**Come here and talk about anything!**

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This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on /r/rpg.

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The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

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This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

**Come here and talk about anything!**

​

This post will stay stickied for (at least) the week-end. Please enjoy this space where you can talk about anything: your last game, your current project, your patreon, etc. You can even talk about video games, ask for a group, or post a survey or share a new meme you've just found. This is the place for small talk on /r/rpg.

​

The off-topic rules may not apply here, but the other rules still do. This is less the Wild West and more the Mild West. Don't be a jerk.

​

----------

​

This submission is generated automatically each Saturday at 00:00 UTC.

Years ago, I was very much against "you are what you wear" roleplaying. By this, I mean systems where your character's capabilities are largely, or mainly, determined by the items they equip, often specifically magic items and gear. To me, this was exemplified by older games, where mundane items like belts or a pair of boots were given magical qualities that enhanced the character's stats. Perhaps this is because I’ve always been partial to low-magic worlds. The idea that characters would regularly find enchanted pants and underwear was never a part of my favorite fantasy worlds. :-)

But lately, I have been changing my mindset. A lot of modern games have embraced the "class tree" approach. For instance, in 5e, you can essentially map out your character's future when you create it at level one. A lot of players will know exactly what subclass they are going for at level 3, their level 4 feet, and what kind of multi-classing they will do at level 7, or whatever. They have a complete character development arc in mind before the first session is played.

Because the pendulum has swung so far toward very predictable, pre-planned builds, "you are what you wear" is piquing my interest again. If discovery is going to be an important part of the game, you really don't know at level 1 what your character is going to be like at level 5, 10 or 20. Pre-planning your character's life like that might not be possible.

So, one of the best ways to replicate the feeling of the adventure determining who you are is through gear-dependent progression. When you find a specific type of armor, or a magic sword, or artifact, and those items-and the powers they grant you-become inherent parts of your character. Like King Arthur finding Excalibur, they change your trajectory in ways you never could have expected at level one.

And, as I have started to think about this more, I have noticed gear-dependent "level ups" in classic fantasy. The acquisition of certain gear is when the character "levels up".

For instance, Bilbo finding Sting fundamentally expanded his capabilities as a character. The same goes for the Ring, and the armor he got from the dwarves at Erebor.

In Lord of the Rings, the hobbits acquiring the daggers from the Barrow-downs is a level up for them. So is Frodo getting his mithril mail, and the fellowship receiving their gifts from Lorien.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Father Christmas gifting Peter Rhindon and a shield was a major "level up" of his character.

So, as I’ve tried to challenge the predictability of modern RPG character build-mapping, I find myself adopting this older style of play more and more. A lot of who your character becomes should be determined by what happens to them in the game—and that can be done mechanically by the gear they find.

Where do you stand on this? Do you prefer being able to make out a character build in advance, or do you like the chaos of the adventure (and the items you find) having a major influence on your character's growth?

This week's RPG is Draw Steel!

Have you played it? Have you run/GM'd it? How did it go?

What's your favourite memory from the game?

What's the best thing about the game?

What's the worst? How would you improve it?

.

Last week was Amber RPG. Join us again next week for Star Wars D6!

I'll be upfront. I played Daggerheart at a con several months ago and it was pretty bad, although this was clearly at least partially the GM's fault. We were presented with a generic dungeon, not much roleplay opportunity, a boring puzzle and the combat sucked ass because the GM wasn't having anything of our creative solutions for avoiding it, railroaded us into it and then it turns out had an extremely poor sense of space and everything felt floaty and non-sensical and I don't mean because it was theatre of the mind. I mean, the GM lost track of which enemy was attacking who and where we were positioned in relation to everything. Also, they forgot how focus normally works in narrative games and a PC just ended up being attacked the whole combat and not doing anything else. Two of the players were very quiet.

I didn't feel like the system was the most appropriate for dungeon delving tbh, despite being a DnD-like (I mean, DnD isn't that good at dungeons but a lot of offshoots are whether they go the OSR route or into tactical grid-based combat). It abstracted resources like torches, wasn't particularly interested in exploration; there wasn't really a feeling of danger.

But it didn't feel like very narrative from my side of the screen either. Not in comparison to Grimwild and definitely not in comparison to something like BitD, The Wildsea, Slugblaster or Wanderhome. Sure, we rolled with Hope and Fear, but I just played my character sheet ensuring I got to use all of my abilities throughout the session. The most interesting was Telepathy and the most boring was probably Slumber (which is so way too easy to figure a use for and a cheese spell. Rally was also just cheese). I guess you can roleplay the songs if you care and I did a lil' speech for the rallying. I felt that the combat wanted to somehow be tactical without having actually enough tactical depth. (I played a Bard, if you cannot tell). I did enjoy the opportunity to be support/utility. But...

I've roleplayed way more even in Dragonbane and Mythic Bastionland too tbh. Maybe it was the nature of the oneshot or just a bad group, but I didn't feel very compelled to. Maybe if the questions and connections mattered it would have been different. I know how important those are in a game like Slugblaster.

Hey guys,

So, you have that RPG that you hate that's really good at something, like, it's not for you, even though you recognize its design merits in accomplishing what it sets out to do as a game, or even something that didn't seem to be exactly the designer's intention.

As an example, I can mention Pendragon:

I don't exactly hate it, but it's a game with all that mechanical baggage related to the Arthurian setting, which just isn't for me.

So, it accomplishes that kind of hyper-niche thematic fantasy very well, and brings a very interesting d20 reinterpretation of the BRP structure, which I love, and adds interesting things like the elegant blackjack.

But playing in the Arthurian era is definitely not for me. I really wanted to enjoy the system, but its whole “flavor” just turns me off.

That said, if someone really enjoys Arthurian themes, medieval English fantasy, etc., choosing Pendragon by the passionate, brilliant, and always competent Greg Stafford would be the best decision.

What about you guys? What game do you hate, but admit that it does something very well?

Thanks everyone for your answers.

Figured I'd make some noise as the end of the Backerkit crowdfunder approaches for this one!

Blades '68 leaps a century forward in time, moving the heist-focused fun of Blades in the Dark from the a haunted faux-Victorian era into a period filled with international espionage, retrofuturistic super-science, and all the groovy parties you could possibly imagine. While it uses the same core rules as BitD, it has a few (IMO, quite clever) mechanical updates to make alongside the entirely new set of playbooks and factions it brings into the mix. Backers at any tier immediately get a full-text PDF draft of the book and a Roll20 plugin for all the sheets.

They've currently got just shy of 40 stretch goals funded, with the majority of them being articles in a digital-only expansion zine: new Factions, new Playbooks, new Cold Opens to launch campaigns with and Ticking Timebombs to define them by, fiction pieces, worldbuilding, artwork... it's an impressive list of indie talent, including a few of my favorite designers (and a few of my friends who are also great designers).

While they can't directly fulfill physical orders to non-US backers, the page now also has a link to pre-order storefronts for Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the EU that are partnering with this campaign.

I'm hoping this one sees a strong finish as it reaches the end.

Hi everyone.

I’ve been experimenting with a weird idea: using RPG mechanics to teach English instead of traditional exercises.

Instead of worksheets and grammar drills, players progress through a small RPG world. They earn levels, compete with other players and interact using simple English phrases and vocabulary tasks.

Things like:

• word challenges

• quizzes

• small competitions between players

• simple chat interaction

The idea is to make learning feel more like playing an RPG than studying.

What surprised me is that the RPG progression (levels, rankings, small rewards) actually motivates people a lot more than normal language exercises.

I've been building an RPG project around this idea:

https://cefrpg.eu/

Right now it supports English ↔ Russian learners, so it's not universal yet, but I'm mostly curious about the **RPG design aspect**.

Do you think RPG-style progression and competition can work for educational tools, or would it eventually lose the "game" feeling?

Hello I'm looking for a sci Fi game recommendations, I'm not the biggest on wether it's crunchy or not more so I would just like it to have some inter planetary content. Alien races, and high but not ridiculously high technology. Somewhat similar to No Mans Sky? Which is what got me wanting to do a TTRPG in that ballpark. Let me know about anything!

My biggest issue with HP, especially in games like Dungeons & Dragons, is that there’s usually no meaningful difference between having 47 HP or 26 HP. As people often say, “the only hit point that really matters is the last one.”

In systems like this, HP tends to function as an abstract number that doesn’t communicate much. IMO, it lacks nuance and rarely produces meaningful narrative impact.

That being said...

Which systems propose something different thant the usual D&D-style hit point mechanism? (Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The goal here is more to map different approaches to injury and HP mechanics in tabletop RPGs than to find the “perfect” system.)

A few examples off the top of my head (sorry if any of them aren't exactly right, as I'm writing it all from memory):

• Games in the Into the Odd family use "Hit Protection" instead of traditional hit points. Once your HP is gone, damage goes straight to your attributes (similar to Traveller style damage). It’s one less resource to track, and it directly impacts your actions because it affects your attribute checks (or "saves" as the system calls it). Brilliant design, as I’ve come to expect from ItO.

• Equipment slots (or similar) acting as HP: Knave 2e has one of my favorite implementations of this idea. You have Hit Protection similar to Into the Odd, but any remaining damage is represented as blocked inventory slots. The more damage you take, the less you can carry, until eventually you die if all slots are filled. The system itself doesn’t elaborate much beyond that, but I like to imagine those “injury slots” as a way to describe consequences for the character (similar to Consequences in FATE, mentioned below).

• Wound levels: In Legend of the Five Rings (at least up to 4th edition), damage moves you through wound categories. After losing some HP you become “Wounded,” then “Seriously Wounded,” and so on, each with attached penalties. Anyone who’s played games with this knows the idea sounds cool in theory, but IMHO it’s often just a fancy way to watch your character die faster lol.

• Stress tracks and consequences: FATE uses stress boxes that you mark depending on how severe the damage is. You can also absorb damage by taking Consequences instead, which can represent both physical and psychological harm (things like “Injured Leg” or “disoriented”). It’s a very different, highly narrative approach. I like it quite a bit.

If you know of other interesting approaches to injury, damage, or survivability mechanics, I’d love to hear them.

____
EDIT:

I want to thank each of you for your patience and for taking the time to respond here. To be honest, I didn’t expect this post to get so much attention! I think I might have written it differently if I had known it would be received so generously. I fully understand the difference between “Health Points” and “Hit Points,” but I still appreciate the replies that addressed that distinction, since it can help clarify things for other readers.

That said, I’m not looking for a way to abolish hit points. As you could see from my examples, what I’m interested in are different ways of modeling damage, the representation of violence and its effects, etc., I’m really just curious about how other games handle this, and I don’t have any particular goal in mind. It’s simply an informed inquiry with the community about the topic.

Thanks again!

Abin Grimm, my dumb dwarf with a heart of gold recently picked up a ferocious, awe-inspiring, cute beagle puppy. The dog needs a name (and honorific?) that lets everyone know exactly what force they're dealing with. Anybody care to help?