Tabletop Games Thread

[Saiga]

Heh, that's how our last campaign was in the start when we had a Valor Bard, Barbarian, Rogue and Paladin in the group.

[I3uster]

Using a Lore Bard, seemed kind of excessive to go for a combat build when most of my party went for something along those lines.

[Saiga]

Valor Bard sucks at low levels, you made the right choice (especially if you don't take War Caster)

[Bird of Hermes]

Don't worry Saiga, your walls of Text are always fun to read here. Large scale battles are always fun whether you're playing them or organising them. Fighting huge numbers of enemies is a challenge but very engaging for everyone.

In my campaign the main capital has just been attacked and the party just about managed to escape. They've a few different paths they can take beforehand facing the big bad, either the ice dragon to the north, evil elves and green dragon in the feywild or the Lycan Goliaths to the west. Problem with having 3 plans is theyve a bigger chance to mess up.

Anyone have any suggestions for back up plans?

[Saiga]

clearly, you need to stick an enemy in the south. NO ESCAPE

those are some peculiar enemies though. I've always wanted to do something with the Feywild, either as a DM or player. It's so interesting.

[Bird of Hermes]

Yeah, one of my newbie players mentioned it in the second session without really knowing what it was but I wrote it down instantly. It'll add a lot of variety to the experience when we can actually sit down and play.

[Saiga]

We had our session zero for Curse of Strahd.

Finally. Finally. I get to be a Werewolf. Awoooooooo

Since this was session zero, it was mostly making our character sheets, coming up with backstory and figuring out how we knew each other. Then we did a cool series of skill challenge missions where we rolled to see who went on the mission, than had to use our skills to complete the mission. This was our way of getting extra starting loot and money, so it was all simple stuff like finding hidden treasure or haggling and whatnot.

Some funny scenarios - our Half-orc Barbarian ended up being the only one who got into the mission to sing in a tavern for money. It went very poorly. Most missions had rather minor rewards, but I managed to get 925g worth of loot on a single Athletics check on my mission.

Our last mission ended up being one we were all invited to, and we were sent to the mansion of an evil guy to assassinate him. First sneaking in, we all tank our Stealth check, myself and my sister have the highest at 10 and 11 and our Cleric has a 1. We're immediately caught by some sort of servant, my sister (having the highest Charisma), being fairly new to roleplaying and never being in the position of talky-person, immediately spins a story of us being a team of reporters coming here to do a story on the place. The servant allows this, we eventually ditch him and find an secret door and a Chain Shirt. Which is great, because Blood Hunters don't get to start with Heavy Armour and I would have been really fucked as a strength build without it.

Further along, we find a Cloak of Protection. Then a secret trapdoor and a corridor that is being watched from a window. Our Rogue sneaks past, and finds a book on a podium. Immediately searching around the room, they find a corridor above with a boulder trap ready to go. Trying to Indiana Jones a tinderbox in place of the book, they fail, and dash past the rest of the group while fleeing the trap. I pick up the Halfling and we also start running, but our Barbarian falls behind and instead manages to dive through the gap between the boulder and the wall to safety. After the boulder gets wedged in a doorway, I manage to push it aside and we follow the Barbarian who continued down the corridor the boulder fell from. At the end we find a door, and open it to find the evil dickhead we were sent to assassinate.

Thanks to outnumbering him and getting two crits (myself and the Rogue's sneak attack) he went down really fast, and we went on to divvy up the loot. With 260 gold each, I was able to buy some Splint armour, which is helpful. There was some arguing over who should get the Cloak of Protection (the Barbarian really wanted it) but we settled on the Sorceror getting it for having both the lowest AC and lacking any way to raise it beyond what they had.

Then at the end, those of us in factions got a message, and we all got an invitation to a party hosted by a local duchess which is where the adventure proper will start. We've also been told of a pack of Werewolves in the area that have been abducting and maiming people, so I (as a Werewolf myself) had us all silver our weapons.

Really looking forward to the session one on this one. We've got:

Myself: Human Blood Hunter, Order of the Lycan. Using a strength build for better flavour and sweet grappling. He lived in a village near some woods, and was taught how to hunt by his father and older brother. One day he was attacked by a werewolf in the woods, and saved by a Human Fighter and a Half-Orc Barbarian. The Fighter taught him a few tricks and gave him a longsword. On the next full moon, he transformed into a werewolf and attacked his older brother, and realized he had to flee to keep his family safe. Later he met a Wood Elf Druid, who was able to brew a potion to help him gain control over his transformation (reflavoured Hunter's Bane from the blood hunter class). He still isn't fully in control of the form, and still feels the violent urges. While he continued to improve his control over the curse, he is trying to use it to do good, and joined the Emerald Enclave at the Druid's suggestion. My back-up character will be a Raven Queen Warlock with two Raven familiars, inspired by Odin.

Sister: Tielfing Shadow Sorceror. She wanted to play a witch/dark spellcaster. She was raised by a kind elderly lady, but after the lady passed she drifted for a while before becoming an apprentice to a Wizard (a PC from a previous campaign) who taught her how to control her innate powers. Feeling alone, she joined the Zhentarim and met our Rogue. She also has a letter from her 'grandmother' that is linked to the origin of her powers, which she is trying to explore (I came up with that for her). Her back-up character is the Druid from my backstory.

Sister's Fiance: Tabaxi Theif. My sister's fiance made a catfolk (homebrew race) rogue in the first campaign we did (Khajit Moonface) and he just loves the concept. This character is somewhat more serious, but much more fleshed out. He lived with his clan out in the mountains, but initially wasn't a good climber. He was made fun of for constantly falling out of trees (based on the player's own childhood) and one day he fell on his grandmother and crushed her to death (took a joke from another player and decided to roll with it). He left his clan to explore the world, but missed the feeling of his family, so he joined the Zhentarim. He wants to go from town from town collecting stores, and sharing stories of his people. He also hates High Elves for some reason. His back-up character is the Fighter from my backstory, a Van Helsing inspired monster hunter.

Previous Wizard: A halfling Light Cleric. I don't actually know his backstory, huh. I do know he's part of the Order of the Gauntlet, and I think he is involved in the Barbarian's backstory. His back-up is a Beastmaster Ranger with a giant weasel pet.

Previous Sorceror: The Barbarian from my backstory. Raised by an innkeeper, he was bullied by the other children. His mother told him tales of knights to keep his spirits up, but in his first meeting with some real knights he ended up getting his ass handed to him because real knights are assholes. He decided he would become his own knight, one that lived up to the stories he had been told. He joined the Order of the Gauntlet, and carries a Greatsword instead of the Half-Orc's usual Greataxe.

[LostHanyou]

Was thinking of using the Wild Talents system for a Tsukihime inspired game. Been itching to give the Nasuverse a shot in tabletop, and I think some supernatural mystery might work well. Maybe give the players around 150 points to make a human with some supernatural ability. Dunno though. Kinda bored of D&D right now.

[mAc Chaos]

What do you guys think of GMs basically making LOTR-dense level settings for their games?

I have a friend who is basically doing that and I fear that he is going to burn himself out.

[Five_X]

Just write a book fam

[Mattias]

Pull a Nasu and turn your game into a terrible, terrible anime.

[Saiga]

What do you guys think of GMs basically making LOTR-dense level settings for their games?

I have a friend who is basically doing that and I fear that he is going to burn himself out.

That's possible. However the stimulation from doing so might also be what keeps him going as a DM.

I like detailed settings. But as a player I need some way of accessing that information. One of my biggest frustrations when roleplaying is being unable to play my character in a logical way because I don't know anywhere near enough about the setting to know what my character would do (as they should really know the setting). But that's just as a much a problem with DMs who flesh things out as they go, especially if they don't have any baseline like saying "the setting is Forgotten Realms, but will have my modifications as we go".

As a DM, I didn't make a dense setting or anything, but I put quite a lot of work into adapting the Sarrukh into 5e and tying it along with various ther plot threads to the mystery in a player's backstory. Not being able to tell that was really deflating, so that is one danger.

[Zurvan]

I guess it could be rewarding if the players are really into it, and explore various pieces of said lore.
Could be fun, sure, but yeah I think its too vexing to keep up. And since players sure enough ask question you didnt think of, inconsistenties can exist, or it could pause the game simply because the GM needs to think of new lore quickly.

- - - Updated - - -

IMO making a background is good, but dont make it too dense and let the players explore and brainstorm along

[aldeayeah]

What do you guys think of GMs basically making LOTR-dense level settings for their games?

I have a friend who is basically doing that and I fear that he is going to burn himself out.

What would you say he likes more? Building worlds or actually GMing?

[mAc Chaos]

What would you say he likes more? Building worlds or actually GMing?

I'd say he sees GMing as a vehicle to display his worldbuilding.

So the former, but he likes the actual feedback he gets from the GMing.

[aldeayeah]

Well, there are a bunch of pitfalls his group could fall into.

Generally speaking, when one player/GM is much more invested in the game than others, that's a dangerous imbalance.

Less invested players can feel like they're just playing along, invited to someone else's game, perceive a loss of agency, and become even more uninvolved (or even disruptive).

On the other hand, the more invested players can feel unsatisfied with the lack of collaboration they perceive and may even take it personally. This can create a growing rift between both camps.

Then there's the danger that the GM takes over the game and turns it into a masturbatory session with excessive railroading, setting/NPC protagonism, and general lack of PC agency.

However, as long as those pitfalls are avoided, he can do just fine. Is there any budding conflict that you've detected?

[Saiga]

Does anyone here play with randoms on roll20? I understand how much that may open the floodgates for problem players, but i don't think I'm getting enough D&D with my current group. i need my fix

[Bird of Hermes]

Does anyone here play with randoms on roll20? I understand how much that may open the floodgates for problem players, but i don't think I'm getting enough D&D with my current group. i need my fix

I feel that, I haven't been able to play with my group in months. I tried randoms but timezones meant no one was playing when I was.

[Siege]

Has anyone there tried Anima: Beyond Fantasy? It has strong influences from various anime/mangas, including Type-moon works (Heck, you can even play a character with Mystic eyes of Death Perception).

[mAc Chaos]

So, Saiga, how's your campaign/group looking nowadays?