sirblastalot

joined 2 years ago
MODERATOR OF
rpg
[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 7 points 3 days ago

The secret to writing (or playing) characters that are smarter than you are is that you can take your time coming up with what they do. Maybe in-game your character has a razor wit and would have a snappy comeback for any situation. Out of game you've got a list of pre-prepared retorts you can bust out as needed.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 2 points 6 days ago

It may be less impartial than a book with no financial connection to its subject.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't know where this 1982 reference point is coming from. This is a history book about a game series, not a reprint of an 80s game. If you walk into a book store and pick a history book off a shelf, even a well researched, nice, hardcover, it's like $20-25.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 week ago (5 children)

It's a little sus that it's published by the same company that owns Traveller now. That said, I think $7 is not a lot of money for a book you're interested in. $60 for the physical is outrageous though.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 2 points 1 week ago

Stick with Star Wars, they have nice, safe-for-work Jizz Music.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 4 points 1 week ago

There's also Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force where they get transported to a ship graveyard.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 weeks ago

Blast off and nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 8 points 2 weeks ago

So I guess that's actually several questions, and they each have different answers.

Why does combat feature heavily in D&D? It doesn't. Or at least, not necessarily. How much or little it features is dependent on your DM.

Ok, so why has it historically been featured heavily? Because of D&D's lineage. The game evolved mechanically from wargames, where combat was the whole thing, and thematically from works like Conan the Barbarian and Tolkein, where fighting monsters featured prominently.

Why so many types of monsters, then, if works like The Hobbit only had a half dozen or so? Because The Hobbit is a single story, whereas D&D is a framework for creating lots of stories. Maybe one short campaign or a campaign arc has as many monsters as a Tolkein story, but then you go on to the next arc, the next campaign, and you need something new. You can obviously recycle lots; orc bandits are different from orc soldiers are different from orc cultists. But with (tens of?) thousands of games going on continuously, year after year, there's always a demand for new content to slot in, and monster design is often a handy thing for DMs to outsource. Hence, there are a lot of kinds of monster because there is demand for them.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Humans are the real space orcs.

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Are you asking why there are so many kinds of monsters, or why monsters appear so frequently in the campaigns you've played in?

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 weeks ago

When Lwaxana scanned the bar in DS9 s01e17 The Forsaken to figure out who stole her broach, she has to look at each person in the room to read them. Perhaps the range for Betazeds is very high or unlimited, but using it requires them to be aware of the person's presence, or to specifically focus on them? Or perhaps there's general vibes, but truly reading someone requires active focus?

[–] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

That doesn't work for 40k, to my understanding. It's a miniatures combat game

 

Perhaps obvious to everyone else, but I've hit upon a little trick for better coordinating game time. Instead of announcing "Game will be at 1 o'clock" I've been doing something like "Doors open at Noon, Game starts at 1." This way, the people that want to hang out, level their characters, decide what they like on their pizza, etc all show up at noon, and the people that are running late or decide to come at 1 arrive with the expectation that they're going to walk in the door and immediately start playing. It also provides a natural transition point from the arriving/hanging out mode to game time, which otherwise makes me feel kind of uncomfortably teacher-y, calling the whole class together and whatnot. Try it out, maybe it will help you too.

 

You see something similar in the entranceway to public bathrooms that don't have doors, where it kind of zig-zags for privacy. I'm trying to figure out what this kind of architectural feature is called. Thanks!

57
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by sirblastalot@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network
 

I recently started a new campaign. Two players (one who has played in my games before and their SO, who has been begging me for a spot for years) unexpectedly dropped out, moments before our first session. Their reason was somewhat baffling; they said they didn't want to spend "all day" on this, despite the game only going from noon to 3PM. They seemed to think this was a totally unreasonable expectation on my part, despite them previously having stated they were available during that time. This puzzled me.

I've been musing on this, and the strange paradox of people that say they want to play D&D but don't actually want to play D&D, and I've had an epiphany.

A lot of people blame Critical Role or other popular D&D shows for giving prospective players misplaced perceptions, often related to things like your DM's voice acting ability or prop budget, but I don't think that's what's going on here. My realization is that, encoded in the medium of podcasts and play videos, is another expectation: New players unconsciously expect to receive D&D the way they receive D&D shows: on-demand, at their house, able to be paused and restarted at their whim, and possibly on a second-screen while they focus on something else!

I don't know as this suggests anything we as DMs could do differently to set expectations, but it did go a long ways to helping me understand my friends, and I thought it might help someone here to share.

 

I've got an unholy-water fountain, a human chessboard, and an evil hedge maze. I need 1 more thing to put in the last corner of the square courtyard/garden thing. Any suggestions?

view more: next ›