What are y'all up to these days?

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Yeah it had a thunderwave attack. Also one of the heads had a sword that we looted:
Big Honking Sword
-This massive sword has a crossguard shaped like twined goose necks with mouths open and clearly honking. Upon the blade is etched the word “HONK!”
-Greatsword +2
-2d6+2 slashing damage
-As an action, you can choose activate the blade’s true power and emit a painfully loud honk. Everyone within 35 feet must make a DC16 con save or become deafened for 1 hour and suffer 3d6 thunder damage.

The Egyptian geese we have here have that attack. They walk around in pairs and are very pretty but they are damn loud.
 
HEPCATS Episode 37: When Curlywang Attacks
16th April, Cat Year
RLD 28 May, 2021
Present: Ayu, Baron von Braun, N0-5R, Zera
XP + 5

Ayu and her Terror-dactyl arrive from… somewhere? Or maybe she’s just been really quiet lately… [It was Ayu’s player’s first session back after an extended absence].

Everyone is singing and dancing in the courtyard of Zera’s dad’s castle, when a large, angry dragon attacks from the sky! Its roar is so fearsome that Baron and N0-5R immediately develop phobias of dragons!

The dragon swoops towards the castle, breathing fire. N0-5R runs up a building and shoots it in its right eye, Baron lassos its mouth shut, Ayu dive-bombs it with her Terror-dactyl, and Zera attacks. With the dragon on the ground, Baron’s followers all grab limbs to help keep it there.

When the dragon realizes what a bad position it's in, the fight goes out of it. Once un-lassoed, the dragon introduces himself as Curlywang MacAllister. He apologizes for attacking, but says he has serious rage issues, and was sent into a fury because the trolls who work for him collecting bridge tolls went on strike.

The team suggests that maybe there’s a better career for him than bridge management, and that glass-blowing would be well-suited to his talents. He says he’ll consider a glass-blowing career if they can help him find a mentor.

Baron and Zera try to get clarification from Sir on whether they joined the Cult of Steve by going into the basement. Sir says that they’re not necessarily members yet, but when they come back this direction, they should sit in on a meeting and then they can make a more informed decision about whether or not they want to join.

Back on the golden brick road to Ozmodius, the team encounters a tin man who introduces himself as Tinny Tim. He asks the team if they’re adventurers, and when they say yes, asks them if they can teach him to be brave. They tell him to do things he’s afraid of. He asks if he can join their adventure and they decide that would be fine. He’s very impressed with how metal DJ-Q2 and N0-5R are.

Agent P calls on the scrying wristbands to let the team know that a rider arrived through the gate from the Saguaro Plains bearing a letter addressed to “Dr. A.” Agent P asks whether he should read it to them, or if Ayu would prefer to read it privately when she gets back. Ayu elects to have the letter read aloud. It reads,

Dear Doctor A,

I must admit I was rather upset that you left without saying goodbye. I felt like we really had a connection. If I see you again, I’m not sure whether I should slap you or kiss you. So I decided to talk to you instead.

Little Bobby is adjusting well to his new life with me as his guardian, but he is upset that he can’t bring his guns to school.


At being reminded of their son, Zera reaches for N0-5R’s hand. The Ze-5R shippers rejoice!

I’ve been elected mayor, and am working on finding a replacement for the postmaster general. Two tall, thin, strange old men arrived in town. One is making coffins and the other is digging graves. This is giving me a sense of foreboding, as if something bad is just over the horizon and heading this direction.

I know you and your friends never claimed responsibility for eradicating the Ames-Krueger gang, but I have a strong hunch you were involved. If you are able to head back in this direction, perhaps you could help us with the looming danger.

Regardless, I hope to see you again.

Sincerely,
Evelyn Audrey


After reading the letter, Agent P asks to talk to his son, Calendar, whom the team is babysitting. Zera says “No!” and immediately hangs up.

Ayu tells the group, “I think Evelyn needs our help.”
Baron asks, “How are you going to tell her that you got married?”
“I thought I would just not mention it,” Ayu answers.
“You probably should mention it,” Baron says.
“I mean, it is kind of a political marriage…” Ayu replies.

The sky turns black and a grey face appears upon it, announcing “We are darkness. We are coming.” It fades away and the sky goes back to normal.

Since the team was just at Zera’s dad’s house, DJ-Q2 asks Zera, “Wait, so Baron’s not your dad?” Zera still thinks it’s possible that Baron is her dad, even though they were just dealing with her actual dad. Baron forcefully tells Zera that he is not her dad, he is not married to her, and he is definitely not her dad and married to her. She remains unconvinced.

To be continued...
 
About to play an assassin in my friend Tim Shorts (of Gothridge Manor) new campaign. He primarily using Old School Essential but mashing together elements from other closely related systems. My assassin class is taken mostly from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

My character's twist is that his more of an agent type loyal to his city than a killer for hire.

1623084527100.png

1623084539394.png
 
Being a GM is sometimes like a Faustian pact, or being invited to stay at Hotel California, it really is :thumbsup: :grin:
And some days it's like heating a scorched spoon over a cigarette lighter with trembling fingers, tourniquet already tight around your arm to make the veins stand out and there's a crying baby in the next room that you'll get to when you're ready, goddammit...

:hehe:
 
And some days it's like heating a scorched spoon over a cigarette lighter with trembling fingers, tourniquet already tight around your arm to make the veins stand out and there's a crying baby in the next room that you'll get to when you're ready, goddammit...

:hehe:
My mind went right to Trainspotting. Scenes with Mother in particular.
 
Aside from gaming, I've just been riding around in my Cadillac and shaking G's down for bills.

Pimpin' ain't easy, you know.
 
In D&D 5e, my barbarian PC, Rocky, recreated what Angelico does at 0:10 in this video, except that Rocky took a flying leap off of a cloud 100 feet in the air, rather than a rooftop, and threw his Spear of Wounding at the Big Bad, as well as landing crossways on top of two mooks. :smile: It's fun to have no sense of self-preservation. And nearly 400 hit points.

 
And yet they want you to pay $50 for shipping. I mean, really you can't ship it for free with the 10k+ that you received? :thumbsdown:
At that price range I don't think either the buyer or the seller is going to quibble too much about the cost of shipping but I could see a deeper discussion of how it will be protected.

I'm going to be a bit surprised if it doesn't hit 15-20+k if it also includes things like the Cthulhu mythos and Melnibone gods.
The woodgrain signed boxes I believe have gone in that range and this would be one of those unique items that has controversy attached to it.
 
I guess it's a photocopy, so Ward pulled it for the time being. He didn't realize that TSR didn't send him back his manuscript.
That's unfortunate for him. I believe he's had medical bills and probably could use the extra income but I might be miss remembering.
 
In D&D 5e, my barbarian PC, Rocky, recreated what Angelico does at 0:10 in this video, except that Rocky took a flying leap off of a cloud 100 feet in the air, rather than a rooftop, and threw his Spear of Wounding at the Big Bad, as well as landing crossways on top of two mooks. :smile: It's fun to have no sense of self-preservation. And nearly 400 hit points.


And I thought the physical acting in WWwhatever was bad. Awesome leap though. Hope he retires before the CTE is too bad.
 
All right, I've got dice, cards, poker chips for bennies, NPC character sheets, water, beer, whiskey, and even a few bullet points of things that could happen in-game. Now just waiting on my players to show up...
 
Due to a player having to work, we didn't finish Alien yesterday. We did play two games of Pandemic, which was frustratingly fun. We also played Munchkin, but as I didn't get much sleep after work, I wasn't really getting into. Still, we had fun.
 
Spending a lot of time thinking about our next game, and what I want out of it. We have opened a discussion about that, which is good. Ultimately, outside of “please, god, not completely bog standard adventurers in a high magic medieval world” I’m really open to setting. System I’m a bit less open on, but I think mostly I’m against 5e. So, “not D&d” in the standard sense. Even other forms of d&d I’m more open to. I would like a generic system so we can stick with it and flex between settings, but it’s not critical.

what I am finding is that it’s all the meta-issues that are my hang ups. Player involvement (read the rules, put down the phone) and Roleplaying vs roll playing (it’s not a board game, sometimes people make dumb choices, don’t optimize every choice, is your character a piece of paper or does he have goals and desires and motivations) are my big ones. I’m trying to make a story, not play a board game or a tactical game. I like those just fine, but I feel like it’s not giving me much over a 4 hour game night. I don’t get much out of “winning”.

this runs afoul with my group. Several don’t read the rules, some sit on their phones some just want to win, some play their character sheets their character is just a piece on the board.

I’m particularly annoyed at myself for not putting my foot down with one of the players who is chronically disengaged. On his phone all the time, or on his computer working for fuck’s sake, and never bothers to read the rules. In fact, actively avoids learning them by osmosis. We played 40-50 games of Mythras and I was still telling him his special effect options. It doesn’t matter the GM or the system (we’ve had 4 GMs, and god knows how many systems), getting his involvement is hard. I finally had it almost with 3 characters in front of him in a one shot with 4 players. I was relentless. But that’s just not fun for me. I don’t want to drag him around.

it’s not like I need advice here - I know the solution, I just dislike it. But I think it’s going to be a “do you want to play or not. If you do, then do. If not, that’s fine, be here, even talk with us, but we need to know you aren’t involved in this part of the gathering”.

some of my own is that I am not a particularly flexible GM and fairly sensitive to criticism. I am trying extremely hard to make a good game, but there is a feeling of failure when things take a turn that I didn’t anticipate and plan for. Then I improve and it is not well though out and that bothers me, then it gets used again later and the wrongness comes back. I get questioned on consistency when it’s not like the characters have full visibility, but the players are sure poking holes at it. They get mad when things take a turn against them when I AM improvising or had planned, and that drives me nuts. I’ve been accused of cheating a nearly infinite number of times, so much so that I started rolling in the open, despite that virtually every time I DID fudge a die roll it was to their benefit. So there is a perception on my part of a lack of appreciation and that I’m pulling the whole wagon on my own.

so, all of this is making me not want to GM pretty much ever. Which is super sad because there are still a lot of things I want to do, and what I want very rarely aligns - one GM only likes bog standard fantasy. One GM has a pretty short time to tapping out as GM. One GM has GMed about 5 times in 15 years.

so I’m sort of at that no gaming is better than shitty gaming point until I get this resolved I suppose. Hell of a rant I didn’t expect when I started.
 
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Diversionary Tactics: Backlash is targeting infrastructure throughout the city, causing blackouts and chaos. This is way outside his M.O; until you consider there's not a paycheck he didn't like. Who's really behind Backlash's attacks? What are their goals? And, can you stop them in time?

Legacy of C.A.I.N.: In 1996 an android was created to explore the harshest environments on earth. Something went wrong and CAIN became self aware. After years of terrorizing the corporations that made him CAIN disappeared. A recent break-in at a XST Research Facility indicates someone is trying to recreate the android.

Party Crashers: The first international space elevator is nearing completion on the island of Kiribati. However, a local extremist group doesn't want their home turning into a colonial outpost. The heroes have been asked to show support and prevent anything from going wrong. While the militants have their muscle, Chimera is also watching the orbital launch platform for their own goals.
 
Spending a lot of time thinking about our next game, and what I want out of it. We have opened a discussion about that, which is good. ....

so, all of this is making me not want to GM pretty much ever. Which is super sad because there are still a lot of things I want to do, and what I want very rarely aligns - one GM only likes bog standard fantasy. One GM has a pretty short time to tapping out as GM. One GM has GMed about 5 times in 15 years.

so I’m sort of at that no gaming is better than shitty gaming point until I get this resolved I suppose. Hell of a rant I didn’t expect when I started.
It sounds to me like you have a mismatch in gaming preferences. You want a more committed and serious session and the other players are super casual just get together type. Not really much you can do when you have different things that gaming means to you.
 
It sounds to me like you have a mismatch in gaming preferences. You want a more committed and serious session and the other players are super casual just get together type. Not really much you can do when you have different things that gaming means to you.
This wouldn’t be inaccurate, because it also irritates me when folks can’t make it and don't tell anyone until a day or two before. It makes it very hard to have any arc and have them involved. Of course, I should probably be flexible and change the arc.
 
Spending a lot of time thinking about our next game, and what I want out of it. We have opened a discussion about that, which is good. Ultimately, outside of “please, god, not completely bog standard adventurers in a high magic medieval world” I’m really open to setting. System I’m a bit less open on, but I think mostly I’m against 5e. So, “not D&d” in the standard sense. Even other forms of d&d I’m more open to. I would like a generic system so we can stick with it and flex between settings, but it’s not critical.

what I am finding is that it’s all the meta-issues that are my hang ups. Player involvement (read the rules, put down the phone) and Roleplaying vs roll playing (it’s not a board game, sometimes people make dumb choices, don’t optimize every choice, is your character a piece of paper or does he have goals and desires and motivations) are my big ones. I’m trying to make a story, not play a board game or a tactical game. I like those just fine, but I feel like it’s not giving me much over a 4 hour game night. I don’t get much out of “winning”.

this runs afoul with my group. Several don’t read the rules, some sit on their phones some just want to win, some play their character sheets their character is just a piece on the board.

I’m particularly annoyed at myself for not putting my foot down with one of the players who is chronically disengaged. On his phone all the time, or on his computer working for fuck’s sake, and never bothers to read the rules. In fact, actively avoids learning them by osmosis. We played 40-50 games of Mythras and I was still telling him his special effect options. It doesn’t matter the GM or the system (we’ve had 4 GMs, and god knows how many systems), getting his involvement is hard. I finally had it almost with 3 characters in front of him in a one shot with 4 players. I was relentless. But that’s just not fun for me. I don’t want to drag him around.

it’s not like I need advice here - I know the solution, I just dislike it. But I think it’s going to be a “do you want to play or not. If you do, then do. If not, that’s fine, be here, even talk with us, but we need to know you aren’t involved in this part of the gathering”.

some of my own is that I am not a particularly flexible GM and fairly sensitive to criticism. I am trying extremely hard to make a good game, but there is a feeling of failure when things take a turn that I didn’t anticipate and plan for. Then I improve and it is not well though out and that bothers me, then it gets used again later and the wrongness comes back. I get questioned on consistency when it’s not like the characters have full visibility, but the players are sure poking holes at it. They get mad when things take a turn against them when I AM improvising or had planned, and that drives me nuts. I’ve been accused of cheating a nearly infinite number of times, so much so that I started rolling in the open, despite that virtually every time I DID fudge a die roll it was to their benefit. So there is a perception on my part of a lack of appreciation and that I’m pulling the whole wagon on my own.

so, all of this is making me not want to GM pretty much ever. Which is super sad because there are still a lot of things I want to do, and what I want very rarely aligns - one GM only likes bog standard fantasy. One GM has a pretty short time to tapping out as GM. One GM has GMed about 5 times in 15 years.

so I’m sort of at that no gaming is better than shitty gaming point until I get this resolved I suppose. Hell of a rant I didn’t expect when I started.
This mostly sounds like a shitty player that you just need to cut out.
But this:
They get mad when things take a turn against them when I AM improvising or had planned, and that drives me nuts. I’ve been accused of cheating a nearly infinite number of times
is so alien to anything I've ever experienced, and this
every time I DID fudge a die roll it was to their benefit
makes me think you fucked up. Doesn't matter which direction you tipped the scales, if you cheated in the age old pursuit of
trying to make a story
you may've just lost your players' confidence in your judgment. Not sure how to recover that one.
 
Spending a lot of time thinking about our next game, and what I want out of it. We have opened a discussion about that, which is good. Ultimately, outside of “please, god, not completely bog standard adventurers in a high magic medieval world” I’m really open to setting. System I’m a bit less open on, but I think mostly I’m against 5e. So, “not D&d” in the standard sense. Even other forms of d&d I’m more open to. I would like a generic system so we can stick with it and flex between settings, but it’s not critical.

what I am finding is that it’s all the meta-issues that are my hang ups. Player involvement (read the rules, put down the phone) and Roleplaying vs roll playing (it’s not a board game, sometimes people make dumb choices, don’t optimize every choice, is your character a piece of paper or does he have goals and desires and motivations) are my big ones. I’m trying to make a story, not play a board game or a tactical game. I like those just fine, but I feel like it’s not giving me much over a 4 hour game night. I don’t get much out of “winning”.

this runs afoul with my group. Several don’t read the rules, some sit on their phones some just want to win, some play their character sheets their character is just a piece on the board.

I’m particularly annoyed at myself for not putting my foot down with one of the players who is chronically disengaged. On his phone all the time, or on his computer working for fuck’s sake, and never bothers to read the rules. In fact, actively avoids learning them by osmosis. We played 40-50 games of Mythras and I was still telling him his special effect options. It doesn’t matter the GM or the system (we’ve had 4 GMs, and god knows how many systems), getting his involvement is hard. I finally had it almost with 3 characters in front of him in a one shot with 4 players. I was relentless. But that’s just not fun for me. I don’t want to drag him around.

it’s not like I need advice here - I know the solution, I just dislike it. But I think it’s going to be a “do you want to play or not. If you do, then do. If not, that’s fine, be here, even talk with us, but we need to know you aren’t involved in this part of the gathering”.

some of my own is that I am not a particularly flexible GM and fairly sensitive to criticism. I am trying extremely hard to make a good game, but there is a feeling of failure when things take a turn that I didn’t anticipate and plan for. Then I improve and it is not well though out and that bothers me, then it gets used again later and the wrongness comes back. I get questioned on consistency when it’s not like the characters have full visibility, but the players are sure poking holes at it. They get mad when things take a turn against them when I AM improvising or had planned, and that drives me nuts. I’ve been accused of cheating a nearly infinite number of times, so much so that I started rolling in the open, despite that virtually every time I DID fudge a die roll it was to their benefit. So there is a perception on my part of a lack of appreciation and that I’m pulling the whole wagon on my own.

so, all of this is making me not want to GM pretty much ever. Which is super sad because there are still a lot of things I want to do, and what I want very rarely aligns - one GM only likes bog standard fantasy. One GM has a pretty short time to tapping out as GM. One GM has GMed about 5 times in 15 years.

so I’m sort of at that no gaming is better than shitty gaming point until I get this resolved I suppose. Hell of a rant I didn’t expect when I started.
I hate when things go down this path. I've experienced it a few times over the decades, never an enjoyable time. When it's happened to me as a GM I find myself taking a break from GMing and just playing or even taking a complete break. When I've been a player in group where this is happening if the GM doesn't mind I just let it go and enjoy what I can from the game until I find a group that better fits my play style. Of course since the pandemic kicked in I've stopped playing and only do some mmorpg game play for the time being.

I'm hoping to get back into a group within the next three or four months. I've just grown more and more picky about what I want from a group and what I'm willing to accept behavior wise. Players who don't pay attention and dick around with their phones or laptops are high on my list of unacceptable behaviors as are those who won't bother to learn the game mechanics that they want to use. You don't have to have total mastery mind you but damn me if you can't put a little effort into understanding them.

Anyhow, it's good to vent and get it off your chest. More productive to do so versus holding it in and exploding once you can't hold the frustration in anymore. Good luck on finding a workable solution.
 
Had the opportunity to speak with Mildra the Monk. We talk a about the influences behind Metahumans Rising, both role-playing games and comics. Then we dive into topics like avoiding analysis paralysis in a Superhero RPG and how the system handles balancing different characters and building trickier character concepts.



#Metahumans #MetahumansRising #Superheroes #RPG #TTRPG #Interview
 
I'm reading through an OSR game called The Game of the North currently and I must say, they've done a neat job balancing the 6 stats in an interesting way. There are also some cool random tables that taken together constitute something of a lifepath system. It's worth a look, but I'm not that far in, so I may change my mind.
 
I’m trying to make a story, not play a board game or a tactical game.
That is why you fail. :devil:

Seriously though, you’re not going to end meta-thinking in the Game Mechanics realm by trading it for meta-thinking in the Narrative realm. The only way to ditch meta-thinking is by internalized Roleplaying. Get people to be thinking as a real person in a real world, they won’t be meta-thinking.
 
Raleel Raleel, the one thing you absolutely have to put your foot down on is No Phones. No Laptops would be good too, but a lot of people have digital character sheets. Print out their character sheets and have notepads and pens available if they want to take notes. They can transfer to computer later. No benefit of digital note-taking is worth the distraction.

People will piss, moan, complain and fidget, but they’ll wean themselves off, even if it’s just for a time.
 
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This mostly sounds like a shitty player that you just need to cut out.
But this:

is so alien to anything I've ever experienced, and this

makes me think you fucked up. Doesn't matter which direction you tipped the scales, if you cheated in the age old pursuit of

you may've just lost your players' confidence in your judgment. Not sure how to recover that one.
Ouch. This is bad. Very bad.

Raleel Raleel, if your players are calling you out for cheating, that means they‘re either spoiled kids, or...they’ve caught you cheating. You probably call it “improvising” or “fudging”, but if you’re tweaking things (probably so things can make a better story or be dramatically satisfying) like Schrodinger’s Ogre, and they catch you, then they’re not gonna trust you.

You and this group may be done.

In any case, you guys need to talk.
 
Raleel Raleel, the one thing you absolutely have to put your foot down on is No Phones. No Laptops would be good too, but a lot of people have digital character sheets. Print out their character sheets and have notepads and pens available if they want tot are notes. They can transfer to computer later. No benefit of digital note-taking is worth the distraction.

People will piss, moan, complain and fidget, but they’ll wean themselves off, even if it’s just for a time.
No phones or laptops would be pretty rough in my campaigns (all hosted on Roll20)... :-)
 
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