PnP RPGs

[RansomList]

Ugh, reminding me about pickup games where people cant understand why they aren't rolling more dice and killing stuff and just get quieter and quieter as they realize they are in an actual roleplaying game. Which is fine i guess if the former is what they are used to...

Usually the same people for whom 'write a character up' means scribbling some stats and a name on a piece of paper then disengage brain until they get to say 'i roll attack/kick in the door/loot the corpse'.

Is it so hard to make an effort? Hell, you can even rip off books/films/games if you are devoid of imagination (lesser of two evils i guess), but treating a game like a series of disconnected consequence less combat encounters where you get roll roll dice and declare victory based purely on random chance? Not my beverage of choice. I'd rather play poker where i don't so much have to give up my time for the mutual entertainment of others.

I'm fine trying to engage people like that and show them a new way of thinking about the game, hopefully they find they are enjoying themselves. But why is it always the Roll players that try to derail games that don't give them the mindless hack and slash they want rather than the Roleplayers in analogous situations? Eh, rhetorical i guess

[Vinata]

No, they're worse than that. They can't even competently make characters. "Well I'm a striker, so I'll focus myself entirely around damage and not give a shit about accuracy." "Well bluff seems useful so I'll take feats that improve that over combat, even though we never roleplay." "Oh shit, I forgot that as a cleric I can heal people."

My favorite is when a defender decided not to enter a room with three enemies and a player character because it might be too dangerous for him.

[Mira Z]

"Well bluff seems useful so I'll take feats that improve that over combat, even though we never roleplay."

That sounds like someone who could be coaxed into roleplay. Personally I feel cheated if a session goes by and I don't get to run off at the mouth telling outrageous fibs.

[RansomList]

I'm of the mind that social skills and challenges are there so less erudite or linguistically capable people can play a character that has those qualities- or just a shortcut for lazy players. If you can hold a cogent argument or persuade someone a particular action is a good idea then you don't need to have a little piece of paper that's says you can. This doesn't mean that someone playing the thick as two short planks meatshield should come over all statesman like just because he can though.

[Mira Z]

I'm of the mind that social skills and challenges are there so less erudite or linguistically capable people can play a character that has those qualities- or just a shortcut for lazy players. If you can hold a cogent argument or persuade someone a particular action is a good idea then you don't need to have a little piece of paper that's says you can. This doesn't mean that someone playing the thick as two short planks meatshield should come over all statesman like just because he can though.

What I used to do when I was running WHFRP and Dark Heresy games was modify the difficulty of a roll for particularly good RP.

[RansomList]

Essence of Feng shui and the best thing about that game.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

It seems a lot of us are dissatisfied with their current roleplaying situations, so would anyone be interested in a kugu online roleplaying group? Maybe DH or RT, although I'd be happy with anything. I could GM if no-one else wants to, but I have no experience GMing so that might not end well. Even if it's just a one-shot of something that would be awesome. Thoughts?

[Mira Z]

It seems a lot of us are dissatisfied with their current roleplaying situations, so would anyone be interested in a kugu online roleplaying group? Maybe DH or RT, although I'd be happy with anything. I could GM if no-one else wants to, but I have no experience GMing so that might not end well. Even if it's just a one-shot of something that would be awesome. Thoughts?

To be honest, most of my gaming session tend to be more focused on sitting and chatting with my friends rather than the actual game itself.

I have to admit, I am curious as to the mechanics of how you would play an PnP RPG on a forum.

[xutech]

Dark heresy is awesome fun, because you're a bunch of (fairly) ignorant savages with muskets and las-pistols - I love Dan Abnett warhammer 40k.

I haven't read rogue trader yet, but I don't imagine its far from the tree.

[Hratli Smirks]

I wanna play a hobgoblin Warlord in a PbP game who considers himself the party leader because he is a Hobgoblin and they aren't Q.E.D.

[captainktainer]

Dark heresy is awesome fun, because you're a bunch of (fairly) ignorant savages with muskets and las-pistols - I love Dan Abnett warhammer 40k.

I haven't read rogue trader yet, but I don't imagine its far from the tree.

I didn't get the "ignorant savages" vibe out of Dark Heresy at all. Reading through the book, and then playing it, it was all about the Inquisitorium and politics. Fun for what it was, but to my mind the better place to go for savages and high adventure is Rogue Trader.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

From what I've seen it's usually done via IRC for communication and something like Gametable for the actual game-playing, but Play By Post is certainly feasible.

Rouge Trader is more focused on adventuring around the universe trying to make money (in that you have a spaceship and shittones of money) than trying to take out daemon-infested cults with a few lasguns and your wits, trying to stay alive and not go insane, but it's still awesome. I'm actually not a huge fan of Dan Abnett- Eisenhorn was good, but Gaunt's Ghosts reads more like Band of Brothers or something similiar with lasguns instead of Garands. I like my 40k to be more grimdark, personally as with Fifteen Hours

[Mira Z]

Both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader are pretty open ended in terms of the kind of adventure that can be ran with them. Back when I played the game, I bought the Purge the Unclean suplement for Dark Heresy which contained three very different adventures: An intrigue / investigative adventure, a straight up dungeon crawl and a survival horror.

In other words, it depends what kind of theme the GM & players want to run.

[RansomList]

DH can be turned to any setting and any style of game.

How i run online games:

I favor Play by post in a forum, with people using private tags in posts to the GM that contain the rolls they make and any OOC questions to the GM. I'd usually run a single thread per chapter/scene/location in the game where everything has to be in character and a thread parallel to that for OOC discussion about what going on in the IC thread.

This makes it much easier for people with limited time available and across timezones to play together, rather than doing things by IM or even TS/Skype.

I commit my self to a minimum of 1-2 replies to each character per week. This ensures the game never completely grinds to a halt and encourages people to make detailed and in character posts rather than one liners like 'i shoot the mutant commie traitor here is my roll what happens NOW?' where all the legwork is being done by the GM and as a consequence the game suffers burnout much as EVE FC's can.

I've been lucky enough to game with groups in this manner that almost don't need GM input, they all know the setting well, all know the rules and they actually generate their own content- i give playes free reign to take control of the plot by in character actions and handwaive what they assume would be the usual NPC response, within reason. This is pretty much gaming Nirvana for a GM/DM, it should be noted this only really happens when all your players are also competent GM/DM's!

[Vinata]

Someone write up a way for this to be done and I'll make it so.

I've been to a board where they used Skype and MapTools to play the games. The main problems with this are timezones and MapTools' random number generator is horribly broken and favors anything that isn't the player.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

We should be able to use online dice rollers, or even just random.org if Maptools is that bad.

[Mira Z]

MapTools' random number generator is horribly broken and favors anything that isn't the player.

The easy way round that is we all get to play as monsters...

[Vinata]

What happens (from my experience, but not taking into account confirmation bias) is that the dice rolls go well for the server player (DM) but poorly for any other player.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

What happens (from my experience, but not taking into account confirmation bias) is that the dice rolls go well for the server player (DM) but poorly for any other player.

Well that seems to happen anyways so v0v

edit: so assuming we either play by post or IRC, using maptools and possibly some random number generator if maptools is biased, what system do you guys want to play? I'm familiar with 3.5, have read the rulebooks for DH and RT, and know a little bit of UA, Nobilis, and Feng Shui. I'm new to roleplaying in general, so I probably shouldn't GM, but I can if no-one else wants to.

[xutech]

Dice are the tools of the heretic. I place my faith in the Emperor.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

Dice are the tools of the heretic. I place my faith in the Emperor.

Your False Emperor is naught but a rotting corpse, his flesh sloughing away as he tries to hold back the darkness. We shall triumph in the end. All shall fall to Chaos!

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!

SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

[RansomList]

Actually, its more likely he is now some funky Gestalt conscious of humanity soon to become an extra Chaos God. If the idea if humanitys collective consciousness acting as a single entity with godlike power doesn't sound scary you dont 'Get' the 40K setting.

I am also far too busy to run a game until about match next year, otherwise I'd be trying to rope people into one.

[Mira Z]

Actually, its more likely he is now some funky Gestalt conscious of humanity soon to become an extra Chaos God. If the idea if humanitys collective consciousness acting as a single entity with godlike power doesn't sound scary you dont 'Get' the 40K setting.

You may say that, but in reality, it was all planned out by Tzeentch years ago.

Possibly at a BBQ...

[Internet Spaceship Man]

You may say that, but in reality, it was all planned out by Tzeentch years ago.

Possibly at a BBQ...

OH DEAR GOD MOLLE IS TZEENTCH THE IT FAILCASCADE IS JUST PART OF HIS PLAN OH GOD EVERYBODY RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN

[RansomList]

no

[xutech]

[Internet Spaceship Man]

Hasn't happened to me yet, fortunately. I am but a young amoeba, however, so doubtless it shall.

edit: so if we were to get a Play by post game going up on these here fine forums, who would be interested?

[Mira Z]

Still my favourite...

For the record, my worst GMing experience was dealing with a powergamer who insisted that his WFRP Duelist absolutely had to have an axe. A best quality axe. Apparently the games description of Duelists as "specialists in the lethal application of sword and pistol" was not a valid reason for denying him.

So yeah, I totally empathise with Tycho.

[RansomList]

I'd have given him the axe.

But really, powergamers tend to get brutalized by me, unless everyone else is a power gamer or they happen to be that rare individual that doesn't do it in a disruptive manner and actually roleplays the character as opposed to seeing how many dice he can generate.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

Fortunately, that's most of the players in my group. I've seen some ludicrous builds that somehow ended up being interesting characters. Nothing too munchkiny though, which is nice. There's actually going to be a one-shot in a couple of days where everyone's making ludicrous characters (so far we have a woodling evoker with energy substitution fire (me), a reduced halfling mounted warrior, a warforged charger rogue, and a cleric of Microsoft. Should be fun. The scary part is I have no doubt that all those characters except mine will probably rape.

[Mira Z]

Knowing the accusations of emo-whinyness that gets thrown in the direction of Vampire: The Whatever around here, I was disturbed to find a World of Darkness game that's set up to be even more prone to it - Promethean: The Created.

Players get to be monsters based on a variety of mythological / literary sources such as Frankenstein, Galatea, the Golem etc. The game rules are actually set up to make pretty much every normal human npc hate you. Moody introspection seems an inevitable consequence.

On the plus side, one of the powers lets you turn into inanimate objects like chairs...

[Internet Spaceship Man]

From what I've heard of WoD (never played it personally) it can be awesome if you have good players and a good GM. Otherwise it descends into emo-whinyness and Mary-Sue-ness and what have you.

[Mira Z]

I suppose its a question of how good a storyteller the GM is. The problem with Promethean, as far as I can see, is that I can't imagine it playing out as anything other than something like the 1970s Incredible Hulk television series.

[RansomList]

White wolf products appeal to the worst people. The worst!

:P

[Mira Z]

White wolf products appeal to the worst people. The worst!

:P

I suppose that's why CCP bought them up...

[Internet Spaceship Man]

White wolf products appeal to the worst people. The worst!

:P

/tg/ has some fucking amazing stories concerning the 'typical' white wolf player.

[RansomList]

While its a superb sub board, i haven't visited for a long long time. I like apples but I'm not prepared to go apple bobbing in a piranha tank.

[Internet Spaceship Man]

While its a superb sub board, i haven't visited for a long long time. I like apples but I'm not prepared to go apple bobbing in a piranha tank.

It's a lot cleaner than it used to be and the fa/tg/uys tend to be pretty friendly, on the whole. It's not like dipping your toes into /b/ or /d/, or even /v/ or /k/.

[RansomList]

It suffers by association and proximity and frankly with the 'invasions' and bot spam that were going on a year + ago and frankly kids that dont know jack power tripping on the illusion of anonymity the place was too much of a liability.

[RansomList]

If i ran a PBEM (Play By Email; well, play by post actually, you'd be posting on a forum or message board) game of Dark Heresy (DH) either in a subforum here (which would have to be an enforced no-troll-zone or read-only to everyone without access :P ) or at one of the numerous sites setup for this purpose that I’ve used in the past (which have built in dice rollers and inbuilt PM in post systems and are largely superior), would anyone be interested?

More in depth nerd stuff below:


(this post is subject to change)

How?:


You don’t have to have any experience with a PnP ('pen and paper') RPG and I’ll give you all the help I can, but you do need to be willing to make an effort on your part. Equally, if you've taken part in something similar before, that’s great. Please have patience with anyone that hasn’t and try and have at least some inkling of the setting the game is in and the schticks that define it. If you are a huge warhammer nerd, try not to let that color your expectations because DH isn’t the same as the tabletop or the books, the universe is a big place and please don’t act with or on knowledge your character would have.


I will expect you to make at least an attempt to understand the basics of the rules, it makes things easier for all concerned. I cant provide you with the rules and I am going to assume you magically already have them or that you legally obtain them. If you want to discuss where you can get .pdf's you don’t have to pay for take it to PM's as I dont want to encourage/be seen to encourage you ripping off this product. You can get legal, watermarked PDF's from DrivethruRPG.com now and they are v. high quality.


When you post in character, please don’t just say 'I do X'. Tell us all why you do X, what you hope to achieve and what reasoning has led you to that course of action. Tell us what your character is thinking about what he is doing and where he is, is he frightened, jealous, angry and why?


I haven’t decided how to handle dice rolls yet, we will have a chat about this- each person could pre-roll a few hundred dice, mail me the results and simply cross a roll off the list every time they need to make a roll but this encourages people to meta game (you know the next roll is a bad one so you do something inconsequential that needs a dice roll). Or you can just generate rolls as and when they are needed and include them in posts in spoiler tags.


In general, if you think something will require a dice roll, state what you want to do and how you will try and do it. I will decide if you can do it (and tell you if your character knows they cant/it will be very hard to achieve), how difficult it is and ask to to roll for it. I'll tell you if you are successful or not, what happens as a consequence and what your characters opinion might be along the lines of 'that was a fluke', 'that was easy' etc...


I like to give people a lot of free reign to alter the environment they are in without necessarily needing my input so if its not drastically game altering just describe what you are doing/ trying to do in detail. Equally, you don’t have to role-play every single moment and action in the present tense. For example, your character wants to hit up local drinking holes for information about a known criminal. In this situation I wont make you 'talk' to a dozen individuals that tell you absolutely nothing of interest, but I might make you roll the 'Inquiry' skill to determine how much you could potentially discover, how long it takes you, what unwanted attention it gets you and so on- which may lead you to a scene you will need to interact more with. I generally wont ask you to make skill tests etc... to do or remember trivial things, often if you know something, you just know it.


I like to keep a single stickied thread when I run these games that has up to date info on where everyone is in game at any given point in time, what they are doing and where everyone is relative to everyone else in a given time frame; i.e. you might spend 5 hrs convincing an arms dealer to supply your group of acolytes with something less than legal, meanwhile everyone else might be asleep for 3 hours then playing cards with the locals and fishing for intel for two more and the groups Psyker might be staring at a wall muttering gibberish and uncontactable for the next 8 hours. From this you may gather I have no problems with you splitting the group of you up to do different things at different or the same times, but please be considerate that if you are doing something that is going to greatly impact on the gametime of others or have put yourself in a situation where I have to deal with what others are doing in game first, that you aren't the only person whose priorities and enjoyment I have to consider.


I can readily cope with 4 people, 5 if everyone knows the system well, gets the hang of things and the burden on me is lessened. I'm not going to bust your ass to post, the game progresses as slowly as it needs to and if we ever hit a situation where we are waiting on one persons decisions that’s your opportunity to create masterpieces of in character posting- the only person that needs is you and a passive but appreciative audience. The best games i ever played in were almost autonomous about half the time, with people generating thier own content because they really got inside the minds of the characters.


Setting and general stuff to bear in mind:


Standard DH in the stock Calixis sector. The exact time the game takes place in is malleable, so people don’t have to worry about the timeline and can get involved in specific events and historical events if wanted; warp travel is unpredictable after-all, you never can know for sure when you arrive at your destination, be it late or even before you left.


You are Acolytes of the Inquisition and therefore ultimately expendable- but also valued, distinct from the billions of scrubs living out meaningless lives in the Galaxy changing nothing and leaving nothing behind them.


Investigative abilities and actual role-playing are as important as killing stuff. I despise railroading people (forcing them down some pre-defined path so they don’t disrupt my beloved plot) and you can totally change the outcome of whatever problems are presented to you or that you dig up yourselves- you are the ones driving the plot forwards. A wonderful as that is, it also poses other problems- you aren’t going to be spoonfed and you will need to think.


In DH if you do something stupid you aren’t shielded form the consequences. It is very, very easy to die- as a rule of thumb, if YOU think its risky it probably is although your character may or may not have the skills to do it (and may or may not think he does). DH is not D&D. The combat system is lethal; guns kill people and you are not a bullet sponge, a one man army or 'special'. At least not yet.


Read up on what Fate Points are. In addition to what’s in the rules, by 'burning' a fate point I will let you have a certain degree of creative control over events happening not directly involving your character. For example, the Evil Dude is about to activate his doomsday device. You burn a fatepoint and the rusted archaic big lever of doom gets stuck and Evil Dude spends precious moments banging on it as it lowers inch by inch. Or maybe he has your fellow Acolyte hostage and 'for some reason' his gun jams, or a beggar stumbles out of an alley behind him distracting him for a crucial split second. These moments must always enhance the game in some way, they must always be dramatic and they must always make sense. That means no freak lightning strikes frying Evil Dude from a clear sky, no recanting of his sins and sudden unexplainable suicide and in general no such blunt abuses of this influence on events.


The game will start with you all receiving your first assignment together. For the last month or so following your initial abrupt introduction to the Inquisition you have been largely wasting time waiting for your orders, that is when not given. You wont have worked together before on an enterprise like this, some of you may never have been involved in anything like this in your lives and have been plucked from what was your previous life for some unknown qualities or abilities or potential. It will be up to all of you how much others know about you and you of them and how you interact and what relationships and group dynamics exist.


Characters:


No Adeptus Sororitas.


You can freely use the core book and the Inquisitors Handbook, you can use selected things from the Radicals Handbook with approval and might convince me to let you have stuff from other DH books.
You will either start at 800xp or 1500xp (we will have a chat about this), starting thrones being the normal amount at character creation (assume you roll the max possible) and you will have one months income per 400xp you have (so two months income at 800xp, 3 months income at 1500xp; you can find the different incomes for each class on page 124 of the core rulebook.)


When writing your character, sit down and decide what you want the character to be like and how best to represent that in the rules, with regard to the individuals past life and present skills. I think this is preferable by far than deciding you want to play class 'X' because it blows shit up real good.


I want to know what motivates your character, likes and dislikes, existing rivalry’s and hatreds. Tell me who they care about, who cares about them and what their plans for the future are.


Basically don’t just churn out generic beatstick number 7 that identical to the last 6 with as much character as wallpaper paste. Munchkinism isn’t a dirty word as long as there is method behind the madness and its justifiable with regards to the characters background.


Elite advances are fine, but need to be approved and will cost you more XP the more outlandish they are. Background packages do not count towards your rank advancement, characteristic advances and elite advances do.


Regards belongings and gear, you have what your class starts with and as far as buying other stuff you may obtain things of scarce availability or below as you like. Anything rare or best quality needs a justification as to why your character would have it.


You may pick one item/thing/weapon you get for free. It MUST be relevant to the character and character background. i.e. you might have been a coms/radio/crypto officer in your local PDF (planetary defence force) and you still have your radio gear which is quite rare in the open market. If you decide you have a suit of power armor left to you by your dying grandfather after Goblins attacked his village and you set-off on a quest to reclaim the triforce of something equally retarded and contrived just so you can get something powerful something truly horrible will happen. Best quality mono edged dynasty sword of your noble line (or the stolen blade from someone elses) is acceptable, but these things should have great meaning to the character and their loss or destruction should be a major upset- or the possession of them might have major consequences in and of itself.


If the whole character creation thing has you totally perplexed I can write one for you according to you specifications, then explain it to you.

[xutech]

shit yeah I would be interested

But I prefer a bit more roleplay and a bit less roll play.

I used to run and play dark heresy but I would refer to the grognards for the more rules crunchy stuff or just on the fly it.

FOR THE EMPEROR

[Vinata]

I will assist you via making a subforum and stickying threads, but I'm afraid I'm not up for playing.

[Night]

I would play this.

(Though I have to ask why no Sororitas, especially after all the work that went into them and related stuff in Blood of Martyrs.)

EDIT: I also think you might get better results out of this crowd with Deathwatch, but that might be the fact I'm already playing in a Deathwatch game talking.

[RansomList]

If there are four people interested (I'll give the thread till later in the week and you are welcome to poke people you think might have an interest if they knew) we will have a chat about how we would all like things to go forwards, together. This is not to say we cant hammer something out beforehand though.

I dont have access to Deathwatch and frankly dont like it at all it nor the kind of games it fosters. Thats something for PM's if you want to know why in detail.

No Sororitas: Because people play them like demi-spacemarines, the class is IMBA (Yes, really) and if you want to play a female warrior of faith you can do so with any class without recourse to magical faith powers. One of my biggest beefs with them is people use the class as a shortcut and it encourages bland one dimensional characters: 'because i am a sororitas i am holy and so is everything i do' and dont actually roleplay a character with faith and convictions because they have that label slapped on them. It also creates issues where you have the kind of interparty conflict that brings a game to a grinding halt. If the righteous, 'i know we do right because god tells me so' kind of character appeals to you why does it HAVE to be a sororitas? They dont have a monopoly on religious nutjobs: Schola Progenum, Clerics, Guardsmen from a shrine world regiment where officers are ordained, Arbitrators from Temple guard of a religious court, Scum that were tax collectors on a feudal world ruled by a global theocracy etc...

I will assist you via making a subforum and stickying threads, but I'm afraid I'm not up for playing.

Cheers. It may be easier to host the game elsewhere with an integrated dice roller and a better in-post private message system though. I'll see what others think and go with the consensus, if i get 4 people interested in the game.

[Mulla Nasrudin]

I'd love to play a game of paranoia over Skype or Mumble is someone is game for it and has experienced being a GM. We could also play over IRC.

[Philippe]

I'm feeling really old now. Anyone still remembers this?

[spoiler=large pic]

[/spoiler]

Spent countless evenings GM'ing on that one alone. Also, AD&D first edition coupled with a bit of custom and 2nd edition rules was the best stuff. Sill have nearly all the hardcover 1st & 2nd edition books and the Greyhawk campaign setting which got replaced by Forgotten Realms in the 2nd edition.

Besides that, Traveller, Cyberpunk and Paranoia (for the relly drunk/stoned fun sessions). Allways hated the Shadowrun experience - I think high tech cybernetic superhumans did not mix well with orcs and elves and magic - and favoured Cyberpunk. Also tried/played a bit of Midgard (a german one, I doubt there was a translation around) and MERP.

Good times. Way too less time for this nowadays.

[xutech]

pnp subsection made

[Sansa Comfrey]

Without reading the essay i'd simply say that the class system is utterly homogenous. Bar changing names and descriptions powers/abilities/feats all looking completely interchangeable.

'Great! now i can use this new attack....which just happens to be a carboncopy of the one my buddy has with a name change and one thing tacked on. Huh, kinda boring...'

Very true and I think you can blame mmos for this sort of "streamlining" (and WoW especially). Somewhere in the last ten years it has suddenly become urgent for everyone to be equal in rpgs in as many situations as possible and that it is "a bad thing" if one character can do something better than another in a certain situation. They call this "balance" without really understanding the damage it causes.

The developers don't realize that the devil is in the details in mmorpgs. Would eve be as fun if hybrids, lasers, and projectiles were all identical systems? Of course not. You want them stronger in different situations. As long as you avoid a class, ability, mechanic, whatever, having no place at all to shine, you're fine.

4e fell victim to this situation. 3.5, prestige class munch and all, for life. (not that I play anymore, alas, my old group has scattered to the four winds across western Canada)