General Tabletop RPG Thread

Something I see a lot of people ignoring, especially those who came from D&D3.x/PF1, is that they aren’t really leveraging the hero points mechanic of the game. That mechanic really shines when you approach them like Fate points (or other narrative game currencies) and hand them out aggressively. Encourage people to use them and do whatever their RP gimmick is for more. In addition to just encouraging some fun, cinematic narration, it protects against the game being too swingy.

If you could elaborate on what you felt made it fiddly, I could maybe address that.

It’s stuff like this that leads me to think that most people who are playing P2e and going “well this is terrible” are missing something.

Because I hate myself, I spend a lot of time on the Paizo/Pathfinder forums. There are basic aspects of the system that people refuse to acknowledge or use as designed because they are pissed it doesn’t behave just like PF1.

Another example: On-level tasks in PF1 were trivial. On-level tasks in PF2 are designed to be very difficult.

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Echoing Ryan’s comment about how on level checks are difficult, that is a definite retargetting of game balance. P2E is intentionally not like DnD3.5/P1E ; it is not about optimizing stats and skill choice so that dungeon strategy is using the correct thing on the correct obstacle, it is about navigating roadblocks and trying to determine the least costly way to pass them.

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To answer your I’m-pretty-sure-it-was-rhetorical question, I personally never agonized over what feat to take because I’ve only played as a player in a handful of sessions in my entire life, and never actually leveled up a character. <Cries in forever DM> But your point is well-taken. 5e is the most popular TTRPG of all time by a wide margin, so it’s obviously doing something right.

To your comment about GURPS – my preferred system is Savage Worlds, which I’ve seen referred to as “GURPS’ younger brother who got out of the house more.” Point buy, “feat” trees, etc. But the list of options is relatively small compared to something like PF, and, I’d assume, GURPS. Even so, my less mechanically-inclined players never really know what they want when we level up, and just end up taking whatever I suggest. So I can definitely see the utility in a system that pretty much tells you what you’re gonna get.

Anyway, I’ve finally reached the point with 5e that I just don’t want to run it anymore, at all. I’m about to drop that bomb on my 5e group, so wish me luck. We’ll either be converting our campaign to Savage Worlds, playing a different campaign in Savage Worlds, or not playing – their choice. I feel like a bit of a dick for dropping what is essentially an ultimatum, but man, I just can’t do it anymore. I bought Tasha’s months ago, and I haven’t even opened it. I can’t make myself invest more time and energy into a system I don’t really like, and already wasn’t planning on running beyond the end of this campaign.

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There is also a serious component of teamwork being required to overcome the harder challenges. Sure, you might be able to pubstomp a Level-2 challenge but you’ll need to work together on positioning/status effects/setting up other people in the group/etc to handle things your level or higher.

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I’m now engaged in a long term campaign (Blades in the Dark), and I’d forgotten how much I missed it.

I brought multiple characters from level 1 (ish: sometimes we’d start at 2 or 3) up to the low teens over the course of my younger life. There’s something about playing through the long-term evolution of a character/system that I really enjoy. Time is the sole reason I don’t get to do it more often.

Blades in the Dark’s advancement mechanics are so powerful largely because you level up the team. Gamifying the hideout/territory/crew/tier/etc… adds a huge dimension to the sense of growth and impact on the world of the game.

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I never got deep enough into it to get a game going or anything, but I remember the action system feeling like it traded complexity for different complexity. I rember the shield mechanics where you could raise a shield as an action to increase AC, but then had to track shield durability looked a bit fiddly.

that said, I don’t think I got far enough into the booksto hit the hero point system, and I know I’ve always enjoyed the action point system from eberron, which sort of sounds similar.

Are there any parts of the system that you feel really shine or help to make 2e stand out from it’s peers? Also, would you categorize it as a dungeon crawler or more of an RP system? from the conversations here, it sounds like it might be more suited to roleplaying than 1e, if I’m reading the feedback here right.

Mechanically speaking, d20 D&D-esque systems are primarily combat-focused. That isn’t really different in PF2. There are hints of them wanting to do more narrative mechanics with things like Hero Points and their degrees of success/failure. Ultimately, though: It feels like they were afraid that leaning too heavily in that direction would either alienate their fanbase or at least detract from where they saw the strengths of the system. That’s not to say that you can’t intuit some good RP mechanics from what is there, but I’d look to a different system if you aren’t particularly interested in tactical grid combat.

As for where it shines: It is hard to say, since it hasn’t been out that long and their release schedule got all kinds of messed up due to COVID. I think the part where it shines the most is that it really encourages a strong team cohesion and approach to tactics. In PF1/D&D 3.x, you won the game during character creation with build decisions. In PF2, you need to approach encounters more as a unit.

Getting into a new campaign with a new system with some friends running Lancer but the setting will be D&D’s Eberron with the mechs being magi-tech made with dragonshards. Very interested to see how Lancer’s pretty simple rules set runs and I’ll report back on giant mecha robot shenanigans.

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So first session is tomorrow but I must say I am extremely impressed with the free, web-tools for players to create and manage their pilot-mech characters online.

This is a very slick interface that runs pretty well from what I can tell with a lot of planned features that look like it will improve QOL. There are even pregen templates for new players to either run with whole hog or take and then step back into to modify before finalizing the character.

https://compcon.app/#/

I don’t know if this is any good, but the concept leaves no room for improvement.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/storybrewers/fight-with-spirit-a-sports-drama-rpg

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I’m actually in the middle of reading Chew right now, and I’m absolutely loving it, so this looks really really cool. It also uses the Forged in the Dark system which is even better!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/peteyp/chew-the-roleplaying-game

Paizo employees are unionizing.

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I missed the first 2 sessions of the Lancer game I’m in due to real life problem situations (both turned out fine) , but now I’ve played in sessions 3 and 4 and feel like I can weigh in on the game.

There are a lot of things happening with the action economy, but the core system is really good. Theres enough crunch/optimization in mech building and combat to keep it interesting and tactical while not being overwhelming. the Comp/Con free web app is incredibly useful for managing everything as a player including the turn action economy and all of the system check roles and I highly recommend. There’s also a pretty good roll20 charsheet for the system as well that works pretty well if a little less elegant. Gamefeel is like if 4e crunch combat and PbtA skill checks and out of combat narrative checks had a baby. Highly recommend. I also think theres a really good amount of flavor in the base setting in the book to run a good anime mecha campaign of all sorts of tone from a very serious mechwarrior story to G Gundum style Shonen melodrama.

This looks cool:

https://twitter.com/everestpipkin/status/1511745373504778242

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Has anyone tried one of those daily calendar RPG things? I ran across Quest Calendars, and they actually look pretty cool, and a fun thing to do every day, but I was wondering if anyone else had tried these, and if so, what they thought:

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That actually looks fun. Great idea.