Veeky Forums, I'm an absolute Dumbass, but the good news is you're probably going to benefit from my fuck up

Delta Green game gogogo

Make us a Calvin and Hobbes Tabletop Game!

This.

Ok, now you get a bump

A mecha system that isn't complicated as fuck!

wouldn't that just devolve into people throwing dice at each other?

A third the motion.

Calvinball

Sounds great. Get on it OP.

Something pirate related!

I like this one, so I'm going to go with this one.

Basic premise off the top of my head is that everyone is Calvin, or Calvin Duplicates. Everyone gets benefits for being a different Calvin. Original Calvin gets Hobbes, who's a total Bro. Someone gets to be Spiff, or gets to be one of Calvin's runaway fantasies. Calvins do not get along as a general rule(Read: Everyone is Chaotic Selfish by default)

GM is usually in control of a Renegade Calvin, or Mom, or Susie, or a Teacher, or a Homicidal Snowman. You get the idea. Things get weird when Calvin's imagination gets involved, letting the GM get into crazy shit.

Some games could be PvP, to see who gets to become the Calvin that continues to exist. Other times they're all forced to band together to take down the greater threat.

Opinions so far?

lovin it

good keep going

Alright. A Lazy me would just say use Savage Worlds and Supplement, and add in the effect of Bennies being able to work like Fate Points/Plot Points. Spending them to add a new story element, plot twist, etc. In order to represent Calvin's imagination.(you would get an exorbitant number of these when you play Calvinball, and each point could be spent to introduce a new rule to the game)

Even Lazier me would just tack a similar concept onto Risus and be done with it.

However, I'm thinking we need to build this from the ground up. I'm not to fond of dicepool systems(seem like too much of an easy way out) any ideas?

Keep going, mentat user!

Can you see God yet?

Try stuffing an everyman's deck of 52 two jokers optional, Hobbes points? cards into the rules. You get a number of "imagination points" or whatever for the number on the card, with exceptions of faces and aces. For bonus fuckery, have the rules for how many points you can get be altered by spending a flat amount of points, with the limitation that having rules be really simple I don't want anything much longer than "point values are doubled"

Everyone is calvin

I considered using the Everyone is John Rules, but I realized that would be more fun for a GM that loves to improv than anyone else.

Not sure. One thing I do know is that there's some pale figment in the corner of my eye. He's giving me the thumbs up, and telling me that maybe I should play Dwarf Fortress after this. I think it's Tzeentch.

Try lifting shit with your mind.

That seems more like a mechanic for a diceless System made for improv storytelling, with combat and conflict resolution being resolved through a blackjack like mechanic. Not exactly the kind of thing we're looking for.

>Not sure. One thing I do know is that there's some pale figment in the corner of my eye. He's giving me the thumbs up, and telling me that maybe I should play Dwarf Fortress after this. I think it's Tzeentch.

I once went without sleep for 48 hours, and around the 36 hour mark I felt remarkably calm, awake, and aware of every fiber of my being.
The walls also moved as if there were worms beneath their surface, and ethereal angels floated in the fog on my mirrors, reaching out towards me.
Are you experiencing anything similar to that?

Tell Tzeentch he still owes me the soul of Albert Einstein, fucker lost a bet over Brexit and still hasn't paid me my dues.

Nope, just the Tzeentch thing. Also my typing speed has doubled.

I did and he just flipped me off. What a dick.

Try making a bargain for unimaginable psychic power.

Too late, he already left. Besides, I've read enough lore to know what happens when you make deals with Tzeentch.

Ok, so here's an idea I've been pitching around, but probably won't use. I'll send it out here anyway.

D100 dice rolling. You have a few basic stats, which you get to set target numbers in but each stat represents two opposite concepts.

Mechanic is Roll Under AND roll over, in a Lazers and Feelings style. Calvins would have one stat represent Imagination/Common Sense. Whenever you want to roll for imagination you roll under, while common sense you roll over.

Comic book Calvin probably would have an imagination of 85, maybe 90.

Idk, this mechanic would probably be better for a Spelcraft system where all magic is opposite one another, as in Creation/Destruction magic.

calvinball supplement when

After the game is finished. In the meantime check this out. Don't go anywhere else on the site, it's cancer.

>>uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball

I like the Weapons That Don't Exist But Should page.

An Update: I experienced Mild Synesthesia(has actually occurred once before when I was sleep deprived) and the acid reflux kicked in, so I took an antacid. I'll spend the night working on Calvin and Hobbes: the tabletop RPG(not like I'm actually getting some sleep tonight anyway) and deliver it tomorrow. In the meantime use this thread for whatever. Keep me entertained as I go off into this quiet, insomniac night.

>Keep me entertained as I go off into this quiet, insomniac night.
you will soon enter the australia zone

Entering the Twilite Zone and Cthulhuspeed to ye.

Posting "inspirational" materials.

>Today I took a separate 50mg dose
You what?
A 50mg dose of Adderall?
15mg is plenty for me, and I am 5'9" and 130 lbs.
Let us know if you survive, OP

>working on Calvin and Hobbes: the tabletop RPG

So combine that with the Hobbes Points (AKA "Fuck-you-I-Want-This" points).
For the physical/social health mechanic, there's the question of hard number vs penalty track, or even just a series of complications - but complications might b better used in a different context.
If we term the HP mechanic "Coherency" (as in, how coherent of a fantasy calvin you are) and use it as hard numbers, complications could be introduced as a penalty track that requires stunting to negate on rolls.
I don't know, but that's my $0.02

what the fuck???

Everything is circles. Pepsi aims to utilize the power of circles to take control of the galaxy.

That's some real Hound of Tindalos Shit right there.

It's a tome of madness.

Calvin's fantasies only end when he's caught. What if the core mechanic isn't how much health you have, but how close you are to being caught by Parent/Teacher/Monster etc.

So uh, I read the... thing... here, and it appears that I actually grok this document. Like, deeply and completely understand the document and what they're going for.

Should I be concerned? Or afraid?

This. This is how HP should be handled in a C&H rpg.

You gonna get Delta Green'd, m8.

OP here. Possibly? Like said, it smacks of Tindalos way too much with the incessant circle talk. I mean, it honestly makes me think of a Delta Green/Shadowrun crossover. Then again, I tasted colors a few hours ago, so I'm not exactly your best opinion.

Using this.

Who are we to say madness is a curse? Embrace it, user.

Bonuses should be applied for creative use of calvinisms:
SpiffCalvin should be narrating everything post space-opera reiterpretations (MomGM gives him his dinner? "The Bloochnark fires its corrosive gloop at Spiff, but he dodges beneath a rocky overhang!" Under the table.)
Calvin begins a philosophical soliloquy while hurtling towards certain maiming? Walk away a bit dirty.
Etc.

Too subject to opionion man.
Unless you have a reaaly cool group.
With exacting humour etc

>grok
People actually use this as a term? Still? I would have thought this would have died out by now, like doublespeak.

In this thread lies madness and Calvinism&Hobbesism.
I shall monitor it with great interest.
And, I shall bump it by sharing suitable madness.
The other day, while looking through photos, I came to realization that neither me, nor my wife had ever realized:
Her high school boyfriend exactly resembles this man I shall provide evidence at the earliest opportunity, for the photos were put in storage directly after.

If you get time before you come down, please fix 40k OP.

If we can get the rules optimized in a nice little PDF with an update to all armies for internal balance, that'd be swell.

I expect a report on my desk by 4:45 PM BST.

Where did this come from? Whats the sauce?

Actual Pepsi document, beyond that, I'm not sure.

I feel uncomfortable reading this, as if there's something fundamentally wrong with the information contained within the document itself.

No man should read this.

END-LESS LE-GEND
or Dune

OP here. 13 hours later, and I finally feel sleep overtaking me. It was a weird night. The game is about 70% complete. I'll try and finish it up after I wake up, and post it either today or tomorrow. I basically spent the night working on it and reading through every webcomic on the internet. Here's two worth mentioning:

shawntionary.com/clockworks/?p=1636
Steampunk fantasy that isn't Gear Fetish. Includes a tabletop RPG built around the setting. Definitely worth a look.

web.archive.org/web/20150408063436/http://lovecraftismissing.com/?p=930
The title is Lovecraft is missing. The original site no longer exists, and the author died in 2011, so you have to read it through the Web archive. I'm not even sure how I found it, and that frightens me, especially considering the content.

Hey thanks man. Sleep well.

Hey all! This is OP's best friend, as well as his current GM. OP basically filled me in on all the details, and charged me with keeping this thread alive, as well as taking any suggestion you may have. Postem and I'll pass them along. Looks like he's going on another one of his game design binges. Well, I can't argue against a Calvin and Hobbes RPG.

But, let's be honest here. The RPG is just a bonus. What you guys are really here for are stories on what it must be like gaming with the sort of person who takes a 50mg Adderall dosage, then downs a can of Monster, then decides the best course of action is to use this godly focus to design a Tabletop RPG,

Ask your questions about OP, and I'll answer as best as I can. If no one has any particular prompts, I'll provide my own anecdotes and stories of him.

>This is OP's best friend, as well as his current GM. OP basically filled me in on all the details, and charged me with keeping this thread alive
>My immediate question is what sort of person goes on a stimulant fueled binge of activity then passes out and in his final waking moments charges his best friend to keep a thread on Veeky Forums alive, not to keep him alive?
Also, the best story of him pulling shit out of his ass, please.

Those Adderall Ad's get smarter with every passing day.

"Grok this" is a lot quicker to say than "understand this on an instinctual level".

>what sort of person goes on a stimulant fueled binge of activity then passes out and in his final waking moments charges his best friend to keep a thread on Veeky Forums alive, not to keep him alive?
50mg isn't that ridiculous for him. He takes it during midterms and finals, and he basically doesn't sleep the day afterwards. It's hell on him, but he gets pretty good grades out of it, so it works. The Monster on the other hand... that's another story. He told me he got the Shits from it, and He said he was coming back from the Nurse, and didn't seem too worried, so I'm guessing he'll sleep it off. I'll check back on him later today.

>Also, the best story of him pulling shit out of his ass, please.
Which One? No, Seriously, he's that kinda guy.

Things you need to know about OP:
1. He believes in Dice superstition. He's got this one d20 he uses, an that's All he uses. Doesn't let anyone touch it. He told me that it rolled a nat 20 when he first rolled it in the store, he bought it, then proceeded to spend 36 hours keeping it on his person. Now, all that might be a little ridiculous... Except for the fact that HIS DICE LUCK IS INSANE. He rarely, if ever, rolls lower than 10. The times He's Crit-Failed are more significant than the times he's gotten a Nat-20, simply because they're that rare.

2. He's not That Guy, but he is an incorrigible Powergamer. Like he said, he loves Game Design and Mechanics. He loves to optimize his characters, and the frustrating part is that he doesn't optimize like you normally would. He'll exploit mechanics in weird ways. We've been playing a D&D 5e campaign for the last year, playing 3 characters, and all of them are frustrating to deal with(as the GM, the players Love his anticx) His current one is a Divination wizard with the Lucky and War Caster Feats, optimized for CC/Concentration spells. This is actually his most tame character. The other two... There's the Evil Warlock, and then There's... Jax. Fucking Jax.

>There's... Jax. Fucking Jax.
STORYTIME

NAOW

Incoming post about the Warlock. Jax I'll save for later.

"To all of you who want to point at 5e and say "there's your problem", shut up. I've heard your arguments, and between me and OP, we've actually managed to fix most of the serious flaws 5e has. Ask and I may tell you what we've done.

Fucking Fix and Finish Chapter Master

Ok, so the Warlock doesn't have any stories to him, just the way he's built... and the fact that it exploits the Actor feat. Everyone who's played 5e knows that the Warlock and the Actor feat go really well together. Warlocks can gain the ability to cast Disguise Self(and later Alter Self) at-will. The Actor Feat lets you mimic anyone's voice after listening to them for a minute, and gives Advantage on all checks to impersonate someone.

OP figured out another possible exploit. In case you haven't guessed already, he loves Lovecraft, and couldn't resist playing as an Old One Pact Warlock. At first level they get an ability called Awakened Mind, which reads as follows:
>Starting at 1st level, your alien knowledge gives you have the ability to touch the minds of other creatures. You can communicate telepathically with any creature you
can see within 30 feet of you. You don't need to share a language with the creature for it to understand your telepathic utterances, but the creature must be able to understand at least one language.

OP decides to make his character a polyglot. I think that he ended up with like 8 languages he could speak. He also took a level in rogue(all of his characters have that level in Rogue, Damn that expertise)

Now here's the part that you guys will heckle me for. Personally, I thought it was clever, so I allowed it.
1. Using the Actor feat, the Warlock memorizes the speech patterns of his target.
2. OP comes up with a phrase or thought that he wants to use on the target.

Here's the tricky part:
3. Using Awakened Mind, Warlock injects the thought into Target's mind, mimicking the target's speech patterns and language as if it were the target making the thought. Using Advantage from the Actor feat and Expertise in Persuasion and Deception, he's almost guaranteed to make a passing check.

TL;DR, OP figured out how to cast Suggestion at-will. We call this build the Inceptor. All of his characters are like this in some way or other.

Alright, any further questions before I get into the tale of Jax, the world's greatest headache of a character?

Actually, I'll give anyone props if they can guess which official D&D setting we run in, given the info we've provided so far. Actually, those Webcomics he's posted give a pretty good idea.

What the actual fuck

So if he's in combat (unless he sneaks up on the enemy and listens to them for 1 minute) he has to wait 10 rounds (1 minute, during which the enemy dosen't necessairly have to talk) to be able to use this "ability"?
Dosen't seem so useful to me.
Still a great idea, though.

Oh lord, the fuckery he could do with that, I dare to imagine. A bard in 3.5 was already headache inducing, I pity the DM.

God fucking dammit, this is why I'm tilted towards magicless systems.

You're forgetting that he's still a warlock. On top of all of this he can still Eldritch Blast his way through fights, and yes, he did take Agonizing Blast. Plus, that Expertise in persuasion and Deception, he was basically the face of the party

That would be me. And we haven't used the Warlock much. Though I've no doubt he's almost as Headache inducing as... Jax.

Believe me, Magic doesn't matter. He'll find a way, no matter the system.

This is fucking retarded, and not 'clever' at all. YOU are fucking retarded for allowing this retarded bullshit.

I didn't say he was useless in combat, i just said that he would have to wait at least 10 turns to use this gimmick, which makes it pretty useless in my opinion.

And what this dude's saying is right. It's pretty retarded, thoughts don't really work that way, especially during combat. When fighting it's more of an instinct thing. You don't think "oh, now i'll parry this guy's sword", you just visualize the movement you're gonna do and do it. Unless you're an unexperienced and scared fighter, then that may work.

Intrusive thoughts are a thing.

"Hey, you know what would be awesome? If we burnt down an orphanage!" "What? No! Why would I ever- No!"

But for most people, that WILL BE THE END OF IT.

It would need to be something he was going to do anyway.

This, though? "It's just suggestion at will, enjoy!" Retarded as hell.

Well, you could still probably induce some behaviors. If it's nothing insane there's still a chance the victim would follow it thinking it was a good idea.

It's not a combat ability. It's a Social ability. He never used it in combat, and acted as the Face of the Party. Allowing it in combat would be ridiculous.

Besides, this is all RAW, except for the interpretation of Awakened Mind. There was some discussion as to whether someone immediately recognizes foreign thoughts as not their own, but with the Actor feat and the Abundance of languages he had, I let it slide.

Let me ask you something. Do you have fun when you play? We do. He may be a power-gamer, but he also knows how to create a decent backstory, and Role-play his characters. He also pays for his portion of the food, and does his share of GM-ing when he can. Besides, he used this for the benefit of the party, and with the exception of Jax, he never takes the spotlight that often. We have fun, and your shit opinion doesn't really matter.

Ah, I see. Yeah, I described it as Suggestion at-will. No, we did NOT just say it was a free cast of Suggestion. It was an extremely subtle way of convincing someone to do something. He could do something like "He seems Trustworthy" or "Grab that Sconce" and create the urge or impression to do something, but he couldn't cast full-blown suggestion.

Hey, fuckface, if you don't want to be judged or called out on what people think are stupid calls?

Don't open your goddamn mouth. All you're doing is reinforcing my opnion that I'm glad I've never played with a single one of you.

I'd personally put a lenient cap on it, like each sentence he puts into the other person's head is less convincing than the first, but I can't argue with some good fun.

Since you offered, and you seem to want to hold back on the infamous Jax, would you mind sharing a few of your 5e fixes? I'm currently in a 5e game myself with a GM that's a bro, figured on the chance you guys came up with something awesome I'd run it by him.

Now that you explained it better, i get it, and as i said before, it is a good idea.
I'm sorry for coming up as a no-fun-allowed cunt, but i get triggered when i see stuff that apparently looks stupid or unrealistic.
It would be cool having a player as creative as OP.
Now start writing who or what this Jax dude is, you got me Curious.

Not him, but I doubt you play with anyone.

Alright. We play in 5e Eberron. Jax's full name happens to be Jaxtus d'Cannith, which should already give you a good idea as to what kind of Character he is, if you know anything about Eberron. For those who don't, Jax was built to be an Artificer, or a crafter of magic items.

I can already hear the more whiny posters bullshitting about me even considering Magic Item Crafting as a possibility. So, here's the bottom line Jax never made anything that was actually useful in combat. Instead, he mostly made Trinkets and uncommon magic items. You know the useless magic items threads on here? That's the kind of stuff Jax made. Fun magic items, not boring stat bonuses and free spell-casting.

Gotta run to my next class. Expect more in a minute.

>useless magic items threads
dis gon b gud

Sure. Our biggest fix to 5e was working out the kinks in the Encounter Creation system. Well, I sat kinks, but reanlly it's more like it absolutely breaks down after 5th level. If you use it as is, you'll find that Players eventually take out supposedly Deadly Encounters with relative ease. Most people's solution is to add more encounters per long rest, increasing the general threat. That doesn't work in our campaigns, which are so Role-playing focused that we often go entire sessions without combat.

The solution we found was not our own, but this guide: enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?367697-Encounter-difficulty-how-to-fix-it

OP took it a step further, and added modifiers for Magic Items by Rarity, meaning that our combat now takes into account Magic items, letting me be less of a hardass on how many items the DMs can hand out, as the DMG suggests. Kind of a necessity in Eberron.

Can't use my laptop, so I won't get the actual story started for another hour or so. For now I'll just give you an idea of what Jax was capable of.

Jax started out as an Arcane Trickster. He took Expertise in Arcana and Investigation, and a Homebrew feat that cut the time and gold he needed to craft items in half, and gave him an extra tool proficiency. He also had the Mark of Making, for you Eberron fans. We alsp allowed him to modify his choice of spell schools. A normal player would choose a school like Evocation, instead of Enchantment and Illusion. OP chose Abjuration and Divination.

>OP chose Abjuration and Divination.
...I can see where this is going.

Scry at will, anti-Scry on ALL THE TIME.

Also, "fuck you I'm immune to casters" items.

Actually no. He never crafted "useful" items. Most of Jax's shenanigans came as a result of his actions out of combat. His spell-choice was based around Utility and being able to pull off weird stunts by modifying spells in weird ways. Also, because he had an 18 Int, plus the expertise, he never had less than a +8 to his Arcana checks.

I should also clarify, Modifying spells did not let you add Metamagic for free. He did things like using Detect Magic to lock on to the specific magic items he'd created, or expand the range of Detect Magic. Again, you always have to take 10 extra minutes to do it, making it useless in combat, and it always expended a spell slot on use.

>That doesn't work in our campaigns, which are so Role-playing focused that we often go entire sessions without combat.
Same here, between the setting's factions and that divvied between all of the party members we've managed to find enough ins with almost all of them, we can usually talk our way out of/through anything that'd end up hostile. We literally have to go to other planes of existence read: other settings to have combat that doesn't feel like "Weren't we friends with these guys/their friends? Why're we fighting?"

I'm fairly certain our record for most sessions without combat that couldn't be freeformed to "I punch the shoplifter, encounter over" is easily over fifteen, which is one thing if you're a diplomancer, but another if you're a martial that's getting desperate enough for some murder hobo action that you ask the other players if they wanna PvP spar. Checking out the link now.
>OP took it a step further, and added modifiers for Magic Items by Rarity, meaning that our combat now takes into account Magic items, letting me be less of a hardass on how many items the DMs can hand out, as the DMG suggests.
I wouldn't mind seeing those too, trying to mix a high-magic setting with 5e's "magic items are a rarity" stance is tough, only mitigated by the fact that our base is in the middle of a sprawling metropolis with a mage's science guild a half-hour's walk away. Even then, we plow through all our encounters with such minor damages our bard can heal it off, so having some tweaks to compensate the pile of magic stuff wrapped around us might help add a bit of challenge but not too much challenge, the giant ant encounter is our in-joke cap for "this is how bad an encounter should ever go barring true boss fights".

I'll see if I can't dig through my hard drive and find that doc for you.

Can you explain it oh mad one?

I figure if I drop a Redline I could explain this to Veeky Forums, but the last time I drank one of those I ended up having to take medicine.