Recent content by CF07

3.5 attack and damage arithmetic could get really burdensome for sure, especially for a complex build at mid to high levels. I used to color code all my dice so the different damage types were obvious. I played with someone who both liked complex character builds and didn't have the capability...

I prefer not to run a large table but the tricks you lay out are all good ones. One alternative might be to have an established initiative order that interleaves PC and monster. So there's no rolling at all. The players can choose who goes on their side and the DM chooses who goes next on the...

I'm not sure I'll use this product but I'll definitely check it out. I'm thinking of doing my next D&D campaign in Greyhawk so some new material would be nice.

I uploaded the Free League Year Zero Engine SRD to a ChatGPT project and with careful prompting (emphasis!) it did a solid job flipping content from the die pool version to the step dice version. I am sure it'd do a good job taking other games into or out of 2D20 as long as it had info like an...

I've never run a public game but I did run a jazz jam for a while. Amateur jazzers are just as nerdy as D&D players and they're even flakier and difficult to deal with. I had big problems with no shows, people who'd show for an hour and then leave, etc. No shows in that context were a real...

I wasn't actually trying to do that. I was just agreeing that many players have an "with my shield or on it" mentality. Stories that assume that PCs will surrender are usually a fool's errand unless you're able to find the unicorn players who will do something like surrender or you're able to...

I'm not familiar with Fate but I really do want to agree with the "carrying my shield or on it" mentality. Stories that require the PCs to be captured or surrender, for example, are usually a no go.

Well egregious bugs is very Fallout.... :eek: So my experience with their games is primarily playing STA, though I've run a bit of Achtung! Cthulhu, Conan, and John Carter. STA1E wasn't well-written as a rulebook. It was pretty but things like the black background with white text was rough, for...

Trinity Continuum has a mechanism like that.

That's true. The real trick would be to make stories that feel authentic to the setting but aren't copies of the game. A while back I did some back of the envelope calculations. 5E actually does a pretty good job if you make the heroes pretty high level, say 10 and keep a lot of the foes lower...

I'd love a Deus Ex RPG, but the problem is, well, it's really a solo character experience.

Yeah, stories that vibe like the original ones work. To be clear the Modiphius campaigns and stories did a good job at that. They were often really cool. What I struggled with was how to make the rules work. These days I'd be much more open to swapping the ruleset but at the time I was...

You're right, Conan is usually a lone wolf hero, which is not a good basis for a TTRPG where it's unusual for most of a group of players to be willing to be the sidekicks of a main character. REH did have some actual peers for Conan. Belit is a good example, though she's quite the mess in...

Absolutely, though he certainly does have his serious flaws and there are stories where he can't just out-sword everyone else though. It's more of the start of the story, but the one where he swims to Belit's pirate ship, implying that whatever it was he was doing before really didn't work out...

Yup, that's it. They kept a mostly traditional TTRPG things intact without picking up the things that made Conan unique and different. I totally agree, and Conan seems to switch weapons based on whatever's convenient/available. He gets a sword, breaks a sword, steals one from a foe after a hand...