"Hey guys, I'm starting up a gritty, realistic, grim, dark, mature, low magic, low fantasy campaign

Been there, done that. It was a fucking blast, 10/10 do recommend.

Not him but I assume he means the alien that Egoraptor married.

That's some textbook fetal alcohol syndrome right there.

And now without makeup

>"No plate mail. It's not realistic."

>level 1 in a political campaign
Oh fuck off, m8.

Well done.

Gore isn't allowed outside of /b/. Reported.

it's all the makeup, it grinds into your skin and ruins it over time

...

Just so you faggots understand, OP is a reference to this thread:

but there's literally nothing wrong with the scenario OP's laying out, except all the nightmare shit in the third line. Which is so exaggerated, nobody's stupid enough to play 3.5/PF *core only* in this day and age

See

>political intrigue

>DND

This is probably bait, but people still do that. It's some kind of masochism.

Nobody plays other games so why bother? They must be bad.

>Which is so exaggerated, nobody's stupid enough to play 3.5/PF *core only* in this day and age
You underestimate how stupid some people are.

I had a d&d campaign turn into domain management and intrigue once.
I now only run my homebrew when I want to do that sorta thing. A lot of folks bitch about the social mechanics, my bigger problems were that pricing and economics make no sense raw and that the players sending out agents and spies is completely handwaved if you don't make rules for it.

...

>I had a d&d campaign turn into domain management
In old editions, this was the intended endgame for players.

It was a weekly 5e game that lasted around a year. I didn't have magic items for sale and after the first couple of quests, it was a sandbox.
The wizard started crafting potions, the barbarian started to hire lizardmen and orcs into his personal envoy, the druid started a religious congregation, etc. By the end of the campaign they were level 8, ruled a handful of villages and were at war with a rival town; calling in favors from an orc tribe and using nature worshiping fanatics they sent into the town to launch assaults on their church.

It was pretty awesome but I quickly learned that there's no guidance at all for how to run domain management in 5e. Hell, I had to houserule heavily at the level 3-5 range when they were rolling 20 deep with mercenaries to important battles and buying businesses.

Should have just jacked the DM rules from 1e, Companion, or Birthright.

Birthright's domain management system is highly overwrought, nigh unplayable, and terribly balanced, I assure you.

As somebody who finds Birthright interesting, tell me more.

The top issues with domain management are:

1. The "starting domains" for PCs have no sense of balance to them whatsoever. In Anuire alone, you could choose for your PC to start off as regent of the small little "recommended" domain of Roesone... or you can start off in control of "the most powerful church in Anuire," the Western Imperial Temple of Haelyn, or the massive megacorporation that is the Heartlands Outfitters (which also has its own city-state).

2. Wizards are actually underpowered here. They are mistrusted by the populace to start with, their realm spells start off middling, and by the time said spells become strong, they are hamstrung by the fact that developing provinces reduces magical source ratings. (This can be circumvented by playing an elven domain, but elves are locked out of temples.)

3. Priests, on the other hand, are godlike for their ability to wield priestly realm spells (many of which, especially those from the supplements, are on the level of wizard realm spells) without having to deal with magical source reductions.

4. Some classes are objectively superior than others at the domain management subsystem. For example, fighters collect Regency only from Law, while rangers collect Regency from Law and Guilds (and have overland map mobility benefits), and paladins collect Regency from Law and Temples. Halfling ranger/priests can collect Regency from Law, Guilds, *and* Temples (while keeping the overland map mobility benefits), and are probably the single best character type at domain management.

5. The game claims that a government type wherein the province-owner delegates Law holdings to others is viable (and indeed, this is the case in the Rjurik Highlands), but this actually screws over province loyalty tremendously (and makes the Rjurik Highlands ironically quite disloyal despite the delegation of Law holdings, which goes against the lore).

(Continued.)

6. Some domains have less detail than others, which is a bad thing for a GM who has to manage a massive world. Some domains have listed treasuries, Regency accumulated, armies, and fortifications, while others go into no detail at all on such things. In fact, the writers were so lazy with some domains that they declared their holding values to be "unknown" and up to the GM to decide.

7. The action economy is completely screwed. No matter how expansive your lands are, you still have the same allotment of actions (and scale for those actions) as you did when you were starting off. This means that your lands are bound to rapidly spiral out of control once you start expanding... unless you make *every* new land you expand into a vassal state under your control (because then they get your own set of actions). However, since vassals can be disloyal and/or passive-aggressively be unhelpful, the DM is the one to control them; this means that eventually, the DM is playing out the majority of your little empire's actions.

8. The DM controls only a few other domains each turn. Every other domain is simply assumed to be zero-summing itself and not accomplishing anything, but also not losing anything. In other words, the PCs' domains and their DM-controlled vassals get to steadily improve, whereas the vast majority of the rest of the world is completely stagnant for no good reason.

9. I have not studied it too in-depth, but I have not heard good things about the mass battle system at all.

But not having the middle ages be full of rape and misery is offensive to me.

Most domains got their own Players' Secrets of X book, were those all highly variable in detail?

For the Mass Battle System, it shouldn't be too hard to rip it out and replace it with Battlesystem. The Naval Combat System might be a bit more difficult though you might be able to rig something up out of Spelljammer or something.

May I keep my walking stick at the table? You know, in case an Elminster shows up.

Thank you guys for my next character. But assuming we play 3.F how do i get this charactr to work properly? Since my DM does not allow Advanced Classes I thought of a fighter with high Int and a little Charism since he is a leader. ... I also thought of a Kniht but they are not stealthy enough ... and you dont have to be a cavalier to be a Sir.

...

I'd rather not man, doesn't sound like my scene.

I blame nerd culture in general for this.
It's deep obsession with labels of various types leads to an obsession with over-classification of absolutely everything, and whichever labels can be most easily applied to what is currently the most popular piece of media or favored inspiration is what they go with and try to make it fit.

They're all just words we use to help us manage our autistic need to give "stats" ti everything, no matter how irrelevant.
Anyone who's actually seriously written doesn't just shoehorn a thing into anything other then the broadest possible label ("fantasy" or "science fiction", usually) and then he writes his fiction; he doesn't waste time overthinking it's classifications and shit like that.

Ayy lmao

Egoraptor is a tranny, pass it on

Also, another massively overpowered "Recommended for PC use" starting domain is Danigau, in the Western Reaches of Brechtur. You start off in control of *eight* moderately-developed provinces, many Law and Source holdings, a huge amount of pre-accumulated Regency and GB, an elite army with considerable fortifications, and the inexplicable ability to raise defensive militia extremely efficiently.

>7. The action economy is completely screwed. No matter how expansive your lands are, you still have the same allotment of actions (and scale for those actions) as you did when you were starting off. This means that your lands are bound to rapidly spiral out of control once you start expanding... unless you make *every* new land you expand into a vassal state under your control (because then they get your own set of actions). However, since vassals can be disloyal and/or passive-aggressively be unhelpful, the DM is the one to control them; this means that eventually, the DM is playing out the majority of your little empire's actions.

>8. The DM controls only a few other domains each turn. Every other domain is simply assumed to be zero-summing itself and not accomplishing anything, but also not losing anything. In other words, the PCs' domains and their DM-controlled vassals get to steadily improve, whereas the vast majority of the rest of the world is completely stagnant for no good reason.

Addendum: If *each* PC controls their own domain, then the action economy is stacked tremendously in their favor, because they and their vassals receive many more actions than the DM ever will.

>Most domains got their own Players' Secrets of X book

The vast majority of domains do not, in fact, have Player's Secrets of X books.

When *many* domains have missing information on what resources they can bring to bear, it becomes a significant burden for a DM who has to manage a grand-scale world.

I'm willing to give it a pass on the lack of domain sourcebooks, because that's a natural consequence of the line getting canned.

Given how short they all are, maybe what TSR should have done is something like the Planes of Law box, i.e. a box with a bunch of smaller books in it, one for each domain.

So what system would be good for the game that OP's describing? I've only ever played DnD 3.5 and GURPS

>gm
>can only run one system

GURPS should be able to handle it, if you break out the SocEng stuff.

Reign is designed for that sort of stuff, and ACKS's endgame is your PCs becoming rulers.

how about no.

>Given how short they all are, maybe what TSR should have done is something like the Planes of Law box, i.e. a box with a bunch of smaller books in it, one for each domain

You would be looking at *31* domains for Anuire alone, not counting any temple-, guild-, or source-based holdings.

Cities of the Sun, Havens of the Great Bay, Rjurik Highlands (plain name, that), and Tribes of the Heartless Wastes *were* Birthright's equivalent of Planes of Law, Chaos, and Conflict.

Honestly, I just want GMs to realize that they need to make a strong starting adventure that sets up various aspects of the campaign world before pulling this sandbox meme shit.

It never works out, and on those ridiculously rare occasions where it *does* work that I'm sure anonymous faggots on the internet will try to convince me actually exist and are not merely the tall tales of a liar on the internet, it works out in *spite* of a GM's poor introduction to the campaign world. It works out because you lucked into an alpha player who actually takes initiative and makes his own goals in your utter blank slate of a game, which I say in the worst way possible. Where you have presented him with a blank canvas and said "Now add onto what I've got here," which you may note is fucking nothing, and then he says "yeah okay" instead of "wait, there's nothing here, what do I add"

Players need context before they can make meaningful decisions, and if you don't have any fucking context, you don't have any fucking meaningful decisions. The less context you have, the more often you're going to see players waffle around and latch onto whatever dumb thing strikes their fancy.

And no, this doesn't mean "make some big info dump pre-game," it means give them an adventure and use it to introduce some shit for them to actually give a fuck about IN GAME.

Reign is literally built to do this. It has rules for magic but "don't use the magic rules, and remove the Eerie stat" is all the 'house ruling' you would need to do.

Only sandbox game I've seen that worked, had an intro adventure for the first four or five sessions. The gm had the world planned out decently, the adventure more served as a way to drip feed exposition and faction conflicts.

A guy running around in plate mail all day every day is a little unrealistic

Want to see how fast a fat can run?

Eh, it's not that bad.

She probably would look better without make-up if she didn't put in on every day for two decades.

Still, it's not that bad, and that photo is really unflattering in general.

You would think so, until you realize that social asspies and autists are not a new thing and have been part of the human condition since we still proto-humans.

So chances are, the caste of dudes born and bred for war and taught a somewhat-strict set of rules for higher society social interactions a good deal were socially retarded when the pomp and fluff was removed from the equation.

>M'lady.

>endless Grim-Dark misery and suffering = Realistic

Well, yes.
Do you live in Suburbia?

It is.A plate harness with mail voiders not so much, hell even just on top of a hauberk if you don't mind the weight. Or a coat of plates/pair of plates/brigandine, that works too. What you said is studded leather tiers of retarded.

I dunno, Bronn was probably still in his first few levels- he doesn't win because he's a great fighter, he wins because he fights dirty.

There's something to be said for playing the nobodies scurrying around the court, pulling strings and getting the high-and-mighties angry at each other while you quietly embezzle enough for a nice country estate.

>9. I have not studied it too in-depth, but I have not heard good things about the mass battle system at all.

Everyone should throw their mass battle systems in the trash and use the 1e L5R one. It's straightforward, allows for heroic actions without being Exalted-level 'everything revolves around this one individual', and it's easy to adapt.

How would you GM a metal gear solid game (besides in GURPS)?

Savage worlds,using interface 0 ignoring all fluff and specifically internal setting text. Covers everything from magic robot limbs to mechs. May or may not actually contain nanomachines.

Given the system any specific details could also easily be stated out.

>Realistic
>Pathfinder

>Les Outremers
user, you realize "Outremer" was a name for the Crusader States established in the Levant, yes?
Considering that Wolf refers to him as "Saladin", it seems rather ironic. Unless that's what you were going for of course.

I'd go with a Ranger, actually.

>(This can be circumvented by playing an elven domain, but elves are locked out of temples.)

...elves can't have priests? How does that work?

ACKS nigga

If you wanted metal gear with it's more extravagent/esoteric/over-the-top aspects, Shadowrun would probably be your best bet.

No, as in physically they're locked out and kept out by bouncers.

Alright, but how would you capture the *feel* of the games?

Basically never let your players do anything and instead tell a retarded, contrived story rooted in fundamental misunderstandings of geopolitics, military etiquette, physics and biology.

So shortlist: the thread?

AD&D 2e is a game of race/class restrictions and level limits. Elves in Cerilia can only be fighters (level 12 maximum), rangers (level 12 maximum), wizards (no level cap), thieves (level 12 maximum), bards (level 9 maximum), fighter/mages, fighter/thieves, or thief/mages, as per page 5 of the Birthright rulebook.

Sure, dibs on Druid.

They can't be druids?

Going by the AD&D 2e PHB, only humans and half-elves can be druids.

Birthright lightens this restriction by allowing humans, dwarves, half-elves, and halflings to be priests of Erik (a.k.a. Aeric or Iraikhan), which are a direct upgrade to druids with no drawbacks. Elves are still locked out.

you don't need to be druid when you can be wizard with no level cap

Choice language and stylized missions? You can make d&d feel like CoC if you pick your words carefully enough.

But that would actually make this idea salvageable. Better to just stick with a generic flavor of D&D.

>Going by the AD&D 2e PHB, only humans and half-elves can be druids.

...so one of the most nature-focused races in D&D...can't do anything with the nature class?

Heck, there are Elven Gods. Who the heck is a priest of them if you can't be a priest?

GURPS or Burning Wheel

Yes, on the condition I get to GM every other week to cut down on your potential autism

Drop acid before running every session, then drop random plot twists from schlocky action movies into the game with no explanation or sense.
Proceed to make it awesome anyway.

Sure, lets play Thieves World.

>that picture

Are those Silver Knights?

>Heck, there are Elven Gods. Who the heck is a priest of them if you can't be a priest?

Elves can be priests of the multiverse-wide elven pantheon in AD&D 2e, but not in Cerilia.

I would not know.

>I would not know.

This is a Silver Knight.

Compare

Is hunter mauling in the vanilla game or behind some dlc?

It's always weird to me how there are apparently so many groups and GMs that are dead set against ever trying another system. In our group we've basically used a different system for each of our last four games, and it wasn't a detriment at all. If anything it made it better, by keeping things fresh and allowing us to pick the system best suited to the particular game. Hell, one time we even switched systems in the middle of a running campaign, and it worked out just fine.

You're gonna be pretty let down if you ever study the actual middle ages, then

>>no magic items
>>core rule book only
pt buy
so what you are saying is that you want a high magic setting that fucks martial characters in the ass, and you have no understanding of the pathfinder system in part or whole. yeah pass. I don't say this often but you could literally not handle me.

Song of Ice and Fire RPG?

>>No magic items
>>Valyrian Steel
>>Faceless Men
>>Light bringer
>>Dragons
>>Blood magic
>>Children of the Forest
>>White Walkers

Your setting is shit and based on false pretense, ASOIAF is fantasy as fuck, the show actually tones down the series if anything.

For every bullshit retcon like targs being fireproof they add, they remove shit like Coldhands, the weeaboo properties of Valyrian steel, the black glass candles, the Others looking like snow fae and wearing ice armor and using ice swords, all the Starks being wargs, tons of prophecy, etc.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a pretty simple and popular setting that would help approximate both the lethality of the books as well as the blatant bullshit plot armor

Jon Snow burned armor fate point.

Are you familiar with ACKS ?

Yes, yes they are

This image gives me a headache unless I close one of my eyes.

>"Hey guys, I'm starting up a gritty, realistic, grim, dark, mature, low magic, low fantasy campaign.
>"It'll be a sandbox of political intrigue, directly inspired by Game of Thrones.

So... we dine and rape and destroy economies and polities until the die say that rocks fall?

We're basically medieval investment bankers without golden parachutes?

Fuck you I love android 17

anything trying to be like game of thrones as a selling point is an immediate red flag for me