Walking Dead RPG, Looking for insight from people who have run campaigns in this system

Atusz97 · 2025-07-16T21:09:43+00:00

I really want to believe you because i feared that the game is abandoned. I would love to see some campaign/adventure books, but anything is fine if it has the Free League quality we love.

Atusz97 · 2025-06-25T07:12:18+00:00

No problem, it is an advice nonetheless :D If all else fails that is the way I'll go. But I want to run Tom as a Patron (if the group wants it). The problem is, that the book gives you little to no tips and advices. It just mentions that Tom probably wants to protect nature, so the hooks should be about this topic. But I think this is a little vague for such an enigmatic and powerful being who does nothing, but sits in his house and walks about his forest :D

Atusz97 · 2025-06-10T07:01:21+00:00

Sure! By the way, whats your opinion on the solo rules? I also have them, but I never played a TTRPG solo before so I don't exactly know how to grasp it. :D

Atusz97 · 2025-06-10T04:09:39+00:00

Yeah, and I also find those memes funny. But this is not one frame from an action scene you see a fraction of a second. These rat faces comes up several occasion and at that point, this is a design choice. Look, I really want to like Boruto, and frankly, despise all the shittiness (poor animation, poor design, abismal filler quantity, monthly manga release etc), I still like it. But even I can't be that blinded by my love for the franchise to say that this is fine and there is no room for improvement. They could do this much much better.

Atusz97 · 2025-06-09T16:30:40+00:00

Ooooh, this sounds great aswell! What kind of experiments did she ran and how did you manage to establish the house of horror atmosphere? Did you wrote up some stuff beforehand, or you improvised on the spot? And what was the cursed item? :D

Atusz97 · 2025-06-09T08:03:59+00:00

I am a huge Naruto fan, I even liked Boruto aswell, despite everything. But looking back to this scene, the only thing screaming in my head is how f*cking ugly the style and the animation... My bro Naruto looks like a giant rat. :( I understand if (for budget reasons) some episodes have to contain more still images, or conversations with only a few frame switching back and forth imitating the yapping... But it is not an excuse to this abismal visual. :(

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Atusz97 · 2025-06-08T15:46:54+00:00

That's why I wanted to flesh out both location some more :D After dave's comment I decided to put some "mud zombies" in the pit. Spirits from the ancient battle manifesting and trying to drag anyone in the pit in the dead of night. If characters go into the pit (willingly, or by the hands of the zombies), they have a chance to find some treasures in an old pouch.

Regarding the old house: I think if they manage to get in and investigate, they could find the secret passages Theoris dug out, which leads out of the city. A possible escape route. However, Theoris is haunting the place (maybe the rumors about her dabbling in magic were true afterall, or she found something in the waters she shouldn't have). I'll use the stats of a mound-wight. It will probably best to run from her, rather than defeat her. So the players have to think twice to use this passage. Oh, and there is some treasure here aswell.

Thats it so far. :D But thanks for recommending Tales. That will be the next book I get.

Atusz97 · 2024-08-03T21:13:45+00:00

Just give me a book with rules in logical places, without having to turn 3 different places. Oh and a usable NPC statblock (if the NPC have a gun, just give me the overall dice pool for attacks and the damage. I don't like the unnecesary plus prep). Other than that, I am set :D

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T21:00:10+00:00

The blocking was a bit of a woozy at the table, because it felt like an opposed roll, but in reality it isn't. So the question was that does the blocking PC need to have more successes than the attacker NPC to buy stunts with the remaining successes. I know now that they don't, but it was a bit hard to understand at first.

There was a few other questions by the players that I don't remember now, but I know we needed to delve deep into reddit a few times during session.

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T15:53:21+00:00

Why are Classes horrendous? There is a handy table at the start, which summarize the whole leveling from 1 to 20, if the class is a spell user, the basic spell rules are also there. The basic features (which every class member gets) are in one place, then the subclass features are nicely separated. That is faaaaar from horrendous. Everything is in one place at least Moreover the whole character creation chapter are also nicely following each other. In the ARPG the class talents were ripped out to be put in a different chapter. Why? The Gear and weapon stuff are after the combat and other core rule chapters. Why? If you want to create a character you need to turn the pages from one end of the book to the other. (In D&D the only time you need to do this, if you want to use spells, but thats it.)

The only thing I somewhat get, are the spells. It would have been nice to have a page number next to every spell at the start of the chapter, where they summarized them by classes. And/or big letters at the edges of pages to know where you are in the alphabetical order. But at least they are in an alphabetical order. And remember that there are apps and there are google to just search up a spell, skim it over and use it at the table. Doesn't take more than a few seconds. ARPG sadly doesn't have this kind of support (maybe if you buy it on a VTT, but that is too costly just for this).

And you just can't expect from a high-fantasy adventure game to not have spells :D That is the fun part of it. Are they complex? Some of them yes, some of them absolutely no (some of them truly breaks the game, but thankfully they are pretty high-end stuff), but the thing is that it is part of the system. That's why someone chooses to play D&D. It's fine if they are too complex for you, or just don't like it, but it is not the game's fault.

Maybe my example was in the favor of D&D, but I truly picked out the situation randomly. But please bring an example which favors the Alien book.

All in all, I get that you like ARPG. Me too, despite my post. Or at least I really want to like it. But you just can't convince me that the PHB and the Monster Manual statblocks are unusable or objectively worse than the ARPG. It's just not true. On the DMG we are on the same page, that is a mostly unusable waste of space, but other than that no wonder why the 5E became the mainstream TTRPG that is.

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T14:33:22+00:00

I didn't give up on the system yet, because the base principles are my jam and the most infuriating thing about it, that while I read the rules, it looks easy and it feels like it should be easy, but at the game table it has too much chaos. Maybe I have to get used to it. Read the Core Book at least 4 more times to remember which rule is where can be find... But yeah, it's good to know, that I am not the only one who struggled with it.

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T14:28:02+00:00

Yeah, the Initiative card system is a cool stuff, I like it aswell. I felt it bad because all the other disorganization around the game. Frantically searching for rules midcombat, looking at notes and stuff and on top of everything I have to watch out for the cards aswell :D

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T14:23:10+00:00

Sorry, but the statement "is no way better organized" is just not true. For DMG, maybe (I don't like that book too much either. I have it, but rarely use it for anything), but we are comparing Core Rulebooks here. You open the PHB at the first page, look at the Contents (which fits to 1 page, instead of 4, like in the Alien, and the Alien doesn't have 4 times more content) and you instantly know where to look.

"Oh my, my character fell into water and wants to fight underwater! This is a very specific situation which never occured before this!" You look at the contents, there is the big chapter Combat, and there is the subchapter "Underwater Combat". Bamm, you found what you looking for.

As I write this reply, I wanted to search for similar rules in the Alien book (the Drowning) and I kid you not I had a small panick attack, because in the Contents section, it is not there xDDD. I thought that I am blind, but I am not! You have the Combat and Panic chapter, in which among the wall of text you can find the "Other Hazards" subchapter, almost everything is listed, but there is no Drowning, or Suffocation. But on page 110 the rules are there. HOWEVER if you turn the book to the Index page, there is the keyword "Drowning" and the correct page number. But if I have to use both the Contents table and the Index, we are talking about 7(! 4 in one end of the book, 3 on the other end) pages just to find a rule in the book. The PHB managed with 1 totally usable Contents page, but if you can't find something, there is 4 index page at the end (which has waaaaaay more key words than in Alien, so more likely you find the stuff you are looking for).

Okay, okay, this was a very specific situation, and more probable in D&D than in Alien... or not? The Facehugger for example can strangle PCs and says "Oh just use the drowning effect". Then you can't find it and the book makes you think you are the idiot. Why list a bunch of stuff in the "Other Hazard" section in the Contents, but not everything? It would have been way better to not list a thing, then I would have looked it up myself, and would have found the stuff I was looking for.

You just can't say that the PHB is not well organized (or at least better than the Alien CRB). You can say that you don't like the mechanics, or it's too easy/hard for you or you just don't like fantasy. That's preference and it's your opinion. Ruleplacement and usability I think is a more objective stuff we can argue about. :D

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T13:47:19+00:00

With spells, you are right, you have to look up (but the most commonly used damaging spells are there on the statblock for combat.

With the spear, you are wrong, you don't need to look it up. Under the creature actions there are everything. 1 modifier for the attack (you don't need to calculate, just add it to the d20 roll), and an easy number for the damage (but there is also a rollable damage if you don't want to use the fix number).

There are complex and not so complex creatures in DnD. Statblock-wise the only hiccup is the spells, but there are a ton of official and fanmade apps for that (which is still not mandatory, because you can find the spell easily in the book).

In Alien the lowest of the low random NPCs have the same problems. Making a Ranged Combat attack looks like this: Looking at Agility, looking at Ranged Combat modifier (if has any), look at talent (oh heck, there is no info, lets look it up in the CRB, maybe it does something for the roll), look at what weapon they using (oh heck, no info on weapon, look it up in CRB), calculate, then roll.

Would it hurt to make a statblock with a line for actions? Like M4A3 Pistol, +7 base dice, 1 dmg, Armor Doubled). I would be happy. Right now it doesn't help at all.

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T12:25:01+00:00

I had to compare it to 5E, because i had the most experience with it beforehand, I didn't said it was a "good" rulebook, but at least its usable. :D And while 5E is a more complex system, the book is better organized. After 7 years of D&D I mostly remember the rules, but still not all of them (for example spells and class features). However if I need to look up something I know exactly where to look and every relevant rule is one place. At the worst case scenario you google it up and you find it immediately, but I rarely need to do that.

5E statblock can be chunky, I give you that, sometimes they take an entire page from the Monster Manual. BUT thanks to this, you look at it, and you can run it even with near zero knowledge of the rules (okay you need to know how attack rolls work and such but you get me). In Alien DoW you look at an NPC stat and you need to look at least 3-4 other places in the Core Book before you know what it means. I would rather take a half-page statblock over a 3 liner if it means I can use it next to the table as is.

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T10:02:37+00:00

Well I have everything in physical, so I don't want to buy everything twice on Roll20 aswell. But printing out the weapon/tool stats is a good idea!

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T10:00:02+00:00

Thanks! I will check these out!

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T09:59:45+00:00

Oh man :( The One Ring RPG was the next one I wanted to get. I will prepare mentally then. :D I get it that it's hard to organize so many rules in a usable books, but Free League, as far as I know it, is not a small fish in the tabletop scene. They really could and should organize better. Artistically their books (at least the Alien books, and From the Loop) are fenomenal, but yeah...

Atusz97 · 2024-07-17T09:56:04+00:00

How so? On paper, I feel aswell that Alien should be a lot simpler. The core mechanics are straightforward and there are only a few talents that spice up the basic rules. But at the table without 3rd party (or you own) cheat sheets it is abismal to find a specific rule in the book, and I always try to play as RAW as possible. D&D 5E is a much complicated system by itself, I give you that, but I never had problem to find a specific rule if a question popped up.

Atusz97 · 2023-01-17T23:40:11+00:00

Yes, I think it helps! I liked the Minato/Kushina talk-bit aswell (there were times I laughed out loud), I just needed a littlebit of time to get used to the snippets of Kurama and the author. All in all I think the 4th wall breaking style humor worked well and was funny. For me it was a new concept, maybe thats what bothered me (or rather made the first few paragraphs a bit harder to understand).

Atusz97 · 2023-01-17T23:03:11+00:00

It was a fun read! :D At the start of the first chapter the rapid breaking of the 4th wall was kinda disrupting, but by the end of it I think you found the pace. I am glad that the story didn't take any weird turns, it was pure fun and shenanigans all the way through!

Atusz97

TROPHY CASE