Tabletop Games Thread

[Saiga]

Yeah, Constitution -> Stamina, Dexterity -> Agility, Wisdom -> Spirit. The last one doesn't make a lot of sense because Wisdom and Spirit aren't that aligned, and I've thought Spirit would be more like Charisma (especially for the description of the Human racial 'The Human Spirit').

And yeah, White Wolf seemed to routinely side with the Alliance over the Horde in the lore, like with the Orc vs Dwarf conflict in Alterac Valley - in lore, it's meant to be ambiguous as to which side started the aggression, but the RPG basically states that the Dwarves had the right to the land and the Orcs attacked them unprovoked. There's also other stuff in the RPG that was later contradicted by the official lore, however it's worth noting that the RPG lore did originally come from Blizzard's writing team and was declared canon - they just struck it from canon after White Wolf lost the licence as an easy way for them to pick and choose what lore they wanted to keep and rework ideas to suit the MMO.

[Twi]

Well, I played my first session zero and was confused as to what was going on. But I'm a Dwarf Warlock and I apparently exploded a bat with Elderich Blast and the used Command to make some kind of troll run back down the depths of whatever dark pit it came from.

[Twelveseal]

Sounds good! I think your doing it right from the sound of it.

[Sesto]

y'know a vHuman Eldritch Knight w/ Polearm Master and a spear would make a fun Cu knockoff, especially with Weapon Bond allowing you to teleport your spear back to you after throwing it. Bonus points if your DM allows you to take from the Druidic spell list instead of Wizard.

[SpoonyViking]

Hmmm... Perhaps a Ranger? They have some spells which multiply thrown weapons.

[Twelveseal]

Ahhhh, replicating Servants and the Nasuverse via D&D... Ever a challenge. Ever a pain in the butt. Almost always requires some degree of system changes, rule changes, exceptions, etc... Not to mention a boatload of sub-systems if you're working in 3x.

[Ratman]

Try Roll20. They have a LFG section where you can find people looking for players for games.

jesus christ no
play with your friends
DO NOT PLAY WITH UNKNOWN PEOPLE ON ROLL20

[Sesto]

You're speaking to someone who has DM'd a game for a group consisting mostly of randoms from Roll20. We've been playing together every week for more than a year and a half at this point and are still going. Never had any issues or had to replace anyone, in fact the group size has grown over time.

All I did was pick sensible applications. The horror stories are generally from people who don't. If you invite someone who wants to play their half-unicorn half-angel homebrew class then that's on you.

[Twi]

And I don't have any friends who would play DnD, so my options are limited.

[Twi]

Question: I'm doing the Waterdeep Campaign and I suspect we will have to kill a Mindflayer by level 5 (milestone). What would be the most effective way to kill it as a warlock, because after nearly getting done in by a fire flinging half-orc and only managing to scrape out a win because Command allowed me to make it grovel long enough for the rogue to kill it, I kind of want to hedge my bets.

[mAc Chaos]

Send the barbarian after it. It can't eat brains if there's no brains.

[Twi]

Send the barbarian after it. It can't eat brains if there's no brains.

Noted. Put that on the list now that I have a few more sessions under my belt. I think my Level 2 party ran into another enemy above our weight level called the Black Viper. Our Rogue spotted her running on the rooftops and tried to intercept and I managed to wing her with a Eldritch Blast + Hex Combo so we pinned her down, but after we caught her she mentioned the family we were guarding were devil worshippers and we did find the mark earlier. But when we tried to strike a bargain she cut through the ropes we tied her in and then managed to get away despite us nailing her with more than 30 points of damage, shrugging off Command and Vicious Mockery, and doing 10 damage with a stab to our Level 2 Bard who got lucky not to get poison damage. So now we've pissed off both a Mind Flayer and a guild that uses Assassins.

[warellis]

Do you guys have a favorite 3rd-party D&D/Pathfinder campaign setting?

One of the ones I like the most is Scarred Lands, which was originally published under the d20 OGL before recently coming out again under 5e D&D and Pathfinder 1e, especially because Hollowfaust & Shelzar are both interesting locations from it.

Imagine an independent city-state built from the ruins of an ancient civilization and governed by lawful, sophisticated necromancers. Undead patrols keep the streets safe at night; undead legions and a colossal skeletal dragon defend the city when invaders lay siege; a lawful good lich runs the secret police; and one’s body, according to a strict set of laws, is forfeited upon death to a particular necromancer for . . . research. Death, really, is a way of life for the regular citizens, so they live enthusiastically, to the fullest.

A sweltering desert that sends forth perennial enemies lies to the west. A dark, violent forest to the east harbours an exiled, evil cult of necromancers intent upon reclaiming the city. A kingdom bent on conquest and tyranny edges closer and closer from the south, desiring for itself the city’s powerful arcane secrets.

Exotic, enchanting, gloomy stories and adventures await everywhere in and around Hollowfaust, a city sure to give you the time of your life -- and, perhaps, your death.

It was from White Wolf, and often had really good fluff and terrible crunch.


And has anyone here played any Traveller/Cepheus Engine campaign settings? From ones takijg place in the 3rd Imperium of Original Traveller fame to These Stars Are Ours!, HOSTILE, & Clement Sector?

[Deathhappens]

That sounds really interesting, but then, White Wolf did always have good fluff material.

- - - Updated - - -

Haven't played Traveller, but I did play some Stars Without Number, which is sort of a spiritual successor. Very lax mechanics, needs a good DM to arbitrate it, but it can be very interesting when you get into it.

[Daneel Rush]

Haven't played Traveller/Cepheus Engine (not really into scifi roleplaying), but I really dig the game mechanics and the detailed character creation system.

[Twelveseal]

I almost played Traveller, but the group never made it past CharGen.

Tho I did hear a rather unpleasant sounding story about a Traveller game where there was a GMPC.

[warellis]

I almost played Traveller, but the group never made it past CharGen.

Well in Mongoose Traveller (and the retroclone of it that is Cepheus Engine), you don't die in chargen anymore. So you can get past chargen thankfully.

There have been a number of neat non-3rd Imperium settings (no connection to the history of the OTU settings) made for Cepheus Engine including:
These Stars Are Ours!
Clement Sector (had some stuff made for Mongoose Traveller but then switched over to Cepheus Engine along with a Cepheus Engine edition of their Clement Sector Core Book. You play people who got stranded 60,000 LY from Earth on the other side of a wormhole after a 100 or so years of colonization there. FTL can only go 2-parsecs per week instead of the full potential 6-parsecs a week we see in the standard Traveller setting and it's primarily a small-ship universe.)
HOSTILE (pretty much think Aliens-verse if it were done in the Traveller rules)
Orbital 2100 (Traveller in the Solar System before FTL)
And a bunch of other 3rd party stuff. It's pretty neat.

Tho I did hear a rather unpleasant sounding story about a Traveller game where there was a GMPC.

What did this involve? Someone party killing everyone with that plasma cannon battledress users can employ?

That sounds really interesting, but then, White Wolf did always have good fluff material.

Yeah Scarred Lands was a neat setting. I have a bunch of the old PDFs if you want. I can send them to you via gmail. The city-state books were really neat I found. The fluff was great but I've read from reviews that often the crunch and mechanics were not the best.

It recently got remade for 5e D&D and Pathfinder by Onyx Path which IIRC is a successor company to White Wolf.

Haven't played Traveller, but I did play some Stars Without Number, which is sort of a spiritual successor. Very lax mechanics, needs a good DM to arbitrate it, but it can be very interesting when you get into it.

I've seen some of the material for Stars Without Number. It looked interesting.

I wish I could find people to actually play any of this stuff with. I've never actually gotten to play a TTRPG with anyone.

Haven't played Traveller/Cepheus Engine (not really into scifi roleplaying), but I really dig the game mechanics and the detailed character creation system.

Hmm here is are some Free Traveller settings Zozer Games offers that include a Roman-based one called Mercator. As in you're playing in the Roman Empire instead of in space.

Also, cool thing. The Cepheus Engine SRD is free so you can get it without having to pay anything.

[Twelveseal]

Basically, the scenario had involved a group of mercs hired to retrieve a lost government research vessel, or barring that the research itself, by some shady folks. The ship was infested with some kind of hostle alien life form following what appeared to be either a collision of some sort or a battle, and had gone into lockdown and some sort of power-saving emergency mode. The PCs were only able to actually get around the ship using a custom android modeled after Melfina from Outlaw Star that was a remote terminal for the ship's operating system. And which they had to find, though she was basically handed to them.

Problem was, she was also the GMPC, and a noncombatant, so it turned the whole game into an escort mission where the only way to unlock the doors or access anything on the whole damn ship was to put up with and protect the GM's waifu avatar, who didn't always have their best interests in mind and was prone to being generally weird.

[warellis]

That sounds like it should belong on that RPG Horror Stories reddit. Hopefully that GM was replaced next session.

[Deathhappens]

Well in Mongoose Traveller (and the retroclone of it that is Cepheus Engine), you don't die in chargen anymore. So you can get past chargen thankfully.

There have been a number of neat non-3rd Imperium settings (no connection to the history of the OTU settings) made for Cepheus Engine including:
These Stars Are Ours!
Clement Sector (had some stuff made for Mongoose Traveller but then switched over to Cepheus Engine along with a Cepheus Engine edition of their Clement Sector Core Book. You play people who got stranded 60,000 LY from Earth on the other side of a wormhole after a 100 or so years of colonization there. FTL can only go 2-parsecs per week instead of the full potential 6-parsecs a week we see in the standard Traveller setting and it's primarily a small-ship universe.)
HOSTILE (pretty much think Aliens-verse if it were done in the Traveller rules)
Orbital 2100 (Traveller in the Solar System before FTL)
And a bunch of other 3rd party stuff. It's pretty neat.
What did this involve? Someone party killing everyone with that plasma cannon battledress users can employ?Yeah Scarred Lands was a neat setting. I have a bunch of the old PDFs if you want. I can send them to you via gmail. The city-state books were really neat I found. The fluff was great but I've read from reviews that often the crunch and mechanics were not the best.

It recently got remade for 5e D&D and Pathfinder by Onyx Path which IIRC is a successor company to White Wolf.I've seen some of the material for Stars Without Number. It looked interesting.

I wish I could find people to actually play any of this stuff with. I've never actually gotten to play a TTRPG with anyone.
Hmm here is are some Free Traveller settings Zozer Games offers that include a Roman-based one called Mercator. As in you're playing in the Roman Empire instead of in space.

Also, cool thing. The Cepheus Engine SRD is free so you can get it without having to pay anything.

I'd like that, but honestly I already have a huge and bloated archive of various system PDFs I'll probably never get around to reading. Adding random supplementary fluff for systems I don't play would be the last drop.