Tabletop General Chat

[Wiwaxia]

What I was thinking of if my SBURB game ever gets off the ground would be 4 2-player sessions going around the chain, so other people don't get bored, and because I will most likely be playing with people who can't make it to every session.

[onFyre]

Yesterday, I got to play Monsterpocalypse for the first time in ages. If you haven't heard of it, it's fairly similar to chess. Except you don't just get a king, you get King Kong. And a good move might be picking up your opponent's king, and body slamming them on to the Tokyo Tower. And maybe your opponent's king is Robot Cthulu. Seriously.

[jinx]

...Anyway, Tharol Hunt has some advice on GM'ing, though intended for tabletop D&D. Regardless, some of it might apply i guess; http://www.goblinscomic.com/dungeon-master-tips/

Thank you kindly. c:
I have heard of some of those tips before, but some of them were new to me! Which is not all surprising, since experience. I lack it.
So yeah, I appreciate it.

Okay, what I did was get them into the Medium really fast (get them in before the end of the first session), mainly by having all players on one server, with mod privileges (so one entry item). Lands were turned into different regions of one planet, after that, things went smoothly...If you want to try something more in line with HS itself, I would suggest this Apocalypse World hack. Haven't tried it myself, but it looks amazing.

SBURB game is still on [though the first session hasnt been played yet, as a result of getting together art and programming assets.], and yeah. The goal was to get everyone in the Medium by the end of the first session. Shenanigans are important to Homestuck, but I don't think entire sessions of shenanigans are gonna be a good thing.

One/more of my players are picky towards canon and they didn't like the "start on a collage of planets wrapped into one" but one of the in-Medium hiccups is that they'll all start on the same land. So it's basically the same deal of getting everyone together to keep the RPs flowin'.

Lastly, WOOOOOW. I had gone through the other two Homestuck tabletops on the forum, and I'm real glad you showed me that one. That system is pretty interesting, and very Homestucky. Homestuck? Adjective-form of Homestuck.

Anyway thanks a bunch guys, your advice and words are very useful to me.
Details after the first session finally gets started?????
i hope so.

[Quirk]

Shenanigans are important to Homestuck, but I don't think entire sessions of shenanigans are gonna be a good thing.

You don't need a special plan for RPG shenanigans: all you do is presume that they will happen. Put players in a scenario and shenanigans will happen.

And lots of fire.

[chimericWilder]

And water. The best spell is Conjure Water and always will be. Particularly in Pathfinder where you can cast it an unlimited amount of times.

What? Totally on topic.

[DecidedlyDevious]

You don't need a special plan for RPG shenanigans: all you do is presume that they will happen. Put players in a scenario and shenanigans will happen.

And lots of fire.

Speaking of lots of fire, our group has a Call of Cthulhu-like game that we play on occasion. Here is our score card, at least since I showed up:

Houses Burned: 12
People killed: Hundreds
Problems/Mysteries solved: 0

[Quirk]

Speaking of lots of fire, our group has a Call of Cthulhu-like game that we play on occasion. Here is our score card, at least since I showed up:

Houses Burned: 12
People killed: Hundreds
Problems/Mysteries solved: 0

I've only been playing since September. In that time I have seen at least three villages burned completely to the ground. One of them by me.

[TownEater]

I once played in a group of 3.5 DND where they had history for all the characters. I once looked at my characters history, and he had a birth date... and a death one, two years from the current date in the game world XD

[Wiwaxia]

You don't need a special plan for RPG shenanigans: all you do is presume that they will happen. Put players in a scenario and shenanigans will happen.

And lots of fire.

"So let me get this straight: you lit your client player's house on fire in hopes of making them make their entry item faster, forgetting that the alchemiter was on the bottom floor. Then, instead of putting the fire out, you sendificated them a fireman's suit you somehow had in your closet, then tried to slow down the oncoming meteor by throwing furniture at it?"


On character histories: I wrote my first (and so far only) D&D character a page-long backstory, but it only ever came up in really forced ways. I now think the optimal amount of history is a one to two sentence character concept, and then maybe a paragraph of motivations and reasons why they are who they are, with plenty of blank space to fill in if the need arises. And even that's maybe too much.

[Quirk]

On character histories: I wrote my first (and so far only) D&D character a page-long backstory, but it only ever came up in really forced ways. I now think the optimal amount of history is a one to two sentence character concept, and then maybe a paragraph of motivations and reasons why they are who they are, with plenty of blank space to fill in if the need arises. And even that's maybe too much.

I've seen 250 words absolute maximum a few times, and I agree with it.

[reignonyourparade]

Another fellow and I are running SBURB(well one's SBURB"ish") games simultaneously so that each of us could play. Both of them are in FATE. Unfortunately they haven't moved very far yet.

[Quirk]

Welp. Given scheduling shenanigans my SBURB campaign petered out (I'll start up a normal D&D one next), and the other DM in the group has started a d6 Star Wars campaign.

I had such a great trick planned for my Thief of Time player. He wanted to give himself a super-powerful sword from the future, okay? I was going to let him have it. Problem for him is, his future self is dead (impaled on the sword, no less), and had gone grimdark. Taking the sword means he has to fulfill the loop, or invalidate the session. Leave the sword alone, and he's safe.

As far as the Star Wars campaign, I'm playing a Jawa trader. I got shot in the face and had to burn a Force Point to not die. And late in the session my rolls turned to shit. But I killed some dudes and said "Utini", so I am totally cool with this.

[reignonyourparade]

Wouldn't a simple solution have been to go grimdark, kill himself with the sword on his quest bed, and bring the body back to the past?

[Quirk]

Wouldn't a simple solution have been to go grimdark, kill himself with the sword on his quest bed, and bring the body back to the past?

Him doing that would still make a doomed timeline: The body wasn't going to be god tier, and I wasn't going to give him the sword free of charge. If he wanted it that bad, he'd have to find it out himself.

[Zero]

Im a completely unfamiliar with table top games. Does anyone have any links so i can get a understanding of them?
Also is there any of them that you can play online? I dont think there is many in my area who would play.

[Quirk]

Im a completely unfamiliar with table top games. Does anyone have any links so i can get a understanding of them?
Also is there any of them that you can play online? I dont think there is many in my area who would play.

Yeah, it's possible to play them online, but learning how is the more important thing. if you don't have a Friendly Local Game Shop or a campus D&D group, then you are sorta up that creek you go when you don't have a paddle. I taught myself the basic-basics by just finding free bits and pieces and figuring it out myself.

rpg.net is a good place to start, but the best way to learn is to have someone who will actually, physically teach you.

[Zero]

Yeah, it's possible to play them online, but learning how is the more important thing. if you don't have a Friendly Local Game Shop or a campus D&D group, then you are sorta up that creek you go when you don't have a paddle. I taught myself the basic-basics by just finding free bits and pieces and figuring it out myself.

rpg.net is a good place to start, but the best way to learn is to have someone who will actually, physically teach you.

Thanks brah, im going to university in a few months, hopefully there will be stuff going on there.

[Quirk]

Started up a new campaign this past weekend. Messing with people's heads is fun.

Also Mind Flayers.

Also if anyone wants to help out with the BHC, do not hesitate to contact me.

[Wiwaxia]

Ooh, mindflayers are cool. And beholders (I fought my first beholder just a week ago). I love aberrations in general, really.

In the interests of having more discussion than just us talking back and forth endlessly, does anyone have favorite iconic rpg monsters? Like mimics or owlbears or flumphs?

[Quirk]

Ooh, mindflayers are cool. And beholders (I fought my first beholder just a week ago). I love aberrations in general, really.

In the interests of having more discussion than just us talking back and forth endlessly, does anyone have favorite iconic rpg monsters? Like mimics or owlbears or flumphs?

The Tarrasque. Just because it is FUCK YO SHIT in physical form.

Actually, there was an rpg.net thread a while back about a setting where a city was built around a captive tarrasque and it was rather awesome. Just google "City of the Tarrasque".

[chimericWilder]

Ooh, mindflayers are cool. And beholders (I fought my first beholder just a week ago). I love aberrations in general, really.

In the interests of having more discussion than just us talking back and forth endlessly, does anyone have favorite iconic rpg monsters? Like mimics or owlbears or flumphs?

Couatls are the best.
Not that i've ever encountered one, mind you.

[Wiwaxia]

Couatls are the best.
Not that i've ever encountered one, mind you.

In some absurd amount of levels, my current D&D character (a warden) can get an ability that lets him turn into a couatl. If I don't die or the campaign doesn't dissolve first.

In the meantime, I'll have to content myself with turning into winter.


Recently, I've been really into black dragons. Like more so than other dragons. It might be OotS.
Or it might just be their crazy badass horns.

[chimericWilder]

I played a Dragon Disciple in pathfinder last year, before the campaign died. The plan was to, at level 18 i think, turn into a Huge red dragon with like, 6 attacks per round i think. At level 12 or whatever we ended up at, i had a strength at 22 (aswell as a con at 20 and cha at 22). Many attacks, much damage.

[Wiwaxia]

Wiwaxia's terrible ideas, no. 07388:
Chromatic Dragon candies flavored after their breath weapons.
Like
Spicy Red
Minty White
Sour Black
Sparking Blue
Cyanide-Laced Green

[reignonyourparade]

Almond green