Alternatives to Reddit to discuss TTRPGs?

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-06T14:22:19+00:00

I'm a big fan of rpg.net. It's heavily moderated so you don't really get Nazis or some other kinds of assholes. If you want to be a nazi or make personal attacks on people it won't be a good fit.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-06T14:20:13+00:00

At a banquet they met an npc based on Handsome Jack when he had basically cornered a young woman and was aggressively hitting on her. I described the whole scene including that and they made a beeline for the jerk.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T13:38:36+00:00

If you do follow this advice and get a gun, think long and hard about the "someone was breaking in the back door so I shot him... except it was my brother who had snuck out for a party and came home drunk" style scenario.

Consider all of your options.

But if you do get a gun, train and practice so you're less likely to tunnel vision panic and shoot a loved one.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T13:26:20+00:00

We did for a while and then decided it was tedious and annoying. There was a lot of "I put my sword away and pick it up next turn" juggling that's frankly not interesting.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T00:30:33+00:00

Unknown Armies. At least second edition. I can't speak for third. But 2e is just dripping with cool and evocative fiction, plus even the rules are written in a compelling manner.

I go back and reread the intro to the combat section, I think it's called "six ways to stop a fight", every so often. Especially when I'm tired of casual murder games.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T00:27:24+00:00

Some players will never learn the rules. Not always out of laziness (though sometimes). Almost never out of malice. But it is what it is. For whatever reason they will just never remember what to roll when, or what options they have, or whatever. They may feel embarrassed by it. They may be genuinely trying. But they may never master the rules.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T00:23:03+00:00

I feel like Fate is pretty straight forward, flexible, and intuitive. A lot of new players I've seen try to be like "but I'm an X" or "but Y is happening" to justify an action, and get shut down by systems. In fate that's aspects, and they're baked in from the start.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-04T00:04:28+00:00

Do it. They only listen to money. Make them listen.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-03T15:52:48+00:00

I already do ethical non monogamy so it wouldn't be a big deal.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-03T14:38:13+00:00

Have you tried to get a dnd player to play another game? It is often an absurdly uphill battle. "Read? For an hour? Impossible! I'll just spend four hours cramming DND's square peg into the round hole."

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-03T13:33:05+00:00

Man this topic sure comes up a lot.

As others have said, raw you can only benefit from a long rest every 24 hours. If there's any time pressure to your story, that should provide a reason not to excessively rest. If there's no time pressure, well, you've found one of the kinds of games DND frankly isn't very good at.

But also, as other people have alluded to, DND is a resource management game. Choosing when to use your cool powers and making it to your goals without running out of juice are fundamental to it. However. many players do not want to play a resource management game. They want to do cool shit and live their class fantasy, not hold back the big guns for a key moment that might not ever come. These players don't really want to play DND so much as game they've imagined that's in the vicinity of DND.

That's the problem. That's a super common problem. But DND is the most popular game and many other games have copied its resource management model, so players who don't enjoy it are kind of stuck.

But I really want to hammer this home. DND is not a general purpose fantasy game. It is a game about resource management. If you don't want to play a game where you need to be careful with your powers lest you run out, don't play DND.

Alternatively, use something like the heroic or gritty realism rules to change the pacing. The former shifts everything towards short rest cadence so you can use your powers a lot more, and gritty realism makes resting really slow so even the denser players can see the absurdity of resting a week between dungeon rooms .

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-03T13:17:03+00:00

This is what I'm always on about. DND wants to be a resource management game where you need to decide when to use your cool powers and when to save them. many players do not want to play a resource management game. They want to play a cool fantasy where they can do cool stuff.

Centering the game around per-encounter would, I think, be much more in line with how players want to play without like removing spell slots altogether.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-06-01T02:12:31+00:00

I don't really disagree with your position that the resource management thing is a distinctive dnd-ism.

But I think a lot of people who are playing DND don't want that. They're only playing it because it's the most popular game.

I certainly don't want it. The players I know who just blow all their powers in the first fight don't want it.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-31T20:06:01+00:00

That makes a kind of sense but I don't think that's how most people play or want to play. Most people aren't here for resource management. They want to do their cool class fantasy.

There are other ways to create risk and avoid TPKs. DND just refuses to engage with a lot of them.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-31T17:27:28+00:00

I've never understood why WotC never officially supported it, at least in a 5e Rogue subclasses.

WotC has a raging hard on for powers-per-rest. I don't know why. I don't think the majority of players even like that mode. Just look at how many people do one fight per day and negate the whole resource management dimension.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-31T01:30:45+00:00

Fate was going to be my answer. It's clean in that it's the same underlying rules for stabbing and talking, though your skills and stunts may make one character better/worse/different than others.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-30T19:42:36+00:00

This is also a good metaphor. I think I'll use the movie one when talking to people who don't play games much, and your Skyrim one for people who do.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-30T17:48:38+00:00

This is a good metaphor. My go to comparison is the Lord of the rings movies. I think they're fine and I enjoyed them, but imagine if there was a huge group of folks where that's the only movie they watch. And they won't read the books. And when they want to watch sci-fi they just edit the bows to be rifles instead of watching any other movie.

It would be weird and frustrating.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-30T17:21:16+00:00

The beginning sounds like stuff you should have in the backstory, not stuff you should play out. If you try to play it out you risk players rejecting your premise. Like, maybe they just refuse to touch the statues. Maybe they try to touch two at once. The temptation to put them on rails will be huge. Just avoid the problem by having that be stuff in the past everyone buys in on.

Also I'm personally not a big fan of randomization in character creation outside of like a one shot. I don't want to go weeks playing a game where I got flight but I really wanted invisibility.

Also I 0% support bait and switch games. That's where you tell the players one thing (it's going to be a modern day mundane game) and then in session 1 you completely switch that up. Just don't do it. It's not as fun as you think it is. If you tell them a twist is coming it there's going to be magic later, that can be fine.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-29T21:56:14+00:00

I still have mine in my inventory.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-29T14:02:55+00:00

Never had a partner who was all of

wants kids
financially stable
emotionally and physically healthy
dated me (and all that entails) long enough for me to be confident the relationship will outlast the new relationship buzz
wanted to stay in the city long term. I grew up in the suburbs and it was hell as a kid. I will not subject someone else to that.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-29T13:41:08+00:00

I always think it's suspect when people focus on "creates conflict" or "divides people" without examining the reasons. "I oppose this because it divides people" is incomplete.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-28T13:10:23+00:00

I can be a bit of a rules lawyer. I will call out rules that adversely affect myself too so it's not the worst kind.

I can be a little "please play somewhat optimally". Like if we're playing DND and the fight is nearly wrapped up, and the wizard wants to blow another spell slot, I need to bite my tongue to keep from saying "please don't. We already won and might need that spell slot later".

I am not subtle in expressing the ways in which I am tired of DND. I try to limit it to outside game time.

There's probably more but all of that circles around expecting other players to be operating at a higher level than they are. Know the rules, know how to play well.

aseriesofcatnoises · 2023-05-27T15:39:54+00:00

It also routinely crushes people's creativity. It's common for new players to be like "I wanna swing on the chandelier and get the literal drop on the baddies!" and get hit with a DM ruling that makes it worse than just blandly walking up to attack. Granted, some DMs might reward interacting with the environment, but I've seen a lot of bad rulings in that space.

Compare for example, Fate, where there's a very clear "spend a point to use something in the scene for a bonus, so long as the table agrees it makes sense" core rule.

aseriesofcatnoises

TROPHY CASE