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

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Jim Holloway, who did lots of illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons, Battletech, Paranoia and other games, died today.
 
That's really sad.

Some examples of his Battletech art:
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Someone elsewhere made a damn good point about WotC's bending the knee.

They were making reference to an upcoming Eberron sourcebook, and that's great... except that Kevin Baker had already stated the alignment rules for humanoids (and a lot of other intelligent critters) were out the window in Eberron.

Baker had covered this shit YEARS before WotC. Faggotry.
 
Capsaicin Addict said:
Someone elsewhere made a damn good point about WotC's bending the knee.

They were making reference to an upcoming Eberron sourcebook, and that's great... except that Kevin Baker had already stated the alignment rules for humanoids (and a lot of other intelligent critters) were out the window in Eberron.

Baker had covered this shit YEARS before WotC. Faggotry.
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Baker also updates his blog regularly and adds a lot of new stuff about Eberron.

In other news, Pathfinder 1e + excellent 3PP splats cover the 3.5 hole in my heart, except for Dragonfire Adept.
 
Titan Lithos said:
Fine I will. Anyone want to play in a Starfinder or Star Trek Adventures campaign? I'm in Tokyo time, so arranging that on Discord will be fun.
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Titan Lithos said:
I've very recently gotten into Starfinder. There's something about the class design that I like. Rather than splatbook after splatbook with classes, they offer combinations and builds that allow you to make a character you want to play. Or at least, that's the intention.

Plus no one has to feel like they need to be a cleric to be a healbot. Every class can be built to be an effective healer, like the Envoy and Operative. I just wish I was better with numbers to test the effectiveness of those builds. I'll leave it to people like @Dunsparce to figure that out.
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On a base level Starfinder is a workable system (for a dnd) with class balance that isn't as shit.

But man the lore is just so incredibly bland and boring and some mechanics are fucking retarded like vehicles with a combat speed lower than the base foot speed, sunglasses and welding goggles not existing unless you buy the Jensen shades cyber augmentation, point buy giving you an odd umber in one attribute (which does nothing outside of a few edge cases) and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.

It does let me be a dumb space orc (as long as we have that talk about sunglasses) so I ended up playing it a few times but it's not a system I'd care for if I wasn't allergic to fantasy dnd (which makes up like 95% of all games posted online) and it was easy to find games for other scifi stuff.

So yeah feel free to send me an invite for your game if you still have room.

edit: Oh yeah and it has space skeletons and that race that's just a bunch of bees in a suit, those are cool.
 
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Agent of Z.O.G. said:
On a base level Starfinder is a workable system (for a dnd) with class balance that isn't as shit.

But man the lore is just so incredibly bland and boring and some mechanics are fucking retarded like vehicles with a combat speed lower than the base foot speed, sunglasses and welding goggles not existing unless you buy the Jensen shades cyber augmentation, point buy giving you an odd umber in one attribute (which does nothing outside of a few edge cases) and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.

It does let me be a dumb space orc (as long as we have that talk about sunglasses) so I ended up playing it a few times but it's not a system I'd care for if I wasn't allergic to fantasy dnd (which makes up like 95% of all games posted online) and it was easy to find games for other scifi stuff.

So yeah feel free to send me an invite for your game if you still have room.

edit: Oh yeah and it has space skeletons and that race that's just a bunch of bees in a suit, those are cool.
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Lore is bland in most self-contained games, I've found. Which is why I almost never use it. Battletech has tons of lore, so I often rely on using the Periphery for my campaign settings, so as not to offend those who have read over 35 years of novels.

I think the philosophy for the odd number was to show not only you improving at level 5 (You get four points to spread across attributes), and the sheer number of ways to augment yourself through magic or cybernetics at higher level.

So yeah, I get to play that kobold Ikeshti soldier in juggernaut armor punching his way through deck plating to get to someone.
 
REGENDarySumanai said:
Baker also updates his blog regularly and adds a lot of new stuff about Eberron.

In other news, Pathfinder 1e + excellent 3PP splats cover the 3.5 hole in my heart, except for Dragonfire Adept.
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Look up Drop Dead Studio's books like Spheres of Power, Elemental kineticist could also be used as a Dragonfire Adept.
 
Titan Lithos said:
Lore is bland in most self-contained games, I've found.
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Nah there's plenty of self contained game with decent backstory and interesting hooks, and even mediocre ones tend to be better than Starfinder since it just tries to be Star Trek with a system that would be better for running Metabarons (coincidentally, there's no Moebius or Jodorowsky in their Inspiration media list, but they have Kim & Kim and Bitch Planet) so you get a world with bad internal logic that doesn't bother to be wild enough to make you not care.

Titan Lithos said:
I think the philosophy for the odd number was to show not only you improving at level 5 (You get four points to spread across attributes), and the sheer number of ways to augment yourself through magic or cybernetics at higher level.
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Feels more like they implemented themes at the last minute and then forgot that their level up bonuses make no distinction between a stat at 16 and a stat at 17 and all other boots use even numbers (exepct backpacks's carry weight str bonus and the orcs extra ability point), thus making the odd point useless unless you get ability drained.
 
Been running D&D 5e for some friends over Discord to pass the time during lockdown, and while the first two sessions went well I’m feeling a bit of burnout - party hasn’t left the starting zone yet and I’m uninspired for the next one. Any other DMs in here?
 
Longcat said:
Been running D&D 5e for some friends over Discord to pass the time during lockdown, and while the first two sessions went well I’m feeling a bit of burnout - party hasn’t left the starting zone yet and I’m uninspired for the next one. Any other DMs in here?
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Try not playing 5e. Literally worse than even 4e all around: at least the latter was a fun wargame.
 
Longcat said:
Been running D&D 5e for some friends over Discord to pass the time during lockdown, and while the first two sessions went well I’m feeling a bit of burnout - party hasn’t left the starting zone yet and I’m uninspired for the next one. Any other DMs in here?
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I run a game on wensdays that’s been stalled out for like a month. It’s sad because I actually prefer running games because I like worldbuilding and creating settings.
 
Senior Lexmechanic said:
Try not playing 5e. Literally worse than even 4e all around: at least the latter was a fun wargame.
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I'd say 4e was not a particularly good wargame or a particularly good Table-top rpg, there is a reason it never got anywhere near the supprt of the other editions. 5e has problems, just like 3.5 and 2e and 1e etc, but I'd say its a far more balanced version than what came before. As someone who favorite D&D is 3.5, I'd still say 5e is a much better way to get into the hobby.
The lore is absolute gobshite though but thats a lot of official D&D content.
 
Running a lovecraft-inspired Pathfinder campaign. We've had two sessions and so far everyone in my party is into it so that's nice. I was kind of worried the group wouldn't like it as there's more interaction with NPCs and less combat but it seems to be working.
 
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It's July 3th and I no longer work for Wizards of the Coast. I no longer work on D&D, the little that I did. This is going to be a long thread and my last for quite a while, so bear with me.

I took the job for two reasons. The first was for the dream. To escape poverty doing what I love, writing and making games. The second was to make D&D welcoming to the millions who are scorned by it.

A lot of people had hope for D&D that they carried with me. While some people were upset to see me work for a corporation that overshadows indie, others hoped that I would be able to make real change. I tried. I failed. And I lost a lot.

Liking a tweet or post, RTing, or even following people who speak ill of WotC can lose you your job in an instant. That's why you never see it happen. @Zbeg is 100% correct. It's a silencing tool. I can say more now.

Kindness doesn't replace respect. Working within your comfort zone doesnt support change. Most people in that group were not ready for me to be there, a nonbinary Black person who would actually critique their problems. Idk what they expected.

I worked hard for a very long time. I got a lot of smiles and vocal support, but it was followed by inaction and being ignored. My coworkers were frustrated for me, and still are now. I confided in them often, cried on shoulders on a few occasions.

I realized at one point that leadership had given me 2 assignments over about 5 months. It was mostly me asking project leads for work, searching out opportunities. Leadership didnt really care about me or my growth. I had to.

I firmly believe that I was a diversity hire. There was no expectation for me to do much of anything. I probably disrupted them by being vocal and following up. It didnt matter if I was supported by seniors and positive.

I think genuine people proposed me as an option and it was accepted because it would look like a radical positive change. It would help quiet vocal outrage. And because I had to stay silent, it was a safe bet.

I started to lose all of my confidence. I started to lose trust in myself. After finding out that I wasnt getting an extension or FTE, I resolved to just finish things out and take care of myself. To stop fighting and to just survive, quietly. But it just kept getting worse.

They would talk about how they're going to start working on treating staff better, retaining contractors, actually answering questions. How much they were invested in diversity and change even though they hired two cis white dudes into two big leadership positions during this. One of whom claimed that he doesnt know what he's doing. No shit. I never want to hear "maybe they just hire the best person for the job" again.

I found out that some of my work was stolen, which destroyed me. It lined up with a project they were going to do and I had sent it in to someone in leadership months ago. The project was announced and this person who contributed "forgot" that we had a meeting where I gave them my ideas, and then a follow up document the day after. I knew nothing was going to be done about it. Someone else told me that the person said sorry that they forgot. That's it.

I was really losing my ability to do much of anything. I have depression and anxiety and ADHD, all of which I manage pretty well. But those parts of me were under the pressure of being ignored, disrespected, "forgotten", and not being able to say a word to the world.

Then, as social unrest continued global due to BLM, the D&D team comes out with their statement. It was like a slap in the face. How much they care about people of color, how much changing things (that I and others had been pushing for months, if not longer) was just going to happen now. It took weeks of protesting across the globe to get D&D to do what people they hired have been already telling them to fix. You cannot, CANNOT say Black lives matter when you cannot respect the Black people who you exploit at 1/3rd your pay, for progressive ideas you pick apart until it's comfortable, for your millions of profit year over year. People of color can make art and freelance, but are never hired. D&D takes what they want from marginalized people, give them scraps, and claim progress.

I spent my time in that building worrying about how much people hated me for working there. I spent a lot of time thinking about how much it hurt to work there. I had and still have supporters, and many. Thanks to you all for being my voice and speaking out when I could not. But I felt so isolated and alone. If not for some coworkers who checked in on me, who were going through the same things? I would've quit. Every angry statement about D&D felt personal because I couldn't fix it. Because I failed, whether it was my fault or not. I felt like I was being trashed by everyone because I could not disconnect what I set as a personal responsibility from the state of the game. That part IS my fault.

But I wound up as I am now because of all of this and much, much more. I am depressed. I am unable to write. I constantly question if anything I create is worth anything. I feel like I let everyone down, and no matter how much people tell me I didnt, that doesnt change. I feel guilty for not being what y'all needed me to be, what I wanted to be, and betrayed for how I was treated at that company. It's an exceptionally kind place on the D&D team. People are very nice to each other in a very genuine way that I truly enjoyed. However, that doesnt replace respect. That doesnt delete how I was treated. It doesnt change the fact that I honestly never want to play a trpg again and am definitely not working in that field anymore.

I know that I'm probably losing a ton of opportunities writing elsewhere because of what I've said here, as well as what I've sent in internally. It may mean that I will return to poverty, which makes me feel like a failure to my race, my family, and my partner who I want to provide the world. But under all these things, I have my integrity. I worked my ass off. I did my best for as long as I could. And I didnt let them treat me like that without telling the world what needs to be said.

Trust actions, not words. Not "look at how much we freelance so and so", because freelancing is exploitation of diversity with no support for the freelancer. Not "here we finally did what we KNOW we should've done a long time ago", because they only care about how optics turn to dollars. EVERYTHING involving D&D will continue to farm marginalized people for the looks and never put them in leadership. They wont be put on staff. They will be held at arms length. I hope they prove me wrong.

A lot of BIPOC and other marginalized people are trying to make their way by using D&D. Dont shame them for that. Think about how much, and when you wield your anger, that it is done righteously.

That said, I dont recommend to anyone, working for the D&D department of Wizards of the Coast.

What? Wizards of the Coast only cares about wokeness to the extent it benefits them? I'm shocked! Shocked I say!

That said, I have actually no idea who this guy is. Some freelancer?
 
It's hard to tell if he was discriminated against because of his race/gender expression or because he couldn't handle his shit. Nerds are fucking racist but by his own admission he couldn't handle his shit.
 
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