What are y'all up to these days?

[Certified]

Just got back something from a collaborator on a super secret project. Really excited about this More to come...

 

[E-Rocker]

I have basically no idea what I'm going to be doing for this week's Savage Worlds game, even though I've had plenty of time to prep. Now that the HEPCATS have returned from their Western mission, and solved the mystery at home base, it's time to send them on a new mission. At first I was planning to send them to the retro-future shard, Neotopia. Then I changed my mind and wanted to send them to the 1920s- 1940s pulp fiction shard, St. Bronze's Quarter. Now I'm leaning back towards Neotopia again, haha. And wherever I send them, I don't know what kind of mission it will be...

I've been browsing the Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters book, but currently nothing is jumping out at me. Maybe I'll grab a One Sheet from Pinnacle's website. Those always work well for the library game, and it wouldn't take much tweaking to make one into part of the campaign...

With our game being online these days, Annabelle's sister/roommate will be joining us for this session. She's a really cool person and an avid board gamer, so I'm pretty confident it will go well. Remains to be seen if she's just dropping in this one time or will be joining the campaign.

Anyway, if anyone has a couple-sentence pitch of an adventure for my wacky team of special agents, I'm all ears...

 

[Vargold]

Week 3 of OSE Barrowmaze. Settling into the OSR groove: several hours of play with no combat: just exploration, clever non-combat use of spells, talking to humanoids instead of fighting, and running from monsters at least twice.

We also went fishing for skeletons.

 

[peteramthor]

Working on my own game called 'Welcome to the City', it's sort of a blue collar cyberpunk dystopia setting. Looking at starting up a game of 1st edition Mage the Ascension on the side for nostalgia reasons.

 

[AsenRG]

Week 3 of OSE Barrowmaze. Settling into the OSR groove: several hours of play with no combat: just exploration, clever non-combat use of spells, talking to humanoids instead of fighting, and running from monsters at least twice.

We also went fishing for skeletons.

Funny, I call that "how to play GURPS/Mythras/Traveller"! But let's not go "edition warring": a player in my outer group calls it "good roleplaying instead of bad" and believes it transcends systems*...and I'm inclined to agree that it should** work that way.

So now, let's clear the important parts! Why did you fish for those skeletons? Were you looking for giant fish skeletons?


*He also has stories how it didn't quite work for him in some systems with some, ahem, STs. Especially when clashing with their plans for "the plot".
**See the above remark. In some systems, "good roleplaying" only works if the Referee makes the system bend. Some newer ones, and even some old hands it seems, haven't (yet/still) learned to do this!

 

[RedDiceDiaries]

Running a Castles & Crusades game set in the Midderlands (with a foray into the Dolmenwood), been going over a year now and running bi-weekly. Just started up a Vampire Masquerade 5th edition campaign set in a post 2nd Inquisition purge London.

In terms of playing I'm in a weekly Scum & Villainy game, a weekly Call of Cthulhu game and play in the odd oneshot when I get chance (most recently Electric Bastionland).

 

[under_score]

Running a Castles & Crusades game set in the Midderlands (with a foray into the Dolmenwood), been going over a year now and running bi-weekly. Just started up a Vampire Masquerade 5th edition campaign set in a post 2nd Inquisition purge London.

In terms of playing I'm in a weekly Scum & Villainy game, a weekly Call of Cthulhu game and play in the odd oneshot when I get chance (most recently Electric Bastionland).

Welcome to the Pub @RedDiceDiaries, nice to see you made it over here.

 

[RedDiceDiaries]

Thanks very much, I signed up in Jan 2019, but I'm a bit poor at keeping up with forums - trying to do better

 

[under_score]

Oh yeah, I see the joined date now. Well welcome back.
Your C&C Midderlands/Dolmenwood game sounds like the best thing ever. I've been meaning to do the same mashup for a couple years now. I really should make that happen soon.

 

[RedDiceDiaries]

Oh yeah, I see the joined date now. Well welcome back.
Your C&C Midderlands/Dolmenwood game sounds like the best thing ever. I've been meaning to do the same mashup for a couple years now. I really should make that happen soon.

Thanks very much, the PCs are just about to leave the Dolmenwood and head back to Lunden this evening which will effectively round off the first "season" of the game. We're then going to reassess some element of the game, we're considering switching to ICRPG to try something a bit different.

 

[Bunch]

Yesterday my oldest grabbed DragonStrike the old TSR D&D like game off my office shelf. He and his younger brother (~8,6) ran a mage and an elf through the Against the Giants scenario. They liked it. This morning I just ran the youngest boy(4) through a solo scenario. He wants to play all day.

Hoarding for the win! And today I succeeded as a parent!

 

[urbwar]

I'm likely going to postpone this weekends session of Astounding Space Adventures, as I haven't been up to finishing my notes for the session. I'm also still working out character creation for someone so I can run a regular one shot of Supers! for a few people (including @Silverlion) on Discord.

Also forgot to mention that I got roped into taking over the newly created Unisystem Discord server. Seems while the game lines haven't been active, the fan base is still out there. I'm considering a short game of Conspiracy X, with a little Odyssey Prime thrown in (it's a game where you travel to alternate Earths using a "Ring", which is basically a Stargate), as I want a little bit of Fringe thrown in.

 

[Bunch]

I'm likely going to postpone this weekends session of Astounding Space Adventures, as I haven't been up to finishing my notes for the session. I'm also still working out character creation for someone so I can run a regular one shot of Supers! for a few people (including @Silverlion) on Discord.

Also forgot to mention that I got roped into taking over the newly created Unisystem Discord server. Seems while the game lines haven't been active, the fan base is still out there. I'm considering a short game of Conspiracy X, with a little Odyssey Prime thrown in (it's a game where you travel to alternate Earths using a "Ring", which is basically a Stargate), as I want a little bit of Fringe thrown in.

Who doesn't want a little bit of Fringe thrown in?

 

[urbwar]

Who doesn't want a little bit of Fringe thrown in?

Exactly! Since Con X leans on the standard races of UFO lore (Nordics, Greys and Reptillians), I was planning on the Rings to be Atlantean (which is what the Nordics are called in the game). They're big on nanotech mostly, but I was going to have the Rings be a discarded experiment by one. Throw in an evil corporation getting their hands on one, and raiding alt-earths, and voila

 

[Bunch]

Exactly! Since Con X leans on the standard races of UFO lore (Nordics, Greys and Reptillians), I was planning on the Rings to be Atlantean (which is what the Nordics are called in the game). They're big on nanotech mostly, but I was going to have the Rings be a discarded experiment by one. Throw in an evil corporation getting their hands on one, and raiding alt-earths, and voila

Don't forget uplifted whales. Gotta have that.

 

[urbwar]

Don't forget uplifted whales. Gotta have that.

There's actually uplifted Dolphins, iirc. The greys made them. They also have the Blues, who are a hybrid of Dolphins and Greys. And the human/grey hybrids too.

 

[Bunch]

There's actually uplifted Dolphins, iirc. The greys made them. They also have the Blues, who are a hybrid of Dolphins and Greys. And the human/grey hybrids too.

Close enough.

 

[Baulderstone]

There's actually uplifted Dolphins, iirc. The greys made them. They also have the Blues, who are a hybrid of Dolphins and Greys. And the human/grey hybrids too.

I haven't run ConX since the original version in the '90s, but that game did a great job of tying together so much together into one fairly coherent background.

 

[The Butcher]

Who doesn't want a little bit of Fringe thrown in?

As long as it's seasons 1-3.

 

[urbwar]

I haven't run ConX since the original version in the '90s, but that game did a great job of tying together so much together into one fairly coherent background.

I didn't have the 1st edition, but the Unisystem version is the same background, just updated for the past decade. I'm not much into the paranormal aspects, but I love the alien aspect to the setting. Especially the Atlanteans

The main thing I'm taking from Fringe is the alt-earth concept. Odyssey Prime (which is another Unisystem game) is basically Stargate with Parallel Earths instead of other planets. The Rings (which look similar to the Stargates) allow them to travel to the alt earths. The setting was a doomsday asteroid will hit earth in 10 years, so different groups using Rings are trying to find a new home for humanity. My idea is the Atlanteans had built the Rings but discarded them. Some corporation found one, and is using it to raid alt earths (and maybe bringing back something that attracts an Aegis cell)

 

[3rik]

Since I recently found out that interacting through Zoom turns up my awkwardness to 11 I don't think I am going to be able to run an RPG online, ever...

 

[3rik]

Since I recently found out that interacting through Zoom turns up my awkwardness to 11 I don't think I am going to be able to run an RPG online, ever...

Correction: I think I could do it if it were possible to replace all the webcam views with (N)PC pics, most importantly mine. Webcams are really awkward for me.

Is there an online RPG platform that allows for this sort of thing?

 

[E-Rocker]

Last night's Savage Worlds session went really well! I'll do a full write-up later.

Had a player who was brand new, not just to the group or to Savage Worlds, but to RPGs entirely. She fit right in and had a great time! Of course she was confused by the rules sometimes, but who wouldn't be? And players are all cool people who were super patient about explaining game mechanics.

The team was on a spaceship. Hostile aliens were attacking the ship while ship systems were failing. I felt like that was a lot more effective at creating tension and excitement than doing a battle followed by a ship repair situation, or vice verse. When the game was in combat time, each player had to make decisions about whether it was more important to spend their turn fighting the bad guys or fixing the ship.

 

[E-Rocker]

Correction: I think I could do it if it were possible to replace all the webcam images with (N)PC pics, especially mine. Webcams are really awkward for me.

I'm pretty sure some people do online RPGs with just voice, no video, so that should be a viable option.

 

[3rik]

I'm pretty sure some people do online RPGs with just voice, no video, so that should be a viable option.

I think some visual cue as to who is talking at any time would be practical. I'm actually surprised there isn't such a thing: Just audio with a pic displaying your character that, I dunno, blinks or is enlarged whenever that person is speaking. Then add some options for displaying floorplans and such and voilá.

Anyway, assuming there's not going to be a new sudden peak in corona cases, we might soon be allowed to have gatherings of up to 10 people at home again, while maintaining 1.5 m distance between people. Should be possible to pull this off with a group of 4 or 5 people.

 

[Lundgren]

Voice only seems to be more common than video chat gaming. Personally, I've only tried online gaming over voice only so far (the group I'm currently in are using Discord for voice, but Roll20 for dice and a few other things).

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

Voice only seems to be more common than video chat gaming. Personally, I've only tried online gaming over voice only so far (the group I'm currently in are using Discord for voice, but Roll20 for dice and a few other things).

Yeah I played for years audio only using Mumble. I played my first video game Satruday using Discord.

 

[Lunar Ronin]

The Starfinder game I'm in uses Discord for voice chat and equipment roll-offs, and Roll20 for everything else. I don't think I would ever join a game that requires a webcam.

 

[Lundgren]

I like to gesticulate a bit, and work with body language, when GMing (I usually GM standing up). I also like to get some visual cues from the players. So in theory I would prefer to GM over video. So far, I have only been a player online, so I don't have a clue which would actually fit me if I try to run anything.

 

[dbm]

Correction: I think I could do it if it were possible to replace all the webcam views with (N)PC pics, most importantly mine. Webcams are really awkward for me.

Is there an online RPG platform that allows for this sort of thing?

Like some others have said, we play voice-only and use Fantasy Grounds for the visuals side. It's super-easy for the GM to share images with the players and every PC has an avatar picture.

Beyond that, if you use some of the more 'corporate' focussed chat programs like Skype or Teams then you can put a picture on your account and it shows that picture whilst you are 'in view' if you have your webcam turned off for any reason. Did this for work for years before we switched to video due to the level of remote working we were doing.

 

[urbwar]

Rescheduled my next session of Astounding Space Adventures for 2 weeks from today. We couldn't do next Saturday as one player's daughter is celebrating her birthday. Finally got past the first paragraph of my adventure notes.

Last session, the two main characters (Reggie and Agent 86) saved the Yithians from being wiped out by an insane (by their standards) Mi-Go who had genetically engineered an alien mosquito like creature that feeds on the sap in the bodies the Yithians reside in at that time. It was going to send them back in time to wipe them out. The players stopped the plan, destroyed the mosquitos, and took possession of a time portal device powered by a stone made of the same material as the Shining Trapezohedron (the stone that summons The Haunter in the Dark, and avatar of Nyarlathotep). The Yithians living in the current time suggested they cast it into a Black Hole, so they went off to find one.

The next session will be them finding one, but there is a crystalline citadel there:

The station is controlled by the Adjudicators, a race of gemstone like humanoids who arbitrate disputes for other races. They're currently overseeing a major trade dispute between two races, and if the players throw the time portal into the black hole, it could affect things (like destroy the station). They ask the players to hold off, and let them stay at the station until the case is concluded. They'll meet the two races in dispute (one is an race of bird like humanoids, the other a blue skinned humanoid with 3 eyes). Because of the stone in the device, it attracts the attention of another avatar of Nyarlathotep, who starts messing with everyone using Illusions and the like. The idea is to be less a combat based story, and more of a mindf*ck, as they're dealing with a power they can't just punch out. I'm sort of testing out a new rule for Supers! Revised. Much like M&M (and a couple of other games) have a trait for unlimited power, I've created one for Supers!. It just basically allows anyone with that trait in a power, etc, to have as many (or as little) dice as the scene requires. Should be fun to see how it turns out

 

[The Mad Hatter]

I haven't run ConX since the original version in the '90s, but that game did a great job of tying together so much together into one fairly coherent background.

I also had the 1st edition of ConX and loved it. Being a big fan of X-files probably helped. Sadly I borrowed it to a friend and never got it back.

 

[3rik]

Supers! Revised

Still hope to play or run that sometime. It looks so much fun.

 

[Bunch]

Annoyed. For the first time since this whole thing started I'm getting annoyed for a good portion of the day. I can't tell if it's just a combination of each child/adult I've interacted with having an off interaction or me. I would like a day off but it's not going to happen.

 

[Ronin]

Annoyed. For the first time since this whole thing started I'm getting annoyed for a good portion of the day. I can't tell if it's just a combination of each child/adult I've interacted with having an off interaction or me. I would like a day off but it's not going to happen.

You need a black powder mortar

When things get you down shell the neighbors. What are they going do? Tell the police that the neighbor is targeting them with indirect plunging fire? Raining inert kinetic projectiles upon ones sworn enemy (neighbor) is guaranteed to grant you a smile in the face of stressful situations placed on you by the populace of your domicile.

 

[Bunch]

You need a black powder mortar

When things get you down shell the neighbors. What are they going do? Tell the police that the neighbor is targeting them with indirect plunging fire? Raining inert kinetic projectiles upon ones sworn enemy (neighbor) is guaranteed to grant you a smile in the face of stressful situations placed on you by the populace of your domicile.

I'd love that but I'd have to return to being single (which right now certainly seems appealing for a while). I do enough cajoling/yelling/admonishing children to not do something that will get them killed.

Yesterday I got out the new Costco slip and slide. I'm trying to teach them to run and jump and skid along on the accompanying blow up sled. I say "Get out of the way and watch me". They back off until I run at the slide and jump. Then they run to the edge of the slide and I kid you not lose interest in watching me while I'm mid air. So standing at the edge they look away. They are oblivious to the 200lbs object flying down a slide at them. I closed my eyes due to the raining water and crash into them. The 6 year old took the crash well. I still have some neck pain. WTF people?!?! When dad says watch me he means watch me not lob your body in front of me and look away.

 

[Dumarest]

Since I recently found out that interacting through Zoom turns up my awkwardness to 11 I don't think I am going to be able to run an RPG online, ever...

Well, that still means you can be a player, right?

I'm looking into running something on Zoom soon. My kids use it 3 times a week for online school stuff, so I'm getting used to how it works. As soon as I find the right laptop and headphones or what-have-you I hope to jump back into the referee's stripes.

I'm also trying to refresh my understanding of Star Trek Adventures. I made some notes and had it down not too bad but not using it for so long means I've forgotten a bit. It reminds me of when our company rolls out a procedure by having us attend a seminar 2 months before we use the new software or policy and everybody ends up trying to remember what we learned and asking colleagues if they recall.

 

[urbwar]

Still hope to play or run that sometime. It looks so much fun.

I enjoy it. It isn't perfect (then again, I haven't found one that is yet), but I find that the whole anything can be used to defend if you can justify it, makes play more fun. Plus I've only ever done a high level game like this before in Champions (and it was a little harder due to all the dice being rolled). I do like how they presented Area Effect for powers. There's a side bar that covers scaling from individual targets to larger targets without further cost, which fits the comics (since we saw that back in The Avengers when they first fought the forces of Thanos, or the Justice League fighting multiple alien invasions of Earth). So yeah, we're having fun so far. Given the hijinks our characters have gotten into (the first adventure they were mistaken for Gods by some aliens, who created a fringe religion around them, which is going to come back and haunt them, and last one they saved an entire race from extinction, who are now their allies). Yeah, I'm gushing right now, as this has been a really fun game so far

 

[Toadmaster]

There's actually uplifted Dolphins, iirc. The greys made them. They also have the Blues, who are a hybrid of Dolphins and Greys. And the human/grey hybrids too.

Whales, dolphins it's all Cetacean to me.

Correction: I think I could do it if it were possible to replace all the webcam views with (N)PC pics, most importantly mine. Webcams are really awkward for me.

Is there an online RPG platform that allows for this sort of thing?

I just took a 3 day class on Zoom for work. learning to use new dispatch software.

No webcams just audio and text, there were blocks with the participants names so you could see who was in class, although I didn't notice if they indicated who was speaking as they were not visible through most of the training as the instructor screen covered them.
A few of the people had an avatar of sorts, probably those who were using zoom a lot, but it shows that is possible.. Throughout the presentation we were able to watch a projected computer screen so we could follow along with what the instructor was explaining.

As I took the class I thought Zoom showed a lot of potential for gaming. I assume a GM could place a map, documents, images on screen for visuals, share documents, jpegs etc. The text can be general to all or selective essentially allowing players to secretly pass notes to the GM or other players.

You need a black powder mortar

When things get you down shell the neighbors. What are they going do? Tell the police that the neighbor is targeting them with indirect plunging fire? Raining inert kinetic projectiles upon ones sworn enemy (neighbor) is guaranteed to grant you a smile in the face of stressful situations placed on you by the populace of your domicile.

Several years ago I was on a fire way out in the sticks and we were protecting a house up on a hillside. On the patio the guy had a bowling ball cannon. Over the next few days as we were mopping up we found the countryside was littered with bowling balls some 1/2 to 3/4 mile away. The guy fired it for us before we left, the finger holes in the ball made a crazy whistling sound. There was a house on the flight path which seemed odd, until we found out it belonged to him and his sister lived there. I guess cheap / free rent is a worthwhile trade off for the occasional bowling ball flying overhead. Or perhaps the cannon was his subtle way of suggesting she move...

The best part was when a bunch of the local 'ologists came out to survey some archaeological and biological sites in the area for fire effects. They were baffled by all the bowling balls, literally hundreds of them. It was funny hearing them wonder aloud about it. We didn't rat out bowling ball cannon guy, so they will probably never solve the mystery.

Bowling ball canon guy was a career highlight for me.

 

[Bunch]

Whales, dolphins it's all Cetacean to me.




I just took a 3 day class on Zoom for work. learning to use new dispatch software.

No webcams just audio and text, there were blocks with the participants names so you could see who was in class, although I didn't notice if they indicated who was speaking as they were not visible through most of the training as the instructor screen covered them.
A few of the people had an avatar of sorts, probably those who were using zoom a lot, but it shows that is possible.. Throughout the presentation we were able to watch a projected computer screen so we could follow along with what the instructor was explaining.

As I took the class I thought Zoom showed a lot of potential for gaming. I assume a GM could place a map, documents, images on screen for visuals, share documents, jpegs etc. The text can be general to all or selective essentially allowing players to secretly pass notes to the GM or other players.




Several years ago I was on a fire way out in the sticks and we were protecting a house up on a hillside. On the patio the guy had a bowling ball cannon. Over the next few days as we were mopping up we found the countryside was littered with bowling balls some 1/2 to 3/4 mile away. The guy fired it for us before we left, the finger holes in the ball made a crazy whistling sound. There was a house on the flight path which seemed odd, until we found out it belonged to him and his sister lived there. I guess cheap / free rent is a worthwhile trade off for the occasional bowling ball flying overhead. Or perhaps the cannon was his subtle way of suggesting she move...

The best part was when a bunch of the local 'ologists came out to survey some archaeological and biological sites in the area for fire effects. They were baffled by all the bowling balls, literally hundreds of them. It was funny hearing them wonder aloud about it. We didn't rat out bowling ball cannon guy, so they will probably never solve the mystery.

Bowling ball canon guy was a career highlight for me.

I see a legend like Florida Man coming...