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^What an rear end in a top hat. "I decided retroactively that your character lost a hand. Lose a poo poo ton of money and pay a recurring penalty or suffer."quote:Whose Story Is It, Anyway? Yes, those money grubbers WotC and Hasbro, complete opposites of TSR. Funny that he mentioned the wood burning kits...
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# ? Mar 21, 2014 19:35 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 05:00 |
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Halloween Jack posted:To me, a great deal of the game IS randomness; just as a great deal of the world is. I've been playing PF at a meetup thing lately and there's one guy that's like this- Real life grog said this: "You roll all of your stats once and take what's given to you. I don't believe in point buy. That's too fair. Real life isn't fair, why should games be too?" Also, another player wanted to rise up out of the water and shoot their bow at some dude, like Rambo and this guy had to pipe up about how "But water would ruin the bowstring and thus render the bow useless." Thankfully he isn't the GM. Not sure if this is more fitting for cat-piss or not. But experiencing grog in person is something else, I tell you what.
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# ? Mar 21, 2014 20:13 |
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^^^ In my limited experience, every time somebody says that they want the 'realism' that rolled-only brings, they immediately become a statistical anomaly or believe that they possess special dice-controlling powers. "I believe in the cruel unfairness of rolled stats. Also, check it, two 18's. " Grog tax: quote:Hey, I'm updating my game to V:TR finally.
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# ? Mar 21, 2014 22:31 |
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Mike Mearls' Twitter posted:@mikemearls Thrown items don't return, but probably should. Don't have specific update on SA damage yet FFSAA posted:No, they shouldn't. If I want to play a warrior princess, I'll play a different game. If I'm forced to play a warrior princess, I'll DEFINITELY play a different game. Azure Shade posted:The question was about thrown magical weapons. Not mundane weapons. FFSAA posted:It doesn't matter. Making anything magical have the power of flight or teleportation and the intelligence to get itself back to your hand is immersion breaking. Only the most potent magic items have traditionally had such powerful abilities. Giving it out to everything is naively ignoreing the fact that teleportation and flight are really really awesome and also begs the question, why the heck can't it just teleport into the enemy, why do I have to throw it anyway? From the Wizards forums naturally.
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# ? Mar 21, 2014 22:48 |
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I... What. Raneth posted:Most fantasy campaign settings, when they bring up the issue of slavery at all (which is typically only as an offhand mention in the descriptions of evil races like drow and goblins), use the field slave/serfdom model of slavery where the slaves are are treated horrifically, being regularly worked to death, casually beaten, raped or murdered. Raneth posted:Thank you for your input. I've adjusted the OP to compensate. Raneth posted:Frank Trollman, Pun-Pun and plenty of others have pretty much debunked that type of thinking as short-sightedly unrealistic. In most non-D&D-derived fantasy fiction, any wizard above 6th-level is the in-universe equivalent of Superman. In most D&D fantasy campaign settings you have hundreds of 20th-level wizards (who are the equivalent of Doctor Fate, Doctor Strange, and Kriemhild Gretchen in terms of sheer world-altering/destroying power) running around one planet and yet the technology level and standard of living stays exactly the same for tens of thousands of years. Fantasy campaign settings are kept in artificial, sanitized renaissance fair conditions, rather than becoming a magical version of Transhuman Space/Eclipse Phase/AT-43/Warhammer 40,000 on steroids, solely because of author fiat. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Mar 22, 2014 |
# ? Mar 22, 2014 04:25 |
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Lots more grog related to the fact that whether or not dragons can be beaten by 100 peasants or not.quote:i'm cross posting this from the tg grognards.txt thread as evidence that 5e is poo poo: quote:Why wouldn't the dragon kill like, thirty, and then fly away, and come back a month later and kill another thirty? quote:i guess it WOULD kill like thirty and fly away, because it LOSES to a mob of 100 level 1 commoners with lovely bows, because 5e's rules are poo poo quote:Why doesn't it have DR. Like, every dragon since Smaug had DR. What the gently caress 5e. quote:yeah i remember smaug carefully kiting his enemies instead of just rampaging around invincibly. this is loving win quote:Dungeons and Dragons Next: The dragons suck. The dungeons are pretty lovely, too
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# ? Mar 22, 2014 19:27 |
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For me, the "ho-hum" of 13th Age is the world. It feels like it was just a map that they stuck in the front of the book. The worlds I've most connected to throughout the years have been the ones that made an internal sense. Oddly enough, Classic Greyhawk, Talslanta and The Empire of the Petal Throne all had degrees of verisimilitude that are very rare. I'm not sure what it was about Faerun that I found so off putting, but it put mt off years ago and the impression stuck. The original Kendar Thief may have been the real problem, but I never connected with the setting at all. The Pathfinder setting I know almost nothing about, despite tbat being the ruleset I'm most familiar with. I use my own world based extremely loosely on the European colonization of North America - the map looks vaguely like North America and colonial powers from across an ocean are involved, but that's about it.
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# ? Mar 22, 2014 20:10 |
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Sigh. Rambling bile incoming. --- I hate the changes to the Taint. I hate the Spider as a great clan. I hate the fiction and plot armour required to make the Spider a great clan. I hate the current representation of the Spider in the fiction. I hate that every other clan is just so accepting of them being a great clan at all in the fiction. I hate that the Spider are apparently presented as real meaningful military threats to the other clans despite their tenuous existence by the time they were legitimised. I hate that the Spider were the solution to the problems in the CE arc despite having the Scorpion supposedly with a cunning plan of their own to deal with the problem with the aid of 3 other clans all working together (those being the experts on the Shadowlands and monster fighting, the most powerful military in rokugan and the second most powerful military in rokugan). I hate that making a deal with the loving devil was the solution rather than the honour and steel of rokugani being the solution. So...yeah. I have a biased viewpoint. Bearing that in mind. The aims of the Spider clan are to destroy Bushido and Honour and place themselves as head of a Shourido dominated 'new Rokugan' with them in charge. As we know Rokugani politics and governance and culture means that small things build up over time again and again to lead to big things. Getting the right person to owe you a favour or having a chance to speak to someone important can be all that's needed to propogate something huge. Moves made dozens of generations ago can kindle war right now. Bearing that in mind ANY success for the Spider clan is an assault upon Rokugan itself. Susumu Kaneya is allowed into the court of a minor local lord? Victory for the Spider. In a decade he may have managed to convince the new guard captain to be 'late' to his post one day allowing in someone unexpected. That unexpected guest then leaves with additional information they acquired through their vile methods. This information a further decade later leads to the transfer of ownership of a new village to the Spider which in turn...etc. They infiltrated and almost annihilated the Sparrow clan. Now the Spider in the Sparrow lands have converted to become the 'new Sparrow'. Screw that. As a fan of the Sparrow clan I am now supposed to accept these dishonourable infiltrators who sneak in and hollow my clan out - sending true Sparrow off to foreign lands and posts to die alone - and then betray their lord to switch sides to some new Spider-Sparrow hybrid clan that has the balls to call itself the Sparrow clan? No. No I don't accept that. The Sparrow clan is now some indeterminate number of individuals sent away from their home and now wandering the rest of Rokugan from something like 30 years ago. Does that Crane at court think they can use the Spider as a tool in their plans and so favours them briefly for a season? Victory for the Spider. That is an assault upon Rokugan itself. Oh it's a tiny thing, tiny and insignificant in the grand scheme. But a ton of rice falling on you is the same weight as a ton of bricks. But the fiction presents the Spider as actually welcome in court settings. People go to them to ask about stuff. Their opinions are valued. They aren't being proactively wiped off the loving map. They use magical WMDs to kill thousands of samurai of other clans and some glib remarks in court make it all ok in the eyes of official Imperial authority. They have samurai who PROACTIVELY ACCEPT THE TAINT EVEN NOW and the other clans know this and LET THEM DO IT WITHOUT COMMENT. They have fictions where people go off and build shrines and temples to the DARK FORTUNES and people are apparently ok with that. What!? That the Spider exist as a thing is fine. As a faction giving a face to the Shadowlands (not that I agree that's a good thing either...) fine. That they are an accepted Great Clan? Hell no. Spider MONKS? Yep. Cool. A non-Tainted group who have a differing philosophy within the already philosophically diverse Brotherhood? That's cool. Wandering and teaching of the virtues of Shourido and the way of strength and such? Nice, new twists and fun. Spider Clan as a a Great Clan? Nope.
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# ? Mar 23, 2014 02:19 |
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Self-deleted for shameful grognard shaming.
Exrandu fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 23, 2014 |
# ? Mar 23, 2014 05:38 |
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Question: What can you do with DDN that you can't do with other editions? quote:I don't want a game that opens new worlds. That is likely a bad.sign in fact. Instead I want to play what I could play in 1e but with superior mechanics. (yes, I know Emerikol is the lowest of low-hanging fruit, but I just could not pass that one up.)
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# ? Mar 23, 2014 06:03 |
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Grog in bold. -------------------------- For me, PDFs have the following advantages over printed supplements:
They don't need to be delivered by post, so I don't have to go and fetch them from the post office. They are available immediately and can be backed up. If they are updated, they can be downloaded again. They are easily portable and allow me to carry a library in a bag. They can be searched easily. I can extract content for use in various ways. My wife doesn't know that I have bought them. They do not fill endless shelves in my house.
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# ? Mar 23, 2014 08:06 |
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Bradford C. Walker posted:My Personal Take on the Coalition States Bradford C. Walker posted:Coalition Jucier Units: The Three Most Common Types Bradford C. Walker posted:Everyday Counter-Intelligence Bradford C. Walker posted:Whyfor the Misogyny and Sexual Repression in Coalition Society?
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# ? Mar 23, 2014 10:17 |
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Raneth posted:If the concern is about innocent people suffering, then why not just enslave races that are inherently evil like orcs, goblinoids, gnolls, etc? If it's already okay to break into their homes, slaughter them en masse, and steal their valuables... then what exactly is the problem with enslaving the walking pieces of garbage so they're actually helping our good societies instead of attacking our villages, killing our men, eating our children and raping our women? These creatures were created by evil gods with evil literally in their DNA. The only thing you can do with them is either kill them or make them do something useful, because if you don't kill them or enslave them or brainwash them with sanctify the wicked they will try to eat you.
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# ? Mar 24, 2014 05:22 |
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Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle Review (done by the tome show podcast) http://www.thetomeshow.com/2014/03/12/ghosts-of-dragonspear-castle-review-tome-230/ After hearing this review of their GenCon exclusive, I can't believe this product was published. Misogyny RailRoading storylines Gygaxian troubleshooting GMNPCs Missing rules and clairifications. and worst of all, it is designed so they cannot win. and this is designed to sell dnd next for 18 bucks...as a pdf. I'm impressed and not in a good way.
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# ? Mar 24, 2014 21:05 |
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RPGnet poster ScooterinAB has finally had enough - enough I tell you! - of gaming's greatest scourge, and he's going to put his foot down and stand up and speak out, even if earns him a threadban. I'm speaking, of course, about people who malign the traditional two-column layout of game books. quote:No offense, but are you people high? Please put down your crack pipes and realize that two column layouts go much, much deeper than the gaming industry. Many textbook, academic journals, research papers, and technical manuals are written in two or more columns. Two column layouts are easier to read, more space efficient, and easier to layout with the tables, sidebars, and artwork we need in gaming books (yes, artwork is necessary because it breaks up the wall of text before you). Two columns also makes documents easier to read on portable devices since you don't need to reformat the document, don't need to pan all the damned time, and can actually see what you are reading.
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# ? Mar 25, 2014 06:04 |
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Also, notable RPGnet dumbass Lars Dangly is trying to distribute copies of the early 1980s RPG The Fantasy Trip without any sort of license or rights to do so because...well, let him "explain"Lars Dangly posted:My understanding of US copyright law is that properties published before 1998 but not before 1964 had to have their copyright renewed after 28 years or the property would become public domain. Is that wrong?
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# ? Mar 25, 2014 06:09 |
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I am a Traveller whore. I own everything Traveller related (or almost - I am missing the wooden dice with the Imperial Starburst from wayyyy back). I have bought all the versions of Traveller, even the ones I hated, because they were Traveller and that since the 1970's. I have given money to the T5 kickstarter (I have bought the CD-Rom and actually read the bloody files last year? The year before? I do not remember). I owned all the books for Traveller: New Era although I did not like it. We just kept playing MegaTraveller (in fact, we continued with MegaTraveller until Mongoose Traveller came out). I photocopied Fire Fusion and Steel and placed all the corrections and the new tables where they belonged just so I would have a full up to date book (I actually used it to build starships because it was fun). What does T5 bring that Mongoose Traveller does not have? As far as I am concerned, nothing. It is more complicated, more cumbersome, has more useless rules, relies on a resolution system that looks very much like T4 (at least the last time I looked). When I read the CD-Rom it had pages after pages of justification for the dice rolling system chosen. However, I am still waiting for it and I will hold it dear to my chest and pet it and call it sweet names. Because it is Traveller.
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# ? Mar 26, 2014 03:17 |
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Old Geezer posted:No. No, you really wouldn't. The above-mentioned experiment taught me how much more clear a typical D&D game is than really trying it.
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# ? Mar 26, 2014 08:31 |
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quote:First and foremost, players are expected to make good decisions. For instance, deciding to probe a pile of debris with a 10' pole before digging in. Anyone can think to do this, regardless of class. This grants unprecedented freedom, but also greater responsibility.
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# ? Mar 26, 2014 11:27 |
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Is Emirikol still cheating? Emerikol posted:I'm ready because I hate the idea of 4e being the official D&D. So switching is a good thing. On the other hand, I could play anything pre-4e though I'd want to OSR some of the old stuff first. (d20 ascending etc...). Playstyle wise though I'm a 1e guy. I just want 3e mechanics and 1e deadliness and adventure playstyle.
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# ? Mar 26, 2014 14:24 |
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This is practically like shooting fish in a barrel, but~Re: Barbarossaquote:Honestly, I find the reactions this is getting far, far more offensive than the game in question itself, and I see this attitude time and time again with Japanese media (in those cases though, there aren't Nazis involved, but still). Report the Kickstarter? Track down the people who are buying it? Holy cow, guys, that's very.... Nazi-like of all of you. Ah yes the "If you don't like pedophilia then you don't have to engage in it" argument. quote:You know your game is too controversial when even Japan wont have any of it. quote:There are obviously people who would think this is horribly offensive, and I think it's fair to say they have good reason, but you also have to remember than in East Asia and Japan specifically Nazis aren't viewed the same way as they are in the west as the ultimate evil in history, and the reason is simply that they were never really directly involved with Nazi Germany the same way Europe, and the US to a lesser extent, were. On the other hand, Nanking is a huge issue to this day even though many Americans probably don't even know what that is and why it's important, and in Japan the Americans turned two entire cities filled with civilians into dust with nuclear bombs and another hundred thousand or so in the firebombing of Tokyo. Then you've got s**t like in WW1 where half a million people died horribly in waterlogged Flemish trenches at Passchendaele day and night for 3 months to capture 5 miles of land, or about 2 inches for each person killed in a pointless battle in a pointless war. That happened in western Europe even and by 2014 no one cares at all anymore. All of these things are terrible, but a lot of Americans have no problem joking about them and I suspect if a US company put out a world war 2 themed card game about scantily clad girls fighting in the pacific theater and nuking Japanese cities whatever outrage there would be would be over the sexual content rather than the violent historical context, because the US already has tons of world war 2 themed games and games which involve nuking cities. If anything I'd argue all the mainstream fps video games we have in the US about literally shooting foreigners in HD are more offensive than a card game abstraction. Not to mention, you can't deny the Nazis had very stylish uniforms, if they aren't ingrained in cultural conciseness as an evil symbol like they are in the west, it's perfectly reasonable to want to draw characters wearing them. Worse things have happened in the past, which makes all terrible things now ok. quote:The game itself is actually quite well made. A well balanced well formed game. The mechanics are sound and the game seems to be quite enjoyable from everything I have read. Ah yes, now I see, the half naked children are there for satirical purposes. Also its ok to glorify Nazi's because they failed to take Russia. quote:For the record, I'm not a fan of Nazis, although I do greatly enjoy the game itself (I've played the Japanese version with English paste-ups for years). I'm also an anime fan and a history buff (with a Master's degree in history, although my degree focused on Medieval history rather than modern history). If people can't separate the fact that the game loosely depicts a timeframe that included many atrocities and horrors of war from the facts that (1) it includes no indicia of Nazism and (2) it is composed entirely of female "soldiers" (when such were very rare historically -- and did not dress in the depicted fashion) shown in a common anime, fan-service style, then this game is not for them. By the same token, I hope those same people are similarly horrified by games that depict the Middle Ages as a time populated solely by chivalrous knights in shining armor with beautiful damsels in lovely gowns and fantastical castles -- because the reality of famine, bloody and brutal warfare, dysentery and other diseases (such as the Black Death) was a far cry from such games' depictions. Look, they don't actually have swastikas, and all of the units are women, obviously it's not historically acurate, so therefore it's perfectly fine. Also if you ever played a game that was somewhat unrealistic, then you must approve of naked nazi kids the board game. quote:I don't find the artwork offensive, but I do find it incredibly boring and unimaginative. It doesn't take much talent to draw ridiculous looking anime girls in lingerie. Maybe if I was still 13 I'd find it more appealing. I don't even know with this one. E: Yeah the cracked comments and the boardgamegeek thread about the article. canti32 fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Mar 27, 2014 |
# ? Mar 27, 2014 01:38 |
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Are those comments from the Cracked Magazine article, by any chance? Grog tax, also about Barbarossa: quote:To all those people that say this should be censored or banned: quote:Oh no, people want to masturbate to things I don't like, somebody stop them! quote:This is not worse then the producers or inglorious basterds or indiana jones or any FPS where you hunt down nazi's or axis and allies or nazi zombie movies or iron sky or hogans heroes... I mean the list goes on to infinity. Using nazi's to sell merch is about as common as using sex. The difference between playing as them or playing against them is irrelevant. The medium is the message. Grog: Nazis and boobs are interchangeable. guy posted:i don't take this as an example that humanity doomed, i take it as an example of the free market at work. same guy as above posted:thumbs down crowd -why in the world would you be in favor of denying someone their choice in anything?
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 02:43 |
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A while ago I asked about something (that will never ever happen regrettably), that being having people from another forum to run a political game. People on other forums have referred to the greatly utopian/dystopian land of "Aspergia" and I have to say it's the best read since the exceedingly boring "Utopia". So far so good, yeah? But regrettably this model included: Large government inefficiency, exclusion and moral perversity (all of which can be heaps of fun in a game and story but it offended me greatly. I'm getting to that). Specificially. they referred to non-autistic people as "neurotypical" and I find this on par with the "n" word for dark people, the "f" word for gay people and the "r" word for people with disabilities. IF this were run, I wouldn't want to hear "neurotypical neurotypical neurotypical". It's jarring and offensive. (Also, the game is pie in the sky stuff. Maudlin but true.) Second, how would we run said game if a game has to include stereotypes of autistic people? Isn't that going from offending one group to offending another? Am I permitted to state "I have said problem" and then mercilessly savage people with the same problem? Confusing and fraught with problems.
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# ? Mar 27, 2014 19:35 |
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Based on personal experiences I don't think it has anything to do with the adventures or what is happening in the campaign. There has been an increasing focus on the mechanical capabilities of PCs and the improvement rate at such things since 3E. The contributing factors to this are (as have been pointed out) the number of decision points for mechanical development that impact play and are made outside of actual play have increased. Also the mechanical performance of the PC construct has a much larger impact on in-game success than it used to. Player decisions thus become more valuable during character building and level-up than they do during actual adventures. It is perfectly natural for players to focus on the parts of the activity in which their personal input matters most. In modern D&D these activities are building the character and making choices at level-up time. During an actual adventure its just a matter of pushing the buttons that you selected at your last decision point. That's old news. The interesting bit is the NEXT decision point. The cure is to simply put the decision points that matter back where they belong- during actual play. That is why I run OD&D.
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# ? Mar 28, 2014 00:15 |
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I was just prepping a game when I saw in another thread this, "The GM's are tired of people leeching, so we have formed our own mailing list of people" What is this elitist attitude some GMs have these days? We're now being told that unless we GM as well then we won't have GMs run for us? That's rubbish! I've GM'ed a few times and not enjoyed it once. I don't LIKE GM'ing. I LIKE playing. Some people like to GM, others don't. Some of us have jobs that take up a lot of time and include a lot of stress, or have family commitments or financial restraints or suffer from anxiety/depression/many other conditions. But they don't deserve to play games like the rest of you, so they don't count, right? This is like saying that if you want to play in a game of soccer/football/any other team sport - you have to umpire at least semi-regularly or you're not allowed to play. Anyone know any groups like this? I'll bet for each one you know there are about 1000 that aren't like it. GMs need to get off their bloody high-horse and stop condescending to players (without which, there are no games for them to run) and pull the proverbial stick out of their proverbial arse and start remembering why they started playing/GMing Pathfinder in the first place. I'll bet it was to HAVE FUN! Now forcing something that someone doesn't like on them so they can be included is not "having fun". It is against the very spirit of all RPGs - hell all games and systems of team involvement. GMs are WELL PAID for their time with a full chronicle sheet with ZERO risk to their character and ZERO expenditure of resources (they can TPK a party in the first encounter and still get everything) not to mention table credit that leads to GM stars (great for rerolls - I've seen them save a PC from death) and scenario replay ability, now we even have boon sheets! This kind of "exclusion" is what we teach our kids as "cyber-bullying". ie. "Do what we tell you or you will be excluded" or using derogatory terms such as "fags", "niggers" or "leeches". I can't speak for the rest of the world but here where I live that is a CRIME with some bloody hefty penalties (up to 7 years imprisonment for cyber-bullying) - and rightly so. The forming of "cliques" in any group (for any reason they want to justify) is bad for the group as a whole, leads to division, superiority complexes (that are now openly being supported as "right") and people becoming depressed because they are being excluded unless they do WHAT YOU WANT! Someone, ANYONE please point to the page reference in the, "Guide to Society Play" (our OFFICIAL document for PFS) and show me where it says that you must GM a set amount of games to be considered worthy to play in games. Anyone? Shame I call on everyone involved in perpetuating this horrendous system! As grown adults - shame! Read the book or watch the movie, "The Wave". You'd make lovely Nazis I'm expecting a "wave" of flaming justifications to follow this post, each one will just prove the point I've made even stronger. When a small group of people with strong personalities start dictating terms with their own flavour of justification and all others are forced into their way of thinking or be outcast, we see 1930s Germany all over again. Do you people even REALISE the damage you are doing? Many people will just see these boards as having few games and move on, others will unfortunately stumble upon the post I did (one of MANY recently) and honestly feel as upset as I did. For Goodness sake! A girl here in my city actually committed suicide recently over "exclusion" bullying! It doesn't matter if that is in the schoolyard, the sports field, their social group or yes, even around a social gaming table. Unfortunately some people don't grow out of being a bully, they just justify it better. This is an open, official complaint and I call for our Online VC to step up, investigate and take action before our entire online community is relegated into the "in crowd" (who you must appease to be invited in) and the lowly peasants begging for scraps from their not-quite-full tables. This system of cyber-bullying has to stop! It is illegal! I expect the VC and Paizo's complete support to stamp out anti-social and illegal activity in conjunction with their products or potentially be held liable. Right now I am closing my PDFs, stopping the map creation and closing my browser as I won't GM myself (even though I don't like it, I was willing to do it for a group of folks looking) under these conditions until this sickness has been addressed and dealt with. GMs you're not "special", you're not someone that we need to suck up to, you're not the rulers of our actions, you're not the "elite in-crowd", you're not allowed your "power trip" anymore! Get over yourselves and either run games or not (I don't care what you choose) but don't you DARE condescend to people who choose (for whatever reason) to be players. Players who will be too afraid to post their support of this due to the manipulative fear you have instilled in this community. To all those GMs out there who have done so without thought of "extra" reward and run games for the joy of telling a story and having fun with a group of friends - to you I say THANK YOU! YOU are what this game is all about This isn't about me, it isn't about what games I can or can't get into, it isn't about what GMs will or won't GM for me. This post is about the ISSUE of cyber-bullying. Keep your replies relevant or keep your opinions to yourself. Anyone who supports cyber-bullying is indeed a person of low moral character by any definition in any society. Rise above that please, be a better person!
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# ? Mar 28, 2014 04:45 |
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quote:Gareth M. Skarka @gmskarka Mar 22 quote:Justin Achilli @jachilli Mar 22 quote:Gareth M. Skarka @gmskarka Mar 22 GorfZaplen fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Mar 29, 2014 |
# ? Mar 29, 2014 03:44 |
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Robert Conway posted:This is a petition to support the hiring of John Wick into the position of Legend of the Five Rings Brand Manager. We, the fans, understand that no official decision will be made regarding the hiring of the position without a formal process. However, as fans we want our feelings known about the subject. By signing this petition, we are saying that we support John Wick in his candidacy for the role and we would like to see him return to community-building, writing, and coordinating storyline for the L5R fictional setting he is responsible for helping create. Chris Colbath posted:The best person to lead the brand is its creator. He knows what is best for the fans and the game itself. We should let him take this game to its next best place. Daniel Bezerra posted:L5R needs someone who can bring the game closer to its roots - it needs the man who helped create it and shape it. Michael Silvey posted:If anyone can fix the descent into zaniness that the current couple arcs has wrought upon the Brand, it is Wick. Jeffrey Witthauer posted:John Wick is the best game designer in the industry, bar none. He made L5R what it was today, and no one understands better than John how to steer the brand. Rob Jestus posted:To me, L5R stopped being the game I loved when John Wick left the company. To see him involved in the franchise would convince me to start buying the products again.
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# ? Mar 30, 2014 01:00 |
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Once I read Mearls write up on the Rust Monster in Dragon that went on to be the 4E version, I could tell that he just would never design anything I liked. It lacks challenge and consequence and encourages lazy gaming. Most of the time they were encountered in the old days it was just a switch to the magic-user and their tanking for a change. The only time it really was an issue was if there was surprise or if the party rushed ahead into melee combat blindly and there were far worse things out there to run into in those cases when the party was unlucky or lazy.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 02:44 |
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quote:Having just read that entire thing, and one of the previous articles linked to it, I'd say that Ron is being unusually nice under the circumstances given that the two apparently know each other. To be honest Anna strikes me as someone who has an axe to grind.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 14:56 |
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The Claw Tool talent knack allows an adept to use the claws created by use of the Claw Shape talent to cut ropes, carve wood, climb and perform other similar non-combat tasks. The adept gains a +2 bonus to Strength-only and Climbing Tests. He can revert his hands back to normal at any time.
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# ? Mar 31, 2014 21:53 |
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# ? Apr 1, 2014 21:38 |
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l5rartdump posted:Geisha in L5R
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# ? Apr 2, 2014 00:47 |
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But the problem I foresee is that people who complain that they can't be a pyromancer because at first level they have magic missile and mage armor are probably never going to be happy being a pyromancer because it would seem that what they really want isn't to be a pyromancer but to be some sort of optimal character. They are playing the class for coolness factor and ego driven desires and not because they are really curious about the internal lives of a character whose power is to make things burn.
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# ? Apr 2, 2014 02:27 |
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L&L Article: One type of Fighter gets some cool limited use abilities. ForeverSlayer;6283793 posted:Oh great, a 4th edition style fighter that can force others to move. Wulfgar76;6283877 posted:I am perfectly fine with a tactical fighter, but I worry about power creep. ForeverSlayer;6283960 posted:Sorry, but if I plan on buying D&D Next; it will be because of what I like and not what you like. I don't want to play in the same game with a 4th edition style character. ForeverSlayer;6283994 posted:It's not as simple as just someone sitting next to you playing something different. The way you have phrased your statement would be like having two tables where one is playing 4th edition while another table is playing 3rd/Pathfinder. The people playing 4th can have all the fun they want because that game is separate. But the problem here is they have thrown the two concepts together under one game which can sigificantly alter my attitude of the game. It would be like baking making dinner for everyone and loading it down with salt. If I don't like salt then I am screwed because I can't realistically pick out every tiny grain of salt there is. I don't play 4th edition because I think the mechanics are aweful and very gamist. I can't enjoy a game where I am playing my PC but the guy next to me in the same game is using the types of mechanics I hate. It spoils the whole game for me. I play in a lot of sanctioned events so I play with a lot of people I don't know and frankly, I don't care what their personal preference is. I am there for "my" enjoyment and to play the game using "my" hard earned money. If the game were free, then I wouldn't care one way or the other. variant;6283995 posted:Would you have the same attitude if the person next to you was playing a Vulcan with a phaser next to your Faerunian wizard? After all, he is having fun. Sadrik;6284040 posted:So only fighters can do maneuvers? ExploderWizard;6284088 posted:Interested, interested, interested,......... You heard it here - it's not good enough that it's modular. Other people having the wrong type of fun is an outrage.
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# ? Apr 2, 2014 16:28 |
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Double post grog is two times two many
Captain Walker fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Apr 3, 2014 |
# ? Apr 2, 2014 21:21 |
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Too busy to think of interesting city encounters? Use these utterly terrible ones that seriously sound like some poo poo out of FATAL!quote:A boy prostitute approaches one of the PCs (male or female) for sex. If the PC sends him away without any money, the group will later hear that his father beat him for coming home empty-handed. You know shits bad when randomly losing items with no recourse is the least offensive thing on the table. Is this grounds to sever with the guy who sent me this article and called it hilarious? Captain Walker fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Apr 2, 2014 |
# ? Apr 2, 2014 21:24 |
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Fighter maneuvers are breaking people. Because they're no such thing as an optional rule. I've been going this forever, with a number of different diverse groups, and here's how it works: 1. Most people assume that anything in print is probably going to be accepted into a given game, whether it appears in an official product or not. They also assume they'll have to ask the DM just to be sure, but generally feel that the okay being given is basically a forgone conclusion. 2. A smaller subset of people, but still a majority assume that anything in print in an official product will be given the okay after the supposed vetting by the DM. (Of course, sometimes the DM says no, but...) 3. Only a minority of folks - usually those who have had DMs take a hard line in the past - have actually internalized and believe that the DM approves or selects options first, then they, the players, build their characters around those selections. In other words, people assume they can do whatever they want until they're told they can't rather than assuming they need to wait for the DM to lay out the sushi list of options before they select from them. So, really, there's no such thing as an optional rule. There are rules the DM changes or negates for his or her game after the fact, but no optional rules. - John -=-=-=-=-=- I can't say as I appreciate your commentary on what my group must be like because you don't like something I've said. Allow me to redress something you apparently missed: "I've been doing this forever, with a number of different diverse groups..." In other words, I'm not taking my experience with one group, especially my current group, but rather observations based on 32 years of running games for a wide variety of groups and players. As for your not understanding the point, I don't know what to tell you. I'll try putting it differently: Even in the caste of rules labeled as "optional," players generally assume those optional rules will be available to them. For example, the new default seem to be selecting an equipment package at character creation. Purchasing individual pieces of equipment is optional. Most players won't assume they've to got ask the DM if they can purchase individual items - they plan on using that option. Most of them will be perfectly happy using the default if the DM says that's what is going to happen, but that's beside the point. In other words, the way games work is not the DM adding optional rules to a set of preselected rules, but the DM potentially removing unwanted optional rules from the set of all the rules that have been published. Moreover, as you noted, all rules are optional. Even ones not labeled as such. Thus there's no saving grace in WotC labeling a rule as optional. Saying it's optional doesn't make the situation any better for folks who don't like the rule. DMs who don't like optional rules still have to deal with them. - John -=-=-=-=-=- That was the very best sales pitch I've seen for Pathfinder yet. All of the reasons I didn't touch 4th edition are now part of 5th edition's core. -=-=-=-=-=- The 4.5e fighter is now part of the core and all the mechanics that many people hated have returned to the game.
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# ? Apr 2, 2014 21:29 |
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D&D will continue to be a fail or lackluster (at best) as long as they put revenues and/or console game arcade facsimile as a priority over literature-ingratiated mythology.
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# ? Apr 3, 2014 01:32 |
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Dice & Glory: The Ultimate Roleplaying Game posted:
Date of Publication: 2011. Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Apr 3, 2014 |
# ? Apr 3, 2014 15:48 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 05:00 |
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I am, and have always been, crazy. It is this craziness that I brought to D&D, the sort of obsessive preoccupation that one normally associates with people who have to turn the lights on and off five times before bed or replace their keyboards once a week to combat sweat congealment. As a child I received, as a gift, my first almanac at the age of 7. My parents were well aware of my fascination with atlases and statistics gleaned from the household encyclopedia…and perceived very correctly that I would find the material within an almanac of interest. Thereafter, for the next sixteen years, I received an updated almanac every Christmas. Throughout my school years, that almanac sat in the upper left corner of my desk…a ready source by which every teacher I had was measured. They had better get their national and state capitals right (along with every other statement about geography, history, industry or economics)…because I knew every fact by heart, to date, and I had the book to back me up. No, I was not well-liked. I was well on the way to my present career of being an arrogant know-it-all with little regard for disinformation. Yet it may surprise you to know that I was not a “rules lawyer” when I played D&D. I accepted quite readily that the rules in a DM's game were set by the DM and not by the book. That is because sometimes almanacs are wrong. My fascination from the beginning was never with the numbers or with the power of the books, but with what they represented. My fascination has been with the planet, the big picture, the manner in which it all fits together and how it relates to itself. No book, not an almanac or a Dungeon Master’s Guide, can completely or effectively relate the whole picture…it takes millions of books and billions of people to do that. For me, the almanac was convenient; it had a great deal of information crammed into a relatively small space—but the thing wasn’t holy in itself. I suppose that my almanac was replaced by the DMG to some degree when I started playing, but it is has never been the whole game to me. All of the various books together have not been the whole game…if that were all there were, I would have gotten bored sick of the game long ago. What appealed to me about the game most of all was that it left room for me to apply all the other knowledge that I had gathered together through what I had read and studied. I bluffed my way into a job with Statistics Canada in the 1980s, with no formal schooling and no working experience. I worked through the lead up to the census, which was fascinating for me as I’d spent so much time reading census statistics. It was mind-opening to see how they were gathered and to have a clear representation of how “wrong” they were. However, the application of those statistics, however flawed the data, enables the prediction of a great deal…worlds turn on the political and economic understanding of statistics. When I left Stats Can in ’86, I entered university after a long period of destitution and zero income. I spent most of that time reworking my world and aligning it with the real world. University gave me plenty of time to go on doing that…even though by ’88 I was married and had a daughter on the way. It was about that time that I conceived of something that would redirect the entire format upon which my world would be based. A format that I have developed and continue to develop until today. It’s not an easy subject to get into…for one thing, it sounds crazy. And it is. It is the central reason for me wanting to produce this blog, and it is going to take a long time to outline completely; all I want to do today is to outline my thinking process at the outset. The DMG makes a point under the notes on “The Campaign” that a structure should be created by the DM which gives a reasonable, practical distribution of people, wealth and power…something that will enable the party to get a handle on what is going on. Too much random irrationality will discourage a party’s interest. It is the least read part of the DMG, and in the last 30 years I have seen nothing published which either promotes the argument, or remotely educates a DM on just how this is done. What is a world, in D&D? It is a collection of described factions and hollowed places in the earth holding treasure and guarded by monsters, a network of roads which connect adventures and a sort of vague “fog” called civilization which settles over everything and impinges on the campaign only in terms of its crop of NPC’s. We’re led to believe that these are the “practical” limits of the game. DMs are forced to find ad hoc answers to player’s questions for lack of any structure to base those answers on. Let me give an example: I am a fighter, who has recently established himself as the lord over a 20-mile-diameter hex. Here are some questions I will want answered: I’d like to feed my 200 man army and I’d like it to not cost me any money while I’m not adventuring—how much food can I grow? How much of my land is arable? How much is suitable for the raising of cattle as opposed to sheep? How much meat can I get from a cow? How often will my cows breed? How much milk will they give? How much hay will I need to feed them in the wintertime? Are sheep more practical, considering that the land is similar to Scotland? Do you have other answers prepared if the land is closer to Arabia? Most DMs will say, the land produces enough that you don’t have to provide for your men. Does it produce more? How much can I sell? How much will the wool of 75 sheep provide for my coffers? Can I take some of that wool and make clothing, perhaps establishing a weaving mill? Will that make me more money? How much will I need to pay a weaver? How many herders does it take to look after 100 sheep? What does a herder cost? Most DMs will give numbers, off the top of their head. The weaver costs a g.p. a month. The herder much less. The sheep will give such-and-such lbs. of wool per sheep. Whereupon I’ll produce charts and evidence to show that now the DM has provided figures so out of whack that I’m able to turn my whole 300 square miles of arable land into sheep country, have it watched by 500 herders for 1 c.p. each and make a total of 7,500 g.p. every month. Why adventure? Most DMs will recant, pull different figures out of their rear end, and argue that I can only make 200 g.p. a month from my sheep. And we’re back to punishing players for thinking outside of the box. Again. And if I point out that I have 40,000 sheep on my land and that I’m only making 1 c.p. per head because of upkeep, what if I ask to get into the business of feeding sheep, because that’s obviously more lucrative? The game just doesn’t cover this crap. Because, it is argued, no one wants it to. I disagree. I believe that the emphasis for the last thirty years by the gaming companies on “character” and “weaponry” has been because they CAN’T solve the problem. They have to push the player out of the real world and into the box because the box has clear, concise defining borders which they actually can address. I doubt that anyone working at Wizards of the Coast has any experience whatsoever with politics, economics, geography or demographics. They obviously think that none of those things, in terms of their existence in the world, are very complicated or at all inspiring in giving humans a motive. D&D is often judged a children’s activity because all-too-often it resembles one of those games where you roll a die to move along a two-dimensional strip, marked with things like “lose a turn” or “jump forward two spaces.” The words have just been replaced with “lose a character” or “gain a +2 sword.” I’ve never been satisfied with that. The campaign problem can be solved, and the questions I asked above can be answered without anyone’s butt being involved. I believe I have the way, which corresponds to the title of this blog.
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# ? Apr 3, 2014 16:51 |