RPG September/October

Mostly October, tbh.

Read
I spent a few days going through the 2024 D&D rules, and overall I think the changes are for the better. I gave everyone in my campaign the choice, and they've all decided to switch over next level up.

The alpha version of Rapscallion released last week(?), though I've only really skimmed it at this point. It's a cursed pirate adventure PbtA, with probably better vibes than mechanics, but I need to dig into it a bit more. Like Inevitable, reading it makes me excited about the thought of running it.

Finally, the Quickstart/preview for Modiphius' Discworld is out, and I'm backing the hell out of it when it launches. The writing really groks Pratchett, and the system has no stats, no HP, and no combat rules, opting instead for a pun-based mechanic where you get to roll bigger dice based on how outrageously you can justify you character's traits as functional in the situation.

Play
Nothing on the go yet, but one of the players from my Dragonbane game has offered to run something in 5e, so I have a Harengon Wizard Librarian ready to go for that.

GM
Dragonbane finished a couple of weeks ago, so it's just the main 5e game for me at the moment. I'm conflicted on Dragonbane; I still think it's a decent system, but not all of it is all that well thought out (plate armour completely trivialises combat in 90% of scenarios, for example, and the economy makes no sense at all). I might use it again for one-shots, but I'm not convinced it's really a campaign game.

I've been trying to organise a one-shot in The One Ring, Vaesen, or Inevitable for a while, but scheduling is being a pain.

A friend of ours is also due to visit soonish, and she really likes Discworld, so I'll see about maybe running the quickstart adventure when she's here.

Read

Swotting up on Land of Eem before the campaign starts in (I swear to God, this time) a couple of weeks. It's been delayed by the Avatar finale getting rescheduled, but I'm chomping at the bit to get into it.

Play

Nothing, as per. Part of me would really love to just show up to something with a character sheet instead of having responsibility for the whole table, but also I really like GMing so it's hard to complain too much.

GM

There's been some minor progress on the intra-party conflict in Dragonbane that'll hopefully smooth things out enough for the party to progress to the next stage of the adventure, but I'm not entirely convinced that working some player-level frustrations out through in-character RP has fully cleared the air. I know the players have spoken offline, so hopefully things will be less tense next session.

I've got one session of Avatar left, which was supposed to be on Tuesday but a player got sick and I can't run the finale without everyone. I've been trying to come up with Hero Moments for all of the PCs to spotlight them throughout the session, with varying success. One of them I've got down pat, another is a toss-up between two options, but the third is tricky: one of the players was a latecomer to the campaign and her character doesn't really have any personal stakes beyond those directly tied to the other party members. It's partly my own fault – I was never really sure how to use her backstory effectively – but she's said she's fine taking a back seat/support role for the others, so I'm sure it'll be fine.

[Discworld] has no stats, no HP, and no combat rules, opting instead for a pun-based mechanic where you get to roll bigger dice based on how outrageously you can justify you character's traits as functional in the situation.

I was expecting another lacklustre 2d20 implementation, but this sounds fascinating.

Yeah, it's very different - rolls are basically always contested, with the GM rolling a d8 (the "Narrativium die"), and the player getting to roll between a d4 and a d12, depending on how well (or badly) they can twist the words on their character sheet.

And then there's the Million to One Chance:

Sometimes your players will surprise the GM with an absolutely absurd, ridiculous or genius plan that is so outlandishly unlikely it makes you stop and go “it’s a million to one chance, but it just might work.” In these situations the GM can rule that the PCs automatically succeed on their plan.

I'm not going to lie, that Discord system sounds like it'll be fun for about 30 minutes and when it does work it'll produce Colour of Magic shenanigans and never come close to the character of the of the latter books.

The quickstart does say it's really intended as a one-shot system, but I do get the idea that it'd be a disaster at some tables.

Read
I picked up Pitcrawler at Tabletop Scotland and I've just about read it cover to cover. It's a one-on-one RPG designed to replicate the experience of playing through a Fighting Fantasy gamebook and it does an incredible job. Really looking forward to running this one.

I read through Dragonbane last week, it is nice enough but didn't get me excited. I do like the way it handles monsters. I'm not surprised that the armour system is a bit broken, that's usually the result of making armour reduce damage.

One D&D 5.5 2024 revision. It's not great. Try and figure out how hiding works for an example.

Play
Little bit of Mausritter, that's all. Might be playing a little One Ring starting next week.

GM
Still planning. I want to run Whitehack, Mothership, Troika! and get back to Monster of the Week. I'd better get on with it.

If you want to get a Discworld experience in an RPG, run any standard fantasy RPG (D&D, Dragonbane, WFRP, whatever), choose a small corner of it, make the PCs flawed but mostly good people and then when you play, focus on the people just trying to live their day-to-day lives. Run your epic disaster plot or the undead invasion or have Castle Ravenloft show up, but the story isn't how do we stop the baddie, it's how do we help the people. It's people, not heroes.

But, every now and then, like twice in a campaign, something will come up which is so poetic that it simply has to work, rules be damned. When that happens, let the players win, or the puppy survive, or the vampire be cured, whatever. Just make sure the players know it was a one-off and whatever trick they just pulled will not work a second time.