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

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Corn Flakes said:
My GM is having to grapple with that shit. I'm gonna risk powerleveling a bit here but I don't think he reads the farms.

He's got this dark fantasy setting he's been working on for like ten years. Think Ravenloft mixed with Sanctuary (from the Diablo series). One of those settings that work under the principle of "light shines brighter in the deepest darkness", with the heroes actively making the world around them a better place with their efforts. And he told me he's having a lot of trouble trying to write that world in a way that won't result in the woke mob dropping on his head like a ton of bricks. Why? Because it's a low-fantasy setting with different races of humans instead of fantasy races (including stat bonuses), the morals are realistically "backwards" (good luck being openly LGBT), slavery (both debt and hereditary) is accepted as a thing in certain areas of the world, all-male/all-female organizations (both heroic and villainous) are a thing, and xenophobia and racism are big sources of conflict.

For example, one of the kingdoms in the setting rose in place of an empire that tried to conquer the world using an army of demons in centuries past, and the people from that kingdom are actively discriminated against around most of the world. And even within that culture, there are well-defined gender roles (although women aren't forbidden from fighting). According to him, he tried presenting a draft of the world to a couple D&D communities and while the reaction was mostly positive there were enough rabid accusations of -isms and -phobias to spook him.
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If he's not planning on publishing it, and he's not planning on streaming, tell him to just warn the players in advance and let them know that it is a FICTIONAL SETTING and if they are too immature to accept that then the campaign and the game doesn't need them.

I've had more than a few campaign where woketards and proto-SJW's have bitched about certain facets of the game, and the best bet is to drop kick them as far as you can and carry on with the campaign.

Just don't stream it, and be CAREFUL about your players.

The good players like challenges and well thought out campaigns just as much as they like quirky stuff, and good solid campaign settings last longer than LOLQuirky! does.

And to be honest, if one of his new players wants to play a faggot or a tranny then they better have a good reason or just punt that fucker to the side, they're already setting up to act like an asshole and make drama in the game.
 
Jet Fuel Johnny said:
If he's not planning on publishing it, and he's not planning on streaming, tell him to just warn the players in advance and let them know that it is a FICTIONAL SETTING and if they are too immature to accept that then the campaign and the game doesn't need them.

I've had more than a few campaign where woketards and proto-SJW's have bitched about certain facets of the game, and the best bet is to drop kick them as far as you can and carry on with the campaign.

Just don't stream it, and be CAREFUL about your players.

The good players like challenges and well thought out campaigns just as much as they like quirky stuff, and good solid campaign settings last longer than LOLQuirky! does.

And to be honest, if one of his new players wants to play a faggot or a tranny then they better have a good reason or just punt that fucker to the side, they're already setting up to act like an asshole and make drama in the game.
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That's exactly what I've been advising him to do. He'd need to pick his players wisely, anyway. While a bit of humor is necessary in a serious, dark setting, if anything just to keep things from getting too dreary after the fourth or fifth satanic sacrifice the party shows up just a bit too late to avoid, even a non-woke oh-so-quirky!!! player can derail a campaign just as hard as a woke one.

He does intend to publish the setting one day, though. I told him to keep working on it under wraps. Wokeness is fashionable today, but fashion changes. Once people start getting tired of woke shit in their games, he'll be able to publish it without backlash. Hopefully the RPG market will still exist by then.
 
Spergetti said:
I mean, you're not far off. The most recent example was one of the players (playing a female orc) tried flirting with a random female human villager, got frustrated with the DM for not having the villager woman go along with it, and then got even more upset when the DM attempted to explain that romances between orcs and humans is really taboo in human cultures in this setting. This cunt got mad enough that I thought they were going to quit the game (probably not the worst outcome), but they eventually calmed down. As an act of reconciliation, the DM threw her character a human waifu NPC who doesn't serve any purpose other than to be an outlet for this player to have some play pretend sexual experimentation in front of the rest of us.
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I had a friend who had to council children of 9/11 victims - he was a psychiatrist. It messed him up bad. He came back home years later and offered to run a one shot game in the "Escape from NY" universe, as it was always one of our favorite movies growing up.

When we sat down it started okay enough, but as the session wore on it was clear we were being led on a journey through his own life in NYC. We were trying to play along but this was some serious Mazes and Monsters shit. When we weren't "playing right", he abruptly stopped the game and sat on his haunches in the corner for a time afterwards.

People using RPG's as therapy is very, very real.
 
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Starscreams Cape said:
When we weren't "playing right", he abruptly stopped the game and sat on his haunches in the corner for a time afterwards.
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Whoa whoa whoa hold on. Are you saying if you went off his rails he would just stop everything and pout silently? I need more details because this sounds insane. Also, what did he consider "playing right" and what did you guys do to make him snap?
 
Brain Problems said:
Whoa whoa whoa hold on. Are you saying if you went off his rails he would just stop everything and pout silently? I need more details because this sounds insane. Also, what did he consider "playing right" and what did you guys do to make him snap?
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If you read the first part, he was not right since 9/11. As I said, it seemed he was working through some of his things via this one shot. I guess we weren't staying on the railroad so he kind of snapped. But in this case it wasn't SJW nonsense, it was actual PTSD. Don't judge him too harshly.

He was a good guy, but he was also his own worst enemy. A very good psychiatrist that helped many, many people through pain, but was pretty fundamentally weak and in pain himself. He was my very first DM, it was a Call of Cthulhu game back in the early days. I still remember it to this day it made such an impact.

He's gone now, though.
 
So just some questions (mostly concerning 3.5 because of the books involved)

So Factotum from Dungeonscape gets the ability to mimic 3 other standard lvl 15-or-lower extraordinary class abilities as an extraordinary ability at lvl 19 for 1 minute, and uses his Factotum levels to determine the effective level of that ability.

1. Does the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability count as extraordinary?
2. Would this mean that a lvl 19 Factotum can add 10d6 SA on top of Cunning Strike's 1d6 SA?
3. Do 3.5 DMs typically bar players from playing Factotum? Would a DM in a Gestalt game likely bar something like a Warblade//Factotum gestalt, either due to using more than one supplemental (ToB and Dungeonscape in this case) or due to just barring non-core books in general? I imagine barring non-core would obviate Gestalt rules to begin with since Gestalt was outlined in Unearthed Arcana or something, but not sure.
4. Regarding Gestalt rules in particular, are "class synergy" feats like Daring Outlaw completely taken off the table in Gestalt games (even if, in Daring Outlaw's case, the Rogue and Swashbuckler levels were on one "side" of the Gestalt) or is that more a "buy your DM some beer and convince him it will be totally awesome" thing?
 
Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:
1. Does the Rogue's Sneak Attack ability count as extraordinary?
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Yes

Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:
2. Would this mean that a lvl 19 Factotum can add 10d6 SA on top of Cunning Strike's 1d6 SA?
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More like 8d6, since "Sneak Attack 8d6" is what you would have as a level 15 rogue


Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:
3. Do 3.5 DMs typically bar players from playing Factotum? Would a DM in a Gestalt game likely bar something like a Warblade//Factotum gestalt, either due to using more than one supplemental (ToB and Dungeonscape in this case) or due to just barring non-core books in general? I imagine barring non-core would obviate Gestalt rules to begin with since Gestalt was outlined in Unearthed Arcana or something, but not sure.
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You can't really break the game that easily in 3.5 with anything that isn't a 0-9 Spellcaster. And it depends on the DM. My group allows all 1st and 2nd Party 3.5 Material. Books, Magazines, Web Articles, ect. But there are still many that try to restrict what you can use. Quite a few poorly-informed DMs ban Tome of Battle and all Psionics because they are "broken"(Despite spellcasting being far more powerful in every way). And Gestalt is usually only used in campaigns where everyone is Gestalt. You would have to go out of your way to find someone running such a game, it is a a variant rule for campaigns rather than something you can splash on any character in an otherwise normal game.


Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:
4. Regarding Gestalt rules in particular, are "class synergy" feats like Daring Outlaw completely taken off the table in Gestalt games (even if, in Daring Outlaw's case, the Rogue and Swashbuckler levels were on one "side" of the Gestalt) or is that more a "buy your DM some beer and convince him it will be totally awesome" thing?
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Technically speaking they are not banned, but once again you have to talk to your DM, and I need to also repeat that Gestalt rules are for entire campaigns, not individual players.
 
It just occurred to me that I haven't seen any stereotypical "fat guy in trench coat" gamers in a long while. Has trench coat mania finally ended?
 
My friends and I are already neck deep in 5e but would you guys say that the past editions are better in terms of enjoyment or game mechanics?
 
PumpkinSpiceBitchMeringue said:
My friends and I are already neck deep in 5e but would you guys say that the past editions are better in terms of enjoyment or game mechanics?
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I think it depends on what players enjoy. I like 5E. I think its just complex enough, while still being a simple system.

I know a few people that think its too simple and easy. They love AD&D 1st and 2nd edition, to them its more deep because its more complex.
 
PumpkinSpiceBitchMeringue said:
My friends and I are already neck deep in 5e but would you guys say that the past editions are better in terms of enjoyment or game mechanics?
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Enjoyment mainly comes from the ones you play with, game mechanics usually have to be really shitty to mess that up... and even then, with the right kind of players, it can still be fun to take the piss out of the system.

When it comes to 5e game mechanics, they are a bit too condensed down for my tastes. Only very few skills that usually do very many things, sometimes you end up wanting to do something special and it's weird trying to cover that with the skills. I admire it for being so streamlined, but overall, I sometimes wish the system allowed me to do more and I'd like it to be more detailed in some aspects. But then again, I'm a huge fan of the German system The Dark Eye, which has like 60+ skills and more than 200 spells. Nature-related skills alone outnumber the entire skillset that you get in DnD.

I guess it's a general dislike of how DnD does things, but I really dislike the leveling aspect of the game. With a higher level, you just get enemies with more bullshit "roll for dump stat saving throw to not get insta-gibbed" abilities. Even when you've leveled significantly and could take down a group of regular mooks within one combat round, that skinny chick in a silk cocktail dress can whoop your ass easily with some bullshit ability or is so high level, she is essentially untouchable, even if she's just standing there.
Leveling up feels like treadmill where you never go anywhere. Ironically, game systems that have a much more shallow level progression do not feel as bad for me.
 
anti SJW said:
I think it depends on what players enjoy. I like 5E. I think its just complex enough, while still being a simple system.
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My groups (I'm on two, one is on a hiatus) both prefer 5e to 3.5e. Yes, 5e is simpler than 3.5e, but the GM likes it because it's a little harder for players to go out of their way to break the game's rules by combining four classes, and the players like it because the combat is a lot faster so us murderhobos can get more shit killed per session.
 
3.0/3.5 is a classic at this point but if you don't control the bloat from all the supplements it gets way out of hand.

4e I thought was a fun game if you have a combat /miniature heavy group. We do. In combat there was so much more to do rather than "I swing... I hit/miss". The Warlord class was fantastic. Minions. Monsters at low/mid/high. All good things about 4e.

As a DM 5.0 is great to run. Advantage/Disadvantage is the key mechanism here. Still, as people have said, it's a bit bare bones in areas.

Because of the woke idiocy of WotC and Paizo I'm pretty sure I won't be sampling their next gender fluid extravaganza editions.

Might be time to dust off those 4e books...
 
Starscreams Cape said:
3.0/3.5 is a classic at this point but if you don't control the bloat from all the supplements it gets way out of hand.
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I like the sheer amount of choices people have with 3.5 tbh. There are a lot of problems with 3.5 (extremely poorly written books like Complete Divine, lots of apparent contradictions that basically require the DM to step in and make RAI judgments, possibly the peak of the Linear Fighter Exponential Wizard problem, early gish-in-a-can classes being utterly underpowered because "martials that can sometimes cast spells is SUPER SCURRY GUISE" like the original Hexblade...) but I figure if you can find players/DMs willing to sift through it, make appropriate houserules, set up a campaign that doesn't let Batman have all the fun, etc. it could be pretty awesome.
 
WinchesterPremium said:
I'd say non-DND games are better in terms of enjoyment and/or game mechanics.
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Sure, but relatively few people have the time or the patience to learn a non-D&D game these days. I know I'm one of these people. I could read two or three rulebooks or splats a week back in high school, and even early in college. I'd play 3.5e, Storyteller, Paranoia, Deadlands, Pathfinder, janky-ass homebrews and indie games, even GURPS in a pinch. Now? I just want to get a game on without having to spend an hour making sure everybody knows the rules. And most zoomers can barely get through the PHB for 5e. For bad or for worse, D&D is popular enough to be a lingua franca when it comes to RPG online.
 
I used to be the forever DM for my group, managed to get my friends to DM a few campaigns. Got to level 5 in Saltmarsh, and was getting really excited to start working on an Eberron homebrew campaign. My buddy who I've played with for 20 years wanted to try locked stat characters (4d6, drop lowest, rolls are in order (ie roll Str, roll Dex, etc) and can only be changed by racials.) Apparently thats pissed off one of the players to the point where theyve started a new campaign without me and my wife.

Mind you, I thought it would be really neat to not have minmaxxed characters. Literally got told "no way i can do that it won't be fun." So the solution rather than talk about it with me, was to flip out for two weeks and start a campaign without me and my wife. Very adult behaviour. We normally play Friday and Saturday. Three session nights have been cancelled, yet the problem player swears he isn't derailing my friends campaign. He literally started a new campaign, without discussing it at all. How isn't that derailing a campaign in progress?

I guess this is what I get for trying to play with a Zoomer. God damn faggot cant even be a man and sit down and talk about it. It wasn't even my idea, ffs.

All I wanted was a Eberron campaign without incredibly minmaxed characters. Now I'm wondering if I need a new group. :heart-empty:
 
I've learned to dislike the rolling method mainly because with 4d6 drop 1 or even 3d6 straight, I usually have a lot of amazingly rubbish characters who literally have no ability score bonus or malus. I do not kid when I say I once had an array where I never got higher than an 11, and never got lower than an 8.

I tend to just prefer point buy, which you can customize to ensure non-minmaxing by just plain setting a cap. I only need something with a 14 or better in ONE stat for me to be okay with it, though I try to at least shoot for 15 or 16.
 
Dumb question: Recommended 3rd level wizard spells?

About to hit 6th level. Currently have fireball and counterspell. Thinking fly or dispell magic. Maybe hypnotic pattern.
 
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