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

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REMEMBERMKULTRA said:
Is anyone playing anything Tuesday night? I'm free and would like to play something. I don't care what.
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What's your timezone? I might consider running Forbidden Lands bi-weekly if I can get 4-5 players. Been playing with the same group of people for awhile now so it'd be nice to run something for fresh faces.
 
REMEMBERMKULTRA said:
EST.
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Nice I'm in the same time zone. Thinking 7:30pm-11:30pm or somewhere along that timeslot. Would be using Discord and Foundry VTT. Text for IC roleplay and voice for combat/OOC. If anyone else is interested, I can get the ball rolling.
 
You know, Im thinking now. I hear everyone talk about all-evil campaigns, but I never hear anyone talk about all-good campaigns. I really want to run or play in something similar to the ideas presented in Exalted Deeds, where the players are going around the (small) continent fighting the most vile people and monsters because its the right thing to do, where the heroes’ deeds bring hope and peace wherever they go, and where the heroes will eventually martyr themselves to stop a grave evil when the end of the campaign comes. How would I run such a campaign?
 
I mean, for exalted good I did plan a character for a game like that. Jack the Cat Bard. He was an awakened cat who was a bard (performing would probably be a zither he carries on his back); trying to understand the world through his new mind and trying to make it a better place. It was due to him finding out that a struggling musician made the villagers near where he awoke happier, and the realization that he doesn't have the most time left compared to a human.

Said game did not get off the ground, yet I save the character for that day it ever comes.
 
Adamska said:
I mean, for exalted good I did plan a character for a game like that. Jack the Cat Bard. He was an awakened cat who was a bard (performing would probably be a zither he carries on his back); trying to understand the world through his new mind and trying to make it a better place. It was due to him finding out that a struggling musician made the villagers near where he awoke happier, and the realization that he doesn't have the most time left compared to a human.

Said game did not get off the ground, yet I save the character for that day it ever comes.
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God, you too? I have a character I was planning on using for a 3.5e gestalt game that never went off the ground. Oliver was an Aasimar cleric/knight multiclass, a former paladin trainee of Heironeous who ran away from his order after a run-in with a half-ogre worshipper of Hextor. This was after said half-ogre murdered his best friend, tortured Oliver to near death for funsies, and killed Oliver's mentor after he tried to stop him from literally eating children. He later became a cleric/knight after a religious experience caused by his holy symbol glowing while fighting goblins.

Hey, if gestalt characters are overpowered, might as well make my character's backstory a bit overdone too.

Edit: I posted the whole backstory here way back when.
 
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Gingervitis said:
You know, Im thinking now. I hear everyone talk about all-evil campaigns, but I never hear anyone talk about all-good campaigns. I really want to run or play in something similar to the ideas presented in Exalted Deeds, where the players are going around the (small) continent fighting the most vile people and monsters because its the right thing to do, where the heroes’ deeds bring hope and peace wherever they go, and where the heroes will eventually martyr themselves to stop a grave evil when the end of the campaign comes. How would I run such a campaign?
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I'd say that on its best day, my group can do about two consistently good aligned characters in a party (I include myself in this). The rest are amoral or autistic at best when it comes to interactions and behavior. To be fair, they are also not very good at evil characters either because they can't get past the elementary grade of "how can I be a dick?" vs making a character with actual motivations and a personality.
 
Gingervitis said:
You know, Im thinking now. I hear everyone talk about all-evil campaigns, but I never hear anyone talk about all-good campaigns.
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That's all games isn't it?

I ran a criminal campaign and only one of the PCs was willing to do any crimes, and even then it was mostly limited to certain kinds of people and tombs. I played in a pirate campaign where no one did any piracy. We were basically a party with a boat and some pirate themed weapons that said "Yar" occasionally.

Thinking about it, I've only had one person do the chaotic neutral dickishness I hear about online, but it was mild compared to those stories. My current game has a chaotic character that is obsessed with explosions. It's too early to tell yet how that'll play out.


I'm guessing from your post you want an all lawful good boy scout campaign? That might be hard to pull off because those kind of characters tend to be one note and boring (eg. Superman), but you can set that up fairly easy. Just don't do pitch it as a "lawful good pargon only" campaign. A modern day game can easily be done by having a team of super heroes, a police force, a secret agency (like Kingsmen). or a horror game where the heroes would have to go out of their way to be dicks.

Fantasy would be tougher, but doable. I'd have them be members of the kings guard or members of a church of a lawful good deity.
 
All-good campaigns aren't hard to do in fantasy. All you need are, well... heroic characters. Even if they disagree on many things (the Elven Druid in furs and leaves is going to argue a lot with the Dwarf Paladin of the God of the Forge wearing enough steel to make a bank vault blush), and even if they have to occasionally be convinced to go along (the stern Human Cleric whose lands were under constant raids by goblinoid will be grumpy as the party goes out of their way to free neutral-aligned goblins enslaved by the Big Bad), in the end it's their actions that define the tone of the campaign.

A hero doesn't have to be a goody-two-shoes. They may be crass, annoying, grumpy, or have all sorts of assorted personality flaws that make them difficult to handle. But so long as their actions are heroic and they actively avoid (even by ommission or consequence) villainous deeds. So you could have an entire party of characters with very diverse personalities, still working together for a common goal as a team, so long as they all have strong moral compasses that compel them to do the right thing for its own sake. Yes, yes. The gung-ho Dwarf Paladin and the edgier-than-thou Tiefling Rogue are going to get on each other's nerves a lot, but even if she groans and mutters "can't believe I'm doing this...", the Rogue is still going (out of her own free will) to take a quick detour during the part's daring escape from the city they're fleeing from to infiltrate and leave some extra coins on the table of the poor family that offered the party hospitality at the start of the adventure.

What usually happens is that the party has a couple characters who are heroic, a couple who are tagging along just because the player wants to roll dice and doesn't really care about their own characters' views on anything (don't expect them to do much in roleplaying scenes), and generally one guy who wants to relive their edgy teenager days and make a character who's just a dick and who gets annoyed when the consequences of their actions catch up to them. If you have a consistent, long-term group who's played together for a while, chances are that last guy was ejected years ago. If you're still building up a steady group or trying to find a group at all, you're likely to find a good amount of them.
 
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My players tend to be lawful neutral where they generally pick the 'right' thing to do while weighing the costs of their actions. They would probably help a village being raided by orcs, but would also immediately demand payment for example. They wouldn't go murder hobo on the town however because they don't want to deal with a possible bounty on their heads, the orcs wouldn't pay them and would also want the loot, and because getting the attention of mega evil organizations in my campaign setting tends to have people put through unwilling and dangerous "Job interviews." Not to say I don't have evil player characters occasionally in fact one guy almost exclusively runs neutral evil they just do their actions on the down low such as assassinating people the party spared if they think they pose a threat.
 
Judge Dredd said:
I'm guessing from your post you want an all lawful good boy scout campaign? That might be hard to pull off because those kind of characters tend to be one note and boring (eg. Superman), but you can set that up fairly easy. Just don't do pitch it as a "lawful good pargon only" campaign. A modern day game can easily be done by having a team of super heroes, a police force, a secret agency (like Kingsmen). or a horror game where the heroes would have to go out of their way to be dicks.

Fantasy would be tougher, but doable. I'd have them be members of the kings guard or members of a church of a lawful good deity.
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That's...

No.

It's not that hard to write or make a character interesting as a Lawful Good. Simple ideas being that your set moral code or rule of laws are different to the people around you due to being in a different kingdom. That sets up the conundrum of "do you follow your code, or theirs which may differ?". Another great arc is "fulfill my oaths, or do what is right?". Conflict is often a fun motivator with them. Hell, you can even write stories about how their efforts to be the big good leaves them isolated and alone from others, hence they seek to reach out and find others.

There's also the often forgotten "good isn't nice" element to all good characters. A brutal inquisitor can legit be lawful good. Fuck, my Final Badguy of the Week for my Gallia game WAS Lawful Good, whose intentions would lead to ruin and pain since he was trying to create a new god and build a new and better society based on his enlightened views. He nearly caused a continental wide cataclysm due to finally being tired of the corrupt and horrid system he helped perpetuate as its leader when an assassination attempt was the straw that broke his sanity.

It's not all games. In fact it's actually pretty easy to run an all-evil party. I've been in two so far, and we actually did some pretty heinous shit. I've also been in a mostly-good party where the least good guy was still neutral. Again, the only hard step is deciding during planning since you have to get all the players on board.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
That's all games isn't it?

I ran a criminal campaign and only one of the PCs was willing to do any crimes, and even then it was mostly limited to certain kinds of people and tombs. I played in a pirate campaign where no one did any piracy. We were basically a party with a boat and some pirate themed weapons that said "Yar" occasionally.

Thinking about it, I've only had one person do the chaotic neutral dickishness I hear about online, but it was mild compared to those stories. My current game has a chaotic character that is obsessed with explosions. It's too early to tell yet how that'll play out.


I'm guessing from your post you want an all lawful good boy scout campaign? That might be hard to pull off because those kind of characters tend to be one note and boring (eg. Superman), but you can set that up fairly easy. Just don't do pitch it as a "lawful good pargon only" campaign. A modern day game can easily be done by having a team of super heroes, a police force, a secret agency (like Kingsmen). or a horror game where the heroes would have to go out of their way to be dicks.

Fantasy would be tougher, but doable. I'd have them be members of the kings guard or members of a church of a lawful good deity.
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There are three good alignments(outside of 4E) and all have multiple ways they can be played or interpreted without being bland. In 3.5 in particular there is an extra-good called being Exalted, which gives any good-aligned character Paladin-level roleplaying restrictions but in return you get many benefits including access to many Exalted-only Prestige classes.

Not only Good-only campaigns, but even Exalted-only campaigns are perfectly playable without any sameness between party members.
 
Judge Dredd said:
I'm guessing from your post you want an all lawful good boy scout campaign? That might be hard to pull off because those kind of characters tend to be one note and boring (eg. Superman), but you can set that up fairly easy. Just don't do pitch it as a "lawful good pargon only" campaign. A modern day game can easily be done by having a team of super heroes, a police force, a secret agency (like Kingsmen). or a horror game where the heroes would have to go out of their way to be dicks.
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No. All lawful good parties are boring. Not that they dont have potential, but its more fun to have good characters with different good alignments. A lawful good dwarf paladin, a neutral good human sorcerer, and a chaotic good elf druid are gonna have three completely different outlooks on life, and on what the best way to do good is, and thats what makes it fun.
 
Adamska said:
It's not that hard to write or make a character interesting as a Lawful Good.
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Agreed. Just look at the examples I posted like cop shows or super heroes. I remember hearing that a lot of people play Mass Effect as pure paragon.

But there's the perception that lawful good characters, especially paladins, are boring buzz kills so people are reluctant to play them, even though most people play their characters as lawful good despite choosing a different alignment. That's why I suggested pitching the game by hiding the lawful good requirement.

Adamska said:
It's not all games. In fact it's actually pretty easy to run an all-evil party.
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That's one of those theoreticals I see talked about online, but have yet to see play out in practice. Like I said, I ran a criminal campaign where the players avoided doing any crimes. I played in a pirate campaign where players avoided any piracy.
 
Judge Dredd said:
That's one of those theoreticals I see talked about online, but have yet to see play out in practice. Like I said, I ran a criminal campaign where the players avoided doing any crimes. I played in a pirate campaign where players avoided any piracy.
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It ain't theoretical; the longrunning evil group I gamed with wiped at least two civilizations and sold a free city into corporate slavery out of sheer boredom. A side project for one character was to attempt to commit genocide on the orcs. Another plot by a character was to firebomb one of the few magical nature nexuses just to fuck over druids. I personally used a magic atom bomb and wiped out a capital city. Just need to hammer home that you are required to be evil if they can't pull the trigger.
 
Adamska said:
That's...

No.

It's not that hard to write or make a character interesting as a Lawful Good. Simple ideas being that your set moral code or rule of laws are different to the people around you due to being in a different kingdom. That sets up the conundrum of "do you follow your code, or theirs which may differ?". Another great arc is "fulfill my oaths, or do what is right?". Conflict is often a fun motivator with them. Hell, you can even write stories about how their efforts to be the big good leaves them isolated and alone from others, hence they seek to reach out and find others.

There's also the often forgotten "good isn't nice" element to all good characters. A brutal inquisitor can legit be lawful good. Fuck, my Final Badguy of the Week for my Gallia game WAS Lawful Good, whose intentions would lead to ruin and pain since he was trying to create a new god and build a new and better society based on his enlightened views. He nearly caused a continental wide cataclysm due to finally being tired of the corrupt and horrid system he helped perpetuate as its leader when an assassination attempt was the straw that broke his sanity.

It's not all games. In fact it's actually pretty easy to run an all-evil party. I've been in two so far, and we actually did some pretty heinous shit. I've also been in a mostly-good party where the least good guy was still neutral. Again, the only hard step is deciding during planning since you have to get all the players on board.
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Transformers Prime wrote Optimus Prime pretty well for a Lawful Good character. you got to see how he feels about the war and his friend Megatron and trying to do what is right for his people.
 
Any advice on whether 3rd edition is better or 4th edition of Flames of War? I want to get out of Warhammer and into Flames of War.
 
The_Dank_Astero said:
Any advice on whether 3rd edition is better or 4th edition of Flames of War? I want to get out of Warhammer and into Flames of War.
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Hard to say since 4th Edition is supposed to be a huge change from 3rd.. I need to find some willing players to try it out. While I like Flames of War, I'm more of a Micro Armour guy and so is my usual group.
 
Anonymus Fluhre said:
Transformers Prime wrote Optimus Prime pretty well for a Lawful Good character. you got to see how he feels about the war and his friend Megatron and trying to do what is right for his people.
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People often make the fallacy of presuming allignment is a hard coded rule, I've always thought of it more of a general trend. For example a friend once quipped I'm lawful neutral in society but chaotic good with people I like.
 
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