I'm less than 4 years away from retirement, so I decided to buy the last of the new core rule books for D&D. I ordered the Monster Manual, DM Guide and Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
I've about purchased everything I want that is currently out Call of Cthulhu wise, so now I'm gathering the D&D stuff. I'm probably going to replace a bunch of my Judges Guild stuff because it is almost 40 years old and the paper deterioration will kill my allergies. Probably just wait for RPG Now sales to pick it up.
Unfortunately, most of my RPG gaming for the next couple of years will be at Conventions.
^Out of curiosity, why didn't you get the Player's Handbook?
[edit]Oh, and I am about the same amount of time away from retirement! O0
Quote from: bbmike on February 10, 2018, 02:45:36 PM
^Out of curiosity, why didn't you get the Player's Handbook?
[edit]Oh, and I am about the same amount of time away from retirement! O0
Good question - I bought it previously.
Did you go digital or paper?
Is 5e "not that bad?" Won't say that I didn't like 3e (and 4e is...well...), but was curious 'bout the new kid and I generally trust what you people say.
I really like 5e. You can download a free copy of the basic rules from WotC, which are essentially just missing the additional races and classes. The bloat is slowly coming out in the other books, but frankly its so far mostly some new subclasses, spells, and fluff for character background information. The core three books are really solid IMHO.
I got them in paper since I use them as reference books.
I also like 5e. I don't want to play a miniatures tactical combat game. The new Dungeon Masters Guide tries to get you to think through your world design and flavor as the first step. Most of the core rules are in the Players Handbook. I've not really played much since 1984, so the visualizations in the Monster Manual are a little jarring to me. The rules are pretty streamlined. They are flexible enough that you can shape quite different worlds with them. I think I like it, but only playing will tell and I have four years to go until retirement.
Well give me some time to sort some personal life stuff out and I'll try and revive the Grogs Fantasy Grounds group for some VTT gameplay.
^ In! If my time allows.
Quote from: Dammit Carl! on February 14, 2018, 08:07:32 AM
Is 5e "not that bad?" Won't say that I didn't like 3e (and 4e is...well...), but was curious 'bout the new kid and I generally trust what you people say.
And I just got done running an 18 month home brew with neophytes and everyone had a good time. So 5e is good by me.
So your all done with your campaign MD? Not starting another one?
I have to admit, it was because I was burnt rather than coming to a conclusion. I've got quite a bit coming down the line in the next few months that won't allow for much leisure time. But, when I get everything on an even keel, I will start another. This time with more experience and better organization :bd:
Cool. Yeah sometimes its easy to get burnt out DMing especially if you are the sole manager and motivator of the cats. Besides starting a new campaign in few months will let you put your experience to practice.
I've heard from people that would know that 5e is the best version in a while, like the cut through the BS and really listened to the community and built the game that the players wanted.
It's a pretty solid edition of the game.
I won't lie, Toonces, it's a lot more roll playing than role playing. At least from what I was brought up playing. But, they've made it so your low level characters have a chance to survive and grow powerful. I think it's a good balance. But I am a bit more visual than I am at imagining, so, it helps me get into it more.
It's really a separate topic, but 5e is as roll play heavy as the DM/players want to make it. In my experience, older players are less inclined to role play and revert to more roll play. I honestly think its a social norms thing. Adults are just discouraged from imaginative play in part due to social pressures to act "grown up" and also the reality of adult responsibilities like paying the bills. So the dice help create decisions and actions, which can itself become the norm of playing.
Another factor is the rules. It really comes down to how often dice checks are required by the system. Its one of the reasons that I'm not a huge fan of Pathfinder/3.5 D&D. In those systems, there are seemingly rules for everything and many of those rules require some sort of check. Want to open a door? Dice check. Want to do a leaping sword attack? Dice check. Want to negotiate a price? Dice check. 5e still has a good number of similar skill checks, but they are significantly reduced. In the end, it just depends on what type of game the play group wants.
In the game I run for my kids, I frankly ignore a great many of the checks. They simply are not needed. If it seems reasonable or, more importantly, they are having fun, I just let a good many rules slide. I just try, and many times fail, to not get in the way of the story being created.
Honestly. If you want to compare a system, download Basic Fantasy Role Playing. Its free and you can see quickly the difference between a rules light system and more rules heavy systems. For example, the classes are discussed on 1/2 to 1 page of text each. That's it. The rules almost force more role play, because there isn't a rule or check to determine every outcome.
Quote from: Bison on February 18, 2018, 06:04:45 AM
It's really a separate topic, but 5e is as roll play heavy as the DM/players want to make it. In my experience, older players are less inclined to role play and revert to more roll play. I honestly think its a social norms thing. Adults are just discouraged from imaginative play in part due to social pressures to act "grown up" and also the reality of adult responsibilities like paying the bills. So the dice help create decisions and actions, which can itself become the norm of playing.
Another factor is the rules. It really comes down to how often dice checks are required by the system. Its one of the reasons that I'm not a huge fan of Pathfinder/3.5 D&D. In those systems, there are seemingly rules for everything and many of those rules require some sort of check. Want to open a door? Dice check. Want to do a leaping sword attack? Dice check. Want to negotiate a price? Dice check. 5e still has a good number of similar skill checks, but they are significantly reduced. In the end, it just depends on what type of game the play group wants.
In the game I run for my kids, I frankly ignore a great many of the checks. They simply are not needed. If it seems reasonable or, more importantly, they are having fun, I just let a good many rules slide. I just try, and many times fail, to not get in the way of the story being created.
Good thoughts. As a long time role player, it always surprises me when people can't or won't role play their characters. Too me, that is part of what makes the game fun. Not to say you need to be in character the entire time you're at the table, but some level of acting and being in character is necessary.
I agree with you about an excessive level of dice checks. I don't like them as a player and I avoid them as a DM. I've noticed it is an easy crutch for DMs too. Rather than crafting a cool dungeon/scenario, it's often easier to throw a ridiculous amount of dice checks at the PCs.
A couple of observations on 5e.
The first section of the DM guide tries to get the DM to consider the type of world they want to run. This includes how magic heavy, how god interfering, technology, how much order (wilderness/civilization), etc.....
The first sections also get the DM to think through how much mystery (unknown in the world), combat heavy, role playing, give away treasure, etc... they want.
The whole set-up of the 5e is to encourage the DM to decide the type of world they want and then make decisions accordingly.
If I wanted a "roll play" game I would just stick with computer gaming. Live RPGs benefit from actual role-playing - at least that is what is fun to me. I am not that interested in a system where the dice rolls determine everything. I also don't want a world where the players know everything and everything is a very straight black/white existance. I'm also not intersted in a rules heavy tactical combat game.
But people who want a tactical combat game roll play are just fine with me - but that is not something I would like to devote a huge amount of time to.
When I play Call of Cthulhu my characters usually follow whatever motivation seems reasonable to me. That frequently works out to my character encountering so much weirdness that they disengage and go for help (or more friends with guns). When I'm designing Call of Cthulhu scenarios, I'm trying hard to give each player a different motivation to unravel the mystery. Otherwise, the "rational" player who sees too much weirdness and murder will either run away and say nothing, or run away and seek help from the authorities. I've designed a lot of player hooks including:
a] care for the poor
b] care for the town
c] religious motivation to fight evil
d] "captain america" motivation to protect the innocent
e] insane level curiosity
f] insane level greed
Quote from: airboy on February 18, 2018, 12:09:43 PM
The first section of the DM guide tries to get the DM to consider the type of world they want to run. This includes how magic heavy, how god interfering, technology, how much order (wilderness/civilization), etc.....
The first sections also get the DM to think through how much mystery (unknown in the world), combat heavy, role playing, give away treasure, etc... they want.
The whole set-up of the 5e is to encourage the DM to decide the type of world they want and then make decisions accordingly.
2 thoughts
1. There's a lot of that detail in the Fantasy Hero sourcebook (http://grogheads.com/review/classic/7307) for Hero/GURPS from 25 years ago.
2. "get the DM to consider the type of world they want to run" - uh... ask the players? I hope they mention it!
:)
Quote from: bayonetbrant on February 18, 2018, 01:15:46 PM
Quote from: airboy on February 18, 2018, 12:09:43 PM
The first section of the DM guide tries to get the DM to consider the type of world they want to run. This includes how magic heavy, how god interfering, technology, how much order (wilderness/civilization), etc.....
The first sections also get the DM to think through how much mystery (unknown in the world), combat heavy, role playing, give away treasure, etc... they want.
The whole set-up of the 5e is to encourage the DM to decide the type of world they want and then make decisions accordingly.
2 thoughts
1. There's a lot of that detail in the Fantasy Hero sourcebook (http://grogheads.com/review/classic/7307) for Hero/GURPS from 25 years ago.
2. "get the DM to consider the type of world they want to run" - uh... ask the players? I hope they mention it!
:)
They discuss what your players want to do at length.
And the 5e is not really claiming something new. 5e is after all 40 years or so after the advent of RPGs. Not like they needed to reinvent the wheel or discover some great unknown elements of RPGs.
Personally, I'm running a home brew variant of Forgotten Realms. The major reason being a lack of time to devout to creating a number of things that I want in a world political organizations, secret societies, and maps. I haven't read any Forgotten Realms novels in years, so I'm actually pretty unaware of the written history and lore. The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is the perfect level of setting building for me. It gives a nice once over the world and more specifics on parts of the Sword Coast, but not a ton of details and lore. And there are thousands of maps online for the Forgotten Realms. There's always a new place to go and build our story, so it's a really good fit for us. Right now we are running a through the beginner's box quest Lost Mine of Phandelver, which is actually a really good pre-gen module. However, I've taken quite a bit of liberty with the adventure and am making tie ins with Horde of the Dragon Queen and the character backgrounds to create our world.
I had heard rumor that 5e was going to revisit the Known World setting. So I have gone back to the Thyatis and Alphatia boxed set, Dawn of the Emperors along with the three or four Gazetteers I have. Even pulled out my Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread modules to give them a look.
I had all of the original Gazetteers and ended up selling them on ebay.
When I retire and restart my RPG D&D and Call of Cthulhu stuff, I'll probably go back to playing the Judges Guild world. It is truly massive and is mostly wildnerness. I like a lot of chaos and rumor in my worlds, and I've found the D&D worlds to be too settled and organized for my taste.
I run Forgotten Realms with the vast majority of the world as being currently unsettled. Once you move beyond the immediate influence of the regional city state or the boundaries of internally weakly aligned kingdoms, the world is anarchic. The one foundation of FR that I really like is that massive and powerful kingdoms have risen and fallen over the millennia. Lot's of great story lines and adventure locations can be created and explored.
Some day I'll play a Ravenloft campaign, but the way I'd like to run it is too dark for kids. I have a bunch of Dragon Lance material, which I may bring out and play at some point too. Great thing about RPGs is that old material can always be revitalized.
My current favorite game mechanic in 5e is passive checks. (I know its been done in other games too.)
You can use them for every stat. Stuck door? Strong character can force open no effort, but weaker character cannot. Trap? High perception. Hey its a trap! Low perception? Oh, shit I set off a trap. No dice rolls for skill checks unless actively performing a specific task like searching for traps.
Rules based for more rule-centric gamer. The older kid likes to read the rules, therefore rules are very important to follow. How come she saw the trap and I didn't? Passive wisdom check... Ok.
This all creates an easy means to distinguish between character traits and setup moments the DM wants to have an undetermined or more challenging success/fail outcomes.
What exactly is: "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?"
Can you provide a link?
Quote from: airboy on February 20, 2018, 12:49:03 PM
What exactly is: "The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?"
Can you provide a link?
http://dnd.wizards.com/products/tabletop-games/rpg-products/sc-adventurers-guide
What is horrifying to me, absolutely horrifying, is that I need to dispose of almost all of my D&D materials as well as my Call of Cthulhu materials.
Everything > 30 years old was printed on cheap paper (except the hardbound books). I cannot read it because of my allergies.
The only bright spot is most of the stuff can be repurchased on PDF. And some of the stuff I don't need to replace (Hello Tomb of Horrors!).
I started looking at Ebay and Amazon and many of the things I'm going to dispose of are selling at $10 - $40.
This sucks so much.
Any thought towards scanning your items to pdf rather than having to re-purchase them?
Having said that, I'm aware that I'm blessed working for a firm that routinely deals with scanning stuff from paper to pdf and vice-versa so I'm not certain how "easy," that would work in other places with other folks.
Sorry, mang.
if you're going to some conventions this summer, you might want to see about bringing stuff along. You might not get quite as much straight cash, but you might get some good deals on credit from the retailers/vendors if you're willing to exchange for other products they've got
Quote from: Dammit Carl! on February 20, 2018, 01:00:18 PM
Any thought towards scanning your items to pdf rather than having to re-purchase them?
Having said that, I'm aware that I'm blessed working for a firm that routinely deals with scanning stuff from paper to pdf and vice-versa so I'm not certain how "easy," that would work in other places with other folks.
Sorry, mang.
My scanning them is a big issue for my allergies. I even have a high quality scanner at work - but I don't think I can assign my grad student to do this.
I'd have to pay someone to scan the stuff, but that is a real good thought.
Thanks.
Quote from: airboy on February 20, 2018, 04:36:22 PM
I'd have to pay someone to scan the stuff, but that is a real good thought.
would it cost less to just buy the PDFs?
I'm asking b/c when you get the PDFs, you're getting them w/ searchable text. When you scan them, you're getting images that aren't OCR'ed (or a LOT of typo-correcting if you are trying to OCR them) and therefore the text isn't searchable.
^ All good thoughts.
I need to go through everything and decide what I just want to discard/sell and what I want to replace.
Then I have to decide how I want to replace it.
And I'll have to do this in small doses for illness. Or just do it all at once and be sick and drink scotch for a week.
Airboy - watch for an email from me
Quote from: airboy on February 20, 2018, 04:54:21 PM
^ All good thoughts.
I need to go through everything and decide what I just want to discard/sell and what I want to replace.
Then I have to decide how I want to replace it.
And I'll have to do this in small doses for illness. Or just do it all at once and be sick and drink scotch for a week.
If you are just going to discard some of them, I'd be willing to cover shipping. You may even still have my address ;)
Quote from: MetalDog on February 20, 2018, 07:30:04 PM
If you are just going to discard some of them, I'd be willing to cover shipping. You may even still have my address ;)
You live 3 hours away! Just meet for a beer in the middle and hand them off :)
You'll spend less in gas than you would in shipping
Great idea! But I hate driving in/around/near Birmingham. Terrible roads. Terrible traffic. Terrible drivers.
Unrelated complaint but I simply do not understand WotCs position on not making all prior products print on demand. I could see not wanting to undercut 5e sales but I'm not sure that would actually happen anyway.