/arcade/ - vidya gaems and other gaems too

# I don't like medieval fantasy settings…
Neither do a lot of other players! Many rule systems are relatively setting agnostic; Pathfinder, for example, has pre-published adventures that take place in WWI Russia, one that lets you play as pirates, and another featuring laser guns. Alternate settings such as Ravenloft and Eberron are compatible with the rules and feature entirely different settings. There are also dedicated systems, such as the fairly popular Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu, that take place in a Cyberpunk setting.

# I can't into roleplay!
Everyone can roleplay! You don't need to be an amazing actor or even a passable one to roleplay, especially if you join a more experienced group. As time goes on and you become more comfortable with the system and setting, roleplaying comes naturally. Experienced players can also help to coax some roleplaying out of shy or uncertain players. Don't be scared to try!

Many groups don't even use voice or video chat, and many of those that do only use it for out of character or combat chatter.

# If I wanted to play, where should I begin?
D&D 5e has the largest ttrpg community right now, but is often considered too rules-light and rather boring to actually play. This same lightness is what makes it popular, though, and it is very friendly to new players trying to learn how to roleplay; the rules are extremely simple to understand and you can focus on the character more than the rules, although it is restrictive and some concepts are not viable in 5e.

Pathfinder is also very popular, and is based on an older, beloved version of D&D, 3.5e. It is rules heavy and sometimes considered difficult for new players because of the high levels of system mastery demanded for optimal play; however, many groups do not play at a high level. Pathfinder is notable for having somewhere between five times to twenty times the content of D&D 5e, depending on how you count, and extreme amounts of homebrew and third party add-ons. Because there is so much content and so much homebrew, almost any concept is viable in Pathfinder, with the right system knowledge to bring it to life. Pathfinder is not technically free, but nearly the entire game system is licensed under the Open Gaming License, which means it is essentially open source and free-to-use. The entire game rules, sans the organization of the books and setting details like gods, is available here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/

Shadowrun (5e) is a good choice for anyone looking for something besides bog-standard dragons and liches. It is a game that takes place in a cyberpunk dystopia in 2070 by default, and includes cyberware, car chases, and machine guns. It does not use a level system, which can give it a grittier feel than both D&D and Pathfinder.

Fate is an extremely lightweight system that has the advantage of being legitimately free for those averse to pirating, as it is pay-what-you-want. It is not friendly to new game masters, but its simplicity means that it is easy to learn and teach for players. If you can find a group playing Fate that welcomes new players, it isn't a bad place to start.

Call of Cthulhu is exactly what it sounds like, and is probably the system here that has the least ability to be lifted from its setting. It is the originator of SAN points and has an aesthetic that is very rare outside of CoC. This also means that groups can be harder to find outside of dedicated fansites for the game and setting.

Just going to point out to the admin that the markup codes theoretically possible according to the FAQ don't work and now my posts look dumb instead of cool and formatted

>>896
Three single quotes, not two double. I edited it for you.

>>897
Oh crap what the heck I guess I'm the dumb one here
thank

>>895
>Pathfinder, for example, has pre-published adventures that take place in WWI Russia

Anything simulating the march of the czechoslovak volunteers?

>>904
Not in particular, no. There's mechanics to simulate travel hazards, cold weather, etc. and I believe there's an alternate ruleset to represent stress. If you want really gritty down-to-earth stuff, though, Pathfinder is probably not the system because like all iterations of D&D it's very much based on the high fantasy genre.

I'm running D&D for another imageboard currently so I guess I can ask stuff here and hope they don't see it.
We were playing a one shot and without getting into unnecessary details they ended up using a random magic item I rolled for to travel to another plane to escape a bad situation, which I think is really cool even if I didn't plan for it. We ended the session there since it was about the time we normally stop anyway. They said they wanted to travel to the feywilds, which is something I had to look up since I don't really know much about D&D lore like that. Apparently it's some forgotten realms thing, but I'm not running forgotten realms so I don't really have to use that plane as is.
So basically I need to make up a plane that's more or less my world's equivalent to the feywilds (or the next closest thing), and somehow figure out if and how they can get back and how to make that interesting. So does anyone here have any fun ideas on how to have an adventure returning from another plane?

>>906
First thought - chaotic neutral witch that players have to win over to get portal opened.

>>906
For plane-travelling, you could always go the Planescape: Torment route. Any one place can be a portal to another plane: a doorway, someone's basement stairs, the space between two buildings, etc… Anything can be the "key" to open it. Humming a specific song, holding a specific item, feeling a specific emotion. it's basically a scavenger hunt, but as a player I think it would be pretty fun

>>906
Wow people are actually discussing stuff! I was worried the thread would just kind of fall flat haha
>somehow figure out if and how they can get back and how to make it interesting
A very important question here is actually what level the PCs are at and what the party looks like. If they're low level I would just straight up recommend using mundane hazards like unpredictable weather, areas of reversed gravity, and so on on the path to a fae gate. If they're high level you can make the fae realm very easy to leave, but difficult to control where you end up, so they need to go find someone who knows how to form a stable gate. Hell, Gensokyo is pretty much the Feywild, so just plop Cirno in as an enemy and make Junko the sage.

>>908
The problem then is the players can just kill the witch. But there can be other ways to get back, and I think there definitely should be inhabitants here that know how to travel across planes so this is a good idea. The people here would probably be pretty eccentric and interesting and probably high level
>>909
This seems cool but could also spiral out of control, if there's more portals to more planes that's more planes I have to figure out. It sounds super cool in theory but a lot of work maybe, although I guess it depends on how you do it. I'm tempted to make a mini hex-crawl style thing with a small area of hexes figured out so there can be hidden portals around in some hexes.
>>910
They're level 5, except a multi-class who's 4/4 (this is 2e so it works differently). The thing they used to plane travel was a staff of the magi, which in theory can cast plane travel again but it's out of charges. I did say to them that for simplicity and balance reasons we'll just say that the staff can't be recharged even though it normally can, but they seem to want to try recharging it anyway so maybe they forgot I said that. I'm unsure if I should let them, if they do then it wouldn't be hard for them to return but I'd have to figure out where in the prime material plane they end up in, since I'm not sure if they can just pick a specific location like a teleport spell
Also thinking of the Feywild as like Gensokyo makes me want to use it much more, I'll have to read more about it

>>911
Oh wow 2e, for some reason I imagined you were in 5e.
Well if they want to recharge it, I don't see why they can't be allowed. Just say that yes, you can recharge it, but it's not as easy as you think because here in this highly magically charged realm you have to go to this place with these materials and the help of these people to do this ritual which requires so-and-so skills.

Finally finished the topology for this huge pain in the ass map
Now I need to figure out a way to add terrain onto this landscape, debating whether I should hide the topology layer for that or somehow have it filtered over.

I wanted to avoid this actually but I'm not really sure there's a way to communicate this reliably otherwise
Remember that the game is on Friday now, "sama"game group.

>>943
>I wanted to avoid this actually
How come? I was considering saying something about it if nobody else did.

>>944
'cause this is a thread for TTRPGs in general and I didn't want to clutter it with announcements about one specific game.

>>946
It's fine. A thread about only RPGs in general would be kind of boring. Posting more about something doesn't hurt anyone.

The last thing I posted in the server holds, unfortunately, so go ahead and start the pirate run, and we can decide next week which direction to go from here.