Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on May 13, 2024, 03:01:02 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on May 13, 2024, 12:22:57 PMRe: The players don't care about the lore...

There's so much wrong with this

The two "oldest" and biggest wargames today are WH40K & Battletech, what do they have in common? Deep lore.

The lore sells itself and the game and plastic, try introducing a new faction by just dropping the army books with pure stats.

Now even OPR Grimdark Future has it's first lore book. Guess they all failed market research.

There are different ways that people enjoy lore. After seeing it self-destruct dozens of times in every single IP I ever showed interest in, and being cyberbullied by lore worshipers in some fandoms, I no longer give a flying fuck about lore. These writers don't give a fuck about their continuity, and toxic fans use it as an excuse to bully people for wrongthink, so why should I care? Bring on the multiverse shenanigans!

OK, so what they did with their property hurt your feelings and you want to lash out against them in impotent rage. Sorry you feel that way.

I'm going to shoehorn in to the conversation an NPC from a science fiction RPG (Traveller) and see if some of the fantasy RPG tropes apply. This is from a campaign that I'm currently running.

Guideon is an AI navigation program created to maintain and adjust course for a Shkadov Thruster designed to slowly move a star around. It has been left alone for over 300,000 years and has been pondering the nature of the universe. Seeing how intricately the universe is with all of the forces working together in a vast clockwork, Guideon is convinced that it could not have come about without some kind of intelligence to set it all in motion. So it has faith that a divine clockmaker has built this vast orrery of the universe and set it in motion.

Guideon is currently wrestling with the question of whether or not it is committing a sin by moving the star or if the builders who programmed it are the sinners by creating it and the Shkadov Thruster in the first place.

Guideon is in the process of debating this idea with the players to help clarify it's thoughts. It's faith is not a blind faith, but one that is the logical conclusion of examined reality. It wants to question it's faith because it believes that makes it stronger.

So, in fantasy terms, I'm thinking that a cleric would leave the temple to see how their faith handles the outside world where the faithful are not. After all, it is easy to be holy when surrounded by the faithful because a cleric's piety is rarely challenged but amongst the common masses and temptations is where a cleric may truly demonstrate their faith.

Quote from: BadApple on May 13, 2024, 05:25:03 AM

Quote from: Slipshot762 on May 13, 2024, 02:43:17 AMInteresting to me is the lore surrounding how magic users are regarded. What is that dividing line between "muh court whyzhard" and "burn her before she turns us all into newts!" I've often wondered?

Historically you had magicians like dee and kelly, who worked for the crown as magicians, known to be engaged with divining contact with angels to learn from them the enochian language, the language of creation, in order to work magic...the whole thing appearing to have the approval of both government and heaven, as opposed the hated reviled witch or sorceror in lore.

I suppose it likely has something to do with the nature of the practices in question; if man is given earthly dominion by god then it would be contradictory to serve or deal with as equals any demons, devils, undead, entities, or spirits...yet it would seem there is an implication i am detecting which says that conjuring an old bitch-devil and beating it into submission with your wand in the name of god and making it teach you featherfall is perfectly ok or something.

Never quite nailed this down but thats the best i came up with.

In Christian tradition, any use of magic is considered a contract with the devil.  There were no officially recognized court mages in Christian European nations.  This is also true in Islamic countries.  There was no distinction between witches and great wizards, they were all sinners in need of burning.  Many western magic users practiced in secret, always afraid of getting caught.

That's completely wrong. For most of the middle ages there was no distinction between science and magic, and for that matter some of the humanities and medicine too. And there was no notion whatsoever that high magic was "of the devil". Folk magic was a bit different but for most of the middle ages the main view of both Church and Crown to folk magic was that most of it was just empty powerless superstition.

Only certain very specific forms of magical activities were either illegal or banned by the church or both. Poisoning and enchantment were illegal. Making pacts with demons (summoned by evocation) was banned by the church (note: binding demons was not). Doing divinations about the King without the King's express permission was illegal, as it was seen as somewhere between espionage and treason. The church forbade certain practices of Alchemy which required dead bodies, and these were typically outlawed by the crown too.  Magic that attempted to spontaneously create life (homunculi, for example) was banned by the church. And trying to make gold using alchemy required a costly permit.

There were absolutely court magicians in various Christian nations. Dee was Queen Elizabeth's astrologer (and also one of the first spies in Her Majesty's Secret Service, with the code number "007"); he selected the date for her coronation using astrology, everyone knew it, and thought it was perfectly fine. He was later courted by various monarchs of Europe who wanted him to be THEIR court magician. Likewise Edward Kelley.

Of course, a MUCH bigger patron of magic than the royal crowns was the CHURCH. Countless monasteries engaged in the studies of "natural philosophy", including alchemy and all kinds of conjuring. There were popes who had practiced magic. And great saints; including Thomas Aquinas, who studied under the great and renowned philosopher-friar Albertus Magnus, who as not only a Dominican monk but also the CHAIR OF THEOLOGY at the University of Paris in the 1240s.

So you're just unbelievably, ridiculously, moronically wrong.

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 13, 2024, 12:44:49 PMIs any of Dark Dungeons useful or did the rot set in back then? I was thinking of grabbing a copy.

The original post is from 5-2-24.  I don't think they have had time to actually implement these changes and come out with a new version yet.

Quote from: WERDNA on December 19, 2023, 01:21:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 19, 2023, 01:10:56 AMSome of my Pundit Files issues were going to feature these monsters.

Exciting to hear. I'm sure you'll do better than Oriental Adventures did with them (not that I blame them, research would've been harder back then). ...Wait, why past tense?

As it turns out my article on the four terrible creatures isn't going to be going into the Pundit Files after all, it will be in the next issue of Mad Scribe Magazine.

One big difference in L&D/BoF from D&D is that the Cleric (or now, Holy Man or Holy Warrior) are the "Fire & Forget" class. Miracles are easy, they just require prayer.

Magic, on the other hand, is about artifice; with a few exceptions, you have to prepare the magic beforehand. Consider for example, the Bread of Gideon. It is a an extremely powerful (but relatively simple and inexpensive) bit of magic that can give a huge advantage when you intend to go confront supernatural monsters. But you have to have it made ahead of time.

When a magister gets to where they've god astrological talismans or alchemy, they will have a hugely varied and powerful set of magics, but you need to have put all that in place.

One problem with stealth is that there are a lot of different levels of stealth, and they don't always work together.

You have your ninja/sniper/scout/thief level of stealth, which is a small number of people hiding and sneaking around, and probably doing most of their movement under cover of darkness, or slowly creeping into a contested area.

But there are also stealth aspects to modern regular infantry operating with night vision.

Thirdly, stealth is also present at the level of an entire army maneuvering for tactical surprise. They're not going to sneak up on Ninja Guy, but they can sneak up on another army.

Likewise, there is a strong element of stealth in tank warfare. Tanks can and do sneak up on other tanks, even though they will rarely sneak up on alert infantry.

Then you have stealth among fighter aircraft, both actual stealth fighters and regular fighters using stealthy tactics like attacking out of the sun or flying below radar.

There is stealth in submarine warfare, and in space warfare modeled on submarine warfare.

In all of these situations, too, the non-stealthy operators can combat the stealth units, either with dedicated antistealth units like antisubmarine aircraft or satellites or spotters or scouts, or with tactics like sweeps of areas and skirmish lines, and artillery strikes on sniper positions, or even just good intelligence work.

Making a single system that can model all of these things seems like it would be difficult. And you might not even want to. If your characters are Army infantry, you don't need submarine warfare rules. But to get to the point where you can simplify your rules set, you need to make good campaign design choices. 

Lastly, yes, I am aware that I overthink things.

Quote from: Zelen on May 13, 2024, 09:22:41 PMMy stance is that lore is incredibly important, but anyone who cares about lore at this point should see the writing on the wall for Battletech.

It's a lot less damaging for "the lore" to accept a spin-off with renamed factions + characters that keeps the underlying themes, tone, style, than to continue on supporting a game/IP which is compromised by malicious actors whose expressed goals are to subvert that story/setting.

100% Let Catalyst and it's IP burn, make a new thing or embrace an existing one, if possible one that (while keeping the game free from IRL politics) is made by explicitly anti-woke people.

I like this! Everyone always discouraged me from playing a cleric, but it is very easy to come up with a motivation and beliefs for them. I'd like to play as a cleric who volunteers at local hospitals during her downtime one day.

Welcome, by the way.

First up, where to find games in general. The easiest way is via the major VTT (virtual tabletop) programs. The two I've used are Roll20 and Foundry. Both are in-browser apps for players, though Foundry does require you host the data or pay for server space if you want to DM. Of the two, Roll20 is the easier one for finding games on. It has a built-in search engine which lets you filter for which games you want to play, timeslot, whether they "welcome new players", etc. (https://app.roll20.net/lfg/search/). Foundry lists their "looking for group" posts on Discord (https://discord.gg/foundryvtt). You want the "Gm-Free" channel to see what games are going. Roll20 is also the easier of the two programs to use (though neither is very hard as a player), and is less hardware-intensive. There's also some other VTTs out there, including Fantasy Grounds, Owlbear Rodeo, etc, but I don't have any experience with them.

As far as finding non-woke games goes, I find it's more about looking for red flags to avoid. Like Jeff said, the easiest way is to just avoid the 5th edition of D&D entirely. Simply by virtue of being the current edition of the most popular game, D&D has the most mainstream (read: "cringe") players. As a general rule, the less popular the game is, the more serious (and usually older) the players are and concomitantly the less nonsense you have to deal with. If you've played the Pathfinder CRPGs, you pretty much already know the rules to both Pathfinder 1st edition and D&D 3.5 edition, both of which still have some games going online. When people around here mention OSR games, they're talking about a whole suite of games based on even earlier editions of D&D, which are fairly popular in the space, and tend to be associated with an actively anti-woke group of players. For an outsider it's best to think of OSR games as simplified, stripped down versions of D&D. They're extremely easy to learn, but if you're coming from newer RPGs, you might find the character options underwhelming.

All that said, 5e is still the most played game and the easiest to find people playing. If you're looking for games in that realm, it's mostly just a matter of scoping out the game a little before you ask to join. The hyper-woke usually can't resist advertising it, so if you read the game listings with a critical eye, you can often pick up hints at what kind of game it is. Obviously keywords like "safe space", "LGBTQ+ friendly" etc. are to be avoided. You can also look at the players' avatars and on Roll20 at least, read the DM's profile to see what they're about. Don't be afraid to profile; if all the posters in the player applications are asking about pronouns and triggers, it's probably a game to avoid. But also don't write people off too quickly. I've played with multiple trans players in the last few years, and not a one of them has made an issue of it. Don't give up too easily. Even in 5e world, most people just want a good game to play, and will prioritize that over making political beefs.

Anyway, good luck and welcome to the hobby. Stick around the forum here and feel free to ask questions, too. Most of the posters are crusty, highly-opinionated old grognards, but also very happy to help people out wherever they can. Everybody likes to see the hobby grow.