Paizo Games General /pgg/

He lost his mother to religion and her own careless attitude and his father to his self-loathing that extended unto his own off-spring (my character). The he almost lost his daughter to a wizard and now his other daughter almost to a barbarian.

I'm surprised at the picks. I wish DM's would be clearer with the tone they were looking for. If they want all the applicants to come forward and ask for reviews and the like, maybe that would be good information to include?

hi sleep

Hey, how's it going? Not to be biting FennecAnon's style, but do you got any plans for the weekend?

Got a game on Saturday and Sunday. And a yard sale.

>Minmax'd ERP snake
Not even Renpa? A shame.

Hope those are all fun for you!
And I sure hope you can keep the heat off, it's been a real nightmare.

haha

fuck georgia

Is Order of the Staff for cavaliers Paizo's way of saying "fuck you martials, wizards are superior" through an actual mechanic that forces your character to acknowledge the superiority of casters?

Saturday Vigilante game. all vigilantes, all the time.

They're going to try and save the cit they put under martial law by putting the one sane person on the throne by killing her father. After they resurrect her. Because they killed her.

My players don't think things through sometimes.

Saturday game. We'll see how it goes. In a bad spot, so I'll probably not contribute as much. I'm a punchgirl, and it's diplo time, so I shouldn't be too missed. What about you?

Is Carnal Crown showing any promise?

No, martials bodyguarding wizards is a trope older than most RPGs. It was a thing in novels.

>lewdgame
No.

This is a REALLY good ability for your caster friends, though

>Challenge: Whenever an order of the staff cavalier issues a challenge, his target takes a –1 penalty on saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities for 1 round after the cavalier successfully damages the target. This penalty increases by 1 for every four levels the cavalier possesses.

Hit on a pretty maid. Don't hit her though.

Now if only cavaliers didn't suck.

I get to have a taste of mythic!

I don't think it's lewd if you don't want it to be!

Besides, the book's full of undead and constructs, right? How can you be lewd with those?

I want to have some words over the subjects of scale and stakes. Those words get tossed around sometimes to describe a campaign, but it's usually not very clear exactly what the writer means when they use them, and whether or not the terms are interchangeable to them (and more importantly, to the readers).

In my mind, scale refers to how wide-reaching an adventure is, while stakes refers to how invested people NOT involved in the adventure would be in the outcome.

A large-scale game would be one where the PCs might travel across the continent or to other planes. A small-scale game might take place entirely in a single, isolated village. It's important to note that a game's scale should refer to its greatest expected scale- if a game is going to spend the first dozen sessions in a small fishing village trying to defend it from goblins, but end up with the PCs invading Lamashtu's abyssal realm to slay her, that's still a large scale game even if it started small-scale. An advantage to small scale games is that, because they are limited to a smaller area, the PCs will become more familiarized with the area and its inhabitants than they would if, say, they spent the campaign traveling all around a kingdom. I don't suggest large-scale campaigns can't have depth or fleshed out NPCs, as you can easily have NPCs that travel with the party or whom the party regularly crosses paths with. But I do think small-scale adventures have a leg up in this regard- it's simply easier to make a place feel more developed when it's small. Large-scale adventures, on the other hand, often have the desirable feel of moving up in the world. The PCs and their players know they're hot shit when it's time to travel to the capital to seek audience with the king or find a portal to the negative energy plane. It's about more than just letting the players know they're important, it's about establishing a sense of progression and growth, which large-scale games tend to do better.

They don't though.

Gee, I don't know, not like we've had a bunch of thirstlords going on about fucking corpses for the name of Urgathoa or something.

She's incredibly bad at that, so it's not likely. People aren't generally turned on by a beefy lady with 2 prosthetics and a negative cha mod. She'll settle for teasing the Undine bard about his noodly arms.

Stakes, being a separate thing from scale, has less to do with the world around the PCs and more to do with how the PCs view the world. Or, more specifically, stakes are about what's motivating the PCs along on their grand adventure. The obvious high-stakes scenario for a campaign is that the world is in danger- some dark and fiendish evil threatens to destroy it all, or cast all of mortal life into a thousand years of darkness and terror. However, a campaign with lower stakes can still have stakes that deeply affect the PCs. For example, if the game's starting premise is that a villain with a grudge has kidnapped the families of all the PCs, you have a low stakes game- the world will keep turning even if the PCs fail, and most people will never even know- even though the PCs themselves are strongly motivated to deal with this problem and rescue their families. Indeed, if the PCs don't have a strong motivation to participate in the campaign, that's really a flaw in the game itself rather than something to do with whether the game's stakes are too small. A game with large stakes sets itself up inherently to be about being (or becoming) the big damn heroes that save the day, where the events of the campaign are bigger than the PCs and their personal problems, while a small stakes game has room to focus on those personal problems. The fact that Bob the Fighter was bullied by the fisherman's son growing up could matter in a game about saving the fishing village from nearby monsters, but probably won't matter in a campaign that ramps up to saving the Material Plane from a Qlippoth invasion.

Now, low stakes pair well with small scope, and high stakes with large scope, though it's probably not impossible to make games with other combinations. Some people also have a false perception that small scope or low stakes are boring (though they can, of course, have a preference for something bigger). What sort of game do you enjoy more?

Sure, but those are a fringe group of bad writers that won't get into any game anyway!

The GM that made it said they were making it for lewdshit. In the description, it is said that losing in battle means being dragged off for lewdshit.

>A FUCKING LITERAL TIME DRAGON
What is it? How does one end up playing that in this game?

....you really want me to tell you how you can get lewd with constructs and undead, user? because I can tell you.

You might never sleep peacefully again, but I can tell you.

Maybe I did, user, but I got honorably mentioned.

Then again, the Skyrim guy got honorably mentioned, so I'm not sure what to think

Well, the fancy new air conditioning broke after a few blackouts. So there's that.
But looking on the bright side, running Sunday's Overlewd and leading LoBaF along through a timeskip!

That's nice. Hope you have a good time.

You wouldn't! Ever!

Me too.

I didn't realize just how hot it was today until after I drove home, stood outside of my car for a minute, and then felt my foot drag as I tried to step away. The tar on the concrete was melting under my shoe.

It's getting more apps, but there's nothing about it that really grabs me. It was the same way with Trouser Serpent's Skull, the only "feature" it has is that it's lewd. I'm not against lewd games, but I like them to be more interesting than "[insert AP], but lewd". I slightly regret having apped for it now, because I can feel my enthusiasm for it waning and on the off chance I get picked I'd probably end up declining the invite. So you should apply for it, to decrease my chances of being picked!

On Saturday, we'll be confronting the lord mayor for his involvement with the cult that's responsible for pretty much the entire party's problems. Probably going to get ugly. Beyond that, there's not much on my calendar-going to be something of a lazy weekend.

>yfw when you will never play with a GM who makes origins for individual spells in her casual worldbuilding

I'm not sure which is worse. Heat that melts tar or air that is choking thick with smoke.

Oh, but I do!

What sort of trouble has this person caused the party?

>tfw it's so hot it feels like you're entering a fog gate when you walk outside

>I wish DM's would be clearer with the tone they were looking for.

This is a constant problem for /pfg/ games it feels like

Like what is even the tone for Carnal Crown and Iron Gods? The apps are all over the place

I'd probably drop the game based on the picks alone. It came off as a normal-ish game but the GM jumped at the shiniest fanfic-tier characters.

>carnal crown

I like the more mosntrous apps and hope to see a party entirely composed of them. Things that would get the pitchforks and torches pulled out, instead of normal humans or elves.

Okay sure, but that's not tone. A monstrous character can be silly, or serious. What tone is the game for?

On that note you'll probably get that wish, since there seems to only be like... one or two normal human characters?

>Things that would get the pitchforks and torches pulled out, instead of normal humans or elves.

But... Why? All that will do is force the PCs to enlist the help of society's outcasts and deviants, who don't mind or perhaps even lust after the company of monstrous things.

Since we're talking tone, What tone do you want to see in a game?

I don't really care as long as it's defined properly. I remember tone being a big mess for Overlewd and it probably bamboozled a lot of people.

Yeah, I noticed that trend a while back.

>All that will do is force the PCs to enlist the help of society's outcasts and deviants, who don't mind or perhaps even lust after the company of monstrous things.

Exactly!

Also it means the PCs get to eventually prove themselves to the people of Ustalav. Well, maybe, I don't actually know what happens in Carrion Crown...

See . Any kind of tone is good, if the execution is done well. I care more about it being done well than what it actually is.

Despair!

A reminder that no matter how much we escape into stories about heroism and glory, time comes for everyone, even heroes.

>What tone do you want to see in a game?

Heroic, Mythical. I want something that feels like it belongs in Beowulf, or an Arthurian Romance, or hell even Middle Earth during the events of the Silmarillion.

I enjoy serious games. I like well built worlds. Not necessarily turborealism, but more thought than the king being evil because evil king.

The thing is, tone can actually be hard to present to players. Overlewd tried to present its tone, but everybody just kept saying it was either the wrong one, or ignored it and wrote characters that tried to redefine it. So far, the game hasn't actually had problems with tone.

Meanwhile, other games have had a wildly fluctuating tone on account of having too much lewd in combat, too much combat when people want to kick back and get lewd, too much humor when things look grim, and not enough levity when people need to have a break.

Whatever the tone of Metal Gear Rising: Revengance was, I want that.

Why doesn't anyone just ask what the GM is looking for? All of you seem to love PMs.

See, the problem with heroic or mythical adventures, at least in my mind, is that they need a lot of build up and should never START heroic. But a lot of games never last long enough for you to become something great. The ones where you become something great right at the start just feel... eh.

Not really. There's a few who actually do PM others, but for the most part that meme is just there to taunt people too shy to engage with others.

Just like asking what people are doing for the weekend.

Easy solution there bub, see Start great. And. Just. Go. Higher.

Why are you guys here? Don't you know it's Friday?

>since there seems to only be like... one or two normal human characters

Roxandreina Dragiale
Rose Edison
Kathrin Sol

That seems to be it? I'm not counting the Betrothed even though it's human, because half the character an undead monster thing, or the Aspirant because it does weird things.

But you've already got PLD for that. Why not just run a game of CoC or VtM if you need misery porn?

>too shy
Aw. I guess I could PM the GM for you? But then you'd have to PM me to ask...what a vicious cycle.

>The thing is, tone can actually be hard to present to players.
No it isn't. You just make a statement about it. "This is a silly game. Don't expect serious topics to come up often. Silly monstergirl characters welcome." or "This is a serious game. Mature themes will be present. Make your characters accordingly." It's that simple.

No harm in doing that, though frankly it's the GM's job to present the type of game they're running from the onset.

Diverted guard patrols to let the cultists operate more openly (including kidnapping the huntress' little sister), tried to have the investigator sniffing around whacked, began imprisoning the local clergy under the pretense of "protecting" them from "unstable elements" while desecrating their temples, confiscated a dangerous artifact from the local wizard under suspicion of treason, and used it to awaken a terrible and long-dormant curse on several of the town's oldest families.

I want a game that is all about economics, systems of governance, and the rise and fall of nations and empires.

Pathfinder is terrible for this.

>is that they need a lot of build up and should never START heroic

Okay, you've got my ear. How would you do this while still presenting a campaign that's meant to be mythical in scope? Because Beowulf opens with motherfucking Grendel and the Silmarillion deals with someone forging nuggets of purest divine light after some bitch-ass spider drank up their trees.

Or are you suggesting more Lord of the Rings than Silmarillion, where half of the first book deals with Wights, running from Nazgul, and fighting Goblins.

Sounds like killing offenses. Are you going to try to talk him down or capture him?

I want something that is played 100% straight. Either a somber game with less fantastical stuff and more just average life on the road for PCs, camping during thunderstorms etc. Alternatively go all the way fantastical and have it be like a Miyazaki movie like what I wanted Ensoulment or JttW to be, wild looking spirits which have like very specific rules of interaction and all that.
That being said though, I think the PCs do most of the work as far as defining the tone of the game. Ensoulment had a fairly serious tone in its pitch, The PCs would be larger than life heroes dealing with real world representations of philosophical conundrums. In practice though they're(some of them at least) just crude adventurers making sex jokes and looting shit.

Pilgrimage to the demonlands sounded like it might be that kind of game, too bad it had to cancel

>How would you

You said it yourself, more LotR than Silmarillion. The last game I ran started with the PCs looking for some missing villagers and ended with or would have ended with, if the group didn't fall apart stopping the apocalypse and receiving divine direction to punish the instigator.

Man, the billing of Ensoulment was really close to what I wanted. Philosophical discussions, different worldviews, a good blend of fantasy and history. Shame to hear it's just sex jokes and murderhobos.

>In practice though they're(some of them at least) just crude adventurers making sex jokes and looting shit.

They're still new at this, gotta give them a chance to grow.

It's almost like Pathfinder isn't a great medium to host gay "philosophical" shit

>I want a game that is all about economics, systems of governance, and the rise and fall of nations and empires.

There are, canonically, three places in Golarion that are both flush with natural resources and desperately short on men to exploit them.

>Sargava
>Molthune
>Stolen Lands

Pilgrimage to the Demonlands was my favorite campaign pitch I've seen on /pfg/ and the kind of game I've been wanting to play since 2015.

What happens if an elf catches herpes?

How would someone go about making a dragon a playable race? It might be retarded but I want to do a dragon rider game.

They get occasional outbreaks of painful little welts, like everyone else who has herpes.

Don't do this to me

>Molthune
Now you know the depths of my sorrow.

It's been done in a couple of ways.

There's the Company of Dragons one, there's the DSP Monster Class ones, and there's a homebrew floating around here for humanoid dragons.

Do my overrun/bullrush/trip feats work while I am mounted or does the mount need the feats?

Nothing's stopping you or anyone else from remaking the campaign.

Ask the guy who made and got into Dominion with one.

>Herpes was created by the gods to punish the elves for their arrogance.

It's hard to pitch a serious game here. There were good apps with sound philosophies that didn't get a speck of attention because they were considered 'boring'. A solid team would have been completely different picks.

I'm always shy of pitching my own game here because what I consider to be the groundwork for a more level-headed game would get laughed out of the thread as being low powered, not-real-pathfinder, shitty house rules, etc., etc.

Serious doesn't have to be "low-powered, no WBL, no casters" bullshit. You know that, right?

I want to see your campaign.

I want a "fun" tone. I enjoy humor, and I wouldn't coat everything in it as a GM, but the problem is that it's a bit tough to judge how much is enough sometimes. Players are a big part of setting the tone, and my problem is that my players usually aren't attentive/invested, so it all feels slightly halfhearted.

What's more more interesting to portrait: a born-scholar turned warrior or a born-warrior turned scholar?

>It's hard to pitch a serious game here.

Nani? I'd love to play a grounded game that takes itself completely seriously, personally I'm just as tired of anime boys and fat-chested fuck-sluts as you are... Except, conversely, I'm not altogether keen on playing in some 15 PB level 1 nightmare just to get a "rough experience."

It's as I've been saying before, my friend. Base it on Myth or Legend or some other story that is the framework to produce Heroes.