What is the worst setting you've ever played in and why?
When I was a teenager a guy I knew ran a completely pointless and plotless D&D game where we were in a giant extradimensional mansion full of rooms, and basically ran the game like a video game, complete with save points. It was literally "advance to the next room, kill the monsters, acquire healing potion because DM knows our HP is low, repeat" until we got bored and all quit at the same time.
>>46380789
I did a similar thing when i was a teenager, where me and some mates tried to play DnD when we were all incredibly stoned. Our DM was a retard and we went in there with no objective, no clear setting, no character sheets, and ended up giving up about 3 enemies in because we were just improvising a homebrew as we went along, all the while this DM telling us that he knew the rules because he 'used to play it all the time when he was a kid.'
That was my first try at DnD. It gotten better since
My old GM's custom setting, which was basically a combination of all of the worst parts of dragonlance, forgotten realms, and generic fantasy tropes mashed into a horrible mishmash with no real continuity.
One particularly infuriating bit I remember is when we were traipsing about through the underdark, and found a port. Like, that opened up onto the ocean. An underground port that opened up at sea level.
>>46380703
Forgotten Realms. Here's this massive setting that makes no sense and is populated by gods who walk among the mortals so why bother adventuring since a deity will fix it anyway, and thousands of epic level NPCs, so why bother adventuring since Elminster or one of the Nightsong sisters will simply fix everything. Plus you have years and years of canon to the point that if you want to do anything the only place is the fucking Dalelands. Plus you had the slowly growing populations of bullshit. "Look I'm Drizz't, the only good drow! Oh wait, there's this female drow who is also good. And another girl who is the same. Hm, now there's that guy, too." Fourth edition was terrible, but the best thing it ever did was nuking Faerun.
>>46380907
But those exist in real life.
Or do you mean that you were several hundred feet below sea level at the time
Because there are "underground oceans" in the Underdark that are fully underground.
>>46380703
Okay, who would ever need a stock picture of a knight (?) and a princess (?) eating waffles?
>>46380907
Would have made some sense if it was a lake. Could have been interesting
>>46380993
Well obviously the anon you linked to needed one!
>>46380907
>>My old GM's custom setting, which was basically a combination of all of the worst parts of dragonlance, forgotten realms, and generic fantasy tropes mashed into a horrible mishmash with no real continuity.
Golarion?
>>46380703
Shadowrun. It's like cyberpunk but with orks and elves and magic and shit! And that's retarded. These things work okay in a fantasy setting, but clash horribly with our modern, technological and scientific age.
>>46380964
As in, it was clear to us that we were a long way underground, and it opened up onto the above ground ocean.
>>46381013
But who would buy it and use it for commercial purposes?
>>46381050
>sad man holding blobfish_Shutterstock.com.jpg
>sci_fi_woman_with_banana_in_matrix_Shutterstock.com.jpg
>laughing_woman_holding_bloody_cow_heart_Shutterstock.com.jpg
DO NOT QUESTION THE WAYS OF THE MASTERS
I really like generic (it's not always a pejorative word) fantasy settings.
The worst thing you can do is try to put some exciting spin on an obvious setting, then it completely flops.
"It's Feudal Japan, but there are giant robots! Please care about the giant robots!"
"What if it was like conquistadors in the Age of Discovery, but there are aliens?"
"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
No. I am happy to accept and read pages and pages about an interesting setting, but if it's [historical period] combined with [anachronistic twist] you can fuck right off.
40k
>>46380703
Played MtG during Theros, does that count?
>>46381032
>want to get away from D&D and other fantasy games
>have had a lifetime of elves, orcs, and magic
>"hey anon we're going to play a cyberpunk game this week!"
>oh boy, which one?
>"Shadowrun!"
It's kind of hilarious that it's the most popular cyberpunk rpg
Neo *Insert Your City Name Here*
we played as ourselves with two powers, i was a graphic designer that drawings came to life, and i had the portal gun in my palms
>>46381200
>It's kind of hilarious that it's the most popular cyberpunk rpg
That's because WizKids knew what they were doing. I was around when FASA started floundering, and man, it was not a pretty sight.
>>46381050
Maybe they want to market their waffles to ren faire organizers. How old are waffles? I know they originated in Belgium, I think
>>46381244
>Wizkids
Did catalyst labs go under? I thought they still had the rights.
But yeah, the most popular Cyberpunk setting has elves and wizards and shit, and that sucks balls.
>>46381434
Use the classic setting or bust.
>>46381346
They appeared at around the 9th to 10th century.
t. Wikipedia
>>46381729is it good for deus ex with it?
>>46380703
Answer is always steampunk
>>46381990
>Deus Ex
Trash tier
>>46382052
Is that a setting you've played in though? If yes please tell us about it.
>>46381434
What I meant was, Shadowrun had its IP put out there in a big way and used the money to make a good-looking product. Toys, video games, miniatures, RPG books... shit, they had actual color photos of people in prosthetic makeup in the fake ads.
Say what you want about the game (and I agree, I hate the system and the setting) but it LOOKS like a quality product.
>>46381092
>>46380703
I don't know if it was the worst or just the most pointless. I think our DM didn't know he wanted to write fantasy. Every encounter took hours because every detail had to be described to us, and every detail of every detail had to be described to us, and every detail of that had to be described to us and if anyone ever interrupted the DM would jump back 4 or 5 details and then get side tracked down a different wormhole again. It was like being in a bad history class. World building is important to me, and I'd rather have than not, but if our character are camping out in the ruins of a fort by the river, I dont need to know all the details about the year the fort was constructed, and who all the captains were, and what food stores were available in what years, and how the fort got its name from guy A, who lived in place, and his name was guy A because, according to legend he did thing B. Guy A had to do Thing B because it was the year 2345 and there was a famine this year because 2 years before that there was a drought that was caused by a dragon and the dragon caused the drought because he was mad that Guy D killed guy E during the 17th pitched battle in a war of succession 2 countries over and 200 year ago. This caused the hill orcs of tribe F to give up their hunter gatherer life style and switch to raiding because of the drought that the dragon caused. The dragon caused the drought because he was mad at Guy D. What? I just told you that? Oh right because you guys were camped out at fort A who got its name from guy A. Guy A was madly in love with princess Z from the country to the south, whose economy relied on a pretty plant called the Plant X from another country but princess Z' great great grandpa thought it would be a good idea to create and plant X bubble and get rich....
and its like, jesus, man, I just wanted to know if there was any remaining high ground where I could take the first watch,
>>46382308
My eyes glazed over just reading that example.
>>46381169
Aliens aren't exactly confined to one time period though.
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
That's not so bad, especially if the speed of communication is limited to the speed of human travel.
>>46381729
>tfw I got Cyberpunk 1st edition and 2nd edition, and Shadowrun 1st edition (with a near mint rulebook and two posters), AND an unopened Denver: City of Shadows box for SR for $30 total at a dying game store
Sucked that the game store died, but man oh man did I fucking score that day.
>>46380703
The worst I've ever played in was ran by my good buddy, who unfortunately is a terrible, terrible DM. System was 3.5 D&D.
It was generic fantasy, of course, but with those "twists" that shitty DMs always love to do; you know, shit like "IN THIS SETTING, ELVES ARE SHOOORT BUT DWARVES CAN FLYYYY" and shit like that. Just taking these pre-established races and ideas, and then adding or subtracting a thing instead of actually, you know, just making a new race.
So, in this setting, the Orcs were actually good, the humans were tribal barbarians, dwarves lived aboveground, and elves were evil slavemasters. Halflings and gnomes were, not surprisingly, completely ignored and unchanged.
Then he goes on to tell us how the elves make special collars for their slaves. These collars are enchanted with EEeeeEEEvil magic, and would with a command turn a slave into... an animal. And then he goes on about how each race turns into a different animal, with dwarfs becoming goats and halflings becoming chickens or some stupid shit like that, I can't fucking remember.
Either way, felt uncomfortably like magical realm, so the campaign ended before it even began when we all flat out told that sounded dumb as fuck.
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
But this is actually a pretty fun idea if you spin it correctly. Traveller and Treasure Planet come to mind.
>>46381092
I want some lulzy millionaire to buy the un watermarked version of the best of thses and release them into the wild
>>46382255
Where do you even get a blob fish? Fish monger isn't gonna have one is he? Rush special order from the wharf to the photo studio?
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
This sounds amazing
>>46382308
Is he way into dwarf fortress?
>>46381169
>I really like generic (it's not always a pejorative word)
it always is, kill yourself
>>46382627
That last part sounds alright and non-fetishy but not very practical.
>>46382091
>What I meant was, Shadowrun had its IP put out there in a big way and used the money to make a good-looking product. Toys, video games, miniatures, RPG books... shit, they had actual color photos of people in prosthetic makeup in the fake ads.
>actual color photos
Have I got a treat for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GPGQoR6f6w
>>46382875
I don't man, I'm weary about transformation shit; it's a pretty common fetish.
I mean if we had actually ended up playing that campaign, I would have to see how he handled a collar being activated. If it was just a quick "In a flash of light and magic, you see the man shift into a donkey!" or something like that, it would be fine. But knowing him, it would probably be some detailed description of the guy slowly morphing, his arms and legs getting thinner, that kind of thing.
But, ultimately the "campaign" lasted half a session so it doesn't really matter.
>>46382445
>>46382680
>>46382822
Well there's Rogue Trader which is pretty close. Probably one of the better 40kRPGS and my favorite at least
>>46381434
Wizkids was the subsidiary of Topps that was handling it before Catalyst got hold of it. I have the original 4e book and it doesn't say Catalyst on it.
>>46383030
This is so fucking cheesy and terrible.
I love it.
>>46383030
To think I nearly forgot about that. It's like 4 minutes too long to even really be funny
>>46383030
Oh yeah, I've seen that but thanks for reminding me
See, this is what I mean. Shadowrun really blew a ton of money (comparatively) on promoting their product, and it paid off with market penetration.
>>46382354
Then I've done a good job
>>46382842
He has recently gotten into it, but I don't think he was at the time.
Mine.
I'm bad.
>>46380703
Some sort of disco wild-west where everything was resolved with dance fighting. It was an improvised oneshot and all the players enjoyed it, but as a GM I thought it was the dullest thing in the world. You might not think so with a description like that, but after a few rounds you just completely run out of different ways to narrate that shit.
>>46383508
Explain
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
golden age of priacy is the age of sail. david weber has put his kids through college on that concept
Late SR3 to SR5 is terrible both in mechanics, story, and gameplay.
>Jackpoint is shit because it's a bunch of MinMax Reddit faggotry headed by FastJackOff and of course Harley's back to his may may self enabling this shit and more.
>Said faggotry is why we have Runnerhub, a cult of "Them guys & gals" mined in the faggottry of Tumblr, forged from the fires of infinity hugbox, and nestled in the swamp of Reddit. Saddest thing is that by being popular and using blogfags and Podcunts they
are literally a factory sperging out all PC abominations that killed the game in the first place.
>Dragons were powerful sure but it always comes down to Dragon is right all the time and metahumanity is drek. Even the missions where you do shit with dragons is insignificant in the end. It's not even funny, now dragons work in mysterious ways and evendors though SR4 wankery gave them god powers which were "retcon'd" in SR5 they still act like superfaggots. I can handle metahumanity being shit but don't act like dragons are always in the right and smug the place to high heaven.
Seriously it's like all the edglord shit from every other game became a horror and body jacked the corpse of Shadowrun.
>>46382255
Why?
>>46380941
>populated by gods who walk among the mortals so why bother adventuring since a deity will fix it anyway, and thousands of epic level NPCs, so why bother adventuring?
I'm not defending forgotten rings cause it's shit, but 'gods' in the setting often literally are just maxed out adventurers.
God hood is just an NPC prestige class. Make of that what you will.
>>46381045
That's not impossible either depending on how much above sea level you were when you started. It's still contrived bullshit but.
>>46381169
>not having the Sengoku period wars where Takeda Shingen developed Oni powered Samurai robots instead of cavalry warhorses.
>>46384076
>I don't know how to use greentext
>>46380703
The worst setting i have ever played was an edgy naruto-like feudal japan world with ninjas with superpowers and characters that could throw giant blasts of energy or turn into huge spirit creatures or something like that and katanas that could cut anything.
I was the new guy on this group, invited by a classmate (who turned out being the DM) one of the guys was a female ninja who could control fire and "could never be detected" (and the group took that seriously) and her clan was massacred by a legendary samurai so she's looking for revenge. Other guy was a boy (like 13 years old) with a giant magical katana that could cut through everything and had his ancestor's spirit trapped inside and when he used it he would turn in a huge overly powerful spirit and we also had a blind samurai that could teleport and shoot waves of energy from his hands/sword, he could also run faster than anyone and jump at impossible hights (only the female ninja could jump higher)
and then it was me... i was a foreinger, a knight in full plate armor with a longsword, and just that, i just wanted to be a clever guy who just knew how to fight but i wasn't allowed and like half an hour after we started the DM said we found out that i was indeed the last survivor of an ancient clan of foreingers and had a huge hidden power and everyone agreed that we should try to get that power out by going to some mountain to see some old wise man who would unlock it for me...
thing was retarded but i tried my best to have fun
>>46382255
more like this please?
>>46385803
forgot pic related
>>46385803
>>46380703
I am and still in a larp where the setting is quite literally just made up as the GMs go along. Last night there was a gathering and now there is an elf nation to our south border. This is why I'm always vague on where my character goes because if I even specify a direction on a compass, apparently I climbed a volcano without realizing it.
Biggest way to fix it would be to write all the lore down and let people read what should be common knowledge.
>>46386212
i don't know why someone would make this but i love them
>>46380703
A fucking mashup of every setting the DM liked or had books for. It was 3.5 D&D, but the center of the world was the world from Perdido Street Station, and it stretched out into unformed chaos from which various nations were deposited as the DM or players found new stuff.
One player (who combined amazing RP with blatant munchinkenry) was a Grey Knight, I was a mecha pilot, and there was a wizard. I don't remember who the other 4 characters were. but I died first. As usual.
>>46385419
>>not having the Sengoku period wars where Takeda Shingen developed Oni powered Samurai robots instead of cavalry warhorses.
You should mos def check out Tenra Bansho Zero, if you are unfamiliar.
Why have kitchen sink settings become so unbearable?
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
So Treasure Planet? I would play the shit out of that if it was done well.
This is something I made up for the april 1st game.
A fantasy tacticalpunk. A standard knights and dragons shit except everything is /military/ for no reason. Knights are operators except with capes. Their horses are anime horsegirls. Not rideable. They just lift a ton of stuff. Dragons are metal gears. Princess is a nuke. The king looks like Big Boss. Skeletons are skeletons but painted in camo and armes with slingshots.
Is this bad enough?
I actually hope it is.
>>46386930
Question: when is the tipping point for when kitchen sink settings become bad?
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
You fucking dolt, treasure planet and Space Pirate Captain harlock, hell even fucking Space Battleship Yamato are all rad and you should re-evaluate your opinions
>>46386930
A Kitchen Sink setting can do pretty much everything, but unfortunately, in doing everything it doesn't do some things as well as a more focused system could.
A system with a design focus to narrow down and emphasize certain aspects or provide a more strict balancing system than "make everything work okay despite there being more possible combinations than the human mind can comprehend?" A setting that's paired-down doesn't have to deal with a lot of shit.
From a fluff standpoint, it doesn't have to get incredibly stupid and expansive to encompass every fucking thing in the universe, but instead leaves itself space to focus on a few key ideas, recurring themes, and overall giving the setting a distinct and purpose-made tone. It's a way of keeping the narrative condensed and uncluttered.
>>46387054
It started out really interesting. It went overboard and in weird directions really fast. So yeah, mission accomplished.
>>46387100
Probably when Magic A, B, and C aren't enough and the writers or game designers decide they need to throw in more types without any build up, introduction, or mystery. This can apply to most things really. Just throwing in shit to exist and anything new added has no build up. Especially if they have their own power creep and game changing rules that would've helped to have around earlier for plot reasons.
>>46386850
I think that was the joke, actually.
>>46380703
new dm attempting a 'sandbox campaign' where there are factions and the players are free to choose one, no railroading.
It always ends up with the players not caring about anything.
>>46387733
Try doing it hexcrawl style and have a powerful faction that cares about them. A lot. And will hound the players every so often with bounty hunters and rival adventurers.
>>46381200
Nerds hate things that are different, even in a cyberpunk rpg they'll scream and cry if there isn't tolkienshit.
>>46388620
It's not Tolkien's fault. If we're going solely on Tolkien orcs were just nondescript monster baddies and elves had a reason to be immortal and shit through their connection to the cosmology. It's D&D fault.
>>46380703
Dragon Age
>>46386930
They don't bother making it coherent, because most people are idiots. They won't notice or care.
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
Hey, I like Traveller.
>>46382680
>>46382445
Speaking of, they finished the Mong publishing version of Pirates of Drinax recently. It's basically this.
>"It's steampunk D&D guys!"
I didn't even need to attend a session to drop it.
Victorian Era D&D. The first and last session I attended was just steampunk circlejerk. I don't think there was even a plot.
Only War as Traitor Guard. Our DM had an edge boner the entire time and no one really enjoyed it. Dropped after the second session and heard pretty much everyone else did by the third.
>>46388928
>>46388958
Now I wonder. How is a cogfop session even supposed to play out and why can seemingly no one make it work?
>>46388674
DnD was a mistake
>>46388901
Mocto?
>>46388967
>why can seemingly no one make it work?
because steampunk is an aesthetic theme rather than a genre and tabletop isn't a visual medium for the most part.
Its also not got a defining work for everyone to use as a standard template like SciFi or Fantasy does.
>>46381169
It's funny, all of the ones you describe sound way better than generic fantasy.
Mysterious ancient robots piloted by noble samurai that are fueled by their iron will that turn the tides of battle.
Conquistadors fight hordes of fervent worshippers of ancient aliens in the new world. Muskets and faith vs vast armies and psionic alien overlords.
I don't need to explain why that last one is great, others have already.
Grow an imagination anon. Stuff is fun.
>>46389027
m8
>>46388928
inb4 he was just poorly describing Eberron
>>46389052
>Mysterious ancient robots piloted by noble samurai that are fueled by their iron will that turn the tides of battle.
That honestly just sounds like a normal mecha setting.
>>46382065
I never asked for your opinion
>>46385803
Honestly that doesn't sound like that bad of a game. Granted, the setting sounds laughably bad, but I can see having fun with it if you just roll into the edge.
>>46385803
So you just joined the wrong kind of campaign? As aweful as that sounds I can see people who would enjoy that kind of stuff.
It's like joining a 40K setting and expect everything to be bright and cheerful
Literally any of your shitty "I spent 10 years handcrafting this super sandbox fantasy world!" settings.
With their stupid, generic world map that is literally identical to all of the other generic world maps you can find on Google, but somehow you think it's special and unique, and their stupid textbook of lore you think anyone cares about where you just take stock-standard Forgotten Realms tropes, races, and imagery and slap a name you got off a random generator on it. And somehow you think this is interesting or compelling, and deserves special attention, because you think you actually put effort into it.
Nigga, I don't mind generic. Just stop pretending it's special.
>>46380703
I've had terrible luck with DMs running homebrew settings.
It's like flipping a coin on whether the homebrew will be interesting, aka the DM actually did research online and made an active effort to create an engaging world to play in.
Or if it's one of those self-congratulatory homebrews that the DM made to basically suck his own dick, all the NPCs are just renamed zany characters from various video games, and what elements aren't obviously just made by the DM to pat himself on the back are just the most generic unoriginal shit so we might as well be playing vanilla Forgotten Realms.I've had bad Roll20 experiences lol.
>>46387054
Exactly bad enough for me to want to play it. Hard.
>>46389046
I run a lot of games that would fall under "steampunk" technically. I use Perdido Street Station and the other Bas-Lag novels as inspiration. Weird magic bullshit mixed with industrial technology makes for some fun times if you can find the right group.
I love games set around the 1800s, but gods the Victorian London circlejerk makes it so hard to make it work. Gearshit makes me want to puke. I don't want to run a game for spoiled nobles with gears on tophats exploring savage lands, fuck that. I want a group of dirtbags trying to scrape together a living in a world where the value of a human life is diminishing rapidly with the march of technology. Or maybe some fed up revolutionaries facing insurmountable odds trying to take down the government, even though it'll all end in blood and gunpowder when they face up against the full might of the empire, all leading up to a valiant last stand that ends with half of the Royal Palace a crater and a TPK.
>>46389065
What a shame.
>>46380703
why does this picture exist
>>46380703
Forgotten Realms
>>46389769
That's cheating. It goes without saying.
>>46386930
>Why have kitchen sink settings become so unbearable?
Because you're not a teenager anymore, and the things that you thought were cool and original turned out to be trite and routine.
Rahowa even if I haven't played it
/thread
>>46387054
>Skeletons are skeletons but painted in camo and armes with slingshots
I found this mental image enjoyable.
>>46387054
This reminds me of a novel.
There was a dimensional tunnel in a dragons treasury, that lead straight to a weapons cache in the real world.
The dragon proceeded to arm the Orcs with assault rifles and other stuff.
Elves got raped. And the Orc general got kinky with a halfling or something.
Was /tg/ as fuck.
>>46386930
They were never bearable. I've started calling them "theme parks".
>>46389052
>Muskets and faith vs vast armies and psionic alien overlords
Now I want a Conquest of Paradise DLC for XCOM2
>>46380703
I don't know what the setting in OP pic is, but I sure as hell want to play it.
>>46387054
you mean Wraith Recon
>>46381169
These almost sound like Peter Molydeux ideas
https://twitter.com/petermolydeux
>>46387105
I disagree
>>46380703
Every setting I played in was bad. This includes the one setting I GM'd.
>>46381169
You've said literally the opposite of the truth.
Historical event/period but X is one of the easiest ways to make a setting that's never been done before, fresh to explore, and players will instantly know the basics of the setting without having to have a 2-hour introduction to your dwarven culture of stonefucking.
On the other hand, Tolkien's Nightmare settings have been overused, played out and not fun since the 1980s.
>>46391616
Oh no. Not at all. No siree. Shit's bright. I use Dragon's Crown consept arts as a base. Shit's adventure as fuck. No bows. No swords. No spellcasting. Maybe a knife.
Sword is now a machinegun
Axe is shotgun
Lance is rifle.
Dragon is Metal Gear because It breathes missiles.
It's too late. I prepared everything. Even Dragon's Dogma monster climbing. And guerilla kobolds. And molotov orcs. And more Metal Gear machinery. Among other things. And here's your knight. Except with a gun instead of a sword.
Frankly, I think I went a bit overboard for an april 1st one-shot game
>>46392112
That honestly sounds pretty fun.
>>46384076
>popular and using blogfags and Podcunts they
are literally a factory sperging out all PC abominations that killed the game in the first place.
Speak English God Damn
I once had to play in toholand. It was pretty bad.
>>46389283
See, what you describes is what steampunk always has been to me. I've been lucky enough to never realy encounter any of these cogfops of which you speak.
>>46392112
If you don't justify Barbarians using NANOMACHINES SON then you've disappointed us all
>>46391887
>players will instantly know the basics of the setting without having to have a 2-hour introduction
And this is why building of common ideas are in fact great for roleplaying games.
>>46392496
Sorry, Jojo. This is Tacticalpunk, not Deus Ex. I'm only using Metal Gears because It is the greatest marriage of a monster and a weapon. And I needed a dragon that breathes fucking missiles. That is why Metal Gear Ray won the audition for the final boss of the night.also, I doubt I'll ever come back to this world, since we're in the middle of the Star Wars campaign and my players seem to dig what I'm doing in that onewhich is rather sad, to be honest>Mad World playing in the distance
>>46389128
exactly that i joined the wrong campaign
>>46389125
to be honest i had fun in the end because i played along (and somehow my character ended up being the "hero" of the story) but everyone was that typical RPer that would never see his/her character lose and they would always have something overpowered under their sleeves to use whe things get hard... Like "my ancestors spirits powers come to me and now i'm a super saiyan" (not exactly that but things like that) all of them where mary sue/gary stu, no exceptions, shit even i was one after the DM decided i was the last survivor of an ancient clan and had powers
>>46380703
>What is the worst setting you've ever played in and why?
Eberron.
>>46391469
I read that book in high school! I think its just called "ORCS!" or something like that.
>>46385803
Sounds like you're That Guy who won't enter into the spirit of a campaign.
>>46394049
I disagree. Though he clearly had a case of joining a game that wasn't really for him, he says that in the end he went along with it and tried to have fun. That wouldn't make him That Guy, as he wasn't trying to increase his own fun by ruining it for everyone else. Now if he'd dug in his heels and bitched and moaned until everyone else changed things to suit him? Then he would have been That Guy.
>>46385803
I was actually planning a setting similar to this, except not as over the top. Something similar to the domains of power in Ninja Scroll. Tastefully subdued however.
>>46385803
It just wasn't what you wanted. I know that feeling.
I spent a while thinking that low fantasy games would be my thing, and I honestly blamed my DMs for why I wasn't having fun. Then I realized, I really did love high fantasy. The grittiness did not appeal to me as much as a sense of wonder and amazement about the world.
>>46394583
>sense of wonder and amazement about the world
how can you feel this
what is your secret
no matter how fantastical things get I never feel this
>>46395858
Contrast, usually. I let the GM shock and awe me with a surprise fire elemental or a sudden grove of nymphs. I forget the world is magical, and then it reminds me.It also helps that it's not this world with all its horrible truths and tarnished lies, as much as I love them.
>>46380703
A former member of my group's homebrew setting, it was bad enough with just "Moon Goddess is good, Sun God is evil because reasons", but it was pretty much "How many things from Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts can I force into the setting?" beyond that.
>>46395988
>Moon Goddess is good, Sun God is evil because reasons
shouldn't that be reversed? I mean it's easier to argue that a moon deity is evil since that's when all the scary shit comes out.
yes it's a child's logic, but for a basic fantasy setting child-logic can work.
>>46396179
That's my point, he didn't even give any sort of reason why it was like that, pretty much just "That's how it is, deal with it"
>>46396362
then I have to conclude that he made that decision just to be contrarian and "edgy" without putting any serious thought into an in-universe reasoning.
>>46389181
This is how I feel about DMing. I will always use my own world, campaign, etc. It's my own, but it might be terribly unoriginal, but it's mine.
>>46382871
this
>>46380703
Friend ran a paranormal investigation game... in FNAF.
need i explain more?
>>46397453
From 1 to 10 How much autism did your friend had when he ran the system? Also what system did he use?
>>46393554
Never played in it. Why?
>>46388620
Hey man, I got into it thanks to Artemis Fowl. Shit was fucking fire when my teacher read it to us in grade 4 and it's still fire now.
>>46395988
>>46396179
I gpt it. I know how you make the evil sun god/good moon goddess angle work.
Desert setting.
In the day, the people burn beneath the terrible gaze of the sun. The Sun God cruelly leers at the people as he tortures them with his scorching rays. He is the god of burning torture, dessication, and sun bleached bones.
When it turns to night, the people can finally take solace and relax in the cool glow of the moon. This is when the Moon Goddess comes forth, smiling down upon the people and offering them a respite from the sun's blazing heat. She is the goddess of cool breezes, peaceful sleep, and of comforting nights spent with a lover.
See, that's not exactly amazing, but it only took me about five seconds to come up with the concept. In short, that DM is a lazy, edgy faggot.
>>46386328
IIRC it's actually a statue somebody made that was on display on some exhibit somewhere. Something about raising the awareness of the destruction of the natural habitat of the noble and magnificent blobfish, or something.
>>46389052
STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>46381169
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
That shit is glorious though!
Probably the one I'm making.
>>46386930
Because when there are 20 kinds of dragon, monsters ripped from a dozen different cultures and equipment from 2500 years of real history all over the place it just becomes ridiculous and makes people lose interest.
>>46391887
>have been overused, played out and not fun since the 1980s
Why do people keep pushing this ridiculous argument. Its always going to be new for someone, I have never actually played in a 'generic fantasy' campaign. And some people just enjoy that sort of thing enough to want to keep playing it.
>>46387054
I can make this work:
>Dragon is a top-secret weapon a la metal gear
>Princess has the activation codes and you have to escort her
>Cenataurs are pretty much the elite land OPs
> Skeletons are revived humans with drones that come out of them.
>>46397763
This. In actual cultures that lived in the desert, like the Arabs before Islam took hold, the moon deities were revered far more than the sun deities. Sun deities were something to be feared and respected at best, while the moon sheltered from the heat of the day - though in the desert, I think it gets colder at night, so it could still be harmful.
>>46394583
>not liking what you thought you'd like
This is why I like to be the GM- if I end up not liking a thing it's alright because I'll just think of a reason to flip it around and then have that happen.
Of course, sometimes the players liked the way it was and complain, or worsethey don't complain and I can just tell that things aren't as good as they used to be, but there's no real way to bring back the things that they liked and still have the campaign arc (that they are enjoying) make any sense, so I just have to deal with what I have done.
>>46399437
>tfw you don't really care about an adventure enough to be interested in what's going on, but you don't dislike it enough to just leave.
So many sessions I've just ended up going, 'next session, if it's shit, I'm leaving.' But it's never been shitty enough for me to go through with it.
>>46386930
What makes a setting sink, I always thought it pertained to eclectic Richard Scary everything at once settings.
But recently I've heard of D&D/PF being called this (I'd call it generic fantasy)
So what does it mean anymore? Or is it different in context.
>>46399931
It means everything including the kitchen sink. So instead of picking magic flavors 1-100 they pick all of them at once. Likewise there is pretty much no cap on the fantastic beings. All pantheons, gods, god types, and different plot energy that they function on (this last bit is really the nail in the coffin since even many settings have all these elements share one rule). Anachronism out the ass and all of this being done shallowly. Which gives everything a theme park feel but none of it has any depth.
>>46382680
Traveller is absolutely just the age of sail in space. It's great.
>>46388620
While I don't care for the magic, elves orcs, and trolls, the idea of dragon mega-moguls is hilariously awesome, it adds a whole new dimension to corporate intregue.
>Spend years riding the corporate ladder
>Have the perfect plan to kill your rival and absorb his company
>Control events so tightly that he is forced to meet with you in person
>you're just about to pull the trigger
>Suddenly your rival informs you that he is a fire-breathing flying lizard that can shrug off tank rounds
>You get eaten.
>>46400022
That just sounds like modern anime fantasy tbqhfam
>>46400022
Oh, good. I've got a setting I've been working on that's not too extensive. I was worried it fit the definition.
>>46395858
A lot of it is about perspective, I think. Try to frame it in terms of how different it is, how much it's outside your experience. Or, maybe put it in a greater context and put it against the back drop of everything. This one even works for real life stuff. Looking at something like a rock formation and think about everything that had to happen for this to exist, the intricate systems that stand behind those process, and how larger than life it seems when you really think about.
It also won't happen if you're trying to not let it happen. As cliche as it is, immersion is important. I find that trying to put yourself in the scene helps. Music can also help. If you can make it "real" enough and immerse yourself, wonder should follow naturally.
I was a pretty jaded teenager, and in hindsight I really hate myself for it. There were a lot of cool things I didn't let myself appreciate just because I thought I was too cool for that shit or whatever.
>>46391626
Some of those are actually pretty good
>>46381018
Zing!
>>46381169
What's it like being the worst?
>Hey guys, I wanna run a game
Sure, guy, that sounds good. Let's go for that. You've played in a few games, I'm sure you can handle running something.
>It's going to be my own custom setting, based on d20 modern.
Oh god, how is this going to turn out?
>It's based on a book I've been writing since I was a teenager.
Oh boy, this is gonna be amazing.
>Post-apocalyptic future of the area we live in
A standard take, but a classic one.
>Players are all equipped with Pipboys which operate as radios, inventories, and watches
Oh boy!
>Characters have energy bars that fill and deplete as they use their powers
Oh boy!
>Monster Energy drink is a energy-replacing item so important it serves as a major feature of the setting
Oh boy!
>Players pick an animal, a weapon, and an "element" and can transform into an anthropomorphic elemental animal form that gains extra powers and uses their weapon for super-damage
Oh boy!
>DM doesn't know how many core features of d20 in general work
Oh boy!
>DM doesn't know the geography of the area we live in
Oh boy!
>DM doesn't know particular facts of reality
Oh boy!
>DM has a DMPC who the story is about who is the most powerful of the animal/elemental/weapon people
Oh boy!
>Much of the DMPC's plot revolves around a romance with the stand-in for the DM's dead ex fiancee
Oh boy!
>The DMPC's love interest dies tragically
Oh boy!
One player dropped out within an hour of showing up the first day. The rest of us held on for a shocking number of weeks just so we'd have something to fill time with, and some place to go have pizza and hang out for a bit, and to have stories.
And oh. I have stories. The "elements" alone were... staggering.
>>46403073
>I have stories
You must tell them. Especially the elements part.
>>46403073
Damn it Parker, I want this story on my desk TONIGHT!
"Legends"
~or~
d20 Fallout: Mighty Morphin' That Guy Rangers
>That Guy ran a game based on his post-apocalyptic tragic romantic autobiographical work in progress novel about people in the future using magic fallout watches to turn into animals.
I've told this story a few times, but basically, this guy sets out to make a game based on the epic sci fi novel called "Legends" he's been writing, based on his life, only set in the distant future. He uses d20 modern to do so. He had none of the books, never played the system, and didn't know how anything worked.
In addition to our regular hit points we had rolled, he saddled us with 150 extra HP. Why? Because he didn't know how damage worked. So, for example, he'd have characters who had d100s as their damage die. In fact, his main character (based on him, of course) had a sword that did 1d100 damage per hit. No strength bonus, no multiple attacks, just 1d100.
There's other fun stuff about the "combat system" I can go into later, but I wanna touch on the core concept of the game for a moment. It's ye olde post-apocalypse, after what is basically the Second Impact, a meteor made out of monsters and evil crashes into earth and reformats it into crazy world. The game takes place in the region we live in, which was kinda a neat concept to start with, but then it got out of hand because of none of us much geography.
Every player picks an animal, an "element", and a weapon, and those become our spirit animal/element/weapon. I was an ice wolf with katars, my friend was a darkness panther with a sword, and our other friend was an electromagnetic pteradactyl with a pair of berettas, at which point you might begin to see why I put "element" in quotation marks, because the magic system and cosmology were all over the map.
>>46397812
topkek
>>46403615
Here's some of the elements we were informed of or encountered: Ice, Fire, Wind, Water, Electricity, Plants, Poison, Darkness (but not shadow), Sunlight, Electromagnetism, Nuclear Power, Acid, Mental, Healing, and I believe Drugs was one as well. I bring up darkness/shadow because, as I said, one of the party members was a darkness character, who could control shadows and use them to freeze people in place and so on and suchlike. However, the enemies were living shadows... and he had no control or effect on them.
"Because darkness is different from shadow"
Anyways, we spent about two and a half, maybe three months of sundays playing games with this guy, halfway because the concept was so gonzo and he was such a pushover as a DM that we could basically justify doing any completely retarded thing we wanted, partly we had nothing better to do and felt bad for him, and partly it was fun to hang out and eat pizza and (as time went by) watch movies rather than play the game. I haven't really touched on the plot yet.
We're locals in this post-apocalptic future, me a farmer and the other guy a raider (the third player, the pteradactyl guy, bailed out half an hour into the first session quite gracefully and never ever returned), and we go to this magical academy where, it is implied, we will somehow learn how to use our powers.
This is in fact a vicious lie.
The "magical academy" is in fact a lawless hell-hive run by loosely disguised versions of the DM and his former fiancee (I say "Versions" because there were two characters with the same name as him) that was instantly and irrevocably termed "the mexican prison" every time we mentioned it. "Lessons" consisted of us agreeing that our characters did nothing rational or interesting for 6 months at a time and we'd gain random stat bonuses or special powers that were either more or less game breaking than our current powers.
>>46403659
Between these wastes of time, we'd go do other time wasting things like chase a dragon only to have Version A of him come slay it, or scavenge for pristine cans of Monster Energy Drink around the remains of the cities. Which brings me, in a round-a-bout way, to the matter of the "combat system".
You see, as I mentioned, he's never played d20 modern, played what seems to be very little D&D, and had apparently decided to hijack what I'm told is some JRPG's combat system for his "homebrew”. We're given energy bars, and every time we use one of our special moves the bar gets depleted.
And our special moves are quite special. We can still use normal attacks, or we can use his totally awesome "combo attack", where if we get a 15-20 on the d20 roll, we deal an additional 1d4 damage! Or, we can use a "power attack" and, if we get a 19 or 20, automatically deal double damage, amazing!
He actually wrote the word "power attack" down in his notes, then told us to it, and didn't understand when we seemed taken aback.
In addition to these wonderful options, we also get some magic super abilities, like beam attacks or choking people with their darkness, or other things like that, which range between useless, already covered by abilities in the game, or completely broken.
I had an ability where I'd shoot a super ice beam at someone with my katars, and get +d12 to damage for every chunk of my energy bar I depleted in the process, and that's where the Monster Energy Drink comes in, because a single can of Monster Energy can be drunk as a free action and completely refill your energy bar.
And thus I became an ice drill.
>>46403615
>Mighty Morphin' That Guy Rangers
This got a pretty hearty chuckle out of me.
>>46403692
I've sadly forgotten some of our funnier moments in the game, but others will never leave me. Like when our "ally", a poison T-Rex with a sniper rifle, kept shooting us in combat because the DM didn't understand what a "miss" means. Eventually we collapsed the Tacoma dome on him, us, and the enemy and that seemed to work out.
Oh, and all rope was referred to as "fuckin' rope" for no clear reason. All our items resided in our pip boys, by the way. Which was his exact description of them, no less.
You know how you can cause an explosion by filling a room with flour and then igniting it? It's a bit exotic of a trap, but it's something you can do. I told him about that once and from then on it became a valid combat tactic. In open-air areas. As a standard action.
Man, my mind's just boiling as I remember some of the other things. Eventually he decided +150 hit points was too many and brought it down to +89. We met a few people who he told us did 1d1000 as damage, but we never saw this in action.
>>46394049
quite the opposite actually, in the end i played along and had fun, but the setting was bad as fuck (and we are talking about bad settings)
>>46394086
this guy understands me
>>46394490
it can be fun, but some more boundaries than it this one would be better, you know, some rules to make sure the characters don't get too overpowered
>>46394583
yeah, in my case i love having some fantasy, but not too much, i like keeping it as realistic as possible, with almost no magic and monsters being something rare and dangerous. But still i can play anything and manage to have fun
>>46403719
There was a fighting tournament that used DBZ rules, which the panther exploited by winning 4 fights via ringout. For you see, because all these people do 1d20 or 1d30 (he had a d30) damage, with maybe some extra dice for flavor, as damage, none of them had strength scores. So the easiest way to beat them, without having to carve through their 500 hit points using a sword? Bullrush. And the DM didn't know what it was or that it existed.
The panther dude took Agile Riposte and used the 25 dex granted to him by the DM being a moron and fighting defensively to completely carve up enemies by exploiting the fact the DM doesn't know how often you can take Attacks of Opportunity.
I was the fast hero and I ended up with less dexterity due to the DM's incompetence. In return, I mocked the concept relentlessly. Whenever my character transformed from human to furry mode, I would do a power rangers henshin sequence "Blue Wolf POWER!" I also promised my next character would be a water crab with a sledgehammer for his weapon, so I could call myself "MC Hammer" and do the hammer dance, on account of being a crab. But it wasn't to be.
Two sessions in a row, we showed up and played nothing. We sat with the DM and watched then early-days Netflix for a bit, maybe had some pizza, discussed what we might do in the game next week, left after a half hour or so, came back next week, did it again, left again, and the week after that the DM simply didn't invite us over. The Legend of Legends ended as it began: With unbearable disappointment and confusion.
And that's the story of the worst game I ever played.
>>46403615
>>46403659
>>46403692
>>46403719
>>46403799
Thanks for sharing anon, that was fun!
>>46403978
For you, maybe. Try living it.
>>46403073
>>46403615
>>46403659
>>46403692
>>46403719
>>46403799
good lord... and i was complaining about this: >>46385803
>>46404111
I literally read your post and had a PTSD flashback, then thought "What is this guy complaining about, that sounds internally and thematically consistent!"
>>46404152
compared to the "Mighty Morphin' That Guy Rangers" setting the edgy naruto one was a work of art
>>46403615
>none of us much geography.
I accidentally a whole word
>>46403799
I just don't understand how someone can fail to grasp the rules this hard with no sense of scale for the damage. I'm also terrible with numbers but I've always found the basics of combat was the fastest thing I learned in any game.
>>46391469
I think you are talking about "Grunts" or "orcs" or something like that. The book was glorious. You should read Goblin Corps if you liked it.
>>46397640
Firstly, those books were pure joy, even the later ones which were a bit less so. And secondly, oooooh thats why I want to play shadowrun.
>>46404725
"They make die that go up to 100? Wow! That would be a lot of damage!"
That's it. I'm sure of it.
>>46403799
>do the hammer dance, on account of being a crab
>>46380789
I could see something similar being pretty interesting. Take some inspiration from Library of Babel and House of Leaves amd have the whole campaign in an obviously artificial dungeon of infinite size, with different religious sects developing based on their beliefs about the nature and origin of their dungeon-universe.
>>46385803
>>"wellcome to our exalted campaign! What would you like to play?"
>>"an unenlightened human fighter, Essence 0 and all that, i love grittiness you see"
>>"well but that's not going to work well in exalted because everybody in this game is some kind of demigod and rules and setting assume you'd be too!"
>>"what a shitty setting!"
I just don't get it.
>>46380703
Dark Sun.
Because not one fucking GM I've had run it has known what to do.
>>46380703
Forgotten Realms, for the same reasons as >>46380941 but also the fact that 5th Edition Forgotten Realms is even worse. For one, they go out of their way to make Drow a core character option and even insinuate that Drizzt's very existence has caused a cultural revolution with young Drow giving up their evil ways and following in his footsteps. They also keep Dragonborn and Tieflings as core races purely as a hold-over from them being core in 4E, despite moving Eladrin to the DMG and not including Warforged, Changelings, or Shifters at all in the core material.
On the flip side, I do want to mention one of my favourite campaign settings: Ghostwalk. The premise is simple: there's a city called Manifest built on the Well of Souls, and when people die their ghosts wind up there (corporeally) until they pass on to the afterlife. In addition to having really interesting lore and culture it lets you run challenging and deadly campaigns without worrying as much. See, in Manifest clerics can prepare and cast Raise Dead as a 3rd level spell instead of 5th level, and people brought back with Raise Dead don't lose a level. This means that characters can reliably be brought back from the dead without requiring huge amounts of gold and high level clerics. It keeps the power level of NPCs down and lets the GM throw really tough enemies at the party with significantly less nail-biting. After all, it's just 500 gold to get raised, as long as it's not a complete TPK they'll be okay.
In addition, Ghosts work differently in Ghostwalk and you can play a Ghost adventurer, which is nifty, and you can even pick up ghostly Feats for special powers like necrotic touch attacks, limited flight, or making things out of ectoplasm. It's fun and it's a quick way to keep characters involved in the game while they're waiting to get raised or while making a new character.
If you're looking for a cool or different setting for your next D&D campaign, consider Ghostwalk.
>>46409517
What usually happens when they run it?
Probably not interested, but I'll report anyway. After several long hours of "fantasy tacticalpunk", the players got wiped halfway through the planned game. They were sufficiently weirded out. They are absolutely certain the game is Metal Gear Fantasy though and want a rematch. I don't know should I agree, because playing that again will most likely kill currently ongoing Star Wars game. They got killed by camo skeletons. They figured out their gimmick too late.
My fav moment was the briefing at the throne room.
>generic soldier describes the dragon as vaguely as I can
>player1 thinks a while, confirms the apppearance of the king and asks qietly ooc "are we fighting Metal Gears?
>to which player2 instantly snaps his head to him - "METAL GEAR?!"
Things I learned today. Setting CAMPY AS FUCK doesn't always mean "bad"
>>46398023
Tell us about it.
>>46380907
>the worst parts of dragonlance
Jesus fucking Christ, man. Game over.... Game fucking over.
>>46385803
I used to play games like that with my friends when we were like 11 or 12. It was pretty cool. You could use portals to travel from Middle Earth to our made up fantasy world through portals or something. I had a race of dragon-riding elves that lived on a huge tree and were attacked every single day by huge waves of monsters because they were so badass.
A guy I know ran a game set in a world that was just a bunch of different anime clashed together
The only real purpose was so that his DMPC could have a harem of girls from different anime and just be the biggest Gary Stu ever
>>46388091
I might be the DM he's talking about.
All but one of the factions were already planned to do something like that.
>>46382875
Not practical... have you ever tried to milk a dwarf? Or get a halfling to get off its eggs?
>>46412635
>have you ever tried to milk a dwarf
Not to venture too far into the magical realm, but yes I have, and she was very accommodating.
>>46409297
actually, rules where almost non existent and most enemies wheren't a challenge at all, (just as weak or strong as they wanted to be) i knew how to describe real techniques (practiced martial arts around 12 years and have been doing HEMA for 4 years now) and that (compared to things like "i punch that monster and shoot kamehameha at it) made my character a really great fighter compared to everyone else so i wasn't "too" behind most of the time, ended up being like the group's tactitian
>>46411261
kek i admit that when i was that age i did the same, even more than that, it was fun it's still fun. Not what i like most of the time but still had fun with that game
>>46412666
Context please.
>>46409517
How so? This is my favorite setting. I'm curious to see how some fuck it up.
Literally Kingdom Hearts
My old group found a guy who wanted to play and said he'd DMed before so we went along with it.
We started out on a boat and wound up landing on an island with Peter Pan. Thought it might go okay with having the gain the kids' trust and getting to fly and shit.
Then "shadow creatures" started appearing. Once we got rid of all of them we went into a portal and saw talking Lions and more shadow creatures.
I left and never came back.
>>46416367
>Kingdom Hearts
Can anyone even follow the story to that series?
>>46416367
>Kingdom Hearts
Can somebody explain this clusterfuck to me?
I'm too old to have played the games I guess, but each time I see promo material I wonder what the fuck is going on there.
>>46416493
Final Fantasy and Disney crossover. You hit shadow monsters with a giant key and help out various Disney worlds. There are evil groups controlling them and I can't be assed to type out all the convoluted details of the evil groups' members
>>46416486
>>46416493
It's basically a Disney crossover fanfic featuring characters from the Final Fantasy series.
The story is just made up as it goes along. It's not important.
>>46416493
The story in the first one is fairly easy to follow. Kingdom Hearts 2 is the third in the game and has retcons galore. KH3 will be the 7th (8th) and by now noone gives a fuck about the story. It's a kind of End of Evangelion type thing. People only pretend they can follow the story to seem smart.
>>46416556
>>46416570
>>46416670
Final Fantasy is something I never got either.
And mixing Disney Worlds sound like an abomination.
Fanfiction tier sounds about right.
Holy shit. I always thought you'd have a good reason for something like this, but apparently not. Kinda surprised somebody put money into making this in the first place.
>>46416493
Malevolent beings known as heartless eat the souls (called hearts) of people and turn them into heartless. They're spreading across the (mostly Disney) multiverse and you have to stop them.
In the second game you're fighting Nobodies as well. They're the byproduct of being turned heartless. The bodies left behind with no past present or future. Things get freaky since the MC (Sora) has a Nobody too (Roxas an anagram of Sora X).
A bunch of shit happens and now you're finally going to have to put down the guy that started all this bullshit in 3.
>>46416727
Gameplay is solid though and thats what really matters
>>46416746
Yep. It's worth a playthrough. The cheesiness grows on you too. Stay away from the fanbase and whatever you do don't let your gf play it.
>>46416746
>Gameplay is solid though and thats what really matters
In KH1 and 2 at least, the others tend t be out there. They all have good music and boss fights, though. 1v1 against Ansem-Riku in Hollow Bastion, anyone?
>>46416844
>1v1 against Ansem-Riku in Hollow Bastion, anyone
>>46386930
Food that tries to taste like everything either tastes terrible or, if you're lucky, like nothing at all.
Had a tacticool mercenaries game where, after a total party wipe when we were hit by a carpet bomb from no where, the GM told us we'd invited it by not making sure someones radio was off when we shot him to death four sessions ago.
He then proceeded to tell us that he'd written out a flowchart of successful actions we could have taken, and we hadn't taken a single one.
>>46382308
Are you sure your DM just ins't a heavy adderall addict?
>>46418738
It sure was lame as fuck on the GM's part. It doesn't necessarily means that the setting was bad though.
>>46416117
>dwarf hooker
>extra-stacked shortstack
>dm has a lactation fetish
>ero game
context applied.
>>46381050
Stock photographers just want to have fun. You already hired a dude and a girl to make a medieval style photoshoot. you have some stale waffle left over from yesterday's food shoot. Why not?
>>46406968
sounds like a job for hypercube dungeon!
>>46416727
Final fantasy can be followable depending on which one you're playing. Final fantasy 3 for example (the actual 3, not 6) is literally "you four are the chosen ones. Go poke the crystals to restore balance, then beat the monster made of darkness", and then there's final fantasy 10, where you're playing as a dream. The game isn't a dream, only your character is.
And then there's kingdom hearts, wherein all characters not from ff or disney are either sora or xehanort:Starting with BBS... Well, aqua is aqua and eraqus is eraqus, but other than that, ventus is roxas, who is sora's nobody thus making them sora. Terra becomes Xehanort's first vessel. Vanitas is ventus, who, again, is sora (there's some weird thing about ventus' heart become part of sora's). Then kh1 Sora is himself, of course, kairi's heart goes and joins sora's about 10 minutes in, making her sora for a time, meanwhile riku goes and becomes xehanort (or rather, possessed by his heartless). KH CoM introduces org XIII, who are twelve people led by xehanort's nobody, xemnas (by the way the twelve people are people he gathered as potential vessels), so everybody there is xehanort, except for roxas, who again, is sora, and in 358 days/2 we get xion who's made of sora's memories. Oh yeah, and namine is sora (and kairi, who is sora) because something about memories. And then with KH2 we get ansem the wise, who xehanort steals the identity of. And finally in Dream Drop Distance we are shown True Organization XIII, who are literally XIII incarnations of Xehanort from different time periods and using different vessels
There you have it. Kingdom hearts only has 4 characters
>>46380703
The worst RPG Setting/Game I've played in is the one I'm currently playing in.
>Old D&D players, but no access to old D&D rules.
>Uses mashed up rules from 3rd, 4th, 5th and 3.5 Edition D&D, because DM doesn't wish to refuse any idea no matter how bad.
>DM has entire family playing, and his wife REALLY likes special treatment.
>Rules are so confusing that we often take hour-long breaks so the GM can figure out what's happening.
>World is bad Dragonlance ripoff where dragons are EVERYWHERE and the DMPC is the only dragon rider in the whole world (using a prestige class at 1st level without meeting the prereqs, of course).
>Several games shut down because DM's family breaks into fight and effectively goes into family council mode in front of everyone, with grandpa crying and talking about his socializing issues, and kids crying and everything.
Nothing kills immersion like a four-year old bawling because mommy and daddy won't stop screaming over dryad plot that's tearing the family apart....
>>46421743
Namine is Kairi's Nobody, and was created when Kairi became Sora.
>>46422807
>Nothing kills immersion like a four-year old bawling because mommy and daddy won't stop screaming over dryad plot that's tearing the family apart....
The fuck?
How does this even happen?
>>46423288
Usually it goes like this:
>Group encounters shit.
>Bard (wife) comes up with zany idea that, while in-character for her, will likely result in us getting screwed.
>Other people who are more pragmatic players tell her that maybe she should stick with the plan we have.
>She complains to DM that we're "stifling her ability to roleplay" and ruining the fun for her.
There are a couple other issues as well.
>Grandpa tells someone rule mechanic that makes no sense (you have to be human to be barbarian, or dwarves can't be wizards... in 3rd Edition)
>Someone corrects him.
>He gets pissed because younger people are telling him he's wrong.
>Game gets derailed while we break up into groups looking through various books to prove/disprove point.
There's a lot of crap at this game. If they weren't my friends, I'd have given up a long time ago.
>>46422807
Yeah, that sounds fucking hilarious to watch. Any more stories about the group?
>>46423372
I got a ton of them.
>New player in group. Cool guy. Atheist, but not a dick about it.
>Group doesn't have a cleric, so he makes one. Wants to be in character, so bases his on those new hip ministers.
>Grandpa is hardcore atheist. No religion fun allowed.
>Spends entire campaign harassing him at every attempt.
>Guy is chill about it. Playing a God of Pelor, so he jokes that he's glad he hasn't committed unforgivable sins, like undeath.
>Grandpa tries murdering him in encounter, casts Sanctuary to stop him.
>Rest of group tells him not to do it again, so bickering goes back to passive-aggressive.
>One night, group is roleplaying out a conversion.
>Grandpa flips shit, starts screaming about the evils of brainwashing.
>Game done for the night. Awkward game of Guitar Hero instead.
Grandpa and wife are the craziest in the group.
>>46388749
Dragon Age is aight. it's got some clever variations on some fantasy stuff, like having it be monotheistic and that wizards killed God
But yeah a lot of stuff in it is kinda stupid
>>46423359
More like how that situation can happen
I posted awhile back about one of the WORST campaigns I played, and it was by far and away the worst settings I have ever had the displeasure of being forced to play in.
The short version: Everything was WOLVES until I got pissed and broke the campaign with anti-wolf shenanigans.
In short order:
>Evil Empire were human purists with elf slave-race that hunted lycanthropes
>Only decent people are lycanthropes
>Native American lycanthropes, Germanic Viking lycanthropes, wild lycanthropes
>ALWAYS IN WOLFMAN/ HYBRID FORM BECAUSE HUR HUMANS BAAAAAAD
>bear in mind these lycanthropes regularly kidnapped and forcibly infected others to regain their numbers
>BUT HURRR HUMANS R EVUL
The entire fucking moral compass was ‘If wolf, then good. If hooman, then BAD’
I don’t even hate lycanthropes or werewolves or whatever, but to be so fucking biased for this super race of wolf-men when they’re objectively the bad guys simply will not stand with me. When I played a character that spoke out against their practice of conversion, he forced everyone to kill me.
I don’t even regret ruining everything in it for him. I am surprised he let me get away with everything, so I’ll give him that, but I seriously don’t have any issues sleeping with myself at night knowing I became the equivalent of a Hitler towards lycanthropic species.
Fuck wolves.
>>46423943
If the fighting gets loud enough, their 4-year old daughter breaks down and cries.
>>46423974
No, I'm wondering in what circumstances you'd be playing with a DM's entire family including his grandparents
>>46424018
It's a gaming family. They all love games and crap. And they're the only D&D group I know of in this part of Montana.
>>46423660
>Fundamental atheist proselytizing harder than theists
>Proselytizing to a fellow atheists
More.
>>46424055
He doesn't proselytize, quite the opposite. He spends most of the time mocking everything he says, trying to coerce the cleric to drink poison, or trying to destroy his stuff.
He got a wand of heat metal, and immediately took it to the cleric's helmet.
And when actual religion conversations come up at the table, he shuts them down. Totally. Doesn't say it's stupid, doesn't say why he hates religion. You just aren't allowed to talk about it around him.
And the craziest part is that his daughter is very religious. They just agree not to speak to each other about this one thing, I guess.
>>46423944
Did you do anything other than criticize their conversion policy? Did all the HFY guys immediately become "good" when converted?
>>46380703
99% of D&D settings, most specifically Forgotten Realms.
Mostly because I hate the fact that despite how much magic is in every corner of the lore, the setting still treats magic like it's super rare and everyone is an idiot around it.
"O-o-oh my god! You cast prestidigitation! YOU'RE MAD! YOU'LL KILL US ALL!"
"You're acting weird Jeffery. I will assume that this is in no way, shape, or form related to anything magical whatsoever and just continue about my business instead of making sure that everything is okay"
"We have this expansive military elite unit! They travel packed tightly together as a team, and have absolutely no mind control resistance whatsoever!"
This is made especially worse because almost every fight in a Forgotten Realms game is sans any magic or protection from magic on the enemy's side, meaning that the party that made 3 different flavors of genasei wizard are just going to steam roll them hilariously.
Yes, I've heard of Eberron, but I haven't had the pleasure of playing it yet.
>>46424102
The lycanthropy supposedly 'brought everyone into the pack' and made them work together better and stuff, which meant that they stopped fighting and would work together against the evil humans.
Not bad on the surface, but it was too hive-mind for me, and I later learned that the pack could force you to do things you didn't want to do, and compelled you to spread it.
The humans who they converted worshiped a god that preached purity of self and to tame nature and all this low-key HFY stuff.
I myself am not really religious, but I take religious expression very seriously, and I found the wolves forcibly turning people into heretics and apostates against the religion they all wholeheartedly believed at first was way too fucking 'lawful evil' for my tastes as a paladin.
And yes, the first mini boss we fought KILLED AN ENTIRE VILLAGE OF DWARVES FOR FUN but then got bit so 'lol he's good now guise'
For the record, I tried to smite him repeatedly, onyl for DM to inform me that after the bite he's no longer evil.
Fuck wolves.
>>46424348
Your DM was running a setting based on a Jay Naylor porn comic called the Fall of Little Red Riding Hood. It's cuck porn about sexy wolf corruption.
There's a lot of knotting in it.
>>46424126
Eberron's premise is that magic is incredibly common, there's lightning trains (but you already knew it) and magical street lamps and a NPC class that is an expert that can cast cantrips to help them in their everyday life.
It's medium to high level magic that is rare, especially because recently a hundred-year war wiped out a lot of powerful agents in the main continent. So, no one will thinking twice of the innkeeper casting prestidigitation to wash dishes, but they will if you appear out of nowhere or come down flying.
>>46424690
>Fall of Little Red Riding Hood
Fitting, because my second character that fucked up the wolves was based on the Woodsman/ Huntsman.
By far the worst setting I ever actually played in was one my friend came up with when he tried to take a crack at DMing. It was also accidentally, outlandishly bleak. He's not a very creative guy, so he largely based the counties of the world on characters that he's played in my campaigns (I'm the groups normal DM) , which was kind of the first red flag because he tends to play cripplingly retarded barbarians, weeb monks, or some combination of the two. What we wound up with is a world where the "major" countries were a horde of mindless rape murder rape barbarians, a collection of knowledge hating farmers with freakishly strong hands (this was apparently a major point to him, as he brought it up whenever he could) , a nation of people with no discernable characteristics or government who oppose the farmers, and an entire country of shao lin monks who were in practice morons. This wouldn't have been so bad had he not wanted to do a big political campaign with is getting involved deeply with these poorly described nations. He also had a fantastically grim cosmology. Nearly everyone in the world worshiped mindless destructive elementals that were explicitly the primals from final fantasy 14. Anyone who worshiped said elementals (which, once again, is basically the entire worlds population) had their soul annihilated and eaten by a giant doomsday Dragon. It's okay though, because there was secretly a good dragon, and if you worship him, you...also get your soul eaten so he can wake up and also destroy the world. But its different because he's "good hearted" ,apparently. There were a lot of other, equally retarded details, but those are the relevant ones.
Luckily it didn't last too long. About one session and change. We pointed out that most of/all of his countries were horrible dystopian idiocracies, and after a while he decided to let us come up with our own nations, and to do kind of a mini civ type deal in between playing our actual characters.
>>46426546
We got really into it, and were really excited to play and see how things were going to turn out, but shortly after our fairly successful first session he got table flippingly mad and went on a rant about how we had taken the game from him and how we should have just gone along with his original plans. Normally I would chalk it up to DM overload or something, but this guy is well known to our group as a slightly unstable control freak. He once flipped his shit and threatened to beat up one of our other players because that player talked one of his NPC allies into joining a different religion. Mind you, religion had never been brought up by crazy guy at all in context of the character, and he was basically just mad that the NPC was able to act independently. He also once went full mazes and monsters and heavily, heavily implied he thinks he is, on some level, actually his character and what happens to them happens to him, and what they do he kind of had done. This was after an in game spree of demon worship and horse sex crimes, so that says a lot about him
>>46426689
Woah, you're story started innocent but got scary fast. Sounds like he has real psychological issues.
>>46382871
>stop liking what I don't like
>you're supposed to like only things that are completely homebrewed and original, just like me
Some people enjoy delving dungeons and killing dragons, rather than prancing through your piss forest as mary sues circle jerking each other like faggots. I suggest you drink a potion of cleansing, Easy to find, the bottles are labeled "Bleach"
>>46427065
Yeah. He's pretty fucking damaged, but he's afraid of doctors and thinks psychologists are trying to trick him, so he's probably not getting help any time soon.My fucking group has 2-3 other people who are just as fucked, if not more so in one case. God help me, why are freaks the only people around me who play RPGs?
>>46423372
When you enjoy families fighting in front of your eyes you know yo are chaotic evil... one day I'll be an antipaladin
>>46421743
You forgot thatEraqus is joined with Terra's heart after he was taken over, so he's also Xehanort. So it's really just Aqua and Ansem the Wise (who doesn't really count, since Xehanort just stole his name without actually becoming him at any point). Except Ansem left a copy of himself hidden in Sora's memories to deliver a message, so he's also Sora.
>>46423143
No, it wasn't that. Kairi didn't leave a Nobody when she lost her heart, since she didn't become a Heartless; her body just stayed comatose.Naminé is from when Sora released Kairi's heart from inside himself, which caused his body to become two Nobodies, one from his own heart (Roxas) and one from Kairi's (Naminé). Though she recombined with Kairi instead of Sora, so Kairi is Sora for two reasons.
Kingdom Hearts seems complicated, but it's easy to understand once you get used to how the world works.
>>46428368
Personally I think we still haven't seen sora's nobody, and that roxas looks like ventus because the nobody was created from the ventus part of sora's heart. And in kh3 we'll see sora's true nobody, riku's nobody (he went balls deep into the dark, there's no way he didn't qualify for a nobody)
>>46424348
>The humans who they converted worshiped a god that preached purity of self and to tame nature and all this low-key HFY stuff.
They also enslaved one race and were complete genocide of another, as you mentioned earlier. Not exactly "low-key".
DnD5e setting, only everything is basically Sunless Sea. Everything has to be on a boat. You have to buy maps otherwise you don't know where anything is. All your food is micromanaged.
>>46428423
>riku's nobody (he went balls deep into the dark, there's no way he didn't qualify for a nobody)
You don't spawn a Nobody just from being totally into darkness. They're what happens to your empty body when your heart is forcibly removed and becomes a Heartless. I don't think that happens to Riku at any point;Xehanort's Heartless possesses him to regain a physical bodywhich is sort of the opposite of that, but Riku's body is never left empty enough to become a Nobody.
>>46428542
He left his body(sealed it? Transformed it? They're pretty vague. They just wanted a big reveal and a badass blindfold) and physically became xehanort's heartless to survive the realm of darkness, restored the same way sora was when he became a heartless
I'll post it here when i can sum it up in >10 lines
>>46428845
Take it post by post
>>46381169
>"It's Feudal Japan, but there are giant robots! Please care about the giant robots!
Esclaflowne, Panzer World Galient, etc.
>"What if it was like conquistadors in the Age of Discovery, but there are aliens?"
Rise of Legends, except they're Italian instead of Spanish, and there is also a middle eastern faction with genies and shit.
>"The Golden Age of Piracy ... except it's in space!"
This is so common it's almost the generic science fiction space setting, especially space opera. It's almost harder to find a space opera setting without pirates than with.
Like even Legend of the Galactic heroes, where a normal small battle might involve thousands to tens of thousands of capital ships, they still have fucking pirates.
