u/Val_Fortecazzo

So we all know the classics, grognard vs theatre kid, martial vs caster, simulationist vs narrativist, the edition wars, player skill vs character skill, snitties, grey vs green orcs, and that's pretty much it. We need a new expansion or the jerk mines will run dry.

So this is a forum to brainstorm new topics we can debate fruitlessly because the answer boils down entirely to personal preferences.

Unfortunately I can't think of anything to contribute since to be honest nowadays I only play goblin with a fat ass, and the only thing worth discussing fruitlessly there is how fat the perfect goblin ass should be.

So pathfinder looks cool and all but I don't like the 3 action economy, the long list of feats, the classes, the rules for everything, the balance, or how locked down everything is when it comes to improvising.

Is there a game out there for me?

So I was at a party and I found a fellow ttrpg enthusiast, we bonded a bit over how we don't like D&D, and when I said "I'm so glad pathfinder fixes this" they said "actually I don't like pathfinder, I prefer rules light systems". Needless to say, I was shocked, but I knew what to say "have you actually tried pathfinder 2e? It really fixes everything with D&D", to which they responded "yes and it's not really what I was looking for, I don't like combat as a sport". I was on my last line of defense, "surely you must have just had a bad experience because you played it wrong, since you aren't accustomed to sufficiently sized rulebooks". They just laughed it off and said "no some of the people there enjoyed it, just not me, you know some people just have different tastes".

Needless to say I pointed at them, screamed, and ran away into the streets. I spent an hour in the shower under scalding water and I still don't feel clean. I'm afraid to leave the house. I've heard rumors these filthy calvinball playing narrativists exist but I didn't think I'd actually meet one in real life. But I'm not giving up. I'm going to track this guy down again and make him understand pathfinder 2e is the thing that fixes D&D and that everyone should be playing pathfinder instead. But I need ammunition to help wear them down. What else can I say to convince them?

First I will preface this by saying I've been playing, running, and designing RPGs for 30 years. I have a PhD from THE Phoenix University in advanced systems design and game theory. I am an author of a critically acclaimed game you've probably never heard of

D&D is so poorly designed, so incoherent, so evil that it is a physical and metaphysical acid, or a poison if you prefer, that erodes at the very mind, body, and soul of those tricked into playing and "enjoying" it.

The most damaged participants are too horrible even to look upon, much less to describe. This has nothing to do with geekery. When I say "brain damage," I mean it literally. Their minds have been harmed.

If you want an analogy, teaching D&D to someone is basically the equivalent of sexually abusing them. And if you teach it to children you should be locked away for life.

It's strict hierarchy, rooted in Gary Gygax's paternalistic worldviews, puts the DM as dictator of the world by which he seeks to hurt the players. But he himself is hurt by the burdensome system in a vicious cycle of abuse. He hacks away at the system to better mold it to his fascistic worldview but for every lash the DM gives the system, the system gives him one in return. And the greatest casualties lie with the players, who are abused by both the system and the DM, and bear the collateral damage of each lash. This can be seen in often debated issues like the martial caster divide, but the issue runs deeper, in fact the issue is simply one of many manifestations of the abuse.

It is a system based on antiquated wargaming, a hobby that might I add is also damaging as it tries to hopelessly mesh gamist and simulationist principles together in an unholy union, and attempts to add a narrative layer. The end result is the mechanics support nobody and nothing in its incoherence. Not a single learned individual could call D&D their game of choice. Any "fun" you might have with the system could only be explained with such phenomenon as stockholm syndrome. It is an abomination that survives on ignorance much like sports and social parties (the few I've been invited to, nobody wanted to discuss philosophy with me, only idle chit chat, how could anyone enjoy that).

Perhaps pathfinder 2e, dungeon world, draw steel, Daggerheart, etc etc, are really the best available prosthetics possible, permitting the damaged populace to do X? If so, what will people with limbs prefer to use, to do X?

Ok so what if instead of having just D&D. We have multiple books, same system but different games. We can call it world of dungeons. And one splatbook can be called mage: the ascension (since they are quadratic) and martial: the reckoning (since this is all about them taking back power from the casters).

That way everyone in the group are the same power level. We can have lore reasons for why the splatbooks rarely mix, maybe they just hate each other or something.

I think this is a really good idea and I've been sending daily emails to Gary Gygax but he isn't answering any of them. I took a lot of spice (cocaine mixed with glitter) to come up with this and I think its just the start of a whole line of splatbooks like we can do one for druids and another for warlocks.

So I know this has been argued ad nauseum and nobody can even seem to agree on what the divide is. But I think I've finally solved the problem, whatever it is.

Magical college debt.

Basically casters had to go to school to learn their magic right? Well make them pay. For every caster level gained add 100^L gold debt where L is level. If they do not make payments on this debt every new adventuring day, their spell components are automatically garnished.

Now you may ask, what about sorcerers and warlocks?

Well warlocks are martial adjacent enough they can be spared since they are basically interchangeable with an Eldritch knight wielding a heavy crossbow. Besides selling your soul is basically the same as taking out student loans.

Sorcerers I haven't gotten that far. But I promise it will be fixed after I create my Kickstarter and reach the 100k funding goal. Maybe something about wasting their arcane trust funds on magical drugs or something.

Thoughts? Only positive ones please.

So I am looking for a TTRPG that's basically just DnD/pathfinder but everyone gets a skateboard and traverses by skateboard. Horses still exist but they also travel on large skateboards. There should be skeletons too and they should be doing some sick grinding. Dragons should be capable of doing at least one flip trick to cause shockwave damage.

No I'm not just going to play a game i already have and add skateboards in myself. I want a game that explicitly gives me permission to do this. I need to spend more money on RPG products. A supplement is fine but I really want it to be a full on system preferably costing a minimum of 30 dollars for the PDF. If it's a Kickstarter I'm not getting the full product for until a year has passed and I'm bored of the concept all the better.

Please and thank you.

Please help me I just want to give my players a mechanical incentive to piss on each other like they do in the hit anime baki the grappler between pseudoscientific narrations of bizarre abilities and talking about how much they want each other's bodies and how fighting is their expression of love for one another.

I tried looking online and all I could find was fetish content. I went onto r/rpgdesign and a mod removed my post, banned me, and sent me a link to the bible. I read it and no pissing mechanics.

I went to r/rpg and they just keep suggesting me unrelated PbtA games and fabula ultima.

I went to r/dnd and they told me pathfinder fixes this.

I went to r/osr and they told me lamentations of the flame princess fixes this

I'm on the verge of tears please.

So to start with the land was once a desolate planet spanning dessert that was destroyed by the sorcerer kings and their destructive magics. But then a bunch of heroes showed up and fixed all that with new, stronger, ecologically replenishing magic with no downsides. So now it's a solarpunk magitech world without suffering.

Slavery was not only abolished eons ago, but society has become an egalitarian utopia of unending abundance where everyone is equal and all your needs and wants can be met magically. People born on this planet are all of a normal fortitude as they are provided everything they need to individually succeed from birth.

The halflings are all ethical vegans and go around telling other people they should become ethical vegans to, to live in harmony with nature.

The thri-kreen are a race of bug people that travel with the elves as kind wayfarers giving supplies and assistance to the few travelers who need it. They strongly believe all life is valuable.

The magic users who helped overthrow the sorcerer kings took a shitload of DMT and now have no ego of ambitions beyond smoking weed and playing video games all day. And emphasis on helped, because this society also solved the martial caster divide, so martials equally contributed to the liberation campaign.

The gods are all present, but because everyone is an enlightened atheist, nobody cares about them. They just accept this and spend most of their time playing video games with the wizards.

All forgotten realms races exist in this world and coexist peacefully.

Gnomes are mercilessly hunted for sport.

Should I add anything else to this setting? I'm open to ideas so long as they don't introduce too much conflict. It's important in my setting that the overwhelming belief in the utopia prevents any and all mass conflict. The few evil doers who remain can only ineffectually cause minor nuisances like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

Have you ever thought to yourself you don't own enough RPGs?

Well I have news for you. Matt Colville, D&D 4e's greatest soldier, has finished fixing D&D 5e, so he's decided it's time to fix the OSR as well. This may or may not have been influenced by Matt seeing how grognards will buy any Kickstarter zine they come across even when it's the same damn systems and advnetures over and over again but slightly tweaked.

Introducing Crows: Fortune or Death. It takes all the things you know about the OSR like dying a lot, dungeon crawling, and black and white art, and it introduces new things you've never heard before like dungeon turns, organic progression, thinking outside your character sheet, PCs as competent professionals that don't need to roll to open a door.

Now as for pledge levels, what you really want is the 400 dollar GOAT edition, this gets you all the hardcover books, a screen, and some normal looking dice.

But if you are a poor, we also have a 50 dollar PDF that comes with a custom message by Matt to go fuck yourself.

Buy our game today or you hate small publishers and independent creatives.

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So a player (M38, furfolk vorelock pact of inflation) ate Vecna. Dunno what to do now.

I asked them why they ate the lich. They said they are expecting to gain some cool New abilities.

Thankfully the Session ended right after they finished swallowing the lich. Rules wise i haven t seen anything related to eating an undead wizard god, so I could use a hand here.

Do bones even digest in stomach acid? Or is he going to pass through completely sapient and cognizant and mentally scarred from the experience?

Player: "I use seduction on the dragon"

GM: "the dragon looks down at you in disgust upon the suggestion, deflecting with it's racism dice against your seduction, make a test to keep your cool"

Player: "I invoke my horniness to add to my roll. The dragon may view me as inferior but I'm into that shit, my seduction roll is 12."

GM: "okay that's fair, add your horniness that makes 15. The dragon is confused but turned on, but the dragon knows you sleep around with lots of dragons and is afraid of getting draconic chlamydia. I will exploit that to make her racism 16. You're sweating"

Player: "I will deflect suspicion towards the wizard, and remind the dragon I have 3 levels in paladin."

GM: "at your accusation the dragon unsheathes it's giant schlong, roll your dexterity and charisma to see who mounts who first"

Player: "but wait DM, first I play my feat "big things come in small packages" in attack mode"

GM: "ok that gives you advantage on the save"

Player: "ok that's a natural 20, critical!"

GM: "good that will give you a bonus to your orgasm modifier"

So me and my group have been playing shadowrun for awhile now but one of my players has recently acquired an intense phobia of D6s due to a horrific accident too gruesome and private to discuss here. So we've been shopping for a new system.

Preferably something that would mechanically support our current adventure which involves helping a young witch girl solve the disappearance of her neighbor's cat in a small village in the alps.

I will not be elaborating further on what we want from the system or what else we didn't like about shadowrun.

Thank you in advance!

We're currently 22 sessions into a campaign that I planned to run for around 70 sessions. Its a very story heavy sci-fi campaign with inspirations to Deltarune, Gravity Falls, Doctor Who and Warehouse 13 as the players interact with scp-like objects and weapons and locations or explore different realms.

I've put an embarrassing amount of time into preparing the maps, npcs, artifacts, homebrew features and weapons, random sexual events etc and lately I feel like my players aren't taking the game as seriously as I am.

One PC has started going full murderhobo. Last session was supposed to be a lighthearted beach episode like in my favorite animes and have the busty female NPC scream "pervert" at them, and he kept saying things like "I want to rip the teenagers in half while everyone screams" and spent most of the session destroying scenery, breaking NPC property, and trying to derail roleplay moments. Another player constantly tries to rob or attack innocent NPCs because they have interesting items. Another barely engages with roleplay because he's often playing other video games during the session in the background and only explicitly interacts with his ranger subclass anthropomorphic female dragon pet.

They're level 10, but it feels like they think that they're untouchable or something, except for the martial who dies to even the most basic goblins of my world (literally everyone has magical abilities except their loser). They once tripped over a blind guy with crutches while all three were invisible because they wanted to get into the camera room that the blind guy was blocking... btw this camera room deal wasn't an objective I gave them, they just wanted to check the records and archives because they didn't trust the person in charge...

So how should I kill their characters? Classic falling rocks? Level 20 tavern owner? DMPC? Or something really out of left field? Would FATAL fix this?

EDIT: I seem to have given less information then I had thought so let me say this, these players are all my friends of 3+ years. they're all adults, and we're playing online using discord and owlbear rodeo, because we're far apart (2 in the US, 2 in EU) and these friends of mine had played in other campaigns, they're not beginners and at least one of them has dm'd before, the murderhobo guy I talked about has dm'd a campaign for 3 years before cancelling it. the others have also played in other games and campaign both in and out of our friendgroup. ALSO i get that maybe the whole sci-fi setting doesn't fit dnd (5e 2014)'s module, I want to run a campaign with a module I MYSELF am familiar with, and that the other players are also familiar with, I don't want them learning a new system or go through a custom homebrew one just so that it fits the setting of the sci-fi world I built, I try my best to add features and items that give the feel of dnd meanwhile keeping it sci-fi

So just to start off I love actual plays and this will be my first time playing D&D at all. So I decided to DM for a bunch of strangers. And also not play D&D.

So I decided my DMPC is going to be like chuckles the clown, he's my favorite legends of avantris character because he's the only one I know. I'm also going to be playing the druskenvald setting but as a plot twist we are going to be reenacting critical role season 3's story. Needless to say it's going to be amazing and I plan to stream it on twitch (without the players knowledge btw, I want their acting to be real).

The only thing I'm missing is how to port all the player options, monsters, and mechanics over to Daggerheart. Is there another supplement I can buy to do this? I'd also like to port over the dungeons & daddies - not a bdsm sourcebook when that comes out. I don't know how it's going to fit into this plotline but I'm thinking like a crossover episode.

Also how do you play Daggerheart? I've never read the rules for either book.

So first up I just want to say I'm so glad that all that shit that happened in 2027 is finally behind us. Oh boy that took years off my lifespan.

So I've been messing around with the universes beyond splatbooks and I'm thinking of starting out as a pony race, taking pact of the demonologist warlock, with Archimonde as my patron. Pretty basic stuff, but should I also take a dip in fighter for hadouken? Or bard to get the Miku Miku beam? My DM also told me we will all get a chance to pick up a pip boy during the campaign and I've heard great synergies from some of the options in the Warhammer 40k book like the dakka dakka feat. The options have become so overwhelming over the years, but no matter what I pick Strahd won't know what hit him.

Or should I ditch all this and go for the classic and safe option of straight spongeborn wizard Jedi subclass with dual lightsaber proficiency? Since it gets online much faster.

So to get things out of the way you've probably seen my work in subs like r/DnD and r/osr and yes commissions open and link in the bio NSFW on patreon yada yada.

Anyways this guy, his name is Ron, he's been a regular customer for years now. Kinda weird but he's a nice kid. About a year ago he excitedly told me he finally got to play in a D&D group and asked me to make a commemorative portrait of his favorite PC. And so I do. But every week he comes back to me telling me his character died and he needs another new piece to commission, and this happens week after week after week. He even has an ongoing commission to add characters to a sort of graveyard piece and it's getting pretty full now. The pieces are easy enough and he pays really well. He gives me these absurdly long backstories to work with but Ive gotten good at just scanning them for key words, they are usually based off some cartoon or anime character anyways. The issue is he's kinda annoying and seems to think we are friends and he's always crying about his character deaths and saying how disappointing he must be to play with. And it's just a lot of emotional labor I don't know if I get paid enough for.

Last week seems to have broken him. He just keeps asking to talk and that he really needs a friend right now but like, I'm not his friend. How do I tell him to politely fuck off? I don't even care at this point if he goes somewhere else I'd rather go back to working at the mini painting shop even though the owner has a really short fuse at least he cared about us.

Strangest part is I don't know how he gets this much money, he's never told me what he does for a living.

So awhile back I met this nerd on a discord server where he wouldn't shut up about all his min-maxxed characters with 40 page backstories and treating them like his Tumblr OCs. Most of them aren't even particularly original, usually based on some anime or hazbin hotel character. So me and my group got a hilarious idea, if he loves making characters so much why don't we invite him in and keep killing him off so he has to keep making new ones?

We were subtle at first, a fudged dice here, a DC a bit higher than it should be, a monster that for one reason or another really wanted him dead. But let me tell you this guy is either stupid or a total pushover, so we eventually just gave up on hiding it. Rocks would randomly fall out of the sky and crush him, other players would attack him on purpose and claim it was an accident. At one point he rolled up a priest and first scene I have his own god smite him. I don't think he's actually gotten to play for more than 6 or 8 hours in this entire year he's been in our group. We kinda turned it into a game of who can come up with the most absurd death for him. Last session he went to the bathroom and we were talking about how fun this has been.

Anyways I'm coming here to reddit to ask for more creative deaths because the last one was just kinda phoned in. We just had a fire giant come in, stomp him to death, and leave. Or even just new ways to fuck with him in or out of game.

So we've been playing this campaign for a couple of months and I typically like to take game design from video games as everyone should as it's the superior medium. Part of that is restricting all my players to narrow corridor levels with arrows pointing in a single direction with waves and waves of enemies in the way. There are also a bunch of collectibles they can grab on every level.

It's been going well so far, I've been able to defuse every complaint from my players so far with facts and logic. But the players keep trying to go off course or ask where towns and shops are despite the fact I told them they would be in the central hub area. I don't know what they want from me since they seem so confused on where to go. Should I add yellow paint as well? Maybe a DMPC that escorts them through every level?

And if they keep asking for "player agency" and "open worlds" then how should I do it? I'm thinking ubisoft tower maps.