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

[Randall Fragg]

EiL is an utter retard. Not just because they have no ruleset (my money's on PbtA, since that's where all the low-effort shit goes in the end), but because the setting makes no sense. The "history" of it is that a fleet sent to exploit and/or colonize the rest of the world by a nation built on slave-trading got sucked to another, already-inhabited world, which they then proceeded to colonize. Sooo... Basically they just did the same thing the euros/asians were doing, but somehow claim that they're doing it better and without anyone getting their feelings hurt for... reasons. (It's because they're black.)

What would actually have happened is that the plant people would have been brutally butchered and used for firewood, and the hyena people would be hunted to the current day because someone started a rumor that eating hyena dick was a cure for syphilis, which the fleet brought with them in abundance.

Actually syphilis is likely a New World disease. The disease brought by the Africans would be something like Yaws or Smallpox.
The setting is fucking retarded however. Afrofuturism in general is retarded, because it tends to be written by Black Americans Kangz-types who need to make shit up to forget the fact that Africa's history is nothing but slavery and misery at the hands of different masters. It's trying to build a future on a foundation of sand and bullshit.

 

[Techpriest]

Actually syphilis is likely a New World disease. The disease brought by the Africans would be something like Yaws or Smallpox.
The setting is fucking retarded however. Afrofuturism in general is retarded, because it tends to be written by Black Americans Kangz-types who need to make shit up to forget the fact that Africa's history is nothing but slavery and misery at the hands of different masters. It's trying to build a future on a foundation of sand and bullshit.

It’s part of the problem with oral histories. Hard to have anything concrete outside of certain things and most of your history is going to be written by outsiders. It’s still a retarded setting but Africa does have a history outside of slavery and colonial exploitation.

Edit: also Mansa Munsa’s wealth had more to do with the sheer amount of gold he extracted than anything else. Traders came to Mali to exchange manufactured goods for gold, and then took that gold elsewhere. The man had so much bling and extracted so much gold that he crashed the trading economy of the medieval Mediterranean for a couple decades because he practically handed that shit out like candy during his pilgrimage.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Xena is problematic because Lucy Lawless and the chick who played her main squeeze, Gabrielle, are both white and attractive.

Now, put two fat dykes and make one of them a vilitigo covered black, then you could get away with it these days.

I remember hearing that Lucy Lawless got a ton of hate mail when she got married because she's not a lesbian in RL, and that made her a traitor. If only we knew that kind of crazy would become the norm.

This is purely conjecture and minor powerleveling on my part, but I think a good portion of new people are split into two camps: observers who never actually intend to play and those who want to, but don't know anyone to play with and wouldn't entertain GMing as their first leap into the hobby for various reasons. The former are content to watch stuff like Critical Role and fantasize about playing, but will never actually commit once they realize all the work they have to put in on their part. The latter are usually desperate for games but don't know about their LFG and usually end up playing online, or not at all since they might be the only one in their friend group that's interested.

Tabletop in the end is still about social cliques, and despite all the bs about "inclusivity" it's still about who you know and your willingness to "network".

I'll risk powerleveling and add a third (forth if we count the other poster) category, which is also the largest group.

Grognards who keep whining that they can't find a game, but when invited, will give a bunch of bullshit reasons why they can't play.

They don't actually play the game and are only interested in talking about how great Dark Sun was, in between complaining about Critical Roll and newer games they've never played.

 

[Adamska]

Actually syphilis is likely a New World disease. The disease brought by the Africans would be something like Yaws or Smallpox.
The setting is fucking retarded however. Afrofuturism in general is retarded, because it tends to be written by Black Americans Kangz-types who need to make shit up to forget the fact that Africa's history is nothing but slavery and misery at the hands of different masters. It's trying to build a future on a foundation of sand and bullshit.

Afro-futurism is the most racist and mentally retarded concept you could do.

It'd be one thing if they did something cool, like futuristic Swahili Trade Cities in space. Or the great Asteroid Mines of Space Mansa Musa. Or the Dead Ringworld of Great Mutapa. Or the carved asteroid churches of Ethiopia.

But these kangz know jack shit about Africa besides the not-black states and so just make shit up based on what others spewed out. It's basically like making a minstrel show using stereotypes you don't understand.

It's going to be PbtA shit.

 

[Moral Decay]

Just a note, the Malians were pretty prolific slave traders in their heyday (with their fellow Muslims), hence KANG Mansa Musa's wealth derived from slavery.

It's even better than that, actually:

Mansa Mūsā was accompanied by an impressive caravan consisting of 60,000 men including a personal retinue of 12,000 slaves, all clad in brocade and Persian silk. The emperor himself rode on horseback and was directly preceded by 500 slaves, each carrying a gold-adorned staff.

(source)

Their enlightened slavery-free society was ruled by a man who allegedly destabilized the value of gold in the Middle East from the amount of slaves and other luxuries he bought on vacation.

edit to add: Also, one possible meaning of Mansa is "conqueror," but there's TOTALLY no colonization going on here!

 

[You Bastard Guy]

What would actually have happened is that the plant people would have been brutally butchered and used for firewood

Now that's a cool idea. Peaceful plant-people hunted to near extinction by vicious, violent vegetarians. "Plants aren't people!"

 

[Ghostse]

It’s part of the problem with oral histories. Hard to have anything concrete outside of certain things and most of your history is going to be written by outsiders. It’s still a retarded setting but Africa does have a history outside of slavery and colonial exploitation.

Edit: also Mansa Munsa’s wealth had more to do with the sheer amount of gold he extracted than anything else. Traders came to Mali to exchange manufactured goods for gold, and then took that gold elsewhere. The man had so much bling and extracted so much gold that he crashed the trading economy of the medieval Mediterranean for a couple decades because he practically handed that shit out like candy during his pilgrimage.

It's even better than that, actually:

(source)

Their enlightened slavery-free society was ruled by a man who allegedly destabilized the value of gold in the Middle East from the amount of slaves and other luxuries he bought on vacation.

edit to add: Also, one possible meaning of Mansa is "conqueror," but there's TOTALLY no colonization going on here!

tl;dr Mansa Musa has an entire nation of marginally compensated laborers, but most of them would not consider themselves slaves. Until the Portuguese proved you could sail south and not immediately die, he was also (with the somewhat exception of Kush/Nubia/Ethopia) the sole source of goods and resources from subsaharan Africa. He sat on excellent gold deposits, and also traded salt to the Saharan peoples for more gold and some slaves. His ancestors would really expand the "slave" portion, but for Mansa it was a side item.

The Slaves from subsaharan Africa were compelled to work, but the culture was such that if you were captured you just sort of accepted you were going to go somewhere and work for your new master and that really wasn't all that much different from subsistance farming for yourself - and in some cases was sort of an upgrade. Most of these slave-slaves worked the gold mines.

Musa was also considered a god by his people. He could compell free labor from his people, but it was generally considered you did becuase he was the king, vs anything with force behind it.

Because of all this, the Mali kings had a lot of gold, and not much to spend it on. So Musa went out full blinged out, because he wanted to increase Mali's presence on the world stage, to advertise to trading partners there was profit to be had in coming to trade directly with Mali instead of dealing with intermediaries.

Musa sent an expedition to try to cross the Atlantic which definitely failed. His boats were not really ocean going vessels, insufficiently stocked, and unlike the Vikings who managed to Cross the Atlantic at the narrowest points, Masa was attempting to cross at pretty much the Equator. He didn't even have them resupply at the Canaries.

 

[Gingervitis]

I made a custom Kender race for 5e. I'm gonna drop it here before I finalize it. Anything I should improve on (besides formatting. This is easier to edit in the interim).

 

[Zaryiu2]

I was reading Fatal and Friends reviews (some reviews are better than other) and uh i think i stumbled unto another terrible and creepy rpg (fuck my luck) https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/purplexvi/bliss-stage/
This is a thing and i don't like it

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I made a custom Kender race for 5e. I'm gonna drop it here before I finalize it. Anything I should improve on (besides formatting. This is easier to edit in the interim).
View attachment 2275397

Some things should stay in previous editions, and that species is one of those evils.

 

[Fictional Character]

I was reading Fatal and Friends reviews (some reviews are better than other) and uh i think i stumbled unto another terrible and creepy rpg (fuck my luck) https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/purplexvi/bliss-stage/
This is a thing and i don't like it

Bliss Stage explicitly states that you're not rewarded for incest, so it's not even the good kind of creepy RPG.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

I was reading Fatal and Friends reviews (some reviews are better than other) and uh i think i stumbled unto another terrible and creepy rpg (fuck my luck) https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/purplexvi/bliss-stage/
This is a thing and i don't like it

There are very different review qualities. Also the current Something Awful won't alas take the easy targets that we have posted here because mocking those is bad.

But yeah, Bliss Stage is fairly bad for a relatively short game.

 

[Snekposter]

I made a custom Kender race for 5e. I'm gonna drop it here before I finalize it. Anything I should improve on (besides formatting. This is easier to edit in the interim).
View attachment 2275397

You need to improve your acrobatics skill so you can do a flip if you're bringing kender back.

 

[Flaming Insignias]

I made a custom Kender race for 5e. I'm gonna drop it here before I finalize it. Anything I should improve on (besides formatting. This is easier to edit in the interim).
View attachment 2275397

The biggest improvement would be to just stop. Kender are extinct, and trying to bring them back is a capital crime.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I made a custom Kender race for 5e. I'm gonna drop it here before I finalize it. Anything I should improve on (besides formatting. This is easier to edit in the interim).
View attachment 2275397

Taunt seems outrageously powerful and fits badly in the conventions that 5e has. I'd make it

Taunt: Usable [proficiency] times per day as a bonus action. Target enemy that can hear the kender within 30ft and shares a language with the kender makes a wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + Int OR Wis or Cha + proficiency) or is affected. Any attack made against anyone but the kender is made at disadvantage and the effected can only make attack of opportunity against the kender. Lasts 1 minute, the effected is allowed a saving throw at the beginning of each turn. Only one target can be effected at one time.

It also seems awkward that you are giving the kender an advantage to make some one so mad that they can only focus on them as a target but also saying they can't say something to make someone scared into submission very well.

The attention span thing seems like it's designed to start fights between the DM and the Player over interpretation as well.

 

[Gingervitis]

Taunt seems outrageously powerful and fits badly in the conventions that 5e has. I'd make it

Taunt: Usable [proficiency] times per day as a bonus action. Target enemy that can hear the kender within 30ft and shares a language with the kender makes a wisdom saving throw (DC 8 + Int OR Wis or Cha + proficiency) or is affected. Any attack made against anyone but the kender is made at disadvantage and the effected can only make attack of opportunity against the kender. Lasts 1 minute, the effected is allowed a saving throw at the beginning of each turn. Only one target can be effected at one time.

It also seems awkward that you are giving the kender an advantage to make some one so mad that they can only focus on them as a target but also saying they can't say something to make someone scared into submission very well.

The attention span thing seems like it's designed to start fights between the DM and the Player over interpretation as well.

1. Fair enough. I actually completely changed Taunt around a few hours after I posted that first draft to make it closer to their AD&D Taunt ability, though I like your idea a bit too.

If I were to use your's though, I would make it [cha mod] a day instead of [prof mod] a day, and keep it at DC 8 + prof + CHA mod. Most spellcasting racial abilities are linked to a single stat, and this is the kender's racial "spellcasting" ability.

2. Thats because the kender have been described as childlike in multiple sourcebooks and I think the canon novels. It's pretty hard to get intimidated by someone that looks and acts like a child with sticky fingers. They're just really good at hurting people with their insults (if the AD&D stats are any indication).

3. My intention was to include both concentration and stuff like keeping watch. I obviously couldn't think of every scenario that requires concentration in the traditional sense, but if I used the term "concentration", people will think it only applies to spellcasting. I will agree that the wording is wonky though.

 

[Juke and Jam]

Just replace the whole thing with this old, but accurate image.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

1. Fair enough. I actually completely changed Taunt around a few hours after I posted that first draft to make it closer to their AD&D Taunt ability, though I like your idea a bit too.
View attachment 2276496
If I were to use your's though, I would make it [cha mod] a day instead of [prof mod] a day, and keep it at DC 8 + prof + CHA mod. Most spellcasting racial abilities are linked to a single stat, and this is the kender's racial "spellcasting" ability.

2. Thats because the kender have been described as childlike in multiple sourcebooks and I think the canon novels. It's pretty hard to get intimidated by someone that looks and acts like a child with sticky fingers. They're just really good at hurting people with their insults (if the AD&D stats are any indication).

3. My intention was to include both concentration and stuff like keeping watch. I obviously couldn't think of every scenario that requires concentration in the traditional sense, but if I used the term "concentration", people will think it only applies to spellcasting. I will agree that the wording is wonky though.

The fundamental problem is that it's a powerful debuff that honestly would be a 4th or 5th level bard spell that effects everyone that fails a roll, if you gave that ability to a kender paladin they would go full tank and make combat a joke (cha mod) combats a day. It needs to be scaled back in basically every single way to make it fit the standard of racials letting you do a first or second level spell one or two times a day. It's also not actually a spell (it would be what 3.5 would call an extraordinary ability) which is why saying that only Charisma based classes should be good at it is off, 5e is usually pretty lenient about letting people choose their DCs stat unless it's rooted in a class. A smart or wise character should be just as good at pissing people off as a charismatic one.

There's still no mention of action type or range so I have to assume that it's not an action and effects everyone in the same dimension that harbors hostility towards this kender and shares a language with them.

Also 5e has no (or almost no) spells that last for (dice roll) rounds and most debuffs will conditionally break (like if a character that isn't taunting them damages them, or if they make a saving throw at the beginning or end of their turn)

Another (minor) thing is that there's no reason to give them two bonus languages when the standard is Common + Racial Language (or Choice).

 

[Adamska]

The fundamental problem is that it's a powerful debuff that honestly would be a 4th or 5th level bard spell that effects everyone that fails a roll, if you gave that ability to a kender paladin they would go full tank and make combat a joke (cha mod) combats a day. It needs to be scaled back in basically every single way to make it fit the standard of racials letting you do a first or second level spell one or two times a day. It's also not actually a spell (it would be what 3.5 would call an extraordinary ability) which is why saying that only Charisma based classes should be good at it is off, 5e is usually pretty lenient about letting people choose their DCs stat unless it's rooted in a class. A smart or wise character should be just as good at pissing people off as a charismatic one.

There's still no mention of action type or range so I have to assume that it's not an action and effects everyone in the same dimension that harbors hostility towards this kender and shares a language with them.

Also 5e has no (or almost no) spells that last for (dice roll) rounds and most debuffs will conditionally break (like if a character that isn't taunting them damages them, or if they make a saving throw at the beginning or end of their turn)

Another (minor) thing is that there's no reason to give them two bonus languages when the standard is Common + Racial Language (or Choice).

I like that you're trying to balance the homebrew, but the Kender's like a soup sandwich, a lead balloon, or a shaved ice stall in Alaska. It just doesn't matter when the base concept (reviving the worst race ever made) is so awful to start with.

 

[Gingervitis]

The fundamental problem is that it's a powerful debuff that honestly would be a 4th or 5th level bard spell that effects everyone that fails a roll, if you gave that ability to a kender paladin they would go full tank and make combat a joke (cha mod) combats a day. It needs to be scaled back in basically every single way to make it fit the standard of racials letting you do a first or second level spell one or two times a day. It's also not actually a spell (it would be what 3.5 would call an extraordinary ability) which is why saying that only Charisma based classes should be good at it is off, 5e is usually pretty lenient about letting people choose their DCs stat unless it's rooted in a class. A smart or wise character should be just as good at pissing people off as a charismatic one.

There's still no mention of action type or range so I have to assume that it's not an action and effects everyone in the same dimension that harbors hostility towards this kender and shares a language with them.

Also 5e has no (or almost no) spells that last for (dice roll) rounds and most debuffs will conditionally break (like if a character that isn't taunting them damages them, or if they make a saving throw at the beginning or end of their turn)

Another (minor) thing is that there's no reason to give them two bonus languages when the standard is Common + Racial Language (or Choice).

1. Thats a fair point about balance. I went into this assuming that someone that plays as a kender is gonna go for a rogue or a bard. I forgot dex paladins were a thing. My thought was that since those classes are a bit squishier, using it on a whole group of people would be riskier. I’m still hesitant to change it to a single target though. I guess the only way to figure this out is through playtesting.

2. I was thinking of making it a normal action. Sure, it doesn’t make as much sense as making it a bonus action (talking is already a free action), I feel like it makes more sense from a balance standpoint. As for range, I assumed its any target that can hear the Kender clearly.

3. Another fair point with the duration. I was too focused on making this similar to the Kender’s AD&D equivalent, which does just what I did with the dice roll.

4. Huh. I swear they allowed for more than two languages. I must be going crazy. Corrected.

I like that you're trying to balance the homebrew, but the Kender's like a soup sandwich, a lead balloon, or a shaved ice stall in Alaska. It just doesn't matter when the base concept (reviving the worst race ever made) is so awful to start with.

Are they really worse than Gully Dwarves, Forgotten Realms Drow, 5e Firbolgs, or Pathfinder 2e Goblins?