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Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)
- Thread starter Surtur
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- Feb 5, 2022
I prefer the Jazz Age but DG is fun if you like The X-Files, Millennium and True Detective. You have two options: past or present.
A) Buy a 5th edition CoC core rulebook and the 1997 DG sourcebook. Old Delta Green gave you detailed, established cults and a ton of delicious info to use in your game. My only personal beef with it is that the main sourcebook's foes are on the lamer and overused side (Nazi wizards and basically Greys and Men in Black). The Countdown supplement did the whole modern Mythos thing much better.
B) Get the current, 2nd edition DG which is it's own system but sadly wiped out most of the old villains, reinstated the organization after 9/11 and became an Antifa soapbox because the devs didn't handle the 2016 election too well. Expect over the top wokeness, far-left politics seeping into everything, deep hatred of White people, conservatives and even Lovecraft himself. They would rip the book out of your hands and punch you in the face if they knew that you post here. 2nd edition has more scenarios than the original but they're notoriously preachy. One of their more recent works The Good Life is hands down the worst official scenario I can remember. Literal current year TTRPG award bait which borders on actual wartime Yankee propaganda because it takes place in the South. You can find my revirew of it here. If you must use the new one I highly recommend getting Delta Green The Conspiracy too which is just the 1997 sourcebook updated for 2nd edition rules.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
Also let's just point out that rules-lawyering instadeath out of your spell list is finding a solution on your character sheet. It's the opposite of "not finding the solution on your character sheet."
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- Jan 7, 2026
I kiiiiinda liked the jib of Delta Green, but looking deeper, I had the same conclusion Lovis did. If I wanted to do that sort of game, I'd just run a WOD game with the players as feds, or maybe Hunter: Vigil with everyone part of Task Force Valkyrie.
1920's are the default setting for a very good reason, and if you can't decide on something very specific for your scenario, go with it. CoC is extremely adaptable to almost any time period, I've run games set in World War 2 (Operation: Foxglove), 1987 (Signal to Noise), 1972 (homebrew one shot styled after Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and even a one shotter in a viking village in 1025 AD, but the 20's are always a safe bet.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
I don't see it much in 5e. But the downside of 5e is in part that everything is written in verbose near-legalese in an attempt to shut down that behaviour.
In 5e, it's more clarification. "If I use a dragonborn's fire breath to light a candle, is that the use for the day" type stuff. There are exceptions of course, but that's usually a sign of some other issue.
That said, I struggle the rule illusion spells since they're usually a cure all in the hands of a halfway imaginative player.
Saw an ad for a DnD group that meets in a theatre. Not sure if I should make the trip to check it out.
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- Mar 8, 2026
The 1920s make a great setting because it's one of histories many interesting "in-between" periods. A massive event has already taken place (WW1) and the next is coming (WW2 and its lead-up) and it's got all the intrigue and adventure fodder of living in the aftermath of a major historical event and gearing up into the next one. CoC is a history nerd's game because like you said you really can fit it into any time period, and play the Lovecraftian elements and whatever historical flavoring you've chosen off one another to make each adventure incredibly unique. My last CoC adventure was set during the Great Depression and based off Skinwalker Ranch using the Down Darker Trails book, and my players had a blast even though half of them are basically historically illiterate.
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- May 25, 2024
I also like the 60's-80's because then you can really lean into the Cold War, CIA spookery, drug trade and weave that into the mythos.
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- Feb 5, 2022
This! They should really release a 50s supplement titled The Height of Delta Green or something. Fall exists already. I ran a short DG campaign on the rural border of 80s West and East Germany many years ago. It took place in a fictional castle (FRG) and village (GDR) that were separated from each other by the so called death strip (below). A secret, partially collapsed tunnel ran from one to the other. The castle used to belong to a notorious medieval knight and priest of Yog-Sothoth who came back from parts unknown and managed to convert some border guards, villagers and an American soldier who the agents were looking for. Even the Red Army Faction showed up to stir some shit.
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- Jul 4, 2022
Imagine keeping your ambition to just being a Lich. Apotheosis is the only real goal.
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- Jan 7, 2026
Reminds me of something on my CoC Keeper checklist; setting a game in 50's or 60's Soviet Union, make the bleak even bleaker...
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- Nov 4, 2017
Depends on system, depends on level, depends on campaign.
Its bullshit to pull insta-death out of nowhere. If this sort of thing is expected then I don't see why not.
But again, in my OSR stuff unless its a very clear "you had a 20-ton granite block dropped on you and you failed the save", I usually do "6d6 over 6 or d6 rounds" so there's at least a chance to do something about it.
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- May 25, 2024
Well, you should split between save or die vs one hit kills. Save or die are always bullshit, no matter who is wielding them, and just turn any game into eggshells with hammers, but without any of the tactical depth that a game designed to be like that has (Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Twilight, etc.) but one hit kills, munade attacks that hit so hard at to kill in a single go are fine, because they are subject to all the same mitigations as every other sort of normal attack.
I would say, eh, killing players is fine, but twiddling your thumbs because you got ganked early in the fight is often the opposite of fun (which is the point of playing?) and I would typically advise against it. I personally am of the mind that big single bosses don't work in the tabletop rpg format because of things like the action economy and that everyone is playing one character anyway. I would recommend avoiding all those problems by having a miniboss squad that are each more powerful than a PC, so they have to get tactical with it, but there can be some give or take, and randomness can work to their benefit and detriment. Big single boss with mooks also doesn't work, especially if any players are MMO veterans (like myself) and it just turns on their raid player brain and it becomes an optimization challenge instead.
Illumithotty
kiwifarms.net
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- Feb 2, 2022
I've always felt that instakill attacks/traps were completely fine, as long as they happen to an NPC first. If PCs don't want to get out of the way of the barbarian king's massive wind-up hammer attack after seeing a loyal page, unlucky flunky, or passing onion merchant turned into putty by it, then that's their fault.
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- Dec 16, 2019
Ruskis don't surf! Dice Scum ventures into the latest edition of Twilight 2000 and see what it takes to survive a post-nuclear environment!
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- Sep 3, 2014
Like I said, I understood completely why I could not dry drown someone with gallons of water. It's a low-level spell way too weak to do this with in a way that would be balanced, fair, or make sense. It was as dumb as if I mused on if a mage hand could collapse a blood vessel in the brain. Which I did also do, but never thought it'd make sense to get away with it.
With more knowledge, I know now you can make your spells do this if you workshop it with the DM and they okay it. So maybe one day I'll bless someone's lungs exploding with fluid.
You need to do a wind-up to the instagib. I recently did that with an enemy who could cast a smaller version of a Sphere of Annihilation by focusing on the summons. It made sense for the enemy to do it, but still gave a warning that "save or ultradeath" was a thing now.
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- Jul 4, 2022
Yo thread, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but DnD 2nd edition was one of the best editions of all time…one of the best of all time!
3/3.5 are also good.
3/3.5 are also good.
donksmanSupreme42
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2023
that's even better lmao
As others have mentioned, some kind of warning(be it a description, or an example made out of an NPC or something) is made, I don't have any issue with it. If you've got retarded players, use it as an opportunity for them to get smarter.
Should some random kobold bandit be instakilling some 13th level D&D adventurer? Fuck no. Some super wizard that's been threatening to nuke half of a continent with some ritual and shows he has the ability to do so? Absolutely. If the players are too stupid to be cautious after an NPC dies, or some display of firepower used on an inanimate object that's obviously powerful enough to turn someone into a pile of ash if they don't get the hell out of the way of the next one, then so be it.
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
Supposedly WOTC is begging DnD fans to return, and has rushed 6e into production (expected to release in 3 years), while turning DnD Beyond into a subscription service.
This they'll turn it around? Given they turned 5.5 into a subscription, I'm guessing they learned nothing.
Should I repeat the stories of HEMA guy and continuity lawyers?
The TLDW of that video is his party started using squirt guns filled with DMSO* and neurostun, turning every attack into save or die (well technically KO, but you were out of the fight). He tried snipers and drones as hard counters, but these were basically speed bumps to them. So he started using the same tactic against them. Hasmat suits, drones with sprinklers on them, I think he eventually had riot control trucks filled with the stuff.
In the end, they came to an agreement to start a new campaign with no DMSO.
A friend had a similar story. He was a big fan of Paladiums TMNT game. Though every campaign eventually devolved into groups throwing dynamite at each other.
*I'm not a cyberpunk expert. Supposedly DMSO was a chemical you could buy (is a real thing too). Any chemical you mixed with it would be absorbed through the skin. Sealed armour only offered a bonus to the save. After the squirt gun wars video, all future editions of cyberpunk have drug resistance augments and gear.
This they'll turn it around? Given they turned 5.5 into a subscription, I'm guessing they learned nothing.
Usually it's "because there's no smart phones and internet to trivialize 90% of the game"
No. It's the opposite.
Should I repeat the stories of HEMA guy and continuity lawyers?
One thing that's overlooked is that players can also be on the recieving end of this bullshit. I know this thread hates Spoony, but Squirt Gun Wars was a great example of this.
The TLDW of that video is his party started using squirt guns filled with DMSO* and neurostun, turning every attack into save or die (well technically KO, but you were out of the fight). He tried snipers and drones as hard counters, but these were basically speed bumps to them. So he started using the same tactic against them. Hasmat suits, drones with sprinklers on them, I think he eventually had riot control trucks filled with the stuff.
In the end, they came to an agreement to start a new campaign with no DMSO.
A friend had a similar story. He was a big fan of Paladiums TMNT game. Though every campaign eventually devolved into groups throwing dynamite at each other.
*I'm not a cyberpunk expert. Supposedly DMSO was a chemical you could buy (is a real thing too). Any chemical you mixed with it would be absorbed through the skin. Sealed armour only offered a bonus to the save. After the squirt gun wars video, all future editions of cyberpunk have drug resistance augments and gear.