Quote from: Spinachcat;1134529THAT would be a hysterical piece of performance art.

BTW tenbones, did you play Cyberpunk 2020 at the LA conventions in the 90s with a crew who wore mirrorshades at the table? I was talking to an old friend about the LA cons and he reminded me about that Cyber-RPG crew. Their games were always full, but the odd part was how most of the players wore mirrorshades.

That was back when half (or more) of my Saturday night tables were gamers wearing their goth costumes for the midnight Vampire LARP.

I ran CP2020 at Strategicon, OrcCon and Gamex pretty much from 1989-1994. As soon as CP2020 dropped in 88, I was prepping my first convention adventure - which clocked in at over 80-pages long and was designed for a multi-session tournament with three different groups started from three-different starting points that culminated in the survivors of each group forming a super-group for the final day of the convention. That format kind of became a tradition for me specifically for CP2020 for a few years, and it was extremely popular.

I never wore mirrorshades, personally, I usually wore Wayfarers back then, but I occasionally wore Vuarnet's too, LOL but I don't recall ever wearing shades while GMing (maybe they were on top of my head?). However, I did have LOTS of players that did wear their trenchcoats, shades etc. quasi-larping etc. which by the early 90's it was pretty common. I'm 90% sure that it was me you're talking about specifically because during that time, in terms of GM's running CP2020 officially for the Con's, I think there was only *two* other GM's running CP2020, and their games... were not very good. I always had alternate lists from the very start because CP2020 was the "hot ticket" when it landed, and my GM feedback pretty much always made my tournament slots a premium after the first year's game. I had about three groups that *religiously* attended my events all year long for CP2020. Edit: and I'll confess I kept doing CP2020 long after I wanted to stop running it... but expectations were set, and I felt kinda obligated.

And I pretty much *only* ran CP2020 and AD&D, and I ran two four-hour CP2020 sessions for two-days, and one four-hour session on day three. I'd fit ONE 4-hr AD&D slot in there. That was my normal routine. So it was probably me as the GM I'd be willing to bet. Those were very good times.

Second Edit: That's funny, when I wanted to stop running CP2020... it was because I wanted to run Vampire. But alas... my then-budding writing career pulled me out of the convention-scene entirely.

Quote from: Morblot;1131201I agree. I have lots of Pathfinder 1e stuff I intend to keep and use, even if the culture is what it is.



Thank you, I'll check it out!

edit: Yeah so I checked it out. I almost stopped as soon as I saw it was by Evil Hat, who literally do not want my money, but the page count of 464! was the last straw. Not gonna happen, I'll do without.

Yeah, damnit.  I had the same reaction.

Quote from: Omega;1131708FR has Chult and possibly other lands. Where was Living Jungle set?

In Greayhawk, depended on the iteration as could one or more of the migration waves were of the african type or egyptian, or mediterranian, etc.

Mystarra had some as well, one of the two types of Thaytians was dark skinned, the other very pale skinned in RC I believe.

BX never says so like with the rest of it you can do whatever you want with the bare frame they provide.

BECMI I havent read through enough yet. But odds are they are the diametric opposite and hammer down every little detail and fill in every little space.

No clue what the hell Eberron  has to offer.

Touv
The Touv are a dark-skinned people from the southern reaches of the continent of Hepmonaland. Over a thousand years ago, the scattered tribes of the hills and savanna joined together to cast off the oppressive yoke of the Olman empire and drive that diabolical people from their homelands. From the ashes of war rose the great nation of Kunda and a legendary age of peace and enlightenment on the southern continent. What may remain of the kingdom of Kunda is a mystery to the scholars of the Flanaess, as the storm-lashed coasts of Hepmonaland have remained mostly impenetrable to northern explorers for centuries.
Very few Touv have ever found their way to the lands of the Flanaess, so their culture and history remain largely unknown outside of their own lands. Tales of seafarers speak of a society of peaceful city-states dotting the southern plains and jungles, a realm of noble savages and wise wizard-kings, but such accounts are difficult to trust with any certainty. The recent incursion of the agents of the Scarlet Sign onto Hepmonaland has done little to dispel or confirm any myths, and as long as war grips the southern straits and waterways, it is doubtful that much will change.

Quote from: tenbones;1134612I ran CP2020 at Strategicon, OrcCon and Gamex pretty much from 1989-1994.

And your games were excellent. Like you, I was running 5-6 events at all those cons (the AD&D tourney, CoC and Traveller mostly) which made playing in anything very difficult to schedule, but my friends and I played in several of your CP2020 games. I hope you've returned to the convention scene since you moved to Texas.

Interesting how everyone who likes the new SJWs mandated plan for the D&D is having an orgasm so to speak because of it. Yet not saying anything when they say " great job WOTC now how about firing Mike Mearls" and they don't get an answer lol.

From the looks of it I highly recommend putting a disclaimer on all ones games when trying to recruit. For example my pwn will no feature something along the lines that I plan to keep the evil races evil and make no changes to core races ( so no halflings as strong as minotaurs) with the caveat of it being non-negotiable or up to any any form of debate.

I guess the thing I find just weird is that Drizzt pretty much illustrates that not all Drow are evil or that Drow aren't inherently evil.  And there's been a heroic, noble warrior bent to some orc characters for a long time too.  Orcs of Thar or earlier.  So, the problem they're pointing and and beating their breasts about really isn't there.  I remember a Dragon Magazine guest editorial by Gary Gygax early in the third edition days where he explicitly stated that he'd always intended humanoids as somewhat sympathetic and relatable.  I don't recall the issue, I read them for free at the library at the time since they were moving far away from my interests just about as fast as they could go.

Some how it all reminds me of the Doonsbruy (or was it Bloom County?) where they hired Clint Eastwood to handle security problems for the olympic games.  "It's a fantasy solution," one talking head declares.  "It's a fantasy problem," the other responds.

Quote from: tenbones;1134518I'd have seriously used Roll20... but the reality is my group has largely moved away from the battlemat 95% of the time. So the featureset of Roll20 has greatly diminished. I can do everything I need with very little hassle on my Discord channel. Which also now doubles for my video-gaming folks that play online with me.

A big reason I avoid Roll20 is their political asshattery. I'm down for supporting people in my hobbies that are doing good things, even at my own expense. But once you're over the line, I have to pull that funding.

It's funny, because I moved to Roll20 and have basically become a battlemat guy where as I was theater of the mind since starting as a kid.

What exactly did Roll20 do politically? I've basically gotten to the point, after they blacklisted Terrese Nielsen, that I'm really not keen on supporting Wizards at this juncture. I think its time I put my money where my mouth is.

Quote from: ZetaRidley;1135618It's funny, because I moved to Roll20 and have basically become a battlemat guy where as I was theater of the mind since starting as a kid.

What exactly did Roll20 do politically? I've basically gotten to the point, after they blacklisted Terrese Nielsen, that I'm really not keen on supporting Wizards at this juncture. I think its time I put my money where my mouth is.

They turned away a group of youtibers cause they were all white guys (told them "we dont need another group of white guys" when they asked about a sponsorship) and they dont allow all male groups but allow other all x groups. Not sure what else they've done.

Quote from: ZetaRidley;1135618It's funny, because I moved to Roll20 and have basically become a battlemat guy where as I was theater of the mind since starting as a kid.

What exactly did Roll20 do politically? I've basically gotten to the point, after they blacklisted Terrese Nielsen, that I'm really not keen on supporting Wizards at this juncture. I think its time I put my money where my mouth is.

Slambo nailed it - but there are other "things". The idea is that I don't want any platform telling anyone who can associate with whom based on their notions of what is moral/ethical. That incident is what started it.

As for the battlemat - I've ALWAYS liked the battlemat, even back in 1e. But frankly, we often did away with it because it got in the way of play. When we got into 3e, we got into the Battlemat Madness. It was great. But frankly the rules started killing it for us as they were clearly meant to represent Battlemat play... not the verisimilitude we wanted in our heads. Some of it was good but it was too difficult for us to escape feeling the game was getting a little too meta on top of the fact that after years of play, the cracks in the system were impacting us further.

The Battlemat issues were easy to fix - just stop using it. Worked like a charm. When we converted to Savage Worlds... they have a softer touch, clearly made for Battlemat play, but fully embraces TotM. Roll20/Fantasy Grounds became superfluous for us, because we didn't/don't need the Battlemat, or even desire it. Discord works perfectly fine. We use Dicebots to roll (we do miss rolling dice), plus other Bots for soundeffects, private channels for "Backroom shennanigan" etc. It can do pretty much everything except the Battlemat stuff.

Quote from: tenbones;1135624Slambo nailed it - but there are other "things". The idea is that I don't want any platform telling anyone who can associate with whom based on their notions of what is moral/ethical. That incident is what started it.

As for the battlemat - I've ALWAYS liked the battlemat, even back in 1e. But frankly, we often did away with it because it got in the way of play. When we got into 3e, we got into the Battlemat Madness. It was great. But frankly the rules started killing it for us as they were clearly meant to represent Battlemat play... not the verisimilitude we wanted in our heads. Some of it was good but it was too difficult for us to escape feeling the game was getting a little too meta on top of the fact that after years of play, the cracks in the system were impacting us further.

The Battlemat issues were easy to fix - just stop using it. Worked like a charm. When we converted to Savage Worlds... they have a softer touch, clearly made for Battlemat play, but fully embraces TotM. Roll20/Fantasy Grounds became superfluous for us, because we didn't/don't need the Battlemat, or even desire it. Discord works perfectly fine. We use Dicebots to roll (we do miss rolling dice), plus other Bots for soundeffects, private channels for "Backroom shennanigan" etc. It can do pretty much everything except the Battlemat stuff.

Sounds like we do similar stuff. I'm running 5e at the moment, and the battle mat seems pretty liberating when describing a combat section, though my sessions sometimes just end up being the boys role playing with NPC's and investigating stuff. We roll on roll20, but use discord for voice chat and a discord bot for ambient sound. I could see it going both ways with battlemat stuff. I think if I were able to play again in person, I would probably have a TV to display both maps and the battle mat mounted to the wall, and a couple tablets for players to move tokens and what not. I think I actually use Roll20 more for displaying maps like region, world maps, and town layouts more often than battle mats, and so far it has worked well, I think having a visual of some kind makes the link to the game more tangible.

I also agree with your sentiment. The fact that we now live in a world where corporations are supposed to wear some kind of social, left leaning ethical message on their lapel, I don't really get it. Sell me shit. If you're doing something actually unethical, like actual environmental damage or something, stop it. I don't give a shit what Tide thinks about "white privilege," just give me something to wash my clothes with bitch.

Btw i wouldnt have cared had they not given those youtubers a sponsorship, i dont care for their content, its all in the way they told them. They could have told them no sponsorship any number of ways but didnt.

Exactly. Its like this new MTG card banning. Had WOTC done it any other way it would have been just one more in a long list of card bannings.

But nooooo. We cant have that. The cards are WACIST! Not racist. Wacist. The village idiot idea of what racist is.

Quote from: tenbones;1134612I ran CP2020 at Strategicon, OrcCon and Gamex pretty much from 1989-1994.

Oh man, I think I played that with you at one of those! 1989-1992 I went often to those cons, and I played at least one CP2020 at one of those with a good GM.

Quote from: tenbones;1135624Discord works perfectly fine. We use Dicebots to roll (we do miss rolling dice), plus other Bots for soundeffects, private channels for "Backroom shennanigan" etc. It can do pretty much everything except the Battlemat stuff.

I got to stick with the battle mat one because I love my Minis, 2 because my players is manage to be everywhere at once if it's theater of the Mind and they can't seem to count monsters maybe that was three.

I've cobbled the solution together for the remote gaming we've been reduced to,
https://youtu.be/yvMehQzzF5I
But I really don't like the dice roller I'm using, any recommendations for dice rollers?

Quote from: Mistwell;1135727Oh man, I think I played that with you at one of those! 1989-1992 I went often to those cons, and I played at least one CP2020 at one of those with a good GM.

What happened to you man? what happened to you!?!?!?!?

LOL

Quote from: tenbones;1136014What happened to you man? what happened to you!?!?!?!?

LOL

Hahaha. The truth is, we'd probably have a blast playing together still. I know I think it'd be fun to play with Spinachcat too. The stuff we talk about here...it's not that meaningful to how people actually game.