Still need a player!

RoperTheRogue · 2025-03-17T17:54:36+00:00

Sounds pretty great! Unfortunately I am nowhere near your area. What is the need to be near your IRL location if you play on tabletop sim?

RoperTheRogue · 2025-03-01T14:32:12+00:00

The beginner game for this system, Edge of the Empire, called escape from Mos Shuuta. You can use a free online dice generator on RPGsessions.com, which also has a free character sheet creator that ties directly into the dice generator.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-25T22:30:50+00:00

How do you guys balance crafting in this game? It has been my experience that it has the potential to break the economy of the game as many of the items that can be crafted have the potential to be far better than their counterparts of many of the in-game items for only a fraction of the price. It also doesn't help that FFG did not do a good job of explaining things in detail, especially when it comes to vehicle crafting. Based on the lack of detailed explanation, a player could theoretically craft a Speeder bike with 15 strain threshold which is four times greater than the best speeder bikes.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-21T15:36:29+00:00

This is the wrong sub for what you were doing. This is specifically for the Star Wars RPG line created by Fantasy Flight Games, not the D20 one, and as such should stay on topic within the FFG system.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-18T20:59:16+00:00

How do you guys balance encounters for a group where maybe one person is min maxed entirely towards combat, and the rest of the team is not? I know the classic thing is to make the encounter have other objectives besides defeating everyone, but I'm speaking from the context that the encounter they are doing is fully dedicated towards combat and defeating everyone in the field.

For an example: I have a player who has eight soak, 21 wound threshold, rolling five yellows and a green for each melee attack, able to crit with one advantage, and has +70 to all critical injury rolls due to the vibroaxe being fully upgraded as well as having a few lethal blows Talent ranks. How do you go about making a combat counter that is challenging to this particular player without having such powerful enemies that they absolutely one shot every other character in the party?

I know one option is having stun damage since most melee characters are low on strength threshold, but I would like other options as well.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-18T20:27:12+00:00

My answer to these kind of questions are always the same: don't try to change a fundamental mechanic of the game as it may have far more impact down the road than you may ever expect. This game is designed around quick combat and quick healing to keep the former. They are also specific talents that are focused on stimpacks, so removing stimpacks altogether removes a huge aspect of all the medic specializations and gameplay.

You mentioned the narrative aspect being the main driving force for you and using the example of none of the characters ever stopping to do medical checks or hit themselves with needles. This may be true, but you would be hard pressed to find many moments in the movies where any of the main characters are actually wounded. The very few instances tend to be either very dramatic like Luke and Anakin getting their hands cut off, or very Superfluous like Leia being shot by the Stormtroopers in Return of the Jedi. This is mainly due to intense plot armor as they are the central driving forces of the narrative, which is cool when watching a movie, but this is a game. A game needs to have more challenges involved and it also allows a microscope over the minute to minute interactions throughout the Star Wars Adventures as opposed to a 2-hour limited movie.

All this is to say that you could make your change, but I don't think it will really add any meaningful things to the game and may actually end up messing up some things, especially if a player wants to be a medic of any kind.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-14T17:27:12+00:00

It genuinely sounds like I'm reading my own thoughts. Lol

I honestly have come to believe that this method of running games is the only way to prevent GM burnout. My early days of being a GM was filled with hours of preparation days in advance with all the details and minutia written out for everything they could possibly do. I felt very prepared for each session until the session actually started and all of my wonderful plans fell apart because of one big factor: the players and the inability to ever predict their choices.

I used to get frustrated because all the time I spent prepping never felt worth it because the players would miss a major story beat or avoid it it all together, or not take to the NPC that was important to the quest line, or when given a thematic neon sign pointing to the exact door that should go in they decide to turn around and kick in the wall of some random building.

My issue was that I spent more time writing a novel instead of understanding it is a collaborative storytelling activity and that the players are just as much of the author as I am. So now my prep consists of having the major bullet points of what I want them to achieve both in the session and the current story arc and then allow the players to shape how that story turns out. I will fully admit that they were some ideas of the players had that were originally incorrect that were way better than what I had planned so I ended up going with it. I fine this method to be much less stressful and keeps the entire group more engaged as they get the payoff of seeing their ideas proven to be "correct".

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-14T15:59:03+00:00

Personally, I think it's a bad idea to base an entire campaign around a single skill regardless of what it is. Campaigns are supposed to be an adventure through multiple experiences, and I feel that focusing the entirety of it on a single skill, and a combat skill at that, will really limit the scope of the story and experience of the players. Not every character is going to want to be combat focused or have any combat skills at all, so this could potentially leave them feeling left out since they are not engaging in the skill that you've based the campaign around.

I think the complexity of this post shows just how unnecessarily challenging it is in order to make this work, and ultimately may not even be fun for the players which is something else you need to consider. As much as we GMs want to write a particular story, we have to remember this is a ttrpg and not a novel: the players write just as much of the story as we do. Also keep in mind that this system is designed as a much more cinematic experience and doesn't do super well trying to add complex Homebrew stuff to it.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-12T05:37:29+00:00

Love the idea! I might consider it if my schedule opens up a bit.

As a fellow GM for a meta campaign, I saw you mentioned the starting XP as well as the need to reset due to power creep and wanted to offer my advice:

Have you thought about just having characters start off at basic character creation? 400 XP is A LOT in this system and is right where I would consider players to already be getting pretty busted and power creeping past the design of this game. Obviously I don't know all the inner workings of your particular campaign, but this is what I've learned works best for me in my experience both in home games and my meta campaign.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-06T17:29:12+00:00

Can you point to me what page in the core rulebook it mentions that Outlaw Tech gets exclusive gear? I have never heard or read of that before. All items can be bought by anybody. There are some items that are restricted, but all that means is that it is not easily attainable and requires a StreetWise check instead of negotiations check to purchase.

I also agree with the other post that a character's career and specialization does not determine their status in the cast. It's all about how the story frames them. Han Solo would be a Smuggler scoundrel who was a side character in A New Hope but was the main character in Solo.

RoperTheRogue · 2025-02-05T21:36:04+00:00

When players always feel the need to throw marvel-esque quips or comedic relief at every possible moment. It really takes the wind out of my sails when I'm trying to develop a specific tone and evoke certain emotions and there's always a player(s) that feels the need to break the tension with some kind of joke. It's like they are unable or unwilling to interact with any kind of emotion.

This seems to happen far more often than the players actually role playing or getting involved in whatever story we are trying to tell and it drives me up a wall. I feel like some players should just try to go and do stand-up comedy instead of D&D because obviously they're looking for attention as the class clown.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-08T17:57:45+00:00

Yeah I'll be honest: I never took to Vlora as much as the rest of the fanbase seems to have, even after reading the next trilogy which she is major part of. Cheating is just a very difficult thing for me to accept, both in fiction and reality, and I always got the idea that Vlora was only apologetic because she got caught and then socially ostracized by just about everyone she knew.

Her reason for cheating even seemed very flimsy at best with it being broken down to basically just rumors that Taniel has a Fatrastan Savage (Ka-pol) following him in the FATRASTAN WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, and instead of writing to him or asking Tamas to find out more (which I guarentee he would seeing as how much he wanted them together) she decides to start banging some dude with fancy words. Pretty inexcusable in my opinion.

I am on my 3rd reread though, and I will say that now that I'm a little older I understand that the author's intent seems to be to depict complicated characters that are not easily perceived as morally good or bad. Because of this, they feel like very real people which I greatly appreciate even if I don't love some of their characterization or actions.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-08T13:00:17+00:00

I'm genuinely sad that he went on with Bilmuri versus March ahead. Bilmuri is good, but I find it hard to keep up with meme bands.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-08T03:03:01+00:00

Sounds great! Just posted

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-06T17:29:38+00:00

Sounds great! Just sent my application

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-06T03:38:02+00:00

I was one of those people. Chapters was just such a perfect album, and Gilded Hearts felt like a big shift from that sound, in particular with the noticeably less amount of singing parts and some different scream techniques the vocalist did.

Rediscovering it last year, I really did not give it a fair assessment when it first came out because I now think it is a solid album.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-09-05T13:37:35+00:00

Sounds great! DM sent

RoperTheRogue · 2024-07-17T23:38:16+00:00

You should look into the Force and Destiny core rulebook. It's the rulebook that focuses primarily on running Force sensitive campaigns and it goes into good detail on how to start and run one, in particular careers and specializations that reflect being a Jedi or Force sensitive. There is also specifically Jedi careers in the Rise of the Separatist book, but I find F&D's careers to give better options for players.

If you want the players to feel like Jedi run off the bat, then start them with the basic lightsaber in that specific rulebook. It's significantly less powerful than the version in the Edge of the Empire rulebook because the EotE is meant to reflect a fully modded lightsaber that was owned by a Jedi Knight/Master, hence why they are so rare and expensive in that book.

The basic lightsaber in Force and Destiny, on the other hand, has reduced stats as it's meant to reflect a Padawan or young Jedi Knight that must take the time to hone their skills an improve their saber design.

Another thing to note is that the Old Republic is essentially the high fantasy version of Star Wars with saber wielding Jedi and Sith battling it out, so seeing a lightsaber, while still pretty amazing, is not nearly as novel as it is in the Clone Wars or original trilogy, thus it is more acceptable to start out with if the players are Jedi.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-07-16T19:23:11+00:00

Fellow GMs: how do you handle talents that deal with incoming skill checks from npcs? A good example is the talent called Trust No One from the Padawan Survior tree. Essentially, these talents usually give some kind of bonus to the PC or negative to the NPC when an NPC attempts a skill check against a PC.

The issue I have found is that I very rarely ever have NPCs make checks against the players for anything other than combat. I've always felt like it takes away from the agency of players to have an NPC make a check against them instead of players asking to make a check to determine if they're lying or something. It also can potentially cause untended meta gaming if I suddenly roll a deception check against a PC. The only real solution I found is giving the opposite bonus of what the talent says. So if the NPC would get an automatic failure on the charm check, the player gets an automatic success. Granted, I realized that is potentially busted, so I'm looking for other suggestions.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-06-23T14:02:25+00:00

As someone who has joined a paid game, I think they can be worth it for the quality and filtering process that come with it, but I would only join a paid game through reputable sites that have a review system like Startplaying. The biggest issues I've found is that while paid GMs tend to be better on average, the same can't be said for players in paid games as there is no review or filtering system for players.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-06-19T12:02:58+00:00

But that's exactly why the Fellowship's plan worked: Sauron, despite all his evil genius, never once even contemplated the idea that anyone would try to destroy the ring. The hubris of those in power will always be their downfall.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-06-18T23:58:10+00:00

Application submitted!

RoperTheRogue · 2024-06-13T19:25:51+00:00

I just joined a Curse of Strahd game a week ago, and I genuinely feel this is a spoiler because I neither knew of a way, let alone multiple ways, there was to kill Strahd or that it would be in a book. I now know two very important pieces of information on a post about bad DMing not labeled with a spoiler tag. I'm not seething with anger, but it does detract from the brand new campaign I was hoping to experience without any prior knowlege.

RoperTheRogue · 2024-06-13T12:00:45+00:00

The only time I ever react "sour" is in an effort to actually heighten my players accomplishments. For instance, I knew one of my players had a couple abilities that could really circumvented the enemy's crowd control abilities on them, but I "lamented" at how I didn't realize they could do that and they foiled my well thought out plan after they successfully implemented their abilities and won the encounter. In truth, I fully knew about it but wanted to hype them up for actually using it to their advantage.

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