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Ah I thought it was another subtype of 4th My mistake.

How long would you guys recommend each session is? Also does using miniatures add to the game much?

I find 3 hours is the right length for a game. Minis can add to the game if you like them and have appropriate ones, I find they can also distract if your players find it difficult to imagine that a troll is in fact a frost giant and so on. YMMV, some posters here are huge fans of using miniatures, I only use them the odd time.

I recommend using some sort of markers for 3.0 through 4th, but they don't need to meet the standards Warhammer players might expect, for example. My group generally tries to have painted roughly-WYSIWYG minis for heroes, but monsters are whatever is available. One time, while running a d20 (3.0) variant game called Weird Wars II, I used small candies for the base Germans.

4.0 really expects a gridded layout to be used for combats. It can be made to work without it, but a lot of powers involve fine control of placement that you might lose if you're just doing a combat without it. Some of the published adventures include map sheets to make this easier, at least for the major fights.

What I mean by 'fine placement' is that there's a lot of effects that either produce or effect zones (usually square chunks) so moving enemies around can be useful. Flanking gives a bonus, and a few monsters may have rules that do things with adjacent allies or enemies, so it may be essential to be able to move a friend or foe around to break up an enemies formation. The fighters and rogues tend to be best at this, which is a nice way of showing that they're bad-ass warriors who can move opponents around, not just meat shields who swing a sword occasionally.

3.0 isn't nearly as map heavy, but it does help.


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Oh, by "Roughly WYSIWG" I mean that in general the mini should get the race/class right but we're not picky about armaments and armor as they can and do change in play.

Hrm.

As well as vanilla DnD we are looking to make up a zombie survival variant that may or may not have magic, is there already anything like that out?

All flesh must be eaten pops to mind.

I'll look into it, thanks grabzak

All of my friends already play combat based RPG computer games so we will be focussing on story for dnd, if i can get it all organised I'll let you know how it goes.

There is a Sci-Fi 4E called Amethyst that mixes tech and magic, though not together (magic disrupts tech). We did a zombie apocalypse using that. It is ok but has a few problems mechanically, like a sniper getting a penalty to hit while prone but a pistol getting a bonus.

That sounds pretty crap to be honest :/
Boosting tech with magic is the main appeal of including magic to an otherwise non fantasy setting imo so I think will give amethyst a miss, thanks anyway though ahtman.

All Flesh Must Be Eaten might be a good suggestion for you, and an excellent idea from Grabzak. I believe it's a bit more abstract than 3.5/PF/4.0. More importantly, I think it's got a lot of 'toolkit' value the other games may not have. You can plug-in bits from a few other games from the same company if you need certain elements, for example.

corpsesarefun wrote:That sounds pretty crap to be honest :/
Boosting tech with magic is the main appeal of including magic to an otherwise non fantasy setting imo so I think will give amethyst a miss, thanks anyway though ahtman.

This is why we never used the disruption rules. It is a flawed but interesting idea but until one is comfortable tweaking I wouldn't mess with it. It is an interesting read though so just tossing it out there.

I had a look into all flesh must be eaten, it looks better good and I think I'll give cannibalizing its strong points into a reworked dnd a go at a later date.

Hey guys. I wrote Amethyst. Play Tau and 'Nids as well (full disclosure).
I wanted to mention a few things.

The next book, Amethyst Evolution, offers dozens of alternate powers and features to tweak characters. One of those tweaks allows you to drop the stalker's Anywhere, Anytime class feature and replace it with one called Smooth as Glass, which enables you to suffer no penalties to attack rolls from being prone when wielding a sniper weapon. The book also introduces aircraft, giant mecha, and nuclear weapons.

Also, the issue with disruption was a mechanical necessity given the setting I envisioned, with distinctive city-state enclaves of high technology surrounded by expansion of encroaching magic. Originally, there was no disruption, but the logic of the setting couldn't support itself. It was an attempt to create a world that didn't feel like Iron Kingdoms or Final Fantasy. There are other reasons as well.

It is a mechanic I often ignore myself, only introducing it as a role playing element to remind my players where they are. It is not required for game balance and can be removed in your game, canon Amethyst or not.

Just wanted to volunteer that.
Carry on....

I think that there are far too many sub-classes and specialists and feats in D&D these days. When starting a new game I have everyone stick to the basic classes until they obtain a few levels. Once their character has proven it's resilience and earned some experience, then I don't mind if the players want to begin specialization in a thing or two.

Might seem blunt but it saves a lot of wasted time when someones low level character gets flattened by a boulder.

snurl wrote:I think that there are far too many sub-classes and specialists and feats in D&D these days. When starting a new game I have everyone stick to the basic classes until they obtain a few levels. Once their character has proven it's resilience and earned some experience, then I don't mind if the players want to begin specialization in a thing or two.

Might seem blunt but it saves a lot of wasted time when someones low level character gets flattened by a boulder.

I think 4th edition had this kind of opinion as a design goal... The classes are intentionally somewhat simpler and you don't have Prestige Classes. The new equivalent (Paragon Paths) kicks in at level 11 for everyone and is a bit more restricted: you generally have a choice of 3-4 for your class, maybe a racial path or two, etc.

Heh. Yeah, 3.5 was a bit over the top for options. Not to mention expansions. I have like 3 milk crates of 3.5 books gathering dust right now.

pretre wrote:Heh. Yeah, 3.5 was a bit over the top for options. Not to mention expansions. I have like 3 milk crates of 3.5 books gathering dust right now.

I think for sanity's sake the GM and group really needed to form a consensus on which books were 'in play' for the game in question. My group generally stuck to WotC books only (which could still be a lot...) with no setting-specific stuff, with exceptions for when we played games int eh Iron Kingdoms setting, for example.

I proposed a similar idea for Shadowrun at one point. Shadowrun is technically classless, but you end up with a lot of effective classes as the rules actively penalize trying to do certain things (I.E. a Wizard is going to avoid cyberware as it reduces magic abilities) and there was a book or books for nearly every special focus: A 'Magic' book, a 'Gun' book (couple of these...), etc. I tried to limit characters to one add-on book for my own sanity as a player... My mage didn't really need a tricked out pistol and defended that as 'in character' because he just wasn't into guns (He could enchant weapons, mind you... he just didn't care about tweaking a pistol).

Similar concept for D&D. If you need rules from more than 2-3 books, you might be in trouble. Admittedly, I just realized my 4th edition character does this... :(

DiasExMachina wrote:Hey guys. I wrote Amethyst. Play Tau and 'Nids as well (full disclosure).
I wanted to mention a few things.

The next book, Amethyst Evolution, offers dozens of alternate powers and features to tweak characters. One of those tweaks allows you to drop the stalker's Anywhere, Anytime class feature and replace it with one called Smooth as Glass, which enables you to suffer no penalties to attack rolls from being prone when wielding a sniper weapon. The book also introduces aircraft, giant mecha, and nuclear weapons.

Also, the issue with disruption was a mechanical necessity given the setting I envisioned, with distinctive city-state enclaves of high technology surrounded by expansion of encroaching magic. Originally, there was no disruption, but the logic of the setting couldn't support itself. It was an attempt to create a world that didn't feel like Iron Kingdoms or Final Fantasy. There are other reasons as well.

It is a mechanic I often ignore myself, only introducing it as a role playing element to remind my players where they are. It is not required for game balance and can be removed in your game, canon Amethyst or not.

Just wanted to volunteer that.
Carry on....

Yeah I can understand why you would implement a feature like that, it just isn't what I want for that specific zombie based game
However the new edition sounds fething awesome and I will deffinitely look into it when it comes out.

Shadowrun also looks pretty awesome so I may have to dig a copy of that up too though I'm not sure if it's even supported anymore.

corpsesarefun wrote:Shadowrun also looks pretty awesome so I may have to dig a copy of that up too though I'm not sure if it's even supported anymore.

I believe it still is, but the Shadowrun system is a bit painful, to be honest. Still, your call.

Basically, if you aren't an experienced GM, I highly recommend picking a relatively 'good' starter game (D&D4th, Pathfinder, or maybe Savage Worlds) and running some prepared scenarios instead of launching into your own stuff right away. GMing is a lot of work: you have to balance the rules side (Is this fair? Is this balanced? Are we doing this the right way? What is the rule for this?) with running the scenario stuff (OK, when is the best time to have the creeping zombies break through the window? When should the NPC reveal he's infected?) and trying to keep a group discussion going (OK, everybody focus.)

BTW: Savage Worlds hasn't been mentioned here so far, but it's a great RPG that has a lot of the same goals as D&D 4th, but is much, much lighter and easier to run. The basic concept is that it's OK for the GM to just wing it. It expects a tactical game, but not quite as much as 4th edition. There's rules in the main book for a lot of stuff (including zombies) and a very loose magic system (For example, the spell-caster type takes 'Blast' and it's up to the player and GM to decide if it's a fireball, an ice blast, a quickly-dispersing storm of summoned insects. The author's basic idea is that 90% of the time, you're jsut concerned with it doing damage anyway, so the 'trappings' of ice vs. fire are generally ignored or can be dealt with on the spot.


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Oh: Savage Worlds generally defaults to a sort of 'Pulp adventure genre' while it can stretch to do others.

(In my experience, most 'universal systems' end up doing one genre well, and stretch beyond that with various levels of success: GURPS is great for detailed games, but can break down when trying to run faster-paced stuff. d20 is great for high-adventure, but efforts to tweak it for other genres have had mixed success.)


There's Savage Worlds books for Weird War II, Deadlands (Cowboys and horror elements), Necessary Evil (Superheros), etc. as well as some generic setting toolkits for sci fi, horror, etc.

I know I may be unpopular for saying so, but have you looked at Essentials? IMHO, Essentials is a much easier way to learn and play 4th Edition D&D if you have no experience with it. I haven't check the whole thread so someone might have reccomended it already. Reggardless, I would repeat the suggestion.

AAANNNND in a segway into self promotion, Amethyst Evolution offers 7 Essentials classes based on our four technologhy-based classes from Foundations. So we got that covered as well.

Yeah I'll be starting with vanilla DnD, I'm just thinking of progressions in the future.

If you can find an old copy read Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It is full of good ideas.

http://www.rpgnow.com/
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/

These are a great spot for ...uh. finding cool stuff, yeah.

As to D and D, played ALOT of first and second edition, a little third, and 4th turned me off to playing it. I'm not going to bask it, but there is a point where the BS flag has been thrown, and I'm past that point about it. On the net, Zombie games are about a dime a dozen, but to me, HERE is the place you want to go. Ignor the assclown who keeps poping up, if you let him. Theres a great starter to begin your journey into the hellbilly ride of zombie stomping. Along with RPG now's zombie generator, its boss.
White Wolf is getting into the zombie thing, but to me, they're late to the party, with everyone and thier brother with thier own special spin on the genere, Allflesh is pretty much the authority. Eden is a hit or miss company, but they have the added special charm of having Hack and Slash along for the ride. With heros like that, you can't go wrong. the little free RPG for Free gameday isn't going to be bad this year ( Walking Dead)

http://allflesh.com/

As for the way old school D and D played, it was easy, we didn't have anything else, so it was as good as your imagination could make it. I started out with the blue book, then had the red, blue, and green books a year or two later. Had more fun then should be legal at that time. couple of sets of dice, you were entertained for hours. We had a marathon weekend run that is still legendary. The thing missing from the new books is the general ability to let players think for themselves, make up materials, and encourage creativity. thats it, full stop. It really at the end of the day doesn't matter what system you play. ( And I can say, I've played LOTS) The bottom line is that YOU make it what you will. If you have something as basic as Aftermath, Gamma World, Space Frontiers, D and D, Awful green thing, etc.... The bottom line is that at the end of the day, it's you , a couple of your buddies, and a table with a couple of books. YOU all are the ones that give Jefe Longtooth, Chieftain of the Mezoa Barbarians the life and if you want to push it, your team and you can play ANYTHING out there in the interwebs.
http://greenronin.com/

http://www.cityofheroesrpg.com/

http://www.chaosium.com/

http://www.classicbattletech.com/

http://www.starfleetgames.com/

http://www.wizards.com/DND/

http://www.delta-green.com/


I recently picked up Delta Green, after playing around with Chaosiums stuff, pulling the free RPG off of the site, and running through the 20's haunted house stuff. It came back down to getting into the material and not honestly worrying about "Cool stuff and new shineys"

We've got a couple of local groups that play the 4th with laptops, and thier character sheets. We've got another group that has tables full of minis, books, etc. and they have thier fun, and we even have our local Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, Inquisition teams that play thier games, alongside the Advanced Squad Leader, Federation Commander, and old school Battletech players. They all have thier .. uh ways, but even they at the end of the day are having boat loads of fun.

When I was over in the hot place, we had access to numerous RPG's to be found on the net, I've continued to add onto my collections and am almost to thepoint of transfering my stash over to a portable hard drive, even after digging and pulling this and that from the net.

I hope you have as much fun finding your groups nich as much as I did the first time I found out about D and D, then branched off to the others like Twilight:2000, RIFTS, Gamma world, Etc. To me, most of the fun was the comeradrie and the get togethers on weekends and after schools for the battle royals, the adventures, and even some of the stories that transpired along with the characters. good luck in your search. Hope my links help you out.

There are literally hundreds of cheap or free RPG's to be found with a little google fu and some time.

Have fun.

If anyone is serious about giving DnD 4.0 a run, we currently have a DM and 2 party members for a skype group.

Looks like it will be run on USA time, with me chiming in at ungodly hours from AUS.

Initial discussions have this group progressing well on the way to a truly epic Epic of epicness...

The party simply requires someone to Lead and a healer/caster type...

AvatarForm wrote:If anyone is serious about giving DnD 4.0 a run, we currently have a DM and 2 party members for a skype group.

Looks like it will be run on USA time, with me chiming in at ungodly hours from AUS.

Initial discussions have this group progressing well on the way to a truly epic Epic of epicness...

The party simply requires someone to Lead and a healer/caster type...

Sounds tempting but I dunno if I would be able to get into it without the visual aides of having people there

corpsesarefun wrote:

AvatarForm wrote:If anyone is serious about giving DnD 4.0 a run, we currently have a DM and 2 party members for a skype group.

Looks like it will be run on USA time, with me chiming in at ungodly hours from AUS.

Initial discussions have this group progressing well on the way to a truly epic Epic of epicness...

The party simply requires someone to Lead and a healer/caster type...

Sounds tempting but I dunno if I would be able to get into it without the visual aides of having people there

Actually, we will have webcams going on the board and minis for dungeon delves, etc.

The best part about RPGs is that the majority is in your imagination, otherwise you would simply end up playing WoW... lol

Quick question. Do you think D&D 4e PH 1+2, DMG, and MM are worth $80?

If they are in good condition then that seems about right. The D&D gift set (PHB, DMG, MM) like new on Troll and Toad is $59.99, so $20 a book used is area. I'm assuming these are all the hardbound books and not the essentials softcover DMG and MM.

Yes they are. Thanks. It is either those or buying some beastmen to convert into my WE army. hmm??

boogeyman wrote:Quick question. Do you think D&D 4e PH 1+2, DMG, and MM are worth $80?

They are if you value hardcover.

If, like myself, you simply wish to read the rules and have a reference on hand, the PDF is much cheaper and fits nicely on my portable eReader

AvatarForm wrote:

boogeyman wrote:Quick question. Do you think D&D 4e PH 1+2, DMG, and MM are worth $80?

They are if you value hardcover.

If, like myself, you simply wish to read the rules and have a reference on hand, the PDF is much cheaper and fits nicely on my portable eReader

Can I get the PDF for a kindle?