Tabletop Games Thread

[Bird of Hermes]

I'm doing this for a group that has only played one half campaign. They have no frame of reference.

And my own experiences are not going to be of use for comparison to most people because I always think like a storyteller and tend to be more of an actor as a player....whereas my usual group usually play munchkins. Too, I usually can see where things are or aren't going because the guy that DMs when I'm not thinks a lot like me, but I keep it to myself since I don't want to ruin crap for everyone else.

I've never had to play with munchkins. I doubt my group could metagame if they tried.

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They just do whats fun and don't tend to care about optimising skills or anything.

[Arashi_Leonhart]

My group finds fun in the rogue getting violent nausea when suffering from lockjaw.

[Saiga]

I literally can't avoid optimizing my characters' build - like, I can pick 5E Bladelock for the lore/RP despite it being worse than Blastlock, but I'm still min-maxing the fuck out of that Bladelock.

It makes it really awkward when you've got one or two powerhouses in a group with non-optimised characters. I didn't expect it to be so noticeable, but it is, and it can feel pretty awkward.

[Seika]

I'd forgotten just how difficult it could be to make up a character for a system you don't know, and where you haven't got all the convenient places in the books marked.

[Janx]

Yeah, and I often find I while I don't exactly powergame/mucnhkin, I do like being effective, so i get really worried if I made something that was viable.

[Saiga]

Yeah, and I often find I while I don't exactly powergame/mucnhkin, I do like being effective, so i get really worried if I made something that was viable.

Yeah that's a better way to put it. I want to know my idea will be effective before I commit to it.

I'd forgotten just how difficult it could be to make up a character for a system you don't know, and where you haven't got all the convenient places in the books marked.

5E? :3

[Bird of Hermes]

Yeah, and I often find I while I don't exactly powergame/mucnhkin, I do like being effective, so i get really worried if I made something that was viable.

My first character was a high elf fighter with no magical ability at all (although Eldridge Fighter is an option in 5E I didn't pick it for story/character reasons), had higher Intelligence than Constitution despite the party having three wizards with scores higher than mine. Also the Charisma stat was in the single digits. Not to useful but the character was fun.

[mAc Chaos]

I'd forgotten just how difficult it could be to make up a character for a system you don't know, and where you haven't got all the convenient places in the books marked.

The GM can always help in those cases. I have tons of resources on hand when dealing with my own games.

[Five_X]

Had a funny moment at my last session. A guy was there who I hadn't seen in years (since around just after high school) and who hadn't regularly been part of the group for a similarly long time. The DM is going through some books, and then poses a blanket question to save time: 'how much Strength does a horse have?'

Immediately the guy just goes, '18,' nothing else. The DM sort of looks at him, flips to the right page, and nods. I suppose once you've been a part of this cult long enough you just stop forgetting even the minor things.

[Seika]

Yeah that's a better way to put it. I want to know my idea will be effective before I commit to it.

Solution: don't know the system! If you don't understand what's viable, you can't metagame.

5E? :3

Mhm.

[mAc Chaos]

Had a funny moment at my last session. A guy was there who I hadn't seen in years (since around just after high school) and who hadn't regularly been part of the group for a similarly long time. The DM is going through some books, and then poses a blanket question to save time: 'how much Strength does a horse have?'

Immediately the guy just goes, '18,' nothing else. The DM sort of looks at him, flips to the right page, and nods. I suppose once you've been a part of this cult long enough you just stop forgetting even the minor things.

Reminds me of MtG.

[Saiga]

Solution: don't know the system! If you don't understand what's viable, you can't metagame.


Mhm.

...play a system I don't know? Surely this is some form of jest.

i must know everything

Oh and cool on the 5E thing. Hope you like it!

[Bird of Hermes]

Solution: don't know the system! If you don't understand what's viable, you can't metagame.


Mhm.

Wizards of the coast has a few free pdf's they let you download for free on their site if you won't/can't shell out for the books.

When i started with my current group me and the DM spent a while helping them make their characters first. But out of interest what part are you having difficulty with?

[Mcjon01]

Wow, I didn't know Mcjon was interested in D&D.

What's your experience with it?

Oh, yeah, I've played D&D. I've played so many D&Ds. My favorite part is how the dice feel like bags of sand when you roll them.

[Seika]

Wizards of the coast has a few free pdf's they let you download for free on their site if you won't/can't shell out for the books.

Nah, I have the books. I even had a very basic understanding of 5e systems going in, because I've been vaguely hovering around what sounded like a good system. But that's very different from having a decent enough working knowledge to create a full character.

But out of interest what part are you having difficulty with?

I think I've got the points I wanted ironed out now, but it was just normal stuff for starting a new system: aaah, so many things key off this stat, and I'll miss half of them on my sheet; does this character concept even work?; what's grappling all about?; oh, the errata says "Ignore the third benefit; it refers to a nonexistent rule", that's great; how do tools and their proficiencies even work?; how viable is the trade-off between feats and ability scores?

[aldeayeah]

Surely you already figured this out, but 5e feats are usually worth it, to say the least.

[Five_X]

If my paladin dies in this wasn't-a-bad-decision-at-all bar fight I'm going to roll a human fighter, and because of 5e I can genuinely say that's a fun race/class choice.

[Saiga]

If it helps, I'm pretty sure grappling sucks.

[mAc Chaos]

I love grappling, but mainly as a GM tool.

The zombie grabs you before you run away, allowing the swarm to surround you.

The ogre grabs you and hurls you off a ledge.

The owlbear puts you to 0 and grabs you, dragging you off into the wilderness alone so it can eat.

The guard grabs you before you can flee the prison with your friends.

There's lots of places it can make things interesting but it's context dependent.

[Saiga]

I'm the DM again for my group. Now that I'm doing original campaigns, I'm super excited about crafting encounters. Balancing things is a pain in the ass, but the amount of freedom you have to pick the setting, structure the battlefield, and choose combatants is just great.

What I'm really enjoying is coming up with an encounter and then brainstorming ways the player's actions immediately prior to the encounter will change the encounter, and what solutions they might try and consequences for doing so.

For example, they're currently about to enter a SPOOKY forest with one path cutting down the middle, in a carriage led by an NPC. There are werewolves and wolves in the forest, and some of the trees are animated as well. They don't know this NPC, so they might refuse to go by carriage, which will leave them completely out in the open when they are attacked (the werewolves might even successfully drag a party member off into the forest). If they go with him, he'll leisurely direct the carriage through until he's stopped by some wild wolves, which he will chase off (Dracula reference) but be pulled into the forests by the werewolves and the party would have to try to save him, stand their ground for the attack, or try to bail. They might notice the werewolves skulking about beforehand and urge him to go full pace, so the werewolves will give chase and try to break in to the carriage, and the group will have to have to knock them off and and protect the NPC until they can escape. But the awakened trees will also attempt to topple the carriage which would leave them trapped as the werewolves/wolves descend upon them!

And then whatever 'route' they pick will effect the following encounters yaaaaaaaas

I'm thinking about this like a video game with multiple choices which is probably limiting me in some ways but on the other hand it's like doing level design for a video game with UNLIMITED BUDGET which feels amazing

edit: Oh yeah Mac, grappling is great on monsters. Especially since monsters often attack in groups, and some monsters get some pretty sweet abilities that tie into grappling. But players don't get much benefit out of it and have so many other options it seems like a waste of an action to me. Whereas monsters don't usually get many actions and if they've got some sort of grappling ability, they're built around using it to be quite dangerous.