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Can someone show me some really old Mage / Mage Revised grognards and/or flamewars? Like the ones where actually personal threats were made to developers? ** I want to talk about the RPGnet forums because I've lurked there for 8+ years. The forums are largely good and the interesting content / discussion outweighs the terrible bits. That having been said, RPGnet moderation has lots of warts, but is it shaped by its user-base and that base consists of large numbers of rules quibbling grognards. And recently (last 2 yrs) it seems like a portion of the user-base are deliberately making things more toxic, though I don't know why except out of spite and that seems unlikely. Now that I think about it, the palladium books forums had the same progression back in the real old days. I wonder how that forum's doing these days? Anyway, RPGnet arguing about their current "group attacks" rule reminding me a lot of rules/ setting grognards and how they sometimes take stuff to its logical conclusion (to them) even if the extrapolation is absurd and terrible for everyone. Like being angry at 4E for loving up their setting because because diagonal movement is faster or how the 3E/4E economy is broken is some hard to define way. I wonder if the essence of a grognard is to minimize the involvement of other people on their RPG experience while maximizing their power fantasy over those same people.
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Aug 16, 2011 18:56
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Asimo posted:Here's a depressing thing about Rpg sales nobody talks about. You know what they call a PDF release with triple-digit sales? A runaway success. Is this actually true?
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Nov 4, 2011 21:30
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Backwards compatibility is something grognards on RPGnet used to bring up all the loving time. It's the idea that old material should be able to work with a new edition. Like, people will say "I would like Exalted 3E so the combat wouldn't suck so bad, but I would only buy it if it was compatible with 1E and/or 2E stuff." The belief that this was a good thing was a fixture of 4E speculation back a few years ago. It crops up all the time over there though. Besides palladium, I can't think of any rpg that does this (and palladium barely does it) and it seems to defeat the purpose of a new edition. You make new editions precisely so you can redo things or do new things. Why do people keep wanting?
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Nov 15, 2011 02:56
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How did racial level limits work in AD&D? All I have is the rules cyclopedia. In the RC, Men went to 36, Elves went to 10, Dwarves to 12 and halflings to 8. It looks really harsh, but isn't really that big of a deal. The reason for this is because you still gained attack rank increases, special abilities and even weapon mastery slots  after you reached your max level. All the level cap really amounted to was a bit less hp (Normal classes got 1 or 2 hp every level after 9 instead of HD, demihumans don't get any). You even get the benefit of getting low saves ALOT faster. By this I mean that a level 7 Halfling at 64k experience is going to have saving throws similar to a 22nd level thief at 1,720k experience. Also I think all the demihumans got the fighter combat options (which are really good). Mornacale posted:I was under the impression that all the weird racial limits were just because Gygax hated non-human races, so he passive-aggressively tried to make them less attractive. Not passive-aggresively, he directly stated that humanocentric games are best in one of the DMGs, or at least I think he did.
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Mar 6, 2012 17:43
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ProfessorCirno posted:This is a couple pages back, but...yes. I legitimately think he has some levels of autism based not so much on this (though it certainly doesn't help!) but how he views game rules and human interaction. Remember, Frank Trollman believes that you must actively know all the game rules and that there's no such thing as DM-only stuff because you must metagame everything as much as possible. His actual philosophy is that everything has to be codified into exploitable rules, otherwise the world makes no sense. Didn't he post a actual play transcript or recording of his group at one point and it was basically a normal game? Or was that Pundit?
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Mar 8, 2012 13:01
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Red_Mage posted:4E killed the entire existing philosophy of the planes, deities, and cosmos that I loved and used for-seemingly-ever. This is true, but it isn't bad. I loved the great wheel (in planescape). I loved its pseudo-complexity that makes it sound like something weird smelly old wizards would talk about (probably wearing those ridiculous horn collar things like they did in planescape). I loved the cool parallels and strange opposites. I loved the fact that the most chaotic race were so chaotic they were predictable, and how the modrons were a cypher despite being the most orderly. I loved how the Harmonium lost the third layer of the Arcadia (Arcadia is the lawful lawful good plane) because it turns out that kidnapping demons, fiends and tieflings and trying to "reform" them by throwing them in concentration/reeducation camps isn't a good act. That said, I didn't love how you had to basically redo half your stuff each time you planeshifted. And I'm not talking about your weapon losing plusses, I'm talking about stuff like "You're in Arboria, so you can't access the ethereal plane, so 13 specific spells listed here no longer work"*. I really love the 4ed cosmology. It did something different then 2e and 3e (which was basically 2e scaled down). In 2e, the cosmology existed to connect different settings**, flavor and to act as a setting for planescape. in 4e, it made the material world the center of attention, sort of how exalted did it. The gods had their dawn war on the earth, and most of the mythology concerns the material world. Half the otherworlds are reflections of the material world. *Ravenloft was about 10 times worse about this. Yeah, here is a list of 30 or 40 spells / magic items / kits that don't work or more commonly are altered in a major way that you will have to look up. In ravenloft defense, you could argue that you need to restrict the poo poo out of magic in general to maintain the mood. **Having your characters be able to travel between established fictional universes seemed like a thing that was popular back in the day but not so much now. I wonder why? This isn't sarcastic, I'm glad they don't do it anymore but I don't know why they stopped.
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Mar 24, 2012 22:51
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It entirely depends on how purist and hard-core you feel the need to be. If not that much, then not much of a curve at all. Honestly, and very seriously, you can easily glean everything you need to run a whomping great "OSR" or whatever-style kinda game, just out of what's there on the https://www. If rather much, then you're increasingly screwed, the more seriously you take the cult of Tekumeliana. I just heard yesterday that MAR Barker has died. In a lot of ways I suspect this actually spells the final death-knell of Tekumel as a gaming milieu... for decades now even online, the actual and prospective community of fans has been increasingly captured by "What Would the Professor Do?" fetishism. It would be neato-keeno if the (potential) fandom can now spread its wings a bit, but I'm amply prepped for disappointment there. Seriously? Compared to Glorantha or the Third Imperium, Tekumel is tissue-thin and rather constricted. Not very familiar with Exalted and not much more with Jorune, but seriously they are no more intimidating than Tekumel should be. The difference is that those gameworlds don't have decades-long history of überfans broadcasting the message that _it is just too hard for little people to appreciate_. What a load of utter crap. The Forgotten Realms has a vastly greater 'difficulty of entry' to a genuine newcomer than Tekumel, as does almost any gameworld/game system introduced in the last twenty years. They just don't have the protectionist elitism going for them that Tekumel has had. I've never had a lot of respect for F/SF fandom; between Tekumel and Burning Man, I have been induced to cringe whenever I brush up against it. And I hate that, you know? I once spent years gaming in Tekumel, happily, blissfully, productively; I tried writing fan-canon supplements for the drat place, once upon a time... until -- largely thanks to the internet and greater exposure to the Inner Circle of Tekumel Gamers, a.k.a. the Court of Floppy Shoes -- I just got sick of the whole twisted scene. Today, it seems bizarre and sickening that I continued to try to engage maturely and respectfully with Tekumel fandom even after being mailed a ziplock baggie of dogshit by its One True Fans in Minneapolis. So I say, stay far far away and, through judicious google-fu, pluck those ideas which you like, and run like hell from there.
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Apr 2, 2012 18:13
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Speleothing posted:Who the gently caress made that nude drawing of the jedi girl? And why is it the top picture on the wookipedia article? How is it at all appropriate to sexualize her like that? As Spikenard watched, Bronwyn slipped the transparent cloak from her shoulders; it fell with a whisper. She let her hands drop to her sides; she pulled her shoulders back and stood erect, feet apart, legs straight. This is what he saw: Bronwyn standing pale and tall in the nervous light that shimmered through a vibrating canopy of green leaves. The shifting bands of milky light and emerald shadow made her seem luminous, translucent, as though she were a tallow candle glowing beneath its own flame. Like a porcelain lantern. Like a curtain fluttering in a window at dawn. Like a ghost that came and went with the twilight and darkness, that first veiled and then revealed. Her hair had the sheen of the sea beneath an eclipsed moon. It was the color of a leopard's tongue, of oiled mahogany. It was terra cotta, bay and chestnut. Her hair was a helmet, a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra. Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon. The scent of fresh snow. Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds' shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts. They were antique armor and the tears of dragons. Her brows were a raptor's sharp, anxious wings. They were a pair of scythes. Her ears were a puzzle carved in ivory. Her teeth were her only bracelet; she carried them within the red velvet purse of her lips. Her tongue was amber. Her tongue was a ferret, an anemone, a fox caught in the teeth of a tiger. Her shoulders were the clay in a potter's kiln. Her shoulders were fieldstones; they were the white, square stones of which walls are made. They were windows covered with steam. They were porcelain. They were opal and moonstone. Her neck was the foam that curls from the prow of a ship, it was a sheaf of alfalfa or barley, it was the lonely dance of the pearl-grey shark. Her legs were quills. They were bundles of wicker, they were candelabra; the muscles were summer lightning, that flickered like a passing thought; they were captured eels or a cable on a windlass. Her thighs were geese, pythons, schooners. They were cypress or banyan; her thighs were a forge, they were shears; her thighs were sandstone, they were the sandstone buttresses of a cathedral, they were silk or cobwebs. Her calves were sweet with the sap of elders, her feet were bleached bones, her feet were driftwood. Her feet were springs, marmosets or locusts; her toes were snails, they were snails with shells of tears. Her arms were a corral, a fence, an enclosure; they were pennants; they were highways. Her fingers were incense. They were silver fish in clear water; they were the speed of the fish, they were the fish's wake. They were semaphores; they were meteors. Her spine was a snake. It was the track of a snake. It was the groove the water snake makes in the glossy mud of the riverbank. Her spine was a viper, an anaconda. It was the strength of the anaconda. It was the anaconda's unknown hieroglyphic. Her spine was a ladder, a rod; it was a chain, a canal, it was a caravan. Her buttocks were fresh-baked loaves; they were ivory eggs, they were the eggs of the lonely phoenix. They were a fist. Her breasts were citrus, they were soapstone; they were bright cumulus and the smooth fingertips of Musrum. Her breasts were honeycombs and dew-beaded windows, or soft, sweet cheese. They were sweet apples; they were glass, they were cowries. They were the twin moons of the earth. The nipples rose like mecury with her heat. They rose like monuments atop flowered hills, above deserts of hot sand; the nipples were savory morels, with the flavor of the forest. Her ribs were a niche, an alcove, an apse; her stomach was an idol in the niche, alcove or apse, an effigy, a phantom. Her stomach was a beach, a savannah, a flagstone warmed by the sun, a cat asleep on the flagstone, a bleached canvas sail in hot southern winds. Her navel winked like a doll's eye, like the eye of a whale, like the drowsy cat. Her pubes was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune. It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid. It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rain forests, the ibis and the scarab; she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt, the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals. "You are quite beautiful, Princess Bronwyn," Spikenard sang, with his sardonic grin and eyes as violet and hard as amethysts. "Your body is halfway between earth and dream, neither magic nor elemental, neither animal nor spirit." His long fingers reached towards her face, brushed her eyelids . . . "Your eyes are the sound of rain." . . . followed the contours of her cheekbones and jaw . . . "Chalkbeds and moonlight."
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Apr 15, 2012 12:54
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Note: This grog was totally in the color purple. Quite aside from anything else, I rather doubt many of us would want to see sales figures reach the early 80s again, let alone MTG levels. Why? Because we are a niche hobby. We have our own little fiefdoms, doing things the way we're used to doing them. A massive influx of newbies are not going to cater to our shibboleths and traditions. They're going to be playing the Aeons of Worldcraft tabletop game, where you get together with raiding clans to level up and take on teams of gamers in your town. They're going to be playing Twilight: the RPG, where the goal of the game involves improving your Romance score among the studly post-pubescent shirtless boy toy vamps. They are not going to be "our" games any more than those of the old fogeys who fiddled over worn battlemaps for Tactics II, Axis and Allies, SPI games out of Strategy & Tactics, who were bewildered and supplanted by all us geeks blathering on about dungeons, polydice and orcs. Oh, yeah ... and like we did with the fogeys, they are going to outnumber us. By a lot. Sure that's an outcome people here want to see?
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May 13, 2012 18:14
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Some classic rpgnet grog posted:Yeah, and if he has to smear the reputations of good people, shamelessly lie in public, and spread disinformation to advance his agenda, what's wrong with that? tldr Dancy says calls GAMA a useless association and grognards get offended.
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May 13, 2012 18:26
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Also somebody please tell me why rpgnet's columns are so drat terrible. The site occasionally produces quality on the forums but the columns are always terrible. Why?
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May 13, 2012 18:34
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Linking this table for size, from classic D&D. http://people.wku.edu/charles.plemons/dnd/isa/graphics/chart_weapon_mastery_01.gif http://people.wku.edu/charles.plemons/dnd/isa/graphics/chart_weapon_mastery_02.gif
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May 27, 2012 19:40
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NinjaDebugger posted:You could use proficiency slots to get the first few levels of mastery, but after that, you had to find an appropriately ranked master and pay them shitloads of gold to train you. Hell, even regular weapons are deadly as poo poo with weapon mastery. You got attack bonuses on top of your magic item and strength bonuses that vastly increased your chance to hit. By 11th level (when you can pick up a GM weapon skill), you will get +8 to hit on top of your other bonuses (or +6 vs secondary targets). This will make you rarely miss unless your target has a large negative AC, in which case its probably nearer to 50%. The "die" portion of the save or die comes the fact that enemies don't have alot of hit points in the rules cyclopedia. A hill giant has 8HD and about 36 hp. An adult red dragon has 15HD, an average of 67 hp. With a GM weapon mastery in say, greatswords, you will doing 3d6+6 +str bonus +magic bonus for damage. Also you'll be able to stun people, and also roll save vs death to deflect up to 3 successful attacks per turn but thats not here nor there. What makes that really deadly is that you could combine weapon mastery damage with "Smash", a regular non-weapon mastery mechanic which was like a power attack that fighters get at 9th level. You take -5 to hit and add your strength score to damage. The -5 is no big deal when the bonuses you get from weapon mastery.
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May 29, 2012 01:59
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