Tabletop General Chat

[Quirk]

It appears that we don't have a thread for the rollers of d20s and the players of roles.

I am remedying this now and with great intensity.

Got a great story? Have some homebrew you want to share? Want to argue the finer points of rules and whatnot? This is the place for it.

To start things off...

I'm actually still pretty new to playing (only been playing for a few months, but my interest has been for longer). My first character ever died in the first session I ever played, due to me being an idiot and forgetting that I had put ten ranks into Escape Artist and that it would be far more handy to do that than trying to stab the alligator in the eye. Learning to DM has been moderately more successful.

[chimericWilder]

I shall immediately approve of this.

Been playing for a while, but mostly casual - as in, once every two weeks, through that also lasts the entire day and is great fun. Ofcourse, because our days happened to fall neatly on days where everyone was busy with christmas shenaniganz and lighting the sky up with colored explosions, its been a while since last time.

Among other things, i play a dwarven barbarian whose only concern is getting high enough damage reduction to be completely immune to the horrific menace known as the common housecat.

[Quirk]

Among other things, i play a dwarven barbarian whose only concern is getting high enough damage reduction to be completely immune to the horrific menace known as the common housecat.

The two other characters I've played so far are a ninja (who swears he's just a peasant), and a Warforged fighter who turned into a combination of Alphonse Elric and Caboose. Not kidding.

Other than that I DMed a game with this gigantic crossover setting I had made, it was decent for a first try. In a week or two I'll be starting a Homestuck campaign.

Also, I think that dwarf is dorfy enough to be a Dwarf Fortress dorf.

[DecidedlyDevious]

Yay Tabletop games. Got into these a couple years ago and will never stop. If I ever have kids I will force them to play and I will force them to be hobbits.

Anyway, we play 1st edition AD&D primarily, though at the moment KOTOR is our main campaign. We're also starting Runequest and might also move on to Call of Cthulhu at some point. I also play GURPS with another group. I've also tried 4th edtion and 3.5 D&D but it never really took off and I didn't really like 4th edition in the first place. I think so far I prefer GURPS as it's way more open ended.

[ProfessorLizzard]

I play GURPS 4th Ed quite often, but most of the time I end up GMing it during the scarce time my friends manage to get free time to get together to play. I also sometimes GM games of it on the forum.

Herb the Psychic Plant was one of the best characters I have built.

[Quirk]

Herb the Psychic Plant was one of the best characters I have built.

I see what you did there...

And speaking off seeing things that have been done there, everyone needs to check outDungeons the Dragoning 40,000 7th Edition.

Yes, it is actually a thing. And it is actually playable. And it allows you to play as a Dwarven Vampire Techpriest.

[MythicalWashrag]

and might also move on to Call of Cthulhu at some point.

Very fun RPG. It's different from your typical hack-n-slash and it's a very well-constructed game. With a creative GM it is easily one of the better tabletops out there. If you enjoy settings, thinking, and creative problem-solving (and obviously Cthulu mythos or horror in general) I would recommend it.
That said, from my experience it's not the type of game for a person who just wants to fight all the time. There are moments for it but usually trying to fight a supernatural horror just gets you eaten.

[Wiwaxia]

I found the C°ntinuum rules, I found the C°ntinuum rules!

Basically, its a time travel rpg, with the premise that, when you become a time traveler, you join a society of all time travelers, ever, (for obvious reasons) and you are now responsible for making sure causality happens the way it's "supposed" to. There's also a half-finished ruleset for the enemies of this society, the N^arcissists, who believe in free will and branching universes. It's supposed to be really difficult to run, but I ever get around to doing a Sburb campaign, I'll probably loot the time travel system from it. Also the fluff is really nice.

[chimericWilder]

Mostly i've just played D&D 3.5, but everyone in our group has pretty much agreed that the Pathfinder system is lewt (and it is), so thats what we're running these days.

[Quirk]

A heads up to all: Wizards of the Coast officially announced that they are working on D&D 5th edition. Personally, I don't know much of what to thing, because I've only really played 3.5 (and still need to get good at it), but I don't hear many good things about 4E.

[MythicalWashrag]

I didn't hear a lot of good things about 4e but personally I liked it a lot.

5e, though... Interesting. I'll be eagerly awaiting news on that as they develop it!

[chimericWilder]

That sounds most curious. Im betting they've learned from 4E, so they might pull off something really cool.
More or less unrelated; Gnoll should be a player race. Gnolls are awesome.

[krinklechip]

In a week or two I'll be starting a Homestuck campaign.

A system you may want to try for Homestuck is Fate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FATE_(r...g_game_system))

It uses the Fudge system, which consists of keywords for characters much like Hussnasty uses when describing characters. It works really well.


P

[Quirk]

A system you may want to try for Homestuck is Fate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FATE_(r...g_game_system))

It uses the Fudge system, which consists of keywords for characters much like Hussnasty uses when describing characters. It works really well.

Fudge could work, but FATE is right out. Just looking at the rules makes me feel insuffrable.

I'm actually planning on using the FU universal system, or the mess of a homebrew for d20. Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of d20 when it comes to combat: hit points are just nonsensically arbitrary, and rolling up every single monster to a rather detailed degree comes across as tiresome.

[Wiwaxia]

That sounds most curious. Im betting they've learned from 4E, so they might pull off something really cool.
More or less unrelated; Gnoll should be a player race. Gnolls are awesome.

Gnolls are a player race in 4e. Not core, but they have feats and everything. There's a free online article I can link you to if you like.

Also, I have resolved to play gnolls like the hyenas from Digger if/when I run a campaign.

Also, Quirk, like I said above, you should at least check out C°ntinuum for the time travel. It's really, really rules light, and I'm pretty sure you could lift it into another system without too much trouble, and it looks like it'll work well with the Homestuck concept of time.

[chimericWilder]

Gnolls are a player race in 4e. Not core, but they have feats and everything. There's a free online article I can link you to if you like.

why did i not know this, i should have known this, now i am blaming meself for blindly trusting that 4E was trash the way everyone said.

[Wiwaxia]

Thhbbbpppt
/maturity

Yeah, 4e's a pretty good game. The biggest real issue with it is that the classes lack variety, but this is less of a problem in the later Player's Handbooks. Apparently, Essentials goes even further with trying to create diversity, but I haven't really done any essentials stuff.

You should give it a spin sometime, if nothing else.

[Quirk]

Bumpitybump

Has anyone here heard about Eclipse Phase? Nifty little transhuman sci-fi game, a bit heavy on crunch, but the best bit is that it's under Creative Commons liscence, and so everything can be downloaded for free legally.

[chimericWilder]

I've never heard of that before, but that sounds quite good! And i dont usually like sci-fi.

[Quirk]

I've never heard of that before, but that sounds quite good! And i dont usually like sci-fi.

The worldbuilding is really cool, though it does require some different approaches to play (your character is effectively immortal from the start and you can switch bodies on the fly).

[krinklechip]

All right. I'm the GM for our DnD group currently. The party recently secured a base on the Astral Sea and have been having to drive off invaders from time to time. The most recent attack didn't bode well... for the attackers.

The attackers land, set up a perimeter, and start bombarding the front gate with grenades and such. The attackers do manage to set the front door on fire and create a pit in front of the gate with their grenades.

The party manages to maneuver the leader next to the rogue. Said rogue had recently stopped at a joke shop and purchased 3 vials of distilled cloudkill (she just knew they were stink bombs) and a pound of itching powder, presumably to torment the rest of the party with at a later date. The attackers' leader insults the rogue and spits on her during the exchange. The rogue, despite being right next to the leader, hits him with a vial of cloudkill and the *full pound* of itching powder. Both the rogue and leader are essentially incapacitated by heaving, itching, and being covered in bile. Bleaugh.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party is handling the casters and guards in the attacking force. The cleric, who build a Piledriver (highly concussive force hammer that destroys inanimate objects and forces live targets to move) starts batting the attackers into each other like they're a bunch of baseballs.

The attacker's leader decides itching his own vomit-strewn body is not a good activity to be forced into. He tries to escape. The party trips him up and he falls into the hole the grenades created earlier. The party spend the next two rounds corralling the remaining attackers into the hole with the leader, with the final two being driven in by the Cleric allez ouping two attackers with a crit into the wizard's waiting Thunder Lance, which drives them into the pit with considerable force.

By this point, all of the remaining attackers are in the pit, overwhelmed and incapacitated by a gnarly stinkbomb and a pound of itching powder. Every one of them is so demoralized all they can do is weep softly while losing their lunch.

Is the party finished with the attackers? Do they show mercy? No. The warlock sends a fiery bolt into the cloudkill, which instantly vaporizes the cloud and everyone in the pit.

Total # of rounds in combat? 6. Number of rounds before the attackers' leader was reduced to a quivering heap covered in barf? 3. Godsdamn.

[chimericWilder]

You know

I werent there meself ofcourse, but the guys i play with

Once, apparently they killed a fucking Tarrasque in the first round of combat.

How? The gnome with the vorpal sword fell and severed its head. He had some feat or something that allowed his rolls of 1 to count as a 20.
Earlier they had also killed a balor in the surprise round. Everyone in that party was an insane powerbuild

[Quirk]

Once, apparently they killed a fucking Tarrasque in the first round of combat.

How? The gnome with the vorpal sword fell and severed its head. He had some feat or something that allowed his rolls of 1 to count as a 20.
Earlier they had also killed a balor in the surprise round. Everyone in that party was an insane powerbuild

Great Scott, it's a munchkin epidemic!

[Wiwaxia]

So.
Anyone else been looking at the D&D 5e stuff? (there's a list of known information here)

Right now I'm at "cautiously optimistic". Trying to appeal to all generations seems like a bad idea, but I'm liking some of the ideas, especially how they seem to be handling the classes. I'll probably keep playing 4e some no matter how good 5e is, though.

Thoughts?

[williamcll]

You ought to put the Warhammer40k link there.