Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197 
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Post by Confessor on Jan 27, 2022 19:47:18 GMT -5
Remember when you first discovered that polyhedral dice (other than d6) existed? The coolness factor of these exotic dice never wore off for me. I wouldn't want to use a system that only uses d6, it wouldn't feel like a proper RPG. Yes, I know it's not rational, and you can probably get a similar enough range of percentages with d6 dice pool shenanigans, but don't deprive me of rolling a d20, darn it! I wouldn't go so far as to not play a game just because it only used 6-sided dice, but I totally get what you're saying. Polyhedral dice are way cool! |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2022 14:56:05 GMT -5
If anyone is interested (which I know is doubtful) I did do a bit of a worlbuilding journal for my two current campaigns on these forums hereand a recap of some of the early sessions for each campaign hereI haven't kept up with the recaps, and even switched to a bullet list format to cut down on the time required to do them, but even with that I am a couple sessions behind on the google doc my players have access to. Doing the recaps is probably my least favorite part of DM duties (one I delegate if I have players interested) but I find they are vitally important to retain player engagement in the narrative of the game, so I try to keep up as best I can on them. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2022 2:32:44 GMT -5
So the first three episodes of Legend of Vox Machina dropped on Friday and it is AMAZONG! My wife and I both loved it. I think she has already rewatched them twice more since we first watched them.
-M
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 30, 2022 4:30:54 GMT -5
Oh as a tip for some: for my Call of Cthulhu game I wanted to create my own monsters/gods/Great Old Ones (though I have some classics as well). I wanted to give my players some idea what they looked like, but I'm not much of an artist, but there is a website, app.wombo.art that can generate AI-drawn pictures based on some keywords you give in (you can even set the art style for it). The art tends to be abstract/off, so you're not generating humans with them, but for weird creatures and landscapes it works really well.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 30, 2022 13:30:53 GMT -5
Remember when you first discovered that polyhedral dice (other than d6) existed? The coolness factor of these exotic dice never wore off for me. I wouldn't want to use a system that only uses d6, it wouldn't feel like a proper RPG. Yes, I know it's not rational, and you can probably get a similar enough range of percentages with d6 dice pool shenanigans, but don't deprive me of rolling a d20, darn it! I checked out one episode of critical role, and I was struck by the... we're-narrating-a-novel style of play. Is this common among you guys? The one episode I started to watch almost reached Robert Jordan levels of detail. In the RPG boards and such I visit, I see contempt for the player who just says "I attack with my sword" instead of vividly narrating specific actions, but Critical Role, for me, goes too far in the other direction. I agree 100% about the dice. Not sure if anyone here is a fan, but I play a fair amount of sports board games.. in the old days Strat-o-Matic, for some things, used a deck of cards to generate a number from 1-20, which was a huge pain. As an adult, when I bought my own version of the game like 10 years ago, it came with a d20 instead... mind... blown. I'm not sure if I was more shocked that a game that wasn't an RPG was using a d20, or that I never thought of doing so myself. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2022 17:42:13 GMT -5
I started printing out some tables and oracle charts for my solo campaign today. One neat thing I printed was a hex flower weather chart, which made me think to share the idea of hex flowers for those not familiar with it. A hex flower is like a random table with memory. The next result you roll on the hex flower is influenced by the last result you rolled. Two things I plan to use these for are random terrain generation and weather generation. This is the particular set of four hex flowers I'm using for weather. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2022 13:54:58 GMT -5
So with having a few storm days with both Mrs MRP and I home, we were able to get some of our crafting stuff organized and accessible, and I have started work on some terrain and prop making projects, stuff to use at our table when we play D&D. I love the idea of Dwarven Forge and Warlock Tiles, but a) I don't have the budget to afford that kind of stuff, b) it's time consuming to use and can't be quickly assembled during game sessions, and c) often interferes with players line of sight making things take longer during combats, detracting rather than enhancing things in some ways. I prefer to use cheap, customizable and reusable/interchangeable pieces that I can add to my battle mat/table and get quickly set up and removed to add a three dimensional element and provide obstacles/opportunities on the battlefield, to make the environment an interesting part of the combat. I use theatre of the mind for all non-combat and some simpler combat situations, but do use battlemats and props/terrain for a lot of combat scenarios. I have a lot of pre-made tiles to use, but I like to supplement them with vertical pieces to add depth and layers to the field of battle. Sometimes I use found pieces I convert to terrain/props, other times I construct it from everyday materials, often recycling stuff rather than it winding up in the trash. Here are the pieces I have been working on. Most of these are still in process, as I still need to do some dry brushing and other accents to them. I included a badly painted (an early attempt to repaint one of the pre-painted D&D minis to customize it into something else and to see how certain types of paints took to the plastic) in the pics to give a sense of scale to some of the pics. First a found piece. I found this at a Goodwill for a couple of bucks. It was some kind of computer accessory-I think it lit up somehow. But it looked like it could be some kind of mystic pool or well. All I did was open it up, cut the cord that ran from it and pulled out the circuit board, and voila, cheap terrain piece.   Following the well theme, these were a couple of pieces of Styrofoam packaging that came inside something. They were squares with a circle cut out of them for the product to rest in. Saw them, and thought, these will make good props. A little paint application and voila one empty well shaft and one filled with water...who knows what horrors lay within...   And reusing more Styrofoam, I converted this large piece into a large stone dais. I still need to construct a processional stairway up to it and add a throne (I have several resin thrones I can use). I plan on having a large tree or idol coming up out of the hole in the center.   More in the next post... -M |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2022 14:06:59 GMT -5
So Styrofoam is nice to recycle, but so is cardboard. This past November, we bought a new "boombox" style CD player to use down in the basement as we had no working CD players. In the package, each end of the CD had a large cardboard cap over it, that looked like this:  Well, with a little paint applications, one became a large earthen mound or moss encrusted ruin...   and the other a large stone or rock piece...   the rough cardboard gave it a nice texture. Then some smaller stuff. Had a container full of wooden circle pieces in two wood tones. Decided to glue some together at various heights to make pillars, (adding a small garbage plastic disk that used to hold onto cardboard with twist ties in packaging) a table, and some smaller pieces that can serve as barrels, tree stumps, stools, or what have you as needed. No paint needed, just a few drops of superglue to hold the pieces together. The last piece was a large plastic skull that came with a set of cheap action figure from Odd Lots/Big Lots years ago that was just sitting in bin of miscellaneous pieces. It was copper colored, and I had some extra green paint after working on the earthen mound, so I used it to make a patina look on the copper and now we have a large copper idol lost on the jungle floor or in some forbidden dungeon..     Now I am currently working on ideas for the processional stairways I want. I know I am using craft sticks (glorified popsicle sticks) for the steps themselves, I am just trying to figure out what to use as the risers for the stairwells. I have some options, but none of them step up as good options right now, so I am sorting through bins of stuff seeing if I can find inspiration and raw materials. -M |
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Post by The Captain on Feb 7, 2022 14:43:08 GMT -5
Remember when you first discovered that polyhedral dice (other than d6) existed? The coolness factor of these exotic dice never wore off for me. I wouldn't want to use a system that only uses d6, it wouldn't feel like a proper RPG. Yes, I know it's not rational, and you can probably get a similar enough range of percentages with d6 dice pool shenanigans, but don't deprive me of rolling a d20, darn it! I checked out one episode of critical role, and I was struck by the... we're-narrating-a-novel style of play. Is this common among you guys? The one episode I started to watch almost reached Robert Jordan levels of detail. In the RPG boards and such I visit, I see contempt for the player who just says "I attack with my sword" instead of vividly narrating specific actions, but Critical Role, for me, goes too far in the other direction. I agree 100% about the dice. Not sure if anyone here is a fan, but I play a fair amount of sports board games.. in the old days Strat-o-Matic, for some things, used a deck of cards to generate a number from 1-20, which was a huge pain. As an adult, when I bought my own version of the game like 10 years ago, it came with a d20 instead... mind... blown. I'm not sure if I was more shocked that a game that wasn't an RPG was using a d20, or that I never thought of doing so myself. I played tons of Strat-o-Matic Hockey when I was in middle and high school. My best friend got a set for his birthday one year, then he and I kept finding the older seasons' teams at thrift shops and flea markets, and occasionally we'd order from the back of The Hockey News. I looked at some of those older sets (mid- to late-70s) on eBay and they are pricey! Never knew they changed to a d20. Bet it makes things far easier. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Feb 7, 2022 21:36:28 GMT -5
It sure does! I'm more of an APBA guy that Strat to be honest, but the d20 definitely helps alot!
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,197
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Post by Confessor on Feb 8, 2022 9:10:50 GMT -5
Very creative modelling there, @mrp.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2022 14:58:43 GMT -5
Today's terrain project was to get those stairs I mentioned. I need a couple of stairwells, but I wanted to make sure the idea I had for making them was going to work, so I started small. So I started with a couple of corners cut off of a piece of foam board and 4 popsicle/craft sticks (these are the parts for the second stairwell, I didn't think to snap a process pic until I finished the first one)  cut slots in the foam board so they would act as the risers for the stairwell, then trimmed the sticks down to size. Slid the cut sticks into the slots to create the stairwell. Then added a quick coat of grey paint to give it a stone look. It's a little rough, but it works. The steps are wide enough and stable enough I can put a mini on them during play.   I'll make a couple of refinements in the process to add to the aesthetic appeal, but I achieved the effect/utility I was shooting for. -M |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2022 17:57:53 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2022 23:34:52 GMT -5
So, question for all the long term gamers-
As a DM, I most often use homebrew worlds. But as a player, I've played in several (most) of the published settings that have been put out there by TSR/WoTC and several by third party publishers. I am wondering what settings have you played in/played with and what are your favorites and least favorites? If you care to expand on why, I'd be interested to hear.
Like all things pop culture, D&D has begun to put an emphasis on the idea of a multiverse and using elements of several campaign worlds in your game if you should so choose, and it's brought a lot of otherwise neglected settings back into focus. My current group is young, and newish to D&D with only a couple of exceptions, and outside of the Forgotten Realms and maybe Ravenloft, most of them have never played in any of the published settings.
There's no option to do a poll in an established thread, and I don't want to clutter the Community section with new RPG threads nor do I want to dilute the conversation in this thread, but I'd be interested in the results of a poll exploring this question. I am currently doing one with the players in our group and I expect my wife and I will be the only ones who can check off more than 2-3 options in it.
-M
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Post by Dizzy D on Feb 15, 2022 2:53:44 GMT -5
Most of my current games have been in Homebrew. We had a semi-historical campaign (human characters only, only certain classes allowed), we had a couple of short campaigns and oneshot in self-created universes and the only pre-established setting we did was the intro the Curse of Strahd (but due to Corona that campaign was put on hold).
I've run mostly Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu one-shots myself (as said, currently working on a short campaign for CoC) and I used the Mr. Bubbles-oneshot as basis for my first run as a GM for Paranoia, but I switched a lot of it around, added new things and removed old things.
Of the D&D Published Settings: Planescape and Spelljammer were fun, but I don't think anything for them has been published in a long time. I liked the premise of Dark Sun, but you need to have a player's group that went to engage with the survival mechanics to really make it work.
Neutral on Eberon (it's good, but it's too much like Forgotten Realms for me, even though many will say it's quite different) and Forgotten Realms (it's just the default setting for so much)
Seen it, but not played in it: Ravenloft (never got around to it, though with Curse of Strahd, technically I'm playing in it, I guess?), Exandria (watched a lot of CR, so I know the setting well, but haven't had a chance to use anything from it).
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