Dragonbane general thread

[Blackbrrd]

I ran my first session with custom-made characters yesterday. 6 players + me as a GM. Worked out really well. People were not studying their character sheets while we played but engaging in the game. Ran one combat with 6 PCs and 7 NPCs. It went really fast, ending in the second round after like 15(?) minutes. One of the PCs is running knight with plate armor and closed helm. 8 armor works very well against enemies who do 1d10+1d4 damage (avg 8 dmg). He even saved the mage (animist) from taking a hit.

I really like the modules way of scaling encounters. Typically it says "as many monsters as PCs" and sometimes add a "boss" or says "as many monsters as PCs +2". It seems to work pretty well.

 

[The Soloist]

I ran my first session with custom-made characters yesterday. 6 players + me as a GM. Worked out really well. People were not studying their character sheets while we played but engaging in the game. Ran one combat with 6 PCs and 7 NPCs. It went really fast, ending in the second round after like 15(?) minutes. One of the PCs is running knight with plate armor and closed helm. 8 armor works very well against enemies who do 1d10+1d4 damage (avg 8 dmg). He even saved the mage (animist) from taking a hit.

I really like the modules way of scaling encounters. Typically it says "as many monsters as PCs" and sometimes add a "boss" or says "as many monsters as PCs +2". It seems to work pretty well.

Cool! High armor is indeed great. Remind the players it has disadvantages. They tend to forget about it, in the heat of action. Plate has Bane on Acrobatics, Evade and Sneaking. The great helm has Bane on Awareness. It makes it more balanced. A walking tank with flaws the enemies can take advantage of.

 

[Blackbrrd]

This was a straight up fight, so the character shined. In other situations other characters will shine. The characters biggest weakness is bane on Evade and an Evade of 10. Being hit by a giant for 4d10 (avg 22) isn't much fun. Even with the armor that is 14 damage.

The most broken thing is of course the Bard with Musician which gives everyone a boon to their rolls.

 

[Von Ether]

My most dedicated mix/maxer player maxed out his HP and WP with his highest stats after getting no attribute higher than 15. He quickly found out he never had enough WP to "do everything I want." He found it doubly true after getting more HAs.

For the first time, he had to engage in the environment and other players to hunt down boons for himself and others. It was great. His PC did die due to bad luck and bad rolls and he was cool with it. Quickly made a new PC and moved on.

 

[overgeeked]

My most dedicated mix/maxer player maxed out his HP and WP with his highest stats after getting no attribute higher than 15. He quickly found out he never had enough WP to "do everything I want." He found it doubly true after getting more HAs.

For the first time, he had to engage in the environment and other players to hunt down boons for himself and others. It was great. His PC did die due to bad luck and bad rolls and he was cool with it. Quickly made a new PC and moved on.

I will never understand that "perfect unto myself" or "win the game in character creation" mindset. For me, interacting with the environment is largely the fun of many RPGs.

 

[Blackbrrd]

For me, interacting with the environment is largely the fun of many RPGs.

And that is the reason I switched to Dragonbane from 5e (after playing basic D&D, AD&D 2nd ed, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, D&D 4 and D&D 5). Another GM has held some Call of Cthulu games and I liked the Basic Role Playing roots of it. The same as Dragonbane. There is less focus on character stats in Dragonbane. The leveling system is pretty fluid. Combat is faster. We had more time to role-play. Also, the power of the characters vs goblins, orcs, etc seemed much better balanced. The characters felt more like level 5 characters than level 1 characters, but the monsters still felt more like monsters from books like The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

Btw, among the characters from last nights game, most had 5 tries to level up a skill after the session. One character had 4/5 successes, another had 0/5. I think I will have to give out a freebee if the same character doesn't get any "levelups" next time session.

 

[overgeeked]

And that is the reason I switched to Dragonbane from 5e (after playing basic D&D, AD&D 2nd ed, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, D&D 4 and D&D 5). Another GM has held some Call of Cthulu games and I liked the Basic Role Playing roots of it. The same as Dragonbane. There is less focus on character stats in Dragonbane. The leveling system is pretty fluid. Combat is faster. We had more time to role-play. Also, the power of the characters vs goblins, orcs, etc seemed much better balanced. The characters felt more like level 5 characters than level 1 characters, but the monsters still felt more like monsters from books like The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

Yeah. We recently tried a game of B/X but most of the players and the referee treated it like 5E. It utterly failed as an old-school game because of that. No one bothered with the environment. The few times I tried I got looks from the rest of the table like I was causing problems. "Just fight the monsters." Ugh. It was a really sad experience, honestly.

Btw, among the characters from last nights game, most had 5 tries to level up a skill after the session. One character had 4/5 successes, another had 0/5. I think I will have to give out a freebee if the same character doesn't get any "levelups" next time session.

Ouch. Yeah, that's a problem with random advancement. It's random. Some win, some lose.

Maybe let them exchange two rolls for one guaranteed advancement. If they risk it, it's on them.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Ouch. Yeah, that's a problem with random advancement. It's random. Some win, some lose.

It sort of reminds me of the critiques of Shadowdark's casting system: some days all your spells fizzle, and other days you chain cast all day long.

But I think it's particularly rough for advancement because it feels like a permanent loss. Sure, after the next adventure you get some points to spend, but it's easy to think of yourself as forever "behind".

 

[Von Ether]

I will never understand that "perfect unto myself" or "win the game in character creation" mindset. For me, interacting with the environment is largely the fun of many RPGs.

My fellow is even a bit different in that regard, instead of being solely perfect in combat or skills, he wants to be the second best in everything. It's a competency power fantasy. He always wants to be the one with the all the answers, combat is his last resort but he wants to be good at that as well. He's not a fan of other players having niche protection.

He thought DB would be wide open since it doesn't have classes. He realized it just means everyone sucks equally.

 

[overgeeked]

My fellow is even a bit different in that regard, instead of being solely perfect in combat or skills, he wants to be the second best in everything. It's a competency power fantasy. He always wants to be the one with the all the answers, combat is his last resort but he wants to be good at that as well. He's not a fan of other players having niche protection.

He thought DB would be wide open since it doesn't have classes. He realized it just means everyone sucks equally.

Wow. Yikes.

I think he’d last maybe a session at my table before the polite boot.