***Tabletop RPGs and Board Games***

[kcgreene]

My curiousity got the best of me and I was curious if anyone on here was into Tabletop RPGs or Board Games... might be a good way to share recommendations...

I currently DM/GM a game of DND 5e that is down to the last session or two of the campaign, and am currently working on putting together a campaign for Call of Cthulu that I'm going to base out of Kansas City from 1914 to 1945.

And in terms of board games, i have a wide varying collection and play a lot of them. Some of my favorites at the moment are Last Light, Power Grid, Twilight Imperium 4th Ed., and Ark Nova.

I'm just curious if anyone else shares the same hobbies.

Last Light



Power Grid

[kcgreene]

Originally Posted by Chitownchiefsfan

Do you have recommendations for a fairly noob DM to run?

I don't run a lot of pre-made modules unfortunately (I tend to make my own big stories and such and run out of my own world so I control the Lore, as there's too much D&D lore for me to memorize it all, and one guy at my table is that guy who has memorized EVERYTHING in D&D Lore), I can tell you that a friend of mind said that he found "Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus" to be relatively new player friendly... (Someone can correct me if they've DM'd it and found otherwise by all means)

If you want a one shot, another friend told me about a funny module he played with a group at a Con and ended up running in his first time DMing called "The Wild Sheep Chase" that is made by a indie group. He thought the nature of the one-shot helped ease him into not taking it too serious. Its also FREE!!!

https://winghornpress.com/wp-content...p_chase_v2.pdf

I haven't gotten to look too much into it in all honesty, but he recommended it a lot to me.

ALSO: If you haven't found it (I'm sure you have, but sometimes I meet people who haven't heard of it), 5eTools will be your best friend while Dming

https://5e.tools/

[Chitownchiefsfan]

[QUOTE=kcgreene;17568288]I don't run a lot of pre-made modules unfortunately (I tend to make my own big stories and such and run out of my own world so I control the Lore, as there's too much D&D lore for me to memorize it all, and one guy at my table is that guy who has memorized EVERYTHING in D&D Lore), I can tell you that a friend of mind said that he found "Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus" to be relatively new player friendly... (Someone can correct me if they've DM'd it and found otherwise by all means)

If you want a one shot, another friend told me about a funny module he played with a group at a Con and ended up running in his first time DMing called "The Wild Sheep Chase" that is made by a indie group. He thought the nature of the one-shot helped ease him into not taking it too serious. Its also FREE!!!

https://winghornpress.com/wp-content...p_chase_v2.pdf

I haven't gotten to look too much into it in all honesty, but he recommended it a lot to me.

ALSO: If you haven't found it (I'm sure you have, but sometimes I meet people who haven't heard of it, 5eTools will be your best friend while Dming)[/QUOTE

I have not found the 5etools yet but I will check it out.

I also was going to incorporate the wild sheep chase into whatever campaign I end up running. Thanks for the recommendations!

[kcgreene]

Originally Posted by duncan_idaho

3.5 has a ton-ton-ton of options.

If you look into it, some suggestions:

1. ThePathGuy has a nice online character builder tool that helps get through some of the complexity of all the character class choices. It doesn't include ALL of the feats but is a good place to get started with a new character. At the end, you can get a character sheet that you can copy to a paper sheet or print and play from, whatever the preference is.
2. One thing you'll see a lot of are notes about which "splat books" (Complete X, etc) to include. I highly recommend including the following: Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Mage, Complete Adventurer, Complete Scoundrel, Tome of Battle. Tome of Battle, particularly, has the best MARTIAL fighting characters in the game.
3. There are still a lot of online resources for 3.5 to help the DM (generators, databases, etc). The-eye.eu has a great repository of basically every 3.5 resource that has existed. DonJon has some great generators (treasure, experience, dungeon).

Awesome! Thank You! Always good to get the inside track on information gathering rather than having to dig around with little knowledge!

[kcgreene]

Originally Posted by Chitownchiefsfan

I have not found the 5etools yet but I will check it out.

I also was going to incorporate the wild sheep chase into whatever campaign I end up running. Thanks for the recommendations!

If you have players that are invested in your story and you are looking for elements and twists to add into a campaign, you may want to look up the False Hydra.

https://dnding.com/false-hydra/

It's a homebrew monster that has multiple heads and any of them singing makes it invisible to anyone that can hear it, and anyone/ anything it eats disappears from everyone's memory. Great for a big drop or twist.

Made it in my group where a character's sister had been part of the party the whole time and noone knows or remembers her, but they found her bag in the party's room one morning with a bunch of letters to her and the brother from their parents, with the player going "I don't know who that is? Why are my parents writing her? I don't have a sister!" etc

That's one I had a lot of fun with as a DM, plenty of good videos on Youtube on how to run a False Hydra as well.

[Fishpicker]

I havent played in forever. I dont see myself getting back into it unless i can find a lot of free time. I really like watching this channel, Dungeon Craft, on youtube though.



this guy basically advises DMs how to find resources for cheap and how to tailor rule sets to fit preferences. He reviews a lot of new PnP RPGs. He also gives updates on industry news.

I recently got back into painting miniatures used for tabletop gaming. When I was a tween I loved to do it. I was good enough to get a paying gig painting miniatures for a guy that owned a hobby shop when i was 14. I left the hobby because it was so time consuming. I got back into it because the game has changed completely. I now use paints called express colors. the paints do all the work and i can paint much much faster. the faster you go, the more forgiving the medium becomes. if you have some experience with CYMK color theory, you can get some pretty amazing results.

[kcgreene]

Played some board games with the lady and her dad yesterday.

Azul: Summer Pavilion - A very simple tile placement game that is quite enjoyable and relatively quick once you get the hang of it.



The Networks - An entertaining game with a lot of humor that is an open draft/purchase mechanic to assemble shows for your TV Network. Reminds me a lot of Weird Al's "UHF" as a board game.

[Indian Chief]

Taking a break from TTRPGs to play Gloomhaven. Group of 4 of us all playing for the first time. I see why it is so highly regarded. We've been going for about 3 months now with a weekly game and no signs of slowing down.

[kcgreene]

Originally Posted by Indian Chief

Taking a break from TTRPGs to play Gloomhaven. Group of 4 of us all playing for the first time. I see why it is so highly regarded. We've been going for about 3 months now with a weekly game and no signs of slowing down.

I always see it highly rated, but haven't met anyone who has played it, and I've haven't wanted to buy it necessarily as it seems like its another TTRPG in itself basically. Sounds like you're having a blast though! Thoughts?

[Indian Chief]

Originally Posted by kcgreene

I always see it highly rated, but haven't met anyone who has played it, and I've haven't wanted to buy it necessarily as it seems like its another TTRPG in itself basically. Sounds like you're having a blast though! Thoughts?

You're right that it's definitely TT adjacent. The nice thing is, we can all fully participate, no one has to DM. Rules are straightforward, lots of options for characters, well balanced, scenarios are challenging but fair.

There is a retirement mechanic for characters, so if you end up playing something that doesn't click with you, there's a way to retire that character and start up a new one without a hefty penalty.

You have the freedom to explore side quests and the main story will still be there when you get back to it. We've gone down a rabbit hole or two in the time we've been playing.

For anyone thinking about giving it a go, pick up Jaws of the Lion. It is essentially Gloomhaven lite. I got it on sale at Target for like $22. It functions much like the tutorial in a video game. Each round/scenario you have a new game mechanic added and by the end of 6 rounds or so, you have the full game. We played it before jumping into GH and it was a perfect intro. And it meshes perfectly with GH so you can carry over your characters if you like them. (The classes are unique to Jaws.)