The State of Our Greyhawk

For characters who aren't active in a campaign, but who still have plans for world domination.
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EvilGenius
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by EvilGenius »

Hmmm, I'm not sure to whom you are referring. The Dark Circle doesn't currently count any former BR guildmasters among their ranks (as far as we know). I killed the last one. :) ;)
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NukeHavoc
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by NukeHavoc »

EvilGenius wrote:Hmmm, I'm not sure to whom you are referring. The Dark Circle doesn't currently count any former BR guildmasters among their ranks (as far as we know). I killed the last one. :) ;)
I believe he's referring to you having added Malphas to the list of Big Bads we need to take down...
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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Jonkga
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by Jonkga »

NukeHavoc wrote:
EvilGenius wrote:Hmmm, I'm not sure to whom you are referring. The Dark Circle doesn't currently count any former BR guildmasters among their ranks (as far as we know). I killed the last one. :) ;)
I believe he's referring to you having added Malphas to the list of Big Bads we need to take down...

yeah, I think he understood that perfectly well.
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Drink and be whole again beyond confusion."
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EvilGenius
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by EvilGenius »

NukeHavoc wrote:
EvilGenius wrote:Hmmm, I'm not sure to whom you are referring. The Dark Circle doesn't currently count any former BR guildmasters among their ranks (as far as we know). I killed the last one. :) ;)
I believe he's referring to you having added Malphas to the list of Big Bads we need to take down...
Yes, I got that. That is actually the joke. :)
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NukeHavoc
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by NukeHavoc »

EvilGenius wrote:So who said you have to be the DM for that mr greedypants? :p
Either way, I don't know that I'd want to play anything 15+, maybe 16+. Just not my cup of tea these days.

ken
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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EvilGenius
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by EvilGenius »

I've been reading through this thread again after Nate's OB adventure. I'm starting to get a hankerin for Greyhawk again .... :)
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Lars Porsenna
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by Lars Porsenna »

I know I've offered many times to DM D&D...

But between you and Nate, even if Ken doesn't want to DM we have a cross-section of people that could...

Damon.
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NukeHavoc
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by NukeHavoc »

My enthusiasm for fantasy RPGs remains low. Maybe it's that I finally got to scratch my scifi RPG itch, or maybe it's just that we played D&D for so long, but I find it hard to work up much interest in fantasy RPGs. Or at least the kind that we've been playing.

I won't say we've told all the stories that can be told in Greyhawk, but we certainly told a lot of them. I find it hard to look at D&D 3.x or Pathfinder and come up with a character concept that interests me. I don't think there's any class that I've wanted to play that I haven't played three times over, and its given rise to this crushing sense of familiarity with fantasy games. Orcs. Goblins. Dragons. We've seen them before, and we'll see them again.

But it's also the style of game. We've been running D&D-style fantasy for a damn long time, and I have to say the +3 of everything (and the inherent munchkin-ism that goes with it) is wearing on me. I find myself much more interested in something like "Rise of the Ur-Flan" campaign or old school "Dark Sun", where magic is dark and dangerous, the world is young (or so ancient as to be unknowably different from regular fantasy) and heroes rely on their wits as much as their swords. I want magic to be unknown and mysterious ... and not just something that yields 5d4 magic missiles at 9th level.

Yeah, I've been reading a lot of Robert E. Howard lately.

I think a big part of it is missing that sense of discovery and newness. I'm getting that in Star Wars, as a player or as a GM, because scifi lets you do so many things that we haven't done before. Yes, we're still fighting pirates ... IN SPACE! But we were able to have a really cool starship combat that I don't think we could have had in D&D. I love rolling up new worlds like Ord Brokell, and not being constrained by the geography of the Prime Material Plane. It's the same reason I liked the Planetorn idea, because it was so easy to do the "seven worlds, seven weeks" sort of campaign.

Anyway that's my headspace. Nothing really new there I suppose, but I felt like rambling. :)
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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Lars Porsenna
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by Lars Porsenna »

I don't know if I would say SW scratches an SF itch, mainly because I don't really consider it SF (it's more like fantasy with blasters), and the SF elements are really just window dressing: replace Mandaloreons with Hobgoblins, or Sith with evil wizards, etc. If I wanted to play an actual SF game, there are other choices I'd make (like Eclipse Phase, which besides exploring the whole "trans-humanism" has some really cool game mechanics I'd love to try out -- like body swapping). Of course with games like D&D and SW you can get obscure with it and call it SF in the sense that everyone is living in a post-human world engineered to resemble these old game properties of yore, for their own amusement (but then for it to be more than mental wanking, you'd have to work it into the plot somehow)...

Damon.
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NukeHavoc
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by NukeHavoc »

Lars Porsenna wrote:I don't know if I would say SW scratches an SF itch, mainly because I don't really consider it SF (it's more like fantasy with blasters), and the SF elements are really just window dressing: replace Mandaloreons with Hobgoblins, or Sith with evil wizards, etc. If I wanted to play an actual SF game, there are other choices I'd make (like Eclipse Phase, which besides exploring the whole "trans-humanism" has some really cool game mechanics I'd love to try out -- like body swapping). Of course with games like D&D and SW you can get obscure with it and call it SF in the sense that everyone is living in a post-human world engineered to resemble these old game properties of yore, for their own amusement (but then for it to be more than mental wanking, you'd have to work it into the plot somehow)...
It's space opera, which is close enough for my purposes. Yes, it's space fantasy to a certain extent (the force, guys with laser swords, etc.) but you can season with physics and more realistic scenarios as needed (the twilight region of Ryloth, the sunwalkers, cooling with lasers). Those elements are more than just changing out the window dressing, as recent news stories about Gliese 581 show. I think that's why it's working for our group actually; you can add in just enough different elements to keep people happy, playing up the Force or science as needed.

I'm interested in Eclipse Phase, and Rogue Trader for that matter, but I seriously doubt we'd reach quorum on either of those.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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EvilGenius
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by EvilGenius »

Well, I'm content enough our SW campaign to hold me for quite a while. I seriously like the Saga ruleset. With some work to the Ship design section I think it would be one of the best systems I've played.
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setanta14
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by setanta14 »

Yeah, I'm mostly content to play SWSE also... but I would like to play D&D occasionally. It had been like two years (other than the WPM).
setanta14
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by setanta14 »

PS- a guy I just hired is a computer/digital animation student, and he offered to render my OB map in 3D!!! :-)
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NukeHavoc
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by NukeHavoc »

setanta14 wrote:Yeah, I'm mostly content to play SWSE also... but I would like to play D&D occasionally. It had been like two years (other than the WPM).
Well, at least 6 months. We ran two or three sessions of The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth as a follow-up to White Plume Mountain back in the spring.

I'm not opposed to playing some D&D, but looking at the schedule there's not a lot of time to squeeze a session in on a Friday. That said, we had a lot of success playing Sunday afternoons, and I'm thinking we could squeeze in a D&D session or two between now and Christmas, may following one of the Fridays where there's a board game session?
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
setanta14
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Re: The State of Our Greyhawk

Post by setanta14 »

Yeah, sorry... that's what I meant, the Tsojcanth adventures (our WPM characters).

I'm not looking to try and squeeze in D&D to the current schedule, but maybe after the New Year, though an occasional Sunday night game might work too.

A few of the things we were talking about to house rule things to make them move faster for higher level play in 3.X or Pathfinder would be to either eliminate or limit iterative attacks... maybe something like this:

1st attack- regular attack
2nd- add a damage dice to first
3rd- add a second attack at regular damage
4th- add a damage dice to second attack
5th- add another damage dice to first attack
6th- add another damage dice to second attack

Also, the Pathfinder Combat Maneuver Bonus mechanic speeds up things like grapple, disarm, trip, etc. to be similar to how SWSE handles it... one dice roll instead of opposed rolls.
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