tendrilsfor20 posted:

Personally I think it's best to let the players know which enemies are the minions. Yes, it lets the wizard know where to drop his AE spells, but why not? As far as I can tell the only benefit to hiding that information from the players, is to yell "Gotcha!" when they waste a daily or encounter power on a minion. If you are that type of DM, then go ahead and hide the minions. Personally I think it speeds up game play, and that the players have more fun when they get to make informed decisions rather than playing guessing games.

I'm all for rule transparency. Now there are always exceptions to a rule. Last game I ran I had some Lurkers dressd up as minions, I had marked the bottom of their token ahead of time and planned to flip them over when they launched their attack. The players revealed them ahead of time with some Bursts though, fuckers.

So it can be fun as an exception, to mix it up or for specific types of scenes, but in general I think even in character, the PC's should be able to figure the situation out just by the equipment the enemies wear, or their place in the encounter. The goblins in rags with lovely swords aren't going to put up much of a fight, but those big ones with shields and armor, and the sneaky ones hanging back with bows, or the one draped in bones ornaments, wiggling it's fingers, they're going to be a problem. It's pretty obvious who is filling which archetype in the scene.

I've played with DM's who have run it both ways, and either way is fine to be honest. I think it's more up to the flavor of the setting, and the mindset you want your players in than anything else. Personally I don't see the point in trying to hide all this poo poo from the players, it creates a less fun environment over all, if the players feel like you're always trying to trick them. More importantly it does speed up game play if the players can make informed decisions. My friend's already take way too long to decide what to do, if they had to try to figure out who the minions are by context clues, it would be loving ridiculous.

quote:

surprise sex leaves psychological damage. Trained professionals can fix that.
Murder leaves you dead. That's not up for grabs. Anyone that claims surprise sex is worse than murder doesn't understand the concept of psychiatry.

quote:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=409570

Good point. I've read most of the Gor books but its been years and my knowledge is rusty so bear with

if you used My Life with Master a women who loses (would be destroyed or whatever the conditions are in MLWM) accepts her slavery and maybe even dies willingly (Master may be cruel)

As they spiral down-- the farther dragged down they are the more the come to love Master -- kind of sick but it would work with the right players.

Mikan posted:

What makes it not feel like D&D to me is that it stopped trying to make sense. The designers stopped trying to maintain a self-consistent world. D&D did not succeed 100% at this (or even 50%), of course, but it always tried. Now, it doesn't even try.

It's no longer rules for another world. It's rules for a game. Instead of telling me how Iggwilv tricked Iuz or how Mordenkain built the Obsidian Citadel or how a curate can animate a skeleton to guard the abbey's crypts, the rules tell me how to push a target creature 3 squares on a battlemat.

Put another way (since we just had a philosophy/Objectivist thread...), the rules specifically tell me that there is no primacy of existence but a primacy of consciousness. That is, the reality of the game world bends depending on what the characters do. If they are in combat, the characters can teleport or blast things with lightning. Outside of combat, though they might need lightning to light a fire against a blizzard, and though they might need to teleport across the river to save their gods' idols, characters simply can't do it. What they are experiencing - combat vs. non-combat - dictates reality, rather than reality dictating what they are experiencing.

So. Yeah. It stopped feeling like D&D to me when it stopped being another world I could explore. It was never a perfect world, but it tried. Now, it's just a facade. Who wants to explore a facade?

Father Wendigo posted:

This has to be a troll, nobody in their right mind could beli-

Oh.

Mikan posted:

It's no longer rules for another world. It's rules for a game. Instead of telling me how Iggwilv tricked Iuz or how Mordenkain built the Obsidian Citadel

quote:

Alot of people can't pin down why it does not feel right, It just don't. Its like driving a car you know well and it just feels off. You have no ideal whats wrong with it but you know it does not feel right
4e broke with alot of the things that make D&D feel like D&D. Everyone has there own braking point as to what is to far, that line that when crossed is not the same any longer.
For many it's many things, breaking with established myth and setting is a big one, non vancian magic is another, death of anything but combat is a 3rd. Killing wizards and making every class have the same powers with diff names is a 4th.
I could go on and on and most 4e players will tell me I am wrong and just bashing, but truth is the souls is gone. Its a shell and just yet another fantasy system now, No more D&D then earthdawn is D&D.
D&D was not just a system, it was a feel and a rich history that is gone now.

quote:

Way to go man a personal attack on me for saying my opinion like the OP asked, way to go mighty Defender of the 4e god.

quote:

Really? I can use the Bard in my game without any other book then the core PHB ? I don't need the DDI and any other book then the PHB to play my Bard?

Adding stuff from other books does not help. The bard is not in the PHB so no Bards.

quote:

Humm I have just posted that once. But sorry so I have to buy more books to run say my FR game ...so no I can't run it with the core 3 books. I now need the 2nd set of core must have to play books to use it.
Having to have extra books just to run a basic game was another not d&d feel to me. Ya know All I have done is state my opinion in this thread like the OP has asked, and I keep getting bashed for it.
If you find 4E is the best damned D&D game ever good for you, make a thread saying that if yall want. The OP asked the people that felt it was no longer D&D why that was. telling us we are wrong changed nothing

quote:

So my basic game with a bard is doable with just the PHB?

quote:

Nah I got that statements after my first post, so I posted again like a big dummy, and again I got something said about it. So ya know what I did...Said something back...yeah I know that was smart. And I was a bit,well rear end in a top hat like in some of my reply and really should not have been But getting called a scrub kinda pissed me off a bit as ya know I never attacked anyone personally and that was uncalled for .

quote:

Dude the whole damned thread is a opinion, get over it. I use that because for me it is a fact, maybe not for you but, a whatever. I was asked I replied many people read it and was fine but no the crusader just had to point out how wrong someone was that simple.

quote:

Nah I don't get that prissy, I don't know I guess my wording is the issue for some folks go fig. I just thought that people would understand what I meant I mean how many of you say stuff like....Fact she sure is crazy, or some one will say something and you will say that's true. And most time ya know what. It's an opioin that's all.
I mean if I had said Fact is 4e is nothing but a wargame with pretense of being a RPG. well thats not a fact. so if I got called on it it was needed.
But saying something like fact is 4e has lost the soul of D&D . Well that's clearly an opinion Maybe it's not worded the way yall like it but shug it's clearly an opinion. I didn't even think on the wording when I wrote it. Thats just the way I talk.
I guess I just don't see why that one thing was such a big deal.

Father Wendigo posted:

This has to be a troll, nobody in their right mind could beli-

Oh.

Fenarisk posted:

MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD MY BARD

Just give a loving unoptimized half-elf rogue with a warlord multiclass a lute if you are too poor to spend $25 bucks with a coupon for the PHB2.

Fenarisk posted:

Just give a loving unoptimized half-elf rogue with a warlord multiclass a lute if you are too poor to spend $25 bucks with a coupon for the PHB2.

ManMythLegend posted:

Who are you kidding? That kid torrented that book as soon as it hit the street.

clockworkjoe posted:

Qetu, the Evil Doer
Servant of Set and Apep
Bane Mummy and Priestess of Typhoon

EVERY RPG.NET PROFILE posted:

I'm a Freelance Writer Looking for Work

quote:

Sleeper, that Otyugh PI is made of win.

I'm currently DMing a game that got otyugh-heavy for a while, and two facts about otyughs were decided by my players, seemingly by committee. I had no input.

1) Otyughs, due to their low Intelligence score, obsession with food and playful demeanor, talk like LOLcats.

2) Otyughs do not secrete waste like other animals--otherwise, sewers would just be full of otyugh leavings. Instead, their highly efficient metabolisms excrete nothing but a fine solid powder and pure oxygen. This explains why sewers are so liveable in D&D, rather than being full of asphyxiating toxic gasses.

Unfortunately, I hate the mechanical design of otyughs in 3rd Edition, my game of choice. They're big grapple monsters that are no stronger than a human, and they're woefully over-CRed.

quote:

The Othyug strike ? At first, no one cared. In the first part of it, they tried to stop eating dungs, but it didn't last for more than five minutes. Then the leader made his goons walk in the streets and throw craps everywhere, craps they almost immediately licked clean (actually making the street cleaner). They were doing it each day without any reaction by the Establishment until the Food Merchant Guild hired the PCs because, well, the food that was crapped then licked by the striking othyugs is arguably cleaner and healthier than it was (othyug saliva is actually some kind of organic bleach...), but it's hard to find a good marketing spin on "this apple was smeared with poo poo then a dung-eating aberration liked it", so they had to hire some dudes specialized in the treatment of funky fauna to resolve this problem.

Of course, the leader of the strike, a Neo-Othyug, is waiting eagerly for humanoid negotiators (the moment the group go down the sewers, two othyug with a panel where is crudely written "dis wai, plz" appears and escort the PCs) (and I like the concept of othyug speaking common in lolspeak) and quickly exposes its demands.

Fenarisk posted:

Seriouspost

What loving players talk about Otyugh waste habits and why sewers are not a proper realistic macrocosm?

All my players do is crack jokes and decide "That villain talks like Billy Mays" (when I say he has a grating, if not booming voice) if there's a much more light hearted night.

Fenarisk posted:

EVERY RPG.NET PROFILE posted:

I'm a Freelance Writer Looking for Work

Fenarisk posted:

LightWarden posted:

D&D is a class and role-based game, and it has always been a class and role-based game. I'm not sure how you can complain about it, other than the fact that the game is resisting attempts to make your character completely useless.

It's not as though he couldn't multiclass his character to get some sort of sorcerer with hand-to-hand abilities or vice versa.

I also love that none of his examples contain multi-classing that involves actual game mechanics. It's almost as though the game gives you a series of mechanics and doesn't really care about how you choose to use them.

Etherwind posted:

clockworkjoe posted:

yes because it's so much easier to get paid and published as a fiction writer.

The saddest thing is that the RPG writing pays better than small press fiction for the most part.

tendrilsfor20 posted:

Quoted me.

Joudas posted:

Post a reply in the thread man, what's with this pussy cop out poo poo?

Naar posted:

I'm very interested in the topic and personally have a view of the hobby as a shamanistic pursuit. That conception drives my GMing. That said, pardon me for being brief and in a bit of a hurry, but..

The act of gaming is infused with ritual. If we go looking, we might miss the things that are right in front of us. Specific phrases, etc. are all good to consider, but the very basics are already ritualistic. We have ritual objects. The dice resolve things for us and are invoked in a very ritualistic manner. We have sacred texts which outline how we conduct our ritual. We have holy days when we attend ritual (oddly, our gaming group has one solid gaming day and it has always been sunday). We have ritual roles. It's just there in a very strong sense.

Also, to theorize (and brazenly over-generalize), roleplaying is part of nerddom and often in being a part of that culture you reject certain normal rituals. You don't go to the football/icehockey/local sport games. You fail at the regular manhood rituals. Not a rare thing to hear in those kinds of circles. However, to affirm their identity and nature, to oneself and others, everyone needs rituals. There's lots in nerddom in general and as outlined, there's lots in role-playing. Just a thought - and I freely admit the over-generalization. There is overlap to role-playing and nerddom, but one is not the other, either.

More than that though I look at role-playing games as sort of modern mystery religions, vision-questing or even magick. We teach/learn/experience through ritual what is not immediately apparent to the uninitiated, but which requires (mutual and ritual) effort and imagination (intent) to contrive and reveal. What folks take out of the imagined lives of our characters (we are channeling archetypes here, right?), the symbols present in gaming, the divination tools that reveal the sacred lives of those characters (yeah, dice, dude), etc. varies from person to person and game to game, but it is clear that we get more out of it than simple on-the-spot enjoyment. We get a sense of community with our fellow gamers by spending time with them and engaging in ritualistic behaviour. By acting out stories, we get a sense of continuity and personal connection to our myths and history. We dip into insights into human nature and about ourselves. So, by exploring the Otherworld, we bring back the Elixir. We don't just imagine heroes, we become them.

Zarick posted:

it's because he is actually a grognard and is trying to make others look like him... the response i posted to his quote was something he said about how MAGIC MISSILE SHOULDN'T MISS IT'S TRADITION

ManMythLegend posted:

This is true, it's included primarily for the sake of tradition. It does depend on what your definition of "necessary" is, of course, and so I acknowledge that my argument is self-defeating because you can now reply "I feel the bard is necessary" and suddenly PHB2 is also core, but I trust you understood the point I was making with my original post?

EDIT: Allow me to express myself more clearly

Of course the bard is an official class. The PHB2 is not some obscure supplement like, say, Fair Folk was to 1st ed Exalted - it's a lot easier to show up with PHB2 and go "Can I play a barbarian?" than it was to show up with the FF book and ask "Can I play a Cataphractoi?" My point is merely a semantic quibbling, but it irks me that WotC is trying to re-define "core."

I get that GM's sometimes tell their players "only core book material when you make your new characters," and that they're trying to get around this with calling all the books except the setting specific ones core so players will know that it's ok to play a barbarian in a bog standard game of D&D, but when I, as a GM, said "only core book material," I never meant "because I think the others aren't D&D," but rather "because I haven't read all the obscure supplements that have been written and I can't be arsed to judge whether a given class is balanced and fits into my game right now, I'm in the middle of mid-terms."

So when WotC declares the PHB2 to be core, I don't care. I'm gonna say "core material only" and mean "PHB1 only" because I can't be buggered to read PHB2 and decide the merits of that book, and I don't want my players to show up with characters from some obscure supplement that I haven't got.

And this entire situation is hypothetical, because I will get PHB2 and I will allow the bard - but I'm still annoyed with what Wizards are doing to the word "core" because they're trying to get it to mean something it never used to mean.