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Help me out of my Table-Top rut?

Started by Zekromnomnom, August 22, 2014, 07:05:14 AM

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Zekromnomnom

I have the next four days off, so I might look around some for more information. Or just play the new used video games I bought.

Hairy, yeah, I've only ever read the rules on one system that wasn't d20 based and that was for Little Fears, which uses dice pools. But I have been making a list of things to look into. Also found some interesting stuff when I googled "free table top games". Also, dumb question. In those percentile ones, do you just use the d% dice or is there some kind of special hundred sided die that actually rolls well that people use for those games? Cause my d100 rolled for crap and never stopped.

Beorning: a friend of a friend of mine had a Call of Cthulhu book and wanted to run it, but we were all tired and hung over that day. And the one who actually owned the book was super annoying so we didn't see him after like the day he was visiting.

Kylie, while I might be down to try something like this, I think with the current people I have in my gaming group, dice are necessary to hold attention a bit more and I feel like without more rules and crunch, they would get a bit out of hand, honestly. For the people I do my favorite hobby in the world with, they sure annoy the ever-loving hell out of me. And they would probably be "too cool" for it.



On another note, last night, I decided to try and take a stab at an idea I had to work out the mechanics of it. I didn't get that far, as I was really really tired, but it was a fun little exercise. Just hard to work it quite the way I wanted to. This first trial seems to be too numbers heavy.

HairyHeretic

I've never seen an actual 100 sided dice. Anyone I've ever known who played games that used that particular mechanic rolled a pair of d10s.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

Beorning

Quote from: Zekromnomnom on August 25, 2014, 07:20:31 AM
Beorning: a friend of a friend of mine had a Call of Cthulhu book and wanted to run it, but we were all tired and hung over that day. And the one who actually owned the book was super annoying so we didn't see him after like the day he was visiting.

Call of Cthulhu is a horror game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. As I said, it's considered a classic, currently in its 6th edition. It's a good game, although I'd risk saying that it shows that the game has been designed years ago. The rules are quite simple - too simple, in fact, for my taste (all skill checks made without any modifiers related to the task's difficulty??? Bleh!). Also, the game's art and writing style could use some refreshing... Especially the art doesn't hold the candle to what new games look like.

On the other hand, the game does some effort to replicate Lovecraft's ideas - and actually has rules that enforces them. If you ever read Lovecraft's works, you might've noticed that his protagonists often end up insane... well, the game is designed that way that this is exactly what happens to many characters :) You see, it has all those fun rules that make the characters lose their sanity drop by drop... and it even has a rule that the more character knows about the various mysteries, the easier it is for this character to go insane. It perfectly mirrors HPL's idea that humans are unable to cope with the reality of the cosmos...

So, it can be a fun game. Just be prepared for a really outdated design of the book - and of some game rules, too.

Quote from: HairyHeretic on August 25, 2014, 08:20:09 AM
I've never seen an actual 100 sided dice. Anyone I've ever known who played games that used that particular mechanic rolled a pair of d10s.

I've seen a d100 at the gaming shop I buy stuff. I considered buying it, but it costed about ten times the price of a normal die, so I decided that it wasn't worth it. Especially that you can do d100 rolls with two d10s without any problem...

Zekromnomnom


Avis habilis


kylie

#30
        Yes, Amber -- Only played it once, but I do suppose you want a balanced group of people to actually keep the drama going.  If not, well -- someone is probably going to hate me for this comparison but -- you might as well play Werewolf and be more forthright about the spirit of things. 

        The one time I actually played Amber, it was at a con...  It was mostly people milling and strolling around a big room (there were a good number of people, I'd say at least 10 or so).  I had read the novels so I expected quite a bit of backstabbing, and there was.  After all, the books themselves are kind of one endless murder mystery and string of royal intrigues.  The novels keep it going by having a sense of humor -- and suspense!  They are continually adding curious people and magical puzzles or outsiders to the pool of events. 

        To be fair, only a couple people actually died in the first session that I recall.  My character was continued into a second session run by the same GM's (where she was run by another player and died -- if it matters), but I completed the first feeling she just wasn't getting anywhere.  (That wasn't the only reason I didn't go on; there were many other games on offer and I'd leaned toward other things already.  Though I wasn't much taken with it.)  At least it took some time for most of the killing to brew.  But I could tell she probably wasn't getting anywhere -- between the mix of characters, and the player cliques and styles while I was there.

          I don't know if Amber recommends this by design (I didn't have the books), but one thing I noticed was that players were given widely disparate allotments of initial points. I don't recall if that was the result of bidding itself, but I think it had something to do with how the GM's arranged that particular game.  It was very difficult for some of us to compete on attributes at all that way -- we might win among attributes where few had invested, but I think some people were just unlikely to end up with any top score attributes among the population.  While in a way it's vaguely realistic, I didn't really like facing that sort of problem within that system to begin with...  But then I suppose, book or no book not everyone has to arrange it that way.
     

Zekromnomnom

That kind of sounds like something that would make my players bitch a lot. I just don't have the group for it right now.

Beorning

How about your group playing Mutants & Masterminds? I have the 2nd Ed (and I refuse to acknowledge the existence of the 3rd  ;D ) and it's a pretty good game. And it's related to other D20 games, so your group wouldn't have much trouble to learn it.

Zekromnomnom

I dunno which one we have, but the one time I was looking it over, I was a bit daunted by the complexity of picking abilities. But I suppose sometime I could try to run a game like that.

I maybe should have prefaced all this with saying that I'm kind of an inexperienced DM.

Beorning

Oh, character creation in M&M can look daunting, that's for sure... but I really think it's easier than it looks. You can always keep things simple and not mess around with all the possible modifications, extras, flaws etc. available for powers. And powers selection is the toughest part of the character creation process. Stuff like abilities, skills and feats should be easily understandable for people who have had some experience with D20 systems.

And the rest of the rules? They aren't that hard to undestand, either...

Zekromnomnom

Apparently my bank cancelled my other Goddamn order because of some dumb policy of theirs.

HairyHeretic

Quote from: Zekromnomnom on August 27, 2014, 01:41:59 PM
I maybe should have prefaced all this with saying that I'm kind of an inexperienced DM.

Every GM is to start with, grasshopper :)

You can learn some from listening to others, but you'll learn the most through doing.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

Zekromnomnom

I'm actually going to be working on a 3.5 game for a new player or two, as well as an old friend who was always pretty good as a player, but better as a DM. We'll be switching of DMing. I should be working on that right now, but I think I need some caffeine. I'm sleepy.

Chris Brady

3.x is a LOT of work.  Even for someone like me (whom I'll not claim is an expert, rather someone experienced at GMing  I like to think 29 years of it is enough to make me know a thing or two at least.  :P)  Hats off to ya.
My O&Os Peruse at your doom.

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Also, I now come with Kung-Fu Blog action.  Here:  Where I talk about comics and all sorts of gaming

Zekromnomnom

Quote from: Chris Brady on August 28, 2014, 07:20:33 PM
3.x is a LOT of work.  Even for someone like me (whom I'll not claim is an expert, rather someone experienced at GMing  I like to think 29 years of it is enough to make me know a thing or two at least.  :P)  Hats off to ya.

I know what you mean. It's actually the only system I've ever used, and I've probably been DM maybe seven times in as many years, all for games that ended up as one shots. But I'm still very inexperienced. Kind of makes me glad some of the players are new. I really need to draw some maps and stuff and hope they don't decide to tunnel in through the back of the goblin cave or something crazy like that. I'm pretty far behind, though.


HairyHeretic

Every game takes a fair amount of work, which some players never realise til they're the ones in the hot seat.
Hairys Likes, Dislikes, Games n Stuff

Cattle die, kinsmen die
You too one day shall die
I know a thing that will never die
Fair fame of one who has earned it.

Zekromnomnom

So I think I'm going to try running a little Savage Worlds game. But I'm itching to get my next paycheck so I can buy something else to try or at least read through.

RubySlippers

I play AD&D 1st Edition ,yes the group is a mix of old codgers and younger players, and I love it and even DM a game now and then. I don't care how old the rules are a classic DnD set of rules is a gem to play and run.

Okay it is an easy set to get down, but once you do its just simple down home fun.

Zekromnomnom

I have a friend that swears by AD&D but to my knowledge he's never really played it. I tend to stick with 3.X because it's my first and I'm the only player in the group all that willing to try new things by running it.

Right now, that's honestly by far my biggest issue. I'm the only one willing to run anything. Sure, my roommate will GM a Pathfinder module but he kind of butchers the story aspect of it and so do the other players. Also, I don't like Golarion as a setting. My only other nearby friends are 3.X players and one an experienced DM but he's in a new relationship so even though she wants to play with us, he's always too busy with her to write anything up.

Greenwoodtree

Has anyone mentioned Mouse Guard?  I didn't think I saw it. 

Its different, not too hard to get a grip on, and based on the beautiful graphic books of same name.  I recently got to set up my character in a table top game.

Character creation and play is fairly straightforward, and I found, somewhat realistic. Check it out.  I found the books at last years huge Con.
"Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice.  Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart."

Let's only say what our Hearts desire.
~Rumi


My Requests:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=243061.0
My Apologies: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=224775.0
My Preferences:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/onsoffs.php?u=56044

Zekromnomnom

I actually saw them super cheap on Amazon a few weeks ago. I love Mouse Guard but to be honest when people tell me table tops are fairly realistic, it kind of turns me away. I don't want that much realism in my games.

Greenwoodtree

Well, how realistic is it for mice to be battling evil with shields and armor?  ;)  The only thing the game doesnt have is magic.  That's what I mean by 'realistic.

The characterization is in depth, and role-playing is very important.  Too bad my GM is having to take a break because I created a pretty awesome little mouse dude.
"Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice.  Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart."

Let's only say what our Hearts desire.
~Rumi


My Requests:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=243061.0
My Apologies: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=224775.0
My Preferences:  https://elliquiy.com/forums/onsoffs.php?u=56044

Zekromnomnom

Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

I was just thinking about this one time on some forum, someone in a table-top thread kept talking about how they preferred to have their games like real combat where it's fast and brutal and blah blah blah and the entire time I was thinking "...well...in D&D, sometimes you fight dragons, so..."

But yeah, anyway, I dunno, if I found the right group I would definitely be down for playing the Mouse Guard game.

Frelance

If no one has mentioned it yet you should check out Numenera. Its set a couple billion if not more years in the future where the people living on earth now see the technology from past civilizations as magic because they cannot understand it. I have not gotten a chance to play it yet but I have read through most of the core book and its laded out very simply but very interesting.
Evolution is an arms race