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Android Blues posted:You can play hardball 4e. Nothing about the system prevents it. It just doesn't have save-or-dies or obstacles that do character-killing amounts of damage in one hit (the save-or-die's deceitful cousin), which causes people like this to read it as just impossible to ever beat their wretched players, arrgghh :o Mikan posted:Yeah, definitely this. It was hilarious and kinda pathetic but some of the guys could be funny as hell. The company didn't take itself so seriously back then FMguru posted:D&D 3E was guilty of many sins, but its approach of "here's a bunch of cool stuff, do what you want with it, no metaplot!" was a extremely welcome blast of fresh air at the time it came out.
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# ¿ May 25, 2010 03:06 |
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 11:56 |
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PeterWeller posted:Technically, Greyhawk was. But that's not much different.
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# ¿ May 25, 2010 04:28 |
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Mystic Mongol posted:You do indeed gain power for defeating Satan's Stampede. quote:And if you're a Harrowed (super-zombie, basically) you can draw out the defeated Los Diablos spirit to gain its EVIL COW POWER.
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# ¿ May 25, 2010 19:32 |
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I handle elves in D&D by only running my homebrew campaign setting that doesn't have elves in it. Edit: Although those elves sound like gay immortal versions of Roger and Virginia Clarvin, which is hilarious. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:29 on May 25, 2010 |
# ¿ May 25, 2010 21:11 |
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Angry Diplomat posted:this is awesome as hell and I support it completely
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# ¿ May 25, 2010 21:23 |
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Fire posted:I vaguely remember in 2nd edition, in one of the red "Complete Splat" books, Elves had a two or three year long gestation period and mature very slowly. They are also much less fertile than humans. (Thanks Gygaxian Naturalism) Sulevis posted:Yeah, but it's using homosexuality as something to distinguish elves from other races. Also it smacks a little of trying to be "edgy".
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# ¿ May 26, 2010 07:14 |
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quote:The sad fact is, however, that this was not done, so many campaigns are little more than a joke, something that better DMs jape at and ridicule - rightly so on the surface - because of the foolishness of player characters with astronomically high levels of experience and no real playing skill. Red_Mage posted:Yeah "I'll prove it" is apparently slang for post a bunch of opinions from limited experience. These two threads are a goldmine of nard. lighttigersoul posted:Every time I see that image I want to smack the person who posts it un-ironically. Syrg Sapphire posted:You're gonna have to explain that one to me, I don't think I recall the original title. Benjamin Black posted:How on earth can you hate on Book of the Nine Swords? It made playing as a melee combat character in 3.5 actually fun. I mean, let's face it, even after this book, wizards were still more powerful, but at least they were in the same ballpark afterward. Benjamin Black posted:Is having fun as a 3.5 melee character some sort of cardinal sin I'm not aware of? Piell posted:Everyone rags on 3.5 but it was like, light years ahead of 2E, which was just really really bad. I'd say it was by far the worst of the editions, because 1E has that old school charm, 4E is pretty great, 3.5 has some problems but is at least mostly consistent in its rules. 2nd edition was just bad. NorgLyle posted:In all seriousness, you'll often get people saying with no irony at all that it's not 'realistic' for a guy with a sword to be able to deal as much damage as a wizard throwing a fireball. I don't know how or why it happens but somewhere people get conditioned to think that wizards who hurl lightning are 'realistic' but fighters who can hit really hard with a sword stretch the bounds of belief. They're also usually insufferable about guns and frequently about different types of swords / fighting techniques. OtspIII posted:There's something really funny to me about the way that being stabbed gets downgraded in these discussions. Even if a fireball could cause more destruction than a sword-swing, it's not like there's a person on the planet who could survive a single well-aimed sword thrust from someone who even half-knows what they're doing. Red_Mage posted:I wanted to point out that the Book of Exalted Deeds, a WotC product about being the goodest of the good heroes, had a feat that required intimate relations with a nymph.
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# ¿ May 29, 2010 05:03 |
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Malachamavet posted:Let's break down the book of nine swords, because it's freakin awesome
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# ¿ May 29, 2010 05:17 |
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I still can't for the life of me understand anyone who says they don't like 3e or anything that came after it because it has "too many rules." I mean, yes, skills and feats, but that's a lot more straightforward to me than Strength 18 (76) and a Bend Bars/Lift Gates attribute.
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# ¿ May 29, 2010 05:24 |
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NorgLyle posted:It's always seemed counter-intuitive to me to have rules for that kind of thing, though. If you want to run a Leiber-inspired game, you shouldn't need any kind of rules for getting rid of the treasure that the party accumulates; accumulation of treasure is the primary motivation in those games. You start every adventure with something like "You roll out of bed at the end of your fortnight long revel, awakened by the sounds of an angry inkeeper storming up the stairs accompanied by what sounds to be a group of local toughs. What do you do?" quote:I know the 90s rightly eat a lot of poo poo on RPG forums, but one of the things 90s RPG design did right was bring to the front the idea that you're theoretically here to play a game with a bunch of your friends and that it shouldn't be up to the DM to armtwist your characters into participation. "My character is rich now so he doesn't want to go adventuring" might be a perfectly valid thing to say, but the DM response should usually be "Okay then, make one that does and we'll get started."
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2010 18:15 |
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It's not so much rose-colored glasses as the fact that it always comes down to the individual gaming group, and the fact that White Wolf had a tendency to be hypocritical. There were some Vampire adventures published (Transylvania Chronicles comes to mind) where there were some big plot points that were obligatory, and the climax consisted of watching elder NPCs do stuff. Most of the scenarios in Gehenna let the players have an impact, but the actual outcome involves watching Antediluvians do stuff. I played in a couple oWoD chronicles that were very "So, what do you do?" I also played in an ill-fated nWoD chronicle where the ST didn't really "get" the oWoD and the plot involved tying up loose ends from his Mage: the Ascension game and we chased godlike wizards through time and accidentally created alternate timelines where vampires ruled the earth with continent-spanning parasol domes.
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2010 19:23 |
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Dominion posted:Yeah, I think partially that's going to be an issue with published adventures. There need to be some plot points that happen in a published adventure: That's what a published adventure IS.
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# ¿ Jun 3, 2010 23:40 |
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Mark Rein-Hagen obviously took a lot of inspiration from Anne Rice's vampires, although that wasn't the only source. But one or two characters having repeated arguments over the moral quandaries of being a vampire, or one vampire locking himself in a house and reading books while he starves for decades? As fiction it works fine but it's not suited to the general setup of a tabletop RPG where you form a coterie of like-minded individuals who "adventure" and go do stuff in pursuit of their goals. Even in Rice's fiction, years and decades get described through a few anecdotes and general descriptions, or you'd get an awfully repetitive nightly log of "Louis eats some rats, Lestat laughs at him and murders two prostitutes, they bitch at each other more or less." So the style of play that evolved and became common (from what I've been able to observe) was political struggle, espionage, and gang war. With all the new clans, Disciplines, etc. published in sourcebooks, this sometimes tipped the playstyle into "superheroes with fangs." One thing I really didn't like was the increased amount of crossover in later sourcebooks, and even moreso, the emphasis on mystical MacGuffins, powerful elder NPCs, and ancient globe-spanning conspiracies and mysteries. The crossover with Mage and Werewolf made the game seem a lot less like a World of Darkness and more like an "edgy" 90s comic-book universe, and the grandiose-plot-arc stuff ran the risk of tipping the playstyle into Raiders of the Lost Ark With Fangs. Requiem squashed most of that by bringing concerns back to the local level and emphasizing the importance of blood supply and other scarce resources. Whatever version or ruleset is used, my favourite playstyle for Vampire is essentially a mob movie where business, crime, politics, family, ancient struggles, and personal angst all come together and create havoc. Like The Godfather, Gangs of New York, and Eastern Promises. With fangs. Gerund posted:Oh yes, that incredibly well defined and all-agreed-upon term "act of war".
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 10:32 |
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moths posted:Did Wizards actually announce Gamma World is going to have TCG rules or was that just chicken-little grogs? Ansob. posted:Except for the part I just listed and all the parts like it which make the Empire into something interesting with interesting characters instead of a comically EVUL ersatz British Nazi Empire, I agree. I saw the Star Wars trilogy before my sixth birthday. Star Wars movies are kids' movies. Trying to give them some kind of geopolitical realism is a fool's errand. Haven't you ever read a rant by one of those Proudly Childfree adults whining about all the kids underfoot when they went to go buy the new Harry Potter, followed by an attempt to make sense of the wizard economy and how much unicorn hair and dragon heartstring costs? Yeah. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jun 4, 2010 |
# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 17:11 |
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edit:dp
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 17:17 |
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Ansob. posted:Yes, looking for a wider geopolitical meaning in the films is dumb; but there's no excuse for making any setting a stupid, shallow affair. Since what you change in the EU doesn't change the films in any way, there's no reason not to make the EU politically interesting. Just because it's based on a series of kids' films doesn't mean you can't make it into something intellectually stimulating. If you want politically interesting intellectually stimulating sci-fi why are you reading Star Wars?
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 18:25 |
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Dominion posted:No, it isn't, it was hyperbole. But you do seem to be saying that it's impossible to write a real "big-boy" book set in the star wars universe, and I disagree with that.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 19:16 |
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Ansob. posted:Yes, I too find the idea that poo poo things can be improved upon "insufferable." Ninja edit: Caught you before the ninja edit!
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 19:54 |
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You know, if you want sci-fi that has intergalactic travel and fighting machines and laser guns and super martial arts, and also has conventional warfare and political intrigue and some sense of sociological implausibility, you can always read Frank Herbert or David Drake.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 20:07 |
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NorgLyle posted:God I wish someone would put you and Halloween Jack in charge of Marvel and DC comics. Can you write mature, thought provoking and challenging stories about literal juvenile wish fulfillment power fantasy characters? Sure. Someone with enough skill can write good stories about anything. But in the end, Batman's still going to hit that guy with a car battery and the Joker is going to escape from Arkham Asylum again and, within the context of the books, the world is supposed to be a better place because of it. At the end of your story, once you're finished with your giant epic tale of loss and redemption, everybody forgets about it and things carry on just like they have been for 70+ years. There's no layers. There's no symbolism. There's the next issue out in a month where Batman is back to kicking Mr. Freeze in his big glass dome. The Marvel and DC universes also have so much stuff crammed into them that editorial would never get rid of that you have to go for at least some internal consistency or reading the comics will hurt your brain as much as watching Shia LaBeouf in Eagle Eye.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 20:43 |
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The secret to warding off grognardism is to realize you are a big nerd and love it.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 20:56 |
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Actually, Candyland's system is based entirely on luck. It's a very bleak, Vancian children's board game.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 21:11 |
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Dominion posted:How is it Vancian? Do people in candyland memorize things and then forget them when they are cast? Dominion posted:I dunno, that sounds a bit too nuanced and mature. Shouldn't we just throw our hands up and say they were all killed for being evil space wizards in a kid's movie? Trying to stick complex themes onto kid's stories is folly, after all. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jun 4, 2010 |
# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 21:16 |
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Ansob. posted:Vancian doesn't just refer to spellcasting. There's sort of this whole book he wrote, from which the expression "Vancian spellcasting" comes from, but which also contains other things, such as a crapsack world.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 21:20 |
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"Like literature" and literature are worlds apart. That's why Infra-Man is a much better film that films that tried to be grand drama.Ansob. posted:Setting or system? I'm not sure we need any more systems since we've got stuff like ORE and Wushu and a few other generic systems that can be adapted for pretty much anything, but as a setting that sounds interesting. I've always thought Vancian casting is sort of a rubbish way to represent something which is meant to be inherently anathema to laws and rules. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jun 4, 2010 |
# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 21:40 |
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This is hovering dangerously close to a debate on what counts as "real literature," a great debate about which I give no gently caress.
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# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 21:46 |
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rex monday posted:Why don't you use the Dying Earth RPG, the literally Vancian game? Drox posted:Can you tell us any more about your system? *Classes are intended to be balanced at all levels of play *No skill system; ability score checks handle anything you want to attempt *Every roll is based on a d20 (attack rolls, saving throws, and ability checks) or d6 (weapon damage, spell effects, random stuff you find, etc.) *Magic is based on a pool of points; you can cast spontaneously but you get a "discount" on point cost if you prepare ahead of time Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 4, 2010 |
# ¿ Jun 4, 2010 22:36 |
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This is a really grognardy thing to have as a pet peeve, but I hate terribly done motivational poster parodies. Picture, concept in big letters, descriptive sentence underneath, it's not a hard concept to grasp. Instead you usually get some indecipherable animu bullshit and the title and the sentence are part of one big indecipherable animu catchphrase run-on sentence.
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# ¿ Jun 5, 2010 21:46 |
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Mikan posted:Not only does the thread still exist, but it grew so huge that it caused a lot of problems with their board software and was mostly full of people arguing about whether things were offensive or if something was funny or not. It was one of the worst threads on the internet, had absolutely everything you've ever hated about the internet all in one place. Moment of truth: Do I suck as much as the people I criticize?
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# ¿ Jun 6, 2010 04:10 |
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I would've screencapped a higher-quality image, but I have it on VHS.
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# ¿ Jun 6, 2010 05:09 |
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Someone buy me this avatar:
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# ¿ Jun 6, 2010 10:30 |
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Stuntman Mike posted:I always maintained that the worst thing about post-2e D&D is the lack of a Demiplane of Salt lighttigersoul posted:I have to admit I'm rather taken with this illustration. It has all the hallmarks of the kind of Gygaxian comprehensiveness AD&D had in abundance but moreso -- an awesomely baroque vision of the supernatural world, one that includes a variety of planes and influences. It's complex but evocatively so and reminds me of one of Gygax's greatest gifts, his ability to present a synthesis of a variety of sources and ideas that's somehow more than the sum of its parts. This cosmological diagram is a good example of what I'm talking about and certainly piques my interest about Mythus. OtspIII posted:gently caress me, the guy who writes those loving Gor novels teaches for CUNY? The way my life is aimed these days it looks like he might be my future coworker. I don't know if I can deal with this. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Jun 7, 2010 |
# ¿ Jun 7, 2010 09:24 |
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That's not LARPing, that's, y'know, improv acting. Unless they have rules, I guess?
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# ¿ Jun 7, 2010 16:34 |
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Angry Diplomat posted:even in an adversarial game like paranoia I can't figure out the draw of just going for maximum pc deaths. how can you even be that poo poo. how is it possible Dungeons like the one mentioned above are fun if the players know that it's the ultimate ridiculous death challenge and they're not sending their precious played-for-two-years-of-real-time PCs there. The Tomb of Horrors is vicious because it was a tournament module, after all.
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2010 04:38 |
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Roleplaying is less fun because I have seen that.
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2010 06:38 |
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Mystic Mongol posted:I would think in a primitive world with no rapid communication and no printing press, between members of a trade that are rare, known for preferring solitude, and prone to being eaten by summoned demons, the vast majority of these researched spells would be endless rewrites and slight variations on existing spells, rather than millions and millions of completely original, unique spells. Riidi WW posted:he's not saying there's a huge centralized accumulation of magical knowledge. just that there are a bunch of different spells floating around "out there" - this wizard knows 5 or 6, this one knows 3 or 4 different ones, this one knows 8 but 7 are repeats, and so on. With half a million wizards in the world at the low end, that's a whole lot of spells! Gygax was certainly aware of this and while a lot of D&D spells were based on some specific thing he and his friends had read or made up and thought was cool, a lot of them were certainly generic heads for things like "killing blast of magic." So yeah, a dozen wizards each composed a new spell last year; they were all "Magic Missile."
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2010 18:53 |
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Speleothing posted:My wizard knows six different magic missiles. He can cast each of them once per day. Vancian spellcasting explained. Drox posted:Six magic missiles, enough to annoy anything that moves. I love to memorize during a battle! There's nothing like the feeling of slamming a long silver spell component into a well greased wand.
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2010 22:25 |
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Magic Missile might've been based on The Excellent Prismatic Spray--does enough damage to kill a normal person, and it doesn't miss.
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# ¿ Jun 8, 2010 22:55 |
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Gerund posted:I mean, seriously, this is the way we should look back at poo poo like NE evil outsiders and demiplane of Salt.
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# ¿ Jun 9, 2010 00:52 |
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# ¿ Mar 29, 2024 11:56 |
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Riidi WW posted:They don't "make sense", they were literally written up because they needed to fill in the last slot on a grid. "We need some neutral evil outsiders. I know! They'll be the super secret puppet masters controlling all the other fiends. They're ULTRA EVIL, because Neutral Evil is the evilest alignment! Also, let's have them look kinda like dogs."
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# ¿ Jun 9, 2010 02:15 |