Tabletop RPG Catch All

Recent issue of the Dungeon World Newsletter linked to this cool town generator: https://lit-refuge-86461.herokuapp.com/

Meet my next PC for an upcoming Rime campaign!

Lady Esme Frey - 500+ year old noble, inflicted with the Curse of Medusa (from my Odyssey of the Dragonlord book) and ....reluctantly... pledging herself as an Oath of Redemption Paladin to Lathander, in exchange for a chance at an eventual cure for her...condition.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/esme-colour.jpg)

Hey, Mike, I saw Roll 20 added some support stuff for Monster of the Week! That's awesome.

https://blog.roll20.net/post/6300847...

Mixolyde wrote:

Hey, Mike, I saw Roll 20 added some support stuff for Monster of the Week! That's awesome.

Yep, Evil Hat Productions have been putting in a bunch of work to add roll20 support to all their lines, which happily includes MotW

I've really just had a brief look at what's in there, but it all seemed really great.

MikeSands wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Hey, Mike, I saw Roll 20 added some support stuff for Monster of the Week! That's awesome.

Yep, Evil Hat Productions have been putting in a bunch of work to add roll20 support to all their lines, which happily includes MotW

I've really just had a brief look at what's in there, but it all seemed really great.

Do you think Amoebic will change your tag to 'Monster of the Week' if I donate another $5 to the site?

Mixolyde wrote:

Do you think Amoebic will change your tag to 'Monster of the Week' if I donate another $5 to the site?

Not sure, but I'm happy with the existing one.

my finished character image for the "rime" campaign i'll be starting soon...

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/esme-final.jpg)

Also, my next collaboration (this time in the form of what feels like a billion maps and room illustrations (20 of each, technically)....due very soon!

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/map-promo-1-alt.jpg)

ALSO... my October daily challange this year is to create 31 cursed objects for D&D (in honour of 2020 being the most cursed of years)... Days 1 and 2 below:

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/1-howling-rose.jpg)
IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/2-cortex-burrowers2.jpg)

3/31

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/3-woodsmans-folly.jpg)

4/31

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/4-geasberry-chews.jpg)

These are very good, Pyxistyx! You're making the rest of us look lazy

pyxistyx wrote:

None of them taste like Gooseberry.

...so they're not entirely without virtues, then.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/5-magebinder-guantlets-1.jpg)

Lovely! Cool idea. The phrase that it has been trained to completely devour the person, but won't drain the last hp is a little confusing. Did you mean it has been trained to not devour its host completely?

The third column has a typo, 'triest'.

i have to get through one of these a day while doing other things. typos are inevitable at this stage. An indesign SUCKS as a spellchecker.

pyxistyx wrote:

i have to get through one of these a day while doing other things. typos are inevitable at this stage. An indesign SUCKS as a spellchecker.

Naturally! Copy editing is what other people are for.

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/6-liber-animatum.jpg)

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/7_-_weeping_skull.jpg)

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/8-ibis-oubliette.jpg)

Still going!

This is turning into a great little creative warm up exercise in the morning

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/9-sepulchral-frame.jpg)

Ok, 20+ years since I last DM/GMed and I backed the Altered Carbon RPG. I have a group ready to go, but now nervous about being a bad DM/GM and they find it boring.(Depression/Anxiety/brain weasels kicking it up) Any advice? Still a new system for me and I am on my first read through of the book.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Ok, 20+ years since I last DM/GMed and I backed the Altered Carbon RPG. I have a group ready to go, but now nervous about being a bad DM/GM and they find it boring.(Depression/Anxiety/brain weasels kicking it up) Any advice? Still a new system for me and I am on my first read through of the book.

Get good players. They take a lot of the pressure off of you. It is an exercise in collaborative storytelling and the players are at least as responsible for the experience as you are.

1000%

If you have good players (hell if you have ONE good player) then you can bounce stuff back and forth with them to great effect usually.

Build off of the PCs backstories and how they act in your sessions to keep them invested. One idea: maybe ask your players in advance to come up with a "contact" or ally. someone they know turn to for information, resources, etc. Let them decide some basic details and then expand on them from there as needed.

Also don't try to bite off too much in one go. Keep it simple to start with. Don't introduce too many NPCs, i find that the hardest thing to keep track of. Save the multi-layered conspiracy stuff and Machiavellian villains till later (then PRETEND you had everything planned that way from the start!)

Take notes! (this is one of those, do as I say, not as i do things )

I have a question that may stray into P&C territory, so apologies in advance.

I am in a Mythic Odysseys of Theros campaign and playing a Satyr Bard.

10, 16, 10, 8, 14, 16

He's got a bit of trickster in him, but is generally good hearted. Nylea is his patron and I am aiming him toward College of Eloquence with an emphasis on non combat resolutions (e.g.: persuasion, performance...).

Anyway, considering the reputations of satyrs, I decided to base is RP on a combination of the following figures from popular culture:

Captain Jack Harkness (Doctor Who)
Klaus Hargraeves (Umbrella Academy)
Freddie Mercury (Queen)
Bill S. Preston (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure)

Considering the above, I have decided to play him as promiscuous and pansexual (though redlining on consent so no Charm Person or Suggestion or Dominate). I have abstracted all of that by saying stuff like "I scan the room to find someone to seduce male or female" to which my DM has generally just chuckled and responded with "roll a persuasion check". It isn't played for laughs though there have been opportunities where the situation has led to unintended comedy.

Considering I am cis male het, is it insensitive for me to play it this way?

pyxistyx wrote:

Also don't try to bite off too much in one go. Keep it simple to start with. Don't introduce too many NPCs, i find that the hardest thing to keep track of. Save the multi-layered conspiracy stuff and Machiavellian villains till later (then PRETEND you had everything planned that way from the start!)

Could not agree more; I see lots of new DMs posting about all the political intrigue and intertwined plot threads and all the rest, and there's so much to learn as a DM already that keeping track of all that stuff is just too much. Outside of the basic aspect of needing to know the game rules well enough to make decisions and keep things moving, there's a lot of Manager of the Game stuff you learn, and it takes time to figure out how to keep players engaged, learn how to do all the improv, run enemies and combats, and all the other little things, and, at some point, trying to weave together some complicated plot is just too many logs on the RPG fire.

Goblins attack a caravan. Rescue some townfolk kidnapped by bandits. Stop the Orc raiders. Go to the tomb and take out the evil necromancer. Sure, they're generic, but they're classics for a reason, and just pulling a few of those out while you're at the start is a great way to ease your way into the DM chair and get yourself overwhelmed with having to fit every encounter into an overarching narrative.

To give an example, reading through the Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign it's very much structured the way Bioware structure their RPGs. (not surprising, given Drew karpyshyn is one of the writers!) Without spoilers, the first tier of the game (which is an epic 1-20 level beast of a campaign) is split down into...

i've tried to keep it vague and generic but, just in case, spoiler tagged...

Spoiler:

1 - literally sent to kill a giant boar,
2 - which sets you off on the adventure by sending you to an oracle, who prophesises that the party are intended for Great Things(tm)
3 - from there, you are given a small base of operations in a smaller town, with its own introductory linear quest and a limited set of NPCs and side quests, most of which relate to point (4).
4 - things open up just a little here and you get the choice of three separate dungeons to explore in whatever order you want, but they are still little self contained events, all of which tie back into the over-arching story but are distinct enough that they could be individual adventures.
5 - THEN, by that point you're funnelled down into some other linear encounters leading to a bigger city, with much more to do and a bunch of cool fun side things, so it opens up into a much more "open world" experience.
6 - .then things keep circling around this sort of pattern, getting more and more open and freeform for player exploration. but there are always bottlenecks to draw them back into the main plot.
repeat until [REALLY COOL STUFF I WANT TO GUSH ABOUT BUT THERE'S NO WAY I WOULD SPOIL THAT FOR ANY POTENTIAL PLAYERS] happens

Paleocon wrote:

Considering I am cis male het, is it insensitive for me to play it this way?

Providing you aren't using it as a means of parodying or mocking LGBTQ folks i don't think the majority of players would blink at this, most people mix up who and what they are playing, i've found.

I guess really it would come down to the others at your table, check that everyone else is comfortable with the level you are playing the character at and tone it down if its making anyone uncomfortable. Don't assume that if people aren't saying anything then they are automatically ok with it though.

pyxistyx wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

Considering I am cis male het, is it insensitive for me to play it this way?

Providing you aren't using it as a means of parodying or mocking LGBTQ folks i don't think the majority of players would blink at this, most people mix up who and what they are playing, i've found.

I guess really it would come down to the others at your table, check that everyone else is comfortable with the level you are playing the character at and tone it down if its making anyone uncomfortable. Don't assume that if people aren't saying anything then they are automatically ok with it though.

Thanks. That was kind of how I was thinking. I figure that there are going to be aspects of the character's personality that are just going to be funny by nature of the fact that he is impulsive and INT is his dump stat, but I am being very careful to ensure that his sexual preference is not the punchline. If anything, the comedy has come at the expense of straightlaced pc's and npc's so far.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Ok, 20+ years since I last DM/GMed and I backed the Altered Carbon RPG. I have a group ready to go, but now nervous about being a bad DM/GM and they find it boring.(Depression/Anxiety/brain weasels kicking it up) Any advice? Still a new system for me and I am on my first read through of the book.

In addition to what people’ve already said, lots of good stuff here: Gamemastery 101.

pyxistyx wrote:

To give an example, reading through the Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign it's very much structured the way Bioware structure their RPGs. (not surprising, given Drew karpyshyn is one of the writers!) Without spoilers, the first tier of the game (which is an epic 1-20 level beast of a campaign) is split down into...

i've tried to keep it vague and generic but, just in case, spoiler tagged...

Spoiler:

1 - literally sent to kill a giant boar,
2 - which sets you off on the adventure by sending you to an oracle, who prophesises that the party are intended for Great Things(tm)
3 - from there, you are given a small base of operations in a smaller town, with its own introductory linear quest and a limited set of NPCs and side quests, most of which relate to point (4).
4 - things open up just a little here and you get the choice of three separate dungeons to explore in whatever order you want, but they are still little self contained events, all of which tie back into the over-arching story but are distinct enough that they could be individual adventures.
5 - THEN, by that point you're funnelled down into some other linear encounters leading to a bigger city, with much more to do and a bunch of cool fun side things, so it opens up into a much more "open world" experience.
6 - .then things keep circling around this sort of pattern, getting more and more open and freeform for player exploration. but there are always bottlenecks to draw them back into the main plot.
repeat until [REALLY COOL STUFF I WANT TO GUSH ABOUT BUT THERE'S NO WAY I WOULD SPOIL THAT FOR ANY POTENTIAL PLAYERS] happens

Paleocon wrote:

Considering I am cis male het, is it insensitive for me to play it this way?

Providing you aren't using it as a means of parodying or mocking LGBTQ folks i don't think the majority of players would blink at this, most people mix up who and what they are playing, i've found.

I guess really it would come down to the others at your table, check that everyone else is comfortable with the level you are playing the character at and tone it down if its making anyone uncomfortable. Don't assume that if people aren't saying anything then they are automatically ok with it though.

Dang that spoiler is easily the set up for a years long campaign.

Rainsmercy wrote:

Ok, 20+ years since I last DM/GMed and I backed the Altered Carbon RPG. I have a group ready to go, but now nervous about being a bad DM/GM and they find it boring.(Depression/Anxiety/brain weasels kicking it up) Any advice? Still a new system for me and I am on my first read through of the book.

Remember you are just one player, it's the responsibility of the whole group to make it fun.

Take it easy and start simple.

Expect to make mistakes with the rules and story. Get everyone ready to fix these as needed, perhaps with retcons.