A Thread For Random RPG Musings

[Old Man]

Let me know if you need another player for that campaign

[Duke Bushido]

Odd timing.

 

I am working on a Xenozoic Tales port for HERO right now.

 

 

[Ragitsu]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Odd timing.

 

I am working on a Xenozoic Tales port for HERO right now.

 

 

 

It is criminal that Schultz never finished that series...

 

.

[Ragitsu]

Spoiler

 

 

^ I was thrilled to add those to my collection. There are occasions when I swear that the zeitgeists of these original products actually emanate - subsequently positively influencing my thought process during creation - as if they were the good kind of comic-book radiation. There is no doubt that PDFs have brought much utility to our pursuit, but they lack that je ne sais quoi. Even dog-eared to all hell, a secondhand tome is invaluable because it links us to the past.

 

That aside, folks who have been turned away from Greenwood's brainchild because of the glut of detail found in novels/supplements and because of the accompanying (unspoken?) pressure to use everything official might consider going back to basics by giving either the "grey box" (1987-1991, 1e) or the "gold box" (1993, 2e) a whirl (the former, if they abhor The Time of Troubles or the latter, if they like/accept that tumultuous period).

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

It is criminal that Schultz never finished that series...

 

.

 

 

Per Schultz, the series is "still ongoing."

 

 

[Ragitsu]

14 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Per Schultz, the series is "still ongoing."

 

 

 

Huh. That is a work ethic to which I can relate.

[tkdguy]

[Old Man]

Then again, the players I've played with tend to be more along the lines of "My character is a mercenary.  With an axe."

[tkdguy]

33 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Then again, the players I've played with tend to be more along the lines of "My character is a mercenary.  With an axe."

 

I'd much rather go with that. The campaign tells the characters' stories.

[Scott Ruggels]

2 hours ago, tkdguy said:

 

I'd much rather go with that. The campaign tells the characters' stories.

Exactly!

[tkdguy]

I'm still working on my homebrew based on California as an island aka Insula Calafia (Island of Calafia), based on a legendary Amazon queen who included griffins in her forces. I'm also working on the changed geography and adding fantasy elements, such as turning California Condors into rocs. I also renamed a couple of the major cities.

 

San Francisco = Porta Aurea (Golden Gate)

Los Angeles = Urbs Nuntiorum (City of the Messengers)

 

Other details are extrapolated from this video:

 

 

Edited January 22 by tkdguy

[Cygnia]

 

[Rich McGee]

I note that Seth doesn't do much (if any) supers gaming, where villains chewing the scenery is something of an established genre trope and gets a little more tolerance from players than most other games.  Also easier (mechanically) to build a villain who can weather attacks for long enough to say their piece, or set up hostage situations that let them get speech in while your stealth guy is freeing them.  Some categories of pulp are similar, but not all of them by any means.  Your space opera alien warlord may well get off a proper speech before you find the frequency to nullify his personal shield, but that cattle rustler who tries to tell the posse his life story is probably getting riddled with bullets.

 

Good advice overall, though.

[Cancer]

I recently decided I had to write something of an apology to a group member when I felt that I had to withdraw from his campaign.  Piece of that is over in NGD-land (here).  There were other reasons on top of the GM-foibles described in the link why I felt I had to bail, but those aren't in the snippet linked.

 

A monologue may happen to work in a game, but you have to be sure it's the character monologuing, not the GM.

[Rich McGee]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

A monologue may happen to work in a game, but you have to be sure it's the character monologuing, not the GM.

Keeping your GM voice separated from your NPC voices is pretty much vital, yeah.  I don't mean actual accents or speech patterns so much as making it clear when you're describing something in the environment or dealing with game mechanics versus when you're roleplaying NPCs.  In complex scenes I've been known to resort to grabbing the appropriate miniature and waving it in the air while I'm speaking in that character's role, swapping around as needed.  It's marginally more effective than using finger puppets or bringing a bunch of different hats to the game - although I've seen other GMs do both. 

 

Coming up with a distinctive voice and speech patterns for half a dozen characters in one scene is just beyond me most of the time.

[Ragitsu]

19 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

supers gaming, where villains chewing the scenery is something of an established genre trope and gets a little more tolerance

 

Uh huh. In-between the panels where Cyclops defiantly fires an optic blast and the Master of Magnetism raises an electric pink force-field, I want Magneto to expound on his Shakespearean motivation.

 

 

Edited January 23 by Ragitsu

[Ninja-Bear]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:22 PM, tkdguy said:

 

I'd much rather go with that. The campaign tells the characters' stories.

Well how does that exactly work with game with a skill system? Fantasy Hero you’re expected to buy skills to represent your character. How you going to do that if the campaign just declares in-progress what is relevant?

 

In a similar vein, I see people talk about OSR where the answers aren’t on your sheet. “You describe your character’s background and those skills”. Now in the right group? I can see it working. However……I can see problems even with honest players and GM. I rather don’t think the solution is as easy as it’s presented.

[Ragitsu]

Unless they are far afield from their stomping grounds and know literally no one or nothing, it will be odd to see a Player Character as a thoroughly disconnected entity. This approach - while simple - runs the risk of a creating an ever-increasing background "revealed" through play that may come across as tenuously/dubiously connected from event to event*. I can understand why certain players crank out at least a checklist if not a paragraph or two: for the sake of some preestablished consistency (e.g., "Is on good terms with Joden the baker./Has run afoul of the clergy./Born into a fisherman's family but trained as a mercenary./et cetera").

 

* Angus MacGyver comes to mind.

[tkdguy]

The PCs are most likely not the only adventurers in the game world. Maybe there's party they consider their rivals. What would they be up to? A friend from Discord has a few ideas.

[Ragitsu]

Have you ever thought about post-TSR D&D's art direction? When most (if not all) arms and armor are massive/overwrought/gilded/bejeweled/glowing/et cetera, then very little in the way of treasure feels truly special. Taken to an excess, the DM's effort towards describing the intricacies of a character's latest acquisition may become slightly...wasteful (a shame, if they are both enthusiastic and talented). Incidentally, one wonders why folks showing off their eminently portable fortunes while they gallivant about aren't pulling in thieves like a freshly laid pile of feces draws in flies.

 

From what I've seen, Pathfinder is also guilty of these omnipresent embellishments. Should a plain-looking magical sword (e.g., the trusty Longsword +1 / +1 Longsword) make an appearance, I am momentarily taken aback.

 

 

Edited January 26 by Ragitsu

[tkdguy]

I am not a fan of of the art after WOTC took over D&D. It just didn't look right to me. And yes, the armor is so detailed, it had me wondering if the artists had a buckle fetish.

[Old Man]

6 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

I am not a fan of of the art after WOTC took over D&D. It just didn't look right to me. And yes, the armor is so detailed, it had me wondering if the artists had a buckle fetish.

 

I'm more of a knots guy myself.

 

The one good thing that could be said for CCGs is that (questionable art direction aside) it kept fantasy artists employed for almost thirty years.  But now AI is here.

[tkdguy]

Something I may try in my solo games is running a silly campaign. I've tried to run a few humorous games with other folks in the past, and they were never received well. But if I'm playing on my own, I can go to town with the silliness, and no one would be the wiser.

[tkdguy]

On another note, do folks choose some piece of music to represent the general feel of their campaigns? I don't do it for all my games, but I consider the theme from 1492: Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis to evoke the mood I want for my latest homebrew campaign.

[Cygnia]