A Thread For Random RPG Musings

[tkdguy]

 

[Ragitsu]

Playing D&D "unplugged" (i.e., with no computers and - barring emergencies - no phones) sounds like a great way to decompress and lend the experience a further organic feeling, but I'd prefer to enjoy that time with electric lighting and electric healing/cooling .

[Ragitsu]

Escapism is not when a silver platter is freely given; escapism is having the means and opportunity to pursue a silver platter.

[tkdguy]

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Ok so my plan of adapting certain published characters lead me down a rabbit hole that I’ll leave alone. I am though giving Crane (right now I’m using the five Shaolin styles in this experiment) a +1D6 NND to add to his Nerve Strike. 

[Ninja-Bear]

So is making a HA an NND -Def Resistant Def attack really a +0 Advantage now in 6th? Going from Very Common to Common being +1/2 and then making it NND -1/2 =0.

[Hugh Neilson]

12 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

So is making a HA an NND -Def Resistant Def attack really a +0 Advantage now in 6th? Going from Very Common to Common being +1/2 and then making it NND -1/2 =0.

 

Given how seldom it would do any damage, +0 is probably overpriced, but yes.

[Ninja-Bear]

18 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Given how seldom it would do any damage, +0 is probably overpriced, but yes.

Not sure if I mentioned it but this HA is going to be used with his Nerve Strike giving him a 3D6 NND total.

[Ninja-Bear]

Plus, I’m using Hit Locations and the Cagalla Template from Ninja Hero 4th so they have a 16 CON and 8 PD.

[Old Man]

The Ennie Awards are obviously fixed this year since there seem to be no Hero Games winners.  Shadowdark seems to have been this year's hotness.

 

Quote

1. Silver for Best Adventure – Short Form goes to One-Shot Wonders, Roll & Play Press
2. Gold for Best Adventure – Short Form goes to Eat The Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard
3. Silver for Best Adventure – Long Form goes to Alone Against the Static, Chaosium Inc.
4. Gold for Best Adventure – Long Form goes to Delta Green: God's Teeth, Arc Dream Publishing
5. Silver for Best Aid/Accessory – Digital goes to HEXROLL 2E, Pen, Dice & Paper
6. Gold for Best Aid/Accessory – Digital goes to LegendKeeper, LegendKeeper / Algorific LLC
7. Silver for Best Aid/Accessory- Non-Digital goes to Hexcrawl Toolbox, Games Omnivorous
8. Gold for Best Aid/Accessory- Non-Digital goes to Arkham Investigator's Wallet, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
9. Silver for Best RPG Related Product goes to KOBOLD Guide to Roleplaying, Kobold Press
10. Gold for Best RPG Related Product goes to So You Want to Be a Game Master, Page Street Publishing Co.
11. Silver for Best Community Content goes to The Well of All Fear (Miskatonic Repository)
12. Gold for Best Community Content goes to Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa, Critical Hit Publishing
13. Silver for Best Art, Cover goes to Koriko: A Magical Year, Mousehole Press
14. Gold for Best Art, Cover goes to Eat the Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard
15. Silver for Best Art, Interior goes to Ultraviolet Grasslands 2E, Exalted Funeral Press Gold for Best Art, Interior goes to Eat the Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard
16. Silver for Best Cartography goes to ALIEN RPG – Building Better Worlds, Free League Publishing
17. Gold for Best Cartography goes to Dragonbane Core Set, Free League Publishing
18. Best Monster/Adversary - WE HAVE A TIE! A Tie! Gold for Best Monster/Adversary goes to goes to MONSTROUS, Cloud Curio And Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory Threat Assessment Xenos, Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd
19. Silver for Best Layout & Design goes to CBR+PNK: Augmented, Mythworks
20. Gold for Best Layout & Design goes to Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library
21. Silver for Best Production Values goes to Koriko: A Magical Year, Mousehole Press
22. Gold for Best Production Values goes to Arkham Investigator’s Wallet, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
23. New Judges: Amelia Antrim, Tom Cantwell, Chris Gath, Clayton Notestine, and Elizabeth Jane Van Couvering
24. Silver for Best Online Content goes to Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews
25. Gold for Best Online Content goes to The Alexandrian, Dream Machine Productions
26. Silver for Best Streaming Content goes to William Bailey’s Haunted Mansion; A Call of Cthulhu Adventure - Ballarat Heritage Festival 2024, Tales from Rat City
27. Gold for Best Streaming Content goes to The Party, Swiss Squared
28. Silver for Best Supplement goes to The Griffon’s Saddlebag – Book Two, Hit Point Press
29. Gold for Best Supplement goes to ALIEN RPG – Building Better Worlds, Free League Publishing
30. Silver for Best Free Product goes to Level 1 The Free RPG Day Indie RPG Anthology 2023, 9th Level Games
31. Gold for Best Free Product goes to Rivers of London: The Domestic, Chaosium, Inc.
32. Silver for Best Family Game goes to If I Were A Lich, Man, Hit Point Press
33. Gold for Best Family Game goes to BREAK!! Tabletop RPG, Grey Wizard Press & Naldobean Games
34. Silver for Best Rules goes to Pathfinder Player Core, Paizo Inc
35. Gold for Best Rules goes to Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library
36. Silver for Best Setting goes to The Valley of Flowers, Phantom Mill Games
37. Gold for Best Setting goes to Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide, Paizo Inc
38. Silver for Best Writing goes to Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas, worlds by watt
39. Gold for Best Writing goes to Alone Against the Static, Chaosium Inc.
40. Fan Favorite Publisher is Free League Publishing
41. Silver for Best Game goes to Outgunned, Two Little Mice
42. Gold for Best Game goes to Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library
43. Silver for Product of the Year goes to Outgunned, Two Little Mice
44. Gold for Product of the Year goes to Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library

 

[Cygnia]

[Ninja-Bear]

7 hours ago, Old Man said:

The Ennie Awards are obviously fixed this year since there seem to be no Hero Games winners.  Shadowdark seems to have been this year's hotness.

 

 

Well considering how much she raised on Kickstarter for it and and the two YouTube channels I watch mention her, it’s no surprise for me.

[Old Man]

6 hours ago, Cygnia said:

 

Pretty close to STR 20 in Hero too, although she might have just bought an extra inch of Leaping.

[tkdguy]

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Ah Metagaming my old foe. I just played another session in my brother’s friend game. My youngest son joined and well later in the game he was attacked by a wererat! The thing is that none of us were with him and he never encountered one before. He did manage to make it leave him. So the meta gaming. I was bursting to tell my son what he fought. Even in game after he explained what happened I was “well does my cleric know what it is? Or at least suspected what it was?”. So I was given a chance to roll and rolled a natural 20! I felt ok giving my son information then about a wererat.

[Cygnia]

[Ragitsu]

D&D is about escapism, but, somewhere along the line, a subculture within the hobby that primarily concerns itself with finger-wagging over make-believe morality grew from "small yet amusing" to "large and worryingly judgmental".

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

D&D is about escapism, but, somewhere along the line, a subculture within the hobby that primarily concerns itself with finger-wagging over make-believe morality grew from "small yet amusing" to "large and worryingly judgmental".

 

I am achingly right-on and concerned about equalities and bullying and discrimination.  But there are times I get very frustrated with my tribe.

 

I remember being at SF conventions listening to Larry Nicen argue/debate with Harlan Ellison.  It was fascinating and instructive to hear literate, well-thought through positions argued with some passion through the lens of the literature I read.

 

At the Dublin world on I attended a panel that was explicitly about troublesome issues in the literature.  I did not mind the four or five minutes at the start going over some of the things that people might find it difficult to listen to or discuss.  What was annoying was that they then agreed not to mention most of those issues.  It meant that they could not raise violence against women and girls, rape, torture, kidnap, mental conditioning and a number of other things.  It effectively gutted the point of the panel.

 

A whole section of the community around military SF is effectively disenfranchised and a lot of legitimate right wing topics shadow banned. 

 

I was even present at a panel on how Tolkein influences modern fantasy where three of the four women on the panel said they had not read Lord of the Rings and one claimed to not even watching the movies.  It did not stop them condemning Tolkein as irrelevant to their work, racist and misogynistic. 

 

Noone questioned their presence on the panel and whether they could credibly critique literature they had not even consumed.  I was far more willing to listen to t

The author that had read the books and said she found it difficult to engage with the story without seeing herself represented there, she has become used to that in modern fantasy.

 

I am less enthused about panels where everyone agrees and has the same perspective, I like having my prejudices challenged and explored. I respect the need for safety and trigger warnings but I think in too many cases we are stopping difficult conversations rather than conducting them in a safe environment.

 

Doc

[Ninja-Bear]

@Doc Democracy and what do you honestly think would have happened if someone would dared questioned those women whom disliked Tolkein but never read him? 

[Doc Democracy]

I don't know if you have knowledge of procedure in the House of Lords.  There are no written down rules to apply time limits to contributions or debate.  However, when a Peer begins to go on too long or stray onto topics outside the bounds of the debate, the House begins to murder and there are a few quiet calls to sit down.  That grows over time.

 

It was a British audience.  I would have expected the murmers, and a few tuts and tsks, and some quiet comments about men.  Those would have grown the longer the challenger was on his feet. 

 

Doc

 

PS, ultimately, I don't think the query or challenge would have been accepted or considered, which makes raising it from the audience pretty pointless.

Edited August 6 by Doc Democracy

[Ragitsu]

19 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I am achingly right-on and concerned about equalities and bullying and discrimination.  But there are times I get very frustrated with my tribe.

 

...

 

I am less enthused about panels where everyone agrees and has the same perspective, I like having my prejudices challenged and explored. I respect the need for safety and trigger warnings but I think in too many cases we are stopping difficult conversations rather than conducting them in a safe environment.

 

Doc

 

It's these insinuations of real-world hatred aimed towards people who don't mind irredeemably evil monoliths...typically of humanoid monsters: amusing in isolation yet annoying when accompanied by shaming/shunning/harassment. To me, that makes about as much sense as declaring anyone who plays Paladins to be salt-of-the-earth folk or those who depict benevolent kingdoms to secretly favor monarchies over other forms of government. Ridiculous.

 

 

Edited August 7 by Ragitsu

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

It's these insinuations of real-world hatred aimed towards people who don't mind irredeemably evil monoliths...typically of humanoid monsters: amusing in isolation yet annoying when accompanied by shaming/shunning/harassment. To me, that makes about as much sense as declaring anyone who plays Paladins to be salt-of-the-earth folk or those who depict benevolent kingdoms to secretly favor monarchies over other forms of government. Ridiculous.

 

 

 

Content to believe in evil gods that absolutely would not create mortal beings that were inherently evil (to carry out their evil aims on the mortal plane).  That kind of thing?

[Ragitsu]

21 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Content to believe in evil gods that absolutely would not create mortal beings that were inherently evil (to carry out their evil aims on the mortal plane).  That kind of thing?

 

You can attribute their malevolent actions to a deity, be it through an act of creation (even an indirect one...ref. Corellon Larethian) or a later influence (e.g., a god finds a race and turns them to wickedness). I prefer to keep things simple and say some variation of "They are evil." and leave it at that; if it was good enough for fairy tales, it's good enough for my table or, in lieu of any physical surface, simply my mind. There is still plenty of nuance to explore with humans, if not other inhuman beings.

[Ragitsu]

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Ok, I just rolled a battle of a Super versus two thugs. I reduced  the Normal dice to 6D6 since I knew the thugs were 4 PD.  I rolled great and did 4 Body to the first thug. Here’s the thing, I was setting this battle in Classic Silver Age. I did a whopping amount of Body by accident. This doesn’t sit right with me. (My buddy who taught me never worried about this.) I’m thinking for a Genre rule the Hero shouldn’t have to worry about this.