What system would you guys use for players who dont like making backstories or characters with purpose? My play group plays primarily pathfinder and WoD, and one of our players,we'll call him "Joe", never makes backstories and always thinks they are a hassle. I tried introducing my group to FATE and they all really like it except for "Joe", he doesnt like how making a backstory is required for every character, even though the backstory is actually a mechanical advantage rather then "just a story".
tl:dr - what table top system would you guys use for someone who doesn't like making backstories for ANY of their characters.
Pic somewhat related? all he ever plays are melee based characters, and just recently we convinced him to play castershe has done this for 5 years
>>48139276
He's shit
Tell him to make a goddamn backstory
>>48139276
I'd kick him from the group for being a boring cunt
>>48139384
I'd take no backstory over Mary Sue novella backstory any day. It wouldn't be an automatic kick for me.
I don't intend to read this book because I hate David Annendale and I like the Mechanicum and hate how they've been handled in the series. Can somebody give me a synopsis or the bulletpoints I'll need going into the next book?
It's safe to assume Vulkan doesn't come back and Mars doesn't [spoilers]zip out of the Sol system and hey thanks for making the Mechancum's arc in this new series a big fat waste of time[/spoilers]
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/War_of_the_Beast#Standoff_with_the_Mechanicum
Read from this part to the end of the summary
>>48134289
Thanks fella
Why the fuck was Vulkan missing in the first place? Why is the last surviving loyal primarch niggering the Imperium out of a savior?
Could I run 30k mechanicum using skitarri/cult mechanicus kits and other GW plastic?
I do not want to shell out for forgeworld resin, and I don't do chinamans.
bump. is it doable?
>>48126591
Here's the deal:
30K players, in general, have a stranger social contract than 40K players. They are much stricter about real models and proper models than 40K players are. If you deny this, you don't play both games.
Some would let you but almost all would judge you for it. Some will straight up tell you no. Take that for what it's worth.
>>48131325
LOLNO!
At both adepticon and the nova open i check out the 30k games because they look fucking badass and 3/4 of the players were openly talking about chinaman and giving out his ordering info.
Has anybody ever given you shit for not liking stereotypical nerd stuff?
>I don't think Star Wars is that great.
>[Unintelligible rage]
>>48134126
Yeah, I briefly lived with a guy who was really into memes. And he'd get really smug when I didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
For context, I had been living on another continent for the previous five years. I didn't spend those five years living on the internet like he did.
I can always guarantee a two hour shit fest out of my group by stating my opinion that the prequals were better than the original trilogy. Which is an undeniable truth.
Not really.
I can not really stand Star Trek and no one really gives me shit about it.
Have you tried meeting real human beings and not just hanging out on 4chan looking for reactions?
>You are one of three characters: Samson, a spoiled bard, Dyrus, an axe-wielding prince crowned by a successful rebellion, or Rene, an orphan adopted by a high-ranking Director of an declining Empire, now a prepromoted archer-lancer. POV will rotate between them on a thread-by-thread basis, with a HIGHLY unlikely chance that someone else might someday take a chapter.
>These protagonists' motivations and goals will very likely come into conflict with one another's.
>Character Death is always a possibility and sometimes an inevitability (this is Fire Emblem after all), but your actions can very easily influence who lives and who dies.
>Voting periods will last an average of ten to fifteen minutes, but this may be increased, decreased, or generally changed at any given moment based on voter turnout.
>Write-ins are encouraged.
>The previous threads are archived on suptg under "Silver Scales of the Past," and a pastebin summarizing each one's events will be provided at the start of the next, like so: http://pastebin.com/QP7bjcrd
>A list of all current summaries and threads: http://pastebin.com/E9sXAcBx
>Our update Twitter is qmgrandflocto, and we have an ask.fm also under ask.fm/qmgrandflocto
>Preempting any memesters in the audience tonight. /qst/ is a trial board, and I am not currently under any obligation to migrate there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiGE2j5AXFM
As a battle rages on, Rene's adoptive sister sneaks into the dungeons of Gravern Keep, looking for someone in particular. Sure, Lazare's son won't be present in the battle upcoming, but the man still deserves to be set free. He shouldn't have been swiped away in the first place!
"Who are... Oh, you're that girl from Fort Dalshin Samson spoke of, right?" The man asks, sitting in a decently-furnished cell. "That stark white hair... Yes, it's definitely you."
"I... You shouldn't be kept here," Veiz says. "The rebel armies are approaching fast... I'll get you to them safely."
"And what of my son?"
"His group was sent in the opposite direction. Fell for a diversion."
Another voice rings from behind Veiz. "You know, Veiz... Rene would be heartbroken if she knew about all this."
"C-Cicero! I, er... It's not what it looks like!"
"Save your efforts, Veiz. I've known for a long time. How do you think Kristina got her pendant back?"
"I... You what? Why are you covering for me?" Veiz asks him, shocked.
"Again, I don't know if Rene could take the truth. Not to mention, I owe a great deal to your father's kindness... But a traitor must be found eventually, or this group would never know peace. I meant to give Rene an easy answer and let you off with a warning, but it's clear she's not going to let that happen. So... Give up, face her, and swear never to do this again. Please, for both of your sakes. What you're doing is not heroic, or anything of the sort."
"I... What are you going to do if I don't?" Veiz takes a step back.
"You know for a fact I couldn't bear to lay a finger on you," the assassin says, "but I will not let the truth evade Rene."
"I..."
You, whoever you are, have no bearing on this. You're either headed towards a village with precisely none of the important people you're expecting there, or headed to that very castle as part of the battle this conversation is occurring during.
>A. Dyrus
>B. Samson
>>48134107
>B. Samson
>>48134168
"Ow..!" You fall back on your ass, Fortune standing over you and pointing a practice sword at you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BLUm3XCMmI
"What's the point of learning to fight with a sword if you're not gonna ever use it?" Fortune asks, frowning. "You're worse at this than ten-year-old me was!"
"Well... magic has always served me better!" You say, throwing up your arms. "It's just good to have something in case I REALLY need the close-range clutch!"
Adelais, Riley, Millicent, and Dinah, all practicing swordplay of their own nearby, watch as you're knocked on your behind. Doran, arms folded and leaning against a tree like some kinda hotshot, chuckles in that 'infuriating dickhead' kinda way. "Ey, if he only ever wants to be able to rely on old books to save 'is ass, he can do what he wants."
"Hey, everyone has their own sets of skills!" Millie insists, defending you.
"But what's the point of takin' up the sword in the first place if you never even use it?" Adelais asks. "I mean, you weren't even in short supply of swordswomen before I joined, between Dinah and Millicent..."
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with expanding your horizons!" Riley says. "We don't all need to be swordmasters..."
Dinah offers no comment, but her eyes show annoyance with this little diversion from training.
>A. Might be best for you to not bother
>B. Then you'll get better!
>C. You only started to learn because your mother did...
>D. No comment
>E. Write-in response
Does sexual bimaturism have a place in fantasy role-playing games?
>>48132009
What's that?
>>48132009
Since all of your sexual experiences occur within fantasy role-playing games, I say knock yourself out.
>>48132009
Nope. Anything with the word sexual in it probably doesn't belong in fantasy role-playing.
>Pansexual forest deity
Nope.
>Sexually Repressed Aristocrat
Nope.
>Bicurious Cat Girl
Certainly not.
>Two-spirited native priest
You're almost acceptable, but it's still about sex so it's not okay.
Rank them from best to worst.
Nahiri>>>>>>Tamiyo>>The rest>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Liliana
Liliana > Nahiri > Tamiyo > Sorin > Jace > Arlinn
>>48131677
Sorin > Jace > Nahiri > Arlinn > Lili > Tamio
>wisdom is a measure of common sense
>it's the prime stat of clerics
ISHYGDDT
>>48129912
It's common sense to believe in gods in a universe where they exist, anon.
>>48129912
What's the problem? Would you have them use int?
Clerics interact with beings that can and have wiped out entire civilizations in an afternoon.
The ones that lack common sense get pruned from the herd very quickly.
What does /tg/ think of Bolt Action? I love ww2 and was wondering if this was quality or if their would be a better tabletop ww2 game to get behind.
>>48128165
Yeah its pretty good
>>48128165
try /hwg/ in the catalogue
Op all you need to consider is 15mm or 28mm ww2 minis. The rule system you can always change easily. BA2 is dropping in a couple of months.
Warlord has good deals on the modern plastic kits. I am currently painting these MG42 teams made by black tree models.
Also BA as a rule set is nice and fast. If you want more detail try chain of command
>two players like low power, low fantasy, low magic, realistic, grim
>two players like high power, high fantasy, high magic, pulpy, upbeat
Is there any way to please all four players, without kludging the game into a bland paste of "compromise" that leaves nobody happy?
>>48127861
No? Seems like you've got two incompatible likes, unless there's a middle ground you can reach of tangent and convergent likes, like do they have similar preferences when it comes to scifi games?
Maybe try and find a setting and system that they all like and would agree to play regardless of previous personal preference?
When in doubt, just ask
"What would Kentaro Miura do?"
And that would be having a low power, low fantasy world go through the disasters and wonders of a higher dimension impacting upon it and ultimately melding with it.
Grim players get to go through the grim drama of their world being taken from them while dealing with the horrors of monsters that put their own mundane means into perspective, while high fantasy players get to experience the excitement of a dawning dimension of magic and excitement.
>>48128087
Two worlds colliding with each other is way, waaaaay into the high fantasy, high magic, pulpy side.
"hmmm.... mmmmmm... Oh terribly sorry, i was absorbed in thought. To be honest, i'm in a bit of a pickle. I need to stat me. And the way to do that is to post a thread. But they only seem to be posting owlbears, and that gets me nowhere... I could try talking some sense into them.... Hrmmm.... Mmmm..."
>>48127616
>+999 Jolly Cooperation
>Best Onionbro
>Second-best Sunbro
>+fuckloads on damage rolls vs Giants
>>48127616
+20 to Toast
+30 to Napping (Only thing to do, really, after a good toast)
>>48127742
>bro
Not after that "greedy guts" shit he ain't.
Help me /tg/ you're my only hope.
> Be GMing a shadowrun campaign
> Plan on introducing them slowly to the system, set up some milk runs.
> It's going well, the players have a blast
> Next run, assassinate some Aztech man in suit
Here is where I fuck things up for myself.
> Mistype the reward, so now it is three million for a poorly guarded, low level schmuck.
> Before I can retract and correct, players start getting hyped.
> Player 1: “Okay so this is obviously a trap. I say we spring it and see who wants us dead.”
> Other players get on the hype train, no brakes allowed.
> Fuck, fuck, ehhh, roll with it!
> Me, as Johnson: “Well spotted, glad to work with intelligent people for once.”
> HavenoideawhatI’mdoing.jpg
> After a brief bit of RP back at base, session ends, players are still happy about the development, say they look forward to whatever web of intrigue I’ve cooked up.
> There is no web.
WTF do I do? It’s just a low ranked IT suit who hacked too greedily and too deep. I did not plan on turning this into a plot hook. The only notorious thing the party did before this was burn down a strip club that didn’t pay it’s protection money. My main plot was going to be a slaving ring that the PC’s would run afoul of. I asked them about their characters beforehand and all of them happened to have an IC reason to despise slavers, so I based my plot on that, if that helps.
>>48127592
Worse comes to, you can have it be a trap not made specifically for them, more of a set an open trap to clear out any criminals unlucky enough to stumble on to it.
Or the trap could be a 'forced recruitment' which would be, hey, slavery. Now they have to break out of it or take it down from the inside.
Not great ideas but at least workable.
>>48127592
>say nothing
But isn't that how you get kidnapped by big guys?
>>48127592
Might not be a trap. You say he dug too deep, some secrets are worth that much to keep hidden. Of course, any team sent to rub him out might know too much too...
Today I went to my first session of D&D. It's a freind's birthday and they were interseted in it, so they gathered a party while I sourced PDFs as the sole friend aqquinted with /tg/shit. As someone who's been lurking on /tg/ for a while now I was pretty excited for it. I'll storytime if there's enough interest.
Also, general first /tg/ experience story thread.
>>48126392
Of course we want storytime.
As for my first time playing DnD.
>Playing AD&D, I forget which incarnation, but something old as fuck.
>Rolling up my first ever character, a fighter
>Oh, shit, he only has 2 hp.
>Anyway, we hear about the legendary sword of whatever, and we go down to the dungeon to see if we can find it.
>Climb down the ravine
>Oh, hey, there's a door.
>It's not even locked, it's just stuck from the humidity
>Well, I've got a 17 strength, so force it open.
>That works, yay
>But I have a low dex, and I lose my balance as I shoulder the door open.
>And fall down some more stairs
>And take 1d4 damage from the tumble
>Roll a 3, dead.
We got a backup "totally not his clone" character soon after, and we switched to a houserule that at first level, you roll twice and take your better HP total. And toned down some of the more gratuitious ways to get hurt. It's nice that adventurers are no longer made out of paper mache the way things were back in the day.
>>48126392
>5e just came out
>friend talk me into playing
>use a pre-rolled fighter
>charged with escorting relief supplies to a suffering town
>get ambushed by goblins with crossbows
>try to use a dead horse carcass to make a meat shield
>take 2 arrows before success
>take two daggers to the face
>our dwarf cleric ends up butchering them and taking a prisoner
>violent interrogation ensues
>track goblins back to hideout
>accidentally break a dam to an underground river and flood the lower sections of the cave
>use this to drown some goblins with grapple successes
>impale a goblin with a flaming javelin
>somehow pass a stealth check wearing heavy armor
>rogue nat20 one-shots the boss on his first non critical fail of the game.
>end up drowning the guard detail in the flooded section of the cave
>negotiate a release of a prisoner by instituting a new goblin regime by naming an ambitious but impish goblin the new king
>leave the cave
>realize that we forgot to loot anything in the cave
>face palm
This will probably go into too much detail, so bear with me
>We're playing D&D 4e, homebrewed a little for simplicity
>Only 1 proper character sheet, so we improvise on blank paper for time being
>Party makeup:
>Dragonborn fighter with a sense of adventure
>Halfling rogue with an obsession with thievery
>Elf ranger with little presence outside of combat
>Human cleric (me) with an unofficial leading role
>Campaign starts in tavern
>Nobody knows each other, but the ranger is waiting for someone
>No money or equipment, but rogue is busy pickpocketing everyone
>He tries and fails sneak up to cloaked plot hook in corner
>while playing it off he asks if he can help him
>The cloaked figure drops a note reading "Find beauty. G=100."
>There is a small map on the back
>The fighter notices and offers to accompany him as it seems like an adventure
>I do so at the same time as he might come into danger
>The ranger realises her contact is a no show and decides to tag along
>The party has formed
>The rogue gives us an allowance from what he stole
>He tries to loan us it, but I argue that it's an investment in our aid
>We see the man left leaving hs mosty drained cup
>The rogue looks at it but rules that a cup that small would contain something too strong for him
>The fighter chugs it and is left shitfaced
>We first visit the town smithy and de facto armoury
>We buy some weapons
>The fighter tries to intimidate the dwarf at the counter while buying a mace
>Fails, and is scared off himself
>While I try to buy a quarterstaff the rogue steals the fighter a buckler
>We visit a shop with a mystical sign
>The elf inside is the town sage
>We show her the note, and she shows us the illusrated area on a proper map
>She loans it, and we leave
>We buy torches at the store then leave
Cont.
What's a better method against HP bloat: Increase the damage or reduce the HP?
>>48126369
Whatever 5e did that fixed it.
There we go.
While it all boils down to balance increasing damage will generally make lower tier enemies inconsequentially easy, while reducing HP will tend to make that a little bit more manageable.
So in that manner it all comes down to what kind of experience you want to provide: do you want strong characters to mow down weak enemies more constantly or do you want them to have to get a feel and prepare for every and any encounter?
Remove HP altogether, use wounds or other shit like that. Emphasise ability to avoid getting hit over ability to take hits
How does magic work?
However the author says it does.
However you want it to
>>48126215
Cut your dick off, join the tower of High Sorcery, and find out you scrub