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I would, but sync'ing up schedules across the pond is...problematic. It's hard enough to do with two of my friends who moved out to Denver and LA.

I also love it whenever this thread gets bumped because it reminds me of other board game stuff I bought. One in particular is the Marvel Villainous game that's a spinoff of Disney Villainous. Anyone ever played either? I bought it without reading any reviews of it thinking it would be a fun "To Everyone, From Santa" gift. I'm just hoping it's not too complicated to setup.

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OK. Here's what I'm doing:

Die Hard D&D. The players (I've asked for Chaotics and Evils) are getting hired by a Dragon('s Kobold underlings) called Hagruba to steal the contents of the Vault beneath Itomakan Keep. Only there's this one almost unkillable NPC called Johan Maklen who's trying to stop them (he's either going to be a Paladin, or an Assassin Rogue. Haven't decided). So I have to come up with Seven locking puzzles that they have to get through, and establish that they have to get the hostages to the roof so the Dragon can come and burn the tower down, once they've cleaned the vault out.

Also, I'm anticipating them turning on each other for a higher split of the proceeds, because they're all evil and don't trust each other.

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On 12/20/2020 at 6:40 PM, Craig H said:

I also love it whenever this thread gets bumped because it reminds me of other board game stuff I bought. One in particular is the Marvel Villainous game that's a spinoff of Disney Villainous. Anyone ever played either? I bought it without reading any reviews of it thinking it would be a fun "To Everyone, From Santa" gift. I'm just hoping it's not too complicated to setup.

I love the Disney Villainous games, but despise the Marvel version as it centralized the fate deck and eliminates the fate marker so everyone can gang up on whoever is doing well and that extends the game to ridiculously long lengths and adds a lot of wonkiness and rule contradictions.  We had to house rule a fate marker back into the game to actually finish one and stop the leading player from getting up and walking out.  (Yes, it was me)   Setup isn't too complicated but each character has totally different mechanics so it can take a couple games to really understand everyone's powers.  

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I was DMing for 9 hours yesterday. I scheduled two sessions, and the one I thought would take 2 hours, took 3. And the one I thought would be 4-5 hours took 6.

Epic PVP near TPK. Seven entered, two survived.

Best quote was this:

  • "OK, that's the last Villagers dead. You have successfully killed the entire adult population of the fishing village"
  • "Wait, ADULT population? PULL THIS BOAT OVER RIGHT NOW!"
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  • 4 weeks later...

In today's D&D session, they had to go and retrieve (and neutralise) a cursed magical item that autocasts Animate Dead every 60 seconds. Only it was on the ocean floor, so they had to dive down and get it. And one the way back, they were attacked by a 

Spoiler

Zombie Shark do do dodododo, Zombie Shark do do dodododo, Zombie Shark do do dodododo, Zombie Shark.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

So my campaign, it's going great (with the exception of having had quite a bit of player churn - started with four players, now have five, but two of the original four left, one new player ghosted us, and three more had scheduling issues). But there's one player who is totally disengaged with what is happening. Only pays attention on his turn, and forgets everything he's already done. Like casting a concentration spell that allows you to repeat damage, and then a round later casting another one. Or he's holding a door closed to prevent the enemies on the other side coming out until the backup gets there, and then the next round saying he attacks the nearest guy (when everyone near him is friendly).

So last night, he's been ambushed by the BBEG. Nearly killed. One HP, and that's thanks to being a Half-Orc and having the hard to kill racial trait thingy. The BBEG has jumped off the city wall and is escaping on an invisible flying creature. And Mr doesn't pay attention is next in the intiativ order. What does he do, cast Eldritch Blast? Cast Witch Bolt? Nope.

He casts Misty Step and joins the BBEG on the invisible steed and makes a melee attack. The steed flies away at top speed, so the rest of the party are throwing Javelins at super long range and missing. But he's in Melee range with the Boss Villain, on ONE hit point, and nobody is in position to help or heal him.

And today, he's upset that his character died. Why? He put himself in a position where death was next door to inevitable.

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...That's a choice.

My 5e games have killed several players, and it's usually been pretty upsetting. Usually somewhere around 4th-5th level, so just long enough to fall in love and break some hearts.  No one has ever told me it wasn't fair.

Though I do make it clear all the time that I don't necessarily run "balanced" encounters. You can stumble into an ancient dragon lair at Level 3, so recognize when it's time to cut and run.

Misty Stepping onto the Flying Creature's back to finish the Big Bad sounds dope as fuck. Like I would probably try that shit if I were a player, but I'm not about to get mad about dying. High Risk High Reward.

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Bear in mind, he'd just taken a 30 point hit, and I'd said "He seems more upset than hurt", which should have been a clue that he was doing a tactical retreat, not running for his life. The idea of being the hero and finishing him off was bloody outlandish, in the circumstances.

The other thing, right, Our Barbarian is called Gar Mawr. The BBEG is called Varg the Bastard, and is the son of Garvack the Ruthless. The guy who's character died makes a new one, makes him a Satyr (without asking if that's appropriate; It isn't. And everyone else in the campaign knows it isn't, because they read the World History I wrote) and names him Ghar. And when we say that's too close to Gar, it would be confusing and nobody would know who I was talking to, he changes it. To Gharv. Gharv the Half Elf.

Elves we have met so far have had these names: Stilleric, Sithilla, Trixiana, Susuma, Xintillix, Nixianna, Trintiada, Celestine. Not too hard to come up with a name that fits the pattern. But no, lets have a Half Elf with an Orcish name, why not?

Also, everyone else stayed in voice chat after the session was over, and so when we told him to roll stats on DnD Beyond and screenshot, we all saw what he had bookmarked. So we suggested his  new character should have been called Chattur Bateman, or Mife Reeckams.

Edited by AxB
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You guys with your cute parties of 4 or 5 people. My Wednesday D&D game continues to grow. Our party is at 8 or 9 people. Combat takes FOREVER. It's just too many people. We also started a new campaign in Ravnica and rolled new characters. Since there's too many of us, I did the smart thing and adopted an Orange Cassidy-like persona where I don't say or do much and just watch Dynamite on my other monitor. I never get a word in anyway until it's time for combat.

Our party is as big as it is because no one wants to say no to anyone and the couple friends of ours that have been DMs keep asking others to join. And then they wonder why we basically slaughter every single group of enemies we face. So anyway, or D&D game has just turned into what is essentially a Zoom hangout for all of us where a few people talk and the other 6 of us wind up sitting silent.

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I did an eight player one shot, but that was evil characters and I'd planned for it to devolve into PvP. Which it did. When my party was 6 people, some of them were feeling uninvolved and talked over, I can't imagine what it would be like with more.

If my problem player shows back up with a new character doing a Guy Pearce in Memento gimmick, that would actually fit his play style. 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Yeah it’s been around for a bit and has a sequel or re-release or whatnot that was on KS maybe two years ago?

I haven’t played it personally but there are a few recorded sessions you can watch where streamers played it.

I think the consensus is that it is a solid RPG although more an alternative than a main game for groups...

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  • 3 weeks later...

I used to play 4th (?) edition heavily about 10+ years back with some buddies from work. We'd use my heroclix , 40k and mage knight minis since the DM wasn't really a minis guy and the crew liked swapping out their PC mini week to week, so it was plenty fun and we had a great run

FF to some years back when I moved to the sticks where we have jack and shit for gaming opportunities. I can try to drive into Austin or Georgetown but with the fucking traffic ? I really fucking hate it, to keep it simple 

So catching up to the present, I find the critical role campaigns, rarities and relics episodes YouTube ❤ And suddenly I don't MISS having a weekly game since I can pop on an episode or two and I'm golden ?

Getting to the point of this, can you please give me some recommendations on which rpg podcasts are going to be the top ones out there?

It can be D&D, pathfinder, anything with World of Darkness or Warhammer, or just something with tons of easily accessible content. In the early 00s I played some VtM, WH40K, the d&d game, then warmahordes. Tried a bunch for kicks and had a BLAST

I ? absolutely love the DM'S and storytellers who can do tons of voices, but I don't mind if the GM doesn't have the vocal range. I just can't listen to someone with a monotonous voice who drones on and on in a dead flat voice.

Hopefully it's something where I can download episodes to my flash drive since I can't really stream anything in the boonies ? so I'd download shit after work, audio or what have you, to listen to or watch when I get home 

So if you've got favorites please list or link them ? I've gotten great recommendations for comics and tpbs in the other thread, a great audio editor recommended in the other one,and I hope with this i can fill in the next piece of the puzzle for good old entertainment ?? please 

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I enjoyed the first campaign of the Adventure Zone until the last stretch where the DM got very, very greedy imo. Still a good listen and helped me better understand running a game.

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I wouldn't say it's "top" but I really liked Pretend Friends season 2. You lose some of the in-jokes by not listening to S1 but it's a different DM and a fantasy instead of space setting, and it's just a lot stronger.

TAZ is fine, but over the long run, Travis drags things down pretty constantly and Clint never brings a ton to the table (except for as Ned in Amnesty). Justin almost constantly has good, interesting ideas and Griffin is okay as a storyteller. I do agree that the Forgotten Century bit in S1 really didn't work narratively.

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Glass Cannon has a very funny crew. They primarily do Pathfinder and Starfinder, which honestly can get really number crunchy. I listen to them just to hear them shit talk each other. The game is kind of secondary. They have been putting out some new shows with different systems that have been great. One was a three episode Star Trek game, and another was Call of Cthulhu. Both really fun.

I just got into Stream of Blood which has a good Vampire The Masquerade game set in Pittsburgh, I don't know if they're in podcast form, but you might be able to find them. that GM is a comedian named Jared Logan and he's one of the better GMs I've seen streaming.

The best part about both of those streams is that they keep their sessions tight- between 1-2hrs, and try to keep shit moving. I used to listen to Critical Roll, but 4-5 hour games is a lot to get through.

If you can find any game Deborah Ann Woll(she was on True Blood and Daredevil) has DM'd she's also really good.

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I always like it when this thread gets bumped. My friends have been getting more and more into Critical Roll, so it's cool to see some alternatives out there. I'll also have to check out the stuff Debra Ann Woll has done. It sucks she doesn't get more work, but part of me wonders if that may be an age thing. However, if she's doing her own thing on YouTube, then more power too her.

BTW, for you DMs, how do you guys plan out your sessions? My group, which is still way too fucking huge, runs into what feels like endless roleplaying sessions or days where some people act fully in character, others are in character maybe half the time, some are in character but don't bother using a different voice or anything so it feels like our friend Scott just saying what his character would do, some never act in character (they just talk as they normally would and behave as we've known them for decades now), and a couple just fall asleep. The roleplaying stuff also winds up being incredibly boring. We're talking 3 or 4 hours of it and it's hard to stay engaged for that long. How do you guys break up the monotony?

And then when it comes to combat, combat is still way too easy. Our old campaign ended before the holidays and we started a new campaign with another friend in our group taking over as DM, but we decided to test the waters of Ravnica. So there's still 8 of us or so in combat and we wipe the floor with whatever is there. I'm also playing a Rogue, which, when it comes to combat, feels very unfair for the amount of damage I'm allowed to do. Our DM has said he's tried scaling up the level of creatures, but it never matters. We're basically never in any danger and when you're never in danger, combat winds up feeling boring. Part of me wonders if each our friends who has been our DMs are just too nice and worry that if someone gets killed then they'll be less likely to hang out. I'm just at a loss for what my buddies should do when they're running these games, but I also don't want to tell them what to do because they're putting in enough work as it is running a game for a large group of us.

Me personally, I was pretty fully invested at first with this new campaign, but now I just wind up hitting my thc pen, relaxing, and watching Dynamite because it just feels like there's nothing to do. I don't know, maybe it's just our party is too big. Making the game more like Gloomhaven wouldn't be a good solution because we could just play Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven winds up being ultra punishing more than half the time and there's not a lot of roleplaying involved. It just seems like there needs to be a good balance, but finding that balance is difficult, if not impossible.

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I tend to plan... I basically write the set-up, and the world building that's needed, and create a few encounters or potential encounters for along the way. And then I come up with what the potential endings could be. I try to do no planning at all for the actual middle bit. It's my job to create the problem, and the player's job to solve it.

Like my last one shot, was a cross between Get Him to the Greek, Cugel's Progress and The Decline of Western Civilization Part Two. I gave them the mission (which involved going to a place six day's travel away (crossing through an active warzone), picking someone up, and bringing them back, in seven days. And then let them do what they wanted (they used Teleportation Circle to get back). 

The one before that was a What if Romeo and Juliet, only Frankenstein?

I'm still planning on doing The Crone Wars, sooner or later.

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20 hours ago, Craig H said:

BTW, for you DMs, how do you guys plan out your sessions?

A few thoughts. Probably too many.

If I'm prepping for something that my players want to be a regular occurrence not just a one or two session game, I usually get a few big ideas. Sometimes I'll pitch them to the players for a vote, sometimes I just pick one myself and tell everyone this is where we're going. IF it's the kind of game where players want to do backstories or have characters with specific goals, then I'll take a little bit of that into account if it inspires me.

I don't do a lot of balancing. I try not to dick over my players, but I let them know up front, not everything they encounter is designed to be beaten. So they know that if shit gets wild they need to get the fuck out. "You're level 4 characters and you've entered an area with a known Ancient Red Dragon. Watch your step."

A couple months ago I had characters investigate a problem and discovered it linked back to this cave of bad guys. They committed a front assault, which worked okay, and then tried to parley.  The bad guys responded by retreating into their cave and essentially telling the heroes come and get it. That's when my players realized they didn't know how many badguys were in the cave. After a lengthy back and forth about what to do...they left.

They probably talked about it for 30 minutes. Which is awesome for me because I don't have to do shit. But they were playing the game and it was fun even if they essentially quit on the mission.

Now that problem can come back later - but worse.

I generally try to have multiple threads for players to follow, so they can negotiate with each other where they want to go. It's tough for players who are completionists, because taking one job might mean another goes away or gets worse. But I believe having those branching choices makes players feel like they have more agency and that's one of my goals as a GM. I want the players to feel more empowered to interact with the world they way they want to.

I won't run for more than 6 people in real life, and try to keep it around 4. Especially online. 8 players online sounds like at least a couple of people are going to get bored. There are so many ways that people like to engage with the game, and if you've got a big group with mixed tastes, you've got to not only try to cater to all of them but ensure everyone gets to eat.

Also, as far as combat goes, I'm phasing out initiative in my games. Combat often feels like a different game suddenly takes over. So I try to describe combat as a scenario. Players determine what they want to do together. We roll one die to determine if they go first or if I go first. If they win, all their shit goes off then mine. If I win my shit goes off and might interrupt their shit. But it takes away the downtime of waiting for your turn and keeps players engaged with one another the whole time, as opposed to One player goes and whoever is at the bottom of initiative becomes a spectator in a combat that might resolve before they even play.

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To both of you, thanks for the feedback. @jaedmcyour response in particular is awesome and something I would love for our group to be doing. Actually, @AxBhas some fun sounding plans too.

Right now, none of us have jobs. We all basically have one job, which is functioning as a security group. We started with running security for a wedding somewhere in Ravnica, I forget where now, and things have kind of spiraled from there. The problem though is that we all have this same job and are main bit of agency is that our personalities are different. My other problem is far too often our DM hand holds us and there's an obvious option we should take.

Now, here's where I get into what I've been doing...I'm playing a Tabaxi Rogue and when I think of the Tabaxi, it's hard not to think of any cats, which lead to me playing my character a little like Orange Cassidy where I'm really lazy, but I can fuck some people up. So we get these missions or whatever and there's a clear cut, linear path to go. From there, we just decide who is best to take lead or whatever. That is incredibly boring to me, so I do my best to intentionally fuck things up from flat out saying I'm not going to do something (because I'm lazy and can't be bothered), I don't want to do something because we're doing the job for money and I come from royalty and have enough money (my history is that I showed up at the wedding and just started hanging out with this group just because), there was a time we were going to ambush someone and instead of playing dead I got up and started wandering away which triggered combat, and there's some other examples too. If anything, it has made our party try to think more for how to work around those obstacles that I created. Otherwise, we'd breeze through everything.

Part of the problem is that we're all friends and we've been friends since high school. So, we're going back 25 years or more that we've known each other. No one wants to say, "well, this person isn't invited." We all try to be very inclusive, but that leads to a couple of us saying, "hey, we should get Andy or Bob to start playing with us!" and no one wants to say no to that because we don't want anyone to feel left out. Paradoxically, we've run into a situation where I mentioned a couple of us literally fall asleep during each session. So I think no one wants to say no to anyone new joining and no one wants to say no to playing, but there are people that probably should say no because they have kids with little league, or people who think D&D is boring, or people who work late and get there late and then are tired. That's all very much an us problem because we're all sensitive to each other and all try to be people pleasers, but I do wish our group was smaller. No joke, we've had one combat session last two hours between everyone taking turns.

I also LOVE your idea for combat. That sounds a lot better. I probably should have a discussion with our DM because I know he's looking for ways to improve things and we're abruptly ending our campaign because two of us are moving, there's vacation coming up, etc. I do hope when we get back together we do more with Ravnica because it does seem pretty cool and we're all casual to semi-pro Magic the Gathering players so knowing the lore of Ravnica is cool.

It makes me hope that Wizards expands on this and puts out an Innistrad guide because that's another plane that's very rich with lore.

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I'd probably look at a large group of players like the X-Men.

The X-Men is a fucking huge group. But not everyone goes on the same mission. Back in the 90's it was the Blue group and the Gold group. So I'd probably give you all a reason to split the group to deal with two different problems. So have a session where I present the issue, or it can be done via text. And the players split their teams. Rogue/Gambit/Cyclops/Ice Man go this way...Wolverine/Jean Grey/Storm/Colossus go that way.

If we're playing weekly then I'd say each group plays every other week. So Gold Team is week one. Blue Team is week two. Then back to Gold Team. The idea being that the missions should be around 4-6 sessions each. After the groups finish their missions they reconvene where they can remix the groups, or maybe do something altogether for a couple weeks. The downside is everyone is playing less sessions, but the upside is each player gets more spotlight per session.

If I'm really creative then I could make sure they all come together for one big battle. Like one group attacks Magneto's lieutenants at the satellite, another group is going after Magneto directly. And then after a few issues they're all together for a battle royal.

But hopefully this is a way where players kind of gravitate to the other players who play the way they enjoy most, and no one gets their feelings hurt. With the understanding that it's not permanent.

ALSO ALSO. If your group is big enough for TWO DMs, then the two DMs could tag team the planning, and run your "Blue and Gold Squads" separately the same night. Then they'd be able to coordinate with each other when your stories converge and separate - which could be really neat.

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That is one hell of an idea. We actually have 3 DMs in our group - The guy who DM'd the last campaign, the current DM who was a player in the last campaign, and another friend who already DMs two local games where he lives and doesn't want to DM a third game. 

For real, that's such a stellar idea that I'm actually excited to bring it up tonight. Also, if we split things up so that some of the time only one group is needed and the other can have the night off, we can just spin that group off into playing Gloomhaven or something more casual like 7 Wonders or Pandemic Legacy.

Still really bummed about Pandemic Legacy. We had a solid group and we actually made it through three months without failing. Started in December 2019. Second game was in January 2020. Third game was in February. Then an actual pandemic hit. After many months off we got together to play some through TTS and I just wound up putting stickers on the physical game board and cards, as well as tearing cards up that needed to be removed. 

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