What are y'all up to these days?

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How could I have left out Fist from my title?!?!

A critical shift, no doubt.

I am curious if the current rights holders are bringing the Architects of the Flesh back, or just having Netherworld Distimed characters.
 
My 1-year account with Roll20 is about to expire and I want to switch. I hate Roll20. What do you folks recommend?
 
My 1-year account with Roll20 is about to expire and I want to switch. I hate Roll20. What do you folks recommend?
I've used Fantasy Grounds for years and like it a lot.
 
Took 6 months off from gaming to focus on personal stuff, now I'm slowly getting back into the hobby. Recently joined a friend's TSR Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) game, which is one I never played back in the day. Not running anything yet, but I'm kicking around/semi-prepping a couple things: a pulp re-envisioning of I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City (converted to BoL/Dicey Tales) and some sort of Traveller/Cepheus-based spy-fi, not sure if it'll be Cold War-era or cyberpunk-ish future.
 
I wrote the first draft of a short novel in July (it took 19 days). I’m revising it now. I’m going to put it up on Amazon as a kindle book in another month. It’s called Samson of Mars. I have two sequels planned: Ruins of Mars and Druids of Mars. BX Mars is my setting bible. I have two novellas done that have nothing to do with Mars and an endless procession of ideas for more stories and novels.
I’m doing a huge map of a ruined city for an expansion of BX Mars and doing some illustrations for a version that won’t be buried on the adult side of DTRPG. I’m going to do softcovers of both version.
last but not least, I’m drawing my superhero graphic novel at the rate of 1-2 pages a week
I find moving from one project to another keeps the burnout to a minimum.
 

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I am prepping for tonight's session of Hyperborea 5e. At first I experienced a little mental whiplash running alternating sessions of B/X and 5e. B/X is so brutal and unforgiving that 5e characters feel like budding street level supers in comparison. Even though I have introduced a death save to make B/X less deadly and tweaked 5e to make it more deadly, I feel like there is a sweet spot somewhere between these two solid systems that is a perfect niche for a heartbreaker 5e ruleset.
 
The Untitled Mutant Martial Arts Campaign
It's time to start a new article series, and because we enjoyed both the Martial Arts and Animal Powered series, I want to bring them together. Only this time, we're going to do it together. Each new update for "UMMAC" will include a poll where you can help steer the final shape of the setting. Then we'll do a write up similar to our PSI series based on everyone's input!

One more thing!
We also recently did an interview with Mildra the Gaming Monk, outlining 20 fantasy marital arts rapid fire! Check of the video of that here:


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Last Saturday we had a couple of one-shots. In the evening our DCC DM ran a game that was essentially set in Y: The Last Man using some very simple bare-bones homebrew rules (roll under your relevant attribute to do anything tricky, roll with advantage if it ties in to your main profession).

Earlier in the day I ran a 4e Gamma World one shot for the three teens who haven't went off to college, along with two other teens who they wanted to see if it would be okay to bring into the group on a regular basis. One kept wanting to know why I wasn't running D&D 5e, and after a few attempts where he tried to badger me into committing to running D&D 5e, I eventually shut him down hard, letting him know that I was running GW today, and if that wasn't acceptable to him he could leave at any time, but that I wasn't going to let him derail the other players fun. He finished the session, but I don't know if he'll bother coming back or not. I'm not certain if I want him back or not, to be honest. The hell of it is, outside of his tunnel vision regarding anything besides the latest flavor of D&D, he was actually a pretty decent player.

The other teen is, I have been told, a 'high-functioning autistic'. He didn't cause any problems, but I'm not certain if my relatively loose approach to GMing is going to be a problem for him, as he seems to like rules that are very clear-cut. I may start a separate thread in regards to this, to get some feedback and advice.
 
After some hemming and hawing, I think I'm going to go ahead and at least take a stab at hacking The Between to do Delta Green style Chtulhu games. The Between is a PbtA/Brindlewood Bay hybrid, which is all to the good, but I may layer in some FitD stuff to work the day/night playloop a little more like a 'job'. IDK, early days, so I'm still faffing about with ideas.
 
After some hemming and hawing, I think I'm going to go ahead and at least take a stab at hacking The Between to do Delta Green style Chtulhu games. The Between is a PbtA/Brindlewood Bay hybrid, which is all to the good, but I may layer in some FitD stuff to work the day/night playloop a little more like a 'job'. IDK, early days, so I'm still faffing about with ideas.

I think now I should really hack Delta Green to do some PbtA tricks...:devil:

Luckily for all of us, I'm too lazy to actually bother:thumbsup:.
 
I think now I should really hack Delta Green to do some PbtA tricks...:devil:

Luckily for all of us, I'm too lazy to actually bother:thumbsup:.
The main point of the hack is to see what the Brindlewood Bay mystery mechanics and processes look like for more serious Cthulhu gaming. I think it'll be pretty keen.
 
I'm just gearing up to running a Old School Essentials D&D game at the beginning of October.

About the only thing nice about lockdown etc is that a couple of old school mates got back in touch through my sister and we met up for a couple of beers a few months back. Chatting about old times and playing D&D and MERP together I agreed to run a game for them and others so there's going to be me GMing and 7 players. Have the hotel conference room booked, deposits have been paid and I have a lot of work to do between now and then to get the game ready! :thumbsup:
 
I'm just gearing up to running a Old School Essentials D&D game at the beginning of October.

About the only thing nice about lockdown etc is that a couple of old school mates got back in touch through my sister and we met up for a couple of beers a few months back. Chatting about old times and playing D&D and MERP together I agreed to run a game for them and others so there's going to be me GMing and 7 players. Have the hotel conference room booked, deposits have been paid and I have a lot of work to do between now and then to get the game ready! :thumbsup:
Let us know how it goes. Also, really nice bunch of added resources for TOR, I'll have to give it a look through at some point. Did you back the new TOR Kickstarter from this year as well?
 
Let us know how it goes.

Will do!

Also, really nice bunch of added resources for TOR, I'll have to give it a look through at some point. Did you back the new TOR Kickstarter from this year as well?

Ah, thanks very much - they are for first edition though. I did back the new KS, yes, but more out of interest rather than a desire to convert over to it - I have no desire to do that as prefer my houseruled version (who doesn't!) and I'm not enamoured with some of the changes that were made although I'm glad that C7's 2nd edition went the way of the Dodo as really didn't like the direction of travel of that with the artwork etc; much prefer the art and design of Free League.
 
My Hyperborea game is kind of a mess right now. I've never had a group of players more committed to splitting up all the time. We left off Tuesday's session with the party split into 3 groups. 2 players went investigating a place where someone they're looking for went missing during a melee, 2 other players went to go infiltrate a drug den of a rival criminal organization, 1 player decided to just hang out at the tavern. I tend to think internet idiots who don't actually play much overblow the whole "don't split the party" BS. There's plenty of room in my games for smart multitasking, and definitely for flanking maneuvers, but this just seems ridiculous. These places they're going may not be dungeons, in the traditional sense, but they are very clearly places of danger where you might benefit from working together as a group.
Anyway, one character got captured, so next session I've got to figure out running the game with 2 players going on an adventure on their own, while another player may need to get a fourth player to try to rescue the fifth player. I think I'm going to have to setup separate channels and just tell the guys not playing at the moment they have to wait and see what happens. Or maybe I need to just run them as two separate groups until they reunite.
 
I tend to think internet idiots who don't actually play much overblow the whole "don't split the party" BS.
I will be honest, as a personal preference I find splitting the party is rarely worth the increased cognitive workload for me as a GM but YMMV. I don't really need to worry about it though as my players not only stick together like glue in adventure zones but often bring as many retainers as they can afford and manage.
 
The first session of my Alternity space opera game-- which everyone seems to be excited about-- has been for one reason or another blown off for over ten weeks in a row.

I know our other regular GM isn't up for running anything right now, but if I'm going to run anything in her stead... I think it's going to have to be something else. It's not the game's fault, and it's not the players' fault-- generally or individually-- but when the moment is this far gone, I'm not capable of picking it back up.
 
I will be honest, as a personal preference I find splitting the party is rarely worth the increased cognitive workload for me as a GM but YMMV. I don't really need to worry about it though as my players not only stick together like glue in adventure zones but often bring as many retainers as they can afford and manage.
Most of the time splitting up is just efficiency. One guy is gonna go hire some retainers, while another guy goes and buys supplies, and another speaks with the sage about identifying some loot, and so on. It becomes a bit of a problem running the game when the players fail to distinguish between errands and adventuring. I don't declare some buildings in town "adventure zones", but to me it's pretty obvious that some investigations are riskier than talking to the local librarian.
 
Most of the time splitting up is just efficiency. One guy is gonna go hire some retainers, while another guy goes and buys supplies, and another speaks with the sage about identifying some loot, and so on. It becomes a bit of a problem running the game when the players fail to distinguish between errands and adventuring. I don't declare some buildings in town "adventure zones", but to me it's pretty obvious that some investigations are riskier than talking to the local librarian.
Oh I misunderstood you. I was strictly speaking of splitting up for adventure and danger, not splitting up to handle mundane errands.

Edit: "adventure zone" is just an internal mental nomenclature that I use for areas that are dangerous, where you can't loiter around with out risking something bad happening. I don't use that term with the players
 
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A few of my wife's friends want to play/try a Witcher game at our place since they've gotten into the world and stories. I think it's really the attention to detail in Sapkowski's world and the fully realised characters that have drawn them in.

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I think it depends on the game, to be honest. In some games I’ve run I’ve noticed that when we split the party, those who aren’t involved may tune out a bit, and as Brock Savage Brock Savage said, the cognitive workload for the GM can really spike.

But other games, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Not sure about player engagement, but for GM cognitive load, I know that systems that are lighter on the GM side are much easier to handle multiple groups of PCs and shifting focus as needed.
 
I think it depends on the game, to be honest. In some games I’ve run I’ve noticed that when we split the party, those who aren’t involved may tune out a bit, and as Brock Savage Brock Savage said, the cognitive workload for the GM can really spike.

But other games, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Not sure about player engagement, but for GM cognitive load, I know that systems that are lighter on the GM side are much easier to handle multiple groups of PCs and shifting focus as needed.
Another benefit to lighter systems with split parties is that they typically have much speedier combat. A fight that lasts 2 minutes of in-game time, but over 30 minutes of table time really impedes your ability to keep jumping between groups.

Over the Edge was the first game I read that actively encouraged you to have the players split up, and it fit the bill in this respect.
 
Another benefit to lighter systems with split parties is that they typically have much speedier combat. A fight that lasts 2 minutes of in-game time, but over 30 minutes of table time really impedes your ability to keep jumping between groups.

Over the Edge was the first game I read that actively encouraged you to have the players split up, and it fit the bill in this respect.

Very true, that’s probably a big factor. Combat and other task resolution takes less time, so players know it shouldn’t be too long until things move back to them.

I remember a split party one time when playing Pathfinder and a “quick combat” happened for one group….brutal.
 
I will be honest, as a personal preference I find splitting the party is rarely worth the increased cognitive workload for me as a GM but YMMV. I don't really need to worry about it though as my players not only stick together like glue in adventure zones but often bring as many retainers as they can afford and manage.
Yup, they split and weaken themselves, they shouldn't be surprised if their foes take advantage of it and pick them off.
 
Very true, that’s probably a big factor. Combat and other task resolution takes less time, so players know it shouldn’t be too long until things move back to them.

I remember a split party one time when playing Pathfinder and a “quick combat” happened for one group….brutal.
We played a session of another (lighter) game once when there was a fight in our Exalted 2e campaign...:grin:
It was fun, though, and some of the stunts were memorable, so it was all right:shade:!

Yup, they split and weaken themselves, they shouldn't be surprised if their foes take advantage of it and pick them off.
...because you don't want the "increased cognitive load":shock:?
 
We played a session of another (lighter) game once when there was a fight in our Exalted 2e campaign...:grin:
It was fun, though, and some of the stunts were memorable, so it was all right:shade:!


...because you don't want the "increased cognitive load":shock:?

No, though "that" can be a pain the ass, it's not why I'd do it. Smart foes should be played smart and if the party is splitting then they should potentially pay the price for tactical foolishness. :gunslinger: So that they learn not to be fools.

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No, though "that" can be a pain the ass, it's not why I'd do it. Smart foes should be played smart and if the party is splitting then they should potentially pay the price for tactical foolishness. :gunslinger: So that they learn not to be fools.

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OK, sorry - obviously I've misunderstood you there...but since that's what the post you quoted said, I jumped to the conclusion that seemed reasonable:thumbsup:!
 
...because you don't want the "increased cognitive load":shock:?
I don't think anyone in the thread advocates punishing the players just because they make life more difficult for the GM- that's unethical and frankly not very cool at all. Like @ Acmegamer Acmegamer said, intelligent enemies play to win and are going to take advantage of any weaknesses. Lucky for my players most of the time they are running into mindless undead, slimes, beasts, and vermin.
 
I don't think anyone in the thread advocates punishing the players just because they make life more difficult for the GM- that's unethical and frankly not very cool at all.
Yeah, exactly:thumbsup:.
Now, talking to the players with "people, I really don't need you doing that" is fine in my book. A Referee is human*, too:grin:!
And of course, I've always advocated intelligent enemies playing intelligently. Tucker's kobolds are awesome:angel:!
Upping the ante on the players because they displeased the GM, which is what I understood the post to advocate? Not nearly as awesome...:devil:
And yes, the reason it's happening, matters.

*We haven't got AI referees yet, though Mythic comes awfully close:tongue:!
 
I finally gave Operation Lone Wolf for Ghost Ops a try. The Kickstarter for this solo adventure was a disaster. Long story short:
  1. It was delayed for a lengthy period of time. The author cited COVID as a component of this, as well as finding making a solo adventure complex.
  2. The author announced they were publishing a second edition of Ghost Ops before this was released, and it only seemed to come out after several of us pressed outside Kickstarter for info on Lone Wolf’s release. Almost forgot to mention the author was posting random things on the Ghost Ops Facebook page while we were waiting fir Lone Wolf comes out.
  3. Personally, I had to poke the fellow with a stick on Kickstarter to get my PDF add-ons.
  4. Those of us who backed at the physical level never got our stuff, and never have received responses on it.

Today I finally decided to give Lone Wolf a try. The first thing I found was that the Kickstarter’s claim to have rules to use regular Ghost Ops characters in it was a lie, with nothing of the sort in it.



Fine, I created a character with the striped -down rules in Lone Wolf. I read through the mission briefing of the first adventure, and at the third paragraph was saying “WTF?” as it talked about an unmentioned bio-weapon as though it was discussed. Whatever.



I started on the adventure, and failed on my second die roll. I thought it’d go to some form of combat with NPCs, but instead it turns out it was a save-or-die situation.



Maybe I’ll give it a go again in a few months.
 
So mythras superheroes aka Destined. Acmegamer Acmegamer

I was pleasantly surprised. I would be one of the folks who was pretty worried about it. I've played a number of lighter super hero games, and Cortex is one of my favorites. I played Banneret, who is a Captain America "brick". true blue, patriotic, former army ranger, etc. She was a surprising amount of fun to play

the initial scene had us coming onto the scene of a break in, which we learned about via the COP app, an in game smart phone app that all the heroes use to track this stuff.

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As you can see, it's giant flying octopuses, and I cannot resist that sort of shenanigans. So we arrive on the scene and do a bit of investigation. Nothing to weird in the game here - basic skill rolls and the like. I ran up the stairs (elevators are for weaklings), and I was happy to hear Lee Greenwood playing on the Muzak.

This led us to a hotel, eventually, where we saw octopus space ships up at the top. Our Water Controller rode is surfboard up to the top, carrying me up, and I leaped off to save a minor starlet from octopus-man goons. Me being me did my first attack and used Grip. This set me up for tossing someone across the map. Some punches, tidal waves, and the like later, I had hopped onto one of the octopus ships and was chasing after the other two.

We ended up landing near an abandoned oil platform out in the ocean. Snuck on board a sub where I one punch manned the only guard on there. Then we snuck onto the platform and there was The Kraken summoning the Beast from the Deep. We disrupted his plans though, and I did a Big Fish Smash to knock many people prone.

Characters, beyond Banneret where Bokken (a sort of Katana-based character), SoCal Surfer (the water controller who could iceman his way around on a surfboard with water), and Quartermaster (could summon video game characters as minions. Mike Tyson from Punchout and chefs from Overcooked game out).

There are a number of streamlines I felt were interesting. Weapon Traits pretty much go away. Bash works with unarmed out of the box, Impale goes away and is now "Impact" and available to everyone. The Ranged Marksman house rule is available to everyone. Every power has base effects and also gets Power Point (magic point) enhancement "push" style effects. For example:
Army Strong! (Enhanced Strength): You can lift up to 4 tons and can push yourself to lift even more using your Brawn skill. Your Damage Modifier is increased as detailed above and when you strike something with your unarmed strikes they are treated as Large sized weapons. Further, you can smash your fists into the ground creating a localized tremor by spending 3 Power Points and making a Brawn roll. Anyone standing within a radius of 9 yards must make an Opposed Athletics or Acrobatics check against the your Brawn roll or be knocked prone.

It went really well, I have to say, though at points I felt combat might be a little long. But we did two full big combats in 4 hours as well as investigations all over. We were also online, had 1 totally new player and 1 sort of new player. So... not too bad!

the Author has specifically said it's not for playing high end heroes like Hulk, Thor, Superman, etc. The rules will have 3 levels of power, but the default is the middle. The default (which we played at) feels... x men? probably x men. Not quite most of the avengers, though easily into the hawkeye/black widow space.
 
So mythras superheroes aka Destined. Acmegamer Acmegamer

I was pleasantly surprised. I would be one of the folks who was pretty worried about it. I've played a number of lighter super hero games, and Cortex is one of my favorites. I played Banneret, who is a Captain America "brick". true blue, patriotic, former army ranger, etc. She was a surprising amount of fun to play

the initial scene had us coming onto the scene of a break in, which we learned about via the COP app, an in game smart phone app that all the heroes use to track this stuff.

View attachment 35728

As you can see, it's giant flying octopuses, and I cannot resist that sort of shenanigans. So we arrive on the scene and do a bit of investigation. Nothing to weird in the game here - basic skill rolls and the like. I ran up the stairs (elevators are for weaklings), and I was happy to hear Lee Greenwood playing on the Muzak.

This led us to a hotel, eventually, where we saw octopus space ships up at the top. Our Water Controller rode is surfboard up to the top, carrying me up, and I leaped off to save a minor starlet from octopus-man goons. Me being me did my first attack and used Grip. This set me up for tossing someone across the map. Some punches, tidal waves, and the like later, I had hopped onto one of the octopus ships and was chasing after the other two.

We ended up landing near an abandoned oil platform out in the ocean. Snuck on board a sub where I one punch manned the only guard on there. Then we snuck onto the platform and there was The Kraken summoning the Beast from the Deep. We disrupted his plans though, and I did a Big Fish Smash to knock many people prone.

Characters, beyond Banneret where Bokken (a sort of Katana-based character), SoCal Surfer (the water controller who could iceman his way around on a surfboard with water), and Quartermaster (could summon video game characters as minions. Mike Tyson from Punchout and chefs from Overcooked game out).

There are a number of streamlines I felt were interesting. Weapon Traits pretty much go away. Bash works with unarmed out of the box, Impale goes away and is now "Impact" and available to everyone. The Ranged Marksman house rule is available to everyone. Every power has base effects and also gets Power Point (magic point) enhancement "push" style effects. For example:
Army Strong! (Enhanced Strength): You can lift up to 4 tons and can push yourself to lift even more using your Brawn skill. Your Damage Modifier is increased as detailed above and when you strike something with your unarmed strikes they are treated as Large sized weapons. Further, you can smash your fists into the ground creating a localized tremor by spending 3 Power Points and making a Brawn roll. Anyone standing within a radius of 9 yards must make an Opposed Athletics or Acrobatics check against the your Brawn roll or be knocked prone.

It went really well, I have to say, though at points I felt combat might be a little long. But we did two full big combats in 4 hours as well as investigations all over. We were also online, had 1 totally new player and 1 sort of new player. So... not too bad!

the Author has specifically said it's not for playing high end heroes like Hulk, Thor, Superman, etc. The rules will have 3 levels of power, but the default is the middle. The default (which we played at) feels... x men? probably x men. Not quite most of the avengers, though easily into the hawkeye/black widow space.
Oh, just flying octopods from the greater deep, please. Now had they been mutant geese from beyond the greater darkness, that would have impressed me. Lightweight flying octopuses... pish posh a walk in the park. :hehe:

More seriously that sounded like a total blast. Personally my own style of supers game play would tend towards the more gritty, lower powered so this is right up my alley. Glad you had fun, sounds like fours hours of a good time. :thumbsup:
 
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