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I well remember Lew Pulsipher's articles, especially one of my favorites, the "be aware, take care" article from Dragon Magazine, where he gave the kind of advice you'd expect from one veteran mercenary to a newbie to try and keep him alive more than the first day. I also think there needs to be a little MORE of that thinking returning to the table - not to the "insane paranoid" level of "checking all coins in a hoard for numismatic value" or "prepare poison and smoke powder for the wizard to save spells through the power of suggestion" - but so many groups have been raised on the "guided tour" philosophy that if you present them with the smallest mystery, or one of the old Gygaxian puzzles like the circular stone holes with splinters in them from the AD&D 1 DMG, many players go blank, and just stop thinking. Many, many, MANY parties of players i've seen wont even talk to form a coherent battle plan, they go in, each pick a separate enemy, and do their own thing, sometimes even getting in each others' way. Pulsipher in the Dragon Mag article used example of a group of fighters who charge into a grassy field to the enemy, another subgroup of the fighters and thieves sneaking in the grass, and a group of magic users who turn invisible and move around shooting fireballs. In his words, without communication, or even setting code signals or rendezvous, the enemy could leave the field and the party still might have friendly fire losses. I've seen this level of cooperation in actual play, and it's disappointing! For goodness' sake, even Monopoly needs more system mastery than that.
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Jun 15, 2014 02:08
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quote:It's worse in the unmoderated wilds of social media. There's some pretty nasty stuff out there! quote:Holy cow are you not kidding. I followed a guy with some cred in a certain gaming community on G+ for literally a single day before the comments following something he posted turned into the most foul-mouthed, hair-raising group ad hominem in absentia against All Games Not My Game And The [Plural Expletive Deleted] Who Participate In Them. It was chilling, at least considering the venue. I mean, you'd expect this stuff from a political community, or possibly a group of white supremacists. Or, conversely, perhaps the moderation on the forums you are used to has shielded from you the reality of what people at large really think about 4th edition. I've been surprised myself at the level of vitriol and hate expressed by people who are not even anonymous and yet not shy at all to share their opinions about how much they hate this new stuff generally. I'm more moderate but that's tempered by the knowledge that there is a way to progress beyond the original D&D system, and keep the good it had but get rid of the bad. For instance, I think vancian is fine, but automatic scaling of spell damage or range was a give-away. I like bounded accuracy but think they need to implement bounded HP as well, and treat HP as purely wounds, which increase very slowly simulating getting tougher via the rigors of adventuring. Calling people who hate 4th ed similar to white supremacists betrays your own inability to accept criticism and an inherent bigotry which is bordering on personal attack. Don't insinuate that people who like classic D&D better than modern iterations are similar to white supremacists EVER AGAIN. Otherwise you and I are going to have a big problem here.
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Jun 15, 2014 02:59
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quote:I don't think he was making that broad a generalization. I think he was pointing out that the vitriol in the comments section of...wherever he visited...was of such a nature that it seemed radically out of proportion to the nature of the subject matter, in support of Morrus' observation on the contents of social media. No, he compared his gaming preferences getting mocked (presumably for non-OSR games), to being persecuted based on his race by white supremacists. That is a whole other level of "you need to get out of your parent's basement if you think people having different gaming biases than you is in any way similar to you being discriminated against". That shows a fragile ego, and a complete lack of perspective on what real discrimination feels like. Having your game dissed doesn't count, sorry. It's posts like these where I'm frankly ashamed to be a part of any gaming community. Get out of this forum. Live more, read more, talk to people, experience life a bit. People not liking 4th edition doesn't make them similar in any way to white supremacists persecuting you. It's high time somebody called out such outrageous absurdity. It's a level of abstraction from reality that can only be accounted for by being coddled by a cadre of dittoheads isolated and living in a bubble. I'm not even an OSR gamer, and I feel it's slander. And before anyone dares call my response to his edition warring, let me remind you, I did not compare 4vengers to white supremacists. I was called a terrorist on the Wotc forums for not liking a particular game rule and wanting it removed, it's up to the mods here at this website to show they are any better by deleting that vile slander. If 4vengers can call others white supremacists, or compare them to that, without any repercussions, that betrays a complete double standard. One which I've never seen OSR gamers use in any post on Facebook, G+ or anywhere else. They usually simply say, "I hate 4th edition, it sux. Anything later than 2e/3e is dumb". That's the extent of it. To then take that to this forum and slander the entire community like that, in such a backhanded fashion, must be responded to. Stop it. Immediately.
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Jun 15, 2014 03:01
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Reminder: the guy said "I got a ton of hate for being supportive of 4e." THat's what this guy is so pissed about. ~*~ This is slander. Tarring OSR gamers through guilt by association. Would it be acceptable to refer to OSR gamers on Enworld as terrorists or nazis? Probably, "white surpemacists" is just a slightly less inflammatory slur. If this isn't rectified, I'm not posting here again. Shame on this DMZ guy, this is well beyond edition warring. Since I'm new here, I don't feel the need to hold back. I don't want to be a part of a community where it's okay to call others who disagree with you such things anyway. If it were, I would unleash hell in retaliation, trust me. Spoiled children with zero life experience and thus zero perspective on anything, would be the least thing I might start with. And that would be me being very polite.
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Jun 15, 2014 03:03
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I feel like posting shadzar is the same kind of cheating as posting 4chan, but I post 4chan so gently caress you.quote:
"Windows 8 is unintuitive so gently caress it. Now, here's why THAC0 is just fine…"
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Jun 15, 2014 04:49
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help im cant stahpquote:
Body-double Charm leaked. quote:Okay. Yeah. Uh. Read the Charm. Don't like it. Ever for someone who has a basic at best grasp of Exalted mechanics as is I can already see multiple problems with the Charm. One of the most annoying, disruptive trolls in Exalted fandom… quote:The fundamental problem with the leak is what we see here: indignant martyrs throwing themselves onto the pyre of hyperbolic internet outrage and public derision, convinced that they understand the truth, and that out of the hundreds of testers that have been involved with everything, taken from all levels of mechanical competence with the systems, not a single one of them had the ability to notice problems they could see in a smattering of seconds. …was allowed to be a playtester I guess. And now he's out doing PR! quote:
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Jun 16, 2014 07:54
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Show me the sidebar in the DMG where not murdering defensely kobold children with Divine Smite despite your paladin's vow of Justice prohibiting killing the weak, has a mechanical impact, and we'll talk. Until then, in 5th ed, one needs to houserule good = good, because otherwise evil = good or whatever else you get away with. I've seen several selfish murder hobo paladins in Encounters. Having no rule to support your vows is akin to giving players free reign to demand that for RAW-aligned DMs, there is no such thing as good and evil, lawful or chaotic, because even if there were, there is no mechanical repercussion for a paladin acting CE despite having LG on his sheet. There isn't even a way for a DM to alter alignment based on their character's actions. That is totally absurd and ridiculous. Alignment is a mere suggestion, of course, because the designers have decided that morality doesn't actually exist. That's a strong statement and one shared by many intellectuals. If so, why have alignment at all? Why have Oaths if you can violate them willy nilly? Why design a class based on receiving different abilties based on a divine oath or other, when there is zero reason for a character to actually follow that Oath? I could play an Oath of Vengeance paladin, who is un-vengeful in the extreme. Is that good roleplaying? Is ignoring the "flavor text" of 9/10th of the class description a good reason to spend pages and pages and hours and hours designing it? I submit to you that it's not only unreasonable to have a class based on Oaths without consequences for violating them, but it's completely unreasonable to have any form of alignment mentioned anywhere in the PHB if there is no mechanical support. It is just fluff. I don't need a PHB to tell me what good or evil is, what a lawful character is. If I did, I would want to know why I can pick a class that used to be based on having a certain alignment no longer requires an alignment, and what it means, if anything, to have taken an Oath of Whatever when there is "whatever" shoulder shrug response from the DM when your character is the most selfish and petty at the table. I've seen it quite a bit. Paladin players are the trolls of D&D. They want those kewl abilities but no penalties for hitting below the belt. They want to swagger in to town as the hero on shining armor after having acquired their celestial mount as a result of murdering a bunch of defenseless captives who had surrendered. This is the kind of game they've created here. I simply can't play a class that's so ill suited to D&D. You need mechanics for alignment if you build an alignment based class. Perhaps one for each alignment, fine, but there should be an LG paladin who loses his powers if he commits an evil act, in D&D. I bet they won't even have that in the DMG as an option. It seems we have options for mages to fuel their spells in various ways, but paladins can't actually have their code of ethics be supported by the rules. I'm not impressed by some munchkin who has a level 9 paladin that he got there by chasing loot and acting cowardly or selfishly. D&D Next is supposed to be supporting parties consisting of characters of various levels within the same group, so if there are two paladins, both LG on paper, and one plays him like a real scum bag, but the other plays him well, I expect one to advance faster than the other. The only thing I find really surprising is that on a website dedicated to roleplaying, that the idea that good roleplaying would be rewarded in the rules and bad roleplaying penalized, is the least bit controversial. Games have reward conditions for playing them well and fail conditions for playing them badly. A roleplaying game with no rewards or penalties for good/bad roleplaying is simply poorly designed. The original D&D was exquisitely designed compared to some of this modern stuff. By the time the DMG comes out, I won't be surprised if there's just a sidebar for atonement, or even none, because of all the murder hobo / moral relativism the designers read about on the forums. D&D without alignment is less D&D than it should be, it's missing its heart and soul. Paladin atonement being present or absent, I've noticed is a fair indicator of what type of players will play the game, and as a result, what kind of tables where I will inevitably be seated with greedy paladin murder hobos where the DM can't sanction them directly via their god because they are prohibited by organized play rules to roleplay the paladin's god effectively. The quickest and simplest way for deity to sanction their errant knights is to ex-communicate them, or keep the ever-present threat of ex-communication looming over their every move. In practice, this is how real morality often plays out. And in the end, I don't really care if a paladin acts good because they are inherently good or because they are obeying their deity's dictates, what I care about is that I'm not stuck in a group with a sadistic murderer in shining armor who absurdly gets rewarded with such supernatural and divine abilities like "detect evil" or laying on hands (when the last 5 times it was used was to sustain some kind of evil act or its aftermath).
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Jun 16, 2014 10:03
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Tom, Sick and Sally is a very polite way to describe the variety of actions that I've witnessed paladin players commit over the years. Human kind simply doesn't seem to respond to only having carrots. You really need a stick sometimes. It's part of our animal heritage. That stick is, of course, losing your abilities if you're a paladin. Otherwise show me how a D&D god could punish a D&D paladin in an effective way, that remains plausible given that the simplest and most direct way for a god to control his champion is to take away that champion's status as a champion. Without that ability, D&D gods are neutered, and impotent. Putting paladins in the game at all requires an effective alignment system if it's really to make any sense. Unless gods in your pantheon are so starved for combat-worthy champions that they are willing to put up with anything so long as they pretend to be doing their bidding. Key word, pretend. But nobody is really being fooled.
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Jun 16, 2014 10:04
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quote:
loving beautiful.
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Jun 16, 2014 10:59
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quote:The continued handwringing about this issue, which ranges from e.g. comparing Jack Chalker (who wrote about transformation fetishes) to Marion Zimmer Bradly and her husband (who, apparently, raped kids), to the continued insistence on the part of the SomethingAwful forum and certain portions of RP Open that anyone who wants to put sexual content in an RPG must be an awful pervert deserving of nothing but contempt and derision, continues to anger me, although really that just means I haven't got my pilot light on yet.
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Jun 16, 2014 21:09
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So a document from the in-development 3E Exalted leaked recently. Some folks are mad, because this could cause delays and someone violated an NDA, some folks are happy we actually have something to look at for the game, but gently caress either of those reasonable opinions, let's have some good old fashioned  .quote:Whoever leaked this is, you are an idiot of the utmost magnitude. That you didn't stop a single moment to think about how your actions could potentially impact the gameline as a whole is frankly appaling, and I prefer to think it was the case, because should your percieved ignorance actually be malice, you would be an rear end in a top hat rivaled only by the likes of Hitler and Lisa Minnelli.
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Jun 16, 2014 22:25
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For a thousand years the Urlanth Matriarchy has controlled vast swathes of known space, demanding tithes of money, soldiers for its legions and total obedience. The Urlanth waged a constant war of expansionism as the males of the species tried to prove their worth to be taken as a husband and father by one of the ruling female elite. The Urlanth Matriarchy was only the most recent of many empires that have taken control of huge areas of space over the aeons and, like all the others, it was only a matter of time until it fell. Would they suicide en masse like the Korgat? Perhaps they would fall to a hungrier, younger race as the Urlanth had displaced the Xanian Commonwealth that came before them? In the end it was a civil war that broke the Urlanth rulership. The Empress Caldo was assassinated by members of her inner guard and no clear successor to her position was obvious. The ninety-nine daughters of Caldo fell into immediate and bitter infighting, splitting and dragging the forces of the Empire with them into balkanised regions of mutual hate. Guilds and corporations took the opportunity to reassert their own power and rebellious systems grasped eagerly at the chance to throw off the Urlanth that they had chafed under for so long. Even elements of the Urlanth fleet rebelled under a form of radical masculinism and turned against their former mistresses in the name of male liberation.
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Jun 17, 2014 02:13
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quote:I wanted to share something I noticed with my usual Pathfinder group. Succubi, who are immortal soul-beings that use sex as a weapon, aren't immune to disease. Let that sink in for a moment. More likely than not, most succubi die of incurable sexually transmitted diseases.
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Jun 17, 2014 07:00
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quote:[19:01] <+AJofUniversalHorizons> HI, I’m AJ Schmidt. I have been RPGing since 1978. Ten years ago, I had the pleasure of introducing my son to the world of role-playing with organize-play living worlds.
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Jun 17, 2014 12:24
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quote:I tend to feel that the hate for this game and it's themes is unjustified and blown out of proportion in every thread. quote:
Comedic absurdity.
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Jun 17, 2014 14:06
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quote:This next issue is close to my heart. Something that stood out to me was the complete remove of almost everything ninja /shinobi in the game. The Crane lost the Daiodoji Harrier (really the only other ninja in the book) and it has been replaced with a barbarian like crane which is the complete opposite of what the harrier is. Even the Shosuro lost the title shinobi and that has been replaced with Infiltrator. The name now sounds silly to me. Why would you change the name from shinobi to Infiltrator? Was Shinobi to hard for people to pronounce? Even the Goju ninja school has been removed from the spider clan. It was like the Development team called for an "Order 66" and wiped out all the ninja. It's really frustrating and uncalled for. won't somebody please think of the ninja
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Jun 17, 2014 15:05
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Should have known going to the Paizo forums would be a mistake. OP is a 3.5 player and asks to be "sold" on PF. quote:WotC... no. Just no. If Paizo is McD, WotC is Denny's. quote:Some of the selling points for me when I made the transition: quote:I don't think you'll find many defenders of Wizards' product support program in these parts. 3.5 fans, 4E fans, 4E Essentials fans... they're all feeling the cold, clammy, indifferent slap of the wet washcloth of Hasbro.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:43
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This guy continues to be super terrified that his players will PULL A FAST ONE and will play a paladin...without intended to play a paladin!!!!! ~*~ Oath of Freedom paladin, CG would be a character I'd love to play, but it would end up being similar to a slavery-hating, law-breaking barbarian-rogue in temperament, if not abilities which would be more magic based. But those are still interesting mechanical and philosophical differences even among CG characters, which I like. However the Oaths need repercussions for acting contrary to your Oath. Maybe a temporary disconnection to the magical powers granted for the Oath itself, would be fine. It's not so much a power balancing mechanic as a roleplay enhancing one, and I just don't believe in people taking Oaths with their fingers crossed behind their backs and still getting rewarded for that, and treated like they are still following the path. I would even go so far as to say you can't progress along the Oath. There should be a way to switch your Oath with a ritual or a lengthy change of religion. People do it that quite a bit, I don't see why D&D gods or magic need their followers to keep following them until they die, even over their objections. Others might jealously seek vengeance. Like if you betray a vow and go from paladin to anti-paladin, that's more serious than going from a champion of justice to a champion of freedom. I think changing along the good-evil axis is worse than the law-chaos one. People who are chaotic often do have an internal compass or vow or code or mission, it just isn't rigid, or dogmatic in the same way. A rogue could take a vow of lawbreaking, and say he needs to steal something every day, and as a paragon of that type of Oath, gain appropriate abilities that assist them in achieving that objective. Lots of interesting characters are possible, and they all depend on Oaths being taken and not broken. Take your Oath seriously, no matter what it may be, it needn't be alignment based but a LG paladin of justice should exist, and lose his powers (even temporarily) if he breaks his Oath. They need to add optional rules for that, to make the entire purpose of the class make sense again. Right now the class makes no sense, because Oaths are often merely treated as fluff to gain tha goodiez you want for your murder hobo du jour. Oaths are not fluff.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:48
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The whole idea of "no take backsies" screams player entitlement to me. Why shouldn't a god have the ability to remove that little spark of the divine he gave you, if you're constantly and seriously throwing it in his face? And an intelligent player can easily hide his misdeeds from the public view or scrunity (who will tell on him from the depths of the dungeon? Probably not his teammates, who aren't under any oath). But nothing escapes the eye on the sparrow, neither deed nor even base thought or desire. A subclass is about a third of a classes' features. If you violate your oath by committing an evil act, your oath becomes void, and you are then free to choose another one or atone to regain entry into this one. I hope this becomes an optional rule, because I don't think it's up to a god's followers who conveniently are never around to bear witness to his misdeeds, to discipline his champions. If a god is the source of his spells and lay on hands and other magic, then it's just a matter of turning off the faucet until the paladin atones. I just do not buy it that a god can't sever a tie, temporarily or permanently. They are gods, treat them like gods. PCs are puny pawns, and not independent agents free of consequences. The only punishment for the paladin cannot be that his god mutters impotently at his misdeeds, unable to stop further misdeeds done in his name and with his power. I'm fine with it being an optional rule to enable this, but I do not for one second buy the gameplay or fiction reason why there shouldn't be a severe punishment for Oath violation. Oaths aren't pillow talk. They are serious business, from serious powers (what's more serious than a God in D&D? The DM only, and those are effectively the same thing anyway).
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Jun 18, 2014 00:51
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Whatever the solution is to a paladin acting poorly, it can't be "do nothing". If the paladin is off on his own, and goes to loot the tomb of the fallen king for his magic armor or sword, and he comes back to his group and says it was handed to him by his God, who is to deny him? Since the god is an absentee landlord in the model of "you're only punishable if you get caught", presupposes very weak D&D gods, and that I find unbelievable. A weak, impotent, blind god with strong champions who are abusing his good will and there's nothing he can do about it (in the rules). Yeah, I've seen that happen lots over the years. The only reason I've seen people complain about having to atone are specifically those problem paladin players who want to literally get away with murder and thievery. I don't think it's interesting playing a game where my god permits me to lay on hands and detect evil creatures, while still giving me enough leeway, that, so long as I'm not witnessed by anyone, can murder a prisoner in cold blood, or eat the last piece of bread of a dying old man. Sounds like the kind of knights in Game of Thrones, secular ones, and servants of all-too-human kings and queens. Knights who pretend to pray, while being sinners. If a paladin's god not only can't take away his powers, but can't even order his other followers to hunt down and kill him and bring him to justice, we do have to laugh at such meager gods, and scratch our heads at why anyone would pledge their lives to be their champions. I agree with imaro, the class doesn't make sense without gods having at least some control over their followers. The only thing we're even debating now is why we would want DMs to have in the DMG an optional rule to have classic paladins. But those of us who want them, are not going to stop wanting them because some people we've never met, nor will ever play with. We've heard the arguments for years and years. To my mind, they are all variants of "let the players do whatever they want, because otherwise they will whine". I've never seen, not once, a paladin player who actually played the class well, I mean roleplay wise, even risk having to atone, unless it was deliberately because they were stuck, or it was part of their character. In that case, being a fallen paladin adds character to the character, and makes the overall story better, not worse. Living in a world where there are paladins but they are all perfect specimens and therefore there are never any fallen paladins, tells me the gods are asleep at the wheel, and perhaps aren't even real. Certainly not gods of justice and decency, when they are so inept and powerless to even censure their own champions who are committing evil acts and never getting caught let alone stopped.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:52
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quote:In real life, people break oaths because keeping to them is demanding. Let's say, in real life I take a vow as the captain of a ship, to go down with the ship, and I don't. I take the first life raft off and say so long, suckers. That might end up with me facing some kind of legal or personal repercussions after I end up on the shore. Let's say, as a paladin, I take a vow to my god to defend the kingdom and the king from demons, with my life, but when the time comes, I run away from said demons. In exchange for my vow, I am given powers which ordinary men do not have access to and do not possess. In this context, since the player is controlling his PC, and choses to make his PC act like a coward and thereby break his Oath, his god should punish him by at the very least, removing his powers and severing all ties to himself. Are you seriously saying that the gods in your worlds can't end a contract which has already been broken? And allow such PCs to continue acting as earthly representatives of their will when they break solemn vows to them, for which they were given tangible rewards and benefits? You see it as me wanting to punish PCs for playing their characters poorly, I see it as creating a class where it's a pleasure to take on such vows, and I would gladly play my paladin in such a way. That's not to say that I only want LG paladins because I don't. I want other types, including anti-paladins aka deathknights or blackguards as well as champions of freedom and whatever else people can come up with. But if you're a champion of freedom, and you put someone in chains, yes, same thing, you deserve to lose your god-given powers because in D&D, gods are real and they bestow real powers, and it is beyond absurd to imagine that the gods can't or wouldn't remove those powers. The fiction is there for a long time, fallen knight, fallen paladin. I'm not even asking for it to be in the Basic Rules, but for people to imply that it shouldn't be in the DMG either, or that there aren't very good reasons why we want it there, is just missing the point entirely. Lots of people want paladins with alignment restrictions, and see the class as missing its soul without it. But I don't have a twitter account and have no intention of creating one. If someone else would mention something like "Paladins should have optional rules for atonement / fallen after breaking their Vows", that would be much appreciated. But twitter, no I just can't.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:54
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kingcom posted:I wanted to share something I noticed with my usual Pathfinder group. Succubi, who are immortal soul-beings that use sex as a weapon, aren't immune to disease. Let that sink in for a moment. More likely than not, most succubi die of incurable sexually transmitted diseases. This doesn't seem groggy to me at all. If anything, seems like a good candidate for the Murphy's Rules thread. That's genuinely hilarious. Now, is this grog? I'm not sure. Feels like it. A new publisher called Universal Horizons attempted to patent the process of converting a character from one system to another. It got shot down. They've been deleting comments, too.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:21
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I don't think STDs are in the SRD. Please don't correct me on this.quote:There are twelve ability scores in DragonSpawn. That’s right, twelve. Why so many? The better question is why do other systems offer so few. One of the other systems has a single category, charisma, that deals with the physical beauty of the character as well as such intangibles as leadership and social compatibility. What a crock. I’ve known lots of people who were stunningly handsome/beautiful; who could stop traffic. Of course after two minutes talking with them, you’d want to get away as quickly as you possibly could. Yet, the authors of this other system seem to say that this is impossible, that if you are good looking, you must also be great at socializing with others. Maybe this is a reflection on the social life of those authors, since the opposite case seems to be well known. Hmmm… quote:Choosing a gender as a human is simple. Male or female. Since the game is masculine centric, choosing a female character will require a few adjustments to ability scores to reflect the differences between men and women. Those changes are given below:
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Jun 18, 2014 05:42
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The number of people on ENWorld admitting that they literally cannot roleplay paladins without there being mechanics for it is kind of amazing. Literally "I cannot roleplay a good guy unless punishment hangs above my head." ~*~ In 3e I tend for the most part to play them within the tenets of the class... sometimes because that is what the character would do but sometimes because there are consequences which the character weighs against the importance of his actions. In 4e this never arises when I play a paladin, so for me a character who is struggling with the tenets of paladinhood in 4e... has no reason, IMO, not to take a ride on the dark side when necessary or convenient since there are no consequences... In 3e it has to be pretty important since the consequences are (again IMO) much greater.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:57
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If playing a Paladin, ordinarily I would not break my oath. But if circumstances were such that my character had a chrisis of faith, it might be interesting to play that out, however I would like to know what might be the consequences of such an action. I would not want to immediately put the rest of the party in jeopardy by losing all healing abilities right when they are counting on it. But if we are not in a critical situation, the loss of that healing, while it will matter, would not endanger the other characters right away. Then it becomes another challenge to overcome. If DMing, it is easier on my players if they have it spelled out ahead of time what can happen to oathbreakers. It would be very unfair if the consequences came out of nowhere.
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Jun 18, 2014 05:59
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quote:Yes, because heaven forbid players actually role play their characters. Would you have your paladin break his oath DDNFan? If not, then why do you need mechanical consequences.
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Jun 18, 2014 06:00
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Seriously paladin chat is the best, it inevitably turns into sociopaths trying to argue that everyone is inherently a criminal, and only fear of the law stops them from being monsters. ~*~ We have John, the Paladin. If he truthfully lives by his paladin code, his deep connection to his god will reward him with powerful abilities, like the power to detect the presence of demons, cast divine spells and smite his opponents in combat. The problem is: beginning with 4E, if he fails to truthfully live by his paladin code, this won't be a real problem, because he'll be able to detect demons, cast spells and smite opponents just the same. Either his god doesn't care (and in this case we should ask why he was given powers in the first place) or those powers are coming from somewhere else, and this paladin (or cleric, or druid, whatever) is just an arcane caster with a different spell list (which I believe is ok, as I have said earlier, just not that interesting to me). If those powers are truly a gift from the gods, a moment should come where those gods decide to take them away because John is not living up to his responsibilities as someone bound by a sacred oath. In fact, even if we take the approach where it's John's faith, not the gods, that give him power, we'll arrive at that point where someone will ask: "look, if you really believe in the teachings of Torm, why are you acting like a blackguard in the service of Bane?". Obviously, I'm describing what suits my own game better. I've run D&D for the last 20 years in its various incarnations, and only taken away the powers of a PC once (a 2E ranger that was chaotic good in the character sheet and chaotic evil everywhere else), but I believe it's an important tool, one that I'll certainly houserule back into my 5E game, if I need to. ProfessorCirno fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 06:03
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quote:Shardminds? Yeah, gently caress Shardminds. Doesn't have to eat, drink, or sleep? Great. Can teleport once per encounter? loving awesome. A friend of mine played a Shardmind Monk in a 4e campaign that I ran and I'll tell you I murdered the poo poo out of his character. There are the most UNBALANCED AS gently caress race in 4e
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Jun 18, 2014 07:24
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I'm going to risk being downvoted to hell and be honest for a second. I pretty much hate all the races introduced after AD&D 1st edition. I find that they're used as replacements for character building, and too many(read: forgeborn, dragonborn, shardmind) are incredibly overpowered and become frustrating to other players in the group. Their introduction marks a turning point where, as I see it, D&D became much more about being a badass than playing a game. I understand feeling incredibly satisfied when your character becomes a badass, but it seems incredibly hollow when they start out as some semi-mythical creature. Human, dwarf, elf, orc and halfling all have very balanced starting points and they're considered quite standard in D&D, but dear god, why is these this need to demystify everything now? Did players really get to interested in dragons that they needed an option to play as a dragonborn? Do we really need to replace GM ingenuity by creating a class made of crystal, or a special subtype of dwarves that are super special? D&D was inspired by a host of strange, interesting and altogether wonderful fantasy fiction. It was created to be a game that encouraged people to explore that weirdness, to create their own strange adventures and races and backstories. It's fallen to pieces in 3.5 and 4.0 because Wizards of the Coast decided it needed to hold everyone's hand and create aesthetically pleasing, powerful and ultimately childish races, and the vast majority of D&D players ate it up.
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Jun 18, 2014 07:29
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A paladin losing his powers from committing an evil act IS an in-game consequence for an in-game action. He enters into a contract with his god, not with the DM. The DM roleplays the god to the best of the description and alignment of that god, and judges his followers accordingly. As the giver and taker, he should have the power to giveth and taketh away. Don't mistake metagame player punishment for in-game roleplaying. It's quite possible that a paladin starts out honorable and idealistic and over time, gets corrupted and loses his way. This is terrific roleplaying opportunity, since he can seek the help of a mentor, or ask his god himself, whether his acts are noble or malign, and if he alters his behavior accordingly after doing so, either atones or even avoids censure entirely. A story arc where there is a fall from grace and then atonement and rebirth is as old as dirt. Batman the Dark Knight, to the Dark Knight Rises, is just one recent example. You can't have an atonement story without a fall, and only varying the rate of rising is a boring straightjacket, it's monotonous and undramatic to only ever improve and never stumble along the way. Heroes stumble on the way to greatness. I've seen many terrific atonement stories play out as players learn to navigate their characters better. It's a roleplaying game, there should be rules for roleplaying. This is more a hard rule than a soft one, but it's the only class that's predicated on that, and not even in the basic rules any more due to the incessant complaining to take out this iconic thing. It's limiting to have only champions of one type of ethos or alignment or Oath, but that's not what we have. We have many to chose from, and even rules to define your own subclass, so it should be easy any pitfalls of playing the group's police officer or morality police, or be "lawful stupid". Pick what subclass you want to play, and live and die by its code. It is simply not a serious proposition or idea to have a sworn Oath to boundless metaphysical beings that have extreme intellect and knowledge and who wouldn't take interest in their champion's activities. These aren't squires or altar boys, these are the best of the best, out there spreading his will. It would be totally ridiculous if gods didn't scrutinize them closely.
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Jun 18, 2014 08:16
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Mormon Star Wars posted:I'm going to risk being downvoted to hell and be honest for a second. Screw you dude. I'm playing a griffin in 3.5(savage species rulebook) and it is by far one of the most interesting and difficult characters I've tried. Maybe they've added too many subspecies(aquatic elves?  ) but the unique races like dragonborn and such? Yeah, no, I'm in favor of keeping them.Edit: I'm pretty sure the grog tax is me for using savage species. I'm told it wasn't that good of a book, but I found it interesting. Rorac fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 14:49
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quote:She fell when the party attempted to negotiate with a balor who had taken another PC's family hostage. The demon had just begun to explain its demands - which, if she'd let him finish, involved foiling the plans of a rival demon lord and were perfectly acceptable for a paladin to perform - when she got that look in her eye. What is with the idea that paladins should fall if they unknowingly do something bad, the code of conduct listed in 3E explicitly states that they gotta willfully do something evil or grossly violate the code in order to fall.
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Jun 18, 2014 18:20
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Winson_Paine posted:- Must post grog. This is the big one. Your post can certainly comment on some funny grog, but the last thread was overwhelmed with low effort slackers riding the jocks of the real grogposters. Don't post grog, something bad will happen to you. Commentary on previous posts is fine, or discussing grog, but you gotta bring a pie to the buffet if you do. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 18, 2014 18:54
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Regarding a dude that killed a 3-year-old (what the gently caress) in a fight because of Confusion:quote:I think it's pretty clear cut- he loses all his abilities until he seeks atonement. The longer he whines that it's not his fault and the longer he isn't sorry for what has happened, the longer he loses his powers. And then this little gem pops up in a different thread quote:So my player is running a Paladin, he's a pretty nice guy. Does a lot of good for the community, but I know he could be doing more. And this makes me angry since he's not living up to the perfect standards of what I believe for the class, so I've got a bit of an axe to grind.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:24
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Should Palladium include GBLT characters in future books?quote:I voted No, not because of any issues with the gay or lesbian communities but because: quote:I say no. Some of the older books written back in the 80's and 90's may mention husband and wife. Some of the newer ones may too. It's not needed, it's all about the GM and what they are comfortable with. I had a GM who ran some of the villains out of Villains Unlimited as a gay group. They may not have been written that way, but that is how he saw them. quote:Absolutely not. Right now RPG's in general, and Palladium Books specifically, are under the radar on this issue. Let's not expose them to the crazies on either side of the issue. The last thing PB needs right now are protests or wild denunciations by people who'd otherwise have no interest in the company or its games. quote:I think it Should be Up to the Players to make ther Character Gay or Not. quote:It's already been done quote:How many NPCs in Rifts are even described as having a hetero relationship? quote:If it were printed out as a character option say as a random table bit in the Rounding out your character section, (y'know where birth order, land of origin and such is) then you'll have someone come along and say "See it IS a choice, you get to choose to be LBGT or not" and on the flip side someone else is going to say "You can't put that in there as an OPTION, it isn't Optional we ARE that way." And now PB is in the middle of Drama it didn't need. quote:Honestly, this is a non-issue IMO. I honestly don't care either way. At my table, NPCs I want to be gay are gay, those I want to be straight are straight, and those that I want to reproduce by taking Japanese Schoolgirls and filling them with tentacle goo reproduce that way. That's power that every GM has, and every player has the ability to make their character gay, straight, or otherwise. quote:I do not dislike GBLT people. I disagree with their lifestyle choice, (I believe it is a choice, that is my right. If you do not, that is your right.) but I do not dislike them as a group. I like or dislike people on an individual basis. I know people who are gay and am friendly with them. We're not best friends, but we're not bitter enemies either. To say that I dislike an entire group of people based on a single defining characteristic is to accuse me of discrimination and bigotry. quote:Let's play the demographic game for a minute. I'm a 30+year old heterosexual, protestant, white male from the midwest that primarily votes along conservative republican lines. I make less than $30,000 annually. I don't own any firearms, don't smoke, rarely ever drink, I do not use any type of recreational drug, nor do I abuse any prescription drugs or other controlled substances. I enjoy many genre's of music (mostly country because it's easiest to sing along with.), television, film, and literature. quote:LGBT people can get married in many places now and that number is growing pretty quickly. They already have the same rights as everyone else - the battle has been won. Congratulations. Edit: I'm only halfway through the thread, folks! JohnnyCanuck fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 19:27
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A thread is started asking if the Empire is still sexist after FFG releases many cards / ships with Imperial ladies. A white middle aged dude decides to weigh in on the Bechdel test: quote:I've never heard of this test, or any of the related tests before this.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:38
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Darwinism posted:What is with the idea that paladins should fall if they unknowingly do something bad, the code of conduct listed in 3E explicitly states that they gotta willfully do something evil or grossly violate the code in order to fall. I've yet to see a Paladin story where a Paladin fell because the player was trying to take advantage of the system. Even that one you posted made the Paladin sound like a wreckless badass who just got really unlucky with regards to balor's exploding in close proximity to NPCs. OTOH.... quote:The party had just been teleported thousands of miles away to find an artifact hidden in an ancient tomb. The teleporter gave us the name of the person the tomb was for and then teleported us 'to the tomb.' We landed in the middle of a patch of farmland... needless to say we were all quite confused. So, we went to the nearest town and began asking questions.
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Jun 19, 2014 01:27
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Chaltab posted:Most of them are like this: specifically traps set up by the DM and/or another player for no reason than to dick over the Paladin player. If Paladin falling mechanics only come into play because of a concerted effort to troll someone then I think maybe they can be left out. Only Paladin falling story in my group: Demon Prince: Do you have any wishes? Paladin: A Holy Avenger please. Demon Prince: As you wish. *vanishes and comes back with a Holy Avenger attached to a still bloody arm wearing plate mail belonging to the last Paladin who'd owned it* (The demon prince was in no way disguising its nature as a demon prince; the entire table including the player of the Paladin considered that to be the Paladinly equivalent of a Darwin Award). Grogtax: quote:So first we had Swine Pseudo-artistry, the white-wolf crowd going around trying to subvert gaming (and ultimately destroy all the parts of gaming they didn’t like) by claiming that RPGs have to be “works of art”, sophisticated sensitive and brilliant.
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Jun 19, 2014 02:50
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Hey, remember where we asked...JohnnyCanuck posted:Should Palladium include GBLT characters in future books?  quote:writing in an LGBT relationship accomplishes nothing. I'm not saying, "don't do it", I'm saying, "why are you doing this?" Is it to further an agenda? Is it because of some kind of guilt? Or is it because a group is specifically lobbying you to support them? quote:I would say that this should be in the same category as RW Religions. Unless its really necessary don't bring it up. There are few valid reasons I can see to explicitly make an issue of sexual orientation, and most of those would relate to making someone dislike the relationship and seek to scuttle it. Which then creates the issue of making what ever stance is 'the correct' one to solve the plot, the 'morally correct choice' Which is not something that is, in my view, desirable. Palladium so far has avoided discussing inter-religious relationships, inter racial, and inter species relationships, there is no need to wade into one of societies current social hot topics. There is nothing to gain, just things to lose. quote:The only book LGBT material belongs in is the same book regarding Heterosexual relationships. KS already wrote a small piece regarding relationships between Humans and D-bees. Personally I Believe with some it should be allowed and in our campaign it is. Back to topic however, Perhaps in the Future, PB Will follow the path of D&D and Forge a Carnal knowledge book ....other than that it should be personal and Campaign Bound. quote:I vote for Steve the Transvestite Crazie to be npcd in a rifter. Lol. Just dont forget the pink Mohawk and snake skin nails. Lmao quote:There is a difference between being called a christian and BEING a christian.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:19
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Yes, odd to even have Temp HP when HP now apparently means a character's stamina. What is Temp HP used for? Battlemaster giving away temps to allies? If Battlemaster actually heals his allies without magic I'm done with 5th. Too bad we won't find out until the PHB comes out. If Wizards had any integrity they would just tell us which way they ruled instead of letting it leak out like this and waste our time following this news. If fighters can instantly heal fallen, unconscious allies by shouting at them from across the room, without magic, it will be the quickest refund I've ever shipped back to Amazon. Even if we end up playing the game, I'm not paying for that level of stupidity. I want magic to feel magical and the first step to doing that is to make the mundane seem physically and logically possible.
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Jun 19, 2014 03:35
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