Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 14, 2024, 11:58:48 PMIf it's not fanfiction why not go ahead and selfpublish it?

Maybe in the future.

Quote from: BadApple on May 13, 2024, 02:40:08 AMIn every edition of D&D, the description of a cleric lends itself to a purposeful and driven character.  That is always interesting.  IMO, of all the classes, the cleric is the one that should be the most dynamic in terms of role playing just from the premise of the class.  He should be clear on his principles, clear on his goals, and clear on his relationship with others.

Whether you have a seasoned cleric that's heard so many confessions he's completely jaded yet knows his god is real and good, a young acolyte that's just been given his first assignments and is still full of idealism and hope, or a stogy academic that's been force away from his books to handle things the order needs done, you have the seeds of a fascinating character that can be a lot of fun to play and enrich the game play experience for everyone.

Greetings!

I very much agree, BadApple! Clerics are people of action, of determination, and leadership. Very purpose-driven, and motivated. Unfortunately, many gamers play Cleric Characters with that confused "Derp, Derp" look on their faces. *Laughing*

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: I on May 12, 2024, 11:27:04 PMYes, clerics are one of my favorite classes.  I've also seen them played as very dull characters; most players don't seem to like them and have no idea how to play them right.  I really like your tables -- I plan on using them, in fact.

One thing I really liked about Harn is that most, if not all, of the religions had fighting orders associated with them (sort of like crusading orders for Catholics).  Do you ever use such?  It would be an easy idea to import D&D style games.

Greetings!

Yes, as I was thinking about your question, in my Thandor world, I have several religious military orders of knights. In addition, some of the Pagan religions have religious fighting orders of holy warriors devoted to their particular faith. For example, serving the monotheistic religion of Dharyaanism, there are several different religious knight orders established within different kingdoms and empires. A different monotheistic religion, Molomism, sponsors the Lions of Molom, a religious fighting order devoted to the service of the Molom faithful. In the vast lands of Sindhu, the polytheistic religion of Handari is the dominant religion. The pan-Handari pantheon is served by a religious order of holy warriors, known as the Order of the White Elephant. In the savage northern wilderness of Vandar, there is the Brotherhood of Odin. The Brotherhood of Odin is devoted to serving the gods of the Vandar pantheon and protecting the Pagan tribes of the faithful.

I think that religious orders of holy warriors can be very inspiring and fun! There is huge scope for drama, intrigue, lots of savage action and adventure, as well as very in-depth Character development. Such religious fighting orders also provide many opportunities to enhance the campaign development and add to the milieu.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 14, 2024, 12:54:50 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 14, 2024, 11:02:37 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 13, 2024, 11:34:57 AM

Quote from: yosemitemike on May 13, 2024, 10:59:31 AMI would guess that, since WoD/CoD is mostly moribund now, people don't have the motivation to publish that WoD Heartbreaker that they did when it was big.  WoD-alikes just aren't really the thing any more.  A company called Fen Orc makes a series of Black Hack hacks along these lines but I don't know much about them.  They have some silver and electrum sellers so they have gotten some traction anyway.

I'm not looking for a heartbreaker, I'm looking for games in the urban fantasy genre. I don't actually like WoD/CoD because they're bad microfiction pretending to be games, which the fans don't actually play anyway.

Urban fantasy is still a thriving literary genre. It's oversaturated. I'm really surprised there's zero spillover into ttrpgs.

Do you mean that the most recent versions of WoD games don't get play, or that the old WoD games don't get played much now? I might accept either of those, but in the 90s and perhaps a little after that, the original WoD games were heavily played in several areas I lived.

Check out Frank Trollman's Anatomy of Failed Design series to see what I mean. He writes several articles where he explains that the rules are unplayable as written and the groups who "played" ignored the rules anyway in favor of fiat or whatever.

This even extended to the CoD groups. They used fiat rather than even reading the rules. This notably resulted in things like groups not knowing basic facts about CoD vamps, like that they can identify other vamps on sight. I vaguely remember arguing with bad faith critics about it in the 2000s.

I can provide a bit of a testimonial on that, since I was a teenager when the whole Goth-Techno Vampire Kung Fu peaked in the early 00s. Everybody I know who liked roleplaying bought the VTM books. Everybody read them. Everybody was very excited about the possibilities. We probably "started" 50 VTM/Werewolf campaigns, but I don't think we ever strung more than two consecutive sessions together, and there was a distinct sense of no one really "getting" how the rules were supposed to work.

I thought the cartoon characters were officially in the Forgotten Realms. Have they moved to Greyhawk?

Based on the font used for the show's title, I would have thought their wrecked roller coaster cart dropped them into Mystara.

I wonder if Gary's original thirteen-level dungeon will be published in the book.

Quote from: El-V on Today at 06:27:06 AMWhere's Sheila? Has the woke gingercide got her as well?

Eric isn't there, either.

Remember, Dungeon Master said that the Cavalier was right more often than he said that of any other character.

Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1710384861/sake-sorcerers-adventures-kings-and-economics-rulebook   

SAKE is a fantasy roleplaying game with elements of a strategy game. In SAKE, you play the ruler of a domain, a merchant prince, a pirate lord or start as an adventurer with the goal of rising to power.

SAKE (Sorcerers, Adventures, Kings, and Economics) is the game for players who want:
•   Play a pirate, adventure on the seas, trade with faraway cultures, and battle the imperial navy trying to catch you.
•   Or play a warlord: build up your domain, hire armies, and construct castles to wage war against your rivals.
•   Play as a sorcerer deeply interested in dangerous magic, not afraid to enter the Otherworld in search of more power.
•   Or play as a priest as a sort of collector of gods, haggling with alien and fickle deities to channel their immense power.
•   Campaign of building and managing a kingdom while its inner politics are in turmoil, and its powerful nature god wants the blood of its rulers.
•   Campaign of trading and adventuring on the seas, with a ship as your home.

You delve into dungeons, explore pockets of the Otherworld to find treasures, make pacts with fickle gods, study dangerous magic, scheme to assassinate rivals, trade to gather resources and raise an army to fight wars.

SAKE is a full pointbuy system, which means all character development happens by buying skills and abilities using EXP gained from Your character's personality traits and events during gameplay.

SAKE is designed to take place in an early modern (fantasy) world, with muskets and plate armour, cannons and galleys, rising capitalism and waning feudalism. With magic and gods mixed in.

The game's rules support more serious types of campaigns, like balancing between different political interest groups when playing domain ruler, or deciding how far one is ready to go when meddling with gods or magic for power that could save their party and/or domain. 

Quote from: Mistwell on Today at 01:03:46 AM

Quote from: Almost_Useless on May 14, 2024, 11:42:27 PM"Oh boy!  I can't wait to see how Greyhawk has been revised and updated for modern audiences." -- Nobody, ever.

This was one of the first replies I saw when the news broke:

 "I love being mindful of the history D&D. A new vision of the Oerth of Greyhawk (and Blackmoor) for this century is awesome.

I am curious, what aspects of the legacy content they will mine and which they will tweak for sensibilities today."

So yes, someone, today.

He said "nobody," implying an actual person, not the NPCs that follow WotC today.  I fully expect them to shill for WotC and its wokeness...

Where's Sheila? Has the woke gingercide got her as well?

I'm gonna give constructive criticism!

Conceptually I love the idea. However I find the even 5% too flat AND the categories cover far too much. It is 20 categories with 2 wild card categories covering another double handful of options. Good for thoroughness, but bland as specific religious flavor and too broad as extra PC roleplay opportunity.

I feel one of the forgotten strengths of the Random Table is the asymmetry of its probability. This creates a design heirarchy of prioritization through rarity. Further it teaches how odd dice pairings can be used to deliberately skew percentiles into even more useful smaller bites (e.g. a d2+d4 table vs a d8+d12 table or d20 or d%).

Why is this useful? In-play utility by curating the potential tasks into easier and flavorful management. For example, a priest for animals and their husbandry can then skip most of the above options through tailored tables while really exemplifying its ethos.

It does ask for upfront preparation. But the returns is automated flavor creation with easier to digest content generation. This would save bandwidth for when you wish to upgrade downtime NPCs into recurring elements, possibly even regional assets.

So I'm saying Yes! But GMs should go further... Pare it down and DIY to make it fit your world as it will pull even greater weight from your GM improvisation.