TTRPGs & D&D

[Damien]

That just gives me all of the ick.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

If you popped into the chat after session 5 and said 'guys, I'm actually a halfling tinkerer because I hate playing my current character, can we act like I've always played this character so it doesn't mess anything up?' The answer is a resounding 'yes.' Yes we can. Because we're a bunch of grown ass adults playing make-believe and it doesn't actually matter.

If I had more experience at the time, I might've done that. Then again, I might not have, because our DM led us to believe the campaign would be over within 10 sessions. Why make a fuss when it'll be done within two months?

The strange thing about that campaign was that one of our original players left and then two more joined the game. The DM handwaved the character who left (as he should have) and connected the other two players to us organically (as he should've). He didn't retcon the new players being resurrected with us. I'm not sure why he was so stuck on me continuing as that character.

He did let me change class (from monk to roguelock) and race (from tiefling to changeling), but he wouldn't let me change my circumstances/backstory. I was basically playing the same character in a different skin.

 

[Damien]

If I had more experience at the time, I might've done that. Then again, I might not have, because our DM led us to believe the campaign would be over within 10 sessions. Why make a fuss when it'll be done within two months?

The strange thing about that campaign was that one of our original players left and then two more joined the game. The DM handwaved the character who left (as he should have) and connected the other two players to us organically (as he should've). He didn't retcon the new players being resurrected with us. I'm not sure why he was so stuck on me continuing as that character.

He did let me change class (from monk to roguelock) and race (from tiefling to changeling), but he wouldn't let me change my circumstances/backstory. I was basically playing the same character in a different skin.

That's just super weird. Especially if it wasn't intended to be a really long game, in which case your backstory probably doesn't even matter all that much to the actual endgame. Either way, I don't have two months to play a character I hate so I would have told that guy to fuck his hand.
BUT, I'm just like that and I recognize my aggressiveness isn't necessarily a common trait.

 

[docsilence]

Last campaign I had a player just bored with what he was doing, but he was like hey, we had that offer from the baddie a while back to join him, right? Can I betray the rest of the group and die in that fight and bring in someone new?

Fuck yeah, dude, you got it. And it made for such a great emotional moment.

I've got a standing rule in any game I DM that if you don't like something with your character, just give me a head's up and change it. (I just want to make sure I'm balancing things right). Make a terrible spell choice? Really regret your subclass? Wish you did "criminal" instead of "urchin" background? It all works out in the end.

Two of the players I no longer play with really had that main character energy thing. I talked with the other players after they left and the quiet things nobody was saying til they were gone was that one only seemed to activate when he character could go off on his own, and the other got pissy whenever they weren't following her personal quest. The latter REALLY needed a Wattpad, TBH, and the other was born for solo games, great storyteller but did not play well with others.

 

[JakeEkiss]

so In Character she still marvels at the Wizard and his (hopefully) arcane mastery.

I'm gonna master so much arcane. You just wait.

It also helps to build a connection to at least one other party member so you have a reason to be together.

One thing I have done since college days, and didn't realize until much later how rare it is, is require a common element for all the player characters prior to character creation that ties them directly to the main plot. The element can be fairly small, but it helps *so* much. For the scifi games I used to run it was typically a occupational relationship, and in fantasy games it tends to be a social one. Like, 'you're all agents of the Australian Bureau of Investigation" or "You are all either former students, allies, or rivals to the great Wizard Oltorf" or whatever.

Since I rarely ever have played I just sort of figured everyone did that, but later on discovered when I picked up players from other groups that many if not most DMs just let players create in total isolation (often without any knowledge even of the world) and hope for the best. This is one of those reasons why when I do play I try real hard to think about actively biting down on plot hooks. Oh there's a weird guy with silver horns hanging in a corner of the tavern? Better talk to that dude. Oh, there's a mysterious object in an otherwise empty room in the dungeon thrumming with power? Let's touch that bad boy and see what happens. Let's protag some shit.

 

[Damien]

Since I rarely ever have played I just sort of figured everyone did that, but later on discovered when I picked up players from other groups that many if not most DMs just let players create in total isolation (often without any knowledge even of the world) and hope for the best.

I think having characters pre-connected, as it were, is a great way to do things. But 'you are all strangers and just met at this tavern, ready GO!' is just such an absolutely classic way to do D&D that I can never get mad at it.
However, I am absolutely not the kind of player (or DM) to run with players making characters completely isolated from even the world. I think that's a very old school dungeon crawl mentality, where your background and ties to the world itself literally do not matter and you're just here to kill monsters and get loot so you can kill bigger monsters. I respect that as a way some people play the game, but I don't enjoy it.
And I definitely don't think it mixes well with RP-heavy gaming. You've really gotta decide which you're doing pre-character generation.

. This is one of those reasons why when I do play I try real hard to think about actively biting down on plot hooks.

Having been a DM loads of times, I live in perpetual fear of having to watch a DM struggle with long NPC conversations they didn't really plan for to try to get the players to bite down on a hook. So I'll usually be one of the first, as you guys saw, to even sometimes too heavy-handedly just hit the 'skip' button on that entire song and dance and be like 'hey you, give me your quest.'

 

[JakeEkiss]

I think that's a very old school dungeon crawl mentality

I also find it happens with folks who are on the "the DM never says no" train. So they'll be like "you can use any sourcebook, any character class, ay lineage" etc. They want everyone to have fun to the point that they put no guardrails on it at all. It's not a game-killer per se, but when it goes bad it really sucks.

I am definitely that DM who tries to set an expectation where it's like, I'll work with you to make a concept, but I've also usually got a fairly strong concept for the game or world, and our two concepts need to work together.

Having been a DM loads of times, I live in perpetual fear of having to watch a DM struggle with long NPC conversations they didn't really plan for to try to get the players to bite down on a hook. So I'll usually be one of the first, as you guys saw, to even sometimes too heavy-handedly just hit the 'skip' button on that entire song and dance and be like 'hey you, give me your quest.'

I appreciate it. I like a little scene-setting and RP here and there, but I'm just as happy just get on with the adventure too.

 

[Fletch]

My last DM didn't let me do this because our characters were Very Special Boys.

I have been a big fan of Paizo's Adventure Paths, but this is something I've noticed about their more recent ones. They start with an event that ties the party together, but in such a way that almost excludes new party members.

One of them was literally being resurrected and imbued with special powers.

It feels like such a straightjacket.

 

[docsilence]

It's funny, the group I've been talking about today originally came out of a Westmarches style game with like, 12 rotating players, whoever showed up got to play at the start of the pandemic. Five of the six players in this group were part of that original mess and the ones who stuck it out. (The sixth is a new player who joined when we had a few life changes and had room open up.)

I never really want to crush creativity, but I do love it when a player respects a setting enough to ASK first. "Are there kobolds in your setting? What are kobolds like in that setting?" And hell if I don't have an answer I'll develop it for you. Happened in a campaign last year with Leonin. No fucking clue if I had lion people in the world, but I like leonin! So let's mash our brains together and make it work.

(I used to be very meeeeh on super weird species and crazy animalfolk but I reread the Bas-Lag series last year and I mean, fuckit, if China Mieville can make bird men and people with bugs for heads work in a post-steampunk fantasy setting am I going to be a coward and say no? That being said I let someone play a plasmoid in a game and I'm still mad at myself about that. Plasmoids are fucken weird.)

It occurs to me as we're talking that I NEVER run "you are special boys" games. I like small stories with huge stakes for the characters. Like I want the PCs to be big damned heroes and to be rocked to their CORES by what they find, but there's a pretty good chance the world at large never knows what they know.

 

[Damien]

I have been a big fan of Paizo's Adventure Paths, but this is something I've noticed about their more recent ones. They start with an event that ties the party together, but in such a way that almost excludes new party members.

It's possible this is just a side effect of having like 900 adventure paths. The ideas get more and more specific to the point where they necessarily exclude certain possibilities.

It occurs to me as we're talking that I NEVER run "you are special boys" games. I like small stories with huge stakes for the characters. Like I want the PCs to be big damned heroes and to be rocked to their CORES by what they find, but there's a pretty good chance the world at large never knows what they know.

This is the best kind of game most of the time, I think. That's one of the reasons I've always gravitated toward low-magic games. It seems that sets expectations and brings the stakes to a normal level. No matter how awesome you are, you tend to cap out at just 'REALLY good at relatively mundane things.' You get locked in to weird stuff when you get into really high level play, because the PCs are just capable of the kinds of things that literally -would- be talked about across the entire world. OR the world has to be so full of insanely powerful beings that even an 18th level wizard just isn't all that impressive. And that world is usually ass to play in (looking at you, Forgotten Realms).

 

[Fletch]

It's possible this is just a side effect of having like 900 adventure paths. The ideas get more and more specific to the point where they necessarily exclude certain possibilities.

Mmmaybe, but that's a separate argument for me.

I think the AP line is very overdue for a stock standard D&D AP after a few years of cops, cowboys and circus performers.

I haven't read Seven Dooms yet, but I get a "traditional" vibe from that. It leads into another Runelord Path, but that may be its own issue depending on how you feel about meta timelines.

There's a war Path coming up, but that builds off of meta events that all happen off-screen* which is a big mistake in my book.


* I guess the only element of the metaplot players get to actually experience at the table occur during an AP about planning an opera. That feels like a pretty niche concept to hinge your next rules expansion to.

 

[Damien]

I can't really speak to what they're doing nowadays. Because I haven't been actively playing any RPGs for several years, I also haven't paid an iota of attention to adventure paths and other modules. Gaming books generally still interest me a lot, but I find adventures interest me the least even when I'm a DM, let alone when I'm just keeping an eye on what gaming stuff is out there.

I think the last Adventure Path I paid attention to was Ruins of Azlant? That sounds about right. I might just be giving them some grace out of recognition that there's thousands of adventures out there going back to AD&D. I get how it could be possible to, even accidentally, start honing in and making your adventures too narrow and specific, even if it's just from unconsciously trying to avoid retreading ground, maybe.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

It occurs to me as we're talking that I NEVER run "you are special boys" games.

In my first game, I forced my players to play exiles, outcasts, or prisoners. In my next game, I'm having them play the book recovery department for an arcane library, at least until all hell breaks loose. I'm much more interested in thrusting normal people into extraordinary circumstances than telling them they were chosen by the gods to save the world.

I've always gravitated toward low-magic games. It seems that sets expectations and brings the stakes to a normal level.

My first campaign changed the fate of a continent. My next fantasy campaign will impact all my campaigns from here on out. After that, I'm focusing on smaller, regional campaigns.

This is going to be the challenge for me in my Traveller game. The system isn't built for Big Damn Heroes. Traveller players often say that combat in D&D is sport, while combat in Traveller is war. I have to reorient myself and my players around that idea. Will we be bored by our sixth straight session without combat? We may wind up ditching it for the more heroic Stars Without Number. Time will tell.

 

[Fletch]

I'm much more interested in thrusting normal people into extraordinary circumstances

There are a few genres, like super heroes or secret agents, that call for a pinnacle character, but I think I mostly prefer this "ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances" trope.

It's why I like DS9 more than TNG.

For my fantasy games, I want a zero to hero experience. I like the feeling of having earned exceptionalism rather than starting with it.

Personal preference, of course. I'm not trying to say it's the *right* way to do it.

 

[docsilence]

I think the reason I like fantasy TTRPGs so much is because so many folks I play with do actually want to be heroic and stuff like D&D, Pathfinder, Daggerheart, etc. do set you up as being inherently cooler than your average cat from level 1. But you can play those games in a way that while you are a big damned hero, the world has so many bigger damned enemies taht you can tell those zero to hero stories well.

I adore Call of Cthulhu and goddamn I LOVE Free League's ALIEN, but they definitely are set up as "you're going to see some shit and probably won't make it out of here," so it's a very different gaming experience, especially if your players are looking for an escapist experience in which they can actually do something to make the world better (and live to see it).

Current non fantasy goal games:

• Vampire the Masquerade: Salem by Night with actual Salem residents
• I want to run concurrent games of Tales from the Loop and Things from the Flood where the players are playing both their pre-teen selves AND their older selves, as the Very Weird Shit they encounter in Loop come back to haunt them in Flood. (BTW, if you enjoy having your heart broken, the Tales from the Loop TV adaptation is my favorite thing ever. I still get visibly emotional if I hear the soundtrack.)
• I want to run Modiphius' Star Trek for real trekkers, cos I'm NOT one and I just want to open up that world for them to follow their Star Fleet dreams.
• Vaesen. Everything about it.
• I want to find a way to bolt a GOOD combat system onto Modiphius' DUNE because holy fuck it's got a great intrigue system but combat is wildly boring.
• And the one I keep forgetting about: Secret World 5e. The trailers for Secret World's MMO haunt my dreams and I want to tell stories there. That's kind of the world I write about in my novels and I love that they hammered out a decent TTRPG of it.

Only trouble is I've committed to so many current games I'd absolutely have to sacrifice a proverbial goat to make any of these happen. (Oh, EDIT: I want to figure out what the FUCK is going on in Coriolis. It's such a gorgeous system but I cannot get the ground beneath my feet with it.)