DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Fantasy SKT: The Storm King's Thunder OOC thread

I was thinking of trying to melt their treasure.

Nice!

Sorry about the delay, but I'm tied up most of this weekend.

AJ. What was your plan? Were you going to do a breath weapon thing? Because without something akin to forge fire you wouldn't even scorch it...if it was mundane. It's described as "a bent and broken, c-shaped band of 2-inch-thick metal roughly 11 feet long." But I'm curious.

Anyhow, the main thread is open for posting.

The various forms of magical fire at Kriv's disposal, but if not, then not. More a spiteful attempt at denial.

No problem, Neptune.

I was about to start a tangent here about D&D races anyway, so here goes.

I was reading Dungeon Crawl Classics recently, which is a modern new-old school version of D&D.

Unlike proper old school revival games, it doesn't use one of the '70s '80s D&D systems. It's based loosely on 3rd Ed, but trying to incorporate flavour and design tropes of those earlier games.

I quite enjoyed it actually, it has some very fun ideas. But one thing it reminded me of was how races were originally classes in D&D. Dwarf, elf and halfling.

Races have expanded greatly over time, though for me I still choose a race primarily for its synergy with the class I've chosen. (Sometimes I choose the race first and the class for the synergy.)

I guess if you're playing human, synergy is never an issue since they go well with any class in most D&D versions.

But is race ever a fundamental part of D&D character creation for any of you?

For example, might you read about gnomes and think "I really like the idea of this isolationist gnomish community with internally liberal social systems but a kind of xenophobic attitude to the outside world", and then launch character creation off of that without really thinking what the gnome's benefits are and how they might synergise with class.

Kriv can certainly display his anger and spite for roleplaying purposes, but just as your sword and armor don't melt in the conflagration that is a fireball, don't expect this thing that the fire giants risked their lives for to be impacted by your magic.

I have gone both ways from a story that gives me race and class, or a race that denotes a class. In recent versions, Sindar was a half-elf by story, so Bard became a focus due to race. Yet Luminmorn was a Paladin first, and then I created the story and picked the race to fit.

I try not to 'over think' all those 'details'. I find an idea for a character and ... within the rules ... try to bring that idea to life <g>

Typically I start with Class first, then choose the race that best fits the class, such as Teifling Warlocks.

If I find a new variant race that seems interesting I will flip that script and choose the class that best fits that race, but I usually end up in the same place.

I know some people like to play against tropes and for RPing purposes might choose something like a Halfling Wizard or Dwarven Thief, and can have lots of fun playing against type but I usually don't do that.

Since I lean more to a style of roll-playing rather than role playing, when I do play a character, I only pick a race because of the statistical advantages it might offer. When I start to play a character, I rarely care much about background or personality. My general approach is to create a mostly blank canvas PC and let the personality evolve within the game.

As a DM, I am mostly concerned about creating a game that gives the players what they enjoy. Since there's a broad spectrum of players I try to provide both. In this game, I tried to add the opportunity for players to add depth of character with complex backgrounds and personal objectives.

Yeah, in D&D I don't think I've ever read a race where I was suddenly enthralled and wanting to play for their background.

Whilst pondering my paladin build for this game, I'd recently watched the Aquaman movie and enjoyed their imagining of an undersea kingdom. So tritons blipped my radar, and then reading closer I saw their mechanics were a good match for a paladin, especially a conquest paladin, so it all came together from there. But if tritons hadn't been a good match, I'd have chosen a different race that was, regardless of the background.

It's funny, but Middle-earth is very close to a D&D setting, yet if you asked me to create a One Ring RPG character, the first thing I'd choose would be race and it would be the defining choice. Completely opposite to D&D. I wonder why that is?

Also, here's a question. What's the most unusual race you've ever played? Has anyone ever played a monstrous D&D party?

Guess I am not so 'creative'. I almost always play a human <shrug>

I played a gnoll in an all monstrous party once, Zhongbai his name was. Cool character. Playing in a monstrous campaign was good fun, though wantonly bad taste. It was like if someone made a Lobo comic out of D&D.

Other than that, yeah, I guess triton is the weirdest race I've played. We need AJ in this discussion now to tell us how its done.

<heh heh heh> Well lets see if he 'contributes' <wink>

Way back (Neptune might remember more details) my FTF group once played a game where we were all evil monsters invading a village of good persons. We were intent on destruction and slaughter. I do not recall what race I played, although I think it was a Drow (way before Drow was an allowable pc race).

In Neptune's current FTF campaign (that I am supposedly co-running although I've done very little to help him to this point honestly) I am playing a Svirfneblin Mystic. It is a psionic class and I came across Deep Gnome details as an alternate pc race and thought they made a good fit together. That's about as close as I've come to choosing a class based on race, but in this case it was kind of choosing them together. Usually it is choosing race based on class.

Not so much with race, no. I generally favour human or half-elf but have played most other races at one time or another.

I did run a party of thieves through a dungeon once. That was interesting!

I've always wanted to run an all-dwarf party!

Zeim,
Gabe is co-DMing that game. This is where you're my co-DM (you'll hear about that soon!)

When I was in my youth we played a hybrid Ad&D game with Arduin Grimore. I played a Deodanth, which is a half elf, half vampire. They are crazy jumping killing machines. Phraints are bug types that fall along the same lines. Both very fun and very weird.

I have played plenty of monster races, though my most fun would be a Knoblin. Cross between a Kobold and a Goblin with wings, think one foot and a half of flying winged death, with a just a touch of annoyance.

Yeah I like weird. Who would have guessed with a moniker of Pandemonium.

<groan>

The delay in my post was due more to my scratching my head for a week trying to figure out how to handle the aftermath of the battle. In the end, I took a lazy route, hoping that less was more. I don't quite like how the module handles this whole segment. I guess, at a table, I could lead you by nose-rings to the right approach, but here, with time lag, I can't redirect easily.

If I were to review this module, I would point to this section of this chapter as an "awful" design in the most critical part of the game. Of course, you all drifted to the least productive approach because of your lazy DM. It's not your fault. I will need to nudge you in the right direction, I think.

No worries. I am enjoying the game well enough <g>

I feel called out.

Not without good reason, mind. In D&D and its successors alone, I've played a Kyton, Kobolds, a Jermelaine, a Neanderthal, a Dragon, A Githzerai, A Yeti, A Modron, A Petal, A Warforged, the list goes on. Those with good memories may remember one of my old games here from a decade or so back, FSH: For Sea and Heterocracy, where each player was a sentient undersea species of one kind or another. (In the initial draft I was considering running it as D&D, with all manner of Sahuagin, Kuo-Toa, Tritons, Merfolk and the like as options.)

Outside of D&D, I've played a hivemind of energy beings a few times, which probably counts as the weirdest.

BTW, I locked the main thread to put things in order. It's getting far off any tracks. I'll get it reopened today.

....and I've opened it back up

and I have posted <weg>