Samantha Patri's Blog

The other day, I started discussing monster manuals, and their penchant for being filled with enemies, and being woefully scarce on allies. To some extent I get it - you want a book which provides a plethora of opponents you can throw at your group, so they have things to fight. But the thing is ... what about allies? If the PCs want to, for example, go out on some adventure and want to bring some not-hostile creatures with them, then what?  "We want to go out to the forest and team up with one of the local dryads, and help her with this problem". Or, "so there's a silver dragon around here, we want to recruit it to help us with this significant challenge". Or, how about, "this gold dragon has been driven insane by this dark relic, and we need to put an end to it". What if the group isn't entirely 'good', and has to face down an archon or angel? Or a lesser divine Good creature? Sure, there's options. The GM can reskin a monster to suit...

 Solo RPGs. It's a fascinating concept. We used to like books like Fighting Fantasy and the Grailquest series (the tinglerings you get in book 1 and 2 don't do anything until book 3.  Yeesh.) I mean, they were fun, you got to throw dice and go through an adventure - but it's kind of a one and done, you know? Solo RPGs seem to be a big thing now. There's a bunch of expansions for games to play them solo, there's a bunch of games which are built from the ground up for playing solo, and ... okay.  Sure. But for me, it's just another Fighting Fantasy / Grailquest thing. It's a nice little story wrapped in dice, and perhaps a bit more sandboxy than you'd normally get, maybe. But I have a hard time seeing it as a TTRPG. Why? Well. To put it bluntly, there's not much roleplaying there. You kind of go along with the script, see where the garden path takes you, and that's it. But what if you want to hang out with a few NPCs, see what they're up to, an...

Religion is a major interest of mine, and looking at it in roleplaying games fascinates me.  I'm quite prone to making characters with a strong faith, regardless of what the character's chosen profession is.  Rogue?  Faithful.  Magus?  Faithful.  Barbarian?  Faithful.  Vampire?  Faithful.  You get the idea. In a recent discussion, we were discussing the difference between Judaism's God and the Shinto faith and their gods.  Basically, how the religion interacts (nominally) with their chosen people. It came down to this: Judaism People:  We made an exclusive pact with God. God:  Don't do the thing. People:  We did the thing. God:  *SMACK*  Don't do the thing. People:  Okay... but we just did the thing. God:  *SMACK*  Stop doing the thing. People:  You mean this thing we just did? God:  *SMACK!* Look, don't make me come down there. Shinto People:  So, yeah.  We did the thing. ...

  Black Bugs by Regurgitator Far too often, a campaign ends after the first big arc is finished. The characters have gone out, saved the world, defeated the big evil end boss, rescued the princess, and defeated the evil vizier. Or whatever the plot is. Cool.  Congrats. So what happens next? That "what happens next" for me is more important than the victory. What does my character do afterwards? What other things does my character get to see? Who does my character get to meet? How has the world changed now that we won? I don't make characters to go through a single campaign and stop. They have goals, they have interests and hobbies and families. They had a life before the adventure, and may want to return to it after - or go do something else that doesn't involve 'go out and kill a lot of monsters and save the world'. The 'save the world' plot, for my characters, is an interruption in their life - it takes up time they would usually rather use to do oth...

EGG back in the day decided he was going to nerf bows and crossbows. He wanted adventurers to be front-and-middle, in the thick of things, not standing back, hitting enemies with arrows and bolts. So, obviously, ranged weapons needed to be powered down. Being a fan of long-ranged weapons - especially bows and sniper rifles, I can feel the hate, because it's carried on into almost every other RPG to come out. The sword is the 'go to' weapon, and ranged weapons are left to the side. In 2nd edition D&D, the best you could hope for with a bow, not including using magic or other special tricks, was 3/1.  Or, '3 per minute'. The argument for combat was that in 60 seconds, you're moving around, trying to avoid getting hit, and giving off a bunch of attacks that are deflected or simply miss.  Right.  So, if you're using the bow and you're not engaged with the enemy, you're firing into combat over the course of 60 seconds, and only get three 'to hit...

There's a type of fantasy setting called a thousand points of light . The premise is that civilization is huddled in towns and villages, or behind city walls, and out there is a dangerous world, with monsters roaming around, and dark forests you don't go into, and all sorts of nastiness. The PCs are heroes, who go out into this dangerous world and fight the monsters and collect the treasure and return with stories of their heroic deeds. I was discussing a pacifist character that we've played from time to time, and even have the write-up for her. We recently redesigned her for 13th Age.  She has an Str of 3, and a Con of 5, and not a single attack ability, spell, or weapon. She's a cleric, and she heals and buffs, and raises the dead, but she is definitely not a combatant. And a few game masters said that she'd probably not be welcome at their table, and the reasons given were pretty straightforward: She's not pulling her weight (by doing damage in combat) The pl...

I might be a bit old-school.  I started gaming in 1984, give or take. Cut my teeth on Palace of the Silver Princess, picked up Call of Cthulhu as my second ever RPG, and then ended my AD&D experience with Throne of Bloodstone before I moved on to other games in another part of the country. I understand the idea of "fail forward", and I understand the intent. The GM wants the PCs to make it to the BBEG, and doesn't want the road there to be blocked. The GM doesn't want the players to fall to 'accidents' and crappy dice rolls along the way.  No, I totally get this. And in some games, sure.  Okay. But not every game. Here's the thing for me. If the hazard isn't actually hazardous, then there's no point to it being there. Some GMs may talk about 'tension' or 'dramatic scenery', but I'm fine with doing that as background, not as a 'threat that isn't really a threat don't worry about it'. If you're in a swordfi...