>MFW no mini's or books this year
Aww
>MFW envelope of £250 from Grandmother.
Time to buy a new war-game army! God bless the eccentric old gal.

I got WoD expansion books! Midnight Roads and Antagonists. Also dice.

Concerning the WoD of Darkness Discussion, I feel like the old fluff wasn't that great. I was reading through some of the Old Mage stuff a few weeks ago, and while some of it was cool, most of it seemed silly and confining. I'm just relaying my impression of the fluff, here, I couldn't tell you off hand what exactly I didn't like, only that I liked the Sons of Ether and Technocracy a bit. The rest of it was kind of dumb.

I feel like the meta-plot would get in the way of actual roleplaying, but that's just my opinion on it, which you may take with a grain of salt, as I never actually played oWoD.

>mfw I got the Ankh-Morpork board game...
>twice

>>142418

There's an Ankh-Morpork board game? How is it? Is it fun?

>>142423
It's actually just a bunch of other board games stitched together, and all of the game pieces are taken from other games.

>>142427
Seems somewhat fitting considering the nature of Ankh-Morpork.

>>142398
White-Wolf fluff is hit or miss, most of the time. Thankfully, most everything from the 2001-2004 era for Werewolf was pretty good, except for the novels. Don't touch the novels. They're terrible. I can't say I know anything whatsoever about. The problem with White-Wolf is quality control. I use the metaphor for a bunch of people around a bonfire handing eachother a stick designating them as the storyteller after the other is done. Well, sometimes the stick gets handed to a kid brother who takes a story about a noble pioneer's struggle against loneliness and winter and turns it into a kaiju battle. And they have full reign and reason to be able to do it, because they're the ones holding the stick and building on what came before.

And then whoever comes after has to somehow make that canon and work out into something more reasonable. (fffffUUUUUUUUU-)

Thankfully most things 1998-2004 for Werewolf were pretty great fluff-wise. Most things.

>>142436
>about mage^

How unwise would it be to set some newbies up with level 5 characters in Pathfinder? I'm a little tired of low-level games and I want to throw some of these Bestiary 3 critters at 'em.

Also DAMN but the Bestiary 3 is good. It's got those Asian floating-lady-heads-trailing-organs things as a template.

>>142672
If all else fails it should provide hijinks.

Huh, OPs post made me think of TGweavers stuff. Apparently they get into some fun tabletop stuff.

I've mostly been suggesting the AD&D 2e sourcebook "Complete Book of Villians" again for people trying to write villanious ORGANIZATIONS, or just any organizations in general. Picture related, it breaks down and has good details on stuff.

Regardless of what system you use, its a nice book. Even just for regular writing.

>>142740
That's because it is his stuff. Those are all characters (PCs and NPCs) from his World Eaters campaign.

>>142436
>>142398

oWoD is... anachronistic. That's all I can really say about it. It's writers lived in the late 80's/early 90's. They made a game about the late 80's/early 90's, and everything that was "cool" during that time was integrated into the setting.

What this means is that the fluff for oWoD is solid if you can get into the right mindset, but at the same time it can be pretty easy for a guy with more modern outlooks and viewpoints to look at some of the fluff and say "Wow that's kinda lame" mostly because it's like polyester and platform shoes. What was stylish and trendy back then is just tacky and sort of dumb looking nowadays.

>>142777
Any prime examples aside from that one crazy-ass werevampwraith mage? I love looking at embarrassing baby pictures, so to speak.

OH AND BTW: Apparently Exalted 2.5 is coming out soon. But since I doubt this will change any of my gripes with the system (which are numerous but I won't get into them) I will instead extrapolate on this thought.

One of my BIGGEST COMPLAINTS for Exalted is that it's not a high-flying kung-fu wushu system. It's a low-level grim fantasy system (ala Warhammer Fantasy) that got high-flying kung-fu wushu nailed onto it like a big golden, shimmering plank of wood attached to a rickety old broken down house. And this might come as a surprise, but you CAN'T HAVE A SYSTEM MAKE A TRANSITION FROM THE FORMER TO THE LATTER WITHOUT THERE BEING *SERIOUS* COMPROMISES. The lethality of the system in spite of its supposed kung-fu wushu badassitude lead to people spamming perfect defences, perfect defence spamming lead to paranoia combat, paranoia combat lead to the most aggravatingly clunky rules system that you need a fucking guidemap and an Exalted expert to interpret for you. I'm not even gonna get INTO the retardation of the Initiative system, or how whatever good ideas could come from that were COMPLETELY THROWN TO THE WAYSIDE IN FAVOUR OF JUST HAVING EVERYTHING BE AN ACTION OR A REACTION... but I'm rambling.

Anyway I said that Exalted really needed to stop being so damn lethal and not have mortals be in grimdark fantasy land. To which a fan of Exalted told me "Well no. If it wasn't like that, then the Exalted wouldn't feel special!"

So I heard that. My eyes narrowed and I whispered but one word to him and his basic rebuttal of "Hitting my hand with a hammer for 3 hours sucks but it's the only way for me to play the game I like". I said "Challenge Accepted".

OK now the rest of this is just going to be going over what I've read from various games and such but feel free to acknowledge/discourage me on any of these points since I am mostly speaking from my own experience. OK, we need to have a game where you CAN go from a grim, gritty, "realistic" type setting, to a more action kung-fu wushu powergod fantasy game and not only have the latter feel like an extension of the former, but have it still feel like an action kung-fu wushu powergod fantasy game. This is what I think I can come up with.

OK so REIGN uses the One Roll Engine. The One Roll Engine is, basically, a game where you roll a dice pool of d10's and look for matching numbers. Width determines the speed and power of an attack, while height determines the quality and where you'll hit someone. Taking a sword to the leg, is more preferable to taking a sword to the face and such. Now this might not come as a surprise to some of you, but ORE can be pretty damn lethal when you get right down to it.

Your head has 4 boxes of health typically, and if those fill up with killing damage (which isn't completely hard to acquire and heals over the course of WEEKS) you die. No saving throw, no second chances, head (or torso but that has about 8 health boxes) fills up with killing? You're dead. That sound pretty lethal to you? A couple lucky rolls and some good hits to the head and you're basically down for the count.

Now why do I bring up ORE? Well for me to segue into another game I absolutely love. Weapons of the Gods, which implements a disturbingly similar dice mechanic. In Weapons of the Gods, you roll a dice pool of d10's, you look for matching numbers... and then you take the number of matching dice (the width in ORE) and turn that into the 10's digit of your total roll. The number on said dice (the height in ORE) becomes the 1's of it. So if you get a matching set of 3 sevens? You got 37 total.

NOW. These two dice mechanics? Basically the same thing really. You're looking for the same thing and rolling the same dice, it's just you're interpreting the information differently. The latter not only deals with higher numbers, but as anyone will tell you. Weapons of the Gods is just an EXCELLENT system and is awesome to run/play. So my question here is: Why can't we marry these two systems?

ORE would be used for mortals, showing how they can barely survive a good hit to the noggin. While Weapons of the Gods would be used for the Exalted, showing that to an exalt? It doesn't matter WHERE you hit them. Leg? Torso? Face? They take that shit like a boss and respond by showing you what it's like to have an immortal god's foot up your ass.

This is mostly my jumbled thoughts and is really nothing more than a half-baked concept. But hey, all things start out as half-bakes concepts in the begging right? Does this seem like a solid idea or what?

>>142780

Get Mage: The Ascension first edition. Read the opening fluff.

It mentions a katanna and a trench-coat in the first paragraph. Without the slightest HINT of irony.

>>142781
To me it's the divide between mortal and exalted which show how much the exalted were only the only thing keeping the human race aloft during the First Age. I think it's interesting to see a setting where humans are only able to stay up top because of a few select people. At the same time, I don't think mortals have it as tough as you'd imagine. In places all around the world, mortals have it rough but that could be said of the real world as well. In other places mortals live pretty high and might. They aren't all peasants living under someone's thumb.

>>142780
Found an older edition of the core rules once in a game store. The illustrations were all photos of real-world people LARPing.

>>142791

Oh no. It's not so much the NARRATIVE implications that humans are weak and Exalted are super badass. It's more that the system is trying to have rules like bleeding, disease, etc (ya know, stuff real world mortal people typically died from in old times) then just completely scrap those for the Exalted, who still ultimately have only about 7 or so HP total and can only raise those with Iron Ox Body. Even then it's typically not good enough for people to feel like they can "risk" getting hit, so they perfect defence spam using all possible PD's for all possible Defense Values.

There are mortal societies in Exalted that have ADVANCED to be sure (that's what Autochthon is kind of about) but I'm talking more about how the System is trying to transition from one thing to another while keeping the basic principles and it doesn't do it all that well.

>>142799
True. Until 2.5 comes along, I really can't judge it though. We don't have anything to truly look at to tell if it's going in the right places or the wrong ones.

I was looking through Warhammer Fantasy's plethora of classes and I realized what it reminded me of:

Canterbury Tales.

>>142941
Yep. Its pretty much D&D + Call of Cthulhu with the cast of Canterbury Tales, plus a dash of Terry Gilliam.

Ignore me, just posting a map for my group

>>143540
>Norrland(the most north part of sweden, and well alot of it as well but still)
>A nomansland
Hehe, as I swed from Småland I find that amusing.

>>143540
>Canterbury part of Debauchia
I always knew those fuckers were one earthquake away from going full sheep-shagger.

>>143540
>A part of Texas divided.

Impossible.

Heh yeah its a nation-builder game Im running on /tg/, so it really doesn't make sense. The crazy bastards made the Zone from stalker on purpose this session, its already engulfed Mongolia and most of central eastern Eurasia.

Anyone here know of this? I just started GMing for a guys who insisted on playing alone ( yeah, table singlepleyer, me and him) and I'm... stuck, a writer's block for a lack for a better term and I could use a bit of... inspiration.

Oh, also:
Team Kobold is officially abandoned. The DM/GM guy got tired of running it.

But I want you all to know that Cynic the Kobold was a dragon shaman. It was a heavily Final Fantasy influenced world, and Behemoths counted as a variety of dragon. That means, one more level, he would've sprouted his totem dragon's natural armor. In this case, thick, bushy fur. Purple fur.

You are now imagining fuzzybolds.

>ASoIaF RP game
>Big Tournament coming up
>Actual tournament stuff takes about an hour
>Spend rest of time drinking, singing, arguing with cultist PC and trolling Loras Tyrell
I wouldn't trade it for the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/video-games/dungeons-dragons-remake-uses-players-input.html?_r=4

Player input on new edition of D&D has me worried. I'm willing to bet that the "input" will be this.

80% people demanding shit they don't REALLY want and just think they want (IE: "I WANT NPC'S TO BE STATED AS PC'S" when they really just want that in the books to trick their minds into thinking the world is more cohesive, or just want it to be more gritty and life-threatening)

20% demanding something legit but probably getting drowned out in the flood.

And of that we'll have differentiating opinions, certain desires undermining the ideas of others and at the end of the day all we can hope is that Wizards learns to just ignore the people who won't be pleased by anything they do outside of a re-skinned AD&D and make a game they want to build.

Also, I can only hope this means that they're willing to just expand on 4e's system. Because 4e was a damn good system and abandoning THAT just to go back to the cluttered mess that was 3.5 seems like a definite step backwards for wizards.

>>143693
>3.5
>cluttered mess

I heartily disagree with your opinion, but will say no more because damned if I'm going to get dragged into an edition fight.

>>143696

3.5's rules were poorly organized, and the combat rules were fairly difficult to keep in mind at all times. I can't remember how to sunder without looking it up (and then I need to memorize the charts). While removing the rules outright was completely idiotic, there were... a lot of charts. Too many charts.

I think improving 4e, clarifying rules, adding new and streamlined combat options for non-spell casters (or work these into the new ability rules from 4e) to give a better experience for those who wanted it, rather than drag it back towards 3.5 is the smarter thing to do. If you want 3.5, it's there, and nobody's taking it from you, why bog 4.5 or 5e or whatever down with rules that don't help the 4e system in the first place?

Personally, I'm not planning on playing 4e or 3.5 again any time soon, but I do get the feeling that the internet giving its opinions about a new D&D edition is going to fuck up 4e worse than editors at Wizards could have ever done.

4e was utter shit primarily because of the fact it locked everyone into the whole wandering murderer lifestyle, with no ability to create a character that did anything else.

Also no real multiclassing and combat that was somehow EVEN MORE BROKEN than 3.5

>>143703

... what? I'm sorry you just said so much bullcrap right there I don't even know where to START.

>with no ability to create a character that did anything else.

Oh yes. Because that one profession skill added SUCH DEPTH to a game about fantasy exploration.

>Also no real multiclassing

Because multiclassing is a stupid idea from the get-go and there are better ways at conveying people picking up tricks from other classes.

>and combat that was somehow EVEN MORE BROKEN than 3.5

... how? No I mean... how the fuck? Are you like, playing with the most retarded game ever?

>Edition war

NO. BAD POSTERS. Go sit in the corner and think about what you just did. Go on!

>>143709
5e Warhammer40k Battle is better than 3e Warhammer40k Battle

>>143703
Wait, 4e doesn't have multiclassing? Well that's lame.

>>143706
>Because multiclassing is a stupid idea
NO U

>>143711
Why you do this snapper, why?

>>143712

4e has hybrids (which is combining 2 classes together) and it's multiclassing allows you to get a power from a different class.

Multiclassing is... well it's kind of weird and annoying. I feel like what 4e does (again with hybriding and it's multiclass feats) is enough to convey the idea of having different classes but when you get into 2nd level psion, 1st level cleric, 4th level fighter, 1st level duskblade territory it just starts to feel like players are doing it solely so they can min-max to hell and back or make ridiculously special snowflake characters to the point it stops being interesting or funny.

Really, 4e classes DO offer up enough choices with their powers alone that you don't need to be dabbling in other classes.

>>143714
Because.

I am a being of hate.

>>143720

>>143715
>but when you get into 2nd level psion, 1st level cleric, 4th level fighter, 1st level duskblade territory it just starts to feel like players are doing it solely so they can min-max to hell and back or make ridiculously special snowflake characters to the point it stops being interesting or funny.
Well, DUH. That's when it's time for the DM to intervene and mandate a house rule of something like "no more than three different classes per character". That doesn't mean multiclassing itself is flawed, it just needs to be used responsibly.

The biggest problem with both 4E and 3E is the lack of any sort of underlying plan for expansions, which leads to content that more or less should be incompatible existing in a single game. Thus you get things like the ridiculous multiclassing rules in 3E, or the expanded rules in 4E that lead to characters that play like something from a different game to appease people who didn't like 4E.

And they need to go ahead and decide right up front whether they're going to appease the simulationists or the game-ists and stick to that. Because you're not going to please both camps--people who want their RPG to have different effects on their characters based on the amount of calories and protein they're getting are not going to be pleased by the same game as people who just want something simple that a Dungeon Master can prepare a session for in an hour or two a week.

>>143723
>That doesn't mean multiclassing itself is flawed, it just needs to be used responsibly.
What is your definition of "flawed," then? I would think "You have to invent house rules to be able to use the system they've written" or "The DM has to know the system better than the players to know what's going to make the game suck for everyone else" to be flawed.

I prefer Pathfinder over Fourth Edition, but they both have their merits and comparing the two has really opened my eyes about the different routes that game design can take. I might type up something about 4E's merits and flaws later, but all I can say for now is that I hope WotC moves forward instead of letting grognards drag them backwards and just copy the earlier material.

>>143724

>And they need to go ahead and decide right up front whether they're going to appease the simulationists or the game-ists and stick to that.

Neither of those things really MEAN anything.

And form of "meaning" that could've come from those three terms basically got scrapped the moment people started to use "gamist" as a catch-all for "Things I don't like".

Either way, most of the "complaints" for 4e really come down to the fact that 4e attempts to reach the same conclusions as 3.5 in an entirely different way. Example being how Barbarians gain temporary HP whereas in 3.5 their rage increased constitution which roughly was meant to do the same thing (only with mediocre success) or how rogues had various powers/effects which helped grant "combat advantage" which was more flavoured as rogues exploiting weak-points rather than just having them be mostly effective against living opponents who couldn't see them.

And honestly? I think 4e did a much better job at capturing the kind of game D&D is. D&D is a game of fantasy exploration, adventure and high-stakes battle. It always has been. It's what Gygax and his friends played it as. 3.5, contrarily, always felt WAY too up it's own ass with having everything try to make "sense" when it really just needed people to push it down and say "dude. Just think about it in terms of what the effect is, don't let the cause bother you so much."

That kind of thinking works in a point-buy game like GURPS where the points and the costs of different powers act as an arbiter to keep most things "in balance" (even though GURPS technically works around that more than it does confront it) but in a game where we're lead to assume all player options should ultimately be viable for what particular "role" or effect that person wants it REALLY doesn't work well.

Hell even Fantasy Craft, which I would argue is 3.5 done right, makes a note of increasing the power of other feats while making certain stats that you'd think would be much more powerful much less subdued. Why? Because demons and dragons and monsters DON'T NEED TO BE A MILLIONS TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN HUMANS IN HEROIC FANTASY. Or maybe that's wrong. But a heroic half-dragon and a heroic human are on equal footing because... well they're heroes! Heroes are just badass in their own ways. While an NPC human might be easily outclassed by an NPC drake or ogre, PC's don't have to operate on "realistic" levels. Especially in games that aim to be more high-flying ADVENTURE rather than medieval knights, plague and politics.

>>143729
>And form of "meaning" that could've come from those three terms basically got scrapped the moment people started to use "gamist" as a catch-all for "Things I don't like".
Do they? Because I ignore most of the arguments, so I wasn't aware the term had actually been used in the past. I actually consider myself a "gamist," and if anything was using "simulationist" to mean "things I don't like," like randomly generated loot and civilian classes and save-or-die spells and fighters that are useless after level X or wizards that are useless until level X, all of which make perfect sense from the perspective of someone trying to make a realistic world but which are retarded from a game design perspective.

Since apparently there's some sort of baggage that has made the term not inherently obvious, I'll go ahead and elaborate:

They need to decide whether they want to give in to the people who want rules based on realism for every little thing regardless of whether or not it makes for a more fun or better balanced system, or if they want a game that sacrifices realism to make a more balanced and streamlined experience that gives everyone a chance to do something useful every turn, and commit to that decision.

http://www.white-wolf.com/community/news/white-wolf-release-schedule-2011-2012
>Fall 2012: (WtA) Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition

>>143823
Oh god damn it not those cancerous hairballs. They're literally the worst part of WOD, almost as terrible as the Orks from 40k.

>>143837

>>almost as terrible as the Orks from 40k.
YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!

>>143837
You have very bad opinions and Im having great difficulty respecting them.

>>143837
>terrible as the Orks from 40k.

>>143837
You just mad I'm stylin' on you.

>>143823
>Aug. 2012: (Mt?) Mummy: The [?]
Mummies will never not be funny to me, I'm sorry. Still interested to see what they'll do.

Also, does anyone else think that now is a great time for a new Vampire video game? The respective successes of Skyrim and Deus Ex have proven the market for RPGs of that style, and vamps are really in the public eye right now.

>>143853
I thought they were already making a vampire MMO set in OWOD or something?

I dunno if I'd be interested in a new game anyway if it was set in NWOD since it generally sounds a lot less interesting.

>>143853
I had to do double check you werent lying. Really, Mummy?

>>143856
I think the MMO got canceled.

>>143856
>>143860

CCP was going to do the MMO but some rather poor decisions and fanbase on their part has caused a mass influx of people to leave EVE online and now they've turned all their attention to their FPS in the hopes that can get them money.

The MMO is on "hiatus" but all things considered it's pretty much dead.

>>143856

>I dunno if I'd be interested in a new game anyway if it was set in NWOD since it generally sounds a lot less interesting.

nWoD has some pretty neat shit going on in it. You just have to dig around for it. Which isn't really so bad considering most of the "good" shit in oWoD you needed to read it's metaplot for anyway.

Oh yea. Archmages in nWoD are fucking ridiculous. If you have enough quintessence (basically magical macguffins you collect) you can cast spells of arcana 6-10. What do those do? Well... here lemme quote our mage GM.

>Rank 6 in an arcanum gets you the Practice of Dynamics, enabling you to make phenomena that change and learn according to their conditions. Examples of what them can do include complex, updating destinies, viral memes, altering history without needing to worry about the butterfly effect, etc. All spells at rank 6 require a Quintessence and 2 mana to cast.

>Rank 7 gets you the Practice of Entities, enabling them to rewrite patterns in a manner that will be passed on to any of the pattern's descendants. Examples of this include creating or changing someone's supernatural template, creating dynasties of Proximi, altering the temporal sympathy of a portal to create time travel, and even changing a mage's Path. At this level you also get the Practice of Excision which removes great sections of a target's patten, denying someone access to an arcana, removing a Legacy, or stopping an arcana from having any effect on someone. You can also use spells os this practice to dispel Imperial spells and give someone a new True Name, making them count as 'unknown' for any sympathtic spells from then on unless people learn the supernal Imago that is the subject's new name. Spells at Rank 7 cost a Quintessence, 2 Arcane Experience and 4 Mana.

So just so we're clear. A mage with 7 ranks in Death and Life could not only kill the beast of a Vampire, but turn him human.

>Rank 8 gets you the Practice of Dominions, enabling archmages to create Chantries, self-sustaining ecosystems of spells, Ochemata, and self-willed Artifacts. Life, for example, could make a Proxy, a living being with its own mind and body but the Archmaster's soul, enabling the archmaster to perceive and cast through the Proxy. Spells at Rank 8 cost a Quintessence, 5 Arcane XP and 6 Mana.

In other words: You become a GOD and you can make your own Avatar.

>Finally, Rank 9 gets you the Practice of Transfiguration, which has only one spell. With a transitory duration, the Archmage *becomes* the Arcana, able to work any feat that hypothetically falls under its purview at will. If Rank 10 exists, it'd enable you to cast this at indefinite duration; this, the archmages say, is Ascension. Transfiguration costs you 10 Arcane XP, 8 mana, and a suitable Quintessence

So basically, if you can bullshit something to happen with your 9 dot arcana (such as saying "There's Dinosaurs now" with 9 dots of life?) then it happens.

SO YEA. That's Mage: The Awakening at Tier 4 ladies and gentlemen.

>Roleplaying group is teaming up with two other groups to create dungeons for each other to go find maguffins in
>Managed to sneak in traps from Reverse Tomb of Terrors and Cavern of Ourghmahbawls from suptg archive

Bring it on.

>>143873
It's really not supposed to be balanced. I kind of like it at that level of power. Also, probably going to ask this on the forums but why can't you use willpower to dispell mental influence? Seems generally unfair for no reason.

>>144161


>Also, probably going to ask this on the forums but why can't you use willpower to dispell mental influence?

I think the reasoning there is that if that were the case then mental influencing any random banker/civilian could be auto-resisted by the ST up to 4 times.

Which could easily be rectified by saying only PC's can use willpower but eh. I think Mind control in itself is kind of a bullshit thing to use in RP's. Might make an interesting plot hook or BBEG device but not something you'd use against PC's or allow PC's to use religiously.

Really if you asked me? Any form of mental influence/control would call for a wisdom check outside of tampering with the most basic motor functions. Making a person fall asleep so you don't have to kill him? That's fine. Making a person your indentured servant (for even a brief period?) is going too far.

Hey guys. Some people at work are sort-of-half-joking about playing D&D, and I was thinking of throwing together a one-shot with some pregen characters to let them get a taste without having to learn the system beforehand. But I've never done one-shots before. Anyone have any advice on how to go about planning for a one-session game?

>>144254
Include a 10x10 Room With Orc and Chest.

>>144254
1)Go balls to the wall.
2) There are no side anything, every action must build toward a spectacular ending as directly as possible.
3)There are no long term consequences to their actions, so let them end all life as they know it.
4)If they truly fuck things up, pull whatever you can out of that magnificent ass of yours.

This explains everything!

>>144196
That's like wisdom 6-5. Depends on the PC really. For the most part vampires can abuse it easier because a mage has to be at about mind 5 and concentrate with a few people at a time due to limitations.

Personally, I'd rather just have willpower double the defenders roll.

IGNORE ME

Here's something to ponder: how do you define "dungeon?"

>>144842

Any location, typically but not required to be underground, designed or redesigned to imprison or contain someperson or something.

In all other instances, the phrase "keep" or "hold" would probably be more apt.

>>144861

This. But a dungeon as defined in a GAME?

More accurately would be a series of obstacles meant for players to overcome. Any enclosed space where they have little to no outside help and are expected to survive via their own mettle and cunning.

It's actually kind of hilarious when you think about it, because most "dungeons" in game terms would be ridiculous to actually live/work in, and the architects for them must've been absolutely mad. Even if we assume they've had thousands of years to fall apart and be infested by monsters.

>>144863
>>144861
>>144842
I'd say for P&P terms, a dungeon is any map or closely interconnected series of maps being used for primarily exploratory and/or combat purposes, with a clear progression towards a particular goal by which you can "beat" the dungeon. As opposed to roleplaying area maps (most iconically, towns and encampments and things) which might not even be necessary a lot of the time, and random encounter maps (which are really only necessary for games where character and enemy placement and/or environment hazards are tantamount).

But that's just my opinion on the subject. I think of a "dungeon" as essentially the same thing as a "level" in a video game.

http://www.nuklearpower.com/2012/01/11/nerding-it-up-with-legends-of-the-wulin/

Interesting article by Brian Clevenger on Legends of the Wulin.

It looks to be everything Exalted wanted to be and more.

>>144863
>>144864
All good points. What interests me is that some games define the dungeon as a distinct environment, often inhabited by creatures that fit into its unique niches (rust monsters being the prime example). They seem to define a dungeon as any large man-made complex, usually but not always abandoned by its builders. The presence of traps and/or monsters seems to be a vital element; the mad prince's citadel can be a dungeon, but not if its security begins and ends with human guards.

I ask you this because I'm working on a setting called DUNGEON WORLD, which is exactly what it sounds like. It's a simple concept, but fun to work with.

>>144407
I CAN'T.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?

I mean, I think I recognize the Warhammer world map there, and that's obviously the solar system, but what the fuck is going on with all dem pixels?

CURIOUS MINDS WANT TO KNOW.

>>145049
Purple sea is terraformed mars, bottom left is the start of an alpha centauri map. It was for a nation builder games on /tg/

yup. This pretty much sums up our mage game.

>>145108

Pretty much, yeah.

>>145108
Yep. More or less.

Which would you say is a better system to convert the Palladium TMNT rpg to, Savage Worlds or M&M?

>>145624

Well that depends on what you're asking for really.

Savage Worlds is p good. It just might take a bit of homebrewing and using different dice for each ability/stat can be a turn off to some.

M&M alternatively can be used out of the box, but it's health system can be a bit wonky (although there's alt rules for using HP somewhere) and the whole game has a fair number of balance issues that for the most part need to be mediated as long as nobody tries to go waaay over the PL limits, uses the summon power or is given access to a variable effect.

So "D&D Next," as they're calling it, actually looks interesting.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/317494-seminar-transcript-reimagining-skills-ability-scores.html

>>145650
Yeah, now they just need to make it easier for me to find people to play with.

>>145660
I fear no amount of editing can cure the 'ronrey common to rpgs.

>>145666
Then they need to really put a lot of effort into making Game Table the best possible alternative to having people there.

>>145627
Basically, I'm planning on attaching the one part of the original book that works, crunch-wise - the BIO-E points - to a system that can into combat.

M&M seems like a safer bet, if only because I'm more familiar with - replace the regular points with BIO-E, replace the increases in SDC and whatever into additional skills (maybe houserule out Ride - if you're an anthropomorphic animal, you may have objections to sitting on top of somebody who might be family!).

It can definitely be done... but as a little side project. I have so much other nerd stuff I'm doing right now, this is definitely going on the back burner.

>>143967
>The event happens, a fun time is had by all
>mfw a week later, awards are given for traps and roleplaying, and I win Best Roleplayer for my Swedish Half-Orc as well as an Honourable Mention for Best Waste of Time, with my plinth with a big red button that the party facing it spend 15 minutes on and, when pressed, made a boot shoot out and kicked the button-presser in the crotch for 1d4 damage

>>145910
>That trap
Sir you are genuinely funny.

My 9th level paladin was given a Keen Holy Avenger by the party last week.

>>145959
I wish I could claim full credit, but I was inspired by this marvellous person:

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4281495/#4281873

So, has anybody played the Gears of War board game? I'm kinda meh on the IP, but it looks like it's sort of like a co-operative version of Space Hulk, except with locusts and gears instead of space marines and gene stealers. And Fantasy Flight can do almost no wrong in my eyes, so it's gotta be good, right?

IGNORE ME.

Seriously.

>>146990
Then stop posting interesting things!

http://a-terrible-name.tumblr.com/post/17778544085/why-exalted-needs-a-serious-change-in-direction

A lot of me just ranting about what I don't really like with Exalted. Not that I really HATE the game, but goddamn does it annoy me.

TL;DR, Exalted is a simulationist game when it's putting on airs of being narrativist when it really just needs to be fucking narrativist already.

I've hit a roadblock in a theme for my Changeling game. I'm stuck somewhere between "hell is other people" and "stories ending in stabbings". Neither really seems like something I'd want to go for, but all my other ideas are just too optimistic.

>>147996
Seems like in a Changeling game, the theme should generally be "Hell is the True Fae."

>>147996
>>148014

"Hell is where the heart is"
or
"True Fae are other people"

>>147996

>Neither really seems like something I'd want to go for

OK. What drew you to changeling to begin with? What made you sit down and go "I wanna run this game!"

Does anybody have experience playing FUDGE? I recently remembered I had the 2000 edition, and it looks like it has some really good ideas (writing out a description of your character, then deciding stats? That's... pretty damn cool) but it also looks like it'd somewhat challenging to run...

So, is anyone in the mood for some (semi) old school dungeon crawling? IRC or PbP, whichever way is fine with me...

Will be running a modified version of Keep on the Borderlands or Village of Hommlet.

I was blindsided by one of my players and we ran the game and I went with stabbings. It actually works pretty well.

I also added the theme of "No man is an island/hell is other people" which works well with the characters they created. Everything went better than expected.

>>148162
On a related note, does anybody know of any good mecha p&p rpgs? I also discovered I had a book called Mecha Aces that works under the FUDGE rules.

It has some really good ideas, like thinking up an archetype for your character to play i.e. Reluctant Hero, Hot Head, etc. as well as a few decent setting ideas, but it drowns them in a load of skill lists that seem more like something Palladium would print than Grey Ghost, given how FUDGE is - apparently - supposed to be "GURPS, but not so rules-heavy" or something like that.

>>148281
Only games with rules for mecha that I've ever played are GURPS and BESM/Tri-stat. BESM had fewer unnecessary rules, but on the other hand it is so easy for players to break even without being munchkins that it's hard to play any sort of high-power game. And mecha make it worse since they cost less than giving the player character inherent powers does.

>my table's collective face when our GM admits he pulled an entire location, a bunch of damn good NPCs and one hell of a side mission out his ass, simply because our party's mad scientist decided to go on ahead of the party

>Trying to get a group organized

Goddamit why are all my friends just gigantic fucking flakes?

>>148562
Everyone's friends are, dude. It's extremely difficult to pull together an ongoing campaign, especially if you're out of school and everyone's got jobs and/or kids.

>mfw Marvel Comics licensed another RPG a few weeks ago, and I only just found out about it

>>149532

That is the tiniest bit of a slowpoke, considering I don't follow things Marvel does or RPG releases and I managed to hear about it only a couple days late.

Sometimes, /tg/ can be pretty damn impressive.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/18389513/
>>149549
Yeah, but I didn't even hear any press releases about this. There isn't anything on marvel.com, for crying out loud!

What's even weirder is... it looks alright. They plan on releasing every major story arc from Civil War onwards as modules, which is certainly an interesting idea.

>>150423
Cam Banks has been talking about it for a month or two on Google+ at least. But I guess not everyone follows random game designers on Google+.

>>148281

I have a Bubblegum Crisis game book that uses something called the Fuzion system which is supposed to be a combination of HERO (Champions) and Interlock (Cyberpunk.) It's got rules for mecha, and flying vehicles. Not sure if it was actually good or just a cash grab on the weeaboos of yesteryear. I've never used it, and I really only got it for the Bubblegum Crisis concept art in it.

BTW. Here are some dumb tumblr posts I made on a game I'm working on called Raise a Little Hell.

http://a-terrible-name.tumblr.com/post/19613388104/incoming-dumb-rpg-shit

http://a-terrible-name.tumblr.com/post/19794426808/raise-a-little-hell-the-basic-setting

http://a-terrible-name.tumblr.com/post/19937933143/raise-a-little-hell-character-creation-guide

The setting is, essentially, me borrowing a lot from Shin-Megami-Tensei, and then throwing in Aesthetics like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Asura's Wrath and God Hand. Using Legend of the Wulin's rulesets.

Speaking of traps (..months ago?) during my All Kobolds game, I had a neat idea for a trap. Kobolds are notorious for inventive, monstrous traps. So playing a game where the players build the traps and play defense for a fortress, this trap would be good against hordes and minions.


See, it takes the form of a long corridor. A long, steel corridor. with odd grooves and square structures rising from the floor. Like incomplete, flat pyramids. You could march three medium sized characters through it shoulder to shoulder.

The floor is leveled by.. steel bearings. Yep. Steel bearings. This corridor is actually a long metal drum. Upon the invading force entering this massive tunnel, the doors close on both ends. And then a second set of doors close on the inside. This long steel tunnel is actually, effectively a gigantic clothes drying tumbler/water wheel, fed by diverting an underground stream to make the heavy thing turn. Then, whatever lay inside this tunnel is compelled to spin a complete revolution per turn. The victims are compelled to roll their dice to keep their footing as the steel BBs lining the floor tumble beneath their feet, moving out from beneath them and showering them with bearings. A little non-lethal damage from the fall, and then non-lethal damage from the bearings. You can either roll to keep your footing and perpetuate the confinement, or you can act normal one turn and your next, get knocked prone and take accumulative damage.

If nothing else, this trap will grievously wound attacking bosses or thin herds of enemies. If not exhaust some high level spells, or trinkets. And it doesn't require enchantment.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/03/27/counter-monkey-dungeon-mastering-a-great-game/

I'm a rookie DM, had my first session last week. It went okay, but this is some pretty good advice that I just KNOW I'm going to make use of a lot.

WARNING: if you are more player than DM, do not watch the following video.

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/04/03/counter-monkey-the-dungeon-masters-secret-weapon/

This is genius, why have I never thought of this before?

Also:

>Want to run Ghostbusters campaign
>Find torrent with rulebook and a few extras
>mfw equipment list has tommygun, power drill, disintegrator ray, reintegrator ray, cream pie, frying pan and long fingernails

>>152411
If you really want to do a serious fantasy campaign, run Fatal or Maid.

>>152412

I am absolutely in love with the fact that this system rewards the players for amusing one another and/or the GM (ghost master, eheheheh).

http://www.dangerpatrol.com/

I played this at Emerald City Comicon.

By far this probably has one of the best overall systems for action I've seen. Mostly that you get extra dice for your rolls the more dangerous the situation is.

You heard me right. The game encourages you to put yourself in death-defying situations.

>>152413

I'll never get to play a Mage: The Awakening Archmaster game. I really hate that. I love that stupid game especially the book that made playing an archmaster game possible.

So... my Deadlands campaign ended tonight. Our GM had decided to have us be personally responsible for us foiling Satan himself... at level 5.

>>152598

The Archmaster book is so good! Mechanics are a bit wonky, but the fluff's rock solid and interesting.

Really wanna get the Mage game I'm running into that kind of play by the end, but real life's getting in the way. It's a bummer, but it gives me more time to plan, I guess.

I was looking up more stuff on the Ghostbusters RPG, and found this excellent little treasure:

http://www.ghostbustersinternational.com/frightrpg.htm

Also, this is a thing:

http://montecook.livejournal.com/251404.html

>>153052

Ghostbusters would lend itself very well to internet play. We need a group for this.

>>153451
Depending on timing, I'd be up for that.

>>153451
Sounds interesting, what program are you thinking of using?

>>153457

Tabletop Forge would work, since all we'd have to do is see each other rolling dice, and all that requires is a google+ account, and since it uses g+ hangouts, it includes mic support by default.

http://tabletopforge.com/

>>153463
Nice, were cam one get the GB books for the game?

Also think they'll be able to make Shadowrun Returns with MP ability if they are able to make a deal to run them on Steam?

>>153602

I own one, at least, but Minifig linked to a place where you can read 'em online, because they've been out of print since the late 80s.

See: >>153052

What times are everyone free to do this Ghostbusters game?

>>153725
how big of a window we looking at and timezones? Mines EST.

>>153742

Also EST. My work schedule is pretty random. I'm unavailable on weekends, weekdays are up in the air, I will work my schedule around a game if it becomes a regular thing.

>>153725
Whenever.

Looks like I'll be playing brains

I was just given a MASSIVE table. Finally, room for maps and props, and the players can keep their sheets on the table.

This also helps tremendously with BIG board games, like Betrayal at the House on the Hill or Zombies!!!.

>mfw 40K novel Black Reaver mentions several online communities in the acknowledgements, including /tg/

>>154518
Wait, what? Did someone at GW canonize the Angry Marines?

>>154537
Love Can Bloom became canon, after all. Wouldn't surprise me if the game's most famous fan-made chapter ends up getting a nod.

>>154621
Not just LCB, there was a dark heresy story time that became semi official, about a pudgy acolyte adept who killed a demon with just a simple knife thanks to ridiculously lucky rolls. He is of course being investigated by the Inquisition for his stupidly lucky survival rate.

Canonizing Angry Marines would require canonizing a lot of other insane shit, I doubt they'll do it.

>>154745
That's right up there on the awesome ladder with the dwarf who stubborned a magic pit to death, and the orc luchador.

I'm working on an Avatar Roleplaying Game

... did I mention I'm a big Legend of the Wulin fan?

>>154745
>>154752

/tg/-stories time?

>>154757
. . .Dragfag we should talk. Yes.

Will try and catch ya on skype.

>>154864

WHY THANK YOU DAGDA.

But I received some criticism for this online and I'm gonna be editing this as I go along.

So, got a question. Has anyone played All Flesh Must Be Eaten? If so, does anybody have any thoughts/opinions/criticism they'd like to throw down? I'm thinking of getting it, but the idea of a zombie based system just sounds...limited.

>>154913
So you're wanting a zombie based RPG game, but are worried it's too narrow because it's a zombie rpg game?

Huh.

Anyway, the system is pretty good, very openended with a lot of room for GMs to add their own stuff. The rules system for designing your own particular forms of undead beasties is fun to tinker with too. I've not actually been on the player side of it though (forever GM) so I can't comment on that.

>>154923
What I mean is, I find the idea interesting. But I am also wary of it because it is so niche. I don't want to buy the book and never use it. Can you work the system to get a different "feel" out of different campaigns/groups?

Manly, I just wanted to know if it was a good tool that was worth investing in, you know?

>>154923
Also, I sympathize with the Forever GM comment.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten is a lot like Savage Worlds, with some different horror themed rules.

I would suggest getting Savage Worlds + Savage Horror Companion instead, to be honest. Also, homebrewing some rules for HP might be a better idea, since I don't think even the Horror Companion has any rules to make it feel like the characters are fighting for their lives. I mean, three wounds? That means throwing some serious challenge at the players could wipe them in a heartbeat without any real tension at all, just "fuck, I took another wound, dead".

Holy fucking shit, Cartoon Action Hour from Spectrum Games is pretty fucking great. I can't believe I picked up the first edition paperback for £3 at the UK Games Expo; I got really lucky there.

There are so many settings you can play in, and they openly invite you to play it as corny as possible! They have some amazing deals on their DriveThru page, everybody should definitely check them out.

I just wish the majority of players on my table were old enough to know about these cartoons...

Hey, making a shout out for any felllow skype-house-r's who might be interested in a Promethean game probably in July. I have two players and need up three more to make a group of 3 to 5 Promethean. Using the expanded splat stuff if folks want.

>mfw the Runic Men playthrough of King of Dragon Pass ended yesterday
>and I missed it

It almost makes me want to play the game myself... but I know my clan ring will never be as good as Swen's.

Trying to find a Mage the awakening game is impossible...

Have any of you guys tried out gaming via roll20.net yet?

Damnation, I want to play ALL the Fiasco. All of it.

>>158463
That's rough buddy. Have you ever considered running one? It might be a little stressful up front, but it could pay off in dividends with a good group.

>>158489
There's no polite way of saying this: are you viral marketing that site? Because I've seen a lot of threads on /tg/ over the last month or so, saying how roll20 was the best and everybody should go there. I'm not condemning, you have to earn a living like the rest of us... I just think maybe you should be more subtle, or at least more upfront about this sort of thing.
>>158491
That's the next game on Tabletop, right? I heard they've done a deal with Mongoose and making a Paranoia version. Speaking of Tabletop:

>mfw all the games I like are way too expensive in my country

>homebrewing like a boss.
>contemplate how possible it'd be to publish this schlock.
Team Fortress 2 Engineer Update

>>158491

I played that with some friends last year, it was a blast. Resulted in a near-literal lesbian trainwreck.

>>158511
Hes not viral marketing Mini, its actually good and people are spreading it with word of mouth. I use it to run Rogue Trader. (plus why would a free, advert less site use viral marketing!?)
>>158516
What ya brewin?

>>158511

Well, the Roll20 guy DID make a thread or two about it on /tg/. Viral accusations aside, it's not a bad little piece of software at all. It definately needs work though. I'd like it to remember that I don't want to transmit voice or video every game (I have Skype already!), and I'd love some multi-genre support for tokens.

As for the Paranoia Fiasco playset, it is goddamn amazing, and it is free. You should get it now (after obtaining Fiasco). Now. NOW.

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/downloads/index.php?cat=7#105

NOW

>>158511


I have no way to prove to you that I'm not viral marketing, but if you'll trust the words of a lowly anon, I was just genuinely curious if any of y'all were playing games on there.

I have yet to use it for an actual game. I've messed around with the map creator a bit, but that's the extent of my exploration. I'm pretty sure all the features on that site are all free, anyways. At least, I didn't see any "UPGRADE NOW" propaganda in my short perusal of the features.

>>158532

I use it for a Dresden Files hack. I find it good for setting up Zones. Thinking of using it for a 4e Tomb of Horrors tournament I'm planning to set up in October/November.

>>158532
Okay, fair enough. It does sound like a decent bit of software, but I don't play online any more, so... yeah.

Cruising /tg/, er-ly in the mornin'. What starts as a thread about furries playing a babyfur version of D&D becomes genuine plans on turning bags of holding into shit/corpse converting objects to fuel flame throwers, cholera bombs, and unlimited sources of oil. With math dripping all over the fucking place as neckbeards whip up numbers of how much methane and hydrogen a decaying human corpse produces.

The Millenial Generation really is in the business of burning a house down with lemons.

>>160052
Well its all life's giving them lately.

What does Pen Ward play?
What's his influence for AT?

>>160076

Dungeons and Dragons. Given how old he is, he probably played a crapload of 2E.

Thought that might be it.
Thank you.

Yeah, there's a lot of 1E and 2E-flavored silliness present in Adventure Time. The monster concepts feel more like the sort of gleeful insanity that they came up with back in the OOOOOOLD D&D, back when they had things like the Wolf In Sheep's Clothing and the Raggamuffins and the evil squirrels that ate people's Soul Nuts and the Hippopotamus Mercenaries.

>>160052
And to think, I minimized that thread. Glad it got archived.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th …

>>162210
First they did a V:tM 20th Anniversary book, and now Werewolf gets the same treatment.
Please, let this herald a full-blown revival of the Old WoD.

>>162211
Well we already know there's going to be a conversion guide for demon the fallen for the nWoD demon book thats coming in 2013.

I'm tempted to bother the W:tA blog for development of the 20th anniversary thing, but after reading all the comments on there, I don't think I have anything to add.

The idea that Ethan wants to revisit The Skinner, Sam Haight, and remove all the hodgepodge godmode stuff seems sweet. I really liked the idea of the Skin Dancer cult. And I'm pleased to hear Ethan was as big a proponent as I am on Kinfolk character inclusion, but that might be too much for the already space taxed book.

>mfw I don't have any of my books because they were lost in a shitty move

FFFF-Damn it, wheres my Mummy: the curse dev blog update, I need to hear more!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/viralgames/engine-heart-is-coming-to-a-store-near-you

They're already about a third of the way there, but I just thought that you guys ought to know about this.

I made this a while ago - have I missed anything out?

Also, in b4 WIL WHEATON A SHIT or TOM VASEL ONLY SORT OF LIKED CHAOS IN THE OLD WORLD, WHICH MAKES HIM A HYPOCRITE

>>185217
Snakes and Latte's Snakescast is another decent boardgame podcast.

>>185217

There's also The D6 Generation, it's a podcast on the DiceTower network with SHITLOADS of content, and interviews with creators, developers, and other assorted nerdfolk.

My gaming group is back together. It's D&D, which is an 'eh' system imho, but I'm just glad the group is back together.

>>186470

System doesn't matter, anyway. Hope you enjoy yourself.

>>186545
It does matter a bit. Some systems are better at some things than others--that's why there ARE different systems in the first place. D&D is CAPABLE of doing whatever game the GM and players make it do, but that doesn't mean it's as WELL SUITED toward it as another system would be. What D&D is best at is combat, with its out-of-combat game serviceable but unimpressive compared to more narrative-focused systems like Fate (this is especially true of 4th Edition, which is a great war game and a mediocre storytelling game).

>>186594

>(this is especially true of 4th Edition, which is a great war game and a mediocre storytelling game).

Which was much better than D&D 3.5 which was mediocre in both accounts.

Seriously if you play D&D 3.5 and you don't encounter any problems it's probably cause nobody actually stopped and realized "Hey wait a second. I could just turn myself into a monsters that's easily as strong as the fighter for the entire combat encounter!" or the Cleric assumed all he was good at was healing.

>>186612
Yeah, I had a lot of problems with 3.5 and its level of brokenness (which is only made worse by the house rules that people come up with to make it MORE broken), but didn't want to get into edition wars over them. That said, it's storytelling game is no WORSE than 4E's, and may even be a little better (in ways that aren't immediately apparent to me but which I'm willing to allow might be there)....but yeah, its combat was definitely worse in terms of how well it worked as a game than 4E's.

Personally, after Fate Core came out it's very difficult for me to come up with a situation where I wouldn't rather play Fate than most other engines I've seen, other than the ones that really break the mold like Shock! or Everyone is John or....I forget its name, but that one based on 1,001 Arabian Nights where you tell stories within the main story.

I don't see what system has to do with storytelling. It's literally storytelling, you can do it without ever touching a die. And D&D's skill system lends itself just fine to telling stories and including dice in them for that bit of player interaction -- if you have the types of players who have trouble cutting loose -- within the story. Unless you find that breaking up big pieces of narrative with tactical combat isn't fun, I can totally see the Storyteller system or something being much more up your alley. But even then, I think, as long as you're into the genre of the game you're playing, and your group is cool, it shouldn't matter what system you're playing. You know, within reason.

>>186622
There is the issue where the rules doesn't cover what you want to do, straight up disallows certain things for arbitrary game-y reasons, or have weir exploitable parts that can muck up story elements. Of course, all of these things can (and will, if your GM is halfway competent) be quickly houseruled, but if you need to change/ignore so much material you'd be better of just picking a better system to begin with.

>>186628

I still don't see your point. If you need rules for every little thing, then you're not exactly focused on role-playing in the first place, are you? I guess if that's your problem, then yeah, you should totally stick to your hyper specific system that makes you happy, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you don't want to play a certain system, you have two options: don't play, or run your own game in the system you want to play. Don't make your fellow players and especially not the GM deal with you whining about the system; run your own game.

Again, I totally concede that certain feelings and genres work better in different systems. I'd much rather play a pulp game in Savage Worlds or Spirit of the Century, and I'd rather play medieval high fantasy in D&D or Pathfinder, horror in Call of Cthulhu or a Storyteller system, etc. But really, when all you're doing is nitpicking about rules, or a lack thereof, you kind of have to step back and see if you actually want to play role-playing games at all, maybe you're looking for something less structured like a diceless system, online text RP or larping.

I was having a similar discussion with my table last week - our current GM insisted that a system should only be there to facilitate roleplaying, and it doesn't matter which one you use.

That's his reasoning for running a d20 Modern game, anyway.

>>186630

>If you need rules for every little thing, then you're not exactly focused on role-playing in the first place, are you?

The thing is: you're treating mechanics and fluff as though they were two separate entities and changing one does absolutely nothing to the other when that simply isn't the case.

Tabletop games are all about the interaction between fluff and mechanics. Effecting one WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES on the other almost always.

> But if you don't want to play a certain system, you have two options: don't play, or run your own game in the system you want to play. Don't make your fellow players and especially not the GM deal with you whining about the system; run your own game.

Well this kinda comes back to a lot of issues involving D&D being one of the most prevalent systems, its fanbases general unwillingness to leave their comfort zones, as well as this overly-permissive attitude that certain things are just "fine" as is problems and everything and trying to make them better is just the work of an asshole and bleh.

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm lucky I found players and GM's who're totally cool with playing a variety of systems. But I know there are people out there who're less lucky than I am and all I can really say is, well... sorry?

keep in mind I'm of the opinion that Ravenloft is a TERRIBLE D&D setting. It's a good setting! It's just D&D is the last system I think of when I think of Gothic Horror.

>>186622
I can tell from the way you're talking that you've never played a game of Fate or Shock!. Or if you have, you didn't get it. The degree to which storytelling is enhanced by systems like these is unbelievable. I've been able to get people who, when they play RPGs, think purely in terms of hack and slash come up with genuine, unique characters simply by house ruling in and going through Fate's world and character creation process even though we were playing D&D--hell, they did a huge chunk of the work for me in designing the campaign because of it, too.

And it's not about "having rules for every little thing." Quite the opposite--Fate has very few rules, compared to D&D, Shock! has even fewer. It's just that the rules they DO have make the difference between a war game and a storytelling game.

>>186630
I don't want rules for every little thing, I just get annoyed when rules actively obstruct player actions, create the boring type of unrealistic outcome, or are just to damn complicated for no good reason. Sure, any system can be fun as long as you're with a good group, but it's still better with an actual system that helps you along rather than slow you down and distract you.

So just to be clear: I'm not naming names, I'm not saying the whole matter of rule preferences isn't subjective or anything like that, but what I'm saying is that system does matter.

>>186636
You'd hate GURPS then

>>186645
Uuhm... GURPS is actually my favourite system ever, and I've never understood why people find it complicated. The rules are clear, logical and internally consistent, which is a lot more than I can say about prey much every other system I've tried.

>>186645
>>186664
Actually, can I ask you why you'd think I'd hate GURPS? Because it really isn't obvious to me.

>>186664

>which is a lot more than I can say about prey much every other system I've tried.

Take it you've only played D&D and World of Darkness then?

>>186665

Also while I'm not >>186645 I think I can see where his logic is.

See: In GURPS you're always going to be doing 3d6 roll under. For everything and the rules for them will always wind up feeling very clean and imprecise. This means that everything you do, from Piloting a starship to commanding an army to creating a great baking dish will usually be stated up in a mechanical way that all feels very derivative of each other.

This isn't even like say Apocalypse World where the narrative of the events is meant to influence the mechanics instead of vice-versa. GURPS is a game where its mechanics are always going to be very similar and thus wind up having the entire thing taste like oatmeal with various spices placed on it. The spices are nice but... it's still oatmeal.

I'd argue that it's also horribly imbalanced and only gets away with it because 'it's modular' which is basically telling the GM to just balance it himself instead of going the route of doing something specific but well.

It's the ultimate generic system and it suffers from all of the associated problems WITH generic systems.

>>186674
Neither of them, actually.

>>186675
I've heard people complain before that "everything is roll under 3d6"-blandess, but doesn't most rpgs boil down to rolling dice and beating target numbers? I can only think of a few that doesn't.
The thing about brokedness is totaly true though, there's no denying that. The problem (which is also the good thing) is that it is more like a developers kit than an actual game. It won't really properly if the GM doesn't also play the part of a game developer, which makes it a lot more effort to run.

>>186679
To me playing GURPS is fine, if you don't mind playing a little loose with the rules. Because there are rules for just about everything, and god help you if you are playing with a rules lawyer and you actually need to look up the rules on something that only comes up once in a blue moon.

Its a great system if your GM can go "Fuck it this is what iIm gonna do, or else we'll spend half an hour trying to find it" to keep things moving along.

>>186681

I'm inclined to agree. But I'm also of the mind that you should always play loose with the rules, only bring up situational shit as the GM or player if it's adversely affecting the narrative, which is why I said I don't think system matters in the first place. Unless you either want or don't want a tactical miniatures game inside your roleplaying game, then I can see 3rd-4th ed D&D being annoying to have to play in if you don't, or a system like Fate being annoying if you do. Whatever, as long as we're playing games together, that's all that should matter, you know? No sense in getting bent out of shape about other people having different opinions.

BTW GUYS! I've been working on this for a while now:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/accysyzip06p8uc/HeroWorldBeta.pdf

It's a Game that uses Apocalypse World's engine but is meant to be modeled after Sentai Shows like Power Rangers or Kamen Rider.

Currently I'm looking for players who might be interested in playing a Rules Light game based on dumb superheroes. If you're interested just say something!