Games for a Lazy MC

silva · Post by **silva** » Fri May 22, 2015 10:45 pm

Games with strong directive rules also tend to be easier to run, as they present pre-made structures that dictate play and make it difficult for the GM to deviate from. Examples:

Mountain Witch
Danger Patrol
Agon
Lady Blackbird
Munchausen
Polaris
Lacuna
Dogs in the Vineyard
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying

Even when the directives are complex (as in Polaris case), once you learn it, its done, because the game rarely deviates from it. In other words, these games tend to be one-trick poneys. Once the trick is learned, you just replicate it again and again.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat May 23, 2015 12:46 am

TheFlatline wrote:
AndreiChekov wrote:If you are willing to download it, there is a wheel of time 3.0 clone. And it also has a premade adventure. On top of that, there is the fact that lots of people have read and enjoyed those books, and know what the world is like, so you can easily introduce people to the game.

I've run the adventure path myself several times now, and each time it never actually finished because people were too busy trying to metagame their way to be there for events in the series.
Oh man Wheel of Time D20 was... funky. It seriously suffered from BMX Bandit/Angel Summoner problems. The "checks" were pretty much in game fluff.

Though I did do a homebrew staff master PrC that actually was pretty cool as a BMX Bandit. It basically allowed you to use your staff to either shit attacks TWF style or buff your melee defense but sacrifice your extra attacks. I think I also added a few little things like deflect arrows and the ability to resist sundering (I was a big fan of sundering at the time).

I don't know what you mean by BMX bandit, or angel summoner. Are you talking about how half the classes are a waste of time? Because I noticed that if you want to be a chaneller you don't play a wilder, and if you want to do melee fighting, you pick armsman, and never play an ogier or Siswai'Aman. And for skills, you turn to woodsman, and never play noble, because of the amount of mtp in their only class feature.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat May 23, 2015 1:15 am

Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit is a comedy sketch that's commonly brought up in D&D balance discussions for reasons that are entirely obvious once you watch it.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat May 23, 2015 1:58 am

DSMatticus wrote:Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit is a comedy sketch that's commonly brought up in D&D balance discussions for reasons that are entirely obvious once you watch it.

That explains a lot. Although, I sort of understood what he meant just from what he said around it.

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Sat May 23, 2015 2:45 am

If you don't particularly care that the RPG in question is definitely not the cream of the crop, Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is actually the game with the least prep time possible. Why? Because of this: http://pokemontabletopadventures.com/

It's a website that generates pokemon based on any input you could need- level, the environment, type, ect, and has all of their moves pop up descriptions when you hover over them. It also has their XP value, capture rate, and abilities and shit. Also also you can assign damage to the pokemans, set the effectiveness of the move and the site will change that pokeman's hit points for you. I am not exaggerating when I say my group is currently running a game of PTA solely because the DM is lazy and generates almost everything off that site.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat May 23, 2015 3:36 am

DSMatticus wrote:Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit is a comedy sketch that's commonly brought up in D&D balance discussions for reasons that are entirely obvious once you watch it.

Was that comedy sketch meant to reference D&D to begin with, or just adopted by D&D players.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat May 23, 2015 4:41 am

spongeknight wrote:If you don't particularly care that the RPG in question is definitely not the cream of the crop, Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is actually the game with the least prep time possible. Why? Because of this: http://pokemontabletopadventures.com/

It's a website that generates pokemon based on any input you could need- level, the environment, type, ect, and has all of their moves pop up descriptions when you hover over them. It also has their XP value, capture rate, and abilities and shit. Also also you can assign damage to the pokemans, set the effectiveness of the move and the site will change that pokeman's hit points for you. I am not exaggerating when I say my group is currently running a game of PTA solely because the DM is lazy and generates almost everything off that site.

If you have to interact with a website for inputing and reading data, its already too much work.

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Sat May 23, 2015 5:17 am

silva wrote:
spongeknight wrote:If you don't particularly care that the RPG in question is definitely not the cream of the crop, Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is actually the game with the least prep time possible. Why? Because of this: http://pokemontabletopadventures.com/

It's a website that generates pokemon based on any input you could need- level, the environment, type, ect, and has all of their moves pop up descriptions when you hover over them. It also has their XP value, capture rate, and abilities and shit. Also also you can assign damage to the pokemans, set the effectiveness of the move and the site will change that pokeman's hit points for you. I am not exaggerating when I say my group is currently running a game of PTA solely because the DM is lazy and generates almost everything off that site.
If you have to interact with a website for inputing and reading data, its already too much work.

I know that they say don't feed the trolls, but are you really suggesting that program on a website that calculates everything for you is harder than using rolling tables? Because it isn't. It is one click. And most TTgamers these days play online anyway.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat May 23, 2015 5:21 am

OgreBattle wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit is a comedy sketch that's commonly brought up in D&D balance discussions for reasons that are entirely obvious once you watch it.
Was that comedy sketch meant to reference D&D to begin with, or just adopted by D&D players.

If it's inspired by anything, it's probably comics and movies. There's quite a lot of mainstream duos that raise the "how the fuck is this supposed to work?" question. Consider the Batman v Superman film scheduled for next year. There are dozens of safer bets than D&D for what gave them the idea.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat May 23, 2015 5:56 am

Schwarzkopf wrote:based almost entirely on nothing, I'd recommend Kobolds Ate My Baby...if you do try it let me know how it goes.
.

ALL HAIL KING TORG!!!

This is serious one-shot hilarity. There is a real game behind the jokes.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat May 23, 2015 8:17 am

AndreiChekov wrote:I know that they say don't feed the trolls, but are you really suggesting that program on a website that calculates everything for you is harder than using rolling tables? Because it isn't. It is one click. And most TTgamers these days play online anyway.

If you use this table/website just once per session to, say, generate a random encounter, or decide the outcome of the winter phase, then its cool. But if youre dependent on those tools for each and every encounter and must be feeding the shit again and again (like you said by marking HP lost and conditions and hovering to check for abilities and modifers, etc), then yeah thats too much work for me.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Sat May 23, 2015 7:29 pm

bearva, I know it's difficult for you to understand the concept of running a game by the rules and thus everything you make ever is pure DM Fiat, but you do realize that that's not the actual way to play games involving math and rules, right?

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sat May 23, 2015 8:23 pm

DSMatticus wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:
DSMatticus wrote:Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit is a comedy sketch that's commonly brought up in D&D balance discussions for reasons that are entirely obvious once you watch it.
Was that comedy sketch meant to reference D&D to begin with, or just adopted by D&D players.
If it's inspired by anything, it's probably comics and movies.

Most likely this movie had something to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMX_Bandits_%28film%29

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat May 23, 2015 8:53 pm

RelentlessImp wrote:bearva, I know it's difficult for you to understand the concept of running a game by the rules and thus everything you make ever is pure DM Fiat, but you do realize that that's not the actual way to play games involving math and rules, right?

I think its not a matter of playing by the rules, since its very easy to apply the rules directly from memory, as long as those rules are simple or you have great familiarity with them. I think its more a matter of the degree of complexity and calculations it require for resolving things as combat encounters or other mini-games - if a game allows you to have an NPC which is just a couple relevant stats that you can memorize, it is a "Lazy-friendly" game in the sense of this thread topic. Now if the game requires each and every combat encounter to be fine-calculated in all its details, from CRs to stats to rewards, then its not a game for lazy GMs. I think D&D3 and derivatives fall in this last category while, say, Lady Blackbird fall on the former.

Now, I can understand the appeal of online tools and calculators for speeding up things like D&D 3 encounters or Shadowrun 4 point-buy creation. But if you're a Lazy GM looking for simple games with low prep and little math, you shouldn't be playing D&D3 or Shadowrun4 in the first place. Its like your basketball team is in need of a guard and then someone suggests "training a Center in Guard specific skills". Its bullshit. If you really are in need of a Guard then hire a fucking Guard.