TTRPGs & D&D

TheSameIdiot said:
I don't know about running a whole game in a system like this, but I could see myself stealing the RP-based character traits and grafting them onto another system.
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I actually kind of hate that every fantasy everything ever has to always be about full-on armageddon and such, so this video had me at the beginning with the 'what if important stories were more personal and local' and then lost me at almost everything else. Mist is not a game I would enjoy playing, I think. On like... any level.



altcunningham said:
My problem is no one wants to break from 5e.

Cyberpunk? "We can just rename things".
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This was me when I was playing/running 3/3.5/Pathfinder 1. It was always 'we can just re-flavor the rules we already have.' Always. It was very hard to do anything different. Contrarily, I played with a GURPS group for a long time that would literally run a PERFECT D&D game in GURPS, and refused to actually play D&D despite it just having better rules for what they wanted to do. It's like.. the one time I actually think we SHOULD just play D&D and no one wants to.

Fun story, though; I was able to run a homebrew fantasy world game using the Mongoose d20 Conan rules because no one wanted to DM the next game and I said I'd only do it if we played with the rules I wanted to use. We played that game for a year. It was great.
 
One of the sporadic (1/2 a month) games I run had a funny night of "stupid DM tricks" where I used one of my go-tos for story development when the players need a nudge. I keep a deck of Tarokka cards around from Ravenloft and I'll have them run into someone who will give them a reading. I can't read the damned things, but I'll improvise some lore for them based on what they pull. I don't believe in this stuff in real life but I do think a creative person can build a narrative out of a handful of cards with cryptic names on them, and the cards were on FIRE tonight.

Two of the players stuck around on the call for an hour afterward just jawing and yapping and one said his wife really WOULD like RPGs but she's always hesitant to play (told her he should invite her in as a guest some night to see how our game goes). We got to talking about how all these games are, whatever the rule set, is just adults learning to have the freedom to play pretend again. My partner wasn't allowed to play as a kid and when I run game for her and her friends sometimes she's always apologizing for not knowing how to PRETEND and how it's a learning experience for her. And my friend talked about running a game for his daughter (he always laughs about how she's a big fan of my books and how surreal it is) and how she and her friends had fun shopping in town with their ill-gotten gold.

I think that's why I don't get bent out of shape about what people want to play these days. We only have so many hours in a year, play pretend with your friends.

Anyway, I also let the dwarf spores druid know there was an outbreak of killer fungus in the military outpost they'd been using as their base of operations and the player had an emotional breakdown over how dare someone poison the BEER and our next story arc is going to be finding out what's going on with the beer and man, give me high stakes for the little guy over saving the world any time. I'd rather run a game about saving a few lives than stopping an apocalypse.
 
docsilence said:
is just adults learning to have the freedom to play pretend again. My partner wasn't allowed to play as a kid and when I run game for her and her friends sometimes she's always apologizing for not knowing how to PRETEND and how it's a learning experience for her.
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I hear that. My first real character was basically me but quieter, nicer, and more traumatized. I've gone wacky for one-shots, but I'm still trying to build a long-term character that feels wholly separate from me. I feel like long-term characters should be more grounded. It's been tough for me to balance that without just playing myself. Finding that unique character voice has been the most difficult part of storytelling for me.

I'm glad I got the DM itch so early, though. I had a handful of absurd NPCs in my first campaign. I feel like that helped me channel the same carefree attitude I need for good RP.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
I'm glad I got the DM itch so early, though. I had a handful of absurd NPCs in my first campaign. I feel like that helped me channel the same carefree attitude I need for good RP.
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Definitely. Being on the DM side of the screen lets you experiment a bit more with characters without feeling stuck with them or like you need to commit to them. It's a good creative outlet.
 
I'm running Traveller (Mongoose 2e) for the first time on Friday. I've never run a game for three of the five people I'm running it for. Despite thinking I'm a competent DM, I'm super nervous about it. Like always, I worry that the group will chew through five hours of content in five minutes and I'll be left with my pants around my ankles looking like a dope.

Traveller presents some challenges that I've never experienced before:
  1. The game is super roll-heavy. The more D&D I play, the less interested I am in dice rolls. I'm more interested in character story and choice.
  2. The game is super rule-heavy. I ran Pathfinder 2e for my first campaign, but somehow I didn't take any notes on the rules????? I memorized what I could and bookmarked the rest through PF2e's handy online Wiki. I have about six pages of notes on Traveller and I'm only halfway through the rulebook. This seems like a much better approach to mastering the rules.
  3. The game has a lot more theater of the mind and random encounter generation than I'm used to. In fact, I've only done theater of the mind like... twice and I've never run a random encounter. I expect at least half of the game to be played in front of a static image of a starship or something. As someone who plays on a VTT with a new map for every environment, this is well outside of my comfort zone. I think relying less on maps will make me a better DM. It'll also save me about half my prep time for a typical session.
  4. The sci-fi setting doesn't come to me as naturally as fantasy. While I have a ton of ideas about cool hooks for fantasy stories, I can't say the same of sci-fi. So far, I've gotten a few ideas by reading the rulebook. I'm going to need those random roll tables at the back of the book for inspiration.
  5. This is a sandbox game without an overarching plot (at least for now). I've never run a campaign that wasn't plotted from point A to Z. (Don't worry, I'm still flexible and want player choice to impact the story.) Watching villains and allies spring up spontaneously is going to be wild.
I think there's every possibility that my group hates Traveller and we pivot to Stars Without Number within two sessions. Time will tell.
 
1. Yes.
2. That kinda informs 1.
3. You'll be golden since you just said you prefer a focus on story and character. I was in some Mind games for over a decade and when everyone is in synch, it's beautiful and really makes the RP sing.
4. When in doubt: "It turns out it's man."
5. This sounds up my alley the more you explain it. I loved DMing improv allies and villains. Some of the most memorable arcs and moments came from my throwaway joke becoming a personal totem they invested in and that I had to mold into a three dimensional being with wants and needs.
 
Speaking of maybe failures to launch, I introduced a few VERY Star Trekkish friends to Star Trek Adventures tonight and... I don't think that's going to happen. (I'm a casual Trek person, but I got it specifically because they were interested in TTRPGs and I thought it might hook them.)

I've also got the Planet of the Apes RPG showing up some time in the next few days. Which is how I learned "do not back kickstarters RIGHT AFTER you just binge-watched an entire film series." I'm not sure I'll ever play it. That being said, I will absolutely paint the minis it comes with if this effing humidity ever breaks and I can be physically comfortable in my studio again. This summer has absolutely stomped my painting work for RPGs.
 
Traveller's legendary character creation tool is a DM's best friend. I suspect it will do the heavy lifting for me.

Players simulate their lives through four-year terms. Each term can be a new career or a continuation of their previous career. They pick up various skills along the way, but the best part is the other shit they accumulate. If things go well, they roll on an event table for random events. These events provide things like allies, rewards, or interesting background flavor. If things go poorly, they roll on a mishap table. The mishap table provides things like enemies, injuries, bankruptcy, scandal, and 100 other negatives. Players are almost guaranteed to come away with decent rewards and problems like debt or drug addiction.

Character creation is a minigame in its own right. Even if we weren't playing Traveller, I'd want to run character creation to give players a fun backstory and me something to work off of.
 
docsilence said:
Speaking of maybe failures to launch, I introduced a few VERY Star Trekkish friends to Star Trek Adventures tonight and... I don't think that's going to happen.
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I'd like to hear more on this.

I'm a Trek fan who was swayed by the volume of books produced by Modiphius and loaded up with a Humble Bundle a while back. But I'm having trouble clicking with the game itself.

I feel like it's trying to stimulate being in a show rather than playing in the universe. Things like describing adventures through "scenes" fer instance or the option to create a character over time as you learn more about them as the series progresses. I like it.

It also seems to have a soft crunch of you just picking what's important to your character and occasionally getting bonuses when that comes up? This is really where the game starts to lose me.

I'd also really like to see support for "B plot" developments if they're trying to stimulate a show. Like, some scenes with non-focus characters handling personal issues that generates Momentum for the primary characters.

The old Mayfair DC Heroes RPG (of all places) had a subplot system that I really liked, and I think a Star Trek game should have one too.
 
Fletch said:
I'd like to hear more on this.

I'm a Trek fan who was swayed by the volume of books produced by Modiphius and loaded up with a Humble Bundle a while back. But I'm having trouble clicking with the game itself.

I feel like it's trying to stimulate being in a show rather than playing in the universe. Things like describing adventures through "scenes" fer instance or the option to create a character over time as you learn more about them as the series progresses. I like it.

It also seems to have a soft crunch of you just picking what's important to your character and occasionally getting bonuses when that comes up? This is really where the game starts to lose me.

I'd also really like to see support for "B plot" developments if they're trying to stimulate a show. Like, some scenes with non-focus characters handling personal issues that generates Momentum for the primary characters.

The old Mayfair DC Heroes RPG (of all places) had a subplot system that I really liked, and I think a Star Trek game should have one too.
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Y'know, I think there's a good game in there. Some of the game designers involved are among those I respect the hell out of. And man, they fleshed out the source book content IMMENSELY. What I was running into with players, and please take this as a "this is what happened at this particular table" type thing, is the Trek fans were not RPGers and the soft crunch (good term) scared them off, but RPGers who are Trek tangential were looking for more hard crunch mechanics. I feel like it's kind of a game that, while it is based on a base system shared by a few different games, runs into a translation problem from source material to game table. I ran into something similar with Dune, though with Dune there was more inherent political intrigue (Dune my players struggled with what I'd call modestly boring combat mechanics, but man the shared world building is great!). I'm going to reconsider who I try Trek with a bit because I think it needs both a group that loves the IP AND is invested and unafraid of learning a new system.

Hell, I might actually just try scratch-the-serial-numbers-off "I swear this isn't Star Trek" using Mothership's system. Which I find does hook people SUPER fast. I've got their expansion showing up some time soon from the KS I think, good excuse to revisit. ALIEN too, but ALIEN's long-term campaign mechanics are anemic (apparently 2.0 will help with that but it doesn't have that sort of depth of character evolution that games that expect your characters to survive have).

Jeez, can you tell I'm playing Goldilocks and the Three Bears with sci-fi systems? I've got the Expanse 2.0 coming soon, and I keep banging my head into Coriolis becuase I think Coriolis books are breathtakingly beautiful but I find the lore almost too prescriptive. Like I want to scrape the serial numbers off that one, too.
 
I went out today and bought the 2024 PHB. I haven't bought a hard copy RPG book in quite a long time, as I mostly stick with digital stuff these days. But for a game I'll already be on the computer for, I thought it would be easier/faster to have a hard copy book I can refer to if need be.
Is it just me or has the quality of the books taken a nosedive? The paper almost feels like it's going to disintegrate between my fingers. I don't remember any of my 3.5 books feeling like this at all.
 
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