So you were playing with Pearl, then?
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I wish, that would be rad af! But no, it was with my little crew of queer pals.
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Combined with a group that told a player they need to buy all the core books to learn the game, it does sound like gatekeeping.
No, no, no, thatâs not the way it works. I have multiple copies of all the core books, so I can lend them to players that want to learn more, but arenât sure if the game is for them, or just canât afford the expense. This game ainât Warhammer/40k, which expects every player to have a 6 figure salary in order to maintain a playable army.
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Heck, Iâll flat out take photos of the needed pages of the PH and text 'em to the potential player.
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There has to be some risk of death or the game brings no sense of accomplishment for the players. But dying as frequently as real people would in a similar situation is too frustrating for both the players and the GM who, it should be noted, is also trying to have fun and canât if all the PCâs die.
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To be fair, the chaos goblin already died once this campaign.
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I think I still have the battered and flattened box top somewhere, probably in a pile of graph paper.
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My original World of Greyhawk box is completely flattened.
My Blue Box box is gone. I think I threw it away at some point, like an idiot. I still have the rulebook and the module.
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DriveThruRPG has a sale going on for D&D related books (including 3rd party releases), so I picked up the Complete Gunslinger from Mage Hand Press. Looks really fun. Even if you donât want to add a new class, it also has feats, spells, and most importantly, firearms and rules for them.
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Thanks for the heads up!!
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Today, I picked up the Complete Alchemist from Mage Hand Press and the Pure Steam setting for 5e from ICOSA (sp?). For the latter, I had the Pathfinder version to mine for ideas for a fantasy western, but since I donât have any version of Pathfinder but DO have the PHB, I bought this.
In short, Pure Steam presents a fantasy analogue of the United States during the Industrial Revolution.
The Good: Thereâs some very interesting world building. Magic is generally distrusted, and magic users need to obtain a license. Thereâs also a lot of thought put into equipment and tech, and that plays into one of the two new classes. Speaking of, those are the Chaplains, master of rhetoric who gain divine spells not from deities or religion but from their belief in a particular social cause, and the Gearhead, inventors extraordinaire. Also, one of the Archetypes for the Alchemist class in the PF version is a Moonshiner, which is fun.
The Bad: First, both versions use a word that doesnât fly anymore (Hint- itâs GPCâs old name). Second, elves. In Pure Steam, elves come from another continent and settled on the West Coast of Ullera (Fantasy Not-America). They use bamboo, and some practice marital arts, and⌠Oh. Thatâs awkward. Thereâs also some awkwardness in their description of half-orcs.
And then finally, the monks. In Ullera, thereâs a national police force focusing on unarmed restraining techniques, which, considering some of the events of the past 2 years or so is awkward, but this project started in 2014 when the use of chokeholds wasnât quite as scrutinized as it has been lately. Anyway, in game terms, being a member of this organization is an Archetype for PF, a subclass for 5e. The âWidowmenâ, as they are called, get their numbers from⌠Well, I found it somewhat unsettling. Your mileage may vary.
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I usually buy stuff to read, as I usually have the darnedest time finding people to play with. Usually, I buy stuff with lots of âfluffâ as opposed to âcrunchâ, which is why most of my library consists of Deadlands and Mutants & Masterminds.
I do keep toying with idea of writing some fiction of the aforementioned fantasy western, but westerns in general can be⌠tricky. Because the real world history of the genre marginalizes many, MANY different groups of people, and, as noted above with Pure Steam, modern attempts to address this are just as problematic. The forthcoming Old Gods Of Appalachia has received similar criticisms.
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I homebrewed a wild West style game. Got around the marginalization aspect by flat out stating that known civilization is not infringing on any already populated areas, expanding into âthe wildâ is exactly that. A little bit of a copout, but the plan is for the world to become increasingly corrupted over the campaign.
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Yeah, thatâs what a lot of people do, but then that does bring up the topic of erasure. Itâs tricky. Pure Steam mentions tribal peoples, but doesnât go into detail, almost like they said to themselves âOh, crap, look what we did with the elves. Letâs just mention it and then not elaborate and we wonât get ourselves in more trouble.â
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For me, one of the benefits of role playing in fantasy settings is that you can bring up and explore those topics that are otherwise difficult to talk about. It gives you a safe place to learn what the consequences of those kinds of systems can be. Also, there is often the aspect of the players fighting against those established systems that may be morally bankrupt. Not that there is anything wrong with the PCs role playing morally corrupt characters themselves. That provides the perfect opportunity for the GM to show the consequences of acting that way.
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Perhaps, but I also have a group already made up of marginalized people and the aim is to have something not heavy in life when everything is heavy. It also doesnât mean weâre not touching on those subjects in the campaign, just that the PCs themselves arenât racist colonizing scum.
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And thatâs great! If itâs for a group of friends, yeah, no one wants to get into the ugly history unless everyone agrees to it. Iâm more talking about something with the intent to eventually present it to a wider audience.
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Eh, weâre either marginalized ourselves or high risk, so pandemic D&D has been created with the aim of freeing us a bit from all that. My motto has been âthe point is to have fun,â so we work around schedules and cut sessions short if someone isnât feeling well and generall just are warm and accepting.
That said. The PLOT that theyâre getting WILL be getting darker and darker as time goes by. So they will have the opportunity to fight bigotry and evil for sure. It just hasnât really reached the PCs home world - yet.
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Iâm still thinking about the possibility of running a play-by-post dungeon crawl campaign on here, if there is any interest.
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