grognards.txt - sandbox gamers are the John Galts of the RPG world

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dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

(topic: Paladins.)

"How about an option C? How about there isn't a right answer, but instead you choose whether the power offered by the divine being and it's desired approach are worth your obedience and service? If it gave you the power to enforce its will and you choose not to... why wouldn't it take it's power away (and I find it hard to believe that beings on a divine level would not have a fail-safe in place for traitors.)."

My thoughts exactly. If any servant of a god displeases them in any way, bam, powers/spells/whatever removed. Paladins should get extra boons that most can't attain, because they are not worthy morally, physically, or spiritually to be an earthly representative, or "avatar" if you will, of that god. The downside should be a strict code and if you don't follow it, you lose any magical powers until you atone. If you don't wish to play under such restrictions, don't play a paladin. (or cleric). I fail to see how / why an LG god about protecting the weak would be pleased if his followers were using his granted spells to burn villages, or steal, and so on.

And yes, in play, you often do see a dichotomy worthy of "fallen paladin needing to atone", even for unintentional things. You took that last piece of bread that belonged to an old man, he died, bam, you need to get on your knees and BEG for forgiveness. If you can't stomach it, join another church and "convert" to an order with a less strict code. RP restrictions don't need to be ridiculous, and yeah the "lawful" questions of which laws do you obey, the earthly laws or the divine ones, or some personal one, are up to the campaign DM and player to resolve, probably before swearing the oath in the first place. After all, you don't sign a contract without reading the fine print first, do you?

What I see a lot in this "let's remove alignment and all RP restrictions" is that players want to play brutal rogues who have paladin powers, i.e. false paladins. Nuh uh, your god knows what's in your mind, his eye is on the sparrow so to speak. And even if you do something wicked through negligence, that shouldn't automatically protect you from having to atone either. A stupid, thoughtless fool who isn't mindful of the repercussions of his actions isn't really champion material, is he.

Stat requirements should be, IMO, 14 10 10 10 12 14 for a paladin. You need to be strong to wield a sword in plate armor, first. You can't be a fool (int can't be negative, has to have some kind of wisdom), and must be charismatic but not necessarily Elvis. 4e incentivised you to pump charisma, even dumping str entirely (yuck), by giving you charisma-based attack powers. ugh...I knew at the beginning of playing my 4e paladin that cha builds were superior (before DP came out), but I could not force myself to do it. Charisma should be good mostly outside of combat, and perhaps useful to taunt during combat. But not to attack. I'm so glad melee attack stats are now strength or dex, period. Good fighters need to be strong or dextrous, and a paladin should be strong for sure.

# ? Apr 4, 2013 18:41

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:14

Opinion Haver: Apr 9, 2007

FMguru posted:

The subject: Jamie Maliszekski, Dwimmermount, Petty Gods, and the astonishing trainwreck thereof.

Act I: An artist complains about being ripped off

Act II: Reversal of fortune!

Act III: No, see, it's entirely different when I do it.

The saga continues: https://plus.google.com/107387558095034231503/posts/aE2yF9378gA

e:
C'mon, you know the distinction: games I don't like or which are made by people I dislike = storygames.

From one of the links in this post:

quote:

Methane (Wiki Link): Silent, Natural, Odorless and highly flammable (If you didn't know, methane in your house smells because they add something to it). And it's not really the explosion damage, but the likely cave-in afterwords that's the real danger.

Methane is also a great example of an asphyxiant. Even if your players don't carry a single flammable item, methane and other substances displace air, and there is little notice. The first thing that will happen is the characters will begin to feel drowsy as they start to suffocate. Other simple asphyxiates include propane which is also flammable, and Carbon Dioxide which is not for a nice change of pace.

Agency: Tradition was a canary, but any small creature dependent on oxygen will die long before humans. Your wizard wasn't really that attached to his familiar, was he?

Your familiar just randomly started feeling sick and died? Should've had Detect Methane up.

# ? Apr 4, 2013 18:46

LightWarden: Mar 18, 2007; Lander county's safe as heaven,
despite all the strife and boilin',
Tin Star,
Oh how she's an icon of the eastern west,
But now the time has come to end our song,
of the Tin Star, the Tin Star!

dwarf74 posted:

Stat requirements should be, IMO, 14 10 10 10 12 14 for a paladin. You need to be strong to wield a sword in plate armor, first. You can't be a fool (int can't be negative, has to have some kind of wisdom), and must be charismatic but not necessarily Elvis. 4e incentivised you to pump charisma, even dumping str entirely (yuck), by giving you charisma-based attack powers. ugh...I knew at the beginning of playing my 4e paladin that cha builds were superior (before DP came out), but I could not force myself to do it. Charisma should be good mostly outside of combat, and perhaps useful to taunt during combat. But not to attack. I'm so glad melee attack stats are now strength or dex, period. Good fighters need to be strong or dextrous, and a paladin should be strong for sure.

I seriously can't believe that there are people who hate paladins using Charisma to attack. It was probably the thing I liked the most when I first saw the game, because being a paladin wasn't about the strength of your arm, but the strength of your heart; where courage and conviction would carry you through the darkest hour.

_{And it gave me an excuse to yell "Shining Finger Sword!" when using a radiant weapon attack. Charisma is, after all, the shoutiest of stats.}

You know who else had strong feelings about paladins? That's right, this guy.

He showed up in the last thread, and has managed to keep his thread going for four months straight just by endlessly re-iterating the same arguments. A mod finally locked it yesterday.

quote:

@Kirth - And no one is arguing against houseruling to taste or even having a clearly differentiated archetype or alternative class with different flavor and mechanics.

The Packaging gives you a baseline to build from, much like a recipe gives you a baseline to start from. If your game is fine with Chaotic Paladins, great.

But the GM can also say no, we are going to use the recipe. I think adding paprika would taste like rear end, and so lets not do that.

The Paladin concept does not work if it isn't Lawful Good. It ceases to be a Paladin. Now if you are cool with that, great. Much like banning Psionics and Gunslingers, you have the option to change it if you don't like it.

But it is the default. It does serve a role that would not exist if it did not have the restrictions.

You can feel free to change things in "your" game, but some players aren't generally going to say "Yes, I will take the more restrictive option which better fits the setting and flavor rather than trying to show what a unique snowflake I am with something that is kind of silly and dumb"

Some players don't realize their ideas are dumb.

So we have the baseline, and we have the option to houserule for players, like the one in the long lost OP (Remember the OP...) who really add to the game with creative ideas intended to be a part of the game rather than above it.

You need a framework to build from. You can tear it down in your home game (and you arguably should) but you have to have a framework for a shared understanding of what a Paladin (or any class) "is" so that you can have a baseline when you get away from it.

quote:

If you resent authority, you are not going to submit to someone else telling you if you are doing your code correctly.

If your code is "Do what ever you want, YOLO!" you could argue you have a Chaotic code, but it is certainly not "Good"

The Anti-Paladin has to do basically two things 1) Put his needs and wishes first (Do whatever you want) and 2) Be evil.

Doing whatever you want, regardless of how it impacts others, is selfish. This isn't saying being Chaotic is selfish, it is saying doing whatever you want is selfish.

Being Chaotic Good is described this way(for the second time on the same screen...)

"Chaotic Good: A chaotic good character acts as his conscience directs him with little regard for what others expect of him. He makes his own way, but he's kind and benevolent. He believes in goodness and right but has little use for laws and regulations. He hates it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. He follows his own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society."

You can't both be following a code adjudicated by a higher authority and have little use for laws and regulations. You can't follow your own moral compass while allowing someone else to decide if you are actually following your moral compass. You cant hate people who tell them what to do, and be told what to do by the person who enforces your code (not to mention all the spreading divine justice stuff...)

The concept is anathema to the Paladin's code. If you want a Chaotic Good variant (like the Chevalier...) you can't have a rigid code that must be followed.

Which is the core of the Paladin concept.

quote:

quote:
You're making too much of the "rigid code" aspect and deeply discounting the idea of being the exemplar of an ethos.

Because the class is about the code and spreading divine justice. They are judge and jury of evil, largely because they are so morally incorruptable.

Without that, it is just a fighter who can use a few divine powers.

quote:

And I think Paizo was trying to create this concept with the inquisitor in a lot of ways.

If you have a think that can do everything the Paladin can do mechanically without the restrictions of being a Paladin, you effectively kill the Paladin.

quote:

Conceptually a Chaotic Good class with some paladin stuff isn't a bad idea but it also already exists as the Chevalier prestige and people complained it wasn't powerful enough.

As to having a code, you can't have an enforcable code for a Chaotic Good Paladin, by defintion. Chaotic Good abhor following other peoples rules, and if they can "fall" someone else is judging them.

I'm kind of curious how his version of Chaotic Good works as parents.

"Don't touch that stove!"

"gently caress you dad, you're not the boss of me! Better to die on my feet than live on my knees! FOR FREEDOM!"

Or how they have have any sort of conversation whatsoever.

"You know, I'm not a fan of slavery."

"Don't you attempt to impose your code on me, thought tyrant!"

# ? Apr 4, 2013 20:16

Dzurlord: Nov 5, 2011

I'm still having fun looking through the Dungeon World thread on theRPGsite.

quote:

DW felt pretty traditional to me. When I played it at gencon, my pc died in combat.

The truest measure of the traditional nature of a game.

quote:

Did your session contain any of the hallmarks of a storygame? Dramatic, scene-editing by players and GM, alike? Focus on the development of a story in-play mutable by GM and players? Shared worldbuilding? Player-permission required for character death? Are these standards or options in the RPG?

Are you, or have you ever been, a storygame?

Benoist chimes in with posted:

Well the whole concept of moves strikes me as Forgist, in the sense that it basically codifies into rules basic decisions and actions that should really be open-ended and up to the participants of the game (you know, what makes an actual role playing game what it is: the open-endedness of it all). It creates limits, instead of creating a normal collaboration and dialog between the players and GM. And if the creation of a specific rule for each "move" is not a self-imposed limit and hair-splitting of putting basic actions into their own little rules boxes with specific effects and the like, then what the gently caress is the point? Why make every action or decision or event a game unit, instead of just, you know, cut the middle man and get directly into the situation and describe what you do organically, without the need for rules clutches to tell you what to do or how to run the game?

It all sounds rather pointless and "edgy" for the sake of it from a (Forgist) theorist's standpoint, IMO.

I'm not even sure what he's trying to describe here, compared to what the game actually is.

At a later point, someone goes on about asking whether choosing from a list of options on a 7-9 is done by the character or the player, and how disassociated it is, and that's when I closed the tab.

# ? Apr 4, 2013 20:34

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

quote:

I also used to think that the power progression in D&D is better than the one in Exalted, but I know better now. At some point I realized that D&D's "zero to hero" advancement makes no sense. It lacks any sort of narrative weight. You start out mostly normal and become nigh-invincible by facing increasingly difficult conveniently evil enemies. Exalted has a higher power level than I prefer, but it's more consistent and meaningful - if you have power, it means you got it somehow. Maybe you Exalted as a Celestial because of your deeds. Maybe you're a Dragon-blooded and Exalted through lineage and luck. Maybe you're a mortal and gathered your power through determination, cleverness or both. Either way, you didn't just hit things until you went *ding!* enough times.

Oh snap! Take that D&D! But enough of me posting about things that aren't directly related to Exalted, let's see me post things directly related to Exalted. Ssssspecial things.

quote:

800 miles means nothing to me. its an arbitrary number in my mind that doesn't give me any scale, and my conception of distance in RPG's is more narrative than actual- if we are in Lookshy, and need to go to some island in the West and nothing interesting happens in the interim, I would just make a single transition there.

Like most RPGs, Exalted lacks travel time crap and wilderness adventure material. This is not a game that conveys its pacing in explicitly narrative semi-cinematic terms!

quote:

quote:
So, basically, when the book does mention stuff, you ignore it and say that it doesn't. That explains quite a bit.

the game doesn't say anything about "themes" or anything like that, it just goes "solars can do anything they want!" and says nothing more about what you are actually supposed to do. aside from gather resources and power, which is um, what every PC ever in almost any game does ever, so not helpful, thats what I'm talking about.

I have saw the 800 miles multiple times, repeated by multiple people- and it still means nothing to me. I'm not ignoring that specific thing, its there, I see it, its just nothing seems to make it meaningful. completely different from what I was talking about.

and even when it does mention it, it says nothing about creating a place, it only says some stuff about vaguely drawing a map, it doesn't say that a vast majority of the world is open to you. au contraire, Exalted seems a very closed and insular setting with no room for adding things in. its kind frustrating because every time I look at the world and try to put something in there, its rejected by the very fact that its Exalted and is specifically contrived so that things are a certain way and that anything that I could think up of putting in wouldn't make any sense in the setting.

edit: and furthermore, even if I am ignoring things, which I'm still not sure about, maybe you should consider that some things might be better left ignored?

...and even if it does convey pacing explicitly in narrative cinematic terms, maybe I'm just too cool for that poo poo, huh?

quote:

What implications? I don't know what implications your talking about.

and PC's seem to do whatever they want and gather resources and such anyways, its what almost every RPG does, the RPG's that don't do so are the unusual ones. again, how do these two things make Exalted different when its the modus operandi of the normal role-player anyways?

There are two kinds of RPGs: Smallville and everyfuckingthingelse.

quote:

yea, I have 2nd edition, and they suggest a bunch of books and media that I have no time to dig up.

oh, and now you think I don't know how to role-play. real helpful! do you also want to explain how a character sheet works, or roll my dice for me? because clearly I became a child to patronize while no one was looking.

I have played tons of characters. I have made sure to make each one a fully rounded character with their own internal problems, personality, ways and styles of solving problems, I carefully avoided stupid cliches, made sure to make each one their own character, with their own little details to separate and differentiate each one from the rest, I have role-played out their failures, their successes, their despair, their doubts, their overcoming of their own faults, all the while making sure to put moments of humor in between.

I have not played "hack and slash" in my life. the very idea of such a game repels me.

yet when I look at Exalted, it just seems a complete and utter mess that I cannot figure out, that actively uses strange logic to deny character concepts, that is counter-intuitive to how everything operates, all the while surrounded by a fan base that seems to only confuse and cloud the issue.

so please, keep assuming that I'm some hack 'n'slash idiot who thinks RPG's are a video game, that will do WONDERS to improve my mood.

"I've never read these things that are explicitly inspiration for this game I'm supposedly trying to like, but I assure you they are worthless!"

# ? Apr 4, 2013 22:14

Effectronica: May 31, 2011; Fallen Rib

Let's start off with an apertif.

quote:

I like GURPS. I think a lot of the 4th-edition simplifications were necessary unlike some other games that I could name, but I've always liked it to at least some degree.

There. Can you taste the rosemary? Now, take a sip of water and we'll start with the soup course.

quote:

GURPS is a joke on the GameFAQs RPG board. The running gag is that it's so holy it must be referred to with full legal trademarks, Steve Jackson's GURPS(TM). It's also the poster child for why "realism" and RPGs should never mix and how such games utterly fail at it as well. I remember some kind of argument about the system being badly designed because high skill allowed impossible crap to happen, the example being that it "only" takes a piloting skill of 25 to make a brick capable of flight.

From what I've seen, GURPS players are also despised. We have TEH GREATEST RPG EVAR IT DOES EVERYTHING and live to inflict it on people who don't care and want to run another D&D 3.5 game. It was certainly fun realizing that I'm the obnoxious GURPS-loving rear end in a top hat stinking up my RPG group.

I also hear it's considered the system for really stupid campaign ideas. You play D&D for fantasy, Shadowrun for cyberpunk, and GURPS for crap like Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers vs. the Cthulhu Mythos in the old west.

I've abandoned the system myself. It was my first RPG and I think in over a decade I've played three brief games of it. Nobody wants to play it, nobody wants to spend a decade making characters. Given that there is such a strong internet Hatedom for the game, I assume I'm wrong in liking it and it is a bad RPG after all. I have terrible taste in everything.

This is, as we can see, only lightly seasoned with grog. But together with the entree-

quote:

i had to mention this is another topic and it brought this one back to mind:
opinion is not a magical catch all that prevents things from being objectively bad

there is something horribly wrong with the gurps system. it is widely hated for a reason. if it wasn't bad then perhaps other people would be interested in it and want to play.

I've played dozens of d&d games over the years some have gone on for months in the past and some barely lasted more then a session or two but I have played dozens of d&d games.

Ive played two gurps games in the course of the same decade and gurps was the one that got me into rpgs in the first place. the first game lasted all of a week and the second I ran for two seesions like four years ago. it was an introductory campaign desgined to introduce my friends to the system and they hated it, it took something like two weeks to get everybody ready with a character and the characters were supposed to be everyday contract laborer types, I did something I mistook for clever and had them find out they were the mooks in a james bond supervillain base. nobody liked it and nobody ever wants to try the system again

meanwhile on a whim we can roll up d&d characters in 15 minutes and we get more roleplaying out of I decided to play my chaacter this way then paying for stupid disadvantages and being mechanically forced into it

I have attempted dozens of gurps games in the meantime. mecha campaigns, steampunk, autoduel, survival horror, diselpunk, fantasy world war, post-apocalypse, space opera, zombie horror, anime campaigns, Silent Hill, practically everything that an rpg campaign can feasibly take place in and not ONE of them ever made it to as much as cahracter creation because NOBODY has any interest in wasting time on gurps.

we play things outside of d&D. longest campaign ever run was based on a half rear end online Final Fantasy system. We've played Dark Heresy and wod and shadowrun and other systems. I am the only one stupid enough to think anybody could ever enjoy playing gurps.

Now, let's refresh with some salad.

quote:

@Dyna: No Orcs either. I recently realized that half of the races in D&D (monster and PC alike) are ridiculously redundant. Why do you need Goblins, Orcs, and Trolls when they're basically the exact same thing? Same thing with Goblins (the little buggers) and Kobolds. And Demons and Devils and Yugoloth.

So, I'm shredding most of them for this setting. The only sentient races in the natural world are: Humans, Dragonborn, Halflings, Dwarves, Tieflings, Gnomes, Goliaths, Shifters, Genasi, Kalashtar, Warforged, Changelings, Githzerai, Githyanki, Minotaurs, Shardminds, Wilden, Thri-kreen, Muls and Kobolds.. There is one singular race of elves in the Feywild, and all the fiends are combined into one coalition that spans the Astral plane. (Ancient history: Demons and Devils finally got over their quarrels and realized they could kill the gods. They managed to kill off most of them, but there were lasting consequences including planar travel being almost impossible.) The other races on the natural plane simply died out from lack of available resources; evolution didn't favour them, so they got screwed.)

The dessert is a fairly rich take on a classic. You may want to take your time with it. No hurry.

quote:

re: "How does 4e pare back roleplay?"

3e rules cover a much wider variety of non-combat situations than 4e, and does so in a way that provides more verisimilitude. Basically, if you approach tabletop gaming from the standpoint of "this person in this world wants to do this action � how well do the rules accommodate that?" then 3e usually comes out ahead. There are comparatively few situations in 3e that the rules flat-out don't cover, where as 4e is more prone to running into character actions that have no mechanics.

A simple example: skill challenges. In 4e, skill challenges are supposed to cover complicated situations by having multi-step skill checks. Say you're trying to break into a fortress. In 3e, you would (for example) roll Hide and Move Silently to sneak past the guards, roll Climb to climb over the wall, roll Jump and/or Tumble to land softly after jumping off the wall into the fortress, then roll Open Lock to unlock the door and get inside.

In 4e, that would be a skill challenge, which basically boils down to "succeed X skill checks before failing Y skill checks". The problem here is that skill checks don't actually make a lot of sense. Say that you decide that a "break into the fortress" skill challenge requires 3 successes before 2 failures. You succeed on a Stealth check to get past the guards, but say your Climb check sucks, so instead of doing that, you decide to cast a Fly spell and fly to the top of the wall. Well, what the hell does that count as in a skill challenge? A success? ("I use Fly to auto-succeed my Climb check to get to the top of the wall.") Nothing? ("You didn't roll a skill check, so you didn't succeed on a skill check.") I don't know. The rules simply don't cover it.

The way I view tabletop games is very "simulationist". If a player can say "I want to do X" and the DM has to say "Uh, the rules don't cover that, so [you can't do it/give me a minute to think of a house rule]", then that's a problem with the system. Obviously, no system can cover everything, but 3e is much better than 4e at covering most things.

There's a flip side to this, too. If the player should be able to handle everything the character could do, then the character should be able to make sense of everything the player can do. In other words, mechanics should not break the fourth wall. 4e has a lot more fourth-wall-breaking mechanics than 3e.

Let's look at the "breaking into the fortress" example again. In 3e, if you fail your Hide/Move Silently checks, then the guards notice you. If you fail your Climb check, then you don't make it up the wall. Each roll has a consequence in the game world that makes sense. In 4e, though, skill challenges do wonky things. If we go back to the 3 successes before 2 failures skill challenge, then we could end up breaking the fourth wall in two different ways. Say we succeed on a Diplomacy check to chat up the guards, a Bluff check to distract the guards, and a Stealth check to sneak past the distracted guards. Congratulations, you've done nothing about getting over the wall or into the locked door, but you succeeded in the skill challenge, so now you're in the fortress! On the other hand, let's say that you fail a Perception check to try to spot a weakness in the fortress's defenses, then fail an Arcana check to inspect any magical protection that the fortress may have. Sorry, you just failed your skill challenge, despite the fact that nothing you did actually prevents you from successfully breaking into the fortress.

Another example: marking. Lots of 4e skills involve "marking" targets, which grants you bonuses against them or gives them penalties against you. These are explained in a variety of ways, from a fighter issuing a challenge to an enemy to a paladin magically calling an opponent into single combat with him. However, any given creature can only be subject to one mark at a time. If a paladin uses his marking ability followed by a fighter using his marking ability on the same target, then the paladin's is negated by the fighter's. How does that make any sense in the game world? If you were a DM, how would you explain a paladin's holy power fizzling because the fighter goes "Bring It!" to the same guy? Worse than that, some marking abilities don't even have a description, they just say "ability marks target for this effect". What does that look like in the game world? This can have a mechanical effect, to. If the ability is a character taunting the target, then does it fail if the target can't perceive the character? If it gives bonuses to the character's allies, then does it fail if the allies can't perceive the character?
tl;dr version:

3e does a much better job than 4e of creating a world to interact with, which encourages roleplaying by providing it with a mechanical backing and allowing for nonstandard usage of abilities (especially outside of combat).

# ? Apr 5, 2013 01:32

GEExCEE: Sep 19, 2012

Alien Rope Burn posted:

Do music fans do this? No. They go out and buy every single last album, single, B-side and rarity because they want to support their favorite band.

This man's na�vet� is staggering.

I love you, Paizo forums! posted:

Perfectly balanced games usually are poor games. The problem with caster is only that they can have access to too much spells. The GM should first decide is a spell is available in his campaign. Also, since this is a RPG and not 4th edition, settings and story > RAW, so every GM is encouraged (in manuals too) to adapt the rules to his game. Same for feats, classes, etc. Casters usually become very powerful since they have access to all spells, can create magic items and other classes not, and sometimes this happens in campaign when people doesn't know much about magic. So casters got options like in Eberron but non caster knows about magic like in Dragonlance, if they are lucky

# ? Apr 5, 2013 01:36

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

As BI showed, racism is a rather touchy and ugly subject but can help immersion quite a lot. Granted, it was a pseudo historical setting, so the racism displayed was a product of its age, but this also applies to fantasy settings.

So how do you handle racism in you games? Does it even exist? At which degree? And how does it influence the PCs?

My son plays the new Bioshock Infinite and I love the world in the clouds. I my opinion multiculturalism has ruined America like it has ruined the Roman Empire. The Bioshock world is wonderful and full of hard hitting themes. If all races were meant to be equal than we would all be the same... In my games race and culture matter as does the person's gender.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 01:42

Chaltab: Feb 16, 2011; So shocked someone got me an avatar!

ProfessorCirno posted:

I my opinion multiculturalism has ruined America like it has ruined the Roman Empire

What the hell is he talking about?

---

"Get offa my lawn ya dern kids!"

TristramEvans posted:

Mmm. The thing is people who are nowadays self-proclaimed "storygamers" are johnny-come-latelys on the scene, with little to no knowledge of RPG systems pre-late 90s at best and nothing much to add to conversations beyond they're ego-on-the-line assertions that their games are exactly the same as classic RPGs and anyone who says different is a big meanie who has it out for them. They're kinda like 4E fans in that manner.

"It's almost like a financially struggling company was clinging to the rights yet doing nothing with them for years."

quote:

ishy wrote:

We could talk about how much 4e tried to sell out to videogames and yet what are we left with today?

And somehow it manages to be the only D&D game that doesn't actually have its own video game that theoretically uses the rules. Even Pathfailure sort of has one in the works, even though it's not looking good.

Unless you count that Flash game someone made that is "as close as you can get to 4E without actually treading on any copyrights and stuff".

I don't really know if I agree or disagree with this argument because I'm too distracted by the personal attacks and incoherent foul language to actually grok it.

quote:

I really should not debate with PhoneLobster about well, anything. Because he is a disingenuous twat. But since it serves as a reasonable foil for hopefully talking about things that are actually interesting, let's go for it.

"People won't bother recharging Daily abilities as long as the abilities only effect things they are going to automatically succeed at anyway!"

This is, of course, complete bullshit. We know it's completely full of poo poo because it's something PhoneLobster said, and he is a man who would simply cease to exist if somewhat beat the poo poo out of him. But also in this case because it is transparently obvious that what I said on this loving page doesn't boil down to that at all.

For example: if your task is to move from Point A to Point B, and there is some sort of time limit or opposition, then you are in no way guaranteed success. That as much should be obvious to everyone. And I think it is also obvious to PhoneLobster, but he's being a shithead in order to torpedo this discussion. Not so much that he is being a shithead again, but that he never stopped being a shithead and his shitiness is ongoing. And an ability that increases the amount you can move towards Point B over the course of the day is something which in no way encourages you to skip using any of your other abilities that move you towards Point B while you wait for it to recharge. Heck, even if the "ability" in question is just your own inherent foot-having capabilities, every kilometer you walk towards Point B is a kilometer closer you get to Point B than you would have been if you just sat around waiting for your distance hop to recharge.

More generally speaking, if the thing you spend to get your ability back is something that would otherwise advance the same goal as the ability in question if it wasn't spent, then recharge the ability is a dubious proposition. You're not going to frequently spend a combat turn to recover a combat action unless that combat action is worth two rounds of using your at-will abilities. You're not going to frequently hurt yourself to recover a healing ability unless the healing is bigger than the self harm. And so on.

If your "daily" abilities come back next dawn, and are equivalent to you having extra hours in the day to perform various tasks, you'd be pretty silly in most instances to ask for a screen wipe to the next dawn just to get the abilities back. You know this. I know this. PhoneLobster even knows this, but he's too much of an arrogant cockhole to admit that there was a way of looking at the problem under discussion that he hadn't thought of when he hand wavingly announced that there was not and could not be a reason why you wouldn't ask for time jumps to get powers back that could be inherent to the powers themselves.

But of course, time jumps are simply a cost. And if the powers themselves are equivalent to bonus time then asking for a time jump to recharge the power falls under the general case of "Spending A to get A", which is a general case power recharge scenario that is usually "Not Worth It".

-Frank

Trollman, dude, it's just an elfgame. Calm the hell down.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:05

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Oh, goodness, yes. Protect the newbies! They are dumb as rocks and don't realize how much more dangerous than the XBox tabletop roleplaying can be! Don't let them have an experience they might not forget! Heavens!

quote:

Newbies need a system with (i) less complexity in player options, and hence in PC build, but (ii) more survivability than an experienced player typically needs in a starting PC. Those needs are not served by the system Mearls is proposing, because his system is based on the level paradigm, where low complexity is anchored to low level, which is in turn anchored to low hit points, which means the a newbie's first experience is likely to be having his/her PC die.

This unthinkable system you describe worked just fine from 1973 to 2008. We were all newbies once, and many of us had extremely positive first experiences despite the risks engendered by early D&D. You can believe what you want, but stop stating it as fact. I'm annoyed enough that this thread has been hijacked -- with a mod's support, no less -- just because someone had the audacity to make a factual observation about "your" edition.

Fourth edition is a lemon popsicle, and anyone who likes it is an untied left shoe.

quote:

@Warbringer made the additional observation that, in practice, many GMs of new and/or young players allow rerolls, fudge dice etc. And my suggestion would be a way of formalising that while shifting power over the PC from the GM to the player, and hence giving the newbie a truer taste of what RPGing is about.

"A truer taste," my butt.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:06

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

Mabye. But I've read a lot of posts in which people talk about fudging dice for new players, because no one wants their first experience of the dice being rolled to result in the death of their first PC.

Why not change the rules to get rid of the need to fudge

Why have a DM at all? Why not just play a video game? Fudging behind the screen is the /soul/ of the game, at any level, and I believe with /great/ fervor that anyone who does not understand that is not playing /any/ edition of D&D.

quote:

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I think my post criticising the equation of OSR/gritty levels with simple/newbie levels was made before KM joined the thread, or VinylTap, I think.

I'm not blaming you for the hijack, I'm just annoyed by it. And by your attitude. They are conspiring to raise my blood pressure.

quote:

I don't know anything about XBoxes, but I've personally never encountered much danger from tabletop RPGing, other than the standard risks of excessive fat consumption!

Well, if it's not dangerous, why does anyone need to be protected from it? Bring on that d4 hit die!

quote:

I take it that these are insults?

Are they? Feel free to take offense; it is no less than I expect.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:09

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

A little background: I begin nearly all of my campaigns at 1st level. If I could, I'd start every campaign with my PCs armed with broken-off axe handles and armored in some rubbed-on dirt, except that I'd be /lynched/. I love 1st level. I eat, sleep, and breathe 1st level. What I don't like about Mearls' proposal is that there's an artificial break at 3rd level at which it is "okay" to start play if you're a whiny, powergaming little snot.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:16

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

I've done my bout with "Narrative control" before, and to me (and no one has ever given me a good answer otherwise) "narrative control" is synonymous with "I do what I want regardless of how much sense it makes."

First off, its primary function is to neuter DM control of his game as rule-arbiter (referee) and shielding yourself in the "Almighty Letter of the Rules" to justify never losing, or even the illusion of letting your character be in danger.

Can't use your favorite tripping attack because you're facing an arthropod? BOOM! Rules says I can trip anything!

The bad guys are running away? BOOM! I use my "get over here" power and they all run back; bloody, bruised, and out of arrows, for one more final waacking. How Intelligent was that NPC wizard again?

Didn't put any ranks in diplomacy? BOOM! Skill challenge rules says I can use any other skills. Is the king impressed by my ability to climb the pillars yet?

Oh noes! A rust monster? Relax, it will eat your +3 sword and poop out a +2 weapon instead. Anyone got any old items they don't want? We can recycle them and make your +4 gear stronger.

Erhmahgad! A Raksasha! The epitome of evil! Immune to all but the most powerful spells and magical weapons, but weak against a blessed crossbow bolt. Oh, we don't have any? That's ok. We'll just make it vulnerable to all weapons and spells, but we'll give it like +2 to saves to show how good it is at resisting magic! We wouldn't want anyone not to be able to fight this thing. Ok Bob, magic missile it to death!

We used to call that rules lawyering. Or munchkinism. Now, we call it "Narrative Control".

The logical extension of the battle between player and DM for narrative control ends up with DM, no longer rule arbiter (and increasingly less important as world-builder thanks to WotC's consolidation of fluff to being their cosmology for every setting, their PHB deities killing and eating long established ones, and the character builder slowly destroying any will to homebrew classes, races, or items) the DM becomes one thing: monster-runner. And even that job is becoming a monotonous since monster design has been reduced to a handful of small, meaningless powers and a flurry of ineffectual attacks due to poor monster math and a dread fear monster make kill our pwescious hewos.

Here is a room, there are 5 orcs. Players, have fun slaughtering them because they are a balanced encounter only designed to chip away 20% of your resources before dying. I'm going to go have a sandwich, call me when you're done.

Blech! No thank you. It didn't sell well enough the first time to keep D&D afloat, so I think its time to jettison these player entitlement notions to the dustbin with alignment languages and % strength. Good riddance!

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:24

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

I never realized John Wick was such a wonderful font of 100 proof grog. That "I was a stupid rear end in a top hat to some guys trying to buy my book, and then a guy gave me free money because I'm so cool" sounds like some grogthatdidnthappen.txt.

Let's dig up an old post to speak ill of the dead.

John Wick posted:

(Once Again) Roger Ebert Can (tentatively) Suck My Cock

I say "tentative" because I may be making an unfair assumption. However, in his review of "Role Models," he says,

"Danny gets Augie (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), whose life is entirely absorbed in a medieval fantasy game where bizarrely costumed "armies" do battle in parks with fake swords. There are mostly younger teenagers and lonely men with mountain-man beards. Sort of a combination of Dungeons and Dragons and pederasty."

Ahem.

Mr. Ebert, while I am a LARPer, I am not a pederast. Nor are my friends who participate in "boffer LARPs."

Now, to be fair, the movie may portray LARPers as pederasts and he�s only responding to the movie�s portrayal of the environment presented. I am going to assume this is the case until I am proven otherwise.

However, coupling this with his claim that games cannot be art, his complete and utter failure to understand satire, and his giving Disney�s Hunchback of Notre Dame the same number or more stars than Glenngary Glen Ross, Ran or The Usual Suspects (of which, he only gave 1 and 1/2 star), I now submit to you, humble reader, this question�

If this is the most trusted movie critic in America, then what the gently caress do you have to do to be untrustworthy?

I love how he goes for full vitriol in the post title, but still disclaims it with some parenthetical qualifiers.

If LARP/Film criticism grog doesn't fit the thread criteria, Wick provides an endless bounty. This one is short, but sweet:

quote:

In any roleplaying game, mechanics are crutches for weak players. The more mechanics the game has, the lower the designer�s opinion of his players.

I believe in the people who play my games.

Some games believe their players are cripples.

An unmoderated freeform play-by-post Dragon Ball Z/Sonic the Hedgehog/MLP roleplay mashup: That's where you'll find John Wick's idea of roleplaying ubermenchen.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:26

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

That's really beside the point. What I was driving at was narrative control is not a player entitlement issue; it's more about allowing /greater/ story involvement - the opposite of some other poster's claims about 4e's story focus, and certainly counter to your assertions upthread. I like narrative control - and therefore want it in my game - because I feel it engenders the roleplaying I want to see in my D&D games. 4e delivers on that, and in the context of this discussion Next currently doesn't, and no amount of "Tactical Module" will change that.

Beside which, you've got a false comparison going on there; narrative control is not mechanical in the same sense that classless or dice-pool are mechanical. It has more to do with how you frame a PC's capabilities than those capabilities themselves.

See, here is where I find this argument ends up circular.

Control of what? the Players, assuming they are the protagonists of their own story (and the NPCs don't rule over them for gold and glory) already control the narrative. Their actions control the scene setting and pacing. Once the PCs leave the Tomb of Horrors, the DM doesn't continue to run that module. Barring certain circumstances (such as APs) the adventure IS the PCs story and they control it via their actions.

So the PCs already control the narrative. What this involves is the evolution of the rules trumping the DM's calling.

Here is question: A fighter tries to tumble under a giant's legs while wearing in plate mail. Can he do it?

The 1e DM says no.
The 2e DM says yes, but sets a difficulty which makes success very difficult.
The 3e DM says yes, but uses the armor's armor check penalty and tumble rules to determine its success.
The 4e DM says yes, as you have the "tumble in armor" power, its automatically successful for you every time.

I don't like the 1e DM any more than the 4e DM. My heart is somewhere between the 2e and 3e DM. The first is DM fiat at its extreme, the 4e is player entitlement.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:28

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

But narrative control isn't an ingame thing. It's a metagame thing. It's about who gets to determine the content of the shared fiction. Different rules can distribute this power in different ways among the participants. 4e does it differently from (say) 3E, or 2nd ed AD&D, and gives more of that power to the players.

Call me old fashioned, but where I come from Metagame is a BAD thing. Metagame is the opposite of verisimilitude, as one requires you to think about the action on stage and the other the wires that control the puppets.

Which is why this argument ends up circular. The PCs control the grand narrative (its their story). They often control the driving narrative (their choices influence the direction of the story) and increasingly they want to control the minutiae of the refereeing as well.

The latter is illustrated in the concept that the player doesn't want to bull rush the giant; he has a high degree of failure because of size and strength. He wants the power that lets him do it regardless of size, strength, shape, or any other logical factors of resistance AND do his regular damage to boot.

You call it narrative control, I call it player entitlement. They want the benefit of pushing the giant around the board, but don't want the obvious chance of failure a bull rush system (with its checks against strength entail). Oh, and I the DM have to justify why my giant is being chased around the board 5 feet at a time by a 6' dude in armor and a shield. (cue the Benny Hill theme.)

quote:

That has no real bearing on the ingame question of whether or not the PCs achieve their goals. It's perfectly possible to have a game with a high degree of player narrative control yet a high degree of PC failure (I've GMed a Rolemaster game that had this feature; I think quite a bit of Burning Wheel could go this way too.

Having no experience with BW, I can't comment on that. I did in 4e PCs with little to fear in the way of death. Assuming the challenge was "appropriate" I don't think I ever saw a group fail unless the d20 was exceptionally cruel of all members. Foes did too little damage, PCs had too much hp.

quote:

But only once per encounter. That is, the mechanism of limitation is different. So provided you need to trip twice per encounter, you'll still be in danger, and might even lose.

So by artificially limiting a PCs actions in hand to what is on his power sheet vs. giving them usable combat actions at will, you automatically doomed said group rather than give that fighter the 1 in 20 shot of saving them?

quote:

There's no battle; at least not at my table. There's a distribution of roles.

Nor is there one at mine. But my players assume that since I am the GM, my ruling is law at my table and I could (in theory) throw the PHB in the trash and the game could keep running. Your DM is bound by the letter and spirit of the rules, mine IS the rules.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 05:46

ZenMasterBullshit: Nov 2, 2011; Restaurant de Nouvelles "À Table" Proudly Presents:
A Climactic Encounter Ending on 1 Negate and a Dream

So pf-rpanderson has some problems with a player

quote:

So I thought I would ask this question to more experienced GM/DMs. I've ran around 3 campaigns(probably 10-15 sessions total). I've had an issue with a player until recently.

The group I currently run has 5-6 players, most of them fairly laid back (Uni students). I have one problem player however. Let's call him George. George has read every book and played since Pathfinder came out. He can tell me what page something is on when I try to think of a certain rule. Due to this he tends to argue rules with me extensively. It isn't so much trying to be helpful as he wants to argue everything to get a rule to bend to his satisfaction. He is the rule lawyer... and the Attention whore.

I ran a special campaign with evil characters since a certain member who is leaving wanted to try it before he couldn't play for awhile. He convinced me into letting him play an overpowered monstrous race (which I thought a 2-level adjustment might work[boy was I wrong]). Anyhow, on the final night he takes up 4 hours of our 8 hour play session trying to solo a boss before his character dies. [I'm not saying I am without fault... i should of been more careful in letting him play a monstrous race...]

-snip-

I was approached by several people in the group, annoyed by his antics and wanting him gone. They were kind of pisses off at the last session. I can replace him (plenty of other people would be up for it at the Uni). I've created a new FB group (its how I coordinate things) and I'm going to send invites to people to get it going for the new school session.

-snip-

To sum it up: He is a pain, the other players want him gone yet I feel it to be a bit cruel to simply kick him off without trying to have him adjust his approach to the game (though I'm not sure a rule lawyer could bring themselves to play differently).

Let's see what advice his fellow posters give him! Things start off promising

quote:

Certainly try to talk with him. I commend you for wanting to give him another chance. Hopefully he will see that a game that is more fun for everyone is a more successful game. You may want to chat with the other players as well, and encourage them to give him another chance too. Having their support in that will be really helpful. Good luck!

But slowly, things turn south

quote:

Yeah, there is an old saying: "Zebra's don't change their stripes." Honestly, if you bring this up to him, I'm sure that he'd argue against that too. Regardless of what the rules say, in a tabletop RPG, the GM is God.

First of all, if he wanted to solo a boss on his own (any boss) and is spiting the party to do so, you should have nuked him.

quote:

Well, the GM needs to have certain buy-in to the campaign too. They, in theory want to tell a story and have some fun. The players should buy-in to the idea of hearing or making a good story and also having fun. What you described should never happen. But neither should one player ruining everyone's fun because they feel the need to argue about everything little minutia. In a situation where there is a conflict between the GM and majority of players make a non-rule compatible judgement call in order to move the game along or listen to one player bicker about some disruptive thing he wants to do which the rules allow, sorry, but I'll come down on the side of the GM.

That's why you need the line about God though. Because the GM needs to transcend rules sometimes, it's unavoidable. Are there GMs that use this fact to be cruel? Sure. But they are avoidable.

And then things just get ugly. ssshyperion wants to make sure this trouble player is punished for his crime

quote:

Directly confront him and give him two gaming sessions to quit. If he doesnt, refuse to allow him to play and depending on his attitude, I would even go as far as to spread the word to all the local groups and stores about his gaming methods. No one, not even other rules laywers, like that stuff.

Most rules lawyers will quit being nagging assholes and understand that the first drat line in most books is something like "The GM has the option to change the rules how he sees fit."

quote:

Tell him outright that the DM is god, and that he con not argue with you. Also follow through with this by telling him no outright next time then simply ignoring him when he bitches about it, because he will bitch about it. If it is a problem that continues to detract from play simply stop the session, tell him to leave the table, room, or house and not to return until he stops being a distraction and problem to the other players.

These types of players will not stop. They will only continue to ruin your campaign. Show no mercy in removing him from them.

EDIT: ssshyperion makes a good point. Get a good mugshot of him, and spread around the info he is a bad player, and what he tends to do. Note that people should allow him to play on a preliminary trial basis, but to be wary of his poor sportsmanship.

So, what have we learned? If you have a problem with a player, publicly shame him and try your damnedest to keep him from enjoying his hobby.

(My first real contribution to the thread. Too long?)

# ? Apr 5, 2013 06:02

Chaltab: Feb 16, 2011; So shocked someone got me an avatar!

quote:

Funny story. Neverwinter (as opposed to Neverwinter Nights) is the 4e MMO that everyone expected when 4e came out (rather than after it has already been shot in the head). It has at wills and encounters (though encounter powers are just on a timer), feats and all. But according to some of the closed beta footage that is wandering around the youtube, they kept the daily powers, but kicked the mechanics to the curb, and replaced it with a charge mechanic that builds up as you attack with other things. So after X at-will/encounter attacks, you can use your daily (and then again and again, so long as you do X attacks between uses). They are also going to change the name (probably something like 'ultimate' or whatever.

So if the MMO version of 4e is discarding the basic setup of the 4e system as stupid and unworkable, then yeah, it is probably a bad idea.

The best thing about being a grognard is never having to understand the first thing about game design and getting to feel proud of yourself for it.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 06:49

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

quote:

quote:
quote:
Most you could expect would be for Hasbro to licence out the tabletop RPG rights to D&D whilst keeping hold of more lucrative aspects of the IP like novels, board games, computer games, etc. They may well decide that there's no point in them directly investing time and effort into making tabletop RPGs but reason that it doesn't do any harm to licence that stuff out and at least get some royalties on it whilst their development budget goes on stuff which gets a better return on the investment.
Who would be a good candidate for such a license, and has the deep pockets?
AH, yes! If anyone can "innovate" the game into oblivion, it's them.

If I could "obliviate" games like FFG seems to, even though it's still gaming market money my response to this post would be to burn a $100 bill to light a cigar, eyebrow raised.

Chaltab posted:

The best thing about being a grognard is never having to understand the first thing about game design and getting to feel proud of yourself for it.

It's extra delicious to me because step-by-step build up to alpha abilities or out-of-gate alpha abilities as foundations to build later tactics on are both valid design goals in both mediums. Hell, you could do both in the same system. gently caress, I think they do do both in 4E, but I haven't looked at it in a year or two.

He is literally as wrong as it is possible to be about this issue.

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Apr 5, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 08:35

Elfgames: Sep 11, 2011; Fun Shoe

First the premise

quote:

I had an idea recently. What if the elements were different types of sprites?

By sprites I mean, tiny (sometimes) flying humanoids with their own will and limited intelligence. In their natural (atomic) form they're a couple inches tall, mischievous, and otherwise fairy-like. They are also however the building blocks of all matter (and become normal matter when combined). So why do sodium and chlorine come together to make salt? well it it's mostly because those types of sprites like making out with each other. What happens when you run electricity through water? You get a bunch of tiny flying hydrogen and oxygen sprits running amuck until they find something else to combine with.

So TRO, what do you think you can do with this?

Ha that's cute Elements as pixies, Adorable. Of course some one soon ruins it

quote:

I can't wait to see the look on the wizards' faces when they create plutonium. That one will be a monster...

(it does makes you wonder what a particle accelerator would be - some kind of horrific fairy rape machine?)

And he goes on.

quote:

Yes, really. I know it's not a nice thought, but to make a new element in a particle accelerator in the real world, you smash one atomic nucleus into another at such high energies that repulsion is overcome, bits fly off and a new element is forged. It would be a highly unpleasant experience if the elements were personified - it'd be forcing them together against their wills and turning them into something else, destroying the original 'parents'. Transuranic elements are literally "unnatural" - most have such short lifespans (I guess they'd be horribly misshapen monsters that don't live long in this paradigm) that they vanish in the blink of an eye - Plutonium is one of the few exceptions, which would make it all the more scary (plus, it's highly radioactive, sets things on fire, is hard to store, very dangerous to use, and is one of the most toxic substances known to man). It would - and should - be horrifying.

In this paradigm, I think it'd be a powerful representation of the 'ugly side of things' - of humanity taking something beautiful and turning it into something horrible. It'd be something to strive against.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 12:14

thefakenews: Oct 20, 2012

I very much enjoy DCC RPG, but it sure is a grognard magnet.

quote:

Does anyone have any insight or suggestions for dealing with problem players? By "problem," I mean just the sort of general malaise / lack of creativity that comes of playing MMORPGs for years and 3.x or 4E D&D. I've got a player in my game that constantly refers to his character as the "tank" (he's playing a dwarf), and always acts generally, i.e. "I search the room." "Is there any gear here for a tank?" "Is that something my <x> would want?" He never does anything with mighty deeds other than maybe a trip or a head shot, rarely a "knock this guy into that guy" type of maneuver. He's a fine guy he's just a terrible (IMO) player. I'm not sure how to break him of his bad habits, and would like some help or suggestions for things to try to do so. My problem with it is, it kind of saps my enjoyment of the game some... I mean, I run the game firstly for my players to have fun, so I feel pulled in the sort of less imaginative direction. It also tends to degrade the creativity around the table. I think some of the other players tend to drift away from interesting or creative role playing and towards the bad habits of MMORPGs or 3.x/4E (except for one guy, who's never played MMORPGs or 4E, just a bit of 3.x with me).

Like I said, I want to lead the group in a good direction. I'd wanted to TPK them so they could start over again, since we've been playing for a while and now have a better handle on the rules and mechanics, but nobody was into just willingly starting over, heh. Anyone know of any treatises written by the experienced on this topic?

quote:

I often will tell a player who just rolled a great roll and who tells me "Hit with a 19!" It didn't hit unless you can impress me with the description! Then I normally get a awesome long description worthy of a movie scene!

As far as the whole Tank issue goes,for the most part just realize that is the background he is coming from. Until he gets a lot more experiences under his belt that's the tool set he is working with. At most my advice on that is don't reward it. If he says "Any Tank gear in this stuff" Reply "Nope" Then proceed to tell another player about the awesome shiny plate mail the bag of coins is partially under.

quote:

I once was given 2 free levels in a 2nd Ed. AD&D game when I attacked a player in-game who was a pretty notorious cheater (she rolled dice in a little open box thing and always grabbed them up quickly after announcing "17!" or whatever). She packed up and left after my dwarf with a mace of disruption attacked her character that had willingly turned into a vampire and was then plaguing the party semi-secretly. She never came back.

It's an amusing story I guess but I'm less proud of it now that I'm older, in that I'd rather lead folks to change, than beat them into submission. Still, sometimes a beating (or five) is necessary.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 12:32

WordMercenary: Jan 14, 2013

Chaltab posted:

The best thing about being a grognard is never having to understand the first thing about game design and getting to feel proud of yourself for it.

Boy I could talk all day about the many reasons why there hasn't been a 4e videogame (being a heavily turn/grid based game in a era when that was unfashionable is the big one) but instead let's get more of John Wick's absurdly petty DMing!

quote:

Every once in a while, however, you get that dark loner. You know the guy. He's a bad man but
he's very good at what he does and what he does isn't very pretty. That guy. When he joins a party
of bounty hunters, he always kills the target rather than capturing him because "The Weed of Evil
Bears Bitter Fruit." Despite the fact the party is trying to act as a unit, he always acts on his own,
living by his own rules, by his own code of ethics. And when you confront the player about the
problem, he just shrugs and says, "That's the way my character is," or worse, he gets offended and
starts spouting the time-honored favorite: "Don't make me compromise my character concept!"

Now the key to preventing this guy from ruining your campaign is. . . don't let him make that kind
of character! Unfortunately, players are sneaky. They'll make characters that look friendly and
willing to Play Well With Others, but when the crunch is on, they sneak into the shadows, steal all
the loot and tell the others that they have no clue what happened to the booty they were after.

Well, this guy doesn't last long in my games because I invoke a little thing we like to call
"consequences." Here's how it works.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? That means the next time the Merciless
Killer Without a Heart goes and whacks the NPC the party is supposed to capture (for ransom, for
the law to deal with, whatever), you give him some time, then spring The Law on him.

The Law shows up at 3:45 AM (the time All Bad Things happen in my games) with stun guns, tear
gas, tasers and all other kinds of nasty wickedness. They capture the entire party and throw them
all in jail for interrogation regarding the illegal murder of The Guy We Were Supposed to Take
Alive. Then, spend the rest of the evening interrogating the party. Each one, by himself, under a
sunlamp. Go out and get one at Wal-Mart; they usually cost under ten bucks. Use the same tactics
cops use when they interrogate prisoners. Tell them that their friends have ratted them out. Tell
them that they're going to spend a real long time in prison. Then, when they think they've beaten
the rap, reveal to them that the guy they were chasing was an undercover cop. Now, they're facing
Murder 1 charges, which means life in prison (or the death penalty, depending where they're at).
Sooner or later, one of them will give up The Killer Without a Cause. Either that, or evidence
shows up that gives the cops a solid case against him.

Then, we have the trial. A lot of game sessions can go toward a trial. Or, if you prefer, you can do
it the short way: go right to the verdict. Of course, Mr. Don't Make Me Compromise My Character
is found guilty as charged and gets sent to prison.

For life.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have a rule in my games: you don't get to make another
character until the one you're playing dies. That means, Bob gets to play his perfect combat
machine in an 8x8 cell for the rest of his natural life.

"What are you doing this round, Bob?"

"I'm watching the cockroach crawl across my cell."

For life.

If he asks really nice (and agrees not make that kind of character again), I'll let him make a new
character. Of course, a few years later, Mr. Bad rear end breaks out of prison and goes after the party
for revenge.

As an NPC.

Played by Robert DeNiro.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 13:07

LordZoric: Aug 30, 2012; Let's wish for a space whale!

I have a smoldering hatred for Wick's GMing style mostly because I've suffered greatly at the hands of a GM just like him in a super hero setting and I know exactly how it feels to be screwed over and marginalized for the sake of DRAMA and MY PERFECT VILLAIN NPC.

I can't read anything Wick related without immediately going to the tale of Jefferson Carter. It's just about the most disgusting example of a grognard GM on a power trip I've ever read.

John's big wick posted:

Jefferson Carter is an NPC I use in a lot of my campaigns. As the head of Carter Enterprises, he is a model millionaire. He donates millions of dollars to charities, opens homeless shelters, fights for the rights of the working class and is always seen with the beautiful people. He is a handsome face with a charitable, giving heart.
Carter Enterprises is also responsible for the founding of United Superheroes (or, �US�). Using his vast funds, Carter brings together the most enterprising and resourceful superheroes to fight crime in the city�s streets and root out corruption in the city�s government. His involvement with US has always been a public matter: he doesn�t believe that a good deed should ever remain anonymous. He defends the rights of super heroes to help support the police department and other law enforcement agencies. He was instrumental in passing �The Vigilante Act� a few years back that made the acts of super heroes legal and has a staff of the best lawyers in the nation on payroll to keep his employees out of jail and on the streets.

In short, Jefferson Carter is the best friend a superhero could have.

And with friends like him � well, I think you finish that one by yourself.

Jefferson Carter is a meta-human. Carter has many abilities that allow him to seek out a hero�s most precious secrets, then he uses those secrets against them.
In my Champions campaign, even if the heroes weren�t employed by US, Carter would still consider them �employees.� In fact, those heroes would be an even greater challenge to his intellect and resources.

Why has Carter gone to all this trouble?

The answer is simple.

Because he can.

Carter is a mastermind, a genius beyond mortal measurement. Ever since his childhood, he has played �human chess� with his teachers and playmates. His acquired fortune came about from his ability to manipulate the minds and lives of mortals, and now he has learned to manipulate the minds and lives of meta-mortals.
In short, he is causing pain, misery and conflict for his own enjoyment. And, don�t forget, he�s doing it for his employees. After all, he provided for the Vigilante Act. He provided United Superheroes. He equips and trains the supervillains they encounter. Carter is the reason they are living the life they are. And if his tricks and traps take out one or two heroes here and there � oh well. What is life without a little risk, eh?

Now down to the nitty gritty.

Carter looks for a hero�s greatest weakness and exploits it until the character breaks. Listed below some of the more popular Disadvantages Champions characters take. Under each one is a method I used (Carter used) to get at the character.

Just a friendly warning: some of these techniques may be considered by some GM�s to be �underhanded.� For those GM�s who feel that they should be fair and arbitrary (as I so often hear), I suggest they look up �fair� and �arbitrary� in the dictionary.

Then, we can talk.

So we already have a recipe for disaster here with "powered by fiat" NPC. Now what does he do with it? Use Carter's powers to make an awesome campaign where the PCs are empowered to fight back against his machinations? Maybe make it a game of the subtle backdoor politics of the world getting in the way of heroes just helping people? Nah, let's just punish the players for building their characters the way they did.

Hide your grandmas posted:

For those of you who don�t recognize DNPC, it stands for �Dependent Non-Player Character�. I understand it�s a fairly common Disadvantage among players, but after this little stunt, I had a severe shortage of DNPCs in my campaign.
One of my more resourceful heroes was a young lady named Malice. She was a martial artist who had a poison touch. She was fast, deadly and very lucky. She was also a big, fat thorn in Carter�s side. She was getting too close to his secret, so he decided to retire her.

When she wasn�t running around in black tights, Malice was taking care of her aging grandmother. Grandmama was not too fond of those costumed heroes, especially that Malice girl.

She looked like a hussy in that tight little costume. And what right did they have to do a police man�s job? Grandpa was a police man, after all (and the main inspiration for Malice to turn to a life of adventuring). In short, it would break Grandmama�s heart if she found out about her granddaughter�s secret.
By now, you should be getting the picture. Just show Grandmama pictures of her granddaughter getting into the Malice costume and everything will be hunky dory, right?

Wrong.

When Carter does things, he does them with style.

On Grandmama�s seventieth birthday, Malice took her out to her favorite restaurant. In the middle of the meal, one of Malice�s most hated enemies showed up on the roof with a bomb. Of course, Malice made an appearance. Her enemy (who knew she would show up) was prepared. He had a single agenda and he stuck to it. In the middle of the fight, he hit her with a paralyzing ray, ripped off her mask and threw her through the glass ceiling � right in front of Grandmama. The combined shock of seeing her granddaughter get thrown through the glass ceiling, fall fifty feet and slam to the floor was shocking enough. Add to it the realization that her granddaughter was that masked hussy was a bit too much for Grandmama to handle.

Her heart seized, and as Malice watched on, trapped in her paralyzed body, her grandmother died.

Malice retired the very next day and nobody ever bought a DNPC again.

Abuse victims in capes posted:

]I love this one. Whenever I get to take a character away from a player for a while, explain that they�ve been unconscious and then have them wake up with blood on their hands is a chance to have some real fun.

I had one of those berserking scrapper guys in my campaign for a short while. His name was Scrapper (I didn�t pick the name, guys) and he got hired on at US for only a short while. The player knew all the Champions loop-holes and he exploited every one. Instead of asking �What kind of idiot do you think I am?� I let him have his little combat monster, keeping a steady eye on his Berserk Disadvantage.

After a couple of sessions, I got complaints from players. They complained that the character was nothing but a walking bundle of powers, a glory-hound and a bad role-player. I agreed, but asked them to be patient. After seeing a familiar wicked glint in my eye, they smiled quietly to themselves and waited for the hammer to fall.

The next session, they encountered one of my favorite villains. His name is Mindbender, and you can figure out the rest. Mindbender took one look at Scrapper and he knew what to do. He invoked a little mental heavy artillery and before Scrapper knew it, I was rolling dice, making a regretful look and asking him to make his Berserk roll. Now Scrapper only goes Berserk when he sees red trolley cars (his mother was killed by a run-away red trolley car). He knew there were no trolley cars in Minneapolis and asked me why he was going Berserk. I told him he was seeing trolley cars wherever he looked and he had no choice but to make the roll � and make it at -5, at that. After all, he was surrounded by the bloody things.

He failed the roll, went nuts and I took away his character sheet. At that moment, Scrapper starting attacking everything in sight, including his buddies. They had no chance but to defend themselves against a little rule-bending combat monster who was going at them full tilt. His little rampage caused a whole lot of damage and took out a small child�s eye before they got him under control. The parents sued US, Scrapper was brought up on charges of negligence and reckless endangerment of life and spent the next twenty years in prison.

I suggested to Scrapper�s player that he should be more careful with his Disadvantages. Surprisingly enough, the next character he made was a little more respectful of the rules. Go figure.

Let's turn an advantage into a personal hell! posted:

�Okay,� you say. �That�s just fine taking advantage of a character�s disadvantages. That�s no new trick. So what?�
All right, how about using a character�s advantages against him?

�Talents� can be a Champions character�s worst enemy. Luck is a great example. Players buy Luck for their characters all the time. Its like a little security blanket. It makes them feel as if they have something to fall back on if everything goes bad.

The definition of Luck is �� that quality which helps events turn out in the character�s favor.� Okay, that sounds fine, but trust me, a good GM can find bad in just about anything.

Remember, Luck isn�t contagious. Making a character Lucky does not make the whole group Lucky. Characters who buy Luck tend to be a little self-centered. After all, they would rather spend points on something that will get them out of trouble, rather than something that would compliment or aid the group. So, get the group in trouble, let the Luckster roll his way out of it, then make him wish he didn�t. It�s called �the frying pan and fire technique� and here�s how it works.

Imagine the group getting hit by some area effect weapon. Of course, the Luckster wants to roll his way out of it. You tell him that�s fine and he makes his luck roll. He flies out of the effect and looks back to see his buddies frying.

(Feel free to apply guilt here. After all, he could have grabbed someone to fly out with him, right?)

Then, right after he�s out of the blast radius, have him notice that he�s flown right into a mob of supervillains, just ready and willing to pound on one lone hero. Let�s see him Luck his way out of a combined total of 1,500 points of hard-hitting villains. If only he had stayed behind �

Or perhaps by Lucking out he�s put his buddies in deeper trouble. For instance, let�s use the area effect weapon again. Perhaps one of his powers could have countered the effect?
If he had stayed behind, he�d have been able to help them out. But he chose to Luck out, and now his buddies are frying. Good thing he�s Lucky, isn�t it?

Another example. The character is in an airport. He�s in the rest room and he stumbles across an envelope somebody dropped. He opens the envelope and discovers its filled with thousand dollar bills. Get you get any more lucky? Of course, the money belongs to a crime syndicate or something even more diabolical, and they�re going to be looking for that money and who �found� it (of course, they believe the hero stole it). And all of this trouble because the character was Lucky.

The stories go on from there. The death of Mr. Fabulous one gets more of a pass because at least the player agreed to it. Of course what happened after that is far more inexcusable. Stuff like a player being forced to sit in the corner every session for the next month or so (it was a weekly campaign if I recall) because his character was in prison or that Carter was only finally taken out because Wick decided from on high to let his petty little players finally do it. Because that's a good feeling, knowing your accomplishments weren't your own doing but were pre-established by the GM.

There's something else about Wick.

Something I can't quite put my finger on.

It may have something to do with his formatting style.

Maybe it seems a tad pretentious.

But I'm not sure.

LordZoric fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Apr 5, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 15:19

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

Bless your heart, John Wick posted:

I love this one. Whenever I get to take a character away from a player for a while, explain that they�ve been unconscious and then have them wake up with blood on their hands is a chance to have some real fun.

I had one of those berserking scrapper guys in my campaign for a short while. His name was Scrapper (I didn�t pick the name, guys) and he got hired on at US for only a short while. The player knew all the Champions loop-holes and he exploited every one. Instead of asking �What kind of idiot do you think I am?� I let him have his little combat monster, keeping a steady eye on his Berserk Disadvantage.

After a couple of sessions, I got complaints from players. They complained that the character was nothing but a walking bundle of powers, a glory-hound and a bad role-player. I agreed, but asked them to be patient. After seeing a familiar wicked glint in my eye, they smiled quietly to themselves and waited for the hammer to fall.

The next session, they encountered one of my favorite villains. His name is Mindbender, and you can figure out the rest. Mindbender took one look at Scrapper and he knew what to do. He invoked a little mental heavy artillery and before Scrapper knew it, I was rolling dice, making a regretful look and asking him to make his Berserk roll. Now Scrapper only goes Berserk when he sees red trolley cars (his mother was killed by a run-away red trolley car). He knew there were no trolley cars in Minneapolis and asked me why he was going Berserk. I told him he was seeing trolley cars wherever he looked and he had no choice but to make the roll � and make it at -5, at that. After all, he was surrounded by the bloody things.

He failed the roll, went nuts and I took away his character sheet. At that moment, Scrapper starting attacking everything in sight, including his buddies. They had no chance but to defend themselves against a little rule-bending combat monster who was going at them full tilt. His little rampage caused a whole lot of damage and took out a small child�s eye before they got him under control. The parents sued US, Scrapper was brought up on charges of negligence and reckless endangerment of life and spent the next twenty years in prison.

I suggested to Scrapper�s player that he should be more careful with his Disadvantages. Surprisingly enough, the next character he made was a little more respectful of the rules. Go figure.

Wick LOVES jailing characters. I assume in keeping with his last post he made the player roleplay sitting in jail for an arbitrarily irritating number of sessions.

It's the "small child's eye" bit that gets me. "YOU PUT HIS EYE OUT, YOU MONSTER" I don't play Champions, is there a really fiddly crit table? Was it Wick fiat?

Of course, if you make a nice, balanced, reasonable four-color super in Wick's Champion's game, he's not going to be a dick to you, right?

Really, John Wick posted:

One last story that I can�t take full credit for.

One of my players, my buddy Danny, came to me after a game session with a problem. He had been playing a character for the whole run of the game, a very popular character who went by the name �Mr. Fabulous.�

Out of all my Champions campaigns, Mr. Fabulous was one of my favorite characters. He was a modest little superhero with just a little bit of super strength, speed and endurance and a whole lot of heart. He dressed up in a colorful costume and fought for truth, justice and the American Way because it was the right thing to do. He always took a morning jog along Hennipen Boulevard and a mob of kids would follow him as far as they could. He bought ice cream and hot dogs at the little mom and pop drug store on the corner for lunch and he always had time for an autograph.

Oh, and he fought crime, too.

That night, Danny told me that Mr. Fabulous was going to retire. He really loved the character, but he felt it was time to let him take off his mask and get on with his imminent middle age years. We talked about it for a while and I gave him a suggestion. At first he was shocked, but then, as he thought about it, he agreed it was the only way to end the story of Mr. Fabulous. We shook hands and the very next week, the event we discussed took place.

Mr. Fabulous did indeed announce his intention to retire. Carter and US throw a huge party to celebrate Mr. Fabulous� twenty years of fighting crime. The event was on the front page of every newspaper in the nation.

On the morning before his retirement, Mr. Fabulous stopped in the mom and pop drug store for his ice cream and hot dog. A young kid with frightened eyes was there with a gun, taking money out of the register. Mr. Fabulous held up his hands and tried to talk the kid into putting the gun down. The kid, with eyes full of tears, lowered the pistol. For some reason, Mr. Fabulous� Danger Sense wouldn�t stop ringing in his ears. He turned around a little too late and took a bullet from the kid�s older brother right in the face.

The ambulance arrived ten minutes after the incident. Mr. Fabulous was found, barely alive and in shock. They turned off the siren five minutes outside of the hospital.

The death of Mr. Fabulous was a dark day in my campaign. He was one of the first super heroes, a mentor to more than half of the members of United Superheroes. A national day of mourning was held and we spent an entire game session on the funeral, listening to each superhero talking about their memories of their hero.

What did this accomplish? What does this little incident have to do with using a character�s Disadvantages against them? Well, every character has one single disadvantage in common, and it isn�t on their character sheet. Sometimes we don�t see it, and it often becomes invisible in a superhero campaign. That little Disadvantage is that each and every one of us is mortal. In the world of superheroes, we sometimes forget this. While each of us would like to live forever, it is often a character�s death that defines him, not his life. Mr. Fabulous died trying to talk a scared little kid out of doing the wrong thing. He could have pounded the hell out of him, but he didn�t. He died trying to stop a crime without using his fists.

"He was one of my favorite PCs, played fair and had a good character, so when he went to retire him I had him SHOT IN THE FACE"

Because it's important to remind people in an escapist superhero elf game that we're all one gunshot in the face from being fuckin' dead, right?

EDIT: Turns out I was mining the same grog as Zoric and didn't refresh before I posted. Mea Culpa.

Owlbear Camus fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Apr 5, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 15:31

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

Dogs in the Vineyard is an excellent wild west RPG that's won many awards for its innovative game play and unique setting. Let's see what the internet has to say...

quote:

In high-school, I used to play RPGs - not video games but the pen-and-paper kind, like D&D. My best friend is still an avid gamer, and occasionally shares things with me.
Yesterday, as I was going through some of his gaming material, I stumbled upon Dogs in the Vineyard. A western-themed role playing game that was unmistakably inspired by Brigham Young era Utah Mormonism. If you're at all interested in RPGs and/or 19th century Mormonism, I thought you might like to check it out. (I thought there was a way to attach a file, but I can't find it. So, the link is to a pdf file in my Dropbox folder.)

Alright,

, but nothing too bad... How's our first reply?

quote:

Roll D20 twice. The sum is the number of your wives.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 16:04

Lottery of Babylon: Apr 25, 2012; STRAIGHT TROPIN'

I like the excuses John Wick comes up with to "justify" screwing over his players. Like this one:

quote:

Characters who buy Luck tend to be a little self-centered. After all, they would rather spend points on something that will get them out of trouble, rather than something that would compliment or aid the group.

It makes sense if you don't think about it. But if you think about what he's saying at any level, it's ridiculous:

quote:

Characters who buy armor or more than 3 CON tend to be a little self-centered. After all, they would rather spend points on something that will keep themselves safe, rather than something that would compliment or aid the group.

Time to teach those self-centered jerks who don't make defenseless glass cannons a lesson!

Here's another bizarre one from the same article:

quote:

Find Weakness

My favorite trick has to do with Find Weakness. This little puppy lets characters observe their enemies to find a weakness in the defenses of a target. The better they roll, the more damage they can do.

A lot of combat monsters take this one. I always let them. They only use it once.

Carter designs supervillains with a weakness the heroes can exploit. These villains he calls his �throw-aways�: punks he can throw at the heroes to watch their fighting styles and skills. He shows the heroes films of the throw-aways and shows them the weakness he�s �found.� Then he sends them out to confront the baddie, armed with the knowledge he�s given them. They find the throw-away, engage him, find his weakness and hit him as hard as they can.

This little strategy always has the same result.

The villain�s eyes go wide, he mumbles something about forgiveness and the hero watches the life slip out of his eyes.

Killing a villain is a major crime. Heroes are expected to bring the bad guys in alive. But there�s no need to worry. The hero can rest assured that Mr. Carter�s lawyers will take care of everything.

I'd have thought someone whose main skill is analyzing opponents to determine their weaknesses would also be able to know whether the weakness is more like "hitting this panel disables his weapons" or "one splash of water and the wicked witch actually dies". I'll admit I'm not familiar with this game system but this reeks of bullshit.

Probably the most honest statement in the article is "Whenever I get to take a character away from a player ... is a chance to have some real fun." His methods of killing characters have a very obvious pattern:

quote:

In the middle of the fight, he hit her with a paralyzing ray, ripped off her mask and threw her through the glass ceiling � right in front of Grandmama. The combined shock of seeing her granddaughter get thrown through the glass ceiling, fall fifty feet and slam to the floor was shocking enough. Add to it the realization that her granddaughter was that masked hussy was a bit too much for Grandmama to handle.

Her heart seized, and as Malice watched on, trapped in her paralyzed body, her grandmother died.

Malice retired the very next day and nobody ever bought a DNPC again.

quote:

He failed the roll, went nuts and I took away his character sheet. At that moment, Scrapper starting attacking everything in sight, including his buddies.

quote:

When the time was right, Carter arranged for a subtle drug to get slipped into Paladin�s system that would drive him to the edge just at the right moment. He met up with Vengeance (right on schedule) and as she prepared for another opportunity to humiliate him, the drug kicked in and he started in on the unprepared super-babe. Needless to say, under his drugged state, he demolished the poor girl (he had 50 more points to play with, after all). When he gained control, he realized what he had done and watched as the police (who were conveniently called in on the scene by an anonymous tip) took off her mask and carted his beloved off to prison.

Nobody is allowed to actually control their character during anything Wick does. They're always paralyzed or insane or mind-controlled.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 16:29

Owlbear Camus: Jan 3, 2013; Maybe this guy that flies is just sort of passing through, you know?

Oh, John Wick posted:

While Jared is legally bound to not speak on the subject, there are others who are tangentially involved who are not so legally bound.

Like myself. And everbody here knows I've always been the perfect model for tolerance and restraint. Especially on the internet.

First, a tangential rant.

We have to do away with all the people on this thread (and yes, I'm looking at you, Ian Young) who pretend to know a single thing about intellectual property law.

Here's the news. You don't.

You can't trademark plots, you can't copyright characters, You can't copyright "ideas." TSR tried that with roleplaying games and it didn't work. If you want to know how copyrights, trademarks, and intellectual properties really work, go to law school for three years and get back to me. I don't pretend to be a lawyer and I don't even play one on the internet. I've got a real lawyer who figures this poo poo out for me.

Anyway, back from tangential rant to mainline.

What Jared is going through isn't pretty. It's a lesson in what not to do when you run a game company. And yes, this rant is partly directed at Jared because I'm pissed at him for not protecting himself better. Like I said, I have a lawyer. He tells me how to protect myself against a litigious and petty culture like the one we have here in the United States. If Jared had a lawyer, if he kept his skirts clean, if he kept an eye out for himself, this wouldn't have happened. But Jared is Jared and I love him for who he is, despite the fact that he's ignored my sage and worthy advice for years about protecting himself.

The lesson kiddies? loving PROTECT YOURSELF!!!

I know this because Shinsei knows this.

Maybe Jared will listen this time. Maybe he'll learn. Maybe he won't. But one thing this life has definately taught me is this: you can love someone and be angry at them at the same time. Anger doesn't trump love. If your anger trumps your love, it wasn't love in the first place.

I know this because Berek knows this.

The details of Jared's legal problems stem from the fact that this industry is filled with back-stabbing pricks who will cut your throat for a nickel. You know why? Because most of the asshats in this industry--the ones who really run the show--are cokeheads. That's right: cokeheads.

Wanna know why game companies go out of business? Not because they're run by gamers and not businessmen (although that's partly true), and it's not because gamers are notoriously cheap bastards (although that's also partly true), but because most game companies are run by cocaine addicts who need their next fix.

I know this. Don't ask me how I know this. Slander is a bad, bad wrap.

These paranoid junkies read treacherous words and see treacherous fiends wherever they go. And while they don't have a single creative bone in their bodies, they do one thing that Jared did not do.

They protect themselves.

And this is why Jared is going through what he's going through now. Because they protect themselves with the law and punk rock Jared didn't.

I'm gonna get sued for this. I don't give even a single little poo poo. Not even a poo squirt. gently caress 'em. They hurt someone I love dearly. And when my lawyer tells me I can say something more substantial, he'll let me. (Although, he's very worried about the whole cocaine thing.)

The game industry--your game industry--is loaded with losers who want nothing more than your buck.

And don't tell me--oh no, you miserable fucks--don't tell me you won't run out on the very first day and shell out $40 for D and loving D fourth.

You will. I know you will. I said you'd do it before and I was right. You'll do it again.

You know why? Because you're all suckers. And you don't protect yourselves.

I only ever read the DMG while wearing a condom.

# ? Apr 5, 2013 17:05

Rocket Ace: Aug 11, 2006; R.I.P. Dave Stevens

So I decided to once again brave Pundit's forums to get a bit more clarification on why that community seems to hate certain gaming styles.

It's pretty much just the standard bitterness and anger. I don't understand why they see variant systems as a THREAT to their hobby.

(quotes below are not all from the same person)

quote:

Sadly, the entire concept of player skill is under siege these days. Modern game theory would have us believe that all challenges should be solvable by pushing the right button on the character sheet.

Having a character's survival depend on how well the player can actually think in a given situation is largely absent from mechnics heavy systems.

quote:

If anything, complaints about modern story games are that they throw out the baby with the bathwater in disempowering the GM.

quote:

The collection of fuckwits who attach themselves to shared narrative games certainly seem to include a preponderance of moral deviants, but I don't think anyone is claiming shared narrative gaming itself is particularly corrupt. Just different enough to be a seperate hobby.

quote:

Mmm. The thing is people who are nowadays self-proclaimed "storygamers" are johnny-come-latelys on the scene, with little to no knowledge of RPG systems pre-late 90s at best and nothing much to add to conversations beyond they're ego-on-the-line assertions that their games are exactly the same as classic RPGs and anyone who says different is a big meanie who has it out for them. They're kinda like 4E fans in that manner.

Why on earth to they care so much? On that note, why do *I* care what they think?

I guess that it bothers me that most people that I meet in this hobby (outside of my gaming group) share this sort of mentality. It depresses me.

Also, those forums are loving awful. There are some very reasonable people, but some of the veterans are the epitome of :smug:

# ? Apr 5, 2013 17:08

Toph Bei Fong: Feb 29, 2008

Lottery of Babylon posted:

I like the excuses John Wick comes up with to "justify" screwing over his players. Like this one:

Nobody is allowed to actually control their character during anything Wick does. They're always paralyzed or insane or mind-controlled.

Seems like the only way to play would be to dump all your points in Physical and Mental Defense, then the rest into Killing Attack, and kill every single person you meet. Still wouldn't be much fun, though...

quote:

derp 4e sucks lol.
But seriously, they changed the nice game into a bloody CRPG framework on paper. "abilities", mana(And yes, I know mana was in 3.5 too, as a variant rule)
Couldnt happen in 3/3.5e? Im sorry, you've been playing with wrong people, and had a bad GM then(or been one, I guess)
Combat is what DM makes it, what players make it. System just provide ways to roll it. 4e took that away, and tried to replace it with lovely unoriginal abilities that took the flavour out of the combat
"I use my at-will reaping strike, reaping at targed and striking it"
*turn*
"I use my at-will reaping strike, reaping at targed and striking it"
*turn*
"I use my at-will reaping strike, reaping at targed and striking it"
...
In fact, your main arguments, what the poo poo does that has to do with the system? Backgrounds? roleplaying? OH I GUESS THEY ROLEPLAY BGECAUSE 4th ED!

Because "at-will reaping strike" is far less good than "basic attack!", right guys?

# ? Apr 5, 2013 17:55

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Otisburg posted:

I only ever read the DMG while wearing a condom.

The best part of that whole rant? (Besides "Wick does not actually have a copyright lawyer") It was a part of a marketing scam to drum up interest in Jared Sorenson's new game Lacuna:

Jared Sorenson posted:

Well, isn't this awkward?

When I first released Lacuna Part I. in February 2004, I spent a week to "build up" the game with some weird documents (some of which appear in <second attempt>). Not only did it capture peoples' interest, it just seemed to fit rather well with the game's setting, theme and feel.

Fast-foward two years to this. 4/1/06. April Fool's Day. Yowza.

I thought it would be clever/amusing/wicked to start spreading rumors about MMT's demise/sell-out/lawsuit/buyout/whatever and then on the day in question, "shut down" MMT and redirect all the traffic to a new domain: nasrudin-institute.org, the fictional home and birthplace of the Lacuna Device.

Well, I'm writing this before the unveiling but the lead-up has been...interesting. Some cunning LJ posts on my part and plotting on RPG.net (et al...and with the help of some unnamed accomplices) have whipped up a small maelstrom of outrage, anger, sadness and...ah, support? Didn't see that coming.

Now, as I realize what MMT means to some people, I almost feel a little bad.

In order to assuage my guilty conscience (and as a way of saying, "Oops, sorry!" to anyone I pissed off with this little stunt), I'm offering full refunds to anyone that bought my PDF's the last week of March, 2006. You can keep the games!

Thanks for putting up with me, and I promise that this will never, ever, ever happen again.*

- Jared

It led to both Wick and Sorenson being banned for six months. I think Sorenson was later upped to a permaban, while Wick occasionally comes back and is all snarky about later game design decisions in L5R.

unseenlibrarian fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Apr 5, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 18:14

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

The Gaming Den discovers Apocalypse World.

quote:

I was wondering..

Has someone considered applying the resolution model from AW (success > hard choice > poo poo happens) to other games ?

Im in love with Runequest 6 right now and cant wait to start a new campaign with it. BUT after we adopted AW for our current Shadowrun campaign the group consensus in that our games got faster, intenser, and focusing on what really matters for us (the in-fiction choices & consequences, instead of math).

Particularly in my case, what bothers me most is the whole spectrum of NOTHING HAPPENS* contained in the old/trad resolution model. Every roll where you get a �fail� (NOTHIN HAPPENS!), is a waste of time and opportunities (and, by the end of a 4 hours session, it amounts to a really significant wasted time).

So, what do you guys think ? Has anyone considered doing this ?

*old/trad resolution model: �critical success > success > fail [NOTHING HAPPENS] > critical failure�.

quote:

While I have know idea what the gently caress your talking about, my gut says that this is a terrible idea.

Also could anyone translate this pretentious fappery into something that doesn't make me want to abandon my dignity and join Tarnowski's band of raving rejects

quote:

I thought Apocalypse World's resolution mechanic was for everyone to get tipsy and have an orgy....

quote:

Whelp, always curious I went and grabbed a copy. First, there isn't really a mention of the resolution mechanic until page 190. The entire pdf is 303 pages, and there a lot of white space including entirely blank pages, pages with less than 200 words on them, so I'm already skeptical you'd want to take anything from them.

Any who, the resolution mechanic is a 2d6 check + a stat with the final sum determining how good the move is:
6 or less is miss/failure
7+ is a success/hit with 7-9 being week and 10+ being a 'strong' success/hit.

There some extra riders, like a 7-9 while being under pressure isn't really a success, the DM instead screws with you in some way. The example choice is trying to sneak somewhere, getting an 8, and being noticed by some kid watching the camp and being given the choices of either murdering him or alerting the entire camp.

I would not honestly touch that for anything that wasn't basically just MTP, and even then I'd be super leery of getting near it unless I knew the players and GM super well. If you dropped the part about the DM screwing with you it's a pretty basic and uninspired resolution mechanic.

What is MTP?

quote:

MTP is Magical Tea Party. A game mechanic is MTP if it has no reliable, actual mechanics, and decisions on whether something happens or not are based on the DM deciding on it happening or the group discussing what would happen and agreeing on it happening.

MTP isn't itself a bad thing- you can have a huge amount of fun when playing with MTP rules. But they are insulting when in a game system because any rules in a game should be better than MTP since the MTP system is completely free.

So, if someone is saying that the Apocalypse World system uses MTP, then they are saying that there aren't any real rules for what you can do and how hard it is, but instead it is based on how well you can bullshit the DM. And that this is bad since other games manage to have actual rules for those things and the makers of AW should feel bad for having the same ability to create rules as a 4 year old girl.

e: I will never for the life of me understand why some people are so adamant that the AWorld resolution system is like some huge deviation from other games simply because there's a partial success mechanic and the GM is explicitly told to think about results from the point of view of what's happening in-game.

Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Apr 5, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 18:30

Literally Kermit: Mar 4, 2012; t

Hi, I�m a men that played lots and lots of female characters. I never asked myself if they were offensive or stereotypical. I surely hope they weren�t.

I have advices too.

The first is: Play Kagematsu. Kagematsu is a game in which each player will play a female character trying to win the love of a Ronin, played by a female player. It really helps in connecting with your character and understand her. Stereotypical characters don�t last very long in Kagematsu. You are forced to be tridimensional, or you will end up dying

Second advice: Play A Penny for my Thoughts with other women. In Penny you guide a character but you don�t decide your actions or words. Losing control over your character can be a great help to understand how could a character move. I know it sounds weird, but it totally works.

Third advice: Play with Passion. Play to find out what will happen and who your character really is. Because you don�t know. You can�t know her. You can�t possibly know what will happen to her and who will she happen to be. Pursue her desires, make choices. See what she�ll end up to be. If you can manage to do that, your character will never be a slutty cheerleader. Your character will be THAT slutty cheerleader. A real person.

BTW I plan to be a slutty cheerleader soon. In MonsterHearts. Who wants to play with me?

He followed up a post later correcting himself on 'a men' instead of 'a man', which leads me to believe this fucker is, in fact, serious.

vvvvv
It's my first time actively seeking out grog instead of it randomly blindsiding me; I just stumbled on the article. Seems like a nice site, which really made the comment leap up at me!

I suppose googling for sexist grog is easy-mode. v :v:

Literally Kermit fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Apr 6, 2013

# ? Apr 5, 2013 23:37

MadScientistWorking: Jun 23, 2010; "I was going through a time period where I was looking up weird stories involving necrophilia..."

Literally Kermit posted:

Hi, I�m a men that played lots and lots of female characters. I never asked myself if they were offensive or stereotypical. I surely hope they weren�t.

I have advices too.

The first is: Play Kagematsu. Kagematsu is a game in which each player will play a female character trying to win the love of a Ronin, played by a female player. It really helps in connecting with your character and understand her. Stereotypical characters don�t last very long in Kagematsu. You are forced to be tridimensional, or you will end up dying

Second advice: Play A Penny for my Thoughts with other women. In Penny you guide a character but you don�t decide your actions or words. Losing control over your character can be a great help to understand how could a character move. I know it sounds weird, but it totally works.

Third advice: Play with Passion. Play to find out what will happen and who your character really is. Because you don�t know. You can�t know her. You can�t possibly know what will happen to her and who will she happen to be. Pursue her desires, make choices. See what she�ll end up to be. If you can manage to do that, your character will never be a slutty cheerleader. Your character will be THAT slutty cheerleader. A real person.

BTW I plan to be a slutty cheerleader soon. In MonsterHearts. Who wants to play with me?

He followed up a post later correcting himself on 'a men' instead of 'a man', which leads me to believe this fucker is, in fact, serious.

So you read gamingaswomen.com too? I wonder how that got past the moderation then gain its really borderline as to whether or not its tongue in cheek or not.
Speaking of sexism. Here is some grog involving a problem player post which in of itself is a bit passive aggressive in their inability to talk to her which wasn't really bad until this post.

quote:

So, whose girlfriend is she? I'm assuming somebody's dating her to make it worth your group's time to put up with this kind of behavior.....

quote:

Yeah, I know, that whole sexist, misogynistic thing was really bugging me too. I'm glad someone called it out.

But seriously, who's girlfriend is she? :P

I always can't help but wonder what the other side of these stories is.

Because there's always another side.

quote:

Calybos1 never said anything against female gamers, he just pointed out that if this girl is such a pain in the rear end, there must be some reason for the group to put up with her, since she's obviously not making their roleplaying any more enjoyable.

quote:

Is it bad that I can now officially say that i'm more interested in getting an answer to the question of 'is she dating another one of the players' than I am in the possibility of resolving the OP's question?

Sure we can argue non existant non published statistics till we're blue in the face. True it may make some of the posters here mysoginistic genderbiased misanthropes to some degree for suggesting it...

While it is certainly not only possible but arguably even likely for a lady to be a gamer without having entered into or sustained a relationship with another gamer at the table, the gut feeling I get is that the post everyone's up in arms about is true.

First we know you've got a disruptive person who resists assimilation into the group, to the very point where the OP says it's a 'Last ditch effort' (read: every attempt has been made to rehabilitate)... to quote the op "We've been trying to help her so we don't have to kick her out, but nothing seem to be working."

Given the obvious easy choice of kicking her out because life's too short.
The question of 'why are we bothering to try not to kick her out' becomes the most pertinent question. The short list of most likely possibilities, no matter how chauvenist they may be include:

she's dating another player and the group is afraid they will lose the good player by booting the bad one.
this poor estrogen starved gaming table is so hard up for 'time with the opposite sex' that they'll put up with practically anything in order to keep her around.
This table full of full on die hard veteran gamers has a truly noble goal of introducing this most likely wonderful imaginative female into the wonders of their hobby and are confounded at it not going over so smoothly.

It reminds me of the final conversation from the Milla Jovovich Joan of Arc movie. Where Dustin Hoffman reminds her of all the possible ways in which she could have found a sword in a field... And the ludicrousness of the one she finally chose to accept.

Yes it is absolutely totally possible that this is a genuinely selfless table trying their best to invite another player into the fold. It is no less likely that such a generous and giving table would resort to asking us here in the forums for any possibility of a last ditch unthought of solution to their problem. While I hope I'm wrong, I find myself on the side of the folks who believe that a girl who isnt attatched to another gamer at the table that the table prefers to keep would not be worth the time and effort.

I speak from a position of being exactly one of those tables that welcomes new people all the time and tries to make the introduction to gaming a smooth, fun, exciting one. She's been with the table for a 'long time now' and the things about her which strike me most about his description of her are 'she makes trouble and when she isnt making trouble she's knitting?"

She doesnt 'sound' like she likes gaming enough to be called a gamer. Take gender completely off the table and she flat out doesnt sound like the kind of person who'd be interested in gaming at all. If life's too short to have a crappy gamer at the table then the reverse is also true. Why would a person go out of their way to be a gamer if all they want to do is be a pain in the butt at a table where everyone thinks you're a pain in the a$$ and knit? That doesn't sound like a quality contribution to the hobby or to the table... So the question remains... Why is she here and why does the OP care about making 'one last ditch effort' to keep such bile at the table?

Of the three possibilities above, I don't see option one as being the ludicrous one. Its not a gender illegitimizing stance. It's not painting a picture that girl gamers dont exist or that the only way they get into gaming is through joining in on the games of their significant other... Its an 'if you dont like the table then why do you show up to it. why do you bring toxic to the table and why would the table put up with it'. Thats a gender free question. I can say for sure that 'sometimes you gotta boot the bad apple' comes quicker to most tables than it doesnt, so 'why is she there' and 'why havent you booted her yet' do become more clearly weighted to the 'companion' theory.

It would in fact be gender bias to presume that a crappy gamer should be kept around or coddled so much just because she's a girl. So if that's not happening then why hasn't she been booted and why does she still voluntarily show up to this situation?

I love gaming so much that i'll play through multiple sessions where everyone hates me and in the meantime i'll just knit and hope it improves? Thats twilight zone brain right there. And its non gender biased twilight zone brain. Even dudes don't love gaming enough to repeatedly and disinterestedly decide to haze a gametable week in and week out no matter how much they love the hobby.

MadScientistWorking fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Apr 6, 2013

# ? Apr 6, 2013 00:25

Big Hubris: Mar 8, 2011

quote:

Here's the thing- we think in different ways, we understand things in different ways, and we'll respond to things in different ways.

So, the DM might understand the internal logic and causality in a completely different way to the players. Two DMs will resolve the exact same situation in completely different ways.

That right there is MTP- there are no set predefined rules for what happens but it is decided upon by the DM deciding on it happening. Now there may be guides as to what sort of things should be happening, but the actual mechanics are guided MTP.

As I said, that isn't always a bad thing, but you have to be aware that it is happening and how to deal with it, even if the dealing with it is to find a different DM who thinks in a way you understand.

How is this different from literally any other game on the market?

# ? Apr 6, 2013 07:23

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

My reason for using editions was that the expectation of the feel the rule-sets attempt to give in the game. 1e was based around a permissive DM, 2e emphasized the "yes, and..." notion (the example is right of the Complete Fighter's Handbook, btw), 3e gave solid and detailed rules for everything, and 4e demands plot cards to do cool things*.

* Yeah, yeah, page 42. Page 42 is suggestions for DM fiat and really no different than our 2e DM pulling rules out of his backside, except the page has a chart to determine what a "fair" rule would be. Page 42 actually defeats attempts to define "player narrativism" since, by definition, its the rules for DM rules adjudication and essentially defines the "mother may I" play style that narrativists rail against.

quote:

My players don't want to control the minutiae of the refereeing. They want to have levers they can pull that will make changes in the fiction, without needing my permission first.

And THERE'S the entitlement. Why? Are they afraid you'll say no? Are they afraid you'll set some difficult DC and won't succeed? Are they afraid a wasted attempt is as bad as doing nothing? Are they afraid their halfling fighter with a 16 strength can't push the ogre into the campfire because the rules are stacked against small creatures pushing large ogre's in fires?

I don't think there's a DM in the world that wouldn't let you /try/ to push the giant around with your shield. I don't know a DM who wouldn't. They can try, and lucky dice rolls later might succeed. Or they might fail. And that's what the Tide of Iron power shields you from: failure. It just happens. It doesn't matter if its a pixie or the Tarrasque, it just happens.

quote:

Huh? The giant's AC, which will among other things reflect its size and strength, is a consideration here. If the player had his/her PC Bull Rush instead, the chance of success may be a little lower (Fort for many, but not all, giants is better than AC).

Oh please. A giant's AC is reflective on its level in 4e and you know it. Size and strength play nothing into a monster's AC. Two level 8 monsters have roughly the same AC (within a few points) and it doesn't matter if they're nymphs using magical power, drow in chain armor, or giants with clubs. Level alone determines the bulk of AC in 4e, justify to yourself how you like.

Now, in 3e with its pain-in-the-butt-realism, bull rushin was hard. You made a touch AC roll, then an opposed strength check, which DID take into account that giant's 25 strength a +8 size mod. Tell me 4e's atk vs. AC is anywhere near as complicated, or as realistic, as that?

quote:

As for dealing damage too - what's wrong with that? An AD&D fighter can make 3 attack rolls ever two rounds. The rate at which weapon damage is dealt has no connection to verisimilitude - it only arises within the framework of the game's action economy, which is pure metagame.

In 3e, he moves his foe OR he deals damage. In 4e, player gets cake and eats it too.

quote:

I'm the GM in my group. But you are correct that I am bound by the rules. That's part of the point of having rules, for me at least! That is, I don't see the rules simply as rought heuristics for working out how things happen within the fiction ("rules as physics of the gameworld"). I see the rules primarily as allocating narrative power across the participants. They let me do a lot of stuff - for instance, declare that some particular NPC or monster enters the fictional action. But they let the players do some stuff, too - such as (if the fictional circumstances are right) roll a die, and if it comes up a certain value or higher tell me to roll my die, and if it comes up below 10 then while its true-in-the-fiction that this NPC or monster is there, it's also true that said NPC/monster is plunging down a cliff.

My players are entitiled to have a share of the authorship of the fiction, given that that's what they're turning up every fortnight to do.

See, my players come to the game with the consent to be ruled. I, in turn, do not abuse their trust and give them a game they will enjoy. If I don't, they don't come and I am a DM of nothing.

I use the rules since they are the agreed upon parameter's for the night. However, when the rules come between fun and not fun, I chuck the rules and opt for fun. However, the payoff is that this sometimes screws the players as often as it helps them. Sometimes the ogre has 15 extra hp because the critical hit would have felled it in the first attack and everyone else wanted a shot at it. Sometimes the ogre's critical hit against the wounded cleric comes up a natural 1. Player doesn't know, he just knows that the ogre battle was exciting. He's willing to trust I'll make just and fair calls in the best interest of all.

However, what I am being told again and again (and this round did nothing to correct me) is that players feel the DM won't always make the "right" call when it comes to when to screw the rules (usually when it benefits them) and they want the ability to make those calls for him. I guess for conventions and RPGA games where you don't have camaraderie with your fellow players/DM that's fine. But in a home game it strikes me as players wanting DM privileges for themselves without the responsibilities of actually DMing (creating scenarios, game prep, etc). That is the entitlement I dislike and every time a decides that my fleeing monsters would turn around, run back, and receive their one good whacking (perhaps killing them in the process) I feel the trust is broken and antagonism, not cooperation, has sunk into the rules.

# ? Apr 6, 2013 12:36

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

I don't mind a player of a paladin acting wrongly (by their own lights). But I want them to take it seriuosly, and I (as GM) would set up situations in which they have to take it seriously.

But that's perhaps an indicator of the more general sort of game I run.

If I had a player who wasn't interested in the game I was running, I woudn't faff around with codes and alignment to try and make them play seriously. I'd just boot them out!

Or to put it a slightly different way - I don't want a player playing his/her PC any less seriously just because s/he's not playing a paladin!

By a story consequence, I mean something like "All your friends now shun you, and your steed shies away when you try to approach it." The player can choose to have his/her PC live with those consequences, or not - and maybe if s/he doesn't want to some sort of quest is in order. But I want it to be for the player to make the choice.

That it shifts the planar balance can't be the explanation for it being Evil, can it? - because it is only because it is Evil that it would shift the planar balance. Some other account of the evil of torture therefore seems to be needed.

Likewise for Celestia, the Abyss etc. The reason we can tell that they are paragons of good, evil and the like is only because we already have a conception of good and evil.

(This is the cause of my dislike of mechanical alignment. I don't particularly care to have to apply moral labels to my friends' PCs' behaviour as part of my GMing duties. I might have my own opinions, but I'd rather keep them to myself.)

My players, at least, don't play to listen to my morality lectures!

I also think the idea of mollycoddlng is misplaced. Many years ago now, a paladin PC in the game I was GMing killed his first person at 5th level (if that seems high, the system we were using involved crit rolls - so up until then this PC had never actually got a killing crit against another human - but this time he rolled really high and lopped off his enemy's head). Feeling remorseful, he went out into the wilderness to pray.

I rolled on my random encounter chart to see what turned up, and low and behold it was a (low level) demon. The demon comes up to the praying paladin, and starts taunting him - "You've betrayed your values, you've failed in your vows", that sort of thing. Now, I was expecting the player to reason in the following way: this is a demon; and nothing a demon says can be true; therefore I'm not a failure or a traitor; therefore I can kill it and go back to the rest of the group. But instead the player interpreted the demon as having been sent by the PC's god as a punishment. And so as the demon started wailing on the paladin, the PC took no actions in defence. He simply endured his penance.

Eventually, after beating the paladin into uncosnciousness the demon got bored, and realised there was no one here it could corrupt. So it went off. And the rest of the group went out looking for the paladin, found him and revived him.

That's just an example of the sort of paladin play that I think is hard, if not impossible, to achieve if the play of the class is anchored to the GM's interpretation of alignment and code issues. And I don't think that that particular player was being "mollycoddled".

I see what you're saying, but there are indeed plenty of "paladins" being played by immature or just simply greedy players out there, trust me, and the DM needs a way to not have to give them IRL morality lessons. They control the gods, and should be able to turn off the faucet of divine magic to their followers (as well as perform miracles unbidden, OTOH) who displease them. It's very much a 4e mentality that "Oh nooooes, you're not the boss of me. I want my shiny holy avenger while still hoarding the magic items and never once risking my own neck to save others like I'm supposed to". I'm talking of the "Cavalier" build, I mean, the default paladin.

4e takes away way too much power from the DM, IMO, and reduces the gods into being merely divine magic reservoirs, to be drained by any and all followers like pigs at a trough. Removing any penalties for bad game choices only reduces the out of combat portion of the game to be "fluff". I don't want that. I want there to be real worries about PCs losing their powers and spells if they chose to access magic from a divine power source. As I said, on the other hand, if they perform exceedingly well, the DM can reward them with boons that go above and beyond their normal class progression. If a paladin descends into hell and gives up all his worldly possessions, even sacrifices himself to save the weak, why shouldn't he return as the White Knight with a Deus Ex Machina at DM discretion? If you take away penalties that the gods can give, you also take away boons. Because if you only allow boons from deities, that's a munchkin game, meaning your PCs can indeed do whatever they want and get away with it. Bah. As I said before, you haven't encountered munchkin paladins, so consider yourself lucky.

I want D&D gods to have real power, not have the rules shackle DMs with "no, you can't take away their toys because they'll cry" limitations. Earlier editions with morality clauses baked into only one class only made it so PCs who didn't think they could actually play that way would lose it, given they play at a table where DMs aren't just there to hand out goodies and never say no to their players. It sets a tone that says : magic is real, the gods are real, and in the control of the DM, and if your magic source is divine, then the DM should have the right to place restrictions on its use. The gods are not blocks of stupid mana goo up in the sky, they are sentient and have their own morality, foibles, goals, and agendas. Why shouldn't they pick and chose who they will favor based on their actions?

I'm an atheist too, which is precisely why I want my D&D deities to have real power and not just be "absentee landlords" who just cash your rent check, turn the heating on in winter, and fix the plumbing while you're at work. I want them to have an active role. Don't you?

Saying they can't have the power to alter something on their followers' character sheets, for good or ill, is really hampering your toolkit as a DM. PCs who don't like that should just play those who aren't explicitly worshippers of those gods. It's a give and take, not a take and take. The PCs have to live up to their end of the bargain, especially Paladins but Clerics too. You trade off the ability to do whatever occurs to your on a whim, change your alignment, steal, whatever, to gain powers that most envy or want but are not worthy to get.

This is a good way to do the Apprentice levels for those classes, you gotta "earn" your divine favor and boons, earn the god's approval. Sort of like a pre-atonement to join the fan club. It should have RP criteria baked into the class. Again, if the PCs aren't willing to do what's required of that order to join their ranks, they can just play a fighter or something else. Only the few should make it. Not everyone IRL can become a cop or a fireman, you need not only certain stats but also a certain character. If humans are selective about hiring people, why shouldn't D&D gods be?

# ? Apr 6, 2013 12:47

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

This is really why I prefer a carrot approach over a stick. I agree that a character with a strong moral code has great dramatic potential.

I've found fate points and aspects (like FATE Core) to be pretty easily portable to most other systems, in one form or another. If the DM is pushing a hard moral choice, the player has to pay to resist it, but gets rewarded for playing according to their character. It pulls the PC's dilemma into the player's reward systems. My 4e Dark Sun game was helped immeasurably by adding them in.

-O

The DM should speak the will of the gods through the game, softly, but still carry a big stick in his back pocket just in case. The PCs should fear gods, especially the displeasure of their own.

i.e. you need both carrot and stick in the core rules to really exert some control. If a PC doesn't like the DM having any say about their character, they need to play a mundane class or an arcane caster instead. The gods are played by the DM, there has to be some DM fiat as to how and when the gods can affect the world, which let's face it, is usually primarily though granting powers to their followers. If they can't take it away under any circumstances, that screams munchkin rules to me and puts the DM in handcuffs.

# ? Apr 6, 2013 12:48

Thanlis: Mar 17, 2011

WordMercenary posted:

Boy I could talk all day about the many reasons why there hasn't been a 4e videogame (being a heavily turn/grid based game in a era when that was unfashionable is the big one) but instead let's get more of John Wick's absurdly petty DMing!

The big one is the Hasbro/Atari lawsuit over the rights that wasn't resolved until 2011. Harder to get approval for a new game when there's a lawsuit going on. Happily there's grog associated with that, too. Let's dig into some comment threads about the lawsuit!

quote:

Thank Goodness. Happy to see Hasbro rip the franchise out of Atari's cold dead hands... Still I'm worried what Hasbro will do lol. If they lacked the discernment to give it over to Atari in the 1st place, or even worse release 4th ed as the new standard, then I see a bleak future for D&D. Hoping for the best.

quote:

Ccon99 said the last thing he wanted to see was D&D butchered. HAHAHA your kidding right? Your about 9 years too late for that one, especially with 4th edition. You couldn't butcher it any more than they themselves already have.

quote:

Indeed... D&D hasn't been good after they came out with 4th edition. And the way they raped the Forgotten Realms setting makes me sad. Haven't bought a single D&D book since the launch of 4th ed.... :/

# ? Apr 6, 2013 14:01

Lichtenstein: May 31, 2012; It'll make sense, eventually.

Hope this hadn't been posted in the last thread. Even though it was apparently typed on an iPhone (!) I have to leave it as a link due to post length limits of SA.

# ? Apr 6, 2013 19:44

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 13:14

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

quote:

This is so true. You hardly ever get what you want, you do however get what you most expect. If you treat your players like spoiled 2 year olds they start behaving like spoiled 2 year olds.

OTOH sometimes grown men do act like spoiled 2 year olds, regardless of what you do. The DM should behave the same way to either type of player : don't be afraid to say "No". once in a while. And if the game rules allow you to influence player's behavior in a carrot/stick way, via in-game repercussions to their in-game actions, then the DM is also just roleplaying too and not acting as an IRL disciplinarian (because who wants / needs that?), since different gods have different moral codes, and you can emphasize those those in your campaign setting rather than alignment restrictions per se. But there is a place for alignment restrictions in D&D, it's because good/evil and law/chaos are something we all understand, even if we've never played the game before.

~*~

Bolding mine. More paladin talk!

# ? Apr 8, 2013 07:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > grognards.txt - sandbox gamers are the John Galts of the RPG world

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