Kender=AntiFa

Can't convince me otherwise.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on December 01, 2022, 03:06:47 PM
Kender=AntiFa

Can't convince me otherwise.

I actually love kender.  With a kender in the party I don't actually have to prep anything, just say "what are you all doing?" and watch the drama unfold.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on November 10, 2022, 01:33:31 AM
Most of my players are grogs that love dragonlance. Which I was never a great fan of to be honest as the game products fail to tell you much at all about the world, you have to read the novels to get it. As you know I am a D6 system guy, use it for everything, and my players had challenged me to see if the system can "do" dnd, or marvel super heroes, or whatever...last iteration of their demands was can it do dragonlance. It can, and I gathered and read a whole bunch of DL material toward that end (3e material does the best job of filling in the blanks, adnd hardcover does the shittiest job)...but project is currently on hold.

Issue is thus; to "do dnd" to me the xp for loot aspect must be intact, DL confounds this with its steel coin bullshit, broze iron and steel coins being worth more than silver which is worth more than gold...I've struggled with the steel coin thing and found some good (not official) meta-reasons or explanations to make it make sense (palanthian chucky cheese tokens, its not the metal value you cannot melt your sword into coins the value is that the city takes gold and issues steel tokens if you want to trade in the main deep water port on ansalaon you need these tokens). Also any coin with kingpriest of istar's face on it is considered cursed.

But, most treasure found will be from before the cataclysm and thus gold...so...either you do gold for xp or gold for steel coins, and it just screws everything all up on the xp end or the wealth end. Another issue I have is that these DL fans do not want you to change anything about krynn and they want to play in the war of the lance (i would have been happier to play at most advanced point on timeline myself, after takhisis is dead and the super alien dragon overlords have been driven off) but also "it would be cool to cross paths with the heroes of the lance or come upon a place where we just missed them" and that bums me out, I cannot portray those characters w/o pissing off superfans I'm sure.

I was going to do a ww1 style setup just after highlord ariakas is killed by tanis half-retarded, make a new dragon high lord, bog it all down into trench warfare with aerial duals over these muddy killing fields....but no, that changes the precious world and they no likey....would have been great as D6 makes for a fast fun aerial dogfight (its the star wars rules i mean come on man, that would have been fun as shit).

So right now I lean heavily toward discarding DL. I am going to essentially make D6 the core engine, but use class, xp charts, treasure charts, and treasure by monster type from becmi rules cyclopedia, and overlay the old tsr marvel power rank brackets and logic atop that for quick on the fly magic estimation as opposed to the meticulous fine hair adjustment of needed numbers that is default in D6 fantasy. Far easier to say "10D is equivalent to unearthly and range on an unearthly rank lighting bolt is listed on marvel chart as x areas (which i boil down to 20x20 spaces)" than it is to crack open the spell calculation charts in D6 fantasy (which are fine and great and fairly exact but have no place at the table when the action is going on).

I mean we may still do DL, have not truly decided, I lean heavily away because I feel like it ties my hands as a GM. I could do Mystara and be just as happy. After all the work I did bolting the best of pendragon onto D6 and expanding that I may lean back into doing that, that was fine for me, but the people who want to play elves or lady knights kind of derailed that a little. Looks increasingly like Mystara will be it, that or King Arthur, and players can suck it. I'd be happy with ravenloft too but players scowl at me when i say so. I for sure want the becmi 1-36 then [ossible godhood as becmi was my first ttrpg experience when I was 8 and therefore "the correct way" in my head.

Dragonlance causes me strife. Because of Dragonlance fans. We can do star wars or star trek and they don't care if I change things but oh no don't you dare alter sacred holy freakin dragonlance Slip, what kind of unwashed heathen would even dare...

Man...its frustrating. Feel like shouting "fuck dragonlance" over and over and just shitting all over it and telling them hell no we are not doing Dragonlance, because you don't really want to do it, you want to relive reading the books...so just go read them, assholes.

The shit I put up with.

Just tell them you don't want to run a role play of the published fiction.  Tell them you want to hack Dragonlance, and kill all the sacred cows.

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 01, 2022, 09:32:32 PM


Just tell them you don't want to run a role play of the published fiction.  Tell them you want to hack Dragonlance, and kill all the sacred cows.

This is the only way i could EVER run the Dragonlance campaign as it stands.  The DL series is pure Railroad where the PC's relegated to being "Side Pieces" in the worst kind of way while the Heroes of the Lance do all the fun shit in the background.   Making a scenario based off a book is impossible to run AS IS.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on November 10, 2022, 01:33:31 AM
Most of my players are grogs that love dragonlance. Which I was never a great fan of to be honest as the game products fail to tell you much at all about the world, you have to read the novels to get it. As you know I am a D6 system guy, use it for everything, and my players had challenged me to see if the system can "do" dnd, or marvel super heroes, or whatever...last iteration of their demands was can it do dragonlance. It can, and I gathered and read a whole bunch of DL material toward that end (3e material does the best job of filling in the blanks, adnd hardcover does the shittiest job)...but project is currently on hold.

Issue is thus; to "do dnd" to me the xp for loot aspect must be intact, DL confounds this with its steel coin bullshit, broze iron and steel coins being worth more than silver which is worth more than gold...I've struggled with the steel coin thing and found some good (not official) meta-reasons or explanations to make it make sense (palanthian chucky cheese tokens, its not the metal value you cannot melt your sword into coins the value is that the city takes gold and issues steel tokens if you want to trade in the main deep water port on ansalaon you need these tokens). Also any coin with kingpriest of istar's face on it is considered cursed.

But, most treasure found will be from before the cataclysm and thus gold...so...either you do gold for xp or gold for steel coins, and it just screws everything all up on the xp end or the wealth end. Another issue I have is that these DL fans do not want you to change anything about krynn and they want to play in the war of the lance (i would have been happier to play at most advanced point on timeline myself, after takhisis is dead and the super alien dragon overlords have been driven off) but also "it would be cool to cross paths with the heroes of the lance or come upon a place where we just missed them" and that bums me out, I cannot portray those characters w/o pissing off superfans I'm sure.

I was going to do a ww1 style setup just after highlord ariakas is killed by tanis half-retarded, make a new dragon high lord, bog it all down into trench warfare with aerial duals over these muddy killing fields....but no, that changes the precious world and they no likey....would have been great as D6 makes for a fast fun aerial dogfight (its the star wars rules i mean come on man, that would have been fun as shit).

So right now I lean heavily toward discarding DL. I am going to essentially make D6 the core engine, but use class, xp charts, treasure charts, and treasure by monster type from becmi rules cyclopedia, and overlay the old tsr marvel power rank brackets and logic atop that for quick on the fly magic estimation as opposed to the meticulous fine hair adjustment of needed numbers that is default in D6 fantasy. Far easier to say "10D is equivalent to unearthly and range on an unearthly rank lighting bolt is listed on marvel chart as x areas (which i boil down to 20x20 spaces)" than it is to crack open the spell calculation charts in D6 fantasy (which are fine and great and fairly exact but have no place at the table when the action is going on).

I mean we may still do DL, have not truly decided, I lean heavily away because I feel like it ties my hands as a GM. I could do Mystara and be just as happy. After all the work I did bolting the best of pendragon onto D6 and expanding that I may lean back into doing that, that was fine for me, but the people who want to play elves or lady knights kind of derailed that a little. Looks increasingly like Mystara will be it, that or King Arthur, and players can suck it. I'd be happy with ravenloft too but players scowl at me when i say so. I for sure want the becmi 1-36 then [ossible godhood as becmi was my first ttrpg experience when I was 8 and therefore "the correct way" in my head.

Dragonlance causes me strife. Because of Dragonlance fans. We can do star wars or star trek and they don't care if I change things but oh no don't you dare alter sacred holy freakin dragonlance Slip, what kind of unwashed heathen would even dare...

Man...its frustrating. Feel like shouting "fuck dragonlance" over and over and just shitting all over it and telling them hell no we are not doing Dragonlance, because you don't really want to do it, you want to relive reading the books...so just go read them, assholes.

The shit I put up with.

You could still do dungeon crawling in Dragonlance.  It's not my preferred setting, and it's probably not what you should do if you don't like it (I'm running 2nd ed Greyhawk myself, it's a better setting for D&D dungeon crawling).  But...

1.) If you want them to find ancient treasures, have them try to find caches of steel ingots, which would exist even before the Cataclysm, for use in forging metals and gear.  Say each ingot is equivalent to 100 steel pieces in the modern DL world, and they would ignore the gold for the most part.   And also place gems (which are always valuable).  Just change the McGuffins.  Classic D&D is always "get the McGuffin" whether it's gold, or slaying monsters, or completing the quest.  If you want it to be treasure, well, just lure them with the appropriate treasure. 

2.) Use the novels as "history" and just find a place for the PCs that doesn't have much to do with the "War of the Lance" or the "Time of the Twins" (those are the only ones I know, I read some of the trilogy that came after, but thought it was pretty bad, and even the original trilogy didn't really hold up, imo, as adult... anyhoo...)   But craft a story, about say, a Black Robe wizard who is a Lich, and raising an ancient dragon as a Dracolich or something.  It's not in the novels, but could exist in the Dragonlance.   Or a mindflayer enclave whose spelljamming vessel crashed on Krynn, and thinks it's "party time" since none of the natives have any psionic resistance and set up to rule a small city... until they can call more of their people...  Just get them into your own adventures, and if you want Laurana to say "hi", fine, but just have her make a cameo, and let them fanboy about it.

Anyway, that's all I gots

Quote from: THE_Leopold on December 01, 2022, 03:06:47 PM
Kender=AntiFa

Can't convince me otherwise.

Kender : childish, annoying, thieving little brats
Antifa : ... ...

Yup! Theory checks out!

Quote from: THE_Leopold on December 02, 2022, 08:25:04 AM

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 01, 2022, 09:32:32 PM


Just tell them you don't want to run a role play of the published fiction.  Tell them you want to hack Dragonlance, and kill all the sacred cows.

This is the only way i could EVER run the Dragonlance campaign as it stands.  The DL series is pure Railroad where the PC's relegated to being "Side Pieces" in the worst kind of way while the Heroes of the Lance do all the fun shit in the background.   Making a scenario based off a book is impossible to run AS IS.

This lie? Again?

Its been pointed out time and again that the original modules were not railroads and the PCs are not relegated to backstory.
Really. All it takes is reading the damn things even a little to see that this whole "wah wah wah its a railroad!" is mostly a fabrication.

What the modules do rely on are timed events. Essentially world in motion stuff. After ex amount of time This happens and after X more time this happens and so on.

For me at least what was minorly annoying is that some of this is effectively supposed to happen no matter where the PCs are, instead of organically or logically. But it does allow the PCs to roam freely so its a fair tradeoff when you want stuff to move along but do not want to constrain player choice. And it only happens early on and is not so prevalent as a few other path-reliant TSR modules were.

Course all bets are off on what WOTC does with it now.

Quote from: Omega on December 02, 2022, 05:06:15 PM
Course all bets are off on what WOTC does with it now.

Skimming a "Let's Read" elsewhere, it looks like they have gone full railroad: "the characters advance two levels in this chapter of the adventure: one after going to X, and the other on reaching Y."

No major choice, no real consequence.

They do love their milestone system a-lot. So does not surprise me.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on December 01, 2022, 03:06:47 PM
Kender=AntiFa

Can't convince me otherwise.

In that we wish they never existed, and want to to go away?



Honestly, doing DL/LOTR during the Third Age/anything else with a well known story and heroes; you HAVE to say it's all open to change, or why bother?

If Snow the Hobbit maiden can't take the ring to Mount Doom, aided by her 7 Dwarven heroes, and push Palpatine in to the lava, what are we even doing?

Oh look, I get to be soldier number 678! I got to hand Aragorn his sword, HUZZAH!

Quote from: Naburimannu on December 03, 2022, 03:39:20 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 02, 2022, 05:06:15 PM
Course all bets are off on what WOTC does with it now.

Skimming a "Let's Read" elsewhere, it looks like they have gone full railroad: "the characters advance two levels in this chapter of the adventure: one after going to X, and the other on reaching Y."

No major choice, no real consequence.

I have the product, and this is easily my biggest gripe. You go from rolling up your characters to level two during preludes. These are not even mini-adventures. One of them is basically a vision with an Int check. I will get around to a full review in the other section someday.

Quote from: Naburimannu on December 03, 2022, 03:39:20 AM
Skimming a "Let's Read" elsewhere, it looks like they have gone full railroad: "the characters advance two levels in this chapter of the adventure: one after going to X, and the other on reaching Y."

No major choice, no real consequence.

I don't have the book, never read it, and honestly have no desire to, but I'm just going to say that milestone advancement does not always equate to a railroad. These types of pre-written adventure are intended for characters to be at a minimum level as they progress through the story, but typically not above a certain level either. Characters are generally allowed do whatever they want between plot-points, but shouldn't expect to gain much (if any) experience for doing so.

The better written adventures of this sort use "timed events" rather than "scripted events," meaning if the characters lallygag too often, the plot can move beyond them, usually making things harder for them. Missed your meeting with the enemy defector? Oops, they caught up to him and killed him. Now how are going to learn of the secret entrance to their stronghold?

Done right, it can be a lot of fun. That being said, I don't think the smoothbrains over WotC are capable of pulling something like this off.

Quote from: FingerRod on December 03, 2022, 10:15:38 PM

I have the product, and this is easily my biggest gripe. You go from rolling up your characters to level two during preludes. These are not even mini-adventures. One of them is basically a vision with an Int check. I will get around to a full review in the other section someday.

Do they even understand how milestones are supposed to be used? Who wrote this thing?

Quote from: Omega on December 05, 2022, 12:43:24 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on December 03, 2022, 10:15:38 PM

I have the product, and this is easily my biggest gripe. You go from rolling up your characters to level two during preludes. These are not even mini-adventures. One of them is basically a vision with an Int check. I will get around to a full review in the other section someday.

Do they even understand how milestones are supposed to be used? Who wrote this thing?

Seems like a convoluted way to say start at Level 3.

Quote from: Omega on December 05, 2022, 12:43:24 AM

Quote from: FingerRod on December 03, 2022, 10:15:38 PM

I have the product, and this is easily my biggest gripe. You go from rolling up your characters to level two during preludes. These are not even mini-adventures. One of them is basically a vision with an Int check. I will get around to a full review in the other section someday.

Do they even understand how milestones are supposed to be used? Who wrote this thing?

It is a great question. I wonder if this is the product leads or the writers? The cynical side of me says they just didn't have the balls to say this is an adventure meant for character levels 4-10 or whatever. Instead, they use milestone so that you are level two after you have a dream, and level four by the time you evacuate the town.

Overall, my impressions are pretty positive of this product, with only a few areas of concern. Leveling being one. I will build out additional content so that levels are earned.

Also, the board game has the potential to really turn this into something cool. I should receive my copy this week. More than anything, that is why I haven't put together a full review. Needing to create additional content and using a board war game are two factors that will turn off some people from the jump.