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Ashenai posted:V definitely has some sort of rapport with Haley; this is evident starting from Strip #3, and then in many strips afterwards. Aside from his mate, I think Roy is the person V respects the most (which is still not much,) and Haley is the person he considers his best friend (which is still not a very strong friendship.) Sure, he's got at least a little connection with the group. But I wonder how much of his obsession with finding Haley was friendship, and how much was his pride refusing to concede there was a power he simply could not overcome.
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May 14, 2009 18:43
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as gently caress.
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Wasn't V really messed up over having to run away from Azure City? It always seemed like finding Haley was more an issue of overcoming his failure and guilt from the battle of Azure City than direct concern for her. Or at least that was a significant component. Wasn't he having nightmares about the whole thing, which was one of the reasons he passed up on sleeping?
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May 14, 2009 18:49
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Ashcans posted:Wasn't V really messed up over having to run away from Azure City? It always seemed like finding Haley was more an issue of overcoming his failure and guilt from the battle of Azure City than direct concern for her. Or at least that was a significant component. Wasn't he having nightmares about the whole thing, which was one of the reasons he passed up on sleeping? V was really messed up because he failed at Azure City. If V was a more powerful spellcaster, he could have saved those soldiers, turned back the invasion, destroyed Xykon and made a THRONE OF PURE ARCANE ENERGY TO LAUGH FROM. Anybody would be messed up having someone curse them as they died painfully, and if V was just a little better, he could have saved them.
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May 14, 2009 22:03
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And I think the lesson being driven home here is that V got that wrong. (S)he was forced to understand that you can't possibly solve everything; that sooner or later your power simply isn't going to be enough. But instead of learning that, V just turned around and amassed more power. And, once again, it hasn't solved everything. It'll take more than brute arcane force to beat Xykon; he's demonstrated that any arcane spellcaster that tries to solo him is going to get beat and beat HARD. It needs to be a team effort. (Honestly, it might as well be a Superfriends episode for how hackneyed it is, but what the hell.)
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May 14, 2009 23:21
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Mr.Tophat posted:I can't remember a single time where he's been altruistic or been forced to make a moral decision, aside from the the soul splicing and his partner situations. Then again, I haven't read the archives in a while. V used to have a softer side. His regret seemed genuine when he yelled at Elan when Elan announced he was going to start taking wizard levels way way back after they left the first dungeon. Also, despite V's respect for Roy, he also chided Roy's decision to abandon Elan to the bandit camp, and joined the others in the rescue attempt. Wolfsheim posted:I'm actually kind of curious about this, since the majority of the party is in it for the right reason of wanting to end Xykon's threat (except Haley, who also needs to bail her dad out or something, and Belkar who's just a jackass) but V has never seemed to care much. V's origin in that book is basically just him losing a wizard competition and then meeting Haley who suggests they join an adventuring party for the rapid XP gain. The only character who's backstory we know less about is Belkar, and that's only because he doesn't have one to begin with (since he represents munchkin players who don't care about that poo poo). V's entire motivation to this point has basically been to level up. Apparently learning about the Snarl even satisfied his hunger for knowledge about the universal order or whatever, since he only seems cares about aquiring raw power now.
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May 15, 2009 01:47
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D&D has always stressed teamwork though, especially in the newest edition. The PC that goes off and tries to do poo poo alone ends up dying very quickly.
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May 15, 2009 01:49
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Seftir posted:D&D has always stressed teamwork though, especially in the newest edition. The PC that goes off and tries to do poo poo alone ends up dying very quickly. Speaking as a game master, I approve of anything that doesn't make me deal with split parties.
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May 15, 2009 17:24
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Mystic Mongol posted:Speaking as a game master, I approve of anything that doesn't make me deal with split parties. Seftir posted:D&D has always stressed teamwork though, especially in the newest edition. The PC that goes off and tries to do poo poo alone ends up dying very quickly. Not to derail the thread, but the insistence on never, ever seperating the party for one minute is one of my pet peeves in DnD. I often call it the 'superfriends effect'; just like Superfriends, the insistence on having every character in every scene essentially makes them a faceless mob, and makes it nearly impossible for any single character to have any character development, and when any one character starts to "hog the limelight" the rest of the party will fall all over themselves trying to push their way back to center stage. A 'superfriends' party is just fine for kick-in-the-door style adventuring, but it strangles roleplaying. My players have a love/hate relationship with me when I DM. I look for ways to split the party for at least a little while once per adventure, and far from discouraging it, I actively forment in-character intra-party conflict. Contrary to the usual stereotype of the arrogant maverick munchkin, it seems that the combat oriented powergamers are most likely to complain about party splitting and gloss over intra-party conflict, whereas roleplaying oriented players are more amenable to it because of the opportunities it opens. That said, if you imagine that all of the OotS characters have a 'player' behind them and that Rich is the 'DM', V hasn't really been punished at all; she's gotten a solo-adventure and briefly been allowed to wield epic-level magic. If this had happened in an actual DnD game, the other players would probably be complaining about pro-Vaarsuvius DM favoritism about now and be on the point of lynching the player herself, even though its made for a great story.
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May 15, 2009 18:52
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Well, D&D has really always been more about hack-and-slash than real roleplaying, anyway. So that's a fair criticism, but it's kind of inherent with D&D.
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May 15, 2009 19:49
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Liberal_L33t posted:"WAAAAAA! How come V gets to be left beaten and captured with 3 upcoming and unannounced instances where he forfeits control entirely and becomes an NPC???" Roy got an afterlife spin off with all sorts of family intrigue. Haley and Belkar got a resistance campaign followed by a siege on the Thieves Guild. Elan got a ninja romance and an infernal assassination coup. I respect what you're saying but all the characters had a pretty even handed spot in the limelight with sole exception of Durkon. And V is the one left in a lich's dungeon. Seems like a punishment to me.
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May 15, 2009 20:10
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bison wings posted:"WAAAAAA! How come V gets to be left beaten and captured with 3 upcoming and unannounced instances where he forfeits control entirely and becomes an NPC???" I sometimes wonder whether Durkon is the cleric NPC the DM included in the party because no one wanted to play the healer.
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May 15, 2009 20:16
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Liberal_L33t posted:I often call it the 'superfriends effect'; just like Superfriends, the insistence on having every character in every scene essentially makes them a faceless mob,
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May 15, 2009 20:21
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Durkon did have his romantic subplot with that priestess of Loki back when they met the Linear Guild for the first time.
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May 15, 2009 20:43
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Liberal_L33t posted:Not to derail the thread, but the insistence on never, ever seperating the party for one minute is one of my pet peeves in DnD. I often call it the 'superfriends effect'; just like Superfriends, the insistence on having every character in every scene essentially makes them a faceless mob, and makes it nearly impossible for any single character to have any character development, and when any one character starts to "hog the limelight" the rest of the party will fall all over themselves trying to push their way back to center stage. A 'superfriends' party is just fine for kick-in-the-door style adventuring, but it strangles roleplaying. The problem with splitting the party is the game itself is group based by nature. If you split the party in two, half the players are now spectators. That's ok in small doses, as long as the active players are doing things interesting enough for the inactive players to enjoy watching. But if the split starts to drag on and on through several sessions, you're essentially running two campaigns. The worst offender of this is solo adventures. Now you've got everyone sitting and watching just one player doing their own thing. That's going to get old really fast, and cause resentment against that player if they do it too often.
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May 15, 2009 21:23
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This was always one of Shadowrun's biggest problems: it's generally necessary to have a decker (which is the Shadowrun word for hacker) on your team, but decking requires that the GM run what is basically a little solo campaign for the decker while everyone else sits tight. The best way to deal with it is to run everything in real time and have something going on in meatspace while the decker's working, switching back and forth and giving the decker the ability to, say, turn off security cameras at the right moment for the other players.
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May 15, 2009 21:29
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Mylan posted:The problem with splitting the party is the game itself is group based by nature. If you split the party in two, half the players are now spectators. That's ok in small doses, as long as the active players are doing things interesting enough for the inactive players to enjoy watching. But if the split starts to drag on and on through several sessions, you're essentially running two campaigns. The worst offender of this is solo adventures. Now you've got everyone sitting and watching just one player doing their own thing. That's going to get old really fast, and cause resentment against that player if they do it too often. Granted this was with Rifts and not D&D, but I can't have been the only GM who let the "off screen" players temporarily run the NPC monsters and villains (to a point) so they wouldn't be sitting there twiddling their thumbs.
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May 15, 2009 23:47
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Geshtal posted:Granted this was with Rifts and not D&D, but I can't have been the only GM who let the "off screen" players temporarily run the NPC monsters and villains (to a point) so they wouldn't be sitting there twiddling their thumbs. As a WoD GM, I'll tell you that I'll let players run my NPCs with pages and pages of goddamn backstory over my dead body.
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May 16, 2009 00:36
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Pope Guilty posted:This was always one of Shadowrun's biggest problems: it's generally necessary to have a decker (which is the Shadowrun word for hacker) on your team, but decking requires that the GM run what is basically a little solo campaign for the decker while everyone else sits tight. The best way to deal with it is to run everything in real time and have something going on in meatspace while the decker's working, switching back and forth and giving the decker the ability to, say, turn off security cameras at the right moment for the other players. I just popped into this thread and I guess that it veered pretty off topic, but I wanted to say that the new edition of Shadowrun fixed this. The Matrix is now sort of all wi-fi, augmented reality, so the control to open a door is welp, right next to that door. So you get a Decker doing kinda the same thing Mages do... running through Meatspace with the team and then removing some kind of obstacle to help them out. The megacorps also figured out with wi-fi everywhere maybe having things link directly to their secret files was a bad idea, so there are more intranets that deckers need to physically access too.
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May 16, 2009 00:50
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Pope Guilty posted:Durkon did have his romantic subplot with that priestess of Loki back when they met the Linear Guild for the first time. Yeah, but that was a small diversion that only served as roleplay fodder. He's had nothing going on post Azure city. All the other characters are going to come back together as deeper individuals AND more powerful warriors. Elan got new spells, Haley got a +5 bow, Roy got special feats from beyond the grave, etc... And Durkon is my favorite 
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May 16, 2009 01:11
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Sick_Boy posted:As a WoD GM, I'll tell you that I'll let players run my NPCs with pages and pages of goddamn backstory over my dead body. The beauty of Rifts, if they mess it up, I can just kill 'em off and bring another version from another reality through a rift or whatever the heck I feel like. In fact, rifts in my games got the nickname ‘magic monster machines’. I may have abused the game mechanics slightly.
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May 16, 2009 01:52
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Geshtal posted:The beauty of Rifts, if they mess it up, I can just kill 'em off and bring another version from another reality through a rift or whatever the heck I feel like. In fact, rifts in my games got the nickname ‘magic monster machines’. I consider an alternate name to Rifts to be "Abuse the Game Mechanics: the RPG."
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May 16, 2009 04:22
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bison wings posted:Yeah, but that was a small diversion that only served as roleplay fodder. He's had nothing going on post Azure city. All the other characters are going to come back together as deeper individuals AND more powerful warriors. Elan got new spells, Haley got a +5 bow, Roy got special feats from beyond the grave, etc... Well, his backstory has pretty much been resolved. He gets to go home eventually, and he's happy about that. I guess something could get made up, but Durkon is happy and you should be too.
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May 16, 2009 07:44
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Lord Commissar posted:Well, D&D has really always been more about hack-and-slash than real roleplaying, anyway. So that's a fair criticism, but it's kind of inherent with D&D. I've personally never understood why 'hack and slash' and roleplaying had to be exclusive. Done right, they complement eachother. Just like hack-and-slash DMs make the mistake of never givng the players a chance to roleplay, roleplaying oriented DMs tend to lose sight of the fact that heated combat (or right before or after it) is THE BEST environment for meaningful roleplaying. Some DMs are so desperate to not run a hack-and-slash campaign that they center the adventure around something horribly banal and un-DND-like, such as the universally reviled investigative adventure. The important thing is to build the adventure around the characters instead of expecting them to 'fulfill their roles' in 'your story'. It's not 'your story', and although the rules give you the tools to steer it in your own direction, you really shouldn't. Personally, I think many DMs that complain that their players don't roleplay have themselves to blame more than anything, particularly the ones for whom 'roleplaying' means 'pre-ordained linear storyline'. I think that some good buildup and backstory, a tailored in-character motivation for each of the characters (giving each player one or two supporting characters that they don't have to 'share' with the party does wonders for this), and a short political/philosophical back and forth with the big-bad before the final encounter makes the combat a lot more rewarding. If OotS was an actual DnD campaign, I'd say it's a perfect example of 'doing it right'; if you'll notice, some of the best lines and speeches in the comics come when the sword and spells are flying. edit: As far as Durkon is concerned, it's been foreshadowed really heavily that he'll be the one to sacrifice himself to seal the final gate just like Kragor (the dwarf in the original party) did. In fact, the foreshadowing is SO heavy that I'm becoming more and more convinced that something completely different will happen.
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May 16, 2009 15:46
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You guys should play 7th Sea instead of D&D. It does the combination of roll- and role-play so much better. Plus I'm almost positive you can recreate the Dashing Swordsman in that system.
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May 16, 2009 19:24
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Brannock posted:You guys should play 7th Sea instead of D&D. It does the combination of roll- and role-play so much better.
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May 16, 2009 19:40
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Brannock posted:You guys should play 7th Sea instead of D&D. It does the combination of roll- and role-play so much better. I basically had a dashing swordsman when I played 7th Sea. Fun game.
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May 16, 2009 20:13
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XkyRauh posted:I played an older version of 7th Sea, based entirely off of plain old six-sided dice, and really enjoyed it--but when I went to look for a book of my own, I found that the more recent editions were d20, and I hesitated. Can you provide a little more info on the most recent edition, if you've played both? Don't let the presence of a d20 color you one way or another about a given system. The only die M&M uses is a d20 and it's pretty much the best P&P system there is!
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May 16, 2009 22:45
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I played 7th Sea for a bit. Ended up with a character that was one of the German-analogues with two of those badass arm-only armor things made out of dragonsteel or whatever it was called (it's been a while). It was pretty fun! [having looked at the player guide, I'm pretty sure I managed to convince the GM that it was okay for me to have two dracheneisen panzerhands (which cost 6 points and you can only get one) by taking full nobility (16 points) to take two of them and nothing else.] stringless fucked around with this message at 14:48 on May 17, 2009 |
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May 17, 2009 00:32
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seaborgium posted:He gets to go home eventually, and he's happy about that. I guess something could get made up, but Durkon is happy and you should be too. There's an important detail in the Origin of PCs that will come up if and when he does go home...
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May 17, 2009 01:02
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Ashenai posted:Didn't Xykon say he doesn't want to destroy the world? I don't think that would take very long.
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May 17, 2009 03:18
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Ashenai posted:I don't know how convincing the "arcane power isn't the solution to everything" lesson turned out to be, since the only thing that stopped V was... well, even more arcane power. Lord Commissar posted:Well, D&D has really always been more about hack-and-slash than real roleplaying, anyway. So that's a fair criticism, but it's kind of inherent with D&D. Sick_Boy posted:As a WoD GM, I'll tell you that I'll let players run my NPCs with pages and pages of goddamn backstory over my dead body.
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May 17, 2009 15:04
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happyelf posted:Pretty sure the unbeatable might of a GMPC doesn't count as arcane power. And this GMPC is disguised as a moral lesson soo Well, I happen to think that having certain well-developed NPCs actually adds to the roleplaying experience, as my players know that they can engage in conversation with characters and figure out their motivations, their preferences, their opinions; and it will be coherent, enabling them to feel empathy towards the NPCs. As far as storytelling goes, having real characters and not two-dimensional cut-outs is essential. As an example, many players felt like poo poo when a NPC committed suicide because they had talked to him a lot and then realized that the subtle signs were there all along. They felt guilty. They love some NPCs, they hate others... often regardless of their "utility". If I hadn't spent time figuring them out as true characters, that wouldn't have happened. But if you want to have such deep, rewarding NPCs as "Shopkeeper", "Blacksmith" and "Guy who gives us quests", it's your prerogative.
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May 17, 2009 15:23
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Sick_Boy posted:But if you want to have such deep, rewarding NPCs as "Shopkeeper", "Blacksmith" and "Guy who gives us quests", it's your prerogative. Once, in an effort to get my Chaotic Evil character to not rob a series of shopkeeps that were trying to gouge the gently caress out of us anyway, my GM made them all world-class swordsman 
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May 17, 2009 15:41
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Wolfsheim posted:Once, in an effort to get my Chaotic Evil character to not rob a series of shopkeeps that were trying to gouge the gently caress out of us anyway, my GM made them all world-class swordsman My first DM had a sort of unwritten rule: "Every shopkeep, bartender or NPC is a Level 20 Monk unless proved otherwise".
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May 17, 2009 15:56
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Man, I hate that poo poo. It just eliminates the distinction between a tabletop and a CRPG. Being able to think outside the box is what makes tabletop worthwhile.
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May 17, 2009 17:36
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Wolfsheim posted:Once, in an effort to get my Chaotic Evil character to not rob a series of shopkeeps that were trying to gouge the gently caress out of us anyway, my GM made them all world-class swordsman To some degree, D&D is a game of clichés. Some groups resist it and some groups embrace it, but it's part of the game. Old adventurers retiring and running a shop or tavern is one of the clichés of the genre; it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the reason none of the high level guys that were adventuring before your characters are out saving the world is because they retired, stepping aside for to allow the next generation to save the world and keep those fuckers from getting poo poo they didn't earn.
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May 17, 2009 17:44
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If I ever ran a campaign myself i'd probably build it up so that levels come from a combination of age, talent and experience in their given field. A grizzled old sargeant might be a level 8 warrior, while a young talented rookie might even be a level 4 fighter and the kingsguard the best of the best are all level 12-15 knights The old wise king will be a level 20 noble while his son the prince might just be a lowly level 2 bard. The 400 year old elf might be an epic level spellcaster while the even older elf is just a level 10 cleric because he hasn't got the same talent. Then you just have to sit by and watch the party break that system by gaining levels at a insane pace compared to the rest of the world.
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May 17, 2009 19:16
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happyelf posted:wow, you guys are bad at roleplaying and should not do it No I'm not, I just don't play D&D, because it's not really based on roleplaying. That's why you earn XP for killing poo poo instead of playing your character.
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May 17, 2009 19:27
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Lord Commissar posted:No I'm not, I just don't play D&D, because it's not really based on roleplaying. That's why you earn XP for killing poo poo instead of playing your character. I can't speak for editions before 2nd, but every edition I've played has granted XP for role playing. You can also get XP for peacefully avoiding battles rather than killing the monsters. However, since XP is used to advance your ability to kill things and use skills, I don't know why you'd care how you're getting XP, since the XP won't improve your ability to role play your character. I don't know that there is a system where XP (or whatever that system's XP equivilant is) can do that.
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May 17, 2009 20:50
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Sefer posted:I can't speak for editions before 2nd, but every edition I've played has granted XP for role playing. You can also get XP for peacefully avoiding battles rather than killing the monsters. However, since XP is used to advance your ability to kill things and use skills, I don't know why you'd care how you're getting XP, since the XP won't improve your ability to role play your character. I don't know that there is a system where XP (or whatever that system's XP equivilant is) can do that. I know I'm biased on this, but the oWOD system has a very heavy emphasis on roleplaying, since in most games non-combatant characters tend to make up a large chunk of the party. The character creation demands an elaboration on the character's personality and backstory that D&D tends to gloss over, and social / roleplaying-affecting powers and abilities are a large part of the possibilities for character "leveling". Vampire can be more combat-oriented, but both Demon and Changeling steer the game towards character-based storytelling, rather than "kill poo poo to level up to kill more powerful poo poo to level up to..." ad infinum. In fact, unless it is plot-significant or relevant to the character you don't get XP for killing. Demon has a nice example. With XP you can "buy" a pact with a mortal, which gives you daily faith -the source of your power. But you can't just spend the XP and go "Ding! I got a new pact!". You have to have established a relationship with the NPC, made him trust you (or fear you) in order to then try to make him go into a pact with you. If you manage to persuade him, you spend the XP and get the pact. It's all done through roleplaying, and players who fail to try to comprehend the motivations and desires of the NPC will not be able to forge a pact. This also illustrates the importance of well-crafted NPCs in your world, too. As a rule of thumb, I tend to distrust any game that devotes more pages in the handbook to combat than it does to character creation and setting.
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May 17, 2009 21:30
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