The D&D thread

Hoss said:

I'm hella confused. Never heard of paizo before. So I looked it up and I guess they made pathfinder. But I thought pathfinder was a version of DnD. So how similar is pathfinder to DnD and which version is it closest to? If you are familiar with one are you most of the way to understanding the other one?

Click to expand...

Pathinder was developed as a response to the announcement of WotC moving to 4e.

The fans loved 3e/3.5e and didn't want WotC to create an entirely new edition. So Paizo seized on the opportunity and effectively created D&D 3.75. D&D and PF are very similar, but they're different enough to be separate games.

Pathfinder second edition released a couple years ago and its roots are still firmly grounded in the D&D d20 rules, but the game is very different than D&D (and PF1, for that matter). Experienced D&D players don't have much trouble picking up PF, but they're definitely two different systems.

PF2 has a very tightly balanced system. So much so that it's hard to make a bad/underpowered character as long as you follow some very basic guidelines. Some people love the tight math and others hate it because, in some cases, it can feel like your character never gets any stronger, but that's a consequence of the math. Characters are always supposed to be fighting creatures/facing challenges that are +/- 4 levels within their own level. Anything outside of that is a joke or effectively impossible.

There are some elements of the system that are amazing, but there is some truth to the argument that there is a 'best' way to play the game and that turns some folks off. However, it's mostly the power gamers that are in love with the ridiculously over-powered, broken characters that you can make in PF1.

I will say that PF2 is a lot easier to DM for because the CR system actually works and the DM doesn't have to have a doctorate in mathematics (or years of DM experience) to create an encounter that is fun and challenging.

Like Grabbit said, Pathfinder 1e is really D&D 3.75 and is an absolute mess of nonsene mechanics and balance issues galore.

Pathfinder 2e is an actually decent game that maintains the "feel" of D&D while offering orders of magnitudes of customization options that facilitate unique playstyles with very tight balance.

Not liking half bloods. It's very he who must not be named of them.

Is this for real? D&D Safety Tools

Do normal people actually do this or is this an alphabet thing?

I'm a fan looking someone dead in the eye and saying "man the fuck up" and moving on like nothing happened lol

Frenzic said:

Is this for real? D&D Safety Tools

Do normal people actually do this or is this an alphabet thing?

Click to expand...

No one, except the blue-hairs and their sympathizers, use that garbage.

Also, I particularly hate Sly Flourish because he'd be so valuable to TTRPG fans if he wasn't such a stereotypical woke faggot. He embraces all of the Leftist religion. I can't stand listening to that lispy faggot talk and I have absolutely no doubt he'd enjoy being pegged by some tranny while watching his wife get grudge-fucked by big-dicked porch monkey.

My first shipment of Pathfinder books arrived today and I might have made a mistake going all-in.

Every book I have is brimming with 'strong whamen' and hyper-competent/intelligent/powerful American Inventors while anything faintly resembling a normal white male is a rarity and/or a villain or totally incompetent. There are a few traditional male hero-types, but they're objectively a tiny minority.

I was extremely hesitant about buying the Mwangi book and I should have listened to my intuition. The book is basically a jogger fever dream where "we wuz kangs" is their reality. The culture and society is effectively a fantasy Nigkanda that destroyed their colonizers.

I literally laughed out loud several times while skimming through it. Enough times where my wife asked me if the book was intended to be funny. No, just predictable and pathetic.

That's rather disappointing. I mean in my mind when I hear warrior. I still see this guy lol. It always resonated with me as just being so awesome.

It's a shame things are how they are.

Frenzic said:

Is this for real? D&D Safety Tools

Do normal people actually do this or is this an alphabet thing?

Click to expand...

we don't use THAT, specifically... but my dm has a patreon for maps and one shots that he puts together, nothing super serious, but it attracts various people that sometimes we'll play a one shot with. my dm is into gothic horror so if something he puts together has a stronger bend towards "traumatic issues" he just gives a real short disclaimer before the game. (we play on a VTT because we're all good friends that life has spit us across the united states) "Some events or topics may veer a little too far away from escapism into real life trauma, so if at any time during the game you start feeling uncomfortable, just send me a private message. no need to get into it as this isn't your therapy session, it'll just inform me if i need to tone something down."

i think there's something to be said for dnd being therapeutic without being therapy. a lot of people have all kinds of issues that don't have any other way to explore in a safe place surrounded by friends. obviously not every table is going to have these kinds of issues but there's plenty of them out there. i've worked through plenty of stuff in game just because it gave me a different perspective. i wasn't actively seeking out working through things in game, it just happened.

my point is that i don't think there's anything wrong with understanding that different people have different levels of emotional fortitude regarding different topics and i think that's all the "safety tools" should be used for.

j00t said:

we don't use THAT, specifically... but my dm has a patreon for maps and one shots that he puts together, nothing super serious, but it attracts various people that sometimes we'll play a one shot with. my dm is into gothic horror so if something he puts together has a stronger bend towards "traumatic issues" he just gives a real short disclaimer before the game. (we play on a VTT because we're all good friends that life has spit us across the united states) "Some events or topics may veer a little too far away from escapism into real life trauma, so if at any time during the game you start feeling uncomfortable, just send me a private message. no need to get into it as this isn't your therapy session, it'll just inform me if i need to tone something down."

i think there's something to be said for dnd being therapeutic without being therapy. a lot of people have all kinds of issues that don't have any other way to explore in a safe place surrounded by friends. obviously not every table is going to have these kinds of issues but there's plenty of them out there. i've worked through plenty of stuff in game just because it gave me a different perspective. i wasn't actively seeking out working through things in game, it just happened.

my point is that i don't think there's anything wrong with understanding that different people have different levels of emotional fortitude regarding different topics and i think that's all the "safety tools" should be used for.

Click to expand...

No. Actually, not just no, but fuck no.

D&D (or whatever you play) isn't a place for any kind of "therapy."

It's hilarious that a game that heavily leans into visceral, violent combat where players can behead, disembowel, and even outright murder people/creatures has to stop because someone at the table can't handle an imaginary description of something.

The only people that pull that kind of shit are narcissists who want everyone to stop and cater to their fabricated 'trauma.' Being mentally-ill/a 'victim' is celebrated nowadays. The proof is that half the population under 30 has some form of mental-illness that they brag about in their social media bios because it's en vogue. If you don't have some combination of autism, ADHD, PTSD, depression, phobias, anxiety, sexual assault survivor, gender dysphoria, etc., etc., etc. you're an exception.

I'm not saying that there aren't occasionally situations where people can get out of hand; like people being super-creepy sexually or unnecessarily graphic. However, in 99.999% of cases an "ok, enough" or "we get it" is more than sufficient to move past whatever 'bad' behavior is happening.

I never have and never will stop a game of D&D because someone has an issue with the game. The only exception to that is where a person grossly violates social norms by verbally assaulting someone or sexually harassing them.

Grabbit Allworth said:

No. Actually, not just no, but fuck no.

D&D (or whatever you play) isn't a place for any kind of "therapy."

It's hilarious that a game that heavily leans into visceral, violent combat where players can behead, disembowel, and even outright murder people/creatures has stop because someone at the table can't handle an imaginary description of something.

The only people that pull that kind of shit are narcissists who want everyone to stop and cater to their fabricated 'trauma.' Being mentally-ill/victim is celebrated nowadays. The proof is half the population under 30 has some form of mental-illness that they brag about in their social media bios because it's en vogue. If you don't have some combination of autism, ADHD, PTSD, depression, phobias, anxiety, sexual assault survivor, gender dysphoria, etc., etc., etc. you're an exception.

I'm not saying that there aren't occasionally situations where people can get out of hand; like people being super-creepy sexually or unnecessarily graphic. However, in 99.999% of cases an "ok, enough" or "we get it" is more than sufficient to move past whatever 'bad' behavior is happening.

I never have and never will stop a game of D&D because someone has an issue with the game. The only exception to that is where a person grossly violates social norms by verbally assaulting someone or sexually harassing them.

Click to expand...

i mean, if you only play the game to cosplay a murderhobo, then yes, i agree there's no place for that. the wonderful thing about dnd is that EVERY table runs differently. you've talked a lot about how your run your games and i want nothing to do with your table, but that's totally fine because i know there are players who love the stuff you do, which is great. but the only narcissists we're talking about here are the people who think anyone who plays differently than them is wrong.

I agree that every table should play how they want in whatever way is entertaining to that group. I'm with Grabbit tho in that I have zero desire to play with people so sensitive that spiders trigger a phobia, where a campaign involving slavery makes them remember the days, etc. Playing with people who are going to bog everything down in a therapy session as we wait for them to wipe their tears away is not happening with me at the table.

i mean, that sounds awful. that's not what i said i agreed with. if you happen to play with someone who never told you they were kidnapped as a child and forced into sex slavery, the table is NOT the place for that person to work through those issues. which is the exact reason why, as a dm, you give the players an out just in case things get too real for them. there is NO WAY to know what a person is dealing with, ESPECIALLY if they are new to your table. those safety tools aren't for tables that have played together for 10 years. they are for players who are new to that table.

if you ONLY play with people you are extremely familiar with, than you probably have no need at all for any kind of conversation about that. i don't think that is any different than going over how you do things with first time players. again, my dm has a short little pdf he shares with players new to our table that goes over just general info. some of it is homebrew rules we use (potions are a bonus action if you use them, an action to feed them to someone else, etc), some of it is giving background on his homebrew world, some of it are the expectations from players as well as what you can expect from him as a dm. it sounds more official than it is, but we play with a lot of randos so he just created something quick and easy to read instead of having the same conversation all the time.

like, one of the things he expects from players is that they respect the time the dm puts into putting a game together as well as respecting the time that others have put aside to play. don't agree to play and then keep getting up every 20 minutes to "take care of something real quick" or sit on the phone or whatever.

that's something that people who have known each other for a long time don't need to have a conversation about but getting some rando from patreon, you have no idea who is sitting down with you so you need to establish some ground rules. that's where having some sort of "safety" conversation is warranted. specifically so you can AVOID having a therapy session break out

Rajaah said:

I'm with j00t on this one, while also being politically aligned more with the assholes. Woke indoctrination can be some horrifying stuff when it's real, but also there's nothing wrong with having respect for your players and making sure they feel respected in a game.

For example, since I recently lost a friend/sometimes girlfriend to suicide, I might not want that subject being thrown around in a game I'm playing. It's bad enough that I have to see "Suicide Squad" in the headlines every day because DC made another fucking movie with them. DC couldn't do a Man of Steel 2 but makes damn sure to bring us all the fuckin' Suicide Squad we could possibly eat!

And me not wanting to deal with that subject due to my best friend being in the ground doesn't make me a special snowflake or whateverthefuck. Nothing wrong with respecting people, and yeah, this is how you AVOID the therapy sessions and keep that out of the game.

That's all I got to say about that, don't think it's worth arguing or "defending the position"

Click to expand...

exactly this. there is a difference between virtue signaling for someone else just to gain position. people have this screwed up persecution syndrome where being offended makes you some higher form of being. screw those people.

but there are plenty of people who are going through genuine issues and just don't want to deal with that during the time they've designated to have fun with their friends.

I think I can at least concede that I am referring more to the people who are taking feels, and I am special to the extreme and ruining the hobby. Having some compassion for a player such as Raj is understandable. I can get behind something like that.

Most of this is just common sense. In the game I'm running now the BBEG was going to be the mother of one of the characters, and then that player's mom got diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. So with that in mind I pivoted the fuck away from that whole plotline because playing the game is a way for him to NOT think about that for a few hours a week.