I notice that in the Crack the Sun part 1 preview, it is repeatedly stated retainers do not count as heroes for the purposes of encounter-building.
What do you think of this new rule? I think it makes retainers a little too strong and must-have, since they are an extra body and an extra set of turns and strikes.
Take that old 2nd-level feat, Crushing Grab: https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=5985
Now, add in the new 4th-level Sharkskin Grip, requiring Pirate Dedication: https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=9020
With powerful fist, the character now deals Xd6 + Strength modifier damage on a successful Grapple, right? That seems fairly good.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=2626
Range 30 feet (mediocre), two targets (good), sickened 1 on a success, sickened 2 on a failure. This is not that bad, is it?
Something that hardly gets touched upon is the fact that Sharn contains a base of the Gatekeepers in the Skysedge Park district of the Upper Central ward:
>The Gatehouse: In Carosten Park, near the edge of the plateau, stands a small stone building. Passersby generally assume the building belongs to the park caretakers and pay it no heed, but it is actually a sacred site to the sect of druids known as the Gatekeepers. From this small shrine in the midst of a “natural” site in the City of Towers, the Gate keepers monitor the manifest zone, the sewers and ruins below, and the activity of powerful spellcasters in Sharn to ensure that no dangerous planar breach appears in the city. They are not overly concerned with ordinary summoning spells and have little worry that the angels of Syrania are planning an invasion of the Material Plane, but they are deeply worried about recent events in the Depths.
Central Plateau is analogous to Manhattan, and Skysedge Park is loosely equivalent to Central Park, so these Gatekeepers have their base smack dab in the middle of a high-end district of the city. (Skysedge Park is explicitly categorized as "upper class" in 3.5 Sharn: City of Towers.)
Are, for example, the scholars of the Manifest Institute willing to sponsor Gatekeepers simply for the latter's planar expertise?
https://2e.aonprd.com/Heritages.aspx?ID=435
For the price of one heritage, an elf can be an aquatic elf for land Speed 30 feet, swim Speed 30 feet, and amphibious. For comparison, athamaru have land Speed 20 and swim Speed 25, azarketi have land Speed 20 and swim Speed 30, merfolk have land Speed 5 and swim Speed 25, and undines, as a heritage, grant swim Speed 10 and amphibious.
For example, unless someone really, really wants undine feats on an elf, they should instead be an aquatic elf for literally triple the swim Speed.
What do you think?
I have been running 13th Age 2e lately. The PCs have been going around the default setting of the game, the continent called the Dragon Empire. They have been saving and improving the world in many ways, and are very nearly epic-tier.
I will be sending the PCs off to adventure in other continents (which they have made contact with previously), but now I have to justify why these other continents have been nowhere near as important to the overall fate and well-being of the world. I also have to strike a balance between "Yes, you are epic-tier heroes who can solve problems that nobody else can" and avoiding the "These other continents have been totally helpless backwaters until you brave heroes from fantasy Europe came in and fixed everything" cliché. It would be anticlimactic to go "Nah, these other continents' icons and heroes can handle things themselves," after all.
Which got me thinking: published fantasy RPG settings seem to have "Sure, there are other lands, but nearly everything of significant impact just so happens to take place in the Europe-themed part of the map" often:
• Pathfinder's Golarion: Nearly everything of import (e.g. Adventure Paths) is centered around Avistan, including the bulk of the strongest, most important gods.
• Forgotten Realms' Toril: Nearly everything of import (e.g. adventures) is centered around the Sword Coast, also including the bulk of the strongest, most important gods.
• Draw Steel's Orden: Nearly everything of import (e.g. Ajax, Capital, adventures) is centered around Vasloria and Rioja.
• Eberron: Occult powers and events of metaphysical weight just so happen to be centering around Khorvaire.
I do not know. The whole "Why, yes, the Europe-themed place is indeed the center of the world" contrivance irks me. I understand why it happens (setting authors and GMs just want to focus the spotlight on the Europe-themed place, but want other lands to exist), but it still bothers me as a GM.
What do you think?
And yes, I am aware that one solution is to say that these other places and continents have their own heroes and world-shaking events that the Europe-themed area simply does not hear about. It probably works well as a justification for other GMs, but I trend towards the Eberron-style model of "The PCs are the only heroes, and they are unprecedented," so such a rationale is harder for me to employ.
When I say "tutorial-tier," I mean that the character feels incomplete in an awkward way: not in the sense of "Grrr, my PC does not start off as a superpowered demigod brimming with cool special abilities!" but rather, as if the character is stripped-down and lacking in key gimmicks, as if solely to avoid overwhelming beginners.
Two games that I can confidently say are not like this are Draw Steel and 13th Age 2e. Even right at 1st level, PCs come across as reasonably "complete." They still feel like they have plenty of room to grow and gain new abilities (and indeed, they very much do expand their toolsets!), but they do not feel especially "tutorial-tier" at 1st.
A bit further down the list are Daggerheart and D&D 4e. At 1st level, characters feel somewhat "complete," but still seem as if they are missing key tools in their kits. In Daggerheart, this goes doubly for bards and wizards, who really want those 2nd- to 4th-level Codex cards. I would personally never run a D&D 4e game anywhere lower than level 5 (and indeed, I have successfully run level 5+ for total beginners in the past, multiple times), and one 4e DM I regularly play with never starts below level 7 even for 100% newbies.
I find 1st- to 4th-level PCs in Path/Starfinder (2e, but 1e triply so) and D&D 5e, 0th- to 3rd-level characters in Tom Abbadon's ICON 2.0, and 5th- to 14th-level PCs in Fabula Ultima to all feel awkwardly incomplete. That last one sounds strange, but it has been my experience with Fabula; I saw two GMs house-rule that characters start at 10th level and rapidly level to 15th, while another veteran Fabula GM directly told me that PC feel tutorial-like until 15th.
I have actually played and GMed all of the games mentioned above, and have thus experienced them at their lower levels. (A lot of GMs start their games at the lowest level.)
What do you personally think?
When I say "tutorial-tier," I mean that the character feels incomplete in an awkward way: not in the sense of "Grrr, my PC does not start off as a superpowered demigod brimming with cool special abilities!" but rather, as if the character is stripped-down and lacking in key gimmicks, as if solely to avoid overwhelming beginners.
Two games that I can confidently say are not like this are Draw Steel and 13th Age 2e. Even right at 1st level, PCs come across as reasonably "complete." They still feel like they have plenty of room to grow and gain new abilities (and indeed, they very much do expand their toolsets!), but they do not feel especially "tutorial-tier" at 1st.
A bit further down the list are Daggerheart and D&D 4e. At 1st level, characters feel somewhat "complete," but still seem as if they are missing key tools in their kits. In Daggerheart, this goes doubly for bards and wizards, who really want those 2nd- to 4th-level Codex cards. I would personally never run a D&D 4e game anywhere lower than level 5 (and indeed, I have successfully run level 5+ for total beginners in the past, multiple times), and one 4e DM I regularly play with never starts below level 7 even for 100% newbies.
I find 1st- to 4th-level PCs in Path/Starfinder (2e, but 1e triply so) and D&D 5e, 0th- to 3rd-level characters in Tom Abbadon's ICON 2.0, and 5th- to 14th-level PCs in Fabula Ultima to all feel awkwardly incomplete. That last one sounds strange, but it has been my experience with Fabula; I saw two GMs house-rule that characters start at 10th level and rapidly level to 15th, while another veteran Fabula GM directly told me that PC feel tutorial-like until 15th.
I have actually played and GMed all of the games mentioned above, and have thus experienced them at their lower levels. (A lot of GMs start their games at the lowest level.)
What do you personally think?
I have talked before about how this subreddit seems to recommend the same few dozen games, so I would like to earnestly, genuinely try an experiment to spin things in a different direction.
Recommend an RPG that has not been mentioned in this subreddit (except for this very thread) across the past month: ideally, not even by you yourself.
One way to do this is by using Reddit's built-in search function. Type in the name of the RPG, and sort by new.
Another method is to run a Google search like:
> [name of RPG] site:reddit.com/r/rpg
Then, use Google's search filter to set a time for the past month.
This can be any game, preferably one that you have actually played before. Even a small, one- or two-sentence pitch should be fine.
I will start.
Project Rebirth is a gridless tactical combat game about playing not-quite magical girls. I say "not-quite magical girls" because Project Rebirth is a fork of Magical Burst ReWrite, which is a fork of Magical Burst (a game that had other forks, such as the original author's own Magical Fury, which went in an entirely different direction from Magical Burst ReWrite and Project Rebirth).
Sadly, Project Rebirth never made it past its beta phase before its author lost interest. But even in its eternal beta state, it is a perfectly playable RPG.
While there are noncombat rules covering both mundane and magical actions, the focus of the rules is battling "Revenants," monsters of incredible mystical might. The game is calibrated towards three PCs, hence the three combat archetypes of Striker, Guardian, and Tactician, though there are rules for two or four characters. There are no real positioning mechanics; instead, the focus is on juggling resource pools and intelligently applying 1/battle or 2/battle abilities. There is no bestiary, but GMs are given firmly codified rules on how to create Revenants, as well as a menu of special abilities to choose from.
I played and GMed Project Rebirth several decades ago. I do not know what I would think of it now, in 2026, but I remember it being a satisfying tactical combat game.
This new edition looks significantly more structured than the last, in a good way.
• Special enemy attacks aside, characters usually no longer take damage directly to pools. Generally, they take minor, moderate, or major wounds.
• Skills are significantly more codified.
• All descriptors are heavily, heavily simplified to just +2 to one pool, and training in one skill.
• Character creation is vastly more structured and step-by-step. Genres and subgenres play a huge role; they determine some baseline rules (e.g. wound treatment), available PC types, and the genre-based abilities a character gets from tier advancement.
• The superhero genre is divided into five "ranks," completely independent from tiers. These dictate the overall tone and power level of the campaign, and generally do not change. Rank grants a number of benefits and opens up some exclusive types. Rank 1 is a campaign of street-level crimefighters and vigilantes, while rank 5 is a campaign of "living gods" like Thor and Superman. (Rank 5, incidentally, is also where characters from the old Gods of the Fall setting get adapted to.)
• Foci are much more elaborate, and structured as talent trees. Two characters of the same focus might have entirely different abilities.
• Each cypher is given more flavor examples. Manifest cyphers are more formally codified into power levels.
• Some actions have unique initiative timing: First actions, Follow-up actions, and Last actions.
• Defending against (physical) attacks is either blocking with Might, or dodging with Speed. Armor makes it easier to block but harder to dodge. Blocking merely reduces wound severity by a step, though, and it is harder to dodge area attacks.
I am reasonably satisfied with these changes, and more. We do not have the bestiary yet, but I am very eager to see what enemies are like in this new edition.
I am reasonably satisfied with these changes, and more. We do not have the bestiary yet, but I am very eager to see what enemies are like in this new edition.
I run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in a compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.
I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Across the past several months, one recurring issue I have seen crop up three times is the "sandbox + PbP + nothing to actually do" phenomenon. I am sure that not all sandbox PbP GMs are like this, but it feels like a non-negligible number of GMs start up a sandbox PbP because they want to put in the least effort possible.
These three games played out the exact same way. The GM starts off the PCs in an uneventful location, like some generic town, describing it noncommittally. The players and their PCs (including me and my own character) search around for plot hooks, opportunities, and points or persons of interest: job boards, reports of monsters or criminals, rumors of treasure or strange activities, word of what lies in a certain direction away from town, chances to fulfill some backstory-related goal, and so on. The GM tells the players and the PCs that they turn up nothing. The game fizzles out after a while, because there is nothing to do but aimlessly wander.
What was the GM expecting? Was the GM thinking that the players and their PCs would, completely by themselves, kick off some epic and exciting sequence of events? Even with nothing of interest to actually work off?
Two of the aforementioned games indeed petered out. One, which started last March, is still ongoing. It is a superhero game, and we have lost players. Superpowers are new in the setting, and yet the GM has been having NPCs act unimpressed or skeptical about our powers. Only now, three months later, have we finally managed to find an antagonist with superpowers to confront.
What do you think?
Let me expound on the superhero game example. We began last March, and have lost players since.
The GM starts our characters in a tech expo: a mundane tech expo, nothing super. We search around for any strange activity or opportunities, and turn up nothing. We try to impress people with our superpowers, but our efforts are brushed off or disbelieved, despite superpowers being a new phenomenon in this setting. (Honestly: Is it any wonder why some PCs flip out and start acting like chaotic, violent murderhobos "for no reason"?)
We finally find some scientist giving a speech. We crash the speech with our superpowers. The scientist takes us back to his lab for testing. However, it is a mundane scientist and a mundane laboratory, and the GM has us roleplay out the most banal, uneventful tests possible. At one point, the GM asks me to make a roll to see if my speedster character can successfully wave their hand really fast.
> Rolling to see if something bad happens. Something catches fire, being on the spot makes you nervous, and you can't go super fast, or you open a rift in space/time. Lots of things can happen when showing off something at high speeds.
> I just saw it as an opportunity to put some drama/unpredictability into the situation. Everyone has already seen you move quickly so far.
I tell the GM that this seems too random and punitive, and that a roll would be too arbitrary. The GM goes along with it, thankfully.
The prosaic tests continue, then conclude. Eventually, we are let back out into the city with no real plot hooks. We resume our attempts at finding opportunities. At last, after three real-time months, we find our first... "supervillain" of sorts. He is a mentally unwell, telekinetic tweaker in an alley; he rambles out violent intentions while menacingly displaying his destructive powers. It is... a start, at least?
I do not know. Should it really have taken three real-time months to reach this point?
How would you have handled this game setup?
I will quote a play-by-post "sandbox" GM on this subject: > I love that I seem to be more an Oracle than a GM Here - y'all are very self sufficient, it is incredible to see
Yes, this GM was boasting that they were doing nothing.
I run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in a compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.
I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Across the past several months, one recurring issue I have seen crop up three times is the "sandbox + PbP + nothing to actually do" phenomenon. I am sure that not all sandbox PbP GMs are like this, but it feels like a non-negligible number of GMs start up a sandbox PbP because they want to put in the least effort possible.
These three games played out the exact same way. The GM starts off the PCs in an uneventful location, like some generic town, describing it noncommittally. The players and their PCs (including me and my own character) search around for plot hooks, opportunities, and points or persons of interest: job boards, reports of monsters or criminals, rumors of treasure or strange activities, word of what lies in a certain direction away from town, chances to fulfill some backstory-related goal, and so on. The GM tells the players and the PCs that they turn up nothing. The game fizzles out after a while, because there is nothing to do but aimlessly wander.
What was the GM expecting? Was the GM thinking that the players and their PCs would, completely by themselves, kick off some epic and exciting sequence of events? Even with nothing of interest to actually work off?
Two of the aforementioned games indeed petered out. One, which started last March, is still ongoing. It is a superhero game, and we have lost players. Superpowers are new in the setting, and yet the GM has been having NPCs act unimpressed or skeptical about our powers. Only now, three months later, have we finally managed to find an antagonist with superpowers to confront.
What do you think?
Let me expound on the superhero game example. We began last March, and have lost players since.
The GM starts our characters in a tech expo: a mundane tech expo, nothing super. We search around for any strange activity or opportunities, and turn up nothing. We try to impress people with our superpowers, but our efforts are brushed off or disbelieved, despite superpowers being a new phenomenon in this setting. (Honestly: Is it any wonder why some PCs flip out and start acting like chaotic, violent murderhobos "for no reason"?)
We finally find some scientist giving a speech. We crash the speech with our superpowers. The scientist takes us back to his lab for testing. However, it is a mundane scientist and a mundane laboratory, and the GM has us roleplay out the most banal, uneventful tests possible. At one point, the GM asks me to make a roll to see if my speedster character can successfully wave their hand really fast.
> Rolling to see if something bad happens. Something catches fire, being on the spot makes you nervous, and you can't go super fast, or you open a rift in space/time. Lots of things can happen when showing off something at high speeds.
> I just saw it as an opportunity to put some drama/unpredictability into the situation. Everyone has already seen you move quickly so far.
I tell the GM that this seems too random and punitive, and that a roll would be too arbitrary. The GM goes along with it, thankfully.
The prosaic tests continue, then conclude. Eventually, we are let back out into the city with no real plot hooks. We resume our attempts at finding opportunities. At last, after three real-time months, we find our first... "supervillain" of sorts. He is a mentally unwell, telekinetic tweaker in an alley; he rambles out violent intentions while menacingly displaying his destructive powers. It is... a start, at least?
I do not know. Should it really have taken three real-time months to reach this point?
How would you have handled this game setup?
I will quote a play-by-post "sandbox" GM on this subject: > I love that I seem to be more an Oracle than a GM Here - y'all are very self sufficient, it is incredible to see
Yes, this GM was boasting that they were doing nothing.
I run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in a compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.
I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Across the past several months, one recurring issue I have seen crop up three times is the "sandbox + PbP + nothing to actually do" phenomenon. I am sure that not all sandbox PbP GMs are like this, but it feels like a non-negligible number of GMs start up a sandbox PbP because they want to put in the least effort possible.
These three games played out the exact same way. The GM starts off the PCs in an uneventful location, like some generic town, describing it noncommittally. The players and their PCs (including me and my own character) search around for plot hooks, opportunities, and points or persons of interest: job boards, reports of monsters or criminals, rumors of treasure or strange activities, word of what lies in a certain direction away from town, chances to fulfill some backstory-related goal, and so on. The GM tells the players and the PCs that they turn up nothing. The game fizzles out after a while, because there is nothing to do but aimlessly wander.
What was the GM expecting? Was the GM thinking that the players and their PCs would, completely by themselves, kick off some epic and exciting sequence of events? Even with nothing of interest to actually work off?
Two of the aforementioned games indeed petered out. One, which started last March, is still ongoing. It is a superhero game, and we have lost players. Superpowers are new in the setting, and yet the GM has been having NPCs act unimpressed or skeptical about our powers. Only now, three months later, have we finally managed to find an antagonist with superpowers to confront.
What do you think?
Let me expound on the superhero game example. We began last March, and have lost players since.
The GM starts our characters in a tech expo: a mundane tech expo, nothing super. We search around for any strange activity or opportunities, and turn up nothing. We try to impress people with our superpowers, but our efforts are brushed off or disbelieved, despite superpowers being a new phenomenon in this setting. (Honestly: Is it any wonder why some PCs flip out and start acting like chaotic, violent murderhobos "for no reason"?)
We finally find some scientist giving a speech. We crash the speech with our superpowers. The scientist takes us back to his lab for testing. However, it is a mundane scientist and a mundane laboratory, and the GM has us roleplay out the most banal, uneventful tests possible. At one point, the GM asks me to make a roll to see if my speedster character can successfully wave their hand really fast.
> Rolling to see if something bad happens. Something catches fire, being on the spot makes you nervous, and you can't go super fast, or you open a rift in space/time. Lots of things can happen when showing off something at high speeds.
> I just saw it as an opportunity to put some drama/unpredictability into the situation. Everyone has already seen you move quickly so far.
I tell the GM that this seems too random and punitive, and that a roll would be too arbitrary. The GM goes along with it, thankfully.
The prosaic tests continue, then conclude. Eventually, we are let back out into the city with no real plot hooks. We resume our attempts at finding opportunities. At last, after three real-time months, we find our first... "supervillain" of sorts. He is a mentally unwell, telekinetic tweaker in an alley; he rambles out violent intentions while menacingly displaying his destructive powers. It is... a start, at least?
I do not know. Should it really have taken three real-time months to reach this point?
How would you have handled this game setup?
I will quote a play-by-post "sandbox" GM on this subject: > I love that I seem to be more an Oracle than a GM Here - y'all are very self sufficient, it is incredible to see
Yes, this GM was boasting that they were doing nothing.
Zeitgeist is a 13-part adventure series; ENWorld started publishing it back in 2011. It was originally written for D&D 4e, but was later adapted to Pathfinder 1e, and then D&D 5e. (The 5e version was based directly on the Pathfinder 1e version, for another layer of separation.) There was an official conversion to ENWorld's own WOIN system, and a fan conversion to Pathfinder 2e, but both remain incomplete to this day. I personally think that Zeitgeist's 4e incarnation is the definitive version, because it contains the most unique and custom-tailored mechanics, and because it really makes the most of the campaign's superhero-like power scaling, as I talk about here:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/i-absolutely-love-the-power-scaling-of-zeitgeist.669229/
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1sz5vvp/essay_appropriate_power_levels_for_enemies_and/ ("positive example #3" covers Zeitgeist)
I have played Zeitgeist from levels 1 to 30. My DM wrote a guide on how to better run the campaign and patch up its shortcomings; run a search for "Zeitvice." My DM and I were contracted by ENWorld to write for the sequel setting book as freelancers; I am in the credits as "E.S. Edna." I am saying this to establish that I am actually familiar with Zeitgeist.
Zeitgeist is pseudo-steampunk and heavily magical. Its 4e version, at least, is also very superheroic, with characters starting off as street-level action heroes and reaching "an entire unit of 40 satyr archers is, collectively, a single level 20 minion to be scythed down in an instant" power levels even before the epic tier. However, another major facet is debates over philosophy and political systems. PCs are encouraged to be invested in philosophy and political theory (e.g. one of the character themes and its associated paragon path is a philosopher), and throughout the campaign, PCs encounter many NPCs eager to strike up philosophical and political debates.
A major theme of Zeitgeist is that it is impossible to devise a philosophy and a political system that are 100% the absolute best. Everything boils down to pros, cons, tradeoffs, the unpredictability of society, the disparate needs of the masses, and the tendency of power to corrupt. The main, overarching antagonist is a philosopher who wants to create a new world order; during part #7 out of 13, his bad guy organization splinters apart into multiple factions (and the PCs are present when this happens) precisely because they cannot agree on a unified philosophical and political vision.
An important contrivance is "planes," or in other words, what this setting calls moons and planets. For millennia, the world has been surrounded by eight "planes," each of which confers special traits onto the world. The bad guy organization figures out how to swap the world's eight "planes" for a different roster, thus radically recalibrating what life is like in the world. The aforementioned splintering during part #7 happens because the bad guys cannot agree on the new roster. At the start of part #9, one faction just barely manages to perform the reconfiguration ritual, thus swapping in a new roster of eight (actually nine, due to double-slotting) "planes"...
... which causes huge problems. In part, these are because of a hasty, improperly performed ritual that failed to screen for complications, such as alien invaders. However, it is also due to the pros, cons, and tradeoffs caused by some of the new "planes" themselves. For example:
• The gas giant Perlocus, a Voice on the Wind, makes people easier to persuade. Minds can be changed more easily, but this is not necessarily a good thing. Hucksters and demagogues have it good.
• Bland and barren Ratios, the Cold Logic, enhances logical arguments, but makes intimidation and intuiting other people's emotions less effective. In 4e terms, it gives +5 Diplomacy for rational arguments, while imposing −5 Intimidation and Insight. Again, this is not necessarily a good thing. Clearly, between Perlocus and Ratios, this faction of antagonists wanted a world of rational discourse.
• Illocus, the Cascading Flame, alters grand-scale causality such that "consequences cascade rapidly." In the best-case scenario, this allows social and societal change to spread like wildfire, as a single stirring speech can spark a wave of reform. In the worst-case scenario, this results in a catastrophic pileup of unrest and doomsday plots.
These are some fairly interesting "planes," in my opinion. They have pros, cons, and tradeoffs, and are not strictly good or bad. Some value systems might exalt them, while others may condemn them.
Of course, among the roster are some 100% beneficial "planes":
• Jiese, the Fires of Industry, allows "precision technology" (anything with small moving parts, many moving parts, etc.) to function. This "plane" was always around. Nobody dares to remove it from the roster, especially with the industrial revolution already underway.
• Ostea, the Beating Heart, gives everyone minor regenerative abilities and prevents anyone from bleeding out. This tremendously reduces the number of deaths by violence.
• Baden, the Ghost Moon, makes flight magic easy to develop, whether for personal use or for vehicles.
• Fourmyle, the Selfish Dominion, gives everyone teleportation abilities: but these cannot trespass property.
Okay, sure. Maybe it is fine for a small number of "planes" to simply be utopian must-haves. But not most of them, right?
Throughout parts #12 and #13, the main antagonist is so frustrated that he wants to redo the ritual with an entirely new roster of "planes." His desired configuration is multiple layers of mind and fate control, resulting in a world wherein everyone is a mind-controlled drone playing out a preordained fate. The PCs, meanwhile, are also obligated to redo the ritual on their own terms, so they travel the cosmos (while meeting more figures to debate) and assemble a new roster of "planes" to surround their world with. Ideally, this would have forced the PCs to make the same tough decisions as the bad guys: weighing the pros, cons, and tradeoffs of each "plane."
In practice, it does not play out this way. A large chunk of the "planes" confer properties that are simply incompatible with civilization. For example:
• Metarie, the Swamp of Sabotage, disrupts technology. Whereas Jiese's property allows "precision technology" to function, Metarie disrupts technology in general. This would send society back to the Stone Age, if not worse.
• Ringes, the Barren Moor, makes sapient creatures go mentally unstable, and then murderously violent.
• Apo, the Unknown Disk, intermittently spawns spheres of annihilation across any given area: including where someone might already be standing!
• Drozani, a Dead City in the Clouds, makes the birth rate slowly dwindle to zero.
• Hunlow, a Place for Pirates, turns the ocean into "literally a blood-thirsty god who loves villains."
• Thrag, the Beastly Bounty, makes it such that "[r]eincarnation is rapid, and memories are retained." This sounds nice, but the catch is that the reincarnation is into savage beasts and even ambulatory plants, in such a way as to create endless cycles of suffering.
• Avilona, the Final Murmur, makes flight and other air magic never last for more than five minutes.
• Padyer, a Clean Realm, makes all water burn and purge.
These options turn the world into a hellscape.
On the other hand, there are various "planes" that are mostly utopian. For example:
• Iratha Ket, the Graveyard Revel, increases altruism across the world. Sometimes, musical numbers spontaneously occur. People have natural aptitude for the performing arts, and their performances hand out small buffs.
• Obliatas, the Devouring Light, makes the sun harmful to undead. (This is a setting wherein the great, great bulk of undead are harmful, unhealthily obsessive, or both. The main antagonist, from the beginning, has been a ghost!)
• Elofasp, the Spawning Hive, makes animals larger, but more obedient. This makes the world somewhat Pokémon-like.
• Ascetia, the Hidden Jungle, makes people more aware of history. In 4e terms, people get a +5 bonus to History checks.
• Amrou, the Salt Waste, allows mundane apotropaics (e.g. circles of salt) to ward away supernatural threats, such as fiends and aberrations.
• Bhoior, the Walking Whisper, makes sounds echo in such a way that "people are innately more aware of the past, and are less likely to repeat the mistakes of it."
• Caeloon, the Paper Wind, makes people resilient in the face of tragedy.
These are fairly good picks. Iratha Ket + Ascetia + Bhoior + Caeloon, as just four "planes," makes the world significantly more pleasant. Additionally, the adventure allows players to cherry-pick and preserve preexisting "planes" like Jiese, Ostea, Baden, and Fourmyle. It is not that hard to create a flatly utopian world.
But wait! Remember the previous mention of "double-slotting," which allowed there to be nine "planes" instead of just "eight"? With a check whose DC is trivially hittable by endgame, the PCs can perform up to eight double-slottings, for a whopping sixteen planes! Nothing is stopping the party from utopiamaxxing their way into sixteen beneficial "planes."
The above has two (probably unintended) consequences. One, it laughs at a major theme from earlier in the adventure: that it is impossible to devise a philosophy and political system that is 100% the absolute best. (Here, the PCs are just supernaturally brute-forcing their way into utopia.) Two, the well-meaning antagonists look stupid for having never realized that it was possible to just slot in a roster of strictly beneficial, utopia-engendering "planes," up to sixteen in number!
What could the adventure have done instead? I think it could have shifted the focus towards "planes" that offer pros, cons, and tradeoffs. And indeed, we see some of these during the cosmic journey. For example:
• Reida, the Arc of History, makes both foresight (including prophetic magic) and predestination strong. However, this functions only for two millennia, then deactivates for two millennia, and so on.
• Teykfa, the Ticking Pendulum, makes people "more aware of the scale of time, and they can better weight long-term consequences." But for good or for ill, time manipulation magic is easier to develop.
• Egalitrix, Fortress of the Golden Legion, makes "fantastic grand industry" develop more rapidly, but it will be driven by greed.
• Etheax, the Tended Flame, makes everyone more patient. But for good or for ill, fire magic is easier to develop.
• Dunkelweiss, the Fermented Peaks, makes alcohol beneficial to one's health, as opposed to destructive. However, drunk people still act drunk.
• Wilanir, the Lair of Discontent, makes thick fog appear around people who have committed wrongs. This is indiscriminate, and the definition of "wrongs" is vague.
• Shabboath, the Severed Sea, creates an underdark-style cavern system beneath the world's surface, full of both wondrous resources and great terrors.
• Av, Plane of Mirrors, gives reflections magical influence. It also creates both a Feywild and a Shadowfell, and their creatures.
Between "planes" like these, and preexisting "planes" such as Perlocus, Ratios, and Illocus, there could have been great potential for PCs to contemplate and debate the pros, cons, and tradeoffs of a new roster of planes. (No, the campaign's circumstances prevent PCs from leaving it up to worldwide, democratic voting. The world is simply gripped by too much epic-tier bedlam for a global vote to be even remotely feasible.) And maybe there could have been fewer than sixteen slots.
But this is not how Zeitgeist is actually written. So what did my own party do during our campaign? Sixteen-slot utopiamaxxing, baybee. So much for "no perfect system," right?
In the sequel setting, the main author assumes that the "canonical" party, for whatever reason, did not bother with utopiamaxxing, and double-slotted only once. Sure, they left Jiese and Ostea in place and included Iratha Ket, Ascetia, Amrou, and Caeloon among their picks, but their other three choices were merely okay-ish (e.g. Av solely to generate a Feywild and a Shadowfell). From a setting-writing perspective, this is a necessary evil, because the world still needs to be flawed enough to have actual conflicts, and having a Feywild and a Shadowfell around creates adventure potential.
This is just my own opinion, though. What do you personally think of this concept of reconfiguring the roster of "planes" (i.e. moons and planets)? How would you have personally handled the divide between bad picks vs. beneficial picks vs. "pros, cons, and tradeoffs" picks?
During part #10 of 13, there is a sequence in which the PCs must fight four giant, rampaging monsters. One PC gets coronated as monarch of the nation, and receives tremendous bonuses while battling the aforementioned titans.
> the monarch should get a +8 bonus to all defenses and attack rolls, and saving throws; a +9 bonus to Strength-, Dexterity-, and Constitution-based checks; regeneration 40 in addition to the normal regeneration 10 the monarch always has; and can interact with the titan as if he or she were also gargantuan
Which, of course, means that the party is best-off coronating a striker like a barbarian, as opposed to a warlord or a bard. And indeed, that is exactly what we did in our playthrough.
I run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in a compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.
I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Recently, I have grasped a subtle yet high-impact preference that few people openly talk about: limited vs. omniscient narration for PCs.
In this context, limited narration focuses on physically observable traits, actions, and words. Omniscient narration talks directly about inner thoughts and emotions (e.g. internal monologue), the character's history, and other subjects that cannot be directly observed or interacted with.
Suppose the characters are at some fancy gala. One PC, Marcus, spots the high-status lady who orchestrated the assassination of his parents.
Limited narration might be: > Marcus grimaces; one blue eye twitches. He balls up a silk-gloved hand into a trembling fist, fine fabric straining over knuckles. After a low growl, Marcus points an accusing finger at her. "You have plenty to answer for," he says with clear rancor.
Omniscient narration might describe all of the above as well, or it may cut back on such details. Either way, it talks about Marcus's inner thoughts and emotions, his family's history with the lady, and so on. Consequently, omniscient narration tends to produce much longer, seemingly higher-effort posts.
I prefer to narrate my PCs limitedly; it is hard for other players and the GM to interact with non-observable characteristics. But I have been directly told by some GMs (midway through the game) that my posts should be "higher-effort" and directly talk about thoughts, emotions, history, and so on.
It is an important distinction. I think PbP groups would do well to discuss their expectations on such beforehand.
What do you think?
Disclaimer: It is possible that I am using "limited" incorrectly, and should be saying, "objective," instead.
I run and play all of my games via pure text (and image links). Sometimes, these are synchronous, live text. At other times, they are play-by-post; I have run and finished several PbP adventures in compact time frame (e.g. just under a week for a core rulebook's starter adventure) by consistently keeping things moving.
I often join PbP games that recruit online. There are often rifts in expectations. Recently, I have grasped a subtle yet high-impact preference that few people openly talk about: limited vs. omniscient narration for PCs.
In this context, limited narration focuses on physically observable traits, actions, and words. Omniscient narration talks directly about inner thoughts and emotions (e.g. internal monologue), the character's history, and other subjects that cannot be directly observed or interacted with.
Suppose the characters are at some fancy gala. One PC, Marcus, spots the high-status lady who orchestrated the assassination of his parents.
Limited narration might be: > Marcus grimaces; one blue eye twitches. He balls up a silk-gloved hand into a trembling fist, fine fabric straining over knuckles. After a low growl, Marcus points an accusing finger at her. "You have plenty to answer for," he says with clear rancor.
Omniscient narration might describe all of the above as well, or it may cut back on such details. Either way, it talks about Marcus's inner thoughts and emotions, his family's history with the lady, and so on. Consequently, omniscient narration tends to produce much longer, seemingly higher-effort posts.
I prefer to narrate my PCs limitedly; it is hard for other players and the GM to interact with non-observable characteristics. But I have been directly told by some GMs (midway through the game) that my posts should be "higher-effort" and directly talk about thoughts, emotions, history, and so on.
It is an important distinction. I think PbP groups would do well to discuss their expectations on such beforehand.
What do you think?
Disclaimer: It is possible that I am using "limited" incorrectly, and should be saying, "objective," instead.
There is this person I once played D&D 4e alongside, long ago. By chance, I stumbled across him online and caught up. This person has been wanting to vent for a while about his side hustle as a paid 5e DM, and, for whatever reason, thought I would be a good listener.
At some point, I asked if I could share his story online, publicly. He agreed (citing that he highly doubts that anyone involved checks RPG-related Discord servers, subreddits, and such), under the condition that there would be no identifying information, no direct quotes aside from small phrases, no direct price tags, nobody trying to contact him, and so on. I have already run my posts by him.
I have no way of verifying if any of this is true. He could be fabricating everything. In turn, you have no way of verifying my own side. I suppose that is just how things go. I am sharing this story simply because I find it interesting.
• The DM has been doing this for nearly a decade, usually thrice a week, ~6 hours a session, in-person. He started off charging (X) USD per hour (for the whole group, not for each player), but gradually increased his price to ~3(X). The DM is aware that this is very high, but he gets away with it by relentlessly networking across a certain area in the U.S. where upper-middle-class 20- to 30-somethings are common. One current group, consisting of nobodies in the right-wing grifter sphere (who still manage to cough up money anyway), the DM charges ~5(X); he tells them that they are getting a premium experience, even when the DM is doing nothing particularly different.
• His clients are almost all white or white-passing, upper-middle-class, 20- to 30-something men. The DM freely admits that there is selection bias. This is probably the only demographic willing to pay such high prices for someone to run a game for them. Sometimes, someone brings a girlfriend, who may or may not play.
• The DM has run for 200+ players over the course of dozens of campaigns. No campaign has reached a proper conclusion.
• Group sizes are usually six or seven (I know, I know) players, but one or two almost always ghost on the session without sending advance notice. Players frequently show up for game night drunk, high, or both. Every single game thus far has ended with a critical mass of players ghosting and never showing up again. Fortunately, the DM insists on collecting payment beforehand; and yes, these players are indeed willing to just throw money away.
• Yes, many players mention Critical Role, Brennan Lee Mulligan, etc.
• The stereotypes of 5e-only players are true ~99% of the time. They either think that "D&D" is the only RPG in the world, or that it would be such a hassle to learn another system. They do not know how any of the rules work, they do not bother to roleplay, and they do not remember anything about the last session. (If you know how the rules work, you roleplay, or you remember events from the last session, then you are in the top ~1% of players.) They show up mostly for the very loose idea of "playing D&D" and having fun with friends.
• ~99% of the time, a player declares their turn in combat to be "I attack" or "I cast a spell" without specifying anything more than that (aside from the occasional "I cast fireball!" or "I cast lightning bolt!" even though the character could not possibly have the spell). The DM asks them to roll a d20; on anything but a natural 1 or 2, he tells them "You hit!" and the player gets excited. The DM does not ask them to roll damage. Sometimes, if he feels like the players will not be too dismayed, the DM tells a player who rolls in the 3 to 5 range that "You miss. This guy is really [tough/fast]!"
• The DM does not bother tracking anyone's hit points, and just tells players things like "You take some damage," "You are close to dying," or "You finally beat him. Tell us how you do it!"
• Players tend to panic and think that they are in a dire situation the moment the DM informs them that they take even "some damage." The tension ramps up even further whenever the DM says, "You are close to dying."
• A non-negligible number of players are really sweaty tryhards who know the ins and outs of damage math and tracking hit points... in video games. When it is time for "D&D," they simply turn off their brain, and all damage and all hit points are suddenly imaginary.
• Yes, players really do go crazy when someone rolls a natural 1, expecting something goofy to happen. They cheer when someone rolls a natural 20, expecting something absolutely epic. The DM indulges them.
• Players really do not know how ability checks, skills, or saving throws work. They get antsy if the DM tries to talk about the rules as actual rules, so he has learned to simply never bring up the rules to begin with.
• Maybe the archetypal tiefling bard is popular in other communities, but not this one. Here, it is mostly bros playing "male human [fighter/barbarian/paladin]," with the occasional wizard if someone is feeling spicy.
• Players love to be showered with magic items that simply sound cool from vague descriptions, even though the DM never actually explains their mechanics (because there are none). Swords brimming with flame, frost, or lightning are usually smash hits.
• Since players will seldom remember anything from previous sessions, the DM just randomly throws the party into wacky action scenes, often as paper-thin as "You are in the king's castle when all of a sudden, a dragon attacks!" He does not even bother trying to maintain a consistent setting, whether published or homebrew.
• The DM frequently gets told that he is the "best DM ever!" even though he is fairly sure that these people have played under nobody else.
• There is minimal demand for non-5e DMs. If you want another RPG, look elsewhere.
Make of this what you will.
There is this person I once played D&D 4e alongside, long ago. By chance, I stumbled across him online and caught up. This person has been wanting to vent for a while about his side hustle as a paid 5e DM, and, for whatever reason, thought I would be a good listener.
At some point, I asked if I could share his story online, publicly. He agreed (citing that he highly doubts that anyone involved checks RPG-related Discord servers, subreddits, and such), under the condition that there would be no identifying information, no direct quotes aside from small phrases, no direct price tags, nobody trying to contact him, and so on. I have already run my posts by him.
I have no way of verifying if any of this is true. He could be fabricating everything. In turn, you have no way of verifying my own side. I suppose that is just how things go. I am sharing this story simply because I find it interesting.
• The DM has been doing this for nearly a decade, usually thrice a week, ~6 hours a session, in-person. He started off charging (X) USD per hour (for the whole group, not for each player), but gradually increased his price to ~3(X). The DM is aware that this is very high, but he gets away with it by relentlessly networking across a certain area in the U.S. where upper-middle-class 20- to 30-somethings are common. One current group, consisting of nobodies in the right-wing grifter sphere (who still manage to cough up money anyway), the DM charges ~5(X); he tells them that they are getting a premium experience, even when the DM is doing nothing particularly different.
• His clients are almost all white or white-passing, upper-middle-class, 20- to 30-something men. The DM freely admits that there is selection bias. This is probably the only demographic willing to pay such high prices for someone to run a game for them. Sometimes, someone brings a girlfriend, who may or may not play.
• The DM has run for 200+ players over the course of dozens of campaigns. No campaign has reached a proper conclusion.
• Group sizes are usually six or seven (I know, I know) players, but one or two almost always ghost on the session without sending advance notice. Players frequently show up for game night drunk, high, or both. Every single game thus far has ended with a critical mass of players ghosting and never showing up again. Fortunately, the DM insists on collecting payment beforehand; and yes, these players are indeed willing to just throw money away.
• Yes, many players mention Critical Role, Brennan Lee Mulligan, etc.
• The stereotypes of 5e-only players are true ~99% of the time. They either think that "D&D" is the only RPG in the world, or that it would be such a hassle to learn another system. They do not know how any of the rules work, they do not bother to roleplay, and they do not remember anything about the last session. (If you know how the rules work, you roleplay, or you remember events from the last session, then you are in the top ~1% of players.) They show up mostly for the very loose idea of "playing D&D" and having fun with friends.
• ~99% of the time, a player declares their turn in combat to be "I attack" or "I cast a spell" without specifying anything more than that (aside from the occasional "I cast fireball!" or "I cast lightning bolt!" even though the character could not possibly have the spell). The DM asks them to roll a d20; on anything but a natural 1 or 2, he tells them "You hit!" and the player gets excited. The DM does not ask them to roll damage. Sometimes, if he feels like the players will not be too dismayed, the DM tells a player who rolls in the 3 to 5 range that "You miss. This guy is really [tough/fast]!"
• The DM does not bother tracking anyone's hit points, and just tells players things like "You take some damage," "You are close to dying," or "You finally beat him. Tell us how you do it!"
• Players tend to panic and think that they are in a dire situation the moment the DM informs them that they take even "some damage." The tension ramps up even further whenever the DM says, "You are close to dying."
• A non-negligible number of players are really sweaty tryhards who know the ins and outs of damage math and tracking hit points... in video games. When it is time for "D&D," they simply turn off their brain, and all damage and all hit points are suddenly imaginary.
• Yes, players really do go crazy when someone rolls a natural 1, expecting something goofy to happen. They cheer when someone rolls a natural 20, expecting something absolutely epic. The DM indulges them.
• Players really do not know how ability checks, skills, or saving throws work. They get antsy if the DM tries to talk about the rules as actual rules, so he has learned to simply never bring up the rules to begin with.
• Maybe the archetypal tiefling bard is popular in other communities, but not this one. Here, it is mostly bros playing "male human [fighter/barbarian/paladin]," with the occasional wizard if someone is feeling spicy.
• Players love to be showered with magic items that simply sound cool from vague descriptions, even though the DM never actually explains their mechanics (because there are none). Swords brimming with flame, frost, or lightning are usually smash hits.
• Since players will seldom remember anything from previous sessions, the DM just randomly throws the party into wacky action scenes, often as paper-thin as "You are in the king's castle when all of a sudden, a dragon attacks!" He does not even bother trying to maintain a consistent setting, whether published or homebrew.
• The DM frequently gets told that he is the "best DM ever!" even though he is fairly sure that these people have played under nobody else.
• There is minimal demand for non-5e DMs. If you want another RPG, look elsewhere.
Make of this what you will.
There is this person I once played D&D 4e alongside, long ago. By chance, I stumbled across him online and caught up. This person has been wanting to vent for a while about his side hustle as a paid 5e DM, and, for whatever reason, thought I would be a good listener.
At some point, I asked if I could share his story online, publicly. He agreed (citing that he highly doubts that anyone involved checks RPG-related Discord servers, subreddits, and such), under the condition that there would be no identifying information, no direct quotes aside from small phrases, no direct price tags, nobody trying to contact him, and so on. I have already run my posts by him.
I have no way of verifying if any of this is true. He could be fabricating everything. In turn, you have no way of verifying my own side. I suppose that is just how things go. I am sharing this story simply because I find it interesting.
• The DM has been doing this for nearly a decade, usually thrice a week, ~6 hours a session, in-person. He started off charging (X) USD per hour (for the whole group, not for each player), but gradually increased his price to ~3(X). The DM is aware that this is very high, but he gets away with it by relentlessly networking across a certain area in the U.S. where upper-middle-class 20- to 30-somethings are common. One current group, consisting of nobodies in the right-wing grifter sphere (who still manage to cough up money anyway), the DM charges ~5(X); he tells them that they are getting a premium experience, even when the DM is doing nothing particularly different.
• His clients are almost all white or white-passing, upper-middle-class, 20- to 30-something men. The DM freely admits that there is selection bias. This is probably the only demographic willing to pay such high prices for someone to run a game for them. Sometimes, someone brings a girlfriend, who may or may not play.
• The DM has run for 200+ players over the course of dozens of campaigns. No campaign has reached a proper conclusion.
• Group sizes are usually six or seven (I know, I know) players, but one or two almost always ghost on the session without sending advance notice. Players frequently show up for game night drunk, high, or both. Every single game thus far has ended with a critical mass of players ghosting and never showing up again. Fortunately, the DM insists on collecting payment beforehand; and yes, these players are indeed willing to just throw money away.
• Yes, many players mention Critical Role, Brennan Lee Mulligan, etc.
• The stereotypes of 5e-only players are true ~99% of the time. They either think that "D&D" is the only RPG in the world, or that it would be such a hassle to learn another system. They do not know how any of the rules work, they do not bother to roleplay, and they do not remember anything about the last session. (If you know how the rules work, you roleplay, or you remember events from the last session, then you are in the top ~1% of players.) They show up mostly for the very loose idea of "playing D&D" and having fun with friends.
• ~99% of the time, a player declares their turn in combat to be "I attack" or "I cast a spell" without specifying anything more than that (aside from the occasional "I cast fireball!" or "I cast lightning bolt!" even though the character could not possibly have the spell). The DM asks them to roll a d20; on anything but a natural 1 or 2, he tells them "You hit!" and the player gets excited. The DM does not ask them to roll damage. Sometimes, if he feels like the players will not be too dismayed, the DM tells a player who rolls in the 3 to 5 range that "You miss. This guy is really [tough/fast]!"
• The DM does not bother tracking anyone's hit points, and just tells players things like "You take some damage," "You are close to dying," or "You finally beat him. Tell us how you do it!"
• Players tend to panic and think that they are in a dire situation the moment the DM informs them that they take even "some damage." The tension ramps up even further whenever the DM says, "You are close to dying."
• A non-negligible number of players are really sweaty tryhards who know the ins and outs of damage math and tracking hit points... in video games. When it is time for "D&D," they simply turn off their brain, and all damage and all hit points are suddenly imaginary.
• Yes, players really do go crazy when someone rolls a natural 1, expecting something goofy to happen. They cheer when someone rolls a natural 20, expecting something absolutely epic. The DM indulges them.
• Players really do not know how ability checks, skills, or saving throws work. They get antsy if the DM tries to talk about the rules as actual rules, so he has learned to simply never bring up the rules to begin with.
• Maybe the archetypal tiefling bard is popular in other communities, but not this one. Here, it is mostly bros playing "male human [fighter/barbarian/paladin]," with the occasional wizard if someone is feeling spicy.
• Players love to be showered with magic items that simply sound cool from vague descriptions, even though the DM never actually explains their mechanics (because there are none). Swords brimming with flame, frost, or lightning are usually smash hits.
• Since players will seldom remember anything from previous sessions, the DM just randomly throws the party into wacky action scenes, often as paper-thin as "You are in the king's castle when all of a sudden, a dragon attacks!" He does not even bother trying to maintain a consistent setting, whether published or homebrew.
• The DM frequently gets told that he is the "best DM ever!" even though he is fairly sure that these people have played under nobody else.
• There is minimal demand for non-5e DMs. If you want another RPG, look elsewhere.
Make of this what you will.