Post your simple/small/stupid questions here. /tg/ Edition!
First time gm? Looking for a system? etc? Post em.
How often have your players bitched about enemies that fight intelligently as opposed to throwing themselves at them and simply attacking?
In Apocalypse World what's the difference between Going Aggro and Seize By Force? I have such a hard time telling them apart.
>>43731219
Never, they know I treat everything like its actual intelligence
>>43731198
...Fuck it, I'll bite. Know this is a stupid question because this is always a stupid question on /tg/ and dammit I know better than this but here goes.
Hey, /tg/! So I'm, uh, planning to run this here, uh, idea for my friends, and I wanted to know what you might... I mean, what you'd suggest I look at for the best...
Fuck it. I haven't run a game since 3.5 was the big fucking name on the block. Pathfinder was a few years from development, and we never even heard of anything in my old group that wasn't TSR/Wizards, White Wolf or Shadowrun. It's been a literal decade since I've been a player, and in that time I've maybe peeked at the online d20 SRD, heard a few passing descriptions of FATE and become very familiar with the rulebook to Marvel Heroic. In short, I know fuck-all about current systems.
Here's why I'm asking this stupid, stupid question even I know is fucking stupid to ask - I have a salty oldfag's dream coming true, in that a group is pretty much forming itself around me whether I want it to or not. With the exception of one other salty veteran of 3.5 era, not a one has played a single game, and they would really like to change that.
So, that in mind... What...game...is, ugh, best...to run a straight-up, hack-n-slash, dungeon crawl, old-school adventure of 'kick open the bloody door, kill the toothy beastie, ransack the ancient ruins, sell the lot and get piss-drunk before we do it all again tomorrow' with a bunch of tabletop virgins and a rusty, crusty, salty oldfag as DM?
>>43733379
how experienced are the players? Do you know if they're fast at picking up dungeon-delving mentality?
How does CR work? How do you pick enemies for an encounter.
I tried DMing before but could never figure out what was a fair or appropriate threat for players, so just threw some random monsters at them without knowing any stats, and pretended like stuff was happening.
>"Oh you rolled good? Well then, the monster uh... takes some damage!"
>>43733379
D&D 5E is pretty easy to play, and will give everyone a chance to get the feel for RP, but try to keep in mind that you don't have to stick that that system, and be sure to tell your players that too. All of the rules books and tools are in the 5E General OP. After that you can move onto something more appropriate for dungeon crawling, or whatever it is you find out your group actually wants to play.
>>43733533
That really all depends on the game. Reminding the players they can run from a fight is a good idea if it's hard. Sometimes if a fight goes way faster than I thought/not the appropriate amount of challenge another wave of the same baddies will come out, maybe one that's harder to hit because it has better armor or something.
>>43733465
Only myself and one other have played tabletop at all before now; the rest are making do with vidya RPG experience ranging from most recent Fallout and Elder Scrolls games to Nethack and roguelikes. Still, what they lack in experience they make up in enthusiasm, which I suppose counts for something.
As for the suggestion of using 5e, I'll definitely look into the Generals, thanks. Hopefully this'll be a lot less of a clusterfuck now, and if not, well...at least I'll have some possible stories to share.
So i'm new to this whole RPG thing, i'm in a 3.5 game and rolled a wizard (because magic seems fun, w/e).
I'm level two, so i'm stuck with level 1/cantrip spells. But, due to 15 INT i apparently get a bonus 2nd level spell, can I use this or do I have to be able to cast 2nd level spells anyway to take advantage of this?
>>43735266
You don't get the bonus spells of whatever level until you can cast spells of that level. When it says you get 0 spells of a particular level rather than the dash, that's when you first get that bonus spell.
>>43735388
Ah, I see. Cheers man.
>>43731247
if you're still wondering, Going Aggro is the (truthful) threat of violence if X isn't done, seizing by Force is an actual act of violence.
>>43733533
Long story short, CR doesn't work
It's "works" best when planning a single monster against a typical party, but even that breaks down if you're group is larger, smaller, or of different composition than the "typical" party. A lot of monsters also break combat if you throw too many of them at the party for example throwing a fuckload of ropers or gibbering mouthers.
Best thing you can do is know everybody's hp and ac. Make physically powerful monsters able to hit the highest ac 50% to 75% of the time and on average deal enough damage to kill the tank in 4-5 hits. That way a lucky crit won't drop the tank but the monster will be dangerous enough that you need the tank to engage.
I also like to throw abilities that poke holes in the group composition. If the party has little range occasionally throw archers or flying monsters at them to make them innovate. Also encourage your party to use their environment (which btw will absolutely ruin regular CR calculations, pretty much any creativity will)
>>43731198
You know not what you ask, but okay.
Who would win in a fight between an E8 Solar Exalt, a pre-Mending Planeswalker who isn't Nicol Bolas and a Scion who's become a full-on god?
I'm in a board-gaming group (we play Agricola, Puerto Rico, Power Grid, stuff like that). Some of us have played D&D or Shadowrun in the past, and lately the idea has been floated that we try out an RPG as a group for the first time. The two options that came up were D&D and Pathfinder.
None of us are power-gamers and I doubt anyone's going to be obsessed with min-maxing their characters or going apeshit over someone getting the rules wrong. One of my friends has done DM duties in the past, so he's going to DM for us in this instance. His main concern is players getting frustrated or annoyed when the game moves along too slowly or gets bogged down in rules... and he's also concerned that everyone's going to die too quickly, which will potentially put off the people in the group who have never played before.
Okay, so the question is: D&D 5th edition has been out for a bit more than a year now, right? I know everyone hated 4E for various reasons, but what's the consensus on 5E? Is it worth playing as an alternative to Pathfinder? Does 5E improve on/eliminate whatever the problems were with 4E?
Ultimately, which game/universe will be the most fun, engaging, interesting one for the people in the group who have literally never played a pen-and-paper RPG before?
