RPG tips, tricks, advice, discussion, reviews and live plays. White wolf, D&D, Pathfinder, Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, AD&D, and Within the Ring of Fire.
I think immersion can come in a variety of different flavors. People talk about premade adventures being non-immersive or miniatures being non-immersive or what have you. The truth is that the maps can increase or decrease immersion in the hands of a strong GM. I've run some amazing games on roll20 that made use of battlemaps. You do lose something -- the ability to really see people's faces, to stare intensely at them in character, and so on. But you gain a better grasp of the positioning, the precise location of the obstacles and so on. You also run into very real problems when you rely on your maps and tokens to tell the story. Describe the world, draw your players in, get in character when you're playing NPC's. The maps and tokens should be a small part of a dnd experience (if you use them.) I'll be running a game in person a few weeks from now, and its been a long while. My players are all accustomed to 5e, and I've been seriously considering foregoing the chessex mat and plastic minis. Back in my day, we played with graph paper and dry erase boards. But it may be useful to sketch out an encounter here or there. I definitely have no tolerance for goofy hijinks that break character, though. And min-maxing always gets on my nerves. Much of the 5e community is just awful, and I hate it. But the game scratches a nostalgic itch, and it's simpler in many respects than 3.5 It's certainly simpler than AD&D or 1st edition. Definitely don't want to go back to using THAC0 charts or playing a character whose class is elf. I do agree that too much bullshittery can ruin a game.
The standard of no standard resonates big time. Over the years I've found my games improving tenfold by simply telling some people "please don't come back" when I see they bring nothing of value to my table. If the group is going to take time off work, using their precious free time to play at our table. You bet your ass we're all gonna bring it in and tell the coolest story we can, and anyone who doesn't want to partake in that can find a new table.
This show was funny. Fear Of Girls was hilarious. Your show was good enough for TV. And professionally produced. As good as the Always Sunny pilots, The WKUK. Thank your the memories
I run my games with a slightly modified Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy system. I run my games the way I want to run them, I allow players into my group AFTER we both have a sit down in Discord or in Person and I get a feel of what they are about. I do not allow any of the left wing BS into my games.
"Her name was Lilith, and she was the first feminist" was pretty cringe line from Clanbook Gangrel. It is kinda pointless too, since sex is not very important thing for vampires in the first place, at least that is how I have understood it. So it felt out of place. Also all of these modern "nism"s feel so forced when used to describe mythical beings.
I like to use Rick Flair as an overly enthusiastic and positive head of a Sun God Temple. I show the image of a younger Flair in the gold robes ( which was my inspiration ). I'll also add that I use a lot of iconic celebrities as the personality of NPCs ( without telling the players ) because of exaggerated personalities and because they're easy for me to remember and keep notes on. This is my number 1 hack for playing NPCs.
It's not you. RU-vid is stupid. I had comments posted on wrong videos. Also the Hulkmeister is a probably being censored after the RNC support of trump by RU-vid.
It’s crazy how your video is still relevant today. I’ve been playing since 2019 and am now finding OSR games to be more appealing than the 2014 Core Rules and the upcoming 2024 Core Rules. I would be really curious to see a comparison of D&D Next and One D&D Playtest materials!
Depending on the game and setting, I've used some heavy metal, bands that do movie and movie trailers score like Arcana, Sephiroth and Two Steps From Hell. Also the music from The Elder Scrolls game and Dark souls. For some fantasy ambiance and background music I like Bardify the RU-vid channel
The way you’re describing the history of this setting reminds me of a divergent variation of Delta Green. Their 90s sourcebook covered the Migo interaction with humanity under the guise of a false pretense of grey aliens. I’m trying to find an affordable Unisystem version of these two books.
Nice ideas, it's hard to go wrong with classic rock. Been doing some 80's-esque darksynth and Phonk for a Sci-fi setting. Music/soundscapes are a must IMO.
For you, and the entire Barbarian Horde, I suggest the soundtrack to "Warhammer 40,000 Darktide". This gothic/industrial mix is perfect for Vampire, Ravenloft, WtRoF, and of course 40k. Check out "Immortal Imperium" for a theme song for a temple of Oliss and "Disposal Unit (Imperium Mix)" for battle music when The Enforcers get that ass.
Years ago I was running a Big West marchs game and roughly half of my players where role players and half of them where munchkins. There was a Dungeon that had a lot of Lore and History and changes to RP but also a lot of gold and combat. In this Dungeon there where many times when munchkins would sit board as the role players roll played. And After the session the biggist Munchkin of them all said to me. "Me and These other players Do not care one bit about the Lore or story at all, we only care for combat and loot, I think you could split this game in half, and run sessions full or RP for the role players and sessions full of just combat for us" And so I did split the players in half, And I did run sessions just for the role players, But not the Munchkins, I said good by to all them. I realized that they where a waste of time.
There was a time many years ago, when MY Main man was the only RPG youtuber I knew. And then for a long time he stopped making videos, And I came to watch new RPG youtubers like the Dungeon Dudes and XP to LV 3. AND I LOVE those guys BUT they have always had a softness for the power gamer and so many other none Immersive players, they would say things like "every player at your table might each have there own wants but as long as they have fun thats all that matters" and they might put forth the idea that you can playcate these enemies of immersion so that they may get along with the role players. And I am not such much a fan of that idea.
I think that people who say don't allow slavery to exist in there world because slavery is wrong are both hurting there own creavity AND not spreading there message. I think slavery is very wrong and so when it shows up in my games I try to make it as realstic as I can. I am not trying to make the players see how horricing slavery is, But by simpley showing it they will see that its evil. Same thing goes for sexism or what other idea you belive is wrong or right. Just show the thing as being a realstic part of the setting and the message will get acorss with out you ever trying to send a message in the first place.
@@woodwwad 100% agree. I will say that offten tho sexism is offten seen in most games and books as being on a scale from -10-10 with -10 being the most anti man pro woman, 0 being not sexist at all and 10 being anti woman pro man. but it almost always carries the same tropes of sexism we see in our western world. What about a sexism that is not the same as our own. Maybe one where Men are expected to cook because cooking is seen as manly and girls are meant to drive because riding animals and drving carts deals with animals and handling animals is seen as a womanly thing.
The first time I ever ran WITH IN THE RING OF FIRRREEEE (available now on DriveThruRPG) Year YEARS ago when it first came out, I was running for 2 friends who had never played any RPG before. One of them was an Ogre and they were super evil. So I kept trying to make the bad guys even more evil, But he kept siding with them and out eviling them. At some point toward the end he had stuck his hand 'inside' a villager and then cast some fire ball like spell in them. At that point I had realized things may have gone to far.
Lets Say one GM belives that giving the poor money is good and helpful to the poor, And another GM thinks that giving the poor money isn't good or helpful at all. IF the players give a lot of poor people a lot of money. IF the GM rules that this action helps the poor folk or not based on what they belive would happen 'realsticly' (do to there own poltics) then is that injecting poltltics?
I think that it can be harder than one thinks to not put some kind of poltical idea in there. For example if you think that greed, wealth and power lead to evil then its likely that the wealthy and those who chase wealth in your game will be evil. Or at least tend toward evil. If you think that racism is bad/wrong then while you might not place an orvert message of this in your game, But you are likely to make it a fact in your world that if the players seek truth to see if all drow are evil or not, the fact will likely be that they are not.
Nice haul of books there! I recently have picked up Crown & Skull by Runehammer games, Dragonbane hardcover core book and Dragonbane Bestiary by Free League.
@@woodwwad I love Gothic classic horror in the vein of the Hammer Horror movies and influenced a bit by the Van Helsing movie (Hugh Jackman). I have about all the Rippers stuff. Rippertech is interesting as well.
Rippers is great, but I have the older books. I should get those newer ones and update. Is Steve's western horror game Deadlands or more of his own thing? I like Deadlands but I ALWAYS pull back on the horror and steampunk to make it more realistic, but still keep the weirdness around the edges.
No, it is his own thing. I think you know Steve from around internet games. I think he is running like 1885. So normal world with a touch of the supernatural.
The “Red Dragon” is actually the nickname we have to Todd Pettingill back in High School. He was a great freestyle-rapper and had a cherry red mustang, hence the name.
Are you trying to do a dusty impression during the intro? It’s pretty good. I heard Todd Pettingill has a knock-your-socks-off Dusty impression though….
My main man Todd Pettingill told me that he ganked your swag back in the 90’s and you didn’t even do anything about it. No wonder you hate him so much.
Completely agree with your cover art comments. I look at the Horror Companion and see the repeated art and I get it confused with the SWADE Core book.... Also, They change the name of the GM in Savage Worlds depending on the setting... Dean for East Texas University for example...
I have seen them call the GM the Dean in East Texas (though that game really didn't present anything that interested me enough to pick it up). That begin said, I would certainly have come up with a general name for the GM for all their systems. It adds more feel to the game.
