TTRPGs & D&D

It's almost literal - the party met an underground society of sentient puppets in a puppet speakeasy in an old abandoned church (one of the players is playing a soul trapped in a puppet's body, I think we stole it from the Grim Hollow third-party player options) , and one of the puppets thought the necromancer was dreamy. Porcelain burlesque dancer with a Marilyn Monroe voice.

For the record, I, the DM, am terrified of puppets, but what is DMing if not facing your own phobias. And all of my games are this weird, honestly. We have a running tally of out of context tee shirt quotes in our Discord.
 
Sentient puppets is hilarious, kind of awesome, and definitely scary? It's not a clean fit for any of my larger campaigns (they're either fantasy or sci-fi), but I might steal it for my annual Halloween one-shot.

We also have a quotes channel in our Discord server.

Most of them require more contextualization than it's worth, but I can share this one: one of the players was a rope merchant turned adventurer. Someone asked him, "What do you know about the undead?" He responded, "I know they don't buy rope."
 
My larger campaigns usually start with horror elements and end up having a bit of slapdick to lighten the mood. This group is in a city of the dead (The Endless Imperium) ruled by rival factions of different powerful undead (liches, ghouls, vampires, mummies) who built a city in a necropolis to be an independent nation. The puppets are a little side quest involving soul stealing, mad artificers, and some muppet-themed body horror.

Our quotes are almost all super off-color moments that break the tension. I think my favorite one was "spiritual weapon in the streets, tentacle rod in the sheets," (I want to put that one on a coffee mug) or maybe when they met a gazer, to the warlock: "Hey Ayana, you're into weird shit, come look at this floating testicle."

This was a good one, too.
Paladin: "Did the rogue just tell a bard joke?"
BARD: "STAY IN YOUR LANE.'
 
Fascinated by the news today that Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have signed on with Darrington Press to work on Daggerheart and other games. I'll admit, nothing about Daggerheart has pulled at me enough to switch over for fantasy games I run. But Critical Role/Darrington really do seem to be making a powerplay here.

Perhaps stranger still is that the official D&D accounts have congratulated them. I think CR is smart enough to not make enemies of the giant bear in the room. I kinda wonder if there's some future collaboration (Daggerheart on DnDBeyond?) that will make both teams money down the line.
 
I completed discounted Daggerheart after my initial research. Not that I think Crawford is a great designer, but I may have to give it another look.
 
I'm still looking forward to the official release of Draw Steel. I want to grab that, if I can, and run it for my wife and son. Early playtesting and conversation seems to suggest it'll be easier/more user friendly for new TTRPG players.
 
Damien said:
I'm still looking forward to the official release of Draw Steel. I want to grab that, if I can, and run it for my wife and son. Early playtesting and conversation seems to suggest it'll be easier/more user friendly for new TTRPG players.
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I haven't had time to try it in beta, but I backed Draw Steel's campaign and I think it'll be far more in line with what my players like. They need fewer rules for roleplay because they're all artsy theater nerds and will create drama on their own, but love fun combat physics engines, which seems to be the focus of Draw Steel.

I keep tinkering with Daggerheart and I just keep thinking - eh, it's not different enough for me to leave 5e for it, and if I want something different I've got 24 other game systems on the shelf.

Before I move fully over into another fantasy system though I'd love to drag my players kicking and screaming into a long-term game of Fallout, Vaesen, or Dune. (The latter has a fantastic worldbuilding/intrigue system, but it's combat system is basically pew pew back and forth til someone's defeated, and it's just not cinematic or dynamic enough for the folks I roll with. I kinda want to bolt a better combat system onto its social system.)
 
docsilence said:
Before I move fully over into another fantasy system though I'd love to drag my players kicking and screaming into a long-term game of Fallout, Vaesen, or Dune. (The latter has a fantastic worldbuilding/intrigue system, but it's combat system is basically pew pew back and forth til someone's defeated, and it's just not cinematic or dynamic enough for the folks I roll with. I kinda want to bolt a better combat system onto its social system.)
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I hear you. As a GM and a player, something like 65-75% of my gaming is fantasy. High magic, low magic - whatever; some variation of 'I hit the dragon with my sword' or 'I hit the evil wizard with my sword.' I'd love to run a game for my family that's something different, but a key issue is finding something both my son and my wife would be interested in at the same time. And my son is as ADHD as I am, which means he really does flit between interests almost at random.
The other huge roadblock for me is work. I work a lot. And my work requires so much of my attention and brain power that I just find it incredibly challenging to plan out any games. That's why I started looking into HeroQuest, as it really doesn't require any prep. And I'm a hardcore prep-GM in TTRPGs, so a game where I not only don't have to do that, but actively CANNOT do that, would be helpful.

Still... I'm a roleplayer at heart, not just a loot goblin.


docsilence said:
I haven't had time to try it in beta, but I backed Draw Steel's campaign and I think it'll be far more in line with what my players like. They need fewer rules for roleplay because they're all artsy theater nerds and will create drama on their own, but love fun combat physics engines, which seems to be the focus of Draw Steel.
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Something that really excites me, as lame as this sounds, is the video-gameyness...?.. Draw Steel seems to pull from. I think D&D/Pathfinder have gone on so long now where the classes are kind of just.. nothing? Like it might as well be GURPS - because the classes are just a starting point and nothing feels particularly unique because the right combination means almost any class can do almost anything.

Something I hate about D&D, and I am worried about with Draw Steel, is proliferation of magic. I want the 'Conan' and 'Sir Lancelot' characters to be able to exist, and not have random magic powers just because the game is set up for EVERYONE to be able to do magic. I do not like that. But I haven't looked into Draw Steel enough yet to know if I think that's definitely going to be a problem here too.
 
Damien said:
I hear you. As a GM and a player, something like 65-75% of my gaming is fantasy. High magic, low magic - whatever; some variation of 'I hit the dragon with my sword' or 'I hit the evil wizard with my sword.' I'd love to run a game for my family that's something different, but a key issue is finding something both my son and my wife would be interested in at the same time. And my son is as ADHD as I am, which means he really does flit between interests almost at random.
The other huge roadblock for me is work. I work a lot. And my work requires so much of my attention and brain power that I just find it incredibly challenging to plan out any games. That's why I started looking into HeroQuest, as it really doesn't require any prep. And I'm a hardcore prep-GM in TTRPGs, so a game where I not only don't have to do that, but actively CANNOT do that, would be helpful.

Still... I'm a roleplayer at heart, not just a loot goblin.



Something that really excites me, as lame as this sounds, is the video-gameyness...?.. Draw Steel seems to pull from. I think D&D/Pathfinder have gone on so long now where the classes are kind of just.. nothing? Like it might as well be GURPS - because the classes are just a starting point and nothing feels particularly unique because the right combination means almost any class can do almost anything.

Something I hate about D&D, and I am worried about with Draw Steel, is proliferation of magic. I want the 'Conan' and 'Sir Lancelot' characters to be able to exist, and not have random magic powers just because the game is set up for EVERYONE to be able to do magic. I do not like that. But I haven't looked into Draw Steel enough yet to know if I think that's definitely going to be a problem here too.
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For low magic, I hear great things about Shadowdark, but honestly the fanbase is so rabid the actual players put me off the system. I have Dragonbane which is a lower magic setting, kind of sure, there's wizards but they're not gods stuff. One Ring reskinned away from Tolkien might work too because you literally can't play a wizard. Everyone is very much a hand-on-hilt type of character.

I own Trudvang Aventures, which is 5e but stripped down to low magic (it's like you live in a folk tale, and GAWD the books are beautiful!) but I can't get my clownshoes players to stay serious enough for a campaign like that. (Love them to death, they are the light of my week, but trying to run a low-magic, grim campaign with them is impossible because they all want to be muppets.

Draw Steel definitely has that high magic, everyone is a superhero vibe to it, so it might not be what you're looking for. It's even more everyone is a superhero than standard D&D, but looks otherwise pretty fun.

Forgot I've got the Expanse TTRPG reboot arriving soon. THAT I could get my players to try. They all loved that show so much that if I start swearing at them in Belter slang they'll be on board in a New York Minute.
 
docsilence said:
Draw Steel definitely has that high magic, everyone is a superhero vibe to it, so it might not be what you're looking for. It's even more everyone is a superhero than standard D&D, but looks otherwise pretty fun.
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I'm okay with everyone being a superhero. I think over to things like the Chanson de Roland where Roland cuts a fully armored man from collarbone to the saddle of his horse. Knights of the Round Table, likewise, do all kinds of borderline superhuman things. What I don't want is to be forced into every single class being able to cast spells or have -clearly magical- abilities. It's like pulling out a new book and being like 'Oh nice, they added a cavalier class!' only to find out that the cavalier's 3rd level ability is to cast 2 cantrips twice per day. Like.. fuck off. Just make him a horsey fighter.


docsilence said:
For low magic, I hear great things about Shadowdark, but honestly the fanbase is so rabid the actual players put me off the system. I have Dragonbane which is a lower magic setting, kind of sure, there's wizards but they're not gods stuff. One Ring reskinned away from Tolkien might work too because you literally can't play a wizard. Everyone is very much a hand-on-hilt type of character.
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I had some success running the Mongoose Publishing d20 Conan RPG as my standard low-magic fantasy setting and I liked that a lot. I also tried Monty Cook's all-martial style game the name of which I can't remember. Iron Heroes? Am I the only person that remembers that game (really, just a variant D&D with almost no available magic)? I was so excited when it came out because I was a huge fan of Monte Cook's supplemental material like Cry Havoc. Anyway.. we played like two games and nobody cared because everyone just wanted to play something that felt more familiar. Bummer.
 
It's the familiarity that gets us, isn't it. And as you said, cos we're all busy. I can run a really bonkers 5e campaign with minimal prep now because I know the system like the back of my hand, and I improvise story beats in a way that has the players thinking I planned it all out months ago, but if I have to find the brain space to also learn AND TEACH a new system, I burn out. I think if a table of folks all agreed to learn the rules together I could do it, but, again, love my players, they never opened the player's handbook, and they aren't going to start now, and that goes for new games, too. It's all on me to onboard them. So I default to the system that requires no onboarding.
 
docsilence said:
It's the familiarity that gets us, isn't it. And as you said, cos we're all busy. I can run a really bonkers 5e campaign with minimal prep now because I know the system like the back of my hand, and I improvise story beats in a way that has the players thinking I planned it all out months ago, but if I have to find the brain space to also learn AND TEACH a new system, I burn out. I think if a table of folks all agreed to learn the rules together I could do it, but, again, love my players, they never opened the player's handbook, and they aren't going to start now, and that goes for new games, too. It's all on me to onboard them. So I default to the system that requires no onboarding.
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Totally sensible. No shade on your players at all, but I could not play with people like that. It drives me crazy to have players that kind of treat the DM as if he's a television or a game console; just there to do all the work while they just get to be entertained. It's already hard to get into a whole new game when you're all adults with full lives. It would be basically impossible to do so when only one person in the entire group is willing to do any work.
 
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