Is this really a normal amount of prep for 5e? With Paizo adventures I've only ever read the adventure in advance, collated some bits of information that are spread through the adventure so I can forshadow them, and made some brief notes on NPC accents. I can't imagine a group of players for whom prewritten dialogue would help me in the game, and I just use the book/pdf for actually running rooms and events. This is closer to the level of prep I do for adding in extra content or doing entirely homebrewed adventures.
I start by making a map. I am terrible at making maps. I try to improve my map by using a transparent quilting ruler, defining a scale, and carefully noting the measurements of all the rooms. I somehow manage to change my scale several times during this process, write down the wrong measurements, and get confused about which lines are which on my quilting ruler. Complicating matters, my quilting ruler is big and heavy, and slips around on the page. (Naturally, I don't notice).
Since my dungeon has multiple levels, I am very careful to include staircases, which, since none of the floors are the same size and shape, don't actually join up from level to level. I notice that everything looks a little sloppy, so I go over it in pen, and erase the pencil lines. This makes it look nicer. It also destroys any last traces of geometric plausibility.
When I'm finished, my Escher-esque monstrosity is so impossible to navigate that it doesn't even need monsters. The entire party will just get sucked into the treacherous anti-grid of the map itself, and never be seen again. If the GM asks me to explain the map so they can extract the players, I will be unable to do so, since I have a terrible memory, and can't read my own handwriting.
Being real? I appreciate the ppst, but that article is pretty crap. I've been playing ttrpg games since the eighties, depending on exactly how you define things. I've been forever DM for most of that.
I have literally never had a conversation about rpgs that mentioned any of that. The first one in particular is a given anyway, because they're games. Even improv has one rule.
Again, glad you posted it because despite thinking the article is crap, it was enough to start a discussion anyway :)
Mileage varies, I guess. I’ve also been playing since the eighties (late Seventies, really). I’ve been a forever GM for most of that (not a forever DM, though). I have not been particularly active on game design forums, but still have seen every argument on this list someplace at least once a year, since at least the Forge era (so, about twenty years or so). Less often recently, maybe. Way more often earlier.
*Ten things that will pad out my list of generic rpg book topics. I definitely didn't start with a clickable title and then fumble coming up with the ten things.
The thing is, this is still tying culture to race. If there is no racial essentialism to the traits you describe, then there’s no reason to say that some goblin cultures / sub-cultures do understand the concept of property - and disagree with what they understand to be stealing. Etc.
I think racial descriptions in fantasy games are more like tendencies. Tendencies that often have to do with the environment that each typically grows up in. I thought this was the traditional view, but maybe not.
While there are of course deviations from the norm, it is hard to lay this out in a digestible way. Simplification help readability. NPCs or locations that break these norms seem like a more pleasant way of de-essentializing.
That would be nice, if well done. Their survey gives me the impression they know nothing about Discworld and hope to get focus points from fans to sell more books. They also seem to have a few big licenses they are cashing in. Does anyone know their work and if it's any good?
I've read a few of the OSR books they published. Hard to judge a publisher from a small set of their catalog tbh, and they have a pretty wide catalog. Especially since I've not actually read any of the licensed RPGs they've put out.
Would like to take a look at the Homeworld and Dune books though.
@Scio@Nariom Modiphius put out very good products. Star Trek Adventures is the best Star Trek rpg created. 2d20 mechanic is flexible. Momentum is marmite, I happen to love it, but metacurrency is a mindset. Infinity is 2d20 with the crunch dialled up. Dishonored blew my mind where they jiggle it so that intent is stats.
All aside, they do licences thoroughly and wth respect. GURPS Discworld plays it straight. A One In A Million Chance At Adventure goes Noir Mystery. They're testing their take.
If you ignore WotC as being in its own league, a handful of companies are now the “top tier” of RPG production. I’d include Mophidius there, with Paizo and Evil Hat, maybe Chaosium. Their products have extremely high production values and large (by TTRPG standards) followings.
The are mostly known for 2d20 games (Star Trek Adventures, Dune), Dragonbane, Forbidden Lands, Mutant: Year Zero, and now publish some more classic titles (Twilight: 2000, Kult).
Committing forces to someone elses operation is risky, especially if you don't have contact with whoever is already on site. In the Shadowrun world there is a real risk that the force attacking the platform is not ideologically allied and is in fact one of MCT's competitors, or even MTC itself trying to manufacture an excuse to strike ecoterrorist assets.
If you want them involved however involve them. They don't have to be perfectly paranoid, or unwilling to exploit the situation, maybe sending another spirit ahead to make contact. They could even have had their own op already past the go point, storming the platform from the sea faster than the HTR could have got there, then bring in the HTR via the air to make things more interesting.
I haven't considered the "you don't know who you are messing with" angle. Good point
sending another spirit ahead
Well, from shadowhelix and a few books I understood that eco-terrorists in Europe might-or-might-not have connections to Sea Dragon. So I was thinking about sending them a Saltwater Serpent
@sgtnasty I'm currently running one Pathfinder 2 game, prepping for a game of Protect the Child (a forged in the Dark playtest by @mintrabbit ), and writing up for play my own Fate Condensed setting.
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