Tabletop gaming guilty pleasures: what are yours?

[tussock]

I enjoy turning Pathfinder APs into sandbox clue webs. Not to run, just, you know, hacking at them until they make sense as a sandbox.

I wouldn't call that a guilty pleasure, but more of a magical community service. How do you do that? Do you have conversion notes somewhere that people can read?

Nah, it's just what I do to get through reading them, there's bound to be notes on the desk somewhere, or in some poorly named spreadsheet somewhere. Eh, pick one, I'll do a thread, it's pretty easy, they're all fairly well compartmentalised to start with.

[Laertes]

Another thing that has to go on this list, thinking about it: Random chargen. As a player, I love me some random chargen. I adore looking at a character and trying to work out what he would be good at, rather than finding a thing that I want to be good at and then building a character who can do it. As a GM I loathe it, but as a player it is completely my drug of choice. In Dark Heresy I don't have to pick a single thing about my character. Even his name and eye colour can be randomly generated. Fuck yes.

On that, another related guilty pleasure is short-termism when it comes to character advancement. I understand that I need to plan ahead properly, which is why it brings me so much nihilistic glee to throw that planning to the wind and just take those things which are useful now rather than the ones which will be a structured part of my character's future.

[Schleiermacher]

Eh, pick one, I'll do a thread, it's pretty easy, they're all fairly well compartmentalised to start with.

Savage Tide?

[Josh_Kablack]

My other guilty pleasure is 4E. I really do feel like there is not another rpg that is even close to how much fun it is to push the miniatures around with as that game.

You really gotta try the recent Gamma World edition that used the basic 4e mechanics.

Coincidentally, I would rate that edition of Gamma World as a guilty pleasure, despite only playing like 2 sessions of it before real life dispersed the group.

[8d8]

I still like 4e for super simplistic beer & pretzel games. It's terrible for long-term campaigns, but it seems like it was built for tournament play and it works well enough for that that I like it.

Star Wars. It's dumb, it really is. But it is one of my favorite settings for an RPG. Probably because explaining the setting goes like this, "Two words: Star Wars."

[OgreBattle]

I still like 4e for super simplistic beer & pretzel games. It's terrible for long-term campaigns, but it seems like it was built for tournament play and it works well enough for that that I like it.

Has anyone run a 4e tournament before?

[fectin]

I still like 4e for super simplistic beer & pretzel games. It's terrible for long-term campaigns, but it seems like it was built for tournament play and it works well enough for that that I like it.

Star Wars. It's dumb, it really is. But it is one of my favorite settings for an RPG. Probably because explaining the setting goes like this, "Two words: Star Wars."

Preferred system, or do you just like the setting?

[Koumei]

Pretty sure conventions have. The main Australian one used to do a big 2-session D&D game where the team that does the best job wins a trophy and gets to design and run the big one next year. It started in the days of AD&D2E, it continued through the life of 3E, and I'm sure it went on into 4E. You know, before 4E basically killed all interest people had in D&D and created enough of a power void for things like Dark Heresy to step up.

[mlangsdorf]

I enjoy turning Pathfinder APs into sandbox clue webs. Not to run, just, you know, hacking at them until they make sense as a sandbox.

I wouldn't call that a guilty pleasure, but more of a magical community service. How do you do that? Do you have conversion notes somewhere that people can read?

Nah, it's just what I do to get through reading them, there's bound to be notes on the desk somewhere, or in some poorly named spreadsheet somewhere. Eh, pick one, I'll do a thread, it's pretty easy, they're all fairly well compartmentalised to start with.

Rise of the Runelords, as their archetypical AP, or Savage Tide, though it's a surprisingly flexible railroad through the 2nd pirate attack on the Isle of Dread.

[Neurosis]

Look, if the Den winds up doing a RIFTS game, please don't let me NOT be playing in that shit.

[Deathfork]

I'm currently playing in a long running game of Cthulhu-tech. It's being run by a good GM with a fuck-ton of patching and fixes.
We started as OIS agents, uncovered the Shadow war, defected to the Eldritch Society, and are now Tagers. Currently sitting at 460 XP with an average of about 15/session.
We just started a set of Engel characters on the other side of the world in China, that will eventually tie back into our starting characters.

It's fun. Sue me.

[radthemad4]

I wouldn't call that a guilty pleasure, but more of a magical community service. How do you do that? Do you have conversion notes somewhere that people can read?

Nah, it's just what I do to get through reading them, there's bound to be notes on the desk somewhere, or in some poorly named spreadsheet somewhere. Eh, pick one, I'll do a thread, it's pretty easy, they're all fairly well compartmentalised to start with.

Rise of the Runelords, as their archetypical AP, or Savage Tide, though it's a surprisingly flexible railroad through the 2nd pirate attack on the Isle of Dread.

Are you still planning on doing this?

[OgreBattle]

I write 40k fandexes for fun, like a new 7e Dark Eldar codex because the current one was so underwhelming.

RIFTS, yeah would love to play it on tgd

[Seerow]

I enjoy playing Dumb Melee Fighters. Not even just stuff like Casters that can melee or ToB style characters. But I'll occasionally roll up a straight 3.5 barbarian or fighter just to spend a few sessions beating on stuff mindlessly.

[Mask_De_H]

I actually enjoyed playing Bear World and Bear World: Retroclone edition.

[mean_liar]

I haven't played Dungeonworld yet, but Apocalypse World was decent. For me its biggest advantage was convincing players that they can and should take an active role in the narrative and world-shaping, and not just be reactive consumers of the GM's pronouncements.

[deathdealingjawa]

Another vote for Exalted.
That moment when the DM stated "No one passes through that side of the dessert anymore due boarder conflict between your laser shooting t-rex minions and Deathlords the undead army" forever burned the game into my soul.

[Josh_Kablack]

Look, if the Den winds up doing a RIFTS game, please don't let me NOT be playing in that shit.

Sadly there is no way I would be able to join, but someone (else) needs to make this happen.

[silva]

Shadowrun. Even with all the faults from its system, I can't stop playing it because its setting is soooo amazing.

I actually enjoyed playing Bear World and Bear World: Retroclone edition.

I haven't played Dungeonworld yet, but Apocalypse World was decent.

[Dogbert]

5E is my current guilty pleasure.

Granted, I hacked it by adapting 3.X' flaws so players could start the game with a number of feats, plus I added additional uses for Inspiration a-la FATE and M&M. Also, given how we have no rules for treasure yet, we decided to remove gold from the equation by playing high-class characters where gold is not an issue and we rather play on the economy of favors. It's a couple of single-player games I play with a friend taking turns at the wheel. The game where he is the player, also, is more combat-oriented than mine, so I also gave him magic weapon and armor plus a False Life-like item that increases his character's max HP by a cumulative 10 every 2 levels (because 5E, all about the HPs).

By this, I'm saying I'm basically not playing 5E, and obviously I wouldn't touch the turd of a system with a 10ft. pole on any gaming table other than mine because it would be a completely different thing (which probably wouldn't be 5E either but I'd hate it probably even more).

...which, according to Mearls, means I'm technically playing the turd as intended.

[Koumei]

OgreBattle: I used to do the same. Actually, I think almost everyone who plays/played 40k did that to some extent. Although it's kind of reached the stage where it's a better idea to change the core game itself. And the company behind it. And the playerbase...

Look, if the Den winds up doing a RIFTS game, please don't let me NOT be playing in that shit.

Sadly there is no way I would be able to join, but someone (else) needs to make this happen.

Just remember that Rifts games have a tendency to die not with a disappointing sizzle, but with an explosion of the party turning on itself. But the ones that don't will still fall apart pretty early.

[silva]

For me [Apocalypse World] biggest advantage was convincing players that they can and should take an active role in the narrative and world-shaping, and not just be reactive consumers of the GM's pronouncements.

...and it achieves it through actual mechanics, not just advice. THAT is the real neat thing IMO.

[zugschef]

By this, I'm saying I'm basically not playing 5E, and obviously I wouldn't touch the turd of a system with a 10ft. pole on any gaming table other than mine because it would be a completely different thing (which probably wouldn't be 5E either but I'd hate it probably even more).

...which, according to Mearls, means I'm technically playing the turd as intended.

That is Mearls's excuse for everything. Mearls is basically says there is no problem because rule zero. Mearls is really falling for the Oberoni Fallacy or rather using the Oberoni Fallacy as an explanation.

[mean_liar]

Some extra Feats and HP make the game not 5e? That's all it takes?

[tussock]

Rise of the Runelords, as their archetypical AP, or Savage Tide, though it's a surprisingly flexible railroad through the 2nd pirate attack on the Isle of Dread.

Are you still planning on doing this?

Took a bunch of notes, started something else, started something else, got hooked on a fucking facebook game (time-limit quests, eh, that shit should be in your D&D), worked up spreadsheets for optimising time spent on said facebook game, realised how insane that is, got into the 3.0 review. Where I'm on the equipment chapter, which, like, pfft.


Yeh. Savage Tide is incredibly linear within the modules and most are only loosely connected to the others. Like, obviously the family you start with should be pirates (noble privateers, perhaps), and you're in a pirate mob-war situation starting on the prirate island off the coast of the Isle of Dread. That still lets you pick sides and do all the buried-treasure-hunting shit at the start. You can be pirates, or undercover agents of the crown, a scarlet pimpernel, a slave crew, a local ambassador, a mercenary, a cultist, a mutant. Heaps of options.

The whole devil-worshipping thing needs to be introduced much earlier, the village cult needs tied into one of the pirate families. The keystone monsters in the series need referenced earlier too, a Skum brood seen dealing with surface folk and slipping away, an Ettin working for a "family business".

Once you're settled on the main island though (there's plenty of plot lines to follow, once you establish yourselves as head of the pirates, at the least sorting out the black pearl issues and dealing to the cult) it's mostly a matter of setting up foreboding about level-appropriateness around the added clues, as some of the set pieces are deadly enough if found at the right time.

As I recall from a quick check, later on there's a bunch of talky stuff with demon lords which you could obviously do much earlier as you don't fight much of anything anyway. Introducing Her earlier has got to be good for your game. It's the proper clue webs that allow that sort of thing to turn up early or late depending on what takes the player's interest, and … I'm not sure.

The encounters themselves could do with some work, a bunch more stuff would make sense shuffled around a bit on the map, do a bit more cross-module integration, be good to put up a bunch of notes at least. Need to map it all out a bit better to move on, get a proper directed graph going. Should google around and see what's out there.