The Role Playing Game Thread: Shiny Dice Roll Better!
- Thread starter Ajidica
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I haven't tried the video game. There are a couple of FF board games, though. I have The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, which follows the first book in the series. The artwork on the gameboard is gorgeous (or as gorgeous as skulls, ghouls, sandworms, skeletons, and vampires can be). There's another that I haven't been able to find.
Fighting Fantasy is something I got hooked on the same day that I bought the first book. I should have been doing my French homework, but instead started playing this gamebook and next thing I knew, it was four hours later, I was lost in the Maze of Zagor, and my homework was nowhere near finished.
I've been gradually getting the sourcebooks for the multiplayer game, and using everything I can find to help flesh out the material I'm novelizing. There's a FF forum that isn't very active anymore and I'm not sure what happened to the Gamebooks group that was on Yahoo.
They are exactly this.
Zardnaar
Deity
I went from pick a path to choose your own adventure, to endless quest then to Lone Wolf and Fighting Fantasy.
Lone Wolf felt more epic due to the 20 book metaplot.
Lone Wolf felt more epic due to the 20 book metaplot.
The Sorcery series is what first got me thinking about novelizing these books. As long ago as the '90s I had several pages of notes about my character's backstory, how she and her extended family could fit into the other Fighting Fantasy books (her husband is the character I used for Caverns of the Snow Witch and Forest of Doom, and it's their son I sent into Deathtrap Dungeon.
Of course this means my stories have nothing to do with the official chronology; I'm centuries out of whack in some cases. But considering that mages in these books can live for centuries if they find a way to do that, it hardly matters.
What is challenging is getting my Sorcery! character (born in Khare, in the Old World) together with my Caverns of the Snow Witch character (probably born in Port Blacksand, in Allansia - a totally different continent). I've decided she's the one who is the world traveler and they meet up in some as yet undecided adventure, somewhere in Allansia.
Fun facts: The original paperback editions available here had The Shamutanti Hills sold with the Sorcery! Spell Book as a separate volume... and at one point I had the entire spell book memorized - how many Stamina Points each spell cost, whether or not it needed a physical component, and so on. This meant that I had less chance of more difficult combats or meeting gruesome deaths by guessing one of the fake spells found in the Shamutanti Hills book.
I tried playing Shamutanti Hills as a warrior, but found that this series is so much more fun as a mage. And since I was playing without cheating, one of my deaths in Khare was due to being trapped, with the only escape available being a levitation spell... which would cost 1 Stamina Point.
Guess how many Stamina Points I had left?
Right. Exactly 1. And I had no Provisions left (they'd been stolen). Since the adventure was over either way, I cast the spell and died.
One of my better NaNoWriMo efforts before I started winning was novelizing The Shamutanti Hills. I had somewhere between 22,000 and 23,000 words by the end of the month, and by that point I was still not even halfway through. I spent a lot of those words setting up the whole overarching Quest for the Crown of Kings, to explain why my character, of all people, would be chosen for this quest.
Most of the books have 400 paragraphs, and depending on what choices you make, the results of combat, what items you may or may not have, or what number you roll on a d6, you'll be directed to specific paragraphs. Some paragraphs lead to instant death (or some other abrupt ending to the adventure). Some will give you Gold, Provision, magic items, raise one or more attributes, and some others will have negative results. I found it handy to make diagrams of which paragraphs lead to other paragraphs, and those can get very convoluted at times.
The earlier books really emphasized mapping (graph paper and pencils are handy to have). One reason I was lost in the Maze of Zagor for so long is because I made a mistake with one section of wall in my map. Once I realized that, I was able to fix it and stop bothering the Dwarves who were becoming increasingly hostile every time I ended up interrupting their gambling.
Many of the gamebooks' maps (made by people who are a lot neater about it than I am) can be found on the Fighting Fantazine forum (it's a forum dedicated to the FF magazine, that had articles, amateur-written adventures, and so on).
9th Edition 40k has been announced. I'm happy because Imperial Guard were the kings of 8th Edition and it looks like that will remain the case in 9th Edition. Games Workshop is modifying the rules for how tanks work that will make it a lot easier to move and shoot as well as allowing tanks to fire their ranged weapons even while in melee, which is something infantry can't do unless it's with pistols. And since the Imperial Guard pretty much relies entirely on tanks, they are likely going to remain the most OP army in 40k.
Of course all the non-Imperial Guard players are pretty cheesed off about this. The way I see it though, Imperial Guard players were the punching bags for everyone else in every edition prior to 8th, so I'd say we are entitled to a few editions where we get to be the unbeatable bullies.
Of course all the non-Imperial Guard players are pretty cheesed off about this. The way I see it though, Imperial Guard players were the punching bags for everyone else in every edition prior to 8th, so I'd say we are entitled to a few editions where we get to be the unbeatable bullies.
Just had a near party wipeout in our online Pathfinder campaign.
We were fighting some nasty bloodsucking plants so only my orc with her axe and my brother's mage with his ray of frost were doing much damage.
Then my brother fumbled and hit my orc with a ray of frost and my orc fumbled and sent her axe flying off into the undergrowth. In the end we had to run away and shoot fire arrows at a distance (luckily they weren't mobile plants).
We were fighting some nasty bloodsucking plants so only my orc with her axe and my brother's mage with his ray of frost were doing much damage.
Then my brother fumbled and hit my orc with a ray of frost and my orc fumbled and sent her axe flying off into the undergrowth. In the end we had to run away and shoot fire arrows at a distance (luckily they weren't mobile plants).
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Punitive critical misses hurt the party a lot..
They do make the game funnier though.
And there are the critical hits to even things out.
Dice just haven't been rolling our way recently.
Last session when we fought the big baddy his first 2 attacks were critical hits.
And there are the critical hits to even things out.
Dice just haven't been rolling our way recently.
Last session when we fought the big baddy his first 2 attacks were critical hits.
My gaming group has been playing online using Skype and Roll20 since March.
We've been playing Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder, both of which are fully supported.
In the meantime I've been preparing adventures for Runequest Glorantha which isn't (apart from a character sheet somebody made) and its lot of work converting a published adventure to be useable online. Now I hear RQG is about 50% ready for release on Fantasy Grounds, a rival online gaming site.
Not sure if I want to laugh or cry.
We've been playing Call of Cthulhu and Pathfinder, both of which are fully supported.
In the meantime I've been preparing adventures for Runequest Glorantha which isn't (apart from a character sheet somebody made) and its lot of work converting a published adventure to be useable online. Now I hear RQG is about 50% ready for release on Fantasy Grounds, a rival online gaming site.
Not sure if I want to laugh or cry.
Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
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Sadly I have not been able to play DnD for months. I only got into it last year and had a good time with an in-person group before the Old World ended. Then I spent too much time learning about it, theorycrafting, and noticing some fundamental issues with the system, so I ordered the Pathfinder 2nd Edition rulebook and more, which won't arrive for some time, but overall it looks pretty promising. One of my biggest beefs with 5e is that martials have little reason to do anything at all other than move towards an enemy and say, "I attack," then roll. Plus, there's the issue of feats being such a rarity and a trade-off that they're rarely worth it. PF2e appears to add plenty of options for combat and customization, among other things.
Zardnaar
Deity
I kind of had fun briefly with PF2.
It's a major pain in the ass to run though and casuals probably gonna struggle.
The format of the core book is also cancer.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Just finished a campaign arc in one game where I got to pull a fat stunt, lock down the bad guy and slay him (a level 18 wizard when we were level 3.... it was a goofy stunt I was planning for 6 weeks without giving my DM a heads up). After it was done I concluded with “and I retire my character!” The other characters who foolishly split up from us afraid of the bad guys got murdered in ambush so that was doubly vindicating.
In my other game the DM kicked out our cousin for being an stress inducing power gamer and I’m mad about it, it wasn’t a good way to resolve that.
In my other game the DM kicked out our cousin for being an stress inducing power gamer and I’m mad about it, it wasn’t a good way to resolve that.
Zardnaar
Deity
An oldie but a goodie. Star War D6 REUP fan made update of the old D6 system of Star Wars.
Spoiler SWD6 Character Sheet :
Zardnaar
Deity
It's usually just easier to boot problem players.
I can power game but I'll read the room. If I'm playing with casuals I'll play whatever's needed which usually means support cleric/druid.
GoodEnoughForMe
n.m.s.s.
I was given a chance narratively to have my warlock stay behind with some myconid friends so that I could reroll. I didn't take it, then immediately regretted it the next fight.
If the DM had already tried to talk to your cousin about it without effect and his playstyle was spoiling the game for the other players then it probably was the right decision.
I've been playing my first ever game recently, through Zoom, and I'm having so much fun.
I play a High Elf Sorceress, and I'm using a Noble background and paying for an Aristocratic lifestyle. We're currently in a "Dragon Heist" game, and we're all Level 4, so we're not super powerful. I focus a lot on frost magic, but I also really like "Detect Thoughts" ... we use it a lot when we've captured someone and need to interrogate. I can break into their minds and extract their secrets, which is a lot of fun!
I have hired a Knight, I pay 15 gold per day for him, and he's so much fun. He is my personal bodyguard, and he's possibly the strongest fighter on our team (but not really being part of our team) Our host plays for him, though the character takes orders from me. Our host rewards roleplay, and my knight is from my character's homeland (she is a sovereign of a small free city), and they're obsessed with silver. So when I was describing Sir Emmyth to the group, I mentioned how much silver he's wearing, and later that night our host allowed his greatsword to be silvered while we're fighting these wererat creatures. So he has this really huge silver sword, and in a fight last Friday he decapitated a werewolf, so exciting!
Mostly I love the banter between players. We have quite a crew with very different personalities. My favorite part is the talking and arguing. We have a teifling bard who wants to profit from every situation, and fancies himself a silver-tongue. We have this half-drow paladin-warlock who is very uncouth and violent.
I bought a carriage and 4 draft horses, and none of the teammates are allowed to ride in it because they're commoners. So when we move around the city, they're like trudging around while I ride in comfort, lol.
I play a High Elf Sorceress, and I'm using a Noble background and paying for an Aristocratic lifestyle. We're currently in a "Dragon Heist" game, and we're all Level 4, so we're not super powerful. I focus a lot on frost magic, but I also really like "Detect Thoughts" ... we use it a lot when we've captured someone and need to interrogate. I can break into their minds and extract their secrets, which is a lot of fun!
I have hired a Knight, I pay 15 gold per day for him, and he's so much fun. He is my personal bodyguard, and he's possibly the strongest fighter on our team (but not really being part of our team) Our host plays for him, though the character takes orders from me. Our host rewards roleplay, and my knight is from my character's homeland (she is a sovereign of a small free city), and they're obsessed with silver. So when I was describing Sir Emmyth to the group, I mentioned how much silver he's wearing, and later that night our host allowed his greatsword to be silvered while we're fighting these wererat creatures. So he has this really huge silver sword, and in a fight last Friday he decapitated a werewolf, so exciting!
Mostly I love the banter between players. We have quite a crew with very different personalities. My favorite part is the talking and arguing. We have a teifling bard who wants to profit from every situation, and fancies himself a silver-tongue. We have this half-drow paladin-warlock who is very uncouth and violent.
I bought a carriage and 4 draft horses, and none of the teammates are allowed to ride in it because they're commoners. So when we move around the city, they're like trudging around while I ride in comfort, lol.
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