Tabletop gaming guilty pleasures: what are yours?

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:55 am

XP for quests and over-reliance on random tables. A level system that works by just handing out levels at certain points of the story is unquestionably better, but I just like watching XP accumulate. Likewise, I share Desdan's love of "roll to see if the fountain gives you superpowers or makes your eyes melt out of their sockets." It's not grognardianism, because I came into the hobby seriously like six years ago.

Occluded Sun · Post by **Occluded Sun** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:57 am

Dice, dice, dice. I know you can have great games with a few d6s, but... I gotta have my bag of dice.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:23 am

Rifts. At one point I put together a Fiasco! Phase World playset, just so people could have fun with character creation but not have to interact otherwise with the rules.

Hybrid characters: I played 2e D&D the most, and was all about the H-E F/M/C. Dark Sun was even better for that, with Elf/H-E Preserver/Cleric/Psionicist

Shitty NPC classes. I very much want to have a game where a floating coral city of Rhulisti lifeshapers (athas.org squares off against Dragonmech coglayers inside an Assimilated citymech.

CCarter · Post by **CCarter** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 3:53 am

OgreBattle wrote:RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS, Kevin Long's designs are like a library of 70's-80's anime mecha lineart and Eric Wujcik was a scholar of design.

Cyborgs, Juicers, Crazies, Mystic Knights, Ley Line Walkers, Dragons, Glitterboys are all cool archtypes with distinct looks. All of my "I'm gonna write a tabletalk RPG" projects end up as "I'm gonna make RIFTS playable!", then I fill up a notebook with little sketches.

I don't think Erick Wujcik was involved with Rifts all that much, just Ninjas & Superspies and TMNT (and Amber). Good ideas guy for setting stuff (e.g. Transdimensional TMNT), but his mechanical design work never struck me as anything remarkable.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 12:58 pm

Surgo wrote:Post a real guilty RPG pleasure or don't post at all.

Fair call.

I still build things with GURPS Vehicles now and then. It's 300 pages of algebra that give you four numbers that don't make any sense and don't work anyway, and while I have a lot of custom rules to fix the math and stuff, I have never had a use for the numbers it generates.

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. But the bits they put in for the people who just buy them to read? I don't like that stuff.

I spend way more time tinkering with RPGs that I ever have playing them. OK, always the GM, so that sort of happens, but even still. Like, I run rules-light D&D clones because it saves me having to do that, and then I go find other ways to do that instead.

Hmm. My characters. When I play. They're, they tend to be disruptive cranks. You know, a Fighter who complains the Gods favour their Clerics and give them all the power, so obviously we have to gang up against them. Take them down a peg or two. Disrespect their Gods. A Monk who wears half-plate, a shield, and uses a greatsword, because unlike the monastery training that actually works.

Desdan_Mervolam · Post by **Desdan_Mervolam** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 1:55 pm

The Bygone Bestiary. It's a supplement for Mage the Ascension and Mage: The Sorcerers' Crusade which is intended to show you how to create and field mythical creatures in the World of Darkness, and has the questionable idea of doing this mostly through Merits and Flaws. You can use it to approximate a large variety of mythical creatures, but I fell in love with it when I realized that it was what you did when you wanted to create something weird and didn't have any established (or any better established) rules for it, whether it existed in folklore or not.

mlangsdorf · Post by **mlangsdorf** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:53 pm

tussock wrote: 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?

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 7:13 pm

I love accents and obnoxious character names.

Neurosis · Post by **Neurosis** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 7:15 pm

RIFTS[/b]

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:05 pm

I know Champions is superior over Mutants and Masterminds d20 in every single category except ease of pick-up and maybe supplements (I haven't read any Champions supplements, mind), but I'm still quite fond of MnM d20.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:08 pm

Desdan_Mervolam wrote:The Bygone Bestiary. It's a supplement for Mage the Ascension and Mage: The Sorcerers' Crusade which is intended to show you how to create and field mythical creatures in the World of Darkness, and has the questionable idea of doing this mostly through Merits and Flaws. You can use it to approximate a large variety of mythical creatures, but I fell in love with it when I realized that it was what you did when you wanted to create something weird and didn't have any established (or any better established) rules for it, whether it existed in folklore or not.

I have that. My eighteen year old self loved it, because at the time I was really taken with White Wolf's MTP-plus service. I don't want to read it now because it would just depress me.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:16 pm

Sounds like someone needs to do an OSSR...

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:46 pm

So Dogbert, your guilty pleasure is that you no longer play role-playing games because every system is crappy?

K · Post by K » Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:41 pm

I also like adventures that go into insane detail and tell you things like what you'd find if you jumped into the dungeon's privy and fought the ooze living in it.

Also, another vote for Rifts.

Laertes · Post by **Laertes** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:50 pm

K wrote:I also like adventures that go into insane detail and tell you things like what you'd find if you jumped into the dungeon's privy and fought the ooze living in it.

Also, another vote for Rifts.

Do you remember the old great Call of Cthulhu books like Beyond The Mountains of Madness or Dunwich: Return to the Forgotten Village? They had absolutely mental amounts of backstory and detail that underpinned every single thing you'd see, and loads that you never would. They were really, really well thought out. It's a shame that your players would never see anything but a fraction of it.

silva · Post by **silva** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:12 pm

Laertes wrote:
K wrote:I also like adventures that go into insane detail and tell you things like what you'd find if you jumped into the dungeon's privy and fought the ooze living in it.

Also, another vote for Rifts.
Do you remember the old great Call of Cthulhu books like Beyond The Mountains of Madness or Dunwich: Return to the Forgotten Village? They had absolutely mental amounts of backstory and detail that underpinned every single thing you'd see, and loads that you never would. They were really, really well thought out. It's a shame that your players would never see anything but a fraction of it.

Yeah, I think it was a feat of Chaosium back in the day. I remember Griffin Mountain having obscene ammounts of detail too. On one side it was a delicious reading if you had the time, on the other it imposed a somewhat intimidating entry barrier for some GMs.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:15 pm

CCarter wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS RIFTS, Kevin Long's designs are like a library of 70's-80's anime mecha lineart and Eric Wujcik was a scholar of design.

Cyborgs, Juicers, Crazies, Mystic Knights, Ley Line Walkers, Dragons, Glitterboys are all cool archtypes with distinct looks. All of my "I'm gonna write a tabletalk RPG" projects end up as "I'm gonna make RIFTS playable!", then I fill up a notebook with little sketches.
I don't think Erick Wujcik was involved with Rifts all that much, just Ninjas & Superspies and TMNT (and Amber). Good ideas guy for setting stuff (e.g. Transdimensional TMNT), but his mechanical design work never struck me as anything remarkable.

He taught at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2003-2008) too, some of my friends got the opportunity to meet him and said he was a really great teacher and all around swell guy.

I wonder how Wujcick intended the combat system of Ninjas & Superspies/TMNT to actually run though, it was basically a die pool system with all of the action points you got per round to spend on various moves.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:03 am

Hicks wrote:So Dogbert, your guilty pleasure is that you no longer play role-playing games because every system is crappy?

Well played Hicks, well played...

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 3:18 am

Hoarding. I've got tons of PDFs I haven't even opened.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 3:18 am

It sounds like we need to have a RIFTS game!

Actually I've never read or played RIFTS. Where does one start?

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 3:58 am

Surgo wrote:It sounds like we need to have a RIFTS game!

Actually I've never read or played RIFTS. Where does one start?

With large amounts of alcohol.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 4:34 am

First you read as much of the RIFTS (TM) core rule book (currently you'd be looking at RIFTS (TM) Ultimate Edition) as you can handle. Then you drink. A lot. Then you flip through splat books until something catches your eye. Character creation takes between half an hour and eight hours, depending on how many weird options you take and how often X makes you go back and recalculate Y which in turn adjusts Z. Longer if you continue the drinking. I recommend RIFTS (TM): South America, Juicer (TM) Uprising, RIFTS (TM): Atlantis (1 and 2), and Phase World (TM). Some issues of the RIFTER (TM) can also be pretty good, particularly... the ones that add martial art styles.

Honestly if you just scribble down some numbers (MDC, attack bonus, attacks per round, damage, parry bonus, dodge bonus, bonus to Saves vs X, Initiative perhaps, some random things that you think sound like skills, perhaps PPE and ISP if you want to just add some spells or psionics), then you'll still end up with something that makes as much sense as anything else (and works as well as anything else). That is "yeah, whatever, about that".

I'm in a PbP RIFTS (TM) game, and the only way it moves forward at all is that you post all your actions for 1 round at a time (or in some cases 2 rounds, if it's a simpler, meat-grinder type battle), and the GM is in the military so he sets deadlines for posting, harasses people who are taking their time, then just makes you go full defence if you haven't posted by the time he updates. I can't actually say it works better in tabletop, because "do everything in your own time all at once and post it in one go" actually seems easier, what with all the dice rolling involved.

Incidentally, they're still making them. They are seriously churning out more RIFTS (TM) splat books to this day, and they're basically what you might expect if you've read any of the older ones.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 8:30 am

Surgo wrote:It sounds like we need to have a RIFTS game!

Actually I've never read or played RIFTS. Where does one start?

You start with watching the RIFTS anime, here's some trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv2aLiqDZiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCODmVr0WUI

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 8:49 am

First, think up any kind of character you might like to play. Anything at all. I've played a Hecatomb Endbringer, a heavily armed anthropomorphic goat who hated the human supremicists, Rampage from Beast Wars who could glass a field by himself, and an anthropomorphic black widow lesbian soldier. Another player I've seen played the harvest moon farmer, complete with backpack of holding and growth times measured in days. Oh, and super high strength. I've also had a roommate who wanted to play a fourth dimensional squid, but then changed his mind.

Then talk to your DM about how to make that in Rifts. Don't worry, you'll find a way.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Tue Aug 12, 2014 10:21 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I've also had a roommate who wanted to play a fourth dimensional squid, but then changed his mind..

Was it non-eusquidian?