I feel like he doesn't make the gold that kept me coming back so frequently. Especially when he creates said gold and I hurry back to bask in its radiance to only realize its been far to long since I've felt the golden gaze of a puffin forest story.
@@ftferlo8868 I don't know honestly. I think maybe the story animation is probably more work than his other video styles inturn we get more of what costs less.
I love how Puffin's drawings give the impression he's drawing in a rush, but you can see he actually shades hair and bodies with sufficient detail to give them some volume.
Ben is actually really good at drawing in his own style. If you look at „Hyperbole and a half“, f.e., the artist goes for an even more minimalist style. She’s complained several times over having to go back and redraw images because she put in too many details. The yellow triangle is her ponytail, btw. =D
When the world needed him most, he returned. Edit: I remembered him talking about the Icons system in his video about "Chadwick Strong pants", and its the one I'd like to play the most.
Hi, my dad lost his job, because of covid. I'm trying to SELL DARK SHINY RPG ON STEAM for only 0.99$. OR PUT A LIKE, THANKS..... ruclips.net/video/-QRtb_53v04/видео.html GOD BLESS YOU ALL AND STAY CAREFUL. zc xz
When the world was spiraling into despair and all hope was gone.... HE returned. Once again his epic tales of adventure graced the masses and crowds cried tears of joy at his return. All hope was restored in the world.
On 7th Sea, I'd like to point out the "Not Italy"s name is literally a name for part of Spain before it became spain and was Castille, Leon, Aragon, Navarre, and Grenada which is kind of funny.
To add, the 'Not Spain' is the name of a French philosopher/his family estate. EDIT: And to the east of Castille is 'Vodacce' with a lot of italian-esque names.
He got the map a bit wrong. Montaigne is Not France, Castille is Not Spain. Vodacce is in fact Not Italy. The real weirdness is that each area is designed after different ERAs. So France is sort-of Revolution time (it's about to touch off) Italy is high rennaisance, Spain in mid inquisition. Russia is kind of medieval. It's a strange tightrope to walk.
9:43 Just noticed this, but Ben says he didn't know what Time Control did...but then it's listed right there beneath it. I think the intention(And I've never played Icons though it sounds awesome), was for them to PICK one of those effects as what they can do with their powers at character creation, and then allow you as GM to determine specific scaling for them based on the situation.
The best system is Yu-Gi-Oh! season 1. Instead of rolling or something like that, you draw a hand out of a box of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and when the name, picture of flavour text of the card (of course not the actual rules) slightly support the action you want to take, you can do it. And yes, that means you can use Giant Soldier of Stone to destroy the moon.
He could have started a horse rebellion. The Queen of Dragons would sweep the land, trying to take it for herself, but then would rise the HORSEMASTER!!! He would whisper sweet rebellion into the ears of the horses and then NO man would be able to venture far from his home. The horses would all leave and form their own kingdom. Then it would be a grand battle between 3 dragons and a horde of horses!
@@leaf0nthewind625 Well just remember, she only had three dragons. We're talking hundreds of thousands of horses. Maybe more. Food is great.. untill food bands together. Getting the horses into the trebuchet and how to launch it with their hooves would be the main problem in fighting the dragons.
Open Legend! I didn't know it was so obscure... You introduced me to it! Always wanted to play d&d but didn't have the money, but you said that system was free! Even with the rest of the systems and knowledge we have now, it remains my party's go to system to play! It does have a lot of problems you start to notice even before you play a game, but you're sort of encouraged a lot to make homebrew and really make the system your own. For example, I wrote my own power system, because just like your group, we wanted resources! The community is always brimming with homebrew so sometimes you don't even need to do any work. Everyone should try it out! It's free! There's nothing to lose!
I remember playing an older version of Seven Seas. We never actually got to sea, and my plague doc ended up being Deadpool by accident. Thanks for mentioning these games, it will be interesting to see what bits of games can be adapted.
I think the difference is how well you need to craft them. Creating a d&d character at level 1 is easy. You come up with a great concept, realize it's from that thing you watched or game you played, still decide to go with it and then you aply the most logical class and race. Not the most difficult idea. But there you need to craft your PCs so that they will work and after playing them for a while, they simply are done. In 5e, as long as you dont die really early on, you have a good chance to make it to level 12 with your PC. At that point you either are fine with playing a new PC or the table decides to play further. In d&d it is fun to see a journey come from a humble beginning to an epic conclusion. If you dont enjoy playing the PC, then simply dont play them and ask your DM if you can make a new one and if that doesnt happen every session, most DMs would be fine with it.
Same. I went to check if yt just forgot I'm supposed to get notifications 'cause I didn't watch all the mtg stuff last year. I saw that I'd missed 2.5 hours of Commander stuff in the last 5 months, and then radio silence. Later I get this update.
I mean that does make sense with certain philosophies of game mastering, specifically a player focused one where the gm translates player actions and tries to figure out how to fit them in the rules
Hearing the A Song of Ice and Fire game having house creation makes me think of how in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium RPG by Modiphius you can make your own house and there are two ways to play. The first is a traditional kinda RPG style but the other involves house politics, intrigue, and power plays. The SoI&F game seems cool. I am interested in the SoI&F wargame more though (even if I’d be better off using my historical miniatures). From what I can tell and what I’ve heard that game does a good job of combining the political intrigue of the series into a wargame, though I hear it plays more like a board game.
Exactly that. The game has - so to speak - an 'adventure mode' where you play your regular characters doing regular stuff (and likely getting killed by the Mountain at some point...) and the political game. You play your house, fill in the important roles, lord, maester, machinating courtiers and so on. And you also get a good chance getting killed by the Mountain :D
The Song of Ice and Fire game does actually have a war aspect. There are essentially three types of obstacles in the game system. First is Combat, which is pretty obvious, you and your party fight enemies in small groups. Second is Intrigue, which is essentially your roleplay, diplomacy and backstabbery stuff. Third is Warfare, where you actually control the forces of your house an engage in large scale combat against other similarly large scale enemies. Each of these three focuses on different skill sets, though they mat overlap a little, so often you can make a character that is good at one or two of these, but rarely all three (ex. Being a skilled fighter doesn't mean you are a brilliant general, but you could be both if you build your character right) There is also a generic version of the game called The Sword Chronicle, in case some groups may not want to follow Game of Thrones history.
The House creation alone makes it worth it, tbh. It's a great system, also for creating random nobles houses for different settings, because it gives you a pretty decent idea for history, where you just need to fill in a few blanks like the house name
Any concrete opinions on the Dune game? I've been walking back and forth on it for months since I love the books but the game seems kinda gimmicky and like it abstracts out a lot of the roleplaying.
Open legend is sick. My favorite role playing system of all time. I really enjoy how you can use it for any system. Would be cool to see you pick it up again.
I had a similar experience with song of ice and fire. We had a blast building the house and making characters, and then as soon as we got to the actual game we hated it
@@DrawciaGleam02 For one thing they have two types of encounters, combats and intrigues. Combats are physical, intrigues are social/political. Due to limited resources in character creation being good at one almost guarantees that you'll be bad at the other. The problem is that you take penalties if your ally falls in battle, or gets persuaded in an intrigue. This means that most characters are a liability about half the time, which doesn't make for a fun cooperative experience. That's just one example. There's also the fact that status is an attribute meaning that high status characters will be weaker in all other areas, but in Westeros high status people are expected to be skilled warriors and good politicians, making it difficult for them to excel at any given task.
@@blakeking1125 Technically there is also Warfare, since that uses another set of Abilities, though there is some overlap with the others. But yeah, someone is always going to be weak in one of these encounter types and so it often means they either need to be as defensive as possible or become a liability.
I have had a great time with OpenLegend over the last 4 years. It's my favourite system that isn't tied to a specific setting. For me, it just hits that sweet spot that so far no other setting-agnostic system has managed to hit, where the mechanics are not overly complicated or take a huge part in shaping the experience before even starting to play, but they are firm enough to provide guidelines without making everything feel too similar. To this day, I have not encountered a character idea that could not be made real with OpenLegend. It really allows you to play any character you want. When starting out I was worred about players having no limitations or resources besides (Legend Points and HP), but this (for my group at least) turned out to be a non-issue. Tracking those kinds of things usually isn't really fun and most fictional universes just let their characters use most of their abilities freely anyway. Obviously no system is perfect and there are some legitimate criticisms you can make. It's also not for every player, but I am happy to say that it's my favourite setting-agnostic system. There is also a fairly active community around the game that can help you if you have any questions or difficulties. As for 7th Sea: I've always wanted to try it, but never got around to it. I can see how the more cinematic approach might turn some players off, but I'm still interested in at least giving it a try since it's so different from the classic model of how most RPGs handle the resolution of tasks.
Man this made me want to break out my fantasy age books again, I remember I had fun running that campaign and my friends all loved how much customization their characters got
I can recommend "The Dark Eye" (Version 4.1). It is a German system. Character creation takes hours....oh and there are over 100 different skills...which you need to rank up separately...and you roll on your stats..3 of them when you make a skill check. And spells work like skills....it is probably one of the best systems when it comes to character customization...BUT at the end of it you could have gotten a degree in the time you grasped the rules completely (which is impossible - the rules can't be grasped by humans)
Ah yes, Time Control powers. Where the character is one sneeze away from fast forwarding to the heat death of the universe. Completely fair and balanced
I play Open Legends RPG soo much. Love it, players actually asked to go back to it after a year of 5e. I actually use your earlier videos about it to help explain the system to 5e players that join my group at any point. Great videos, keep it up!!
As happy as I am that you’ve returned to bless us with more stories, I am a little concerned that I stumbled on this video when searching “megalodon vs magasaurus”…. This was #3 in the search lol Edit: Mosasaraurus Edit spelling because dyslexia: Mosasaurus
i miss this format of videos that puffin used to do. this brings me nostalgia and a tear to my eye i haven't felt in a long time. hope to see more content like this in the future
And I say unto you: "I know that feeling, I am still trying to learn Mutants and Masterminds, as well as hoping to learn about the Power Rangers game coming out in the end of January."
My guy I ordered the mutants and masterminds book on Amazon and it was supposed to arrive anytime from New Years to two days ago 😑 … It didn’t come… I’m very upset. (Also this is the first thing I’ve ever bought on Amazon and I don’t know what to do help)
It took me a full year after having read the book to really understand how Mutants and Masterminds works. I still haven't played the game, but it was a fascinating eureka moment when suddenly I just realized that I understood everything. But it took a long time to have that sudden click through all it's weird rules. But I'm also not noted for my intelligence.
Phoenix Dawn Command - 0:58 Open Legend - 2:37 7th Sea - 4:40 Fantasy Age - 6:49 Icons - 8:29 A Song Of Ice And Fire - 11:06 Actually animated outro - 14:23
I'm so glad that you returned to these kinds of stories, and I'll definitely look into Open Legend. I don't play D&D or TTRPGs all that often, but it is nice to look into them every now and again.
Thank you so much for another quirky mechanics video! Been waiting for this since the 4e video and some of your other miscellaneous RPG discussions. Yep...Enjoy looking at mechanics and seeing how they work...Interesting even when they don't!
I ran a game of open legend and it is really good once you learn it, it is a little rough to learn but the play is quick and it's fun once you figure it out. I ran a game set in the SCP universe so the players didn't have a lot of magic it was mostly just guns and one of the players had an SCP they used to do computer related stuff and could use to make fake identities.
Thank you for this. These kind of videos from you were a huge part of things and it seemed like they were almost nonexistent last year. I’ve missed you man
Dude, I am so serious. Please, do not stop making dnd vids. your videos are hilarious, they get me and my wife through our time here at university. I am a music comp major, i want to compose for dnd. please keep going!
Great to see you post again. Your channel is a big part of what inspired me to make my own channel. I’ve been wanting to get into other systems so it’s fun hearing about other peoples experiences.
I picked that one up a while back, I think it's interesting and want to use it as the base for a game in a different setting once my current D&D campaign ends.
I know the feeling of "I hope you like that character you took a week making, time to make another one next week" because one of my DMs would do that, and, unsurprisingly, that group fell apart very quickly because the players did not like each other enough for that to last. I did reuse some of those characters later, but overall it was kinda bad
I literally just got done rewatching the curse of straud playlist wishing I had new puffin forest and there it was, well done sir you’ve earned my like
I can recommend a different kind of niche RPG to take a look at. Its called "Microscope" and it has less focus on the Roleplay aspect and no set GM. Its about building any kind of world the players want through Periods, Events and Scenes. This can be done cooperatively or competitively and go on for as long as the players want to. Its really fun if the group has a common idea of the kind of scenario they all want to explore!
Oh god microscope I know a bunch of people who love it especially to use as an epilogue for other games. It's really cool and definitely one of those games that has a ton of potential. (Though I personally don't it because I mind blank way to hard and it ends up being super stressful)
I really really like Microscope, but sometimes I feel like calling it a game is a bit generous. That being said I want to use it to create a world for a time traveling game (with a few more suggestions or prompts for the PCs) And I would love to see a Microscope session 0 for an online D&D podcast. Where the players help build the world.
@@dlord96301 If you or your group is out of ideas its always okay to pause. When I used it in conjunction with other TTRPGs I mostly played it to create worlds my group and I later played in, but the epilogue idea also sounds neat
@@B00Radl33 This is exactly how I myself use Microscope most of the time. Would definetley love to see more of it as its open nature and ability to be a interactive and fun world building tool makes it rly appealing in my opinion
Funnily enough Open Legend was the first RPG I played extensively, and I found it because of Ben's older video on it. I gotta say, it gets rough to run as a GM. Since every "spell" is a cantrip, once one of the players unlocks detect thoughts, the party can use it at will on any character. Same with the game's equivalent of suggestion and dominate person, scrying, and a whole host of other extremely powerful abilities. Without a resource point system to balance things out, every problem gets solved using the same 3 or 4 solutions since they never go on cool down or run out of mana or anything like that. The other HUGE problem with the game is that it uses exploding die and adds die to your pool rather than having a static +x bonus. So for example, the nitwit barbarian with a 0 in perception rolls a d20, and if they roll a nat 20, they roll another d20 and add it to that, and if that d20 rolls a 20, they roll another d20 and add it to that, and if that d20 rolls a nat 20.... Meanwhile, the artificer with a 5 in intelligence (on a scale of 1-10, and also 5 is the max score you can have at level 1) is rolling a d20 + 2d6. This means that it's possible for the barbarian with a score of 0 to roll a 63, and the artificer (who is as intelligent as a character of his level can possibly be) to roll a 3 on the same check. Sounds funny, and it is... The first time... And the second... And then the third rolls around and you just want to die, and your poor artificer player is talking about maybe skipping next session since his character is so weak, and the barbarian seems to have a better understanding of science than him, and.... And that's when I decided to switch the system we were running mid campaign, and I've never revisited it since. Yeah, the hypotheticals above are a true story. It wasn't fun. Had a good time with the system for about a year since I had great players, but the system itself was holding us back, and just not a good fit.
unless he managed to hack into Roll20's dice roller, I doubt it. I just looked back over the logs. he rolled a 37 on a d20, and a 61 on a d20 in the same session. so I exaggerated, it wasn't a natural 63 on a d20, it was "only" a natural 61 on a d20. my b. point is, it happened, and happened at really inopportune times. it's an outlier for sure, but the more you play, the more those outliers start to impact your game in ways that are just not fun after a while.
You make some good points but I also think there are some aspepcts that could be easily addressed or avoided. For example, you can always tell the barbarian's player "there is no way your character would know that". Also, the system expects some degree of self-limitation by the players, so in some ways it expects the player to ask themselves "would there even be a chance for my character to know this?". I know though that these are aspects that can be difficult to deal with, especially if you are newer to the hobby. And as you said, sometimes a system just isn't a great fit for one group but might be for another. That's why it's great to have so much variety out there!
@@jeffvango6754 Yeah, but the problem was that the barb was making PERCEPTION checks, not learning checks, and the artificer was making learning checks and kept coming up short so it made one seem smarter than the other. The barbarian kept finding the on switch to every device they came across while the artificer would try to understand a complicated blueprint that was in his field with advantage, and effectively be stuck going "hmmm... I know some of these words" because of a bad roll on something he wouldn't automatically know, but was supposed to be smart about.
@@jeffvango6754 and either way, the thing that really drove me nuts was the fact that you can spam every ability with no resource points, and no cool down. Rather than homebrew something antithetical to the games design, I just found something that fit my groups needs better. As I said before, I had a lot of fun with the system. I don't regret my time playing it, but I realized that good players and my own GMing skills were plastering over a few gaping holes in the games mechanics.
Having played D&D for years I tried playing Gurps once. I had gotten used to myself being the absolute weakest character in the game no matter what character that I chose. This made me want to choose a character that could manipulate electricity. Of course I only did so with the understanding that signals in brains only function through electrochemical signals across the synapses. With my character basically being able to turn off all functions of enemy character's brains, I finally no longer had the weakest character.
I was just thinking about how much I missed tales from the forest of puffins, and this pops up! Absolutely fantastic, when I wasn't outright laughing at the jokes I was still grinning from ear to ear.
It's so crazy to see that you've used the Fantasy Age System! Dragon Age RPG was my first exposure to the world of TTRPG's but eventually I had issues with its mechanics upon characters leveling up and I switched to use the Cypher System (Numenera). I love the Cypher System so much to the point where I also started a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game and the game runs so smooth, I highly recommend it
I absolutely love Icons. You're actually the one that introduced me to the system in your technocracy video and as soon as i got ahold of the pdfs i just fell in love with it. I've played several super hero rpg's like "masks" and "Mutants and masterminds" 2nd and 3rd addition, but those are...awful...when compared to Icons. For example, Icons is an incredibly simple system to learn and to teach. I love that because it's easy to get people into. M&M on the other hand, is a very complicated system that requires way too many rolls and checks. In Icons if you want to do something super heroic like picking up a bus and throwing it at somebody, as long as you have a score that works (whether strength or a power) you can just do that without needing to roll for it. In M&M even if you have a high strength you still have to roll dice to pick up the bus and because of the way the level system works you're probably not going to be able (or likely) to do that right at the start of the game. Same thing with punching through a wall. As long as the wall is made of something weaker than your strength score in Icons you can just do that. In M&M you basically have to roll an actual attack, with whatever bonuses you have to that, and the wall gets to roll to resist...That's stupid. It's a wall, it shouldn't get to roll anything. I only have two problems with the Icons system. One is that finding someone running the game is hard, which makes me the forever dm. The second thing is that the game is way more fun to play the gm. Making new villains isn't that big a deal, considering how simple character creation is, but a lot of the powers in the game either don't work or are incredibly broken. Like, basically anything that gives you access to another character sheet is incredibly broken. Whether it's something like summon or alternate identity. It basically gives you the ability to fill every party roll. Same thing with powers like "magic" and "gadgetry" which can do pretty much everything. You've also got the fact that the dm has to decide how basically everything works. You mentioned that yourself in the video. Lot of guess work and maybes. I've homebrewed a lot of the kinks out of the system and even streamlined it a bit more but there are still things that i have to ban or severely limit.
ALSO, I like you reviewing some of these different game worlds. The superhero one is a favorite, particularly because it's so "open to GM interpretation", and that kind of adjudication is what I do naturally with my own homebrew RPG. I might try that out with a Powerpuff setting.
Icons! Ah the memories I have of playing with my friends! Your video playing in a post apocalypse helped me convince them to give it a try! Thank you! 😀
Open Legend sounds like one that can be really cool if you put a lot of work into the narrative side. That's one thing people forget about games like DnD, yes the rules are somewhat constricting but that means they can do a lot of the heavy lifting freeing you up to flavor things how you want. In more rules-light systems you need to put a lot more thought into what you are doing and what it looks like and how it interacts with what other people are doing. With the right group of people it can be incredibly fun but if not everyone is willing to maintain the minimum cognitive load necessary to keep the game running smoothly, things can grind to a halt very easily.
In games like D&D and Pathfinder, the ethos is "if the rules don't say you can do something specific, then you can't." It teaches players to be way too depending on abiding by the rule books and creates a "color within the lines" mentality. From this perspective, more books = more options for players who don't think outside of the box = more money for Wizards of the Coast. Putting more thought into what you're doing, what it looks like, and how it interacts with what other people are doing sounds like someone who is having a conversation with their GM; that's the good stuff! It's dynamic and messy and exciting, and I think that the game design of D&D discourages that sort of thing by trying to spell out everything for you in the rule books.
@@ronwisegamgee I agree that when it works well it's great. But other times you might want to do X and your GM wants to modify it to Y and you have to spend extra time hashing out where to compromise. That can seriously bog down the play, and can be incredibly tedious for all the other players at the table. Or you don't think through the logical consequences of a certain ruling and later on it becomes completely game breaking. At least if you play by the core rules of DnD you know someone already sat down and tried to think about how the rules work in relation to each other. I would rather look at a DnD rule and decide to ignore or modify than to have to make up half the rules myself and hope I didn't just paint myself into a corner.
I really love the Star Wars/Genesys "narrative dice" system. That's one of the two (the other being D&D) that has really stuck around at my table. I wish there was a system that could handle the way magic in the Witcher feels weird and mysterious even if you know how it works.
Me and my friends are all starting our first campaign this weekend! I got interested in Dnd specifically from your videos randomly popping into my feed. Love your content man
It’s Been too long! I like how you combined your iconic art style with better animations. You also are a lot more chill, I can vibe with that. Very neat
Any tips for GMing that system or resources to do so? I've ran it twice and though my players had a blast I still don't know what's going on or what I'm doing. (I've DMed DND 5e for years so that's my reference point)
@@chaonis24601 yeah. First suggestion is to join both the City of Mist Facebook group and discord. Lots of resources there, including getting answers from the game's creator. Next is watch some actual plays of groups running their games. It helps get an idea for the flow and mechanics of the game as some of them explain as they go. Last is to go and read the quick start rules again. It really does have most of what you need to start running. The Players Guide has everything for game play and the MC Toolkit is it you want to write your own stuff.
I almost got into a Fantasy Age game under a search for 3.5 DnD once. I'm glad I backed out, but maybe with a good mentor I'd try it again someday. Good to see you again.
I've miss your stories so much.
Everyone has
Me too.
I feel like he doesn't make the gold that kept me coming back so frequently. Especially when he creates said gold and I hurry back to bask in its radiance to only realize its been far to long since I've felt the golden gaze of a puffin forest story.
@@criscojesus4378 why did he stop
@@ftferlo8868 I don't know honestly. I think maybe the story animation is probably more work than his other video styles inturn we get more of what costs less.
“A menu at a restaurant of death” was my favorite line from this one.
But horse master
Never seen taco bell explained so accurately before lol
everybodys a battle master fighter
Same.
Honestly, having a roleplay the uncle of the lord who's torn between loyalty and a hunger for power could be really interesting
What's your icon from
@@Lycaon1765 pretty certain that's from 1 of the Ratchet and Clank games. Cover art maybe?
Did you mean Dalinar kholin from stormlight archive
@@dustgraystone9448 Yes, it's promotional/cover art from the first.
It's a bit hard when you're literally the Scar from Lion King
I love how Puffin's drawings give the impression he's drawing in a rush, but you can see he actually shades hair and bodies with sufficient detail to give them some volume.
He's not drawing in a rush. He's just bad at drawing. He's admitted to that.
Ben is actually really good at drawing in his own style.
If you look at „Hyperbole and a half“, f.e., the artist goes for an even more minimalist style. She’s complained several times over having to go back and redraw images because she put in too many details. The yellow triangle is her ponytail, btw. =D
When the world needed him most, he returned.
Edit: I remembered him talking about the Icons system in his video about "Chadwick Strong pants", and its the one I'd like to play the most.
Yes
I warn you.
I played mutants and masterminds(icons is kinda a simplified version). The amount of judgement on the GM made player conflicts almost unavoidable.
Hi, my dad lost his job, because of covid.
I'm trying to SELL DARK SHINY RPG ON STEAM for only 0.99$. OR PUT A LIKE, THANKS.....
ruclips.net/video/-QRtb_53v04/видео.html
GOD BLESS YOU ALL AND STAY CAREFUL. zc xz
"Do you...have a horse fetish?"
Those expressions man. They had me busting a serious gut.
I know Puffin seems to like playing silly characters but this it backfired tremendously, got disarmed real quick.
well if you like horses you are gonna get your guts bust..... just saying
Had he made this about the horse's right to say "Nay" then it might have not been painted into the same corner...maybe.
@@ParanoidCarrot your profile picture matches that sentence greatly
@@grognakthedestroyerattorne3211 why thankyou
When the world was spiraling into despair and all hope was gone.... HE returned. Once again his epic tales of adventure graced the masses and crowds cried tears of joy at his return. All hope was restored in the world.
Well he has been here doing MTG
Im sad that I cant give this comment more than a like...
Huzzah!! Huzzah!!
True, and I'm enjoying the Magic content, but I missed his RPG stories.
"On occasion, a few of them walk out of the store with me"
I interpreted that in a nefarious way
I actually love the Phantom Toad story.
Phantom "Frog", and Yes I agree we need more
*shamk*
It is always nice if the world is reacting to the players.
I wonder if the character watched Kipo and the Age of the the Wonderbeasts before creating it.
* frog
On 7th Sea, I'd like to point out the "Not Italy"s name is literally a name for part of Spain before it became spain and was Castille, Leon, Aragon, Navarre, and Grenada which is kind of funny.
To add, the 'Not Spain' is the name of a French philosopher/his family estate.
EDIT: And to the east of Castille is 'Vodacce' with a lot of italian-esque names.
He got the map a bit wrong. Montaigne is Not France, Castille is Not Spain. Vodacce is in fact Not Italy. The real weirdness is that each area is designed after different ERAs. So France is sort-of Revolution time (it's about to touch off) Italy is high rennaisance, Spain in mid inquisition. Russia is kind of medieval. It's a strange tightrope to walk.
The line, "...or do I got to do more Shakespeare to get my powers back?" Just killed me.
9:43
Just noticed this, but Ben says he didn't know what Time Control did...but then it's listed right there beneath it. I think the intention(And I've never played Icons though it sounds awesome), was for them to PICK one of those effects as what they can do with their powers at character creation, and then allow you as GM to determine specific scaling for them based on the situation.
The best system is clearly Anime Campaign where your powers are decided by a random word generator
I second this! My group absolutely adores this system. Our first group had a Neon jedi, a Whale tank, and a Mythological summoner.
@@jordangrant6390 Neon Jedi sounds INCREDIBLE.
Here I was thinking this was an epithet erased reference XD
@@SerenityM16 Anime Campaign was made by jelloapocalypse and epithet erased is based on it
The best system is Yu-Gi-Oh! season 1.
Instead of rolling or something like that, you draw a hand out of a box of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and when the name, picture of flavour text of the card (of course not the actual rules) slightly support the action you want to take, you can do it. And yes, that means you can use Giant Soldier of Stone to destroy the moon.
'do you have a horse fetish?'
*Puffin begins to sweat profusely*
I laughed way to hard at this XD
It's probably for the best that the "horse master" character wasn't used. Otherwise, he might've given the "Turtle Friends" a run for their money!
Or he'd wind up like kenneth pinyan.
He could have started a horse rebellion. The Queen of Dragons would sweep the land, trying to take it for herself, but then would rise the HORSEMASTER!!! He would whisper sweet rebellion into the ears of the horses and then NO man would be able to venture far from his home. The horses would all leave and form their own kingdom. Then it would be a grand battle between 3 dragons and a horde of horses!
@@dirgethecomicbook965 I’m pretty sure the the dragons would just see that as an all you can eat buffet.
@@leaf0nthewind625 Well just remember, she only had three dragons. We're talking hundreds of thousands of horses. Maybe more. Food is great.. untill food bands together.
Getting the horses into the trebuchet and how to launch it with their hooves would be the main problem in fighting the dragons.
There is actually a character almost just like that in Dark Lord of Derkholm.
Open Legend! I didn't know it was so obscure... You introduced me to it!
Always wanted to play d&d but didn't have the money, but you said that system was free!
Even with the rest of the systems and knowledge we have now, it remains my party's go to system to play!
It does have a lot of problems you start to notice even before you play a game, but you're sort of encouraged a lot to make homebrew and really make the system your own.
For example, I wrote my own power system, because just like your group, we wanted resources!
The community is always brimming with homebrew so sometimes you don't even need to do any work.
Everyone should try it out! It's free! There's nothing to lose!
And in that dark day that my recommended list was filled with replays, Puffin rode in with a new video.
May i also recommend sci-fi rpg called Degenesis?
That isn't a MTG video!
The "Evil Uncle" got me cough-laughing.
Thanks for the video Ben.
I remember playing an older version of Seven Seas. We never actually got to sea, and my plague doc ended up being Deadpool by accident.
Thanks for mentioning these games, it will be interesting to see what bits of games can be adapted.
@@Grauenwolf Thought as much. 1st ed played somewhat similar to L5R/Burning Sands.
I don't know what edition we played. Likely first. We completely enjoyed it. I would love to go back and play it again.
Yay a new video! Really have missed your stories these last couple months. Thanks for the video Puffin.
"Do you have a horse fetish?"
That caught me off guard and I laughed louder than I probably should have.
0:40 This sounds like some form of purgatory. You get to make and play a bunch of characters, but then you move on from them really quickly.
It's the opposite for me, I love making and playing new characters.
I think the difference is how well you need to craft them. Creating a d&d character at level 1 is easy. You come up with a great concept, realize it's from that thing you watched or game you played, still decide to go with it and then you aply the most logical class and race. Not the most difficult idea.
But there you need to craft your PCs so that they will work and after playing them for a while, they simply are done. In 5e, as long as you dont die really early on, you have a good chance to make it to level 12 with your PC. At that point you either are fine with playing a new PC or the table decides to play further. In d&d it is fun to see a journey come from a humble beginning to an epic conclusion. If you dont enjoy playing the PC, then simply dont play them and ask your DM if you can make a new one and if that doesnt happen every session, most DMs would be fine with it.
"Instead of a stat block you have a deck! Sounds cool right?"
*My ex-MTG ass, who quit after a few too many landlocks* NO, NO IT DOES NOT!
We need more Absurd stories, I fell in love with his concept and backstory, also was ready to hear a lot more.
Puffin please give us more Absurd
He needs DMs that would let him play the character to make more stories.
It was only a couple of hours ago I was checking this channel to see if Ben was still alive. Great timing
Same. I went to check if yt just forgot I'm supposed to get notifications 'cause I didn't watch all the mtg stuff last year. I saw that I'd missed 2.5 hours of Commander stuff in the last 5 months, and then radio silence. Later I get this update.
I know, the timing is uncanny
I was looking yesterday, and was wondering if he stopped making content or something. I'm glad he's still at it.
I'm glad the SIX MONTHS of only MTG content is broken.
I'm not a real fan of MTG, so I just skipped those videos.
Obviously he's alive - he just spent too dang long making fancy animations instead of _more videos!_ :P
I noticed that Puffin always stumbles on parts where GMs need to make any sort of meaningful decision.
14
I mean that does make sense with certain philosophies of game mastering, specifically a player focused one where the gm translates player actions and tries to figure out how to fit them in the rules
Hearing the A Song of Ice and Fire game having house creation makes me think of how in the Dune: Adventures in the Imperium RPG by Modiphius you can make your own house and there are two ways to play. The first is a traditional kinda RPG style but the other involves house politics, intrigue, and power plays.
The SoI&F game seems cool. I am interested in the SoI&F wargame more though (even if I’d be better off using my historical miniatures). From what I can tell and what I’ve heard that game does a good job of combining the political intrigue of the series into a wargame, though I hear it plays more like a board game.
Exactly that. The game has - so to speak - an 'adventure mode' where you play your regular characters doing regular stuff (and likely getting killed by the Mountain at some point...) and the political game. You play your house, fill in the important roles, lord, maester, machinating courtiers and so on. And you also get a good chance getting killed by the Mountain :D
The Song of Ice and Fire game does actually have a war aspect. There are essentially three types of obstacles in the game system. First is Combat, which is pretty obvious, you and your party fight enemies in small groups. Second is Intrigue, which is essentially your roleplay, diplomacy and backstabbery stuff. Third is Warfare, where you actually control the forces of your house an engage in large scale combat against other similarly large scale enemies. Each of these three focuses on different skill sets, though they mat overlap a little, so often you can make a character that is good at one or two of these, but rarely all three (ex. Being a skilled fighter doesn't mean you are a brilliant general, but you could be both if you build your character right)
There is also a generic version of the game called The Sword Chronicle, in case some groups may not want to follow Game of Thrones history.
The House creation alone makes it worth it, tbh. It's a great system, also for creating random nobles houses for different settings, because it gives you a pretty decent idea for history, where you just need to fill in a few blanks like the house name
Any concrete opinions on the Dune game? I've been walking back and forth on it for months since I love the books but the game seems kinda gimmicky and like it abstracts out a lot of the roleplaying.
Open legend is sick. My favorite role playing system of all time. I really enjoy how you can use it for any system.
Would be cool to see you pick it up again.
I had a similar experience with song of ice and fire. We had a blast building the house and making characters, and then as soon as we got to the actual game we hated it
The worlsbuilding is admitted really fun but yeah, the bloodgrape syndrome can be rough.
So...what went wrong???
@@DrawciaGleam02 For one thing they have two types of encounters, combats and intrigues. Combats are physical, intrigues are social/political. Due to limited resources in character creation being good at one almost guarantees that you'll be bad at the other. The problem is that you take penalties if your ally falls in battle, or gets persuaded in an intrigue. This means that most characters are a liability about half the time, which doesn't make for a fun cooperative experience.
That's just one example. There's also the fact that status is an attribute meaning that high status characters will be weaker in all other areas, but in Westeros high status people are expected to be skilled warriors and good politicians, making it difficult for them to excel at any given task.
@@blakeking1125 Technically there is also Warfare, since that uses another set of Abilities, though there is some overlap with the others. But yeah, someone is always going to be weak in one of these encounter types and so it often means they either need to be as defensive as possible or become a liability.
I have had a great time with OpenLegend over the last 4 years. It's my favourite system that isn't tied to a specific setting. For me, it just hits that sweet spot that so far no other setting-agnostic system has managed to hit, where the mechanics are not overly complicated or take a huge part in shaping the experience before even starting to play, but they are firm enough to provide guidelines without making everything feel too similar. To this day, I have not encountered a character idea that could not be made real with OpenLegend. It really allows you to play any character you want. When starting out I was worred about players having no limitations or resources besides (Legend Points and HP), but this (for my group at least) turned out to be a non-issue. Tracking those kinds of things usually isn't really fun and most fictional universes just let their characters use most of their abilities freely anyway.
Obviously no system is perfect and there are some legitimate criticisms you can make. It's also not for every player, but I am happy to say that it's my favourite setting-agnostic system. There is also a fairly active community around the game that can help you if you have any questions or difficulties.
As for 7th Sea: I've always wanted to try it, but never got around to it. I can see how the more cinematic approach might turn some players off, but I'm still interested in at least giving it a try since it's so different from the classic model of how most RPGs handle the resolution of tasks.
I've missed PFs animated RPG videos so much I've been rewatching his old ones. Great to see a new vid!
Man this made me want to break out my fantasy age books again, I remember I had fun running that campaign and my friends all loved how much customization their characters got
Is this the first time I've seen Puffin's beautiful horse art? It's unnerving and excellent!
I can recommend "The Dark Eye" (Version 4.1). It is a German system. Character creation takes hours....oh and there are over 100 different skills...which you need to rank up separately...and you roll on your stats..3 of them when you make a skill check. And spells work like skills....it is probably one of the best systems when it comes to character customization...BUT at the end of it you could have gotten a degree in the time you grasped the rules completely (which is impossible - the rules can't be grasped by humans)
> german system
that explains it
Should have called it The Bloodshot Eye in reference to what will happen if you just skim that system.
For thousand years i have slumbered, and now with a new PF video I awaken.
Ah yes, Time Control powers. Where the character is one sneeze away from fast forwarding to the heat death of the universe. Completely fair and balanced
Oh wow. I literally checked out your channel yesterday and was sure you stopped making videos. I'm so glad you didn't stop!
I play Open Legends RPG soo much. Love it, players actually asked to go back to it after a year of 5e.
I actually use your earlier videos about it to help explain the system to 5e players that join my group at any point.
Great videos, keep it up!!
As happy as I am that you’ve returned to bless us with more stories, I am a little concerned that I stumbled on this video when searching “megalodon vs magasaurus”…. This was #3 in the search lol
Edit: Mosasaraurus
Edit spelling because dyslexia: Mosasaurus
That IS strange!
MAGAsaurus? Is that the new nickname for Trump?
@@HairyHariyama well, it is now 😂
mosasaurus, you have one too many r and a
@@griffinhunter3206 I figured. I had used the video I was looking up for the spelling lol
Also, thanks!!
i miss this format of videos that puffin used to do. this brings me nostalgia and a tear to my eye i haven't felt in a long time. hope to see more content like this in the future
And I say unto you:
"I know that feeling, I am still trying to learn Mutants and Masterminds, as well as hoping to learn about the Power Rangers game coming out in the end of January."
Wait theres a power ranger rpg coming out?
My guy I ordered the mutants and masterminds book on Amazon and it was supposed to arrive anytime from New Years to two days ago 😑 … It didn’t come… I’m very upset. (Also this is the first thing I’ve ever bought on Amazon and I don’t know what to do help)
@@Leighv "it comes out at the end of the month."
@@Dualbladedscorpion7737 "yes, made by the same people who made 'heroes of the grid.' It comes out in the end of the month. "
It took me a full year after having read the book to really understand how Mutants and Masterminds works. I still haven't played the game, but it was a fascinating eureka moment when suddenly I just realized that I understood everything. But it took a long time to have that sudden click through all it's weird rules. But I'm also not noted for my intelligence.
Phoenix Dawn Command - 0:58
Open Legend - 2:37
7th Sea - 4:40
Fantasy Age - 6:49
Icons - 8:29
A Song Of Ice And Fire - 11:06
Actually animated outro - 14:23
Puffin it’s so great to see you making videos again you’re one of my absolute favorite RUclipsrs. Rock on man.
I still run open legends, after you had showed it off way back when, it has been all I run and my players love it more than any other system.
I'm so glad that you returned to these kinds of stories, and I'll definitely look into Open Legend. I don't play D&D or TTRPGs all that often, but it is nice to look into them every now and again.
Great to see you back with rpg stuff. I greatly enjoy your humor, personality, and drawing/animation style
You’re alive!
I'm so glad you posted something, I watch your older stuff often. You're a great storyteller and I aspire to be as good as you.
Regarding the hp bloat on fantasy age, they later released an official rule with some options to make it more gritty, and thus reducing the hp
Thank you so much for another quirky mechanics video! Been waiting for this since the 4e video and some of your other miscellaneous RPG discussions. Yep...Enjoy looking at mechanics and seeing how they work...Interesting even when they don't!
I ran a game of open legend and it is really good once you learn it, it is a little rough to learn but the play is quick and it's fun once you figure it out. I ran a game set in the SCP universe so the players didn't have a lot of magic it was mostly just guns and one of the players had an SCP they used to do computer related stuff and could use to make fake identities.
Thank you for this. These kind of videos from you were a huge part of things and it seemed like they were almost nonexistent last year. I’ve missed you man
When you roll a nat 20 enough times, he finally uploads a new video.
Dude, I am so serious. Please, do not stop making dnd vids. your videos are hilarious, they get me and my wife through our time here at university. I am a music comp major, i want to compose for dnd. please keep going!
12:28 "I think HORSES should be able to VOTE! HORSE VOTE! HORSE VOTE! HORSE VOTE!"
OL is a little harder to get into after being used to DND, I've had some pretty good times with it and ran a pretty fun campaign in it
Yeeeaaaah OL haha!
great to see you back!, things havent been the same without your stories!
Great to see you post again. Your channel is a big part of what inspired me to make my own channel. I’ve been wanting to get into other systems so it’s fun hearing about other peoples experiences.
Just picked up a new Dishonored RPG. System's pretty cool, I recommend checking it out! Love ur vids, m8.
Love the games, probably gonna try and get it lo
I picked that one up a while back, I think it's interesting and want to use it as the base for a game in a different setting once my current D&D campaign ends.
Blades in the Dark has a similar feeling and is simply superb. I recommand giving it a try after playing Dishonored RPG.
@@9-bitfox The extra lore is what I love the most. Some good stuff to learn.
I really hope you can make some more RPG storytelling videos. You have a great speaking voice and I love hearing your D&D stories
Good to have you back! I've missed your animated sorry videos!
The legend returns! I always look forward to your stories!
Recently got invited to a table playing Savage Worlds, it is an absolute blast
It's my system of choice
Yay! Ben is back! I love your stories so much!!!
I was just thinking about these stories a couple days ago. Good to see the new one.
Genuinely joyful to see you post a new video. I've missed you
I know the feeling of "I hope you like that character you took a week making, time to make another one next week" because one of my DMs would do that, and, unsurprisingly, that group fell apart very quickly because the players did not like each other enough for that to last. I did reuse some of those characters later, but overall it was kinda bad
I literally just got done rewatching the curse of straud playlist wishing I had new puffin forest and there it was, well done sir you’ve earned my like
I can recommend a different kind of niche RPG to take a look at.
Its called "Microscope" and it has less focus on the Roleplay aspect and no set GM.
Its about building any kind of world the players want through Periods, Events and Scenes.
This can be done cooperatively or competitively and go on for as long as the players want to.
Its really fun if the group has a common idea of the kind of scenario they all want to explore!
Oh god microscope I know a bunch of people who love it especially to use as an epilogue for other games. It's really cool and definitely one of those games that has a ton of potential. (Though I personally don't it because I mind blank way to hard and it ends up being super stressful)
I really really like Microscope, but sometimes I feel like calling it a game is a bit generous.
That being said I want to use it to create a world for a time traveling game (with a few more suggestions or prompts for the PCs)
And I would love to see a Microscope session 0 for an online D&D podcast. Where the players help build the world.
I love Microscope, but you need the right group to play it with.
@@dlord96301 If you or your group is out of ideas its always okay to pause.
When I used it in conjunction with other TTRPGs I mostly played it to create worlds my group and I later played in, but the epilogue idea also sounds neat
@@B00Radl33 This is exactly how I myself use Microscope most of the time.
Would definetley love to see more of it as its open nature and ability to be a interactive and fun world building tool makes it rly appealing in my opinion
Fantastic video man! I love hearing about systems I will never have the time to play. Your video on Traveler still wows me to this day.
Funnily enough Open Legend was the first RPG I played extensively, and I found it because of Ben's older video on it.
I gotta say, it gets rough to run as a GM. Since every "spell" is a cantrip, once one of the players unlocks detect thoughts, the party can use it at will on any character. Same with the game's equivalent of suggestion and dominate person, scrying, and a whole host of other extremely powerful abilities. Without a resource point system to balance things out, every problem gets solved using the same 3 or 4 solutions since they never go on cool down or run out of mana or anything like that.
The other HUGE problem with the game is that it uses exploding die and adds die to your pool rather than having a static +x bonus.
So for example, the nitwit barbarian with a 0 in perception rolls a d20, and if they roll a nat 20, they roll another d20 and add it to that, and if that d20 rolls a 20, they roll another d20 and add it to that, and if that d20 rolls a nat 20....
Meanwhile, the artificer with a 5 in intelligence (on a scale of 1-10, and also 5 is the max score you can have at level 1) is rolling a d20 + 2d6.
This means that it's possible for the barbarian with a score of 0 to roll a 63, and the artificer (who is as intelligent as a character of his level can possibly be) to roll a 3 on the same check.
Sounds funny, and it is... The first time... And the second... And then the third rolls around and you just want to die, and your poor artificer player is talking about maybe skipping next session since his character is so weak, and the barbarian seems to have a better understanding of science than him, and....
And that's when I decided to switch the system we were running mid campaign, and I've never revisited it since.
Yeah, the hypotheticals above are a true story.
It wasn't fun.
Had a good time with the system for about a year since I had great players, but the system itself was holding us back, and just not a good fit.
If that's a true story your barbarian was cheating. End of.
unless he managed to hack into Roll20's dice roller, I doubt it. I just looked back over the logs. he rolled a 37 on a d20, and a 61 on a d20 in the same session.
so I exaggerated, it wasn't a natural 63 on a d20, it was "only" a natural 61 on a d20. my b. point is, it happened, and happened at really inopportune times.
it's an outlier for sure, but the more you play, the more those outliers start to impact your game in ways that are just not fun after a while.
You make some good points but I also think there are some aspepcts that could be easily addressed or avoided. For example, you can always tell the barbarian's player "there is no way your character would know that". Also, the system expects some degree of self-limitation by the players, so in some ways it expects the player to ask themselves "would there even be a chance for my character to know this?". I know though that these are aspects that can be difficult to deal with, especially if you are newer to the hobby.
And as you said, sometimes a system just isn't a great fit for one group but might be for another. That's why it's great to have so much variety out there!
@@jeffvango6754 Yeah, but the problem was that the barb was making PERCEPTION checks, not learning checks, and the artificer was making learning checks and kept coming up short so it made one seem smarter than the other.
The barbarian kept finding the on switch to every device they came across while the artificer would try to understand a complicated blueprint that was in his field with advantage, and effectively be stuck going "hmmm... I know some of these words" because of a bad roll on something he wouldn't automatically know, but was supposed to be smart about.
@@jeffvango6754 and either way, the thing that really drove me nuts was the fact that you can spam every ability with no resource points, and no cool down. Rather than homebrew something antithetical to the games design, I just found something that fit my groups needs better.
As I said before, I had a lot of fun with the system. I don't regret my time playing it, but I realized that good players and my own GMing skills were plastering over a few gaping holes in the games mechanics.
It's nice seeing other RPG options getting a little time in the spotlight and having some fun stories is like a cherry on top.
Having played D&D for years I tried playing Gurps once. I had gotten used to myself being the absolute weakest character in the game no matter what character that I chose. This made me want to choose a character that could manipulate electricity. Of course I only did so with the understanding that signals in brains only function through electrochemical signals across the synapses. With my character basically being able to turn off all functions of enemy character's brains, I finally no longer had the weakest character.
I was just thinking about how much I missed tales from the forest of puffins, and this pops up! Absolutely fantastic, when I wasn't outright laughing at the jokes I was still grinning from ear to ear.
So happy to see your content again!
More Absurd please!
It's so crazy to see that you've used the Fantasy Age System! Dragon Age RPG was my first exposure to the world of TTRPG's but eventually I had issues with its mechanics upon characters leveling up and I switched to use the Cypher System (Numenera). I love the Cypher System so much to the point where I also started a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game and the game runs so smooth, I highly recommend it
Honestly, with the exception of Phoenix: Dawn Command, all of these games sound super cool
Great to have you back Puffin. Your stories are always a lot of fun.
I kind of want to see Ben’s take on the Maid RPG…
Your stories inspired me to give playing DnD a shot. I love your style of narration, and especially your voice lmfao
I absolutely love Icons. You're actually the one that introduced me to the system in your technocracy video and as soon as i got ahold of the pdfs i just fell in love with it. I've played several super hero rpg's like "masks" and "Mutants and masterminds" 2nd and 3rd addition, but those are...awful...when compared to Icons. For example, Icons is an incredibly simple system to learn and to teach. I love that because it's easy to get people into. M&M on the other hand, is a very complicated system that requires way too many rolls and checks. In Icons if you want to do something super heroic like picking up a bus and throwing it at somebody, as long as you have a score that works (whether strength or a power) you can just do that without needing to roll for it. In M&M even if you have a high strength you still have to roll dice to pick up the bus and because of the way the level system works you're probably not going to be able (or likely) to do that right at the start of the game. Same thing with punching through a wall. As long as the wall is made of something weaker than your strength score in Icons you can just do that. In M&M you basically have to roll an actual attack, with whatever bonuses you have to that, and the wall gets to roll to resist...That's stupid. It's a wall, it shouldn't get to roll anything. I only have two problems with the Icons system. One is that finding someone running the game is hard, which makes me the forever dm. The second thing is that the game is way more fun to play the gm. Making new villains isn't that big a deal, considering how simple character creation is, but a lot of the powers in the game either don't work or are incredibly broken. Like, basically anything that gives you access to another character sheet is incredibly broken. Whether it's something like summon or alternate identity. It basically gives you the ability to fill every party roll. Same thing with powers like "magic" and "gadgetry" which can do pretty much everything. You've also got the fact that the dm has to decide how basically everything works. You mentioned that yourself in the video. Lot of guess work and maybes. I've homebrewed a lot of the kinks out of the system and even streamlined it a bit more but there are still things that i have to ban or severely limit.
Id also recommend trying worlds in peril and ive heard tiny d6 supers is really good but ive never played it.
ALSO, I like you reviewing some of these different game worlds. The superhero one is a favorite, particularly because it's so "open to GM interpretation", and that kind of adjudication is what I do naturally with my own homebrew RPG. I might try that out with a Powerpuff setting.
Open Legends was my first system where I DMd and I feel like i wanna give that one another go :)
Icons! Ah the memories I have of playing with my friends! Your video playing in a post apocalypse helped me convince them to give it a try! Thank you! 😀
Hell yeah welcome back!
The concept that you actually roll for how many tasks you accomplish is quite brilliant; it seems more correct for how things work in real life.
LETS GOOO A NEW PUFFIN FOREST ANIMATION
I missed your stories. It was awesome to see you posted a new one.
Open Legend sounds like one that can be really cool if you put a lot of work into the narrative side. That's one thing people forget about games like DnD, yes the rules are somewhat constricting but that means they can do a lot of the heavy lifting freeing you up to flavor things how you want. In more rules-light systems you need to put a lot more thought into what you are doing and what it looks like and how it interacts with what other people are doing. With the right group of people it can be incredibly fun but if not everyone is willing to maintain the minimum cognitive load necessary to keep the game running smoothly, things can grind to a halt very easily.
In games like D&D and Pathfinder, the ethos is "if the rules don't say you can do something specific, then you can't." It teaches players to be way too depending on abiding by the rule books and creates a "color within the lines" mentality. From this perspective, more books = more options for players who don't think outside of the box = more money for Wizards of the Coast.
Putting more thought into what you're doing, what it looks like, and how it interacts with what other people are doing sounds like someone who is having a conversation with their GM; that's the good stuff! It's dynamic and messy and exciting, and I think that the game design of D&D discourages that sort of thing by trying to spell out everything for you in the rule books.
@@ronwisegamgee I agree that when it works well it's great. But other times you might want to do X and your GM wants to modify it to Y and you have to spend extra time hashing out where to compromise. That can seriously bog down the play, and can be incredibly tedious for all the other players at the table. Or you don't think through the logical consequences of a certain ruling and later on it becomes completely game breaking. At least if you play by the core rules of DnD you know someone already sat down and tried to think about how the rules work in relation to each other. I would rather look at a DnD rule and decide to ignore or modify than to have to make up half the rules myself and hope I didn't just paint myself into a corner.
Frick, it is good to see your videos popping up again. Looking forward to the next story, Puffin.
I really love the Star Wars/Genesys "narrative dice" system. That's one of the two (the other being D&D) that has really stuck around at my table.
I wish there was a system that could handle the way magic in the Witcher feels weird and mysterious even if you know how it works.
Me and my friends are all starting our first campaign this weekend! I got interested in Dnd specifically from your videos randomly popping into my feed. Love your content man
Return of the king
It’s Been too long! I like how you combined your iconic art style with better animations. You also are a lot more chill, I can vibe with that. Very neat
I would love to run you through City of Mist!
I love City of Mist.
@@Ashtonyss it's my favorite system and I run it professionally as well as write games for it
Any tips for GMing that system or resources to do so? I've ran it twice and though my players had a blast I still don't know what's going on or what I'm doing. (I've DMed DND 5e for years so that's my reference point)
@@chaonis24601 yeah. First suggestion is to join both the City of Mist Facebook group and discord. Lots of resources there, including getting answers from the game's creator. Next is watch some actual plays of groups running their games. It helps get an idea for the flow and mechanics of the game as some of them explain as they go. Last is to go and read the quick start rules again. It really does have most of what you need to start running. The Players Guide has everything for game play and the MC Toolkit is it you want to write your own stuff.
I almost got into a Fantasy Age game under a search for 3.5 DnD once. I'm glad I backed out, but maybe with a good mentor I'd try it again someday.
Good to see you again.
I kinda want to see Ben's thoughts on Mutants and Masterminds. Maybe even comparing it to Icons would be pretty interesting.
I always love insight into variety rpgs. Appreciated your 10sec explanation on what a system is about.
I miss the dnd content but I would also love to see mutant and mastermind content anyway happy to see you back
Yay yay yay! I really enjoy how you animate and tell your stories!