Hey tabletilders,

It's been another week. Let's share what we all played this week!

For me it was a single play of Pax Renaissance with a promo expansion that changes the starting state of the board. I completely dominated the trade routes and accumulated a huge stash of cash, but was unable to get the comet out to activate the win condition that would leverage it. My opponents then mowed down my commissions, so I had to pivot quite heavily. But I wasn't too worried as I had so much cash, so could nab any card I wanted, including the next comet.

Unfortunately two of us took our eyes of the ball and our third player managed a sneaky protestant victory. Annoyingly there was an apostasy I could have bought that would have nixed this, but I totally didn't see it coming. Great game.

After that we wound down with a quick game of Scout. Fun little game that makes me want to explore the trick-taking space a bit more, but it seems all the highly praised ones I read about are out of stock. I might see if any of these can be played with a poker deck.

So what have you all been playing?

Dungeon Crawl Classics

I think this game is great and I was surprised to see nobody recommended it in their non-D&D game lists. At the system level, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a rules-light version of 3.5. You never need more than one sourcebook and there are quick-start rules to play for free on the website.

At its core, though, DCC is an old school sword and sorcery setting heavily inspired by the authors of Appendix N. For those not familiar, in the first edition of D&D, Gary Gygax published a list of authors that inspired D&D in an appendix in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide. It has some obvious ones that I think most RPGs pull from (Tolkien and Jack Vance {of the Vancian magic system}, for instance), but there are also some deeper cuts that I don't think are really leveraged in many tabletop RPGs (Robert Howard of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, and H.P. Lovecraft). Those last two in particular, pulp-y fantasy writers who defined a genre, heavily influence DCC in my experience.

Aside from this, though, there are a few very unique and fun mechanics that got me totally hooked on this game.

The 0-level funnel and death as a narrative device

Traditionally in D&D, you end up spending the majority of your first session designing and building a character. In my experience, it usually takes around 2-4 hours depending on complexity. This results in mechanically unique characters, but it also ups the stakes for the DM. When was the last time you played a game of D&D and the survival of your character was ever truly in question? Nobody wants to spend 4 hours on their character only to have it killed off in the first play session -- that's not fun. But, in the end, it's also not challenging.

In DCC, it takes about 5-10 minutes to create a character (and there are online tools like The Purple Sorcerer that will generate them by the dozen). Every character starts with a profession (and by extension, a tool of their trade), a random piece of gear, and a block of random stats (3d6 rolled in order, none of these "points" or "4d6 drop the lowest" business). In the first session, you roll 4 of them and you play all 4 in what is termed the 0-level funnel. Over the course of this adventure, 2-3 of your characters will die -- after all, adventuring is a treacherous business fraught with peril -- and your surviving character(s) become level 1. At this point, they get a class and a couple additional abilities.

The core interesting thing to me about this is the emergent gameplay that results. Oftentimes, the character that rolled the best stats aren't the ones that actually survive. A single unlucky roll or an undiscovered trap results in unceremoniously striking down another one of the PCs, whereby they pick up the gear leftover from them and continue on their grim quest. I've seen the character with the lowest luck somehow being the one that survived and it forging a bond with the person playing it unlike anything I've seen in D&D. What did they do to earn that? What is in store for the doomed character that somehow managed to outlast 3 of his fellow villagers? It gives you a ton of tools as a DM and as a player to craft interesting narratives. And it also reminds the players that this character probably won't last forever. That opens the door for dramatic moments involving death that you don't really get to explore with D&D. Magic that restores life is exceedingly rare and would require a quest of comparable bravery to discover.

Magic as a dangerous and unpredictable tool

I've heard some complaints about Vancian magic in other topics and DCC also does away with this, but it does it with two chaotic and, at times, hilarious mechanics: the mercurial magic table and the spell table.

The Mercurial Magic Table

Magic is, by nature, a chaotic tool for the desperate. No two casters cast the same spell in the same way and the mercurial magic table is a representation of that. The first time a character casts a spell, they have to roll on the table to determine how they invoke that spell. There's a big chunk of the table that's just 'as normal,' but there are also things like 'every time you cast this, a digit on your hand or foot disintegrates. Take a -1 to dex for every two digits that disappear.'

How badly do you need to cast that magic missile? Is it worth invoking the unpredictable elemental energies required to do so? Is it worth....your thumb?

The Spell Table

Once you invoke the spell, you roll your spellcasting check and consult the spell table. The quality of your roll (of which there are a couple mechanics to affect this) determines what the spell actually does -- and they can be wildly different! That magic missile might fire a single missile that does 1 damage or it might summon 1d4 that do 1d4 damage each. Your darkness spell might allow you to create a 20' sphere of darkness at a point of your choosing or it might center a 5' magical darkness sphere on you.

Magic is chaotic and difficult to control. But as a result, it is almost always very powerful. Your spell might not do exactly what you expected, but it makes for much more interesting combat and on-the-fly thinking.

Should I play it?

Emphatically, yes! The rules-light nature of the game allows you to focus more on story-telling and mood-setting than being buried in the books all the time (except for looking up spell effects, everyone at the table seems to get excited when we have to do that). The deadly nature of the game has resulted in both better and heavier storytelling than anything I've done before -- stakes without it getting personal, as it were. And the adventure content is awesome -- there are some great resources on Sample Adventure Paths, but even the starting 0-level adventure in the back of the sourcebook is strong. I swear I'm not a shill, I just want more DCC in the universe.

I think this has to be one of the oldest questions there is in the TTRPG world, but I wanted to see if the general consensus has changed with the rise of virtual tabletops.

When you have a player cancel on you, do you skip the session, or play without them?

What is your reasoning behind your decision?

Personally, I always play without them. This is a change from when I first started DM'ing, as back then I wanted to be 'fair' to my players. As I left University and went into work however, waiting until everyone was able to play became such a rare thing that it would mean hardly ever playing.

It's been another week and I thought – if there's not too much protest – we could all talk about what we've been playing again.

Personally I got in the one game of Hegemony at three players. I've played it twice before at two, and adding the third player really took the tension up a notch.

I played as the proletariat, which I think is the simplest class to play. Once again played no strikes or demonstrations, so I really think I might be missing a concept as it never seemed like a worthwhile pursuit. But it's really hard to predict how pulling any particular string in this game will resolve, so I think I'd just go for it in a subsequent game to see what happens.

The capitalists, like in previous games, started very weak but by the last few rounds were raking in the points. I managed a very narrow victory of four or five points over the capitalists. Middle class, who had to take a loan mid-game, never really recovered and were twenty points behind. Fun game, I can see why it's popular.

So what have you all managed to get played this week?

I'm looking for some games I can play with my team at work as part of our next team building event. We're 7 people, so finding a game that can seat everyone is challenging (and we don't want to split tables in this case).

My favorite board game is 7 wonders, which obviously is perfect except for the fact that it's pretty rules heavy and my team is mostly not boardgamers, so will probably be overwhelmed.

Cards against Humanity was also mentioned but is probably not PG enough for a work event.

What would you play?

My friends and I have been striving for the perfect score of 13 in Just One, and there's almost always one or two cards which make it seemingly impossible unless you're very lucky.

Just One if you're unfamiliar, is a game where your teammate wants to guess a word -- and you each independently give a one-word clue, "Donkey", "Dreamworks", "Ogre". If two or more players write the same word, all those clues get hidden -- so your clues can't be too obvious.

The words vary absurdly in difficulty from words like "Wine" and "Snake" where you can basically break the game by listing wines and snakes -- to words like "Mexico" and "Strawberry" where you can come at them from a few directions. ...But about 10% of the words are things like "Grotto", "Couscous" and "Ramses" where honestly, you could possibly sit down with someone for 30 minutes describing them in excruciating detail, and they might still not come up with those particular words. Could you describe "Couscous" to your 10-year-old nephew who lives on Chick-fil-A and Mcdonalds? Could you disambiguate a "Grotto" from a cave, cavern, bunker or lair? Sometimes it's a vocabulary thing but more often, it's just words with a lot of synonyms.

I call these "land mine" cards and I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon. Have any of you gotten a perfect score in Just One? If so did you randomly dodge these land mines or did you overcome them with a really perfect clue?

I've been interested in getting into it for the last few years but haven't managed to get started, no one I know personally is into it, and within online communities I'm a part of I sometimes miss dates for campaigns, often due to my work schedule.

Hello Tildes board gamers!

I got a 3D printer last year, and over the last few months, I've started printing organizers other people have designed from Printables and Thingiverse, especially for games with poor provided organization or lots of tokens and cards... however there are a number of games I have where people haven't designed a good organizer, or the ones which exist are lacking in some way (don't fit my boxes, missing boxes for expansions, only support all the expansions, etc)

Does anyone have tips on getting started with designing my own? I've got some very basic 3D modeling knowledge, but my primary strengths are as a programmer, so leveraging something like OpenSCAD would be ideal. I saw the boardgame insert toolkit, but it seems relatively basic - there are lots of convenience features I'd love to add as well (like curved walls for token holders to make it easier to get tokens out). Is that a good place to start, or should I look elsewhere?

Even just some ideas about tolerances and/or tips for how to size sections for cards would be super helpful.

For example, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett has forever changed how I roleplay dragons.

I'm going on a camping trip soon. I've loaded up my eReader with books from Appendix N and am looking for other grist for the mill. Mainly looking for books at the moment, but feel free to suggest other things.

I've recently been getting into Diplomacy (both face to face and online) and it's surprisingly fun, although requires some dedication. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the game or some tips for learning more in-depth strategy? It feels like online resources aren't that great or plentiful yet I'm having a hard time surviving against experienced players.

Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for everyone.

Do you have any such stories?

Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which adds the tile laying puzzle too.

Earth does look funky by the end though, with all the shoots sprouting up from the table.

Also managed to get in a couple of rounds of Fugitive, the card based hidden movement game from Tim Fowers. I think this is an excellent little game to fill half an hour at the end of the evening. I keep eyeing up the events cards it comes with but have not yet been brave enough to actually play with them.

What have you all been playing?

So, I have been getting into some Blades in the dark stuff recently. I am loving it due to the fact that I really don't need to spend much time between sessions doing any prep. Sure, I can spend as much time brainstorming cool stuff to happen but really it all happens at the table.

So, what other cool TTRPGs are out there that support this kind of play?

Hi, im looking for some reccomendations of short campaigns, like 3-4 months sort of thing- I'm planning to run in 5e, but im pretty open to any other systems people can recomend- what are peoples faves, what are they playing through at the minute?

I nearly made this post a hot few hours ago, but it turned into me gushing about Worlds Without Number for an inexplicably long time. I realized that of all the things that matter, going into the minutiae does the least.

So yeah, I'm just curious what kind of not-D&D RPGs people are into and why exactly they're interested in it. Obviously there's the whole 'Wizards of the Coast is a shithole company' aspect, but I'm speaking more from a broad design standpoint than a moral one.

I am mostly a TTRPG player, but lately I have been becoming a bit curious on wargaming.

I usually play TTRPGs because it allows a lot more freedom when compared to video games. However, I can't really see that much in wargaming that you can't get in video games. Is the appeal primarily a social one?

I am not bashing wargaming or saying that it's a bad hobby. I am just curious as to what the main draw is.
Thank you for any answers :)

I went through a phase where we seemed to have board games nights with friends a couple of times a month but with the whole pandemic thing that has dried up.

Tonight, I finally got around to trying Lanterns with my wife and we really enjoyed it. It's sort of similar to sushi go with more steps. You play lake tiles which contain lanterns and collect lantern cards based on how you place the lake tiles, then you dedicate those lanterns in different sets to gain honour (points) and at the end, who has the most honour wins.

We're at 59 days until Gencon and its one of my favorite events of the year. Wondering if anyone else is going and what you're excited for.

It seems like Lorcana is set to the be the buzz of the con this year around. While I'm interested in getting my hands on a deck or two to give it a go, I'm more looking forward to when BGG posts their games that will be releasing to sift through and try to find a hidden gem or two.

I've recently gotten into Too Many Bones.
I've been into tabletop for years and painted many minis, but now I find myself floored by hoplomachus and too many bones...and there's no minis to paint. But the gameplay is so so good I'm in love.
I'm waiting on unbreakable to come in. All I've played is undertow but man is there a lot going on in such a small box.
What's the best gearloc?

Most people online seem to favor a practical approach to learning chess, but I tend to prefer something more structured, with a bit of theory, concepts, and explanations. I'd also rather use my physical board instead of an app. I already know how to play chess, but I'd like to give it another good and see if I can achieve a higher level than before, starting from the beginning. Any suggestions?

Players are understood to be sharing a cake. How much cake do you want? Be fair. Anyone who has had the least gets to size the next piece. Don't finish the cake!

Is this plausible ttg rules text? Do you recognize the instructions?

I've recently been playing a bunch of the Board Game of Thrones (the epic strategy/war/negotiation game) online over at thronemaster.net, and was wondering if any of you fine folks would like to join me in a game?

I have started playing D&D basic with my family as a way to spend time together away from devices.

I found the original character sheets:
http://www.ultanya.com/2015/10/throwback-thursday-character-sheets.html

Anyone else have favorite character sheets for D&D?

My old TTRPG group hasn’t met in months now, and listening to actual play podcasts only scratches the itch.

Probably a long shot given the size of the site, but anyone interested in playing a TTRPG sometime soon?

I’m thinking something easy and low pressure, like Stewpot, or Fiasco or maybe a world builder like the Quiet Year/Microscope/Anomaly/The Ground Itself; I have the PDF for most of those.

But hey, if you have something you’ve been waiting forever to play: I’m here for it.

I have literally nothing to do tomorrow so drop a message if you’re interested! I’m in CST

My girlfriend and I have had a habit of going straight to watching movies and tv-series when we hang out, because due to lockdown almost everything is closed, so we don't really have a lot of activities to choose from.

We also play games occassionally, recently scrabble on our phones. But what other boardgames work well when there are only 2 players?

Edit: Wow! I can't possibly respond to everyone but I didn't expect so many people to comment with help. Thank you so much!

I'll start: the party knows my character is a veteran of the war between the elves and the humans, but they don't know that she was duped into helping develop a type of biological warfare and becoming an accessory to war crimes.

What are you hiding?

As the title suggests, I am lookimg for the name of an existing boardgame.
Some time ago (months), there was a discussion about boardgame recommendations. One person described a very interesting boardgame, which I wanted to gift my family for christmas, but I sadly closed the tab with it and I can't find the original post anymore.

The game goes as follows:
One player builds a construct with different shapes and colours according to certain guidelines. The other players now have to find the rules, which the presentated construct follows, by building their own construct and getting feedback from the gamemaster, if it fulfills their guidelines.

According to the poster, this game was originally a game a group of friends played in college, it became so popular that they created a sellable version. Recently they revamped it.

P.S. I am not really familiar with this kind of post, so if I did anything wrong, some feedback would be nice.

P.P.S. Is there some kind of function (maybe through tags?) to mark this post as solved, if hopefully someone managed to recognise the game?

I'm working on a card game that would arrive to your home without a rulebook, but I'm having a comprehensibility problem. Below is some basic rules text for this game. If you had enough time to decipher the below, do you believe you could understand its meaning? Are there any words which are too obscure?

Join a game by selecting a central objective from among its currently apparent contests. Catch a turn from wherever to start playing then describe your plan aloud to the group. If anyone agrees that your plan is valid (legal?) then they can accept you into the game as their second. Anyone else who wants to join at this point may also join/rejoin as your teammate.

Contests are tensions between two scales which can be described by consensus. For example, imagine I'm 1v1 with Ah while you are on a team with Bo and Ci against Du. Imagine Du sees that the tide is not in their favor, and decides to jump ship to the other game. They may do so at any time by admitting they want out of their losing position and describing which team in the other game they would like to swing over to join (My team or Ah's.). Bo, Ci, and you are left in the boat without an opponent. This may cause a crisis (see "Crisis Card").

Farewell, I am off to prepare lunch for a child.

Currently, I've been playing board games which always have the same kind of (standard) mechanics (worker placement, card drafting, etc), which after a while, starts to feel kind of the same but what changes is the theme.

I'm looking for recommendations on board games which have unique mechanics. It could a completely new mechanic or simply a mechanic which already exists but then the game uses it with a twist.

For example:

• Trickerion use of worker placement but the workers have actually different values.

• Tzolk'in and the use of gears.

I've been playing a Tomb of Annihilation campaign with some friends the past few months, and we are all relatively new players (each of us having played about one campaign before). As far as I know this is the first time any of us have been in a campaign where a PC dies. My level 4 wizard was suddenly and violently killed by a flesh golem.

None of us are exactly sure how to proceed, and there's some disagreement. A few of the people in my party think that any new character should be a level or two behind the party in order to further dis-incentivize dying. I personally think that is too harsh, and luckily it seems like we are reaching a consensus that my new character should be the same level, but I shouldn't be able to play as the same race and class.

This seems more or less reasonable to me, although to be honest I really enjoyed playing as a wizard so I wouldn't have minded doing so again. I'm mainly curious to hear how you all handle character deaths, and any tips you might have for making a new character mid-campaign.

Everyone always refers to the coming of Eurogames a long time back, but I'm wondering about modern games. Where have they come? Where will they go? I'd say the art has gotten better, more eye-catching, but I'm more ambivalent about very recent (last five years) game mechanics.

I hate that enemies have so low armor class. In earlier editions, you had to be tactical, use flanking manoeuvres and charge attacks, prepare the right support spells, maybe even pick the Weapon Specialization feat for your favourite weapon. In 5e, no need; just stand wherever, roll an attack, you'll probably hit. In addition to removing much of the tactics from the game, this makes it basically impossible for enemy spellcasters to use duration spells. Good luck succeeding on 4 concentration checks per turn.

I hate that enemies' proficiency bonus is based on their challenge rating. No high-attack low-damage monsters here. Don't worry; the tank in your party will never need healing, any level-appropriate monster needs to roll ridiculously high on the dice to hit them! Everyone else just stay in the back and lob your bloody cantrips, and the battle will be over in 3 turns.

I hate that attack cantrips do as much damage as a weapon attack (or more). Why even have weapons at all, when your cantrips do more damage than a longsword, with better range than a crossbow.

I hate that cantrips scale with character level. No need to learn anything new for the rest of the game, your trusty Eldritch Blast will be your most powerful attack throughout. Especially when you get access to Greater Invisibility and don't need to rely on your bloody familiar for advantage on attack rolls.

I hate that familiars can do help actions in combat. Advantage every turn! And since they're no longer a class feature but a spell, they're also available to fighters and rogues, no multi-classing necessary. And unlike in earlier editions there are no real consequences of losing your familiar. All you lose is 10 gp worth of incense to get them back, a pittance at higher levels.

I hate that a long rest fully restores hit points. No need to ever stay in one place for longer than 8 hours, no need to conserve spell slots to do end-of-the-day healing, heck; no need for a healer at all really! And it gets worse when they reach 3rd level and get access to Leomund's Tiny Hut, and don't even need to find a safe spot to camp.

I hate that wild shape is basically useless in combat, due to challenge rating restrictions and the lousy selection of beasts in the Monster Manual.

I hate that the only logical combat use of Polymorph is turning into a dinosaur. Prepare for the inevitable discussion around the table: Can my character turn into a tyrannosaurus rex, even if they've never seen one? No? But, uuuuuh, they saw a picture of one in a book at the library!

I hate that you can use Counterspell to counterspell someone else's attempt at counterspelling your own spell.

I hate that any character can use any skill. No need for a rogue, just hand those Thieves' Tools to the character with the highest Dexterity, they'll get that door open.

The worst thing is that this game went through lots and lots of play-testing before it was released. The developers must have known about all of these issues and chosen not to change them, meaning that none of these are bugs; they're all features! This is how the developers intended the game to be!

Did I forget any of your peeves about the game? Add them in the comments. Alternatively, comment with what you love about 5e, let's add some positivity to this rant.

I'm starting a virtual campaign with some friends soon, and this is my first time making a DnD character (I have DMed once in the past when we were all starting out). I'm super excited and just kind of delving in now and finding all of it very fun.

We're going to be playing the Tombs of Annihilation campaign which I understand can be a difficult one for beginners. I am right now leaning towards making a Wizard character since I think that is most in line with my irl personality and would be easiest to roleplay, but I'm kind of overwhelmed by the options available to me!

Does anyone have tips on ways to stay organized and make sure I'm building a balanced character? Common pitfalls to avoid for a beginner? Tips for playing a wizard? I'm open to any and all suggestions, both about character design and newbie tips in general.

Combat appears to be an important facet of most RPG systems out there, including ones embedded into the games themselves. Seems fair to say that most RPGs have combat as a major, dedicated part of their gameplay: stats like weapon damage and armor resistance are tracked and augmented by enhancements and skills; there are special game states and (for videogame RPGs) controls that separate combat from non-combat; combat serves as one of the major sources of XP for character growth.

There's probably a good few examples out there of games that tried something different that I haven't even heard about. Disco Elysium does "combat" through skill checks in the few instances that it does tackle physical encounters. Griftlands uses card-based actions for both combat and social encounters, each having their own separate decks and "health" values.

What I've been looking for was the kind of a system that doesn't take combat for a special game state. A system where the simulation extends to assimilate combat as just... a thing that happens because you're in danger – or looking to be the danger.

To understand where I'm going with the next bit, you should know a couple of things about Frontiers.

Frontiers is an episodic story about a group of friends playing a homebrew from-first-principles tabletop RPG system. The system, so far titled Frontiers RPG 'cause I'm very original, deals away with or reimagines much of the classic RPG trope library.

One thing that differentiates Frontiers RPG is having 20-some traits for characters, where each trait is an abstracted statistic representative of a character's distinct natural-performance categories. For example:

• Instrumentation determines how well the character naturally operates simple and complex technology
• Visual Space determines one's eyesight and, consequently, the ability to model the geometry of an environment or an object in the head (because apparently these things are linked in the human brain)
• Biomechanics determines how well does one's muscles perform under stress
• Presence determines the strength of the vibe the character gives off naturally; the vibe itself could be intimidating, commanding, or inspiring, depending on said character

Traits are tracked on a low scale:

• −10 is the lowest possible for any living creature with any amount of agency.
• −5 is the lowest any human could possibly get without outside intervention, and means the person is unable to perform in this area completely.
• 0 is average human performance.
• +5 is the best a human being could naturally achieve at their peak.
• +10 is the epitome of human potential when amplified with hyperadvanced technology or supernatural effects.

This means that when someone with Presence +1 enters the room, people can't but notice, even if they don't concern themselves too much with the person. When it's someone with Presence +3, however, most will stop what they're doing for a few seconds and pay attention to what the person is doing. Presence +5? The party stops when the person enters the room: they inspire this much awe and respect (or fear, depending on the person). Characters with high Presence naturally make for excellent leaders, teachers, negotiators, and point-makers.

There are no dice rolls. Each challenge has a difficulty rating on the same scale as traits, which is how the outcomes get determined: either by checking the trait itself or the average of a set of traits (which are sometimes conceptualized into skills and sometimes only exist as checks). For example, if your character's Conditioning (representing physical endurance) is +1 and the challenge is a short jog (difficulty 1), they succeed without a problem.

What makes this system not entirely deterministic is stat depletion. Each trait value above 0 grants the character 1 point of the trait. These points may be used to assist oneself or another character in a challenge if the challenge is of higher difficulty than their trait would normally allow to automatically succeed in. Points are regained at rest, up to the maximum of trait value points: e.g. Instrumentation 2 grants you maximum of 2 points you can have on your character at any given time.

What I've been working with for a few months was HP-like stats derived from specific traits:

• wounds for physical damage, derived from Conditioning
• willpower for mental stress, derived from Volition
• stamina for physical performance, derived from Stress Response

(Having willpower as a stat works because for normal humans, D&D-like adventures would inevitably take their toll. Seeing people suffering may damage the will of a high-Empathy character, but then, everyone would suffer from seeing their loved ones in danger. Seeing a giant fucking monster would certainly make you consider your life choices. Persevering through emotional and mental challenges where your willpower is mechanically limited – a person can only take so much within a limit of time – is an underexplored, underdeveloped field of roleplay, and it fits into the story thematically.)

This naturally geared itself to combat-as-special-state. Abstracting "health points" only makes sense when the only thing that matters is whether you're able to fight further. To this end, I figured that at a certain level of wounds, all traits would take penalty (to simulate being beaten up and stressed from combat) until such a time when the character receive proper care and rest.

Lately, however, I came upon a way to streamline the system and make it "wider" (i.e. not just combat/non-combat simulation): use the trait points directly. This approach enables the player by allowing them to use their whole potential in all manners of situations, and have said potential used against them if they're facing a challenge their ability does not allow them to surpass.

• rather than exchange punches in a bar fight, you can use your Executive Function – your thinking-on-your-feet – to distract your opponent and sucker-punch them while they're looking away
• in a fistfight, character may use their Coordination to deflect a blow – or two points to direct it in a specific way: for example, to harm their proximous ally
• before approaching the bench in order to testify, characters may use their Empathy in order to read the room and understand what sort of an appeal would work best
• seeing an atrocity committed would take a point away from the character's Volition; if they have none left, they may faint, become disstressed (receiving a malus to all checks of a particular nature), or even become catatonic (unable to act coherently until snapped out of it or well-rested)
• being shot by a scared youth may take a point or two of the character's Conditioning, but because they're still standing, they could use Volition to "not fucking flinch", which gives them a temporary bonus to Presence that they can use to interrogate with greater success or otherwise use the youth's capacities

This works, at least on the surface, because it reflects the potential traits grant almost exactly. Someone with Conditioning 0 may be able to take a punch, but it would leave them seriously disoriented or may even inflict lasting damage (broken rib, dislocated jaw etc.); meanwhile, another character with Conditioning 4 may be able to get shot with a pistol and still function to a degree. Someone with Inner World +3 should find it little trouble to jot down a short story to tell their children before bed, while someone with Inner World 0 would find it impossible to come up with a logo for their new product even with intense consideration.

What I haven't yet figured out is:

• how to handle such "shooting above one's head" attempts for trait values lower than 0 (which is encouraged for challenge and roleplay reasons)
• how to handle situations where all points are depleted and the player still wants to try a difficult thing that's just above their character's level
• whether players should receive more than one point per level of trait, or even see points granted scale with value (Engineering 3 → 1 + 2 + 3 = 6 points total)

The system is not perfect, but it's hella interesting, and I'd like to pursue it. If it leads nowhere, at least I explored. What I'm looking for from this topic is review of the concept of stat depletion and its potential implications. Assume that the rest of the system is perfectly viable and feasible unless its parts directly contradict or hamper the system as a whole. What problems can you see with this section? What benefits can one derive from it?

Times are tough and isolation is getting to everybody, we've been playing some easy jackbox games with my friends on Google Hangouts, when the idea came to me: Why not start a DnD campaign? I've never ever played one, just watched some Youtube (Geek and Sundry, Mathew Colville), and definitely never though about hosting one until now.

After looking around, there are a lot of cool resources for running one, Roll20 seems to be the most popular and praised for ease of use. Rules are very well written into it and all the tools needed to deal with the mechanics are in. So technology-wise I think we're set.

Now I have a lot of questions on how to get an adventure running. Do I just get an official DnD guide book, do I just rip off the White Orchard level from Witcher 3 to start off or do I come up with some generic fantasy land? I'd like to run a small adventure in one night, just to get a taste of it and maybe branch it off later if everyone is up for it.

For characters I think it would be easier for me to come up with 8-10 pre-generated ones for a group of 4-5 people (with specific people in mind) to tailor it a little bit for my group, but still present some variety, while smoothing the learning curve and lowering the barrier to entry. Feels like a decent idea.

I'm still not sure where to start with this expansive world and I'd love to hear for seasoned DMs an players here on Tildes. How did you start your first game, what was the setting? How do I gently introduce players to mechanics? How do I deal with unpredictable situations?

And most importantly, how do I make sure everyone is having fun?

My gaming group got to talking at our last game about how long we've been playing. Most of us were at 20+ years. I asked them if they'd ever played a 20th level character, and the answer was a unanimous no, so that's something we're going to remedy with the next campaign.

I got to fiddling around with characters and noticed that 5e caps itself out nicely once you hit 20th. No matter what you create, the limits on action economy, maximum spell/attacks, stats/scores all give rise to a nice plateau. The hit points getting huge is the biggest change, so you just end up trading healing word whack-a-mole for characters that can actually take some real punishment and using power word heal. Needs a wound mechanic so that going down has lasting consequences even if you get right back up, but that's easily workable.

I was bored and threw another twenty levels on for a 40th level character, and then another 11 for a meaningful dip into a third class. Just cap the character's proficiency bonus at +6/20th and nothing really changes except you have a far larger bag of tricks at your disposal. Twelve feats is like candyland. I'm anticipating some of my players are going to get ferret shock trying to keep up with their spell lists during combat. Too many choices, they'll make a hilarious mess out of it and it'll be fun. I have a tiny hourglass sitting on the table to keep the pressure up, I'm sure that'll get some use.

I told them to pick their favorite character they've played over the years that they want to revisit and make the best version they can, complete with character history, holdings, etc. They also have to explain everything on their sheet - every level, feat, item, holding, etc all have a story attached. You're a monk? Where and when did you get that training, etc.

Then one of my players turned me on to the epic level book for 5e from 2c gaming. It's perfect, plugs right into the limits and takes them up a bit, but also adds all sorts of epic madness. Every class/archetype gets its own ten level epic prestige class. That's the 'real' 21-30 I can use for their advancement. I can also torment them with the prestige evolutions from the campaign setting we'll be using. There's plenty of advancement to be had this way despite already being at 51st level. I'm working in all of their existing characters from adjacent games as well, so we've got a ready made pool of henchmen.

I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of spelljamming and planar travel in this campaign. There's probably a gods war in there somewhere too. I have my 2nd Edition monster manual binders right here, and a third of the critters in them can give these characters nightmares for days. I'm figuring I'll be making heavy use of Illithids as one of the main threats, that trailer for Baldur's Gate 3 has them back in vogue again. Psionics is such a wonderful foil for magic.

So what kind of character would you build if you were making a character that's already the master of his/her/its? tiny corner of the D&D universe? What do you do with those 51 character levels?

Any races allowed, of course. Racial abilities are the least of it at this point. Origin can be from any campaign setting, past or present.

Hey folks, I haven't posted in a hell of a long time and thought why not get this going again.

So when I last posted I think my Paladin had just been basically killed off and I wrote up a druid. Well this one has been amazingly fun to role play, being that he has lived most of his life in solitude he has no social skills and tends to do things that can be a little off at times. Our merry band of misfits had cleared a small towns problem warerats who turned out to be a family of Gnomes who lived there, while trying to console the final member of the family Rolen (my druid) felt the best way to give emotional support would be to congratulate the young Gnome on becoming the head of the family. This actually broke the whole table for about a minute, the DM sat in silence for a moment, laughed, tried to role play the distraught girl but failed epically.

We have also got another campaign going with a few of the same guys as the bigger campaign, this one is mostly homebrew. The first character I made I really wasn't happy with so spoke to the DM and we worked out how to kill her off and introduce the new character I made, completely homebrew this one and it's again been far more fun. He is a Dwaf Shaman whose ancestors speak to him constantly, sometimes good and sometimes not so much.

So what has been happening in your RPGs? anything big, fun or just want to chat about? painted anything cool? got new dice? anything at all.

My D&D group mostly used Lego for the longest time, but we recently decided to give miniatures a shot because we were adding more people and I only have so many minifigs to share (unless you want Stormtroopers in your fantasy setting, that is!). A few weeks ago we met up to paint our miniatures for our new campaign and I think that was the most relaxing, calming thing I've ever done. We all sat in silence basically, noobing our way through the painting process and we had a lot of fun.

My character is a sheltered rich southern man who sounds a bit like a mix between Colonel Sanders and Foghorn Leghorn. He's a sorcerer and despite how is mini ended up looking, he does not cast bubblegum -- https://imgur.com/fr4tc6Z

But anyway, looking at it now there are some obvious spots where I messed up and certainly some things I'd do differently now. But until I'm able to get my hands on another miniature, I was wondering if anyone here had experience with painting miniatures and would be able to share some advice?

This topic is part of a weekly series where we can talk about board games. Feel free to talk about any aspect of board gaming you'd like. Here are some potential talking points to get you started:

• Are you looking for a recommendation? Tell us a game you'd like, and we'll see if we can think of one that may suit you.
• Have you tried something new and want to chat about it? Tell us about why you like a particular board game!
• Did you have a particularly interesting tabletop gaming experience? Tell us about your 9-point swing in Catan, or the time you managed to finish off the entire village in Ultimate Werewolf!

Has anyone done a play-by-post (PBP) game? Where you play online not in some service like Roll20, but in a forum structure (like Reddit, the Paizo forms, or, hey, here)?

I'm thinking about starting a PBP game of Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures somewhere (maybe Reddit or Discord, not sure), but I'm not sure if I want to create maps for the whole thing. When I was working on my homebrew 5th Edition campaign, the thing that annoyed me most was map creation (mostly overworld, but since this is Pokemon and I know where I'm basing it off of, I don't have much trouble with that). I'd only use "maps" for combat (more like I'd use a combat grid that I steal off of Roll20).

Would anyone here that have either run games in a PBP format or just GM'ed games in general have any tips for doing something like this?

This is a recurring thread in ~games.tabletop where we can talk about board games in a fun way. Feel free to discuss boardgames in any way you want! Each week I add a guiding topic / question, just to help things along:

What's the last game you played?