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

[Orange Rhymer]

Apologies if this is deemed 'off-topic':
There is a GREAT PNP 'story/world management tool' on Steam for FREE called Ikarus.
This tool really shows promise. I can also see this being useful for writing fantasy or possible other fiction.
The whole thing is freeware with no copyrights assumed. No ads, no mining bots. Simple, but effective.
Demonstration:

(I am not paid or receiving anything by the Ikarus team, I got it for free just like everyone can)

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

I've had a neat little idea, just a tiny inspiration for a line of quests, based on the german chivalry tale of Parcival and his quest for the holy grail.
There, the holy grail can only be seen by true Christians, which means Parcival's pagan half-brother has to convert to Christianity before being able to see it.

So I was thinking, maybe it would be kinda fun to send my group on a wild goose chase for some similar divine artifact, but (without their knowledge) there are a string of situations where they and their morals are tested and challenged.
For instance a situation where they can choose between being pious and honest, which makes things complicated or choosing to lie and achieving their immediate goal much easier and quicker. And depending on how well they fare, they either end up being able to see/touch/interact with the divine artifact or not.
Might even be fun to contemplate adding a bit of a Covenant of the Arc-style aspect, where people who horrendeously fail at these divine tests by doing genuinely vile stuff get killed when they try to grab the artifact...

I will have to contemplate this further, but it sounds like a neat little storyline, depending on how I flesh it out.

 

[BScCollateral]

I've always wanted to do something based loosely on Sadko , involving a quest for the Bluebird of Happiness, rumored to be held in a desolated island by a fearsome monster none dare to confront.

And it turns out that being close to the Bluebird of Happiness for a long time makes you so happy and content that you ultimately starve to death, because feeding yourself is too much trouble.

 

[Syaoran Li]

Thinking about getting back into RPG's pretty soon. Currently reading my PDF of the main rulebook for RECON.

It's the original version from the early 80's too, not the Palladium version that came out later and used fake names for the countries (even referring to the Soviet Union as "Big Red" at one point)

 

[Orange Rhymer]

Thinking about getting back into RPG's pretty soon. Currently reading my PDF of the main rulebook for RECON.

It's the original version from the early 80's too, not the Palladium version that came out later and used fake names for the countries (even referring to the Soviet Union as "Big Red" at one point)

There was an RPG in the 80's called "The 'Nam" iirc. I had it, but my PnP shit was destroyed in a flood. This game simulated a dungeon crawler, but with the US troops combat types. Very interesting, and a concept that wasn't fully explored...

I remember Recon as well. My buddy had that. The one I had was a step lower in production quality- like not even publisher quality. I bought it from a local comic book story. Xeroxed tabloid pages with 2 staples in the middle. The guy probably was making them at the local library.

Anyway, Recon was exploring the concept as well. I think GURPS could really be adapted well to this genre (Steve Jackson, is there anything you cannot do?).

edit: followup

 

[Syaoran Li]

There was an RPG in the 80's called "The 'Nam" iirc. I had it, but my PnP shit was destroyed in a flood. This game simulated a dungeon crawler, but with the US troops combat types. Very interesting, and a concept that wasn't fully explored...

RECON is a lot like that. It was a Vietnam War RPG that came out in 1981 and was created by a guy named Joe F. Martin, who originally published it independently before Palladium bought the rights to it and did their own cleaned-up version where the countries were all fictionalized. IIRC, the United States was called "Stateside" and the Soviet Union was called "Big Red" while other countries were amalgated into fictional counterparts in the Palladium version (Boorland was a mix of Rhodesia and South Africa)

The original version was a cult classic that had its own line of miniatures, a few adventure modules and a single known supplement called Track Commander that covered the Arab-Israeli conflicts, with new rules for vehicle combat. There was a planned supplement for RECON called "Headhunters" that was about mercenaries and possibly would have had details for Central America and Rhodesia as settings, but all that exists of the Headhunters supplement was an ad in Dragon Magazine.

It was assumed that players would be American soldiers, marines, and commandos, although you could also play as an ARVN soldier or one of the Montagnard tribesmen. Track Commander also added rules for the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad commandos, given its setting.

Palladium bought the rights to RECON in the mid-80's and published a sanitized version of the game, although it still used the original system in a slightly modified form, being one of the few Palladium games that doesn't use their main system.

 

[Orange Rhymer]

RECON is a lot like that. It was a Vietnam War RPG that came out in 1981 and was created by a guy named Joe F. Martin, who originally published it independently before Palladium bought the rights to it and did their own cleaned-up version where the countries were all fictionalized. IIRC, the United States was called "Stateside" and the Soviet Union was called "Big Red" while other countries were amalgated into fictional counterparts in the Palladium version (Boorland was a mix of Rhodesia and South Africa)

The original version was a cult classic that had its own line of miniatures, a few adventure modules and a single known supplement called Track Commander that covered the Arab-Israeli conflicts, with new rules for vehicle combat. There was a planned supplement for RECON called "Headhunters" that was about mercenaries and possibly would have had details for Central America and Rhodesia as settings, but all that exists of the Headhunters supplement was an ad in Dragon Magazine.

It was assumed that players would be American soldiers, marines, and commandos, although you could also play as an ARVN soldier or one of the Montagnard tribesmen. Track Commander also added rules for the Israeli Defense Forces and Mossad commandos, given its setting.

Palladium bought the rights to RECON in the mid-80's and published a sanitized version of the game, although it still used the original system in a slightly modified form, being one of the few Palladium games that doesn't use their main system.

ok, thx for the recap.
The Recon I remember was 'pre-sanitized'. The Nam was also PC-free. But, I don't ever remember these games even incorporating wheeled vehicles, much less tracked.

I still think this genre should be explored and expanded. Incorporating Desert Storm/Afgan/Syria would be interesting too.

 

[Syaoran Li]

ok, thx for the recap.
The Recon I remember was 'pre-sanitized'. The Nam was also PC-free. But, I don't ever remember these games even incorporating wheeled vehicles, much less tracked.

I still think this genre should be explored and expanded. Incorporating Desert Storm/Afgan/Syria would be interesting too.

The vehicle combat system is not in the core rules of RECON, it was introduced in the Track Commander supplement, which is pretty rare (I can't find a PDF and old copies on Amazon are very expensive) and that supplement was focused on the IDF (I think it may have had rules for both wheeled vehicles and tanks)

 

[Hummingbird]

We're done with Beast for a while. Hell, we're probably going to do Changing Breeds before we do Beast: Players Guide or Night Horrors: Conquering Heroes. Both of those books are bad, but Night Horrors is enjoyably bad.

I don't blame you for wanting a break from this game. So what is so laughably bad about Night Horrors?

 

[Adamska]

I don't blame you for wanting a break from this game. So what is so laughably bad about Night Horrors?

It's more fluff than crunch, meaning that you see even more of Matt "I should be dead in prison" McFarland's horrible horrible writing without having to look at bland and subpar systems.

As for next episode... well I'll just reveal that it involves actual funny bad mechanics. I'll bang that fucker out sometime tomorrow since it's a 2.5 hour saga.

 

[Techpriest]

I don't blame you for wanting a break from this game. So what is so laughably bad about Night Horrors?

Just about everything. I don’t think several of the writers on various sections of the book were at all involved in Beast’s core rulebook. Some of the examples break pre-established rules, others mismatch with fluff from the core, and there’s a whole section that seems just tacked on because of reasons I’ll explain in a future review.

 

[Hummingbird]

Just about everything. I don’t think several of the writers on various sections of the book were at all involved in Beast’s core rulebook. Some of the examples break pre-established rules, others mismatch with fluff from the core, and there’s a whole section that seems just tacked on because of reasons I’ll explain in a future review.

I look forward to it.

 

[Horus]

If I might hop in for a moment and change the topic briefly. Has anyone here played the D&D 5e module "Tomb of Annihilation"? I am thinking of running it for my group, and I am looking for any firsthand insights the forum here might offer before I drop some cash on it.
Did you have any problems as a player or DM, what parts were cool, what sucked, etc...
Any info you can give me will be appreciated.

 

[Adamska]

Sorry about the delay; had a couple crashes, a busy week, and the video was pretty long.

Armor how does it fucking work?

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

I managed to secure one of my character ideas for another 3.5 campaign. Arctic Dragonborn Mongrelfolk Totemist is what I'm gonna use in that campaign, and that should be fun to use.

 

[Allakazam223]

If I might hop in for a moment and change the topic briefly. Has anyone here played the D&D 5e module "Tomb of Annihilation"? I am thinking of running it for my group, and I am looking for any firsthand insights the forum here might offer before I drop some cash on it.
Did you have any problems as a player or DM, what parts were cool, what sucked, etc...
Any info you can give me will be appreciated.

Spoiler: Spoilers for Tomb of Anhilation

Once the players land in Port Nyanzaru, there is an awful lot of open world exploration. I ended up doing the random encounters before the games, making RP notes on most of the NPC's in Port, and familiarizing myself with the unexplored map. Doing the random encounters allows you to jot down the enemies stats so that you arent slowing things down when it comes to combat. This one thing has saved a lot of time at the table so that you can get more done. I've also started going with the average damage done, because when you have 12 or more monsters, it takes a long time to do all those attacks.

My party had the brilliant idea of climbing trees to look for landmarks, so some of the areas they found no problem. I ended up moving some of the event areas so that they would find them (the ones i really liked) and accepted that they wouldnt encounter some (turtle bay was one that I was REALLY sad that they didnt explore).

The mapping and exploring portion has to be balanced and managed very carefully. Too much time faffing in the jungle, and the players will feel as though they might not find the forgotten city before Syndra dies, but you can't railroad them through it. If the characters dont care about Syndra's rewards, then they may decide to open up the full map, and let them have their jungle-crawling fun.

I believe my campaign party ended up finding the forgotten city with 40 days left, and finished the campaign with 4 days before Syndra succumed. Once they find the city, the hexcrawling part ends and the rest of the campaign is laid out well.

My players wandered into the mirror tomb, and just didnt pick up on the "everything seems to flicker, and you hear distant rumbles." During every long rest inside. I adhoced and said that the skeleton key door wouldnt open in the mirror tomb, which they finally clued into and realized what they had done.

Paladins and clerics are very strong here, due to so much undead being around. As an aside to this as a DM, the Death Curse will make them want to save spell slots for healing as much as possible. Revivify and Raise Dead won't help them, and the players may actually reconsider how bad the Death Curse is when they waste their money and time when they first cast them, if they didnt pay close enough attention in the intro.

Down side to this, obviously, is that a party with a cleric AND a paladin, is that they will walk through 25-75% (depending on terrain hex and undead threat level) of the random encounters inside the jungle. Destroy undead at 5th will make you sigh when you get Zombies (2-12) for the millionth time.

E:trying to add a spoiler tag. Adding more.

 

[Adamska]

And I finally had time to finish this video this week. It's mostly fluff we cover, but mechanically the magic in this game steals most of its structure from Mage. Just with new-age woo to top it off.

 

[Allakazam223]

I've had a neat little idea, just a tiny inspiration for a line of quests, based on the german chivalry tale of Parcival and his quest for the holy grail.
There, the holy grail can only be seen by true Christians, which means Parcival's pagan half-brother has to convert to Christianity before being able to see it.

So I was thinking, maybe it would be kinda fun to send my group on a wild goose chase for some similar divine artifact, but (without their knowledge) there are a string of situations where they and their morals are tested and challenged.
For instance a situation where they can choose between being pious and honest, which makes things complicated or choosing to lie and achieving their immediate goal much easier and quicker. And depending on how well they fare, they either end up being able to see/touch/interact with the divine artifact or not.
Might even be fun to contemplate adding a bit of a Covenant of the Arc-style aspect, where people who horrendeously fail at these divine tests by doing genuinely vile stuff get killed when they try to grab the artifact...

I will have to contemplate this further, but it sounds like a neat little storyline, depending on how I flesh it out.

I like the idea, I would probably not make the object invisible to anything. Definately immune to Divination, maybe it casts an unique aura for 200' so that the area around it is also hidden. Maybe have a shady minion grabbing the artifact just as the heros spot it, so that they have doubts about themselves, after watching holy giblets fly past them.

That "Oh shit, we found it, but at what cost?" needs to be thrown in their faces, literally, to make them think HARD about what they have done.

I would probably make a secret chart for each character, tracking Negative, Grey, and Positive Decisions. I would stay away from defining them Evil, Neutral, Good, as evil characters can do good if it will help them (selfish), and good characters can easily do evil in the name of good, meaning well (destroying not only the armed goblin, but the unarmed ones, etc.)

 

[Allakazam223]

Spoiler: Descent into Avernus - Player viewpoint

We finished Tomb oh Anhilation, and one of my group said he would like to try DMing Avernus. We all rolled for Alignment, and we all got LE, except for the Barbarian, who is NG.

I am playing a Loxodon Tempest Cleric, we also have a Lizardman Storm Sorcerer, a Human Tomb Pact Warlock, a Human Eagle Totem Barbarian and a Kobold Death Cleric/Wizard/Arcane Trickster Rogue. My character is convinced that he is the captain of our landlocked crew, and as such makes certain that he is the first one into combat (lead by example, ect.)

We just cleared the Vanderthamp Villa, what a grinder.
The Kobold player has a ridiculous amount of utility, with 8 cantrips and a ton of prepared 1st and 2nd level slots. We would have wiped to the Bone Devil in the basement of the Villa, was it not for the Kobold. Green Flame Blade + Cunning Action: Dodge was the hero of the night. I was down to 3 HP and looking to run, but I had a moment of Loxodon loyalty, and just kept dodging while the rest kept picking away. By staying in melee and dodging, it allowed the Kobold to keep using Pack Tactics to trigger Sneak Attack.

We ended up taking the Shield of the Hidden Lord. The party ended up not arguing with me as I picked it up. It's very powerful, but I have a feeling there is a NPC who is going to want it.
This was the first time our new DM had seen Spirit Guardians. I don't know how useful Necrotic will be as we get farther in, but the Speed reduction can't be resisted, only the damage.

If he thinks Spirit Guardians with Warcaster is aggrivating, he might not be ready for my 8th level, where I plan to pick up Magic Initiate : Wizard, for Shield, Find Familiar and Booming Blade, at the same level Divine Strike opens up. 1d6+4(we found the magic mace inside the statue, which went to me)+2d8+1d8, with another 2d8 rider on willing movement, that I can trigger as AoO, plus use touch spells through the familiar. I will struggle in melee if I don't use Spirit Guardians, as my Str is only 16, and probably won't be increased any further.

I haven't played a character before in 5e, only DM'd since LMoP, so thats why I'm sperging out about this campaign. 4 years of theorycrafting my favorite class, and Ravnica splatbook gave me a really neat race that has +2 Con +1 Wis without the 25' speed of a Dwarf.

Mechanical breakdowns.
We are all level 5.
Tempest cleric 5 loxodon is pretty standard, the loxodon race has the same ASI as hill dwarf, the ribbons are a little different. 30' speed was worth giving up the extra 1HP in this build. We rolled and I got 18,16,15,15,11,10. Starting stats 16S,15D,18C,19W,11I,10Ch. I was torn between 16 Str or 16 Dex, went with Str for better melee. No multiclassing for this build, the character is a fanatic and wants to feel as close as possible to Talos.

Cleric gets good spells to help in melee (SW) and as a prepared fullcaster has the power to stand back if need be. Destructive Wrath to make a 3rd level shatter do 32, 16 on save is nasty.

Death Cleric/Wizard/AT rogue kobold. 1/1/3. Awesome utility, something like 16 spells ready and a ton of cantrips. Also deadly in melee with Pack Tactics making sure SA goes off every round. Mechanically a diverse character, but will pay for that utility by being behind in ASI's/feats by two levels. Not certain on anyone elses stats, but I think the Kobold is 5 Str, 20 dex, not sure.

Storm Sorcerer 5 Lizardman. Super blaster extraordinare. The 10' of free movement without AoO allows for pretty precise maneuvering to allow AoE spells to be thrown in unexpected ways. Strong having a caster with Natural Armor and Shield spell. Mechanically standard, Alert feat. Not having the casting stat maxed is noticeable when he forces saves. 15 DC is noticably worse than 16 DC which I have.

Tomb Warlock Human 4. Played by my SO. Her other character died so she is now playing catch up. Plenty of utility with the ritual spells, and it's very nice to see a spell casting lock. Mechanically standard, great variety of cantrips. Spell sniper as feat I believe.

Totem Barbarian Human 5. Played by DM's SO. We all know what Totem Barbs do, so not going to break it down. GWM feat. Newest player at table, just trying to learn the ropes.

Eta: adding more because I can talk about D&D all day.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

@Adamska I've recently acquired more RPG if you need anything for videos. Including a fucked up series with obese furry dick girls which is probably one of the most disgusting books out there and a few Feminism books.