I’ve got a game of vampire the requiem (2nd edition). There are dozens of fans of requiem out there.

I’m not really sure why they rebooted the wod and the re-rebooted it, but my books aren’t going anywhere.

I didn’t immediately get a sense of how the dice choices would impact play and options. Seems like if I take forceful and strong, I can never ever succeed at at least one categories of options? That seems limiting.

I’m not mathy enough to instantly see how the dice are going to limit me.

Unclear how health and recovery work. Seems like the double d6 would have low stress, high wounds?

Have you played Fate? This seems like a distant relative of Fate Accelerated.

No meta game points or succeed at a cost?

Fate is maybe the biggest game that uses this. You can spend a Fate Point to declare a story detail.

It’s a big change in mind set from the default of DND, where you’re super zoomed in on your character. Instead you’re more like a writer on a project.

For example, a group of players were trying to escape from an office building. They’d set off alarms and were fleeing upwards. One of the players said, “I bet the executives here have a helicopter on the roof, with a chopper always ready to go.”. Spend a fate point and it’s true. They stole the helicopter and escaped into new problems.

I like being able to steer the game. I don’t like just being along for the GM’s ride. I like when my players provide ideas.

But some players hate it. I guess some players really want to focus on becoming one with their character. I’m more focused on trying to tell a cool story.

https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-points#declaring-a-story-detail

I find vanilla DND really weird after spending time in other games. Like I’m missing limbs and senses.

I usually ask the players something like “if it was this easy, why doesn’t everyone else do it?”. Sometimes they’ll dismantle their own ideas given the prompt.

Or, sometimes I’ll say “are you sure you want NPCs to use this tactic?”

I’m not sure I follow what you mean by originality and complexity as opposed concepts.

It’s important for players to be able to engage with the content. If you add too much new stuff up front, they’re not likely to retain it. If they can’t retain it, they can’t engage with it. You can drop them in store brand middle earth and they’ll be able to engage. If you drop them in a wholly original setting with winged squid people, eternally young goat poets, and living clothing, that’s a lot to try to integrate all at once.

One of the most disappointing games I ran was Vampire, where the players just didn’t do any reading about the game’s fiction or factions. They didn’t understand what the major NPC players wanted, so they were always lost and confused. After we abandoned that game, I started a new one that was basically Diablo. They did a lot better in that one, in large part because there was no up front details. Yeah yeah fallen kingdom, demon problem, we get it.

I think the real factor is “how much new stuff do they need to learn to engage?”

Should be careful not to just shut down player ideas. If everything they do slams into an annoying problem, it can quickly stop being fun.

I sometimes try to sync with the players and be like “hm do you think the 300 year old vampire has had to engage with the city before? What sort of plans and influence do you think he has?”. Then it doesn’t feel like I’m just screwing them, if they’re thinking about it too.

Yeah I made an account on another instance because I was having trouble getting here reliably. It’s been okay lately, though.

There are of course some weak points, and I’ll gladly expand upon them and any other points it if you’re interested. But I’ve really enjoyed my time in PF2e on both sides of the screen and consider it my TTRPG of choice currently, even as a 3.5 Grognard.

It’s still mostly a spells-per-day game, right? You probably don’t lose the first fight of the day because you can go nova

It’s been really interesting playing Vampire with a person who’s only ever played DND. We keep telling him “you can use your cool powers”. He keeps thinking it’s like a special move to save for a big encounter. No, you don’t have to come up with an elaborate scheme to get past the bouncer. You can just Dominate him. It’s a big shift in mind set!

Personally I hate the “save your cool powers for later” mode of play. I think Pathfinder 2e is less of that, but not free of it?

I had a really bad time once where I wanted to run a dark souls inspired “explore the cursed island” game, and only two of four players were on board. One literally tried to open a BBQ shop. The other was more of a wonder around and pick flowers, not fights, kind

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but DND doesn’t do Star Wars well. There’s no adventuring day in the source fiction, really. Jedi are hard to model- they either shine too bright or don’t live up to the fiction. Force powers don’t really map to existing DND systems. Class+Level is very coarse, which makes it hard to model some concepts. DND is almost entirely a combat game, but I guess Star wars is mostly fighting so you won’t feel the absence of other systems that much.

I’m sure it’ll be make some people happy. The previous d20 Star wars games had their fans. I just don’t think it’s something I’d enjoy, and it’s a shame this is going to suck the air out of star wars tabletop game options.

A good post.

I personally find DND unsatisfying for many reasons (little to no degree of success, static magic system that encourages hoarding, the primary defense is all or nothing avoidance, very coarse progression, some character concepts are simply not representable, etc)

But what is even more annoying than that is when players respond with “but you can just change the rules!”. I know! That’s true of any pen and paper game! It’s not some unique property of DND. But sometimes I don’t want to do the work of designing a system, and I almost never want to play some stranger’s pre-alpha homebrew.

This supports my hypothesis that most players “playing” DND could easily swap to some other rule system and not even know. Many of them would probably be happier in other systems.

There’s something off about a video about books.

I had a dm once say he was thinking about saying no about my rogue’s “I shoot, move, bonus action hide around the corner” loop. But then he said he realized if he said no, my character would suck and it’d be no fun.

I think that was the right call.

I guarantee 99% of people would want a house on 2 acres thats a 30 minute drive to town than an apartment.

This is an insane take.

Many people like density.

With an apartment you have no yard, probably no garage, cant make any changes to it, and you hear all your neighbors, and smell them if they smoke, and you dont own shit.

Many apartments have yards.

If you own that apartment, you can make changes to it. Maybe not some drastic changes, but I imagine the real limited there is money rather than architectural.

Many apartments are sound proof. I almost never hear my neighbors.

I don’t know if my neighbors smoked. I’ve never smelled anything.

Apartments actually benefit the wealthy class, which is why I find it funny lemmings love them so much.

You seem to be confusing renting with apartments

Cut it down to three days a week? How much meat do people eat??

I consider myself a half assed vegetarian. A social meat eater. I only really eat meat if I’m like at a party and the host ordered a pepperoni pizza.

We aren’t taught how to manage debt,

Do people need to explicitly be taught “You bring home $5,000 after taxes. You spend $2000 on rent, $1000 on fixed bills, $1000 on semi-fixed expenses, and $500 on fun. Do not buy a thing that raises your fixed expenses by $2000”?

I guess so.

I mean, I think a lot about a guy I worked with years ago. He said as soon as he turned 18 he got a credit card and maxed it out. No plans to pay it. Just enjoyed having a new TV, clothes, xbox, shoes. And then he got in a lot of trouble, which should have surprised no one. But at least he was getting his life together, ten years after the fact. Though we haven’t talked in years. I worry he’s a trumper, despite him being hispanic.

I would not be surprised if my old coworker-friends started a separate group chat without me after the nth, “Maybe you should come to one of these protests” and “Please at least read the wikipedia summary on this historical topic before you start going off about it” message from me.

They’re fine people but they’re also kind of very… apolitical.

What I was getting at is why is the signal like that if most people don’t have the hardware to utilize it, and it’s a really bad experience with the more common hardware. Unless people with basic stereo is actually the minority

Do most people have that kind of setup? Almost everyone I know is watching from a basic tv, a shitty laptop, or with midrange headphones