#Tabletop gaming

[tabletopresources]

by hongqi zhang

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

[terkmc]

Im doing it. Maybe! No promises!

[fanonical]

i'm gonna develop a ttrpg where you're not allowed to make your character's build be good. it's all dwarf wizards and elf barbarians baybee

[cal-1maf]

Finished my martian terrain today so I have a new place to photograph my dolls mini figures for big boys

[simonbreeze]

Love this mini! There is something about the pose that says, someone's going to get a good spanking with that giant doom stick the Sister is hefting.

[maximumzombiecreator]

It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.

Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.

Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.

These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.

And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.

You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.

[prokopetz]

I enjoy a good "the Adeptus Mechanicus would be indifferent to gender because they're all about transcending the flesh" headcanon as much as the next nerd, but at times I think it would be more interesting – and also much funnier – if their whole Thou Shalt Not Fuck With The Standard Templates (Unless You're Part of the Secret Cool Kids Club) attitude extended to gender as well. Any novice can be a he/him or a she/her, but you need to reach a certain rank before it's considered appropriate to go by it/its. The existence of neopronouns as occult knowledge permitted only to the worthy.

[vexwerewolf]

The thing is, D&D is not a game.

I know that sounds insane, but hear me out: D&D is not a game, it is a games console. You don't actually "play D&D." You play "Dragon Heist" or "Tomb of Annihilation" or "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" or "your GM's homebrew campaign" or "the plot of Critical Role Season 1 reconstructed from memory" on D&D.

For quite a long while now - possibly literal decades - D&D hasn't even been the best games console, but it's been "the one everyone knows about" and "the one my friends have" and in fact it's "the one whose name is almost synonymous with the entire medium of TTRPGs," like how "Nintendo" or "Playstation" could just mean "games console" to people who didn't understand games consoles. They might not have heard of a "tabletop roleplaying game," but most people have heard of "Dungeons & Dragons."

For this extended metaphor, D&D is Nintendo back in the 90s, or Playstation in the 2000s. Sometimes you say "oh let's go to my house and play Nintendo" or "c'mon dude I wanna play Playstation" but you're not actually playing Nintendo or Playstation, you're playing Resident Evil or Super Mario Bros or Jurassic Park or Metal Gear Solid or whatever on a Nintendo or a Playstation.

Now, this metaphor is going to get even more tortured, but remember how when the PS2 and the original X-Box came out, they used a standardised DVD format, but the Nintendo console in that generation, the Gamecube, used discs but they were this proprietary tiny little disc format that they had control over? That essentially meant that it was really difficult to make third party titles for the Gamecube that did literally anything that Nintendo didn't want them to do, and also essentially gave Nintendo an even greater ability to skim money off the top of any sales?

So that must've seemed like a smart business decision in their heads. But the PS2 and the X-Box used DVDs. This was a standardized format which gave Microsoft and Sony way less control over who made games for their consoles, but that actually turned out to be a good thing for gaming, because it meant that the breadth of games that you could play on their consoles was massively increased even if some of them were games Microsoft and Sony didn't really approve of. (Also it's worth nothing that the PS2 and the X-Box could just play DVDs, which meant if your household was on a budget, you didn't need a separate DVD player - your games console could do it for you! This was actually a huge selling point!)

What Wizards are currently trying to do now is kinda-sorta the equivalent of Sony suddenly announcing that the PS5 will only accept a proprietary cartridge format they hold the patent on, will control the content of and charge money for the construction of. This possibly seems like it could be a moneymaker in your head because you hold market dominance (apparently the PS5 has 30 million units shipped compared to X-Box Series X 20 million units) and so many people make games for your console, but what it actually means is game devs and publishers will abandon your product. If it takes so much more work, the scope of what they're allowed to do is so much more limited and they're going to make less money off of it, they just won't bother. They'll go make games for the X-Box or PC instead.

To use another computer metaphor, D&D is Windows - it might not be the best system but it's the system most people are familiar with and so it gets the most stuff made for it, but there's is an upper limit on the bullshit people will take before they decide fuck it and get an Apple or learn how Linux works.

TTRPG systems are a weird product because you're not selling people a game, you're selling people a method to play a game. All the actual games are created by the community - even prewritten campaigns needs to be executed via a game master. Trying to skim money off the community will mean they'll eventually give up on you.

[catgirl-kaiju]

teifling warlock whose patron is just one of their parents. like, "mom, i need to use eldritch blast, why isn't this working??"

"honey, you were supposed to clean your room a week ago. until that bedroom is clean, no magic for you. it's in the terms of our pact, remember?"

[ghostmaggie]

Hey y'all! My brother CJ just launched his new Etsy shop. His first available product is this super rad dice tower!!!

I literally can't wait for you guys to see all the cool designs and products he has up his sleeve. As CJ is the person who got me into TTRPGs, video games, and all other such fantasyesque endeavors, I can attest to his credentials in this field 😂

See the listing below and be sure to check out his shop Hidden Raven Games - more products coming soon!

Add some tavern themed flair to your fantasy role playing game table! This unique dice tower features two casks, with one of them spilling forth foam and your dice!

The tower stands over 4 inches tall and works with standard sized role playing dice. (Note that anything larger than an average 22 mm d20 might not fit)

This piece is sure to stand out at your table. Available in white, black, gray, or brown, this 3D-printed tower comes unpainted, allowing you to bring your custom design to life!

[fandomverseofanthony]

Tales of Forge & Fortune - A Cozy Fantasy Smithing TTRPG - Launches October 11th

Tales of Forge & Fortune launches on Kickstarter on October 11th, but be sure to go directly to the pre-launch page from here, so that you can follow and be notified the moment it launches! Also sign up for the mailing list to be entered for a chance to create a town NPC (backstory, tasks, and all) that will be featured in the game!

For fans of Dungeons & Dragons, Animal Crossing, Pathfinder, Fantasy Life, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley, and many other TTRPG and Cozy Games - you're going to LOVE Tales of Forge & Fortune!

Although crafting is at the heart of this game, there are still PLENTY of opportunities for roleplaying and adventure, without ever having to worry about losing your character or progress in the process. You can even interact with the people of your town, doing favors and getting to know them better, while participating in holidays and special events like Battle of the Bards or the Heart of the Forge competition.

There is plenty more to do, but here are some quick info pointers to give you a better idea of what you'll be getting into.

[tabletopresources]

by Piotr Jabłoński

Check out Tabletop Gaming Resources for more art, tips, and tools for your game!

[roguesbazaar]

Process for Sewing the Dragon Guide’s Dice Bag! A little chaotic as I was still figuring out how to handle the camera while sewing. You can find more of my work at the Rogue's Bazaar on etsy!

[fanonical]

one of my favourite things i've ever done from the tabletop game i run is one time when my players were talking to a magical shark, who claimed that sharks cannot die

two of my players immediately went "okay i'm gonna do a check on that because there's no way that can be true"

one player rolled better than the other, so i addressed the one with the lowest number first

"well, this guy is literally a talking shark, so maybe he's got some kind of information that you haven't? he's a shark, he knows more about sharks than you squishy humans, maybe he's onto something. you're willing to believe it."

and then i turned to the player with the highest roll

"no, sharks can die, you've literally seen it happen, what the fuck?"

[pandaemoniumminiatures]

Achievement unlocked 🙂

I've now painted my whole HeroQuest collection! I've owned these since I was 12 and it's been a 'labour of love' project to restore and repaint them.

For a bit more detail on the project: https://www.pandaemoniumminiatures.com/post/fully-painted-heroquest-collection