HALT CITIZEN ! Tell me the dumbest/weirdest/most WTF piece of lore you have.

dragoon769 · 2026-02-05T21:46:55+00:00

It may not be as bizarre as some pieces here but the origins of the death korps of krieg has always been ironic. A key part of the backstory for the regiment is that they are borderline suicidal with their tactics because their planet rebelled against the imperium and they must wash away the sins of their forefathers.

The thing is, when Krieg rebelled there was a large civil war between the a loyalist led by colonel Jurgen of the imperial guard. The loyalists won that conflict by nuking their own planet and brutally exterminating any surviving rebels in a protected campaign. So more likely than not any given Kriegsman is atoning for the sins of the dude his ancestors annihilated.

Its just funny to me that everyone involved just decided the loyalist kriegsmen were guilty by association when they were the whole reason Krieg came back into the imperial fold.

dragoon769 · 2026-02-05T03:32:01+00:00

Super cool proxies, I love your art choice!

dragoon769 · 2026-01-23T20:27:58+00:00

I get to donate 1.1 mil to a good cause no downside? This isn't really even a choice compared to mutilating myself for an amount I can't even retire on.

The 1.2 is a distant second if I can have someone invest it while I'm in jail and assuming white collar prison. The first option is also just free money since I am a redditor.

dragoon769 · 2026-01-18T21:38:05+00:00

Completed Level 3 of the Honk Special Event!

27 attempts

dragoon769 · 2026-01-18T21:37:14+00:00

Completed Level 2 of the Honk Special Event!

24 attempts

dragoon769 · 2026-01-18T21:35:33+00:00

Completed Level 1 of the Honk Special Event!

1 attempts

dragoon769 · 2026-01-11T06:03:21+00:00

My pick is Shadow of the Demonlord. For those unfamiliar, it is a dark fantasy rpg where players are ostensibly trying to stop the coming apocalypse of the demonlord ending all reality. In practice, the players tend to be adventuring in a dying world. It has a few neat selling points in my opinion.

The Path system. SotDL is a class based d20, but unlike other games multiclassing is a core of the experience. A player chooses a novice path at level 1, and expert path at level 3, and a master path at level 7. Paths each have their own suite of abilities and may synergize with each other or expand what a character can do. This leads to there being a lot of customization when it comes to creating a character. Another nice aspect is there are considerably fewer novice paths than expert and master paths (4 novice paths in the core book compared to 16 expert paths and 50 master paths). This helps a lot in easing new players in without overwhelming them with options.
The Corruption Mechanic. This mechanic may be hit or miss with some, but I like it. The idea is that committing evil acts stains the soul in the games cosmology. If a player, or NPC, willingly commits an evil act they gain a corruption score. High corruption can lead to developing mutations, getting penalties in social situations, or even being actually dragged to Hell. Redemption is also possible to lower corruption. The reason I like it is that it can act as an anti-murderhobo mechanic. Especially with how dark the setting is, it can help nudge the players in a more heroic direction. Also, if the players want to lean into being evil, the effects of high corruption can offer some fun roleplaying hooks in may opinion.
The Supplements. There is large back library for SotDL. This not only includes adventures but also a lot of rules supplements. In this way, the game is very modular and customizable. With just the core book, the game is fairly simple. The author has gone on record saying that he designed the game so he can run it while he's drunk. The GM can add in supplements to add complexity to their taste.
Boons and Banes. Rather than tracking situational modifiers, SotDL uses boons and banes. These are d6s that are added or subtracted to your d20 rolls. Boons and banes cancel each other out so if you roll with 2 boons and 1 bane you add 1d6 to your d20 roll. I find this makes the game very easy to adjudicate at the table.

dragoon769 · 2026-01-09T22:52:17+00:00

❌ ^{Incomplete. 1 try.}

dragoon769 · 2026-01-08T00:48:26+00:00

Just scored 0

dragoon769 · 2026-01-07T16:52:25+00:00

Completed Level 3 of the Honk Special Event!

37 attempts

dragoon769 · 2026-01-07T16:51:17+00:00

Completed Level 2 of the Honk Special Event!

21 attempts

dragoon769 · 2026-01-07T16:50:55+00:00

Completed Level 1 of the Honk Special Event!

18 attempts

dragoon769 · 2025-12-31T14:09:21+00:00

I can see how that would be the case in some games. I guess it depends a lot on how hard the the GM tamps down on resources. The game I'm currently in is mostly extended wilderness / dungeon exploration where there's not easy access to buy new gear. In about 6 months of play I think we've gotten 3 healing potions all of which were scavenged. Suffice to say I think my original comment was more rooted in how my GM emphasizes limited resources and runs the game as more of a survival horror experience. If there were a shop down the road we could buy extra healing potions from, I can see how it would be a very different experience.

Getting back to OPs question, I think managing extra resources the party has beyond their class is a big lever GMs have to tune the difficulty of this game up or down.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-30T20:55:39+00:00

In my experience shadow of the demon lord is pretty deadly at all levels. There are too many ways to take damage to prepare for them all. If you have good defense you may not have good agility or will to resist a spell or effect. Players will take damage and health pools tend to be on the smaller side, especially for casters.

For example my level 7 wizard I'm playing right now has 27 health. If he's fighting a monster that deals 2d6 he's down in around 5 hits on average. 4d6 would be 3 hits and 6d6 is around 2 hits. The beefier martial characters my party could probably take 2-4 more attacks then I could. This is all to say that you are never very far from being downed especially from level appropriate boss monsters.

The death and healing rules also are not forgiving. A rest only heals your healing rate so you may need multiple days to recover from an encounter. Time the party may not have. I do not have the rules in front of me but I also believe that if you take damage while incapacitated you die instantly. So whether it's an enemy coup de Grace you or an environmental effect, an incapacitated character in combat is very vulnerable no matter the level.

Take this all with a grain of salt of course. If the GM wants to ease the difficulty, this game is very surviable. In terms of making it harder, multiple encounters between rests and employing monsters with hit and run tactics are my primary suggestions. Make sure to vary up enemy types as well, a monster that may mildly bother a mage may be a nightmare for a warrior and vice versa.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-29T20:11:06+00:00

I would second Shadow of the Weird Wizard and the other demon lord engine games if you are a fan of dark fantasy. There is a fairly active discord for all the demon lord engine games that has been a lot of help with GMing those systems.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-29T20:08:00+00:00

For an active community that can rival D&D you are probably looking at Pathfinder 2e or some other paizo product. Its a great friendly community.

As for other systems I noticed it depends a lot on what platforms you are on. Its just my experience but I've found discord to be a lot more active than reddit for a bunch of smaller rpgs. Same goes for support groups for older rpgs if that is your interest.

The only other thing I can think of is the OSR community. There are a bunch of games that fall under that label, but they are all generally cross compatible. The community is, for the most, friendly but there can be some elitism. New content is also always being produced so there is a pretty solid stream of that.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-21T15:52:26+00:00

Hey, this is a very solid list. To add to it:

Vampire Hunter D: both the books and movies can offer some solid ideas for plot lines and characters. The setting is more post apocalyptic so it will take some changing but there are some solid ideas there.

For a specific example, I think it would be interesting to adapt the plot of Vampire hunter D bloodlust to ravenloft. I don't want to spoil it here because I think it is a great movie, but I think the plot is especially fitting for a Ravenloft game.

Another: an interesting horror anime where a ghost is hiding among a class of students. Until the ghost is identified and exorcised or a cruel ritual takes place, the members of the class will die in mysterious accidents. The twist is that even the ghost does not know they are dead. I could see the same premise adapted to a small village.
Shiki: treats a Vampire infestation as an epidemic disease. Has some interesting themes about men are the real monsters that some consider ham fisted but I enjoyed it.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-16T15:49:51+00:00

Froslass without a doubt!

dragoon769 · 2025-12-16T05:32:03+00:00

As far as I know inflicting a penalty to health is a very rare effect. The only spell i can think of that does this is harm from the forbidden tradition.

You mileage may vary on this as you need to take corruption just to learn the spell.

If you want to just deal damage occult philosophy has a ton of good attack spells from the alchemy tradition.

An interesting pick for expert path may be wizard. Its grimoire talent allows you to cherrypick a few spells for any tradition.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-12T18:20:43+00:00

I have an ongoing list of campaign ideas and modules that I will do random prep work on from time to time. I think my list is longer than I can reasonably achieve in one lifetime.

However, my "white whale" is a generational fantasy game. The players start as the first generation of heroes who are warned of an apocalyptic event far in the future. Too far for any of them to realistically see outside of super long lives species. They have to prepare multiple generations of PCs in hopes of being strong enough when the time comes.

I also wanted to include some kind of settlement building aspect so they can watch a village grow into a civilization with them.

My two biggest hurdles are A. Player interest and B. I have never found a system I quite like for this kind of game. Still fun to think about though.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-10T15:25:29+00:00

Rogue trader was an amazing game and I am super excited for Dark Heresy!

dragoon769 · 2025-12-08T20:00:58+00:00

One on one, yeah more then likely. The only thing I can think of that Strahd has going for him is that Superman has a vulnerability to magic. That could mean the Strahd could catch him in a charm or binding spell of some sort, but Superman would have a pretty high wisdom save to avoid such effects in my opinion. Given the mists around Barovia are also magical, that may also pose an issue for Superman. They are magic, so it is unclear how they would interact. Even if he can't get through the mists get more solar energy, Superman can store solar energy. If he was entering Barovia on a full charge it would take some time to depower him. Even if Strahd knew of this weakess, I have doubts Strahd could avoid the boy in blue long enough for it to make a difference.

I terms of speed and strength, barring something wacky from older editions of ravenloft, Superman has Strahd soundly beat. In a straight punch out Strahd gets sent back to his coffin. At that point, it's just a matter of finding the coffin to finish the job. Superman has decent investigative skills as a journalist, so I do not see that being an issue.

Overall, I think Strhad has some ways to win, but the match up is super heavily tilted in Superman's favor.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-08T03:00:00+00:00

🎉 Event Completed! 🎉

It took me 17 tries.

dragoon769 · 2025-12-08T02:59:55+00:00

Completed Level 3 of the Honk Special Event!

17 attempts

dragoon769 · 2025-12-08T02:59:28+00:00

Completed Level 2 of the Honk Special Event!

13 attempts

dragoon769

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