|
I really like the art they've been posting. The one with the fighter for the PHB, and also like the dragon on the starter set. Is there a specific individual artist doing all this? I remember way long ago, something about some slightly... odd looking halflings (big heads), was there followup on that or what?
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 02:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 16:02 |
|
|
dwarf74 posted:There might be (hopefully!) some mitigating factors, but there's a good chance the game will go totally off the rails once a Wizard has access to Save-or-Suck spells against all 6 stats. Well, hopefully monster and NPC design will have fairly balanced stat progression, regardless of how saves will generally go for PCs. Regarding PCs, if Str, Int, and Cha are all "rare" saves, and this is actually acknowledged by the system, it might be an interesting way to have a particularly dangerous sort of enemy, as an effect with a much higher chance of going off than saves in general.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 03:32
|
|
|
e: Ohmigosh it's out! Nevermind then.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 18:13
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Repost from that other thread: I know this is a pretty minor point, but I am actually super happy that the phrasing is "a man who feels trapped in a female body" and not something more awkard or indirect. Like it's a really little thing but they could've handled it much much worse.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 01:47
|
|
|
I guess my standards must be super low after getting irritated at bullshit like "sexually confused" recently. Maybe I'm just not interpreting it as implying that being trans is on the same level as being a lady dwarf that everyone treats as a guy because she has a beard? I could see how that would feel insulting, it's just... nice to even see it at all, as a fairly low key "man trapped inside a female body," instead of it turning into some weird creepy plot point thing. Like that could be a normal thing that happens to apply to your PC and influence their life but not overwhelm it, instead of it being, like, the villain's backstory for why they're so evil and blah blah blah.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 02:07
|
|
|
Asymmetrikon posted:Quoted from the chat thread: I'm trying to figure out an eloquent way to phrase the way I feel without dismissing other people's experiences and failing. The problem is, of course, that I feel like my own experience might be being discounted, so simply responding negatively is a bad idea too. I'm sorry I can't find a good way to express this. I do really like the way neongrey's edit includes a broader spectrum of queer people. e: Like I guess what I'd say is I don't like feeling that other people are speaking for me. I don't want to say they're wrong, because then that's just me doing the same thing the other way around, but it's irritating to see something condemned in a blanket fashion as if there's a single "correct" way to handle it. Maybe that's not how other people intend it, and I certainly don't want to say that what they're feeling is invalid. If that makes any sense. zachol fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jul 4, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
Like the reason I haven't played a trans character is it would be super depressing, since generally that seems like a problem that would be much easier to solve given the sorts of magic available in the default D&D setting. Maybe it's different for other people but a big part of this hobby for me is escapism.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 02:58
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:That seems fine for a fighter. It just means they don't have to bother putting points in Strength anymore. A medium/high level fighter (that cared about Str) would almost certainly have it at 20 considering how easy it is to boost stats.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
Of course then at that point you spend too much time searching the room and a wandering monster shows up. Clearly you need to start getting through this dungeon faster!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 15:45
|
|
|
I think it is kind of weird how when a fighter wants to do something neat but not in the rules that's "mother may I," but when a wizard just ignores explicit parts of the rules that's business as usual.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 16:17
|
|
|
Stat damage Makes Sense and is an elegant representation overall. Now, as a mechanic as found in 3e and (probably) 5e, bleh, but I feel like if you're going to have stats you might as well also throw in stat damage and figure out a way to make it work. One nice way would be to have far fewer things dependent on calculations involving stats.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2014 03:35
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Here's how you make it work. I guess "stat damage" in my mind occupies the same semantic area as "traps." Directly tying it into the combat minigame (attack, damage, hp) doesn't work all the way because you want it to have broader consequences. Like, ideally in my mind, stat damage would never happen in combat, it would just be those debuffs. But, out of combat, as a really persistent debuff when you have time to redo the calculations anyway, it's sort of attractive. But that assumes a playstyle where traps and resource management and other out of combat hassles are a major factor. Or, even, "stat damage" would have simplified modifiers that only apply in combat. Out of combat -1 to str mod is easy to represent, since generally you'd be directly rolling str (maybe with a proficiency bonus) anyway, an easy reminder to when to apply the -1. In combat it's more complex, so then the combat-only penalties apply.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2014 03:49
|
|
|
jesus christ Well I guess it's a playtest but still. Or was this in the "things have lots of XP values, not just the same amount depending on CR" stage? Was that actually a stage or did I misinterpret something?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 8, 2014 03:55
|
|
|
Maybe I misread something but don't wizards get a feature where they can cast any ritual in their spellbook, whether they've got the spell itself prepared or not, for free? It doesn't really matter if any individual ritual has a narrow use if you can just use whichever one is appropriate whenever you want.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 01:32
|
|
|
Also "can do math" is actually, you know, one of the various skills involved in being a game designer. You
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 17:11
|
|
|
I've said this before but stuff like a medusa's petrification is exactly why a game, even a super gamey game like D&D, should have more generalized resolution mechanics and a more abstract damage / condition / consequence system. If you're facing a medusa, a single bad roll shouldn't mean "woops you looked at her face, now you're a statue," but instead mean that you're slowly being backed into a corner or you've lost your mirror or one of your hands needs to be occupied and can't be used to shield your vision or whatever, and all those things are represented the same way full-on wounds are in a "normal combat." You don't turn into a statue until all your consequences are full up, and at that point you could've been simply killed in a "normal combat," if those consequences were representing wounds and the like, so having the medusa turn you into a statue then is acceptable. A generalized consequence system lets the GM reframe what failure on the level of an individual roll means for each sort of battle, letting boss setpieces coexist with more typical multi-enemy fights, without necessarily weakening the boss on a blow-by-blow basis or granting it exceptional mechanics beyond the normal combat rules. Additionally it completely stops bullshit about "what do hp represent," since a consequence could always explicitly just be losing your footing or straining a muscle, with characters never actually suffering "real damage" within the fiction until they got several consequences in.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
In the Greek monsterhunter game, the closest thing to an "enemy spellcaster" is a long-term skill challenge against an enchantress. Seriously though enemies/NPCs should simply never be built the same as PCs*. The spellcaster's "flesh to stone" spell would be mechanically identical to the medusa, as a generalized boss enemy encounter. * Unless your game is explicitly set up for it like a moba.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2014 01:52
|
|
|
I remember a stupid simple map thing from way back in pbps that was just like a grid and a bunch of simple stamps you could place and move around, sort of vector art (not relevant, but you could export the map as text to paste it in later, instead of fiddling with images, great for pbp). I could imagine a vtt that had a really stripped down version of that, where the GM places simple stamps to represent enemies on a grid, and players move their PC stamps around, and if (and only if) it matters you can also lay down stamps for walls or terrain or cover, but otherwise you wouldn't have to have full-fledged "maps" just these abstract floating grid things, like if you were playing in person and scribbling on a spare sheet of paper. Like I think some people go for totm out of "purity" while others just think making maps or whiteboards or whatever (or, for online vtts, map images and character and enemy tokens) is a hassle but are fine with putting down some positions for "tactically complex" combats.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 12, 2014 23:24
|
|
|
I think CR is meant to be an absolute cap but you're really supposed to "usually" fight monsters with a CR of about 80% (or something) of your level. Like a level 2 character is sort of stuck fighting CRs 1s and 2s and having a hard time of it but at level 10 the bread and butter of enemies you're fighting should be CR 8, with only a few actually at CR 10. Like, the same way that in previous editions you were supposed to occasionally have hard fights with a CR 2-3 above yours, now they're setting hard fights at a CR equal to your level and normal fights at ones below your level.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 15, 2014 00:11
|
|
|
dichloroisocyanuric posted:Anyway, my question is, what are games like DnD that I will enjoy? Aside from 13th Age and Numenera because those are already on my need-to-check-out and not-for-me lists respectively. If you like cool dudes doing cool poo poo and not worrying too much about the rules, Dungeon World. If you like lots and lots of rules and feats and other crunchy choices, Fantasy Craft. I'm assuming you've already looked at 4e.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2014 01:49
|
|
|
Legend (the RoC one) is pretty great but suffers from rocket tag and relatively complex monster creation. It's pretty much just "what if the 3e charop guys got tired of 3e and decided to make their own game." e: vvv don't scare them off! zachol fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Jul 16, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2014 02:11
|
|
|
I think if it was something like 10 feet you could generally make use of it, even in TotM, simply because you'd be consistently faster than most other things by a significant margin. Useful in chases and escapes.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2014 16:24
|
|
|
I should probably be surprised.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2014 16:28
|
|
|
Why does "brewing excellent beer" need mechanical representation?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 18, 2014 18:42
|
|
|
Why should size category be the starting point for determining a monster's role?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
I feel like DW, 13th Age, and Fantasy Craft pretty much cover all the bases in terms of games that are like D&D but better. If you want retro, there's also the OSR, with something like Castles & Crusades. There's probably a more specific and appealing one for whatever flavor of retro you want to go for. If you're an old 3e hand with dozens of books, you have enough experience fixing the system and might as well stuck with it instead of buying a game that's just as bad but in new ways. Like, seriously, who is 5e for? Anything I can imagine that's appealing about 5e, there's a game that does it better. "Cost" is a weird excuse, since you'll probably end up paying $150+ on 5e. Lots of the alternatives are free, and the others tend to have a more compact single book model, with additional books optional in a way that the DMG and MM probably won't be. "Familiarity" is also weird. As some are fond of saying, 5e isn't out yet, so nobody's really had a chance to understand it as a complete game. You could pick any other game and learn it instead. The only thing 5e has going for it, as far as I can tell, is name brand recognition of WotC and "being D&D." If this game was being released by a different publisher, as some 2e/3e OSR thing, no one would give any shits. No one would give it the time of day, there'd be a tiny forum specific to that publisher talking about it and a single publicity thread somewhere and then nothing. Like, people are defending this game with stuff like "well I had fun," like the onus is on other people to definitively prove 5e is "a bad game." Why? At the very best, 5e is mediocre and unremarkable. Why bother buying and learning a mediocre and unremarkable game when there are actual good, strong games available, often for free?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 18:03
|
|
|
I guess I'm having trouble understanding what it is about 3e that kind of person actually likes that wouldn't be better served by, say, 13th Age. I mean, I don't particularly like 13th Age, but a lot of it feels reminiscent of 3e, and I don't understand how someone could care enough about 3e to feel like 13th Age loses something important or has irreconcilable differences who wouldn't also be the sort to have gotten super deep into 3e and made houserule matrices and so on.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 18:24
|
|
|
If you like super crunchy mechanics and general goofiness then I could imagine playing 3e, Fantasy Craft, or Legend, but I have no idea why that sort of person would want to purchase 5e when they presumably already have years and years worth of toys to play with in their 3e storehouse. Heck that's why I personally like 3e, I love building characters I'll never actually use, but I also have no clue how that translates in any way to 5e. Like, my point is, any use I could imagine of 5e seems like it could be better served by another game. Whatever it is about 5e that you like, even if it's goofy unbalanced nonsense, there's a game that does it better, and 5e on its own is just mediocre.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
13th Age really doesn't have anything to do with 4e. I'm not sure if there's a 4e but better game out, it seems like 4e-style design is difficult and involves a lot of very careful thought when creating new powers. Torchbearer is super neat and occupies a similar niche of DW in terms of evoking a specific kind of playstyle through actual written rules instead of habits and social contracts. Winson_Paine posted:Because 13th Age is a small run by a small company, and D&D 5E will appear in Target and Toys R Us and wherever around the nation. I am prepared to suggest the veteran internet savvy player with a lot of options is not their target demo here. This was my point--imagine if 5e wasn't D&D, but instead "Ruins & Riches" or something, getting put out by "Stone Bridge Games" or even Frog God or whoever, where marketing consists of posting ads on a handful of forums and trying to get people to blog about it. Would anyone be talking about it? I feel like almost certainly not, it wouldn't be getting any more press than a game like Blood & Treasure, which is another underwhelming but okayish reinterpretation of the divide between 2e and 3e that at least doesn't have baggage like Mike loving Mearls weighing it down. Like a single guy and his dozen or so playtesters made a game that's pretty much just 2e with 3e-looking math, still has caster supremacy but at least kept stuff like fighter strongholds, has an entirely serviceable and useful section called "Creating a New Monster" at the very start of the monster section with actual real guidelines focused on the final stats (not this bullshit naturalistic "determine abilities, stats follow" poo poo from 3e), and overall looks pretty much on par with 5e, a game made by multiple professional designers and released by the biggest company in the hobby, two whole years later. Seriously what the actual gently caress.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
As a GM I like clear and obvious guidelines (especially encounter building guidelines) because then I can go full adversarial play for keeps without feeling like an rear end in a top hat.* I think those sorts of "GM freedom" people maybe have a thing about seeing themselves as generous or kind or magnanimous or something, like "oh well I could throw a dozen giants at you, but I'm such a nice guy that I won't." e: *4e looked neat for this, like I could build an encounter and the players had enough backups & things that I could play the enemies as fully and effectively as possible without worrying about overwhelming the PCs. You could never do this in 3e with some random "appropriate CR" monster, you always have to double check the stats and powers to make sure it's not going to gently caress the party up, and why would anyone hold that as a value in GMing? It's just more work, holy poo poo. zachol fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jul 22, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 21:18
|
|
|
That seems incomprehensibly silly but alright. I can accept there'd be an appeal to not feeling an obligation to look up every rule in the book but then 3e/5e seems like a really bad fit. Maybe they could try DW or some kind of more stripped down retroclone?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 22, 2014 21:49
|
|
|
Looking at Blood & Treasure reminded me, why did 5e completely get rid of the simplified 3 save/defense thing? Like half the retroclones do this off hand as one of the few things from 3e that was a good idea (along with the unified d20 mechanic). Hell, even if they'd gone back to save vs spells/petrification/farts/whatever it still would've been better than three main saves that obviously draw from those advances and three saves with all of ten things that target them apiece. Ugh.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
If it was actually designed so that bullshit saves being bullshit was an assumption, and were like 2 or 3 lower than non-bullshit saves, that would be a pretty neat alternative instead of offering accuracy--+2 to a Con save being equivalent to swapping to a Str save. But then that would remove the fiction of the abilities/saves being equal.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 23, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
I'm sure Mearls played a lot of 4e and hated every second of it.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2014 16:49
|
|
|
Why not just have a magic sword that allows you to concentrate to find dragons but doesn't provide a +1 to hit? As in, no magic weapons at all would give + any number to hit.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2014 20:57
|
|
|
A bonus to damage I guess makes sense, and if that's what a "+1 sword" comes to mean that would be neat, I'm just irritated at the assumption that it also needs to be +1 to hit.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2014 22:05
|
|
|
Damage bonuses seem neat, though, particularly if they're larger than +1 and there's already an expectation that damage will inflate a whole lot as you level up. Also I'm the sort of idiot who loves throwing down a fistful of dice, so having them be +1d6s would be neat. Magic weapons deal +1d6, especially powerful ones +2d6 or +3d6. Standard weapon damage is already 2d6 for powerful 2h weapons or 1d6 for 1h weapons. 5d6 seems like a fine effective cap.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 25, 2014 23:01
|
|
|
In an ideal world, a game requiring that an actual magic weapon must be a PC, played by an individual player, would produce a compelling narrative and many opportunities for fun roleplaying.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2014 06:59
|
|
|
I kind of like where games have "everyone declares their actions, and then initiative is rolled to determine order." So if you're casting a spell, you declare that, in response an NPC tries to interrupt you, and then it's a question of whether you beat their initiative that turn or not. Although then there'd have to be some way to figure out order of declarations. Maybe step 1 is "everyone declares whether they're casting a spell or not," step 2 is "everyone declares ranged attacks," and then step 3 is "everyone declares melee attacks," allowing spellcasting and ranged interruptions.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 26, 2014 23:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 16, 2024 16:02 |
|
|
My personal experience is generally "detached," with occasional dips into "immersion" for a scene, especially if it's really heavy on the dialogue. I'll use third person for describing what the character does, and don't affect an accent, but I'll still often speak the character's lines instead of just abstractly describing their speech, so if that goes on for a while back and forth between the characters it can become more immersive. Someone constantly using "I" and getting really into it would feel a little weird, maybe, but the "I" part at least (if otherwise detached) could totally be a group-specific thing.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 27, 2014 05:08
|
|