Old Jimmy Legs's page

I've been running games for 30 years now . It is literally one of my favorite things to do . I know my players appreciate and look forward to my games .

But every now and then being a GM seems like a thankless and arduous job .

Example ;

Me - I've been thinking about doing a city-based political intrigue style campaign , would you guys be interested in that ?

Players - Sounds great !

After 2 adventures ;

Players - This is good and all , but we want pirates .

Me - Uh , I'm not sure how that would fit in but maybe there's a coastal city that . . .

Players - Whatever man , just make it happen .

After the next adventure ;

Players - What was that that ?! We wanted the pirates to be our friends , they were total jerks !

Me - Why would pirates be on your side ? You're basically the police .

Players - That's your problem buddy .

After the next adventure ;

Me - What was that ? Those pirates were going to be your allies and you massacred them .

Players - Yeah , they had good stuff . You can't have NPCs with cool gear try and befriend us , you know what's going to happen - that was your fault . We want the pirates to BE cool not have cool stuff that we are forced to kill them for .

After the next adventure ;

Players - Why are there so many pirates in this campaign ? What is this some kind of dang pirate campaign ? I thought we were doing political intrigue . You should have told us this was a pirate campaign .

Are there any books besides Heroes of the Wild that introduce new rooms and teams for the downtime stuff from Ultimate Campaign ?

NASA invading a fantasy world?

I'm intrigued, at the very least. Is this fantasy world circling a different star? They'd need much better spaceships than they have right now, which I feel ruins the feel of modern humans vs a fantasy world . . . but I guess that might not be the feel you're going for. Or is the fantasy world accessible only by magic? (A portal or something?)

I'm also curious as to NASA's motives for seizing a planet by force. Is this the same NASA that's made of curious scientists who want to understand the universe? I can easily imagine a modern army murdering their way across a land of elves, dwarves, and dragons, but NASA? I also don't know that NASA has enough manpower for a boots on the ground style invasion . . .

And, most of all, the question we've all been asking ourselves, what is SpaceX doing? Leaving the planet exploring to the government? Launching their own invasion? Launching peace missions? Trying to sell electric cars?

NASA will be represented as close to the real world NASA as your average fantasy setting is a representation of the dark ages/medieval times/renaissance/whatever kind of hodgepodge D&D was birthed from . So mostly modern (probably even back a few decades) but also you know , Moonraker bases and laserbeams. Basically GI Joe from the 80's .

I'll probably mix in a little NASA magic , like they have "occult" experts that at least understand that magic is real but they got to fantasy town via a "stable" wormhole or somesuch .

The reason for the invasion is that Earth is under threat from whatever , some kind of Cloverfield monster , asteroid , whatever was happening in Core , too many movies with the Rock at one time , etc. and only some resource in fantastyland can save the day and the only way to get it is by some ecologically ruinous extraction method . And there's no time to trick the backwards screwheads that live there into letting them do it .

I wonder if anyone here is old enough to get that reference .

Injecting sci-fi into D&D (I really should start saying Pathfinder at some point eh ? ) is a long standing tradition that I've never been a fan of . Expedition to the Barrier Peak and all that never did it for me . I'm not sure why my brain can accept a shirtless dude with a +3 greatclub bludgeoning a 90 foot dragon to death but somehow a knight with a sword fighting a robot is "silly" .

I remember specifically when Tale of the Comet came out in 97 I turned up my nose at it with ALL the disdain possible by a college freshman - which is rather a lot as you know . It was enough to turn me off D&D for a while (plus Vampire the Masquerade was clearly so much more mature - trench coats and katanas for everyone ! )

The Iron Gods campaign path is one of the better written and well done paths (to me) but I just can't get into it .

However the other day while I was farting around online I came across a short story someone had written about a NASA astronaut landing in fantasy town and for some reason it really intrigued me .

I think I'm going to try and talk my players into a shortish campaign where NASA invades generic fantasy world #10 . It's not something I want to put a ton of effort into so I think I'll re-skin the Ironfang Invasion with NASA drones and deadly rovers and whatnot . And of course the atmosphere will be deadly so the NASA people so they'll be in their spacesuits all the time . When they're not in their Moonraker style bases anyway .

I acknowledge that this is a fairly silly idea but I think we can have fun with it for a dozen sessions or so .

To prevent this from being a completely self indulgent "here's my campaign idea" post I ask you good people of the internet - how do you feel about the old "space ship crashes into D&D" trope ? Love it ? hate it ? It's complicated ? Enjoy it in small doses ? Tried it once in college but didn't inhale ?

Old Jimmy Legs wrote:

But you know what I was wrong , there's one class that never ruins things - the bard . Bards are always cool with whatever . They can't do much but they're always happy to help with what little they have to contribute . And they can use whips , because why not .

So that settles it , bard is the best class . The end .

Not in my neck of the woods. We've never forgiven the bard for abandoning his 1st edition druidic roots!

Back then he had principles, he believed in something! Now he's just a thief who uses magic.

So they're all rotten - every single class in the game!

The end.

That's a good point , bards are dead to me

Have all of these legitimately been a problem at your table, or is this just an exercise in catharsis?

A bit of both

In 1975 the first supplement to D&D was published - Greyhawk - which introduced the Paladin . Shortly thereafter the grand debate about Paladins ruining everything began .

But I say it's time to give the other classes their due , because as we all know , any class can (and does) ruin a campaign , which proves once and for all that all the classes are perfectly balanced .

Number one of the ruin countdown is of course the Druid . Ugh , these guys . I thought neutrals were supposed to be quiet and retiring not shrieking lunatics . Let me get this straight , if I go into a city I'm "tainted" but it's totally cool for you to gallivant around with a dinosaur like that's normal ? Get over yourself man . And you love trees so you'll only wear armor made out of them ? That checks out .

Next up we have the Barbarian , specifically the magic-hating superstitious Barbarian . I get it you're "roleplaying" when you steal all the magic items and bury them because they're wicked but the GM isn't in on the joke . We're still going to have to fight stuff that makes sense if I had a +3 Breastplate . Which I don't . Because it's evil ? Whereas slaughtering villagers by the truckload is totally fine ?

Then of course we have the Thief , I mean rogue - specifically the cowardly rogue . So when you steal from us , hide during combat , and betray our allies that's "good character work" but when our characters get mad about it we're taking the game "too seriously" ? Take your ten foot pole and beat it pal .

Next up we have the Wizard and its ugly cousin the Sorcerer . So you need to be wrapped in bubble wrap and carried around in a protective case for the first 9 levels and then you're going to outshine everyone else ? Sounds good .

Now the lightening round ;

Cleric - Sure your god told you to do it
Ranger - Ooh , I have two weapons ! Get a job
Monk - Almost as useful as a fighter half your level , if you take the right feats
Psion - Don't even get me started

But you know what I was wrong , there's one class that never ruins things - the bard . Bards are always cool with whatever . They can't do much but they're always happy to help with what little they have to contribute . And they can use whips , because why not .

So that settles it , bard is the best class . The end .

Of course classes don't ruin campaigns , players (and GMs) do .

But then again , what is a campaign for except to ruin ?