Maybe we should try a Tabletop RPG?

[Kae]

So this place has been really low on activity lately and to be honest I haven't had much to say lately and it feels kinda weird to just let it go when I've been coming to this place since 2009 which is way longer than I've ever lived in any one city, so I've been thinking that if people are interested, in order to keep at least some of the community[footnote]Though I guess I've never been much of an active member and pretty much none of you would consider me a friend[/footnote] alive it would be OK to try an RPG or something, we've already tried things like Discords and similar things but they seem to have died now, so this could be a neat experiment.

I do realize this idea has a few problems, most relating to scheduling, the rules system & microphones, I personally am only free on mornings on weekdays, after 06:00 PM PST on Friday & completely free on Sundays[footnote]Though I normally get up late but I'd be willing to change that habit.[/footnote].

And yes, of course, I am offering to GM if it does happen, I'm inexperienced having only GMd once[footnote]Though it is likely I will do something this Friday & I'm in discussions with my GM to run a larger but still short campaign on Saturdays when the campaign we're currently playing ends or when he wants a break.[/footnote] for an actual table in a One shot for D&D 5E but I did enjoy it, as for the system the one I'm most familiar with is D&D 5E, but I've also played Pathfinder, Legend of the Five Rings 4E & Numenera (Cypher System), I'm also familiar with Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Starfinder, Basic Fantasy, Anima & Burning Wheel, plus I'd be willing to learn any system that people are wanting to play depending on which setting people would like to play or if they want to play something really weird like an amalgamation of settings.

In any case, this thread is to gauge interest & see if there are people interested in the experiment, I mean it might be a way to keep the community going.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Play by post avoids scheduling issues and gives people to be around the forums btw

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

And I might have interest in pbp but too booked with other stuff otherwise

 

[Drathnoxis]

I'm interested, but not over mic. I don't want you people ruining my headcanon with your grotesquely boring real voices. It should be on the forums so everybody can watch.

I don't know what Call of Cthulhu entails, but my vote goes for that. [sub][sup][sub][sup]Or FATAL in the WW[/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I might be down for this. Some pointers though.

1. Rename your topic title to Pen and Paper or Tabletop RPG instead of just RPG. It makes more sense.

2. I think it would be best if we just started with 5e and kept it simple. That's the ruleset/universe that most appeals to me anyway.

3. We could try something with Tabletop Simulator instead of doing everything via Discord.

 

[Souplex]

I'm interested, but not over mic. I don't want you people ruining my headcanon with your grotesquely boring real voices. It should be on the forums so everybody can watch.

I don't know what Call of Cthulhu entails, but my vote goes for that. [sub][sup][sub][sup]Or FATAL in the WW[/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

Don't worry, my voice is actually kind of wacky.

 

[Trunkage]

I'm interested, but not over mic. I don't want you people ruining my headcanon with your grotesquely boring real voices. It should be on the forums so everybody can watch.

I don't know what Call of Cthulhu entails, but my vote goes for that. [sub][sup][sub][sup]Or FATAL in the WW[/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

Don't worry, my voice is actually kind of wacky.

I'm imagining a Krusty voice now

 

[Kae]

Play by post avoids scheduling issues and gives people to be around the forums btw

Maybe but Play by Post is something I've never done before, we could most certainly give it a try but I didn't think of it because I normally play in a table with dice, that being said, play by post might make it easier to handle larger groups of people.

I'm interested, but not over mic. I don't want you people ruining my headcanon with your grotesquely boring real voices. It should be on the forums so everybody can watch.

I could ham up my accent if my voice isn't interesting enough for you, I do enjoy doing that, and it seems we have another vote for using the forums which I don't mind, but it would have to be the forums aided by some other program or a forum group to make Dice rolling easier to manage.

I don't know what Call of Cthulhu entails, but my vote goes for that. [sub][sup][sub][sup]Or FATAL in the WW[/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

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

I might be down for this. Some pointers though.

1. Rename your topic title to Pen and Paper or Tabletop RPG instead of just RPG. It makes more sense.

Done.

2. I think it would be best if we just started with 5e and kept it simple. That's the ruleset/universe that most appeals to me anyway.

Well it's the one I'm most familiar with, so I wouldn't mind, however, it would only work for fantasy settings without messing about too much with the system, and of all I know I wouldn't say it's the simplest, I'd give that title to the cypher system which is also really flexible in terms of setting, but it would be the one that would require the least amount of work for me since I know that system pretty well already & own a few of the books, I have all the PDFs that I could find for all the listed systems though & to be honest I find it amusing and interesting to learn new systems so I don't mind if people propose some other stuff.

3. We could try something with Tabletop Simulator instead of doing everything via Discord.

I actually already own Tabletop Simulator & yes Tabletop Sim w/Discord would be a good way to do it though players who don't own it would have to buy it, it's not particularly expensive though but it might be an extra barrier to entry, though I think the same could be said of things like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds & other virtual tabletop programs even if they are free.

 

[Thaluikhain]

That's an inventive way of keeping things going here, I'd prefer pbp, myself.

 

[American Tanker]

... I don't mind if people propose some other stuff.

I've got Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition, as well as Daring Tales of Adventure: Compendium 4(1920s-1950s pulp adventure{Indiana Jones, Crimson Skies, etc. etc.}) and Daring Tales of the Sprawl: Compendium(cyberpunk adventures), but I've never actually played anything with them. And someone over on 8chan /tg/ provided me with a GI Joe-themed conversion for Savage Worlds, though it is more about operations as COBRA rather than the Joes.

The reason I decided to look into Savage Worlds is because it's all about simplistic, fast-paced action. It's also extremely modular and has numerous fan conversions available.

 

[Fijiman]

As much as I'm interested in this idea, my free time has been F'ed in half by work and I have no idea when it might stabilize to something resembling a regular work week. Also the fact that I would have zero idea what the fuck I'm doing most of the time and am too broke to buy Tabletop Simulator do not help matters.

 

[Kae]

That's an inventive way of keeping things going here, I'd prefer pbp, myself.

I'm not actually the first to suggest it but last time it was on the WW and nobody seemed to really be interested in being the GM and I didn't really have the confidence to do it myself, I'm not entirely confident now that I'd be great at it but at least I know that it's something I enjoyed when I did it last time.

As for pbp, I'm not really that good a writer and I'm way slower when writing since I can go back & correct thing than I am at improv but I'd be willing to give it a shot, though I feel that I would prefer to do it over on a virtual tabletop with voice chat I'm not really opposed to the idea, of course first I have to gauge interest, see what kind of setting & system people would be willing to play and then prepare something which is going to take some time, of course cooperation from the players to know what kind of characters they want to play would be of great help to know what would be interesting to each player.

... I don't mind if people propose some other stuff.

I've got Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition, as well as Daring Tales of Adventure: Compendium 4(1920s-1950s pulp adventure{Indiana Jones, Crimson Skies, etc. etc.}) and Daring Tales of the Sprawl: Compendium(cyberpunk adventures), but I've never actually played anything with them. And someone over on 8chan /tg/ provided me with a GI Joe-themed conversion for Savage Worlds, though it is more about operations as COBRA rather than the Joes.

The reason I decided to look into Savage Worlds is because it's all about simplistic, fast-paced action. It's also extremely modular and has numerous fan conversions available.

I'll look into it, seems fun enough and even if we don't end up using it I normally find something of value to be learned in each system, if I'm honest the system I'm more curious about trying is Burning Wheel since that places a lot of emphasis on dynamic role-playing characterizations from the players but it seems like something that would be better in an actual table, especially if the book is to be believed, but anyway I love pulp adventures so running that type of game might be really fun and it might lend itself more to the radical tone shifts that players love to cause in RPGs.

As much as I'm interested in this idea, my free time has been F'ed in half by work and I have no idea when it might stabilize to something resembling a regular work week. Also the fact that I would have zero idea what the fuck I'm doing most of the time and am too broke to buy Tabletop Simulator do not help matters.

Well Tabletop Sim was just an idea, while it would be cool to use it, it seems like the most likely scenario would be pbp so far & even then if we were to use a virtual tabletop resource it would most likely be one that is free to lower the entry barrier such as Roll20, but yes scheduling seems like a real problem here, still if you'd like to try it I think it'd be OK to have some people come and go toget more people involved, besides it's not really all that unusual for example on the table I play on Saturdays there are technically 12 players, but of those only 5 of us are the protagonists of the story and everyone else are important people that come and help us out every now and then but have other missions that keep dragging them away from the main group, so I think we could handle players that are unlikely to be assisting to every session in a similar manner if they would be interested in that.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

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

 

[demoman_chaos]

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

Keep me posted on this mate.

 

[maninahat]

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

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

 

[King of Asgaard]

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

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

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

 

[Kae]

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

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

 

[Souplex]

I'm interested, but not over mic. I don't want you people ruining my headcanon with your grotesquely boring real voices. It should be on the forums so everybody can watch.

I don't know what Call of Cthulhu entails, but my vote goes for that. [sub][sup][sub][sup]Or FATAL in the WW[/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

Don't worry, my voice is actually kind of wacky.

I'm imagining a Krusty voice now

Kind of like Krusty's voice when he's out of character, but more nasal.

 

[The Lunatic]

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

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

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

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

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