James Jacobs, That Thread posted:

Prince of Knives posted:

Personal question - how difficult have you found it to be in attempting to design Golarion with gender equality in mind? Is it hard not to include unintended mores from your culture in real life (not making any assumptions on what culture that is)? What does the term 'gender equality' mean for you in terms of setting design?

[notebook poised]

When I'm designing for Golarion, not all that difficult at all.

When I'm developing work from some authors, quite difficult, since some authors don't realize their male privilege is showing quite so blatantly when they write.

What "gender equality" means to me is kinda complex, but you can look at the gender mix in our deities or our iconics to get a sense of the tip of that iceberg. In terms of setting design, it basically means that it's important to look at every NPC and decide if that NPC needs to be a man or a woman or whatever, and to try to keep an equal spread of genders represented across all NPC types, be they villains or heroes, victims or persecutors, monsters or humans, etc. And as good as you think you can do, and as unbaised as you hope you are... you can always do better—and it helps to have folks other than yourself read and edit the work you do to bring new perspectives to things.

That said, there are cases where there is NOT gender equality, particularly in certain societies (drow, gnoll, orc), religions (Kostchtchie), races (harpy, hag, satyr, xill), and the like. In those cases, the gender dominance tends to be a key part of things and a defining element of that society, religion, or race. Writing about gender inequality is not the same as promoting or supporting gender inequality, any more than writing about depravity is supporting depravity. To paraphrase Ebert in his 4 star review of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead," "A movie can be about depravity without being depraved."

Personally, though, I tend to err on the side of more female NPCs in my writing than male NPCs, particularly when it comes to positions of power or prominence in a story line. Thus, for Burnt Offerings as an example, the mayor of the town is a woman, the primary villain of the adventure is a woman, the most significant PC ally is a woman, etc. Pretty much because I try NOT to fall into the trap of only writing from the viewpoint of a man writing in a society with a lot of male-dominated issues and influences. I like to think of myself as a feminist, I guess, but I kinda get nervous claiming that because I'm a man. It's complicated, in other words, and I hope that does at least a little good in there somewhere to answer your question.

James Jacobs, Dragon 353 posted:

The male counterpart to the far more common succubus, the incubus is a physical manifestation of male sexuality given humanoid form (and the intelligence to act upon its destructive urges). Whereas succubi seduce their victims, drawing them into their embrace with lies and honeyed whispers, incubi see what they want and take it by force. They have no innate ability to mask their demonic forms, nor do they care to. Their aggressive natures make them excellent soldiers, and entire battalions of these violent demons train ceaselessly for war at Malcanthet's whim in the remote city of Istancian.

James Jacobs, Dragon 353 posted:

Istancian: Situated on a remote island about 150 miles from the main-land, Istancian is also known as the Rapine City. This iron fortress-city is home to the tens of thousands of incubi soldiers who constitute Malcanthet's seldom-used army and navy. The city's location is the result of two factors. First the incubi guard the approach to Shendilavri from the trackless Abyssian Ocean protecting the realm from invasions by sea. Second, the incubi are kept here out of Malcanthet's sense of decorum- the demons have little capacity for subtlety and seduction and beauty. Their presence on the mainland would endlessly disrupt the false serenity that pleases the Queen so much, and they are sent here to live in near-exile. Malcanthet keeps ships filled with slaves deemed unfit for other work on a regular route to Istancian, so the incubi who dwell there never want for flesh in which to slake their deadly lusts. Succubi and other minions who displease Malcanthet often have their wings torn free and, bound in dimensional shackles, are sent to this this island for punishment. The incubi do their best to keep all of their playthings alive, but generally a trip to Istancian is a short-lived and painful one indeed.

James Jacobs, That Thread posted:

Earth could learn a lot from some of the things we do in Golarion though.

James Jacobs, Bestiary 3 posted:

Like succubi, incubi form from the chaotic evil souls of particularly lustful and rapacious mortals. Yet whereas succubi are subtle and methodical about using their charms to cause ruin, the incubus is forthright and forceful about his insatiable desires

James Jacobs, Demons Revisited posted:

The succubus seeks to encourage lust in those she encounters, thereby continuing the cycle of abuse and seduction that ensures more of her kind will be forever created by the Abyss. While succubi are certainly capable of rape, this particular violence is a sin more accurately associated with the incubus, an entirely different demon that forgoes seduction in capable of molestation. The succubus excels at a more subtle temptation, seducing good souls away from kindness and care for others with false promises that encourage them to wallow in their basest desires without regard for the destruction of their reputations, relationships, and self-esteem. When a person targeted by a succubus is at his lowest, when finally realizes how he has ruined not only his life but the lives of those who once loved him, all in pursuit of purely physical pleasures divorced from any thought of love or companionship- only then does the succubus reveal herself and end the victim's life in a single night of agonizing truths. When his twisted, tormented soul finds its way to its final punishment, it will be used to create new life in the Abyss, ensuring that the terrible cycle continues.

James Jacobs posted:

Gancanagh posted:

What are your 5 favorite monsters from bestiary 4 that are from mythology/folkore and which aren't demon lords, great old ones or such unique creatures.

Drakainia
Huldra
Kitsune
Rat King
Rokurokubi

Bestiary 4 posted:

Draikainia
This woman's upper body is shapely and beautiful, but her lower body is bloated, with pulsating tumors and writing (sic) tentacles.

[...]
Birth Spawn (Ex)
As a full-round action, a drakainia can give birth to a spawn, which is a Large or smaller creature of her choice with a single random mutation. Each day she can produce any number of creatures whose combined total base CR does not exceed 3 + her Constitution modifier (usually 21).

Gestation Aura (Su)
A drakainia's aura pulses with developing life. All poisons or diseases active within her 30-foot aura have an onset of 1 round and a frequency of 1/minute. Impregnated creatures within her aura gestate in 2d4 rounds. Any creature born within her aura gains a mutation as if it were the drakainia's spawn, though if the creature's parent was not impregnated by the drakainia, the creature born is an infant of the kind its biological parents would produce, and doesn't count toward the CR limit the drakainia can spawn per day.

Impregnate Surrogate (Su)
A drakainia can disgorge a monstrous embryo into the mouth of a living, corporeal creature that is pinned or helpless. She makes a grapple combat maneuver check, and if she succeeds she impregnates that creature regardless of its gender. A Mythic character must succeed at a DC 38 Fortitude saving throw to avoid being impregnated; a Non-Mythic character is impregnated automatically. An impregnated creature's pregnancy lasts for 2d4 rounds. During this pregnancy, the victim is nauseated until the monster bursts forth from the victim's abdomen, which deals 10d6 points of damage to the pregnant creature and applies the broken condition to any armor it is wearing. Remove disease (DC 28) eliminates the unnatural embryo. Alternatively, as a full-round action another creature can attempt to cut out the growing monster with a DC 38 Heal check. On a successful check, the offspring is removed, and the formerly pregnant creature takes 1d4 points of bleed damage. On failed check, the pregnant creature takes 2d6 points of bleed damage and is stunned for 1 round, but the offspring is not removed. The creature spawned by means of this impregnation is any creature of the drakainia's choice that is at least one size category smaller than the creature she impregnated. These spawn count against the drakainia's daily CR allowance for birth spawn (see above).

Invert Birth (Su)
When a drakainia uses her dimension door spell-like ability, instead of the normal range, she can choose to teleport to any space occupied by one of her spawn that is within 1 mile of her. She doesn't need line of sight or knowledge of the spawn's location. If she chooses a spawn that is farther than a mile away, she does not lose the use of the spell-like ability, but does lose the action. On arrival, she explodes out from her offspring, destroying it entirely.

James Jacobs posted:

LazarX posted:

James Jacobs posted:

And because the Abyss is a much more feminine place than masculine, and thus it makes sense for a society that worships demon lords to be matriarchal... just as the opposite holds true for arch devils and Hell. There may be an equal number of male and female demon lords... but the Abyss itself is feminine. The demon lords are led by a VERY feminine demon (Lamashtu), and the most powerful non-full-deity demon lord is ALSO female (Nocticula).

That caught me out of left field. Is this Pathfinder's take on the Abyss? Because I come up a bit short on how the Abyss has more female types of demons or leaders than the Hells. I remember Glasya, daughter of Asmodeus for example being quite influential in the Realms, apparantly working on getting deityhood for herself.

Yup; it is.

One of the themes we've been running with for years is that Hell is essentially masculine and the Abyss is essentially feminine. There are lots of hints about that in the Lords of Chaos books.

There are no female archdevils in Golarion, for example, and the only women of power in Hell are called "whore queens." Hell is VERY misogynistic.

The Abyss, on the other hand, is ruled by a female demon, and it's the very nature of the plane that it's very fecund and all about creating life.

Glasya isn't open content, in any case, so we don't do anything with her. Or Tiamat as a devil dragon, really.

James Jacobs posted:

Monkeygod posted:

not sure if you've been asked this before or not, but:

Do you enjoy the Kevin Smith Askewniverse movies with Jay and Silent Bob??

a few fellow internet gamers claim Malcanthet isn't original enough to be considered a Demon Lord(Lady? Lordess) or whichever rank she has. How would you respond to that?

I enjoy most of the Kevin Smith movies. Clerks is easily my favorite, and I actually don't mind Mallrats.

As for the other bit... I'm not sure what the complaint is. Are they saying that a demon lord has to be weird or unusual in order to be a demon lord? In which case I disagree, because there's quite a few "classic" demons among them all: Orcus, Graz'zt, Pazuzu, and Baphomet to name just a few. And while Malcanthet's not based on any real-world mythological figure, we COULD have built exactly the same demon lord using the name Lilith or Jezebel or something like that. We didn't do that for D&D... but we DID for Pathfinder, with the creation of Nocticula.

Anyway, I've never seen anything on the internet claiming she's "not original enough" so I have no real response since I don't know the context of their disappointment. Personally, the concept of a super-seductress who manipulates all the other demon lords and presents a beautiful form of evil is pretty important to the game.

James Jacobs posted:

Wiptag posted:

I hope Malcanthet is in the book. Otherwise, here's hoping she's added to Wayfinder #3.

Malcanthet is the property of Wizards of the Coast, unfortunately. And since her name's completely fictional and not based on a real-world myth, one can't even reinvent her... by that name, at least.

In Golarion, Nocticula is very much the "replacement" Malcanthet, although she's a lot more violent.

James Jacobs posted:

Generic Villain posted:

Well, you gotta have at least one succubus queen. I just liked how, in Book of Fiends, they didn't just make Nocticula more of the same. She still had a decidedly female portfolio, but wasn't yet another seductress.

Ah. Well... she's got some seducing going on... but she's a lot more violent than slinky, really. Nocticula's like Malcanthet but with ninja levels, I guess... so she's not just all about succubi. Socothbenoth's more of the seducer paragon in Golarion's demon lord pantheon.

James Jacobs, Lords of Chaos posted:

Nocticula
Our Lady in Shadow
CE female demon lord of assassins, darkness, and lust

Cult
Unholy Symbol seven-pointed crown wrapped in thorny vines
Temple brothels, dungeons, elegant manors, hidden cathedrals
Worshippers assassins, drow, rapists, shadow-using creatures, succubi, whores
Minions bats, carnivorous plants, charmed or dominated humanoids, seraptis demons, shadow demons, shadows
Obedience Ingest a dose of psychedelic plants or fungi and engage in any number of sexual acts (either alone or with others), during which at least a pint of blood must be shed. Gain a +4 profane bonus on saves against blindness and charm effects

Boons
1: The Lady's charms (Sp) charm person 3/day, darkness 2/day, or suggestion 1/day
2: Instant Blindness (Sp) Three times per day, you can cast quickened blindness/deafness
3: Dominate Thrall (Sp) Once per day, you may cast dominate monster. You may have only one creature dominated at a time via this effect, but the effects are permanent until you dominate a new target, at which point the previous target is released from domination but is stunned for 1d4 rounds.

The first succubus is a beautiful but deadly creature. Lady Nocticula is fond of wearing her dark hair in complex styles. Her eyes are devoid of pupils, her fingers are tipped with talons, and her feet end in stony hooves that weep molten iron. Bat-like wings covered with glowing runes and three tails ending in stingers complete her demonic appearance. Yet she typically appears to unsuspecting folk as a particularly beautiful woman or handsome man in order to lure them into her clutches. Even demon lords aren’t safe from her deadly seductions; the number of demon lords she’s seduced and assassinated is formidable—among her greatest triumphs is Vyriavaxus, the Demon Lord of Shadows. From him she won the grudging loyalty of the shadow demons.

The other demon lords treat Nocticula with a mixture of obsession and fear, with only one of them, Socothbenoth (her brother and sometimes lover), maintaining a relatively friendly relationship. Nocticula is one of the most popular demons among the drow, but she is also worshiped in places of decadence like Katapesh, Nex, Geb, and certain River Kingdoms. Recently, Lamashtu’s cult has taken notice of Nocticula’s rising power and has increased the level of hostility with her worshipers, causing some to believe that Nocticula may be close to becoming the second demon to ascend to divinityNocticula’s Abyssal realm consists of dozens of islands on an immense sea of still black water. The sky is always dark here, with strange stars and a disturbingly large moon in the sky above. Each of these Midnight Isles represents a demon lord or other notable entity she’s assassinated—with each new kill, her realm grows. Each island is ruled by a unique succubus or incubus with strange and terrible powers. The terrain and natures of these islands are linked to the themes and history of her victims, save for the largest island in the center—this island is Alinythia, her personal realm of pleasure and decadence.

LightWarden posted:

pathfapper.txt

carborundum posted:

Stuff Cut From Hook Mountain Massacre

Not sure where to post this, but is there any chance of seeing the stuff that was too nasty for Pathfinder? It sounds ... awesome!

Dejobas, aka Nicolas Logue posted:

Ha! Found some tidbits buried in my old emails! Screw you miserable computer! You can't keep a good ogre down!

THE GRAUL BOYS IN THE BARN

Jepro Graul is a handsome big boy towering over his brothers. Some strange cobbling of his family’s warped genes (no doubt a throwback to the beauty of whatever human relatives attracted the Graul ogrekin’s lustful attentions generations ago) resulted in Jepro’s suave good looks and Adonis-like physique. Jepro is not without deformity though – he has a vestigial twin sister growing out of his left side named Katra. Katra is little more than a malformed face, a scabby mouth of flesh-locked teeth and clumps of hair. Katra does not appear to be alive most of the time. Occasionally Katra moans out horribly when Jepro eats a spicy repast of human meat (most like just digestive gas passing through her misshapen mouth). Jepro carries a dozen choice quills picked from Sticky-Prick, and enjoys hurling them at his enemies.

Sugar Graul is found here as well. This mutated degenerate bears a cluster of extraneous eyes dotting his left cheek, and his entire hairless skull is mounted with malformed extra sets of ears, freakishly framing his hideous face. Sugar has a bizarre skin condition that results in a scaly adaptive hide not unlike a chameleon’s. Sugar is secretly in love with Katra and spends most of his time trying to feed Jepro spicy food to make her “sing.” The sick ogrekin also drugs Jepro sometimes so he can tryst with Katra’s vestigial face on his side, mostly just cooing to her softly, but sometimes attempting more vile expressions of his affection.

Hograth Graul is the eldest Graul, a hulking brute. The right side of Hograth’s rib cage is oversized jutting from his body and stretching the skin over his chest tight to bursting. Mammy forces Hograth to wear a locked chastity belt to conceal his oversized manhood (she keeps the key). Hograth wears nothing else. The towering ogrekin wields a large post-holer, and takes special delight in dealing gruesome coup de graces to downed foes by “holing” their brains, heart or viscera with the vicious over-sized garden tool.

The Graul boys tending the Black Arrows ignore any sounds of combat elsewhere on the property and continue their dread ministrations until they detect someone approaching the barn. Hograth starts dispatching rangers as soon as the PCs enter the farmhouse.

JEPRO AND KATRA GRAUL CR 6

Male/female vestigial twin ogrekin fighter 5
CE Large giant
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60ft., low-light vision; Listen +1, Spot +1
DEFENSE
AC 13, touch 10, flat-footed 12
(+3 natural armor, +1 Dex, -1 size)
hp 45 (5d10+15)
Fort +7, Ref +2, Will +2
OFFENSE
Spd 40 ft.
Melee mwk pitchfork +11 (2d6+8) and
Katra’s bite +6 (1d6+2)
Ranged howler quills +6 (1d8+4)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. (5 ft. with Katra’s bite)

TACTICS

Before Combat Jepro strips to the waist to reveal Katra in all her horrific glory and moves behind the Black Arrows for cover (forcing anyone targeting him to risk hitting the rangers).

During Combat Jepro hurls howler quills at the PCs from behind cover, when he runs out he impales a ranger on his pitchfork and flings them at the party instead (+6 ranged 1d8 damage). If the PCs close in he wields his pitchfork two-handed in frenzy.

Morale Jepro surrenders if his brothers are both killed, but Katra refuses to and continues to snarl and bite at anyone who steps too near.

STATISTICS

Abilities Str 18, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 13
Base Atk +5; Grp +13
Feats Precise Shot, Point Blank Shot, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (pitchfork), Weapon Specialization (pitchfork)
Skills Climb +6, Handle Animal +5, Jump +6
Languages Giant
SQ vestigial twin, weak mind
Combat Gear gear used in combat, 5 howler quills; Other Gear human-skin leather overalls made of knitted together shriveled faces, eyes and mouths stitched shut, skullcap bowl filled with bonemash gruel mixed with potions of bear’s endurance and barkskin.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Vestigial Twin (Ex): Jepro’s twin sister Katra grows from his side, instinctively biting strangers who come too close. If Jepro fails a Will save, Katra allows him to attempt it one more time as she fights off the effect too.

SUGAR GRAUL CR 6

Male ogrekin ranger 5
CE Large giant
Init +1; Senses darkvision 60ft., low-light vision; Listen +17, Spot +17
DEFENSE
AC 17, touch 11, flat-footed 15
(+1 Dex, +3 nat, +3 mwk studded leather, -1 size)
hp 33 (5d8+5)
Fort +5, Ref +5, Will +4
OFFENSE
Spd 40 ft.
Melee mwk spade +9 (1d6+5) and
mwk light hammer +9 (1d8+2)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks favored enemies (human +4, elves +2), spells.
Spells Prepared (CL 5th):
1st—entangle (DC 13)

TACTICS

Before Combat When Sugar detects the PCs he slinks into the shadows behind the stack of hay next to the barn door.

During Combat Sugar sneaks in to flank a PC engaged with his brothers and sneak
attacks.

Morale Sugar tries to flee if reduced to 5 hp or less.

STATISTICS

Abilities Str 20, Dex 13, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 6
Base Atk +5; Grp +14
Feats Alertness, Endurance, Track, Two-Weapon Defense, Two-Weapon Fighting
Skills Climb +6, Hide +9, Jump +6, Listen +17, Move Silently +9, Spot +17, Survival +4, Use Rope +5
Languages Giant
SQ extra ears, extra eyes, ugly, wild empathy
Combat Gear gear used in combat; Other Gear snake-skin leather boots (20 gp).

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Extra Eyes and Ears (Ex) +4 Listen and Spot checks.
Ugly (Ex) -4 to Bluff, Diplomacy and Gather Information checks.

HOGRATH GRAUL (RAGING) CR 7

Male ogrekin barbarian 6
CE Large giant
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60ft., low-light vision; Listen +9, Spot +0
DEFENSE
AC 12, touch 9, flat-footed 11
(+2 Dex, +3 natural armor, -1 size)
hp 78 (6d12+36); fast healing 2
Fort +11, Ref +4, Will +4
Defensive Abilities improved uncanny dodge
OFFENSE
Spd 50 ft.
Melee mwk post-holer +12 (2d8+27)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks rage 2/day

TACTICS

Before Combat Hograth readies a coup de grace on a subdued ranger. As soon as the PCs enter Hograth “holes” the ranger’s groin, killing him gruesomely.

During Combat Hograth continues to viciously coup de grace rangers unless a PC engages him in melee at which point he rages and turns his sick aggressions on them instead, allocating his entire base attack to Power Attack (included above).
Morale Hograth fights to the death.

Base Statistics AC 14, touch +11, flat-footed 13, hp 66, Fort +9, Will +2, Str 26, Con 18, Climb +11, Jump +11, Melee mwk post-holer +16 (2d8+12), Grp +18

STATISTICS

Abilities Str 30, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 4
Base Atk +6; Grp +20
Feats Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (post-holer)
Skills Climb +13, Jump +13, Listen +9, Survival +3
Languages A cobble of unintelligible bits o’ Giant, his brothers don’t even understand him
SQ fast movement, speech impediment, trap sense +1
Combat Gear gear used in combat; Other Gear +4 chasity belt of giant strength.

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Speech Impediment (Ex): Hograth cannot effectively communicate using speech.
Fast Healing (Ex): Hograth’s freakish bloodline possesses some of Granpappy’s ogre mage influence. His wounds knit before his enemies’ eyes.

INSIDE FORT DRANNIS

Area K5 Infirmary (EL 10)

Once used to house the wounded and sick, this chamber is now a slice of some blood drenched nightmare. Hacked pieces of bodies litter the operating tables and sick beds. The floor is slick with gore, strewn with mangled organs and heaps of entrails. A glazed-eyed fat man sits at one of the operating tables merrily spooning chunks of his own disembodied organs out of a brown bowl. His guts spill out of a large gaping slash in his midsection, even as he tries to hold them in with one hand.

Creatures: Three ogres reside here, chief among them being a deadly Kreeg clan son “adopted” by the Hook Mountain ogres shortly after his birth named Silas. Silas is an ogrekin, born of a pretty young human woman taken captive by Jaggrath for a time. Grandpa Kreeg took his pleasure with Jaggrath’s catch (as is his right as patriarch) and claims the boy’s his, but Jaggrath knows better – Grandpa seed hasn’t taken root in over thirty years. Though Silas’ body resembles his hulking father, his face grew far too pretty for Jaggrath’s liking (“he takes after his ma too much”), and so Jaggrath shaved off the entire right side of Silas’ face, leaving a pulped ruin with skull showing through in places. Every week or so, Jaggrath “fixes” his son’s face with a straight razor, keeping him looking “right.” Silas survived at the Kreeg Clanhold up Hook Mountain by being faster, quieter and far more ruthless than most of his larger more brutish brethren. He is the stealthiest of the Kreegs and was the first over the wall on the night of the massacre, taking his scythe to the necks of the sleeping rangers in the barracks before the alarm was raised.

Once after taking too much blood-grog, Silas wandered the Hook howling like a demon and eventually fell off a cliff into the Skull River. He washed up on the bank of a small homestead where a quiet healer and his family made their home. They took pity on him, not taking him for a giantkin (Silas is considerably small for an ogrekin) and they took the near-death Silas in. The healer worked chirgurey and applied polstices to Silas wounds until he made a strong recovery…after which he raped the healer’s family while he watched and then ate the man.
Ungrateful though he may have seemed, the experience always stuck with Silas who was moved and fascinated by the healer’s ministrations. He has since decided to “play doctor” in his own gruesome fashion in tribute to the man who saved his life. Mostly this amounts to cutting out the organs of living humans and parading them before their horrified eyes.

The fat man supping on his own organs is a special experiment of Silas’ with assistance of his older sister and lover Dorella (who dotes on him in her own drooling way). Dorella cast dominate person on this fat baker kidnapped from Turtleback Ferry as per Silas’ request and forced the man to eat whatever Silas put in front of him. The ogrekin has taken great care not to kill the fat baker (at least not too quickly…he’ll succumb from his wounds eventually without healing magic, though he’ll never recover mentally from his ordeal). Silas is delighted to have fresh prospects for experiments and orders his two ogre orderlies to subdue the PCs when they enter here. Silas ignores the sounds of combat elsewhere, completely absorbed in his “important work.”

Ogres (2): hp 30, See Monster Manual page 199.

SILAS “SCARFACE” KREEG (male ogrekin rogue 8) STAT BLOCK PENDING

IN THE KREEG STRONGHOLD…GRANPA WAS CUT FROM THE ORIGINAL…SAD!

H8. Like the Dread Kings of Old (EL Varies)

Grunting mutters and whispers that sound like vile devotions to some dark god pour forth from this chamber in the snarling Giant tongue. A huge shrine bears the visage of a human his face marked with all manner of arcane sigils. The eyes of the shrine glow with and sinister red light. Before the shrine stands a towering albino ogre naked from the waist up his alabaster skin marred with spatters of gore. He grips a mighty barbed greatsword in his hands as a group of ogres kneel glossy-eyed before him. Several headless corpses litter the area as well, their insides pouring out their neck stumps in messy pools.

Creatures: Here Granpa Kreeg brings his line to an end in the manner his forefathers were expected to – brutal self-slaughter in devotion to their mighty Runelord. Their bodies marked with the Dihedron Rune, Granpa sacrifices the remainder of his brutish family members here devoting their very souls to Karzoug’s runewell. As soon as he realized the clanhold was under attack he gathered most of his kin here and ordered them on their knees to be sacrificed. Few resisted (and those that did were mercilessly cut down) as the family never questions Granpa’s commands, and he has been beheading them in the throes of an almost religious ectasy since. Five ogres remain alive all blithely awaiting their brutal decapitation. Granpa spits and snarls at anyone who enters, ordering them out so he can finish his grim work. If they tarry he hurls a cone of cold at them before flying into a rage and attacking. The ogres do not join the fray, they merely wait on their knees, tears of devotion and supplication stream down their faces and moans of ecstasy belch from their stinking mouths as they stare at the shrine to Karzoug.

Ogres (5): hp 30, See Monster Manual page 199.

GRANPA KREEG (male ogre mage barbarian 2/fighter 2)...CAN'T FIND THE STAT BLOCK

Jay R posted:

You've made several false assumptions. I need to go through and discuss some of them before I can write an answer that will make any sense to you.

First of all, you write "Balance/Cinematic Appropriateness" as if those are synonyms. They aren't, and neither is a well-defined term.

What is "Balance", and why does it matter? The answer is usually some version of making all player characters equally powerful at all times.

I consider this to be an actively bad idea, that reduces the potential fun level for everyone. My goal is for each player's character to occasionally be the one whose abilities matter most at a crucial moment. This is easy for the spellcasters, so the DM's job is not, in my view, to give Fighters and Rogues spell-like abilities, but to provide moments when rogue skills and sheer fighting skills are required. Even when the solution is a fireball, the Fighters should be crucial to keep up the shield wall that keeps the wizard free to cast.

By contrast, "Cinematic Appropriateness" means some version of letting characters do what they do in the movies. But since movies aren't consistent, this has no meaning. An archer who is cinematically appropriate to Errol Flynn's Robin Hood is not cinematically appropriate to Legolas. Gene Kelly's D'Artagnan can do leaps and movements like a trained dancer; Michael York's D'Artagnan is a physical fighter; Logan Lerman's D'Artagnan does things humans can't do, and that look silly to a real fencer. So using the phrase "Cinematic Appropriateness" merely means "like the speaker's favorite movies," without telling us what you actually mean.

I personally don't like the 4E spell-like abilities for fighters because they are not cinematically appropriate - for the movies I like most. Robin Hood, D'Artagnan, Captain Blood, Zorro, Rob Roy, and William Wallace just don't do things like that. But even so, they make their mark in a heroic way.

Captain Harrison Love: After all, it's only one man...
Don Rafael: It isn't just one man, drat it. It's ZORRO.
The Mask of Zorro, 1998

Lord Willoughby: He’s chivalrous to the point of idiocy.
Captain Blood, 1935

[Note that watching these kinds of movies makes "cinematic appropriateness" a synonym for, not a contrast with, verisimilitude.]



Huh? Only if:
A. They are fairly high level. A 1st level wizard goes down fast and hard.
B. They start far enough away the fighter can't force melee in the first round.
C. They each start at the same moment. A Rogue who isn't trying to arrange a backstab is not playing like a Rogue.
D. There is only one person on each side.
E. There is no terrain to hide behind.

In short, the only likely scenario in which your statement is likely to be true is if they are fighting in a bare arena for a crowd, with referees to tell them when to start. As you have defined it, the spellcaster gets to cast spells on the first round, but the fighter doesn't get to attack and the rogue doesn't get to sneak or backstab. This scenario has artificially removed all the disadvantages of spellcasters and the advantages of non-spellcasters.

I have played D&D since 1975, and have almost never taken part in a one-on-one open field fight in which both participants knew the fight was coming. Certainly my thieves have taken out guardsmen from behind, and occasionally even a spellcaster, but the scenario as you laid it out simply doesn't come up, and so doesn't matter.

More importantly, I don't play one-player games of D&D. A proper party should have a mix of casters and spellcasters. The fighter-types should be protecting the wizard, just as infantry protect the guy with the bazooka, so he can shoot his fireball missile.

If a caster can survive long in a D&D campaign without noncaster protection, the DM is running an overly simplistic game.



How does the story indicate that? If they need something in a trapped chest, the thief is better off than any other. If the monsters are already in melee with them, the armored fighters have the advantage.

Frodo is not equal to Gandalf in power. But Frodo, not Gandalf, defeats Sauron.
Merlin has more individual power than Arthur. But the king with all his knights has more total power.
The White Witch has more power than Edmund. But Edmund breaks her wand and destroys her power.

The point of a heroic story is that the heroes face a challenge that can overwhelm them, but they find a way to defeat it, not in straight, open battle, but by subterfuge and cleverness. The Death Star is more powerful than the rebel allowance.

Long John Silver: Arrrr, fortune rides the shoulders of them what schemes.
Long John Silver, 1954

And there is no suggestion in literature or movie making that all the good guys have equal power. Harry is more powerful than Ron. Aragorn is more powerful than Merry. Lancelot is more powerful than Kay. Jaime is more powerful than Tyrion.

Fred Kwan: Maybe you’re the plucky comic relief. Did you ever think of that?
Galaxy Quest, 1999




Cinematically appropriate doesn't mean "fair" either. It is not backhanding a character choice for a different character to have more raw power. Batman and Superman are in the same League. Hawkeye and Thor fight together. But in both cases, the writers guarantee moments when the powers of the "mere human" are necessary to saving the day. Balancing the party doesn't mean giving them each power; it means a proper mix of different types of abilities.

Miyagi: Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, karate good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?
The Karate Kid, 1984

Not giving each character a moment to shine is "effectively backhanding their character choice," but don't blame the rules for the DM's decisions.



And some DMs avoid the problem by designing scenarios for their actual party.



Since the aspects of verisimilitude, balance, and cinematic appropriateness are in the eye of the beholder, and you and I don't agree on what they mean, none of these is a principle that we can agree on.

Different aspects of games appeal to different people; different approaches appeal to different people, and most people don't want all games to play the same. So the question as asked is unanswerable.

Here is (my) answer to the question I think you actually meant: The game should allow each player's character to shine occasionally, and in a party-based game, the party, by working together, should be more powerful than the individuals could be alone, so that after a session, it should be impossible for any player to even separate out who did what. The wizard beat the trolls with a fireball because the fighters were keeping the goblins off him, and the enemy wizard was ineffective because he'd been backstabbed by the rogue.

One for all, and all for one!
The Three Musketeers

quote:

My, how the market has changed.

Just a few years ago, the argument was being made that Paizo would never, ever, not in a hundred years, outsell WotC in the RPG arena. Now the argument is being made the WotC is going to be a solid competitor against Paizo in the realm of RPGs and its now WotC managing to be able to "get 50% of the Pathfinder sales." And the fact that DnD manages to eke out 50% of what Pathfinder sold is seen as a positive sign for WotC and the DnD brand.

Whether or not the numbers in these surveys mean much, it is clear who the perceived industry leader is at the moment.

Chaltab posted:

^^^where is that from?

EnglishLanguage;6294565 posted:

It really doesn't. I've yet to throw a Fireball with my 4e Fighter, or have him do anything outright magical.

Ahnehnois;6294572 posted:

But you've had one cast a cure spell (healing surge) on himself, yes? And use a smite attack? And perhaps other magical things, ranging from teleportation to mind control?

I believe my point is that they aren't just doing martial stuff. Taking the old-school wands and potions of CLW and transmuting them into healing surges doesn't make them "martial stuff". It's basically just refluffed healing wands/potions.

If you really wanted to, how hard would it be to pretend that the magic items in PF didn't exist, and that you were just picking up handy tricks and enhancements by defeating enemies?

Also, it's not a question of everyone being "awesome"; it's more the Leveling Down objection; everyone is equally mediocre, as the really good stuff by and large isn't even there.

Ahnehnois;6294579 posted:

Using a wand or scroll with UMD isn't casting a spell either; it's using resources that are part of the rogue class (or, increasingly in PF, of any character, as you've noted). What exactly is your point?

Ahnehnois;6294603 posted:

Directly comparing the two actions, one a fighter or rogue character picking up a wand and using it on himself, and two a fighter or rogue using a healing surge, the healing surge is a greater departure from the class's role and abilities, mechanically more similar to the resource management and access associated with spells, and less easy to rationalize from an in-world perspective. It is much closer to the character actually casting a spell. You simply can't refer to a character using magic items as "playing some other class" without acknowledging this.

Ahnehnois;6294685 posted:

...but now in PF, there's a witch and a sorcerer that are both superior to the wizard (while being more "wild"), to the point where they perhaps approach the existing kings of the hill, the druid and the ranger.

Why doesn't anyone complain about that?

Steely Dan;6294816 posted:

And it is not out of context, at all, the 4th Ed PHB clearly states that it is not magic in the "traditional sense"; it's magic, just not fireball type magic, pretty self-explanatory, sorry if I am not helping your anti-3rd Ed/PF-the sun rises and sets on 4th Ed's heiny crusade.

Steely Dan;6294835 posted:

All of their powers are a type of magic, which makes perfect sense in the 4th Ed universe.

4e PHB posted:

Martial: Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power. Martial powers are called exploits.

Ahnehnois;6294848 posted:

Use Magic Device isn't magical either. It's a skill, not a spell, or spell-like or supernatural ability (that's an objective fact!).

A rogue using the skill to activate a wand of Acid Arrow or a Scroll of Passwall is not using a magical ability any more so than a fighter is when he swings a +1 sword.

There's some kind of argument that's been sketchily constructed to the effect that either:
*a wizard using a Knock spell or scroll to replace the effect of lockpicking is somehow different than a rogue using a scroll of Teleport to bypass the need for a wizard to cast it.
...or
*A flying invisible wizard raining down spells has some incontrovertible dominance over a Stealth-ing rogue flying with a magic item and sneak attacking with some wand.

It's an argument that only holds if you take a large part of the rules and say that they don't count or aren't legitimate. And thus an argument that fails.

quote:

We are portraying reality itself without any moral or political judgement.
We profoundly studied television marketing and sub messages.
We visited the most advanced phisics research lab (CERN for example)
We revisited social psychology.
We went through contemporary fashion, gossip and nightlife.
We got in contact with real life superheroes.
We are depicting the same methods used by mass media manipulators (neuro linguistic programming too) in our manual and how the nowaday society perceive things.
We collected many conspiracy theorist witnesses by founding a secret society for this research purpose.
We hid many secret messages in our book for our audience to find out.

-If something else is offensive to any of you please let us know-

quote:

Cubical hit this one out of the park when it comes to the art and basic setting writing. A really talented team. I just wish they hadn't cooked up a unique set of mechanics to play - I am convinced that unique game systems have basically ruined our hobby — what possible reason could there be for hundreds of slightly different sets of rules governing a to-hit roll? Anyway, I'll save that rant for another day.

Otisburg posted:

Context: Creator response to criticism of "Urban Heroes," a superhero RPG on Kickstarter featuring, among other things, "Pussy Destroyer"-- a "feminist superhero" with giant vagina dentata for a face and "rape me" written across her bare breasts.

A reasonable poster, for once posted:

I am guessing we fell prey to a marketing ploy.
Before this thread, the kickstarter was probably going to fail, now it is probably going to succeed... all thanks to the controversy.

This game is doing the hobby an active disservice imho. We already have plenty of games with sexist artwork ( I was on their site... big boobed women in sultry poses abound, muscled males, nearly no characters with a skincolour other than "white"). More are not needed. Claiming to be against isms is not the same as actually doing something about it.

Creator posted:

Please before talking take a look: we have any kind of ethnical characters in our game, males and females, bisex,straight and homosex (we have asians, african-american, african-european, indian, african, caucasian).
Many of them are very important charcaters too (Liberdad which is the leder of one of the most important anarchist team, the Leakers, is a spanish afro-european who helped Aung San Suu Kyi in her fight for freedom in our backstory).
Heavy muscled men and women (as well as some sexy outfits you mentioned; take a look at Manuel Bracchi illustrations which are ON PURPOSE all extremely and innaurally muscular) are the direct product of our tv and internet advertisment which is made on purpose to destroyy human will and distrct you from the important things happening in the real world (and as well distracted many people here!).
Try and switch your TV on, report what you see. We do not want to depict the "superhero world of our dreams" but ones that's more likely similar to ours.
We do portray this corrupt and filthy world in our game (pagination is made as if everything is presented through a big made up social network) trying to denounce such behaviors thorough the metaphorical use of super beings.

Criticism is one thing, boycotting by reporting untrue facts is different. Please no more lies about #URBANHEROES

-RIOT NOW-

kafziel posted:

Apparently, Pussy Destroyers is a superteam, and allegedly, "the other members of the team are a topless sinister nun in garters and stockings (who has No Religion painted on her bare breasts) and a random giant naked lady." I can't seem to find the preview that has these, though, and the arts of the vagina-faced super that I'm able to find just googling, it just looks like a mouth.

Urban Heroes posted:

The name of the group was decided from all our fans like many other decision (the characters to put in the main story, the adventure to develop etc). Just to tell you our method we mocked the major of our city with a portrait of him as a reptilian/Illuminati kind of thing during a political storm for a fan and he become a NPC of our story! As you can see we're not want or trying to do politics here, we're just recording the facts and put 'em in our story, with a little bit of distortion, irony and desecrating spirit. Our Pussy Destroyers, despite their name, (drat you, internet and drat you fans!) are an active part of the popular and social revolution of Genetics H.E.R.O. in Russia, a large group of people and mutants that fight non-stop to achieve equal rights, respect, and the right place in the Russian society. Like the original Femen their actions are mostly extreme and transgressive but their causes (equal rights, possibility for non-human to vote and work, anti-totalitarism position, same-sex marriage etc) are right, these proud neo-feminists are just a little part of the Urban Heroes movement, an anti-system group of anarchist that is trying to fight the Power to obtain equal rights for everyone on Earth-Z.

quote:

Dude, you have a topless feminist character whose face literally is a drooling, toothed vagina.

Urban Heroes posted:

it's just a little part of a greater story and a game that is genuinely trying to make the difference speaking of important political and social problems. Please try to move off from the supposed sexism in our game and try, please, to figure out what we have here. By the way for that image we censored it to don't hurt anybody feelings, in the final rulebook of #UrbanHeroes you will find it all blurred out 'cause we don't want to show just a group of female with their chest exposed, we want to emphasize – in some cases to the extreme – the real protest. And, speaking of protesters and chest exposed, this is just a google image gallery of the Femen's protests around the world: http://bit.ly/1nsW9sy They use their bodies to make scandal and scandal to force the "common" people to speak about the real problem. Although the method may be questionable you must admit that the intentions are correct.

WiiFitForWindows8 posted:

I don't know if anyone will believe this story, but here I go.

quote:

I have had the opportunity of late to think a great deal about hit points—specifically because a diving board causing 4-16 damage recently laid me up—or at least that was my first impression.

There has always been a great deal of controversy about what hit points ARE: obviously, abstract interpretations, but of WHAT, exactly? Actual damage caused by weapons, or merely a combination of exhaustion and mere chips taken off the character’s physique. The latter has produced a notion that the only actual “hit” is the last hit point taken off: the one that represents a severed limb or pierced bodily organ.

The DM’s Guide defines hit points as “The number of points of damage a creature can sustain before death (or optionally, coma), reflecting the character’s physical endurance, fighting experience, skill or luck.”

Well, I’m not a Gygaxian, so I have some problems with the above. First of all, why should “luck” have anything to do with what hit points are? The luck is obviously in the die: the player rolls a “7” on a d10 upon becoming a third level fighter instead of a “4.” That’s luck in determining how many hit points the character has, or the creature; once the number is generated, there’s luck involved in whether the character or creature is hit or for how much...but that luck has zip to do with the nature of hit points. It is like saying that the driving speed of a car reflects the presence of gas.

The next contention is “skill.” Hm. Which skill, exactly? Strength is added to damage done, and dexterity to the reduction of chance of damage being done, but neither indicates any change in the number of hit points. Constitution isn’t a skill (strictly speaking, it isn’t an ability either, but I’ll not quibble), it is an inherent nature. None of the weapon proficiencies nor combat proficiencies add to hit points, certainly not in AD&D. So, basically, was this word was pulled out of Gygax’s rear end, because it sounded like there ought to be four things rather than three?

“Fighting experience.” I’ll buy the second half of the phrase...experience. Why fighting? If a mage never picks up a weapon, they still can rise to 20th level through the use of magic alone. So ditch the fighting argument. A mage who has never picked up a weapon knows how not to take damage, right?

What we have left is “physical endurance.” Well, this really is the constitution...putting that completely out of the running for character “skills.” But if the constitution merely adds hit points on top of what your character or the other creature already has, where do the original hit points actually come from?

Didn’t get that? I roll up a dwarf with 8 hit points, whose constitution is 16, which adds 2 to hit points. Thus the dwarf’s hit points are 8+2 = 10. Where did the eight come from?

Not intelligence or wisdom, that’s for sure. The stupidest creatures imaginable have 80 or 100 hit points –purple worms—and those don’t come from “experience,” “skill” or “luck.” It is just a big, dumb, lumbering creature that flattens whatever it rolls on or eats.

Hm. Big...

My contention is that hit points for corporeal creatures (non-corporeal creatures are another matter, which I will get to in due time) comes from mass...which is how Gygax should have defined it years ago. My character’s mass of 175 lbs. of fighting weight will endure as much damage as it takes to rip it to pieces with a sword. That means the actual, physical damage represented by hit points are the first hit points the character receives on account of its race and physical size. Hit points added on later represent the character’s ability to avoid damage by expending the additional hit points they’ve earned through experience in exchange for the hit points they started with.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because I’m beginning to realize that the entire monster manual (along with its addendums) has its head up its rear end because it fails to take into account mass in its calculations of hit dice, movement and particularly damage.

I know that there has been a change in the original three size classes: I can’t recall what they are; I’d have to look them up. I wasn’t very impressed...and I’m about to step past all of that. Instead of recording the size of the monster according to some ad hoc category, why don’t we just use the one that seems to work well for everyone else on earth...why don’t we just record its weight in kilos, or pounds if you like (I like using the old system for D&D, it reflects the age)?

Because the first place it falls down is in the demi-humans vs. humans.

ALL of the demi-humans are ridiculously small in stature, but equal to the humans in combat ability. Say what? Is this the “skill” that Gygax was referring to? Irrational racial abilities, based on a single book written by a writer who’s 1,800 page book includes about 20 actual pages of combat references? If that? (I haven’t counted). Why do elves have 1+1 hit dice while humans have only 1-6 hp...the same number as halflings, which are one-third their size? Why do dwarves, who are twice as massive as elves, who dig in the earth and spend their time in forges, have 1 hp less on average?

Why, it’s the elf cult, that’s why. Well, gently caress the elf cult. If elves want more hit points, let’s have them beef up a little on the constitution. May I point out, if elves have so many hit points, why is it that the Player’s Handbook indicates you should subtract one constitution on becoming one? Hm? Shouldn’t an elven player character fighter automatically have more hit points than a human, dwarven or halfling fighter?

Let’s rearrange things and make them a little more orderly, shall we?

Let’s set an ordinary human female, 130 lbs., as 1 hit dice...or more specifically, an average of 4.5 hit points. This would make the lightest potential player, a halfling female, at fifty pounds, as having an average of 1.73 hp. I prefer to round up all my fractions in this case, giving the halfling female an average of 2, or 1-3 hit points as a base number. The heaviest character, a human male, at 175 lbs., would have an average of 6.05 hp, or 6.5, being a d12.

Now, doesn’t that gently caress with your brain?

This does not mean that a thief would not still start with 1-4 hp, or a cleric with 1-8 and so on. It would only mean that the mimimum hit points the creature would have would be the base number, determined by their mass, and then added to that number the appropriate die roll for the class.

In other words, the first level human fighter would roll a d12 (mass), then a d10 (level) and then add his or her constitution bonus. If, like me, you give maximum hit points to start, you could give the level points as full...thus, d12+10+constitution.

The genius of this system is that it punishes each character individually. If a human character winds up being thin and weedy, weighing only 150 lbs., then the number is calculated against 130 to give the result. If an elf is determined out at 115 lbs., they will have MORE hit points because of their weight.

Of course, players will think that by gaining weight they will gain hit points...but they need to have it pointed out that their character’s weight is their fighting weight; that extra mass in the form of fat would be mere baggage, not an aid, and would only reduce their fighting ability.

Well, I’m lying on my back with nothing better to do, so I’ll send this off with my better half to get posted and I’ll start on the next piece.

Chaltab posted:

^^^where is that from?

Some ENworld sales grog

Note that the survey in question did not say that Pathfinder sold twice what D&D did, but that twice as many retailers considered it their best seller.

quote:

From the 4e PHB, p 54:
Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power.

That is to say, martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense - they are not like spells (arcane formulas) or prayers (divine magic). But nor are they "ordinary". Through strength and willpower, built up via training and dedication, martial PCs do extraordinary things that exceed the capabilities of mere mortals. REH's Conan is an example of a martial character in this sense. In LotR Boromir and Aragorn are both examples. It's clear within the fiction of LotR that neither is a wizard, nor using magic in the same way that Sauron does, or the user of a palantir does, or even the way that Feanor did to craft the Silmarils. Like Conan, each is drawing on his strength, willpower and dedication to do amazing things.

quote:

I'm finding your explanation a little convoluted and it also seems to ignore certain things that fall under the martial power source like martial practices... I mean when I look at some of the martial practices like Decipher Script (You can learn to read any language fluently in 10 mins regardless of whether you've ever been exposed to it or not) or Warded Campsite (You and your allies instantly awaken whenever something enters the area and cannot be surprised) they seem borderline if not straight up magical abilities and seem pretty much beyond something Conan, Boromir and even Aragorn could achieve without magical help...

quote:

And if you can't stand a vagina-faced monster....how comes you are on the internet?

a thread titled Nazis -vs- "The Jap" posted:

What makes the Nazis "fair game" in stories and games but the Japanese military not?

There are certainly enough propaganda and atrocities to draw from. Why only Nazis are acceptable as a generic opponents?

(I ask this because I'm pulling information together for Pacific Pulp.)
=

quote:

quote:

Really? What the gently caress?

Let's put it simply:

Nazis - An organization for lovely people that nobody likes, the members of which took a personal hand in one of the great atrocities of humankind.

"The Jap" - derogatory term for a whole nation and ethnicity of people, the majority of which had nothing to do with the atrocities committed by the Imperial Army, and who were in fact often oppressed by the same.

If you say, "My game/story is about fighting the Nazis," people say, "Yay!"

If you say, "My game/story is about fighting the Jap," people say, "You racist motherfucker."

If you want to do something that involves the Imperial Army, go to town. No one will say a drat thing. If you want to say, the Japanese people = the Nazis, people are going to have problems. Especially if you're using a loving racist slur. Jesus Christ.

Dude, take a blood pressure pill and relax. The whole loving world was racist during WW2. How about you give the poster the benefit of the doubt before putting on your SJW armor and weapons? The poster stated he is putting together a Pacific Pulp game which implies it will be placed in the era of history where the world was racist. It doesn't automatically equate to the poster being racist for gently caress's sake!

quote:

Quite. That's why the OP put the term in quotation marks - to make it clear he was using the period (racist) term.

FFS.

quote:

Yeah, that's how it works for people who have reading comprehension skills and can understand context.

quote:

quote:

Hmmm, I'm thinking how I would feel if someone wrote "the Jew" or "the Hebe" and it's not feeling so good. Playing "the Jew." Nope, still not giving me any warm fuzzies. I think I'm reading it okay, maybe it's a context thing. I must be approaching it from the wrong context.

Take the righteous indignation chip off your shoulder and it should clear up for you.

quote:

my grandfather was a medic in the island hopping campaign, so I think the term "jap" is ok as long as you're being very careful with it. It was a term that the US soldiers used almost exclusively when referring to the Japanese, so in that context I think it's OK. But I do not think it's OK to be used as a general term or from a narrator perspective.. Also, "Jap" wash't inherently racist. It was a simple reduction and simplification of "japanese", and if there is one thing soldiers do, it's abbreviation of everything. The racism wasn't the term, but how Japanese were portrayed in imagery

also, to ignore bad things that were common place seems like whitewashing to me, regardless of the side you're doing it from. Because a tv show shoes images of comic strips from WWII doesn't mean that show is racist. Context is everything

the OP posted:

***
For those that think that I am Racist, they may find it interesting to know that I am married to a Chinese woman from Shanghai.
Family Picture
=

quote:

... it's turning purple around here.

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.

ProfessorCirno posted:

First, let's not kid ourselves, Aragorn does use magic, especially as it seems to be defined by Tolkien in Middle Earth...

Ahnehnois posted:

Beyond the simple question of matching the spell to the situation, there's also issues of analysis paralysis and second guessing that are routine to playing a wizard. Memorizing spells well is fairly difficult, psychologically.

Gareth-Michael Skarka posted:

The key, I think, is to make a concerted effort to shun That Guy. Make it clear that weird obsessive hate-ons aren’t acceptable.

Plague of Hats posted:

gms posted:

I’d like for there to be a wider talk about how ALL geek-media creators get unhinged hate-mail & harrassment, but worried it’d be taken as “what about the men” derailment.

Women definitely get it worse, but almost every creator I know, male & female, has a story about having to deal with “That Guy.”

Shiroiken posted:

Nope. If the player pressed the issue, I would say "Ok, you meet an Elf/Orc. They kill you" :p

Shiroiken posted:

The problem is that I wouldn't find anything non-cheesy. Orcs and Elves, in my campaigns, are bitter enemies that pretty much attack each other on sight. If one was produced by force, then the parent would almost certainly destroy the child at birth (if not sooner). Even if a player made a story where the child could have been raised by a more understanding race (say humans), they would STILL be attacked by either parent race on sight, as they would be considered an abomination.

We've recently had the issue come up in Ghost of Dragonspear Castle, where there is a race of "Dwarks" (Half Dwarf, Half Orc). The Dwarf in our party was ready to slaughter them all after we captured and questioned them, because they were abominations to him. It was a very tense scene, where each PC picked a side and tried to argue their case. Eventually, it was decided not to slaughter them, but they were warned that if they opposed us again, we would not spare them. They did make another appearance, and we showed them no mercy. The dwarf laughed like a madman during the battle.

Shiroiken posted:

*Shrug*
You run things your way, and I run things mine. There may be other ways to handle it, but it would not be internally consistent with my game world. By being consistent, my players know what to expect from me and my game, so no one would actually ask in the first place.

Celebrim posted:

I wouldn't allow it, as its not one of the explicitly allowed hybridizations. Goblins eat elves because they are no good for breeding or as slaves.

However, it's your world.

It's hard to mechanically marry the two races because half-orc and half-elf both suck.

This is the best I can come up with:

-2 Intelligence, -2 Charisma.
• Medium: As Medium creatures, Orfs have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Orf base land speed is 30 feet.
• Darkvision: Orfs can see in the dark up to 60 feet. Darkvision is black and white only, but it is otherwise like normal sight, and half-orcs can function just fine with no light at all.
• Immunity to sleep spells and similar magical effects, and a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against enchantment spells or effects.
• +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks.
• +1 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks.
• Elven and Orc Blood: For all effects related to race, a Orf is considered an elf and an orc.
• Automatic Languages: Common, Orcish and Elven. Bonus Languages: Any (other than secret languages, such as Druidic).
• Favored Class: Any. When determining whether a multiclass Orf takes an experience point penalty, her highest-level class does not count.

Alternately you could just do regularly half-orc stats and add something like:

ELFIN BLOOD [TRAIT]
You have an elfin ancestor, and the blood of that ancestor flows with unusual strength in you.
Prerequisite: You may not take this advantage if you are elfin or half-elfin.
Benefit: For all special abilities and effects, you are considered an elf. For example, you can use elfin weapons and magic items with racially specific elfin powers as if you were an elf. You may also choose one of the following special abilities: treat Empathy (animal) as a class skill, or a +1 racial bonus to listen, spot, and search checks, or low light vision.

quote:

From the 4e PHB, p 54:
Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense

quote:

You do realize that it goes on to define what it means. right?

"Martial powers are not magic in the traditional sense, although some martial powers stand well beyond the capabilities of ordinary mortals. Martial characters use their own strength and willpower to vanquish their enemies. Training and dedication replace arcane formulas and prayers to grant fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords, among others, their power."

So I guess training, dedication, strength and willpower is magic. That's what you are saying right?

quote:

Every power they use is magical... just not in the traditional sense.

quote:

Casters being overpowered is a well-known problem with Pathfinder.

quote:

I'll note that the "Martials are magic" crowd has yet to name a single magical ability that martial characters can do.

Plague of Hats posted:

Really, all this D&D grog and sexist poo poo is bumming me out. How about some bizarre racism instead?

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you know... I was going to respond in-depth then I realize I was being tempted into the typical Big Purple downward spiral.

Look, if it makes you feel better, I'm Japanese. I give you permission to call your make-believe evil baby-eating, bayonet-volleybaby tossing, whale hunting, kamikaze, live eel-slurping bad guys, Japs.

On behalf of all Japanese people "we don't care."

and if you're Japanese like me, and do care, "it's a game. Racism doesn't exist because of the game. If you don't like it, you can simply gently caress yourself."

If you're not Japanese and care - you can waste your time trying to be politically correct on an RPG forum - while real problems are outside your door that could be better served by your self-inflicted outrage. Why aren't you doing that instead?

See? It's pretty easy.

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Thats pretty much the stance one of my Japanese customers had too. Except she had the added comment of "And calling us Japs is pretty mild compared to what we call and treat everyone else sometimes."

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And some people wonder why we like to use orcs as bad guys.
But on the Big Purple - you'd be labeled a racist for saying that.

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But on the Big Purple - you'd be labeled a racist for saying that.

... no poo poo. I got banned from there for the defense of Paizo for using... Orcs... as... bad... guys, explaining Paizo - a company - isn't racist... yeah...

That is one of the main things I have learned from this discussion. Use Goblins and call it a fantasy game.
90% of people seem to be OK with that.
All the race "landmines" may be why Pulp is not more popular. Why go through all the hassle just to expand the possible Adventures?
=

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Hey dumbass, I'm Japanese. Do you *think* (why did I start this sentence this way?) I should be OFFENDED at the word "Jap"? Yes? Then WHY am I NOT? I'm the *very* ethnicity the term was used for? Yet I'm not. GEE why is that? Maybe it's because no one was calling me a "Jap"? Maybe because the CONTEXT of the discussion has *NOTHING* to do with insulting another person directly or by intent? Did you think about that? Of course not.

But you are here crusading on my behalf, in this misguided and idiotic attempt at squashing "racism" because a WORD not even used as you pretend it is, floated across your screen. And despite the fact that a Japanese person, who by all standards according to *YOU* should be offended - isn't (because this particular Japanese person has common sense).

...and basically making a complete fool out of yourself in the process.

Here's something equally interesting. Have you noticed in your crusade that while I was half-joking about giving permission to all Japanese people as you put it - you immediately and with all seriousness act like YOU can deny me permission to speak my mind? Do you even realize by that act you are guilty of at LEAST the very same dumb poo poo you're leveling at me, and others here who are *not* having the same conversation you're pretending we're having?

Are you that mentally deficient in your political correctness? Consider that.

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Now YOU are speaking for MOST JAPANESE PEOPLE RIGHT HERE. With your OWN dumb loving "scenario". You are a bigger loving idiot than I thought. Most people would be rolling initiative? Most of WHO? My people? Your people? It appears you're talking about Japs. That's the WORD you used. It can't be anyone else - no one else in your "scenario" is being called a "Jap". So contextually - you're speaking for me and my "people".

Let me tell you something, the FIRST day I arrived in Dallas (I'm from Los Angeles) my neighbor who I'm very good friends with now - gave me the "You people speech". As in, "It's nice having more of YOU PEOPLE in the neighborhood." My eye twitched - only to be followed up with, I poo poo you not, "We have a Chinese family at the end of the block, and a Korean family two blocks over..." as if all Asians are the same loving culture. But guess what, dummy? I didn't start a fight with him. He's from TX, born and raised, never having left the very city we were standing in... how in the gently caress is he supposed to KNOW when he lives in a white suburb? By YOUR dumb loving logic I should be "rolling initiative" but alas - I'm actually smart enough to understand the context of people's experience. Much like I understand your idiotic PC self-ejaculatory crusader mentality.

You inject your own emotional outrage into a word free of context. You yourself committed the *very* thing you accuse ME of (which I did as a joke - which everyone but you seemed to understand) and yet you haven't hanged yourself yet?

You're loving blind to the fact that you're doing it RIGHT HERE. You're denying people the right to even say a word free of personal context in DISCUSSION and you're now SPEAKING for my entire ethnicity by telling me what people in your stupid scenario are set up to do - and ACT as you FEEL they should: Violently.

That's what "Rolling Initiative" is for.

Those are YOUR feelings. Not mine. Nor any other Japanese person I know - which is literally HUNDREDS. Not only that - you're cloaking it in "WHITE APOLOGIST CRAP" - which is funny, because it has nothing to do with being White. It's Politically Correct Apologist Crap - *YOU* inject the term White in there - yet ANOTHER racial distinction. I used the term White Knight as in "The White Knight = Paladin Crusader" as an image... you're here making a racial distinction because you KNOW that's precisely what's in you driving it.

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They are splitting it up into four books. They are splitting Scion into four books. The hubris of that fact is awe inspiring.

Scion is and was vaporware. Scion has no intellectual property. It has no setting. It has no story, and almost all of the characters are public domain. The game system isn't just broken, it doesn't exist. There is no "action resolution system" in Scion. It's just a first draft of a character generation system stapled to an incomplete combat engine. That's the whole thing, and it inexplicably takes up three books and over a thousand pages.

You could put every single idea that Scion actually has in four pages, and these jokers want to sell it as four books? I'd say that was a joke, but I know they are serious. The simple fact that they are blocking out Scion into more actual books than the original is proof without fear of contradiction that they are attempting a vaporware shell game.

Scion was about three steps removed from just one thousand pages of "All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy." It has no mechanical or narrative substance. Anyone who wants to spread "Scion" out into more books rather than condensing the whole loving thing into one is a loving scam artist.

-Frank

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Yeah, Jap is as bad as Brit, or Yank!

NB: The word, like all abbreviations, is not in itself dehumanising at all, or even insulting. If it carries negative connotations it's because those already exist in the mind of speaker and listener.

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Can a Master use a Session Order to remove, change, or assign a new Special Quality to a Maid?

For example, if the Master used a Power Source such as "Magical Power" for a Session Order to wish for one of his Maids to become a princess (that is, gain the "Princess" Special Quality) or to transform a male Butler into a woman (that is, gain the "A Woman" Special Quality), or even to transform himself into a king (and gain the "Evil Emperor" Special Quality), or to remove a Special Quality from a character (such as using a Power Source like "Assets" to pay an expensive new medical treatment to cure a Maid's illness by removing her "Sickly" Special Quality), would those uses fall within the rules of a Session Order?

Plague of Hats posted:

Vaporware—a product that literally does exist, but that I don't like.

I really want to see a Frank post that includes both his, uh, unique definitions of "vaporware" and "print on demand" (the latter of which doesn't count as publication of a book).

A real winner posted:

The male pronoun. Him, he, his.

Simpler than the combined male and female; more grammatically correct than the collective pronoun.

From this point forward, the male pronoun shall stand in for anyone, not just biological males, in game books.

Join me in eschewing the surplussage and imprecision brought about in the several years previous and reduce the common pronoun back to the male one our grandfathers used without guilt or fear of retribution.

You have nothing to fear but the bleating of busybodies clamboring up the slippery slope of invented outrage to the perch of moral superiority.

Therefore I shall step forward and withstand the first barrage of "how-sexist" and so forth. I only ask you, fellow game designers, to walk in my footsteps to a cleaner and simpler prose style which befits our games; one that bows not to modern gender conceits but cleaves into the traditional ways of speaking and writing.

You have nothing to lose but your politically correct chains.

Gizmoduck_5000 posted:

I get two distinct impressions from this guy:

1) He's so good at DMing that people are often too intimidated to play in his game. Ever. They often tell stories about it in other gaming groups, in fact.

2)He will often display his penis on crowded train rides, then graciously explains to the unwashed masses why they are wrong for feeling offended and uncomfortable.

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Isaac Asimov wrote an excellent essay some decades ago about the size of living creatures which never left me. The thrust of the essay was this:

When things increase arithmetically in size (double, treble, quadruple and so on) they increase geometrically in volume. What that means is that if we start with a creature which is five inches tall, and we increase it in every dimension by double, making it ten inches tall, the newly enlarged creature will be eight times the weight of the original.

This is the reason there are no insects or crustaceans living on land which are more than six inches in length—and those that are that long are narrow, with lots of joints. Insects have an exoskeleton, an outside plating which the meat within the body must be attached to; massive insects have a much greater meat-to-exoskeleton ratio...and after a certain point, the exoskeleton simply cannot sustain the size of the insect against the earth’s gravity.

Crustaceans also have an exoskeleton; but it is aided by the fact that most crustaceans larger than a few inches across spend all of their adult lives under water, where the water can support their weight and not the exoskeleton. Even so, crustaceans have a size limit.

Human beings and all vertabrata have an “endo-skeleton,” meaning one that is built from inside. Rather than hanging our flesh from an outer shell, our systems hang our flesh from an inner framework of bones, tendons and cartilage. This skeleton also has a practical limitation. The larger the animal, the heavier and thicker the bones must be which support the animal as it moves over ground. The lithe, graceful movements of human beings could never be managed by a hill giant, twice its size. A hill giant, attempting to do a dismount from the uneven bars (assuming the uneven bars could be flexible and still able to support the weight of the giant) would smash both his ankles as he landed.

Most of the movement in D&D which is attributed to large creatures is flatly impossible. For an example, take this: if you are ever in a jeep being chased by a tyrannosaurus, stop. Hit the brakes, then jump the vehicle three feet to the left. The tyrannosaurus, weighing around 30 tons, will simply keep right on going. It simply could not stop. If it were able to turn its head to look at you—and its far more likely that it could not—it would unbalance itself, turn rear end over teakettle and then flop several times over quite a lot of landscape, ending its tumble with a broken back and well on its way to an excruciating death. The tyrannosaurus is not designed to catch small, mobile creatures which would be unable to meet its energy requirements anyway. It needs to catch very large, meaty, dumb creatures like itself which are also unable to stop once momentum is built.

In short, for most massive creatures, the concept of battle involving pivots, counter-thrusts, lunges and retreats are simply fairy-tale in concept. Which is fine. I am more than good with hill giants able to do gymnastics, as long as it contributes to the overall dramatic of the game.

Which is why I am ever astounded that a hill giant, according to the monster manual, runs at the same speed as an ordinary human being. This seems to support the argument that large creatures must necessarily move slower than small creatures because of their bulk; an argument which I’ve just made and which, I think we can agree, gets in the way of the actual playability of the game.

It has always been obvious that the original speeds of all the creatures in the books amounted to little more than random dart throwing. Why are leopards, minotaurs, swimming nymphs, owlbears, shadows and fire elementals all judged to be moving at the same speed has men? And what exactly is the logic of the original estimate for how far this distance is?

The original rule, as I remember it, was that a 12” move indicated the number of feet that a creature could move underground in the space of a minute (round), and the number of yards a creature could move above ground. I could never understand why my ability to move was suddenly cut by one third simply because I was below ground surface. Because its black? Because there are corners? Arguably I should be able to run to the edge of a well lit chamber at the same pace as the outdoors, and in a straight line too.

In any event, 120 yards a minute is the startling rate of 2 yards a second; meaning that a 100-yard-dash should take me some 50 seconds to run, roughly the same time it takes for a well-trained college athlete to run the 400 meters. I myself, at 17, ran the 400 meters in a 1:03, and I wasn’t a serious athlete. At present, in my crippled condition, I’m sure I could manage a hundred yards in not much more than a minute...keeping in mind that I am on crutches and my surgery was only four days ago.

For a game based on combat, where in hell was Gygax’s brain while he was working this out? In Cuba for the weekend? Even the OD&D fanatics must have come up with something better on their own by now...for my group, we shortened the combat round to six seconds, did a few tests with fifty pound packs and settled on a base rate of 25’/6 seconds as the speed one could be expected to sustain in combat while completely unencumbered. Oh, that’s outdoors and in.

Even that doesn’t account for running. It works out to a mile every 21 minutes, which is still slow: but we long ago worked out a method for which by the second round, you could double your speed, triple it in the third round and quadruple it in the fourth...with rules for slowing down quite similar to 3rd edition. That would mean that your top speed, unencumbered, would allow you to run a mile in just over 5 minutes...not bad, since you’re an unhealthy, medically unfit individual living in the 17th century.

How many miles could you run before you had to quit? Well, it’s never come up. I’m sure something like 1 mile per constitution point above 8 might be a place to start, with checks for stupidity after you’d managed ten miles (all long distance runners are fundamentally stupid—I was when I did that).

The point is, once we dispense with all the inconveniences of physics and its limitations on the sizes of creatures, assuming that some special magical field enables tendons to be stronger and such, we must argue that a hill giant, being twice as tall, can run twice as fast as a human, right?

I’m prepared to say yes, but with a stipulation. While I’ll go so far as to say tendons can be made stronger by the influence of bizarre magical DNA, I’m not ready yet to argue that the laws governing momentum can be tossed out of a window. Ultimately, the giant can run twice as fast: but it should take him longer to build up speed from a position of rest and longer to reduce speed once he’s attained maximum. Which creates a problem. Does the giant require 4 rounds to reach maximum run, or 32 rounds (8 x 4 for a normal creature)?

Oh, gently caress it. It’s a fantasy game. Let’s just admit that all the creatures in the monster manual need to have their speed adjusted...in almost every case, upwards!

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If you're not careful, you're going to wind up re-writing the entire ruleset, and then where will you be? ;-)

Consider spoiling yourself with a copy of the 3.x edition Monster Manual. You may be pleasantly suprised by the greater number of size categories and speeds in there.

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Not the whole rule set.

I'm familiar with book, I have a copy that I've had a couple of years now. I have versions of most every book from the 3rd edition.

My problem with the multiple sizes there is that they still do not address the mathematical constant I've been looking for: size = HD. This system I'm proposing means that every monster and character would roll hp first for their physical size, THEN for their class.

This gets rid of something else that's bothered me for decades...that a 1st level fighter has only 3 crummy hit points more than a strong man-at-arms. But, no longer. Now, a man-at-arms can retain 4-7 hp, which then leaps an additional 1-10 upon reaching first level.

Incidentally, I've figured out the hill giant movement problem. While its mass is 8 times that of a human, its acceleration is four times on account of its ability to push off against surface resistance: therefore, its speed would be half that of a human. A human needs 4 rounds to reach full run; a hill giant would need 8 rounds, not 32.

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This is a bit long but...

I guess I will just have to mention my brief GMing to the brazilian police death squad.

Everything begun at my local gameclub (by local I mean the only one in a 4,000,000 people city) some five years ago. This club was run by a fellow hobbyist on weekends, was located at a big avenue and had a large 'Camelot' plaque hanging over the door with the picture of a knight. Needlessly to say it attracted a lot of curious people. Well, at the end of a saturday afternoon of particularly intense WEG Star Wars playing I was approached by this timid skinny guy in his late twenties. He had been watching the entire session and was almost apologetic about coming forward to talk to me. Anyway he lived just 3 blocks away and he loved "games", so he wanted someone to GM a game for him and his "work colleagues". They had never roleplayed before. He seemed a nice, clean, eager-to-play guy, so I invited him and his buddies for a AD&D game in the club, the following night.

Nothing would have prepared me and the other player (the club owner) for the cast of foul characters arriving at the club the next night. Just to contextualize the many non-brazilian readers in this thread, there are two kinds of police in Brazil: the semi-illiterate oppressive superviolent military police, and the corrupt immoral wiseguy detective/mobster types from the civilian police. These guys were the second type.

These four men (the skinny guy only showed up later) were villain prototypes and had intimidation skill points worth entire 20th level characters. Even when they nicely said hello they had menace written all over their foreheads. It was night, but they were dressed like beach tourists, wearing soccer team t-shirts and sandals. There were so much male jewelry as to make Mr. T look like a girl playing child´s bijouterie. All of them had pistols attached at strategic holsters in their bodies, at least one of them had knives, and all of them were anxious to play the nice "game of dice".

I should see the size of the problem when a huge black man put two bottles of smuggled whisky on top of the table we would play. He seriously asked me if that was booze enough for all of us (two bottles for 7 people). I replied I didn´t drink. He said he would freeze the liquid for me to eat it and his mouth opened in a big smile filled with golden teeth.

Anyway the quarreling began when I showed them the pre-gen characters. All of them "wanted to be the master". There were also quarreling about who would get which character (they were choosing by the pictures). But that was mild quarreling and they calmed down as their heavy drinking and joint smoking ensued. Oh, and they also loved the dice.

The game finally began at the tavern where I had planned the characters to meet and the players to familiarize themselves with the blessed and (to them) newly-perceived freedom a player has in a RPG. They caught on fast enough with IC dialogue, and besides the incessant joint passing and abusive drinking the players were concentrated, with cellphones turned off and all.

That´s when the prostitutes arrived.

Unknowingly to me and the club owner, skinny guy had arranged for two prostitutes, old acquaintances of these guys, to meet at my friend´s gaming club. Things went downhill from there, with the women disrupting the game and the telling of IC mixed with OOC murder stories. By this point my friend made the second mistake of the evening, trying to stop the game by telling me he was late and had to close the club and stuff. The murderous cops didn´t take his intentions well, and started to get all serious and quiet, trying to intimidate my friend. After all, he wasn´t being a nice host, since they had brought the booze, the girls, the drugs and the guns, and they were not going to leave before knowing "who won" anyway, since everyone of them had (of course) bet 50 bucks his character would "win".

So I wrapped things up by having an all-out combat between the characters, while a detective banged one of the girls against a wall 4 feet away. The winner got 200 bucks and a knuckle-duster, they all had a blast and left me and my shaking buddy glad we were left alive . We never saw any of them again, not even skinny guy.

Maybe not too creepy, but then again my experience is limited.