General tabletop RPG discussion

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Aaron

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I decided to make a "general" RPG thread where we can discuss all the non major RPGs that already have threads in, and general RPG news and such.

I just came back from my first Alien RPG session and wanted to share my feelings for it. After this one session I can say that we all had a thoroughly good time, though there were a couple of issues.

The game system itself is very attuned to the Alien "world" or atmosphere, especially the stress/panic system. They did their homework on this one. You can play this in three ways basically. You can "homebrew" it by just creating your own adventure. Then there are two other modes. One is basically just a "one-off" mode where you have a limited scenario with set characters (basically just like one of the films), then there is a campaign mode, which is a string of one-offs which are tied together into a general narrative. We played one of the pre-made one-offs, but that can become the first part of a narrative.

Characters are interesting, and in addition to regular combat and skill stats, you also have a buddy and a rival. Furthermore, everyone also gets a personal objective that only they (and the DM) know (at least at first). My personal objective was that I was actually an android pretending to be human. I can let them know, but I shouldn't, though if I take damage and "bleed white" the game is up. Once people know I'm an android my Strength and Dex stats shoot up.

Combat is also good, if you roll more than one "success" on a hit roll, you can choose from a number of things for the extra dice to do, from plain old extra damage, to push back, to pin, to switching initiative places and more. The more successes you roll, the more you can chose.

I only saw two drawbacks, and to be honest, they are maybe more group related than game mechanic related. The first is that we split the group (of five) up at the start (we were investigating a derelict ship) with three boarding the ship and two on our. This meant that the two on our ship did very little and were a bit left out. We decided from the next session that the two would join us. The second one was the pre-arranged rivalries. One of the players took this maybe a bit too far, and as he was the captain, he overrode everything that his "rival" suggested. Maybe taking the rivalry a bit too literally. Again, maybe not quite mechanic related.

Anyway, if you like RPGs and like the Alien setting, definitely give this a look.
 
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Szeth

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About to start a call of cthulu campaign Sunday. Hired a local DM so I don’t have to be the forever DM. Pretty pumped
 
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Urlithani

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About to start a call of cthulu campaign Sunday. Hired a local DM so I don’t have to be the forever DM. Pretty pumped
This is about where I'm at. It went from "I would never hire someone to be the DM of a game. That's just ridiculous." to "Yeah I can swing $50 a week for someone else to run this shit so I can be entertained."
 
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Arden

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So what fantasy ttrpgs are people playing these days? It's been a while since I played DnD 5e, but I've been hearing some crazy shit recently and it seems like people are kind of turned off by some of the recent changes. Pathfinder 2? I've heard good things but never played it. Anything else on the market really making waves?

Full disclosure, I finally finished my own fantasy ttrpg and I'm trying to get a feel for what I'd be up against trying to publish.
 
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Szeth

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This is about where I'm at. It went from "I would never hire someone to be the DM of a game. That's just ridiculous." to "Yeah I can swing $50 a week for someone else to run this shit so I can be entertained."
We’re starting once a month, as one of our players is a friend who moved a few hours away… but we’re going to go bi weekly if we like the guy.
 
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Qhue

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So what fantasy ttrpgs are people playing these days? It's been a while since I played DnD 5e, but I've been hearing some crazy shit recently and it seems like people are kind of turned off by some of the recent changes. Pathfinder 2? I've heard good things but never played it. Anything else on the market really making waves?

Full disclosure, I finally finished my own fantasy ttrpg and I'm trying to get a feel for what I'd be up against trying to publish.

I'm running Earthdawn. It was always my preferred setting / system following years of AD&D/D&D 2nd edition. Mostly because it gives people a more linear upgrade scheme that they can use to shape their characters while sticking with a given archetype fantasy and still uses all the funny shaped dice.
 
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Arden

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I'm running Earthdawn. It was always my preferred setting / system following years of AD&D/D&D 2nd edition. Mostly because it gives people a more linear upgrade scheme that they can use to shape their characters while sticking with a given archetype fantasy and still uses all the funny shaped dice.

Haven't played ED in more than 20 years, but I remember liking a lot about the system.
 

FSHSchmo

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So what fantasy ttrpgs are people playing these days? It's been a while since I played DnD 5e, but I've been hearing some crazy shit recently and it seems like people are kind of turned off by some of the recent changes. Pathfinder 2? I've heard good things but never played it. Anything else on the market really making waves?

Full disclosure, I finally finished my own fantasy ttrpg and I'm trying to get a feel for what I'd be up against trying to publish.
I am running OoTA 5e on Sundays and getting ready to start The One Ring 2e on Sundays AM. Really looking forward to ToR since I am writing the story.
 
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Chanur

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About to start a call of cthulu campaign Sunday. Hired a local DM so I don’t have to be the forever DM. Pretty pumped

Would love to play some sword and sorcery based RPGs.
 

Pancreas

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So what fantasy ttrpgs are people playing these days? It's been a while since I played DnD 5e, but I've been hearing some crazy shit recently and it seems like people are kind of turned off by some of the recent changes. Pathfinder 2? I've heard good things but never played it. Anything else on the market really making waves?

Full disclosure, I finally finished my own fantasy ttrpg and I'm trying to get a feel for what I'd be up against trying to publish.
I have a DND 5e group of old friends that plays on roll20. That's been going every other week for a long time. We rotate through DMs and campaigns. Had like 7 or 8 campaigns over the years.

I have a local retro console video game and indoor mini golf place that does table top Tuesdays. The place is closed and gets used for any table top gaming people want to do. Lots of custom systems, one page rule one shots, or lesser run stuff. Runs in a every other week fashion to give people a chance to be in multiple campaigns.

Currently playing pulp cthulu and blades in the dark.

As for what you're up against? It's basically 5E and then everything else. Not to discourage you but there are enough systems out there that chances are there is something close to whatever you are putting out. But most of the time it never got enough traction to become known.

It seems like right now, before any new players are even capable of playing a new system they have to burn out on 5e first.
 
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Arden

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I have a DND 5e group of old friends that plays on roll20. That's been going every other week for a long time. We rotate through DMs and campaigns. Had like 7 or 8 campaigns over the years.

I have a local retro console video game and indoor mini golf place that does table top Tuesdays. The place is closed and gets used for any table top gaming people want to do. Lots of custom systems, one page rule one shots, or lesser run stuff. Runs in a every other week fashion to give people a chance to be in multiple campaigns.

Currently playing pulp cthulu and blades in the dark.

As for what you're up against? It's basically 5E and then everything else. Not to discourage you but there are enough systems out there that chances are there is something close to whatever you are putting out. But most of the time it never got enough traction to become known.

It seems like right now, before any new players are even capable of playing a new system they have to burn out on 5e first.

Base DnD 5e is honestly a great system, especially for beginning RPers. I'm talking about the ~2015 core book stuff. I've heard some bad things about the direction they are headed, but tbh I don't know how much of that is true, as I've spent the last 5 years locked away with my own system and I haven't been keeping up with 5e changes.

The guys testing my system are pushing me to try and publish, and I was just curious what the people on this board were playing. Like you mentioned, there are hundreds of systems already out there, and most don't make it far. I've scanned through a lot of what is out there and I haven't found anything that checks all the boxes my system does, but that doesn't mean I haven't missed a system- because I definitely haven't read all of them. Regardless of what's already out there, I think there's room for the right system to succeed, but the huge graveyard of failed and abandoned systems definitely makes it discouraging to try.

On the other hand, it's not just what your system does, but it's how your system does it- how it puts everything together, how it organizes the data, etc. There's also a "right system, right time" component that you can't control that can doom your system or help it to succeed.

Anyway, as you can tell, I've been back and forth on trying to publish for a long time.
 
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Srathor

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I used to love heros system Big blue book and Fantasy hero. (Champions) Very crunchy. Takes hours to make a toon type. But sadly adulting and friends splitting up over the years killed the gaming group. (WoW didn't help)

Played some Decsent and that was fun but it died after like 3 games as the last few folks moved out of state. Ahh well.
 

Szeth

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Call ended up being great. Did a 4 hour session, and thoroughly enjoyed the GM. Kinda nice having none of the group of friends having any stress about prep!
 
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Qhue

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Haven't played ED in more than 20 years, but I remember liking a lot about the system.

I've also taken some extreme liberties with the setting. The people that currently have the EarthDawn license used the system as a basis for a spinoff called '1879' which is basically Shadowrun but steampunk. I regard most of what they did officially as crap but their core premise had promise and so I've been running with that setting only using full Earthdawn rules with setting modifications and new Archetypes I built. We had used Roll20 to play D&D for a couple years but I found it too confining and migrated over to Foundry for this game and I couldn't be happier with the results.

Group Color Swap4.png


Screenshot 2022-08-12 193240.jpg
 
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Arden

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I've also taken some extreme liberties with the setting. The people that currently have the EarthDawn license used the system as a basis for a spinoff called '1879' which is basically Shadowrun but steampunk. I regard most of what they did officially as crap but their core premise had promise and so I've been running with that setting only using full Earthdawn rules with setting modifications and new Archetypes I built. We had used Roll20 to play D&D for a couple years but I found it too confining and migrated over to Foundry for this game and I couldn't be happier with the results.

View attachment 428231

View attachment 428232

I converted SR 2nd edition to my system. Worked out pretty well.

Foundry significantly better than roll20? I'm about to start up a campaign and I've been contemplating shifting to Foundry
 

Qhue

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You need to make the switch. The interface is more fluid and there are so many more things you can do in Foundry and the add-ons and system rules that people create take it to a whole new level. If you are unwilling to run a server yourself, home machine or otherwise, then The Forge is a very affordable service that takes care of all that back end stuff including providing an easy way to load / update addons. Its great both for niche systems like this (with a developer supporting the system) but the D&D stuff is next-level cool. They have systems that do amazing things for 5e and player immersion.
 
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Chanur

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A buddy I used to game with has been involved with this gaming start up company the last couple years. They just released a Kickstarter for a new core system that is not like 5E and is supposed to be very flexible.


 

Grabbit Allworth

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I am running OoTA 5e on Sundays and getting ready to start The One Ring 2e on Sundays AM. Really looking forward to ToR since I am writing the story.
How do you like OoTA?

I've been running a campaign that is almost exclusively in the Underdark for the past 11 months and I read that campaign to mine it for potential ideas, but I found it almost entirely useless.
 

Harshaw

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Nostalgia bomb.

Palladium Books has announced they are re-releasing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, the classic tabletop RPG featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The "remastered" version of the game will feature a new cover by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Peter Laird along with new artwork presented fully in color. The sourcebooks will also feature never-before-seen info and tributes, including archival information provided by Laird and fellow TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman, along with comics creator Sophie Campbell and Freddie E. Williams II.