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

[Where Do You Find Them?]

I'm not gonna drag on an argument about if it's possible to be more effective than batman wizard or codzilla. Ultimately it's not entirely relevant to the original point that casters are way too good and can trivialize plots without even really trying. The consensus seems to be don't play DnD but that's probably going to leave me in a similar position with other systems, where they need heavy modification to give me what I want. Still, maybe there's something out there that fits my needs.

Things I need:
Background magic that's drained as spells are cast. A pantheon of gods that one can worship to skirt this restriction. A set of nature based casters who seem to be similar to the priests but in reality have more in common with the wizards.
Commonplace magic. About 20-30% of the world will be capable of casting simple spells to help them work the fields and care for their animals, but powerful magic is very rare and either requires time to set up or being in a dangerous area with high background magic. The PCs will have access to powerful magic themselves though, so there needs to be a decent system for it.
Magic needs to be telegraphed somehow. You might be able to basically mind rape people but everyone can see you do it and knows exactly what you just did you fucking monster.
No well developed social system. I'm mostly going to ignore dice and stats when it comes to social interaction and just rely on roleplaying and that'll be most of the game. I'm going to go for the age old, you can roll social skills if you like but you get bonuses for good RP method of getting them involved with it.

It's important that the systems fit the story. The second half of the game is going to involve investigating the metaphysics of the world and I don't want to lead them astray with stuff that doesn't match up.

I was tempted to make a totally new system, it wouldn't be the first time. I even started on one but the odds that I nail it without any playtesting are slim. As for the group, I've played with them before, though never DMd and they aren't as bad a sort as all that. They will do things like play a monk just because they want to, but they'll still play a well built monk. The problem with DnD casters is you don't even really have to try to break things. It's not like there's some infinite loop bullshit you need to outshine the fighter, just cast spells. I've always been a fan of the old adage "Don't hate the player, hate the game." It can only go so far in RPGs, if someone tried pun-pun I'd be pissed, but like I say it's almost hard not to be too good with those classes.

Just use GURPS

This seems interesting, but it has the problem that it is kinda complex for me as the guy who needs to customize it. I know nothing about GURPS. If you could give me some tips on which of the billion books has the type of stuff I want I'll definitely take a look though.

 

[Adamska]

It's honestly easier to just learn a new system than it is to try and homebrew out what you don't like in 3.5 though, since you have to actually test out homebrew to see if it works if you want to be sure it works and doesn't mess up the dynamics too much.

 

[Reverend]

Try 13th age, it's as rules heavy/lite as you want it to be and my crew converted half a dozen 3.5 modules to it on the fly running the Age of Wyrms Adventure path. Quite fun actually.

 

[Adamska]

I forgot we were supposed to meet yesterday, but @Randall Fragg finished a highlight reel for more of that Wraeththu book we dun read:

 

[Where Do You Find Them?]

Try 13th age

Thanks! This looks really good. I'm still gonna have to do some messing with the metaphysics but this seems like a much better base for that than DnD.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

This seems interesting, but it has the problem that it is kinda complex for me as the guy who needs to customize it. I know nothing about GURPS. If you could give me some tips on which of the billion books has the type of stuff I want I'll definitely take a look though.

Understand that GURPS is a toolkit and you can ignore a lot of it.
Get the Basic Set.
Get Magic if you really need more spells than what's in Basic Set.
Get Thaumatology if you want to put in the work to make the magic system exactly how you want.

Commonplace magic. About 20-30% of the world will be capable of casting simple spells to help them work the fields and care for their animals, but powerful magic is very rare and either requires time to set up or being in a dangerous area with high background magic. The PCs will have access to powerful magic themselves though, so there needs to be a decent system for it.

Use the Magery advantage. 20-30% of the world has it at a low level (Magery 0) while you declare that more powerful magic is locked behind higher levels of magery. This is done automatically with the default magic system. You need Magery 1 to cast Lightning and Magery 2 to give a mind-controlling command (resisted by the subject's will, see Quick Contest). These prerequisites are set at a point the authors thought was relatively balanced, but you can alter them as you wish.
Requiring time to setup means applying the "preparation required" limitation to higher levels of magery. This reduces the cost of buying the advantage, but means to cast any Magery 1+ spell requires time to prepare, and you can't have two spells prepared at the same time.
High Mana areas are described below.

Background magic that's drained as spells are cast. A pantheon of gods that one can worship to skirt this restriction. A set of nature based casters who seem to be similar to the priests but in reality have more in common with the wizards.

First I'll tell you the default way this is handled, then I'll tell you how you can modify it to more closely model what you're after.
Default:
In GURPS there is mana. Mana is ambient magical energy that empowers magic and there are rules for what to do in magic zones with higher or lower levels of mana (very high mana areas are dangerous because all failures count as critical failures, and natural critical failures are "spectacular disasters" to quote the Basic Set). A character's fatigue points are the source of "fuel" for spells. Spend too many and your guy is tired, spend more and he has to roll to not collapse from exhaustion. Different spells cost different levels of fatigue. The average person has 10 fatigue points to spend before collapse. To walk on air for a minute costs 3 FP. To jump to another plane of existence costs 20. To cast a fireball you can spend a variable amount of FP to get a variable effect.
If you're low on FP you can instead burn HP, and are at a penalty to use the spell.
Custom:
To drain background magic, use the regular mana system with the addition that casting spells drains the surrounding mana rather than FP. Keep track of the energy cost of spells cast in a given area and decide when to move the area into a lower mana state. Just decide where you want the line to be before people start throwing spells around, and maintain consistency.
To get around energy requirements by worshiping a God create a second type of magery that uses the Threshold-Limited Magic system out of Thaumatology rather than mana-draining. It is called the "unlimited mana" system. With this high reward comes high risk. The more energy you use the closer you get to a threshold. When you pass that threshold you make a calamity check. The further you passed the threshold the worse the calamity check. Fail the calamity check bad enough and you could literally go insane.
You can also look into Clerical spells, also in Thaumatology but covered briefly in the Basic Set, to see how to build magic that's bestowed by Gods. It goes over what sort of advantages/disadvantages to require or allow for practitioners. You may want to stick with using a second type of magery instead of "Power Investiture". Power Investiture is for when the god you worship restricts the spells you can learn.
For nature magic it sounds like you can literally just use mana draining magic unless there's more going on you didn't mention. If the magic is affected by the presence of nature then create a third magery but substitute "high and low mana" with "high and low presence of nature". If it's restricted to nature related spells use Power Investiture instead of Magery. You do need to figure out what fuels it though.

If you don't want to burn FP or background Mana or risk going insane then rather than represent spells as skills you could represent them as powers. In GURPS this is known as Sorcery, and the Thaumatology - Sorcery book has you covered.

Magic needs to be telegraphed somehow. You might be able to basically mind rape people but everyone can see you do it and knows exactly what you just did you fucking monster.

Disallow the "low/no signature" enhancement. Only really applicable if using Sorcery.

No well developed social system. I'm mostly going to ignore dice and stats when it comes to social interaction and just rely on roleplaying and that'll be most of the game. I'm going to go for the age old, you can roll social skills if you like but you get bonuses for good RP method of getting them involved with it.

Just ignore the social system in GURPS entirely. The rules are for people who want them, and the system works without them.
Though "Bonuses for good RP" is a part of the GURPS social system rules.

 

[Fagnacious D]

Anyone out there wanna try #iHunt? it appears to be a shitty white wolf knock off. Wallace posted about it in a lolcow thread.
The biggest hurdle here is most of us won't be able to play it because it is against the rules

Just saw this myself. Let me do a bit of a skim to review.

Spoiler: Lots of big pictures

Here's the very first page:

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This is David's world, the rest of you plebs just live in it.

The teaser fiction involves two girls heading to a really bad part of town and stabbing a big fat guy in a suit multiple times with silver knives, because he's a vampire. The app on their phone pays them $1500 bucks for this. I get the feeling that David isn't very good with subtlety. Or writing fiction, for that matter.

It goes downhill from there.

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This is such a perfect metaphor for every Twitter warrior like David: Fighting pretend battles to make their lives feel meaningful.

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Okay fine. On one hand, I get it. The economy tanked ten years ago and the (disproportionally white and male) people responsible got a slap on the wrist, while everyone else lost their jobs and their savings. But on the other hand, that was ten years ago. Life moved on.

People like David really need there to be some vast conspiracy of monsters to blame for making the world an awful place, because the alternative, that they went six figures into debt for a liberal arts degree that gave them no useful skills, and are still social misfits at the age of thirty, is worse. Your fault for your shitty situation isn't 100% you, but it sure ain't 0% you either.

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David can't decide if the monsters are metaphors for society's evils or people who are the victims of society's evils. Yet at the same time, while monsters are responsible for individual acts of evil, it's still the right-wing rich people who are the actual villains, but we're going to kill the monsters anyway instead of making a real difference. So yeah, typical Twitter warrior.

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Let's see what he cites as his inspiration: anti-capitalist bullshit where even he admits the bad guys are strawmen caricatures. And nice editing there, leaving a stray quotation mark.

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Five bucks says David is another sex pest like Holden Shearer and Matt McFarlane.

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Yeah, this is about what I expected.

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@PancakesPancakesPancakes wasn't kidding about the layout being fuckawful. David's sense of style is perpetually stuck in the 80s.

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Have you filled out your social justice bingo card yet?

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That game was Beast. You know, the one written by your rapey buddy Matt McFarlane? Never a good idea to throw shade on a former employer, David. This is why no one will hire you.

The system is bog-standard Fate, peppered with David's fuck-awful writing, so I'm not going to deal with it. Let's skip ahead to what he considers to be monsters.

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What a fucking surprise. Sorcerers in this game are apparently some metaphor for privilege being used to gather power and wealth for yourself, except when they're not.

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Though not all of the enemies listed as targets are caricatures of the enemies of Twitter Social Justice. Some are just in messed-up situations with varying degrees of humanity left in them, but they gotta die anyway so the PCs can afford rent next month. Most people would use this as a way to add nuance to the hunt, but not David. You know what you call someone who kills without remorse because they view their victims as not really people so it's not their fault? Sociopaths. This is a game about sociopaths for hire. Best case scenario, monsters who hunt other monsters, but it's okay because they're poor and queer! No wonder David got on so well with Matt.

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I... what? Okay, apparently there are lizard people out there. I'm not sure what they are supposed to represent. Reading too deeply into this hurts my brain.

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David fills up an entire 24 pages on the subject of poverty culture. Go to Reddit if you want to read this whiny bullshit, it's the exact same thing.

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Okay, now we're getting into something a bit more interesting. the iHunt app is owned by a shady bazillionaire who owns the biggest and most valuable mansion in town and is fairly ruthless about getting rid of competing monster-hunting franchises, despite the app operating at a massive loss. The app is also itself very crooked in the same way that PayPal is crooked. This suggests that there's some kind of conspiracy behind the scenes, though David doesn't give an official answer, in his gratingly smug way of writing. It could be interesting, but to David, it's just another layer in how the world fucks over the poor.

In conclusion, iHunt is r/LateStageCapitalism that thinks it's a game. It's one man's unhinged attempt to scream about how awful the world is while simultaneously making the world even more awful by becoming a contract killer--but it's okay, because your contracts are secretly monsters. No one ever wins, they just die a little faster for dumb reasons. It's also David's big 'fuck you' to White Wolf and Onyx Path, in that he shits all over them and their aesthetic. And he still can't seem to draw the casual link between his own misery and his shitty attitude.

 

[Wallace]

The author used to work for White Wolf, hence how familiar it looks. The premise might even have worked in the WoD, if David Hill wasn't such an unlikeable sperg.

 

[Techpriest]

The author used to work for White Wolf, hence how familiar it looks. The premise might even have worked in the WoD, if David Hill wasn't such an unlikeable sperg.

Hill isn't as bad as Matt. Matt needed Rose to make Demon work. Rose is honestly the unsung hero of modern Onyx path, and has been with the company for quite a long time.

Other WW/OP writers you should look to for good quality stuff are Justin Achilli and Dave Brookshaw. Both do pretty solid writing. Also, holy shit, I just realized Matt was also behind Promethean 2e as the head developer. What the actual Christ. That one's actually a good book.

 

[Adamska]

What the actual Christ. That one's actually a good book.

He had a good base to work off of for one thing, since 1e wasn't too bad either.

Slowly reading the new Alien RPG book. I hate the living bejesus out of the first section due to it kind of failing to cover the tones that well. That and it also has the gall to mostly quote Prometheus... but mechanically it's decent. From what I've read and what I've been told it's very much a Mutant: Year Zero bootleg in mechanics.

I will say fuck no to using cards for initiative and items though. Fuck that.

 

[OhGoy]

Anyone have tips on homebrewing guns into D&D 3.5 and actually making them somewhat viable in the end game? Played in a few games where guns exist but are rarely (or never) used by the players as the already existing weapons in the PHB are far better.

 

[Adamska]

Anyone have tips on homebrewing guns into D&D 3.5 and actually making them somewhat viable in the end game? Played in a few games where guns exist but are rarely (or never) used by the players as the already existing weapons in the PHB are far better.

The big issue is guns tend to work like crossbows, they don't really add STR to their damage pool. A decent idea though could be to add your INT bonus to their damage, similar to the Swashbuckler or the Warblade's ability to do so. Either that or give them an armor piercing trait that allows them to bypass a certain amount of armor so you just hit with them more often.

Alternatively you could just get like 20 STR, turn a cannon into a pistol, and use that sumbitch instead.

 

[Sable]

Anyone have tips on homebrewing guns into D&D 3.5 and actually making them somewhat viable in the end game? Played in a few games where guns exist but are rarely (or never) used by the players as the already existing weapons in the PHB are far better.

Guns have two main issues.

Firstly, the requirements for use; they're usually locked behind exotic weapon feats. This means they can't put as many feats into actually being good.

The second (and probably larger , from experience) issue is their reload time. Even with a bow and the feats focused on using it, ranged attacks are usually already considered worse off than using melee.

My advice? I dunno, check what sort of passive stuff the Gunslinger gets in PF and add some of those things? It wouldn't make them good...

 

[Adamska]

Guns have two main issues.

Firstly, the requirements for use; they're usually locked behind exotic weapon feats. This means they can't put as many feats into actually being good.

The second (and probably larger , from experience) issue is their reload time. Even with a bow and the feats focused on using it, ranged attacks are usually already considered worse off than using melee.

My advice? I dunno, check what sort of passive stuff the Gunslinger gets in PF and add some of those things? It wouldn't make them good...

Yeah, I also remove guns from exotic weapons based on the settings usually. The reload time can be partially fixed with some quickload feats and just needing to use movement or something like that. That or a cheapish enchantment to make loading easier.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Anyone have tips on homebrewing guns into D&D 3.5 and actually making them somewhat viable in the end game? Played in a few games where guns exist but are rarely (or never) used by the players as the already existing weapons in the PHB are far better.

Might not be the answer you're looking for, but Pathfinder has options for guns, as well as a gunslinger class. It's perfectly compatible with 3.5. I believe it's in the Ultimate Combat splatbook

 

[BIG BILL HELL'S]

Anyone out there wanna try #iHunt? it appears to be a shitty white wolf knock off. Wallace posted about it in a lolcow thread.
The biggest hurdle here is most of us won't be able to play it because it is against the rules

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If you're reading this and thinking, "You just call everyone you disagree with a fascist," then you're probably a fascist.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST these people are stupid.

 

[Where Do You Find Them?]

Understand that GURPS is a toolkit and you can ignore a lot of it.

This is absolutely perfect thank you! I'm gonna have to go through the books and work out exactly what I want, but it looks like it has most of what I need already. Thank you.

#iHunt

I hate to pass judgement without reading the whole thing (just the sample) but this looks so incredibly dumb. It's got this absurd tongue in cheek setting with some very dark tones. By itself this would be fine, paranoia does it great, but then it's trying to use this as a vehicle for serious social commentary? That's just retarded. It mentions that you can ignore the "depressing" bits and I can't see another way I could make a game of this really work. Anything else would be mood whiplash as we go from campy monster hunt to serious examination of the effects of crippling poverty.

Don't worry though. It has some advice for me on how to make a dark game "without being an asshole." Unfortunately it just tells me that it's not kinky sex and no fascists. Hilariously right after the line "concepts like safe words have no place in #iHunt" we get a section on "commercial breaks." Any player can use their safe word take a commercial break and everyone has to stop because they're uncomfortable.

It seems to be far more concerned with beating me round the head with a bland, dry explanation of why this is all stunning social commentary and telling me incessantly and condescendingly how I should treat my friends lest they all hate me. Very little on how to make this piece of shit playable.

 

[MAPK phosphatase]

This is absolutely perfect thank you! I'm gonna have to go through the books and work out exactly what I want, but it looks like it has most of what I need already. Thank you.

Happy to help. If you need more help just ask. I don't check this thread too often but if you respond to this post I should get to it sooner.

 

[Adamska]

I'm currently reading the new Alien RPG, and if you did not like Prometheus and Covenant, you will get irked when it tries to set lore since it threads that needle so badly. Despite that, they somehow get basic dates and even tone wrong.

The writer also occasionally uses cutesy writing too, so it does on occasion get infuriating. Still, if you like Mutant: Year Zero's system, it works, and it's much more rules light than the Leading Games take. It's resoundingly mediocre, and I think Leading Edge's take might be better, even if it's a dense system to get.

EDIT: I'm reading further into it, I actually do like the ship creation features they have. A lot of the crunch looks pretty good actually, you just ignore the fluff and either play Alien or your own dystopian sci-fi setting in spess.

 

[Lackadaisy]

Has anyone played Star Wars d20 Saga Edition? Looking for the core and some anecdotes if anyone can share. Going to play with some friends this Saturday. It's an Old Republic era game if that matters.