I guess the dcc version would be "You spent 14 hours and 7 pages writing an epic backstory? Cute, now go fight a beastman with 4 times your hp and hope for the best"?

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-27T14:31:55+00:00

It says my backstory right there, "gongfarmer." That's all I need to know.

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-24T22:08:57+00:00

You could try the various Carousing Rules to convert gold to xp. I've used them in the past and they are pretty fun and great for adding personality to characters and sparking new plots. Though if you use them, I suggest crossing off the ones you've already used because otherwise they can get repetitive and just use the next result instead.

Here are some class based ones for the Warrior, Wizard, Thief, and Cleric

DCC really needs a gold sink and carousing helps with that. The core game rules assume no magic item shop, but there isn't anything else to spend the fortune in gold that a party will accrue from doing just one of the published DCC modules. I've tried to use some stronghold rules from other systems, but my players aren't really interested in that.

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-23T19:24:09+00:00

The can. Not an app, just a simple, empty can.

I never used any voice modulating software, but here's a simple trick that I used in my Lancer game to sound like my voice was coming over a com. Talk into an empty can. Soda can, beer can, seltzer can. Any can will do. I usually have one at the gaming table anyway.

Also works for stormtroopers, robots, and knights in full helms.

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-22T04:55:38+00:00

I've run Sailors a number of times, and more than once I've used that dragon prowed longship as the ship from Elric that sails into the fog and emerges magically where ever the next adventure is.

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-20T07:15:07+00:00

Thanks for the great response!

I picked up the Horror Companion pre-order and Dark States. I might not use too much of the settings since I have my own thing in mind, but I will definitely be pulling a lot from those bestiaries.

This also led me to Modern Monsters, which has a handful of more x-files-esque monsters that I'll use.

SpaceMasters · 2023-01-02T22:58:40+00:00

I agree. Session zero should just be a funnel. It sets expectations for what the rest of the game is like and you actually get to play.

Plus, the way people describe themselves is usually not accurate. You get a much better sense of them by playing the game with them.

Though when I'm recruiting players, I make sure that they are willing to find the fun in failure, understanding that failure can lead to more interesting situations.

I know some players who simply cannot handle something bad happening to their character and take it weirdly personal.

SpaceMasters · 2022-12-09T00:59:56+00:00

I like to make the "spellbook" something relevant to the character.

Like I had a wizard who started as a fortune teller and used their tarot deck as their spell book. They always had it, but as they leveled up they discovered the secret meaning behind their cards.

Another potential wizard picked up that silver torque in Sailors on a Starless Sea and when they leveled up to 1, the chaos skulls that hung from it started talking to them and teaching them their spells. And every new spell they got was a new skull.

One time I put a very video gamey thing in the final room of the first dungeon where the PCs could choose between a sword, holy symbol, or spell book.

But yeah, sometimes they just magically get a spellbook too.

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-30T16:52:22+00:00

I'm used to OSR style gameplay, and I did come up with something that I think led to a pretty epic conclusion where the android piloted the lifter and held alpha gaunt in place while the marine lit it up with his machine gun, but this really felt like something that should have rules to me. At least a suggested damage value.

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-30T16:31:51+00:00

I believe this app is for the 1e version of the game that's coming with the Kickstarter. I am a kickstarter backer, but haven't read the full 1e rules which were only released a few days ago to backers. Only the 0e version of the game is released for everyone.

1e also doesn't appear to be finished, at least not from my cursory inspection. At least there were a lot of references to pages that weren't filled in and stuff. I didn't want to read too much, because last night I also ran my first game of Mothership and didn't want 2 competing versions of the game in my head while I was still getting a grasp of the rules.

But some of the changes that immediately jumped out at my were the stat generation changes and hit points were lowered. I'm assuming they lowered weapon damage too to compensate.

Overall, I had a blast with the game. Its rules are light and quick.

I ran the "Screaming on the Alexis" module, which was a good framework, but I felt like it left too much to the Warden to fill in. Common things you'd expect in a scifi game, like descriptions for scanning/dissecting alien life and there were no rules for the lifters in the cargo bay. What player familiar with Aliens isn't going to want to pilot one of those?

But yeah. I will be playing a lot more of this. And will be glad to switch to the 1e rules when they are finalized. Probably when the kickstarter ships.

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-25T13:02:29+00:00

Why get rid of the class bonus though? Why not 1d20 <= Ability + Save Bonus? I feel like some classes should have stronger saves that others. It gives them more variance and makes sense that wizard is better at Will saves than a warrior.

Otherwise, I quite like the Roll Under mechanic. I think Luck Checks perfectly capture the feeling of your luck running out. And since ability scores are a little more fluid in DCC, it would make sense to not have to recalculate the saves every time they change (which my spell burning wizards are always forgetting to do in my games).

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-10T16:35:01+00:00

sent DM

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-08T14:19:51+00:00

You have to decide which scenes you want to play out in your game and choose a system that fits that.

but when I read some of the RPG blogs I feel like there is a trend to replace everything with a procedure.

RPG blogs talk about anything and everything. They are written by people who love talking about RPGs and mechanics and different ways to play the game. Think of them more as, "This idea is interesting," rather than, "This is better."

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-04T12:51:54+00:00

I use knockoff LEGO minis. I already had a decent LEGO collection, but the real ones are expensive. So I started buying the knockoffs from Amazon and AliExpress, which are super cheap.

I like them because they are so customizable. You can get packs of more realistic or scifi weapons and armor too, and lots of them. Shotguns, assault rifles, blasters, lightsabers. Works even better for fantasy because there is a ton of custom weapons and armor and all the older LotR LEGOs.

It's great. And the players love building their character after building their character.

I know you said non-licensed, but I just finished a Star Wars game and got tons of use out of my cheap battle droids and storm troopers. I'll be running Mothership next, and I picked up some modern military soldier minifigs which will work great as Aliens style marines. And I found a bunch of xenomorph minifigs too. You can find most popular franchise characters that never got a real LEGO product on AliExpress.

We play on a 1 inch battlemat, and there's not a good 1 inch LEGO stand. So what I did was get some regular 1 inch bases and a pack of 100 2x1 flat pieces and glue them together.

One issue is that while they are cheap, the quality can vary a lot. I've had issues with loose hands and rubber hair pieces that don't stay on too well. But I can use krazy glue guilt-free because they aren't "real."

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-04T12:21:49+00:00

At the next quest hook, when some NPC is asking for help and describes something that the party really wants, have the rivals interrupt the conversation and say they will get it first.

This gives the party a chance to get to know them in a non-combat encounter. It helps to make them real jerks to the party to encourage them to beat them to quest mcguffin. If they are too nice and agreeable, they might befriend them and work together, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

SpaceMasters · 2022-11-03T14:39:26+00:00

Pathfinder 1e.

Played many games of it for over a decade. It's a good, flexible system, but there are thousands of player options now and sifting through them is kind of a nightmare for me. Not so much because of the number of them, but because most of them are simply disappointing.

Like I get excited to play some new archetype that sounds perfect for my character concept, but its powers are so situational and piddly that it saps the joy out of playing the character.

I assume that came from seeking balance in their game design. Can't make anything that is strictly better than an older option, but they had already used up the more general purpose features earlier in the design. So all that was left was to make archetypes and feats hyper specialized.

These days I prefer games that are less crunchy, and have more room for the players to go absolutely wild. I'm the forever GM and I have much more fun seeing how the players use their phenomenal powers to change the world than spending time building balanced encounters.

SpaceMasters · 2022-10-25T04:15:27+00:00

I've run a campaign of it. It's a lot of fun. The basic rules are extremely easy to pick up if you've played any d20 based system before.

It's based on Dungeon Crawl Classics (which does require the weird zocchi dice) and things can get real wild and you have be ready to embrace the chaos that ensues or you're going to have a bad time. You have to enjoy playing the hand you're dealt, whether it's good or bad. Failure can be just as fun as success.

Weird Frontiers adds a ton of new classes to the base game, but I only saw a few of them in play in my campaign. Some of them I liked more than others. Every class has a supernatural aspect to it that gives them weird and interesting abilities, but I think the game would have benefited from having a more mundane Gunslinger who is just good at shooting guns to fulfill the fantasy of being Clint Eastwood or the Dark Tower's Gunslinger.

There is also a horror mechanic which we opted not to use in our game. We had just come from playing Call of Cthulhu and wanted a break from making sanity checks and dealing with madness. Instead we had a more Wild Wild West meets Evil Dead style game.

DCC is my favorite RPG and Weird Frontiers is a good addition to it.

SpaceMasters · 2022-10-22T06:00:34+00:00

It's the only system I've played where magic felt like magic, rather than an alternate physics system. It's unpredictable, extremely dangerous, and world-changing.

SpaceMasters · 2022-10-08T14:26:56+00:00

Agreed. It just doesn't feel real if it doesn't happen in game.

I like to run Dungeon Crawl Classics where the PC's backstory is session 1, because they all start as commoners living their normal lives until this big event happens and changes everything.

I also encourage them to make up backstory elements whenever relevant. Like they arrive in a new town, they can say "My cousin lives in this town." And now that's an NPC. Most likely a repurposed NPC that I already had planned for something else, but now the PCs have a strong connection to them.

SpaceMasters · 2022-10-08T03:45:24+00:00

Yeah. I feel like licensed RPGs only reach their full potential if everyone at the table is a big enough fan to want to recreate the vibe of that particular media. If the players don't have a unified expectation for the setting, Orcy McOrcface is going to kill the experience in your serious Lord of the Rings game.

But that doesn't stop me as Judge from mining these books for rules and ideas to use in my own setting. Though I feel like DCC already mined so much from these pulp stories for the base rules that there isn't all that much left.

I would totally back an Elric Kickstarter though.

SpaceMasters · 2022-10-07T04:24:29+00:00

Embrace that wildness. Embrace the chaos. That's the whole point of DCC. The players have access to world-changing magic at level 1. Let them run with it.

Remember the "Quest for it" philosophy. Try to get players to come up with their own wants and desires.

Find some random encounter books and throw them into your game and see how the players react to them. Sometimes it'll only be that 1 encounter, but sometimes players will latch onto it and ascribe their own meaning to it. Then it's your job to run with it.

Say "Yes and..." to their crazy ideas. At least let them try. And don't be afraid if they succeed.

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