What tabletop games do you play/want to play?

[SckizoBoy]

Under the circumstances, not a particularly relevant question I'll admit given quarantinis are the flavour of the season, so social gatherings, as most tabletop games tend to be, are at a minimum.

But since this is merely a device by which to test a forum, why not.

As per the title, what tabletop games (whether board/miniatures/skirmish/battle etc.) do you play or want to play?

Warmachine (played in the past, kind of want to start playing again)
Warhammer Fantasy Battle (played a lot of TW:WH2 lately, so kind of want to get into the tabletop version again)

 

[Fat Hippo]

I am currently involved in a D&D 5e campaign going through the "Tomb of Annihilation" module, where one explores the jungles of Chult trying to find the cause of and end the "Death Curse". It's been a lot of fun thus far.

I am also GMing a Pathfinder Second Edition campaign, starting with the "Fall of Plaguestone" module. Once that's wrapped up, we'll be transitioning the party into a more open-world campaign based on the players running and commanding a mercenary army, with a bunch of homebrew rules for how that's going to work. Currently hoping that part doesn't fall completely on its face, fingers crossed.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Huh, forgot about RPG's. Random DnD campaign (over Discord, so not strictly speaking tabletop) set in Mordheim. Our party consists of a drunk Nagarythean, a weeb wood elf, a bombastic Inquisitor who can't shoot for shit, a kroxigor who's learning to read, an underweight skink... and Geralt(!).

Oh, and soon to finish an Iron Kingdoms RPG campaign as a racist elf axe-murderer before the drug-pushing granny needs to return to his country to get paperwork to renew his visa. -.-

 

[SupahEwok]

As far as want to play, I'm always up for Shadowrun, because the premise is bellissimo. You've got a fantasy world dropped into an alternative nearfuture cyberpunk Earth, and you form a gang to pull heists and are given an immense toy chest to kit yourself with. The second to last game I played, I had plans to mod my character's APC with rotary wings to make it a flying tank (didn't get so far as to have the money to make it happen, unfortunately). The last game I played, I had an infiltrator with some cybernetic mods that sent out barrier penetrating radar waves or something around her, and could use them to map out the interior of a building as I went along through the walls, including security patrols.

It's a bloody nuisance to play though, and I've never had a group stick with it for very long.

 

[Fat Hippo]

As far as want to play, I'm always up for Shadowrun, because the premise is bellissimo. You've got a fantasy world dropped into an alternative nearfuture cyberpunk Earth, and you form a gang to pull heists and are given an immense toy chest to kit yourself with. The second to last game I played, I had plans to mod my character's APC with rotary wings to make it a flying tank (didn't get so far as to have the money to make it happen, unfortunately). The last game I played, I had an infiltrator with some cybernetic mods that sent out barrier penetrating radar waves or something around her, and could use them to map out the interior of a building as I went along through the walls, including security patrols.

It's a bloody nuisance to play though, and I've never had a group stick with it for very long.

Yeah I gotta admit, even after 5 or 6 sessions, it still didn't feel like I'd really warmed up to the rules. They just don't feel very cohesive, it's like you're playing 5 games stitched together rather than a single game. Granted as a Decker I got the worst of that, but it wasn't the only instance of it. Since people are so specialized, it felt a lot like only 50% of the party was ever able to do anything at any given time. Dunno if that was just our party or that campaign or not. Even though I like the setting, the actual act of playing it did not live up to that fantasy.

 

[Chimpzy]

Longtime D&D player. Mostly 3.5 with dashes of Spelljammer, D20 Modern and D20 Call of Cthulhu. Currently DM'ing 3.5 for a small group. Our schedules are too busy to play regularly, so we mostly do unconnected short single quest campaigns that last one or two sessions. Tho of course the whole Corona thing makes meeting up ill-advised, but we're looking into ways of playing over Skype or some other video conference app. Testing out some stuff tonight with the other DM. If things go well, we'll play this weekend.

I also used to play 40K. Orks. Specifically Speed Freeks, because A) I like fast mobile armies, B) Orks are very kitbash friendly, and C) Speed Freeks army size is relatively smaller so I could spend more time painting and converting models to higher standards. Alas, my Warboss, Nob Bike Squad and Looted Leman Russ ended up getting stolen. They were the centerpiece units of my army that I'd spent a lot of time, effort and a fair amount of money on. Was strapped for cash back then and couldn't replace them, while Uni also left little time to play. So I kind of forgot about it and eventually just decided to quit altogether.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Longtime D&D player. Mostly 3.5 with dashes of Spelljammer, D20 Modern and D20 Call of Cthulhu. Currently DM'ing 3.5 for a small group. Our schedules are too busy to play regularly, so we mostly do unconnected short single quest campaigns that last one or two sessions. Tho of course the whole Corona thing makes meeting up ill-advised, but we're looking into ways of playing over Skype or some other video conference app. Testing out some stuff tonight with the other DM. If things go well, we'll play this weekend.

I can recommend Discord as a vehicle for online Tabletop. You can make a server and invite people, from where people can jump into and out of voice chat with relative ease. Files up to 8 MB can be posted directly into the server, making it easy to share item descriptions, rules, maps or other things a GM might wish to show. There is also an online diceroller which is usually reliable here: https://github.com/ArtemGr/Sidekick

This way, people can type their dicerolling directly into chat, e.g. "/r 1d20+7" and the result is posted by the dicebot immediately afterwards.

 

[Neuromancer]

Currently planning out a pathfinder 1st edition to GM around July. My last GM'ed campaign went acceptably, though the final act had to be rushed due to sudden real life complications, so I'm hoping the quality stays consistent.

Playing a second edition pathfinder campaign, and as someone that has been playing 3.5/path for the better part of the past 10+ years I am finding it a refreshing change of pace. A lot of the rules changes make sense, and playing a martial has been fun with suddenly having much more to do than just moving and attacking.

I would like to play something in a cyberpunk setting again. The shadowrun games that I've been part of fell apart due to life and middling interest, and I've not heard much about the new cyberpunk RPG coming out in the future. And even then, finding someone to actually GM the game looks further unlikely. Guess I'm not getting my wish any time soon.

 

[Chimpzy]

I can recommend Discord as a vehicle for online Tabletop. You can make a server and invite people, from where people can jump into and out of voice chat with relative ease. Files up to 8 MB can be posted directly into the server, making it easy to share item descriptions, rules, maps or other things a GM might wish to show. There is also an online diceroller which is usually reliable here: https://github.com/ArtemGr/Sidekick

This way, people can type their dicerolling directly into chat, e.g. "/r 1d20+7" and the result is posted by the dicebot immediately afterwards.

Well, the biggest issues I came across is managing battles and dice rolling. For battles, I came up with a bootleg solution of loading up all my battle maps into Illustrator and creatings icons for all PCs and NPCs, numbering them if there's more than one of the same time. I then overlaid the map with a Battleship-style numbered grid, with matching transparent guide lines so the icons will easily snap into place. Basically, the way I want it to work in practice is that I screen share this map in Illustrator with the players during battles, so when their turn comes around call out to me which "coordinate" they want to move to like "Move me to B7 so I can attack Kobold 5". No idea if it works well. We'll see.

Still, I am on the lookout for a decent solution for dice rolls tho. Mine would be no problem, I'm DM, so I can hide them anyway, but needed something for the others. Discord also seems to have screen share , so using that bot might do the trick. I'm testing stuff tonight, so I'll give it a try.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Well, the biggest issues I came across is managing battles and dice rolling. For battles, I came up with a bootleg solution of loading up all my battle maps into Illustrator and creatings icons for all PCs and NPCs, numbering them if there's more than one of the same time. I then overlaid the map with a Battleship-style numbered grid, with matching transparent guide lines so the icons will easily snap into place. Basically, the way I want it to work in practice is that I screen share this map in Illustrator with the players during battles, so when their turn comes around call out to me which "coordinate" they want to move to like "Move me to B7 so I can attack Kobold 5". No idea if it works well. We'll see.

Still, I am on the lookout for a decent solution for dice rolls tho. Mine would be no problem, I'm DM, so I can hide them anyway, but needed something for the others. Discord also seems to have screen share , so using that bot might do the trick. I'm testing stuff tonight, so I'll give it a try.

If you're playing D&D online and want to play on a grid, the standard solution would be to use a site called Roll20. Personally I do something not too far off from what you're doing, but using a program called Inkscape. But I mostly used that because I was used to it, not because it's especially well suited to the purpose as such.

Not everyone likes Roll20, but it does have the advantage of being fairly easy to use, containing enough free resources to use as long as you don't want to get too fancy, and having a battle map similar to what you described, along with an integrated dice roller. However, the voice/video chat built into Roll20 is extremely iffy in my experience, so even Roll20 can't be considered a fully comprehensive package, in that sense.

 

[Chimpzy]

If you're playing D&D online and want to play on a grid, the standard solution would be to use a site called Roll20. Personally I do something not too far off from what you're doing, but using a program called Inkscape. But I mostly used that because I was used to it, not because it's especially well suited to the purpose as such.

Not everyone likes Roll20, but it does have the advantage of being fairly easy to use, containing enough free resources to use as long as you don't want to get too fancy, and having a battle map similar to what you described, along with an integrated dice roller. However, the voice/video chat built into Roll20 is extremely iffy in my experience, so even Roll20 can't be considered a fully comprehensive package, in that sense.

Yeh, I know about Roll20. Tried it. Wasn't really happy with it. I tend to create elaborate battles, the options available for free didn't really fit what I wanted, and I didn't feel like spending time looking for work-arounds either.

Not that Illustrator is ideal. In several ways it costs me more prep time and effort than other stuff I've tried. But at least I know Illustrator in and out.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

If you're playing D&D online and want to play on a grid, the standard solution would be to use a site called Roll20. Personally I do something not too far off from what you're doing, but using a program called Inkscape. But I mostly used that because I was used to it, not because it's especially well suited to the purpose as such.

Not everyone likes Roll20, but it does have the advantage of being fairly easy to use, containing enough free resources to use as long as you don't want to get too fancy, and having a battle map similar to what you described, along with an integrated dice roller. However, the voice/video chat built into Roll20 is extremely iffy in my experience, so even Roll20 can't be considered a fully comprehensive package, in that sense.

Tbh I like using Discord for voice while using roll20 for visuals. And Discord can do video too ofc.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Tbh I like using Discord for voice while using roll20 for visuals. And Discord can do video too ofc.

Yeah, that's pretty much how we've being doing it in the 5e campaign I mentioned above, which was a campaign we would usually meet up for IRL, but in the current situation has also been forced to migrate online. And you're right, that has been working quite well for us.

 

[SilentPony]

I've tried the D20 and D100s in the past, but I kept feeling like it was all a prank on me. Like either we had terrible DMs, horrific luck, its normal for the entire party to die the first session, or some combination of the 3 'cause none have ever last longer than 1 or 2 sessions.
And it always felt like I had no idea what was going on. I'd ask if an iron knife is a good weapon, the response would be "Well it does less damage than an iron sword, but more than an iron nail, so..."

I've tried DnD multiple times, GammaWorld, the battletech RPG, Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, Paranoia, some game where you're the CEO of a cyper-punk company.

 

[Elfgore]

I've been dying to play that Fantasy Flight Star Wars game. It sounds like the mechanics fit right in with the way the force works in the universe, plus playing in the universe would be a blast.

I was supposed to join a Pathfinder 2E game before all of this started. So kinda bummed about that. Heard great things about the system though.

 

[Asita]

*shrug* Sadly, my few forays into tabletops have collapsed after a few sessions. Pathfinder game never ended up happening at all, got maybe 3 sessions into a Call of Cthulhu campaign before real life broke up the group, got one session in of Stars Without Number due to scheduling conflicts and I was already just a temp player who was only in town for a few months, Dungeons and Dragons only really happened in High School and we got maybe six sessions in before midterms broke the groove and we moved on to other things after that, for Shadowrun the GM stopped hosting sessions basically at the end of the first act of the campaign...

My most extensive experience was probably a few freeform RPs, and the GMs all burned out midway through the campaigns, for reasons I shan't get into. :/

 

[SckizoBoy]

Yeah, that's pretty much how we've being doing it in the 5e campaign I mentioned above, which was a campaign we would usually meet up for IRL, but in the current situation has also been forced to migrate online. And you're right, that has been working quite well for us.

One of my campaigns (DnD 5e rules, Warhammer Fantasy setting) could only ever be online (the group of nine hails from six countries across eight time zones), and circumstances managed to suit everyone and encourage its start. Pretty neat, I think.

 

[Fat Hippo]

And it always felt like I had no idea what was going on. I'd ask if an iron knife is a good weapon, the response would be "Well it does less damage than an iron sword, but more than an iron nail, so..."

I'm surprised the GM didn't tell you to, you know, look up the stats. That's what they're there for, after all.

I was supposed to join a Pathfinder 2E game before all of this started. So kinda bummed about that. Heard great things about the system though.

We are I think 9 sessions into the campaign I am GMing, and I have intentionally kept the leveling slow, so I am not ready to make a final judgment of any kind yet. We've definitely been having fun, and overall there is a lot of cool stuff in there if you like D20 fantasy, but with more mechanical complexity than e.g. D&D 5e.

Something I'm slightly worried about is the extreme power curve characters are on. A single level in PF 2e is probably more impactful than it has ever been in any previous iteration of the D20 fantasy subgenre. Literally every modifier you have (AC, Attack, Skills, DCs, Saving Throws) goes up by 1 for every single level. Combine this with the fact that you now get critical successes when exceeding a DC by 10, not only on a natural 20, (and the equivalent opposite for critical failures) and you have a recipe for every single point mattering like never before.

As a contrast, in D&D 5e the difference between a level 1 and a level 5 character is primarily the size of their HP pool, and what abilities they have. Mathematically, not that much has changed. 1 extra point to rolls due to proficiency, and maybe an attribute increase.

In PF 2e, you have basically all of those things, AND you get more feats, AND you no longer have to roll for HP but always get the maximum, AND every modifier has gone by up at least 4, AND it's easier to get your hands on equipment that improves your modifiers. You get the picture. It's a basically superhuman level of growth, such that outlevelling your opponent guarantees they will be no real threat to you, but facing something that outlevels you means you're pretty boned. That has always been true to some extent, but it feels more true than ever. And I still need to see how I feel about that.

 

[SilentPony]

SNIP

But the stats mean nothing if you've never played it. Take 40k for example. Lasguns are strength 3. Is that good or bad?
The point being stats only matter within context, and if you don't know the context, stats are meaningless.
I'll give you an example of one of my experiences.

It was the Battletech RPG. I was part of a mercenary group, about nine of us, and we were contracted to protect a planet. We were short on mechs so we decided to go to the mech market, see if there was anything worth buying/trading for. One of the players was "roll playing" a hyper paranoid mech pilot who didn't trust anyone. Turns out what that meant was he demanded to roll perception checks for each and every thing any player ever did in his presence. And the DM thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

I walk across the room to look at an urbanmech.
PERCEPTION CHECK! Does he actually walk? PERCEPTION CHECK! Is it actually a room? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually walk across it? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually look PERCEPTION CHECK! Is it actually an Urbanmech? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually look at the Urbanmech? etc...for 2 sessions. DM said it was great because he was in the character and there were no rules against it.

And that's the least ridiculous tabletop RPG I've had. It only goes downhill and way more absurd from there.

 

[Fat Hippo]

But the stats mean nothing if you've never played it. Take 40k for example. Lasguns are strength 3. Is that good or bad?
The point being stats only matter within context, and if you don't know the context, stats are meaningless.
I'll give you an example of one of my experiences.

It was the Battletech RPG. I was part of a mercenary group, about nine of us, and we were contracted to protect a planet. We were short on mechs so we decided to go to the mech market, see if there was anything worth buying/trading for. One of the players was "roll playing" a hyper paranoid mech pilot who didn't trust anyone. Turns out what that meant was he demanded to roll perception checks for each and every thing any player ever did in his presence. And the DM thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

I walk across the room to look at an urbanmech.
PERCEPTION CHECK! Does he actually walk? PERCEPTION CHECK! Is it actually a room? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually walk across it? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually look PERCEPTION CHECK! Is it actually an Urbanmech? PERCEPTION CHECK! Did he actually look at the Urbanmech? etc...for 2 sessions. DM said it was great because he was in the character and there were no rules against it.

And that's the least ridiculous tabletop RPG I've had. It only goes downhill and way more absurd from there.

Yikes, yeah, that's...a pretty classic example of an obnoxious player and a bad GM, not gonna lie.

Regarding stats, I find within the context of the system it'll usually reveal itself depending on the system. E.g. how much damage does it do, what does it cost (more usually means better), how much armor penetration does it have, what other special abilities. Sure it's not exactly trivial, but that's part of learning the game and understanding its mechanics. Optimally, a GM should help players figure this stuff out, but it's not arcane lore either.