TTRPGs & D&D

Recommendation for if you're looking for the old-school D&D vibes - it's not my preference, but Shadowdark is RIDICULOUSLY easy to pick up. It's a bit rules light so the GM is going to need to be quick on their feet, but it strips down modern D&D to a very breezy format.
 
Fletch said:
There's a first.
Click to expand...


It's funny, cause I'm much more a narrative gamer, and i know so many indie designers, and almost all like-minded friends all say the same thing about 4e, it's the game that story gamers love, because it's the game that knew it was a game
 
I also recommend Shadowdark or Dungeon Crawl Classics if you're looking for genuine peril. I've had many a DCC character die already.
 
I had to drop a long form game because of other peoples scheduling and my school, and a year and a half later I got the call to replace someone else.

This is the campaign where I have my Indiana Jones Chronomancer tiefling babe, but it was floated they might like a Cleric.

Lorewise and workload for the DM, just picking up Chase made sense. She's been sidelined as an NPC to a queen dragon advisor, and she'd be itchy to get back to punching fascists and culturally reappropriating things for her wizard conclave. Like by class she's a wizard, but I play her like a Rogue/barbarian the way she just face dives into anything forgetting about spells.

"But a 2024 Life cleric would be super helpful," said the rogue, echoed by the Fighter and Monk.

"Let them eat goodberries," said I.
 
I almost NEVER split battles between sessions, I try to plan fights so that they end in a single sitting, but my Weds. group last night ambushed a caravan carrying the son of their echo knight fighter, a disgraced dhampir noble. They need to find out if his son is redeemable or fully indoctrinated by his enemies. Mid-fight I had the "son" jump into battle and one of the wizards 'killed' him, revealing he's an echo knight like his father (we flavor echos as "alternate timelines when you didn't survive" so the fighter got to watch his only sone look him in the eyes as his friend incinerated him). Timing worked out perfectly that the real son was able to pop out of his carriage, split his echo from himself, and have a sword leveled at both his father and his father's best friend. Which one of us is real, dad? And do you have it in you to cross swords with your own child? Love a good cliffhanger, hate having to take photos of my own map to re-build it in a week because there's no way the cats don't eat my minis between now and then.

The story in this particular campaign is on fire. The chronomancer is having an existential crisis because she thinks she might actually be an echo of the original version of herself. The other wizard made a pact with a blood symbiote who wants to infect the city's vampire population and she just keeps bumblefucking into making him more powerful. And the married halfings don't know it yet, but their daughter is the living phylactery for the city's resident dracolich and someone's going to have to die to kill the creature...
 
altcunningham said:
I had to drop a long form game because of other peoples scheduling and my school, and a year and a half later I got the call to replace someone else.

This is the campaign where I have my Indiana Jones Chronomancer tiefling babe, but it was floated they might like a Cleric.

Lorewise and workload for the DM, just picking up Chase made sense. She's been sidelined as an NPC to a queen dragon advisor, and she'd be itchy to get back to punching fascists and culturally reappropriating things for her wizard conclave. Like by class she's a wizard, but I play her like a Rogue/barbarian the way she just face dives into anything forgetting about spells.

"But a 2024 Life cleric would be super helpful," said the rogue, echoed by the Fighter and Monk.

"Let them eat goodberries," said I.
Click to expand...
They need healing? Sounds like a skill issue ;)
 
altcunningham said:
I'm a Chronurgist with silvery barbs. Am I not generous.
Click to expand...
I actually paused last night after I rolled a Nat 20 for one of the monsters for someone to take it away from me with chronal shift or silvery barbs. I have been bullied into assuming I'll never crit again. (I hated silvery barbs til I started giving it to enemy spellcasters.)
 
My read on Barbs is that it's an actual Barbed insult, right? It makes sense that it comes from a school expansion so it would be like dropping a yo mama in a spell battle that would just leave people shaken.

So to that regard I always throw some sort of insult with it, usually something from my Southern relatives. That way at least I have to put some sort of witticism and it's not just going "Mulligan".

But I understand from my time playing a bard and dming bards that asking people to improv a real vicious mockery is asking a bit from some.
 
The rules don't require it but that's my read on it too since it comes from the "bard" themed school in the Strixhaven book. But you know a spell is a bit... much when you've got every player in every campaign using a book from the Magic: the Gathering themed Hogwarts book. I think the game is more fun when people can flavor things like barbs or vicious mockery, but it's definitely not a requirement (esp. for quiet players). I thought it was hilarious though that there's enough ways to undo a crit that I literally just waited for someone to take it away from me last night.
 
Rough toke for you, but always a feel good moment for the table as a whole.

I love it on my Chrono character because it's all flavoured as her just rewinding time itself
 
altcunningham said:
Rough toke for you, but always a feel good moment for the table as a whole.

I love it on my Chrono character because it's all flavoured as her just rewinding time itself
Click to expand...
We flavor time magic as watching branching timelines die in front of you. "there's a moment that almost happened."

I think stealing my crits is hilarious, honestly. Just means when I do something like used a monster that would invert healing spells and make them do damage to another character instead I got to laugh like an evil maniac and not feel bad about it.
 
The group I did that to was hilarious because somehow like, five out of six players could at least cast healing word so they never went without healing, so around level 10 I threw that heal-reversing monster at them and they collectively shit their armor. It was a thing of beauty.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top