Tabletop RPG Catch All

Minotaar shared this with me and I think it is worth sharing with others. The idea of using a one-shot mid-campaign to give players an added perspective to the world has a lot of promise for world building and NPC background, but also potentially for player backstory. As it is a one-shot, you can easily tell a Rogue One type story where they all die but are part of a bigger endeavor in the past that has implications on the current campaign. Could work for the full party or on an evening where a couple players are missing.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDBehindTh...

That's something I've been doing in my campaign, and I highly recommend it.

The first time the party had just found a clue pointing them towards a lost treasure hoard, so I ran a one-shot (actually ended up being a 3-shot, I greatly underestimate how long it takes my players to do anything) which set up how the treasure came to be there. That adventure had a pretty sinister end, with all of their characters getting either killed or enthralled by a cursed artifact, so when the main party finally went after the treasure I was able to use their one-shot characters as villains.

More recently, I ran another 3-shot set much further in the past, to flesh out a different region of the world and to help introduce an evil organization that has been active in the world for a long time.

Has anyone run across a "Bachelor/Bachelorette" style TTRPG?

The reason I'm asking is that my DnD group got this silly idea in their head to do a version of The Bachelor where a Dragon is the creature looking for love and a bunch of monsters are the contestants. I was wondering if there was already a game out there I could draw rules from and just adapt to this scenario. Otherwise I may just have to create one.

EbonyPegasus wrote:

Has anyone run across a "Bachelor/Bachelorette" style TTRPG?

The reason I'm asking is that my DnD group got this silly idea in their head to do a version of The Bachelor where a Dragon is the creature looking for love and a bunch of monsters are the contestants. I was wondering if there was already a game out there I could draw rules from and just adapt to this scenario. Otherwise I may just have to create one.

In fact a friend of mine wrote one that is available for FREE: True Love Match

It's been run at a few conventions locally, with great drama and emotion from what I heard (I did not play it myself).

MikeSands wrote:
EbonyPegasus wrote:

Has anyone run across a "Bachelor/Bachelorette" style TTRPG?

The reason I'm asking is that my DnD group got this silly idea in their head to do a version of The Bachelor where a Dragon is the creature looking for love and a bunch of monsters are the contestants. I was wondering if there was already a game out there I could draw rules from and just adapt to this scenario. Otherwise I may just have to create one.

In fact a friend of mine wrote one that is available for FREE: True Love Match

It's been run at a few conventions locally, with great drama and emotion from what I heard (I did not play it myself).

Very interesting! Thanks so much! I may tinker with this a bit and see if I come up with anything

Pathfinder 2e comes out in a few weeks at Gen Con. I got my books (Paizo started shipping in early July), and I’m looking forward to reading through them and running a one-shot for my group to see if we want to convert from 5e.

I’ve noticed across sites discussions whether PF2 is Paizo’s 4e. I think that’s fair, but I think PF2 tries to avoid 4e’s missteps. Still, my biggest concern is 4e klaxons will go off, and people in my group won’t give it a fair shake.

kenada wrote:

Pathfinder 2e comes out in a few weeks at Gen Con...

Do you know a decent (non-Paizo) site that does a decent job of explaining what has changed to make Pf2E different?

-BEP

I recall seeing a blog for Roll20 last year where they listed what games were being played in the platform, and more than 60% were 5e D&D, with no other game breaking 10% or so. The real challenge for Pathfinder 2e is just finding a way to get enough people to even notice; 5e has been insanely successful, and, while I'm very much in the "5e is the best TTRPG I've every played" camp, I'm really, really curious to see how Pathfinder is going to try to differentiate itself and convince people to switch over. I'll probably pick up the rules our of curiosity, but they've got a really tough road at this point.

I don’t think Paizo is trying to capture the top spot again. Pathfinder 2e is targeted at people who want more character customization and higher powered fantasy. PF2, for example, intentionally eschews bounded accuracy because it’s intended that higher level characters just destroy lower level opponents.

We’re looking at switching because there are some things that 5e doesn’t do well (for us, anyway). It doesn’t do the kind* of sandbox game I am running very well. Combat in 5e is also pretty same-y and boring. Combat in PF2 builds on the revised action economy from Pathfinder Unchained (which my group liked), and almost every monster can do more than just move and attack.

bepnewt wrote:

Do you know a decent (non-Paizo) site that does a decent job of explaining what has changed to make Pf2E different?

This post on reddit does a pretty good job of touching on the core mechanical differences from 5e. It doesn’t go into character customization, which is where Paizo is trying to differentiate. In PF2, characters are customized with feats (ancestry, general, skill, and class feats). It’s one a few things that are reminding people of 4e.

--
* I’m using Justin Alexander’s hexcrawl procedure. My random ‘encounter’ tables feature a range of CRs, and dungeons are populated based on what makes sense for the world rather than what would offer a level appropriate challenge.

When my PCs encounter something that is too challenging, it’s more difficult for them to get stronger and come back later to defeat it because bounded accuracy is designed to keep those threats relevant for longer. We had a couple of situations like than when I ran Kingmaker in PF1. I think players liked being able to go back and get their revenge on something that caused them trouble or killed one of them (or their allies).

So Fiasco is being reformatted to lower the barrier of entry. They are taking away dice rolls and index cards and making things into decks. Take a look at the kickstarter. It was always a pretty low point of entry IMO. It looks pretty and certainly looks to make things easier, but the downside is instead of just pulling up a PDF of a new playset you will have to buy a playset deck. Or I suppose you could make one, but then why not play original fiasco.

The PF2 one-shot went well. I think customization is going to be popular with my players. They also seemed to really like the combat. Monsters were interesting and fun. There was a zombie hulk that pelted the party with corpses and then beat the barbarian to death with its own arm. I didn’t get to do quite as much (urban)crawling as I had hoped, but I think the exploration stuff is going to work fine once I adapt the procedure I’m using now.

Up next is converting my homebrew setting (a bit of work, but it shouldn’t be too bad), and then we can discuss whether to retcon the current campaign or do a soft reboot.

I've spent half the morning reading this, and absolutely loving it. It's a post helping GMs who want to be more inclusive regarding gender and sexuality at the table make play more inclusive. It's absolutely invaluable, and has me itching to run a new D&D campaign.

It's great. I've made sure to include a link to it in the supplement I just finished (and I have a section in the alpha version of the RPG i made for my degree show dedicated to it as well, with the author's blessing).

SPEAKING OF THE SUPPLEMENT I FINISHED PLUGPLUGLPUG...

Rosna's Vault - A Magic Item Store For Your Urban Adventures

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/store-rosna-vault-frontcover.jpg)

pyxistyx wrote:

It's great. I've made sure to include a link to it in the supplement I just finished (and I have a section in the alpha version of the RPG i made for my degree show dedicated to it as well, with the author's blessing).

SPEAKING OF THE SUPPLEMENT I FINISHED PLUGPLUGLPUG...

Rosna's Vault - A Magic Item Store For Your Urban Adventures

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/store-rosna-vault-frontcover.jpg)

BOUGHT. I've been looking for a short adventure to run with my daughters, and this is 100% perfect.

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Added a new thing to the DMs Guild! Another of my Pay What you Want mini dungeons

Legacy of the Mechanist.

"Beneath the rubble of the River District’s reconstruction zones, the legacy of one of Neverwinter’s more...eccentric mages still waits to be re-discovered..."

A short post-Phandelver dungeon for levels 5-6

This is the second in a series of quick mini-dungeons and encounters, all based around the “mysterious map” discovered in the lair of Mormesk the wraith, during the finale of The Mines of Phandelver. Legacy of the Mechanist is a short underground one-session dungeon, designed to work on it’s own, or to act as a potential link allowing the PCs to move from “Mines of Phandelver” directly into “The Lost Laboratory of Kwalish”.

As such it is designed for a group of level 5-6, but should be easy to modify for groups of higher or lower level as required simply by changing the danger in combat or the deadliness of any traps. This booklet contains everything you need, including battle maps, new creature statistics and tokens to use on online RPG systems such as Roll 20.

Includes custom maps and tokens!

IMAGE(https://smackfolio.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/sample-illustrations.jpg)

I have a Twilight 2000 campaign updated to modern times and using Phoenix command as a system. With our current geopolitical state, everyone seems extremely dialed in as they play spec ops missions I pilfered from the unit before dropping them into the world changing scenario - China and Russia, after a large biological attack and ‘homegrown’ nukes (Think of the series Jericho) invade the US, with China focusing on California and the ports on the western seaboard and the Russians pushing through Alaska and Canada and attempting to commandeer the passes of the Rocky Mountains in order to facilitate movement over the stout natural barrier to the heartland.

My operators found themselves at Idaho Falls, where the nuclear reactor is and they are largely safe from fallout and getting ready to hold the incoming Russian probing forces and paratroopers that are trying to secure the passes.

By now, the biological attack, which has a rapid incubation period has largely died out, but there’s still a bit of a threat and they’re trying to militarize the small communities around that area all the while fighting against their own marital law since the chain of command has broken down for them.

It’s been an interesting ride by far.

pyxistyx wrote:

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Thanks, Pyxi. Purchased. Will put up a review/rating once I go through it. Will be fun to use, given all the players are GWJers!

bhchrist wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Thanks, Pyxi. Purchased. Will put up a review/rating once I go through it. Will be fun to use, given all the players are GWJers!

I'll not read it then so I'm surprised

Minotaar wrote:
bhchrist wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Thanks, Pyxi. Purchased. Will put up a review/rating once I go through it. Will be fun to use, given all the players are GWJers!

I'll not read it then so I'm surprised

You may happily use it first in our campaign!

pyxistyx wrote:

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Is Rosna from the Sigil, the town whose street map is a sigil that binds a demon?

I played session 1 of a Band of Blades campaign last night (as a backup game due to absences).

It was a lot of fun, and fully delivered on expectations.

We had a tense first mission and after they scraped through that, the Legion's advance to a safer space was badly beset by undead. Looking forward to carrying on with it - we already have a decent amount of our own details about the Legion from the first mission & initial characters.

muraii wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

oh ok, cool thanks! You'll probably have to tweak it a bit to run the scenario ideas back to back though,! The thought behind them was to scatter them throughout an adventuring party's career right up through each 'Tier'. But it should be easy to compress them down a bit, they are mostly just a framework anyway

(if you could drop a quick rating/review as well at some point that'd be super cool and help me out a lot as well!)

Is Rosna from the Sigil, the town whose street map is a sigil that binds a demon?

Yep. that's the idea. (although my actual knowledge of Sigil only goes as far as what I remember from Planescape Torment and it's brief mentions in the 5e sourcebooks!)

Anyone know of a D&D one-shot that can be run in about 4 hours that is quirky?

I ran this a few years ago and it fits the bill:
We Be Goblins (Pathfinder)

5E or Pathfinder would be best, but anything can be converted.

-BEP

One that I haven’t gotten to run yet but want to try comes to mind: A Wild Sheep Chase.

I'm looking for a quick level 3 ish one shot to run for some family members to get them hooked. The sheep chase one looks good. If someone runs it let me know if you like it.

Any others readily available? DMsGuild and my googlefu don't mesh well and I have problems finding stuff sometimes.

@pyxistyx Would you recommend your adventure as a intro to D&D for the clueless? I'd be happy to lower the difficulty if so.

My favorite D&D one-shot is Dungeon World.

Take a drink.

Mixolyde wrote:

My favorite D&D one-shot is Dungeon World.

Take a drink.

{hipster mode} I prefer to stick to the original: World of Dungeons

More seriously, it depends if you want to introduce them to roleplaying or D&D. For the former, I would look at Fall of Magic (if you can get your hands on a copy), Fiasco, or some other simple genre-specific game that these folks would like.