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gradenko_2000 posted:Wow, thanks. That pretty much obliterates all my reservations about the system. I really will have to run it now! As an example, for my current Inverse World game (think floating islands and skyships), all I had planned was a statement and a few questions: You guys are falling. Voluntarily? What are you falling towards? What are you falling away from? What else is dangerous here? The answers I got were: Yes. Our skyship (one of the PCs is The Captain). An enemy ship, sent by The Mechanic's estranged skynazi artificer dad, because we stole their dragonite power core. Sky piranhas. That all kicked off an awesome session where we found out why they stole the other ship's core (their own was missing) and did a bunch of investigating to find the old core and the saboteur. And that was all in the same session where we made characters. As for fronts, I'm pulling them directly from that session. The skynazis are obvious, but we also ended up establishing that there was a group called the 8-Crog that had threatened the first mate's family to get him to steal the core in the first place. And I MAY have nudged that into being a group of privateers. So now we're basically playing a mashup of FFVI and One Piece (the Mechanic's dad is Kefka-Cid), mostly by accident.
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Sep 16, 2014 15:10
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MadScientistWorking posted:So tell me how Every Which Way but Loose fits into the equation. He's a illegal fighter traveling around bars and construction sites with a wild animal, while being chased by a neo-nazi biker gang who at one point try and attack his aging mother. How is that not a frayed society?
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Sep 16, 2014 15:14
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Arivia posted:Kim Mohan? Or is there someone I'm not thinking of? Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer, and James Ward founded their own OSR publishing company, which must be kind of like running for mayor after being governor.
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Sep 16, 2014 15:17
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Oh good lord.quote:GET READY TO BLOW THE ROOF OFF YOUR GAME quote:The Delve feature that lets you map as you go (on graph paper with a pencil, the way Gary intended) generating corridor, room and chamber descriptions complete with contents and monsters as you play. Solo/semi-solo dungeon crawling made possible, no GM necessary!
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Sep 16, 2014 15:22
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Grey Hunter posted:He's a illegal fighter traveling around bars and construction sites with a wild animal, while being chased by a neo-nazi biker gang who at one point try and attack his aging mother.  That reminds me of the one time I DM'd where I exhibited Dan Rykert levels of egg mastery. Player: What is on the menu? Me: Sauteed eggs. Player: 
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Sep 16, 2014 15:29
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Even if you don't feel like formally using Fronts, the concept is still good. There's likely to be multiple Bad Things around, and whichever one(s) are not dealt with by the PCs is going to become Worse in the next session.
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Sep 16, 2014 15:44
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Higher-level 3.x wasn't designed. Playtesting stopped at level 10.
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Sep 16, 2014 16:32
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Froghammer posted:Oh, high levels were playtested quite a bit. But only about 2/3rds of the way into the development process. Once they found out the wheels fell off the wagon around level 10, they realized that changing it would involve re-thinking the way the entire system worked so they just said "gently caress it" and charged forward. That really says more than I'd like about the state of game design even now.
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Sep 16, 2014 16:34
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Well, how do you even playtest something like D&D properly? When a game is designed to take years to play out its power scale, can you really have multiple groups running a game for 3 years to properly playtest all 20 levels? It's not really feasible. Not that the 20-level structure even matters so much; the amount of groups that actually last past level 13-15 is vanishingly small on my experience, unless you're operating on an accelerated XP reward structure.
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Sep 16, 2014 16:48
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No reason you can't start groups at higher levels to playtest them, rather than running all the way from level 1.
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Sep 16, 2014 16:55
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Esser-Z posted:No reason you can't start groups at higher levels to playtest them, rather than running all the way from level 1. This has the added advantage of testing the "starting at levels higher than 1" rules and why do we even need to tell people how to test D&D at higher levels, it's not like there's anything stopping you from writing down some bigger numbers on a piece of paper.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:05
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The card game that people from my class are developing and i was playtesting will get into collective funding soon  
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Sep 16, 2014 17:11
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You can to an extent, but doing might not provide a perfectly accurate picture. Testers may lack the system mastery you'd hone after going through fifteen game levels, you may have an unrealistic expectation of treasure levels or other rewards, etc. You can certainly do spot playtesting like that, but it's not a "scientific" test of the system.Lemon Curdistan posted:This has the added advantage of testing the "starting at levels higher than 1" rules and why do we even need to tell people how to test D&D at higher levels, it's not like there's anything stopping you from writing down some bigger numbers on a piece of paper. At the same time most level systems are a pain to develop high-level characters from scratch. Most level-based systems use the levels to gradually introduce more complexity, so expecting them to operate well in that capacity is a little unrealistic in my opinion. I'm not saying it's not a useful thing to test out, but it's not going to be intended play, nor should it necessarily be.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:18
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Froghammer posted:Oh, high levels were playtested quite a bit. But only about 2/3rds of the way into the development process. Once they found out the wheels fell off the wagon around level 10, they realized that changing it would involve re-thinking the way the entire system worked so they just said "gently caress it" and charged forward. Gngk. The wheels fell off the wagon after level 10 because they changed the way the game works at level 10. That the wheels actually fall off after level 6 is a whole different issue.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:33
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Lemon Curdistan posted:4E also assumes magic items, but actually provides rules for not using them (inherent bonuses), and assumes that everyone is using them/using inherent bonuses instead of gimping non-casters. While I love 4E and appreciate inherent bonuses, they're a really kludgy solution to a poor initial decision to bake +X items into the core math. And inherent bonuses don't make up for the daily powers, crit bonuses and other side benefits of magic items.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:52
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PeterWeller posted:While I love 4E and appreciate inherent bonuses, they're a really kludgy solution to a poor initial decision to bake +X items into the core math. And inherent bonuses don't make up for the daily powers, crit bonuses and other side benefits of magic items. Inherent bonus rules do actually use the (default) crit bonus rules, which is 1d6 per +. They act in pretty much all ways as a Magic Weapon of +Something. And I dunno, if you're going to have +X items at all then it seems like not baking them into the math would be the worse idea, because that means later on characters are getting that free +5 to hit that the system math doesn't account for. The better solution is not to have +X items at all but then it's not ~D&D~.
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Sep 16, 2014 17:56
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Really, doesn't every version of D&D have the wheels come off at some point? It's just a question of when it happens and how disastrous it is.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:01
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RPZip posted:Inherent bonus rules do actually use the (default) crit bonus rules, which is 1d6 per +. They act in pretty much all ways as a Magic Weapon of +Something. And I dunno, if you're going to have +X items at all then it seems like not baking them into the math would be the worse idea, because that means later on characters are getting that free +5 to hit that the system math doesn't account for. Yeah, they get the D6 like a generic +X magic weapon, but in a campaign using actual magic items, most magic weapons won't be generic ones. They'll be flaming or vicious or ruthless or w/e and get bigger crit dice. And see, I disagree with the idea that if you want +X items, you should bake them into the math. That bonus +X should be an actual bonus, not some step on the treadmill. I don't care if the players get ahead of the curve, especially in a system with math as transparent as 4E's.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:08
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PeterWeller posted:Yeah, they get the D6 like a generic +X magic weapon, but in a campaign using actual magic items, most magic weapons won't be generic ones. They'll be flaming or vicious or ruthless or w/e and get bigger crit dice. I think you can have +X items without baking them into the math (too much), but they need to progress more slowly. Like +1 in heroic, +2 in paragon, +3 in epic, rather than going all the way up to +6. A +6 swing on a D20 is enormous, a +3 isn't nearly as big of a deal in terms of making enemies "only miss on a 1"-able. e: Which is a problem D&D has had in the past, even for 4e, where you just plain stop missing. I'm okay with having a pretty small miss chance (like, roll 3-4 or higher on the d20) but the system doesn't do too great with autohit stuff.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:12
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PeterWeller posted:And see, I disagree with the idea that if you want +X items, you should bake them into the math. That bonus +X should be an actual bonus, not some step on the treadmill. I don't care if the players get ahead of the curve, especially in a system with math as transparent as 4E's. No matter how you present it, any D&D-alike where you include +X to-hit weapons is going to result in players treating those things as a requirement, not a cherry on top. +X to-hit is the fundamental currency of a d20 combat system where people have to actually engage with defenses and hitpoints and not just solve the whole fight with a spell, so whether or not you put a big flashing neon sign up going THESE ARE TOTALLY NOT A REQUIREMENT MERELY AN OPTION players are largely still going to treat them as necessary and zero in on them, which means that your basic mathematical assumptions are going to be off. Either: A). work the inclusion of +X weapons into the math, or B). don't include +X weapons at all.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:20
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Really, doesn't every version of D&D have the wheels come off at some point? It's just a question of when it happens and how disastrous it is. Pretty much. It's the problem with the large level spreads (remember, Basic went up to level 36) and the fact that everything needs to scale without consideration about what the scaling means or how it affects the general math. Which is the reason I like DW's and 13th Age's solutions to the problems. In 13A, you cap at level 10, and in DW they don't scale numbers up, instead granting new abilities as you level.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Really, doesn't every version of D&D have the wheels come off at some point? It's just a question of when it happens and how disastrous it is. DND capping out at some really low level like 10 or 12 relative to CRPGs was something that also threw me for a loop the first time I saw it, but I'm beginning to understand why now.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:47
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Are there any online 'collaborative' text editors like Google Docs that can handle very large documents without slowing to a crawl? I've been doing a writeup of a very, very long campaign on Google Docs that has just broken the 300 page mark, and it's almost unusable at this point. I have to do the actual writing on a separate document and paste completed chapters into the main document to avoid having about a full second of lag per keystroke. I could simplify things by using an offline editor, but I have a small audience that's reading the updates as they come out, and distribution would be a hassle if it weren't cloud-based.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:48
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Kestral posted:Are there any online 'collaborative' text editors like Google Docs that can handle very large documents without slowing to a crawl? I've been doing a writeup of a very, very long campaign on Google Docs that has just broken the 300 page mark, and it's almost unusable at this point. I have to do the actual writing on a separate document and paste completed chapters into the main document to avoid having about a full second of lag per keystroke. I don't know of one myself, but as a stop gap solution, you could break it up into multiple docs, with a table of contents/update document, letting people know when and where you've posted new stuff.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:52
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PeterWeller posted:While I love 4E and appreciate inherent bonuses, they're a really kludgy solution to a poor initial decision to bake +X items into the core math. And inherent bonuses don't make up for the daily powers, crit bonuses and other side benefits of magic items. They are kludgy but they literally do make up for the part of magic weapons which is baked into the system maths, which is to-hit bonuses. Daily powers, crit bonuses and other side benefits are not actually baked into the maths!
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Sep 16, 2014 18:52
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Meinberg posted:I don't know of one myself, but as a stop gap solution, you could break it up into multiple docs, with a table of contents/update document, letting people know when and where you've posted new stuff.
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Sep 16, 2014 18:53
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Death to +1 weapons. They are unforgivably boring.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:07
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Earthdawn's 'thread' items remain my favourite implementation of magic gear, followed closely by the Heirloom Weapons rules from 3.5. That isn't just a vial of healing potion-- it's an enchanted vial that refills itself with a healing draught every night, and with more strands drawn between your soul and its enchantments, its contents will become more potent and usable more often. That rusty sword you found with only a glimmer of magical power? It bloodied a Horror. If you pursue its Legend and quest to revive its potential, it could do so again. Or get a certain number of pluses or XP to spend upgrading equipment every X levels, so you don't end up with a steadily growing pile of outdated gear, or increasingly pointed questions about the number of wizards with artificing feats in the campaign.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:20
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Kai Tave posted:No matter how you present it, any D&D-alike where you include +X to-hit weapons is going to result in players treating those things as a requirement, not a cherry on top. +X to-hit is the fundamental currency of a d20 combat system where people have to actually engage with defenses and hitpoints and not just solve the whole fight with a spell, so whether or not you put a big flashing neon sign up going THESE ARE TOTALLY NOT A REQUIREMENT MERELY AN OPTION players are largely still going to treat them as necessary and zero in on them, which means that your basic mathematical assumptions are going to be off. No. By baking them into the math you take them from being a cool thing players want to a boring thing players need. Your solution to players treating them as a necessity is to make them so, removing any illusion of being special and the whole point of having bonuses in the first place. You just need to look to AD&D to see how they don't need to be part of the math curve. They're required for other reasons, of course, but a high level fighter will be hitting on 1s already. E: RPZip, I agree that the range would need to be smaller. LC, you're right, but my point was they miss out on the few cool things magic items bring along. PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Sep 16, 2014 |
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Sep 16, 2014 19:35
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Meinberg posted:I don't know of one myself, but as a stop gap solution, you could break it up into multiple docs, with a table of contents/update document, letting people know when and where you've posted new stuff. Yeah, the solution is actually "Manage documents like a pro," which means doing the above. Also, for campaign design ask yourself if a wiki wouldn't be more appropriate.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:36
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Sorry, man, but "this sword gives you +1 to hit things" was never cool. It will never be cool. It's just a number. They weren't cool in AD&D. E: Flat numeric bonuses will always be less cool than "this sword does a thing" or even "this sword gets a conditional numeric bonus under these conditions" - doing things and conditionals at least try to give some sense of history to the weapon - it exists for a purpose, it has a story.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:36
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The concept I'm working with in the 13th Age game I'm running (which has not yet been tested) is that players magical items are empowered because they belong to those people, they have no innate power. Any sword used by Annegret the Iron Lady is preternaturally sharp and thirsts for the heads of the Fey, but if you were to ask a random person in the world they would say that the sword itself has power. Because she once wielded a blade of Cold Iron, all swords she wields bite the flesh of the fey folk as though they were cold iron. Sir Gerard leaves behind burned corpses of the wild-men because the people believe he has a soulbound, flaming warrior queen effigy instead of a simple wooden puppet. Basically, the characters design their magic weapon, and any weapon acts as that weapon, because it belongs to them. Is this just me being overly focused on semantics, or is there a thread of something there?
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Sep 16, 2014 19:38
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Mors Rattus posted:Sorry, man, but "this sword gives you +1 to hit things" was never cool. It will never be cool. It's just a number. They weren't cool in AD&D. Oh, I agree that they are way boring compared to special properties and wondrous items and the like, but "this sword makes you better at killing" is always cool even if expressed with a boring numeric bonus.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:39
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A) +1 swords are the worst, and they're here to stay because it's ~*~traditional~*~ B) The thing with high level play in 3e - the thing with lots of problems in 3e - is that literally you do not have to playtest it to see it, you just have to actually examine the math with any sort of rigor at all. The problem isn't poor playtesting. The problem is desperately trying to think the game where all the mechanics come down to you doing equations doesn't have to involve math.
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Sep 16, 2014 19:53
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PeterWeller posted:No. By baking them into the math you take them from being a cool thing players want to a boring thing players need. The real solution is to play games that are fundamentally not about killing things as dead as possible. 
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Sep 16, 2014 20:07
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I'm interested in reading what the issues with D&D Next are (mechanically, that is), but I've tried looking through the Next thread and haven't found, like...a compiled list, I guess? Has something like that been put together?
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Sep 16, 2014 20:11
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Spincut posted:I'm interested in reading what the issues with D&D Next are (mechanically, that is), but I've tried looking through the Next thread and haven't found, like...a compiled list, I guess? Has something like that been put together?
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Sep 16, 2014 20:15
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Evil Mastermind posted:
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Sep 16, 2014 20:16
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WordMercenary posted:Death to +1 weapons. They are unforgivably boring. Bieeardo posted:so you don't end up with a steadily growing pile of outdated gear, or increasingly pointed questions about the number of wizards with artificing feats in the campaign. Any more, for tabletop gaming, I generally prefer systems that sidestep the whole 'gear' morass. Equipment is fun in something like WoW or Diablo or Borderlands where somebody else gets to handle the constant churn of new items but for roleplaying? I'd rather pay attention to the characters and not what color their sword is.
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Sep 16, 2014 20:23
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Forums Terrorist posted:I had a thought; how does So77 deal with the LGBT stuff happening around then? Since gender, race and sexuality have no bearing on your ability to shoot Illinois Nazi's in the face we do our best to leave them out of the rules. I think the one exception being a sidebar where we point out that just because the role is called "Good Old Boy" doesn't mean you can't be a "Good Old Girl". It's really important to me that the game is inclusive, the source material we're drawing on was in it's own weird way very inclusive, the seventies were the first time (in America at least) that a lot of disenfranchised groups were getting represented in any meaningful way in the media especially film and music. I want people to play Androgynous Rock Gods, Rogue Police Women, Kung-Fu Child Prodigies and anything else they can think up. I've tried to represent this in the in-game examples throughout the book, the characters in the examples are very diverse and many of them break gender stereotypes, but also I leave a lot of them as blank slates in a way so that readers can imagine them however they want. Also, bigotry is a trait of The Man and other villains. Heroes don't got time for that poo poo, they're too busy kickin' rear end.
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Sep 16, 2014 20:25
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