What are y'all up to these days?

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The Numenera slipcase is supposed to deliver tomorrow. I kept avoiding it because one of the guys I know complains about the "sameness" of the characters, largely due to the limited number of "types" and abilities per tier. That's not really where the variety is designed to come through. Plus I realized he tends to be one of the most difficult ones to schedule around, so I'm ok if he doesn't play in the game.

Sounds like your friend may have some preconceived ideas that he has read somewhere

The concern about the character 'sameness' is an example of very straight-jacketed thinking, because he likely assumes that Class/Archetype may be how you tell characters apart. That's treating characters like they are toons

I hail from BRP origins - we never had Classes - we only had Profession backgrounds which were definately not the same thing. We could have an entire party of warrior characters yet they all felt different. Which is why Mythras remains my favourite crunchy game to run and play.

To an extent it's the same thing with Cypher and Numenera.
The generic Cypher rules has four archetypes (Warrior, Adept, Explorer, Speaker).
Numenera replaces these with three archetypes in the core rulebook (Glaive, Jack, Nano), and the second volume adds another three (Arkus, Wright, Delve).
As you mentioned, it doesn't make much difference even if the entire party is from the same Type, as that's only one part of the character creation choice, and even then there is scope for variation within the Type choice. Once you pick the Descriptor and then the Focus, things get spiced up significantly. As a result, you could have an entire party of Glaives, for instance, yet they will all feel very different

By the way, the Numenera Revised Edition Slipcase (Discovery/Destiny) is truly a thing of beauty, I'm sure you'll love it :thumbsup:
 
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The Numenera slipcase is supposed to deliver tomorrow. I kept avoiding it because one of the guys I know complains about the "sameness" of the characters, largely due to the limited number of "types" and abilities per tier. That's not really where the variety is designed to come through. Plus I realized he tends to be one of the most difficult ones to schedule around, so I'm ok if he doesn't play in the game.
Preconceived notions, insists on mechanics to differentiate characters, hard to schedule a game with....hey! I didn't know you're playing with this guy, too:shock:!
 
My group for Sunday is totally full, 6/6, Art of Wuxia. (I was going to run it with Mythras, but got lazy. Again. I should really order a hardcopy of Destined and crack them up to make my own adaptation for the genre, after which I might never look at another wuxia game again...oh, who am I kidding:shade:?)

Even better: I have only played with one of those guys before, and that was last week, when I ran Blade of the Iron Throne for him and two others.
I really want to know what I did right this time to get that kind of successful recruitment...:grin:

I guess I should also make characters and write an adventure. Well, I'm not in a hurry, Sunday is a long way off...:tongue:




In other news, I also unfriended an anti-vaxxer on FB, while I was doing the recruitment. Some Jason Bradley guy who couldn't obviously keep his "views" away from my wall...
Seriously, people, I don't go around checking profiles of FB friends. But posting anti-vax shit on my wall? After my mom died because an anti-vaxxer persuaded her to not get vaccinated:gunslinger:? OK, admittedly, actual friends would know that, FB friends...not so much.
But yeah, "fuck that noise" doesn't even start to describe it:devil:!

Part 1: Very cool, hope the game went well.

Part 2: Sorry about your loss, and I hope you are doing alright.
 
GMing my first dnd 5e campaign since some podcasts got me in the mood for wacky fantasy, and the first session went well. One of my players had never played a trpg before and had been looking for a group. They had fun. So job well done on my part I guess. Rest of the group and myself also had fun.
 
Had my first session GMing Stonetop for my face to face group last night. It went very well… a nice mix of worldbuilding and establishing the characters, and also a bit of exploration and our first combat.

I really like how this game plays and my group has taken to it quickly. I’m psyched for this campaign.
 
Had my first session GMing Stonetop for my face to face group last night. It went very well… a nice mix of worldbuilding and establishing the characters, and also a bit of exploration and our first combat.

I really like how this game plays and my group has taken to it quickly. I’m psyched for this campaign.

If that's the game I'm thinking of, really interested in how that goes. Also, if it is, how did the community building go / play into the session?
 
If that's the game I'm thinking of, really interested in how that goes. Also, if it is, how did the community building go / play into the session?

It sounds like it is the game you’re thinking of, based on your question!

We previously had a full session zero where we made characters and developed a good amount of the town of Stonetop. The process is engaging in and of itself. There are four PCs, and we had a good sense of their history in the town. Three are natives, though one left for some time and has only recently returned, and the fourth is a relative newcomer, having arrived about a year before. Two of the PCs are best friends, and the other two share a blood oath to protect the town. One PC (the Blessed) is wary of an artifact wielded by another PC (the Seeker)… so there are strong PC to PC connections.

Each of them also established connections in the town. The Seeker is the apprentice to the town’s Judge (a playbook that wasn’t selected, but which seems to have struck a chord with the players, so they established an NPC Judge) who also happens to be the father of one of the other PCs (the Lightbearer). The Ranger is the newcomer, and he came here from a far off area following his sister and her young son after her husband was killed. He wants to protect them and help raise the boy.

Then there are some rivalries that we’ve hinted at… people in town who have a problem with one PC or another. The Seeker wants to become the chief engineer of the town, a position held by her father before he mysteriously died, but there’s another candidate, and many townsfolk mistrust the Seeker because of her weird necklace. The Ranger has become the most capable hunter and woodsman in town, a position previously held by another young man, who’s a bit annoyed at this outsider showing up and taking his spot.

There’s more as well, but I think you get the idea. All of this comes about based on the character creation process and some brainstorming by the players and then me filling in gaps or making suggestions here and there. The end result is that Stonetop feels like a place where they have had lives prior to play. A place they care about filled with people that matter to them. The fact that they help create these details is key to all of this… the players are more immediately invested in the setting.
 
HEPCATS Episode 70: Back Home Again, Again.

Quotes-only version. Might do a more narrative version later, depending on my mood and energy level.

“God is a librarian.”
“Is evil Baron a pacifist?”
“So a little dead bear walks into a church.”
“A hologram is just a technical ghost.”
“To be fair, I don’t know the lifespan of were-whales.”
“This bitch is powerful. Let’s make an android version of her!”
“We don’t always kill ‘em. Sometimes we just beat ‘em until they stop.”
 
In other news, I also unfriended an anti-vaxxer on FB, while I was doing the recruitment. Some Jason Bradley guy who couldn't obviously keep his "views" away from my wall...
Seriously, people, I don't go around checking profiles of FB friends. But posting anti-vax shit on my wall? After my mom died because an anti-vaxxer persuaded her to not get vaccinated:gunslinger:? OK, admittedly, actual friends would know that, FB friends...not so much.
But yeah, "fuck that noise" doesn't even start to describe it:devil:!
Yeah I dunno how all that became socially messy. It's just plain common-sense, it's mainly an ignorant luxury for the idiots within the more developed countries of the world, as people is less developed regions clearly remember 2020 in a much different way.
I lost my brother-in-law (in his 50s) to COVID, his only factor was living in a less developed country during the pandemic pre-vaccinations. At least the majority of people did the right thing, even grudgingly, otherwise we wouldn't be so fortunate now. Yeah totally "fuck that noise' as you say
Really sorry to hear about your loss mate
 
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yeah I dunno how all that became socieopolicitcal, it's just plain common-sense, it's mainly an ignorant luxury for the idiots within the more developed countries of the world, as people is less developed regions clearly remember 2020 in a much different way.
I lost my brother-in-law (in his 50s) to COVID, his only factor was living in a less developed country during the pandemic pre-vaccinations. At least the majority of people did the right thing, even grudgingly, otherwise we wouldn't be so fortunate now. Yeah totally "fuck that noise' as you say
Really sorry to hear about your loss mate
A colleague who caught covid before any vaccins were available is still recovering from Long Covid symptoms. Another colleague, who is anti-vax, caught one of the weaker variants later on but is still suffering from tiredness and such. :thumbsdown:
 
A colleague who caught covid before any vaccins were available is still recovering from Long Covid symptoms. Another colleague, who is anti-vax, caught one of the weaker variants later on but is still suffering from tiredness and such. :thumbsdown:
A colleague who was denying the existence of COVID-19 died from it. I considered it ironic, and didn't shed many tears:shade:.

Yeah I dunno how all that became socially messy. It's just plain common-sense, it's mainly an ignorant luxury for the idiots within the more developed countries of the world, as people is less developed regions clearly remember 2020 in a much different way.
I lost my brother-in-law (in his 50s) to COVID, his only factor was living in a less developed country during the pandemic pre-vaccinations. At least the majority of people did the right thing, even grudgingly, otherwise we wouldn't be so fortunate now. Yeah totally "fuck that noise' as you say
Really sorry to hear about your loss mate
I completely agree:thumbsup:!
And I'm sorry for your loss as well, mate!
 
As a separate post, my Art of Wuxia session went very well. We didn't manage to reach the showdown with the demonic cult, as I expected, but we captured one of their agents, a hopping vampire, and the players made it talk by promising to release it:shade:.
 
Was running Monster Island with Mythras but got GM burnout and had to put it on pause.

My group was very understanding. One of my players is taking the GM role for a bit with a Tales from the Loop campaign while I sort myself out. This will be awesome.

Already getting the inspiration-pull back into Mythras though. Will definitely be continuing that campaign again after a few months.
 
It's time for the local Open RPG Day again! That's today's version of the mini-con me and friends started organizing long ago, but now an FLGS keeps organizing it every month. Except their version is Open RPG Week-End, as it takes both Saturday and Sunday...:grin:

And I didn't even manage to get a table to run a game there! I mean, I asked today, Monday. It's this week-end. All tables are already taken:heart:!
When we were organizing it, it often took until the last moment to get GMs for most tables.

So I joined one of the last tables with free spots. There's one free spot on the Don't Rest Your Head table and two for the DCC adventure. I joined the latter:thumbsup:!
 
It's time for the local Open RPG Day again! That's today's version of the mini-con me and friends started organizing long ago, but now an FLGS keeps organizing it every month. Except their version is Open RPG Week-End, as it takes both Saturday and Sunday...:grin:

And I didn't even manage to get a table to run a game there! I mean, I asked today, Monday. It's this week-end. All tables are already taken:heart:!
When we were organizing it, it often took until the last moment to get GMs for most tables.

So I joined one of the last tables with free spots. There's one free spot on the Don't Rest Your Head table and two for the DCC adventure. I joined the latter:thumbsup:!
...as an addendum, I'm glad to note that most tables aren't 5e. I mean, there's two or three of those, and there's OSE and DCC, but then there's also On That Other World, an Index Card RPG table (which went full within 36 hours), Don't Rest Your Head, Star Trek 2d20, and various others:thumbsup:!
 
HEPCATS Episode 70: Narrative Version

In the cave adjacent to the Chaos Realm’s ocean beach, the team argued about where to go via their special door. There were some strong feelings about going to Shard 14 to track down the Evil Duplicate Team. There was a loud knock at the rolling garage door, so N0-5R used his laser eyes to cut a peephole, and saw that the giant flying monster from the beach was outside.

At that point, the team decided the most expedient thing would be to use the special door to get back to HEPCATS home base, which they promptly did.

In the cafeteria, a member of the new Team Minus One came up to Baron to commit some hero-worship of Team Seven. N0-5R found DJ-Q2 and was very concerned that DJ-Q2 might not be able to tell real N0-5R apart from Evil Duplicate N0-5R, so they worked on having some questions that only the real N0-5R would know the answer to. DJ-Q2 also thought it would be a very good idea, in order to tell Evil N0-5R from Real N0-5R purposes, to
become intimately familiar with every inch and aspect of N0-5R’s newly acquired penis
, so they went off somewhere private.

Meanwhile, Baron went to the library and talked to Franceska. The conversation was maybe courtship-ish, but they’re both so old and old-fashioned that it was hard to tell. Franceska said her team had been disbanded. Baron said he would see about getting her added to Team Seven. Snaknar found the bar and got drunk, and Zera was probably busy eating.

Acting Secretary Agent Z called the team to a meeting. He was glad to have them back, considering they’d been AWOL for some time. He said Team Eight had been dispatched to take care of the AN-13 matter since Team Seven never got it done.

Agent Z informed N0-5R that one of the primary reasons N0-5R was assigned to the team in the first place was to keep the team on-mission, so could he please do a better job of that? N0-5R agreed to try while also complaining that attempting to keep Team Seven on-mission is like herding cats. Snaknar showed up drunk, was formally welcomed to the team, and demanded a signing bonus, which Agent Z agreed to.

Agent Z asked the team for their own ideas of what their next mission should be, which further exasperated N0-5R, who just wants to be given a mission. Baron suggested going to Shard 14 to track down the Evil Duplicate Team. Agent Z first said that Shard 14 was off-limits, and then said that there are only seven Shards. When pressed for clarification, Agent Z said “I don’t have time for these questions,” dismissed the team for a day of R&R, and promised to have a mission for them in the morning. Agent Z seems pretty overwhelmed by being Acting Secretary.

Snaknar and Zera went out to Heptagon City to paint the town red. Zera had not previously realized that HEPCATS HQ is surrounded by a city, but in this case, it’s not due to idiocy. At least not entirely. In her defense, all of her previous trips have involved going directly from HQ to missions, so she had not previously had time to explore.

That night, there was a dance party in the HEPCATS HQ recreation hall and the whole team attended. DJ-Q2 was spinning highly danceable tunes, and Agent Vera was doing cool video projections that matched with the music. N0-5R got a bit jealous.

One of the video projections turned into a portal, and 100 soldiers clad in black-and-silver uniforms with mask/helmet-type headwear came through. They clearly had ill intent and were well-trained. Baron identified the leader, Sgt. Deathhorse, and asked him why his force was invading. Sgt. Deathhorse said their Deathmaiden had sent them there.

Baron asked Sgt. Deathhorse how much he and his forces were getting paid, and the Sgt. seemed confused by the question. He said that the organization they work for provides them with room and board, equipment, and purpose. Baron said that HEPCATS provides all that and also pays money. Sgt. Deathhorse was intrigued. Baron offered to use some of his personal wealth to hire these 100 Deathboys on to be a HEPCATS force. Sgt. Deathhorse agreed, and the rest of his force, who seem obedient to a possibly supernatural degree, went along with it.

Acting Secretary Agent Z and Acting Head of HR Princess Bluela were both exasperated at having to deal with 100 instances of new-hire paperwork.

The Deathmaiden was visible on the other side of the portal and Baron’s occult knowledge informed him that he didn’t have the correct skillset to shut it down. Fortunately, Team Mad Science (Agent Shoe and Dr. West) were at the party, and they shut down the portal via a combination of technological devices and incantations.

Sgt. Deathhorse attempted to chat up Zera over the mutual love of killing things, and was moderately successful.

Agent Vera said that she was receiving a transmission from the Chaos Realm and asked if she should put it through. The team was vehemently opposed, so she didn’t do it.

To be continued…
 
Tonight, I ran half a session of Art of Wuxia. That was organized on short notice, due to the Changeling game that was scheduled failing through due to two COVID-19 cases.
Why only half? Because the FLGS was closing at 22.00. We did the best we could, but we had started at 19 with making characters. OTOH, I made an experiment I'd wanted to try for a long time, running two parties through the same scenario...from opposite sides. So potentially, the first party should be opposition to the second...:shade:
We're looking to meeting again next week in order to finish it, too.

As a note, we also had a gamer used to D&D, and little other than D&D. It must be noted that he didn't object to trying a new system, he was only afraid he's going to be impeded by not knowing the rules. Learning that the rules are easy to explain solved that:thumbsup:!
 
Last Sunday was session 2 of my DM'd beginners 5E game. It's going great, the players are having fun and I'm loving using the random encounter table I cooked up. However at the end of last session one of the players got murderhoboy with one of the random encounters and kinda ruined some party cohesion for a couple other players. She cut the head off a goblin to take its Date Cake and is now running from the guards. We've done a soft retcon so that proper murder became assault and battery, so we'll see how that turns out next session.
I've also been doing no prep for each session and have pretty much been winging it, which has so far turned out fine for this initial section of city exploration.
 
Played through the Elven Lords Deluxe Edition solo adventure for Tunnels & Trolls a couple days ago, after rolling up some low-level characters to go along with the one I made for the challenge in January. Out of the four I put through it, only one survived, but that's why they heavily encourage rolling up multiple characters in T&T.

Character 1, an Elf Rogue, tried to make some money by getting involved in smuggling narcotics into the city of Gull, but after an unsuccessful triple-cross, got pulled out of a boat and drowned.

No. 2, a Human Warrior, didn't do so hot either. He tried to find honest work on the docks, ran afoul of a gang of thieves, and was captured. He was hung up in a pit filled with starving rats and died after failing to escape.

No. 3, a Hobb Rogue, had the longest and most unusual run. He went to explore the lands around the city, was captured by a tribe that thought he could be the reincarnation of an ancient chief, and forced to undergo a series of trials in a cavern. He managed to pass most of them, defeating various opponents and acquiring a magic sword in the process, but was killed at the end after being defeated by the current chieftain in combat, who saw him as a threat to his power.

Finally, No. 4, a Human Specialist (Gambler, i.e. very high Luck, though it never came into play here), had a short but successful run. He went to visit the library in Gull, but got caught up in an attempted hustle by a supposed seeress and her accomplice. Once he realized what was up, they attacked him in an alley, and he defeated them in battle. The city watch came by, saw what happened, and gave him a lot of gold as a reward, concluding his adventure.
 
Played through the Elven Lords Deluxe Edition solo adventure for Tunnels & Trolls a couple days ago, after rolling up some low-level characters to go along with the one I made for the challenge in January. Out of the four I put through it, only one survived, but that's why they heavily encourage rolling up multiple characters in T&T.

Character 1, an Elf Rogue, tried to make some money by getting involved in smuggling narcotics into the city of Gull, but after an unsuccessful triple-cross, got pulled out of a boat and drowned.

No. 2, a Human Warrior, didn't do so hot either. He tried to find honest work on the docks, ran afoul of a gang of thieves, and was captured. He was hung up in a pit filled with starving rats and died after failing to escape.

No. 3, a Hobb Rogue, had the longest and most unusual run. He went to explore the lands around the city, was captured by a tribe that thought he could be the reincarnation of an ancient chief, and forced to undergo a series of trials in a cavern. He managed to pass most of them, defeating various opponents and acquiring a magic sword in the process, but was killed at the end after being defeated by the current chieftain in combat, who saw him as a threat to his power.

Finally, No. 4, a Human Specialist (Gambler, i.e. very high Luck, though it never came into play here), had a short but successful run. He went to visit the library in Gull, but got caught up in an attempted hustle by a supposed seeress and her accomplice. Once he realized what was up, they attacked him in an alley, and he defeated them in battle. The city watch came by, saw what happened, and gave him a lot of gold as a reward, concluding his adventure.
Yeah, when I first saw DCC Rpg funnels, I chuckled. Obviously folks hadn't played old school T&T. Death, it's what's for dinner.
 
No, I mostly don't either. I'm watching some BBay mostly to see Jason Cordova GM.
Is he any good? My enjoyment of Fear of a Black Dragon is enhanced by the conceit that in real life Cordova is a terrible GM.
 
Got to run a game last night, after a couple of weeks where we weren't able to schedule anything. The players picked up a bit from the last session, making contact with the one independent thief who survived the raid into the wizard's tower, in hopes of perhaps recruiting him when they hit a high enough level to start their own guild. Then a quick stop into the city's Library (run entirely by specters) before going off on their latest heist.
 
City of Powers 1: Archetypes Rising
This week we're kicking of a new series honoring the first superhero MMO, City of Heroes. Our first article in the series will talk about scope and kick things off with the inherent powers of archetypes.

 
I just played a DCC one-shot. Here's the pregen I got.
but-did.gif
 
The PF2 game I'm playing in is going great (for us players) because we're pretty much refusing to follow the scenario in a meaningful way. It's been much more fun just poking around and RPing with NPCs and each other, coming up with weird plans (THIS CITY NEEDS A WELLNESS CENTRE!) and generally avoiding combat at all costs. But we still get through about a clue a session, so eventually everything will come home to roost.

My Burning Wheel game has entered strange new territory, with the players deciding to decamp to the weird demi-plane at the opposite end of the world. They were told up front that no one has ever returned from there, but their curiosity caught, killed and skinned the cat.
 
We just began our Tales from the Loop campaign.

I admit that it isn't easy to portray 13 year olds accurately. In our defence, Hollywood tends to portray youngsters with older actors anyway.

It's a fun system and quite a mind-shift for a lot of us (eg everyone is assuming that there are combat rules, but it doesn't work that way).

It's also nice to take a break from GMing for a change.
 
City of Powers 2: Archetypes Rising, cont.
Diving right back into our exploration of City of Heroes as we expand on how to translate the archetypes innate bonuses into Metahumans Rising. This week, we hone the focus putting some actual numbers behind each build.


Also, if you haven't backed it already, we are proud to let you know that Metahumans Rising is part of the TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida bundle with two great adventures and the Burning Earth.

 
Lazily deciding what to run this week (Art of Wuxia or my half-baked Mythras Wuxia hack, I'm in the right mood for the genre:tongue:).

Even more lazily deciding what to run on the next mini-con in The Other Castle FLGS, though that one is next week. OTOH, last time I waited for the same week, and couldn't book a table, all of them were busy:grin:!
 
Lazily deciding what to run this week (Art of Wuxia or my half-baked Mythras Wuxia hack, I'm in the right mood for the genre:tongue:).

Even more lazily deciding what to run on the next mini-con in The Other Castle FLGS, though that one is next week. OTOH, last time I waited for the same week, and couldn't book a table, all of them were busy:grin:!

Could split the difference and run an Art of Wuxia one shot at the mini-con and then test your Mythras hack with your regular group.
 
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