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

[iScream into the void]

Starfinder mentioned: Obligatory "Dozens of us!"

 

[harbringer883]

Starfinder mentioned: Obligatory "Dozens of us!"

More like a bakers dozen.

 

[iScream into the void]

More like a bakers dozen.

 

[Rapier Ape]

(and used book stores) the amount of nerd game shit on the shelves is miniscule.

A majority of those stores are staffed with employees that are well aware of the online market for TTRPGs. I have a local chain that was overflowing with D&D 2e 3e 3.5, Warhammer, VTM and even Gurps books. After the semi recent political upheaval in the online communities + WotC shenanigans with 5e the pre 5e books got scooped off the shelves overnight and are now being horded for online sales. Anything that comes in gets the same treatment. This information was given to me by someone I know personally who's worked there for close to a decade.
I can't blame them for making a buck but it's pretty irritating. I used to hop in there bi-weekly to browse and generally left with at least one item. I filled out a load of shelf space with books I'll never use and the prices were decent. I mean I was grabbing 3e/old WoD hardback books for 10 bucks a pop. I stumbled across loads of original print 2e and Becmi stuff as well along with modules before combat wheelchairs and Bear Gangrels were tossed into the mix.

 

[The Bogwater Flows On]

Starfinder mentioned: Obligatory "Dozens of us!"

Ran Starfinder a while back. Did a shorter (like 5-7 session) campaign that was a remix of some beginner adventures. Discovered something running Starfinder: I hate Paizo.

 

[anti SJW]

Wow, WOTC thanking Gary Gygax on his birthday instead of trashing him for being a straight white man.

Could a change be coming?

 

[Judge Dredd]

People try to count it as a partial edition like 3.5 but it's not. Its the same rules. Its the same game with the only major difference was changing the philosophy of class design.

So why do they do that? It sounds like a typical beginner box.

The news about minis is surprising since 4e rules expect the table to use chits like in old school magazine wargames.

My bad. I'll clarify. Obviously I can use the chits in the box. When I say "minis soon" I mean minis that I like. They aren't official, but third party.

Specifically. Wargames Atlantic (a company I simp for) has a "modern operators" set promised in plastic. They've had 3D print versions for a while. They've also got a boogaloo themed set of minis coming out called Shattered Union, which the first wave is generic civvies. But they have a habit of announcing things months if not over a year out.

There's Stargrave Scavengers, which are just guys in long coats and hoods with fantasy AKs.

And of course, I can grab a bucket of cheap army men like from Toy Story. They're cold war era instead of millennium era or Twilight 2000, but they might work if I decide to go down the minis rout. He's a mini wargamer, and I like some of these minis. Granted, this is a rabbit hole I've been falling down since being told it's a bad road to go down, but it's fun so far.

Might be able to get new players involved thanks the to the Warframe collab.

What collab? They adding Warframes to Starfinder?

Starfinder mentioned: Obligatory "Dozens of us!"

Is Starfinder really that unpopular? I had an internet friend ask about Starfinder just yesterday.


I like SF. The problem is Paizo.

I thought Paizo treated Starfinder as an afterthought, but looking back at their released, they've been pretty consistent about supporting it. Though not as much stuff as PF, there's still a lot.

StarFinder 2 is royally shitting the bed. No space combat, the removal of tech classes, changing existing classes so that they don't step on the toes of PathFinder 2 classes, splitting the books up so that a player has to buy it all to get the character options, it's all dumb. And that's before we get to wokeshit or this boneheaded idea that SF2 must be 100% compatible with PF2. I don't even get the logic. Are they trying to turn SF into Spelljammer to sell it to PF fans?

And yet, I see good things said about the SF2 Galaxy Guide online, though it's common for RPG reviews to be give everything a great score. I'm really tempted to grab all the physical SF1 stuff that's going cheap atm. But I'm also torn because a bunch of it could be junk? I'm torn on setting books because I thought that stuff was well covered in the base game, but it could also be more good stuff. I'm torn on campaigns because all the ones I've read from woke era Paizo shit the bed after the first book, but I've never read the "best ones" like Dead Suns, but also Fly Free or Die is rated highly and I remember that one being bad despite a great premise.

 

[The Bogwater Flows On]

@Judge Dredd If you want to run Starfinder I say go for it, especially if you have Pathfinder experience. I did not have Pathfinder experience.

Also note on physical stuff. A lot was errata'd. Check dates and stuff online. Archives of Nethys is a website that covers basically all rules that has a lot of good references. I suggest printing stuff you want to use because the site seems to load slow as shit whenever you need it.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

Is Starfinder really that unpopular? I had an internet friend ask about Starfinder just yesterday.


I like SF. The problem is Paizo.

I was a local DM for Paizo Organized Play stuff for a few years, so I saw and was involved a bit in the playtest and roll-out of SF1e, and it seemed like Paizo was trying, but not hard enough. Playtest ship combat was so bad, I think all of the course correction between playtest and release was focused on that, even though people were logging complaints about roughly half the classes being unfun to play and equipment level being an arbitrary mechanic that should have either been iterated upon or scrapped.

And then after release [2017] and these complaints continued, it took them like 2 years to start releasing classes people liked (Witchwarper, Biohacker, Vanguard [2019], Nanocyte [2021], and Precog [2022]) and by then, no one gave a fuck about the system anymore.

It's also the system where they started doing variable length Adventure Paths instead of the standard six book, level 1-16 pattern they did for PF1. And the variable length APs were not a smart move either, though it might have boosted short-term sales.

 

[Ghostse]

So why do they do that? It sounds like a typical beginner box.

That's essentially what it was. 4e was profitable, but not to the level Hasbro wanted. So they were trying to lower the barrier to entry with the 4e Red Box and essential books. instead of you know releasing a playable SRD like 3.5 had.

The essential books aren't the 8x11 hard-bound large format like a usual RPG book. They are soft-cover "airport paperback" sized - cheaper to print and less space to store. They also did a lot of collation (and a little condensation) - like each book and race was planned to get their own book that would combine options from all three Players Handbooks, most settings and bigger modules, and add some new content. Plus add some lore and have expanded backgrounds on sample characters. These would have retailed for I think $15; they only did the Dragonborn one IIRC.

But if they had kept going, I probably would have bought them for core races/classes if just to have everything in one place. The DMG-equivalent they put in the dungeon masters kit is nice to bring when I'm doing a small bag day.

Off topic, but I found that bowling alley's are shutting down here with only things like blacklight ones still running.

Spoiler: Changing spaces sperg

One of the old, OLD school bowling alleys, like underneath a stripmall with the filter-fans with a little arcade and had thier beer license, old-school, closed in an area I was living in.
I was part of and organization that - to sum it up bluntly - was trying to keep rich faggots from LA & NYC from ruining the area with soulless development that would close local businesses or destroy neighborhoods.
We helped businesses by doing shit like organizing loans and arranging property-swaps, and working with developers try to do things like not develop over areas with iconic local businesses. We approached the owner to see what could be done to save the business and the owners appreciated we cared but it wasn't worth it.

The Alley was still very profitable, But the property owner very clearly didn't want to be in the stripmall business anymore and wanted to be in the "cashing in giant checks from developers" business, and the property was already in the hands of a holding company for the berkshire-hathaway affiliate. So the lease had been raised a fair bit 7ish years before and in three years it was very clear they next lease rate would be puntative. The only way to stop that would be force a sale from the holding company and that wasn't happening for any reasonable sum of cash.
But the real issue was the owner had upgraded the guts of the alley around 2000 and that had been an eye watering ammount, and it was getting to be time to do an upgrade or overhaul again - and it just didn't seem to be worth the risk.
The owner had done a lot of our work for us; when we mentioned the possibility of a swap (that is, working with the developer to avoid Protests PR & City council approvals nightmares, they buy out the lease and help cover relocation expenses to a new location. When you are looking at a 50+ million dollar project, throwing one to two hundred thousand dollars to not have citizens groups hold you up for 6 months or more is money well spent) he basically said it was nearly impossible to move the pin setters in any sort of cost-effective manner because they were heavy, mechanical, and would need to be reinstalled.
He was also very cognizant of the fact that he wasn't bringing in a lot of new clientele. The people who were there were the people who had been coming there for 30+ years, their family, or their friends. And they generally came because it was convenient to their daily routines; one of the city papers moved their printing press to a place far outside of own and it caused a big dip in revenue because the workers weren't stopping by after work to have some beers and bowl a game since the alley was no longer on their way to the highway. He's still see a good number for leagues on league nights and weekends, but it wasn't almost daily like before.
and this was all before COVID.

A couple of owners of places like the bowling alley said they squeaked through COVID, usually with relief programs from banks, local/state/federal government, but when things started lifting in 2022 they had no money to reinvest in their business and it was usually time to do some sort of update that would entail a large capital investment- inventory, HVAC, etc. Real Estate developers also smelled blood in the water and started making their moves to buy out small time commerical landlords, which started a death spiral of:
You have a comfortably profitable business, but lease/utilities/labor keeps going up faster than income. You also need to update your backend which is going to be a significant commitment. So a lot of owners just decide that this is as good a time as any to pack it in.
Its not a new story. About 10 years before that, the local mom & pop video store closed. (like beaded curtain and rented out games. The good shit) and I talked to the owner who was selling the entire store. The local Blockbuster had closed and I was wondering it that also got him. And he said nope - business was still great and actually growing at about the same rate it had since the late 90s. But the property owner wanted to demolish the store + parking lot for another footprint they thought would make more money (because zoning laws had reduced parking requirements for certain stores types) and so he'd have to deal with an apathetic to hostile landlord, and since BluRay was now taking off he'd have to go an recycle all the inventory to add BluRay..... and it just wasn't worth signing up to need to take 10 years to make that investment back when his kids were in college and he had enough money to retire. So he was doing just that.

Basically Bowling Alleys need a lot of real estate but they also need to be centrally located. This translates to high rents, especially since developers are being more agressive about rolling back commerical-only zoning, which is killing the low-density commerical zoning that used to the be their bread-and-butter. They also have very high capital requirements and high operating costs due to the heavy machines.

When you add in the loss of "third spaces" and helicopter parents - I talked with the.... lets say general manager of a bowling alley that had expanded into a entertainment complex (go-carts, battling cages, putt-putt, etc) who had worked there since the 70s when it was just an alley in a different building. But he said that in the 80s and 90s, the alley was basically daycare. Parents would just drop their grade-though-highschool kids off and then come pick them up in a couple hours. That trailed off in the 2000s and by 2010 that just never happened; The highschool kids who came to hang out all drove themselves, none of them were with younger siblings.
They were still busy, but it was all family groups or friend groups. Kids didn't come to just "meet up" anymore.

 

[Blarmed&Dangerous]

Wargames Atlantic (a company I simp for)

I like them a lot too - incredible stuff, very affordable - but (and this may be me being too sensitive), I saw them make an announcement about moving to Bluesky and I assume the worst.

 

[The Ugly One]

So why do they do that? It sounds like a typical beginner box.

Because the MM1 monsters took 432 rounds to kill, and all the classes had so many widgets that it slowed turns down to a crawl. 4e got off to a strong start, but the sales collapsed quickly. The adventures sucked, the expansions came too fast and too thick, and it was cumbersome to play without a sheaf of house rules. Essentials was basically a soft reboot that failed to save the series.

Is Starfinder really that unpopular? I had an internet friend ask about Starfinder just yesterday.

Everybody knows about Starfinder, but nobody actually plays it. The problem is it's not actually a SF RPG; it's Dungeons & Dragons with space ships, and the space ships aren't well done, and it's got a lot of the wonkiness you expect from 3.5. At the end of the day, Traveller's what most people looking for a sci-fi RPG actually want to play, even if they don't know it.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

A majority of those stores are staffed with employees that are well aware of the online market for TTRPGs. [...]the pre 5e books got scooped off the shelves overnight and are now being horded for online sales. Anything that comes in gets the same treatment. This information was given to me by someone I know personally who's worked there for close to a decade.

Goodwill now makes employees in many of its stores check online listings for as many donated items as they have time for, and anything like a game book that might bring in more than a few dollars is set aside and put up for sale on their online store. This practice has extended to most other thrift and used bookstores, so the days when you might make an incredible find like a barely touched red box are long over.

My bad. I'll clarify. Obviously I can use the chits in the box. When I say "minis soon" I mean minis that I like. They aren't official, but third party.

Sorry to push you down this rabbit hole, but you should retvrn to tradition and check out 15mm manufacturers like Khurasan Miniatures or Rebel Minis for some good stuff in this genre. If you want to become a true member of the elite, of course, there is 20mm or 1/72, which were the standard for modern wargames at the platoon level and below back in the elder days.

 

[The Bogwater Flows On]

Traveller's what most people looking for a sci-fi RPG actually want to play, even if they don't know it.

Is there a version/edition of Traveller you recommend starting with?

 

[The Ugly One]

Is there a version/edition of Traveller you recommend starting with?

Mongoose Traveller's pretty cleaned up and has nicely laid-out books.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/collections/traveller-rpgs

 

[Judge Dredd]

Also note on physical stuff. A lot was errata'd. Check dates and stuff online. Archives of Nethys is a website that covers basically all rules that has a lot of good references. I suggest printing stuff you want to use because the site seems to load slow as shit whenever you need it.

That's a shame. I was hoping to get the expanded character options book and be set. Even if stuff was Errata'd, hopefully it would work as written?

It's also the system where they started doing variable length Adventure Paths instead of the standard six book, level 1-16 pattern they did for PF1. And the variable length APs were not a smart move either, though it might have boosted short-term sales.

Another shame. The idea of shorter adventure paths was a great one. All killer, no filler, a campaign that doesn't takes a year and a half to run. Abomination Vault (the only official PF adventure path I played to completion) was a "short" one even if it ended up taking over a year to play out.

The problem is it's not actually a SF RPG; it's Dungeons & Dragons with space ships, and the space ships aren't well done, and it's got a lot of the wonkiness you expect from 3.5. At the end of the day, Traveller's what most people looking for a sci-fi RPG actually want to play, even if they don't know it.

The thing is, I want Star Wars esc pulp sci-fi. Or something like Destiny that mixes fantasty and sci-fi. Or even the optimistic sci-fi or Trek or Orville. I think the setting plays better in Savage Worlds, but that resulted in so much confusion I decided to never try doing it again. SW also has bad space combat, which didn't help.

Traveller I've not looked into rules wise, but I always dismiss it because of the lore. Everyone is a space trucker. There are no aliens, everyone is human except for the token furry race. You never own a ship, and if you do it'll be broken down all the time as jobs don't make enough to keep it maintained, if you do keep it maintained you'll be up to your eyeballs in debt and megacorps will send god tier spec ops squads to collect.

Granted, I've not seen FireFly yet, and I didn't care for Cowboy Beebop when I saw it as a teen.

In the same way I don't like straight tolkien gongfarmer meatgrinder in my fantasy games, I don't want useless space trucker financial ruin simulator in my sci-fi. To me, Traveller is like looking at the Alien movies. Throwing out the xenos and marines to focus on the crew arguing about shares. (And yes, I have heard that Aliens is a beat for beat retread of a popular Traveller campaign).


I'm sure what I'm about to say is wrong, but one of my favourite things about SF (which Paizo are rapidly fucking up) is the concept of the gap meaning you don't have to worry about lore. And Earth being gone removes that obvious tangent. Traveller by contrast has the Battletech problem where everything is mapped out. I can't plop an adventure somewhere without risking the wrath of a continuity lawyer.

 

[LovisXVI]

The thing is, I want Star Wars esc pulp sci-fi.

Then run one of the Star Wars systems, you've got four of them, take your pick.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Then run one of the Star Wars systems, you've got four of them, take your pick.

If I wanted to run straight Star Wars, I would. The problem is Star Wars comes with a lot of baggage. As does Star Trek.

 

[LovisXVI]

If I wanted to run straight Star Wars, I would. The problem is Star Wars comes with a lot of baggage. As does Star Trek.

"Then run one of the Star Wars systems, you've got four of them, take your pick."

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

Another shame. The idea of shorter adventure paths was a great one. All killer, no filler, a campaign that doesn't takes a year and a half to run. Abomination Vault (the only official PF adventure path I played to completion) was a "short" one even if it ended up taking over a year to play out.

The problem is that reducing the length of the adventure paths didn't cut out shitty AP books, it just concentrated the same amount of shit into smaller adventures. With the 6-book adventures, you would typically have one shitty book where they were straining to make the XP to get to the next book and then after little bit of filler in a hand-ful of other books. You could either blast through these or skip them and the campaign remains largely unchanged. When the campaign is 3 books long, there's always still at least one shitty book and it throws off the whole adventure.