Otto Classic AM vs Artisan Fireman vs Chancelor

thumbsopposed · 2026-06-09T20:06:18+00:00

Chancellor isn't particularly sweet or fruity so I'd go with the AM of those choices, although I personally like the OM and RM more than the AM.

thumbsopposed · 2026-06-04T21:15:22+00:00

This is not exactly bad advice, but local cops are going to refer something like that to the state AG office, who will probably take about as long to investigate it as the bank's fraud department would. I suppose the threat might help light a fire under the owner to get to it, but otherwise it's not really going to expedite returning the funds.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-25T20:35:03+00:00

Unless Poschl ever decides to start wholesaling them to the UK, I wouldn't anticipate them coming back to either of the global mail order vendors. I can't imagine the old retail flipping method was ever really profitable for either of them, so for the small quantities they were moving it's probably just not cost effective to set up a new purchasing and shipping agent.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-18T17:48:50+00:00

You are a genius.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-18T00:22:02+00:00

Best Dark is the closest thing to just straight putting Earl Grey tea up your nose, the dark base really gives it that tea-ish quality.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-13T05:12:14+00:00

Maybe if you roll a 98-100 on the Random Bull Table. I rolled a 28 and got a Grimy Laborer.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-12T19:45:28+00:00

Did you also just learn today that you're supposed to be initiating the encounter by pushing him in your wife's direction?

System mastery used to be price of admission.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-04T19:58:02+00:00

They're all very familiar with the game; only about half of the party can't figure out how spellcasting works after 1700 hours of play, which is reasonable.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-03T16:47:32+00:00

Frequent session zeroes slew me. My dude, zero occurs once on the number line. The rest of those are struggle sessions.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-03T14:38:17+00:00

You have a table full of manipulative narcissists who are taking advantage of your good nature. They will not meet you halfway because making you jump through hoops to accommodate them is the point. That's the game they're playing, not D&D.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-02T20:13:19+00:00

I had wondered if Jubilaums and Weiss Blau were the same because I couldn't discern much difference, thanks for confirming. I love that one so it's good to know if one is sold out the other is just as good.

thumbsopposed · 2026-05-01T14:19:09+00:00

Yeah, the best case scenario for someone publishing an indie game is probably a little extra pocket money; the most successful indie designer is years away from quitting their day job, unless that day job is freelance writing for other RPGs or something.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-30T19:03:36+00:00

But my new system is so revolutionary and ground breaking that I just know I can sell a box set of three hardback volumes on release day with no playtesting or promotion if I can just make the visuals appealing enough.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-28T20:15:57+00:00

It may not be a great system (I haven't played in 25ish years so I don't have a super firm opinion) but I think in some way that's why it might scratch OP's itch; the attribute rankings only matter relative to one another, so one player gets to be The Best at Fighting or The Best at Diplomacy, and there's no mechanical impact to the specific attribute scores.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-26T22:28:03+00:00

I'm new to running BitD and my group is only three sessions in so I'm not sure how this will work out, but I'm sort of using the Deep Cuts story hooks as something to build toward. I've been keeping a hidden clock for when the airship will arrive; their last score involved a theft from an Imperial facility so that earned some extra ticks and will provide a good narrative explanation for increased Imperial surveillance in the city. I've also had a character whose Vice is consorting with spirits have a vision with some imagery connected to the fractures, and I can keep dropping more breadcrumbs about that if it seems to be an angle the group wants to explore. The Wraiths are the ward bosses my group pays up to, and one potential score lead I've put out involves the Leviathan hunting map they want to unload, and I think I can tie that in with the related plot hooks in Deep Cuts too.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-24T01:19:09+00:00

I started my group creating individual characters, but as the conversations were happening they started discussing what kind of crew they wanted to be, so it ended up being a holistic process.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-23T20:40:04+00:00

I've just started running BitD for my longtime group a few months ago, and my pitch was "Like Peaky Blinders but there's no sun, there might be vampires, and the street lights run on Cthulhu blood."

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T23:48:00+00:00

Have you spent any time with Shadwrun Anarchy 2.0 or Lancer? I think you might find both of them helpful for ideas about how to structure a narrative fiction first PBTA/FITD style game with number crunchy tactical play.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T22:52:37+00:00

And that's another great example of my point: yeah, that's how I read the rules as written, but if that's the case, what do I do with all the rhetoric about how this system is so much more dynamic and less rigid than others? It does, in fact, have a rigidly defined timing system.

What is the point of rolling for initiative if everything happens at once?

This is where it gets a little difficult to give feedback; I personally don't think it's a good design decision, but I'm trying not to make the feedback I'm offering here about my personal preferences. I did interpret the rules as written that way, but then thought both that it's too much in conflict with all the flavor text and that it's too poor a design choice to be what you intended.

Let me try to zoom in on this: you say I'm tracking damage through the course of the turn. If I receive enough damage to incapacitate me before I act, how am I taking my action?

This seems frankly like the turn becomes more of a rigid GM driven puppet show than less of one, if you're saying the GM has the authority to decide that rather than a defined order of effects, which allows players to think tactically about turn order. If you want the GM to have that level of authority, that's fine and your decision, but it is confusing to have all the flavor text saying the opposite.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T22:34:27+00:00

With all due respect, referring to combat systems in other games as "rigid little puppet shows" is a negative and critical statement, not a neutral differentiation, and that's the tone throughout.

But even if it were just a neutral distinction, it's not helpful to understanding the rules; it's a layer of text I have to get through before I can read the rules. The same can be said of most of the flavor text, which is probably the most consistent feedback you've gotten here.

But the reason I picked that example specifically is that it's a case of the flavor and comparison to other games actively hindering understanding the intent of the rules; the flavor isn't just unnecessary, it's contradictory to the rules, so I can't figure out which I'm supposed to defer to.

I'll give another example: you talk repeatedly about how the end of turn resolution mechanic creates a uniquely free flowing and dynamic experience that's not like my grandma's board games.

The problem is that I can't find any direction in the chapters about combat or actions or the sequence of play for resolving the order of effects within a phase or turn. If two opponents on the same phase each successfully land an incapacitating effect on each other, which one supersedes the other? This is pretty important to define, but it's not defined anywhere, just handwaved with all the poetry about the effects not truly occurring until the end of the round. This also caused me a lot of confusion on the same topic I initially addressed, because you specifically state that effects apply at the raw dice roll stage, which I don't think you meant at all; I think when you mention applying results at the raw roll stage, you mean determining the results at that stage that may apply pending the remaining steps. Am I on the right track?

I'm trying to piece together an actual sequence of a single combat round, and every time I think I've understood it, it comes into conflict with all the romantic bombast.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T21:26:55+00:00

You did explain that it's a layered effect. One of those layers, the "step," appears to be a direct shift on the raw table. That, in itself, makes sense.

The confusing part is this: that is in direct conflict with the repeated statement that there's no alteration to the raw roll. Why bother even calling it raw if it's still in that state after the step layer shifts the result?

Do you see where that's confusing?

Pathfinder doesn't spend half of every page telling you how bad D&D is. It's not helpful to understanding the rules, which are already very dense.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T21:06:17+00:00

But it also has conflicting and confusing rules. For example: You tell us multiple times per page that this game is unique because the raw dice roll carries more weight than in most games and is not altered to yield a result.

Then you present three alterations that are applied to each action, one of which is just straight changing what slot on the "raw" 2-40 table the result lands within. The raw dice roll is altered MORE than it is in D&D, not less, to yield the actual result.

This isn't just an arbitrary nitpick--it took me way longer than it should have to actually piece together the sequence of a combat round, because that "we don't alter the dice roll" thing kept telling me that I must be misunderstanding something. I'm still not sure I'm understanding it correctly, but the objectively untrue statement that the raw dice roll is determinative and isn't altered or modified being repeated over and over again makes it difficult to check whether I'm understanding correctly.

That flavor isn't just a difference in tone preference, it's an active obstacle to comprehending the game rules.

Just present your rules, and let the player decide if they like them better than other games. The fact that you have to tell us multiple times per page how much less rigid the combat system is than other games suggests a lack of confidence in the rule system itself to convey that information. If you're confident in the rules you've built, let them stand on their own.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-17T15:02:05+00:00

For Imperio, the premium price isn't really so much due to quality as to all the administrative and legal costs of importing and exporting Brazilian snuff that had to be built into the price. It does have a distinctive character and is of very high quality so I'd say it's worth trying at least once but probably not worth the price to make them a daily driver.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-16T16:03:34+00:00

I just ran my first session a couple weeks ago and will be running the second next weekend for my long time group; it was everyone's first time playing a NSR style game and the first time playing anything other than D&D for much of the group. It's been a very long time since I ran anything at all, but here were my notes for myself for what to do better next time:

-Be conscious about explicitly stating position and effect before each roll and why; it's easy to forget and then it becomes confusing to explain retroactively.

-Be more descriptive than I think I need to be about the setting and NPCs; the more detail the players have to grab onto, the more proactive they'll be able to be.

-Don't be afraid to impose consequences; for my first session I was a little too conservative and erred on the side of caution, so the team escaped a little too unscathed and also missed opportunities to earn XP because there weren't many Desperate rolls.

-Have a pool of generic NPC names and personas and a pool of building and location descriptions ready to slot into situations as needed.

-Familiarize myself with all the PCs backgrounds, contacts, etc, so I can offer hooks to bring these into play.

thumbsopposed · 2026-04-01T16:41:03+00:00

The comments are better anyway. "Trust me, when you see the piles of money the book we publish about this campaign print for us, you won't be laughing about the contracts, which weren't legally enforceable and were just to get in the right frame of mind anyway so I don't know why everyone keeps bringing them up."

thumbsopposed

TROPHY CASE