Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 18, 2021, 02:19:39 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 18, 2021, 01:50:16 PM
Go back to playing Jenga with your RPG books because "there's no wrong way!!1!!!"

Pretty sure there is a RPG that uses Jenga blocks as a determination system in place of dice.

Dread, a rules-light horror game.

Quote from: Aglondir on December 18, 2021, 03:57:59 PM

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 18, 2021, 02:15:33 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 01:52:56 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 18, 2021, 01:50:16 PM
Go back to playing Jenga with your RPG books because "there's no wrong way!!1!!!"

There are some RPG books that really are only good for placing under the short leg of an unbalanced table. Which books are in that category is likely to vary a great deal from one player to another.

How about the D&D 4th Edition Player's Handbook?

I have more respect for 4E than 5E now. 4E may have made some questionable decisions, but at least they were decisions based on game design rather than identity politics.

At least your disrespect of 4e was based on game design rather than identity politics.

I prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord over pretty much any version of D&D. It should be noted that the game is set up for eleven-adventure campaigns (one adventure for each of levels 0-10), and that each adventure should last 1-3 sessions. Typically, the campaign should be complete in < 1 year...so if you're doing Pundit's "right way" with SotDL, you're doing it wrong! 

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 05:14:02 PM
I prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord over pretty much any version of D&D. It should be noted that the game is set up for eleven-adventure campaigns (one adventure for each of levels 0-10), and that each adventure should last 1-3 sessions. Typically, the campaign should be complete in < 1 year...so if you're doing Pundit's "right way" with SotDL, you're doing it wrong! 

First post here, been lurking for a while. Since you have experience with SotDL do you feel like the progression could be slowed down to use the system to be used in longer campaigns? Or is the leveling pace too tied into the overall construction of the mechanics. I'm on the fence about buying a copy to try out.

Quote from: Hzilong on December 18, 2021, 07:47:36 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 05:14:02 PM
I prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord over pretty much any version of D&D. It should be noted that the game is set up for eleven-adventure campaigns (one adventure for each of levels 0-10), and that each adventure should last 1-3 sessions. Typically, the campaign should be complete in < 1 year...so if you're doing Pundit's "right way" with SotDL, you're doing it wrong! 

First post here, been lurking for a while. Since you have experience with SotDL do you feel like the progression could be slowed down to use the system to be used in longer campaigns? Or is the leveling pace too tied into the overall construction of the mechanics. I'm on the fence about buying a copy to try out.

You could easily slow it down if you wanted by just increasing thr amount of adventures completed to advance. Normally, it's 1 per level, but you could increase it
A flat increase (say 2 adventures per level) doubles your campaign length, but I'd suggest a stepped progression (1 adventure per level from 0-2, 2 adventures per level from 3-6, and 3 adventures per level from 7-10).

Of course, you could NOT do that and just run multiple shorter campaigns with different characters and stories too.

One thing to remember is that the game can be fairly lethal, and a longer campaign gives a lot more chances for the character--or even the whole party--to die (and eliminate the continuity advantage of a longer game).

Cool, thanks. Since it is on sale right now, I was thinking of picking it up. Keeping this on the topic of the thread, I have to agree that something seems to be missing/ have gone awry with the direction of 5e. Maybe I'm just a grognard (even though I only started playing in the 3.5/pathfinder era), but 5e publications feel so much less characterful in any meaningful way. It might just be general system fatigue and the fact that we've hit the point in the dev cycle where mechanics and splat bloat are starting to accelerate.

It's the reason why I've been looking to branch out from 5e. Luckily, it looks like my preferred system, Savage Worlds, hasn't gone balls deep on politics yet. Too bad the people I play with prefer the unified d20 systems.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 18, 2021, 02:19:39 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 18, 2021, 01:50:16 PM
Go back to playing Jenga with your RPG books because "there's no wrong way!!1!!!"

Pretty sure there is a RPG that uses Jenga blocks as a determination system in place of dice.

Im not into storygames (though the Pundits idea on it is somewhat nebulous), and I prefer campaigns over short games. And 5e is my least favorite of all the D&D editions.

I like books over films and I think movies are my least favorite artistic medium (as in self-contained movies and not series). But I can account for my own taste and the worst I can blame others is for having a shitty or shallow taste. But everybody is shallow or has shit taste in a few respects because we don't care about everything equally.

But even with my own pretty judgemental outlook, I wouldn't call the people that enjoy crap to be having fun in the 'wrong' way.

I hear you. I enjoy one shots and other light stuff, too. I even played Microscope once and enjoyed it. Perhaps I'm admitting to some hyperbole in my comments. It may even be pedantic to rally against "fun" as the be all and end all. Still, Pundit does still make a good observation about extended and involved campaigns. It opens something up that you don't get with light play.

Jenga though. Seriously that would be tedious.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 08:47:54 PM

Quote from: Hzilong on December 18, 2021, 07:47:36 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 05:14:02 PM
I prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord over pretty much any version of D&D. It should be noted that the game is set up for eleven-adventure campaigns (one adventure for each of levels 0-10), and that each adventure should last 1-3 sessions. Typically, the campaign should be complete in < 1 year...so if you're doing Pundit's "right way" with SotDL, you're doing it wrong! 

First post here, been lurking for a while. Since you have experience with SotDL do you feel like the progression could be slowed down to use the system to be used in longer campaigns? Or is the leveling pace too tied into the overall construction of the mechanics. I'm on the fence about buying a copy to try out.

You could easily slow it down if you wanted by just increasing thr amount of adventures completed to advance. Normally, it's 1 per level, but you could increase it
A flat increase (say 2 adventures per level) doubles your campaign length, but I'd suggest a stepped progression (1 adventure per level from 0-2, 2 adventures per level from 3-6, and 3 adventures per level from 7-10).

Of course, you could NOT do that and just run multiple shorter campaigns with different characters and stories too.

One thing to remember is that the game can be fairly lethal, and a longer campaign gives a lot more chances for the character--or even the whole party--to die (and eliminate the continuity advantage of a longer game).

Forbidden Rules contains information on Paragons and advancing beyond level 10. Worth checking out if you haven't already.

Last campaign, the Goblin Spellbinder with a tooth sticking out of his forehead ("IT'S A HORN, DAMMIT!") had fun picking up a few of the Legendary Talents from that book and finally becoming a hero to his people by killing the trolls terrorizing their burgeoning Goblin community. It was cool.

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 18, 2021, 09:50:54 PMJenga though. Seriously that would be tedious.

It would be a tension system. Where a big event happens after a collapse. Not used exactly like a dice roll. It was a horror game so the tower collapsing is when the killer chops your head off.

QuoteIt may even be pedantic to rally against "fun" as the be all and end all.

I mean 'fun' may not be requisite for a good game, but 'enjoyment' I would say is. If your not enjoying yourself multiple sessions at a time, I think thats more sunk cost fallacy.
Id say saying its about 'fun' is more succinct to say then its about 'enjoyment'.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 18, 2021, 10:15:21 PM

Quote from: rytrasmi on December 18, 2021, 09:50:54 PMJenga though. Seriously that would be tedious.

It would be a tension system. Where a big event happens after a collapse. Not used exactly like a dice roll. It was a horror game so the tower collapsing is when the killer chops your head off.

Are you guys seriously not familiar with Dread?  I'm not sure how that's possible for folks who frequent RPG boards.

Quote from: S'mon on December 18, 2021, 05:26:59 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 18, 2021, 01:34:20 AM
I doubt many of the woke people who advertise their mental health issues actually suffer from them, or to the extent they claim.

More likely, they're just assholes who claim to be suffering from X for sympathy and excuses/deflections from their shit behavior.

I think Wokeism does tend to aggravate mental illness in those already vulnerable to it. So does social media more generally. It's a drug that makes them feel good for a moment, but makes them worse and worse in the long term.

SJWs and the woke actually encourage mental illness so they can use them like the parasites they are. Same with the handicapped. Every iteration has pushed this.

Quote from: HappyDaze on December 18, 2021, 05:14:02 PM
I prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord over pretty much any version of D&D. It should be noted that the game is set up for eleven-adventure campaigns (one adventure for each of levels 0-10), and that each adventure should last 1-3 sessions. Typically, the campaign should be complete in < 1 year...so if you're doing Pundit's "right way" with SotDL, you're doing it wrong! 

I passed on the SotDL. The setting seemed too dark, and the rules looked too heavy. While I'm not in the rules-lite camp, I don't want to go any heaver than Savage Worlds. But I did like the way SotDL handled modifiers (pool of D6s, select best.)

Any other selling points? Can you get around the darkness of the setting, or is that built-in?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 17, 2021, 10:56:22 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 17, 2021, 10:26:48 PMIt's more like someone claiming to be a "world traveler" because they spent a weekend in an all-inclusive resort in Cabo once, versus someone who spent two years living in India.

Except its two homeless people arguing about which poster they slept under last night makes the more of a 'world traveller'.

Games of pretend with no win condition and flexible rules is the dumbest things to be arguing about in terms of authenticity.
I may not like 5e, but I don't play along with this stupid 'authenticity' idea.

Wrong.  Something absolutely 100% objective and concrete is being discussed: playing a campaign of two years or longer versus never playing more than a half-dozen sessions of the same game.

If someone has played tennis six times in their entire life, any sensible person would realize that this person does not have as developed an understanding of the experience and knowledge of tennis playing as someone who has played it every week for ten years.

Quote from: S'mon on December 18, 2021, 05:31:36 AM
Years of play in an immersive sandbox campaign definitely does provide something, an experience, that one shots and mini campaigns can't do. Is anyone disputing that?

A whole bunch of butthurt leftists willing to look like idiots, apparently.

Quote from: S'mon on December 18, 2021, 05:37:35 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 17, 2021, 06:39:47 PM
Even with committed gamers, I've also had periods of more "beer and pretzel" gaming where we may play for a long time - but we don't have notebooks full of detailed background and documented episodes.

I don't think you need "notebooks full of detailed background and documented episodes" to get the experience Pundit is talking about. In fact I think those kind of 'event' games rather stand in contrast to the kind of Gygaxian-1e DMG style Sandbox Experience of regular routine playing in what becomes a 'living world'.

To whit, I've never had a notebook full of anything related to a campaign.