#role-playing game mechanics

[legionofmyth]

Palladium Books: Are dated gameplay mechanics holding these games back?

Are Palladium Books' game mechanics stuck in the past? ⏳ In this video, we explore the debate on whether these classic RPG rules need a modern update. Join the conversation and see if it's time for Palladium Books to evolve with the times. Click to watch and weigh in! #PalladiumBooks #RPGDebate #TabletopRPG #TTRPG #RPGCommunity

Beyond the Supernatural 2E – PDF Dead Reign – [PDF]Palladium Fantasy RPG (2e) – [PDF] This video examines the game mechanics in Palladium Books that players argue are dated and in need of modernization. Ready to explore whether it’s time for Palladium Books to evolve? Dive in and watch the video! Palladium Books has been a staple in the tabletop RPG community for decades, but as the gaming world…

[ruporas]

trigunned the hades or hadesed the trigun (id in alt)

[i-am-rano]

I believe this might have been already said by someone at some point, but I feel like what I have to say is tangentially related to the recent trends in online ttrpg spaces and so I'm going to say it anyway.

When writing a TTRPG YOU CAN EXPLAIN WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CERTAIN MECHANIC. It's legal. You won't go to jail for that. It's so helpful. Please do it.

I'm running early beta tests of my own ttrpg and all of my testers find it so surprisingly useful. The fact that the little explanation next to your rule has a little "this is to facilitate X amongst the players" or something like that at the end is of great help to the players and of even greater help to the GM, and I can't stress this enough.

[dykedvonte]

A crazy thing about Mouthwashing is that Pony Express lost communication with one of its freighters for months and didn’t send anyone to check.

A genuinely reputable company, or at the very least a decent one, would have sent someone, something out to check after about two weeks of silence. Two months is when the crew start questioning if they are even being looked for which implies they were already expecting it to take a while cause P.E just doesn’t care.

They don’t care about who they hire. They don’t care about the conditions they place their crew in or how safe the safety measures actually are. They just don’t care, made rules and regulations so they can care less and succeed in getting away with it with how little those ideas are discussed.

[sastrugie]

hey guys just letting you know that If you are also the "casual" pokemon fan like me (esp PLA (and gen 4 in general), ORAS and XY) please talk to me I´d love to have some more pkmn friends :)

[cyanomys]

Hey TTRPG Nerds

I’m back on my bullshit again. What are some indie games with unique systems that aren’t D&D, PBTA/FitD, or Fate-based?

How do they use unique mechanics to accomplish cool stuff?

Story games, OSR, you name it — all welcome!

[cosmocove]

some bobbles (+ two unfinished things)

[whetstonefires]

Fanfic meme: questions 1 & 11, for a fic of your choice.

Oh no vikings, it's so much harder when I have to pick which one! 😭 What if I praise myself for a fic nobody likes or something?

I'll roll dice. I will...okay online rng rolled a 165 sided 'die' and came up 69. Which is not at all a sexy fic I regret(?) to tell you. 69 fics back is and amber is ageless, the Earth-3 Ultraman pov fic where he adopts a kitten.

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

Hah! Well, for one thing, my actual kitten that I found in a bush. Provided me with a lot of detailed inspiration about the minutiae of taking in and settling down a diseased little feline who'd been through the wringer, made that part basically effortless. I'd already decided Ultraman kept a cat in the Fortress, because he is so isolated and despite it all he's a version of Clark Kent and doesn't like too much alone, but drawing on recent personal experience made that part fun and easy to write.

The other 'this way' is 'from Kal's pov with only a dim self-awareness wrt how much he sucks' and that's harder to pin down. Lotta factors.

It's the second Ultraman pov fic I did, but the first one was only a little for the sake of his perspective and mostly to get outside pov on a Jokester & Alex Luthor interaction and showcase the hammer I'd lifted from the Countdown to Final Crisis earth-3 Jokester design. And I'd done his backstory as Lois breaking down her research for Alex. Because this setting is deliberately structured to focus on its own heroes, since canon mirrorverses get hung up on the evil version of their protagonists.

So part of it was I wanted a place to really dig into what makes him tick. The way Ultraman is a product of his upbringing in the opposite direction from Superman, but also the alignment flip I gave the world left him predisposed to dickishness in a way Superman is predisposed toward being considerate. Superman is always choosing to be good, largely as a result of the person the Kents raised him to be and the bedrock emotional security associated with that self-identity.

Ultraman is the opposite and I wanted to really get on the page how much insecurity in all senses plays into that.

Because I'd done Owlman and he is extremely uh. Strange person. Weird priorities. Possibly compelled by a variety of monomanias he believes to be purely rational. Sincerely convinced of his own supremacy, although also just vulnerable enough to doubt on this subject that his need to validate his own ego is still an exploitable weakness, in the way of supervillains.

(Superwoman can be baited this way only by the prospect of losing a head-to-head physical fight, but is much more easily distracted than Owlman because she cares about enjoying herself more than increasing or showing off her naturally enormous power.)

And the thing with Kal is that he's not. Not really strange. Does not really qualify for any kind of personality disorder. Psychologically he's mostly a pretty standard product of trauma and bad life decisions, the kind of guy who resents everything because he's so unhappy but can't conceive of a way to change his life to make him happier beyond hollow external models of 'success' like getting the girl. Who just so happens to have godlike power.

Of course it's not just so happens, because he was tough and strong from early childhood and accidentally killed his parents in a fairly normal grade-school tantrum, ruining his own life.

Which like. Definitely inspired by the old superbaby comics where Jonathan Kent is constantly stressing about the baby giving away his secret identity and it's like. Your life is in danger this toddler does not know how to not kill you.

Anyway he came up through the Kansas foster system having a bad time, and not having a much worse one only because of powers he kind of hated and felt freakish for because again he accidentally killed his own parents and only got away with it because no one knew he had super strength so lying about a 'big monster' smooshing his parents with the dining room table was more plausible. A huge part of his personality is based around the inadequate coping mechanisms he developed to cope with this formative trauma.

The idea that he was a Superior Existence (who was alone in the universe for reasons that were not his fault) was delivered to him when he went back to the old farmhouse, recovered the Jor-el materials, found out he was an alien, and set up the Fortress, and for him supervillainy is very much compensating for his underlying lack of self-worth and repressed guilt and vague sense of dysphoria, because when you feel like A Very Normal Guy who is also A Freak that's what happens. I think finding out he was an alien helped a lot with hating his own body, his body which was also himself and his chief asset considering he's an orphan who got a shit education.

Kal is both the one of the Big Three villains in this setting who is the most normal and whose behavior can be most accurately attributed to 'mental illness' as such, which I think is a neat dichotomy.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

I think I might have already covered this, whoops! Lmao it's definitely the effect I got where Kal is Just Some Guy who like, feels entitled to the girl he likes and thinks shitty misogynistic things when resenting other people's happiness. And whose gruesome fantasies of violence in reaction to minor inconveniences hit the beats of the average person's sense of aggravation but are backed by the fact that he really could put his hand through someone's face on a whim and has been known to do so.

But who also just. Is capable of being charmed by the attitude of a stray cat and wearing a leather glove to protect it from his skin when it keeps biting.

I think the technical element I'm most satisfied with is how I linked his reaction to Matchbox's defiance with his complicated Thing for Lois. I feel like I built up to it and showed it happening in a natural way, rather than just being like 'the kitten reminded him of Lois Lane.'

[hybbat]

Not fond of how dependant on wikis a lot of indie games are these days. Maybe this is a hot take but I think your game should be playable without looking up external resources, and I don't like having a wiki for whatever game I'm playing up all the times just to casually play it because the game couldn't be bothered.

[dotcomgirrrl]

I watched that video about the hate dw gets and if its justified and i largely agree w it but then one person critiquing it said they hated glisten so thats how i knew their opinion was warped

[daisukitoo]

Hit points are a measure of plot armor. This is sometimes also thought of as luck, divine favor, or the mandate of the heavens.

Characters' other stats represent plausible methods of survival and shrugging off danger. A character who is nimble and perceptive might avoid attacks. A character who is heavily armored or defensively trained might deflect attacks. Depending on your setting, characters might have force fields, magical protection, or other excuses for why nothing hurts them. These are all reasons to suspend disbelief in characters' survival amidst the killing fields of adventures.

Hit points go beyond that. Hit points are just how much the gods/writers are willing to stretch credulity to make sure the main character(s) of the story survive(s). A shield can plausibly block an arrow; a shield only does so much when an entire army looses arrows in your direction.

An arrow does 1d6 damage not necessarily because it hurts that much but because each arrow that should have killed a character strains reality/suspension of disbelief a bit more. Putting a foot of wood in a character's chest will plant them on the ground, so that arrow needs to miss, get deflected, etc. You can only do that so often before your story is ridiculous. This is why more attacks work to deplete hit points, as do attacks from stronger or more skilled foes. It is more plausible that a random bandit misses than a sharpshooter, so the bandit does less hit point damage for the same attack. It is less plausible to survive a dragon attack than a bear attack, so dragons deal more hit point damage than bears, who in turn deal more hit point damage than dogs.

Lower level characters have fewer hit points. The audience is less invested in them. Most stories lose a few characters in the first book, season, etc. Characters who last multiple story arcs start to get more "how is he going to get out of this one?" than "how could he possibly have survived that?"

This can also be a difference in setting and system. Original D&D gave characters relatively few hit points. A low-level wizard could be killed by a single arrow or a particularly lucky cat. These characters did not have main character energy. They were not action heroes. Original D&D was more of a low fantasy, "anyone can die" setting.

Front line characters have more hit points. Intelligent characters like wizards are expected to have planned ahead and instituted countermeasures for attacks. If the genius needs luck to survive, what kind of a genius is she? If Conan gets to the sorcerer, the sorcerer dies. Meanwhile, Conan is shrugging off swords and arrows right and left, with excuses like "he's nimble" and "he's tough." The beefy warrior gets more suspension of disbelief like that, beyond the fact that he needs it. Melee fighters who do not have that kind of plot armor just die after a few swords or arrows come at them, like how most real humans react to the Julius Caesar treatment.

Eventually hit points run out. We believe Boromir is a powerful warrior, but that was a lot of orcs and arrows. You really get to "no one could have survived that." The gods/writers have had enough of putting up with your nonsense. 0 hit points, game over.

[legionofmyth]

Palladium Books: Are Palladium’s rules cumbersome and how do you fix them?

Is your game getting bogged down by complex rules? 🧩 In our latest video, we dive into the Palladium Books mechanics that many players find overly cumbersome. Discover why these rules might be slowing down your gameplay and how to navigate them effectively. Don't miss out on this essential discussion! #PalladiumBooks #TabletopRPG #RPGMechanics #TTRPG #RPGCommunity

After the Bomb Heroes Unlimited 2E Rifts Ultimate Edition This video dives into the rules and mechanics of Palladium Books that many players find overly cumbersome and challenging to navigate. Are you ready to unravel the complexities and discover why some of these rules are slowing down your game? Watch now! In the vast world of tabletop RPGs, Palladium Books has always been known for its…

[fogaminghub]

🚀 Are you excited to jump into FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH? We've got some essential tips for beginners that'll help you navigate battles like a pro! 🌍 From mastering the ATB system to uncovering hidden treasures, get prepped for an epic adventure!

[thecubspeaks]

penultimate chapter, and i've answered the people's cries. i know what you've all been wanting: a scene with withers.

[wardensantoineandevka]

I really should make one of those "it's been 0 days" memes for "it's been 0 days since people treated the characters as real people", but that would definitely be bad for the fandom environment, so I'm reduced to thinking to myself "it's been 0 days since—" constantly

[sunrithyll]

Role playing in RPGs

If you want to level up in Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, you have to sleep in a bed. I really liked this mechanic. It forces you to interact with the world in more "normal" ways, like a real person would.

I understand the desire to streamline games and get rid of inconvenient features, but I feel like something important gets lost along the way.

I have started to force myself to role play more in RPGs. If there is a way to sleep in a bed I try to do that regularly. The amount depends on how fast days pass in the game world of course. I eat and drink. I also try to deactivate mini-maps and quest markers as often as possible and try to find quest objective on my own.

It doesn't work with every game of course but it works more often than I expected. It slows my progression down a lot, but I feel like I actually experience the game worlds now. If I think back to games I have played that way, I now remember landscapes, cities and streets, and how they are connected, instead of the design of the mini-map and a few cutscenes