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Author Topic: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs  (Read 2393 times)

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Offline NO1SY

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Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« on: June 24, 2020, 06:26:50 PM »


So I’ve been running DnD 5e campaigns for about a year and a half now (it’s where a lot of my creative writing efforts went for a long while), but I’ve been running into walls recently where the system just isn’t really keeping me engaged as a GM.

A key example of this is that combat (especially if I use grid-based battle maps) feels quite dry and very gamey, without much narrative flare or input from the players a lot of the time, as they often want to aim for the most optimal damage dealing options. Skill checks are also not very well mechanically fleshed out to facilitate a range of narrative outcomes, as they tend to operate In a quite binary pass/fail way.

I’ve been playing around with making my own Homebrew Sandbox world and I currently have a very messy list of modified rules to try and get DnD 5e to feel mechanically closer to the narrative experience I am aiming for. But I’ve also been scouting for other RPG systems that I can either pull from, adapt or use instead.

Recently I’ve been watching Jesse Cox’s
“Echoes of Eternity” Star Wars RPG campaign (which is worth watching for the sassy droid character alone!), and have been quite intrigued by Fantasy Flight’s Narrative Dice system - this system is also used for Genesys, Legend of the Five Rings and Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition.

I was wondering if anyone else knows of some other cool Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPG systems that I could check out? Or maybe just some mechanics that ended up working really well in your DnD games?

Cheers!
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Offline Suuper-san

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2020, 10:52:17 AM »
I have zero experience in that sort of thing, but from what I have seen by way of memes and the like, a lot of the enjoyment comes from the players interacting properly/sensible role playing, and that can vary a lot from group to group as to what the level of role playing you are doing. Without storytelling and story backdrop, it can be quite a boring game.

Quote
Skill checks are also not very well mechanically fleshed out to facilitate a range of narrative outcomes, as they tend to operate In a quite binary pass/fail way.
I think this might be the point to work on, making the results less binary, even in a pass/fail situation with just the narrative, you can convey different successful or fail results.

Maybe creating situations where perhaps dealing damage to an enemy is not the ideal situation, i.e. a puzzle style battle where if the character stand in certain positions there are different effects, or by completing mini side quests it deals damage indirectly (like sealing away the boss's power before attacking, stuff like that idk)

I dont know but that my best shot at varying up the game.
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Offline NO1SY

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2020, 12:59:47 PM »
Thanks for the suggestions Suuuper :)

I recently got my hands on another Fantasy Flight Games’ system called “Genesys”, and a set of its Narrative Dice. I’m trying to find a way to somewhat mimic that system in DnD, because, frankly, throwing more dice is fun!

I have realised the importance of making sure that dice role results in general are not binary pass/fail states though. However, I’m the kind of person that struggles coming up with results on the fly, so it’s a lot more work for me to predict and write for a bunch of outcomes. I have been playing around with “close calls” options for players also, so if they are only 1 or 2 off a successful roll, they bump the result up to a success if they choose to accept a penalty.

I have also started designing set-piece monster/villain fights a bit better, such that the enemy has distinct phases that it cycles through, with different move-sets in each. Each phase has its own initiative, which has interesting implications with action economy, reduces the bursts nature of 4vs1 party vs boss combat, and I think is slightly more engaging for the players overall.

I’m finding that I’m having to Homebrew a lot of side systems to be more engaging for players also. For instance, in one of my campaigns I have a weapon-smith, an alchemist, and a brewer (and a noble). With rules as written, the smith and the brewer have absolutely nothing to do with their background professions, and the alchemist can brew basic potions with the most boring dice roll possible. Luckily there is a great DM’s Guild Document I bought to provide a system for the smith. Then I wrote a simple yet fun brewing system for the brewer. Now I am trying to develop a monster parts harvesting system that is simpler and more universal than anything I can find online, as well as a parallel foraging system, so that the alchemist can actually have some guidelines on what they need to collect and combine to make the potions found in the books themselves.

It really is a balancing act between trying to get the system to do everything I want it to do for me and my players, whilst not going overboard and making it overly granular and clunky.

I swear... DnD has been more more than my Masters Degree was!

Offline Suuper-san

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2020, 01:22:34 PM »
DnD can change a lot depending on the players and their own creativity (such as solving problems in unexpected ways), and that can certainly be hard to come up with extra story telling on the fly. I think it makes for good practice in that regard I think.

From what I've heard with all the manuals and variations I can totally understand why it's so complicated :P
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Offline Coryn

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2020, 11:55:45 AM »
I've been learning the Cyberpunk 2020 rules recently, and it's a pretty simple system as long as you're only using the vanilla rule book. I'm a few sessions deep in it now, and so fart ulitlizing a few rules learned from watching a lot of DMs talking about the methods they use to keep things fun and interesting for the players it's been going well. I got two main takeaways:

1: Break the rules! There's nothing worse than a stickler. Let the player do something if it's cool enough, even if they shouldn't be able to. Add or subtract health from an enemy behind the scenes if the challenge level is off kilter. Throw in some mobs if the boss is dying too quick. Lie about your own dice rolls if it will advance the story. This might also help alleviate your player's min-maxing habits. Sure, mess them up if you're trying to get them killed, but maybe give them room to realize when they're on top so they don't feel a need to min-max. Basically: Don't let the rules of the game get in the way of a good time.


2. Be generic! When writing a quest, don't plan down to the nitty-gritty. If you do that you'll be thrown across the room every time the players diverge from the path. Try to have a well detailed beginning, but then get less specific. The beginning will give you the opportunity to get the hook in, and from there you can use the less flushed out details like generic building blocks. Right down a handful of possible encounters, write down who the bad guy is and what they want, figure out your mcguffin, flesh out any major NPCs but don't shoehorn them in if you don't have to. And finally: have a list of names on hand encase you need to quickly create a store clerk

Does this mean you get better at improvising? Sure, but if you plan things out to the last detail then you're going to have to improvise anyway. Let the players do the hard work of telling the story.


Hope that's all helpful!

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Offline NO1SY

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2020, 01:39:11 PM »
Ah I was meaning to ask how your sessions have been going!? I recently got my hands on a copy of Cyberpunk Red and want to see how that reads too.

1) I pretty much do all of these things to some extent (except fudging dice rolls). I have put a lot more emphasis on “The Rule of Cool” as my games have progressed, to the point of where if I like an idea enough I won’t even have the player roll for it in some cases. But I think Picasso said it best... “Learn the rules of the masters so that you can break them like an artist.” I think you can only break the rules to good effect if you are familiar enough with them and know the limitations of the game system.

2) I think this is where I struggle in general, as I don’t like to leave things for me to have to improvise. Also I think that more experienced players prefer less generic content. My main campaign I run is a Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign, and my players have really appreciated the effort I’ve put in to overhaul almost everything to feel more alive and connected. That involved creating balanced wilderness encounters that were relevant to the environment that the party was travelling through to replace the random, generic encounters in the book; reorganising the encounters in Thundertree to create an actual narrative for the town, including adding a secondary “boss” fight and making the encounters more engaging; creating loot that is relevant, interesting and that makes sense for where it can be found; developing systems for the player’s background professions; and creating personal encounters for each of the players based on their back-stories. The thing that stood out to me the most was that DnD is essentially a combat system, and the rest of the dice rolls for everything else are very generic and uninvolved, so they often get hand-waved. However, I think I am coming to understand that this might be intentional to make room for a lot of roleplaying - which then is only an issue when playing with inexperienced players and DMs who tend not to stay in character, dealing with interactions and obstacles with a dice roll instead of actually taking the time in character to work through them. Still, I like to have the systems fleshed out for the characters so that they don’t have to think about how things would work mechanically on the fly, so that they can focus on staying in character more.

Offline Coryn

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Re: Tabletop / Pen-and-Paper RPGs
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2020, 05:32:16 PM »
Well I don't think that improvisation = generic necessarily. Everything should be themed around the story you're trying to tell, and you can still create interesting settings and plots and encounters for your players. The difference is growing the skill of weaving all the pieces together in your head.

Like, not every merchant needs an elaborate and detailed back story. Maybe if you're building an elaborate campaign around a single town, sure, but if a character just happens to be in a random shop to buy arrows or whatever, it doesn't matter. Again, it's about having a pre-existing understanding of the world, so you can know what details are important, and which can be made up on the fly. You also have to reckon with your own abilities of course. We can all imagine, say, a tool shed and what might be contained therein. But maybe the house that toolshed belongs to could use some work if you expect the players to have a fight in it. Pick your battles basically.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't have a good understanding of the rules, but God knows games like DnD have a crapton of little things that don't necessarily add anything to the experience. It's like having house rules for any game.


Cool you got a hand on Red though! I know there's been a handful of changes to the rules from games of it I've watched (especially to netrunners). It would be neat to compare and contrast our games if you ever get around to running a campaign for it.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2020, 10:40:47 PM by Coryn »

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