Tabletop RPG |OT| I cast a spell

Nappuccino · May 19, 2018

Noisy Ninj4 said:
Shadowrun's character creation system can get pretty convoluted, but the end results can be great. It might be kludgey, but love the cyberpunk/fantasy collision that affords so many options for character and story building.

Exactly! All my choices really feel like they define a character. My experience making a my last D&D charter was "will he's a tabaxi, so I guess he's kind of innocent, and he's a fighter?"

The skills and qualities you can buy in shadowrun a often just fascinating.

Noisy Ninj4 · May 19, 2018

The part I like most about shadowrun is the Contact system, actually. It's one of the smallest parts on a character sheet but also the one where the rules barely apply. You can get all kinds of wacky or cool NPCs involved in the campaign just by having them know your character. Probably my favorite contacts are lawyers, since they're often of the Better Call Saul variety.

Nappuccino · May 19, 2018

Noisy Ninj4 said:
The part I like most about shadowrun is the Contact system, actually. It's one of the smallest parts on a character sheet but also the one where the rules barely apply. You can get all kinds of wacky or cool NPCs involved in the campaign just by having them know your character. Probably my favorite contacts are lawyers, since they're often of the Better Call Saul variety.

Oh I haven't even looked at the contacts yet...I should do that, huh.

Noisy Ninj4 · May 19, 2018

Nappuccino said:
Oh I haven't even looked at the contacts yet...I should do that, huh.

I'd focus on the character first, what they do, their past, who they should know, so on. As an adept, you may want to know a talismonger for weapon or qi foci. Not sure what sort of adept you want to play, though.

The other thing about most shadowrun games is that you really want to avoid being a one trick pony. On top of being sneaky, mojoey, or physically dangerous, you have to be able to talk to people and understand how to use modern technology to a certain degree.

Nappuccino · May 19, 2018

Noisy Ninj4 said:
I'd focus on the character first, what they do, their past, who they should know, so on. As an adept, you may want to know a talismonger for weapon or qi foci. Not sure what sort of adept you want to play, though.

The other thing about most shadowrun games is that you really want to avoid being a one trick pony. On top of being sneaky, mojoey, or physically dangerous, you have to be able to talk to people and understand how to use modern technology to a certain degree.

That's a good point . . . I didn't put any points into computers. Well, I'm gonna rebuild him, slightly. I might spend my group points on the technology category. Would 2 points work out pretty well? Or does that sound like too many?

Noisy Ninj4 · May 20, 2018

Nappuccino said:
That's a good point . . . I didn't put any points into computers. Well, I'm gonna rebuild him, slightly. I might spend my group points on the technology category. Would 2 points work out pretty well? Or does that sound like too many?

Assuming you are using 5th edition rules, I would not recommend spending group points on electronics, buy the computer skill with some karma. If you plan on being an infiltrator, hardware will serve you well also. Since it sounds like you went with priority C for skill, I'd say use group points for acting, influence, or athletics. Whichever of those you don't have a need for a specifically high skill.

Another thing about skills at creation is that it's typically optimal to have high skills from skill points and then any lower skills bought with karma because of the scaling costs.

Jader7777 · May 20, 2018

Once they make Shadowrun around the mechanics of 5e it might be decent to play, but as much as I love the setting combat is horridly micromanagey.

Kuldar · May 20, 2018

I wish I had friends to play Shadowrun or that the french virtual tabletop community was into this game.

Speely · May 20, 2018

Jader7777 said:
Once they make Shadowrun around the mechanics of 5e it might be decent to play, but as much as I love the setting combat is horridly micromanagey.

I agree 100% I also hate that when someone starts hacking, everyone else is basically forced to go get a pizza and post on FB. Such a slog, but the setting is so good. I just always feel like I am enjoying it despite the rules.

In 5E news, I just made my first power-fantasy character. Holy crap faces will be melted. I usually don't go there, but this DM is one of those antagonistic, combat-focused folks. So let the blood flow!

Jader7777 · May 20, 2018

The Shadow Run Returns video game fixed the AFK haxing problem by making the hacker walk around and interact with the digital landscape at the same time people were doing things in the real world. It definately makes things far more interesting.

Nappuccino · May 20, 2018

Jader7777 said:
The Shadow Run Returns video game fixed the AFK haxing problem by making the hacker walk around and interact with the digital landscape at the same time people were doing things in the real world. It definately makes things far more interesting.

Seems like that would be something the gamemaster could make happen, yeah?

Jader7777 · May 21, 2018

Yeah but SR gms are usually... micromanagey.

I've never played a fulfilling SR game, it's always "system dilutes story"

dragonchild · May 21, 2018

Jader7777 said:
I've never played a fulfilling SR game, it's always "system dilutes story"

Best SR games I've played mined the worldbuilding, and hence were very RP-heavy. We also avoided the Matrix like the plague. As Noisy Ninj4 said, the contacts system may be its best innovation.

I've almost never found the combat fun. In fact I don't remember a single positive Shadowrun combat experience.

Nappuccino · May 21, 2018

dragonchild said:
Best SR games I've played mined the worldbuilding, and hence were very RP-heavy. We also avoided the Matrix like the plague. As Noisy Ninj4 said, the contacts system may be its best innovation.

I've almost never found the combat fun. Workin' on that though.

The neoscum podcast which got me and my gf interested in shadowrun really takes this route.

Noisy Ninj4 · May 21, 2018

In my current shadowrun campaign, a lot of the exrernal modifiers in combat get put aside for the sake of expediency so most of the time rolls are skill+attribute. We also don't get involved in combat that often, typically focusing on stealth and social gameplay. When combat does occur, it's a brutal, short, often unfair exchange thanks to ambushe tactics. Feels rather Deus ex.

Deleted member 11157 · May 22, 2018

So are there any Play By Posts happening on ERA?

I have the D&D Starter Kit (secret santa from two(?) years ago) but I haven't been able to rustle up any of my friends to commit to it, so I've just been reading through the Player's Guide and different characters, history, background, etc, and thinking up characters. Now I'm itching to play.

I'm a total beginner, (I've read the player's handbook and watched a couple vids but have zero real world experience) but wondering if anyone is doing (or interested in doing) a Play By Post Dungeons and Dragons story. Probably won't be using D&D Starter Kit campaign because I plan on eventually doing that one with my friends before we're all dead. So maybe something similar that is easy for beginners (like me) to get into.

I've thought about roll20, but the asynchronous nature of Play by Post works better for me as I have access to posting from work more easily than posting at home from a set schedule.

Thoughts?

ETA- Oops, just saw there's a PbP running right now a few pages back. Guess I'll keep tabs on this thread to see when a new adventure pops up.

Noisy Ninj4 · May 22, 2018

norm9 said:
So are there any Play By Posts happening on ERA?

I have the D&D Starter Kit (secret santa from two(?) years ago) but I haven't been able to rustle up any of my friends to commit to it, so I've just been reading through the Player's Guide and different characters, history, background, etc, and thinking up characters. Now I'm itching to play.

I'm a total beginner, (I've read the player's handbook and watched a couple vids but have zero real world experience) but wondering if anyone is doing (or interested in doing) a Play By Post Dungeons and Dragons story. Probably won't be using D&D Starter Kit campaign because I plan on eventually doing that one with my friends before we're all dead. So maybe something similar that is easy for beginners (like me) to get into.

I've thought about roll20, but the asynchronous nature of Play by Post works better for me as I have access to posting from work more easily than posting at home from a set schedule.

Thoughts?

There are a couple current threads.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/re...-of-fear-a-d-d-5e-play-by-post-campaign.4150/

https://www.resetera.com/threads/resetera-a-d-d-play-by-post-the-seelie-court-trio.25771/

BrokenFiction · May 24, 2018

As an ancient player, I love this.

Jader7777 · May 24, 2018

norm9 said:
So are there any Play By Posts happening on ERA?

I was thinking of running another PbP, if a few players can get rounded up I'd be happy to run something.

Deleted member 7051 · May 24, 2018

Jader7777 said:
I was thinking of running another PbP, if a few players can get rounded up I'd be happy to run something.

YOU HAVE BEEN QUOTED.

BrokenFiction · May 24, 2018

Winny（๑•̀ㅂ•́）و said:
YOU HAVE BEEN QUOTED.

I AM QUOTING THE QUOTER.

Deleted member 7051 · May 24, 2018

BrokenFiction said:
I AM QUOTING THE QUOTER.

I HAVE NOW QUOTED THE QUOTER THAT QUOTED MY QUOTE.

Jader7777 · May 24, 2018

I'll get a discord up and send PMs to interested people later on. :)

Jest · May 24, 2018

I've never done a PbP game before but I might be interested.

dragonchild · May 24, 2018

RPG project update:
Action list is basically done. I'd get hype for it (even if it's just me) but these milestones are always anticlimactic for me because the way I do things there's a very blurry line between dev and testing. There isn't any "DONE!" moment. Last time I submitted a short story I was making tweaks right up to the deadline.
Anyway, on to the special rules, which goes by a lot faster but ohgawd there's so much to go through. The currently daunting challenge is. . . ugh. . . vehicle combat. I have some ideas to make it something other than a slog, but I'm sure every other RPG designer has said the same thing.

OmegaDragon · May 25, 2018

Jader7777 said:
I was thinking of running another PbP, if a few players can get rounded up I'd be happy to run something.

I'm interested, I've never done PbP before.

Claire Delune · May 27, 2018

Got a notice that my Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is on the way, full on forgot I preordered it (did it to keep my Amazon store card live), LOL.

I haven't been following anything about it, so I don't even know what to expect, outside of maybe something analogous to Pathfinder's NPC Codex, perhaps?

EDIT: Looks like it's more or less comparable to Volo's Guide to Monsters being half lore and character options stuff and half bestiary.

MrLuchador · May 29, 2018

I need to stop preordering DnD books from Amazon UK. Both Xanathar's Guide to Everything, and now Mordenkainen's weren't dispatched at all on release day. I had to wait 2 months for Xanathar's Guide, and now I have to wait 1-3 months for Mordenkainen's... what is even going on.

BrokenFiction said:
As an ancient player, I love this.

I hope there's updates for this!

EDIT: I read the thread and yes, yes there were! Great read, thanks for posting.

Ultron · May 29, 2018

Trying out a one shot of Fantasy Age tonight. Excited to try a system I haven't ever played before. At least from an initial reading of the system description it sounds like it might be a nice middle ground between D&D and the super rules lite stuff I've been playing.

Jest · May 29, 2018

Ultron said:
Trying out a one shot of Fantasy Age tonight. Excited to try a system I haven't ever played before. At least from an initial reading of the system description it sounds like it might be a nice middle ground between D&D and the super rules lite stuff I've been playing.

Fantasy Age is what Titansgrave was built on. So you can watch a video of that on Youtube if you want an idea of how the system works. It definitely seems like a pretty cool open ended system.

Claire Delune · May 30, 2018

Got Tome of Foes yesterday, but didn't have time to look at it until this morning, and even then I only had maybe 10 minutes to leaf through. I think most--if not all--the new subraces have been published before in UA and maybe one or two from previous books? I'm terrible at keeping track of this stuff.

I think I liked the lore in Volo's better, but at a glance, I'm digging the monsters in the bestiary more than Volo. Though some of that may be because I had a campaign percolating in my head for the past couple days and there are a number of creatures in here that would be a great fit for it.

kai3345 · May 30, 2018

Jader7777 said:
Once they make Shadowrun around the mechanics of 5e it might be decent to play, but as much as I love the setting combat is horridly micromanagey.

You should check out Shadowrun Anarchy

MrLuchador · May 30, 2018

I find combat in most Tabletop Games to be rather dull, however I know people who really like it so perhaps it's just me. I liked the fast and flowing system that the Modiphius use in their games (Conan, Tales from the Loop, Star Trek Adventures, etc). Character sheet is one page, you roll a few d6 looking for a success. Quick and easy.

Claire Delune · May 30, 2018

I have kind of weird preferences for combat. On the one hand, I like to go full-on SRPG with figurines and facing and elevation and everything. But in the absence of all that paraphernalia, I like things to be as snappy as possible.

Pixel Grotto · Jun 1, 2018

The new D&D adventure for the end of this year has been revealed! City adventure with a heist theme. Jaraxle and Xanathar to play a part, set in Waterdeep. Some more details here.

I am actually quite intrigued by this, since I'm currently playing a RP heavy city campaign with my brother. When it comes to published adventures I'm quite glad that they exist but I generally don't use them since I have too many ideas bursting at the seams of my mind for homebrew stuff. However if this turns out to be good I might plunder some story threads and reskin the whole thing.

Claire Delune · Jun 1, 2018

Okay, I'm intensely interested in that.

Pixel Grotto · Jun 3, 2018

So looks like there will actually be TWO Waterdeep adventures released at the tail end of this year! Dragon Heist is for lvls 1-5 and Dungeon of the Mad Mage picks up right afterwards. Set in Undermountain and intended for characters from lvls 6 to 20.

That's an entire campaign right there. Really intrigued since all of my D&D forays have been lower level adventures thus far...if they can provide good content for higher tier play I will gladly buy this, if only for inspiration!

Dragon Heist is supposed to come out on Sept. 18, Mad Mage on November 20 I believe.

Jest · Jun 3, 2018

Pixel Grotto said:
So looks like there will actually be TWO Waterdeep adventures released at the tail end of this year! Dragon Heist is for lvls 1-5 and Dungeon of the Mad Mage picks up right afterwards. Set in Undermountain and intended for characters from lvls 6 to 20.

That's an entire campaign right there. Really intrigued since all of my D&D forays have been lower level adventures thus far...if they can provide good content for higher tier play I will gladly buy this, if only for inspiration!

Dragon Heist is supposed to come out on Sept. 18, Mad Mage on November 20 I believe.

The real challenge is keeping the party engaged and showing up for levels 6-20. Attendance is always the hardest boss encounter.

Jader7777 · Jun 3, 2018

I'm still waiting for someone to convert Rise Of The Runelords to 5e because I'm laaaaaazy.

Claire Delune · Jun 3, 2018

Pixel Grotto said:
So looks like there will actually be TWO Waterdeep adventures released at the tail end of this year! Dragon Heist is for lvls 1-5 and Dungeon of the Mad Mage picks up right afterwards. Set in Undermountain and intended for characters from lvls 6 to 20.

That's an entire campaign right there. Really intrigued since all of my D&D forays have been lower level adventures thus far...if they can provide good content for higher tier play I will gladly buy this, if only for inspiration!

Dragon Heist is supposed to come out on Sept. 18, Mad Mage on November 20 I believe.

Wow, three books this year? That's unexpected.

dragonchild · Jun 3, 2018

Jest said:
The real challenge is keeping the party engaged and showing up for levels 6-20. Attendance is always the hardest boss encounter.

I can't imagine crawling the same dungeon for 14 levels. My characters usually have goals. Or am I missing the point?

Jest · Jun 3, 2018

dragonchild said:
I can't imagine crawling the same dungeon for 14 levels. My characters usually have goals. Or am I missing the point?

Some people enjoy the combat more than anything else.

But more seriously, I imagine it's not just a typical dungeon. I'd think it probably has large areas that are typical dungeons but also areas where you'll find friendly and/or neutral settlements/cities, allies, etc... If it's created by a wizard strong enough to be the final or penultimate boss, it could have areas that are differen't planes of existence and who knows what else.

Pixel Grotto · Jun 3, 2018

dragonchild said:
I can't imagine crawling the same dungeon for 14 levels. My characters usually have goals. Or am I missing the point?

Jest said:
Some people enjoy the combat more than anything else.

But more seriously, I imagine it's not just a typical dungeon. I'd think it probably has large areas that are typical dungeons but also areas where you'll find friendly and/or neutral settlements/cities, allies, etc... If it's created by a wizard strong enough to be the final or penultimate boss, it could have areas that are differen't planes of existence and who knows what else.

Yeah, from what I read the book will have different portals in Undermountain opening to different planes so it won't just be a giant 14 level dungeon crawl. Also since Undermountain is right under Waterdeep, I imagine the books are designed to be interwoven together so players can go upstairs and engage in some city adventures during downtime. Dragon Heist apparently is also partly a sourcebook for urban adventures.

Very true in saying that the biggest challenge will be keeping a group together to hit those upper levels! The biggest challenge in D&D isn't a CR 30 monster...it's attendance =(

Kwigo · Jun 4, 2018

Where could I get some inspiration for dungeons?

I'm really bad in creating dungeons when there's more than a corridor and X amount of enemies to kill.

OmegaDragon · Jun 4, 2018

Kwigo said:
Where could I get some inspiration for dungeons?

I'm really bad in creating dungeons when there's more than a corridor and X amount of enemies to kill.

I've never created a dungeon myself, but I had a look when I wanted to do a DnD oneshot:
There's random dungeon generators, such as this one https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/dungeon/ You can choose different themes, sizes etc. It creates a map and adds monsters + traps.

I've seen people post home made maps on reddit.

You can use published adventures or maps for reference/inspiration. There's Drivethrurpg for basically any rpg and DMsguild for DnD/5e material. Some products are free/pay what you want. Most products have a free preview, that contain maps for inspiration.

Video games are a great resource, especially for layouts or room dressing. I've used the pc rpg Shadowrun for an idea what was going on in this high tech laboratory and to add abjects to the rooms (I'm terrible at details like this)

Check youtube?

BrokenFiction · Jun 4, 2018

Holy crap that generator is amazing.

Kwigo · Jun 4, 2018

Holy crap indeed ! Thanks OmegaDragon !

Brashnir · Jun 4, 2018

Speely said:
I agree 100% I also hate that when someone starts hacking, everyone else is basically forced to go get a pizza and post on FB. Such a slog, but the setting is so good. I just always feel like I am enjoying it despite the rules.

In 5E news, I just made my first power-fantasy character. Holy crap faces will be melted. I usually don't go there, but this DM is one of those antagonistic, combat-focused folks. So let the blood flow!

My old group had an "everybody is a decker, or nobody is a decker" rule for our Shadowrun campaigns for exactly this reason. We also did one campaign where everybody had two characters - a hacking squad that supported an infiltration/fire squad. That way, when it was time to do Matrix stuff, everybody still got to keep playing.

Even with those rules, I still found Shadowrun to be pretty shitty mechanically. We had some fun campaigns, though. Has anyone here tried the Savage Worlds adaptation?

Jest · Jun 10, 2018

Talespire devs are streaming an example game with their platform. https://www.twitch.tv/bouncyrock

Silver-Streak · Jun 12, 2018

I didn't know this existed, so I'm crossposting a misplaced post I put in the Pathfinder playtest thread:

I don't really have time to run full Pathfinder or D&D campaigns anymore. Does anyone know any super-simple systems that are good for short (2-4 hours) oneshot sessions with pre-made advnetures?

I heard Dungeonslayers was decent but the site is dead. There are some other good simple systems but with no pre-made content, and I'm terrible at making my own content. (Fantasy is not a requirement).

Tabletop RPG |OT| I cast a spell

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