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Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

ehh feats can die in a fire, but at worst thank god they are optional and i can play without them in next.

quote:

I am not sure that is an answer to the question: "What's your favorite feat in 3e or 4e? ". You're free to post, but maybe you clicked the wrong thread ?

quote:

no i didnt have a favorite feat in 3rd or 4th because after buying the books for those editions i sold them soon after. feats create an enviroment of powergaming that is unbalancing to campaigns. Also it promotes too much min/maxing. they could have implemented some feat type abilities as powers gained thru leveling and left it at that. how many of the 10k feats are playable and good, how many are reworded repeats?

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Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
Is Wolsung (a steampunk RPG) racist? let's ask the RPGSite!

quote:

Racial/Cultural Stereotypes, not racism. If they called it racism, they were just showing their lack of English skills. But strong ethnic/cultural enthnic stereotypes... to the point of simplicity? Yah. In spades.

The game specificially says it works with stereotypes to make things generally easier to follow. It also has a section that says, these are generalizations and that individuals will be different. I guess people miss that part.

:allears:

quote:

The Usual Suspects were throwing a lovely fit about races and stereotypes, because orcs are Asians (including Turks & Arabs), and there is a quote that this stereotype combines "classical view of fantasy orc with 19th century Yellow Peril/tales about cunning Chinese and Turks". There are also ogres who are victims of racial prejudices, and they are strong, big and usually not very smart, so you can tell which real life race Usual Suspects ascribed to them.

For the note, Orcs are fully playable and there is also a mention of black elves tribes who live in the jungles.

Wolsung certainly isn't written in "Political Correct" way. But it's also not some racist paradise extravaganza. Not to mention that there is a good amount of modern sensibility into the writing/setting as well (racism is an optional rule of the setting, genders are fully inclusive, colonialism isn't depicted as a glorious thing).

Hmmm... Let's take a look at what the game text itself has to say on the matter:

quote:

Orcs represent all that was unknown for the Europeans of our 19th century, dangerous and thus compelling. They are spiritual and impulsive where Vanadians are technological and calculating. Shamans, holy men, warrior monks, samurai, native hunters, desert nomads – orcs are living near to nature and their spirituality, untouched by western civilization.
Some Vanadians, driven by fear of the unknown, treat orcs as the “evil” race (not unlike the sinister Chinese and lecherous Turk clichés from 19th century novels), while others find them fascinating and compelling (not unlike the French artists of the belle époque inspired by the Far East).
For all of them the mystical, exotic, multicultural world of orcs remains a mystery.

Orcs don’t have to be chinese
Most inhabitants of Sunnir (analog to real-world Asia) are orcs. However, not all orcs are Asians and you can easily create characters inspired by other popular variants of a mysterious spiritual foreigner. These are the other archetypes and cultures that may inspire an orcish hero: gypsies, Siberian shamans, Native American hunters, Maori, Inuit.

:suicide:

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
"I find personal goals more interesting than money when it comes to motivating characters. Money is the most generic reward possible."

"YOU NEUROTIC COMMIE!!1!":

quote:

The notion that money is 'impersonal' is one of those brainless anti-capitalist slogans I have no desire to engage. Money is a medium of exchange, your weird psychological associations with it don't make it anything else. Money is the axis of prductyion and the means for acquiring a lot of things people wont deal wiothout. The presumption that commerce is somehow banal and/or base is neurotic and far more tedious than book keeping.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

But yes caster should rock, and rock hard. If a caster of high level cant make army's wet themselves..its lost the feel.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
So Old Geezer and his group were playing Dungeon World:

quote:

... and the referee ended up rolling on the Random Harlot Table in the 1st Edition DMG. And it was logical and story-supported to do so.

So there.




("Slovenly trull," for those of you keeping score at home.)

Thanks Old Geezer! This stinky piece os misogynist game "design" is exactly what Dungeon World needs! :suicide:

What's next? Will Old Creeper revive gender-based ability scores? (Custom move! Female characters get -1 ongoing on Str rolls!)

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
You're right, it is cheating.

quote:

I'm fine with optional things being optional and defaults being classic.

I'm not fine with weird things like damage on a miss being default and them forcing us to house rule it out to play a classic game where fighters don't dole out automatic damage every round for the entire campaign.

If Rodney, you are reading this, realize that spell points and damage on a miss are two equally controversial topics, and controversial things should be made optional, while keeping classic D&D rules and "feel" preserved. Spell points is not classic D&D, even though I would gladly try it, I'm glad it's strictly optional (though I would have preferred it being put into a class like warlock or sorcerer rather than as a module that affects them all, simply put, it will be a hacky unbalaned kludge-fest without tons of public testing to iron out the issues).

Wizards simply does not have a very good record of pulling out entirely new spellcasting mechanics that works well, especially when they rush them out the door sight unseen. This spell point system needs to get feedback from the public, not just internal playtests. It will simply be too full of holes and broken combos and interactions unless it is vetted by the D&D public. Then you can ignore the feedback of those who hate spell points, since it's optional and they won't use it. That is NOT the same thing as what you've done with Damage on a Miss, you're trying to shove that down our throats despite huge opposition to it, and make it the system default rather than a strictly quarantined optional module like this spellpoints system or tactical modules rules with stuff like facing and flanking.

Damage on a miss is a munchkin playstyle that has NO business being the default in D&D, for exactly the same reason that spell points vs vancian should not be the default either. Make classic rules, like fighters deal NO damage when they roll poorly on their D20s (that has been there from 1e until 4e turned the game upside down and drove off 1/2 the players, Mike's own words, man).

MAKE CONTROVERSIAL NEW THINGS STRICTLY, EXPLICITLY OPTIONAL, NOT the default!! Wizard PCs CANNOT just pick spell points without agreement from the DM and the other players, that's exactly what Damage on a Miss needs to be : voted upon by every player, and NOT the default assumption for any fighter / ranger / paladin to pick from and screw with the immersion and enjoyment of the game for 1/2 the playerbase out there.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

As for the OGL it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It saved D&D from Hasbro.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

So far we've had some Good points and Bad points which are always essential to a debate so for that I thankyou.
We have also had some comments which were off topic, sarcastic and also idiotic ( you know who you are ) so please don't reply
New is not necessarily bad BUT the very replacement of existing rules obviously pertains to an obsolete / defective system which needs replacing. However OD&D and AD&D were the standard system for many years enjoyed by Millions so why change them ??? Anyone who believes that all those different D&D Editions ( 3E, 3.5, etc ) are necessary are sadly deluded
Also some people spend waaaaaaaaaay too much time on their characters which is obviously not what the game is about.
The object is to create the bare bones and then send your Character out to experience the World and grow and learn but having said that different strokes for different folks
At the end of the Day people enjoy what they enjoy and who's to say that's a bad thing ???
My initial Post was simply to ascertain WHY people enjoy the more complex systems and this has been answered.
I currently play in a OD&D, Warhammer FRP and Pathfinder game but enjoy the OD&D game more simply because it is solid, streamlined and has a good pace.
I hope to meet some of you round the Gaming table sometime............ as for the others ????? I would IF I frequented the same dark alleys that you do

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I have to disagree with many of the opinions about this particular monster being just completely awful. I realize that some people have had truly awful experiences with rape in their lives, and as someone who has had that same experience i do understand how something like this can be a nasty trigger for all kinds of traumatic memories, but i still don't think that a truly horrific monster should be excluded or 'toned down' because of it. If you don't like the content of the book let your wallet do the talking, but i'm just really uncomfortable with the culture that seems to be springing up around our hobby that demonizes anything that might be even remotely objectionable. I like running and playing games with a horror theme, and I have the ability to separate a fictional depiction from something actually harmful. And as has been said in this very thread, all you have to do is talk with the other people at your table about what kind of content is acceptable for the group as a whole. As for the people who run PF and other games for their kids i know this won't go over well, but you should be monitoring the things they are exposed to anyway - that's called good parenting. Or even better, teach the the difference between what is acceptable and what isn't.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I'm not uncomfortable with it. I'm just loving sick of it. Pure, distilled sanctimony.

I used this monster yesterday to its full effect. Pregnancies and exploding children all over the damned place. It was horrifying and grotty and bleeding hilarious in that grotesque way humans love so much. It's a damned good, competently designed monster. All six of my players had a good laugh and some of their characters even survived.

Does that make me a (gasp) 'that guy'? Will I ever get laid again? Perhaps I must compose a piece of socially conscious political theory in penance. Or perhaps I couldn't give a single liquid poo poo.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

It's kind of funny, but this is one reason I was sort of turned off by 4E initially. I didn't see fighters as defenders, and had never played one as such, specifically because they didn't have any tools that let them be one effectively. In 2nd Edition, when we got to the point where fighters were falling behind on the damage scale, our house rules tended to make fighters better at fighting, rather than being someone else's bodyguard. Likewise, in 3E, my feat choices were always made with the intention of being a more effective combatant, and I oftentimes would make a high dex fighter that wore light armor.

Then came 4E, telling me that the character I wanted to play was a rogue, and that fighters were for distracting opponents while everyone else does the "fighting." Which makes me wonder why the class is called "fighter" in the first place.

"Hit point damage = fighting. Battlefield positioning and control = clearly not fighting."

quote:

This. None of the guys in my D&D group besides me and one other guy have ever played an MMORPG. They are as ignorant of the terminology and tactical roles as someone who has been in cryogenic sleep since 1985. When I introduced 4E and the different class roles my group was completely baffled. Isn't the fighter the guy who deals damage and the rogue the guy who slinks around doing sneaky things? What is marking? What is controlling? Terminology aside, the very concept of defining classes by their role in a tactical battle was alien to them. To our group, a fighter was a warrior, a rogue was a scoundrel, a wizard was the guy who knew magic, cleric was a holy warrior and healer, and a ranger was a guy at home in the wilderness. Defining tactical game roles explicitly and putting them in the foreground felt totally new, and only myself and the other guy who had played an MMORPG understood what these roles meant.

Now I'm confused: is 4E a dumbed down WoW-D&D for babies, or is it an arcane and indecipherable system that can only be understood if you're a MMORPG player?

EDIT — This is precious:

quote:

The original 4e Monster Manual is such a bad book. Unlike the better Monster Manuals of prior editions (and honestly, Monster Vault as well), it doesn't read well--its just a really boring book to sit down and page through.

Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jan 7, 2014

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

All player characters are Manly Men. NPCs are Manly Men, Wimps, Women or Weasels (covers all animals).

Attributes for Manly Men:

Grit: Toughness and endurance.

Vigour: Strength, speed and agility.

Steel: Willpower and cleverness when confronting other Manly Men, Wimps, Weasels and the wilderness.

Backbone: Willpower and cleverness when confronting Women.

Assign d10 to one score, d8 to two and d6 to the last one. If you wish you can step down one score to step up another, but only once.

Areas of Expertise for Manly Men:

Engines: Driving, flying, repairing or modifying any type of machine.

Sports: Running, jumping, swimming and all other physical activities.

Fists: Fighting, with or without weapons (including guns).

Fishing: All kinds of wilderness survival.

Manliness: Drinking beer and booze, seduction, knowing manly stuff.

Assign d10 to one category, d8 to two and d6 to two. If you wish you can step down one score to step up another, up to two times (but no score can be lower than d4 or higher than d12).

Distinctions

Each Manly Man has three Distinctions, like "Chiseled chin", "Rugged fisherman", "Ex-cop" or the like.

Other characters also have Distinctions but may have more or fewer. Locations or situations can also have Distinctions.

Stress

Manly Men have three types of Stress. They all start at 0 and can be stepped up to d12.

Beaten Up: For physical damage, like having your flesh ripped by Weasels.

Angry: For being provoked by Wimps or uppity Women.

Whipped: For being emotionally dominated by Women or Wimps.

Making Rolls

When you try to do something and the GM calls for a roll, add dice to your pool as follows (with GM guidance):

* One appropriate Attribute,
* One appropriate Area of Expertise,
* One appropriate Distinction belonging to you, the target, or someone or something else present at the scene,
* Your Beaten Up or Angry Stress, if appropriate. If your opponent is a Manly Man you may add his Whipped Stress instead.

Roll all the dice. All dice that show a one are set aside. From among the others, add together any two for your Result and pick one for Effect. If your Result is higher than or equal to the Difficulty (usually set by a roll from your opponent) you succeed, with the Effect showing the magnitude of your success (a bigger die is better - yes, size matters).

Oh, all rolls are opposed. The GM rolls first if you're acting against an NPC or the environment or something. If two PCs are opposing each other the GM decides who rolls first, usually the aggressor.

If you fail, the opposition's Effect becomes Stress for you of a type picked by the GM. If your Stress of that type is already of that die size or bigger, step up your Stress of that type. If your Stress would be stepped up over d12 you can no longer act until there's a new scene - you've been knocked out, rendered incoherent with rage or something. (Your character can still do things, they just won't matter. Suck it up.) The same goes for Women and Wimps.

Attributes etc for Women etc

NPCs have whatever ratings the GM assigns them.

Attributes for Women:

Guile: Trickery and deceit.

Looks: How attractive they are to Manly Men and Wimps.

Insanity: All Women are crazy, it's just a matter of degree.

Areas of Expertise for Women:

Manipulation: Getting Manly Men and Wimps to do their bidding.

Poison: Women don't fight (at least not effectively), they hurt people by trickery or possibly hitting them from behind with a lamp.

Womanliness: Taking care of her Manly Man, cleaning, cooking, that sort of thing.

Spite: That long-term, simmering, silent-treatment thing? Yeah, this is that.

Stress for Women:

Lust: How enamored the Woman is with a Manly Man (or Manly Men in general). NOT WIMPS.

Wrath: How angry the Woman is.

Fear: How afraid the Woman is.

Women have Distinctions and make rolls just like Manly Men, except the only Stress of their own they can use is Wrath.

Attributes for Wimps:

Influence: Having money and knowing the right people.

Sneakiness: Wimps are sneaky and tricky.

Areas of Expertise for Wimps:

Legalese: Wimps know the rules and how to bend and abuse them for their own gain.

Fanciness: How well the Wimp can dress up and use his manners to impress Women and other Wimps.

Deceit: Unlike honest, straight-forward Manly Men, Wimps lie and cheat all the time and they're good at it.

Toys: Wimps love fancy gadgets and expensive things with expensive-sounding names.

Stress for Wimps:

Pain: Self-explanatory.

Fear: Ditto.

Desire: How much the Wimp wants something or someone.

Wimps have Distinctions and make rolls just like Manly Men, except the only Stress of their own they can use is their Desire.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I'm fairly new to 4e just playing in my 1st campaign and having just got my 1st PC to level 13. I also play Pathfinder (D&D 3.75) weekly, so the differences between the 2 are very fresh and apparent to me. I voted for System changes, because although I played less of 3.5 than PF, I'm aware well of what was changed between those 2.

My biggest dislike of 4e is the skills system. With my biggest complaint being the skills consolidation from 3.5 which IMO is too extreme - especially the Athletic skill which I find to be non-conducive to roleplaying[1]. I also don't care for skill rank progressions via only feats and utility power acquisition and automatic increases every other leve. I've done some statistics crunching on the scaling and every time the numbers just don't add up to a balanced system. With 4e , I just don't find I'm in control of my PC's skill and in no way do I feel I can tailor them to exactly the way I want, which to me is important as I like to play balanced PC's[2]. No doubt some of my opinion on it is due to playing with the PF skill system, which I consider near perfect in terms of an advancement and simplification of the 3.5 system.

I do think combat in 4e is more streamlined and fluid than in both 3.5 and PF, but I can't say I'm sold on the power-once-per-encounter play mechanic - the once daily powers are even worse. I also don't like the way unarmed combat is handled and IMO the CMB / CMD system in PF is a better system. I dislike movement being quoted in squares - to me that seems like an insult to players[3] and makes the system to miniature and battle-map centric. Don't get me wrong; I play a fair number of tabletop miniature systems, but IMO expressing distances in squares makes it an unfriendly system to those wanting to run the game without maps or 3D terrain without a grid.

1-Climb, Swim and Jump as separate skills — the real core of the roleplaying experience.
2-Having things written in a certain way on one's character sheet — more important than a functional game system.
3-Squares — an insult!

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

First and foremost, players are expected to make good decisions. For instance, deciding to probe a pile of debris with a 10' pole before digging in. Anyone can think to do this, regardless of class. This grants unprecedented freedom, but also greater responsibility.

Next, each character has a set of ability scores. Some, like charisma, reflect intellectual abilities. Still, players have substantial wiggle room.

Finally, each character has a class, which governs their ability to deal with dangerous and/or difficult situations in general. These can overlap substantially, although with limits, and players are expected to work together and make good decisions as previously explained.

Anything not expressly reserved for a particular class can be attempted by anyone within reasonable limits based on the circumstances at hand or the character's ability scores, etc.

Once we introduce specific skills, however, only those who have a particular skill can try to use it, and this substantially reduces the freedom players once had.

Furthermore, players may start to see "character concept" as what powers they have and not as their background and personal history. At it's worst, players stop thinking they can even influence the game beyond what powers they have. This doesn't have to be, but sometimes is.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

Having just read that entire thing, and one of the previous articles linked to it, I'd say that Ron is being unusually nice under the circumstances given that the two apparently know each other. To be honest Anna strikes me as someone who has an axe to grind.

In reading what she has to say the bottom line seems to be that she really doesn't like straight white men or "white cis-men" as she puts it. Her basic comments seem to amount to how the promotion of rape culture in the media is the fault of this group. Something I find kind of odd, as those who comment on these kinds of things point to a lot of creative culture, such as rap/hip hop music and the whole culture around them which is seen as being unusually offensive to women. Not to mention latino "machismo", and of course the whole mess that is Asia right now and the pure cultural chaos that's erupted over women having more say in what happens to them than at any other time. Indeed when it comes to "creepy rape material" I personally rate Japan as #1, given that it's produced games like "Rapelay" (which is just one game, but there are a lot of others with similar themes) not to mention their porn industry which aside from H-anime, also includes some very disturbing live action movies, admittedly many are technically "soft porn" that take some of those anime themes like tentacle rape and do them with live actresses (I say "soft porn" because in a lot of things like this it's faked, and there is no actual penetration being shown). She furthermore takes this to an extreme at one point making references to a story illustrating how "whites" have taken efforts to erase non-white culture or the role of women through history. That goes into full fledged conspiracy theory territory since for the most part "world history" tends to start with people learning about the Fertile Crescent region (which was the birthplace of civilization) and how if you want to get ethnic "whites" weren't even global players until much, much, later after the fall of the Roman empire (ie "whites" were barbarians while great civilizations formed elsewhere). Female rulers and such, like Hatshepsut <SP> have been generally given their due when they rose to power.

Otherwise, it seems the bottom line is pretty typical. Ron is developing a "Dark" game that seems to have some horror elements to it going by the brief read of his kickstarter. Rape is of course both dark and horrifying, what's more, it's a big part of various occult ceremonies and such, not to mention that rape, sexual mutilation, etc... have been a part of torture and depravity pretty much forever. You start reading up on guys like Gilles De Rais who were the real world inspirations for a lot of this kind of dark fantasy/horror stuff and let's just say that being politically correct was the furthest thing from his mind. Granted he mostly went after young boys as I remember. "Weird Tales" and dark fantasy of course took things even further than real world psychopaths, and in a game seeking to emulate these things those elements are going to be present, at least in the background/flavor text, as a general rule even in a dark fantasy game the PCs are not the ones actually perpetuating these acts. Having rape in an RPG generally does not mean the PCs are expected to be rapists, and honestly unless I missed it, I certainly did not get that impression from what I saw of Ron's game.

As a general rule, my basic argument is that if you don't like things that make most people uncomfortable, and to have the GM try and take you out of your usual comfort zone, then you probably shouldn't be playing a "dark" or "horror" themed game. It's sort of like picking up a copy of an Edward Lee splatterpunk novel, and then getting all upset because it has content that is deeply offensive and is only going to appeal to an extreme horror fan. If the idea of rape makes you uncomfortable, good... that's why it's there. If you don't like things going outside the normal bounds of the politically correct, by all means avoid this kind of material, but don't get on a high horse and start trying to tell off people who don't mind this kind of thing. Truthfully horror/dark fantasy fans have always been involved in this kind of dispute one way or another since the genera has existed, and I suppose nothing that is said about "dark" RPGs (again and again) is all that different than what has been said about novels, movies, and music over the years.

As long as things are properly marked and defined, and this RPG seems to be (given that this discussion is happening before it's even out) I have no objections.... and as people have pointed out people have gone decades without this kind of stuff ever coming up in an RPG. Most RPGs are simply put not "dark" or horror themed and as such this kind of thing isn't even a consideration.

Oh and for the record, since it's what kind of rubbed me the wrong way here, when it comes to this kind of stuff it's not just us "white dudes". One extreme horror writer whose works I've enjoyed is a former MMA fighter published under the name "Wrath James White" (he's black). He's done some collaboration with Edward Lee over the years as well. "The Book Of A Thousand Sins" goes further than anything Ron seemed to mention for his game. The point here is that it's not just "white Cismen". Something I point out not entirely out of defense, but because I think over the years people of all ethnicities have made contributions to extreme horror, and dark fantasy, and these games are out to emulate their works as much as any others.

In short I think Ron Edwards should just continue with his vision, and friend/acquaintance or not, he shouldn't let Anna Kreider or anyone else distract him from it. Especially seeing as once you go into "Dark" or "Horror" territory, arguments about rape culture and such lose meaning, as your by definition not portraying these things as being right or normal, hence things being "dark" or "horrible". Those that are uncomfortable with the mere mention of this kind of thing, simply won't play it, and chances are they weren't the target audience anyway. As a general rule you can't do dark fantasy or horror if you stay within the comfort zone of the average person.

This is all simply my opinion.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

Not necessarily that is it fun, but the very fact you can helps feel the world is real - instead of a "can only use once" arbitrary thing. Yes spamming is simplistic, but the fact that you can makes the world feel more real to me.

"Encounter powers for fighters — as opposed to only at-will abilities — enhance game play? Screw it — my preshus simulation is more important than your dirty fun!"

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

In designing the fighter abilities maybe the question to ask is this: "Is this an ability that some one in a medieval documentary would be talking about when explaining medieval warfare?" Terms like "hamstring" and "shield bash" make sense but "commander's strike?" How could you explain what commander's strike is in terms of actual combat manouvers, and not just something made up for a board game?

I can't see a historian explaining how soldiers trained in the art of "commander's strike" so that they could say "attack again" to increase the rate at which one individual combatant attacked.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

But im a very draconian kind of GM. If i take time of my week to read rules, plan an adventure and reserve 6 to 8 hours of my time to DM i expect the players to do their parts.

If between session a players doesn't tell me what he does with his XP. He cant spend it.

If a player does give RP material about his PCs and others not. Guess who is gonna get more "attention" during the game. I would spend two hours with the player that actually puts the effort i ask of him and barely 15 min to the one who doesn't put any of it.

If a player doesnt learn his own part of the system, im not gonna stop the game for 7 min for him to look up the rules he is suppose to learn by now because if i had to learn an entire rulebook he should at least know his section. What im gonna do is make up some ruling i think is appropriate and continue the game. After the game im gonna study the rule for next time.

But more anything the rule i always make a point of transmitting is "i take time of my week to read rules, plan an adventure and reserve 6 to 8 hours of my time to DM. So im the one doing work here for you to just have fun, if you dont want to contribute the door is right there."

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

LACE & STEEL encourages the
role play of female characters -
indeed, the opportunities for courtly
role play and romance make female
characters a lot of fun to play.

The females of most of the
sapient species are physically
weaker than the males. Female
characters always slight their
Strength characteristic. In return,
they may favor some other
characteristic. The exception to this
rule are females of the Harpy race,
who are quite large and
domineering. Harpy females always
favor their Strength, at the cost of
slighting some other characteristic.

Please note! Female characters of
Human, Half-Horse and Pixie races
tend to be forced into fairly
“historical” roles. If a player wishes
to play a female character, but tires
of flirtation and repartee, there is no
need to despair! Harpy females
should provide all the outlet for
those feelings of dominance and
aggression that anyone could desire!

Strong women as characters in LACE & STEEL? Literally harpies.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

[19:01] <+AJofUniversalHorizons> HI, I’m AJ Schmidt. I have been RPGing since 1978. Ten years ago, I had the pleasure of introducing my son to the world of role-playing with organize-play living worlds.

[19:01] <+AJofUniversalHorizons> We hosted conventions, wrote adventures, and ran events supporting that system… until it all changed. The company came out with a Fourth Edition and forbade us to continue the campaign we all loved.

[19:01] <+AJofUniversalHorizons> Moreover, the new edition resembled miniature gaming more than role-playing. We enjoyed the game for a while, but it left us longing to share the same types of experiences we had growing up.

[19:01] <+AJofUniversalHorizons> Myself and life-long gamer John Teske always tweaked ‘house rules.’ Our friends encouraged us to do more. We wrote a multi-genre skill-based tabletop RPG. After six years of development and three years of play testing, we published UNIVERSAL HORIZONS PLAYERS’ HANDBOOK months ago.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

LFQW is a terrible, terrible meme.

Maybe I'm dumb and just don't get it. Let me take a stab at it.

The idea is that: as a wizard levels, not only can he prep more spells per day, but the caster level is going up too. And that's a huge deal for some reason.

Even if this was "quadratic"... it's only up to a point then it caps and becomes linear. The spells you can prep per level caps out at 4 in most editions, and damage spells like Fireball and Magic Missile all have damage caps...

Fireball for example, starts out as a 5d6 attack and works it's way up to a 10d6 attack. What if it started out as a 10d6 attack? Then wizards aren't "quadratic" anymore right? Problem solved?

Okay, lets say this is a real thing, and wizards do become exponentially more powerful with each level...then we would see that! Is a whole party of wizards a balanced encounter for a single wizard one level higher than them? I don't think so... do you?

Quadratic means "squared", right? 2 becomes 4, 3 becomes 9, 4 becomes 16...

That means that the gap between wizards of similar level increases as they level higher. So if there's just a little gap between a level 1 and and level 2 wizard there would be a huge gulf between a level 18 and a level 19 wizard... Not really seeing that either.

Frankly, this quadratic business seems like a bunch of malarkey.

edit: from the same thread

quote:

Personally I've never had a problem with wizards becoming powerful at higher levels. I mean, they're frickin' wizards! The idea that wizards hide behind the fighters at low levels and tell the fighters to stand back and let them handle the big monster at higher levels is part of the genre. It's how it's supposed to be and I never understood why anyone complained about it, much less WotC actually responding to those complaints by changing the game. Seriously, just think of wizards in fantasy. Junior wizards generally are lucky if they can get off a single effective spell. Old wizards, on the other hand, have everyone quaking in their boots. "Don't mess with him, he's a wizard!" This is a significant and pervasive trope in fantasy fiction. Go and read The Dying Earth and tell me that those wizards aren't "quadratic" and they only have a handful of spells! Tell me the last time Conan said, "What a wizard? No problem, let me get my sword." Anyone who complains about this idea is clearly unfamiliar with the very source material that spawned D&D. The "quadratic" wizard isn't a design flaw, it's a feature. If you want to be quadratic too, then play a wizard, but remember not everyone can be the wizard, you'll have to take turns.

:smugwizard:

Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Jun 21, 2014

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

For this month, I was going to spill some ink about earning XP for finding treasure. I had nearly 2,000 words in place, all ready to go. Something else, however, had been stomping around in my little attic and making so much noise, I felt compelled to go upstairs to find out what it was. So here we go. The post that I did not intend to write.

Here’s a confession: I have a really weird relationship with D&D. It was my first RPG. It was the game that hooked me. It’s the game I prefer to play over any other. I’m happiest when I’m working with the other players to explore a dungeon, fighting monsters, finding treasure, and adding the XP to my character sheet. I love solving puzzles, mapping dungeons, and drawing upon my encyclopedic knowledge of the game and its lore. I love the classic experience. And it is in this world where I am most at home. So why then do I have all this frustration? Why can’t I be happy?

To get this right, we have to go back to the beginning. My first experience with D&D was with the adventure Rahasia. I had nothing else. So, instead of pressing my parents to get me the rules, I just made them up. I called it Passages. It was super easy. I think you rolled a d6 and if you rolled some number or higher, you killed the monster. You gained a level every time you moved onto a new map.

It wasn’t long after that my parents presented me with the red box. I still remember pulling off the thin plastic and removing the lid, finding the two booklets, some inexpensive dice, a crayon, and an ad for the RPGA. I looked through the player’s book and discovered, to my dismay, D&D was nothing like the game I had made. It looked complicated and had all sorts of strange rules. I was disappointed.

My friend Landon, however, was a big-time D&D guy. I remember seeing him run AD&D on the playground for some other kids. They had strange books, the Advanced ones, and I clearly remember them discussing Oriental Adventures and the cool stuff it contained. I was intrigued. I wanted to join them, to have the same experiences, to find out just how many flavors of dwarf there were. I want to play, too. Landon, I suppose, sensed my interest and invited me to spend the night at his house. We talked about comics quite a bit. Eventually we sat at his kitchen table and ended with my first D&D character, a fighter named Booger. I landed on the name Booger from my disdain for the entire enterprise. Character creation bored me to death. Later that night, when the lights were off, and I was drifting off to sleep on the floor, I had decided that D&D was not for me. I was, again, disappointed.

The next Friday, Landon invited me over again, this time to play. It was just me and Travis. Travis had his two characters, and I had Booger and a magic-user Landon had put together for me. I named the magic-user Pardu after Tom Hanks’s character from Monsters & Mazes. The game began. Within minutes, mere minutes, I was frantically erasing the name Booger from my character sheet and was scrawling Ator in its smudged place. I was hooked. From that day on, I went to Landon’s house or he went to mine. We swilled Mountain Dew and Sundrop. We devoured chili dogs and lasagna. And best of all, we had awesome adventures in a world of our imagination.

The takeaway from this charming anecdote is the manner in which I became hooked. I took one look at the rules and character creation (laughably simple now of course) and was ready to quit before I had even played a single session. But once I had dice in hand, once the story began, I never wanted to stop. The experience of playing, the genuine fear I felt for my character when we faced down the gnolls for the first time, the excitement I had when I found a +1 two-handed sword: all this had sparked my imagination and would eventually launch my career.

So with all that love, I’m left wondering what the problem is. In suspect it’s that for the last 15 years or so, the most important part of the game has not been playing but rather creating for it. Character creation used to be something you had to do before you could have the fun. The mechanics were the necessary evil, the gauntlet you had to run. In recent years, the fun has moved from the time you spent at the table to the time you spend thinking about the table. Sure, back in the old days, I made plenty of characters for games I played and games I wanted to play but never really did. It was just like doing math problems. They had solutions. You just had to roll the dice, make the choices, and plug the information into the sheet. But hasn’t been that way for a while.

It seems the fun for many is in putting the different pieces together to create something new. Clever play now occurs in isolation. The player earns the greatest reward not from having a good idea at the table or thinking to look behind the wardrobe and finding a magic item, but from the discovery of a winning combination of mechanics, the perfect marriage of two spells, skill and feat, class feature and widget. The pleasure comes from realizing the broken combination and from putting the mechanical abomination into play. No delight is sweeter than that which is experienced by watching the expressions of those who must bear witness to your creative horror. Does it matter that the loophole makes the game unplayable? Does it matter that such shenanigans immediately put the beleaguered Dungeon Master on the defensive, to the point that he or she flails because the game no longer seems to work? Not at all. Why? Because the game wants you to break it. It begs for you to dig in and explore the options. The endless parade of new mechanics demand you to pick them up, peer at them in the light, and plug them in. It’s a game made for the tinkerers. Oh, you just want to play? Well, you’ll need these ten books, this character generation tool, and on and on and on.

The prize for being the best player goes not to the creative mind, the cunning tactician, the burgeoning actor, but to the best mathematician. Perhaps this was the way it was doomed to go. The seeds were there all along. The mechanical-minded played spellcasters—who dominated—while the rest plodded along with fighters. As the game evolved, it was no longer sufficient for the fighter to become more accurate or to attack more often: the fighter had to do things beyond swing a sword or loose an arrow from a bow. The game needed rules for every situation, for every scenario, and with each new rule came a new exploit, a new opportunity to bend the game into something terrifying.

This has turned rant-ish and for that I apologize. I do not believe there is a right way or a wrong way to play this game. I know a great many people love to tinker, to build, and create. They see the character sheet as a blank screen, eager for new code, a canvas craving the brush. And that’s cool. But for me, I don’t want that experience anymore. I crave lighter fare. I want the thrill of discovery. The excitement that arises at the table. The hilarity of defeat and the thrill of success.

So here we are, at the dawn of the next edition, an edition I, in some part, helped to create. When I was brought onto the team, it was with the understanding that I would fly the 4th Edition flag, a game I had worked hard to support through the countless articles and supplements throughout the life of that game. Looking back, I find it strange since I have all but divorced myself from the 4th Edition rules, largely for the reasons I outline above. While I enjoy 4E, it scratched a different itch for me than the one D&D had for many years. As I worked on 5th Edition, I shed my 3rd Edition and 4th Edition influences. I abandoned conceptions and beliefs about design that I had held as truths for years until I returned to my roots, to a place where the most important part of D&D is not what’s in the book but what happens at the table. And so, I look forward to the coming months, to see what I hope will become a return to the glory days of D&D to a style of play both familiar and new. I believe this game preserves just enough of the customization elements that defined the 3rd and 4th Editions to be recognizable to newer members of the audience, while having reclaimed the heart of the game from the earliest editions and put it back where it belongs. It should be an exciting future and one that I am proud to have helped create.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I'm a little hesitant to say this, as I don't want to offend anyone, but I'm not sure I found all this necessary.

But I think I need to explain.

See, I'm very much against political correctness. I despise it. And I do so coming from someone whom has had it applied. I have a handicap. Really, I don't care about that. But when I had letters calling me "handicapable" or other terms dancing around the fact, like I'm some fragile egg that's going to be broken by calling me disabled or handicapped, it pissed me off. I'm not some fragile piece of glass, don't treat me like I'll break. I'm just a person, treat me that way.

I really don't like PC. And as such, I find myself looking at this with that same lense.

But then, I've never been in a situation where my behaviors were prejudiced against, either, so maybe I'd feel differently. I don't know. I suppose it's due also to a kind of apathy towards things like this. If I were gay, for instance, but otherwise just as I am now, I wouldn't care; I think there are so many people with differences that making a big deal about it seems unnecessary. Just be who you are. Don't sweat the rest, unless someone's prejudicing you against it.

But I dont know. I guess I just have never worried about what people thought or didn't think about me, unless they were actively harassing me.

So I found myself thinking, why is it necessary to call out sexuality and gender AT ALL, whether it was to define it "traditionally" or "liberally," I just don't see where it's necessary. Perhaps someone could explain it to me.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I am curious to why you LBT people think you are entitled to get these genders and sexes into Dungeons and Dragons and other games? How many are you and how economically strong are you?

A much bigger group that get neglected is Asians, Africans and Latin Americans and you never see them get any form av notice in games like this. Also, in a feudal society. Problems with famine and disease would be much bigger than worrying over your sexual preferences or gender. There can be an orc invasion around the corner and there is people feeling trapped in another body?

Is this really something you just have to have on paper to some how make it "approved and okay". I do not understand it. Just play what you want, why need to have it on paper?

Also, Corellon was clearly a male elf god married to Lolth before she became the Queen of spiders.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
Pundit's past screeds do look a little unflattering. A little digging and we find:

quote:

Someone should contract an armed gang of Brazilian mercenaries, kidnap every other setting designer in the industry, sit them down in a dank poorly-lit room somewhere, and force them to read the whole loving thing. Then have the guys who worked on it give them all indoctrination settings on how to do the same. NOTE TO SETTING DESIGNERS: This is how you create a "crunchy" setting, and this is exactly the sort of thing that settings should be doing today! Not more loving feats and prestige classes, not limp-wristed in-game fiction; give us more books with 4000 loving adventure ideas in them! Let the personality of the setting show in the actual adventure seeds, and let the adventure seeds be tied to places on the loving map. Its so goddamned obvious it makes my ears bleed just considering that I actually have to spell it out to people.

He really liked using "limp-wristed" back then — http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=6794

quote:

Yes, its Joseph Rudyard Kipling; beloved storyteller, poet, intellectual; and these days maligned by the left-wing nanny-staters lily-livered limp-wristed cowards who are actually so delusional as to think that western civilization is a bad thing.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

Caphi posted:

:stare:

Also, is that the same Wade Rockett defending the event in the comments?

What. If that's the case, I'll miss purchasing 13th Age books by Pelgrane.

grog tax:

quote:

To cleanse our lives of this blight which we have lived under since '07 and prepare for the rebirth of D&D we cordially invite you to join us in a burning of 4.0 materials. This will be a not child friendly, booze filled party worthy of adventurers. Dress as your favorite class or wear you sexiest black t-shirt. Anyone else who'd like to celebrate is welcome to attend.


"AI" sys the man with one arm in the broken down ale house. Grizzled and old, scared, he sits in the corner nursing a broken mug of cheap rank ale. "From the earliest days of exploring the dungeons we've known about it. The fancy feats, the weapon schools, the cantrips ... these things distract you. Remember the wisdom of old and apply your new training! The crowbar! The blanket! The bag of chickens!" He calms down again and with cold steel in his voice says: "We know how to kill an abomination." ... His voice lowers to just a whisper ... "Kill it with fire."

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

unseenlibrarian posted:

A bad romance where you set your ex on fire, apparently!



tax:

quote:

Wow really?

This is a big deal? You mean to tell me that no one could play a gay character for the last 40 years because there were no rules for it?

So players were somehow prevented from playing asian, latin, black, handicapped, and any other variety that humans come in characters because the rules didn't implicitly allow them to?

I always thought it was assumed that you played the character the way you wanted; I guess I have been doing it wrong for the last 20 years.

I find it kinda odd that a game company puts in print something that gamers have taken for granted for more than three decades and people flip their sh*t... for 67 pages...

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

I disagree. I read a lot about this when this happened because I am a new gamer. From what I can tell someone lied about rape threats. As a woman lying about rape or receiving rape threats is a terrible thing to do because so many girls are unwilling to come forward when they are actually raped or threatened with rape. It also can ruin a boy's reputation. Someone lied. Other people endorsed that lie and after it was proven to be a lie they didn't come out and apologize. I don't think he really outed anybody because I found the Google + post and he just used their names they use on Google Plus or tied their google+ to their blogs.

From what I can tell a lot of this argument comes from people who really like story games and/or D&D 4E not liking people who dislike story games and/or D&D 4E and vice versa. I think the RPG Pundit calling people swine is rude. I don't know if he is playing a character to become more famous or what. I don't like it. I will say at least he doesn't treat women and minorities as weak victims that needy is protection. There are posts on this very site who carry this whole "white man's burden" when it comes to minorities and women. That we are not smart enough to decide for ourselves and we do not know what's best for us. I don't like posting on this site because posters, like Topher, make it a toxic atmosphere for anybody who isn't a white male who shares his worldview.

I think the reason people use these things is that most role-playing gamers are good people. They are not homophobic, racists, or anything else. Which makes the attack very effective. If someone is called one of those things they feel horrible about it and will shut up. It's a way to silence people they disagree with or dislike. The role-playing gamer community is small. I went to GenCon, I've been to Nexus, and ACEN, and I have had more problems with people that are so called "in support of people of color" (and I know that my experiences do not reflect on others experiences) and women playing games that they treat me like I'm a child. It's insulting. They don't treat anybody else different but when I show up to play it's a big deal and I need to be protected. It's rude. OR when I go to a con it's these guys that use this language as away to sleep with me. One of my firsts posts here had someone say I should break up with my boyfriend (now fiancé) and date him.

I'm the one that when I go to a RPG Meet Up or D&D Encounter with my girlfriends have to hear racial sexual innuendo because my girlfriends and I are Asian. I am tired of people trying to ruin the games I like to play. I think if we tried to treat people with positive intent and when we hear people being rude just said: Hey stop being jerk. And then got back to talking about games we'd be in a better place.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

My experience with Zak is that he uses facts, evidence, and logic to defend his posts, and when confronted with that, many of his detractors resort to personal attacks and worse. I like what he does for the hobby, and he is the only person I've ever defended for being banned here. He absolutely can be abrasive and insulting, but I don't consider that a damning offense. Of course, RPGpundit is a *bit* more acidic, although I think he is much more focused these days on productive activities rather than destructive ones. I've spent way too much time reading into the situation, and I think Zak is 99% in the right, and his detractors are wrong - however, I think he could've handled it much, much better to avoid all this. Then again, I appreciate him standing up to the silencing tactics that many people deploy these days.

Oh, and I posted another thread about them being consultants, and I stand by my statement that I think all of the listed consultants added a lot to how 5E turned out, and I mean that 100% positively.

In my "appeal" to the admins here, I stated that I think Zak should not only not be banned, but made a moderator. This place needs more balance in the moderation staff. (Apologies, though, if this type of talk belongs in TT).

e: good lord, the whole thing is a mess — http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?732895-5ed-consultants-controversy

Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Aug 2, 2014

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

For those that just can't stand the default video game like healing rules for long rests, powers like Second Wind, and Hit Dice (healing surges), how will you fix these problems and do you think the DMG will have all the options you require? One concern I have is that monsters might hit a bit too hard because the game assumes that the party can rest once and regain all their hit points. With the game designed around the adventuring day in this manner, I think the game might require an adjustment to the clerics healing spells per day. Of course, I want magical healing to be a required aspect of the game and I don't mind the group's dependancy on a cleric. Basically, I'm just looking to play a traditional D&D game with 5e. I'm interested in reading your solutions to this problem.

Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe

quote:

This view of game design is why our shelves contain so many narrow, patronizing games. Any generic table top roleplaying game having a 'classic' structure (DM and group of players) should empower the DM to control the content, feel, grittiness, etc. of his or her setting. Whether a goblin is dangerous and an ogre not is irrelevant; there is an infinite number and diversity of creatures, NPC's, traps, diseases, etc. and the DM should sort out what mix of them is present in his or her world in whatever way suits his or her vision. The notion that the game designer would make these decisions for you in advance, serving up to you a recipe for a specific vision of your game world, is only loosely acceptable for licensed settings where there is some sense of responsibility to reproduce something familiar, but in generic games like D&D is always vile.

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Nancy_Noxious
Apr 10, 2013

by Smythe
How would you design a Theatre of the Mind combat system without using abstract positioning?

quote:

If history is any guide, you do a system that uses exact positioning and distances, and then people just ignore those, using them as general guidelines at best. That's how I've always done it.

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