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[OttomanScribe]

Do you guys recomend any PnP RPG podcasts?

2 gms 1 mic is pretty good. I also listen to Reckless Dice for that WhFRP flavour.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

2 gms 1 mic is pretty good. I also listen to Reckless Dice for that WhFRP flavour.

thanks for your input also!

So quick survey guys. I have played the Pathfinder Beginner box and a few beginner adventures for pathfinder with my group and we are ready to take the next step and start buying core rulebooks and get some real stuff going.

we are all trying to decide if we should stick with pathfinder or move to D&D 4e.

so? what do you guys think?

we know 4e is on the way out and Next is coming but that is still 2 years away.

 

[krypt0nian]

For me, Pathfinder is dnd. 4E is a good rules system, but just not dnd in my eyes. It's missing to much of what makes Dungeons & Dragons for me, and why they have ditched it for a new edition.

Pathfinder is made by gamers, for gamers and you can tell that by the company interaction on their MSG boards, as well as their amazing customer service. WotC used to be like that too, but Hasbro influence has taken over.

just look at the ENnies results for this year to see where the quality lies.

Paizo makes all their rules available for free so check them out and see what you think. WotC keeps all their stuff behind a pay wall.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

For me, Pathfinder is dnd. 4E is a good rules system, but just not dnd in my eyes. It's missing to much of what makes Dungeons & Dragons for me, and why they have ditched it for a new edition.

Pathfinder is made by gamers, for gamers and you can tell that by the company interaction on their MSG boards, as well as their amazing customer service. WotC used to be like that too, but Hasbro influence has taken over.

just look at the ENnies results for this year to see where the quality lies.

Paizo makes all their rules available for free so check them out and see what you think. WotC keeps all their stuff behind a pay wall.

you really do have my back

you have pretty much cemented my feelings about everything.

thanks again.

 

[ultron87]

So I got the Pathfinder core book the other day because I'm considering starting a campaign with it.

Am I crazy or is it kind of needlessly cagey on certain base aspects of stuff like leveling? I can't find anywhere in the book where it describes that when you level up you roll the Hit Dice for whatever class you are gaining a level in and gain that many hit points or that every 4th level you get to add one to an ability score. (That is how it works, right?)

Edit: Okay, I guess on here http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes.html#character-advancement it says "And roll for additional hit points." But it doesn't say what you roll or anything like that.

Since I'm coming from 4E I'm just concerned that this transition will be rough for my players who had 4E as their first RPG, and it will be even worse if the rules assume knowledge or just kind of gloss over thing.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

4e has its place, and I think its awesome for stuff like Lair Assault (you and some friends make an optimized part and finish an adventure in 20 rounds) but the more I play Pathfinder, the more I've warmed up to it. If your group is good with Pathfinder, I say stick with that. I don't think Paizo is going to stop supporting it anytime soon, and once you become savvy enough with the rules, there's a wealth of 3.X stuff you could potentially convert to keep things fresh. The Pathfinder game I'm in now uses a 3.5 campaign adventure (The Red Hand of Doom) that our DM just converts over.

EDIT: Just so there's no confusion, the post was aimed more at JetBlackPanda.

 

[BattleMonkey]

So I got the Pathfinder core book the other day because I'm considering starting a campaign with it.

Am I crazy or is it kind of needlessly cagey on certain base aspects of stuff like leveling? I can't find anywhere in the book where it describes that when you level up you roll the Hit Dice for whatever class you are gaining a level in and gain that many hit points or that every 4th level you get to add one to an ability score. (That is how it works, right?)

Edit: Okay, I guess on here http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes.html#character-advancement it says "And roll for additional hit points." But it doesn't say what you roll or anything like that.

Since I'm coming from 4E I'm just concerned that this transition will be rough for my players who had 4E as their first RPG, and it will be even worse if the rules assume knowledge or just kind of gloss over thing.

While Pathfinder is good, their rulebook is pretty sloppy with information kinda spread out all over the place.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

While Pathfinder is good, their rulebook is pretty sloppy with information kinda spread out all over the place.

True. I wish there was some kind of change log or summary for those who were already familiar with 3.5 to see what all the small changes were.

 

[Jackben]

True. I wish there was some kind of change log or summary for those who were already familiar with 3.5 to see what all the small changes were.

Something like this perhaps? 3.5 to Pathfinder Conversion PDF

 

[Keru_Shiri]

Something like this perhaps? 3.5 to Pathfinder Conversion PDF

Ooh, nice, thanks! (Though I don't really have a need for it now, lol.)

 

[JetBlackPanda]

4e has its place, and I think its awesome for stuff like Lair Assault (you and some friends make an optimized part and finish an adventure in 20 rounds) but the more I play Pathfinder, the more I've warmed up to it. If your group is good with Pathfinder, I say stick with that. I don't think Paizo is going to stop supporting it anytime soon, and once you become savvy enough with the rules, there's a wealth of 3.X stuff you could potentially convert to keep things fresh. The Pathfinder game I'm in now uses a 3.5 campaign adventure (The Red Hand of Doom) that our DM just converts over.

EDIT: Just so there's no confusion, the post was aimed more at JetBlackPanda.

thanks for the info! really appreciate it.

 

[krypt0nian]

So I got the Pathfinder core book the other day because I'm considering starting a campaign with it.

Am I crazy or is it kind of needlessly cagey on certain base aspects of stuff like leveling? I can't find anywhere in the book where it describes that when you level up you roll the Hit Dice for whatever class you are gaining a level in and gain that many hit points or that every 4th level you get to add one to an ability score. (That is how it works, right?)

Edit: Okay, I guess on here http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes.html#character-advancement it says "And roll for additional hit points." But it doesn't say what you roll or anything like that.

Since I'm coming from 4E I'm just concerned that this transition will be rough for my players who had 4E as their first RPG, and it will be even worse if the rules assume knowledge or just kind of gloss over thing.

Each class lists its hit die type in their class section.

 

[ultron87]

Each class lists its hit die type in their class section.

I know. My point is that the info that tells you that you roll that die to generate hit points each level, except for level one, is only actually included in the Hit Points entry of the common terms glossary. It was just an example of the disorganized nature of these rule that are likely going to make learning and teaching them harder than they need to be. I at least hope the rules in the Beginner Box are better at this.

 

[krypt0nian]

I know. My point is that the info that tells you that you roll that die to generate hit points each level, except for level one, is only actually included in the Hit Points entry of the common terms glossary. It was just an example of the disorganized nature of these rule that are likely going to make learning and teaching them harder than they need to be. I at least hope the rules in the Beginner Box are better at this.

They are more organized in the BB, but honestly after I read through any rulebook a few times, I kinda memorize where stuff is. After a bit it all makes sense.


PART 6 of Dawnforgedcast's excellent Pathfinder Basics series is up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeK8w1lGQNA

 

[Jackben]

Here is a story I picked up about the cleverest Dungeon Master I’ve ever read about. Those of you who frequent certain archives may have already read this.

It's rather long so I hope no one minds me posting it here.

tl;dr

Spoiler

Players voice they are tired of same ole stuff from Tolkienesque DM. DM accepts challenge and creates a horrorifying mindfuck campaign that not only terrifies the PCs but has them revisit the scene of their actions in a second campaign before they are slain by their former characters in a gruesome fashion.

Our DM is an artsy type, but not in an interesting way. He likes verisimilitude more than useful information. He's like the Tolkien of DMs. We've often badgered him about his style of running things. He likes making worlds, and then turning us loose in them. We happen to prefer adventure modules, and whatnot. So after a particularly harsh heckling (which I regret,) he offers to run us something very special, in the mode that we seem to prefer. We agree, though I fully expect some more of his mediocre twattle.

So, we start out in this shitty little town in his world's analogue to Dark Age Germany. It's gray, wet, there's a lot of mud, everyone is dirt poor and all the peasants are insular and taciturn around foreigners. We groan several times as we begin... But learn that we're actually on our way through. We were on our way to...Persia-Rome or something, on a mission to recover some sort of artifact. The guy sending us gives us rations, supplies, and what he called “Karthaki marching powder,” which we understood to be a joke expy of cocaine.

Good start.

Well, we head out, and pass through some sort of black forest, and then a dreary swamp with incredibly dense fog, where he has us seriously make eight spot and listen checks. Every once in a while he would pause for like three minutes at a time and asking if we had any more modifiers to add. As usual, his description of the surrounding areas is incredibly articulate, sometimes bordering on the poetic. It had been corny most of the time, but this time it worked... because this time it wasn't just hollow detail.

There were things to notice. Cryptic but alluring hints towards the nature of... something. We didn't know what it was, there was no hint towards what it was we were supposed to be learning about, only that there was something. Something fast, something slick, something twisted, something limp, but taut and strong that was... pursuing. Not us, but chasing something, something that, a moment later, took on its traits.


I can't even begin to describe it. We actually forgot for a moment that we were supposed to be playing. We were hypnotized. He shook us out of it, all of a sudden, with Orcs, appearing from the ground, dragging gore from the swamp back into their bodies into closing wounds as they did, losing their pallor and glazed expression to take on the green vibrance of life, and psychically drawing weapons to them from the ground and brackish water. We killed them, throwing them back into the water directly from whence they came, and re-opened their wounds for them, freaked by the weird reversal-necromancy nature of their appearance.


We were pretty sure that was it, after that. We met some weird folk after that, like an elf who refused to walk on the wet stone of the road through the swamp, to the point of laying down two squares of wood to walk upon as he went, and talking entirely in paradox. Eventually, we took the wooden planks away from him, and broke them when he tried to take them back. If he kept walking so slowly, he'd get his ass killed by zombie orcs, right? The mook just sat down and started crying after that, but we kept going.


Sounds like pretty standard faire, doesn't it? Oh, we thought so too. We complimented the DM at the end of the session, for a job well done. He had really gotten us with those zombie orcs. Really creepy. Heheheheh... Oh, but it only got worse there from there.


We arrived... in a village. A little village, on the outskirts of the country we were supposed to be entering.


Do you remember the bit about how good he was at describing shit? Well he brought us to tears here. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard put into words before. He described the most idyllic and wonderful place imaginable. It was a golden town, full of vibrant life and surrounded by flowing wheat. The people came up and greeted us, welcoming us to their little town. All the men were friendly and offered us lodging and hospitality, and all the women were long-braided and beautiful, with ample bosoms and wide eyes...


Every home had a bronze symbol of the sun with a grinning face on it nailed to the door, and every street corner had women twirling slowly on the spot, dancing in the joy of the daytime, and the people all moved in rhythm, taking long steps every two or three seconds of walking, sidestepping as they spoke. Very musical people, too, they were always humming.

It was good stuff, so we figured we'd stay around for a while, to check everything out. We go to the inn, and get ourselves some rooms. We chat up the townsfolk, and we learn that the town is called Kar-Tordek. I think this is a laugh, and decide that I'm in this town for the bitches, so I convince three of the women to sleep with me (they are, of course, a promiscuous people whose religion revolves around how awesome strangers are. Go figure.)


So, the rest of the crew follows suit, and we all wake up surrounded by tits. We head out into the street, and... start noticing things. For one thing, the same women are dancing on the same street corners. Everybody greets us by name with elaborate greetings. Nobody just says “hi.” Nobody just says “good morning.” They say “May the light of the lord of light shine on you.” or “Welcome to the dawn of His glorious day.” It doesn't take us long to realize that the DM is talking entirely in rhythm with the music that's playing in the background. He had been since the first moment. The townsfolk were all speaking in meter. Dee-duh dee-duh dee-duh dee-duh dee-duh, like a heartbeat or some kind of twisted music box metronome. We start freaking out, because we KNEW that something was wrong with this fucking place, somewhere in the back of our minds we knew that there had to be. We're all over that shit in a heartbeat, we start asking questions.


The local lord is a sorcerer, but all of the damn lords in this place are sorcerers.
The gray marshes that we passed through are terrifying places that nobody likes traveling through. Well no shit.


The primary crop is gravewheat, which only grows on ground watered with human blood. Sounds like a good crop to be pl-

OH WAIT. YEAH.

So the cleric starts detecting evil. EVERYTHING shows up. Everything. The dirt? Evil. The people? Evil. The houses? Evil. The very air itself is shimmering with evil. The DM asks for a spot check, which he's been doing for a while now, though we hadn't really given it much thought after the first thirty times.

For once, he sits up straight, and all of a sudden says “you notice that the man speaking to you has no eyes. None of them do.”


There is a full ten seconds of silence, before he adds, “they never did.” He then begins to elaborate upon what else they did and didn't have. The list was elaborate, and traumatizing. The end result, boneless, toothless, eyeless, with long rubbery limbs and gray flesh. What we had mistaken for braids on the women had been long, blackened tongues. Tongues, he said, that we had grown rather accustomed to during the night there. We start freaking out about halfway through that last bit.


I smash the one we're talking to's face in with a morningstar. The sorcerer turns around and lights the little gang of “women” that had been following us on fire. Some of them, covered in ragged cloaks of human skin attack, some begin flailing about like lunatics, screeching and cackling and talking backwards. Instead of attacking, they would rub up against us, shuddering and slivering and boneless, moving into our way when we tried to flee, and taking our blows like they were nothing, until we had hewn them to bits.


It was sick, and unnerving, and it didn't make any sense, but we fucking killed them all. We fucking killed them all. Every single one of them, we cleared that village out one goddamn building at a time, killing their lipless horrors and the little sharp-toothed ones that gnawed at our ankles and jumped out of dark corners, and the ones that grabbed our legs, and the ones that would throw themselves at us while others flanked around or ran off, to ambush us later. We killed them all, and ended the threat.


Then, we came back. Not to the same campaign, nobody mentioned it again. The DM had us roll up characters, and had us start out in the same little town we began in before. We're all a bit worried, but he raises our spirits by informing us that it is fall. It had been spring when we had departed last time. It wasn't just a start-over, it was something different. Good stuff. We get almost the precise same starting equipment as the first group from almost the exact same quest-giving priest. We don't get the marching powder though, which was good, it had struck me as a bit goofy anyway.


So... we're going on our merry little way down the swamp road. We don't run into any orcs, which is good, but we do find... An elf. With broken legs. The emaciated, starved corpse of an elf with broken legs. Clearly orc work. We proceed, and get what amounts to the single darkest moment in the entire history of my gaming life. We find the town.


Burned black. Scorched Earth. The surrounding fields are little more than ashes and soot worn down by fall rain into a slurry. The sky is dark, it is dusk, but we proceed through the early evening with torches, and investigate the town. It is the scene... Of unspeakable carnage. A hundred people killed like animals. Weaponless men, hewn down as they tried to defend their families, women butchered as they attempted to clear the escapes of their children. Infants, trapped in corners and run through, monks wearing the white robes of pacifists, who had clearly tried to grapple and pin down their assailants, beaten down and split open with repeated, unnecessary, horrible mutilating strikes.


And the buildings. The buildings were covered with writings, in blood, gibberings and the frothing babble of madmen, rhyming rhythmic mournful furious meanderings that made no sense, but read clearly nonetheless, for they all had something in common.
Like one long, grand verse, they were written in iambic pentameter.


...So, we try reading the stuff on the wall.


It's gibberish. But we read it. It rhymes, it's incredibly fucked up sounding. The DM busts out a piece of paper that is very, very nearly black with text, and reads it. It's the closest thing to the sound of madness I've ever heard. If I had a copy of it, It'd post every word of it here, and there must've been 800 words on that sheet, the text was microscopic. It was... incredibly. I don't even know what it was, because the rhyme scheme made no sense, but flowed anyway. It was like each burst of five, there would be either one or two rhymes, but it went on for so long that we stopped listening to it.


We stopped paying attention to what he was saying. So when he started describing the three figures, gaunt and lanky, still holding the morningstar and sword, hands still wreathed in flame, that were lowering themselves behind us, narrated even as it happened on the wall, we didn't notice. Didn't notice until he stood up and started screaming it at us, one word at a time. At that point, even he was sweating, one of the players was crying. It was genuinely the most terrifying thing imaginable. He had already destroyed us with a calm voice and an even face. Now, he brought it home.

We didn't even roll initiative.

 

[Keru_Shiri]

Reading that really makes me want to DM another campaign. Holy shit.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Do you guys recommend any modules?? (not sure what they are called in DnD) for people just starting out with 4e?

we have been playing some pathfinder ones (Crypt Of The Everflame and the Carrion Hill one) but we want to try some 4e just for fun.

 

[krypt0nian]

Do you guys recommend any modules?? (not sure what they are called in DnD) for people just starting out with 4e?

we have been playing some pathfinder ones (Crypt Of The Everflame and the Carrion Hill one) but we want to try some 4e just for fun.

None are wildly accepted as great, but here's a thread discussing which may be worth playing.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?634505-4E-Good-4e-adventures

 

[JetBlackPanda]

None are wildly accepted as great, but here's a thread discussing which may be worth playing.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?634505-4E-Good-4e-adventures

thanks again!

 

[krypt0nian]

thanks again!

Hey no worries!

 

[OttomanScribe]

Anyone played the GoT rpg? Thinking of gming a one shot using it.

 

[JetBlackPanda]

I must say the Paizo modules for pathfinder are way better put together then the stuff I have seen for 4e so far.

:/

 

[ultron87]

Are there any good dungeon master tool apps for iPad?

 

[bloodydrake]

I must say the Paizo modules for pathfinder are way better put together then the stuff I have seen for 4e so far.

:/

I think part of the reason is Paizo was the company responsible for the print version of Dragon and Dungeon Magazine for the whole 3E and 3.5E erra...they started the whole 1 to 20th level Adventure path idea with The Shackled City AP as well.

Once Wizards tried to put the genie back in the bottle with 4E and took away magazines from them and canceled the paper versions it left Paizo in the position to actually compete with Wizards instead of working for them.

That experience really shows in their modules and products.

 

[dude]

Anyone played the GoT rpg? Thinking of gming a one shot using it.

Yeah, it's nice. We played the D20 variety and it was pretty fine.

 

[ChiTownBuffalo]

OK, this introductions of class/factional warfare and making nearly everyone play an evil aligned character in this season of D&D encounters is hilarious.

So much note passing.

 

[hoverX]

Are there any good dungeon master tool apps for iPad?

Not that I know of. I'd be interested in hearing what people would like to see in a product like that.

 

[ultron87]

Not that I know of. I'd be interested in hearing what people would like to see in a product like that.

I'd just love a way to input stat blocks for all your NPCs and monsters and then be able to set up encounters with them and mark down damage and status and whatnot.

 

[hoverX]

I'd just love a way to input stat blocks for all your NPCs and monsters and then be able to set up encounters with them and mark down damage and status and whatnot.

Maybe have a desktop app that would allow you to build the characters and them import them into the iPad app?

 

[OttomanScribe]

I think that tablets have the potential to create a resurgence in rpgs. surprised it isn't used as much.

 

[krypt0nian]

I think that tablets have the potential to create a resurgence in rpgs. surprised it isn't used as much.

In my main Pathfinder group, everyone at the table has an iPad with the Character Folio app, plus GoodReader for PDFs, and Diceonomicon for dice on iPhones.

 

[dude]

In my main Pathfinder group, everyone at the table has an iPad with the Character Folio app, plus GoodReader for PDFs, and Diceonomicon for dice on iPhones.

Now I wish my group would buy tablets, I'm sick of dirty folded character sheets and people moving one book around to look at spells....

 

[krypt0nian]

Now I wish my group would buy tablets, I'm sick of dirty folded character sheets and people moving one book around to look at spells....

At our first session we all thought how goofy it was as player after player brought their iPad out, but I've learned to appreciate it.

 

[ultron87]

That sounds great, except I can't in good conscience support using a tablet for dice rolling.

 

[BattleMonkey]

Heh local shop has a game that they do weekly where they banned tablets. Too many people going off track doing other things with the tablets instead of focusing on the game.

Have had that problem with our own play group where we would have to occasionally smack someone to pay attention and leave their tablet alone.

 

[krypt0nian]

That sounds great, except I can't in good conscience support using a tablet for dice rolling.

Truth be told its just one of the ways we roll dice. Sort of like when your d20 goes cold, you grab your phone...then back to your d20.

We come to play so there's zero tablet distraction. Probably because our character sheet is on screen.

 

[Danoss]

Now I'm done with that ban I can post some stuff. Unfortunately because of it, I couldn't share the Monster Token kickstarter for anyone who wanted to use these cool tokens in Roll20 or some other VTT to run D&D/Pathfinder/13th Age. Especially since the guys over at Roll20 were offering redemption codes for anyone who backed it to unlock the tokens for free on the Roll20 marketplace, so they're automatically in there when you're creating maps and encounters for your scenario or campaign. Sorry to rub it in your faces, but they will be up for sale later. However, I do have another really cool one I'll share in just a moment.

A few members of my gaming group do use iPads, but they're used mainly for tracking loot and explored locations on a map and whatnot for our open world D&D game. All our character sheets and dice are kept on the table, where they should be. Pressing a button or touching a screen just doesn't have that same feel as rolling real dice. Tablets are handy for carrying around a bunch of RPG books, and that's my only real reason for wanting one, though I much prefer flipping through an actual book given the choice.

I saw Dungeon World (also based on Apocalypse World) mentioned earlier in this thread, which I'm dying to get my hands on a hard copy (sometime in October, Sage tells me). Whilst not made for long-term campaigns, it seems like D&D as it should be. Games based on AW are where fiction matters, so if the GM says "you hear the bones break as your craghammer smashes into the Goblin's legs", its legs are really broken and it can no longer walk. A great system where the rules truly step in when needed and disappear when they're not. An exerpt from a post on another forum showing how great this game can be:

So my group's bi-weekly Dungeon World session just finished.

I intended to split the party up due to dimensional fuckery at the start of the session, and have them all have little separate scenes/fights before they confronted the main bad guy.

The dumb-as-sticks fighter and old-and-senile wizard wind up in a kennel where I had them confront a lava dwarf and his pet chimera. Instead, through role-playing and some good Parley rolls, they ended up not only convincing the dwarf they were supposed to be there but also talking the dwarf into giving them the chimera.

So when they caught up with the rest of the party when they started the "boss fight", they did it like this:

The Wizard cast a Fireball at the doors to the room, blowing them off the hinges. Then, in the smoky doorway, were the fighter and the wizard riding on the back of a rearing chimera. The fighter's magical arm tattoos (his custom weapon) were glowing and his raised hand was wreathed in flame, while the wizard's long beard flowed in the wind, lightning crackling off his staff.

It was, as the fighter's player put it, "a sight that will be immortalized on the sides of vans for generations to come".

I wish I had a picture of that so I could paste DUNGEON WORLD MOTHERFUCKERS on it and plaster it across the web.

God I love this game.

Now imagine this type of ingenuity used for other games such as Monster of the Week, a Buffy/Angel/Fringe/Supernatural flavoured version of the game; Monsterhearts which plays out the romanticised drama side of Buffy/Twilight/True Blood; and of course tremulus posted above. Flexible, hackable, brilliant.

If anyone wants to try Dungeon World, a couple of scenarios have been written for it so people can almost jump in and play right off the bat.

• Indigo Galleon by John Aegard
• Drahzu's Slave Pit by Jason Morningstar. This one was made to be run in the limited time of a Con game. Jason said he easily ran it in 1:50, and it saw much use at Gen Con.

And now, as promised, an awesome...

Kickstarter

Tremulus
Using the indie favourite Apocalypse World engine, tremulus merges it with Lovecraftian storytelling, and taking the best aspects of the Fiasco and FATE systems such as Playsets and Declarations to make the game easier to run and awesome to play. Tremulus makes it easy to whip up a game with very little preparation using the Ebon Eaves playset. Quickly on it's way to the sixth stretch goal, this is definitely worth a look.

I know I was hooked when I saw it combined Apocalypse World + Lovecraft, let alone all the extra stuff that has been implemented into the game. It seems I wasn't the only one, with it meeting its target within hours and the first stretch goal on day one. I cannot wait to get my hands on this.

Enough shilling in this now-monstrous post, it's good to be back.

 

[krypt0nian]

I was the Dungeon World guy and I did like it a lot. 1st edition feel with today's social/relationship/bonds links.

I like the idea behind and most of the PDF of Monster Hearts but it has a strange preoccupation with sex. Not a prude by any means it just reads as really juvenile to me.


Other than that, it's a neat system.

 

[J-Roderton]

What's the most popular game at the moment?

 

[krypt0nian]

What's the most popular game at the moment?

In terms of sales? Pathfinder.

 

[J-Roderton]

In terms of sales? Pathfinder.

Cool. Just curious. Last time I ever played pnP was Star Wars Invasion of Theed years ago.

 

[dude]

What's the most popular game at the moment?

I think D&D is always the answer to this question

But yeah, Pathfinder has been ranking up it's word to mouth to the point most long-time D&D players I know have switched to it.

 

[krypt0nian]

Cool. Just curious. Last time I ever played pnP was Star Wars Invasion of Theed years ago.

It's funny. Fantasy Fight games just released a beta for their new Star Wars PnP game. First in a line of three RPGs each featuring a different corner of the classic SW Universe.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3496

@Dude,
Well Pathfinder is DnD, but sales wise, WotC DnD is dead in the water. They barely release anything.

In terms of product quality, it's not even close anymore.

Even play wise, checking meetup.com, Pathfinder outpaces DnD in terms of groups as well. The worm has turned.

 

[J-Roderton]

It's funny. Fantasy Fight games just released a beta for their new Star Wars PnP game. First in a line of three RPGs each featuring a different corner of the classic SW Universe.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3496


Well Pathfinder is DnD, but sales wise, WotC DnD is dead in the water. They barely release anything.

When anyone would say PnP I would just think DnD. I had no idea there were so many different games out there now.

 

[krypt0nian]

When anyone would say PnP I would just think DnD. I had no idea there were so many different games out there now.

Oh it's astounding the amount of amazing games with audiences now. At the local shop, I play something new weekly.

Every game, no matter how small, seems to have its vocal champion. I love it. Gaming seems so huge right now.

 

[Danoss]

I was the Dungeon World guy and I did like it a lot. 1st edition feel with today's social/relationship/bonds links.

I like the idea behind and most of the PDF of Monster Hearts but it has a strange preoccupation with sex. Not a prude by any means it just reads as really juvenile to me.

Other than that, it's a neat system.

Monsterhearts is the only AW-based game I have no interest in. It seems cool, but it is far too sex-focused (bearing in mind Apocalypse World has sex in it). With mature players, I have no doubt it would play well, but even without the sex it's not a themed game I have any interest in playing. Oh and the 'juvenile' thing, well, you are playing juveniles, it's meant to be like that.

Joe McDaldno, the creator of Monsterhearts seems like a really cool guy, and he has done a write-up on Apocalypse World called Simple World, showing the inner workings of the system. So, if anyone wants to hack it, they can look at this and have a good idea on how best to do it.

I have Apocalypse World, I'm waiting for Monster of the Week to arrive in the post, tremulus is backed, and Dungeon World will be bought on release. It's a great system I want to play so badly that I might have to find a new group to play with, because my current group has a few grognards in it (not the truly horrible kind, but they seem allergic to some new things), making the introduction of something new and innovative rather difficult.

Edit: On this topic, I almost forgot. John Harper (of Lady Blackbird fame) has an alpha of The Regiment out. An Apocalypse World hack about soldiers at war. Looks cool as hell.

 

[dude]

When anyone would say PnP I would just think DnD. I had no idea there were so many different games out there now.

That is exactly why I wanted the OP to feature so many games. The PnP world is much, much more than D&D.

 

[Henchmen21]

I've wanted to try to get into PnP games but have never known enough people to get one started. That and I don't want to play with someone who takes these things way too seriously.

 

[Suairyu]

It's an offshoot of DnD, I suppose, but I always had a softspot for D20 modern. Nearly everyone can pick up and play it because, well, it's DnD/Pathfinder system, and RPing in modern times is a great break from all the medieval/far-future settings that naturally dominate most groups.

X-Files was a huge part of my life growing up though, so maybe that's why I love it.

 

[Danoss]

X-Files was a huge part of my life growing up though, so maybe that's why I love it.

My unsolicited advice is, if you want to use the same X-Files type theme but with a different flow to your game, give Monster of the Week a look. I just received the book in the post the other day and it's excellent, contents as well as the book itself. Delta Green could be a nice alternative too, but that's a bit more deadly, being based on Call of Cthulhu and also using the Cthulhu Mythos. Delta Green just saw release as a POD from DriveThruRPG/RPGNow and they're working on a new standalone game for it with some more modern themes.

On tremulus, they have posted The Heir playbook for backers/potential backers to have a look at. If you know how Apocalypse World powered games work, this'll give you a good idea on how tremulus will play and flow. I think it looks great and am even more excited to get my hands on it. Oh, and for those that aren't aware, the guys behind this, Reality Blurs, are the ones who made Realms of Cthulhu for Savage Worlds, which I heard was excellent.