Okay Guys, I have convinced my good friend to set up a very very well worked out dnd campaign. We have tapped out our friends and local people to play with us, currently we are at a group with me, (alchemist) and a ranged paladin and a sort of iffy-rogue who may or may not continue playing with us. If you can play at 5:30 pm pacific on Sundays and are willing to participate (and commit) to a campaign that my friend has spent HOURS upon HOURS on you need to PM me.
Use the basic format you have been previously for this thread and DO NOT respond if you cant commit without a doubt (nearly, we arnt all perfect) on sundays at 5:30. This is a tight-nit group of friends we've all grown up together so we are VERY selective on who we are taking into join us on this adventure and do not want to fuck around with someone who insists on playing a chaotic neutral dick-wad. We will be using Google+ voice/webcam chat and having a webcam is highly favored, along with a sophisticated backstory.
Don't worry too much about details on a backstory until my DM approves your application as he will provide a detailed packet with a world map, history, races and dieties to worship.
On September 01 2013 03:22 BeMannerDuPenner wrote:
On September 01 2013 02:21 -Archangel- wrote: Anyone here tried (or is planning to try) Numenera?
we did do a oneshot this week cause one of our guys couldnt play this week. was fun, the world is majorly fucked up but seemed really interesting. the system... a very different take and i think i prefer more traditional ones. that you basicly spend your "hp" to do stuff can end up in strange situation (you spend 3 int for higher chance to avoid 3 int dmg, wtf?)
Well just like in DnD the player is supposed to use some basic math and decide when it is worth using points to improve his chance of not losing points
yeah but you dont know before. mechanics that can just put you into a lose/lose situation just seem weird. also "health" as resource for evrything is not so much for me. as said it was a lvl1 oneshot so maybe stuff changes later but still i prefer more traditional systems.
Well most of the higher difficulty monsters really screw you up if you get hit, like remove all of your might kinda screw you up. So in this way i feel numenera is very "real". You really dont want to get hit in this game by anything. Therefore it is beneficial to spend some points of int/speed to avoid taking much more damage.
Personally I love how numenera is built to really encourage creativity among players. The fact that everything is just based on a difficulty number and reducing that number makes the players really attuned to their environment, and what they are actually saying. This is opposed to other systems that do things differently, like just have an intimidate check.
Update 25/09/2013: And we're all full again, thanks guys!
Update 23/09/2013: One of our players has had to pull out after going into full time work. If anyone wants to join us let me know, it'll be easy to incorporate into the group. We have a Cleric, Wizard and monk so to have some form of balance you'll have to avoid playing those classes and play a tanky character, if you're ok with this then read on!
Player or DM: DM TL-ID: Ren91 Skype: richard8701
Time available (GMT+1): Sessions will be on a Sunday at 6:00 gmt+1 lasting between 3 and 4 hours(occasionally more).
What resources will you be using?: We use skype and occasionally ts if we can find a server, Roll20 for the maps and as a dice roller. I've started using myth weaver as BK suggested and it seems like a damn awesome way to keep character sheets up to date.
What version will you be playing: We'll be using 3.5
Since one of my players had to quit for RL reasons, i am looking for one more player to fill our group up to a healthy 5 players. Beginners and experienced players are both welcome. We currently play each Sunday at 15:00 CEST for ~4-6 hours, of course with some breaks in between.
We are playing the "Masks of Nyarlathotep" campaign in Call of Cthulhu. CoC is a horror roleplaying game set in the 1920s as envisioned by H.P. Lovecraft. You are playing normal people who stumble upon the unspeakable horrors from beyond space and time.
This is horror, not fantasy. You are not a shining hero, and you won't always meet encounters which are suspiciously conveniently exactly strong enough to give you a challenge, but be beaten with appropriate tactics. You can, and will, die or go insane. Call of Cthulhu is also an investigation game. You probably don't want to find out what is really going on because it is far too horrible for your fragile minds, but you still try, because someone has to.
The group of investigators is currently in London, following the trails of the ill-fated Carlyle expedition.
If you are interested in joining, PM me here on TL.
I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
Hey guys, I'm planning to do a dnd 3.5 oneshot this weekend. It will be a pretty basic dungeon crawl with just the core books since I am trying to DM in english which is not my native language. I've got some experience DMing on my own language and playing in english so it shouldn't be terrible though.
It would happen somewhere in the evening in Europe, either Friday of Saturday, the details will be figured out once we get all the players gathered. I've planned the campaign to last somewhere around 6-8 hours, but you never know. Any applicants feel free to PM me. If we don't get the amount of players we want (4-man party), the session can be rescheduled or altered.
We will use roll20, skype/ts/mumble and probably Myth-Weavers for player sheets, so everything should be easily available to anyone.
On October 08 2013 01:45 akatama wrote: I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
It depends on what you want, do you want super-detailed rules, or do you want narrative focus? What setting do you want? Just might and magic, or maybe sci-fi or modern world?
On October 08 2013 01:45 akatama wrote: I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
It depends on what you want, do you want super-detailed rules, or do you want narrative focus? What setting do you want? Just might and magic, or maybe sci-fi or modern world?
Defenetly classic fantasy style (Baldur's Gate or NWN as random examples). Someone directed me to Pathfinder and it looks nice, but the main issue is my friends' time. They cant really afford to read the long Player's Handbook, I need a short version that can be read in 30 or so minutes. Another issue is that I fear it might be too rigid.
On October 08 2013 01:45 akatama wrote: I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
It depends on what you want, do you want super-detailed rules, or do you want narrative focus? What setting do you want? Just might and magic, or maybe sci-fi or modern world?
Defenetly classic fantasy style (Baldur's Gate or NWN as random examples). Someone directed me to Pathfinder and it looks nice, but the main issue is my friends' time. They cant really afford to read the long Player's Handbook, I need a short version that can be read in 30 or so minutes. Another issue is that I fear it might be too rigid.
If you want a non-rigid, narrative RPG with the might and magic setting, I'd suggest Dungeon World; the actual core rules only span about 80 pages (which as RPGs go is fairly short), will take you longer than thirty minutes, but you should be able to grasp the basics in short time
On October 08 2013 01:45 akatama wrote: I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
It depends on what you want, do you want super-detailed rules, or do you want narrative focus? What setting do you want? Just might and magic, or maybe sci-fi or modern world?
Defenetly classic fantasy style (Baldur's Gate or NWN as random examples). Someone directed me to Pathfinder and it looks nice, but the main issue is my friends' time. They cant really afford to read the long Player's Handbook, I need a short version that can be read in 30 or so minutes. Another issue is that I fear it might be too rigid.
Just tell them to pick a class that sounds fun and read through that class. Then start your campaign in like a 'training ground' type of scenario where you can play an NPC who is going to mentor them for a couple sessions.
For instance, start them out in a big city and say they have been contracted by a guy who is starting up his own mercenary band and he's selected the players as his first recruits and wants to teach them the basics before he risks sending them on a real mission. Then you can go through some mock combat and teach them the rules without the risk of death. Once you are ready to take the training wheels off, just come up with a plot excuse for the mentor character to die, and use that plot hook to lead into the main story you want to build your campaign around
On October 08 2013 01:45 akatama wrote: I managed to convince a few friends to give it a try, but none of us have any experience with paper D&D. Since I have the most free time and the most cRPG experience we decided I should be the DM. What is the easiest ruleset to begin playing on?
It depends on what you want, do you want super-detailed rules, or do you want narrative focus? What setting do you want? Just might and magic, or maybe sci-fi or modern world?
Defenetly classic fantasy style (Baldur's Gate or NWN as random examples). Someone directed me to Pathfinder and it looks nice, but the main issue is my friends' time. They cant really afford to read the long Player's Handbook, I need a short version that can be read in 30 or so minutes. Another issue is that I fear it might be too rigid.
Just tell them to pick a class that sounds fun and read through that class. Then start your campaign in like a 'training ground' type of scenario where you can play an NPC who is going to mentor them for a couple sessions.
For instance, start them out in a big city and say they have been contracted by a guy who is starting up his own mercenary band and he's selected the players as his first recruits and wants to teach them the basics before he risks sending them on a real mission. Then you can go through some mock combat and teach them the rules without the risk of death. Once you are ready to take the training wheels off, just come up with a plot excuse for the mentor character to die, and use that plot hook to lead into the main story you want to build your campaign around
Don't do that, that sounds like taking the fun out of the game to me. You have the problem that you don't only need to teach them how to play, but also convince them that the game is fun (if i understand correctly). And few things are less fun then roleplaying a training camp. Give them something to do that matters (My baby has been stolen by goblins, and it is known that they eat babies!/People are going missing near the old lake in the forest/I got robbed!/My sister is going to get married two villages away, but i am sick and the roads are dangerous) and tune down the combat so it isn't too dangerous even if they do silly stuff. If they do better than expected, add additional goblins/spiders/wolves/robbers on the fly.
As for game systems, Pathfinder has the big advantage that it is available for free. The amount of things the player of a lowlevel character needs to know is rather limited, too. It also has the advantage that it is more or less an updated DnD, and should be rather familiar to people who played stuff like Baldurs Gate.
If you want another system to look into, Savage Worlds is a very good and easy to grasp pulpy system, and one of my favourites. It has the problem that the initiative system doesn't translate too well to online play.
The main question you should ask yourself is what kind of game do you want to run. There is a whole spectrum between basically improv theater on the one hand and something that is basically a tactical tabletop game on the other hand. No style of game is fundamentally superior, it depends on what you and your group like and want to play. But depending on where you fit into that spectrum, certain systems are better or worse for you.
Thanks for the replies. I'll send them the Pathfinder Player Handbook and tell them to just glance over the races, classes, skills, feats and spells (should they choose to play a spellcaster).
I do have a few ideas for a longer campaign, but my concern is to make the first session enjoyable. I feel I should leave the more complex things for later on, so I'll just send them to fetch something and focus more on the role playing rather than tactics.
Well, in that case, the main thing is that YOU know the rules. You can play pretty much any system without the players knowing a lot, as long as you are there and know it. This might make character creation take a bit longer since you basically have to help each player on their own, so you might want to do that at different points with each player alone, instead of sitting around with the whole group. Maybe have a short talk about what type of character each player wants to play as a group. Also, don't make character creation a pure stats thing. Make them think. Where were you born, what is your social status, do you have family, why are you going adventuring (this can be done more specific if you actually have a specific adventure in mind at this point, it is a lot more fun if you go out to find your brother who is lost then if you are generic adventurer 3000 whose whole town got burned down by orcs and who thus does not have any attachment to anyone and basically runs about being a mercenary. Don't fear giving your players relations to important characters beforehand)
Also, the most important thing to tell a new DM: If you don't know something, DON'T break the flow of the game to look it up. Some systems have absurdly many tables for any situation. Fuck those. It is never worth it to skim 100 pages to find the exact difficulty of throwing a 90 kg dwarf in 40 kg of armor across a 3.6m large cliff in moonlight while being chased by demon goats. Just say "yeah, that will be a strength +8 " and everyone is happy.
If you want to focus on roleplaying, i'd suggest you spend some time preparing the adventure. Generic fetch is all nice and good, but pretty much everyone knows how that plays out anyways. Try to come up with something cool and enticing, maybe something with tie-ins to the character backgrounds too, that is always more fun. There is no shame in looking up some oneshots online beforehand either. Prepare a few memorizable characters, if you are good at accents give some of them an accent, but give all of them defining characteristics. Being a bit cliché is not necessarily bad either. Prepare some random backup characters which you can use in other situations, maybe a woodsman if something happens around the woods, etc...
I will now let you in on one of the most simple things that made my DM-ing a lot better. Have a list with ~50 names at hand while you play. Now as soon as any generic NPC gets important, you can give him a name without the players even noticing. And you don't suddenly end up with 12 Freds in your campaign because that is apparently the only name you come up with on a moments notice. Have different names for different types of people prepared beforehand. Maybe 10 elven names, 10 dwarves, 10 peasants, 10 nobles. Names are really important in giving a character character. "Lets go talk to the barkeeper again" is totally different from "Lets talk to Bob at the counter, maybe i can weasel a free beer out of him"
Don't fear giving your players some creative freedom either. Most beginners won't take it, but if they want to, let them desing some stuff while playing. If one of them wants to go to the shoemaker his character always goes to, he probably has a place in mind anyways, so why not let him describe it instead of you having to make up a shoemaker on the spot. Bonus points for actually taking the stuff they make up and weaving it seemlessly into your adventure.
Hey guys I'm trying to get my two friends into pnp games(partial to DnD cause of RollPlay, and the DnD movie l0l), even though i haven't played much of them myself (love the rpg part though<3) and I'm having trouble finding a game that would be easy for us all to get into,I've heard edition 4 is "easier" then previous editions?
It is probably the most beginner friendly edition and is also a seamlessly extension from current generation RPG-ish games to the pen-and-paper roleplaying. But there are also some factual disadvantages; the system is basically end-of-life. The publisher is currently creating a new system and you can expect no new content to be created for 4th edition DnD once the new edition hits the stores (probably next year). It is also more expensive than most other role playing games and does not have a free online version of the rules.
It's also a bit ..different than most other rpg's. Not at all like the system in RollPlay; to me it resembles more a PC game like World of Warcraft. Whether that is a good or bad thing is up to you. It is however a very clear and somewhat easy system if you start from zero knowledge.
Some words of wisdom: The system you use does not predefine the way you and your friends play the game. The system just tells you what the dice mean and provides a platform wherein all players have somewhat equal capabilities and growing potential. The system does not define how you should react, what you can or can't do or how exactly you are supposed to find the Dwarven kings' lost magical gemstone or defeat that rogue computervirus that got uploaded in the automated lunar defense drones. Because of this, just pick a system you think everyone will feel some affinity to and stick with it, because in the end, it doesn't matter at all! (just my opinion, it doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to find countless of fora filled with prophets of 'the better system')
Systems have a tendency to effect the game. If the whole rulesystem is only focussed on tactical combat, beginners using that system will always tend to fall back on solving everything with tactical combat, and make the game mostly a tactical combat puzzle.
Of course you can play anything with any system, but there is a reason many different systems exist, and that is that all of those have different strengths and work better with different styles of play. You really couldn't play a game of Call of Cthulhu with a Dnd/Pathfinder ruleset without turning it from horror to a Modern Dark Fantasy setting.
It would be a lot harder to run an investigative adventure with a ruleset that consists solely of combat rules, and it would be stupid to play a combat focussed game in a system like BRP.
From what i have heard, DnD 4 is really good at being a tactical grid based tabletop game. It is not very good at being an actual roleplaying system, but you can of course still play around that if you got the group for that. That being said, if you prefer to play a less combat-focussed game, it is probably not the system for you.
Different topic, wasn't the DnD movie horribly bad?
EPT
