Keyboard Vagabond[JakeyBoi] No Rolls Here
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![[JakeyBoi] No Rolls Here](https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/pictrs/image/78e5dab7-549f-4e08-88d9-49e9f625bf53.webp)
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My character has an 18 strength.
DM) ok, roll dice to force the gate open.
My character has an 18 charisma.
DM) ok, it only works if you personally also have an 18 charisma and can act it out.
My players and I all love to roleplay so weāre fine with this sort of thing. That said; generally I encourage a little roleplay up front, then we see the roll. Then depending on whoever thinks of the funniest outcome first, the player either adds something to reflect the rollās outcome, or I find some reason why whatever they said up front did/didnāt work. Either way, itās great fun for all of us!
On the rare occasion I run for a different/new table though? Nope, not unless I see the players showing initiative by roleplaying without my prompting, Iāll assume weāre here to play it straight.
Always bothered me. Means that anyone who canāt improv well is locked to low char characters.
Not with that attitude. When I dm id accept some uhm-ing, erm-ing fumbling players as buttery smooth talkers if they have the rolls.
Soā¦you go to bed with them if they roll a 20? Irl?
Do you not?
Well, it was a jokeā¦imagine ducking someone who said something cringe, just because they rolled a 20.
I guess who am I to say no?
I mean, my partner of 15 years started as a fling who accidentally lit himself on fire trying to do a party trick before I decided to sleep with him.
Well playing dnd is a good low stakes way to improve.
Unless you are uncomfortable with the situation and it ruins the game for you, sure.
If roleplaying ruins the game for you, maybe a roleplaying game is not for you
Thereās a major difference between āroll at least a 16 and youāll have seduced the guardā and āseduce me to seduce the guard.ā
Different people are comfortable with different things. If youāre fine seducing your DM, cool. But I certainly wouldnāt be.
Maybe charisma builds just arenāt for you.
It also bothers me when someoneās character has like 7 charisma, but the player still acts like the sales guy he is in real life.
I was playing a max charisma warlock and the wizard with his whole 13 charisma kept trying to lead all the conversations. Irritating.
Personally, I think D&Dās social skills are so bad they should just rip charisma out of the game. Iād rather they no-ass it than half-ass it.
Intelligence is also an issue.
A friend of mine who is IRL quite smart and loves riddles was playing a really dumb dwarf. He had serious issues sticking to his character and halfway though the campaign he abandoned trying to play dumb alltogether.
But it can also go the other way round.
Iām the same way, I play a really dumb barbarian (before the dm changed the house rules, Iāve just kept the original stats) an am also in charge of our Ledgerā¦ So I try to pretend that Iām making mistakes but the spreadsheet says otherwise.. Oops
Maybe people should just stop playing D&D. Itās a game mired in ancient game design and forced through a cheese grater of updates over the years to try and make it OK.
Also itās owned by Hasbro.
There are dozens of better role playing games. Some identical to D&D with better rules, others excellent with imaginative worlds that arenāt just rehashes of lord of the rings and Arthurian legends.
Yeah, but have you tried to convince people of anything? They donāt care. They just want to do the thing with their friends. Any sort of āhereās a better gameā is going to smash into ādid i make a bad choice? i spent all this time and money on D&D and theyāre saying itās bad? now i feel bad. this other person is making me feel bad. theyāre wrong and stupidā
Some people might on their own decide to try other games. A lot of them are just going to enjoy hanging out with their friends. (Have you talked to casual D&D players? The kind that donāt post on obscure websites. Their house rules are bizarre)
I would love for D&D to be a niche game that focused on retro dungeon crawling instead of the most popular RPG. I donāt think itās going to happen.
That is not the definition of identical
Based on context I assume they mean in regard to setting and broad strokes mechanics
I would love a few recommendations, if you donāt mind. I played mostly Warhammer 2nd edition but canāt seem to get around to the latest 4th edition. It feels convoluted and not ābalancedā, if that makes sense. Every few sessions I keep thinking there has to be a better and/or less complicated system out there.
I mostly want the rules to get out of the way of the story we are playing, but still want some depth, differentiation and player choices. And I need a decent magic system, which seems to be the hardest to get right.
Any ideas ?
If you want DND with working rules, Pathfinder 2e is what people recommend. Not first edition. Iām not a huge fan since itās still basically DND.
If you want a lightweight system thatās mostly about narrative, Iām a fan of Fate. But Fate is absolutely not a crunchy system, and itās largely up to the group to agree on what makes sense. Like, if you want character differentiation you can lean on āaspects as permissionā and itās right there. (That is, stuff thatās true about your character permits you to try stuff. The barbarian canāt even try to decipher the runes, because nothing about his character implies he could do that. You canāt just blindly roll something. The wizard can try, because of course wizards know runes)
The core rules are free, but you can find books with more specifics. I think thereās a Dresden files book people like? They donāt provide a complex magic system in the core books, but it has some ideas and the toolkit book has more.
I also liked the chronicles of darkness games, but theyāre generally all modern day occult. You can take the core rules and move them to fantasy, if you wanted. Itās pretty light and I like it more than DND in all the ways I care about.
Thank you for the detailed answer!
I played Pathfinder for a few sessions, but didnāt care much for the combat system. I tend to favor conditions over hitpoints these days, and from what I recall Pathfinder was very A+B-C. āWounded-Dying-Deadā systems are a bit too simplified, but I find around 15 hp to be the maximum I enjoy tracking.
Fate looks interesting for sure. It isnāt what is was looking for, but the quick rulesā overview I just watched was very intriguing. I might try to find a session to watch to get a better idea of how the system plays out.
Now Chronicles of Darknessā¦ is not the medieval-fantasy setting I was looking for, but the system hits all the right spots. Around 10hp max, but with pretty much āwounded-dying-deadā superimposed - 9 attributes which combine to give various sub-stats - enough skills to cover basic situations, but room for specialisation as you see fit - rolling lots of dice for epic situations, but counting them fairly simply - and role playing elements integrated into the system through vices and virtues.
From what I quickly watched, I love it. I might try to adapt it to medieval fantasy, or just play a a short campaign in the intended world to get a feel for it. Really cool any way, thanks again.
Old world of Darkness had a few splats in different time periods, including Vampire: the Dark ages, which might suit your needs or give you ideas. You could probably cobble together some kind of Berserk esqe setting.
Daggerheart. š¤š¼
Blades in the dark and other forged in the dark systems are famous for being an early breakout in RPG game design. Iāve run a blades in the dark campaign and it was awesome.
Check out the YouTube channel āQuinns Questā and Iām confident you can comfortably try any game he has reviewed to get a better roleplaying experience than D&D.
If you want some of that DnDness, I really liked 13th age, and Fanatsycarft. They are on opposite sides of the complexity spectrum. I liked those more than either PF. Ryutama taught me a lot of things about RPGs but a half assed combat system means I canāt recommend it., especially for a longer campaign. However if youāre interested in something on the experimental side, then I think its perfectly lovely for a one shot.
Daggerheart is new, and Im not particularly interested in CR, so I havenāt really checked out Daggerheart beyond a cursory scan of the PDF.
I enjoyed the heck out of Icon. Exalted is also fun for your fantasy needs. Its a different flavor from dnd though, both mechanically and the kinds of stories they want you to tell. If youāre looking for more flexible, open ended stories, fantasy or otherwise, I really liked Fate Accelerated.
Thats just if youre looking on the fantasy side of things. On the Sci fi side, Ive been playing Cyberpunk Red and really liking it (although fatigue has yet to set in.) I really liked Shadowrun 4e, and I recommend that to anyone who wants to dip into that (Karmagen optional rule and Chummer.exe are you best friends). Lancer is a heck of a thing.
Iām a GURPS fanboy. Complexity is determined entirely by how many rules the GM and players agree to - Iāve got a player with dozens of skills and several wonky abilities who plays side by side with an 8-skill player. They both do well, and both have what they want - one character is just more detailed than the other.
The trick with GURPS is to pull in the bare minimum of rules that you need for the kind of game you want. If you donāt like how a rule works? Swap it out!
Iāve enjoyed the Ironsworn line too, for a different feel. Thatās a much less complicated system that can also be played GM-less, it works narrative elements into the engine - the story dictates how the rules apply!
What the player says determines what the character says - but the dice determine how they say it.
Itās just like everything else, the player chooses what to attack, but the dice say how it goes.
Naturally, the playerās choice of words could give them a boost or hinder them. Also, I wouldnāt let the player just āroll to seduce.ā You gotta rp a little if you want a rp reward.
Facts and sometimes Iāll give them advantage or disadvantage based on the lead up and the back ground I have established for the character.
No lead up, the barmaidās been through some shit recently? disadvantage my friend.
Chatting before hand, the party are frequent flyers to the bar, the barmaid is single, AND the barmaid is looking for a relationship? Advantage bud, you earned it.
Man Iāve so many times been required to say word for word what my character says in my charisma rolls, but because I suck at improv itās been bad. Iāve gotten nat 20s this way but my DM is like āwell what you said is cringy so it wouldnāt flyā. Literally every DM I have ever had ignored the dice roll and only cared about the improv
That sucks. I love when my players rp something terrible but roll great.
player:
āI seduce the kobold bartender by telling her I like the thickness of her musk?
:: 20+8 in cha bonuses ::
Dm:
āShe drops the glass mug she was washing, staring into your eyes with a startled expression on her face. She doesnāt react to the loud shattering of the glass as it hits the floor, she only leans in close and says breathing into your ear as a sharp claw caresses your cheek right under your eye.
āNo ones ever talked to me like that before. follow me to my bedroomā
dm: roll a perception check
:: 2 , no bonuses ::
You believe every word she says and follow her up the stairs.
Then just let them imagine the worst and decide what happens next session
They suck then. Tell them their skills are inferior.
Oof. Thatās definitely not how it should go.
But GMing isnāt something the rulebook is all that good at teaching people how to do, so stuff like this is quite common :(
āIncredibly, despite the cringe, it works!ā They can still have a dig and throw a little shade, but the game is as the game does.
When playing checkers and you say āKing meā they dont refuse to do it because you didnt do a flourish.
That should only be required if what youāre trying to do would have a higher DC than you could possibly roll, but the DM humors you by allowing you to try convincing them anyway. Or that has been pre-agreed in session zero because the group is all theater/improv nerds or something.
Heaven forbid I try and get my players to actually roleplay in this roleplaying game.
When the DM makes that face, they already know that outcome. The rest is just for fun.
I came here to say this and Iām glad someone got here first
Ah, Reddit.
if you insist
Hey š
SEDUCE ME
āWhereād you get that boy pussy? Clown college?
Aw, they care about my history š
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODgu_-rR1X8
That was really good. Rich Purnell / Lando Calrissian taking notes was gold.
Huh, I had no memory of him being in The Martian. To me heāll always be Troy. With a backup of Childish Gambino because I showed this clip to a friend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMY9y-6W_fQ
And the friend said he resembled the musician, which is how I found out that actor also has a rap career.
Anyway, thanks for bringing this to my attention!
My first thought
āUm, I think youāre cute!ā š„ŗšš
āHow did you know I like compliments?!?!?ā
How about we get out of here and you cast Magic Mouth on my Great Serpent?
Suspicious tattoos.
Gamerpoop moment.
āI hit on the bartender."
āShe looks at her coworker. āSorry, I donāt think my wife would like that.ā"
āI hit on the bartenderās wife."
āYou gain unspiration.ā