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

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WhatIsThePunchline said:
The thing is that the angsty stuff is its own level of cringe as going full murderhobo. VtM is infamous for the pretentiousness of some players, and they are locked in an eternal battle with the guy who just want to max out strength and leap tall buildings.
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And there's even the fishmalk thing that totally encourages lolsorandom murderhobos.
The Ugly One said:
You're thinking of Brian Blume. Same guy also advised Gygax that compiling expansion & house rules for D&D into one book, changing the class system, and calling it "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" would mean they didn't have to pay Arneson any more. Shocking that a Jew would behave that way.
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To be fair, it was a much better system and when they switched over to it, so did everyone I knew.

(Still they did Arneson dirty.)
 
Red Dragon said:
It's similar to CoC, you're not playing that to kill Ctulhu. Some people like to just live in the setting and have severe limits while telling a cool story.
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Every single Coc campaign I had ended with the end of the world. They would save it over and over, but the end was always inevitable.
 
Red Dragon said:
Sure, my actions can affect something in the setting, but I'm not capable of bringing a big corpo down on my own
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Sounds like quitter talk, get a nuke inside your local corpo's HQ and watch the fireworks either riding out on a chopper or from hell.
If nothing else people will remember your name.
 
Adamska said:
The funny thing is people tend to complain about munchkins and minmaxers in d&d, but the world of darkness I think competes with it in terms of power gaming.

Though I will say it is a bit odd that you didn't run into anyone trying to go hard on The angst element because that is a very common play.
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I have a friend who is that sort of person. He got an aneurysm when I created a Nosfie who wasn't a hacker. I got this instead of the angsty teens and the big tiddy goth girls...
Red Dragon said:
It's similar to CoC, you're not playing that to kill Ctulhu. Some people like to just live in the setting and have severe limits while telling a cool story.
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Cthulhu was taken out by a ship in the only story he appeared in and some Great Old Ones can be offed with the right amount of firepower but it's always temporary. A CoC game/campaign should always look like a group of idiots trying to repair a leaking dam after watching a how to YT video. Even the almighty Delta Green is fucked.
 
WhatIsThePunchline said:
The natural expression of the system has far more in common with Goodfellas, Scarface, or any other mafia movies than it has with either Diary of a Vampire, Twilight or superheroes.
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Now I want a Vampire: The Masquerade: Scarface: The World is Yours: Yet Another Goddamn Subtitle campaign where Tony is a neonate, Elvira is an elder vampire who embraced him (and the eminence grise running the show), Frank is her ghoul, Sosa is a Prince running a business of smuggling young vampire blood to the states for rich elders, coke is all a smokescreen for all that of course, and players are Tony's old friends from Cuba trying together to corner the market.

Stats for Elvira: You Lose/5 across the board.
 
demicolon said:
Now I want a Vampire: The Masquerade: Scarface: The World is Yours: Yet Another Goddamn Subtitle campaign where Tony is a neonate, Elvira is an elder vampire who embraced him (and the eminence grise running the show), Frank is her ghoul, Sosa is a Prince running a business of smuggling young vampire blood to the states for rich elders, coke is all a smokescreen for all that of course, and players are Tony's old friends from Cuba trying together to corner the market.

Stats for Elvira: You Lose/5 across the board.
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Our fellow chuds at Black Lodge Games have released a number of videos on this concept

 
Red Dragon said:
Party-wiping villain sues are bad, but not every RPG setting needs to be about super heroes saving the world. I like Shadowrun exactly because I'm not a super important hero, I'm just a bastard trying to live without being shackled like the niggercattle population. Sure, my actions can affect something in the setting, but I'm not capable of bringing a big corpo down on my own, and my name will probably be forgotten in less than a week after my death.

It's similar to CoC, you're not playing that to kill Ctulhu. Some people like to just live in the setting and have severe limits while telling a cool story.
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I'm not disagreeing that some settings aren't meant to be altered in such a way. What I am saying is that if that's the case, then something like putting a hard limit on upper bounds of power in the rule system or limiting level/XP dependent on setting would make more sense than "lol get raped" because the setting author doesn't want to contend with the fact that a high position might not be unassailable in a setting that lets a rigger purchase a fleet of remote control APCs or that even elder vampires had to start as scrubs once too. CoC in your example doesn't try to build the illusion that there will be any level of parity between supernatural threats and what PCs are capable of.
 
Blarmed&Dangerous said:
Our fellow chuds at Black Lodge Games have released a number of videos on this concept

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Goddammit dude I was about to sperg for 10 pages about the plot but just gonna ask: would the feds be Society of Leopold in this scenario? And would Sosa be more of a Sabbat guy, pretending to be in Camarilla, and dealing with Frank/Elvira mostly because enemy of my enemy is still my enemy but it's convenient for now and mmmooneyyy, and vice versa?
 
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So me, a buddy, and our old DM walked into a local gaming store to check things out. By the time we walked out, we had a few younger people interested in 2nd Edition D&D as building god-tier characters was bordering on impossible unless you are insanely lucky. Nice to see some of the younger kids respect the fact that a +2 Sword is gift from the gods, not a reward for waking up on a calm sunday.
 
Halbschwanz said:
CoC in your example doesn't try to build the illusion that there will be any level of parity between supernatural threats and what PCs are capable of.
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In one of my campaigns, it was a PC going insane and casting "Call Azathoth," instantly destroying the world. I love the fact CoC had a spell in it nobody sane would actually cast, that just literally instantly destroys the world.

A lot of CoC spells were like this though, just like "why the fuck would anyone sane cast this?" At least the Summon/Bind pair spells could be sometimes useful, although if you failed on the Bind part you'd be looking at a TPK most of the time.

The only thing everyone in CoC should be able to do is draw the Elder Sign.
 
Norms Abused Liver said:
a +2 Sword is gift from the gods, not a reward for waking up on a calm sunday
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I just finished running B5 Horror on the Hill, an official TSR Basic module recommended for levels 1-3 trademarked for the year 1983.
The module contains the following loot;

- multiple potions of healing, more than is worth my time to count but at least 10
- +1 Sword from a random 9hp hobgoblin
- +2 Dagger behind a random tomb, just on the ground. Nothing is even holding it.
- +1 Shield wielded by a random 7hp goblin
- A Bag of Holding
- A Bag of Devouring
- +1 Battle Axe from a bugbear
- Some +1 Arrows throughout the module
- + 1 Mace from an evil cleric
- +1 Dagger off a dead adventurer
- Ring of Protection +1 off a dead adventurer next to the above
- +1 Longbow off yet another dead adventurer
- +1 Spear from a hobgoblin
- Ring of Fire Resistance from a hobgoblin king
- +1 Leather Armor
- +2 Shortsword (somewhat hard to find though)
- +1 Plate Mail
- +1 Sword
- ANOTHER Ring of Fire Resistance
- +2 Shield off a 9hp berserker
- +2 Shortsword off a Kobold Chief
- +1 Plate Mail, the SECOND SET
- 5x +2 Arrows
- +1 Sword (+3 vs Dragons)
- ANOTHER Ring of Protection +1
- A Wand of Magic Detection
- A Rod of Cancellation
- Ring of Invisibility off yet another dead adventurer (though you have to trip over his invisible corpse or use detect magic to find it)
- Quite a large number of potions which I do not care to go track down to list.
- Several thousand (Over 8,000) gold in raw treasure.
- A dragon which can be captured and sold for as much as 10,000 gold
- A number of spell scrolls, but somewhere in the range of 7 of spell levels 1-3 of clerical and magic user
- A magical fountain which can permanently increase (or decrease) your attributes once per character

In other words; what are you talking about? Is this revisionism or rage bait?
 
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AnOminous said:
In one of my campaigns, it was a PC going insane and casting "Call Azathoth," instantly destroying the world. I love the fact CoC had a spell in it nobody sane would actually cast, that just literally instantly destroys the world.
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That maybe a bit much IMHO. I'd go with a couple of Tsar Bombas. The game rarely brings up the fact that Mythos cults probably fight each other all the time behind humanity's back because even insane people and inhuman monsters don't want a scenario like this.
AnOminous said:
A lot of CoC spells were like this though, just like "why the fuck would anyone sane cast this?" At least the Summon/Bind pair spells could be sometimes useful, although if you failed on the Bind part you'd be looking at a TPK most of the time.

The only thing everyone in CoC should be able to do is draw the Elder Sign.
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And then they draw the Elder Sign on the wrong door and waste POW. Or think it works like a crucifix. :D Useful stuff like Gate spells, weapon enchanting spells, magical healing, anti-Eihort spells and The Eye of Light and Darkness exist but good luck finding them in one tome or library. You'd be institutionalized before you learn half of it.
 
Lightning's Heraldry said:
In other words; what are you talking about? Is this revisionism or rage bait?
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There's a very large portion of DMs that ignore the whole Place Treasure as Desired line in the section about giving out Treasure and will quite literally stock everything with the random tables. Which are on the the level of pure mudcore when you look at the numbers.
You'd also be surprised at how they screw up the parts in the Treasure tables that are labeled +1 potion, armor, Weapon etc.
According to themselves these dudes are some galaxy brained DMs though.
Hell even the original creators have explained these things in detail in various forums for the last 20 years and oddly enough have a pretty decent social media presence and they'll answer questions.

Horror on the Hill is a good classic crawl with lots of other exciting stuff going for it aa well. I've read it over a couple times but have yet to run it.
Maybe if I dust off Becmi or 2e again I can slap it in there somewhere.
Maybe gonzo it up for Mork Borg?
 
Lightning's Heraldry said:
I just finished running B5 Horror on the Hill, an official TSR Basic module recommended for levels 1-3 trademarked for the year 1983.
The module contains the following loot;

- multiple potions of healing, more than is worth my time to count but at least 10
- +1 Sword from a random 9hp hobgoblin
- +2 Dagger behind a random tomb, just on the ground. Nothing is even holding it.
- +1 Shield wielded by a random 7hp goblin
- A Bag of Holding
- A Bag of Devouring
- +1 Battle Axe from a bugbear
- Some +1 Arrows throughout the module
- + 1 Mace from an evil cleric
- +1 Dagger off a dead adventurer
- Ring of Protection +1 off a dead adventurer next to the above
- +1 Longbow off yet another dead adventurer
- +1 Spear from a hobgoblin
- Ring of Fire Resistance from a hobgoblin king
- +1 Leather Armor
- +2 Shortsword (somewhat hard to find though)
- +1 Plate Mail
- +1 Sword
- ANOTHER Ring of Fire Resistance
- +2 Shield off a 9hp berserker
- +2 Shortsword off a Kobold Chief
- +1 Plate Mail, the SECOND SET
- 5x +2 Arrows
- +1 Sword (+3 vs Dragons)
- ANOTHER Ring of Protection +1
- A Wand of Magic Detection
- A Rod of Cancellation
- Ring of Invisibility off yet another dead adventurer (though you have to trip over his invisible corpse or use detect magic to find it)
- Quite a large number of potions which I do not care to go track down to list.
- Several thousand (Over 8,000) gold in raw treasure.
- A dragon which can be captured and sold for as much as 10,000 gold
- A number of spell scrolls, but somewhere in the range of 7 of spell levels 1-3 of clerical and magic user
- A magical fountain which can permanently increase (or decrease) your attributes once per character

In other words; what are you talking about? Is this revisionism or rage bait?
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I always went with the more stingy approach. Kind of like how the older Baldur's Gates and Icewind Dales did it. I haven't played the new BG. I was always worried that my WFRP party acquired too much enchanted swag but I never liked those games where magic is so rare that your master knew someone who had heard of someone who saw a bottle of healing potion once. HotH is a sand box with several evil factions/monster bands isn't it?
 
Lightning's Heraldry said:
I just finished running B5 Horror on the Hill, an official TSR Basic module recommended for levels 1-3 trademarked for the year 1983.
The module contains the following loot;

- multiple potions of healing, more than is worth my time to count but at least 10
- +1 Sword from a random 9hp hobgoblin
- +2 Dagger behind a random tomb, just on the ground. Nothing is even holding it.
- +1 Shield wielded by a random 7hp goblin
- A Bag of Holding
- A Bag of Devouring
- +1 Battle Axe from a bugbear
- Some +1 Arrows throughout the module
- + 1 Mace from an evil cleric
- +1 Dagger off a dead adventurer
- Ring of Protection +1 off a dead adventurer next to the above
- +1 Longbow off yet another dead adventurer
- +1 Spear from a hobgoblin
- Ring of Fire Resistance from a hobgoblin king
- +1 Leather Armor
- +2 Shortsword (somewhat hard to find though)
- +1 Plate Mail
- +1 Sword
- ANOTHER Ring of Fire Resistance
- +2 Shield off a 9hp berserker
- +2 Shortsword off a Kobold Chief
- +1 Plate Mail, the SECOND SET
- 5x +2 Arrows
- +1 Sword (+3 vs Dragons)
- ANOTHER Ring of Protection +1
- A Wand of Magic Detection
- A Rod of Cancellation
- Ring of Invisibility off yet another dead adventurer (though you have to trip over his invisible corpse or use detect magic to find it)
- Quite a large number of potions which I do not care to go track down to list.
- Several thousand (Over 8,000) gold in raw treasure.
- A dragon which can be captured and sold for as much as 10,000 gold
- A number of spell scrolls, but somewhere in the range of 7 of spell levels 1-3 of clerical and magic user
- A magical fountain which can permanently increase (or decrease) your attributes once per character

In other words; what are you talking about? Is this revisionism or rage bait?
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And how many characters survived?
 
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