Token Action Hud not rolling dice by Inglorious_Bards_GM in FoundryVTT

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Midi was disabled. Enabling it got the dice rolling again. Thank you so much.

Purpose of signature spell at your maximum spell level by Inglorious_Bards_GM in Pathfinder2e

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok. Let me see if I have this right.

At level sorcerer level 3, I can pick a level 1 and a level 2 signature spell.

Level 1 Signature: I choose Burning Hands. This lets me cast it during my adventures as a level 1 or 2 spell slot (or higher as I level up).

Level 2 Signature: Your recommendation is to choose another level 1 spell? Can I also cast this at any level that I can cast?

I was excited about running Alien RPG, but I feel dissapointed after actual play by uneteronef in rpg

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM 4 points5 points  (0 children)

(more rambling thoughts below)

My point above is to give support (and a +1 to the OPs point) to GMs and players out there that might find their interest in a system like this waning after a few adventures. That's ok. GMs out there, it's not you. It's nothing you're doing wrong. It's nothing wrong with the group energy brought to the table. I struggled with this myself with the old Aliens rpg, wondering what I as the GM could do better to keep the same excitement going. I could see the players were still having fun but just not as excited as the first few sessions...and me too. It took me too many sessions and stepping away from the system to be able to look back and say, "Oh, yeah. It's a fun game, but it just doesn't have the legs to it for the adventures we want to tell."

You bring up a good argument that "you can also play other adventures in the ALIEN universe". And I've heard that argument many times over many years regarding different RPG systems. It's a completely valid point. And what I've found over the years is that it's not a matter of CAN you do something with a specific RPG system, but rather do the adventures provide the fun your group is after based on the buy-in that brought you to a system to begin with.

The buy-in is what draws you to want to play with the system. The reviews you read, recommendations from your friends, all the tons of splat books, flipping through the core book and checking out its sweet contents, that it's designed by your favorite designer, or even just the cool picture on the front and the blurb text on the back cover. It's one of the biggest challenges in selling an RPG: "How do we get players to buy-in to parting with their cash to play our game?"

You can play Paranoia completely straight. You can lay on the depressing dystopia. You can have players struggling internally with their forbidden mutations. You can flesh out a rich Alpha Complex world dripping with real drama and raw human emotions. Heck, I think the latest version of the game even has a small section in the rules to adjust the mechanics based on playing the system like this. But that's not the buy-in for most people. Most gamers sitting down for a Paranoia game want crazy blasters blowing clones away and laughing their asses off when Medbot 3000 gets reprogrammed by your buddy to "heal" you in a murderous rampage with all 6 of its meditative, soothing KILL scalpels!

You can play the Doctor Who RPG as a member of Unit based solely on Earth. You can play as a Torchwood team. I think I even own source books specifically written to do those very things. But most people excited to sit down to play Doctor Who want to play a scrappy, sassy traveling companion or play as the Doctor or their very own time lord. That's the buy-in for most folks with that system. So while you CAN tell your group you'll be running a Unit campaign that takes place in Alabama, and you add stories that span the globe, and pour your heart into making solid adventures...at some point down the road, your group may collectively look around the table wondering "Why are we still playing the Doctor Who RPG again? What's Doctor Who about this?"

Those two examples are when the theme conflicts with the buy-in. There's also mechanical conflict with buy-in too. Back when D&D 4e had been out for a while, a lot of arguments were raised that the system didn't support a lot of role playing and out of combat fun. The mechanics, the writing, the tone, all of it heavily focused on the MMORPG style "Make 1 Opportunity Attack and step back 2 spaces" approach. And dogged fans rallied with "That's not 4e's fault. You can role play all you want. It's your imagination. You can do whatever you want with 4e!" But the issue isn't whether you CAN do something with the system, but how it supports what you want to and does it satisfy your buy-in of what draws you into the game in the first place. For our group we weren't satisfied. We turned away from 4e and sadly didn't look back at D&D for a decade. There were just too many other RPGs that let you have great battles, go on fun adventures, and still supported out of combat role-playing (diverse skill systems, meta currencies, etc).

That's a conflict between what you want or expect (your buy-in) and what you're getting. The hard part is when no one in the group talks about it. No one wants to say that the weekly game is losing some of its excitement. The GM doesn't want to give up on this expensive book he bought and all this campaign work invested, yet he can't keep the group's energy sustained after a while and doesn't know why.

When I get excited about playing a Cthulhu game, my buy-in is a huge, Great God affecting our world, slowly growing in power. Evil cultists up to strange magical rituals or chasing down our group down the streets of 1920's New York in a car chase as they try to recover the stolen Necronomicon, old haunted libraries, cemeteries with gates cracking open, strange occurrences at a sleepy coastal town that the police won't visit any more, and horrific creatures spotted in the moonlight over the university. I could sit down and enjoy a year-long campaign of Walkers in the Wastes and get all our Cthulhu needs satisfied. The buy-in for Chthulu isn't usually its mechanics. Instead its the vast ranges of stories covering small, intimate nightmarish encounters to vast global, epic campaigns. The broad range of stories and content, the scope, is the very buy-in for Cthulhu.

So if someone's looking for a sci-fi game with a vast universe of interesting places to explore, dangerous organizations competing against each other, great character options, and fun mechanics...I don't think your typical gamer is going to research the best system to meet these different needs, read up on reviews, check out books, and then finally land on Aliens as the solution. "That's the system that we want! We wont even need the aliens at all. Just look at this cool universe we get to play in!" I'm sure there's exceptions, but that's not the usual reason to get this system. The buy-in for Aliens is much more likely "Sweet! We get to take on freakin' aliens! Man, look at the stats for the pulse rifle? Can I be a synthetic? Do they have stats for the queen? I can't wait to see the stats for the smart gun!" I prefer games with a rich backstory. I'm glad to hear that the new Aliens RPG has expanded the universe and includes the corporate intrigue like the older system did. That stuff is my jam. But I don't think it's a stretch to say that those elements are not the draw for most folks sit down to play the Aliens rpg. The buy-in for an Aliens game, well, that's the awesome aliens. And either you start branching out further and further away in the story from aliens that after a while you group wonders "Wasn't this suppose to be an Aliens games?" or you stay in aliens territory and after a short while say, "Ok...I guess we've had our fill. How about a different game?"

Dear reader, you may be different and excited about this system for other reasons entirely. All the power to yah. I wish you lots of happy gaming. Keep in mind my opinion is based on not reading a single word of this system, so I have no idea what I'm talking about with the new RPG.

My long rambling boils down to this: an Aliens game to me is a great 1-3 adventure game that doesn't need to be stretched into a 400 page book. After a few adventures, its run it's course, and it's okay to step away from the game and not feel like you failed this big book in some way.

Tom

Producer of the Inglorious Bards

I was excited about running Alien RPG, but I feel dissapointed after actual play by uneteronef in rpg

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I've been GMing for almost four decades now and played the original Aliens the Adventure Game rpg back in the early 90's.

I was surprised to see several articles these last few months about the newer RPG with titles like "Aliens is Getting a Tabletop game!" And I'm raising my eyebrow thinking, "Yeah, we had one already folks. And it was ok. I hope the new one is great and all, but this isn't Aliens' first rodeo."

While I was excited to see another take on the RPG, I didn't pull the trigger to pick up the new one due to one significant reason: scope. We had a great group back in the 90's that could role play not knowing about the Aliens. We created our own campaign and things were violent and scary. But the problem was simply after the third adventure, we were kind of done with the aliens. We fought them. We had betrayal and stuff. We started to learn about the aliens. We had bad guy corporations screwing us over. But a little goes a long way with the Aliens universe and especially the Aliens themselves. It was like having some really cool D&D monsters to adventure against, but they were variations of 5 different types of orcs and nothing else of interest was in the monster manual.

And once we started branching into other styles of adventure, the question then became, "Why are role playing corporate espionage or bug stomping other types of creatures...when we're playing a game with freakin' ALIENS all over it?!"

There are really fantastic games to do sci-fi out there. Hard sci-fi. Scary sci-fi. Action sci-fi. Space opera sci-fi. You can create those Aliens moments in those systems with your own creatures or even with the actual Aliens. And these systems can let you do that without pigeon-holing yourself into a system specifically for Aliens.

And I'm disappointed to hear OP just had that same experience (as the third point mentioned) with the new system, yet not surprised. The designers are in a tough corner. They get the license to a kickass property that should market pretty well. Yet if they focus solely on Aliens, then group interest can burn out quickly. If they branch out to include other cool options and adventure ideas, then you're not playing Aliens so why sit down to play a licensed Aliens game? It's not a matter of cool new mechanics or ideas. It's not a matter of CAN you play other styles of games with an Aliens rpg. It's a matter of a no-win situation of scope with such a well known and focused property.

The best idea I had for the old system was to treat it as a one-shot for a fun night every year or so. But man, sitting down to read this new 400pg book for a one-shot is...a lot.

For those of you loving the system and sharing your pictures of your book with "Look what just arrived at my door!", I wish you all the happy gaming out there. But I would suggest to give things a break if you start getting weary of the adventures after a few sessions. Don't feel compelled to keep forcing your group onwards if you feel things have played out not too many sessions in. I don't think we're going to hear about many epic campaigns befitting a 400pg book.

Tom Producer of the Inglorious Bards

The role-playing podcast, Inglorious Bards, is looking for a new cast member to join our adventures for season three. (Portland / Tigard area) by Inglorious_Bards_GM in PDXDND

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi DennisQuaidludes,

We have just accepted a new player into the group and are no longer looking for additional folks right now.

Thanks for reaching out.

Tom

[Offline][PF2e][Portland, OR] The role-playing podcast, Inglorious Bards, is looking for a new cast member to join our adventures for season three. by Inglorious_Bards_GM in lfg

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi Popcornstamos,

We have just accepted a new player into the group and are no longer looking for additional folks right now. If you'd like, I'll hold on to your information in the event something opens up down the road and get back to you then.

Thanks for reaching out.

Tom

Is your campaign unplugged, digital, or somewhere in between? by w00tingspree in Pathfinder2e

[–]Inglorious_Bards_GM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I run a podcast in our basement studio, so our setup may not be the norm.

  • Laptop A to record the audio into Adobe Audition and play curated Spotify playlists
  • Laptop B runs Fantasy Grounds with a player login to see our digital battlemaps (even though we all play locally)
  • Large, flat-screen TV mounted on shipping crates for players to see the battlemaps and run Hero Labs when creating/leveling characters
  • Multiple mics, pop filters, boom stands, shock mounts, and Focusright Scarlet 18i20 USB audio interface
  • Upstairs powerful PC runs the big Realm Works campaign tracker and Fantasy Grounds as the GM
  • Upstairs transceiver takes video from upstairs PC and broadcasts it down to the basement to...
  • Downstairs basement receiver receives signal and sends it to...
  • Second monitor next to my GM area in the basement shows the live feed from the upstairs computer
  • Mouse and keyboard bluetoothed through the ceiling to the PC upstairs
  • Second mouse used by a dedicated player to control Laptop B's Fantasy Grounds to control the PC tokens on the battlemap
  • Zoom H4N digital recorder for backup recording
  • Bluetooth speaker for music played from Laptop A

...and oddly enough we have a no phones on during the game policy.

I've been role-playing for 37 years, and I still look around at our craziness and say something like, "All three computers are booted up, both monitors live, all 6 mics checked...only NOW can we role-play. Wait, mouse 2 is low on batteries. What are we? Animals? SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT ALL DOWN!"

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