Poll: Let's Talk about D&D!

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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Mar 8, 2011
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RedRockRun said:
I've never played D&D or any other PnP game before. I'd very much like to, but I have no friends and in no mood whatsoever to find groups. It seems as though most of those groups would be composed of people who have been friends for years, and it would be incredibly awkward entering that kind of setting. I'm not what you would call an extrovert.
I keep intending on buying headphones or headset so I can run games online on roll20, since I want to play with others. Could always check that site out.
 

Souplex

Souplex Killsplosion Awesomegasm
Jul 29, 2008
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RedRockRun said:
I've never played D&D or any other PnP game before. I'd very much like to, but I have no friends and in no mood whatsoever to find groups. It seems as though most of those groups would be composed of people who have been friends for years, and it would be incredibly awkward entering that kind of setting. I'm not what you would call an extrovert.
1 google later...
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Friendly_Local_Game_Stores_(FLGS)_of_the_USA#toc24
 

TheFinish

Grand Admiral
May 17, 2010
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Pathfinder is my favorite, but I have an appreciation for all the different editions of DnD and what they tried to do, good and bad. 4th is the one I dislike the most, but even then I don't hate it. It just never jelled for me.

Chimpzy said:
Here's one for my fellow GMs.

Do you prefer running more narrative-driven campaigns or an open sandbox style?
This depends entirely on the system for me. If a system has a very front loaded character creation (like Traveller or Shadowrun), then making a true sandbox is much easier: the characters' power level will not fluctuate wildly, and thus populating a sandbox is easier because you don't have to give the extra thought of "Will my guys run into this when they're scrubs and get pasted?" all that much consideration.

Games where the players' abilities dramatically increase as they play (any d20 derivative, Dark Heresy, Earthdawn, to name a few) makes creating a sandbox more of a chore if you wish to create an engaging game. If you populate the sandbox a la what most videogames do (easy encounters nearby, harder ones further away), it can feel pretty...well, video-gamey. But if you don't do that, there's high chances of your players stumbling into something they cant deal with. And there ain' no quicksave in PnP games if you accidentally went into the cave of Morgoroth Citybreaker at level 1 when he's a challenge for level 10. Some players love that, some players hate it, it's up to you to know your group's preferences.

I personally like a bit of both. An overarching narrative that provides a start and an end goal, and then making things pretty open ended, letting the players decide how to tackle things and where to go.
 

Tsun Tzu

Feuer! Sperrfeuer! Los!
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Jul 19, 2010
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The closest I've ever come to experiencing DnD is through isometric RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale I & II, Pillars of Eternity, Neverwinter Nights, and Fallout.

...Not for lack of interest, but because I'm lonely and none of my friends, within reasonable driving distance, are down.

[small]So, so ronery. [/small]

Character heavy stuff like Pathfinder and White Wolf's World of Darkness have always been especially intriguing though.
 

Chimpzy_v1legacy

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Jun 21, 2009
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Marik2 said:
This is a good Saelune thread.
Indeed.

I'm surprised Basement Cat hasn't popped in yet. You'd think he'd be all over this.

Did someone lock the basement door again?
 

Jeteye

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I prefer 5e but I only learned how to play when 5e came out so pretty biased over here. Also moonbeam is a great spell. Enemies, friends, friends in the way of/next to enemies, doors doesn't matter. Its just fun to conjure a beam on moonlight from my sword that burns everything.
 
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Chimpzy said:
Here's one for my fellow GMs.

Do you prefer running more narrative-driven campaigns or an open sandbox style?
Depends on the game and the players. CP2020 I usually played a more sandbox style game. Seeing as it's basically our world with more cool toys, once people get used to the mechanics they can pretty much make their own fun and I can just add in my own creations when I feel like it.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay being more fantastical generally needs more of a plot to nudge people in the right direction, even if I do tend towards the more mundane human/urban based stories. You can dump people in downtown LA and they know what to do, downtown Marienburg is another matter (unless they are veterans of course). Wilderness adventuring is generally not a good idea.

Twilight 2000 was kind of a mix of the 2, while it is set in our world, it is distinctly more nuked than reality, so you have to do a lot more world building.


Overall I have fonder memories of Cyberpunk, but that's not necessarily to do with the type of campaign.
 

CM156_v1legacy

Revelation 9:6
Mar 23, 2011
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Marik2 said:
Wow this is actually a good thread in the wild west
Don't worry, I'll fix it soon enough.

Personally, I prefer 3.5 because that's the version I learned to play. It has just the right amount of customization for my taste. I'm partial to the lawful end of the alignment spectrum ("Lawful good", "lawful neutral") and enjoy playing with unexpected personalities. For example, a Lawful Netural Bard (even though that's not normally permitted) with a background as a diplomat. Or a literate barbarian with a high int stat who enjoys painting (with blood) and writing poems about his feelings.
Personally I like Forgotten Realms but that's the setting I was first introduced to.
 

Marik2

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Nov 10, 2009
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So these rules can be used for any other setting, correct? Because medieval European fantasies usually bore me to death.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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Marik2 said:
So these rules can be used for any other setting, correct? Because medieval European fantasies usually bore me to death.
Thats why I like DnD, cause I find it the most 'generic' in a good way that you could shape it into any setting.
 

kitsunefather

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Nov 29, 2010
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I voted 2nd edition, but I think 3.5/Pathfinder is just as good, depending on what you are going for with your game.

Both have a really good sense of balance and customization, wile still getting the job done with making the game playable.

In regards to 4th, my friend and I came to a consensus while talking to a local game shop owner in regards to it. He was adamant it was the best RPG system ever created, and made this argument from the position of "if you just don't think of it as D&D". This led my friend and I talking and I think this was the large problem: it isn't really D&D, except in name.

Honestly, it's more MMORPG the PnP game. That isn't necessarily BAD (I've recently been looking into the FFRPG PnP systems to run), but if the game is such a vast difference mechanically, it isn't really the same game to a lot of people.
 

Jei-chan

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Apr 18, 2011
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Chimpzy said:
Here's one for my fellow GMs.

Do you prefer running more narrative-driven campaigns or an open sandbox style?
I'm honestly only good at making sandboxes, which is why I mainly only run either Vampire or stationary campaigns in D&D, and somebody else does the story-driven ones. Our group always plays Sabbat campaigns in VtM so a nice sandbox full of targets and enemies is both fun and challenging. And I love encouraging the use of home-base protection type spells in D&D :3

As an author, I'm terrible at making story-based campaigns... and then having players do unexpected things. So the sandboxes work way better for me!
 

Kyrian007

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I had to vote 2nd edition. Its the one I played first, and specifically Ravenloft was the first game I was gm for. I've played original, 2, 3, 3.5, and 4. They all have their strengths. But I prefer several other systems. Palladium is good for heavy on the specific numbers games. There's a rule a stat and a roll for basically everything you want. But my favorite is Pinnacle's Deadlands Classic. Its just a great setting, different and interesting mechanics (playing cards as much as dice.) And the wacky and dark American west setting is just a personal favorite. Its Ravenloft's attempt at Gothic Earth + steampunk + the man with no name trilogy... I love it.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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Schadrach said:
The lack of this is something I dislike about 4e. The expressive space of the rules is much, much narrower than in 3.5 or Pathfinder. Or to put it another way, I could build more varieties of "Wizard" in Pathfinder that are all conceptually and mechanically distinct to one extent or another than you can in 4e.
I've never played 4e before, but I think that the spellcasting classes are actually pretty good for customization in 5e. Particularly the Wizard. I like 5e wizard better than 3.5, they do a lot more to distinguish based on the specialized school, and the Diviner specialization just looks interesting as hell.

Hell, I once built a 3e sorcerer who believed his powers were a divine gift because of his background (by chance the right song happened to be playing while I flipped through the right page of the Forgotten Realms books and I noticed the asterisk on Kossuth [fun fact -- the fire god Kossuth counts as being two different alignments in the Forgotten Realms because he himself is true neutral, but his temples are very rigid and hierarchical to the point of being functionally lawful neutral] and had the idea of an orphan taken in by the temple of Kossuth who was temperamentally unsuited for the temple and would become a sort of zealous reformist apostate), and was built to reach as close to cleric as possible while still being a sorcerer.

I also once played a weird shapeshifting build that if it had been forced into it's natural would have been just as surprised as you are as to what it might be -- it changed form so often for so long that the idea that you are *really* something specific underneath seemed "quaint." Used "it" as a pronoun because it also thought the concept of being tied to a specific gender was "quaint." Omnisexual, flirted with literally every living thing it could because it could be your "type", whatever your type might be so long as it wasn't size Colossal or Fine. Got (Ex) abilities, so could produce venom and the like, and made spare cash by selling exotic bodily fluids.
I get such a kick out of interesting character directions, particularly ones that turn a class on its head and try to massage it into something it's typically not. Rogue's on the face of it say that they support "Thug" archetypes, but I've never seen someone go all in on it, so one of my recent-ish characters was a Rogue with high strength and con, but no dexterity or ranks in hide. Took every ability I could that would help him fight dirty. Also managed to roll up a ranged paladin in Pathfinder which was pretty fun.

Right until this sentence I was going to reply to you and suggest you might like something FUDGE based, but apparently you already found FATE.

Another possible contender is Dungeon World, which is built off the same core mechanics as Apocalypse World. http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/
I really need to play more FATE. I've only done one game so far and it was great. I've heard of Dungeon World and Apocalypse World, but I don't actually know much about them. What's the idea behind it?
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Feb 4, 2009
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crimson5pheonix said:
Another question, if I may hijack this thread a bit, what is everyone's favorite D&D setting (or another RPG setting if you're feeling saucy)?

Personally I've always been a fan of Dark Sun because I like the idea of post-apocalyptic 'ard mode.
Planescape and Ravenloft. I really want to say Spelljammer as well, but I can't. As for favourite rpg setting in general, I'm kind of digging our Great War-era CoC game. Doesn't really have a setting per se, given our investigators have been to another nightmarish plane of existence, and we're literally growing old on ships. It had gotten so bad at one point, my character specifically notes down on her sheet that she has luggage merely for books and reference materials for all those ships we end up downtiming on.

It was pretty cool, howeer. One of our characters got into a pulp-ish fistfight with a hired assassin and got to roleplay almost a 'panning shot' as his character and cultist wannabe ended up taking the fight through the kitchens and into the dining section. It was a pretty wicked scene.

First time I ever saw a person explain in detail how he was going to blind his assailant with a pot of boiling water and stab him with a carving fork.
 

Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
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My next character as a player is going to be a Goliath Way of Tranquility Monk. While not going to be full pacifist, they are going to try to turn every single potential combat encounter into a "Lets all hug" encounter. The campaign of what I know is going to be the party are all followers of some God. My brother's character is going to be a 'Witch Hunter' type, and I expect much of the game will be our characters conflicting. I look forward to it.
 

the December King

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Marik2 said:
So these rules can be used for any other setting, correct? Because medieval European fantasies usually bore me to death.
Oh, hell yeah! Campaign settings like Oriental Adventures, Al Quadim (and more exotic ones like Dark Sun, Spelljammer and Planescape), and many supplements and addons gave stats for weapons, npcs, cultures and monsters from mythologies and time periods all over the world.
 

RedRockRun

sneaky sneaky
Jul 23, 2009
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Souplex said:
1 google later...
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Friendly_Local_Game_Stores_(FLGS)_of_the_USA#toc24
Maybe you didn't get the part where I said I'm not an extrovert? How about I give you my name, birth date, SSN, and driver's license? Is that enough info to find a nice, succinct rundown of my personality? Google that, smartass.

I did check the link out though.