GamingGlen

I like D12s, they roll better. I have several 12-sided dice with numbers 1-4 three times, in essence a D4. I roll them now instead of those caltrops known as D4s A young and new DM is trying different things* but still sticking with 5e for mechanics, he did change the D20 initiative roll to a D12 roll. I like that as it lessens the more chaotic nature of the D20 and lets DEX have a bigger impact. * his world building ideas have concepts similar to Glorantha so I introduced him to that setting by selling him (I'm a store owner) a Heroquest Glorantha book at a big discount as we had plenty and they weren't moving.. so far he hasn't taken that bait, yet. 😈

"authenticity of the magic"? hahahaha.. magic is made up, no matter the system. I never cared much for the way D&D did magic, but it was in black and white, making it easy to use. RQ magic varied, the battle magic/spirit/folk/common magic system was easy to use, but rune magic got more complicated, and sorcery required reading a technical, er, tome of arcana on how to use it. I like the variability of RQ sorcery, something I wish I could do in D&D (e.g., vary the range and AoE of Fireball).

We're talking about character development and mechanics of play, not gear. Fantasy RPGs have mundane to artifacts as well.

No, he's right. I've been playing 5E for over 2 years. Your character is not much better, bonus wise, at 20th level than at 1st. The proficiency bonus goes from +2 to +6, that is not a big change in 19 levels. And unless you spend one of the few feats you get, most of the skills will have the same bonus at 20th level as they had at level 1. At first I liked 5E, and I still like some changes such as variable spells, but I have come to dislike the nerfing of many spells. Haste has been turned into something I will never cast. I see too many concentration spells (including Haste). The lack of skill progression in 5E is the biggest turn off for me. Which I find odd, since I love Traveller which has very little skill progression, but then Traveller is not a zero-to-hero RPG.

The real blatant cash grab is the special dice you have to buy to play some of the new games. The new Star Wars RPG has them with special symbols, the new Star Trek Adventures RPG has 3 color sets of D20s and D6s, gold, blue, and red (based off color of TOS uniforms). The Star Wars RPG has a "role-playing" die, depending on what it rolls tells you if you sort of were successful or failed so you can add a bit of color to the action (I swung across the gap in the Death Star but almost fell backwards into the abyss before catching onto the door edge). Or something like that, I never really learned the full details. My response to that is, with a 2 die system (works for Traveller also) if you roll doubles that can have a similar effect. RQ has this: a 99 or 00 is a drastic failure.

I'll sit there beside ya, but near the cash register, and yell "Buy my stuff, ya young whippersnappers! Why, back in my day we had to chisel our character sheets out of rock slabs!" , while sipping some strong drink laced with Geritol. Never mind, skip the Geritol. You haven't seen the fancy D&D5e character portfolios? It's got a plastic cover and inside are pocket protector sheets for spell cards.

I'll be making my own, again. I prefer the blank line for the skill to be in front of the skill name, that way it's close, instead of far to the right where it might be difficult to tell which number goes to what skill. Ugh. tick boxes. I created holes in my character sheets at those spots. I also hated the tick rules. Looks like I'll have another house rule to make. Now, as a game store owner, pretty character sheets means more sales of "official" character sheet portfolios. If you have those to sell, might want to make sure the customers can see some of the artsy character sheet through the shrink wrap to entice them to buy.

I'm guessing this is some publishing term? Because for a moment, okay, I'm still picturing it, I saw RQ books in wooden boxes stored on galley ships being rowed by slaves across a vast sea from wherever the books are printed.

Yeah, those are pretty much what we came up with. That's when I realized that plant life is predominately a land-based life form. I have Elfquest's Sea Elves supplement which lists mostly land-based food as their edibles. FYI, our group, we're the spearhead adventurers re-opening an island after a disaster long ago, helped re-establish trade with the sea elves (yay us!). Now we have to fight some suhaugin (boo!). Maybe my elf wizard can save some sea elven princess. (hah!)

The other day our group of adventurers went to visit the sea elves under the sea, with their underwater domes containing air. We played the tourists like we were, and ended up at the tavern and asked for the menu for supper. The game master stuttered a bit, and so we made a few attempts at what might be on it. While that was going on, I made a web search for such a thing. None could be found, fictional or otherwise. I'll admit, my search-fu is quite weak, so recalling the troll menu from Glorantha and all the great sea people that live in that world I figure some of you might have come up with something. So what is on an underwater menu? (fictional creatures/plants and real) BTW, we were playing.... D&D5e, in the GM"s homebrew setting (I can't help that it is the most popular RPG played at my game store). But non-specific game information can be used by any system.

Pulp Cthulhu has an adventure "Slow Boat to China" with deck plans of a large liner, the SS Coolidge. Shouldn't be too hard to shrink it?

I just watch a movie from 1957, Curse of the Demon, that might work. A witch's spell summons a fire demon that looks a lot like the devil from medieval pictures. The spell works by giving the target a piece of paper with runic symbols on it, without the target knowing he received it, and the paper then tries to get itself burned. Doing so summons the fire demon in the very near future. The trick is to give the paper back to the caster without him knowing it, which is the main climax at the end of the movie. The movie is more of a 1 on 1, Holden vs Karswell, so you'd have to ramp it up some for a group. Perhaps the group has to go up against the entire coven/cult on All Hallow's Eve? Synopsis from IMDB: American professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshiper Julian Karswell.

Yeah, I realize it's a long list. I was hoping to find a few examples of actual overall cost of an expedition. Perhaps that data might be in any of the numerous books written about historical expeditions that no one has copied to the 'net. I just watched the semi-documentary movie Manhunt in the Jungle and saw how much stuff they carried so have some idea what it might take. I'll just keep it nebulous and the usual gear will be available (some to get lost if a canoe overturns in a river, of course : ) I finally picked up CoC 7 Investigator's Book and saw a list of items for 1920s.

I'm planning on running a Pulp Cthulhu adventure with an expedition deep into the Amazon jungle looking for a lost previous expedition, as well as looking for El Dorado, set in early 1920s. My weak search-fu could not find any information on the cost of outfitting such an expedition and general split of anything brought back out. How much does any investor(s) expect in percentage and how much do leaders and cohorts get (not the porters and bush beaters, or any other servant types)? Is there a list of common gear? I'm not keen on making such a list, but might use the "ship's locker" rule from Traveller (most any useful tool will be available), perhaps using Luck rolls for the not so common item that might be among the gear.

It is an intelligent blob, most likely for the comedic effect. Elsewhere someone wondered it if could be expanded upon as a definite non-humanoid species, but supposedly the CGI for it is expensive. In one episode It was introduced during a ship tour in the engineering section. So any such type of creature could be very useful in some mechanical can-reach-anything sort of way. You think the Mostali could or would use such a creature, if it wasn't chaotic? Although most likely it would gum up the World Machine. Would the Lunars make use of one, outside of an execution pit?