Overview

I wasn't planning on doing anything for the club, to be honest lol But on other sites where I run forum games, I stick with rules light. Right now I'm running 9 games, 3 using various published Cortex rulesets (2 Smallville, 1 Cortex Plus Fantasy), 1 using a system called "Best Friends", 1 using "The Magical World of a Teenage Witch", and 4 using very simplified, custom Cortex Prime hacks. So if I were to run something, I'd probably use a Cortex hack, probably fairly simple.

Sure, DnD would be a bit complex for forum games.What are you planning to use for the club?

I'm planning on starting a game at some point. Not quite sure what just yet, but I want it to be something with a focus on collaborative worldbuilding. But, I'm juggling way too many things at the moment, so it's sadly unlikely I'll do anything this year.

Two of my games should be wrapping up relatively soon. I might be convinced to run something else when that happens. But it won't be D&D or Pathfinder.

And i fear to be GM for another time bcuz i am afraid to be responsible, bcuz i am forgetful

Looks like Ceberskie hasn't been around since August, so the potential DM has been sidelined by real life. I don't have time to run any more games right now. I'm actually beyond my self-imposed limit AND trying to complete NaNoWriMo, so free time is at a premium for me.

This club seems very ded

I mostly improv the game these days, so my prep is next to nil. I come up with a genre, some ideas around a premise, but the setting and conflicts are mostly created by the players when we first build the game. I just use what they give me to build out the rest of the world, some antagonists, and then let them run with it. It's super satisfying to use their own ideas against them! But also, it helps me keep the adventure focused on what they players enjoy the most. I bet a Golarion game using Cortex rules would be fun. I always liked that setting! I had some amazingly fun times leveling up my pirate queen in Skull & Shackles, fighting free from slavery and becoming a badass fighter in Katapesh (might have been a homebrew adventure?), and having my mage (and our whole party) destroyed by Karzoug because we were just really bad as a team when we played Runelords. I'd love to play in that setting again.

My players are very prefers the game part in roleplaying games, and somewhat the same. We're currently playing pathfinder 1e because the adventure paths from Paizo removes the burden of me having to prepare too much myself. It's the main reason I don't want to run a generic system at the time, that and we've gotten quite invested into Golarion. I was thinking of planning a Cortex game on here using golarion as a setting. Steal some material from We Be Goblins or something and see where it goes.

I still haven't had a chance to play. My players are mostly all story game people. I didn't recruit much from other gaming groups; I got people who liked playing games but weren't already tainted by D&D, and also liked telling stories, and showed them how much fun narrative RPGs can be. I have 2 great groups that play some of the most fun games I've ever played, but anything with the crunch of Lancer combat is way outside the wheelhouse of my groups. Some day I'll get to play it (wishful thinking).

Lancer is so much fun. My players didn't really enjoy the asymmetric enemy design. The setting and vibes are top notch.

I have found that when I want tactical combat, it's better to play a game specifically designed for that feel, like Battletech or Warhammer 40k (Adepta Sororitas FTW!). Then I get the serious rules and realistic When I want to tell a story, I play a narrative game, like the ones I described in previous posts. I've stopped trying to merge the two. It never felt right to me. I've even gone so far as to play out a narrative RPG for character interactions then switched to Battletech rules when the pilots hopped into their mechs. But then I might as well just play Lancer, which is basically 2 games in one. I think I need to start a Lancer game now. Hmm...

The best simulationist games simulate something specific. GURPS is really good at very grounded combats. So if that's the core of your game it is great. I often feel with narrative game that they don't do this kind of tactical combat as well, but that's kinda the point.

I have fond memories of games like GURPS. although my brother's choice was the Palladium system, so it's what I found on the shelf for a "universal" system when I was looking for one. But I always felt like something was missing from every game I ever played. They all had awesome ideas and mechanics I really liked, but somehow they never quite felt complete, or didn't quite do what I wanted them to do. I always had to change something, ignore something, or add something. But yeah, once I discovered, rejected, finally understood, and then embraced narrative games, I figured out what was missing from my gaming experience my whole life.

I'm a big fan of simulationist games. I think GURPS, for example, is amazing. But I don't think they're suited well for the kind of games most people want to play. And they're especially troublesome in a forum setting, as they need a lot of discussion and fiddling to resolve very minor and unimportant things. Especially for lewd games, the simulationist approach is horrible. As much fun "roll for dick size" is, having to roll 15 checks to reach orgasm just because your fortitude is massive kinda sucks.

Oh, yeah, thats what i tried to say about DnD this whole time, it feels like it takes too much unnecesary rules to just emulate some small thing, like fall damage or something, more narrative based games are way more fun, because their rules are easier to understand, tweak or homebrew. I personally strive for more video game-y feel, where its not flat, but also not too hard to understand, which is why i love systems that play with dice sizes or dice's unique possibilities, like caultrop core srd uses only d4s, but it managed to make something that is more than just meet or beat. About tiny dungeon, basically most traits give you advantages on rolls, but thr deal is that you have to explain why, for example, crafting with "nimble fingers", which usually is for cheating and lockpicking, but there are some traits that open new possibilities, like spell-reader, healer or alchemist, or oppertunist, berserker or marksman

I've never played Tiny Dungeon, so I can't speak to its balance or imbalance. The games I most enjoy don't rely on things like standard abilities (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha), hit points, damage, or balanced encounters. The typical RPG is what I used to call a "physics engine" - trying to make a realistic replica of the chances someone of a certain strength with a certain amount of training and experiencing swinging a sword would have to hit someone else with that sword, and if they did, how much damage they would do. Someone else described those games as "procedural" which makes sense. The rules are there to replicate your characters chance of succeeding or failing at a task based on their ability, skill, gear, etc. The games I've been playing focus more on the dramatic elements of roleplay. Rather than codify "a person falling X number of feet will take X amount of damage per 10 feet" or whatever, these games are designed to emulate stories we read, movies we watch. How many movies have you seen where the main character gets killed in the first 20 minutes and that's it, movie over? It's rare if it has ever happened, because that's not a satisfying narrative. I don't care if it's "realistic" for the protagonists to die in the cold; it's an unsatisfying ending. In a movie or book, someone would find a way. It's what protagonists do. It's why we read their stories, because we know they're going to at least make it til the end. So the games that interest me now replicate that kind of narrative. The dice you roll are your character's ability to affect the narrative, not whether or not they will survive. Then you craft the narrative from there. But that's what I enjoy. It's not for everyone, and it's a huge paradigm shift from most RPGs. When I was first introduced to the concept of narrative games, I despised how loose the rolls felt, how inconsequential rolling seemed. I came from D&D and the like, where the chance of dying in any encounter was always there. Knowing I could spent some kind of metacurrency to succeed seemed like cheating. But then I started to understand the design of the game, how it was made to randomize the telling of a story rather than randomize each procedural step. Anyhoo. Games I play now are things like Cortex Dramatic Roleplay and The DramaSystem from Hillfolk. There's not a lot of resolution. Hillfolk is almost all narration with some voting by everyone involved to see if one character got what they wanted from another. In Cortex Dramatic you don't roll To Hit or base things on your stats. You don't even have stats. You have Relationships, Values, and Distinctions. That's how someone like Lois Lane can lend as much narrative weight to a story as Superman. The balance isn't in making sure Lois can stand off against Superman in a fight. She can't. The balance is that her character arc is just as important, her ability to affect the narrative is just as important, as Superman's.

I invite everyone interested to join me in creating a brand new world using the Microscope system. It's a worldbuilding/history creation game where we take turns adding to a world. To start I want to run a couple of rounds to see how the format works. I advice you to read the actual rules, it's very well written. Though I'll do a little rules breakdown here. The game is broken down into rounds. Each round is lead by the lens. The lens is chosen at the end of the previous round. Each round also had a focus. Everything added to the history must relate to that focus. The lens always starts as well as gets to add at the end of the round giving them an extra say of the round. On your turn, your allowed to add one of three things. A period, an event, or a scene. Periods has a short description to describe it. It can host events. Events are often more specific, they're also just a short description. They can host any number of scenes as well Scenes are defined, by a question and an rp to answer it. We'll run these in seperate threads as they will take up a bulk of the game. Before we can even start, we must decide on a couple of things as a group. 1. The Big Picture A short description of what our world is about 2. Bookends The first and last period of our history chronologically. This mean anything added will fall between these. 3. Pallette A list of things that does or does not belong in our history. 4. First pass Everyone gets to add an event or a period to the history. The game is very discussion based so I welcome everyone to chip in with ideas and suggestion even if you're not interested in actually playing.

Like tiny dungeon, where you build a character from a list of traits and items probably have some unique properties like "Dagger - Deals 1 damage, but if character has an advantage, it deals 2"?

Use a system with balance built in? I know that probably sounds snarky, which wasn't my intention. But that kind of issue is why I don't play the Ampersand game anymore. That whole level progression thing really doesn't work. I prefer systems where balance is built in, or where it doesn't matter.

Hey, what yall think is a good way to balance martial classes to not seem lame or weak, compared to spellcasters?

I'm good with whatever works and makes it easy to manage.

I think I was playing around with that some time ago. But I'd like observers also to be able to view the history. Maybe we can use that and just post a screenshot every round.

There's a sit that was previously recommended to run Microscope online called Utgar's Chronicles. https://utgars-chronicles.app/

A place for club members to chat with each other.