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Decline Critical role ruined PnP

Hagashager

Educated
Joined
Nov 24, 2022
Messages
634
Looked at some but not all of the thread. Seems like a lot of these failed groups don't understand the importance of a "session zero" where the DM and players lay the ground rules for expectations; instead, everyone just assumes that anything goes ... until their own trigger points are hit.

When playing with people you don't already know, the Consent in Gaming Checklist is a really nice tool. The rape surviving DM above could have let her players know beforehand, this subject is off limits. The OP could have let his group know that a campaign focus on explicit gay porn was not OK with him. Etc. Even if you are a tough free speech kind of guy who think you can handle anything, it's not a bad idea to let the team know up front that My Little Pony fanfic will not be tolerated.
I've come around to this thinking as well. My 2e players are a fairly hardy bunch, but even still I ran a session once where the party fought Satyrs (a lecherous creature known to commit rape on their victims)

After the session one of my players voiced that while they were not offended, and know me well enough to know I wasm't being edgy or malicious, they nonetheless asked if we could avoid rape monsters in the future.

Which is fine, I can respect that.

I also have a hard rule when GMing that ERP will be swiftly swept away via fade-to-black. Your perversions can be as kinky as you want in your imaginations, but we keep shit offscreen in my games.
 
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Hagashager

Educated
Joined
Nov 24, 2022
Messages
634
One of my 2e players is a woman who plays a male elf. The closest anyone ever got to Magical Realm was that player asking if she could roll some arbitrary check to see how good her night with a whore was. She rolled a 1- I told her she has crabs. Cue the the rest of the session being spent with the party having to explain both in-universe and out-of-character what Crabs are, how to deal with them and why male genitalia really doesn't work the way she thought it did.


That was enough for all of us. After that I put forth the Fade-to-black rule and everyone agreed without protest.
 

Lucumo

Educated
Joined
May 9, 2021
Messages
905
Instead of showing all the decline, why not post recommendations for incline? Like, some links to videosharing/livestreaming websites where great groups play cool PnP stuff well.

As someone with limited knowledge of PnP, I only really watched (and just started again) Koibu who runs D&D 2e with house rules and in particular the "Dicing with Death" series which are solo adventures where his friend he switch DM/player position upon death. It generally seems decent, apart from a lack of concentration at times which results in them forgetting something (like a henchman's action).
 

Jasede

Arcane
Patron
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Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Are you asking us to recommend live/recorded real plays? Most people here don't have time to watch these or prefer to play themselves.

I've listened to a few...

LA by Night: more artsy but great DM. Vampire 5E, high production values
D20: funny, good DM, but utterly pozzed (more than CR), also costs money. D&D 5E.
NADDPOD: pretty good, but also clearly a bit pozzed. Not as much as the others and it never really seemed to be brought up. More of a vibe. D&D 5E.
Stitch of Fate: it's all right. No politics, no poz, though don't ever look at a picture of the players. Pacing is very slow. Vampire 5E.

Pretending to be People: in my opinion the best one. It's all guys and they're friends and it's an interesting mystery with little poz. Delta Green mixed with Call of Cthulhu pulp rules & house rules. Not heavy on mechanics but the group doesn't really need them to interact well and fail creatively.
 
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orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
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Location
Republic of Kongou
Are you asking us to recommend live/recorded real plays? Most people here don't have time to watch these or prefer to play themselves.
I mean it's RPG codex, the home of people who like the sort of game you play while listening to a podcast.

Pretending to be People: in my opinion the best one
I listed to a good deal of "season 1" though I got tired of it eventually, forgot why though. I don't recall the poz seeping into the shows (The actual content of the show, was trying to find where I left off and well it was in 2020 so there was copious faggery daggery doo in the pre=game commentary) but the people behind it are libfags so I wouldn't be surprised to hear Sum Shit later on.

Really the best RPG podcasts are the really dry boring ones that actually tell you a lot about how to handle some rules and details or how to best run a scenario. Of course if you're just a playpig there's no reason to listen to those.
 
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Jasede

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
Messages
24,793
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Got some recommendations? I would love to hear an AD&D one for example.

About Pretending to be People, they stayed away from politics until I made that post. And then the very next two episodes, there were some "hope you didn't vote for Trump" and "Bigmouth is the best show on Netflix" remarks.
:despair:
 

orcinator

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
1,773
Location
Republic of Kongou
Got some recommendations? I would love to hear an AD&D one for example.
EWWW DND GROSS UGH
The one I would "recommend" is this one that ran through a bunch of the Delta Green adventures. As I mentioned, unlistenable unless you're interested in how a GM would handle all the procedural stuff that you run into in that game (Also shit opinions on twitter).

About Pretending to be People, they stayed away from politics until I made that post. And then the very next two episodes, there were some "hope you didn't vote for Trump" and "Bigmouth is the best show on Netflix" remarks.
Lol, and to be frank, Lmao.
 

saint amchad

Novice
Joined
Dec 7, 2022
Messages
34
DnD is done. Top managements plan to entice in the fickle identity politics crowd was successful, where a lot of parasites like CR were able to extract a lot of money from them as well. Now they are pushing the subscription model to bleed these new players dry. The culture will drift more towards tv licensing and larp acting lesson camps/workshops. The longer you support these kinds of podcasts the longer it will go on.
There will be a split between those who actually play as it was 20 years ago vs those who will watch. It should of happened by now but too many people are still trying to merge with these tourists.
 

Lucumo

Educated
Joined
May 9, 2021
Messages
905
Are you asking us to recommend live/recorded real plays? Most people here don't have time to watch these or prefer to play themselves.
Yep. If one doesn't know the right people or lives in the middle of nowhere, it's definitely something interesting to watch.

Got some recommendations? I would love to hear an AD&D one for example.

About Pretending to be People, they stayed away from politics until I made that post. And then the very next two episodes, there were some "hope you didn't vote for Trump" and "Bigmouth is the best show on Netflix" remarks.
:despair:
Ugh. I never get why Americans shove politics and such into everything. "Dicing with Death" is fine but the content I continued with is still from 2014, so who knows whether it gets bad over the years. Currently, it's really fun at least. A session usually lasts for four hours and in the first part (hour) of it the main character went back to the city where he is trying to establish a base (building a house) after surviving for a good while. Since he is a neutral evil elven thief in a lawful good city, the house obviously has some hidden, not-so-legal, rooms that have to be built, as well as a secret passage to the sea. A geomancer he hired is working on it and when he comes by to check on the progress, the geomancer is nervously pacing back and forth. He asks what's the matter and gets told that the basement is full of rats. Supposedly a lot. The geomancer also is a pacifist and doesn't want to deal with it. So he tells him to "open the door" (not really existent as of yet), he opens an entrance and two rats spill forth which he kills. The rats are rather big, like cats/small dogs. A former high-class prostitute who discovered her magic abilities by chance after being told a "trick" by a wizard or something once and who eventually turned into his hench(wo)man helps him killing them. More spill forth and one makes it outside and somewhat away but still gets killed. When he tries to dispose of it (throwing it off a nearby cliff into the ocean), two rats make it past his henchman and scurry off somewhere, obviously seen by the people living around the area. He tells the geomancer to "close the door" and goes off to buy some cheap meat. After that, he is looking for some poison. After an initial fail to find some and with the help of a magic spell (which increases charisma), he comes across a street urchin who wants to sell him a vial. He asks to see it and just takes the vial and walks away. The street urchin demands his money but is told off and that he should see it as a lesson to never give away something before receiving his money. The boy readies his dagger and the main character tries to disarm him but his short sword and off-hand dagger clash with the boy's dagger. The boy then proceeds to stab him for a bit of damage, whereupon the main character stops the attack and offers him an apprenticeship. Two other street urchins which appeared behind them also seem to to threatem them. Anyway, he tells him who he is (probably has some reputation after all the antics he has already done), extends the offer once again and just walks past him to go away. His hench(wo)man ruffles the street urchin's hair as she goes by. He puts the poison into the meat, asks for another opening and descends to the lower floor and goes into the passage to the sewers. He looks for the lair or something of the rats but is only seeing typical sewer stuff so far until he suddenly gets attacked by tentacles...and that's where the first hour ends.
That, to me, is pretty fun at least. The character also has really low willpower, so he always tries to charm the beautiful women and get them into bed. One female companion who travelled with him for a bit and which he gave 100 gold to to live off of until he gets back squandered it in a week and asked for more when he came back. She also gathered no information or anything at all for him. Because of that, he tells her to meet him at night where he then proceeds to off her and toss her into the ocean. (That is witnessed by some really weird creatures who supposedly are part of the diviners of the city but there haven't been consequences for that yet.) He also tried to, with the help of a magic mirror, charm a siren but failed at it. Apart from such stuff, his low willpower made him attack early, when he maybe should have waited etc. So from an inexperienced person like me, that kind of play seems pretty good and in-character.

https://regalgoblins.fandom.com/wiki/Dicing_with_Death

I'm on episode 35 at the moment.
 

saint amchad

Novice
Joined
Dec 7, 2022
Messages
34
I was shocked to find out that most popular DnD tubers have only been in the hobby for 2 or 3 years. There are old school content creators that are pretty good, the danger is the two being classed together. There really should be some sort of public designation labels so there are no more disappointments. How do I find a dm/group that is "old school"? What buzzwords am I looking for that excludes certain kind of people?

A major problem, just as with a lot of things these days, is that ttrpgs are being used by predatory little chameleons who are looking to take advantage of those who don't know better. Like CR. So of course some will use it to indoctrinate politics into newbies.
 

Black

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Joined
May 8, 2007
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1,873,123
T3XQ7SD.jpg
 

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