Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

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Are there any 5e compatibles you'd recommend?

I get that getting people to learn a new system is potentially a hard sell, but I still recommend that you try. 5e is the very opposite of a universal game system; it is actively bad at handling setups where skill use is a high priority and its combat relies on spells or special abilities to provide any flavor whatsoever as the basic 'I swing my axe' combat actions are boring as fuck. It is entirely balanced around a fantasy dungeon crawly setup. Shoehorning a different genre onto 5e ruleset is just a recipe for sadness.
 
Very much this. The plastic standees are really good and you can get whole kits on amazon.
Hell, just get little paper labels and write PC and NPC names on. That's what I've typically done when I need a visual layout. Quick, gets me back to the game and doesn't irritate me when I don't have just the right token/miniature for something. I'm the sort that likes to get everything right and it's a lot easier to do that with a bunch of written labels than expensive minis. And functionally they're the same.

If I wanted to roll dice with a bunch of unwashed nerds on a college campus, I can do it for a lot less than $3000.
Holy Hell! I could hire a few good looking escorts for that and have them play RPGs with me all night! $3,000 for what I guarantee has at least one seminar on making your players feel "safe".
 
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I get that getting people to learn a new system is potentially a hard sell, but I still recommend that you try. 5e is the very opposite of a universal game system; it is actively bad at handling setups where skill use is a high priority and its combat relies on spells or special abilities to provide any flavor whatsoever as the basic 'I swing my axe' combat actions are boring as fuck. It is entirely balanced around a fantasy dungeon crawly setup. Shoehorning a different genre onto 5e ruleset is just a recipe for sadness.
Doubling this. warhammer fantasy 2e or a modded 4e is my go to for fantasy stuff. I really like how your character can grow naturally because it has a career and trapping system, that feels more natural to flow into instead of a level and class system. Plus magic system is very risk vs reward and actually engaging.

The thing I hate most about DnD is that the magic system is just, "I have a list that resets every 24 hours. And I'm going to misconstrue all of the spell descriptions unless we spend 15 minutes in the middle of battle arguing about it. Ohh, *Fake yawn* I don't got the right shit for this wow, my character is so sleepy let's just stop the gameplay and rest guys."

I can't believe people put up with that shit.
 
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I run pulp/spy themed games, and the PCs being captured comes up occasionally. Things like drugged food, sleeping gas, and other methods I just narrate. It works even better as a session starter since you don't have to justify or roll for anything.
Had a Netrunner game start that way with all of us waking up in a hospital basement with no idea who we were. I pointed out that I was playing an android and the GM shrugged. I then grabbed a labcoat and proclaimed myself Dr Fisto and proceeded to ignore all my actual stat investitures and skills and dedicate myself to bullshittery. By the end of the campaign this had escalated to Dr. Fisto, attorney at law, private investigator, antique dealer, and black belt of the 5th dan in krav maga. I was supposed to be a technician/engineer and never used a single one of those skills ever. It was great.
 
Had a Netrunner game start that way with all of us waking up in a hospital basement with no idea who we were.
There's a "classic" Savage Worlds adventure (basically a single page outline) where it's basically silent hill. You wake up tied to a hospital bed with no idea how you got there.

One campaign starter I liked, but never got to use, is the PCs are recovering from an explosion and some mage screaming that they're fools. They blew up some magic object, and the explosion has wiped their memories, at least for a while.
 
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The thing I hate most about DnD is that the magic system is just, "I have a list that resets every 24 hours. And I'm going to misconstrue all of the spell descriptions unless we spend 15 minutes in the middle of battle arguing about it. Ohh, *Fake yawn* I don't got the right shit for this wow, my character is so sleepy let's just stop the gameplay and rest guys."
5e ameliorated this quite a bit by combining a bunch of spells, eliminating weird niche spells like Rocks to Mud, and then revising the spell slot system so you don't have to choose exactly how many times you can cast Magic Missile that day. ACKS gets rid of spell prep completely. Your repertoire is what you can cast, period, use any appropriate-level slot you have.

You will never stop rules lolyers from trying to argue they can turn some low-level summon spell into Power Word: Kill by summoning it inside their enemy's throat when he opens his mouth.
 
Have any of you tried printing and binding your RPG pdfs to make your own books? If so, how heavy is the paper you use? Most things I'm seeing suggest something like 28-32 lb (105-120 gsm) paper, but it seems like industry standard is something heavier? I'm not shooting for industry standard exactly, but I do want the art in the books to print right.

I'm going to start spiral binding books so I have extras at the table for players to use and I can print stuff I've pirated that I don't want to buy.
 
Hell, just get little paper labels and write PC and NPC names on. That's what I've typically done when I need a visual layout. Quick, gets me back to the game and doesn't irritate me when I don't have just the right token/miniature for something. I'm the sort that likes to get everything right and it's a lot easier to do that with a bunch of written labels than expensive minis. And functionally they're the same.
When I do in-person usually I'll have sufficient time to either A) prep the minis I'll need and/or B) reskin any enemies that I don't have minis for into enemies I DO have minis for.

I have the entire run of D&D Adventure system games, which has three of every type of mook n them (plus bosses but its rate I use the bosses) and the 6(?) games cover a wide variety of enemies.
I also have a solid collection of the 4e cardboard tokens so if I'm lacking a mini I usually have a cardboard token.

If all of those inventory checks still fail me (I.e. 5 enemies but I only have 3 minis), I have a dice pouch full of the flattened glas beads in Red/Green/Blue/White/Clear and those make acceptable proxies.

If I didn't have all this stuff, I'd go the Standee route.

That's wonderful. That's just beautifully evil. Almost Paranoia level mindfuck.
No, the paranoia mind fuck is when Friend Computer continues to send kill bots to hunt them down until they give up the traitor.
The first death, when their clone activates, have them draw a new card from the all-black deck. Now they aren't sure if the traitor has actually spawned or not.

Have any of you tried printing and binding your RPG pdfs to make your own books? If so, how heavy is the paper you use? Most things I'm seeing suggest something like 28-32 lb (105-120 gsm) paper, but it seems like industry standard is something heavier? I'm not shooting for industry standard exactly, but I do want the art in the books to print right.

I'm going to start spiral binding books so I have extras at the table for players to use and I can print stuff I've pirated that I don't want to buy.
Yes, sort of, but probably not in a way relevant to your question.

I have one of these:

Which I use to ring-bind or spiral bind... things. Dungeons, subsets of rules, tables, campaign trackers, etc. I've done it for handouts but only rarely; usually if there is enough information to make a handout worth binding it's better in searchable digital. And if its just a page or two, if you're concered about it remaining intact just having them put in a school folder is better.

I will print off LEGALLY ACQUIRED PDFs of splats I own so the originals don't get fucked up in my bag, or so that I can write notes/etc without destroying the originals (usually comboed with index cards for enemies, unless its 4e and that has been done for me). These are almost always in just B&W so I'm not overly concerned about the art. These are not meant to be bookshelf-permanent, usually designed to last no more than a couple months, so I just use "good quality printer paper" with a plastic cover for anything that I want to last more than a session.

Edit: For example, WMPRPG 4e has wonderful typesetting but god-awful chapter ordering, with Skills separate from Combat Actions for some unknown reason. So have a custom PDF from the PHB PDF of just those pages, and I have a couple copies I'll put on the table when doing a 4e game. When one gets a little fucked up I'll toss it and print a new one.

I also have Reavers of The Harkenwold combined into a single document, and I will put in some blank pages after the towns and the more important fights so I can write notes. But its completely disposable.

Double Edit: And I guess that doesn't count using Lulu for Basic Fantasy or DTRPG's PoD service for my 1e/2e books.
 
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Have any of you tried printing and binding your RPG pdfs to make your own books? If so, how heavy is the paper you use? Most things I'm seeing suggest something like 28-32 lb (105-120 gsm) paper, but it seems like industry standard is something heavier? I'm not shooting for industry standard exactly, but I do want the art in the books to print right.

I'm going to start spiral binding books so I have extras at the table for players to use and I can print stuff I've pirated that I don't want to buy.
Just used fairly standard printer paper and hole-punched them and put them into a binder. Ended up much thicker than the books. Not as good but serviceable. Most hard-copies I see these days include a PDF version in the price. So been a while since I've gone the reverse route.
 
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Hell, just get little paper labels and write PC and NPC names on. That's what I've typically done when I need a visual layout. Quick, gets me back to the game and doesn't irritate me when I don't have just the right token/miniature for something. I'm the sort that likes to get everything right and it's a lot easier to do that with a bunch of written labels than expensive minis. And functionally they're the same.
I have painted a lot of minis. However, the only things I have 6 or more than are orcs, skeletons, goblins, and kobolds. So it turns out that, no matter what they're fighting, they always seem to look like skeletons. It's become something of a running joke that all the monsters are anorexic. The one time I painted an aboleth in preparation for a major encounter, I left it at home...so I used a skeleton.
 
Just used fairly standard printer paper and hole-punched them and put them into a binder. Ended up much thicker than the books. Not as good but serviceable. Most hard-copies I see these days include a PDF version in the price. So been a while since I've gone the reverse route.
Right, but there's a handful of systems where I'm the only guy that owns the book, and I'd rather have a nice, spiral-bound copy or two for the players to use while I use my copy. In addition to stuff I have pdfs of that I either don't want to buy the physical copy or the physical copies are out of print.

I know it's pretty easy to hole-punch and put them in a binder, but I always find those 1. don't look that great and 2. are unwieldy at the table. I'm hoping some high-quality spiral binds will solve both problems.
 
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