Asymmetrikon posted:

Apropos of nothing, I've a question for you all: what are your dream features for a virtual tabletop program (like MapTool or Roll20)? What would make your life easier as a DM or player? If you were to have a scriptable, moddable VTT, what would you want to be able to mess around with?

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'd like to go to GenCon 2015. Assuming I can get a room. And plane tickets. And probably a car rental.

And friends to go with.

Asymmetrikon posted:

Reposting from last thread, cause i'm still interested in responses:

Asymmetrikon posted:

Reposting from last thread, cause i'm still interested in responses:

Judgement posted:

I have been invited to take part in a campaign set in "Zakhara", part of the Forgotten Realms that is apparently "Arabian" themed. So. On a scale of one to the republican party, exactly how racist should I expect this game to be?

Evil Mastermind posted:

I'd like to go to GenCon 2015. Assuming I can get a room. And plane tickets. And probably a car rental.

And friends to go with.

Froghammer posted:

I have friends that go every year and apparently it's great.

Be prepared for a whole mess of fat guys though.

ritorix posted:

Gencon is less than a year away.

Kwyndig posted:

I wouldn't need a plane ticket (it's only one state away from here after all), but there's no way in hell I could afford to go considering I'm up to my eyeballs in bills. Well unless somebody is crazy enough to give me like four grand to pay off my dentists.

Judgement posted:

I have been invited to take part in a campaign set in "Zakhara", part of the Forgotten Realms that is apparently "Arabian" themed. So. On a scale of one to the republican party, exactly how racist should I expect this game to be?

Judgement posted:

I have been invited to take part in a campaign set in "Zakhara", part of the Forgotten Realms that is apparently "Arabian" themed. So. On a scale of one to the republican party, exactly how racist should I expect this game to be?

Judgement posted:

Okay, I am becoming slightly less worried about what I might be getting myself into. I only wish I had more familiarity with any potential source material so I had any idea what to play in such a setting.

Arivia posted:

There's no Al-Qadim material up on D&D Classics so I can't link you to anything; but I can recommend just leaving everything you think you know about the FR behind. By and large, the "exotic" settings have little in common with the usual Realms and are best approached on their own merits.

Dagon posted:

Yeah there is: http://www.dndclassics.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_44715&term=al-qadim

Loki_XLII posted:

I guess I probably count as a lurker, I only really post every couple of weeks, if that.

And I'd really like to go to GenCon next year, but I don't know if I'll be in a position where I can. Also all of my friends usually start school around when it happens so I don't know if I'd be able to go with anyone, and kind of don't want to go alone.

NorgLyle posted:

(except for against yak men because gently caress yak men -- every campaign setting needs at least one designated 'always evil' group to murder)

Judgement posted:

I have been invited to take part in a campaign set in "Zakhara", part of the Forgotten Realms that is apparently "Arabian" themed. So. On a scale of one to the republican party, exactly how racist should I expect this game to be?

Mr. Maltose posted:

Just to repost my question because it was two posts before August Thread closed: Any impressions people have on One Last Job?

Thomamelas posted:

I have run One Last Job within the last few months. It's a great system to run a one shot in and I'm keeping it in my stack because it's great system for times where I need something for a group to play but I haven't done any prep work at all. It seems to lend itself more towards the silly rather then serious. You introduce the boss and the first character, someone picks it and describes the second and so forth. Lots of insults flying back and forth. And while the players are discribing the characters they are also laying out the heist for you.

Mr. Maltose posted:

Cool, I picked it up after listening to One Shot Podcast play it, and I was a bit curious if it naturally bent a bit less serious or if it was just falling prey to the tendency of One Shot to be goofy as hell.

quote:

What's interesting about it is that you explicitly don't make your own character. The DM comes up with the job and then sets up a short scene between a DM character, the dude who is hiring the players, and the leader of the player group, who the DM also comes up with and describes and one player (player 1) volunteers to play. Then that character goes off to get the old gang back together, and player 1 describes their character going off to recruit the next member of the team and what that person is like, and someone (player 2) volunteers to play that character. And then player 2's dude goes off to recruit the third character. And so on, and so forth.

The game comes with options to flavor it for different settings and of course we did a Western setting. Our job tonight was to stop an evil railroad company that was trying to chase off the residents of an entire Western town because it believed there was a seam of gold running right under Main Street. The company had hired Pinkerton goons to beat and harass the townsfolk and bribed the corrupt new sheriff, Dalton, to look the other way.

The game began when the town's previous sheriff, a good but elderly man, hired desc as legendary gunfighter Lefty McGee, who has tried to renounce violence and become a (very bad) farmer. Lefty brought in Dread Pirate Arbuthnot as his old teammate Annie Carson, a buxom, fast-talking saloon girl and grifter. She recruited me as Ramsey, an uncomplicated, bearded giant of a bare-knuckle prizefighter, and Ramsey tracked down Elldren as China Lin, an expert thief, pickpocket, and safecracker.

Annie sweet-talked the sleazy new sheriff out of his office so China Lin could sneak inside and crack the safe. Lin found several incriminating documents proving that he was taking bribes from the railroad, as well as $15,000 in gold bars, which she promptly made off with and never told the rest of the team about. (Elldren played her in the manner of Asians in old movies: never getting a line.)

Meanwhile, Lefty and Ramsey went to the saloon and tried to get recruited by the Pinkertons. The Pinkertons were playing a drinking game where you take a row of increasingly large shot glasses, tumblers, and mugs, drink the contents, then toss the glass over your shoulder and try to spin around and shoot it. They invited the old gunfighter to join them, only loaded up all his glasses with whiskey (they were drinking beer). Desc rolled to make his shot, and whiffed it -

- but this game has a mechanic where, when you fail a roll, the other players can try to help you by describing how you have a piece of handy equipment that gets you out of this jam, or how there is a legend about your prowess that is relevant to the task at hand, or by describing a "scar," some past physical or emotional trauma that motivates you to succeed against the odds here and now. We did a scar, and decided that Lefty McGee was once known as Righty McGee, before suffering a crippling wound to his shooting hand, and had to painstakingly train himself back up to expertise with his off-hand.

Lefty effortlessly hits every single shot like lightning, and walks away with the Pinkerton goons' respect. They tell him they can't hire directly but he should wire Head Office to apply.

Annie, meanwhile, learns from the sheriff that the Pinkertons are waiting on a big delivery of payment to start the next stage of their operation and really kick the harassment into high gear. Meeting back up after their respective jobs, the team decides they have to hijack the pay train and convince the Pinkertons that their job has been cancelled.

Lefty, Ramsey, and China ride across the plains to the train, and with a mighty effort haul themselves off their steaming horses onto the caboose. Lefty and Ramsey head inside while Lin clambers atop the train, bound for the armored car at the center. A conductor tries to bumrush the two men but Ramsey holds him at bay with one immense arm, then sits him in a chair and takes his conductor's hat. Making their way through the passenger cars with bandanas over their faces, the two men come to the armored car and its guards, who are slow to react; Lefty shoots the guns out of their hand. Ramsey pries the door open just in time to find China inside already, hog-tying the last guard, having dropped in from the skylight above. Our three heroes leave the guards in the caboose with a bottle of whiskey and detach it from the rest of the train, then jump off with the money, heading overland to where they had stashed a trio of fresh horses with which to make their way back into town.

Annie, meanwhile, heads to the telegraph operator's office. This whole plan won't work if the Pinkertons and their head office can communicate freely, after all. She tries to wheedle the operator out of his office with a bit of sweet talk -

- and fails.

Another rule of the game, much like the one we used for Lefty earlier, is that, one time, you can give a character a piece of equipment that can help them with their roll. We decided that Annie was wearing her most expensive whalebone corset and really coming on strong to this guy (who I picture looking like John Fiedler). She rolls again -

- and fails.


We decide to help her out again and give her a scar. Annie Carson has a husband and child she left behind in the big city to come out here and try to make her fortune. She will let nothing and nobody stand in the way of that. Six subsequent husbands that she married and cleaned out will attest to that.

There is an option to take a hit to the character's Stamina in exchange for the GM losing his highest-rolling dice, so we opt for that one. Annie succeeds at last in seducing this incredibly stubborn rear end in a top hat telegraph operator, but he negs her in the process. It's the 1880s, so he probably tells her she could stand to gain fifteen pounds.

With the operator out of the telegraph office, Lefty is free to sneak in and forge a telegram informing the Pinkertons that their job has been cancelled and they've been recalled home. He and Ramsey walk to the saloon to give them the bad news. "Gosh, guys, we were telegraphing the head office just like you said, and wouldn't you know, this was coming in addressed to you, and I told that courier that there's no need to deliver it himself, I was headed this way anyway..."

Desc makes the roll, and fails.

But this time we opt to describe the legend of Lefty McGee's uprightness and honesty. After the last job with this crew went bad, it would've been easy for him to skedaddle, but he stuck around and faced the music (whatever it was - there is always, in this game, a "last job that went bad," and the details get filled in as you go), and the townsfolk respect him for that. Seeing how everyone trusts Lefty implictly, the Pinkertons are shaken, and take the telegram, preparing to return to Washington and demand an explanation from their bosses.

(To keep them from just wiring back "WTF," Ramsey rabbit-punches the telegraph operator and leaves him in a convenient alley with a jug marked XXX.)

The Pinkertons are gone. The team has their money. The last obstacle is the corrupt Sheriff Dalton. Annie goes around town, spreading word that there is to be a meeting at the saloon at 7, and everyone gets their first two shots free. She tells the Sheriff to come visit at 7:15.

With the townsfolk gathered, Annie presents the incriminating documents that Lin stole from the sheriff's safe and rouses them with her oratory. It nearly doesn't work, but Cass decides to take another hit of Stamina damage. That whalebone corset looks great but it's pretty hard to orate in. Lefty and Lin work the crowd: "Yeah! She's right! Someone oughtta do something about that jerk!"

Sheriff Dalton storms through the swinging saloon doors, red-faced and furious with the realization that the documents and gold are missing from his safe, only to find dozens of furious gazes confronting him. He pulls out his gun and fires a single shot upward. "I am the law here!" he cries.

Then Ramsey steps forward and tries to wrestle the gun away. This is his specialty and Thom rolled a 4 and a 5 on two ten-sided dice. All I needed to do here was roll higher than a 5 on any one of three ten-sided dice.

I rolled 4, 4, 1.

The guys gave me a reroll by recounting the legend of the time some losing boxer shot Ramsey in the street and it didn't even slow the big guy down. That got rid of one of Thom's winning dice. I got rid of one of the others by taking a point of damage. The Sheriff's gun goes off again, winging Ramsey, but the big man throws the revolver to the ground contemptuously.

China Lin fakes a fainting spell at the sight of blood and the crowd, already hostile, turns enraged. Sheriff Dalton is quite literally run out of town.

A few months later, Annie Carson marries the telegraph operator, then takes him for everything he has and leaves the territory. So long, husband number eight.

China Lin never tells anyone about the fortune in gold she stole. She spends it on luxuries and trinkets at a rate that leaves her almost penniless just before she dies, leaving nothing behind.

Lefty McGee is elected the new sheriff of the town, the one job he knows he can do well.

Ramsey gazes with parochial pride at his underground boxing club, which he has, with bold vision, expanded from a dingy 20'x20' room to a slightly less dingy 25'x25' one. He is still wearing the conductor's hat.

Judgement posted:

Okay, I am becoming slightly less worried about what I might be getting myself into. I only wish I had more familiarity with any potential source material so I had any idea what to play in such a setting.

gnome7 posted:

TurninTrix posted:

Aaaaa I can't wait for this podcast.

Anatharon posted:

What is 'grog', when'd Winson quit moddin' and who's this new dude?

Siivola posted:

Oh, and the word "grognard" means "grumbler" in French. Napoleon's elite Old Guard had the priviledge of being allowed to complain freely, and their grenadiers were called "les Grognards" because they would not stop kvetching.

Siivola posted:

Oh, and the word "grognard" means "grumbler" in French. Napoleon's elite Old Guard had the priviledge of being allowed to complain freely, and their grenadiers were called "les Grognards" because they would not stop kvetching.