Maybe we should try a Tabletop RPG?

[bluegate]

Sounds like fun, then again, I'm too lazy to read rules for these kinds of things or the actual posts, I still feel bad for not participating enough in Frappe's Bloodborne murder game because the thought of reading all posts was a bit too much....

Good luck in setting up a game and have fun! 😀

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I'm an old TSR days grognard with a massive resume, so I can jump into most of those game systems right out of the gate.

We gonna play OD&D. See how old you really are.

 

[Kae]

I mean, it's all up to Kaleion since he's gonna be doing all the DM work, but I want to restate this one more time. I think we should just do vanilla 5e for now. We can do something else once we get comfortable with the basics of tabletop RPGs. Anyway. That's all I'm gonna say.

Probably would be a good idea to start in D&D, the only concern is that it would limit us mostly to Sword & Sorcery which I'm fine with but we still want to see what kind of story people would like to play.

Been REALLY wanting to jump into a DnD game, got some great ideas for characters I could finalize and some pre-existing characters I could port. PbP or Roll20 work just fine for me (live would be harder due to scheduling issues). I can do most roles, though I am not well experienced with magic characters (Had tons of fun with a cleric I made in OSRIC though, game fell apart before she hit level 4 sadly).

Keep me posted on this mate.

Sure thing if at least 3[footnote]Seems like there are more than that which is good.[/footnote] people are interested I'm going to go through with it, I'll PM with the details once the dust is settled & depending on what people want I could probably have something ready within a week or 2, as for character I'd suggest playing whatever you think you will enjoy the most rather to try to adapt to a party composition.

It's a nice idea; my very first table top was (paradoxically) played on the Escapist. Unfortunately I'm in totally the wrong time zone. My advice is to do Dungeon World instead of DnD; the rules are extremely easy to pick up, and the mechanics encourage fun, risky, wacky play (you primarily gain experience by fucking up), so it's better suited to casual play over serious, atmospheric stuff. If you do want serious and atmospheric, Cthulhu is a good choice because it allows more player expression and requires far less dice rolling.

I'll give it a read, depending on how many new players or D&D players there are it might be a better choice & Cthulu would be great if people feel like playing something more serious & focused on investigation, which might work better with PBP since combat can be potentially extremely slow if we use the regular initiative system, I'll look into alternatives in case that's a real problem.

The other bit advice I can give is to double down on the fluff in exchange for less crunch. One of the reasons the game I was in came apart was because the DM's homebrew game lacked any kind of crunch, but also decent fluff. It's a harder to stay invested in something when you are described as entering "a town", but the town doesn't have a name or a description.

Got it, I have read some guides on how to do cities & have some resources to fleshing them out on the fly if necessary but I'll probably design at least the first location in advance.

I could be up for something like that, though I've never done PbP so I'd need to be helped while I get the hang of it.

Scheduling might be a bugger because I live in Europe (GMT+1, for y'all clever clogs).

For what it's worth I have extensive experience with D&D 5E and a few Apocalypse World conversions, and am usually the person who solved rules disputes when they arose.

Will keep it in mind & I will notify you of what the first choices will be, I'll probably schedule a session 0 do that we can all be on the same page with this thing, or we can use this thread for that.

it seems we have another vote for using the forums which I don't mind, but it would have to be the forums aided by some other program or a forum group to make Dice rolling easier to manage.

I'm sure there are a dozen sites/chatrooms that can help out with rolls
I found rolz to be rather good

Thanks, will keep it in mind, tbh it might take a bit long to organize because I need to look for a few tips to manage PBP play since I'm more familiar with sitting down at a table all in front of each other, which doesn't seem that different from virtual tabletop but does seem quite different from PBP.

DnD 5e also works right out of the box with DnD Beyond.

Yeah, it's kinda shitty unless you want to throw money at it. But, the UI is very clean, and it's all very organized, which is all very conclusive to first time playing.

My problem with D&D Beyond is that I already own 7 books and I need to re-buy them at pretty close to full price in order to have access to that content in that platform and that seems a little ridiculous to me, I would have gotten in on it if it hadn't come out after I had already started buying the books because it is a very cool tool, but yeah due to pricing I'll stick to books, PDFs & spellbook apps.

I might be down with this, depending on the game selected. I'm absolutely burned out on anything sword and sorcery though.

I'm an old TSR days grognard with a massive resume, so I can jump into most of those game systems right out of the gate.

Got it, unfortunately[footnote]Due to you not wanting to play S&C[/footnote] people seem to be leaining pretty heavily on the D&D side, if people wanted a more unconvetional setting I'd probably suggest the Cypher system which would allow me to craft a setting that is more close to modern world or even Sci-Fi if necessary & it also allows people to play S&C characters along things like Sci fi and other weird things, but though very flexible and easy on the DM it's also not that great in character progression but really good for RP.

 

[American Tanker]

*settings*

Yeah, unfortunately, I'd be unwilling to be involved in anything medieval fantasy, or anything fantasy in general really. Or anything set before about 1920, if I'm honest.

 

[demoman_chaos]

-snip-

I don't know if the PM system would be smart, since The Escapist is falling apart entirely. Group notifications don't work anymore, nor do the old "quoted" messages. The PM system might not work at all. Posting a link to a Discord server might be better. Have one channel on it for OoC stuff, one for the game itself, and one for off-topic stuff.

I've had good luck with this site for dice rolls:
http://www.coyotecode.net/roll/
It lets you copy the roll URL so you can more easily show what you have.

 

[The Lunatic]

My problem with D&D Beyond is that I already own 7 books and I need to re-buy them at pretty close to full price in order to have access to that content in that platform and that seems a little ridiculous to me, I would have gotten in on it if it hadn't come out after I had already started buying the books because it is a very cool tool, but yeah due to pricing I'll stick to books, PDFs & spellbook apps.

Oh yeah, I have the same issue, and there's no way I'd buy it.

But, if you're doing a basic DnD campaign, it's fine.

Far from ideal, but, fine.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Call of Cthulu is a tabletop RPG about Lovecraft's mythology, it tends to lean pretty heavily on mystery & investigation, though depending on the setting or the DM's style it can also involve a lot of combat, it can be modern day, medieval, industrial revolution & most typically early 1900's, there are even campaigns set in WW1 & 2, if you've played Eternal Darkness on Gamecube imagine that but in RPG form & unless you have cheeky DM thee crazy stuff will be happening in game, it is supposed to be a horror RPG.

I liked Eternal Darkness, and Lovecraft is cool! I'm still voting for Cthulhu.

 

[Comic Sans]

I've been aching for Pathfinder for a while. I'm planning to DM a game of that soon but I would honestly rather play. If Pathfinder, Shadowrun or Numenera (wow that's one I haven't seen for a while) was done on a weekend I could potentially do it. I've never played the others and am too poor to go get books so those are out for me.

 

[Kae]

*settings*

Yeah, unfortunately, I'd be unwilling to be involved in anything medieval fantasy, or anything fantasy in general really. Or anything set before about 1920, if I'm honest.

To be honest, I would very much like to try something more cyberpunky or 1900's possibly WW1 Cthulhu but Arnoxthe1 is right running D&D 5E would be the easiest since it's the system I know best & also the one most people know, however, I'm thinking that if this is even a moderate success I would follow it up most likely with Cthulhu since I feel that's the one that would work best in PBP and I'd probably go with the WW1, 2 or prohibition-era USA setting.

-snip-

I don't know if the PM system would be smart, since The Escapist is falling apart entirely. Group notifications don't work anymore, nor do the old "quoted" messages. The PM system might not work at all. Posting a link to a Discord server might be better. Have one channel on it for OoC stuff, one for the game itself, and one for off-topic stuff.

I've had good luck with this site for dice rolls:
http://www.coyotecode.net/roll/
It lets you copy the roll URL so you can more easily show what you have.

Neat another tool to use, so far it seems like it's very likely to be D&D 5E so if that's what you're hoping for...

My problem with D&D Beyond is that I already own 7 books and I need to re-buy them at pretty close to full price in order to have access to that content in that platform and that seems a little ridiculous to me, I would have gotten in on it if it hadn't come out after I had already started buying the books because it is a very cool tool, but yeah due to pricing I'll stick to books, PDFs & spellbook apps.

Oh yeah, I have the same issue, and there's no way I'd buy it.

But, if you're doing a basic DnD campaign, it's fine.

Far from ideal, but, fine.

I've never played with just basic rules, to be honest, it feels too limiting, if the player is a newbie I'd recommend it but I don't think I would mind if players wanted to use PHB, EE, SCAG, Volo's or Xanathar's but for simplicity's sake I'd say PHB only most likely, I'd definitely use homebrews & other stuff to make villains though.

Call of Cthulu is a tabletop RPG about Lovecraft's mythology, it tends to lean pretty heavily on mystery & investigation, though depending on the setting or the DM's style it can also involve a lot of combat, it can be modern day, medieval, industrial revolution & most typically early 1900's, there are even campaigns set in WW1 & 2, if you've played Eternal Darkness on Gamecube imagine that but in RPG form & unless you have cheeky DM thee crazy stuff will be happening in game, it is supposed to be a horror RPG.

I liked Eternal Darkness, and Lovecraft is cool! I'm still voting for Cthulhu.

Like I've said before I'd love to do Cthulhu, seems interesting and I genuinely feel and investigation campaign would fare better in the PBP format that most people want than the more actiony dungeon crawly stuff, then again D&D also has Lovecraftian horrors and it can be used for investigative campaigns, so maybe I could try adding a bit of that, though due to the character's power levels it isn't as compelling as in Cthulhu.

I've been aching for Pathfinder for a while. I'm planning to DM a game of that soon but I would honestly rather play. If Pathfinder, Shadowrun or Numenera (wow that's one I haven't seen for a while) was done on a weekend I could potentially do it. I've never played the others and am too poor to go get books so those are out for me.

Those games have great flexibility on creating players so I like them a lot, personally due to how extensive rules-wise Pathfinder is I'd rather do Numenera which is far simpler and more newbie friendly, but if people would like to play Pathfinder I'd be willing to give it a go especially since a lot of unique characters can come out of that.

Ok guys, thank you for your input, it seems like I have some things to consider & decide I'll get back to you soon and I'll probably poll the interested parties to see what they want to see, I'm still undecided on PBP and I'm thinking I might try experimenting by going first with a dungeon crawl that's heavy on exploration[footnote]I'm also considering using Vornheim but that might be longer.[/footnote] so that we can see if this is really something we want to do and to see if we want to stick with Sword & Sorcery or we want to go with something else, in any case, it's going to take a bit to cook and I'll try to make it as good as possible but I'm still a novice GM and it's likely going to be rough around the edges.

If you have any more questions &/or suggestions please feel free to ask here or PM me & if you don't trust this crumbling site I'm also always logged into steam, so you can ask me there too if you wish my steam is linked in my profile, I will actually be notified if you do that but don't expect a quick reply especially if I'm at work.

 

[demoman_chaos]

-sni-

I have a PDF for most of the 5e core stuff, so that would be fine. Depending on setting/tech I might pick different dudes but I can do most any role the party would need. Though if I am going to be made the Cleric I am using my Neutral Evil Lizard lady (She was with a Good aligned party, she was evil but not "Lol Evil" so she would never dick the party over) so be ready for some shenanigans.

 

[Kae]

-sni-

I have a PDF for most of the 5e core stuff, so that would be fine. Depending on setting/tech I might pick different dudes but I can do most any role the party would need. Though if I am going to be made the Cleric I am using my Neutral Evil Lizard lady (She was with a Good aligned party, she was evil but not "Lol Evil" so she would never dick the party over) so be ready for some shenanigans.

I'm not a fan of morality systems so don't expect alignments to be important, just focus on making a compelling character that you would enjoy playing that will be able to play on the character's side, alignments are irrelevant best to put the effort & thought into ideals, traits, bonds & flaws, those make for interesting characters, not shitty[footnote]Sorry if there is one thing I hate about D&D it is the alignment system, it's just the worst, good thing that it's also practically irrelevant on 5E.[/footnote] alignment systems, focus on what your character would do not what a Neutral Evil would do and keep in mind that while player conflict can be wonderful in terms of RP[footnote] I should know, I'm almost always the guy that's so morally questionable that they cause conflict or the guy that is so morally upstanding that they try to keep others in check.[/footnote] RPGs are first and foremost cooperative games.

 

[demoman_chaos]

I'm not a fan of morality systems so don't expect alignments to be important, just focus on making a compelling character that you would enjoy playing that will be able to play on the character's side, alignments are irrelevant best to put the effort & thought into ideals, traits, bonds & flaws, those make for interesting characters, not shitty[footnote]Sorry if there is one thing I hate about D&D it is the alignment system, it's just the worst, good thing that it's also practically irrelevant on 5E.[/footnote] alignment systems, focus on what your character would do not what a Neutral Evil would do and keep in mind that while player conflict can be wonderful in terms of RP[footnote] I should know, I'm almost always the guy that's so morally questionable that they cause conflict or the guy that is so morally upstanding that they try to keep others in check.[/footnote] RPGs are first and foremost cooperative games.

Tis what I did with her. She was very much an evil character (she bite a hunk out of the leg of a gnoll and spit some of it back into her face, but it was an assassin who made her mad so they deserved), but she is a CHARACTER first and foremost. She was a lot of fun. Her signature spell was "Create Water" which is more useful than you think, both for actual gameplay and for role-play shenanigans. I just hope she doesn't get paired with a Lawful Stupid Paladin who decides she must be smited because evil.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Let me know via PM if this ever kicks off.

 

[Kae]

I'm not a fan of morality systems so don't expect alignments to be important, just focus on making a compelling character that you would enjoy playing that will be able to play on the character's side, alignments are irrelevant best to put the effort & thought into ideals, traits, bonds & flaws, those make for interesting characters, not shitty[footnote]Sorry if there is one thing I hate about D&D it is the alignment system, it's just the worst, good thing that it's also practically irrelevant on 5E.[/footnote] alignment systems, focus on what your character would do not what a Neutral Evil would do and keep in mind that while player conflict can be wonderful in terms of RP[footnote] I should know, I'm almost always the guy that's so morally questionable that they cause conflict or the guy that is so morally upstanding that they try to keep others in check.[/footnote] RPGs are first and foremost cooperative games.

Tis what I did with her. She was very much an evil character (she bite a hunk out of the leg of a gnoll and spit some of it back into her face, but it was an assassin who made her mad so they deserved), but she is a CHARACTER first and foremost. She was a lot of fun. Her signature spell was "Create Water" which is more useful than you think, both for actual gameplay and for role-play shenanigans. I just hope she doesn't get paired with a Lawful Stupid Paladin who decides she must be smited because evil.

Can't tell you how much of a pain in the ass it is to play a Paladin & have everyone backseat play you because the DM said I had to write down LG on the sheet and nobody can agree on what LG actually does, damned alignments, I don't think I'd allow that, to start with I don't think I'll refer to alignments, I think I'll just vaguely give a suggestion by describing an aura or something.

Let me know via PM if this ever kicks off.

OK.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Can't tell you how much of a pain in the ass it is to play a Paladin & have everyone backseat play you because the DM said I had to write down LG on the sheet and nobody can agree on what LG actually does, damned alignments, I don't think I'd allow that, to start with I don't think I'll refer to alignments, I think I'll just vaguely give a suggestion by describing an aura or something.

There is a good series of videos on youtube which cover the alignments really well, and when someone is LG remind them that it isn't Lawful Stupid and they just need to ask themselves "What Would Superman Do?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGr7QKRMn2c&list=PLYECCocnJ1syH0UDgpnU2wZoTz_z8ssR7
He didn't do True Neutral, but he did a short video for the other 8. To sum up, "Lawful/Chaotic" should really be "Principled/Unprincipled" and "Good/Evil" should be "Selfless/Selfish."

 

[American Tanker]

To sum up, "Lawful/Chaotic" should really be "Principled/Unprincipled" and "Good/Evil" should be "Selfless/Selfish."

I know this is off-topic, but are you basically saying that to fight to uphold the principles of individualism and individual freedom, that would be classed as Lawful? I always thought such ideals would lean more in the Chaotic direction.

EDIT: And while I'm thinking on it, what would a "Pragmatism" axis look like? Or would that make things too complicated?

 

[Comic Sans]

Lawful Stupid is why I always dread Paladins. It's really not hard to play Lawful Good. Basically, play like Paragon Commander Shepard. You are a good person who helps others where they can and follows the laws of society as much as possible, so long as they are just. They don't need to jump down the party's throat whenever they do something questionable, so long as they aren't wantonly murdering or stealing. Players seem to not always know that the game comes before the role play, so constantly stopping the game over unnecessary character drama is counter productive when everyone else wants to keep going. Thankfully I've managed to avoid Lawful Stupid players. In fact, one of my buddy's played the Paladin how I consider ideal. If characters did stuff he didn't approve of as a lawful good, he would simply not participate. Wouldn't make a scene, would just kind of turn away and let them do their thing without taking part himself, so long as that thing isn't murder or something. BOOM. EASY.

 

[demoman_chaos]

To sum up, "Lawful/Chaotic" should really be "Principled/Unprincipled" and "Good/Evil" should be "Selfless/Selfish."

I know this is off-topic, but are you basically saying that to fight to uphold the principles of individualism and individual freedom, that would be classed as Lawful? I always thought such ideals would lean more in the Chaotic direction.

EDIT: And while I'm thinking on it, what would a "Pragmatism" axis look like? Or would that make things too complicated?

More along the lines of "Does the character follow a set of principles/code of conduct?"

 

[Kae]

Lawful Stupid is why I always dread Paladins. It's really not hard to play Lawful Good. Basically, play like Paragon Commander Shepard. You are a good person who helps others where they can and follows the laws of society as much as possible, so long as they are just. They don't need to jump down the party's throat whenever they do something questionable, so long as they aren't wantonly murdering or stealing. Players seem to not always know that the game comes before the role play, so constantly stopping the game over unnecessary character drama is counter productive when everyone else wants to keep going. Thankfully I've managed to avoid Lawful Stupid players. In fact, one of my buddy's played the Paladin how I consider ideal. If characters did stuff he didn't approve of as a lawful good, he would simply not participate. Wouldn't make a scene, would just kind of turn away and let them do their thing without taking part himself, so long as that thing isn't murder or something. BOOM. EASY.

Well I think it's important to establish some limits, personally I like to have my handwritten knight's code beside me to keep comparing it to my bonds, ideals, flaws & traits, that helps me decide in which manner I would act in each given situation while always considering that my code of conduct is for myself not the whole party, that way when I do interfere it can lead to interesting RP, especially since I always start by trying to reason rather than attacking straight away.

That's just me though and Paladins aren't really my preferred class but I've played 2 of them.

 

[Redneck Gamer]

If this ever kicks off, please let me know! D&D is something I only know of from reading and WEB DM and Nerdarchy videos, so I'll be a first timer playing the game. I know enough though to have various character ideas ( Tiefling ranger or monk sounds fun, and I had fun concepts. Drow barbarian was another one too.) Mostly I'm generally free in the evenings to be on and in the eastern USA timezone.

The alignments I don't really care much for, but they are DM choice. Personally the alignments are more of a guideline to your characters general views and outlook, LG being guys who play by the rules and do whats right, CE being Rick Sanchez level of giving a shit, and if they are a party member, they probably care and will help, but its a toxic relationship.