/tg/ - Traditional Games

>>419941

Running a gonzo modern-fantasy game using a mix of OSR rules. It's a healthy of mix of neo-noir, new weird fantasy and vintage sci-fi/science fantasy. The locales are based on the places of my childhood: urban New Jersey/New York, the Pine Barrens, Lovecraft Country (at least RI and MA), The Shoreline and so on. I'm pretty psyched, everyone is eager too.

>>423576

Sounds like a blast. I'd love to hear some greentext once things get rolling.

>>419941

Running a V:TM v5 chronicle with some friends, taking place in our hometown. They barely have p&p experience and they go out of character often, but at the end of the day, we play for fun. The setting is a lot darker in tone than the corebook suggests, tackling things like rape, manipulation, drug use, conspiracies, ritualistic public sacrifices, serial killers, gore, the criminal underbelly etc. They're not sensitive snowflakes, so I can go all out with the World of Darkness vibe.

Playing a Vampire game that is run by a landwhale. Acts the way you'd expect. Played recently after a few months' break and now I remember why I stopped playing throughout those months. Can't do anything with my character without getting warnings that they'll kill my character instantly if I do this, that or anything that I find interesting. They clearly don't like me as a person, so I'm pondering on quitting this chronicle and trying another one as soon as an interesting one pops up.

Just joined a superhero p&p group where I play the vampire from above. Haven't started the session yet, but the DM had a premade character sheet that described my character in that abovementioned chronicle perfectly, so I should get used to the different system easily. I don't intend to play him as a classical superhero, but more of a cheery, happyish vampire who also clearly enjoys disemboweling and soaking himself in the blood of his enemies. The type who actively listens to you talk about your feelings while draining his victim dry of their blood.

>>423826

By the gods, leave the game anon, or at least talk to your friend about it. Save yourself the headache. If you really want to help the guy/save the game then tell him why his game sucks and how he can make it more fun. If he doesn't listen, then you have the perfect excuse to leave.

>>423984

Consulted with the friend and ducked out so woo. Apparently he is also only being dragged along because he likes the group.

>>424059

I generally try to use a broad goal with smaller sub-goals.

For example, one of my early games was about rebuilding a small town, then expanding it, within an area that was previously unexplored. I'd give them a few choices on what to do (Help the wall maker secure a certain grove of trees for his workers to clear cut, explore this cave for resources, exterminate that group of enemies that have become a problem) and then put together some encounters and hooks in the general area/random exploration.

Having an established party helps a lot with this, because you have a group of characters who, hopefully, have some clear goals and OOC desires. Use these to build a framework as a starter. As an example, my early party had a paladin and cleric couple who liked to hunt undead, so I made undead one of the enemy factions in the unexplored area, along with a bandit gang the rogue used to belong to.

>>424869

>rogue does rogue stuff

Are you also angry that bears shit in the woods?

>>425049

Let me share the eternal words that must be employed in times like this.

FUCKING TALK TO THEM

>>425051

We have, it caused enough issues that the DM decided to end the session there because of the arguing that was taking place. We had even talked after the session without the DM and discussed how to present this to him so he could understand where we were coming from. The whole point is to roleplay, to be someone you're not. None of us are very charismatic or good speakers so it makes sense none of us know how to word our way around people. But he rolled a nat 20, so the outcome should effect that. His character is the one that's charismatic, not him as a player. So in-game logic would make sense that his character said something incredibly persuasive.

It's gotten to the point we've had multiple party members wanting to DM themselves although none of them have experience in it.

>>425042

Rogues tend to steal 10% of the loot, and sometimes they even help. Getting away with stealing 100% of the loot is something else.

>>425049

yeah im not sure what you expected here. Are anon's gonna show up and get the full details from both sides to try to decide who is right or wrong in a particular ruling? Are you going to print off this thead and show it to your dm? Honestly please for the love of god

STOP BEING A FAGGOT AND TALK TO YOUR DM

as for the wierd phrasing a lot of the time that's because the player is trying to use 'weasel words' where they can't possibly be wrong and yeah I smack that down. If one of the guys is being rule (or english) lawyering faggot its okay to smack him down. The DM is there trying to provide enjoying for everyone (including themselves) is an aspie can't string together two sentences that's the aspie's problem.

>>425052

>But he rolled a nat 20, so the outcome should effect that.

You cannot crit a skill check, faggot. What you MEAN to say, is the Party Face rolled very high, on top of his stats and skills, and the DM arbitrarily raised the DC of the check. Talk to your DM about that, because he's breaking Rule 0.

>[Talking] caused enough issues that the DM decided to end the session there because of the arguing that was taking place.

You have a shit DM, stop having him as your DM. If he's not a That Guy player then let him play, otherwise figure out with the group if he's worth keeping around. Telling someone they're about to be out of a group if they don't shape up is a good motivation to get better, or a quick way to find out you don't actually want to play with him at all.

>>425056

He decided the roll was null because the player had gotten the name of statue or room in the cultist hideout wrong. So the cultists started instigating him and asking him what he meant by using the wrong word. It felt like nitpicking when his character was meant to be very suave and had previous background in criminal organizations. He took what the player said literally instead of trying to rationalize it into a gameplay sense by taking into account what he was attempting to do. It broke some of the immersion by substituting player or meta dialogue as character dialogue.

Everyone was upset and the entire party ended up getting penalized for it. The one guy who was neutral was upset that time was being wasted.

>STOP BEING A FAGGOT AND TALK TO YOUR DM

We have.

>>425059

>You cannot crit a skill check

I wasn't implying that, just that his roll was so ungodly high against a basic goon who was likely to have low DC in the first place.

>>425066

>because the player had gotten the name of statue or room in the cultist hideout wrong

Persuasion is not mind control, you fag. If he used wrongly gathered information against people who consider knowledge of said information very important, then of course they are going to doubt. Our local rogue critted a Deception check against me (city guard) to try to convince me that he got scammed by the bartender, but everything else (even his later declarations) and beforehand knowledge of the prices of the tavern pointed out to this being false, so I had to tell him to pay up. He got pissy about this, but if your farce makes no sense, your farce makes no sense.

>>425059

If rolling the absolute highest you possibly can still results in failure, then the DM really shouldn't be asking for a skill check for this exact reason.

Really, arguing about the specifics of this scenario is pointless. Get a new DM.

>>425069

It's a different story when asking "I'm a new member, can you point me towards the initiation hall / statue of ___" only for the cultist to say "What initiation hall? You mean the atrium? Who are you?"

I get that rolls can't defy logic and can't bend other character's wills or knowledge, but the DM took meta dialogue as a literal meaning of what the player's character wanted to accomplish. A player shouldn't need to know what to say or how to convince someone of something, it should be reflected in their roll. Especially if they're an spaghetti autist who's absolute shit at talking to people and wanted to play a smoothtalker character to live a fantasy of something he's not.

>>425069

The player had a good roll and the situation didn't have much room for a huge failure like that, assuming all the information given by anon is accurate and true. As >>425071 says, if the DM didn't want the player to have a chance to succeed and just wanted to railroad things, then don't allow the roll. Sets a clear standard that the dice don't mean shit and that the DM will just do whatever they want.

Even if the player misspoke or didn't present his ideas the best way, the DM is the interpreter and should go off the situation and the roll, which said he did exceptionally well at persuading the cultist. Fudge the actual words spoken and resolve the scene based on the DC and the roll result.

>>425049

>>425066

Sounds like a retarded DM. My group misremembers names all the time, the GM included. It's become kind of an inside joke. Tell your DM to lighten up.

>>425075

> A player shouldn't need to know what to say or how to convince someone of something, it should be reflected in their roll. Especially if they're an spaghetti autist who's absolute shit at talking to people and wanted to play a smoothtalker character to live a fantasy of something he's not.

Exactly. As long as the player is not trying to abuse the system by simply rolling persuasion checks to get out of problems with no roleplaying involved, the GM should give some leeway for the player, especially if they have high social skills.

Every now and then I hear arguments that RPGs shouldn't have any system for social rolls, but that's retarded. That it should simply be based on the player's own social abilities. Doing that would actually just encourage power gaming, since the character might not be socially adept, but if the player is, they get a free boon in a sense. Social skills are there to gap the difference between the abilities of the player and the character. If the character is not a smooth talker, the player should take it into account when roleplaying even if he's a charismatic motherfucker. The reverse should be true as well, if the character is charismatic, but the player is not, the system should help gap the distance.

>>425069

Usually fast talk rules work that if the roll is successful, the target's reason gets clouded, i.e. he forgets relevant facts for a moment. Your scenario depends on the situation. If the rogue was persuading your character in a short conversation, he should get away with it. If however your character had time to think about the facts over a longer period of time to weigh the various facts, then he would probably figure out the truth.

Also don't be a faggot.

>>425075

Well, yes, if he was posing as a new member, then pretty much any mistakes save for major heresy should be forgiven. However, you can't expect people to fall for obviously wrong stuff: if he were to learn the name of one of the cult's "gods" from a statuette, said god was actually the equivalent of Christianism's Satan, and actually uttered something along the lines of "hail Satan", I would consider that an instant failure, no matter how much persuasion your character has. We don't know the full story anyway: for all we know, this may be the type of player that rolls before getting asked to roll, or the type of DM that asks what are you trying to achieve with persuasion after asking you to roll. If he really made him roll for anything else than damage control (the DM should have stated so) to avoid being instantly discovered without actually having any intention to let him succeed the roll, then yes, the DM is a retard. But the anon hasn't fully described the whole story, so for all we know, they may all be retarded.

>>425151

I had beforehand information of the increase of prices in the tavern. The rogue wasn't actually lying, just that he found an outdated list of prices and completely ignored the big and bold list of prices in the front door. He claimed that big and bold list of prices was nowhere to be found, and rolled a 20 in persuasion, so I initially believed him, until I went there to check the scene by myself, and found out the list of prices was obviously visible, and with no signs of having been manipulated, covered or moved recently. Given my character knew exactly what the prices of the tavern were, since the bartender had informed the guard of the increase in prices due to the upcoming Harvest Festival some days before the festival itself, and given the rogue even went as far as saying "someone must have been in front of the checkerboard or something", I told him to pay the full price because his story really made no sense. My character is not a retard (13 INT, 13 WIS); there is no way, given the situation, I would have told the bartender to go fuck himself without following the protocol and actually investigate the scene by myself, no matter how many nat 20 skillchecks you could have rolled. Anything else would have been out of character.

The tl;dr is Persuasion is not mind control. Fuck Persuasionmancers.

>>425147

Is it an ES homebrew? What system?

>>425179

Savage Worlds using an Elder Scrolls conversion.

I also dip into the Fantasy Companion for certain things, mainly loot and prices here and there.

>>425184

>Savage Worlds

Oh really? I was just recently thinking that I might use SW if I ever run a ES game. Got a link to those rules?

>>420012

I just want you to know that at least 3 times while reading further up in the thread I thought that tiny spoiler was a bug on my monitor, so fuck you anon.

>>425186

https://journeymangm.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/the-elder-scrolls-a-savage-worlds-conversion/

This is what I use. Funny enough, I just found out Im using a slightly out of date version, which I wouldnt have found out if you hadnt asked me that.

>>425188

Thank you very much, I'll give it a read.

>It's from 2012, weird that it includes shouts when it's older than skyrim

<Skyrim was released in 2011

Fuck, really?

Am currently running my group through Babby's First Shadowrun. They seem to like it well enough, even the guy who was deadset against playing SR. I think it helps that I'm deliberately throwing them whitehat runs for now.

Planning on an all-half-dragon pirate-themed Pathfinder game for the same group. The freedom of the open seas and clear skies!

>>425268

>Running old modules in a newer system

That's exactly what I plan on doing with Castles & Crusades.

>Tell me about the last session you played

Played like 10 sessions of a 5e island hopping campaign and it's finally starting to get good. We killed a pirate captain and took ownership of his ship and crew so we can start seriously looking for the big macguffin. Lots of good roleplay in the last session and reasonably creative and tactical play that I wasn't expecting. Here's hoping the gm takes that into account with the next few encounters and makes them harder.

My absolute biggest complaint so far apart from the lack of party cohesion up until the last session was that encounters were all way too easy, which seems to be an ongoing problem with 5e gms that I've noticed. They don't understand the fundamentals of the action economy and their encounters become too easy as a result.

>Are you planning or preparing to play in any new campaigns?

I'm GMing the next game for my playgroup and I'm excited and extremely nervous because I haven't seriously done it in nearly 5 years. I'm considering running a series of one-shots just to get the rust off.

>Have you been trying to learn any new games?

I haven't but I've been desperately trying to get my group off of 5e to pretty much anything else. If I had my choice we'd play Fantasycraft but I'd be satisfied with AD&D, Basic, Savage Worlds, 13th Age, or even 4e at this point but they just don't seem to want to budge on it.

>>425476

>My absolute biggest complaint so far apart from the lack of party cohesion up until the last session was that encounters were all way too easy, which seems to be an ongoing problem with 5e gms that I've noticed

Really? My GM decided a CR2 boss after 4 encounters with a party of only two members at level 2 was a good idea. I almost got one-shotted. Luckily, we had an overpowered cleric capable of solving every single encounter via short rest-based AoE nukes and 60 ft. long ranged attacks.

>>425491

>via short rest-based AoE nukes and 60 ft. long ranged attacks.

You mean he walked in there with a longbow and cast...wait, what the fuck did he cast?

>>425508

Our cleric had 4 spell slots because full caster. We fought four combats that day, but we were being very conservative with spell slots. Thing is, spell slots matter very little when the Cleric of Light has Radiance of the Dawn, a spell that deals 2d10 + Cleric level (you have read that right) on a failed Constitution save, and half as much as that on a successful one, in a radius of 30 ft. around the caster. They can do this every short rest. It also doesn't damage allies.

The cleric used Burning Hands to solve the third encounter, I guess to spice things up a little bit, because otherwise he would have been able to steamroll through every critter-filled encounter using Radiance of the Dawb. Final boss was a homebrew Gibbering Mouther with Radiant vulnerability that got pretty much one shot by a well rolled Guiding Bolt (4d6, 120 ft.), not before dealing 19 damage to my Paladin and leaving me at 2 HP. Did I mention the Gibbering Mouther destroys your character when it downs you? Because it does. Basically, melee characters are useless on that encounter, and without metagaming to know meleeing it is not the solution, you may lose your character in a single attack. After I managed to escape, I decided to build a barricade of burning crates to block the path of the monster and let the Cleric kill it by spamming Sacred Flame. Meanwhile, the rogue decided to be lol so wacky and spend the whole combat trying to open a chest.

Point is, hadn't it been for the Cleric, we would have been absolutely nuked due to lack of damage and lack of AoE. My "tank" almost got retired in the first combat by a Shadow due to that stupid STR drain mechanic in a CR 1/2 enemy. I suspect the Cleric could have solo'd every single encounter, but weren't it for him, we would have been TPK by 4 wolves.

The tl;dr is fuck casters.

>>425518

Huh, I don't remember that spell.

Perhaps instead of bitching at the Cleric for carrying your sorry ass, you should bitch at Mike Mearls for continuing to take a big steaming shit on everybody but full casters. You're doubly dumb if you're actually playing a melee character in 5e, a flying dude with a magic bow can take out half the MM. Play a better game.

>>425524

Well, the Fighter is technically the class with the highest potential damage output at level 20, but if you are not a Fighter, you are shit out of luck.

Never said D&D isn't a shit game. It is. I find it baffling people can claim this game is well designed, and refuse to ever change a single rule because "rules are the way they are for a reason".

>You're doubly dumb if you're actually playing a melee character in 5e

The idea is to get a firearm soon, but the DM is being stingy on it.

>>425538

Well, rules are the way they are for a reason. But sometimes that reason is because the person who wrote the rule doesn't know how to play their own fucking game. If a rule is actually good, then you should carefully consider why you're getting rid of it or changing it... it's just a shame that most rules in tabletop systems are crap and most "designers" are hacks.

I'm surprised, though, I haven't heard anyone say D&D was well designed since 3.5, and even that statement has loads of conditionals attached to it. 4th was a dumpster fire that killed the brand and 5e isn't designed at all, it's 3.5 minus rules or fun.

I also know your pain, as my friend offered to DM some games for me and his girlfriend to give me the chance to be a player for a while, but he won't do anything except 5e because 5e is "easy to DM".

>>425614

Stuff relevant to one of the more popular non-tournament formats being played.

http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php

>>425543

>I'm surprised, though, I haven't heard anyone say D&D was well designed since 3.5, and even that statement has loads of conditionals attached to it.

You'd be surprised at the amount of shit taste outside of /tg/. I love my friends, but they aren't as cynical as your average grognard, so they tend to accept things at face value instead of picking the game apart until that point where they could even stop having fun when they realize the gigantic dumpster fire the game is. That said, in real life, in Reddit, in rpg.net, in Enworld, in Giant in the Playground... all the shitty normalfag communities, that are much, much bigger than /tg/, suck the game's proverbial dick to the lingest extents. In fact, it may be the only game where most players and DM have such a cult to its rules that they may endlessly argue about the true meaning of its rules, either in forums or in blogposts. No other game has a community so devoted to picking apart every single word of the rules to play the game the way it's meant, and no other community has DM so opposed to obviously balanced homebrew simply because it's not part of the base game, and therefore, it must be badly designed It's also the only game where pretty much half of the community is divided on whether allowing the underpowered Eldritch Knights bond with a shield should be allowed or not, because apparently, donning a shield with a Bonus Action instead of an Action for flavour is too much of a mechanical advantage, compared to simply wearing the shield all the time, and also because Crawford is a huge no fun allowed bitch.

>4th was a dumpster fire that killed the brand and 5e isn't designed at all, it's 3.5 minus rules or fun.

5e made a few steps in the right direction of fun, but then proceeded to take a few backwards. Capping stats at 20 and giving 2 points per ASI is a very good decision but then only dropping magical tomes that increase the cap as well is stupid due to the way rational parties distribute loot; there is no vanilla solution to characters with spread out stats, and so is free multiclassing without dumb XP penalties; this is fun stuff. Using the rules to prevent fun and logical synergies between classes is dumb and unfun monks can't use the Rogue's sneak attack unarmed because, even though their attacks use the same DEX-based mechanics as finesse weapons, they are technically not finesse weapons, so your character may not perform a sneaky neckbreaker; apparently, this was ruled intentionally to prevent possible conflicts with hypothetical new rules in future expansions, because preventively fuck your flavour. Every fucking thing requiring concentration is unfun and gay. Rogues and Abjuration Wizards being potentially more durable than Fighters or Paladins due to stupid AC and HP rules is braindead and unfun. Forcing Crawford's narrow vision on the flavour of each class is doubly gay and unfun. Mike Mearls may be a faggot, but at least he doesn't have such an Immovable Rod of Unfun +5 up his rectum. I fucking hate that D&D's fame and momentum is so big, because everything about the game sucks.

>>425625

Most people praise D&D because it enables them to play whatever stupid fantasy game they want. Will it do it well outside of the stereotypical D&D settings and expectations? Not really. I'll have to take your word on people sucking 5e's dick, since I deliberately avoid all normalfag communities like the plague. It's always weirded me out how many D&D GMs are opposed to homebrew when the most busted and stupid shit is all completely sanctioned by WOTC. I guess people have to sit around and argue what the rules mean because the 8 dudes who made 5e had no idea how to write them in a parse-able syntax. 5e is for the kind of person who only ran E6 games and thinks D&D is good for low-magic, gritty games.

The biggest problem with D&D from where I'm sitting is that D&D means something different to everyone. Including the people making it.

I've been running a magical girl campaign in GURPS since January. I chose it partially because I knew that the notoriety of the system would scare less dedicated players away.

It's been fun so far. Right now the crew is fighting a bunch of wendigos+Krampus who worship an ice-themed magical girl that really doesn't like the attention she is getting. There is some yuri stuff popping up too which I will claim that I didn't initiate, but I am learning to roll with it.

>>425614

>What's Commander 2019?

the newest release from wizards of preconstructed decks for the EDH (elder dragon highlander)/ Commander format. these decks have new cards that aren't legal anywhere but edh/commander and legacy/vintage

>What's Command Zone?

a play area devoted to your "Commander / "General" for the EDH/Commander format

also a shill good goy mtg podcast that's been sucking rosewater dick from the getgo