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

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Adamska said:
First? Reject anyone who asks to play Tremere as their first clan pick. Shit players are attracted to them due to the blood magic for many a reason. Power gaming due to the many paths, being too Harry Potter brained to pick something else, and more. Toreador and Ventrue are yellow flags, since while a lot of shit players do play them, they tend to also be baby's first vamp. Brujahs you need to read their backstory, since it's 50/50 on them being insufferable politispergs or power gaming. Consider them if they pick Nosferatu or Gangrel. Be wary of munchkinery if they pick Tzimisce or LaSombra.
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As a Tremere player at heart my defense is i just wanna be a funny little wizard man. And id make the argument of a red flag clan would be anything thats supposed to be a traditional Sabbat clan like the LaSombra like they should of stayed
 
NIGGO KILLA said:
As a Tremere player at heart my defense is i just wanna be a funny little wizard man. And id make the argument of a red flag clan would be anything thats supposed to be a traditional Sabbat clan like the LaSombra like they should of stayed
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I play Ars Magica and I say that all Tremere must fucking die.
 
LovisXVI said:
Ironman character creation hasn't been a thing since the first edition. Since at least MegaTraveller, it has just resulted in something bad happening if you fail the survival check with death as an optional rule. Mongoose 1st and 2nd (which are the versions most people would pick up these days) have unique mishaps per career. Though you could still die in character creation if you kept going until you die of old age as a result of aging rolls.
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Sorry I thought we were playing the version meant for adults not the one meant to coddle dangerhairs.
 
Ghostse said:
Sorry I thought we were playing the version meant for adults not the one meant to coddle dangerhairs.
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I know OSR "people" think that lethality = interesting gameplay, but not everyone finds the churn of identityless stat sheets is compelling (apprently Marc Miller in 1987 didn't). You can buy any other edition, complete, for only 35 bucks a pop on the Far Future Enterprises website if the idea of mishaps is so offensive to your sensibilities. I recommend T5. Even GURPS if you find the idea of rolling THREE dice at once to be particularly titilating.
 
LovisXVI said:
I know OSR "people" think that lethality = interesting gameplay, but not everyone finds the churn of identityless stat sheets is compelling (apprently Marc Miller in 1987 didn't).
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I was fond of extreme lethality, but still had multiple characters who played well enough that they had years of irl and in-game survival. I always think an RPG should have the potential of a PC dying in any session. It's not really a game without the potential of severe penalties.
 
AnOminous said:
I was fond of extreme lethality, but still had multiple characters who played well enough that they had years of irl and in-game survival. I always think an RPG should have the potential of a PC dying in any session. It's not really a game without the potential of severe penalties.
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MgT is still extremely lethal, as it is ultimately still T1 but cleaned up, standardized, and streamlined, like the improvements that DGP made to the system in Traveller Digest, just that something horrible happens to the character if they fail the survival check, which I think is more interesting than just out deleting them, because now you have to live with anything from crippling injuries to financially ruined (which is a player's biggest fear moreso than their PC dying) to a tattered social reputation and someone powerful who has it out for you.
 
LovisXVI said:
MgT is still extremely lethal, as it is ultimately still T1 but cleaned up, standardized, and streamlined, like the improvements that DGP made to the system in Traveller Digest, just that something horrible happens to the character if they fail the survival check, which I think is more interesting than just out deleting them, because now you have to live with anything from crippling injuries to financially ruined (which is a player's biggest fear moreso than their PC dying) to a tattered social reputation and someone powerful who has it out for you.
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I always liked this. You could pick out your Traveller career choice. And somehow, it would end up with you losing an arm and a leg and then you'd get an awesome space ship. You'd be an awesome one-eyed pirate. With an awesome ship. But you'd rule.
 
In fairness, I don't mind the lethal character creation for meme'ing. But it does loses charm if it happens too often since then it just makes even playing the game be a chore if you're particularly unlucky.
 
Adamska said:
In fairness, I don't mind the lethal character creation for meme'ing. But it does loses charm if it happens too often since then it just makes even playing the game be a chore if you're particularly unlucky.
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Honestly, even with ironman, if your referee allows you to swap around the attribute rolls, you shouldn't fail it. I think I've failed a survival check once or twice, and last time it was for a practice character I was making to demonstrate how to actually do it to someone new to the system and even then, it was a snake eyes on a SOC 4+ roll which was just hilarious.
 
LovisXVI said:
I know OSR "people" think that lethality = interesting gameplay, but not everyone finds the churn of identityless stat sheets is compelling (apprently Marc Miller in 1987 didn't)
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Have you tried "getting good"?

Adamska said:
In fairness, I don't mind the lethal character creation for meme'ing. But it does loses charm if it happens too often since then it just makes even playing the game be a chore if you're particularly unlucky.
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I mean you could just play the latest PbtA clone if you're a pussy.

In all seriousness:
There's a line between "serious consequences" and "murder meatgrinder". I like the idea of there being a CYOA that lets players build a character with... well, character and that if you take risks there rewards but also actual consequences. And unless you are just going to eject players from the table who die during character creation, the only ones really are "rolling through that stuff again".

Granted I've been doing ttrpg with just pregens for like 2 years now so even though the OSR groups start at lvl 3, some history and gear is baked in just by trying to help people get into the character.
 
Ghostse said:
There's a line between "serious consequences" and "murder meatgrinder". I like the idea of there being a CYOA that lets players build a character with... well, character and that if you take risks there rewards but also actual consequences. And unless you are just going to eject players from the table who die during character creation, the only ones really are "rolling through that stuff again".
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Might I perhaps bring up the Cubicle 7 edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Way back when, WHFRP 1st ed. by Games Workshop didn't have a system in which you might die during character creation, admittedly. But it had a system where you might well end up with a character who would die shortly after. It was beloved by many and everybody wanted to roll a Rat Catcher career because not only did you begin with the coveted Resistance (Disease) talent but there was a percentile chance you might begin with "a small but vicious dog" too.

Fast forward to Cubicle 7 getting the licence. They went back to much of the original edition inspiration but couldn't quite go that Old School. What they came up with was a random system but where you get a modest XP reward at each stage for sticking with the random result. So roll your species. It'll probably be human and if you're happy with that, you get +20XP to start. If you're not, well you can pick but no bonus. Now you roll your class and career. Maybe you end up a Beggar. Take the random result and you get +50XP! Or maybe you really don't like that, well okay, your bonus XP is reduced to +25XP but you get two extra rolls and now can pick from any of the three. If you really ain't going with the results, then you can pick a starting career but you get nothing extra.

The whole principle continues throughout - like you can take the skills as rolled, you can take the less random roll but assign how you wish or you can take the fixed points deal for nothing.

I find this a pleasant mix of Old School Traveller randomness without it being a total killjoy. The XP amounts are not game-breaking, nor are they an all or nothing. Perhaps you just really don't want to be a Nun, for example.

It also leads to a lot of creativity which is the real bonus. It's not about being hard core enough to accept dying during chargen. It's the fact that you didn't anticipate playing a Dwarven Barber, but now that you've rolled it, you love the idea. Thus is born Sweeny Toddson, Dwarven Barber of Flood Street.
 
Ghostse said:
I also wrote a series of posts about using cards to simulate a trip/search
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Sorry. I guess I couldn't brain that day.

Ghostse said:
In your case, it sounds like the trip is the game.
If the game expects a vehicle, jsut have them go through a "mad max" type waste land, where there are other vehicles around that are abandoned but potentially repairable. Watch lets plays of The Long Drive for inspiration.
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Basically yes. There's also an issue of "We just drive away" being an issue. It's basically a mess and I'm starting to think I shouldn't bother, or read mission to mythril and over modules to see how they handle it.

Adamska said:
it just makes even playing the game be a chore if you're particularly unlucky.
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This is why I don't like character meat grinders (with one exception). Maybe my players are cursed (one player I know his DM even jokes about him needing to apologize to whatever witch he pissed off), because OSR adventures and even some games don't work. This isn't Tomb of Horrors "lets all climb into this statues mouth" levels of stupid. It's "I cast a spell" nat 1 "roll on the backlash table" nat 1. "You're sucked into the void. Roll a new character." or the infamous "you trigger a dart trap, save vs death or die.".

Nerds try to do probability backwards and say "No way that happened. That's a 1 in 800 chance!" or something along those lines. But it leads to a chronically unfun game. Either it happens early, and players check out, or it happens late, and they get frustrated. I've even heard the term "clownshoes monk", which is where a high level monk rolls so many nat 1s (due to having many attacks a round) that every other turn they are falling over, hitting their allies, etc. The excuse of "magic is dangerous and should only be cast as a last resort" removes all wizards from the game.

The exception is "funnel" adventures where you have a simplified stat block, each player has a bunch of PCs, and the knowledge that most will die before the end. Even then, the published ones are way to lethal. I've heard groundhog day style time loops work, but never seen it done for a hyper lethal game.
 
Judge Dredd said:
This isn't Tomb of Horrors "lets all climb into this statues mouth" levels of stupid.
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It's actually surprising how many parties fall for that one. Such a sucker trap but I got a couple TPKs with that bullshit. ToH is one where I gave the players a choice between playing "for real" and getting to keep the loot if they won, or playing their usual characters but it was a one-shot, and no keeping loot. Nobody ever took the "for real" option after I told them they were probably all going to die. Every room in that thing is a TPK opportunity.
 
Judge Dredd said:
Basically yes. There's also an issue of "We just drive away" being an issue.
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If the PCs drive away, they will encounter the same encounter but slightly reskinned 2d10 miles down the road. If they continue driving away, it will reappear every 2d10 miles and the distance to their destination will magically lengthen to infinite until they either deal with the encounter or are forced to deal with the encounter by lack of gas.
 
Judge Dredd said:
Basically yes. There's also an issue of "We just drive away" being an issue. It's basically a mess and I'm starting to think I shouldn't bother, or read mission to mythril and over modules to see how they handle it.
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The idea here is they need to stop and get out of the car at some point.

- Early roads were rough. Sick people often died enroute to help, and there is a reason early doctors use to go to the sick instead of the other way around. If you've ever taken a car off the road, its rough on your body. Even if they fuel, even if they maintain their vehicle, unless its all paved highway they should have to stop EVENTUALLY to camp if for no other reason than to give their organs a break.
- Speaking of poor road maintenance: The bridge is out. The tunnel collapsed. There is a road block ahead. There are a million events you can script to force the party to cease their journey and deal with an obstacle. And while they are doing so, then send your goblin horde upon them. Honestly if you're going to have the temple of the macguffin, this is the best time to do it. Since the task willbe "repair the bridge", they will see the temple and immediately want to do that instead.
- Overheating. Broken axles. Dead mules. There are a million ways to stop the party.

This is easy stuff my dude.

Judge Dredd said:
It's "I cast a spell" nat 1 "roll on the backlash table" nat 1. "You're sucked into the void. Roll a new character." or the infamous "you trigger a dart trap, save vs death or die.".
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This is why in nearly all cases I either ignore save vs. death and replace with damage, or I treat Save vs. Death/Poison as 6d6 over d6+1 rounds. The max damage of 36 over upto 7 rounds is very serious, but allows for a response other than "suck shit and die", and even the worst case of 36 damage over 2 rounds is survivable by higher level characters.
Also why I don't like crit/fumble tables and in general don't use them outside of "murderfest" games like KamB or Paranoia.

Judge Dredd said:
The excuse of "magic is dangerous and should only be cast as a last resort" removes all wizards from the game.
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Magic should be a last resort, and it should be unpredictable, not immediately leathal.
 
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