Zagorath

joined 2 years ago
[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

I'll just say: my first RPG was 4e, a bit over a year after I started playing that, 5e came out and I immediately switched.

I've played a bunch of others here and there, but the next relevant one is Pathfinder 1e. I hated it. After my brief experience of that, you could not pay me to play 3.5 or PF1 again.[^1] But I switched to PF2e in 2023 after disliking the direction 5e was moving in (including but not limited to the OGL drama), and I absolutely love it. It feels like it gives me everything 5e was supposed to.

It has vancian spellcasting, which I don't love, but have to admit at least provides more legitimate diversity than 5e's quasi-vancian system. (With true spontaneous casters mixed with true prepared slot casters, and archetype choices that allow a more 5e-style approach, for the cost of an archetype feat.) Apart from spell slots, there isn't much that prevents a party from keeping going forever. Healing is pretty readily accessible, and most other stuff recharges on a 10 minute rest, if not instantly. Outside of spell slots, there isn't really any sense of attrition.

The three-action economy is a genius solution to a number of awkward design problems in 4e and 5e (and, from what I gather, 3.5/pf1). Though as a GM, I tend to be relatively generous in terms of what I count as costing an action, because RAW is a bit onerous at times (one action to get an item out of the bag, then another action to use it? Nah, no thanks. Players have a hard enough time deciding to use expendable items as it is.) 4 degrees of success is excellent and should really be the bare minimum going forward in most RPGs with a "success/fail" mechanic. And while I'm not a fan of the inevitable consequences (large numbers of weak enemies have zero chance against a party, and sandbox type worlds become impossible to run, with challenges needing to be tailored to within 2 or 3 levels of the party to be achievable), or the burden it places upon GMs (a requirement to give out a pretty specific progression of magic items, unless you use a variant rule that does away with a lot of the flavour in order to automate the maths), 2e's maths ends up really tight, and it feels really good when you are designing challenges specifically for your party as it currently stands.

PF2e has a lot of rules for specific things, but to be honest, outside of combat I tend to do it the same way I did in 5e and 4e. As GM I see what the players are trying to do, I decide an appropriate skill and DC, and I have them roll. I rarely bother with more complicated specific rules and subsystems. This is the same reason I genuinely quite liked 4e and never had any time for people who argue things like "it should have been called D&D Tactics" or "it was only a combat game, not a roleplaying game". I want rules to be light outside of combat.

[^1]: you could definitely pay me. But the point stands: I really did not like it and would not easily do it again.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Ah ok. So in a way it's kind of like Pathfinder to D&D? Pretty similar mechanically (I noticed in the Drivethru page that it's dice pool d10 skill+attribute), made by a former third-party publisher.

Being designed for crossover from the start is interesting. They've obviously got Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage equivalents, but I'm not sure what the Outcasts or Dead are. Wraith and Mummy? (Or vice versa?)

I also wonder about theme. Each of the WoD games have pretty strong themes. Vampire asks: what does it mean to be human? It deals with human-like political and interpersonal conflicts through the lens of the supernatural. Werewolf is about protecting nature and deals with topics like ecoterrorism vs industrialism. Mage is more esoteric and about what reality is, and how our sense of the real is created. Wraith is about death and what it means to our lives. Etc. Each game has its own unique and quite strong theming that makes it stand out from the others. Not saying that a competitor needs to have the same themes, but for me the appeal of all these is that the themes are so strong. Does Curseborne manage to keep strong themes while also enabling cross-play?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Sorry, this post is the first I've heard of Curseborn. What is it exactly?

I'm broadly familiar with Vampire: The Masquerade, and aware of Vampire: The Requiem as a failed attempt at rebooting/simplifying that game's universe but I don't really know any of the specifics.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I have to fight the temptation not to fix typos sometimes!

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 37 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The biggest thing preventing me from doing something like this is that I like having my players do a recap of the previous session, as a way to help me know what caught their attention the most/what mattered to them.

I guess you could still do this, especially if you really lean into the idea that the reporter is presenting an extremely biased/limited recap.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

TranscriptionPost by yeens-human:

I'm begging you

Put a reporter and early version of a newspaper in your dnd campaign

At the end of every mission/ordeal have the reporter interview the players as to what happened

After session on the campaign discord type up a hilariously uncharitable summary of the events that took place and start making falsehoods. And most importantly: spell a party member's name wrong

"Local sea elf beats vandal and promises to kill again"

"Star cross lovers, gangsters come to tragic end at the hands of murderous vigilantes"

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 3 weeks ago

Well at least that means you got a couple of years of using it when others couldn't. Not like you bought it last week!

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I wonder if they'd get back to you if you explained the predicament to Paizo customer support.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Don't thank me, thank @Andonome@lemmy.world, who created it and shared it to !rpg@ttrpg.network!

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 points 3 weeks ago

I don't think many people will disagree with me when I say: if you've bought it legally already, there's nothing immoral about getting help from Anna.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38543612

This little database has historical events, battles, names, and population totals, because those things are the boring research questions you need to answer for Vampire campaigns and similar.

The database is in plain-text, so you can edit it with notepad or vim. But it's also a relational database. Make of that what you will.

Right now it mostly focuses on Belgrade.

PRs very welcome.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Avatar is the only PbtA system I've ever read (and never played or GMed any), but do systems have a significant amount of mechanics unique to each system, or is it all mostly flavour on top of the same system?

My initial reaction was confusion or intrigue, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.

I can definitely see that Avatar might be a system that makes sense for Star Wars. Combat is largely martial arts based, with magical ability to affect things at a distance. Plus non magic using characters (with weapons or technology) are important.

Narratively, the idea of balance is incredibly important in both worlds, and the balance mechanic is pretty core to the Avatar RPG. Three of the four core stats (focus, harmony, and passion) are super important in the existing Star Wars lore, and creativity is hardly a huge stretch to add.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 9 points 1 month ago

omg that is so adorable. Purrsday and Pawsley Addams!

 

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/654981

The TL;DR of the rule is:

The 6 classic ability scores are (allegedly) not well-balanced among themselves. So the attempt is to fix that by:

  • Combine Strength and Constitution
  • Split Dexterity into 2 (basically, Dexterity: the stuff with your hands; and Agility: the stuff with your feet and body)
  • Charisma becomes the stat for Will saves, instead of Wisdom

In short, do you agree with the stated goal of the system? Whether or not you do, do you think these particular changes are a good way of addressing that goal?

Have you ever tried out this variant, how does it go in practice?

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/53144050

This is Burgerkrieg. His videos on the World of Darkness are very entertaining, if you're into longform multi hour lore-drops

 

Setting the Class Boost is supposed to also set the Class DC to use that ability. This works fine for classes with multiple Key Ability options defined by the class, like the Champion and Monk. But the rogue sets its Key Ability to either Dex or something defined by its Racket.

In the past this has caused the issue that Pathbuilder would allow you to set any of the abilities that any rogue could get. So a Ruffian Rogue could set Intelligence as their Key Ability. This seems to have been fixed, but now your Rogue DC is based on Dexterity, regardless of what you set your Class Boost to.

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