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Kurieg posted:Basically 4e Forgotten Realms was them trying to pare down the setting cruft to make it easier for new players to jump in with absolutely no previous knowledge of the setting. They also took the opportunity to destroy or kill off a lot of problematic things in the setting. Unfortunately those are the things that FR grognards love. The Drow continued to exist, so they failed. Seriously I never even thought about how loving racist their standard origin is. Night10194 posted:Kill all D&D Gods.
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Feb 8, 2016 03:29
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Kurieg posted:I think it's more that they couldn't get rid of the Drow because Drizzt is such an iconic part of the realms and the fanbase would transmute into an undulating mass of pure white-hot rage if they killed off the drow race. You say that first part like it's a bad thing. Were the Thayans racist as well? I thought they were just massive dicks.
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Feb 8, 2016 07:25
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Kurieg posted:Thing is 4e made a *lot* of changes to the world, mostly to break up and weaken the existing governments and allowing for player characters to actually do something beyond be the pawns of greater powers (primarily all the loving wizard nations because they'd been riding high on the Mystra train). See while I agree with cleaning out stagnant or offensive parts of the setting, I don't see that as necessary for player agency- if the PCs make a goal to topple a kingdom or organization in a setting, I'm going to let them have a fair crack at it, NPCs be damned. Or are you saying there aren't enough openings for that?
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Feb 8, 2016 08:03
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Kurieg posted:Neverember Is it like a law that the city be led by people with really stupid names that start with "N"?
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Feb 8, 2016 17:22
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Planescape is great because like Ravenloft you can throw PCs into it, but let them go back to their own setting whenever they want, and Sigil is awesome for them to visit instead of awful like Ravenloft. You can attach it to literally anything in D&D and it still works- it's basically the oversetting along with poor Spelljammer. Sigil also doesn't have Romani racism.
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Feb 8, 2016 20:12
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mcclay posted:Aw man, did 5e really reverse all the cool stuff about 4e Forgotten Realms? I loved High Imskar and its psuedo-Eberron-ness. I bet they destroyed it just so they could bring about actual Egyptian slave empire. 4e FR was loving great. It seems to have- they haven't released a proper setting guide yet, just one for the Sword Coast. The changes have mostly been pieced together from the novels. 5th Edition has got to be the least coordinated roleplaying game I've ever seen. And Greenwood didn't write High Imaskar therefore it's bad and Mulhorand is good. 
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Feb 9, 2016 05:24
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mcclay posted:Is there any chance that Greenwood will relinquish some control of the setting so we don't get a campaign guide about Eliminster loving Mystra on all the furniture in the Realms? They must have some mechanism because they yanked it away from him for 4th Edition. Otherwise it'll be from his cold, dead hands.
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Feb 9, 2016 06:18
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Ravenloft's batshittery sounds like a lot of legacy cruft that should be cleaned up, except grogs are the main market for new Ravenloft products, so...
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Feb 10, 2016 07:33
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How important was the exact shape of the cosmology to Eberron and the Forgotten Realms, though? If you used the Planescape model (Which everyone should because Planescape is the best D&D setting and therefore correct  ), is there anything you can't fit anymore?
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Feb 10, 2016 14:57
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unseenlibrarian posted:Eberron has an entirely different set of planes that don't really match up with the Planescape model and aren't really alignment-based, for a start. Like Doluurh -could- be Carceri if you twist a bunch of things and squint, but not really. And some of alternate planar stuff is directly tied to setting backstory for one of the PC races. Clearly 5th Edition's cosmology needs to be returned to 2nd/3rd Edition's, all published settings must be standardized accordingly, and anything that does not fit must be removed in the name of consistency. Either that or I need to accept that things have changed and I'm a grognard 
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Feb 10, 2016 15:41
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Bear in mind separating the Realms from the Great Wheel was sometime that happened in 3e; when Planescape was being published, Toril was still part of the Great Wheel cosmology and the two settings had a lot of crossover. They seperated it so little that I wonder if WotC considered reviving Planescape for 3rd Edition initially. unseenlibrarian posted:Luckily, homogenizing everything is an explicit 5E goal and there's no sign of Eberron in 5th, it was a 3.x/4E setting. It's okay, you're WOTC's target market. Yeah, but it's not the right kind of homogenization. EDIT: Misread a date Kavak fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Feb 10, 2016 |
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Feb 10, 2016 15:56
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MonsieurChoc posted:an epic adventure that was never actually published Hold on, what?
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Feb 11, 2016 06:22
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unseenlibrarian posted:Which means that Christopher Lee may have been one of Dracula's handlers. Holy poo poo yes.
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Feb 11, 2016 17:32
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I miss John Wick already. Also is that supposed to be him on the cover? How has he not been murdered or at least assaulted yet?
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Feb 15, 2016 05:49
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Cotton Mather Did Nothing Wrong.
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Feb 16, 2016 23:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:Maybe if you were procedurally generating the dungeon in real-time, and rolling the treasure in real-time, and you just roll really good on all the treasure parts and since you're doing it in real-time you don't have time to admit that the last 8000 GP gem was too much? That's the only thing I can think of- that or all treasure is rolled on a random chart and he's too dense/tradition-bound to end that practice.
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Feb 17, 2016 01:26
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occamsnailfile posted:I realize that I actually remember finishing Pool of Radiance from the Gold Box series way back in the day, and you finished at...a decent level, 8th for Fighters and Thieves maybe? Not too far up. You got a lot of treasure along the way though, and at the end of the module you got handed poo poo like, I think, a Vorpal Blade. One of the special sword types anyway. You got it and then the game ended, yay! Lots of cool toys! Baldur's Gate does the same poo poo, but at least had the decency to let you keep two of your cooler items. The main plot would be really goddamn easy if you still had even a fraction of your equipment, but it's also really goddamn stupid, so it's a wash.
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Feb 17, 2016 07:08
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Young Freud posted:At least back then. You could probably do it now. Probably true for Azure Bonds, I'm pretty sure they just took the easy way out with BG II. It just feels cheap to me, because when your class is really dependent on equipment to stay competitive (I.E. anything that isn't a spellcaster), it feels less like a challenge and more like a "gently caress you" to lose it all. At least in Hordes of the Underdark you get it all back, but that still kept me from ever playing that campaign. Kurieg posted:I think bioware has the right idea of it with Dragon Age: inquisition. You don't have to play the previous games because they created a website that allows you to select every single imported plot decision from a list. Yeah, but you're not importing equipment or the same character into Inquisition. On the other hand, I was never bothered about losing all my stuff in Mass Effect II & III because it wasn't critical to the game and the rules had changed each time.
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Feb 17, 2016 18:41
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Bieeardo posted:It's a real cockbite when you're emulating a game like AD&D 2E, with straight-up penalties if you use weapons you're not trained for, and essentially worse if you can't use the ones you've trained deeply in. It only gets worse when all of the major loot is pre-generated, so training picks made in ignorance might leave you at a serious disadvantage. It was doable in Baldur's Gate 1 because the game generalized the proficiencies into blunt weapons, long swords, short swords, so you really couldn't go wrong. Then BG II* decided that verisimilitude must rule and there was one for every goddamn weapon in the game .* I really hope this is right because if Beamdog's Enhanced Editions did this I'm going to kick myself.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:58
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The only one of those that makes sense in a way other than "gently caress you players" is the fake map, because scams are a thing that actually exist, unlike secret doors leading to nowhere and keys that unlock nothing*. The plot hook is finding the rear end in a top hat responsible and taking your money back along with all of his poo poo, because it's never a good idea to rip off people who have committed more murders than they've had hot dinners. *Winchester Mystery House: D&D Edition does sound fun though
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Feb 18, 2016 19:27
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Forgive my low grogginess, bu tTucker's Kobold's actually seems okay, though it'd have to be done in moderation. It also raises the question of "Why are these kobolds random mooks in the wilderness instead of one of the top mercenary outfits in the world?"
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Feb 23, 2016 08:00
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Comrade Koba posted:If you use the AD&D 1E monster books, it'd probably be entirely possible to have an entire dungeon room where literally everything is a monster. The floor? It's a Trapper. The ceiling? A Lurker Above. The treasure chests and all the furniture? Yeah, those are all Mimics. That enchanted cloak hanging off a peg? It's a Cloaker, duh. The forgotten gold coin lying over there in the corner? It's a Lock Lurker. That tapestry on one of the walls? It's a Sheet Phantom. This sounds hilarious, and I wish these "Play Dirty" type books had more over-the-top stuff like this than the usual "gently caress you for trying to have fun" poo poo.
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Feb 23, 2016 08:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's an interesting mental exercise, but none of the post-TSR editions can support it anymore insofar as you can't make the 1 HD kobolds have enough skill points and feats and all to convincingly pull it off mechanically. That sounds like a mark against 3rd edition and onwards. I'm already crazy enough to consider checking out 2nd Edition because of Planescape and Baldur's Gate, don't make me think that's a good idea!
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Feb 23, 2016 08:40
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The Lone Badger posted:That's a bad idea. Does 3.5 count?  EDIT: Cthulhu Dreams posted:There are clear pros and cons. 3.5 has a much better unified mechanical framework sitting under it. It has some huge downsides: casters are way to good, the caster thing, they completely broke casters, the nerfed fighters pretty hard, they changed the experience curve to decrease the time spent in the mid game (aka the good bit) and increase the time spent at the start and the end (aka the irritating bits) 4th, 5th, or dehumanize myself and face to Paizo?
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Feb 23, 2016 08:59
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Theoretically, what would it take to nerf casters in 3.5? Ban the Wizard class (I've already done this)? Demand Concentration rolls all the time? Strip monsters of DR and maybe natural armor so fighters and rogues can actually damage them regularly? I've got other questions about 4th edition, but that's for that thread.
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Feb 23, 2016 09:38
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Poison Mushroom posted:Make a new edition/all new classes from the ground up, probably. So why wasn't this the case in 1st and 2nd edition? What changed? If we had an answer for that we'd have the answer to balancing things.
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Feb 23, 2016 09:56
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The Lone Badger posted:At low levels wizards could cast one or two crappy spells a day. They were useless and were just being carried until... Balance it out by giving high level warrior classes the abilities "Feed I was created to be a jock but somehow ended up a nerd, what can I say. I think that's why 2nd Edition is so appealing to me. Terrible Opinions posted:Constant Concentration check are dumb and using that for balance just makes the game unfun for the spellcaster's player in the same way stealing spell books does. Point taken. gradenko_2000 posted:Simply put, D&D 3.5e rolled back almost all of these advantages, or diluted them to the point where the gap between Fighters and Wizards became so much wider. Some of those sound like they could be replicated- double the Fighter's CON and STR bonuses when attacking and calculating saves and HP, or give those bonuses out with certain levels, Leadership as a free feat, feats allowing stuff like double attacks per round in one combat per day, etc. But like NachtSieger said I'm fighting an upnorthfaceoftheEiger battle. I'll look up the Rules Cyclopedia and Dungeon World, though. I was considering buying the latter but decided against learning a new system just yet- I'm also attached to a lot of D&D lore, and I don't think you can use an established setting with DW or 13th Age. potatocubed posted:*cough*selfpromotion*cough* Or maybe this. Kavak fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 10:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:Honestly you're better off just playing old-school D&D as-is. As long as you find an elegant way to deal with THAC0 (there are several), they're very well-designed, if not necessarily very well formatted and explained. ArkInBlack posted:You totally can, even if it means excising Icons in 13th Age's case, or just modifying them to fit whatever setting. The first one's easier, but I really like Icon dice as narrative currency to swing things in your favor by bringing in help from someone who you might owe for it. Well, that's two/three new games for me to check out! 
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Feb 23, 2016 11:03
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Black August posted:I always liked openly cursed items as the nuclear option. The curse makes it grossly powerful, swinging way above its weight class with the bite to back it up, but there's a price to pay if you even think of using it. Which, you know, encourages players to think and connive and figure every way to cheat or assess risk and reward as needed, which seems fun? But nah let's just save or die or make it blow up with a 1 in 20 chance. How are players supposed to Learn A Lesson if the items are not total punishment? For a serious example, Baldur's Gate had a few of these. I used the "STR 19/INT 6" belt and berserker sword to great effect- running from Minsc after every battle got kind of tiresome, but the damage output was worth it.
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Feb 24, 2016 05:05
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Maybe, just maybe, he could save himself a lot of hassle if he ran a game that didn't revolve around scrounging and slaughtering. Is it just me, or do all of these "Play Dirty" dickheads hone in on D&D or its offshoots? Even Wick didn't seem to talk about LOT5R or 7th Sea too much in his books.
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Feb 29, 2016 14:54
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BRB settinng up Rainbow Six campaign
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Feb 29, 2016 15:44
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Doresh posted:Non-spellcasters can never have nice things. Some things never change. Non-spellcasters had plenty of nice things in 2nd edition and arcane spellcasters had an awful learning curve, a fact which WotC appears to have cast actual magic to cause people to forget.
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Mar 2, 2016 21:53
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Doresh posted:But you see, 2nd edition is the odd man out. It's not as recent as 3rd edition, and it has too high of a page count for people to bother retrocloning it. IIRC 1st and Basic had the same balance of power.
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Mar 2, 2016 23:28
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Lynx Winters posted:Because nerds can't just let a thing be earnest. Gritty realism = maturity, and we gotta show everyone that roleplaying brightly-colored schoolgirls can be mature. Someone once said Watchmen gave the comics industry a 15-year-long grimdark hangover. I think Madoka had a similar effect, just for something even more ridiculous than superhero comics.
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Mar 8, 2016 23:13
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I would totally play "Meduka Meguca: The Rol Plaeyng Gaem"
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Mar 9, 2016 02:29
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Zereth posted:Obviously this system would require that all dice used with it have failed quality control tests. They should be whittled out of blocks of wood or be semi-appropriately shaped rocks. Or get a good set and microwave or bake them for a while.
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Mar 9, 2016 06:17
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Did they just...forget to put in some art on those pages or something?
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Mar 13, 2016 04:17
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drat, now I miss Brom too and I didn't even know his name. I also miss the guy who did the "Volo's Guide" covers and Planescape's signature artist.
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Mar 18, 2016 09:34
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I always thought of Legend of the Five Rings as one of those 90's-as-gently caress but apparently it came out at the tail end of the decade. Huh.
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Mar 26, 2016 00:10
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"Don't feel bad about not getting any of the cool stuff in the book! It all actually sucks!"
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Mar 27, 2016 01:03
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