I blame /r/dndgreentext and Critical Roll in part. Those highlights are addictively fun to read/watch. Sir Bearington level DnD is a life goal for sure.
The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
261–270 of 292 posts
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#262There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the…
A lot of 5th edition adventure modules have started advocating "milestone levels" instead of XP levels. It requires a good DM to know when it's appropriate to award a level up but it's basically DM fiat leveling; XP is gone entirely and the DM decides when your party levels up typically based on the party achieving certain milestones -- find the McGuffin, defeat the boss, solve the mystery, etc. I'm running Curse of Strahd for my table right now and we're using milestone levels instead of XP and the players seem to really enjoy it.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are way too many options to give a simple answer to that question. If you want to stick close to D&D, Pathfinder and 13th Age are obvious choices. If you prefer something a bit more raw, less polished maybe, deadlier, where survival is a goal in itself and combat may be better avoided, try one of the OSR systems, like DCC, LotFP, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, etc. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is weird horror and…
> If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want? SF or Cyberpunk
If you want pure cyberpunk, take a look at R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2020.
If you like fantasy mixed in with your cyberpunk, Shadowrun is the gold standard. A word of warning: Shadowrun has a rather heavy, complex system, because it does absolutely everything. But I like it a lot.
Generic systems like GURPS and Savage Worlds can do cyberpunk of course, although I don't think GURPS Cyberpunk has been updated to the 4th edition. No doubt something exists for Savage Worlds, but I have no idea what.
There are other cyberpunk systems that I know very little about, but others are enthusiastic about, including Eclipse Phase (seems to include space and transhumanism, so it's probably not pure cyberpunk, but it might suit your taste), or Ex Machina.
Sprawl seems to be the Apocalypse World/Dungeon World adaptation for cyberpunk.
SF is much broader. The original SF RPG is of course Traveller, which is somewhat retro; the game predates computers and doesn't have many (any?) robots either. But if you want to travel around in a space ship, this is great.
Stars Without Number is an SF game that translates ideas from the OSR movement to the SciFi setting.
There are of course several different Star Wars games, including the original d6-based game by West End Games (recently republished by Fantasy Flight Games), the d20 (D&D-like) Saga Edition, and the Edge of the Empire-style games by Fantasy Flight.
GURPS is great at SciFi, and I'm sure Savage Worlds does it too.
Diaspora is a small but really cool hard SF game based on the Fate system. I love how you first generate the worlds together and then generate the party together. In space combat, dumping heat is a major concern.
Paranoia is weird dystopian funny SF. The Computer is your friend.
Starfinder is the SF version of Pathfinder. I assume the system is therefore D&D-related, but I honestly don't know.
Dark Heresy takes place in the Warhammer 40K universe.
But there are dozens if not hundreds of others.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#264There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the…
Isn't #2 solved by a good Dungeon Master? The DM should be able to take control of the game so that players aren't just going around killing orc babies. "In the distance, you see a group of 1000 orc parents coming searching for the killers of their babies..."
I don't like too much explicit intervention by the DM.
Part of it has to feel like the player to feel like there are fair predictable rules that the game adheres to. Yes, the DM has to step in to make sure the game feels good, but the extra work to combat game mechanics doesn't feel like a good use of the DM's time.
Your solution is a good, creative one but I don't like that poor mechanics got us here.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#265There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the…
A lot of 5th edition adventure modules have started advocating "milestone levels" instead of XP levels. It requires a good DM to know when it's appropriate to award a level up but it's basically DM fiat leveling; XP is gone entirely and the DM decides when your party levels up typically based on the party achieving certain milestones -- find the McGuffin, defeat the boss, solve the mystery, etc. I'm running Curse of…
Nice idea as long as the milestones are laid out in advance.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want? SF or Cyberpunk
Shadowrun is the canonical cyberpunk RPG. Starfinder is, I believe, Pathfinder in space. GURPS is setting-agnostic.
GURPS works better in some eras trying to do modern you have dozens of skill's to keep track of.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#267My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vis…
Losing one's imagination seems more common than losing one's sight. :(
Reading as a replacement to everyday stimuli that we are all too used to like video games and youtube is what I found to help my imagination flourish like I remember it did when I was younger.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#268There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the…
Look into the Powered by the Apocalypse games (Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, etc). My gaming group switched over to them after we spent an entire 3 hour session fighting a few vampires and everyone was sick of it. PBTA puts storytelling and player agency over granular combat.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want? SF or Cyberpunk
Shadowrun is the canonical cyberpunk RPG. Starfinder is, I believe, Pathfinder in space. GURPS is setting-agnostic.
>Shadowrun is the canonical cyberpunk RPG.
Aside from the dated and weird essentialization of Native American cultures, Shadowrun's setting is really good and fun.
Unfortunately it's hard to run a game with a decent narrative flow just because the combat system is so complicated. My group decided to shame people out of playing mages or riggers just because we didn't want to have to deal with simultaneously doing combat in cyberspace and the astral plane at once. It really puts a damper on having a fun game that flows. I wouldn't recommend it for someone new to pen&paper RPGs.
On the other hand, the tedium of combat gave us a strong incentive to talk our way out of problems instead of going the murder-hobo route.
Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same but they'll almost never admit to it at work. That, essentially, is the issue. If you don't already know they play Magic, you won't know they play Magic. Gambling, in most traditional forms, is seen as low-class and stupid, while in reality many, many people in this industry are compulsive gamblers.
That doesn’t match my experience at all . From backgammon to poker to sports gambling I’ve experienced way more positive bias towards gambling in tech jobs than negative.
Ditto. Maybe it's because I work in data science though. Stats nerds are in their element with games of chance.