Lets Talk Pen & Paper RPGs (All systems welcome!)

[Vi]

What is this carebear nonsense? Characters die when they die.

I might be underestimating your good taste, but come to think of it you might be the type to actually enjoy a game I run.

Since on occasion I like to rant incoherently and leave people wondering if I'm all right, I'll do that here.

Whatever kind of person I am otherwise, I turn hard CN in RPGs. Not in the "let's find an excuse to kill people and take their stuff" kind of way, but more along the lines of - I don't care if your character dies. I don't care if

my

character dies. If you want an exercise in frustration as a GM, ask me what I want my character to be or do, because my answer is pretty much always going to be "whatever works for you". You may as well explain in small words what the scenario is as a prologue to each session because I most likely didn't do the assigned reading on which of these Famous Cities from Name-Brand World we should be going toward or which Well-Known God from Name-Brand Pantheon my character needs to prostrate before or wonder if we've made an enemy of. If you want to have your character juggle their tragic backstory, narrative arc, waifu, and side goals, I'll let you have that time and whatever you need from me to check your boxes; but at the end of the day what's relevant to me is how all of that informs your decisions when Ursine Facepuncher (Fighter 2 / Dumbass 3) gets hammered at the bar and starts mistaking the cleric for his estranged mother-in-law. Action! Adventure! Comedy! Trolling! And a lot less of the drama and romance since that mostly turns into wish fulfillment that reveals really creepy sides of the players. Your characters may not be on rails, but the encounters sure are and their rails run right through you. If you don't like those rails, try jumping off and I'll lay new ones that go elsewhere. If the whole party dies an ignominious death, maybe we'll replay a slight variation of the scenario next week when you'll hopefully suck less.

I mean, the manner of speaking is exaggerated there but not really the content. My idea of an interesting game is heavily informed by a decade of playing video games where "roll playing" is the primary player interaction and the characters themselves are essentially predefined. I like the flexibility of melding multiple peoples' creative processes and playing with the consequences of the characters' actions, but I also understand that most people who sign up for role-playing games would much rather engage in

role-playing

(shock?) and treat encounters as pro-wrestling-style pageants where the outcome is generally assured rather than challenges where failure is what happens to parties that don't take them seriously. Because of that, I acknowledge that I should probably just go back to Fire Emblem, read the highlight quotes from other peoples' sessions, and politely decline any and all FATE games.

tl;dr vi is a bad rper who plays saturday morning cartoons

[hitogoroshi]

My favorite Paranoia story (thirdhand) is when the players arrived to a table with no GM around and a bowl of skittles on the table. Then when the GM showed up, he asked "So, what color skittles did everyone eat?" and all of the veteran players groaned and ticked one clone off their sheet.

[Hanasawa]

Hanasawa > I am super jealous! I wish I could be playing in more games All those you listed sound great, but I am most curious about the Spacer, because I'm a sucker for custom systems. Even if the game has not started yet, can you tell us a bit about what is the game about?

If you want the Work in Progress rulebook, click here.

If I were to summarise it, it would be the title. "Spacer: An Erotic Sci Fi Game". Basically you're out in the middle of space in a future where FTL travel is possible and so on. You usually have a team and experience is gained through the amount of missions you complete, allowing you to unlock advance classes after 10 missions. There are 6 classes to begin with and many races to choose from but it's basically if you can handle lewds while killing stuff then go for it. It's a really niche sort of audience that it appeals to but it's fine. I feel it's more combat heavy than RP heavy but you can definitely set it so that it can be the opposite...like any other system really. The other interesting part is the sexual combat but uh, I'm not going to go into detail with that, only that it exists and there's separate combat stats for that encounter.

Also, other things in this thread...

What is this carebear nonsense? Characters die when they die.

What is this carebear nonsense? Characters die when they die.

I might be underestimating your good taste, but come to think of it you might be the type to actually enjoy a game I run.

Since on occasion I like to rant incoherently and leave people wondering if I'm all right, I'll do that here.

Whatever kind of person I am otherwise, I turn hard CN in RPGs. Not in the "let's find an excuse to kill people and take their stuff" kind of way, but more along the lines of - I don't care if your character dies. I don't care if

my

character dies. If you want an exercise in frustration as a GM, ask me what I want my character to be or do, because my answer is pretty much always going to be "whatever works for you". You may as well explain in small words what the scenario is as a prologue to each session because I most likely didn't do the assigned reading on which of these Famous Cities from Name-Brand World we should be going toward or which Well-Known God from Name-Brand Pantheon my character needs to prostrate before or wonder if we've made an enemy of. If you want to have your character juggle their tragic backstory, narrative arc, waifu, and side goals, I'll let you have that time and whatever you need from me to check your boxes; but at the end of the day what's relevant to me is how all of that informs your decisions when Ursine Facepuncher (Fighter 2 / Dumbass 3) gets hammered at the bar and starts mistaking the cleric for his estranged mother-in-law. Action! Adventure! Comedy! Trolling! And a lot less of the drama and romance since that mostly turns into wish fulfillment that reveals really creepy sides of the players. Your characters may not be on rails, but the encounters sure are and their rails run right through you. If you don't like those rails, try jumping off and I'll lay new ones that go elsewhere. If the whole party dies an ignominious death, maybe we'll replay a slight variation of the scenario next week when you'll hopefully suck less.

I mean, the manner of speaking is exaggerated there but not really the content. My idea of an interesting game is heavily informed by a decade of playing video games where "roll playing" is the primary player interaction and the characters themselves are essentially predefined. I like the flexibility of melding multiple peoples' creative processes and playing with the consequences of the characters' actions, but I also understand that most people who sign up for role-playing games would much rather engage in

role-playing

(shock?) and treat encounters as pro-wrestling-style pageants where the outcome is generally assured rather than challenges where failure is what happens to parties that don't take them seriously. Because of that, I acknowledge that I should probably just go back to Fire Emblem, read the highlight quotes from other peoples' sessions, and politely decline any and all FATE games.

tl;dr vi is a bad rper who plays saturday morning cartoons

I would have thought you'd be the complete opposite, Vi. Damn. Speaking of which, I'm going to be in a one-shot Saturday Morning Cartoon setting (so I'm told) on the 17th Sep. I'd tell you about it but uhh...it's in FATE Accelerated so uhh! ^_^;

[Vi]

I would have thought you'd be the complete opposite, Vi. Damn.

Lawful Neutral?

well ya hafta understand

After five days of 11+ hours of

constantly checking this site on my phone

working and generally not doing what I'd rather be doing, I value my emaciated free time and RPGs cut deeeeep into it. Like, I update my character sheet right after the session or right before the next session because that's when I have the time to seamlessly fit it into my life, not because I'm trying to be disrespectful. So, if I'm going to hard-commit a five-hour block every week to RPing, I want it to be something that I'll actively enjoy. I'll be whichever character you need me to be but I'm a lot better at bit players and comic relief than Real Three-Dimensional Literary Icons, so etc.

On the modding side the time investment is several times more intense. Like, I can set up all the elaborate designs and trajectories I want, but if you choose to go bait bears in the woods instead of going to investigate that carriage disturbance in a way that I thought would be in your character, I have to engage in :effort: to get you to fit ANY of the future outcomes I planned for. The ROI is overall terrible because I have too much of a heart to railroad the players into something they don't want. If I can keep my plans to one session ahead and see how things go, the number of overall ideas I have to toss out every week goes way down. So, unless you

ask

for a plot arc, I'm not going to make one in hopes that you

might

follow it.

I realize that no one asked for any of what I'm posting and I'm really sorry for taking up this space but I kind of feel like I have to post this to atone for my previous roleplaying experiences.

I'd tell you about it but uhh...it's in FATE Accelerated so uhh! ^_^;

Come back here to report on the highlights though!

but like this is me reading the FATE rulebook

>FATE: In encounters you can tap Aspects to add to your roles! You can even make Aspects up wholesale as long as the GM thinks they're reasonable and nothing contradicts them.
>ME: Cool! (oh god lateral thinking)
>FATE: Your Traits add to your dice rolls. Generally they buff your rolls to 67-75% success rates.
>ME: Um. Nice hit rates?
>FATE: If you don't have Traits your chances of success are more like 33%.
>ME: Uhhhm. Well, hopefully I don't have to do any running or driving, but call me if you need *scans character sheet* handling toxic waste and speaking to animals.
>FATE: You can use a limited supply of FATE points to increase your chance of success at something by like 15%!
>ME: Oh well hopefully I don't burn those on my first three rolls. <__<
>FATE: When you fail rolls you take a Consequence. Either your character takes the equivalent of damage, or you get some penalty to future rolls.
>ME: can I roll to do the opposite of what I want? does it work that way
>FATE: The concepts of "winning" and "losing" encounters are abstract and purely up to the GM, as they will fit the results into the overall story.
>ME:

look GM just write fanfiction already

[Lady Lambdadelta]

My favorite Paranoia story (thirdhand) is when the players arrived to a table with no GM around and a bowl of skittles on the table. Then when the GM showed up, he asked "So, what color skittles did everyone eat?" and all of the veteran players groaned and ticked one clone off their sheet.

YES

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

STEALING THIS.

100%

[Oman]

Also stealing the skittles thing. About to start Curse of Strahd (5e Ravenloft horror) so this will be great.

My group is about to do their finale. The local military has been overtaken by a Warlock summoning demons that he sees as new Gods. The PCs are entering the keep in which he is summoning, and will come across his ritual. I've drawn up the combat that I want to do for the finale (a little 4e inspired, in a good way) which has two monsters that will control the party's movement and try to push them into teleporting traps, two monsters which are just going to do the aoe damage, and one which is a get-in-the-face bruiser. Then there'll be a big tanky enemy which is to soak damage and draw attention. Behind them all is the evil baddie in a stasis bubble, doing his casting.

It's going to be a big, assymetrical, interesting fight (I hope!) drawing all of the PC's power (and, yeah if I kill someone in this fight I'm okay with that). As they reach in to remove the bone that is continuing the summon, their bodies will age. Flesh will strip from their fingers. The god which has been looking after them and mentoring them will recognise that they have killed many to get here. That they are merchants of death. Death in service to good, but still death. That their interference will cause only further death, for where there is darkness, this demon/ritual will pull it from them. Then Morty, the little terrier that has been travelling with them, being the only truly innocent member of the party, will just stroll into the bubble and hit the off switch. Sitting proudly with a silly grin and his tongue hanging out, as their plane of existence is saved by their favourite character.

I've got big plans for this finale, and I'm excited to see how it goes. Spending the weekend drawing out maps and making sure the promises are fulfilled, making sure the combats are fun and I have some plans. Then we do a session 0, then start Strahd

[Hanasawa]

I realize that no one asked for any of what I'm posting and I'm really sorry for taking up this space but I kind of feel like I have to post this to atone for my previous roleplaying experiences.

Chaotic people are so much more interesting that lawful by a million. Regardless, it's interesting to hear people talk about ways they roleplay and host games that are really different to me and I'm someone who dedicates at least 15 hours a week (maybe more) to it. Don't be sorry for sharing your experience either, I did and no one asked for it. Besides, comic relief characters can be pretty great, done right.

I can understand how you'd hate modding if you do a ton of preparation enough because then the prep goes to waste. I can't complain though because I can't mod for shit and I need to shoot myself down every time I think about it but I've been told it's better merely to just have a framework... even with that though, it's hard to do stuff on the fly.

I'll report on the highlights once the session is done, by the way. Take this in the meantime though. Don't cringe yourself to death with the amount of FATE stuff on there.

Fanfiction is pretty dope though.

[Oman]

Chaotic people are so much more interesting that lawful by a million

I disagree and I think this comes from the most surface readings of the alignments.

Lawful people have internal conflict. They struggle to do whats right. But what if tbeir dogma is held in opposition of itself? What if the lawful must fight the good or evil in them? What if their own laws declare them to be unlawful!? That is the difference between lazy lawful and deep lawful. That's the difference between lawful stupid and a person.

Chaotic characters have external conflict. Their chaos automatically sets them at odds with The Man, or anyone around them. That's...to me not as interesting. "I'm a chaotic neutral thief who takes what I want." yaaawn. That's not interesting. It'll create conflict but not interesting conflict. "this is the orphanage's medical money" "lol stealing chaotic remember." is just as lame as "you are hidden from sight. The 10-levels-higher-than-you-Baddie jaywalks" "I immediately run out from our safe hiding place and smite him. I'm lawful!" They both describe situations where they're not thinking of all the considerations when they ask themselves what their character would do.

One thing I like to say to my players re alignments is: Good people do bad things. Lawful people break laws. Chaotic people keep their word. Evil people help others. Not always. Not as a rule or a bond, but sometimes in some scenarios. We are not defined by perfection, by whole alignment to our dogmas, we are defined by our intentions, and what we mostly do when we have a choice. We as people are defined by our edge cases, the choices we make, and the times we get it wrong.

One of my favourite examples is the Chaotic Good Mal. He's good at heart, he's definitely out from under the law, but sometimes he works within those rules. In The Train Job:
Sheriff Bourne: You were truthful back in town. These are tough times. A man can get a job. He might not look too close at what that job is. But a man learns all the details of a situation like ours... well... then he has a choice.
Mal: I don't believe he does.

Mal puts his goodness about the chaotic nature of his person but sometimes.

Mercy is the mark of a great man.
[lightly stabs Atherton with the sword]
Mal: Guess I'm just a good man.
[stabs him again]
Mal: Well, I'm all right.

Mal puts his humanity, his anger, and want for revenge above that compassion. Opposites. Conflict. That's depth.


Characters are interesting when there is conflict. Storytelling 101, right? If your lawful characters aren't having interesting fun conflict revolving around their lawfulness, the story isn't taking advantage of a realised, deep, flawed character. Right now in my group the lawful neutral cleric and lawful good paladin are at odds with each other because the cleric believes the price of delivering death is receiving death (a flaw regarding him holding grudges). And the paladin believes every life deserves a chance for redemption (his primary bond centred on his own redemption). Lawful. Different interpretations. Conflict. Interesting. Super interesting.


I understand that some people just find chaos more fun ("I follow rules all day, playing games is my chance to break them") but yeah... I dunno. I feel like a lot of us sell the lawful short because we don't remember that the guy who shoplifts an iPhone he can't afford is probably still mostly lawful.

And Vi, I loved what you wrote. I like thinking about it. Thank you for taking the time to write it out for us.

[Claus]

That is why, when I use alignments in my games, it is mostly as an explicit connection to a divine pantheon, and not as an statement about the character personal morals.

"You are chaotic" - you were blessed at birth/consecrated/born at a location with connection to the gods of chaos. They will interfere in your life, and their magic runs in your veins.

Let the characters be whatever the players want them to be.

[Oman]

I honestly find in 5e that flaws, bonds, and whatever the other one is more than enough. Boiling that down to two words on a two axis scale is weird. I think I'm with you Claus

[animorpherv1]

Chaotic Good is my favourite kind of character to play. It gives me an excuse to not play "by the book", while also doing good things.

[Vi]

And Vi, I loved what you wrote. I like thinking about it. Thank you for taking the time to write it out for us.

o.o
Thank you.

Um, I guess if you want an encore, this is the scenario I'd run given time and the right player group. Pathfinder is the system I know so that's probably what it would show up in.

Money is power, and everyone has their price. With enough resources to trade, a government official can do more than what their job requires (or do it at all), a righteous person may agree to look the other way... a king may even consider abdicating their throne. But there are some things money cannot buy. You can purchase a dog, but not the wag of its tail. You can purchase a journey to a faraway land, but you cannot purchase good weather or good fortune along the way. You can make a contract to build a house of finest quality, but you cannot make it appear overnight. These are things that people simply cannot furnish, regardless of the offer.

So when the intangibles are really necessary, certain people who are "in the know" can contact a group that operates deep under the table. An organization that can, in fact, provide everything they want as they want it - for a premium, of course, but with a price point contingent on services rendered. As far as secret societies go, one of the most spoken-of is the Domicile Acquisition Mercenary Network. Their mission is simple - people who desire a place to live can have the home of their dreams prepared for them, made to order. In practice, the network rarely

builds

any new structures. Rather, their clients seek to live in buildings that already exist but are presently uninhabitable - most frequently because someone already lives there. And that's where the agents come in.

You, for whichever reason - being desperately short on funds, being indentured to a higher-up in the society, or being a person whose mental state should be of concern to those around you - have signed on to being one of the Network's field agents. The terms of your employment are long and not the sort of thing you can get out of; but the pay is attractive, travel on company business is taken care of for you, and they offer cookies at staff meetings. How bad could it be?

So the basic spine of the campaign is that the party goes on missions where they reach a dungeon (using the term VERY loosely), have to complete an objective related to making the place habitable, and usually wind up running like hell from someone who's not pleased about what they're doing. A plot can be generated from the sequence of these missions and their consequences, and from that side quests can etc. etc.

--

One other thing I want to try is lifted pretty much directly from FE: Fates - the concept that there's some special trait that defines each player character uniquely. The idea is that, in addition to whatever default character customization there is, I'd offer the player a set of Feats that is only available to them, and they can choose to go into them or not. I don't really care that much about balance on this as long as it's fun and not game-breaking.

For example, if a character was an ex-shopkeep or something, I could offer them the following Feat tree--

*

Merchants' Rapport

. Available at Level 1. When shopping by yourself, merchants are more likely to have an item of greater-than-usual rarity, and tend to offer it as a discount.

*

Merchants' Union

. Available at Level 5. The next session will be a side quest that, if sufficiently successful, will result in you receiving the following item.
**

Ring of Merchants' Union

. A minor artifact, strong whatever school teleportation is. A symbol of authority among shopkeeps everywhere. 1/day - When a command phrase is spoken, opens a two-way teleportal between directly in front of you and the nearest place that sells goods. Free movement is permitted for ten minutes, after which the portal closes and everything that's on the wrong side gets shunted back (taking damage proportional to distance traveled). Things can "switch sides" only if they are a part of an agreed-upon transaction. One side effect is that everything on the foreign side of the portal that isn't nailed down glows with a faint luminescence and appears to have a blank price tag attached.

*

Merchants' Visa

. Available at Level 9. Enchants the

Ring of Merchants' Union

such that the bearer has the authority to purchase goods at 50% off. As proof of the bearer's authority, these items are glamored to look gilded. Should anyone without the ring be seen using a gilded item by someone who knows what it means... well... have you ever tried stealing from a shop in a roguelike?

*

Extraplanar Merchants' Union

. Available at Level 13. Enchants the

Ring of Merchants' Union

such that the target shop can be specified by the user. This shop can either be one that the bearer has been inside previously, or it can be the nearest shop to their current position in the corresponding location in other planes (the user chooses the plane).

---

I mean, I say these things, but unless I hit the lottery I'm not going to be able to do any of this <.<

[Oman]

All the DMs are my local store are drawing their parties and looking amazing and I'm just like "Uhhh well I see myself as more of a worldbuilder..."

[Oman]

I start curse of strahd in 5 days!

[Hanasawa]

So a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. We did a one shot in FATE set in the Mistborn novel series (never heard of it until that day we played) it was pretty fun and I got way too absorbed into my character even though it was a oneshot.

Also, Spacer happened finally. It was pretty much an intro session since the GM started an hour later than usual. So we got to know our characters in character and the setting we were thrusted in. As expected, lewd undertones happened almost immediately and we explored the colony that we were going to reside in for a good portion of the campaign.

Finally, the thing we've been working a couple of days straight on. Taken from the Smallville RPG (as I'm told), we made a web connection of how our characters relate to other NPCs, locations, items and the like in the FATE/WoD campaign. Below you can see the network we created...and oh boy...

Spoiler: It's a mess, I tell you.

...It's not finished yet.

[Oman]

Wow, that's amazing!

[Vi]

The Mistborn trilogy is Sanderson at his best. Do read it.

[chamber]

I've been GMing 5e Out of the Abyss for local friends for about half a year now, and I'm starting to get a bit burned out, but there are probably a good 3 months left before things wrap up. Any advice from fellow GMs?

[Claus]

Can you identify what you are feeling burned out about?

[chamber]

I think the biggest source is just the amount of work it is to prep. That time has been constantly going up as the actions the players take cause more divergences within the campaign.

[Glork]

Yeah, unfortunately prep work never really goes away.

If you can get away with railroading your players back on track without them realizing (or, at the very least, being upset about) it, that might ease your burden.

[Oman]

Absolutely! Getting them back on the book is going to ease your load immesurably. I'd just be honest with them if they call you out on them being pushed back to the story.

[chamber]

That's not really possible, It would take me going in to way too much detail to explain why.

[Oman]

Kay. Don't prep. Get better at improvising Start giving the players more narrative control, questions like "tell me about that" "What would it look like" "and you recognise them, who is it?"

That takes the work out your hands. Does that help?

[Oman]

Can you talk through what it is that you'll prep for each session? Are you drawing maps? how detailed are you prepping your NPCs?