concept make some people angry.
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Hmm I hadn't even thought about that paid GMs are a thing, for me it would kill the fun it would stop being just a game and turn into work. No to mention that the info required to get paid is something I would rather not be giving out.
 
The point of contention is inheritance, I think. If a legendary king dies of old age and his son becomes the second of his name, then he's starting with all of the advantages of his family's statecraft and personal magical armament up to that point, but unless he's been actually getting character levels and building those saving throws and HP totals, he's still very gankable.

Of course, if you lean into it, this opens up a lot of fun design space. You've got the children of nobles being thrown into meat grinders that are designed to toughen them up, and to both give them the best chance of success while still being dangerous enough to actually grant the needed experience. Evil families can go full Caliphate inheritance rules, and have it be tradition that the last un-assassinated sibling inherits.

Plus, if the PCs know that the Earl of Summerholt's son is a bro that helped them clear out ankhegs in a forest and invited them to the village feast afterwards (and that said son is at least competent enough to survive a fight with an ankheg, with assistance), that drastically decreases the chances that they'll want to pick a fight with the Earl's liege lord. And if it's clear that nobles are actively trying to recruit competent adventurers early, it provides a lot of justification for the royal family to already have poached the biggest and baddest adventurers as private retainers.
 
robobobo said:
If you're in a world where people are dungeon-running their way to demigodhood, it's a safe bet that the currently sitting king of whateversville is not a pencil-necked level 1 nobody for any random adventurer to wander in and depose. That sort of low-hanging fruit would've been plucked decades ago, and you could bet that any current ruler would by necessity have a whole suite of assassination countermeasures in place, because anyone who didn't would be long dead. Even if the ruler themselves are not formidable fighters, they'd have to be charismatic or skillful enough to have that sort of person in their service, and intelligent enough to hold onto their power.
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It feels like it all comes down to A) how good are you at logical world building that backs up what you're trying to get across to your players juuuuust enough that they believe it and (most importantly) don't do something utterly retarded, and B) have players that aren't unrepentant murderhobo assholes that just wacky LOLsorandum their way through your campaign regardless of what you're trying to do because they don't care.

I'll admit that I've failed in the past in campaigns to make town guards sufficiently beefy/dangerous enough to scare players away from doing stupid things but I've changed, baby, I swear.
 
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Truth
 
anti SJW said:
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Truth
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I don't think that's fair. Ryan Dancey and Monte Cook were big fans of AD&D. Dancey made the OGL (probably part of why he got fired) specifically so that D&D could live on regardless of what the corporate IP owner did. Mike Mearls went out of his way to engage with the OSR community to make 5e a better game and restructure the business strategy to make the game sustainable rather than just cynically milking a dwindling fanbase with rules expansions and frequent reboots. Of course, all those guys are gone. Anyone who had any affection at all for the classic game has been fired or run off.
 
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