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Mexican Deathgasm posted:It's actually pretty fun. It seems like many of the people who have actually played it have been enjoying it. There seems to be a pretty strong hatred for D&D in general in this thread, which is a shame. I was hoping there'd be a thread somewhere on SA about what actual suggestions could be given to WoC during the open playtest to improve Next. Then what we actually got was "numbers don't go up as much, and we completely ignore the effects +stat magic items have on target numbers  ".There are only so many leading survey questions and disappointing design directions you can take before you pretty much give up on the whole deal. At this point it's just kind of a detached fascination.
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May 27, 2013 05:02
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:What would be a good beer to add to chili? I heard people do that sometimes. Steel Reserve is my go-to (but then it's my go-to beer for everything so...) Just be sure to use tomato paste (and less of it) rather than tomato sauce, or if you like diced tomatoes, drain them first.
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May 27, 2013 05:38
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J. Alfred Prufrock posted:I like to use something nice and strong and malty, so it really stands up to the rest of the spices in the chili. Anything too pale is just going to get lost. A doppelbock or a more bitter brown ale (not too sweet) would work pretty well. Wait... I mean BEER IN CHILI MAKES IT NOT REAL CHILI gently caress THIS COOKBOOK FOREVER.
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May 27, 2013 05:52
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theironjef posted:That's direct from Martial Power 2, in the "What is Martial Power" section. They eventually got around to explaining what the martial power source is, they just took a few books. The key words to identify are "brief moment" and "exceeding the normal physical limitations." The basic problem is that magic and martial are asked different questions. Magic: Is there a reason magic can do this? Martial: Is there a reason martial ability cannot do this? With any sort of martial ability they aren't comparing this to actual acts of physical power because most tabletop gamers have never known or seen any. They're comparing it to their own "common sense" which is usually hilariously lacking. You can easily see this in 3e, where "common sense" lead to things like "no dexterity bonus in plate, because it is literally impossible to move quickly or athletically or dodge in plate mail" or the hilariously bizarre weight ratios. And from there, people took this poo poo as how it should be and you have the likes of Justin Alexander who continuously twists logic in more bizarre shapes just to justify 3e as being "realistic." At the end of the day people - and nerds are especially bad at this - don't know poo poo about a lot of things, and assume they know loving EVERYTHING. And if the question of realism comes down, the answer is always - always - "gently caress the fighter." You can see this in just about every forum. Ask what rolls DMs would require to do basic adventure stuff like swing across a chandelier to kick a dude - you'll often get two, three, maybe even four different skill rolls, ALL of which can fail. A lot of it comes down to small picture thinking; simulationists not even don't notice the "big picture," they declare it's existence ruins verisimilitude, so you end up with a lot of little events that could make sense taken individually under slightly scewed logic, but altogether turn into a loving jumbled mess. It's "common sense" that swinging across a chandelier would be difficult and takes a few rolls. This means the world is filled with swashbucklers who constantly fall on their asses or throw themselves into fires because it's nearly impossible to pull off. It's "common sense" that door and walls and poo poo have hardiness you have to break through. This means the world is filled with lumberjacks who physically cannot chop down trees. The other main problem is that, quite frankly, a lot of 3e/caster supremacy fans don't see non-casters as classes. They hold that the ultimate division between classes is one of magic - you either have magic (and from there you have divisions on what magic and how you use it), or you are a mundane dude. If you're a mundane dude then there's nothing special about you, and thus why SHOULD you have unique class abilities? It's sort of like combining the fighter and the rogue, only in the most rear end backwards way possible.
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May 27, 2013 07:47
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...and B/x doesn't have that problem to the extent that later edition have. Why not? Because it's all ability checks. It lets a character with 15 str succeed at strength stuff 3/4 of the time. A dude with a 14 dex will swing from 70% of chandeliers without falling on his arse, even if he's wearing armor. A really really strong guy (18 STR, less than 1 in 200 people) will bash down 9 out of 10 heavy doors that he tries to bash down.
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May 27, 2013 08:04
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ProfessorCirno posted:"no dexterity bonus in plate, because it is literally impossible to move quickly or athletically or dodge in plate mail"  This is turning out to be a rather useful image.
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May 27, 2013 08:06
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I wish that Next was a retroclone.
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May 27, 2013 08:31
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Nihnoz posted:I wish that Next was a retroclone. It is, it's just not a very good one.
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May 27, 2013 08:39
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ZombieLenin posted:Getting to what you said about daily powers, this was my train of thought, and my intial and long lasting resistence to it and 4e. Sure, you can totally explain away some daily powers with things like "the rogue needs his special poison." That explanation, however, is weak when you explain this to your player and she says:
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May 27, 2013 11:06
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Cyclomatic posted:If realism is so important, there are game systems with damage tables where you can die instantly when hit in the side of the head with a maul because your skull just got smashed in and your brain is bone shards and jelly. That game system isn't D&D though.  Rolemaster.
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May 27, 2013 11:25
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Rexides posted:I would really like "healing surges" to be tied to a completely narrative mechanic ZombieLenin posted:I hate healing potions and don't use them in my games (all editions.) First I try and take the "high" fantasy out of my games, because I prefer them to be gritty and as realistic as possible. To address the general questions about fighters thrown at me: I dont like "spell-like" limits placed on them to begin with. If an advanced warrior understands a special method I like it when they have some chance to do it under condition_x whenever the condition is present and they want to try. Almost everything we did was a customized one-off, but regarding general design I would want fighters to gain a menu of "if X then you have the option to attempt to Y" that expanded as they gained levels. The 4rriors that scream grognard once per page will dislike this, but I prefer warriors to have constant and reliable abilities at their disposal, and mages to have inconsistent but bigger abilities at theirs. (Bearing in mind the 2e power levels where a wizard in arms-reach of a competent fighter is in serious trouble.) Counting occasional players, we had 5 martial artists of various types playing in the games. All I can say about the "well you strain your arm every time you punch that one way" thing is that it would not have worked as a compelling narrative device for this group.
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May 27, 2013 11:30
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FRINGE posted:To address the general questions about fighters thrown at me: I dont like "spell-like" limits placed on them to begin with. If an advanced warrior understands a special method I like it when they have some chance to do it under condition_x whenever the condition is present and they want to try. Almost everything we did was a customized one-off, but regarding general design I would want fighters to gain a menu of "if X then you have the option to attempt to Y" that expanded as they gained levels. The 4rriors that scream grognard once per page will dislike this, but I prefer warriors to have constant and reliable abilities at their disposal, and mages to have inconsistent but bigger abilities at theirs. (Bearing in mind the 2e power levels where a wizard in arms-reach of a competent fighter is in serious trouble.) How do you balance those abilites? I'm genuinely curious, because if you've found a way to do it well, then I can play 2e again without the amazingly convoluted bullshit I've always had to do so that everyone gets a shot at being awesome.
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May 27, 2013 11:56
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FRINGE posted:The 4rriors that scream grognard once per page will dislike this, but I prefer warriors to have constant and reliable abilities at their disposal, and mages to have inconsistent but bigger abilities at theirs. It mostly went the other way round. Martials had to cope with inconsistent d20 rolls every round of combat, whereas wizards could just go "I throw a fireball right there, I don't need to aim because magic  ".E: Some spells gave saves, but you could just go with the ones that cannot be negated that way, or in 3e, just shrug that 'restriction' off by targeting a weak save the baddie was near guaranteed to fail. Skill monkeys and strongmen always had to make some kind of check with a chance of failure, while wizards could go "oh, the rogue couldn't pick a simple lock, I guess I'll just read my Knock scroll ".
Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 12:22 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 12:17
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AlphaDog posted:How do you balance those abilites? I'm genuinely curious, because if you've found a way to do it well, then I can play 2e again without the amazingly convoluted bullshit I've always had to do so that everyone gets a shot at being awesome. These are from aging memories, but some of the one-offs were something like: Grappler guy Roll to hit, then STR check, if both succeed then total grapple of humanoid shape/size critter, free unarmed (or small weapon) melee attack, various follow-up options (edit: I always wanted a real/good armed grappling system  ... all the printed ones were terrible)Captain of the Guard guy In the city - constant chance to call on underlings for assistance (at least a F1, usually a few) Dexterous fighter guy Dex check + cunning idea + roll to hit = variety of cirqu du soliel style special attacks (run up wall, kick off/flip backwards, open bag of devouring in air and drop it on somethings head is one that stuck in my memory) Monster hunter type ability +[x] to hit vs [z_type] +1 z_type every 2 levels x = +1 every 3 levels Luck worshiper gimmick (I cant remember it got complicated and in the end was far too strong. Had the ability to add and remove from dice rolls under certain conditions) "Fallen Solar" (Was a hybrid fighter faux-priest) Compound bow with extra range class, increasing bonus at extreme (past long) ranges So none of these kinds of things beats a fireball at level 5, but you only get 1 fireball at level 5. edit: and there was negotiation at level ups for how to evolve things Littlefinger posted:Skill monkeys and strongmen always had to make some kind of check with a chance of failure, while wizards could go "oh, the rogue couldn't pick a simple lock, I guess I'll just read my Knock scroll FRINGE fucked around with this message at 12:25 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 12:23
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Really, that goes back to my "common sense" problem. I don't think BECMI solved it because it's not really a problem with the system, not entirely. Magic requires no rolls. Doing a non-magical thing does. And the more ornate or cool your non-magical thing, typically, the more rules it requires. Picking a lock vs knock: one roll. Sure. But: swinging on a chandelier across the fight to leap down and kick a dude in his face vs literally just fly over: I've seen anywhere between two and four rolls. And that's the problem with "common sense" rules: they punish creativity. The general problem is that simulationist games and simulationist DMs adhere to a simple policy: when you do a thing, roll to see if it succeeds. Except the more creative your approach, the more things you do, and the more chances you have to fail! It's also how martial powers help: they give the non-spellcaster the ability to just say "No, this happens." Mobility utility powers let rogues say "I run/climb up the side of the building and roll onto the roof before the baddy even has a chance to respond." One of the things I often saw was that 4e powers were somehow "cheating." That it was just a bunch of unruly children who wanted their fighter to do things (that spellcasters do) like open doors with ease (knock) or heal themselves (CoDZilla) or easy mobility (myriad of small time teleportation spells) - that 4e powers "let you do everything" in the same breath of "And now warriors are just wizards." Think about that: open admittance that being a spellcaster is loving cheating. How are we supposed to balance that? ( We can't. Something must change. )
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May 27, 2013 13:08
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To phrase what Cirno is saying a little differently and take if further: It can be useful to think of the entire game as a narrative, because after all none of it happens in real life: it's all in our heads. In that sense, all mechanics are narrative mechanics, determining what happens in the shared narrative in our heads. Keep that in mind as I use that word in the following. So. What does sharing this narrative mean? It means we turn to the rules to say what happens in the narrative. When we make a dice roll and do/don't achieve an X level of arbitrary number, something happens in the fiction of the game. When we're playing, we're trying to wrest some level of control over this outcome, usually by playing to our strengths. We want the narrative to go one way (in our favor), and thus try to succeed at rolls. But not everyone is playing fair in the battle for the narrative. Martial classes are consigned to always roll for their narrative success, almost without exception. Roll to damage an enemy. Roll not to fall on your rear end. Roll for swinging on that chandelier. Meanwhile, playing the same game, is a class of character who several times per an in-game narrative unit of time (usually a "day") gets to simply declare that something happens, and it does, by saying "I cast...". And now we've already hit a very basic imbalance of power between people who are supposed to be playing the game, because one type of character rolls for everything and another type can roll for things but also gets to just automatically declare things. Imagine if, in a game of cowboys and indians, the cowboys could simply declare they had arrow-proof shields and could sometimes fire shots that can't miss, and then the indians were told to play fair while having no such thing. In a game of fiction, the ability to declare things about that fiction that are inviolably true is massively powerful. But it doesn't stop there. Because these declaration powers are ostensibly limited in their use (even if the limit is entirely an in-fiction thing that can be resolved with a simple sentence like "we rest"), they also get to be more powerful in the narrative. Even absent the in-fiction realism argument and thinking purely in terms of design, we're making the imbalance problem even bigger. Now our cowboys are summoning herds of bulls to fight for them - surely that makes sense because their job is herding cows, right? Indians don't have a job like that. And let's say that these kids are actually playing a variant made up by their sad, nerdy parents called "Cowboys and Indians team up versus Dinosaurs", and the kids are all meant to cooperate against the dinosaur threat, but nothing else about the fictional power of each has changed - cowboys can still declare there are cows and shots that don't miss, and indians cannot. Now they're meant to cooperate, but they're simply not playing on an even field to begin with. This isn't fair in the least, but this is the situation we're contending with in D&D. This is what 4e addressed so readily by levelling the fictional declarative power in scope and among the classes, and this is what we're returning to because the cowboy players whined and moaned about not being special anymore. This is why the entire argument comes off as being so deeply sad. poo poo, now I'm hungry for beef.
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May 27, 2013 13:38
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FRINGE posted:These are from aging memories, but some of the one-offs were something like: Now, if you want a Wizard to have, say, one big fireball and the fighter have three pretty big punches, with them both getting down to roughly the same level of lovely when they run out, and them both recharging under the same kind of timescale, then that could maybe work.
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May 27, 2013 13:40
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The next part of FRINGE posted:So none of these kinds of things beats a fireball at level 5, but you only get 1 fireball at level 5. is "unless you wait until you have more fireballs". That's not balance, you can break any balance it gives you by retreating to rest as soon as you are out of daily resources (or at 50% if you're being cautious). If the guys with at-will abilities want to continue, they're being dumb in-game, because why the hell wouldn't you retreat and come back when your wizard is fully prepped again?
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May 27, 2013 13:48
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Then there's the illusion that wizard powers are off-set by the abundance of arbitrations in D&D that turn them into useless pensioners. Writing the wrong components on your character sheet, a rough night's sleep, or getting your spellbook rained on will ostensibly ruin a spell, a day's worth of magic, or your wizardly career. The classic example is a mean house-cat at level one. Look how weak they are! They've earned win-button easy modes. But none of these things are fun, and just make the DM look like a dick. I won't say they never happen (someone on the internet has an anecdote were it did) but every "balance" feels like an unfun cheat.
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May 27, 2013 14:23
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Splicer posted:very dependent on DM fiat Until these threads I didnt think that anyone actually played games where the DM was out to ruin the game for the players (and especially never would have assumed that the players kept coming back). As the years went by, the games became more fun as we all worked to allow more expression in character design and play. I do not know how you put that in a core book, but I think that it is an important thing. I know that it can be done without making the narrative too slippery for the continuity-crazy people like me/us (because we did it), but I do not know how to write it in a book that is a standalone PHB. Its like trying to teach "the art of fudging dice rolls to maximize narrative" without accidentally encouraging people to break games. I dont know how you would teach that in a basic manual. Heroes dont die in basic pit traps they could not have found, they do get injured and maybe break some gear, which turns the heat up on the actual struggle coming up ... etc. The disease that was supposed to be deadly, well it makes a better story if it has some long term debilitating effect that can be overcome with a side-adventure. Over-the-top SoD poison? Turns out it was old and has a temporary nerve-crippling effect. Of course it depends on the kind of game. Some of them are Crawls where everyone expects PCs to drop a lot until RNG-evolution gets a winning group. PC-bodies everywhere. Some are long complicated stories where the Protagonists should always have a chance unless They Are Really Being loving Stupid, or its A Big Scene Moment. At least those are some of my thoughts. AlphaDog posted:If the guys with at-will abilities want to continue, they're being dumb in-game, because why the hell wouldn't you retreat and come back when your wizard is fully prepped again? I dont think any of us will convert each other, I just like throwing ideas out that worked for us (for years). 2e as a platform worked nicely, and some of the dismissive 'lol grognard' stuff from last year seemed mis-targetted. The fragile but powerful mages, and the HP juggernaut-fighters made a nice mix. The super-god-wizards that popped up in 3e were awful.
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May 27, 2013 14:32
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The thing about 3.x is that non-casters are supposed to be balanced by being able to fight "forever". Except they can't - their daily resource is HP, and it runs out incredibly quickly unless resupplied by a caster or expensive magic items. Divine casters can heal themselves, and arcane casters have all sorts of tricks to make them difficult or even impossible to damage, whereas non-casters are expected to just suck up hits. A party that insists on continuing after all the healing is gone is a party that is a TPK waiting to happen. This isn't just a metagame issue, it's an in-character thing as well - I mean, these adventures don't want to die!
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May 27, 2013 14:38
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moths posted:Then there's the illusion that wizard powers are off-set by the abundance of arbitrations in D&D that turn them into useless pensioners. Writing the wrong components on your character sheet, a rough night's sleep, or getting your spellbook rained on will ostensibly ruin a spell, a day's worth of magic, or your wizardly career. The classic example is a mean house-cat at level one. Look how weak they are! They've earned win-button easy modes. Yep. The only way the fighter can be fun and viable is by ruining the Wizards day, and if no-one ruins the Wizards day, then he will ruin everyone else's day. That's fundamentally bad design, because it doesn't matter how hard or easy you are on your players, half of them will still be having a lovely time. And that doesn't even get into the more abstract notion that the Wizard essentially becomes the focus of the campaign at this point. Whether a fight is easy or hard is dictated by whether the Wizard has his spells. The decision of whether to press on or rest up revolves around the Wizard (unless you steamroller over them with timed quests, but there's only so much of that you can do before being rightly accused of railroading). There are problems that can be solved with spells that simply can't be solved any other way, at least not without disproportionate amounts of effort. Slowly but surely, the campaign becomes about the Wizard and the rest of the players are reduced to being the blurry out of focus guys in the background. At that point the DM no longer controls whether the campaign is fun or well balanced, it is entirely down to whether the Wizard is a dick. When I was DMing 4e, I actually spent more time trying to outfox the Fighter than anyone else. The Fighter was the guy I had to get past, or misdirect to get to the squishier classes, plus his player really loved using push powers to clever effects. WordMercenary fucked around with this message at 14:45 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 14:43
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ProfessorCirno posted:Really, that goes back to my "common sense" problem. I don't think BECMI solved it because it's not really a problem with the system, not entirely. Magic requires no rolls. Doing a non-magical thing does. And the more ornate or cool your non-magical thing, typically, the more rules it requires. Picking a lock vs knock: one roll. Sure. But: swinging on a chandelier across the fight to leap down and kick a dude in his face vs literally just fly over: I've seen anywhere between two and four rolls. This is a really important point. In 3e, if a Fighter wants to grapple an enemy they first must succeed at a melee touch attack and then beat the opponent's Strength check, which is modified with stuff like the opponent's size relative to the Fighter etc., and if the Fighter loses the Strength check the opponent has the option to grapple the Fighter instead. Same goes for disarm, trip and bull rush, each one not only requires two rolls but each also has a built in chance for the maneuver to be turned around on the Fighter (except for bull rush, which is pretty useless anyway). The Wizard? They declare that they're casting grease, web, entangle, telekinesis or what have you, the enemy makes a saving throw and if they succeed at the saving throw... nothing happens. There's no clause saying that if the opponent saves really hard against a spell, the Wizard suffers the spell's effects instead. Not only is the Fighter playing around with a system where doing something more interesting than "I hit him with a sword" require an extra layer of resolution, but said system also has built-in drawbacks for failure. The Wizard not only never has to roll for whether their spells succeed barring extremely specific and rare circumstances, but there's also no built-in drawbacks for failing to get off a spell beyond "Welp, you lose the spell slot," which are in the end expendable resources. This is why I'm not into "makes sense" mechanics. The more you think about each action that goes into a combat maneuver as a discrete thing the more chances to fail you are building into your system and the more rolls you require to pull off cool things, and anything that unnecessarily gets in the way of PCs doing cool things is lovely. What I'm also trying to say is that D&D Next should be like Dungeon World. EDIT: Also, the fact that some people bring up realism and simulation in a system as abstract as D&D just baffles me. Back when the first playtest package came out the Slayer Fighter had an ability that allowed them to automatically deal their Strength modifier in damage even on a miss. On another forum there was a discussion about how this was "unrealistic," because people took it to mean that the Fighter was auto-killing kobolds with whiffs of air from swinging their waraxe. People seem to forget that because D&D armor class system is so abstract, a miss isn't always a miss in the sense of not connecting (because sometimes you miss by virtue of the enemy wearing too much armor) and that sometimes a hit isn't always a hit in the sense of a solid blow that kills the enemy and draws blood (because of the abstract nature of hit points in D&D). But because abstraction is apparently a four-letter word to some D&D fans, they changed the rule so that now the Fighter needs to roll an unmodified 10+ to be able to use said ability, which just adds an unnecessary complication that makes perfect sense in D&D as an abstraction. (I know some of this may have been changed as well, because I haven't read any of the more recent packages. I got burned out around the time they introduced skills and I saw that they were just an unnecessary layer of modifiers to what was touted as a system purely reliant on ability checks.) Ratpick fucked around with this message at 14:53 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 14:43
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FRINGE posted:I dont think any of us will convert each other, I just like throwing ideas out that worked for us (for years). 2e as a platform worked nicely, and some of the dismissive 'lol grognard' stuff from last year seemed mis-targetted. The only thing I really disagree with you on is the daily martial stuff. I played the gently caress out of 2e from 1992-2004 (so from when I was 12 to when I was 24), and I have a serious soft spot for it. The fighter/wizard thing was way more balanced than in 3e, and I've spent quite a bit of time in this thread and in the "older editions" thread posting about why that is, to people who managed to miss out all the stuff that made wizards balanced. We even went the route of playing Hackmaster instead of 3.x for years because "it's closer to what we like", and that was true. We never really got into 3.x, and although we would have played at least 15 sessions at various times trying to like it, we kept running up against the caster thing, the skill system, the multiclassing, and pretty much everything. Then 4e came along and we actually got into it because we heard "it's like an MMO", and spent the first few sessions cracking jokes about Onyxia and whelps and goddamned Curator and ~~my purpz~~ and waiting to see how awful it was... and it wasn't. It was better than 2e at doing the sort of stuff we'd always loved about 2e.
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May 27, 2013 15:08
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FRINGE posted:The 4rriors that scream grognard once per page will dislike this, but I prefer warriors to have constant and reliable abilities at their disposal Nope, that's basically what a 4e fighter is (thanks rad at-wills!). Hell they even have the most access to the Reliable keyword.
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May 27, 2013 15:24
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It's important to remember that a lack of martial dailies is less realistic than the presence of martial dailies. Pre-4e fighters didn't read like human beings, they read like robots or golems. Real people can go all-out one minute and be winded the next, but an old school fighter just operates at peak capacity from sunrise to sunset for round after round after round. A 3e fighter who's unlocked whirlwind attack can start spinning at the beginning of an extended battle and never stop. That's not just intensely boring, it's bizarre.
Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 15:31 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 15:24
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FRINGE posted:I dont think any of us will convert each other, I just like throwing ideas out that worked for us (for years). 2e as a platform worked nicely, and some of the dismissive 'lol grognard' stuff from last year seemed mis-targetted. And that's our issue with Next. They're releasing an incomplete, poorly balanced, poorly designed system with the assumption that the players and DM will fill in the gaps and fix the math themselves. They're not actually doing their jobs. e: Less rambling version: DM Fiat works great when you have imaginative, confident players and a good, experienced DM with knowledge of the system (and when to ignore it). Assumption of this is Bad Design. Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:52 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 15:47
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Rulebook Heavily posted:This isn't fair in the least, but this is the situation we're contending with in D&D. This is what 4e addressed so readily by levelling the fictional declarative power in scope and among the classes, and this is what we're returning to because the cowboy players whined and moaned about not being special anymore. This is why the entire argument comes off as being so deeply sad. More or less, I find it unacceptable that spellcasters can make more declarations about the game world than martials can. I want both to have wide latitude in shaping the narrative.
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May 27, 2013 16:02
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FRINGE posted:I agree. The problem isn't GMs out to "ruin the game for players" though. The problem is that what you think is "common sense" I think isn't. There doesn't have to be anything malicious in your intentions for me to still think that what you feel is "common sense" and "realistic" is what I think is "stupid loving bullshit" and vice versa. Cirno and RulebookHeavily have laid this out in abundant detail..."common sense" in these cases often means "roll more and have more chances of failure" while magic means getting to cheat and break all the rules because, well, magic is cheating right? So it "makes sense" that's how magic should work, by letting you break the rules of the game just like wizards break the rules of reality. So you have one set of characters whose actions are dictated by "common sense" which really means "whatever any particular GM thinks is realistic at any given moment" and one set of characters whose actions are enabled by whatever rule-breaking spells they have. The "common sense" GM, then, wants to balance breaking the rules with not-being-able-to-break-the-rules by saying that because people can not-break-the-rules all they want that this is balanced. There doesn't have to be anything malicious or sadistic at work there for that system to produce less than satisfactory results. Littlefinger posted:Martials had to cope with inconsistent d20 rolls every round of combat, whereas wizards could just go "I throw a fireball right there, I don't need to aim because magic Thought experiment: let's invert this. If you absolutely have to have martial characters without any sort of limited-but-renewable resource like Daily powers and have to have spellcasters with things like Dailies, then turn this setup around. Martial abilities are all at-will but are all declarative...they all just work, no rolling required. Because they're just body motions, right? And these are trained adventurers, right? They still have to roll to-hit and stuff, sure, but martial characters get abilities that work like the Executioner's "Ghost of the Rooftops" which just says "you can automatically jump or climb up to your speed in distance as a regular Move action, no roll necessary." Things like that. If a Fighter wants to grapple someone and has the Swole Grappler technique then he just grapples them, says "I'm grappling this guy" and bam, grappled. That guy can try and escape, sure, maybe try and turn things around on the Fighter, but there's no "okay, roll to grapple, now roll to not be tripped, now roll to blah blah blah." If the Rogue wants to swing from the chandelier he just does, period. Spells, meanwhile, require rolling and are in no way guaranteed to work consistently. I wouldn't make it some spiteful "lol you summon a Balor, everybody dies, tee hee" Warhammer Fantasy thing, but a Wizard casting a spell wouldn't be "step back, I've got this," it would be "I sure hope this works." Spells could be extremely powerful...if the Wizard rolls well and if the enemy's saves don't protect them or if the Wizard doesn't miscast or something. Again, the goal isn't to be malicious here, a spellcaster should want to cast spells, but magic wouldn't be the predictable thing it is now, which means that no spellcaster could ever cast a spell and know "okay, this will work at least X well, more likely it'll work Y well, which means this will have Z result so I've totally got this in the bag." Sometimes magic would have unpredictable results, some of which could be good but some of which could be added complications. I'd probably give casters some minor at-will stuff so they aren't running into the Warhammer "try and light a candle, head explodes" sort of thing, but if you want to break out the big reality hacks you have to do so with the idea that things may not work out 100% the way you want them to every time. I have no idea if this would work or be fun or what, but there you go.
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May 27, 2013 18:23
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FRINGE posted:Until these threads I didnt think that anyone actually played games where the DM was out to ruin the game for the players (and especially never would have assumed that the players kept coming back). No, it's more that a player that's relying on DM-fiat for his coolness has no agency in a game about imaginary dudes doing stuff. And if the DM isn't on the ball and have all the players' abilities memorized, then even with the best of intentions the fiat-reliant players aren't going to have their fair shot at shining. The DM has enough stuff going on to not put the players' ability to affect the game on his/her shoulders too. That's why I play games like D&D 4e, Fate, and Dungeon World. In each of those games, the players all have their own individual ways of interjecting onto the narrative and saying that they'd like to be cool now. Otherwise I can't keep it all straight, since I've generally got enough stuff going on just keeping the game moving.
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May 27, 2013 18:32
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I never understood the simulationist versimilitude thing for two reasons. One, it's a game, you are playing a game, and those are the rules of the game. I hate to bring up chess because it makes me sound like a grog, but the whole "But why can't my fighter do this more than once?" feels a bit like saying "Why can't my pawn move two squares EVERY turn?" The other reason I don't understand it is are people really stopping play to complain that dailies make no sense? Maybe it's me, maybe I'm the, but are people's games so boring that they're thinking about things like this while playing? Is it really worth getting upset at what you perceive as a small inconsistency in something that's designed to abstract to the point of complete unreality? Maybe the players are the problem then, and not necessarily the mechanics. If someone's truly aiming for gritty grimdark, I can't imagine why they'd choose D&D in any edition, or any combat heavy system. If things are that dire in your fantasy world, then it'd be far more important to only fight as a bitter, terrible last resort.
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May 27, 2013 18:50
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Littlefinger posted:Skill monkeys and strongmen always had to make some kind of check with a chance of failure, while wizards could go "oh, the rogue couldn't pick a simple lock, I guess I'll just read my Knock scroll  - a good question from AD&D 2e, The Complete Necromancers Handbook.  Speaking of necromancers, any information on specialist mages in Next yet?
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May 27, 2013 19:14
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Kai Tave posted:The problem isn't GMs out to "ruin the game for players" though. He's getting better though.
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May 27, 2013 19:21
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Well, breaking the system is a kind of fun for some people.
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May 27, 2013 20:39
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Are these playtest updates supposed to be progressive revisions, or are they just supposed to test a bunch of different mechanics? I'm still holding out hope that they'll take all the feedback they've been getting and bring together something really good for the official release.
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May 27, 2013 20:46
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citybeatnik posted:As a hilarious counter example, and to stir the pot a bit, my current DM is so used to people trying to people trying to CharOp that he's afraid of off the wall stuff out a worry that our new group is trying to pick stuff less for fun and more to break the system. Eh, so am I. 3e was really, really bad in that respect (and 2e too), so there's a lot of distrust from DMs, especially because new stuff meant a ton of work on their parts. It's not ruining the game - quite the opposite: it's DMs who want to try and work out a fun game for everyone.
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May 27, 2013 22:06
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Arivia posted:Eh, so am I. 3e was really, really bad in that respect (and 2e too), so there's a lot of distrust from DMs, especially because new stuff meant a ton of work on their parts. It's not ruining the game - quite the opposite: it's DMs who want to try and work out a fun game for everyone. We're also doing 3.5, which is also hilarious for much the same reason. I assume it's due to the fact he's got all the books or something similar, as he's really dismissive of anything else. Meanwhile, i just want to be able to do kooky stuff with my underpowered gnome ranger.
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May 27, 2013 22:12
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Mormon Star Wars posted:
(timg link is broken, by the way) Wizard specializations in Next can be summarized as follows:
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May 27, 2013 22:31
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Splicer posted:e: Less rambling version: DM Fiat works great when you have imaginative, confident players and a good, experienced DM with knowledge of the system (and when to ignore it). Assumption of this is Bad Design. In the unlikely event that I was running a game for a table full of: Kai Tave posted:The problem isn't GMs out to "ruin the game for players" though. The problem is that what you think is "common sense" I think isn't. There doesn't have to be anything malicious in your intentions for me to still think that what you feel is "common sense" and "realistic" is what I think is "stupid loving bullshit" and vice versa. A) (less wise of me, less likely, but possibly interesting for them if they knew/trusted me to begin with) I would convince them to try my stuff the way I had it set up they would end up liking my narrative refereeing so much they would soften their opinions on the specifics B) (more wise of me, more likely, more predictable for them) I would figure out what they expected and make the story wrap around those mechanical expectations.
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May 27, 2013 22:49
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Rexides posted:Well, breaking the system is a kind of fun for some people. Then they should look into software QA and do it professionally. Because, speaking only for myself, its not fun for the GM who has to deal with the "hahaha... I summon a whale and drop it on the bad guys." Varjon posted:I never understood the simulationist versimilitude thing for two reasons. One, it's a game, you are playing a game, and those are the rules of the game. I hate to bring up chess because it makes me sound like a grog, but the whole "But why can't my fighter do this more than once?" feels a bit like saying "Why can't my pawn move two squares EVERY turn?" This is a fair enough critique, which I totally accept. The thing I think that gets in the craw of some table top gamers is their sense that they are in control of their character, and there is a demand that, at least subconsciously, the GM reflect their character actions in a believable way. That I think is why, for instance, there is such resistance to railroading. In video games, even with Western RPGs and their whole incorporation of more standard RPG elements, we don't really complain too much that we're railroaded into a certain set of choices, or a certain number of pre-determined endings. If I was GMing a game and I did this to my players, however, I'd hear about it. In the end though, you're right, and *my* personal resistance to just saying "these are just the rules of the game" prevented me from getting into what turned out to be an excellent set of mechanics that 4e represented for years. When I was finally able to say, "I don't want to hear it, its just how the mechanics works," it turned out I really, really liked the engine. quote:If someone's truly aiming for gritty grimdark, I can't imagine why they'd choose D&D in any edition, or any combat heavy system. If things are that dire in your fantasy world, then it'd be far more important to only fight as a bitter, terrible last resort. It depends on your attitude about the game your running, what you enjoy, and the game world. For instance, for the dnd campaign I'm running, I do want my games to be a little more gritty and realistic, but not necessarily have the attitude that fighting is going to loving kill a player every time. This is easy to accomplish by just doing stuff like (real examples from games I've run): 1. No healing potions, guys. Sorry. 2. There are no such thing as halflings, dragonborn, tieflings, Goliaths, Pixies... whatever flavor I don't want. Though if you want to play a halfling, I'm more than happy to write them in as a population of humans that, for story reasons, are just smaller. Like Pygmies. Sure, I can do that with Golaiths too. You really want to play a Tiefling? Well explain to me what they are, and how they exist. But keep in mind in this particular world the gods (and their minions) don't actually touch the world in the sense that would allow you to be demon spawn. Dragonborn? Again, you know the world we're playing in. Tell me what these are, how they exist, but there are no dragons or lizard looking people on this planet. 3. Yes, magic exists and is studied. In fact, divine magic and arcane magic are both like special rules of physics that can be harnessed in this universe. Bob, as a spell caster, you can actually see magic being used, and can interpret how its being used, but your spells don't make a magical raven appear above your target, and no, magic missile doesn't look like a golden arrow. Also, you can tell when Tim the divine caster over there is using magic, see him do it, but you have no idea how he's putting that stuff together or what he's trying to do. 4. Everyone starts with 3 languages. If you're class starts with extra, they're added on top of that 3. Why? Because there is no such thing as common. In this particular region the humans speak Antaliisian. Two hundred miles to the north, the speak Faroolian. That tribe in the mountains speaks Mountain Tongue. The elves, which group? Their languages are like romance languages, similar but different enough that "Elvish" isn't going to cut it. On the other hand when I'm running 40k RPG my players and I start out embracing two facts about the world in which the characters inhabit. First, avoid fighting when you can, but here life is cheap and violence is a way of life. Second, life is cheap and violence is a way of life... I know we get attached to these characters, but there is a reason you have two--one you play, the other we sort of talk about what they're doing in relation to the party, and you level up with the exact same amount of XP you're main PC has. When you're PC dies, which will probably happen, you'll play the other character, and then roll a replacement for your backup. This way when things happen, like they did in a game a couple weeks ago, where PCs die or get really hosed up because, oh look the psyker rolled on perils of the warp twice, I'm told after the game, "awesome loving game! I can't believe Bob's Commissar snapped like that and just started carving up other party members with his chainsword. Tim, let this be a lesson! Go big or go home, never stop pushing your psyker powers!" ZombieLenin fucked around with this message at 01:24 on May 28, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 00:52
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