What are y'all up to these days?

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Brock Savage said:
Where did you find this solo adventure? That seems like a lot for a solo level 1 character. You can try a 1st level Fighter with 16 STR, duelist fighting style, pole arm master feat, spear, chainmail, and shield. Make sure you have both athletics and perception as skills. It's tanky with AC 18, has a self heal, and gets two attacks per round at 1d6+5 and 1d4+5 damage. They can burn a reaction to take a whack at an enemy who enters an adjacent square. My wife has this build and it is solid without being gimmicky.
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Love that build. Gotta love a strong self survival build like this. I tend to this or a ranged, sneaky build for unknown games that I hope I can survive in better.
 
Brock Savage Brock Savage looking at that build I realize I’d be complaining more if I had gone with a dual-wield build, as the part of the scenario with the swarm required a light source to enter, and since I was playing a human one hand was occupied with a light source.

I’m curious what will happen with the other adventure I bought from the publisher.
 
Bill Reich said:
About cameras and online play: We play on Facebook Messenger, with sight and sound. I never worry about the honesty of player dice rolls at the table, so I have no problem with dice being rolled off-screen. It is a very close approximation of sitting around a table in West Haven except I can't share snacks with my fellow gamers, which means that I don't _have_ to.
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Reminds me, I need to create a fantasy/sci-fi name to use on Facebook if so many games, game developers etc are going to insist on on using Facebook. Just so I can interact when I need to. I have an acquaintance who does that and I thought it wasn't a bad idea in regards to dealing with Facebook. Plus I could use it for Facebook Messenger gaming like you do since so many are married to using Facebook.
 
Ralph Dula said:
Brock Savage Brock Savage looking at that build I realize I’d be complaining more if I had gone with a dual-wield build, as the part of the scenario with the swarm required a light source to enter, and since I was playing a human one hand was occupied with a light source.
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Glaive and pole arm master is a really popular build. Ditch the shield and rock a glaive. Drop duellist fighting style and take great weapon fighting. Carry torch in-off hand when exploring; when combat starts drop the torch at your feet so you have light when fighting. In exchange for losing 2 points of AC your damage goes up to d10 and your reach becomes 10'.
 
Just installed my first API script on Roll 20 to handle all rolls on the Pacesetter Action Table. Love how it makes it so much easier to run the crunchy mechanics. Just click a button, enter a few values, and it does the rest, including rolling for damage.

It will make it possible for me to actually focus more on modifiers instead of just trying to hurry up and get to the rolling and table determinations. But hopefully it speeds up combat quite a bit.
 
Acmegamer said:
Reminds me, I need to create a fantasy/sci-fi name to use on Facebook if so many games, game developers etc are going to insist on on using Facebook. Just so I can interact when I need to. I have an acquaintance who does that and I thought it wasn't a bad idea in regards to dealing with Facebook. Plus I could use it for Facebook Messenger gaming like you do since so many are married to using Facebook.
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Emperor Strephon?
 
Bill Reich said:
Finished my first product in several months, the aforementioned "Berserkergang." Two more coming out in August. Why can't I get things done in a regular progression?

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Well, you could hold on the other two and publish them in September and October, or in say October and November, and then prepare another one for November/January. Depends on whether you want to establish a 1-month or 2-months progression:thumbsup:.
 
AsenRG said:
Emperor Strephon?
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Nice, going with the Traveller Emperor. I could play his "double"! lol. I actually was one of those who really loved the whole empire falling into darkness of the MegaTraveller time period. The Long Dark, awesome roleplaying opportunities.
 
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Acmegamer said:
Nice, going with the Traveller Emperor. I could play his "double"! lol. I actually was one of those who really loved the whole empire falling into darkness of the MegaTraveller time period. The Long Dark, awesome roleplaying opportunities.
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You and me both - but it seems, preciously few people outside of us:shade:.
 
I ran Secrets of the Ancients (for CT/LBB) using the Mongoose Traveller 2e ruleset.
It was quite funny. My group managed to NOT do what the adventure designer expected...again!

They dealt with finding the gas giant where the likely location of the Ancient Site is. In fact, they're spurred by the fact that one of the PCs is a former Navy Admiral (9A9EDF...no, no mistakes in the letters - she just hasn't inherited yet) who ended up with 3 MCr in debt due to...starting anagathics at 22.
Actually, I wasn't surprised at the player's decision to do that, I know her...so I was just making plans on using the debt:tongue:! In fact, I replaced the titular character - the one who gets the inheritance - with her (she's working - temporarily - on a former Scout Ship/now Free Trader and hoping to strike it rich.
I mean, she's in debt to her gf's father, but he only shows tolerance up to 2,5 MCr...:devil:

So, they got the inheritance, dealt with the thugs and agents, and sent the new tenants a coupon for a vacation elsewhere on Regina from the name of an enterprise to get them out of the habitation (total cost: 500Cr). Then they entered and used the ship's laser cutter.

...So far, so good!

And then they started planning for the expedition on gas giant.
Q.: Oh Referee, it's a place where we need antigrav to even move, special protective suits to survive the damn athmosphere, and special equipment to survive the athmospheric pressure. Given that we've got a lot of technical experience, why don't we construct an armoured robo-drone with antigrav and send it to investigate instead of us?
Me:...No reason at all, of course! Where do we get the parts?
PCs: OK, we'll sell the statuette to finance the purchase!
Me: Still not enough.
PCs: I've got an F in Social and am former Navy. Can't we arrange a suitable grav machine to be written off?
Me:...no reason why you couldn't! Roll me Social...

From there, the adventure clashed. The automated Ancient ship reacts to the appearance of new humans/droyne...not the appearance of a 5m diameter sphere with manipulators. Thus, it never got inside the ship.
And even if they did...they can't put on it a statuette that they've sold. So the ship never flies off to see Grandfather!

So they returned and offered the location to the Imperium, offering to waive the recompense. "We just want to be free of debt...personal, for the ship and legal" (they have gathered another former planetary administrator...now administrative officer).
Imperium officials: "That's insane".
Administrative official: "There's working technology there."
IO.: "I think something can be arranged!"
The Imperium can announce a planet to be an Interdicted Zone due to Ancient site, but would hesitate to give an amnesty and a couple MCr? Less than the price of a new air/raft?
Yeah, don't make me laugh.
Bottomline: my characters got away from debt in one adventure, and the Imperium has access to TL-35 machines which it could try to replicate...maybe in a couple decades.
Now they just need money to finance their lifestyles! (Social F/E and social C/D in the same group, with no chances for more inheritances). So there can easily be more adventures!

Oh, and they introduced a new custom of the ship. It's called Naked Fridays... but then that's my group:devil:!
 
Stan said:
Who would ever use a glaive when a halberd is obviously superior. :wink:
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If you are wearing good armor, a pollaxe is better than either. If you want to stay out of reach and still strike, I agree a halberd is good.
 
Brock Savage said:
Well shit. It is less 90 minutes to game time and a live banda band started playing across the street. It's hard to overstate how loud this is even with all the windows closed. According to city ordnance they can play until 10pm.
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Napoleon needs to be smacked for giving his Austrian cousin Mexico and bringing in German Oom-pah-pah music. In college the guy’s wife above us would listen to the same Banda song while she did stairmaster, for a long time. Her food was great though and her ass was perfection, so it all worked out in the end. (I figured you could use some more cymbals.).
 
CRKrueger said:
Napoleon needs to be smacked for giving his Austrian cousin Mexico and bringing in German Oom-pah-pah music. In college the guy’s wife above us would listen to the same Banda song while she did stairmaster, for a long time. Her food was great though and her ass was perfection, so it all worked out in the end. (I figured you could use some more cymbals.).
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LOL bad banda sounds like circus or polka music to me. This isn't someone playing their stereo loud, I wouldn't care about that. This is outdoor concert volume on a residential street.
 
Brock Savage said:
LOL bad banda sounds like circus or polka music to me. This isn't someone playing their stereo loud, I wouldn't care about that. This is outdoor concert volume on a residential street.
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Amusingly, banda, read as in Spanish, is the word for "gang" here:thumbsup:!
Is it forbidden to play music with said volume on a residential street? Or are they just hoping the neighbours would pitch in for a ransom to make them leave:grin:?
 
Brock Savage said:
LOL bad banda sounds like circus or polka music to me. This isn't someone playing their stereo loud, I wouldn't care about that. This is outdoor concert volume on a residential street.
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We get that a couple of times a year in my neighborhood, usually for some neighbors birthday in somebody's backyard. I can clearly hear it inside on whichever side of the house is closest, even though it's several houses away. Here, they tend to stop before it gets too late so I've never complained. I don't wanna be that guy who messes up some kid's birthday party.
 
My wife was born in Oaxaca. I've never experienced a banda there that was not loud. Still, in the right place at the right time it makes for a great atmosphere. The more elaborate, better quality traditional bandas there are like full orchestras and play slower more melancholic songs as well as the oom-pah-pah.

 
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I am worried about Wednesday's game. When C.J. said "see you Wednesday" I said, for some reason "Wednesday, Wednesday, monster truck Wednesday/
And we are very low on fifty caliber ammunition.
 
My weekly Witcher campaign (using D&D 5e) is still going strong. It's been exactly 8 months since we started. The players are all very creative people and this has been a godsend to me as the DM. Sometimes I don't even have to do anything: I'll set up some drama or ethical conundrum and they'll talk, in-character for 20-30 minutes. It's awesome.

On the other hand, the bi-weekly Eberron campaign that I'm playing in is starting to get dull. I'm still amazed at how many times I've played in this setting and feeling like it's just bog-standard fantasy. I'd say that 80% of our adventures are situated in the countryside or jungle/forest environments. The whole "Magitech-punk" aesthetic is perpetually nearly absent and mysterious. That one's being going on steady since before the Pandemic, so I must stick with it, but oof I'm starting to get bored...
 
Necrozius said:
My weekly Witcher campaign (using D&D 5e) is still going strong. It's been exactly 8 months since we started. The players are all very creative people and this has been a godsend to me as the DM. Sometimes I don't even have to do anything: I'll set up some drama or ethical conundrum and they'll talk, in-character for 20-30 minutes. It's awesome.

On the other hand, the bi-weekly Eberron campaign that I'm playing in is starting to get dull. I'm still amazed at how many times I've played in this setting and feeling like it's just bog-standard fantasy. I'd say that 80% of our adventures are situated in the countryside or jungle/forest environments. The whole "Magitech-punk" aesthetic is perpetually nearly absent and mysterious. That one's being going on steady since before the Pandemic, so I must stick with it, but oof I'm starting to get bored...
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When I ran Eberron in its 3E form, I found the concept was hobbled by the systems need for balance. The player with an artificer could never do anything interesting or inventive. The Action Points they added were supposed to make the game pulpier, but as they didn’t want that to throw things off, the made them so weak as to be useless in actual play. I feel a magitech game should allow for disruptive changes to the setting, and Eberron is intent on avoiding that.

Fortunately, there is also Magical Industrial Revolution, which is fantastic.
 
Baulderstone said:
When I ran Eberron in its 3E form, I found the concept was hobbled by the systems need for balance. The player with an artificer could never do anything interesting or inventive. The Action Points they added were supposed to make the game pulpier, but as they didn’t want that to throw things off, the made them so weak as to be useless in actual play. I feel a magitech game should allow for disruptive changes to the setting, and Eberron is intent on avoiding that.

Fortunately, there is also Magical Industrial Revolution, which is fantastic.
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That’s a problem with 3e, 4e, and 5e in general. It’s approach to balance gets in its own way. The cooler the setting, race, or class, the more fun the bean counters suck out of it.

Edit: Oh yeah, Magical Industrial Revolution, is indeed, fastastic.
 
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CRKrueger said:
That’s a problem with 3e, 4e, and 5e in general. It’s approach to balance gets in its own way. The cooler the setting, race, or class, the more fun the bean counters suck out of it.
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Well, you must* balance out the coolness, too...:shade:

*If you've made the mistake to run D&D, that is, which I know you ain't.
 
I’m debating giving 5E another solo run this weekend, this time using characters from a 5E variant; I feel the system upguns 5E characters a bit, and it might aid in their survival. I created four characters a while ago, planning to run solo back then, but the alternate to 5E’s magic system either has some serious design flaws or the designers expected players to spend time powering up to activate the level 0 powers. Trying to figure that out, and the knowledge needed to play a multi-caster, has delayed my running until now.



Yesterday I found my copy of the adventure I wanted to run, and finally noticed it’s designed for 5-10 levels worth of characters. I don’t know if I feel up to running even more characters while trying to parse the magic system, but redesigning the multicaster to a standard character and playing a host of extra characters isn’t something I’m really feeling the love for at the moment.
 
Ralph Dula Ralph Dula I've not had my coffee yet and honestly don't feel like re-reading up the thread to remember for sure what you mean when you say "solo". Do you mean one player and one GM? Or solo as in no GM? I know I was reading prior where you mentioned the character dying but I just don't recall if you had a GM or not.

DnD has always been an iffy product for me. I do think that 5e is the overall best version of DnD that I've experienced but as an overall gaming mechanics system foundation it's never did it for me. Even back in 1978 after that first game of DnD I was trying to figure out how to improve it and make it feel more active and less abstract and rigid. lol Thankfully that same year I ran across first RuneQuest and then Traveller.

I really liked Brock Savage Brock Savage and have used some of the ideas he listed above for making a character more survivable. I'm feeling a bit dense that I don't recall if you meant one player and one GM or you meant self play solo. lol Maybe I should crawl back into bed and try again.
 
Acmegamer Acmegamer When I say “solo” I mean running it by myself. I generate the characters and personalities for each before I look at a module, so I’m not influenced as to how I create them. I have them react to things based on their personalities, and go from there.

I have done 5E with others, both as player and GM, which is when I had my sole non-TPK 5E experience.
 
Doesn't solo always mean solo? I'm mean if I say I having some solo sex, I would assume no one thinks there's anyone else involved as a basic grammatical kind of thing. I would be rather startled to find out that solo sex all of a sudden involved another person. It's a like a locked room mystery...
 
Fenris-77 said:
Doesn't solo always mean solo? I'm mean if I say I having some solo sex, I would assume no one thinks there's anyone else involved as a basic grammatical kind of thing. I would be rather startled to find out that solo sex all of a sudden involved another person. It's a like a locked room mystery...
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I think “solo” in recent years has become interchangeable with “1-on-1,” which is how we used to refer to one GM and one player in my area back in the day.
 
Ralph Dula said:
I think “solo” in recent years has become interchangeable with “1-on-1,” which is how we used to refer to one GM and one player in my area back in the day.
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This seems contrary to the basic grammatical use of the word solo. I blame millennials. :argh:
 
Ralph Dula said:
Acmegamer Acmegamer When I say “solo” I mean running it by myself. I generate the characters and personalities for each before I look at a module, so I’m not influenced as to how I create them. I have them react to things based on their personalities, and go from there.

I have done 5E with others, both as player and GM, which is when I had my sole non-TPK 5E experience.
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Thanks Ralph, so you meant it the way I recall it being used. :smile: I think that Brocks advice pretty well summed up solid wisdom tactics for solo play. If your running a handful of characters in this way. I'd recommend approaching it sort of like an mmorpg dungeon party. A healer, a tank sort and three dps. Make all of them have some sort of healing of course to make make the healers job easier. Id make two of the dps ranged and the other melee to stand at the front with the tank.
 
Stan said:
In gaming, solo can be taken to mean solo player plus a gm.
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Which is why I asked. It's something some people are now using to mean one player and one GM and I think it muddies the waters as to what's been the accepted definition of solo play.
 
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