Dragonbane general thread

[dbm]

From a meta perspective this seems like too easy a ‘win’. Both players could pull this trick every session and their Weaknesses would have been exercised from a game perspective with no downside since they are countering each other. In most systems a disadvantage has to actually impact you for you to get the reward.

From a role-playing perspective it is fine, it could become a cliche of the campaign. Digression: many years ago we were playing Al Qadim and my character had the ‘barber’ kit (it was AD&D 2e). Another character always wanted a quick shave before battle, and his player hated haggling (too much Angband…). Before every battle he would ask my character to trim his beard so it was perfect, and I would demand some ridiculous some of money for it, to which he would reply “That’s outrageous… I’ll pay it”. It became a campaign trope and we still laugh about it 30 years later.

So, I would be cool with the party dynamic but I wouldn’t give them a mechanical reward for it (maybe just the first time, but no more than that).

 

[overgeeked]

From a meta perspective this seems like too easy a ‘win’. Both players could pull this trick every session and their Weaknesses would have been exercised from a game perspective with no downside since they are countering each other. In most systems a disadvantage has to actually impact you for you to get the reward.

From a role-playing perspective it is fine, it could become a cliche of the campaign. Digression: many years ago we were playing Al Qadim and my character had the ‘barber’ kit (it was AD&D 2e). Another character always wanted a quick shave before battle, and his player hated haggling (too much Ankband…). Before every battle he would ask my character to trim his beard so it was perfect, and I would demand some ridiculous some of money for it, to which he would reply “That’s outrageous… I’ll pay it”. It became a campaign trope and we still laugh about it 30 years later.

So, I would be cool with the party dynamic but I wouldn’t give them a mechanical reward for it (maybe just the first time, but no more than that).

I can see where you’re coming from on that. But I take a different approach.

Players repeat what’s rewarded. If you reward roleplaying, even “bad” or hackneyed roleplaying, then they will roleplay more. For me that’s the goal. To elicit more roleplaying from the players. Likewise with rewarding exploring a new place and overcoming obstacles without resorting to violence. I don’t particularly care how they overcome the challenge, only that it’s not through violence. Same with exploration, I don’t care what the new place is as long as the PCs are pushing for new places to see.

Seeing that dynamic in isolation is likely not helpful. We can’t assume these will be the only moments either character will be Gullible or Overbearing. If they both decide this is the one and only time they will ever RP their weaknesses and they will mechanistically do it exactly one time per session, then sure. Push back on that. But it’s quite likely the players will do more than the absolute bear minimum.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Thanks all -- some really great thoughts.

Okay, to cut to the chase, both were awarded checks for roleplaying their characters -- there was never a dispute about this, and to overgeek's point, we're lenient about checks in general -- they are simply chances at increases, not actual increases so we're good with the mechanic and happy to reward any sort of RP. Our players are happy RPers anyway, so we're not really trying to goad more RP out of them, they take to it pretty naturally and like to ham it up.

But to dbm's point, all of us saw the opportunity to metagame the hell out of that particular interaction. That is, Gullible character gets into trouble and Overbearing character "protects" them from the choice, everybody gets checks. We agreed that could become a fun shtick and if we ham it up in different places and situations to good fun, then no problem at all. But if it became some sort of standard perfunctory procedure for free checks, or it became apparent that the players were gaming the system every session, then we might need to call BS.

I'm not worried about our table specifically, we've been gaming together for a long time. The fact that everyone at the table saw the min/maxing opportunity though, was interesting.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Digression: many years ago we were playing Al Qadim and my character had the ‘barber’ kit (it was AD&D 2e). Another character always wanted a quick shave before battle, and his player hated haggling (too much Angband…). Before every battle he would ask my character to trim his beard so it was perfect, and I would demand some ridiculous some of money for it, to which he would reply “That’s outrageous… I’ll pay it”. It became a campaign trope and we still laugh about it 30 years later.

On a side note, this is both hilarious and awesome.

 

[overgeeked]

Just updated the OP with an everlasting Dragonbane discord invite. Here it is against just in case: Join the Dragonbane Community Discord Server!

Apparently a monster-making contest just ended over there. That's fun. There's some really cool monsters on display.

I wonder what a beholder would look like in Dragonbane. At the very least they'd have 1d10 or 1d12 attacks instead of the standard 1d6. Hmm...

 

[Wolfpack48]

Just updated the OP with an everlasting Dragonbane discord invite. Here it is against just in case: Join the Dragonbane Community Discord Server!

Apparently a monster-making contest just ended over there. That's fun. There's some really cool monsters on display.

I wonder what a beholder would look like in Dragonbane. At the very least they'd have 1d10 or 1d12 attacks instead of the standard 1d6. Hmm...

Dragonzine 2 has a monster that very suspiciously looks like a beholder.

 

[overgeeked]

Dragonzine 2 has a monster that very suspiciously looks like a beholder.

Yeah, I imagine there's a few floating around.

 

[Aldarc]

I ran Dragonbane for my partner as a sort of solo venture. I was curious to see how they would like this game compared to past ones. I had them pick their PC from the pre-mades and then pick their two traveling companions. They picked the halfling thief as their primary PC, and then picked the human mage and mallard knight as their companions. I ran the opening scenario of the Box Set: i.e., "walking in a pass when attacked by goblins."

When my partner was declaring their actions pretty early on, they said that their mage was looking around for the possible trap, so I decided to give them a boon on their Awareness roll. They rolled a dragon! So they were able to spot the goblin ambush and warn the party, which also meant they got to act normally on the first round.

Combat seemed to favor them. The duck knight managed to kill one goblin in the first round. The mage nearly killed another with a fireball. The thief used their action to evade an attack. In the next round, the worg rider emerged and let out a howling battle cry that provided boons on attacks to his two remaining allies. But before the goblins could attack, the halfling thief somersaulted on a boulder (Improved Weapon) and then flung themselves at the goblin that the mage had attacked, killing him. The mage was not so lucky with their second cast of fireball. They rolled a Demon! They rolled on the mishap table - self-inflicted damage! - but they were lucky that they rolled low, so the mage only took 2 damage. The last goblin scout just couldn't hit anything, even with his boons. (I guess he was upset that the duck knight killed his friend so easily.) But the duck knight then made short work of the last goblin. Then the worg rider had his second turn (Ferocity 2) that round, and hit the duck knight for 8 damage, which barely did anything since the duck knight had 6 AR.

The next round, the mage went first and cast Pillar to lift the worg up to try and throw it off balance, but the worg easily jumped down. The duck knight went next and hit the worg pretty well. The halfling thief went next and managed to get to the worg rider, used Backstabbing, and then killed the worg.

At this point, I had the goblin rider become a goblin warrior, and took away his second initiative action. He went first in the next round. The goblin warrior attacked the halfling thief, but barely managed to hit her. However, he wasn't that lucky with his damage. At this point, the duck knight was FURIOUS (Ill-Tempered), and he decided that enough was enough, and he attacked the goblin warrior, killing him. The battle was won.

I would say that the session went well. They had fun. They found the roll under skill mechanic to be incredibly easy, though it took them a bit to get the bonus damage die. They really liked the initiative system, the visual elements that came with the box set (the standees, battle map, etc.), as well as having cards. They liked the whole leaning into the character weakness as well.

I was prepared to run the other two characters for them, but they did that themselves without any problems or even thinking about asking me for help. I think that that it's because, unlike some other TTRPGs, there's not that many moving parts in terms of abilities, actions, or numbers. So there was not much that they needed to know or keep track of. So this was a quick and easy game to teach them.

Also, they loved the ducks and demanded that I add them to any Dragonbane homebrew setting I do. Duly noted.

 

[overgeeked]

I would say that the session went well. They had fun. They found the roll under skill mechanic to be incredibly easy, though it took them a bit to get the bonus damage die. They really liked the initiative system, the visual elements that came with the box set (the standees, battle map, etc.), as well as having cards. They liked the whole leaning into the character weakness as well.

Yeah, that sounds like a good time.

I was prepared to run the other two characters for them, but they did that themselves without any problems or even thinking about asking me for help. I think that that it's because, unlike some other TTRPGs, there's not that many moving parts in terms of abilities, actions, or numbers. So there was not much that they needed to know or keep track of. So this was a quick and easy game to teach them.

Sword World 2.5 has a thing call Companions that work like Dragonbane's Monsters in that they have a 1d6 chart of actions to perform during combat. If your partner does come to a point where running three is a bit much, creating a custom 1d6 chart for each of them might not be a bad idea.

Also, they loved the ducks and demanded that I add them to any Dragonbane homebrew setting I do. Duly noted.

The ducks are great. I'm more than a bit obsessed with them.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, that sounds like a good time.

Sword World 2.5 has a thing call Companions that work like Dragonbane's Monsters in that they have a 1d6 chart of actions to perform during combat. If your partner does come to a point where running three is a bit much, creating a custom 1d6 chart for each of them might not be a bad idea.

The ducks are great. I'm more than a bit obsessed with them.

My partner is German, and, no surprise, but they really like board games. So I went out of my way to present DB more like a board game or emphasize those aspects of the game that were more board game-like. So I was not surprised when they confirmed that they liked the physical play elements like standees, maps, and cards. I also told them that it should be like playing a game like Pandemic or Forbidden Desert, which are board games with characters that have a handful of unique actions.

A good sign was when my partner said that they wanted to keep the character sheets marked as they were for the possibility of continuing the adventure. This was just a combat run, so I am curious how they will navigate the various NPCs and factions that comprise the town of Outskirt.

One thing that I would also consider for my partner would be running something like Trials in Index Card RPG, which are like combat scenarios, skirmishes, and mini-dungeons for quick one-shots. I think that Dragonbane could work well for that sort of thing, especially when we may want to play something quick without committing ourselves to a campaign. Sadly, I can’t seem to find a copy of The Sinking Tower adventure that Free League gave out last year on Free RPG Day.