All Things Roleplaying!

[Mr. Pooka]

There are about 75 topics that come to mind for what I was thinking about this thread! I have a whole bunch of things I want to ask and chat about on the topic of Roleplaying that I keep sort of asking all over the place... I also figured this would be a good spot to trade information on current RP stuff, ask for questions, reviews, opinions and more! We've got a couple character sharing areas but I just wanted to chat about all the other bits!

What do you Roleplaying game to you like to use? I've played Dungeons and Dragons since I was a very young kid. I was babysitting for some of my parents friends and as a tip/gift one time they gave me a couple of RP books that they loved but didn't have time to play anymore. It was the original Red Box and Blue Box along with some character sheets and I became addicted. I was already becoming a voracious reader of fantasy at the time and was in love with Chose your own Adventure books as well as every bit of fantasy I could find. I ran myself through games and learned to everything inside and out! Now this was before the internet and there was literally no stores devoted to roleplaying especially in my area. Family did gift me some books (like the Monster Manual too... there was a second edition version of this game? omg, cool! I've also got this book memorized.) and occasional I'd find a Dragon Magazine in the odd corner-store and they were like finding dragon treasure hoards! My mind was expanded after I joined an RP club in junior high-school and started to learn about a lot of the other games out there...

I've tried a lot of different games but mainly we play Dungeons and Dragons (specifically using Pathfinder rules) and White Wolf games. There are several other games's we've adapted with Pathfinder rules, like Rifts (and other various Palladium games). We've also been playing them for so many years we've got lots of our various own house rules, which is another whole topic!

I also have a bunch of D&D 5e books but use them with Pathfinder... Although I don't use it (we've got to many games built with rules we like to switch) I'd highly recommend it as a starter point these days. It super easy to get into, fairly rules lite and it is literally everywhere now.

There are a few other games from other systems that I really love to but I just convert things to pathfinder again, (-8 ...Lamentations of the Flame Princess for example, is almost always super cool stuff that swims against the stream of standard RPGs.

I think I should post a few other things in individual posts before I create a wall of text, (-8

[Mr. Pooka]

D&D 5E comments and questions!

Has anyone read or played Ghosts of Salt Marsh? or are planning on getting a copy? I own some of the original adventures that are reprinted here... This one is sort of a double topic... first off I'm surprised that they main adventure book this year is just reprinted adventures. I thought this would make a better side book like Tales of the Yawning portal. ...but I was super happy to see some Greyhawk for 5E but I was really hoping for a tour guide sort of book like Storm King's Thunder (one of the best 5E games hands down! and a great way to see Faerun!) but really there wasn't much in this area... It'll be a long way off before we play this one (I think?) but it was only kind of meh in my first read over.

Second off, I'm super fascinated at how D&D is a force of nature at the moment and they way they put out books with so much fanfare and support is pretty cool but sometimes a bit weird and overwhelming for someone like me! Like I mentioned above, finding the odd Dragon Magazine in a shop was a unique treat for me vs. the insane levels of previews, celebrity guests, major announcements, 17 social media events, live interviews, 3rd party tie in books before the main book hits, targeted internet adds... all for ONE BOOK! wah?! Is this cool for you? Does it build excitement for the book? Do you feel you have to play it before you see spoilers? (which is now a thing now!) ...I've got feelings about this, I just don't know what they are really, (-8

I really really loved running Storm Kings Thunder! It was pretty amazing though I did have to mod it a bit. The same way I'm modding Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Waterdeep dragon heist. Without spoilers there is another odd direction that these 5E super adventures are going in that I find super super weird. All of the newest adventures are being built for replay-ability and intentionally having a ton of content that is not intended to be used except on multiple playthroughs.
I totally don't get this. I must be in the minority of this one though because the internet is full of people talking about playing the same game over and over and then watching other groups play it over and over on youtube and this just boggles my mind? I mean I am interested in hearing how someones game went in comparison to one I played or ran, but who wants to redo the same thing over and over, even if just slightly different? This feels more like boring video game grinding then telling a story to me...

A huge part of roleplaying to me is the story. the canon. things happen and they matter. Once I run a major Forgotten Realms Game its happened and its done. Playing it again is just... weird to me.

[Mr. Pooka]

Also, if anyone wants an opinion or review of any particular book or series of adventures this would be a good place to ask, (-8 We've played tons and tons of them and between some of our other stalkers you'll prob get a pretty good idea! ...at least in opinion of course, (-8 that's the thing with reviews and with RPG games there are tons of more variables then say a movie because adventures can be so influenced by the group playing, the Storyteller/Game master etc...

For example Pooka and I really loved the Xcrawl setting (3, 3.5 and then pathfinder rules) and have played almost every game published. Every game written my the core author is at least very good, usually very awesome. There were a few written by guest authors and they are all over the map... (Xcrawl is a modern what if world where Rome conquered America and televised dungeons crawls are the greatest viewing pleasure of the world. Its got some very cool setting backgrounds and a fun world in general.) There was one adventure not written by the creator called the IndyCrawl. It was sooooooo bad, ignored the setting in general and just plain sucked. ...but I ran it as written instead of changing anything just to see what the characters would do. It became a memorable game in that our party mostly gave up and refused to play the game creating its own cool role-playing opportunities! (Xcrawl is much like a professional sport... well deathsport... so this was the equivalent of a football team showing their disgust with new rules by just quitting part way through the game and walking out.)

another good note for any kind of reviews is if you've just read the book or actually played it. Waaaaay back when, I got Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and was super excited. The author was on fire, the Temple of Elemental Evil was one the best games ever written and we were just getting into 3rd edition D&D. At first glance the game looked ok but with the new rules and more thorough play it was one of the most boring slogs ever. The story was thin and forgettable and even part way through it didn't feel like a fun adventure, it felt like a bunch of math based tunnels where you just knew that every hallway was just slightly tougher than the last one, everyone had the same boring magic items, and really math. math math math. Sad and boring. You'll probably see this book popping up a lot in the near future (almost 20th anniversary and 5E just did Greyhawk) and I think you'll see only two kinds of reviews. "This is one of the greatest books ever" or "This is one of the most boring books ever". probably nothing in the middle. I think a lot of this has to do with who just owns this book and its really big and peppered with hints of nostalgia vs who has really played it. (or maybe it's the difference in what you think ADVENTURE means? If it means making cool characters doing heroic things and defeating devious monsters and exciting challenges then this book might not be for you. If Adventure means resting on schedule, collecting 7000 +1 swords to sell at the market in town that will disappear into the economy, fight monsters who are just an exact percentage of slightly weaker than you, disabling traps that for some reason are all just slightly tougher as you go down the dungeon so really you are just all making the same roll DC the whole game then this might be for you.)

[Phoenix Stardancer]

I play/run mostly Pathfinder. I am mostly looking at how to convert a few systems to Pathfinder as I know the rules best and just need it to work a certain way. I have also run Cryptworld/

I myself have played Earthdawn, D&D, White Wolf, and a few others I would have to look up to recall exact names.

How did you translate Rifts? I have wanted to do a few, but always groan at converting it

[Mr. Pooka]

Also also!

How do you roleplay? Around a table with friends? one on one with a friend/partner? online, play by post, chat, text, discord, skype, roll20 or similar? Do you like the way you do it or is it your only option?

I've been roleplaying since before the internet so I started out and still prefer face to face table top roleplaying. I did a little play by post a zillion years ago but it never went anywhere. I'd love some feedback on this one, especially if you've got comparisons, like if you'd done both tabletop and online.

I really really want to so some play by posts here but seem to have trouble getting something going... timing, inspiration, overthinking...

[Phoenix Stardancer]

Timing seems to sink a lot on here. I play mostly one on one now or solo as I lost my group when I moved

[PookaWitch]

We tried some translations of RIFTS that just didn't work right with the other systems because we were mashing together the rifts characters with our other D&D characters.
So I came up with the idea that during the attack on Tolkien that the Coalition wrecked some sort of magic that caused a paradox effect. This made basically the rules of reality shift and classes themselves adjusted/changed. But I also worked on making some prestige classes based on some Rifts classes. So previous Psi-Nullifiers became psions with a homebrew nullifier class I created.
For megadamage we have it kinda like adamantine, it gets through pretty much any hardness. Megadamage armor has some pretty big damage reduction, only bypassed by megadamage weapons. Some fixed up home-brew races. Some translated nearly exactly from the books with some tweaking, etc.

It's a bit of hit and miss, a a little bit of playtesting, and nothing static. But that's basically it.

Anyhow, paradox effect, things re-worked, many things aren't the same as they were, some are more powerful, etc. Our home game doesn't really care about game balance though, so it's fun to try and mix and match and figure out what we're doing character by character. XD

[Phoenix Stardancer]

Sounds nice Pooka and nice to hear. I was thinking of translating some of White Wolf to Pathfinder as I think they could really enchance the vampires and weres to make them really stand out as NPCs or enemies.

[Mr. Pooka]

...a few more Rifts notes!

One of the super biggest things you need to know about my game rules is that I like Roleplaying. Capitol R, and not rollplaying. The story is the thing and the rules are just there to provide a more realistic challenge. That being said I totally loathe pathfinder's obsession with 'game balance.' Now I love the pathfinder game, just this one thing and its a totally meta thing.

Now that's not a totally off topic rant. Rifts is often accused of having crazy power creeps and wildly unbalanced game rules. as much as I find the system to clunky and time consuming to actually use, I LOVE the realistic nature of no game balance. I'll go into detail on that in another post.

So, that being said I've converted a lot of the game almost strait up. Juicers would have vast bonuses that come at a roleplaying cost of lifespan. Dragons are way more powerful than humans, no ordinary human is going to win a fist fight with a Glitter Boy. We've written up the stats and bonuses for the races we need and often I just use what's right in the book with only a little tweaking. For example I'm actually currently playing an Atlantean Monster Hunter in our current game (sort of an NPC who grew his own life... and now has a character sheet.) I just used the enhanced stats from the rifts book and gave him all or most of the same bonuses. Easy peasy. I've also chosen all of his tattoos (part of his class) and mostly done the same thing. Really it works pretty seamlessly with only a few tiny quirks to iron out. Basically he's built like a Ranger with magic tattoos... he doesn't even have all the tattoos he should have because he's trapped on a world where he can't get them... like playing a wizard who stopped getting spells at level 12 but still just kept going up in wizard. Now is this race and class balanced to fit a pathfinder point system? Ha, not even close. Does anyone in the game notice or care? nope. It's all about the story and the rules are secondary to me.

Now when we do need rules, we've either created ones that we need (like the High Tech Damage reduction to mimic Mega Damage... which is pretty sweet and works nice. I mean you can train for 100 years with a long sword but you are still going to spend all day chopping away at a tank and maybe scratch the paint of you are lucky.). We've also tinkered with various race stats as we've needed them (there's quite a few dog boys in our games for example, they've got some conversions to work with dreamscarred presses psioncs system much like how they did their psychic races. Some have different bonuses depending on dog species just like the books. not balanced, just different. No one trains a toy poodle to be a guard dog, a bloodhound smells better than a Rottweiler, a greyhound is faster than a pug. Play what you wanna play, don't pick one because its more powerful.)

For most firearms rules I use Dragonstar as my base system. Dragonstar was an awesome 3rd edition space fantasy game with a bunch of supplements. It's firearms rules are dangerous and deadly and I think that is what they should be. Firearms rules in pathfinder are kind of stupid and not at all even close to realistic but this comes back to trying to make some sort of game balance. ...when people start shooting guns using pathfinder rules everyone just treats the like weaker bows and arrows, ignoring every time they get hit like somehow the characters are just taking 75 grazing shots. When people start shooting guns using the Dragonstar game characters run or take cover... and that feels like a firefight. Is it fair that a machine gun is more dangerous than a longsword? Ha, nope of course not. but its the right way to go.

We follow the same concept with characters, including Rifts conversions. We create characters to roleplay and not to win some sort of game. I wouldn't play with people who just dump everything for the most powerful thing. This concept makes using Rifts stuff with Pathfinder way way easier and smoother.

[Phoenix Stardancer]

I agree Role Play can lead to a huge fun things! I had a player choose to climb up a building and then jump down from the roof to attack. Same player later jumped on the back of a wyvern after climbing above its strafing runs. He then had fun hanging on while attacking it. I did more of a epic battle description at that point as it was awesomely unique. Once he killed it he then buried it and threatened the other players who wanted to chop it up saying they had to honor such a grand opponent. He then adopted her brand new hatchling as he had not realized she had an egg.

I later had a paladin choose to walk up to a fort full of demons and undead. He chose to play it off as spreading his faith. They were so stunned he was able to walk in all while talking. After an excellent speech I had him roll and I rolled. He beat mine so he managed to persuade the whole fort to join his faith. So suddenly I had to deal with a bunch of reformed Demon and undead NPCs.

I found you only get those when you give players the freedom to improvise things on the fly. I use a lot of rules, but I also make them up on the fly for players who need to roll a die to determine success (I've had a couple of those)

[Mr. Pooka]

I had a bit of a slow start today because I got stuck reading Acquisitions Incorporated. I'm not familiar with the source material (though I've heard about it in passing and there is a LOT of it) but I've been really excited about the concept of this book and I have some definite plans to use it in some of our games! It kind of looks like a blast atm, (-8 and at first glance looks super promising and I've already got some characters who were made for this (like 20 years before it was a thing but now is their time to shine!)

Has anyone else picked this up or is planning to? ...just curious if anyone else is interested in this one, (-8

[Phoenix Stardancer]

I had not heard of it before. Who created it?

[Mr. Pooka]

I'm not sure which direction the licencing goes (WOTC or Penny Arcade) but it is apparently based on a very popular podcast/live event group (from before podcasts were a thing really). I'd heard about it in passing over the years never watched or knew anything about it until the advertising for this book. It's a 5e setting/faction book based mostly in Forgotten Realms that uses a slightly comedy version of a Corporation as the basis for sending out adventurers. We've got a few games/characters who already delved into this sort of thing (like Pooka's Tami, who already runs a huge trading empire in the Realms or Oliver and Zena who started a shipping company in Oerth or even Candor and Zez who twisted a Dark Sun game into hiring others to go on the adventures while they ran a restaurant in Tyr, lol.) and I think there is a lot of fun to be had with the concept, (-8 The only bad feedback I've seen is the resistance to just how comedic it is... but I think it can be tempered in order to play it in a more serious way (which would work for us... funny perhaps, but not turning the whole game into a strait up comedy) but for anyone without their own canon setting a pure comedy could be a blast too, (-8




dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/acqinc


www.acq-inc.com/

[Hedge]

the only RPing I did was a text-based multiuser game. Harper's Tale, a Pern-themed MOO based on the "Dragonriders of Pern" books by Anne McCaffrey.

I still do keep one character alive, although I've not had much time to play. I loved the books. Read them all, then passed them on to another Pern fanatic!

[Mr. Pooka]

Oh I think I've heard of that! (Harper's Tale). I've read a few Pern books but Pooka read most of them and is also a super fan, (-8 ...I think there is a hardcover Pern source-book around here somewhere... I remember there being recipes in it, (-8