The Speaker in Dreams posted:

Open vs. Codified really is at the heart of "old school" vs. "new school" designs.

Quick sample of this would be describing a rule. In old school, while grids are supported, they are not required. Gm's can just say, "there's a room you walk into - about the size of a car garage with a big well in the center and three more doors across from the one you entered." Add lighting details, etc. It's "just a room" you walked into.

In the new school, the designers went above and beyond the call to imagine each and every possible interaction a player can have with said rule, abstracted them out and divorced them from the scene/setting, and codified the hell out of it in rule format on some page, some chapter, some paragraph and some specific line somewhere. They attempt to remove ANY potential judgement calls and instead hard-code all things possible.

Maybe a more direct example would be a cup?

Old School: Here is a cup. {let's players and GM's decide other factors about this cup as imagined and/or required}

New School: There is a cup. It is precisely 10 cm high and has a circumference of 5 cm. It is perfect procelin material and encrusted with gems of approximately 2 cm in diameter. The cup is held at exactly 3 m from the ground by table, which has the dimensions of ... etc.

The Horned Lord posted:

Every system is 'incomplete' in the sense that the GM must provide the content.

In the field of artificial intelligence there are two major approaches - one where you tell the agent (the AI) exactly what to do in every given situation (that is, give it a set program), and one in which you tell the AI how to learn what must be done under different scenarios, but do not tell it exactly what should be done under each one. The latter approach is especially useful when the programmer does not knows what the AI should be doing in every case because the various scenarios are too numerous or when the programmer simply does not knows what the agent might run into.

As the field progressed the second approach won out. It has been discovered that it is simply not practical to write pre-programmed agents for extremely open-ended tasks - and what's more, that in cases where it IS possible to enumerate all options well-written learning agents outperformed human-coded ones nearly every time after a sufficient amount of material was presented for them to study.

I tend to view the difference between oldschool games and modern games as the difference between learning agents and preprogrammed agents. In the modern school of thought the GM is there to implement the rule book - that is, follow it step by step, like a computer follows a program. The old school approach gave the GM a set of tools and a set of guidelines, but left it up to the GM to decide on the best implementation for each specific scenario - the GM is a learning agent, operating on a set of rules that serve as the foundation for those that will be built on top of them later on.

What's more, the GM has an additional advantage most agents do not - the GM is responsible for creating a large portion of the environment - the content - that he or she will be working on. At this point it seems, at least to me, somewhat absurd to think that a pre-programmed set of rules can possibly address the issue better than the person that created the content and is capable of learning.

I believe the role of a tabletop game designer is to provide a toolkit and teach, rather than build.

Dunnagin posted:

The gist was:
Old School "open" games allow for a wider breadth of visions... not one "old school" vision, but a "play how you prefer" idea.

New School, as you stated, focuses on the Designers Vision.
I've never asked a designer to tell me specifically how to play... so why should I adopt their "house rules". Especially if they are overly complex.

I do not see "handcuffs" or "cages" created by some other persons vision as "advancement" in design.
I see it as limiting the design to one view... when it was proven long ago that it doesn't need to be limited.

If you enjoy "play it how I tell you" games, great.
I like to have the freedom to customize my game and make calls on the fly.

Dunnagin posted:

If a company takes a hammer, divides it into parts, and adds a bunch of unnecessary do dads, then two things come to mind:
1. They did this so they could sell you more parts
2. This "piecemeal" hammer is NOT more advanced

The original hammer worked
Sure, you could smooth some edges... but it did the job
The problem is... companies need to sell you the "Hammer 2.0" and, after a period, "Hammer 3.0", to stay in business.

Dunnagin posted:

The stone hammer was invented around 2,600,000 BC according to archeologists.
It hasn't required a change, improvement or update for a looong time.
It works now like it always did.

Hammers specific to carpentry have perhaps been overtaken by nail guns... but it took a while huh?

So the Role Playing Game was invented almost 40 years ago... what makes people so confident that this "hammer" of fun has been outstripped so quickly by the genius new designers of today?

I do know that new designs of many games are literally designed to support marketing and sales strategies.

Is that an advance?
or designer vision?

Dunnagin posted:

As stated earlier, I am just a bit weary of hearing terminology used which hints at condescension.

While people walk around with their multi part complex hammers with built in ipods and swappable hammer powers and feats... they look down at me and say "Oh look, his hammer is incomplete... or he hasn't realized the advancements of our new technology"

Meanwhile... I'm on my knees just pounding nails with my old school hammer, building stuff to my hearts content.

xechnao2 posted:

Flavor: Fantasy adventuring. A sword and a bow are valid weapons to use, if you are skillful enough against magic critters. So you have swords, thieves that know how to hide in the shadows, magicians, strong and intelligent monsters.

Rules: Rules support team adventuring and dungeoneering through various "simulationist" (and non narrative/storytelling player mechanics) for the sake of player immersion to a commonly shared fantasy world that a DM presents to the players. It is also imperative that rules support player teams by the assignment of different but balanced adventuring roles to the various players.

So D&D is: an immersion to adventuring by playing a team of balanced adventuring roles in the same fantasy world, presented by the DM.

I do not care so much about the way the mechanics achieve their purpose as long as they do. The most important thing is the focus to immersion regarding fantasy adventuring.

LightWarden posted:

Anyways, I'm still trying to figure out how people think that 3e is part of the same unified progression of mechanics as 1e and 2e, but 4e isn't. I'm pretty sure it's an "age of edition" thing. I'm partly tempted just to do a mechanical walkthrough of the four editions to prove this point, but I have no idea as to where I'd put it.

Alias posted:

I don't know about other GM's, but I spent the better part of 15 years explaining the quirks of 2e and later 3e's rules in story terms. Things like the schools or magic, levels of spells, and character classes where incorporated and tightly integrated into how the world and its story worked. 4e did not respect any of this work. It's designers intentionally killed every sacred cow they could. That's fine if you are starting from scratch, but it's a mountain of work for little to no gain if you're not.

I've never considered myself a grognard or inflexible, but 4e just was terrible in its lack of respect for its heritage. I get the impression that the designers wanted to insure that everything possible from all previous versions of D&D would be incompatible with it.

I mean, I was willing to work in the Player's Option rules in 2e for crying out loud. As radical as those were, they still linked back to the heritage of the game. 4e doesn't - it actively rejects the conceits of all prior editions of D&D. Despite this I still tried it for 6 game sessions. My players and I absolutely loathed it. We went back to 3.5e and later Pathfinder and haven't looked back, although most of our gaming now occurs with a different system entirely - Savage Worlds.

That honestly is the blackest mark against 4e. My group (and I'm sure many others) found it easier just to jump the d20 ship entirely than try to move over to 4e.

Alias posted:

No, I'm not having this argument again. Take a simple head count of things tossed against things retained if you want. The facts are self evident. If you deny them, I can't help you. It would be easier to explain the concept of color to a blind man except that it would be far more frustrating - for where a blind man cannot see - this would be an argument with one who will not see.

Play 4e if you want. I don't care. It doesn't work for me or my group and never will.

Alias posted:

They either did it intentionally, out of malice; or unintentionally, out of incompetence. Either way, WotC doesn't come out smelling like roses.

I'm inclined to believe it was malice. The number of changes have only one goal I can discern - to force complete incompatibility with all 3.5 material to in turn increase book sales as much as possible, and to prevent the OGL license from being applied to 4e in any way. Having met many of the people involved I refuse to believe they are that incompetent.

GnomeFighter posted:

Balance issues? This is a pen and paper rpg... There are no balance issues. There may be some classes that are better at some things, or feats that are better than others, but talking about balance problems rather misses the point.

GnomeFighter posted:

That it's an pen and paper RPG played for fun, not an FPS. Sorry, but I am just getting iritated with this "OMG I must win the dungeon" attitude. Yes, monks suck (at low levels) in 3.5 and wizards are powerfull, but a bad attitude seems to be seeping accross from computer gameing. Rather than accepting this as part of the game and enjoying it people are getting upset because one class is doing more damage than another.

KillerAngel posted:

It not "i must win the dungeon". It's "I must have fun".
If some class is so poorly designed that it's boring to play, while other classes are funny 'cause got options you can choose from, then it's a problem of design. You can like a concept, only to discover that the rules and the game mechanics don't support it... suddenly, you have no more fun playing your loved character, and that can be frustrating.
GURPS is a pen and paper RPG, and the balance problems are pratically unknown.

MrEdwardNigma posted:

The game would take place in a no-magic setting and the player characters would be lowly footsoldiers in the army that besieges a great city. This would be the kind of game where you have more chance of dying of the infections a swordcut causes than the actual swordcut. Poor hygiene, diseases, lack of nourishment and such would plague the party.

I would like to go for a realistic medieval siege as much as I can, and thus I need some advice on game elements I migth want to introduce.

The system would be mostly homebrew, based off of GURPS. One of the major things I'd like to change is the way weapons and experience are handled.

I want players to be able to get very small amounts of experience out of everything they do. Every time they for instance try to mend a wound, i want them to gain a very small amount of experience in it, instead of levelling up every so often and gaining a large amount of experience in certain things.

Say a player fights ten times, has three conversations where he needs to lie, mends two wounds and climbs once until he would normally level up (purely theoretical figures), at which point he could for instance use the credit from levelling up to be a somewhat better fighter. Instead I would like him to gain very slight amounts of experience in everything he did, so that to get better at something he'd simply have to do it a lot. This should promote organic growth of characters.

As for weapons, I'd like to introduce a series of stats which get better every time a player uses a weapon. Take a player using a shovel as an improvised weapon as an example. Experience would be gained in the following way:

Every time he uses the shovel for any purpose he should get a small amount of STRENGHT and/or DEXTERITY. Dig trenches all day and you are bound to get stronger.
Every time he fights with the shovel, he would get generally better at FIGHTING. This stat would apply even if he would fight barehanded or such.
Every time he fights with the shovel, he would get better at using SIMILAR WEAPONS. Fight enough with a shovel, and I'm sure you'd learn some tricks that would apply to fighting with an axe as well.
Every time he fights with a shovel, I want him to be able to gain PROFICIENCY with this specific type of weapon. Should he find another shovel to fight with, certainly he'd be better at it relatively than a weapon he's had no training with.
Each time he fights with the shovel, he should get SPECIFIC PROFICIENCY. Every shovel is slightly different, has a slightly different weight balance, and thus unless some other shovel has specific advantages over this one, he would be best of using a weapon he's used to.
Should the player use the weapon for something else, for instance digging, he should get GENERAL PROFICIENCY with the weapon. He wouldn't learn as much about fighting with the shovel as he would when he was actually using it as a weapon, but surely some skill with the implement must be gained when using it? The inverse would of course also apply, by fighting with the weapon he would get ever so slightly better at digging with it.


Of course, this seems terribly complicated. In a way I guess it is, but it's nothing the players would have to be concerned with. If I would use, for example, a d1000 to determine chance to hit and weapon damage. Then I could use very small modifiers: when the PC would use an axe in a third fight, he would get +2 for fighting, +2 for being used to this category of weapons, +5 for strength because of all the digging he's done, +3 to dexterity for some dodging he's been doing, but none of the bonuses he would have gotten if he had been using his same old shovel. On the other hand of course, the axe would have better INTRINSICAL VALUES than the shovel ever would, being more useful as a weapon.

It would mean a lot of math for me, but in a play-by-post there is easily enough time for it, and I could keep the data in an excel file.

I would like comments on this system, as well as advice on other ways to use it (outside of combat for instance) and ways to expand or simplify it.

Other than that, I'd like my players to be able to factor stuff like difficult terrain, having the high ground, fighting in tight quarters, etcetera, etcetera in their tactics. I would also like to focus on elements of warfare that are often forgotten. Any ideas in that area are also very welcome.

Trog posted:

My idea for 5th Edition D&D is this:

No 5e. Don't make it.

Instead, WotC should continue to publish 4e.

...

And restart 3.5 publishing.

...

And 2nd Ed.

...

And AD&D.

Publish for ALL the pre-existing systems that already have rabid, devoted fan bases and players who LOVE the system. AS IS. Who would love for more published materials for these systems. More adventures, more spells, more random encounter tables, more magic items, more classes, more monsters, more setting sourcebooks in their favorite system.

It's a goldmine of stuff they ALREADY have. Stuff that each one of us... even if we moved on to the next system... the next change in the setting... the next boxed set... the next Big Thing™ ... that each one of us loved and wanted to see them continue to go on because we had fallen for the system at that moment in time. Because we adventured there. We were *heroes* there in those systems and settings...

But that TSR and WotC just... left behind.

Don't you know that we loved it? That we sat at home imagining up new plots and adventures and NPC we ourselves had created to inhabit the worlds you created? That we used NPCs and monsters that you created in our own settings? That we saved those areas with heroes made in those systems and that we were hooked already. Some of us hooked for life.

Why did you leave all of *us* behind?

Gamers come in all sorts of editions. We're all still here. We all still hunger for more of the good old stuff.

It's time to come back home WotC... "There And Back Again," remember?

Do it.

Come home.

Bloodtide posted:

This is just such a good idea that it will never happen. Just think, they could put out an 'ultimate spellbook', and on one page it would have a nice flavorful description, lore and fluff and on the other page a bunch of stat blocks for each edition to show the spell effects. You could do the same thing with monsters, magic items, and whatever. So if you play a single edition D&D 2/3s of the book would be of use and interest to you. That's almost an automatic sell. And they could put out dozens of them ''spellbook II'' and ''Monster Manual IX''.

The could publish adventures the same way, at leas the first couple. Then maybe do a couple 'single edition' type adventures depending on demand.

They could make some unique places, not whole settings, just places smaller then a kingdom. With lots of fluff and detail so that any DM can use them for any edition. But as a bonus sell a 'edition boosters' that stat everything out for each edition.

You could even tag onto the published words too. If you made a great book of the ''Elven Knights of Evermeet'' or ''Dragonriders of Krynn'' and had plenty of fluff, and some new rules and editions that were all fun and interesting, no one would care what world it came from. For example, most people bought the FR book Underdark for the underdark information, not the FR information.

Bloodtide posted:

Well, it would be six sets of crunch: 0E, 1E(AD&D), 1E(D&D), 2E(AD&D), 3/3.5E(D&D, but not the 1E D&D) and then 4E.

And it would only be cluttered if they had an idiot do it. Using space, tiny type and creativity such you can make a page look good.

It's true WotC does not publish adventures now....but I'm saying that is a mistake. Some of the best selling RPG books in history have been adventures. What sold better 'the tome of magic' or 'the tomb of horrors'...

Trog posted:

As WotC themselves said when they bought D&D they had been playing it a long time. So they knew 2nd ed already. Which is very very similar to 1st ed. They themselves developed 3.x and 4.x. Again there's no system to learn there for them. They already know how to balance things in those systems (such as balance can be achieved at all in any system that is.) Why hire different teams? Use the ones you have now but make it a requirement to make each new thing in three different versions. It's not terribly difficult as they themselves have done this all before. And the further back you go the less work it is. Monster stat blocks, once upon a time, used to be shorter than this paragraph.

And I disagree with their assessment of system flaws. I appreciate that with each new system they have gone the next step to make the rules better, of course. I've played D&D for 25 years and I've played in every system they've put out. I myself will continue to do so. Others may not. If the past is anything to learn from there will be people who will not go to 5e. Just like some didn't go on to 4e. And to 3e. Those lost customers. The systems themselves are good enough to keep people playing in them for decades at a time and still enjoying the system - flawed or no.

Hell, WotC *just* came out with Heroes of the Feywild - a part of their core three worlds for that version of the game. I realize they cannot publish everything at once but I myself just got this and had planned to use it. And now by the time I get midway into it there will be a new edition out. One that has only a scant amount of books as they always have at the beginning. And it will be a waiting game all over again to get the things I need to help my game. Which may or may not coincide with what WotC thinks they should publish first. I could have gamed forever on 2e. Or 3.5. Or 4e. Some people will. Why not cater to them too? They already like and play D&D... but they aren't buying anything new because it's not in their system.

I think for this edition... for the game to move forward... and for WotC to try and unify their base of potential customers... they need to introduce backward compatibility. So putting out products labeled "5e" and having that simply mean it supports AD&D, 2e, 3.5e, and 4e means that every D&D player out there can use the product for their game without modification.

You may say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one.

NinjaStylerobot posted:

I also believe that classes SHOULD have more fluffy limitations.

I LIKE Druids not getting metal weapons. It just fits thematically.

NinjaStylerobot posted:

And it should be. And there always is the convenience of that metal-like wood.

If My druid decides it wants to join an army, then I doubt the forces of nature would be "OK" with that. While ore is a natural resource, metal represents the strangling of it.

By separating Fluff from The rules the result is something rather dull.

There are some things that simply work by dancing with the fluff.

This disconnect is why defiling in 4e dark sun SUCKS.

edit:

Removing things is easier then adding them.

If I want to add that fluff, then I also have to create spells, costs and other things around that fluff. By removing fluff you just need to remove.

NinjaStylerobot posted:

Why? Why must fluff be pointless, tacked on and superfluous (If I didn't get the word- PM me). Its easier to remove fluff then it is to add it on.

I get some people are here for the combat, and min maxing and optimizing builds- But its easier to remove fluff then it is to add it.

If you make pointless fluff you get stuff like 4e defiling (Ugh).

NinjaStylerobot posted:

Tengu_temp posted:

If anything, I'd like to see a game where all the characters only have at-will and encounter powers/spells, no daily ones. I hope 5e will let me build such a party.

That will result in a game with no need for conservation or tactics (Thats what I think the word means). Its just going to be a room after a room

NinjaStylerobot posted:

I disagree. If it 5e had no daily effects I would dump it right now.

There is this thrill of going through the Liches tomb, conserving what you can (Because otherwise as a GM I WILL NOT LET YOU OUT ALIVE...Unless your smart)

Im not sure how reducing resource management and giving characters infinite resources (Like a videogame) is giving them more tactical choices.

I don't understand why you dislike daily powers.

If its the 15 min adventuring day thats just because of bad GMing.

NinjaStylerobot posted:

Tengu_temp posted:

1. They're a pain to keep track of. If you're a high level DND caster, you need a whole sheet just for your prepared spells!
2. They put limitations on the number of daily encounters you can have - both upper and lower. Too many encounters, and the party will run out of steam. Too few encounters, and they will steamroll them. I want to have as many encounters a day as I want, without having to make them weaker or harder to compensate for their number.
3. Without daily powers, it's easier to balance encounters and make them as strong or weak as you want - because the unpredictable aspect of "how many daily powers they still have left?" goes away.
4. I'm just not interested in the whole conservation aspect of the game. I don't find it tactically challenging, it's just being an accountant. Tactics for me are about how to beat the enemy in front of you with the resources at your disposal, not about saving those resources.

Without countering with my own wall of text, these things is what I like in DD and what I don't want gone.

Its what makes it interesting for me as a GM and as a player.

These things are PART of DD history (A pretty big part). If you don't like em, play a game without them.

deuterio12 posted:

O'rrly?

-Pathfinder (current top TT RPG point)
-Black Crusade
-Rogue Trader
-Dark Heresy
-Skyrim (all the rage across the net)

fosborb posted:

Yes, but the acknowledgment that those are universal perceptions is not in fact universal. "My world is just." "My effort correlates with value."

quote:

Adventurer Conqueror King

Ettin posted:

Joethelawyer on RPGnet is at least honest.

Joethegrognard posted:

purestrain grog

Chaltab posted:

quote:

Another thing I'd like to see? Eliminating the Monk as a class. Every other class has representatives in fiction, myth, and history EXCEPT the Monk. The way it is presented in every iteration of the game is straight out of a wuxia film and that only. I'd like to see that "Ancient Chinese Secret" aspect of the Monk stripped away and have it rolled into the Fighter class, allowing the Fighter to represent ALL mundane combat-focused character types, whether that focus is sword, axe, staff, bow, or unarmed.

These are the people Wizards is trying to woo.

Taim posted:

I see a lot of posts on this forum about Nerfing casters or making melee characters up to par with full casters. I think making the classes equal kind of destroys the point of having different classes in the first place (as 4th edition did) from a genera savvy perspective. I enjoy the idea of the super powerful wizard; who struggles through the first hand full of levels to obtain true power. I also like the idea of the warrior working with nothing but the strength in his arm, his trusty weapon, and some armor against all kinds of beasts, demons, and magical creatures. I like the craft rogue using his wits to overcome obstacles.

I get that at later levels the non-full casters get out classed by their caster friends, but who cares! Most campaigns I've been in don't get past level 10 if that (unless you are starting at a higher level), and I've never seen a person play a "god" wizard, cleric-zilla, or whatever.

The name of the game is role-playing, not roll-playing. If a person is coming up with a character concept, and throws in "oh by the way he/she's a gish" "Why?" "because it's more powerful, dude!" I think that person has lost perspective on what the game is about.

As for "It's a fun to repeatedly do the same action over and over again in combat as a non-caster." Not having fun at the table is a problem. After all this is a game. Fun should be involved in a pretty big way. I would than summit you are playing the wrong class for you. I personally like standing toe to toe trading blows with the big bad. I let my imagination do the work there as just dealing a numeric HP damage is silly at best. I think people get stuck on the idea that to be in a party has to fill all the roles: skill monkey, tank, striker, arcane, healer. In the 3/3.5/pathfinder I've never found this to be true in fact the more interest parties I've been in lacked some of these roles, and have had to use creative problem solving to over come challenges that could be easily beaten had that role been filled. Party of wizards, why not. Team cleric, cool. Traveling band of musical bards, awesome! Monk, fighter, paladin, rogue, sweet. This is not a video game run by a program. The DM can adjust to what ever party is thrown together.

Taim posted:

I'm not against power of the class, but rather feel like a person shouldn't be made to feel bad because he/she decided to take a class that others consider weaker. As a player you have the choice to play with whatever class you like. So long as you're having fun playing what does it matter that you choose to go with all 20 levels of fighter.

The common answer on this broad when the question of help with my melee character tends to be play gish, warblade, ect.. ect.. because if you don't you'll be completely lost against that person playing the druid. I don't really like that.

Leon posted:

This is independent of there being a fighter in any given group.

A lvl 20 Fighter is just capable as any other class when played well.

Polarity Shift posted:

This problem is being made out to be more complex than it actually is.

Someone refuses to make capable characters?

They die, the party loots them and does not raise them.

Repeat as often as is required.

Optional: Make South Park jokes regularly.

Leon posted:

People can and will play anything badly.

A Fighter/Monk/Flying Green Octagon is as playable as any wizard is at any level. That the Fighter/Monk/FGO may need some buffs is not a bad thing - its a bad thing for the class with options to help the rest of the group not to do so.

So you insist - despite the fact that while it may occur sometimes it is not a absolute.

Maybe its just me and my luck at finding several gaming groups that are not stuck in the mud and can actually work with anything anyone comes along with without worrying that the melee may not keep up with the casters and take on challenges that should be too hard for any group of a given level.

Said it before will say it again: A Good group can make anything work.


Are you in a good group? I know I am.

Helldog posted:

Oh? Maybe in a perfect world everyone is equally competent. But in real world it's hard to have everyone with the same skills. There's bound to be someone better and someone worse. D&D is a game, a type of game where you're not supposed to throw a fit because you have to drag a dead weight behind you. You're supposed to be a team player. Would it really diminish your fun that much if your Wizard would waste his precious spells and time to help a fellow team member? Seriously. You're not able to lessen your fun even a little, when it could rise the overall fun at the table and probably make the game much more fun for the player of the weaker character?

Helldog posted:

Actually, no. In proper cooperative play a player doesn't get sad because he has to help a teammate. Or a weaker player doesn't get sad because other PC is better. Everyone just does what he can and has fun at it. Take soccer for example. If you play with your friends, it doesn't matter that you're not Ronaldinio. You might be the worst soccer player in your neighborhood, and maybe you're picked last, but you still play and have fun, your friends won't disallow you to play. Professional soccer OTOH is serious business and a weak player will be replaced with a strong player, because big money. Amiright?
That's how D&D is supposed to work. Unfortunately most people take the game too drat serious. (not that there's anything wrong with that, like I said, everyone plays how he likes)
Different people have different priorities. Is it really that unimaginable that some players don't actually care about this things? I'm not saying you shouldn't care. I'm not saying you're playing the game wrong. I'm not saying that balance is irrelevant.
Really.
I'm just saying that people who complain about balance (and I am one of those people, I don't complain but I do dislike the imbalance) forget that the game was intended to be played differently.

Mystify posted:

I agree with the rest of the posters. Balanced =/= equal, or the same. That is one thing 4e did wrong, they achieved balance through homogeneity and lack of flexibility, which is the wrong way to do it.

Asimo posted:

But you don't understand! 3.5e D&D RPGs have issues, so obviously I am the one who is destined to solve them! What do you mean other RPGs and genres exist? That poo poo is for emos and hipsters, my game is the only important one! Get this... it's dark fantasy! And classless!

MadScientistWorking posted:

What the loving hell is wrong with Librarianman?

ProfessorCirno posted:

Do you really not understand the need/desire for an in-universe reason for a guy who picks up and swings a chunk of metal being just as potent as the guy who studies how to alter the aspects of reality or makes a pact with a being from beyond the cosmos to have incredible powers? The reason spellcasters get their powers is native to the concept; they cast spells. They get cool powers because the most basic part of the character group is the powers. Martial characters, on the other hand, are not based around having super powers; they are based around doing very mundane things, i.e. swinging a sword/axe/mace/goat/fist and possibly blocking poo poo with a shield. Ergo, it is required to know why they're able to produce the same effects as spells by yelling loudly and/or swinging a metal stick because there's no explanation native to the concept of hitting things with other things for such effects to be produced.

This isn't a "grognard" thing, it's a "basic world-building and the mechanics therein" thing. It doesn't even matter what the explanation is, what matters is that there is an explanation given.

FactsAreUseless posted:

For those of you who aren't aware, this is the 4.0 Player's Strategy Guide, written by Wizards of the Coast. In short, this book is a guide on how to powergame. The contents of this book include lists of things that you want your character to be good at, and then provides a guide of all of the skills you need to put points into, the gear you want to be wearing, and which feats to take in order to do it as best as possible. They're teaching noobs to powergame!

Maxwell Lord posted:

Well, he might not have such a bug up his butt about magical tea parties.

Rasamune posted:

What troubles me most about tight systems like 4e is the subtle undertone that actions like this have no place in the game whatsoever. Its such a clean and polished system that it subtly tells the DM and the players, hey hands off, no imagination and tinkering allowed here.

Mikan posted:

Drox posted:

Things therapists do: hate anything you do for fun and make you stop them.

Guilty Spork posted:

Splicer posted:

That's a 25 point buy.

Wasn't 25 point buy the mud farmer standard?

Evil Mastermind posted:

FateStormQuestMaster

chrisoya posted:

If one of TSR's earliest releases was a wargame for it, it's groggy enough for grognards.txt.


In this case, nudity is simply part of the original background. It's the femininists, pluralists, revisionists, and other hallowed departments of the Hollywood Ministry of Truth who imposed this departure you see as an 'improvement'. To follow modern prejudices leads to silly results, such as the compulsory bras in 'prehistoric' movies: compare '1 million years..' and 'the quest for fire'.

Mornacale posted:

Tenser's Transformation? What's that?