Відео

Just finished four straight days of 12-hour shifts and see this in my UA-cam notifications. This is a good Monday.

at 05:36 is it speedsitter or seedspitter ?

Believe me, Seth, as someone so broke that I'll only be able to make videos (long form, not shorts) on my phone when I startup again, the quality of your vids has never bothered me cause you do your best with what you've got.

"This feels like a movie that only exists as a setup for the sequel of that movie, then they spend a decade before releasing the sequel." Soooo...A Marvel movie.

The Tales From the Yawning Portal variant of this was my first time playing DnD after a disastrous first time with an older edition that left me not wanting to play again. Glad I got back into the hobby after all.

Great review and adventure description. Full disclosure because I made myself laugh out loud. It took until about half way through with me thinking, "man Seth is sure out of shape for some reason" before I realized Lilly was female... Not that it isn't obvious but for whatever reason that wasn't the focus of what I was paying attention to.

I must be the only person in the world who thinks Drax's plan in Guardians 2 was fine. The other characters say it's not. "Its skin is as tough from the inside!" Yeah but the whole point isn't to slice it's skin, it's to get at the organs the skin is protecting. Which if you're _inside it_ becomes much easier. As long as the creature doesn't have stomach acid potent enough to melt the guy in a few seconds, it's a damn fine plan. And since he comes out of the experience just fine it clearly doesn't have stomach acid that powerful.

Now it's time for Gurps? Sorry, I amuse myself

08:15 The players who ask questions usually mean no harm from my experience. They sometimes even use that info to make their own mini traps etc... or keep logs of the world history. I make sure to reward their curiousity by including some old detail in some story. (Edit: typo)

For having better rolls than average, I point you to Taliesen Jaffe, who had a fantastic streak of rolls back in Critical Role's first campaign. Highest number of Nat 20s in the group, and I highly doubt he cheated or the group wouldn't play with him anymore.

How do you handle party situations where, due to one character having the highest social skills, they pretty much become the only active participant in social situations?

How to I contact the DMs guild? I'm writing a one shot module and it uses 5e mechanics. I need to get permission. Please guide the way and help lol

I'd normally pronounce Regina like regeena, I guess the rest of my group did too since when I pronounced it like Seth does here as a bit of a joke the group HATED it so I just had to make that the official pronunciation for the sector in my canon.

I must be extremely lucky. I've never had a handout bandit in any rpg system from D&D to City of Mist.

Nice to finally watch this now that our GM has run both this adventure and then Death Station for us! One thing that was very satisfying for us as players during Act 2 was us managing to rig up some kind of interesting electric/magnetic signature at the bottom of the mining pit to try and lure the bugs in, then remotely detonating a bomb there once enough bugs were surrounding it. I can see from your table that our GM still threw the same number of bugs at us per character for a good challenge, but he did an excellent job at letting us feel like our strategy totally saved our lives. The set dressing bugs were _everywhere_ and we were able to kill a lot of them with that lure/bomb. So it really made us feel clever and victorious even though the actual number of bugs we had to fight directly wasn't actually impacted. I'll have to compliment him on this later! After Death Station we did have a crack at a prequel adventure of how we got on the low berths in the first place, but we ended up deciding to mutually story tell rather than "play" through it, because it was really hard not to feel railroaded when we the players all knew our actions were leading to us being captured. We kind of felt like we were railroading _ourselves_ with every decision we made, because we couldn't help but try and guess at how the GM was going to wind up having us all fail and be captured in the end. Maybe another group of players that wasn't so obsessed with identifying narrative patterns would be able to relax and enjoy the prequel idea more, even though they already knew how it would end!

I love the fact that you have a one of the PCs mother as an NPC companion. “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot! Again!”

This was great thanks

Oh man, I had to deal with a player like this years ago. It was incredibly frustrating. We were playing as basically space black-ops agents on an enemy-occupied planet. We had no support. We were all very powerful, but even James Bond is going down if an entire arm opens fire on him! So caution and careful planning made total sense as we worked to set up insurrectionist groups and partisans, sabotaging enemy military centers, etc. But there was this one player who was always second guessing *everything.* Entire sessions would be spent with them arguing against doing things because they were too dangerous, too risky, with us trying to set up plans for every contingency and it was almost never enough for them. And the worst part was, _they never had any alternatives!_ It wasn't a case of "hey this plan doesn't account for [X], we should do [Y] in case that happens." No no, it was just poo-pooing everything and wasting everyone's game time. I'm fine with doing legwork and planning, I was in a Shadowrun group for like 5 years. You don't go into a Zero Zone unless you plan hard! Well, no, you go into one _but you don't come back out._ Anyway. My point is, it was over-planning. And at some point you just have to trust that the GM isn't going to be a dick and exploit some tiny flaw or overlooked thing to cause a TPK. Trust that the GM wants you all to have fun. In hindsight, I think it likely that this player has most of their experience playing with GMs who work against the players and vice-versa. Just sucks that they brought that baggage with them.

21:45 Thank you Seth for once again making me search up and down for the films you pull references from that were lost in the fog of my memory until now, although don't ask me how in the world somebody forgets a movie like Galaxy of Terror.

This was the first Traveller adventure I bought, way back in the middle 80s. I hope you cover the other half, Horde.

0:30 Okay, but _would_ the characters not know that trolls regenerate and need to be killed with fire or acid? Like, I don't have any personal experience fighting hippos but because I live in a world where they exist, I know some things about them simply from widely available knowledge. I know european-style dragons, fictitious creatures, usually fly and can breathe flame despite them not being native to my country of the US. So in a fantasy world where trolls exist and are not just dangerous wild animals but intelligent and often knowingly malicious I think it would be fairly common knowledge that they regenerate.

I love that some versions of the Ravenloft title font look like old-school Castlevania. I think Castlevania came out a few years after, but older versions of Ravenloft don't have that distinctive don't, so I'm not sure who inspired who.

I just watched Galaxy of Terror a couple of days ago lol. Loved this review, too.

Probably the most scathing Seth review I've heard next to Cyberpunk Red. Which is still very even tempered and fair though. Listening to this again though makes me realize that the system parrots a lot from Savage Worlds. I don't know if Savage Worlds invented the incremental die system for attributes, they didn't even invent exploding dice. However combining both made me raise my eyebrow.

Sorry but i can't not unhear it as vegina

I don't know about Lilly... She's not my type... she's a bit of a dog.

If Jack is here to give the players' perspective, shouldn't he be "Jack the PC"? Also, if the players are going to the North pole, why woud they travel from the US to Norway first? Just go straight North from your starting point. I mean, you're talking a couple thousand miles worth of trip in an airship, adding at least a week to their journey. If time is of the essence (trying to beat the Nazis), then it just doesn't make sense, especially since doing so means having to fly over (or very near) Nazi airspace. Whoever wrote this mod didn't think it out very clearly. Finally, this - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latham_47#/media/File:Latham_47_Roald_Amundsen_1928.jpg - is what the crashed airplane should look like.

Kirk fae better actor. Picard so wooden and boring.

alright more traveler this is gonna be good love the content man

Odoy Rules!!!

Loved your Gygax impression in Dungeon Craft’s video on the tomb

I detest Todd. Or at least, I hate what he did and how he did it. That sort of thing is extremely manipulative, and both Seth and Jeff (the greatest DMs ever) suffered for it. Maybe it made them better at running games, but is that worth the stress? The whole point of this is to have fun after all, this isn't like the military where drill sergeants break people down because in a life or death situation they NEED to respond immediately to orders, so stress and normally unacceptable behavior is acceptable. If Todd wanted to help Jeff and Seth improve, he could have just told them ways he thought the session could have been done better. He could have built these two up instead of tearing them down. I hate that. I hate Todd.

Big thanks for all your videos Seth. You got me into Call of Cthulhu and i just ran my first game (The Haunting) this weekend. Large part of the reason why it went well and why me and my 3 players had a great time was thanks to you. And most of the remaining part of the reason why thing went well were due to people, places and things that I got introduced to through you (such as the Alexandrian). You are a pillar to this hobby and I feel confident that I'm not the only one who greatly appreciate you, love from the Dark Young infested forests of Sweden.

The production value is incredible. Bravo, sir. 😎

Hey Seth, are the players in the campaign diaries the same in each campaign? If there are, can we know which ones are returning? Like, Vence in BTSH-365 is also JR in Secrets of the Ancients and JJ in Two-headed serpent... My reasoning would be to kinda keep track of luck or even player habits. As if we are witnessing a greater multiverse of Seth Skorkowsky campaigns diaries. I apologies for the wall of text.

Currently in hospital with my mum. She is very sick and your videos have helped me tremendously.

Seth gets his furry on.

That Gm look of 'I finally get to play!"

This whole "speedsitter" angle has me intrigued.

For me, what it really comes down to is the GM. Did the GM create a world you can totally immerse yourself in? Do you leave the game feeling elated and can't wait for the next session? Then it doesn't matter what the system is, it's a good game. In the end, you're still rolling dice to determine success or failure.

All games have classes. They may call it a career or an occupation or a type or whatever, but it's a class. It is a shorthand way of how you think of your character. It is what your character is good at and where their place in the social structure is. It is a shorthand way of stating that they're good at a particular thing and, in many cases, is also their primary source of income. I think what you're really talking about is level-based and non-level-based gaming. There's very little real difference between a soldier in CoC, a fighter in DnD, or a glave in Numenera. Their primary place, in the game, is to use physical skills to overcome obstacle. A PI/Detective, Rogue or Jack all use stealth and wits to overcome obstacles. If your world is magical, then a mage and a nano serve the same purpose (there isn't really a similar occupation in CoC, as magic is a "bad" thing that drives you insane in that game). But you get the point. My problem with games like CoC is that you can successfully use a skill 10 times in a game session and still not go up in that skill or you can accidentally use it once and go up 10 points. It really makes no more sense than in DnD going up in a skill you didn't use just because you gained a level.

Any one else notice the improvement in the framerate for this video? I'm loving the increase in production quality, Seth. I'm not a stickler for that kind of thing, but it reminds me how far your channel has come and makes watching a new campaign diary even more fun for me!

I love these campaign diaries, really excited for the next one.

I could use that winter shipping advertisement in a fantasy game

I love all Seth Skorkowsky videos!

Eeeeeehhhh... I certainly agree with you in regards to some points. Like if there was going to be a random encounter no matter which way the PCs go, sure roll it ahead of time. But to me the issue is more of robbing players of agency for their actions, both good and bad. Like, I've seen several people in the comments talking about how they've changed the location of clues and stuff to be where the players are investigating. That would be an example of robbing them of their agency for "good", in that it benefits them. But they still had their agency taken away, it didn't matter where they decided to investigate they were going to get handed that clue. And in a game where the players are trying to investigate and figure things out then them not having to actually successfully resolve clues and figure out what things mean seems completely antithetical to me. I'm sure the players felt awesome at the time, I've been in that situation. They feel like their hunch to follow a lead was genius, huzzah! But if they EVER find out that you as the GM changed things around to reward whatever they went with then that excitement and pride in their own problem solving will turn to ash in their mouth. I've had this happen, it sucked. And even if you don't tell the players directly (Which you might, sometimes groups enjoy having post-game sessions to talk about it and learn what the GMs plans were and appreciate the adventure together) they might still find out. If you ran a re-made adventure module and they come across another group's playthrough, or a review of it, or decide to read it themselves someday, they can find out. Is everyone going to be unhappy to find out that this happened? No, of course not. There's lots of different kinds of people, some will take this in stride but some will be put out by this. And once a player knows a gm i willing to do this sort of thing it informs how they think going forwards. Should they really put in as much thought and effort into solving the mystery if they'll be handed success anyway? And of course this applies to using these principles for "bad" as well. For example if the GM wants the big Shadowrun heist to have the players be made at the end so there's a big shootout. So even though the players planned carefully and did everything right, the GM has alarms go off, some unforeseen thing revealing them and it's time to roll initiative! And yes, this can be fun. But it also means the players aren't being rewarded for their excellent planning, for putting in hard work to cover all the angles. It's robbing them of their agency for ill, forcing an undesirable outcome regardless of what they try to do to prevent it. And if they ever realize this then once more they might begin to think "should we really bother being so thorough with our preparation if it'll be ignored anyway?" Sometimes the players getting away with a job and not being caught is satisfying too, no combat, everything going off without a hitch. The challenge was in all the prep work that laid the ground for the execution. So yeah.Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. My opinions are facts, and anyone who disagrees with me is anti-science.

I'd say there's a difference between optimizing your character for the role you want them to play and min/maxing. Putting your best stat in the attribute that directly effects their area of expertise is one thing. Pouring through splatbooks and working to ensure a +20 to a skill (using D&D 3.x terms) at level 1 at the expense of all else is another. Most P&P RPGs have their mechanics for opposing the players, be that enemies, traps, puzzles, etc, are designed around a certain assumed range of attribute levels. When you go too far however you end up with a situation where those things related to the minx/maxer's characters' area of expertise just don't provide a challenge. And while the GM can always buff numbers behind the scenes, then that leaves other PCs in the lurch because such increasingly difficult opposition is challenging for the min/maxer but far above their ability to handle. I think you touched on this in another video, using a character in Cyberpunk getting heavy armor that made them nigh immune to small arms fire as an example.

Hey Seth! Been a huge fan of the channel for years now! I know this isnt related to the video in question but Im running Call of Cthulhu for the first time and am trying to connect the Egg out of Time and somehow tie it into the Code as a follow up. Any tips?

Great.

Do you think The Red Pit might be a good first adventure to this? Ie they find it as slaves while excavating limestone…