The Unseen Servant forums

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 5:37 pm

Sebec and Loki... now that's quite a combination
Welcome, have a look around, and good luck with your Discord game!

Dicey wrote: ↑Wed Oct 02, 2024 8:50 pm Frak yes, this is the way! Make it so, by Crom.

Cheers, Dicey.

Which of the five options do you fancy the most?

I would like to run the game here if I can get enough players -- I've been trying in a few different places to dig up enough players. I'd really like to try this system (also to try a relatively light system, I just started a Legends of Anglerre (FATE)) game on Discord, and I've been enjoying the change in pace from d20 fantasy in terms of mechanical heft), but it's hard to find players for non 5e stuff. I've noticed a little more willingness to try new things in pbp venues. I'm honestly mostly a worldbuilding and map making hobbyist who sometimes runs games -- I'm more interested in the story and lore than mechanics, though I sometimes find denser systems easier to work with b/c they have specific rules for stuff like breathing underwater etc. I like the pbp format because it's easier to get across the setting detail and use linguistically realistic but hard to pronounce names. My favorite rpg products are the old MERP ICE products with all the maps, Kingdoms of Kalamar (especially the Atlas), and the recent edition of super-detailed Glorantha materials.

I think you’ll find this to be a great home for your PbP gaming. This is a great group of friendly and active users, and many are open and interested in playing non-D&D games (which these forums were originally created to support).

Time will tell, and we wish you many successful games!

I am not familiar with the system and don't use Discord but if you are running it here I am a fan of spear and sandal settings and might be interested.

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 7:30 pm I myself much prefer forums

It’s rare to have long running PbP games this is true. We are very lucky here. It’s a great bunch of people, but I think the hyper focus on PbP is really helpful too. GitP is not focused on PbP gaming like here, and RPoL like discord is a little different set up than forums. I’m like you I enjoy forums like this for PbPs!

rredmond wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 10:45 pm

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 7:30 pm I myself much prefer forums

It’s rare to have long running PbP games this is true. We are very lucky here. It’s a great bunch of people, but I think the hyper focus on PbP is really helpful too. GitP is not focused on PbP gaming like here, and RPoL like discord is a little different set up than forums. I’m like you I enjoy forums like this for PbPs!

I think gitip also suffers from having such a solid focus on 3.5 and PF1e char op stuff and homebrew.

I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master -- it takes a month of non-stop questions about feat/ability/spell interactions to make tristalt 3.5 whatever characters, and most potential DM's don't want to spend hours a day writing responses to strangers online about hair-splitting minutiae in poorly written and edited rules from dozens of sources from 20 years ago -- and especially don't want to have protracted back and forth exegetical dialog on the meaning or possible meaning or hermeneutical lens to approach the question of whether a typed +2 bonus here applies in X situation etc. And then once that's done you have to actually run the game -- which is almost impossible since there are so many loop hole 'insta win' options in all those poorly written rules -- from both sides of the table. And I'm not even sure what the point of it is -- there's not a live audience to theoretically appreciate the game mastery being demonstrated here. I question whether such a live audience exists anywhere, but whatever, let's give it the benefit of the doubt.

How great is it really to drag out some sort of combat combo involving Path of War maneuvers and feat interactions stacking to hit bonuses over a week of posts?

I think theoretically there could be a great mythic/gestalt game where the DM spent all their free time coming up with really interesting customized npc stat blocks that really challenged the characters, and spent the same amount of time making those stats as the characters did making theirs. I can't imagine who that would be that would want to do that for years on a play by post forum. I've never seen any of those games last for long -- probably for all the reasons I'm highlighting here. I don't think many of them finish recruitment.

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 11:31 pm I think gitip also suffers from having such a solid focus on 3.5 and PF1e char op stuff and homebrew.

I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master -- it takes a month of non-stop questions about feat/ability/spell interactions to make tristalt 3.5 whatever characters, and most potential DM's don't want to spend hours a day writing responses to strangers online about hair-splitting minutiae in poorly written and edited rules from dozens of sources from 20 years ago -- and especially don't want to have protracted back and forth exegetical dialog on the meaning or possible meaning or hermeneutical lens to approach the question of whether a typed +2 bonus here applies in X situation etc. And then once that's done you have to actually run the game -- which is almost impossible since there are so many loop hole 'insta win' options in all those poorly written rules -- from both sides of the table. And I'm not even sure what the point of it is -- there's not a live audience to theoretically appreciate the game mastery being demonstrated here. I question whether such a live audience exists anywhere, but whatever, let's give it the benefit of the doubt.

How great is it really to drag out some sort of combat combo involving Path of War maneuvers and feat interactions stacking to hit bonuses over a week of posts?

I think theoretically there could be a great mythic/gestalt game where the DM spent all their free time coming up with really interesting customized npc stat blocks that really challenged the characters, and spent the same amount of time making those stats as the characters did making theirs. I can't imagine who that would be that would want to do that for years on a play by post forum. I've never seen any of those games last for long -- probably for all the reasons I'm highlighting here. I don't think many of them finish recruitment.

I started out with Basic/AD&D (they came out together) [ie. 1ed] and found all the options available in D&D 2ed both awesome and overwhelming. By the time the 3.5 complexity came along, I abandoned D&D for the (Classic) Traveller "Roll 8+ on 2d6" game mechanic and never really looked back. It turned out I had an "Old School RPG" soul that wanted to PLAY and keep the rules out of the way of playing.

So your post (above) resonates with me. [thumbs up]

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 11:31 pm I think gitip also suffers from having such a solid focus on 3.5 and PF1e char op stuff and homebrew.

That's fair!

I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master

You should PM and talk to tibbius here. tibbius is always trying new, and creative, systems. Some fly, some don't but tibbius is undaunted and has seen success with some wacky games

atpollard wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 12:13 pm So your post (above) resonates with me.

Probably with more than a few of us!

rredmond wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 1:44 pm

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 11:31 pm I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master

You should PM and talk to tibbius here. tibbius is always trying new, and creative, systems. Some fly, some don't but tibbius is undaunted and has seen success with some wacky games

Tibbius got me interested in the Tiny d6 system. Not only does he like to try new systems, he is a great game master as well.

atpollard wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 12:13 pm

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 11:31 pm I think gitip also suffers from having such a solid focus on 3.5 and PF1e char op stuff and homebrew.

I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master -- it takes a month of non-stop questions about feat/ability/spell interactions to make tristalt 3.5 whatever characters, and most potential DM's don't want to spend hours a day writing responses to strangers online about hair-splitting minutiae in poorly written and edited rules from dozens of sources from 20 years ago -- and especially don't want to have protracted back and forth exegetical dialog on the meaning or possible meaning or hermeneutical lens to approach the question of whether a typed +2 bonus here applies in X situation etc. And then once that's done you have to actually run the game -- which is almost impossible since there are so many loop hole 'insta win' options in all those poorly written rules -- from both sides of the table. And I'm not even sure what the point of it is -- there's not a live audience to theoretically appreciate the game mastery being demonstrated here. I question whether such a live audience exists anywhere, but whatever, let's give it the benefit of the doubt.

How great is it really to drag out some sort of combat combo involving Path of War maneuvers and feat interactions stacking to hit bonuses over a week of posts?

I think theoretically there could be a great mythic/gestalt game where the DM spent all their free time coming up with really interesting customized npc stat blocks that really challenged the characters, and spent the same amount of time making those stats as the characters did making theirs. I can't imagine who that would be that would want to do that for years on a play by post forum. I've never seen any of those games last for long -- probably for all the reasons I'm highlighting here. I don't think many of them finish recruitment.

I started out with Basic/AD&D (they came out together) [ie. 1ed] and found all the options available in D&D 2ed both awesome and overwhelming. By the time the 3.5 complexity came along, I abandoned D&D for the (Classic) Traveller "Roll 8+ on 2d6" game mechanic and never really looked back. It turned out I had an "Old School RPG" soul that wanted to PLAY and keep the rules out of the way of playing.

So your post (above) resonates with me. [thumbs up]

As I said, I actually do like some of the subsystems like Wounds and Vigor and Magic of Incarnum because they're weird/interesting. I think some of the settings are great -- Kingdoms of Kalamar, Scarred Lands, Monte Cooke's Diamond Throne, etc.

However, I've become increasingly nonplussed about what the point of a lot of the material is -- the official published materials like the npc stat blocks for Elminster etc. in the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook are not optimized, and neither are those for mythic characters like Tar Baphon in the equivalent Pathfinder material. The published adventures for both systems do not envisage a well built party and will not sustain contact with a party that really exploits the system. You cannot run Rise of the Runelords RAW using all the books and with players who know what they're doing and are allowed free reign to make whatever they want. You cannot run Wrath of the Righteous 'out of the box' without some serious constraints on player choice and some mythic 'fixes'.

So, the only possibility for using the system's full range of options would be a custom designed campaign with customized stat blocks for all the monsters and npcs. When I attempted this I never pretended like I was going to sit down and make a completely new stat block for everything completely RAW -- I'd eyeball some values or double the values on an existing set of stats. I can't imagine anyone has the time to make a complete campaign sitting down and sending a week making every hyper optimized npc stat block RAW (it takes that long for pcs to make characters of this complexity, why would it take any less time for the theoretical DM to make equivalent npcs?). I'm not sure what person wants to spend all their free time to do that -- I've never met one.

And then what is the point of the game exactly? Having hours-long combats where the pcs display their system mastery with weird loophole combat combos? What do they get out of it? That there's some small social community that might be impressed by this display? Does anyone loudly cheer on someone else because they're able to headshot 20 opponents in a row in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey? Isn't this the same supposed social affirmation that's potentially envisaged here? Or what's the point -- that you outsmart the DM and make the game impossible to run and they offer you some kind of grudging respect like a defeated samurai warrior who acknowledges their besting by a superior foe? There's so much work that goes into this hypothetical game with unclear use cases -- why doesn't everyone just play the high levels of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey or buy a max level character in Lord of the Rings Online and avoid having to schedule sessions and needing to hunt for months for some strange personality to DM that has no significant social obligations such that they can make a part time job of creating NPC stats?

In most cases, because of all these reasons, people don't play high level games or allow all this material, which leads to there being, in most circumstances, a mind bogglingly large ocean of unused character options that just hangs out in unpurchased, unread, and unused in thousands of pdfs on rpgdrivethu. That's such a strange set up for a game -- lots of potential options almost no one uses or looks at, and at this point even knows exists, and in the small number of cases where they're used it's not clear what the point is or how the imagined use case would work or be feasible as an actual playable game.

I think some people just enjoy making character builds as 'lonely fun' like some people design theoretical force layouts for armies in 40k that they're not actually going to play. And that's fine if you find that amusing -- but that's a very different conception than this is a viable game that can work in a lot of cases or there will a lot of potential opportunities to play.

And many of these players I've encountered aren't very interested in the setting/world detail or story of a campaign -- the only reason I do ttrpgs instead of just playing video games is I enjoy making worlds and the narrative options that exist in a ttrpg that can't be covered by a video game. I think a lot of modern players are actually looking for something more like Assassin's Creed Odyssey or Lord of the Rings Online, and that'd be an easier way to scratch the same 'itch'. Those games have skill trees and 'builds' as well. You don't need to get a group together or schedule sessions to enjoy them.

[LOL]
I have THREE rules that I post at the start of every Game I run ...

Rule 1: This is a GAME, so we are here to have FUN.
Rule 2: Do not break the 2D6 curve with excessive modifiers. (cannot-miss and cannot-hit is BAD in most situations)
Rule 3: Play with whoever shows up.

rredmond wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 1:44 pm

Sebecloki wrote: ↑Thu Oct 03, 2024 11:31 pm I actually enjoy some of the subsystems because they're weird/interesting, but that aspect of the game makes recruitments almost impossible to finish and the games themselves not fun and easy to run for a game master

You should PM and talk to tibbius here. tibbius is always trying new, and creative, systems. Some fly, some don't but tibbius is undaunted and has seen success with some wacky games

Thanks for the shout out, Ron!

Sebecloki, heya. I'm currently running (here) an Ouroborous d12 game set in the haunted halls of an abandoned dwarfen city. I recently floated an idea for a 24XXoth game, which would use my customized 24XX rules in the World of Xoth (sword and sandals / Conan-ish) setting. If you're interested in that, I'd be glad to run a duet until anyone else jumps in.

In Classic Traveller, chargen can be a game unto itself. If you do survive, get into one of atpollard's games. He's figured out how to make the game mechanics nicely fade into the background.

As noted tibbius explores a lot of game ideas in the 24xx space, something to try if you haven't.

I'm enjoying scarik's Chainmail/BX mashup. There are more rules that 68A, but not nearly enough to distract. My character is courting the Margrave's daughter and getting a reputation for fighting undead. Of course, he usually spends a lot of time recovering from those fights, but still...

If you like detailed world building, and if I haven't mentioned it already, look at Rex's Harn game. Harn has the most setting detail I've ever seen and Rex is very good at conveying it.

I am starting a new solo game for Stars Without Number using the Stellar Heroes accessory. The game will be sandbox-style and set in the world created for the video game Starfield.

My plan is to use the solo game to refresh my memory of the SWN rules (I bought the Revised ruleset but haven't used them yet) and then perhaps start a full game.

If such a game would interest you, please DM me. It wouldn't start for a month or two but I may accelerate my plans if there's interest. I'm posting here instead of creating a full interest thread because I want to get into the solo game for a bit before committing to a larger game.

Note that I expect all of my players to post 2-3 times a week so this would not be for folks who like slower-moving games.

GreyWolfVT wrote: ↑Thu Sep 12, 2024 1:43 am I'm sorry when i hear the term Worms it makes me think of a old computer game i played with friends back in the day.

Oh man. And Worms World Party! So good, and still great after all this time. Strategy, skill, dramatic and eery music and sound effects, sly humor and goofy squeaky voices.... So good! Nail-biter games, usually to the last worm. "OMG. This shot is it... It's it or I'm dead. Here goes...." ::Missile Launcher sound starts winding up::

sulldawga wrote: ↑Mon Oct 07, 2024 5:20 pm I am starting a new solo game for Stars Without Number using the Stellar Heroes accessory. The game will be sandbox-style and set in the world created for the video game Starfield.

not familiar with that accessory or the video game

cybersavant wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2024 5:59 am not familiar with that accessory or the video game

If I start a game for other players, I wouldn't use Stellar Heroes. It's a short set of rules to help play SWN solo.

Starfield is made by Bethesda, the same company that did the Elder Scrolls games (e.g. Skyrim), and has multiple fan-made wikis. If you want to learn more about the world the game is set in, it's all a Google search away.

Hey there all,

I'm brand spanking new to these boards and I saw this thread and thought it would be the ideal place for letting the rest know what I'm looking for.

I would love to join a game with a good pace, preferably something with a good mix of rp, combat and exploration. In terms of genre, I think I'd prefer fantasy. I'd also be keen for lovecraft, horror or superheroics.

Once I'm a little used to these boards and I have something rolling, I think I'd like to toss my hat in the ring as a GM as well. For this I have a couple of thing in mind on what I'd like to run.
Maybe you guys could let me know what would be something you could get on board with.

- Kids on bikes (small town mystery with no/low magic)
- A game set in the Percy Jackson universe. (probably using something like genesys or 5e.
- A pokemon journey game using PTU (I ran a recipocrating 1 on 1 game in the past which I really liked).

Please let me know if anything sounds interesting for you.

Greetz,

MIT

Manintights wrote: ↑Fri Oct 11, 2024 9:25 am Hey there all,

I'm brand spanking new to these boards and I saw this thread and thought it would be the ideal place for letting the rest know what I'm looking for.

I would love to join a game with a good pace, preferably something with a good mix of rp, combat and exploration. In terms of genre, I think I'd prefer fantasy. I'd also be keen for lovecraft, horror or superheroics.

Once I'm a little used to these boards and I have something rolling, I think I'd like to toss my hat in the ring as a GM as well. For this I have a couple of thing in mind on what I'd like to run.
Maybe you guys could let me know what would be something you could get on board with.

- Kids on bikes (small town mystery with no/low magic)
- A game set in the Percy Jackson universe. (probably using something like genesys or 5e.
- A pokemon journey game using PTU (I ran a recipocrating 1 on 1 game in the past which I really liked).

Please let me know if anything sounds interesting for you.

Greetz,

MIT

If you haven't already, skim the DMs of the Unseen Servant thread to see what sorts of miscreants...errr... fine, upstanding lords and ladies run games here. For real success, the game system is a distant second to you; what do you bring to the virtual table?

If you want fantasy, role-play, and exploration, join me in scarik's Chainmail/BX game. The rules are dead simple ("2d6" or "lots of d6") and the game has a strong "old school" feel. The characters are a bit on the organized side of things since we are contracted to a Dwarf Thane, but we've overcome several significant challenges because of that.

Another option is Spearmint's Barrowmaze, it pretty much defines "exploration".