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Kai Tave posted:Man, Five Nights at Freddy's has to be like catnip to Gonterman. He seems to want to do it with the animatronics as protagonists, because of course he does. The Gonts introduces an example of his PBP posted:I hope to keep things to just under 3K words when I really get good and going. I start with some articles from the local paper, add a tie in with other stories in the Realms (In this case the Legends of Baldur's Gate comic book and my own Baldur's Gate character, and just for $#!%s and Giggles, Hatsune Miku in a midevial outfit. An excerpt posted:“Yeah, too bad I missed all the fun.” The blue twin-tailed girl smiled. But her voice, as youthful as it can be, carried a psionic tone to it, which showed the wisdom and intelligence of someone who lived millennia. You didn’t hear that tone, but you felt it in your head. Almost as if the girl could look at the Florence and Coran—or anyone she’d talk to—and know every little detail about them, even the parts they themselves forgotten.
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May 19, 2015 22:55
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The Real Foogla posted:Kid also assumes black dragons are not automatically evil. Night10194 posted:Man, who doesn't dream of having a kickass dragon buddy? And if the dragon's sentient, why wouldn't the spell or whatever find a dragon who actually wanted to hang around people and make friends and go on adventures? Bushmeister posted:That's not what the rules say, you goddamn magical tea partier paradoxGentleman posted:If they really do take turno GMing, we can only hope that the rest of the group realizes that punishing a 12 years old because he wanted a pet dragon is stupid and assholish and calls him out for it. Sage Genesis posted:Jesus H Christ... Lightning Lord posted:Some jerks of all ages and using all systems live in terrible fear of the special snowflake. They just want to make the dragon eat his character's face to teach him a lesson about knowing his place and making drat sure that his next character is "normal" that is, a Male Human Fighter. I can see an argument about making having a dragon be a goal instead of something you start with, it's a cool adventure hook after all but nope, just got to chop down that tall poppy. Here, let me twist the knife a bit more: The reason the guy asked for a dragon? Wasn't so he could have a cool pet. It was because the black dragon was the mechanically strongest choice, that he painted up as wanting a pet. He took advantage of the 12 year old little brother DM in order to squash the game. Their solution is to punish the 12 year old little brother DM to teach him to never give the players anything.
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May 20, 2015 03:10
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ProfessorCirno posted:Here, let me twist the knife a bit more: Wait, in what situation is a Black Dragon, one of the weaker and smaller Chromatics, the mechanically strongest choice?
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May 20, 2015 05:30
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quote:THAC0.
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May 20, 2015 05:43
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That's some fine, even somewhat self-aware grog, but I disagree with him on almost anyone learning about THAC0 after using ascending ac and preferring the former.
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May 20, 2015 07:56
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That's some good, fairly innovensive THAC0 grog. He's probably also conflating the "wonder of discovery" novelty of role-playing games in general with the novelty of their specific mechanics and trappings through the lens of nostalgia. I'm sure "reflex, fortitude, and will" (and "saving throws" in general) are nearly as arcane to the completely uninitiated.
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May 20, 2015 10:09
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Lightning Lord posted:There seems to be a 7E vs Older Editions slapfight brewing. quote:Some sort of bullshit "luck" resource. quote:That's what we needed, the Forgeite CoC7 to go along with D&D4 and WFRP3. quote:Go to Storygames.com and announce The Mountain Witch, Second Edition using Gurps 4th Edition mechanics. If that analogy doesn't help, don't have the time to explain it to you. quote:Because sales aren't the point, overwriting the older styles of play with the newer narrative styles is the point. quote:Hopefully Chaosium does the smart thing and not label this new thing as CoC 7e. Label it anything else and it'll be fine. Call it the Collect Call of Cthulhu, call it The Cthulhu Diaries, call it anything but CoC 7e. quote:Also, as OHT already pointed out, it takes a specially hilarious kind of Stupid, that Chaosium has been proven to have, to jump on the bandwagon of a movement years after it was proven a failure in really spectacular ways. What can we expect from them next? Cthulhu Dragon Dice? quote:Ditto. What they're actually doing with this seventh edition, regardless of its individual merits, or lack thereof, is destroying the legacy of one of the true Classic role playing games of our era, one of the few that survived unaltered for more than thirty years, which isn't a bug, but a feature. This is what should have happened to OAD&D. This is what should have happened to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and a few other games besides. quote:Nice job breaking it, Chaosium fuckwads. It wasn't broken. IT DID NOT NEED FIXING. quote:Well. Thanks for changing the game, assholes.
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May 20, 2015 14:22
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Lol, what are the source for these? Most people I know playing the game are already using a improvisation heavy storygames approach to it, since it is such a pain to run any other way (prep heavy/full of game stalling because of failed rolls/the party not knowing what to do).
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May 20, 2015 15:04
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I think unironically missing the resistance table is actually purer grog than unironically missing thac0 by like, a huge margin.
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May 20, 2015 15:18
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I don't understand why BRP is so beloved by its cult audience. (I mean, I know that's the nature of a cult audience, but...) I'm sure BRP was a breath of fresh air when it was a relatively simple, intuitive alternative to AD&D, which was a hash of various wargaming rules. But there are other systems that are even simpler and more intuitive; it's just one of several percentile systems out there. I have nothing bad to say about it, much as I have nothing bad to say about plain oatmeal and blank printer paper.Biomute posted:Lol, what are the source for these? Most people I know playing the game are already using a improvisation heavy storygames approach to it, since it is such a pain to run any other way (prep heavy/full of game stalling because of failed rolls/the party not knowing what to do). The "storygame" mechanics they're making GBS threads their pants over is...the ability to spend Luck to improve die rolls. The Luck stat has been a part of CoC for decades. Oh, and a "push" rule that lets you repeat a failed roll with a risk of critical failure, that prevents you from rolling the same test over and over until you succeed. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:38 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 15:33
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The ironic thing is that now your luck is a finite, depleting resource like sanity. Well, an ironic thing. The other one is getting mad about "story game" elements appearing in a game literally based on stories.
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May 20, 2015 16:05
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"The game has systems in place to avoid coming to a screeching halt due to a series of unfortunate dice rolls? STORYGAME"
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May 20, 2015 16:12
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't understand why BRP is so beloved by its cult audience. (I mean, I know that's the nature of a cult audience, but...) I'm sure BRP was a breath of fresh air when it was a relatively simple, intuitive alternative to AD&D, which was a hash of various wargaming rules. But there are other systems that are even simpler and more intuitive; it's just one of several percentile systems out there. I have nothing bad to say about it, much as I have nothing bad to say about plain oatmeal and blank printer paper. It's probably because it's practically synonymous with CoC at this point and there have been relatively few changes to it. I mean, people probably genuinely expected that 7e CoC would literally be a reprint of 6e with better art given the trend of changes made to it over the years. Given that it's got a groggy audience, I can't say that I'm surprised that they're complaining about big Quality of Life improvements that speed play. The Resistance Table is a godawful relic from the 80s and it's nice to know that players are no longer expected to carry around a massive inventory of flashlights, mirrors, and 10 foot poles. The move to "if it makes sense for the character to have it, roll Luck and you have it" is great, in my opinion. At which point, a more clever person might tell me to play Trail of Cthulhu. In which case, that's going to be one of my pick-ups at Gen Con this year.
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May 20, 2015 16:13
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Halloween Jack posted:I don't understand why BRP is so beloved by its cult audience. (I mean, I know that's the nature of a cult audience, but...) I'm sure BRP was a breath of fresh air when it was a relatively simple, intuitive alternative to AD&D, which was a hash of various wargaming rules. But there are other systems that are even simpler and more intuitive; it's just one of several percentile systems out there. I have nothing bad to say about it, much as I have nothing bad to say about plain oatmeal and blank printer paper. For most skills in CoC you don't get rerolls at all, that's more of a D&D thing. If you fail to spot the hidden clue, you fail forever. I guess they don't like that you now get a second chance?
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May 20, 2015 16:13
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Biomute posted:For most skills in CoC you don't get rerolls at all, that's more of a D&D thing. If you fail to spot the hidden clue, you fail forever. I guess they don't like that you now get a second chance? This might have something to do with the best-designed Call of Cthulhu-scenarios being designed such that you only roll against skills to determine whether you progress well or progress badly[1]. You always find the clues necessary to progress; the question is whether you find the clues that will make winning/surviving easy, or if you have to desperately stumble around in ignorance, trying to snatch [1] And sometimes die horribly, because a core component of CoC-as-played is to emphasize that characters can die, to make sure that nobody ever feels safe, as a component of horror.
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May 20, 2015 16:30
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LatwPIAT posted:[1] And sometimes die horribly, because a core component of CoC-as-played is to emphasize that characters can die, to make sure that nobody ever feels safe, as a component of horror. Oh, the old-school CoC campaigns were often built-up in a way where you were pretty much guaranteed to die. Masks of Nyarlathotep so much so that it recommends players create two or more characters each to have a supply "waiting in the wing".
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May 20, 2015 16:34
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LatwPIAT posted:This might have something to do with the best-designed Call of Cthulhu-scenarios being designed such that you only roll against skills to determine whether you progress well or progress badly[1]. You always find the clues necessary to progress; the question is whether you find the clues that will make winning/surviving easy, or if you have to desperately stumble around in ignorance, trying to snatch So... fail forward, then?
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May 20, 2015 16:54
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Lemniscate Blue posted:So... fail forward, then? I'm not entirely sure what Fail Forward entails, beyond the hilarious example of it summoning bears, but probably? I think it's less about failing forwards than it's about never failing stuck, though. To take an example from the last game I played in (a published Chaosium adventure), failing to translate the ancient documents basically meant that my character didn't learn the spell that would defeat the attacking horrors - instead we had to go at them with a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. If my character had succeeded, we'd have gone at them with a spell, a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. Failing didn't "progress" the game or bring it forward, it just didn't make it come to an abrupt halt.
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May 20, 2015 21:10
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm not entirely sure what Fail Forward entails, beyond the hilarious example of it summoning bears, but probably? I think it's less about failing forwards than it's about never failing stuck, though. To take an example from the last game I played in (a published Chaosium adventure), failing to translate the ancient documents basically meant that my character didn't learn the spell that would defeat the attacking horrors - instead we had to go at them with a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. If my character had succeeded, we'd have gone at them with a spell, a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. Failing didn't "progress" the game or bring it forward, it just didn't make it come to an abrupt halt.
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May 20, 2015 21:32
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LatwPIAT posted:I'm not entirely sure what Fail Forward entails, beyond the hilarious example of it summoning bears, but probably? I think it's less about failing forwards than it's about never failing stuck, though. To take an example from the last game I played in (a published Chaosium adventure), failing to translate the ancient documents basically meant that my character didn't learn the spell that would defeat the attacking horrors - instead we had to go at them with a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. If my character had succeeded, we'd have gone at them with a spell, a shotgun, a flare pistol, and sharpened sticks. Failing didn't "progress" the game or bring it forward, it just didn't make it come to an abrupt halt. You've essentially described failing forward. "Fail forward" doesn't, despite what some people think, mean "failure and success are the same thing, rolling dice is pointless because the player gets what they want anyway," nor does it mean "you fail and now BEARS APPEAR EVERYWHERE," it means that "when you fail, something still happens to move the game forward." Sometimes that can mean "you get something you wanted BUT with a catch/mounting problems/a sticky situation to deal with" but it doesn't inherently have to give you anything you wanted, just so long as failing your dice roll doesn't result in the game soft-locking because the GM gated necessarily plot keys behind random rolls and didn't count on players actually failing them.
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May 20, 2015 21:32
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The example I use to describe fail forward is the locked door in the dungeon: what happens when the rogue doesn't manage to break it open? Either the game is dead on its tracks until the dice roll right, or something interesting happens, like a trap triggering or some monsters hearing you. Or, in fairness, you take 20 by waiting a couple of minutes of in game time, but I'd argue that that is also pretty boring.
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May 20, 2015 21:44
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If the people decrying Fail Forward were arguing in good faith, one might say that the name of the principle is somewhat misleading: it's not so much fail forward as it is fail sideways or even still explicitly backwards, as long as the outcome isn't "nothing has changed" and is something that still gives the player something to react to or act on. You roll to break open the door and you roll badly. Instead of "the door is still there and nothing has happened", the GM instead says that the monsters on the other side have woken up and are about to open the door from their end. You still didn't get what you wanted, but now there is a call to action. You roll to find a clue (notwithstanding that perhaps you shouldn't do this) and you roll badly. Instead of "you find nothing", the GM instead says that it takes an inordinately long amount of time to find it (with has other rider effects on the plot) or you only catch enough of the clue to find the boss without knowing what his weakness is. You didn't get exactly what you wanted, but you still got enough to give you a direction to move towards next.
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May 20, 2015 21:46
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Kai Tave posted:You've essentially described failing forward. "Fail forward" doesn't, despite what some people think, mean "failure and success are the same thing, rolling dice is pointless because the player gets what they want anyway," nor does it mean "you fail and now BEARS APPEAR EVERYWHERE," it means that "when you fail, something still happens to move the game forward." Sometimes that can mean "you get something you wanted BUT with a catch/mounting problems/a sticky situation to deal with" but it doesn't inherently have to give you anything you wanted, just so long as failing your dice roll doesn't result in the game soft-locking because the GM gated necessarily plot keys behind random rolls and didn't count on players actually failing them. That's half-correct, "failing forwards" usually implies that interesting consequences for failure are built into the game mechanics. CoC rules does not have this. In this case the adventures provides an "interesting" consequence in that you now have to face the monster without the spell that will help you defeat it, but that is just the natural consequence of a failed roll, and in many cases this will not result in anything interesting, and may indeed stall progress completely. In this particular scenario, you apparently still stand a chance to defeat the monster, and the increased difficulty could be described as interesting, but in many (arguably poorly written) scenarios you would not be able to. The lack of a failing forward mechanic is one of the big problems with CoC, and one that GMs have gotten around in many different ways over the years. A common technique is to improvise when your players hit a snag, and present them with some other way to advance. Other systems have been created in an effort to solve this issue: Trail of Cthulhu no longer requires die rolls for clue-discovery skills, while Tremulus introduced a failing forward mechanic based on "moves" from Apocalypse World. thotsky fucked around with this message at 22:02 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 21:58
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My favorite example is always the pulp/noir genre. In a standard tabletop game, you go through an investigation. Oops, you failed your rolls, you find nothing. Now the players are twiddling their thumbs with no leads and nothing to do. Cool game. But in the actual genre, what should we expect to happen when the detective seems to lose all their leads? A bunch of big dudes who know you've been snooping around come by your place and beat ten kinds of living poo poo out of you. And as they walk away, you, bruised and bleeding, look down through your swollen eye, to see one has dropped a matchbox. That's fail forward. You fail, and take whatever in-game consequences would exist for failing, but the plot doesn't just stop. The bit about "consequences" is also important, because it ensures rolls matter. During the 5e previews, Mearls ran a game with other WotC staff to show off how cool it was. First thing they did was go through town to find plot hooks for an adventure. Everyone rolled, and nobody rolled well, so they all failed. The response? Mearls stared awkwardly at his notes for a bit, then just told them to roll again. Most people here immediately asked "Well what the gently caress is the point of the roll then?" In fail forward, not only would they not need to roll again, but that roll would've had actual consequences. Maybe they get clues but some of them are wrong, like they gear up to kill ogres and find zombies instead. Maybe the clue leads them into an ambush, so they have their plot hook, but first they have to fend off this attack. You get the general idea. The other thing to note is that, obviously, fail forward isn't needed everywhere. If you're in that case of "if we succeed we get this benefit, if we fail we have to continue without the benefit," then it's totally fine to have the failed roll be "nothing happens;" that's the consequence. Fail Forward is for situations where the action you're rolling is a part of the plot.
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May 20, 2015 22:01
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You know what happens to nosy Cirnos? They lose their Cirnoses.
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May 20, 2015 22:06
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quote:dude , i was rooting for you , up until you went and hosed IT UP by mentioning the shitstormCLUSTERFUQ that is VAMPIRE THE SHITQUEM . quote:you want to know why dnd 4 sucked ?? pick up LADY PENITENT ( it explains why all of the drow pantheon is gone).... but i warn you LISA SMEDMAN is a avid penis hater ( you see it in how she writes )
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May 21, 2015 06:24
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Dude writes like a 6 year old. Was the Megaversal system even decent by '80s standards?
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May 21, 2015 06:33
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quote:Rapier and hand crossbow can work just fine. Attack with the rapier, drop it (flavor it is either sticking it into the ground or tossing it into the air), attack with the hand crossbow and reload with your now free hand, pick up rapier (flavored as either grabbing the hilt again or catching it as it falls again). You get a d8 attack instead of a d6 on your first attack, and magical rapiers are probably more common than magical hand crossbows. quote:
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May 21, 2015 06:45
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What's really weird is that every Call of Cthulhu character since 1981 has had not one but three metasystem stats attached to themselves: Know, Luck, and Idea. Each is equal to a particular stat (INT, POW, or EDU) multiplied by five, so pretty much every character should have one or more at 60% or higher. Here is the actual text (from the v5.6 rulebook)quote:IDEA ROLL (INT X5) This is why I was so underwhelmed by Gumshoe/Trail of Cthulhu when it came out - it's big claim to fame was solving a problem (investigation scenarios screeching to a halt when nobody makes a particular skill roll) that Sandy had pretty much taken care of back in 1981 (albeit in a more systematic and elegant way).
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May 21, 2015 07:43
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GrizzlyCow posted:Dude writes like a 6 year old. I became a hypernerd around 1990, so maybe I don't really qualify, but even at the beginning of my descent into RPGs in middle school Palladium's stuff was noticeably more hodgepodge-y.
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May 21, 2015 08:06
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quote:If my players rocked up with those stats I would ask them the truth, and if they said they are not lying, if just roll with it. You can always adjust the encounters after a few sessions to give them something harder quote:The truth is that no matter what the players do, no matter how high the numbers are or how perfect the rolls are, the DM/GM has the ability to compensate for the numbers in order to make a fun adventure. quote:Let them go with that, then make them fight CR 30 monsters and keep your rolls secret. Hehehehehe quote:I had a player that claimed he had rolled strait 18's with 3d6. I just adjusted the encounters accordingly quote:You guys take having high stat rolls way too seriously. Just adjust the difficulty of encounters and keep on moving. quote:Also when you make the encounters more difficult, if they complain just state that the difficulty is to give them a challenge. If there is no challenge they might as well go play a mmo... We as DMs aren't computers and shouldn't be treated like a program for them to exploit. quote:When this happens make it a point that the NPCs also have crazy stats and max health...TPK ftw quote:Stats mean nothing because you can always adjust the encounter. You can also have him suffer ability drain and make it harder to recover it. quote:Or even better, create a book of learning that is cursed. Have them discover it and once read they suffer -2 across the board and not recoverable. Think of a curse from Munchkin. I don't know if you'll agree that this is grog, but the constant refrain of "well just make the fights harder" really didn't sit well with me and I couldn't put my finger on it. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 12:35 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 12:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know if you'll agree that this is grog, but the constant refrain of "well just make the fights harder" really didn't sit well with me and I couldn't put my finger on it. I guess it raises the question of why they use randomly rolled stats at all if they're going to adjust encounters so the same level of challenge is maintained. Isn't that a perennial anti-storygame argument - that the same story happens no matter what players do?
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May 21, 2015 12:52
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too bad for everyone else in the group also
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May 21, 2015 13:40
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Flavivirus posted:I guess it raises the question of why they use randomly rolled stats at all if they're going to adjust encounters so the same level of challenge is maintained. Isn't that a perennial anti-storygame argument - that the same story happens no matter what players do? because gygax (pbuh) randomly rolled his stats
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May 21, 2015 13:45
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I thought the simpler "adjust the fights accordingly" guys were actually coming within range of being reasonable. No fighting, no chicanery, no dumb rocks fall from the heavens retaliation. Just "This guy has all 18s so here's a few more monsters." It was the guys coming up with clever solutions that look like assholes. Just make 'em fight the Tarrasque right away, that'll teach them! Then give him ability drain because I guess we're playing 2e? Then give them a fake magic item, the Book of gently caress You, Darryl!
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May 21, 2015 14:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know if you'll agree that this is grog, but the constant refrain of "well just make the fights harder" really didn't sit well with me and I couldn't put my finger on it. There is something a little bit weird about their social dynamic. We're apparently talking about stats which are clearly cheated. But instead of just functioning like honest, mature people who talk these things over and just not cheat in general... they allow the stats and fudge the rest of the game to counter them. I guess two wrongs do make a right. And since the rest of the game gets warped to account for these cheated stats, gently caress you to the honest guys who rolled in the way they were supposed to. Their enemies now also get stronger even though they don't have the super-stats to deal with them, since they did the right thing like a bunch of dummies. Although the assholes who spring out cursed items and "gotcha!" tarrasques are even worse.
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May 21, 2015 14:53
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theironjef posted:I thought the simpler "adjust the fights accordingly" guys were actually coming within range of being reasonable. Yeah, but at that point why roll stats at all? Like, the whole point of rolling stats is that you might get lucky and be better at everything. Or you might roll really badly and have e: Wait, I missed the part where the guy cheated his stats. Why aren't they telling the cheater to gently caress off?
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May 21, 2015 14:55
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Yeah, I think it's just that the whole atmosphere of "okay, I clearly have an out-of-character issue that upsets me, but to avoid confrontation, I'll just be as adversarial as possible in my GMing style" is seriously passive-aggressive. If you distrust the people you're gaming with enough to go to elaborate ends to gently caress them over when you think they're cheating, why are you even playing with them?
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May 21, 2015 14:56
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gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know if you'll agree that this is grog, but the constant refrain of "well just make the fights harder" really didn't sit well with me and I couldn't put my finger on it. Adjusting the fights to balance out against the PCs abilities and provide a reasonable level of challenge = dumb storygame poo poo that breeds entitled baby players Adjusting the fights to PUNISH THE DIRTY ROTTEN CHEATER = good strong DMing
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May 21, 2015 15:02
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I'd like it to be compulsory for people giving online RPG advice to post the number of days it's been since the last time they GMmed/played a TTRPG with other people. I bet that the average for most grogs.txt-bait posts is somewhere in the mid five figures.
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May 21, 2015 15:29
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