The Role Playing Game Thread: Shiny Dice Roll Better!

[Commodore]

D&D and Warhammer killed off ye olde wargaming I think.

I think the appeal in those two over historical games is the variety they offer. For example, in 40k you can fight as, and against, everything from regular humans, to genetic super soldiers, to giant alien beasts, to horrific demons from another dimension. In a historical wargame, it's just going to be regular humans that are roughly the same in appearance and capability.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think the appeal in those two over historical games is the variety they offer. For example, in 40k you can fight as, and against, everything from regular humans, to genetic super soldiers, to giant alien beasts, to horrific demons from another dimension. In a historical wargame, it's just going to be regular humans that are roughly the same in appearance and capability.

It's also more casual and Napoleonic wargaming was fairly niche anyway.

 

[Socrates99]

I had an experience similar to the OP's and didn't really know how to get out of it as a GM.

We were playing the Star Wars D20 which had rules similar to DnD 3.5. In a previous campaign with one of the other players as GM the player party affected the meta story by getting Han Solo killed on Cloud City rather than encased in carbonite. It was close to the end of that campaign so it didn't hurt the current GMs story much. It did lead to an interesting turn though. We decided Han's death gave Luke enough vulnerability to be swayed by Vader's overtures to join him and overthrow the Emperor.

So father and son easily gave Sheev the boot and took over. To counter that we decided Yoda wouldn't die like he did in Jedi since he hadn't passed the torch to a new Jedi. Instead he trained Leia. Her personality as a leader, politician, etc made her choose a different path than Luke. Instead she began a secret school of Jedi that operated by recruiting force adopts and training them in opposition to a Sith school operated by Luke and a now old and crippled Vader (we had set our campaign 20 years after Empire, Vader's old AF and even cybernetics and force can't combat old age.)

I had brought Luke up to level 20 with 2 levels of Fringer (jack of all trades in SW, think bard or ranger) 5 levels jedi guardian, 3 levels of Sith knight and 10 levels of Sith Lord. He was essentially a Vader/Kylo/Maul type character. I even decked him out with the best Sith armor possible. The PCs were allowed to create any class but any Jedi needed 2 levels of a more mundane class since Leia wasn't recruiting kids.

I can't remember how the story exactly played out but eventually it wound up with a confrontation on Death Star II of the PCs, 2 level 7 Jedi and another on the bounty hunter path, with Luke and 2 dozen Stormtroopers (not as much a joke in game as in the movies).

Rather than retreat they decided to fight. The rules made blasters pretty weak v Jedi but not irrelevant. I even had the Stormtroopers reinforce at 10 per round since we were on the death Star. One player hyper focused on Luke and because of bad dice rolls nearly overcame him. The problem was that continuing that fight with my set trooper reinforcements left them pretty overwhelmed. I transparently kept reminding them that the player hell bent on killing Luke was going to get a dark side point and the group was getting overwhelmed but they kept pressing to kill Luke.

I didn't want a wipe or my main baddie to be killed. In retrospect having them face off at all was a bad idea but I thought my lev 20 Sith Lord was pretty solid. Eventually I pushed them to retreat and one player commented that it was the first time he'd been ushered out of combat but the odds were so against them.

I guess as GM the lesson I learned was to never dangle a choice for players that I didn't want them to take.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's also more casual and Napoleonic wargaming was fairly niche anyway.

More casual is the key. I don't know how other sorts of miniatures are played, but the guy I met was all over with a tape measure, moving his figures around in their prescribed available movement and measuring the range before consulting tables for likelihood of hits and damage...basically all the drudgery aspects of D&D, multiplied to fill the entire game. I don't know about y'all, but the vast majority of my D&D playing there were hardly any miniatures involved, and when they did make an appearance they sort of sat near their owner like an avatar.

 

[Socrates99]

More casual is the key. I don't know how other sorts of miniatures are played, but the guy I met was all over with a tape measure, moving his figures around in their prescribed available movement and measuring the range before consulting tables for likelihood of hits and damage...basically all the drudgery aspects of D&D, multiplied to fill the entire game. I don't know about y'all, but the vast majority of my D&D playing there were hardly any miniatures involved, and when they did make an appearance they sort of sat near their owner like an avatar.

Never used a grid or miniatures. We always went with the GMs judgement. Every once in a blue moon we'd plot things out with dice representing characters on the field but it was rare.

 

[Commodore]

More casual is the key. I don't know how other sorts of miniatures are played, but the guy I met was all over with a tape measure, moving his figures around in their prescribed available movement and measuring the range before consulting tables for likelihood of hits and damage...basically all the drudgery aspects of D&D, multiplied to fill the entire game

That's pretty much how 40k is played. Thankfully, some people have developed apps that make the process go a lot faster. Games are also usually capped at 7 turns. A sufficiently large game can still take a whole weekend to complete though.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Never used a grid or miniatures. We always went with the GMs judgement. Every once in a blue moon we'd plot things out with dice representing characters on the field but it was rare.

I had a dry erase mat marked out in grid that I drew stuff on to help the players visualize their surroundings. I thought it saved a lot of "wait, there's a passage on the...left...or was it on the right?" But we played mostly in a living room lounging on couches and chairs, not at a table, so I'd just sort of hold up the mat when I wanted them to see something or they started asking how the layout was.

That's pretty much how 40k is played. Thankfully, some people have developed apps that make the process go a lot faster. Games are also usually capped at 7 turns. A sufficiently large game can still take a whole weekend to complete though.

Seven turns in a weekend. Sounds like a real barnburner.

 

[EgonSpengler]

More casual is the key. I don't know how other sorts of miniatures are played, but the guy I met was all over with a tape measure, moving his figures around in their prescribed available movement and measuring the range before consulting tables for likelihood of hits and damage...basically all the drudgery aspects of D&D, multiplied to fill the entire game. I don't know about y'all, but the vast majority of my D&D playing there were hardly any miniatures involved, and when they did make an appearance they sort of sat near their owner like an avatar.

I liked a lot of the spectrum of hardcore to casual gaming. On the one hand, I and some friends drove to Milwaukee to compete in the national Starfleet Battles tournament*; on the other hand, I played Vampire with people who were thrilled to have me roll all the dice in secret, not because it increased the tension or anything, but just because they didn't want to roll dice and look at numbers.

*On the way, we all had a huge nerd moment when an A-10 Warthog flew right in front of the car. It looked like it was 6 feet above the road, but I suppose it probably wasn't that low. Naturally, we took it to be a good omen.

Never used a grid or miniatures. We always went with the GMs judgement. Every once in a blue moon we'd plot things out with dice representing characters on the field but it was rare.

Like Tim, my D&D games frequently included a mat with a grid that you could draw on with dry-erase markers and then wipe off.

That's pretty much how 40k is played. Thankfully, some people have developed apps that make the process go a lot faster. Games are also usually capped at 7 turns. A sufficiently large game can still take a whole weekend to complete though.

I played Space Marine for a bit. I'm not sure they even make that anymore. I ended up playing Orks because I joined the group late and that was the army nobody else wanted to play. I don't think I ever finished painting the darned things.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I liked a lot of the spectrum of hardcore to casual gaming. On the one hand, I and some friends drove to Milwaukee to compete in the national Starfleet Battles tournament*; on the other hand, I played Vampire with people who were thrilled to have me roll all the dice in secret, not because it increased the tension or anything, but just because they didn't want to roll dice and look at numbers.

Me too, but the immediate click here is that for a hard core game you gotta drive to Milwaukee, for a casual game I just wander over to my friend Rich's house. I liked hard core games, and at the time I was even intrigued with the whole sand table and miniatures bit, but it was certainly easier to drum up a more casual game on short notice. I think that's why D&D thrived where miniatures remained niche and more likely tiny niche.

 

[Commodore]

Seven turns in a weekend. Sounds like a real barnburner.

Yeah well it can take a while to resolve combat when you have a bunch of dice to roll. For example: that tank I posted a picture of is a Leman Russ Punisher. Its main turret fires 20 shots every time it shoots. With the Grinding Advance special rule, it can fire its main turret weapon twice in a single turn. That's 40 shots that all need separate rolls for to-hit, to-wound and armor/invulnerable saves.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah well it can take a while to resolve combat when you have a bunch of dice to roll. For example: that tank I posted a picture of is a Leman Russ Punisher. Its main turret fires 20 shots every time it shoots. With the Grinding Advance special rule, it can fire its main turret weapon twice in a single turn. That's 40 shots that all need separate rolls for to-hit, to-wound and armor/invulnerable saves.

Well that clarifies that! Now it really sounds like an action packed rowdy way to spend a weekend! How could you possibly sleep?

Just kidding...remember I was the guy who was intrigued by the sand table and tape measures.

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember 8 hour risk sessions.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I remember 8 hour risk sessions.

I remember playing D&D all weekend, with breaking for the nights only when people just started nodding off so we had to stop.

 

[Commodore]

Well that clarifies that! Now it really sounds like an action packed rowdy way to spend a weekend! How could you possibly sleep?

Just kidding...remember I was the guy who was intrigued by the sand table and tape measures.

I don't think I have the endurance for one of those weekend-long games which is why my wife and I keep our battles pretty small to fit into the few hours we have in the evenings after putting the kids to bed.

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember playing D&D all weekend, with breaking for the nights only when people just started nodding off so we had to stop.

Soft we went through the night.

Longest session was 27 hours. 11am to 2pm the next day including a 2 hour battle.

Included dinner break.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

We would start Friday after a day of school/work and usually be nodding off around three or four. Knowing that we were all just going to flake out on couches and floors to get up for breakfast and continuing on made it easier to call it. Then Saturday night since we were all running on four or five hours sleep it was hard to power through.

 

[rah]

I had a dry erase mat marked out in grid that I drew stuff on to help the players visualize their surroundings. I thought it saved a lot of "wait, there's a passage on the...left...or was it on the right?" But we played mostly in a living room lounging on couches and chairs, not at a table, so I'd just sort of hold up the mat when I wanted them to see something or they started asking how the layout was.

The group was always required to keep their own map when I was the DM. I'd explain the terrain once and after that it was up to them. I always had the map so I never got confused

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The group was always required to keep their own map when I was the DM. I'd explain the terrain once and after that it was up to them. I always had the map so I never got confused

I've definitely played in groups that worked that way, and never had any complaints get too loud. I did concede though that when someone said "I'll duck into the passage on the left" and the passage was on the right it was awkward. I mean, clearly they aren't going to just run into a wall because five minutes back they misunderstood and drew a map wrong. They should be able to see the walls and know that their map is wrong. I dunno. I will say that the mat never had anything on it other than the immediate surroundings. If someone said "let's go back to that room with the statues" and no one really knew which turnings to take to get there that was certainly not the DM's problem.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Me too, but the immediate click here is that for a hard core game you gotta drive to Milwaukee, for a casual game I just wander over to my friend Rich's house. I liked hard core games, and at the time I was even intrigued with the whole sand table and miniatures bit, but it was certainly easier to drum up a more casual game on short notice. I think that's why D&D thrived where miniatures remained niche and more likely tiny niche.

I actually would recommend going to a good convention at least once, for anyone with any interest at all in nerdy stuff. Obviously San Diego ComicCon is the huge one, but at GenCon in the mid-'90s, I saw the Violent Femmes, rode in an elevator with Mira Furlan, and went to an adults-only, after-hours launch party of an "NC-17" card game by Phil and Kaja Foglio. That particular con wasn't big on the costumes, as some are, but there was a lot of really impressive artwork and props and toys people had made, and so on. I remember a huge gaming table for Games Workshop's Necromunda that had three levels and must have been twelve feet long. This is all in addition to the usual con stuff, the scheduled and ad hoc games and the vendors room. The cons aren't just for the hardcores.

 

[Arakhor]

I actually met Joe Dever (the author of the Lone Wolf books) once and Claudia Christian (from Babylon 5, amongst others) twice, both in Swindon, of all places.