RPT Game Night (Idea)

[PastelPhoenix]

Excuse me if this has been suggested before and shot down already, or proven non-viable.

So I assume we are all here because we enjoy roleplaying (please correct me if I'm wrong, then I must have vastly misunderstood what this board is actually for). With the coming of sites like Roll20.net and various companies sharing their games online, I was wondering if there was some kind of interest in a section for RPT members to play some more traditional role-playing games which may be too heavy on rules or in a format that just doesn't tend to work over forum.

I was thinking that it wouldn't have to be anything too serious, it can be as one-page RPGs such as "Everybody is John", "We're All Going to Die", or "Lasers and Feelings". Of course, if anyone wants to run something more complex or lengthy they can, but the idea being a place to make and host other roleplaying games for RPT members.

The sessions can be as regular or infrequent as people want, and people can be free to suggest a new game (with rules about timing conflicts resolved later). As for what I have to offer to the group: I have played some "Everybody is John", "We're All Going to Die", a little bit of freeform systems like GURPS and FATE, I have some familiarity with D&D 2e and 4e, I have a metric ton of Pathfinder stuff (rulebooks, campaigns, One-Shots, settings), and I own an early release of Blades in the Dark (which I haven't gotten around to running yet).

So how do people feel about this? Sounds like fun? Too much work? Worried about some aspect of this? Actually, this breaks some unspoken rule and now you have to ban me from the RPT? Suggestions?

 

[Junier]

I'm not an active onlooker so I may be mistaken but isn't this what the PC Underground forum is meant for?

 

[gimmepie]

I'm not an active onlooker so I may be mistaken but isn't this what the PC Underground forum is meant for?

The Underground is meant solely for Mafia and its variants, not for tabletop-esque RPGames. As we currently don't have a section for that, I would be okay with something like that being hosted out of the RPT, but Rika and aeternum would need to okay it also.

 

[Junier]

Right, right. There was a D&D/Pokemon crossover here anyway, I remember.

I don't care much for traditional RP-ing so the idea itself I don't/can't oppose or support.

 

[moon]

I like it! Perhaps we should make it a 24 h event, on a new Discord server and orchestrated through a thread/threads on PC (or the other way around), like a RPT get-together, so thay people can come and go and join in now and then regardless of time zones.

 

[Oddball_]

I'd be up for it... as long as we can use something other than discord... didn't like discord to be honest.

 

[moon]

I'd be up for it... as long as we can use something other than discord... didn't like discord to be honest.

How about we use threads on PokéCommunity then, it seems like a good middle ground between discord bashers and skype haters (8

 

[Khawill]

How about we use threads on PokéCommunity then, it seems like a good middle ground between discord bashers and skype haters (8

If done through roll20, then you can use their voice chat. As for Dnd 5e campaigns, I'd totally be in, I'd even DM one maybe

 

[PastelPhoenix]

Thanks for the initial feedback so far.

Some place to just drop in and out is more what I was envisioning, and I do really like the idea of it being more of a hangout where you also play games rather than some place to find super serious, actual full length campaigns (but if people like it, who knows, we may have one go on).

 

[Winter]

Sounds interesting and fun! I'll be eager to be in on the fun~

 

[Etherion]

Ohhh, I like this :) Gives us time to connect with each other with some casual role plays~

 

[Jauntier]

I would love to play a D&D campaign, get back into some old school role-playing.

But that's really all I know, haha! I wouldn't mind learning some new role-playing games.

 

[PastelPhoenix]

Seeing as how a few people have expressed interest in it, should we run a test game/session before trying to set anything else up? I can run it on one of my days off, I'll just need to know what we would want to play for the trial run.

For something with little prep time/commitment we can try one of the many one page RPGs that are floating around. Lasers & Feelings (although I haven't personally played it yet) is one of the most acclaimed ones. The basis of it breaks down to "shenanigans in space", and it can be as serious or as silly as you want it to be.

Scrolls and Swords is basically Lasers & Feelings with a fantasy paintjob. Seems mostly the same, but with a little less polish on it.

Everyone is John is a crazy one, but likely not appropriate for a first time meeting with people. Each player is a different voice in John's head, who are all fighting for control over John. Players control him one at a time, and each try to satisfy more of their obsessions in the time they're in control before someone else takes over the body. I don't think I've had one session that didn't go completely R rated in 10 minutes. But it's there if you're up for it.

But, if you do want to try something a little more complex, the system I'm most familiar with is Pathfinder (which is a spin off of D&D 3rd edition, for those who have never heard of it). I have several pre-built adventures, and I can find a level 1 adventure for people to test out. It's going to be much more complex than any one page adventures, but most of the Pathfinder content is available online for free (legally too!). If you guys want to try that, I can also assist with another session just for character creation (since it can be a little daunting for new players), and to help people gain some familiarity with some basic rules before actually playing.

And there is a little RPG I made a while back. Would take some time to get everything digital (assuming I can even find it), but hopefully it's not too bad. I only got a few test plays out of it, so it's going to be real rough. Basic idea is a Sci-Fi fantasy blend, classic sci-fi races and magic, but in a space faring setting.

Other than that, I'm pretty excited about the idea. I was a little worried it wouldn't go over well, or was already suggested and rejected. I'm fiddling around a little in Roll20, and hopefully multiple group members can run games (so anyone who wants to run one can).

 

[Etherion]

Oh! This seems interesting! I'd be up to this, never played tabletop games before, but I have some knowledge about DnD. Also, I think its also worth noticing that there's a poll right now, called "Forum Frontiers" and one section idea is Tabletop Gaming, I recommend checking it out.

 

[Djobi Djoba]

I really like this idea!

I'm still pretty new at the whole tabletop gaming thing, but I've been part of a weekly PF campaign lately, and I really enjoy it!

As for game ideas, I know this isn't a one-off, but I really want to check out Pokémon Tabletop United, as well as the Song of Ice and Fire RP. So those are my two suggestions.

 

[PastelPhoenix]

I went and voted for it, but something with Forever's post there about the Tabletop Games idea having it's own board at one point, but being pretty inactive was pretty interesting. It looks like the board closed down in early 2013, but I kind of wonder if another board would work or not now. When the original board closed down Roll20 was only a few months old and pretty rough compared to the modern version of the site. The same could be said about Tabletop Forge, a similar application. Tabletop Simulator wouldn't even exist for another two years.

But enough hypothesizing on my end. It looks like the board was mostly for TCG really. I would like to see it have another chance, though.

 

[Nero]

I would absolutely be down for a short D&D campaign! I've never had the chance to do one before, but I've seen a few streams. As for the whole 'event where anyone shows up whenever' idea, the biggest problem I can see is that at certain times there wouldn't be enough people online. As someone from Australia this has happened to me a lot, but I'm not sure how diverse everyone here at RPT is.

 

[Djobi Djoba]

-snip-

So, what's the status on this idea? I figure if enough people are willing to be part of this (and it certainly looks like it) we could get it up and running fairly quickly.

Also, are we strictly sticking to D&D here?

 

[PastelPhoenix]

Okay, as for a small update. I created a RPT group on roll20 just to check out a few settings, and did run into a small issue. The room itself cannot be set to public unless I have a premium account, so as it stands I would have to either send out all the invites over email, or just spend the $4.99 monthly/$50 annually to make it to where everyone can see the group without being a member of it. I should be able to make people Co-GMs, which would give them the ability to start sessions for new games, and each room does have it's own mini-forum.

The other option for the room was tabletop simulator, but everyone would have to buy their own copy, so I consider that a non-viable plan.

As for actually running something, I want my first session to be Pathfinder since I know it best, it's pretty fleshed out, and it's pretty much just D&D. I have a few adventures we can run with level one characters, and some can last for quite a bit. The best days for me would be a Monday, Tuesday, or Friday (working all the other days, but Thursday nights are somewhat viable, and I am looking to change my schedule a bit). I'm in the US Central Time Zone (UTC -0600 for people not familiar with US time zones), but I'm weird with weird hours, so we may have to just work something out. And once more, I can run a beginning session to create characters for people unfamiliar with it, or we can just dedicate a lot of the session to it.

Other than that, for Pathfinder resources I'd recommend d20pfsrd.com for the full rules (including a lot of 3rd party stuff), but you kind of have to be careful with what the source of the material is, since I do mostly want to stick to Paizo written stuff since 3rd party gets weird and broken. There's also https://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ which is the official site for it. I think the layout is a little better, but it has different rules for when it uploads compared to the SRD (typical rules for Pathfinder is 2 weeks from release the content can be put online with copywritten picture removed, the paizo site tends to wait about 2 months before uploading).

As for anything special, I just want to run as close to core rules as we can, but open the door to non-core classes and races, so long as they're written by Paizo. The only thing I can think to ban off the top of my head is the Gunslinger class, mostly for balance. I'm a little iffy on the races in the Ultimate Race Guide, but most of my problems are with the Uncommon Races. I'd say just PM me if you want a link to the group or have a question about Pathfinder, and I can help there.