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ProfessorCirno posted:2) NPCs loving everywhere doing all the actual important poo poo Oh, right. Fuckin' Raistlin Majere.
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Jan 11, 2014 02:17
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ProfessorCirno posted:DL as I understand was the start of three things. Also every little loving thing about the world was spelled out, down to the recipes in the goddamn inn and the sheet music for the songs. I loved to read about that poo poo in my early teens, and pick out the songs on my lovely guitar, and try to make Otik's spiced loving potatoes. RPG campaign settings need great big spaces where all that is known is "Mountains, could be dragons or something" and "forests, probably evil" and several areas labelled the in-world equivalent of "gently caress knows". Forgotten Realms ended up with the same problem. It's not much of a problem if you just change things, but then it's pointless to have such a detailed setting.
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Jan 11, 2014 02:31
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Brewsuke posted:Seeing as the first D&D campaign I participated in was a Dragonlance homebrew for 4e, I'm a little confused about what's so funny about Dragonlance. I could be missing something, I never claimed to be an expert. Dragonlance was basically the first ever Adventure Path. And as such it managed to make almost all the mistakes you can ever imagine seeing in professionally published adventure paths from the Obscure Death Rule (main characters can't die - the plot needs them) to NPCs doing the important stuff to massive, massive railroads. (A much better AP from the same period is The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay). In addition to almost all the mistakes you can make with an AP and a morality system that's ... awkward, the Dragonlance setting unleashed three scourges on D&D. 1: Tinker Gnomes. Gnomish mad scientists. Now I don't have a problem with them - but they don't fit the tone of all games. 2: Gully Dwarves. Dwarves short, stupid, dirty, inbred cousins. If Frank Trollman is to be believed Gully Dwarves are basically an ethnic joke. 3: Kender. And there is never an excuse for Kender. And the views of most players who have ever even thought about having a kender at the table is summed up by the annotated version (from memory annotated by Ettin?) neonchameleon fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 02:43
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Aw, I like Kender. Then again, I can see why people would hate them. They're kinda. Well, annoying is a good description, if a little underwhelming.
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Jan 11, 2014 03:26
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Brewsuke posted:Aw, I like Kender. Then again, I can see why people would hate them. They're kinda. Well, annoying is a good description, if a little underwhelming. They are a race of people who should not be capable of having organized society. While this is true of many fantasy races the Kender do it by hinging on something that no other sentient race could deal with even at their most wicked. The entire race is an excuse for the DM, or god forbid another player at the table, to be an unending dickbag.
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Jan 11, 2014 03:35
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Brewsuke posted:Aw, I like Kender. Then again, I can see why people would hate them. They're kinda. Well, annoying is a good description, if a little underwhelming. It is possible for people to play Kender as useful and productive members of the party. But normally they are one step below Fishmalks in the "Character types we want to see" scale. The race is nothing more than an excuse for being a jerk.
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Jan 11, 2014 03:37
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I toyed with the idea of making a Kender Paladin once. Every night before going to bed he'd have to go through his pack so he can give back the items that members of the party "dropped".
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Jan 11, 2014 03:38
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Nihilarian posted:I toyed with the idea of making a Kender Paladin once. Every night before going to bed he'd have to go through his pack so he can give back the items that members of the party "dropped". The best kender come in two sorts. 1: It's a running joke that the PCs just drop in "After reclaiming my [whatever] from the kender, I..." 2: Ones who actually don't understand about personal property. And so reallocate things so the wizard always has the scrolls - and possibly ones they didn't expect. Planting as much as stealing. Not too stupid to understand that others value things even if they don't.
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Jan 11, 2014 05:04
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Two important things about Tinker Gnomes: Dragonlance didn't invent Gnomish Mad Scientists. Mystara did! Top Ballista was a Creature Crucible book for the Known World (Mystara) setting focused on a flying city build by gnomish engineers who had a racial ability to invent unique devices using their racial grasp of "fantasy physics." Gnomish techno-magicians also later show up in the Forgotten Realms - they're a part of three major D&D settings. (If you'll take a look at the Top Ballista cover, you'll notice that the gnomes are flying bi-planes.  )Also, Tinker Gnomes rule because 'Smart but eccentric inventors' gives them an actual niche, which they otherwise lack. With regular gnomes, you have a problem - what's their gimmick? Are they just dwarves who are skinny and beardless? Are they hobbits who talk to badgers instead of eating pies? Tinker Gnomes are basically ciphers for whatever modern ideas you want to put in your fantasy game. If you want constitutional monarchies, elections, nautilus style submarines, less-than-lethal lightning weapons, or a can that scares the cult leader with a rubber snake when he opens it, you are going to want some Tinker Gnomes.
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Jan 11, 2014 06:32
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I always liked 4E keeping them fey as heck and not actually having them show up until a bit of a Feywild focus came along But the Feywild ruled so, yeah
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Jan 11, 2014 07:19
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Jan Jansen is all the excuse I need to not resent the existence of tinker-gnomes.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:00
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Mecheon posted:I always liked 4E keeping them fey as heck and not actually having them show up until a bit of a Feywild focus came along Man, the Feywild is the poo poo. Just. So much potential for a bunch of crazy, Midsummer Night's Dream style stuff to happen in a campaign.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:05
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Barudak posted:They are a race of people who should not be capable of having organized society. While this is true of many fantasy races the Kender do it by hinging on something that no other sentient race could deal with even at their most wicked. See, that isn't even that much of a problem, because if that was it, the PCs would say: "Okay, I take my poo poo back from the Kender, tie him up, and tattoo THEIF on his forehead exactly like the last dozen kender we met, and keep walking." The problem is that the book says that the bullshit Kender heap on everyone else is definitionally Good and Kind and Not Theft At All, and the only people who really hate the twee little fuckers are evil races like Draconians and Ogres and the like. They seriously encourage fishmalk behavior. Fishmalk is the as-written way to play them. Basically, they're the single worst piece of game design from the 2e era, and that's saying a lot.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:18
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Feywild is pretty awesome. Lots of fun to be had there with a good DM. Also I like the gnomes as fey in 4E because then it becomes clear what the difference is between halflings and gnomes. This might seem obvious to people steeped in the fantasy genre but to many newer players I've found that people have a hard time telling the difference between the two.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:22
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PeterWeller posted:Not releasing collectors' reprints of the RC or some 4E core books because they are stupid and don't want me to give them more money for stuff I already have. I think it's sad they've done nice reprints of every edition but the two best. I can understand not releasing 4E stuff so soon after it wrapped up, but BECMI could be done with just a nice (Red) box and/or book, and it would clean up with the OSR crowd and a lot of other gamers. As far as I understand it, there are a lot of residual office politics relating to Basic ever since Gygax's departure from the company also took Mentzer, the big man on the Basic sets, along with him. Internally, no one wanted to associate with "the Mentzer project" and Basic got essentially ignored by management, and it's a trend that's lingered as people from TSR have hung on and kept forming policy. It's also why a complete unknown like Bruce Heard managed to get oversight and put the then relatively inexperienced Aaron Allston in charge of a flagship product for Basic that introduced a bunch of innovations and did things D&D just doesn't do at all even today. The line basically got to do whatever it wanted because everyone in charge was busy pretending it didn't exist because of office politics. You'd think those would ease up after forty years, but Next kind of proves how concerned the management team on D&D is with past products. So, a reprint might happen, but don't hold your breath.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:35
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Are the different groups of tinker gnomes connected and in contact via Spelljammer in that setting?
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Jan 11, 2014 09:00
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neonchameleon posted:Dragonlance was basically the first ever Adventure Path. And as such it managed to make almost all the mistakes you can ever imagine seeing in professionally published adventure paths from the Obscure Death Rule (main characters can't die - the plot needs them) to NPCs doing the important stuff to massive, massive railroads. This isn't exactly true. While the DL modules were massive railroads, the players got to control all the protagonists (you didn't really play acharacter, you played different characters from a growing and changing pool, sorta like a JRPG) and were always at the center of the action. Mormon Star Wars posted:Also, Tinker Gnomes rule because 'Smart but eccentric inventors' gives them an actual niche, which they otherwise lack. With regular gnomes, you have a problem - what's their gimmick? Are they just dwarves who are skinny and beardless? Are they hobbits who talk to badgers instead of eating pies? Tinker Gnomes are basically ciphers for whatever modern ideas you want to put in your fantasy game. If you want constitutional monarchies, elections, nautilus style submarines, less-than-lethal lightning weapons, or a can that scares the cult leader with a rubber snake when he opens it, you are going to want some Tinker Gnomes. The problem with DL Tinker Gnomes is that instead of being 'smart but eccentric inventors,' they are 'Rube Goldberg with an astonishing disregard for basic safety.' It goes all out playing them for laughs, which is fine when they're relegated to a comic interlude in a long story, but is a little thin for a full campaign setting. Kender suffer from a similar problem. The whole kleptomaniac gimmick works when there is all of one Kender in the entire story. Less ridiculous takes on Tinker Gnomes and Kender can be found in the Taladas sub-setting, which also features Minotaur Rome and a nation of discarded Draconians. Mimir posted:Are the different groups of tinker gnomes connected and in contact via Spelljammer in that setting? They're in very very loose contact. They have nothing like the Armada that unites the Elves or even the sparse trading routes that connect the Dwarfs. Rulebook Heavily posted:As far as I understand it, there are a lot of residual office politics relating to Basic ever since Gygax's departure from the company also took Mentzer, the big man on the Basic sets, along with him. Internally, no one wanted to associate with "the Mentzer project" and Basic got essentially ignored by management, and it's a trend that's lingered as people from TSR have hung on and kept forming policy. Interesting. Thanks for the info. It's sad that politics from 30 years ago with entirely different people in an entirely different company might gently caress up what is a sure fire best seller. PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 11:35
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"We already addressed basic with a hundred dollar box of pamphlets, what else could you want?"  I suspect that one reason we didn't get a deluxe edition RC is that it does everything they're pretending Next can do.
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Jan 11, 2014 13:54
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Veering back to a D&D movie for just a moment, if I were pressed to suggest anything for a new D&D movie it would, yes, be from the Forgotten Realms. But not Elminster or Drizzt or any of the usual suspects. No, I'd be pressing for a Cormyr movie, preferably an adaptation (with the extra baggage removed, streamlining is a good thing) of Beyond The High Road and Death Of The Dragon. Or even just Death Of The Dragon. There's the kind of competition needed against hobbits and GoT, not Drizzt or an old codger in robes flapping around.
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Jan 11, 2014 15:26
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Mormon Star Wars posted:Two important things about Tinker Gnomes: 
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Jan 11, 2014 16:12
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moths posted:"We already addressed basic with a hundred dollar box of pamphlets, what else could you want?" The funny this is I believe if you adjust for inflation the box is actually cheaper than buying all the pamphlets was back when they were released: Volumes 1,2,3 were $10 on release in 1974 which is $47.28 in 2013 Greyhawk was $2.50, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizard, and Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes were $5 for a total of $17.50 or $82.73 in 2013 Total cost of the books on release in 2013 dollars: $130.01 Total cost of the box on Amazon: $87.74 So Original D&D has actually never been cheaper!
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Jan 11, 2014 18:50
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Rosalind posted:The funny this is I believe if you adjust for inflation the box is actually cheaper than buying all the pamphlets was back when they were released: I'm genuinely surprised they haven't used this exact logic to advertise it. The continuing lack of support for older editions and web-based stuff is just baffling.
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Jan 12, 2014 03:18
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dwarf74 posted:Pretty sure Creature Crucible was published after Dragonlance. Yeah, 1989 for Top Ballista. Darnit! Is this worth embracing revisionism over?
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Jan 12, 2014 03:30
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Daetrin posted:I'm genuinely surprised they haven't used this exact logic to advertise it. The web-based has to have a huge story behind it, they were SUPER SUPER into online crap and DDI and the such when 4e launched and like nothing they promised was ever delivered.
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Jan 12, 2014 04:43
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socialsecurity posted:The web-based has to have a huge story behind it, they were SUPER SUPER into online crap and DDI and the such when 4e launched and like nothing they promised was ever delivered. There was the whole drama with the virtual table, but surely that didn't poison all their online stuff. Right?
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Jan 12, 2014 04:57
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It was ruined by a murder/suicide. The lead developer was killed by her husband. Then her husband killed himself. Really ugly and sad. http://www.examiner.com/article/the-murder-suicide-that-derailed-4th-edition-dungeons-dragons-online They were obviously doing it with a shoestring budget, since she was 'it' and losing her scuttled the project.
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Jan 12, 2014 05:05
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taichara posted:Veering back to a D&D movie for just a moment, if I were pressed to suggest anything for a new D&D movie it would, yes, be from the Forgotten Realms. But not Elminster or Drizzt or any of the usual suspects. No, I'd be pressing for a Cormyr movie, preferably an adaptation (with the extra baggage removed, streamlining is a good thing) of Beyond The High Road and Death Of The Dragon. Or even just Death Of The Dragon. I think the best way to do a D&D movie would be to bill it as an action comedy with the "heroes" acting like your standard PCs. A pedantic Cleric telling the Rogue with a broken arm to "call me when you're really hurt". Or legendary heroic swordsmen that are in fact complete pricks to everyone they meet and let allies get murdered so they can call dibs on a bit of magic armor. Basically a more universal/bigger budget Journeyquest or less lovely Your Highness.
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Jan 12, 2014 06:09
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Razorwired posted:I think the best way to do a D&D movie would be to bill it as an action comedy with the "heroes" acting like your standard PCs. A pedantic Cleric telling the Rogue with a broken arm to "call me when you're really hurt". Or legendary heroic swordsmen that are in fact complete pricks to everyone they meet and let allies get murdered so they can call dibs on a bit of magic armor.  ... I know, I know, you said "less lovely."
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Jan 12, 2014 06:59
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 What are those umlauts doing there what are they up to. No. Stop. 
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Jan 12, 2014 07:31
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Razorwired posted:I think the best way to do a D&D movie would be to bill it as an action comedy with the "heroes" acting like your standard PCs. A pedantic Cleric telling the Rogue with a broken arm to "call me when you're really hurt". Or legendary heroic swordsmen that are in fact complete pricks to everyone they meet and let allies get murdered so they can call dibs on a bit of magic armor. It's been mentioned before but Fell's Five would make a delightful movie/series, if only thanks to scenes like this:  : Hey Orc Warboss, I challenge you to a one on one fight to the death to decide the fate of this caravan. Choose your weapon, because no matter what weapon you choose I'll be able to fight you with it! : Choose stone.: ... stone what? Stone axe, stone spear, sto-: *hits him in the face with a large rock*
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Jan 12, 2014 08:20
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Fell's Five is great because it's everything roleplayers wish their D&D sessions could be...it's got action, it's got heist stuff, it's got humor and sharp dialogue...but it also avoids getting meta over the whole thing or winking at the audience about HEY GUYS DID YOU KNOW THIS IS BASED ON A ROLEPLAYING GAME The downside to Fell's Five is that nothing that makes it good is contingent on it being a D&D-branded property. If you filed the serial numbers off of it, changed some names around here and there, it would be just as entertaining as before, which means the D&D branding is utterly extraneous to the quality of the finished product. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere. Really, if you wanted to take your best shot at actually leveraging the D&D brand for a genuinely successful movie you'd pretty much have to make it about Drizzt, he's the only D&D character that people who don't regularly play D&D are even likely to recognize or care about these days.
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Jan 12, 2014 08:31
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They should just pretty much rip-off The Princess Bride. Make Westley a rogue, Vizzini a dragon, Fezzik an orc, and Montoya a fighter. Add in some cleric and some wizard junk somewhere. Change some people into orcs, halflings, etc. Give Drizzt a cameo somewhere. Use the frame story but instead of a kid in bed make it some kids playing D&D and the grampa is DMing.
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Jan 12, 2014 14:23
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A remake of The Producers about Wizards making the new edition.
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Jan 12, 2014 18:35
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Rexides posted:A remake of The Producers about Wizards making the new edition. Springtime for THAC0! And caster primacy!
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Jan 12, 2014 18:55
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Daetrin posted:Springtime for THAC0! And caster primacy! I distinctly remember someone posting lyrics to "Springtime for Grogs" in one of the iterations of this thread. It was hilarious and I apologize if this constitutes posting about posting.
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Jan 12, 2014 19:01
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Rosalind posted:Give Drizzt a cameo somewhere.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:01
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Jimbozig posted:How would hollywood handle drow? Using blackface? Insensitive. Okay in a cheap fan film on youtube but would get called out in a major hollywood film. Using a black actor? Better, but some nerds will think it's the wrong skin tone. Also implies black people are evil. Maybe blackface a black actor and get all the best/worst of both worlds? 
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Jan 13, 2014 01:05
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Thor: The Dark World just had Drow, in a big-budget film, two months ago. 
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Jan 13, 2014 01:12
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Mimir posted:Thor: The Dark World just had Drow, in a big-budget film, two months ago. Yeah, serious answer no one really gives a poo poo about the exact skin tone of a made up elf. At least like, not anyone relevant to actually making a movie.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:15
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Mimir posted:Thor: The Dark World just had Drow, in a big-budget film, two months ago. This is an awesome picture for an underground elf character, holy moly.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:16
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