Thread about whether Orcs or Drow make better waifus posted:

That's retarded. White women are EASILY the least attractive of any race IMHO. Nothing to do with skin tone, only facial features. In fact I love alabaster skin. But when it comes to exotic beauty white girls fall short.

quote:

As an overall observation I do hope that Paizo is able to contain the bloat. New classes should only be added to fill an empty niche, and then only when an archetype would not be enough. And as a rule, an archetype should not be as good as the base class.

quote:

Dating The Creepiest Gamer Ever

The creepiest gamer I ever met was my ex-husband. There is so much creepy overflowing in that withered little man, but I will try to limit it to game-related, or we could be here for a very long time.

Let's call him Jake. Jake and I were high school sweethearts. At first he actively hid his role-playing from me, then after I found some of his books, he briefly explained what role-playing was. He started telling me about his campaigns and characters, at first keeping it vague, and only bringing it up during related conversation. Slowly and inexorably, every conversation started to turn to role-playing. During pillow talk, long walks, midnight phone calls, he would rush through the bare minimum of non-role-playing related discussion so he could get back to the important stuff: wizards, and whether they had bagged the goddess Isis yet.

I had assumed when he told me about his campaigns, he was describing things he had done with his friends. One day he admitted to me that he hadn't played in a campaign with other people in years (“not since I thought D&D was cool,” he'd scoff), but he made campaigns to play by himself, constantly. Not just brainstorming, not rolling up characters, not imagining storylines; he was actually creating a full contingent of players, NPCs, settings, and storylines and then playing them all by himself for months on end. He wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't eat, he would just roll roll roll, and then come over to my house in the middle of the night, stand outside my window while I was sleeping, and manically describe the battle his warriors had just had. He joked his one-man campaigns were like what they say about alcoholics and drinking alone. It was funny until I found all the places he was stashing his role-playing books, how many crevices of his life were filled with character sheets. He even stuffed them into my backpack, just in case.

I was actually pretty interested in role-playing, but every time I showed the barest glimmer of enjoyment he would keep me up all night long forcing me to make characters, like I was some RPG sweatshop. Did it matter if I had to work or go to school in the morning? No, I had to stay up to register on his role-playing forums so I could read his posts about role-playing, or I really couldn't understand the full flavor of it. I'd tell him I was getting burned out he would back off for maybe a day or two. But once he had proposed marriage and figured I was good and stuck with him, he would hit me with: “Well, you tell me about your day all the time and I don't care about that, but I listen because I'm not a bitch.” Once we had reached this point in our relationship, we no longer did things together. Instead, I would come over to his house and watch him roll up characters. Eventually I would fall asleep, and he would wake me up to yell about how rude I was being, coming over to his house just to fall asleep. So I tried to stay awake, talk to him, maybe even pitch some character ideas, but in the middle of my sentences he would leave the room to go read a role-playing book somewhere else. When I found him and asked why he'd left while I was talking, he'd say that I was always chattering at him when he was obviously trying to work.

Jake exclusively played games from the most rule-heavy, fanbase-screwing, complicated, nonsensical company out there (name omitted because I know how rabidly Jake googles any mention of his favorite company). For many years, I thought that was the only gaming system available, which served to crush most of my blossoming love for role-playing. There were times when he'd drag me out to a gaming store and I'd pick up a handbook that looked interesting, only to have him snatch it away and go on a long diatribe about how that wasn't a real role-playing game, and the people who liked it were simple-minded and boring because they didn't understand what role-playing was all about. Now, if you want a real role-playing book, you should buy this one for me...

Because of the complexity of the rules, and Jake's insistence that I also utilize the dozens of tables he had created for his own personal use, I was unable for about a year to make a character on my own without his assistance. If I managed to get through all the stats but couldn't handle equipment, Jake would pat me on the head, tell me I'd for sure get it next time, then hand me a character he had made for his lonesome one-man campaign. Did I want to give them a special power? Too bad, it doesn't work with the plot. Maybe they have a mysterious figure from the past? Oh, no, definitely not, I've already figured out who his father is, and it's a secret and I can't tell you but man it is such an awesome plot twist you are going to love it.

Despite all this, I somehow managed to enjoy role-playing, in concept if not in practice, and after about a year of directed study I managed to put together a few characters on my own, come up with a detailed backstory, and a framework for a basic campaign. I had hidden this from Jake because I wanted it to be a surprise. When I finally showed it to him, he spent a few silent moments looking it over, then told me my ideas were really amateur, and obviously I didn't understand the concept, or the rules, or how to run a game, that I was more or less just scribbling on paper, but it was cute that I tried. If I wanted to try making a real character, though, he had an idea he thought I would just love, and if I wanted to work on a real campaign I could copyedit his thirty page manifesto and his additional 10 page outline and timeline for an alternate universe. In fact, I did copyedit it, and even offered to write up some fiction interludes, which would give it enough meat to be its own role-playing book. Jake was very excited about the idea, until I pitched him the story I had come up with to illustrate one of his character concepts. He dismissed it as having too much “emotional stuff” going on (the character discovered her powers and pondered if it was moral to use them). You couldn't even tell what her stats were, he said. Nobody's going to read that.

After a while, Jake started running campaigns with real people (so to speak) and I was always dragged along, still determined to like role-playing despite him. His group was a collection of autistics, munchkins, and generally maladjusted misogynists who, session after session, could not fail to say "Why is she here?" or "Show us your tits, hur hur" in rapid succession. Rather than defend me, Jake would demand I sit near him so he could continually grope me throughout the session. When I told him I didn't appreciate him groping me when I'd asked him not to, he'd ask me why we were dating if he didn't get to grope me whenever he wanted, or, my personal favorite, he'd say he needed to do it so everybody else knew he was a “King Geek.”

After some time, I begged off the gaming sessions, saying I was happy to hear him talk about role-playing, happy to read his books, happy to help him make campaigns and characters, but I just didn't feel like playing anymore. We fought for hours while he called me lazy, boring, stupid, anti-social, neurotic, crazy, a quitter, etc. The arguments were non-stop, he would wake me up in the middle of the night just to tell me some zinger he had thought up about why my not role-playing was comparable to refusing to give him sex. I finally gave in and kept role-playing, until, well, until I left him.

No matter where he was, what was going on, who was talking, Jake was role-playing in some way, shape, or form. When Jake got home from class, he had no notes on the lecture, only notes on ninjas. He would wake me up in the middle of the night to make me look at a character he had just created. He would call me at work to inquire about whether I would be too tired and lazy to role-play when I got home. Sometimes I had to tell him to shut up during sex. When we walked down the street, he would sometimes jump back and forth, make odd creeping gestures, wave his hand in front of him, or lag behind me to check out surrounding scenery. He was fighting role-playing battles in his head. If we stopped on the street to talk to friends, he would pull out an imaginary laser gun and shoot at passerby for a while (thankfully, it was rare that he made the accompanying pyoo pyoo sounds, but it did happen). If he got bored with this, he would interrupt me and my friend mid-conversation in order to start talking about his latest character concept. Even at dinner with his family, if I looked under the table I would never fail to see him pulling an imaginary wakizashi out of its sheath to slay an imaginary demon. Near the end, he had even begun to do it over the table. His family would just glaze over and talk around him while he made threatening gestures at the turkey. His family never said anything to him; the closest they came was feebly joking about how astonishingly fast I was putting back the wine. During one Christmas dinner, Jake began talking rapidly about a wizard he had made with spells that killed babies. His family became increasingly more uncomfortable, yet nobody said anything. Finally, four glasses of wine in me, I managed to blurt out, “Darling, you have such stimulating dinner conversation!” as I slammed the butt of my fork on the table in a drunken temper tantrum. Still, nobody said anything to him, but it did shut him up, and I noticed after that his parents always made sure to set a bottle of wine next to my place setting.

Jake had a vast collection of books from that singular horrible role-playing company; it took up the entirety of a bookshelf I bought for him as a surprise present, but really as an attempt to get the role-playing books out of our bed. But Jake could never stand to be physically separated from his books for long. When I would force him to come to bed, he would bring a book, prop it up against my sleeping body, and take notes until I woke up and had to go work, at which point he would follow me into the bathroom, into the shower, and all the way out the door, telling me about the characters he had made while I slept. I learned pretty quickly not to complain about his obsessive reading habits or I would get subjected to a tirade about how my reading habits (history and social theory) were far worse, and my attempts to discuss the books I read banal and socially desperate.

The sheer amount of books he owned horrified all worthwhile guests, who never returned, and attracted other creepy gamers like snorting boystink flies. While at home, Jake always had a book in his lap. It didn't matter if we were watching a movie, eating dinner, had just finished sexin', if he was on the phone with his parents, if he was doing his homework at the same time. His books were an additional appendage. Once I was so foolish as to think there was an easy way to distract him from his books, and I offered him sexual acts I had heard boys were enamored of (i.e. oral sex). “Boys don't actually want that all the time,” he'd say. “That's a myth. It's really offensive that you think boys are that simple.” Although in all fairness, I should admit that it did work once, though I caught him glancing at his book out of the corner of his eye, and afterwards he picked it right back up and started reading where he left off, mentioning casually, “Now I know how much you must hate it when I bug you for sex.”

Nothing meant anything to Jake unless he could slap some stats on it. When we met new people we enjoyed, Jake would ask me later, "What character class do you think he would be?" When he tired of his usual solitary campaigns, Jake would try and stat out all his friends and family members and re-create them in his favorite role-playing setting. One of the sweetest compliments he ever gave me, which illustrates both what he thought was sweet and how rarely he complimented me, was when he statted me out and gave me a moderately high attractiveness rating (generalized terms used here
to avoid identification from the creepy googler ex-husband). "Oh, only 14?" I said, joking. "It's a 14 on paper," he told me, "but a 21 in my heart." Then he looked at me like he was waiting for me to melt. Oh god I am creeping out just thinking about it.

During one of these periods, he agonized for weeks over what level of intelligence to give his character and mine. Initially, he had given me the higher stat, then after thinking harder about it, gave himself just one point over me. "Oh, really?" I said. "And which one of us is flunking out of college, and which of us has a 4.0?" "Well, which one of us can't compute a tip? Huh? Huh? Why don't you try figuring out an equation for once?" I let it drop. Probably because I'm so dumb.

Gaming itself was an astonishing horror. Normal people fled in our wake, leaving behind only those who could stand a 24/7 stream of game talk. Any interruption for normal subjects of conversation were quickly assimilated into an idea for a new character. Let me give you an example:

Friend: So my grandma died not too long ago.
Me: Oh, man, I'm sorry. Was she sick?
Friend: No, she was just old, you know? We were expecting it.
Jake: Well, it's gotta happen sometime. I mean can you imagine if you were
immortal? It's for the best that we're not. I've thought about it and
decided that's not the superpower I'd want. Too hard to see the people you
love die.
Friend: Yeah... yeah, I guess.
Me: I think he knows how hard that is, Jake.
Jake: Yeah, definitely not immortality. What superpower would you have, if
you could have any?



Being Married to the Creepiest Gamer Ever

To add to his phenomenal qualities, Jake had become a drug addict. For a while I welcomed his new habit – for once, we could talk about something else. Now I do not say "addicted" lightly, har har, who gets addicted to that plant? No, really. This addiction ended in several arrests, a terrible hospital stay that racked up over 20k, shady friends with bad connections who hid unpleasant items in our home, and the consistent siphoning of my money to pay for his habit. I had to work full-time while I went to college full-time so I could support his habits. He'd steal my ATM card to buy drugs and books, would lambast me for ever “skimming” his stash, tell me every time I glanced at one of his books that I ought to buy them for him if I was interested in reading them, too. Jake did work, at a minimum wage delivery boy job chosen specifically because it was known as drug addict central. I can't tell you how many times I brought Jake the drugs or book he'd left at home and had to step over his managers and co-workers, passed out on the floor.

The end result of all this was that our only friends were people who could stand constant gamer talk cross-sectioned with the kind of people who were as addicted as he was. Thrilling combination! We had such parties. Our gaming sessions were frequently interrupted by the downing of a whole bottle of whiskey while Jake was in the bathroom (he had, prudently, outlawed drinking during gaming), gamers tripping on acid and flipping their poo poo when we went on dungeon crawls (“oh poo poo, guys, this is bad, real bad, we have to get out of here, right now, I'm not dealing with any trolls OH poo poo TROLLS THEY HAVE FACES LIKE LITTLE PEOPLE”), dealers arriving with twenty people in tow to sell in our living room, and massive smoke breaks every half an hour. The woozy alternative states made gamers easily distractable, which Jake would take out on me, dressing me down in front of all the players for “distracting” them by making jokes, dressing cute, expressing ideas, discussing my day, doing my homework, and bringing everybody beverages and pieces of cake I had baked just for that gaming session. Once I arrived for a gaming session and everybody was busy making characters, so I went to my room to do more homework and Jake burst in red-faced and horrified. “We¹re gaming, dear,” he said vilely. “It looks like everybody's just make characters.” “Well, it¹s rude for you not to be there.” “But I have a character, I don't need to make one.” “But you need to know what they're making. Stop being so antisocial and get out here. It's like pulling teeth, trying to get you to make friends.”

Once I asked him why he yelled at me more than the other gamers, and he responded, “You're my wife. I expect better out of you.”

Jake had a favorite character that he “always returned to.” He would re-create him, build him up to King poo poo of Munchkin Mountain, the kind of character who spent his time loving goddesses and killing unkillable entities of pure darkness. Then he'd get bored and re-create him again and again, ad nauseum. This character was his baby, his lifeblood. I once made what was supposed to be a ridiculous suggestion: he had re-made this character so many times and played out all possible scenarios with him that obviously the next step was to make a post-modernist campaign in which this "wizard" (generic term) crossed the boundary of imagination and met his creator, and he and Jake could have tea and discuss life and philosophy. Well, he loving tried, no kidding, but couldn't get the table he made to work right.

But let me get to the heart of it. One night, while very very drunk, after talking to me about his newest campaign for several hours, Jake admitted to me that he thought about his wizard so much that sometimes when he jerked off he would call out his name. I must have made a horrified face, because he quickly stuttered out that it was probably because his name was so similar to mine (it was not), and he was used to calling out my name (he never had).

Jake loved to make his own tables, ones that were twice as complicated as anything his favorite company could put out. He created highly detailed sexual orientation tables with a hundred separate and distinct options (you do not want to know what occupied the 100 slot). He created a table that described in detail the sexual compatibility of characters, again, 100 options. He created a table that illustrated all the horrifying deformities any given character could acquire. 100 options. If you're clever, you can probably find abbreviated versions of these on his favorite role-playing board – they're quite popular.

Our five-year anniversary coincided with weekly gaming. Jake argued that it would be too hard to reschedule, but promised he'd make it a worthwhile day. He demanded that all gamers arrive with an enormous quantity of drugs, which they were to give to the two of us in “celebration,” and that gaming had to end by 5 pm, rather than 8 pm, because he was going to make me a fantastic dinner. At 10 pm, the last excruciatingly high gamer left, at which point Jake set about making the dinner which promised to astound and thrill me. I worked at 7 am, so by that point I had passed out. Jake awoke me with a plate of steak and potatoes, and lambasted me for falling asleep on our anniversary, which was supposed to be a special day.

On our wedding night, Jake brought a role-playing book to read in the hotel room. I made some overtures to, you know, it's our wedding night and all, and shimmied around a little, until he pulled out a notepad and started writing up a character, telling me he just needed to do this thing and I was bothering him which was really inconsiderate because he hadn't had time to do this for like a whole day with on account of the wedding. I gave up and took a shower, and when I came back he had finally put down the role-playing book, in order to call another woman and ask her to come over and have sex with him. Skipping over what happened next, which is non-role-playing related but rest assured truly creepy, the next day we went to his parents' house to open our presents. All pictures of the event show me holding up pots and pans, towels, appliances, while next to me Jake reads his role-playing book. At one point his mother admonished him for not being involved, and his father responded, "We're just glad she married him before she found out what he was really like! Ha ha..." Awkward laughter rippled around the room. They repeated this statement with frightening consistency and increasing tones of desperation until the day I divorced him.

At one point Jake had an affair. The woman he had an affair with was a close friend of mine, and he had told her that I was totally cool with them having sex. It was more complicated than that (poo poo always is), but it's still a painful topic, so I'll keep it at that. She was of an inappropriate (though legal) age, and he took terrible advantage of her, treating her much the same way he treated me. She and I are still friends, maybe better friends now that we've dated the same horrible man, and she told me later that they would go and have their affair time, after which he would pull out some books and demand she make a character. She gamely tried to get involved, and though she loved role-playing and still does to this day, she could not care about his terrible books, tables, and campaigns. She has a picture of them together, in which he is gesturing vehemently at his books, and she has quite clearly fallen asleep sitting up. Despite her disinterest in his gaming system, and her quite clear interest in other systems, for Christmas he spent a ridiculous amount of money (much more than he spent on me) buying her several books she had specifically indicated that she hated, because possession of these books would enable her to play in the campaign he was about to run.




Divorcing the Creepiest Gamer Ever

Just before he had worked us so far into debt that we had to move into his parents' basement, I met another man that I thought I might want to be with instead of Jake. I told Jake all of this upfront, and told him all the things that would need to change for me to want to be with him, because I felt like I was losing my mind. He listened quietly, nodded, then told me about his new campaign idea in such a level of detail that it lasted three hours. At the end of that three hours, I reminded him that things needed to change. He agreed, and suggested we find a new group of role-players so I could have fun with other people. As he saw it, my inability to make friends was what made me feel like I was losing my mind, and caused me to be so easily swindled by any guy who came along and was “nice” or “listened to what I said.” Then he told me about a character he'd just made. I repeated everything I'd just said, astounded at his blasé reaction, and he nodded again and asked me not to interrupt him when he was talking.

Later I told him I was going to spend a day with this man to talk to him and try and sort out my feelings. He kept right on telling me about his campaign. I asked him over and over again if he was upset, if he wanted to talk, if he was okay with me going to see the guy. Yes yes, he's just fine, if I would just stop interrupting him. Suddenly, the next day, Jake announced that he had scheduled role-playing for the day I was to see the guy. I said that sounded great, it would be something for him to do while I went out. He stared at me angrily, then told me he'd scheduled it so I could play with him. He had already made me a character, and planned out the entire campaign around me, so I had to come. I told him I still planned on seeing this guy but guessed I could hang out till then, and he nodded, then told me all about the campaign. Gaming day came. I told Jake I would be leaving at such-and-such a time, and he said nothing, but immediately set about derailing the game, so that by the time I had to leave, we had just gotten started. I announced that I had to leave, I had a meeting with a friend. Jake said, “Okay, but if you leave, I'm going to hate you.” I left anyway. Jake followed me out onto the porch, enraged, shouting, “I'm going to be so mad at you if you leave in the middle of the game.” I left, and when I returned home that night I was prepared to talk about what had happened with the other man (nothing) and what I'd decided (to stay with Jake). I never got to tell him, and he never asked. Instead, I was subjected to a long diatribe about how I'd humiliated him in front of his role-playing friends and completely ruined his game. This conversation lasted until about 2 a.m., at which point he gave up trying to “talk sense” into me, and started angrily rolling dice. Have you ever heard angrily rolled dice? It is a sound you will never forget, it's so small and sad. Anyway, you can consider that whole episode a delayed or sublimated reaction to my nearly leaving him, but honestly, I don't think he cared what was happening, or even realized what it meant, until it interfered with his game. Telling him I was in love with another man was one thing. Going to see that man on game day was beyond the pale.

Miracle of all miracles, after a lifetime of playing the same system, Jake got interested in another role-playing game. He immediately asked me to roll up a character, and when I refused, saying I had spent the last seven years learning his drat horrible system and I wasn't about to learn another, he told me it wasn't fair, he had agreed to go to marriage counseling and I wouldn't agree to play in his new campaign, and relationships were about compromise, and I was a bitch. I left the house for several hours. When I returned and told him he could not call me names, he looked perplexed and said his calling me a bitch wasn't any worse than me telling him he was always forcing role-playing on me, because saying "always" was a cruel and dehumanizing insult. I insisted it was, in fact, an entirely different thing, and he told me I was dramatizing things, which I always did, because I was in emotional turmoil, whereas he wasn't angry at all. Finally, to reconcile, he suggested that perhaps if I at least read through one of his books I could prove to him I was not, in fact, a bitch.


After seven years, I told Jake I wanted a divorce on Tuesday and moved out on a Friday. Saturday was gaming day, and you better believe it was still on. Jake proceeded to murder everybody's character in slow, brutal, and deliberate fashions. When one player complained, Jake shot back that they couldn't handle the game. They postulated that perhaps he couldn't handle his wife leaving him because she didn't love him anymore. There was a long pause, then Jake rolled a d20, and they went on, never mentioning it again.

When I told Jake I wanted a divorce, he vacillated between hysterical crying and total denial. I encouraged his denial, because while hysterically crying he was prone to do things like stand at the bathroom door sobbing “Don't leave me” while I brushed my teeth, or stand at the window staring bug-eyed at me as I walked to the bus stop, or call me at work and leave messages that consisted of several minutes of crying, and then “I promised myself I wouldn't cry,” and then several more minutes of crying. Or, since we¹re being creepy here, my personal favorite, waking up at 3 a.m. to find him
standing next to my bed staring at me eerily; once he saw I was awake, he told me he had been standing there thinking of strangling me. I told him that was a scary and hosed-up thing to tell somebody, and he told me that was okay because he felt scared and hosed-up, and I was cruel to hold it against him. But I digress from gaming creepy. During one of his periods of denial, in which he lived in a fantasy world in which we were going to be friends or friends with benefits or just dating, he brightened considerably and said, “Do you know, this will really be best for us, because when we¹re just friends you can play in my new campaign.”


The day I left Jake, he called me several hours after I had moved everything out of his parents' basement. I was eating a celebratory dinner with a friend who had helped me move. First he asked me how moving had gone, then he told me about his day, then, after a slight pause, he began to tell me about an idea for a character he'd had while at his Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I was so conditioned to just nod and say, “uh huh” at appropriate intervals that I might have continued doing it for quite some time. Luckily, the friend I was with had an obnoxious personal habit of shouting at me whenever I was on the phone. “Tell that rear end in a top hat you left him because he can never shut up!” she yelled. “Tell him nobody wants to hear about his creepy poo poo! Tell him he's lonely and depressed and loving weird!” Jake heard her yelling, and raised his voice until he was yelling character ideas into the phone. I interrupted and told him, “You know, we are divorced now. You cannot call me to tell me about role-playing.” I believe it finally sunk in for him at that moment, when he said, “Oh. Oh. We're... we're really broken up, aren't we?”

You may consider this a story of the triumph of the human spirit over enormous odds, because I still like role-playing.

Winson_Paine posted:

- Must post grog. This is the big one. Your post can certainly comment on some funny grog, but the last thread was overwhelmed with low effort slackers riding the jocks of the real grogposters. Don't post grog, something bad will happen to you. Commentary on previous posts is fine, or discussing grog, but you gotta bring a pie to the buffet if you do.

quote:

[14:10] 3.X does cause a certain amount of brain damage. It's healable in most cases.
[14:11] The rapegrog is indefensible
[14:12] But so is arguing against things such as game balance, making sure people have fun, etc.
[14:12] One is a crime against morality
[14:12] One is a crime against intelligence and critical thinking
[14:12] The former is worse, the latter is still really bad
[14:14] Both of them stem from the same place. You have to cure every last bit of problematic thinking if you want to have a better hobby.
[14:14] You can't just tell people 'rapegrog is bad don't do it' and have it *actually stick* if the hobby incentivizes unhealthy thoughts

A totally unbiased review of 4E posted:

It's like the designers have decided it needs to be EXTREME and IN YOUR FACE etc. It's basically computer multi player game mechanics that have been rendered in pen and paper format.

Multiclassing is adios. People start with 20+ hitpoints. NPCs are basically irrelevant, there's a total of 17 skills (all adventurer focussed) with GM's basically told to 'make it up as you go along' for everything else. Saves are now like Armour Class with the GM telling you the player whether or not you made a save which is a tragic rape of one of the core fun principles of D&D of making that vital save. Sure, they get to do it to NPCs or monsters but still, it's annoying.

I get that they're a business. And I get that they have to cater for a new generation of kidz whose gaming to now has always been electronic in nature instead of sitting around a table surrounded by junk food and coke bottles laughing deliriously at some crazy poo poo that just went down.

But 4th ed feels like a slap in the face of all the greybeards who have been playing it since the 'insert colour here' sets came out in the 70's and early 80's.

Sure there's stuff in 4th ed that looks neat. Magic items are a lot less complicated now. And I like that they simplified some skills and spells etc. There's stuff I may take from 4th ed and jam into my house rules.

But basically as far as the 'would you bother?' test goes I'd say no. Either stick to 3.5 or buy Pathfinder (aka 3.75) which is what paizo is releasing and continuing the 3.5 franchise but with improved rules.

Don't get me wrong. I have done my bit Wizards. I dropped $150 on the table for the three core books. But that's basically all you're getting out of me from now on. You changed the game so much and seemingly created World of Warcraft Lite that it basically shits me.

I'd say the biggest disappointment is their deliberate choice to create a system that cannot be retrofitted over previous material. So they've made sure that the $2000 or so worth of previous product is basically redundant with next to no backwards compatibility to previous editions given the mechanics have changed that much. Oh enterprising GMs will be able to but you'd have to recreate NPCs etc from scratch.

And to the idiot that wrote the two pages of NPC guidance in the DMG where he suggested stating out an NPC is 'too much hard work' and implied hand waving is the way to go you need to _____________ and ____ with a bicycle seat. The vast bulk of GMs out there spend more time preparing for their game than they do playing it. Writing background, modules, world creation, towns etc. They enjoy making up NPCs. And you basically chucked that in their face and called them idiots for doing so.

4th ed seems to have made the game less fun for me and for others and to me at any rate 4th ed seems to have been kitted out not because it was an improvement but so they can market it to a new generation.

Guess what? The average player now is in their mid 30s. The people that played it in their teens 20 years ago. The rules as they stand in 4th ed are not appealing to me, and I'd say most of the people I play with. I'm sure you will make a bucket of money out of the core books - you got my $150, but the internet is a lovely place and people are going to keep modifying the rule sets they like and not invest time and effort in ones they do not. Why would warcrafters want to put down their shiny PCs where the action already happens in real time and play pen and paper anyway?

I think you shot yourselves in the foot long term over this.

http://garysentus.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/d-ccg-debacle-whos-really-at-fault.html posted:

The D&D CCG debacle: Who's really at fault?
On the surface, it's a straightforward combination of cynical marketing and absolute creative bankruptcy. But I'm not so sure.

I was talking with a friend of mine recently who works in the videogame industry. He told me downright harrowing tales behind some of the worst games of all times. No kidding. Several of them actually received awards for it.

These are projects that span the spectrum from "'gritty' reinvention of beloved cartoon mascot" to "is that even, technically, a game?"

And one pattern emerged: A few people (sometimes only one) with way more money than sense and a whole lot of well-meaning, talented people who know it's a bad idea, say it's a bad idea, and still finish the project because they can't afford to quit their jobs instead of putting work unto a bad idea. There's also no small amount of throwing good money after bad ("We've already sunk millions into this turkey, we can't stop now!").

So that brings me to D&D. It's no secret that they're a subsidiary of Hasbro and that Hasbro wants the D&D "brand" to be making more than it is. It's not hard to imagine WotC's designers, who are, we can assume, RPG gamers with some respect for the form and reverence for a classic like D&D, being told by some executive at Hasbro who wouldn't know Dungeons & Dragons from death & dismemberment insurance: "What about that Magic thing? That makes money. Just make it more like the Magic!" Right before he adjusts his snappy Gordon Gekko suspenders and snorts a three-foot rail of coke off a naked $5000/night escort before bellowing his best Al Pacino "Hoo-ha!"

So what's my point? I mean, for all I know, this might not be the case at all. Maybe so, but armed with these new insights into exactly how ugly game design in a corporate environment can get, I'm going to be hesitant to assign blame for this one. At least for the time being.

Certainly somebody has masterminded a forehead-slapping affront to a great game, but we may never know exactly who or why. At least not until one of us buys the right ex-employee a beer in the years to come and gets the full story.

Halloween Jack posted:

This is It

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This Pathfinder world my must be a kinder gentler world.... how can this be, a non-human humanoid that is allowed to live as an adventurer? what happned to the racist south adventurer's party? Its a orc, you kill it, its a hobgoblin, you kills it, its a kobold, you kill it dead. Its and elf, try and sleep with it, its a dwarf buy weapons from it... otherwise yous kills it. Kill all -oids, gobliniod, orcoid, hemroid... kill it. While you're at it, you should kill most humans as well, they'll only plot for the downfall of your kingsdom, kidnap whoever you are sleeping with and burn your horses when you arn't looking.

Kill everything, kill kill kill.

Tarnowski posted:

Yes, Virginia, you can be Literally Logically WRONG About RPGs

I know, today is usually "Cracked Monday", but I decided to shake things up when over in my blog entry about the #rpgnet chat, I got someone (calling themselves 'patriot online', but let's call them "Virginia" instead) giving the tired old pundit-hater Swine-troll rant about how irrelevant I am, which 'irrelevancy' he felt absolutely obliged to point out on my own widely-read blog, after my All-star chat participation, etc. etc.

He said that I didn't convince any of the other panelists (note that not all disagreed with me, on a vocal minority) of anything, that I didn't "set them straight" in the sense of getting them to change their ways. As if that was what I'd meant. Dude, this is elementary-level rhetoric right here, seriously.
It wasn't them I was trying to sort out, it was the audience. When you engage in a public debate, the point is never to try to convince your opponent to give up his rabidly-held beliefs, it is to convince the audience that your points and the logic of how you've structured them are better than his.


In said rant, he also jumped in to talk about, and I quote:
"There is no one true way to play. If you are playing and a story comes out of it, that's playing correctly as long as everyone has fun. If you are playing to form a story and everyone is having fun, you are playing correctly. Both ways you are valid and playing Role Playing Games as long as everyone is having fun."

And this was what prompted today's suspension of Cracked Monday. I felt the need to respond yet again to the sheer stupidity of this type of claim, which many have made before. The Story/Game question is not a matter of taste, opinion, partisanship, or feeling; its just about logic.



And yes, in this case, because we are dealing with Logic, there very much is indeed a LITERALLY WRONG way to play.
Let's say you made a new game of snakes and ladders or something like that, and you were explaining and promoting this as a game where "everybody wins". But then in the actual play, it turns out that not only does everybody not win and the game does in fact still have a single standard winner, but that the modification to the game is that if you land on another player's spot he's immediately and permanently eliminated from the game.

Logically speaking, on a purely FACTUAL basis that is in no manner affected by opinion, the claim being made is thus WRONG. It is a logically incorrect statement to claim that this game is one where everybody wins.
In order for the claim to be true, you would have to change the rules. And as long as you're still playing snakes and ladders, your claim that everybody wins cannot be true. You may end up altering the game radically with new rules and then still trying to call it snakes and ladders, but if the game is so totally different at that point, why still call it the same thing?

On the other hand, you may try to just ignore the rules, conventions, structures, and traditions of the game, like you might for very little children, and say gameplay continues no matter what and that the point really is for the little tykes to ALL get their man to the end so everyone can do just what they wanted and no one needs to have a tantrum. But at that point you're not really playing the game (or indeed, some would say any game) at all. You're just engaged in creative babysitting with the dice rolling reduced to mere meaningless busywork, since the results are a foregone conclusion: no one will get unexpectedly eliminated, everyone gets to the end... or little sally gets to have her piece stay on the snake's head because she thinks its funny, or tommy's guy can just 'teleport' to the end because he doesn't want to play anymore but also doesn't want sally to tease him for losing the game. Anything goes, because gameplay has become utterly secondary to babysitting spoiled brats.


In fact, in either of these "fixes" the claim "snakes and ladders is a game where everybody wins" would still be factually WRONG. Because in the first fix you are changing the game's fundamental structure (not just a detail like mere mechanics, but the whole point of the game) into something that it is not; and in the second you are just ignoring the 'game' concept altogether.

It is exactly the same way with RPGs and stories. An RPG is made to simulate a world, full of random events, hopefully done well (by a good GM) so as to have verisimilitude, to be as Immersive as possible. It is a world where the CONSCIOUS creation of story is impossible, any more than in the real world you could just decide "ok, tomorrow I'm going to win the lottery, and then later have a drug cartel chase after me only to discover that the drug lord is my own grandfather! Wow, I didn't see that one coming. But it'll be ok, even though I'll be in a shootout I get away in the end".
Just like in real life, whatever plans you may have, in an RPG where the rules actually apply, can be completely thwarted by some random element, be it an encounter with a goblin that puts a swift end to your dreams of going from farm boy to lord wizard, or a bad roll on a jump check that leaves the would-be heroic rescue splattered on the floor.


If you say "well, let's make new rules, so the whole point is that the rules control the flow of story itself and not the environment. The environment will just be a facade, a potemkin village, that doesn't really mean anything or do anything but acts as a backdrop for the flow of our story, which is what the rules will allow us to control"; well then, you've changed the most fundamental thing that the game affects. What you've created is something radically different from an RPG.

If you say "well, we're playing RPGs but our goal is to create a story, and when the rules get in the way of that we just fudge it", then you're not actually playing the game at all. If your games are all railroads or illusionism, if no PC can ever die from a random goblin strike or 20-story drop unless the STORY demands it, then you're no longer putting the game first.
And on the contrary, if the story-ambitions of a player or GM can be thwarted by a bad roll, then GAME must be taking precedence over story.

These are OPPOSED concepts. What you are playing depends on where you decide the buck-stops. If you decide that the Story is important enough that in the end any rule can be ignored for story's sake, then you're not playing a game. If you decide that the Game is important enough that no storytelling sense of 'that doesn't seem very cool' can prevent the truth of what just happened in your virtual world, then you're NOT creating story, you are playing a GAME of a virtual world.

You can't have both. And that's not opinion, its logic (as in "A is not B"; it is a question of mathematics, where any personal feeling or opinion has gently caress ALL to do with it).

So yes, Virginia, you can say that there is a right way to do RPGs. I know, it makes me a terrible meanie for all the would-be artistes and novelists out there. But fortunately, the majority of gamers, of regular roleplayers, actually want to play that way. That's why D&D has stayed so popular over the years, while expressive story-crafting exercises about sexually-confused victorian college professors has not.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Ben Wade Rhodesian + Image Latakia

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It takes an enormous amount of development to balance a set for booster drafting. Done right, they are great fun and really give value to opening boosters.

You mean Sealed. Draft is the most Daft idea ever devised for cards. "So I'll just open these packs and make my d-" "NO! Take one card from that pack and pass" "But...I paid for this pack" "NO! You paid for the priveledge of walking into the tournament system! Check your card gamer privilege, sealedscum!" Yeah... it's kinda like that. loving daftest thing. If I buy something, gently caress you, it's mine, get away from me. Argue about "tournament entry fee" elsewhere.

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Women seem to dig me for the most part. I'm only bad at the maintaining relationships, not at the getting into them part. I find it easy to flirt with girls, and very rarely get rejected, but I have trouble making any relationship last more than a few weeks. Most women accuse me of being inscrutable and incapable of opening up, whereas I tend to find most women incredibly boring once I've had sex with them. I'm kind of jerk like that, I guess. I'm in my late 30s now, and pretty much a committed bachelor. I don't want kids, don't want to be married, and don't really care about relationships or sex as much as I did say fifteen years ago. I kind of get annoyed by this issue because I like gaming and I loathe other people's drama, and I find that mixed gaming groups tend to have way more drama than male-only groups and that drama tends to make gaming groups explode, which is why I've run so many unfinished campaigns. The drama really gets in the way of the gaming. In fact, I've been getting way more into wargaming and getting away from RPGs just because there's so much less drama with the almost entirely male wargaming scene.

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I don't think she quite means that. I myself think that, to a certain extent, being male or female does influences one's interests on a biological level in a general manner (exceptions always exist). That said, one could easily argue that the difference between men and women in terms of pastimes isn't quite what we think it is. Nothing is ever really that simple. Both nature and nurture, in my opinion, influence us to varying extents. For example, there is TVs, friends, and more that all reinforce our inclinations as well. Then there are the communities around games that, in general nerd fashion, are... intriguing and often volatile. From raging on the slightest retcon or inaccuracy to being smelly And, whilst I've never seen it around me, I've heard tales from friends of places they've been to where girls will be creeped on. Doesn't help many nerds aren't the best at being social Will genetics, including male and female, still influence things and provide general preferences on both sides of the demographic? Most certainly but if you changed these two factors, social influence and communities, I don't think the disparity would be quite so good.

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Yeah. Men and women would not have identical pastime preferences in this ideal world where "society" hadn't corrupted everybody. The idea that men and women are actually the same, it's just that we've imposed different ideals onto them? That's ludicrous.

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find that anything but mindless, unthinking agreement will get one accused of sexism. But I'm not sexist in the slightest. I'm just aware of how humans actually behave, which you and the others remain blissfully ignorant of. There's nothing sexist about being aware that many women silently reject and ostracize men who aren't attractive by society's standards. That's just understanding how people actually act. You just have to open your eyes and observe the world around you and you see it happening everywhere, all the time.

It's really telling that you people conflate race and sex all the time, its why you're always confusing sexism with heterosexuality. See, race is a social construct, it doesn't actually exist on the genetic level. It's an illusion. There are no meaingful physical differences between blacks and whites.

But sex is real. Hormones are real. Phremones are real. We have different races because powerful elites constructed a concept of race to suite their needs in the Age of Imperialism. We have a concept of gender because humans reproduce sexuallly. Men and women are attracted to each other for biological reasons and that shapes a tremendous amount of human social interaction. And sex does create additional complications when men and women co-mingle.

Some people find those complications stressful, and want to avoid them. For some people it can be really, intensely painful to be confronted with the absolute disinterest of the opposite sex. Calling that sexism and comparing it to racism is really ridiculous. Really, it just displays a lack of compassion that is really sad. And to mask it as social justice, that's a real tragedy.

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For reference, my actual position: Women are not interested in wargaming because of the large number of socially awkward, unattractive men associated with the hobby. And because its an expensive, time-consuming hobby about war, which is just not something most women care about.

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Do you even play Warhammer? What exactly would be the point of adding female characters? I mean...you do get that the Imperium is a racist, sexist, xenophobic and fascist dystopian nightmare, right? But what, you want them to present the Imperium as an egalitarian wonderland? If you make the 40k setting less horrifically racist, sexist and fascistics, then you start turning the Imperium into something that might actually look hopeful. They might actually appear to be good guys. There aren't a whole lot of games I'd say this about, but yeah actually the sexism is pretty integral to 40k. The thing that makes 40k fun is that no matter what faction you play, you're the bad guy. You're the mindless horde devouring the carcass of humanity, or your the carcass of humanity spasming in its death throes. It's grimdark.

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Also, the "sex object" argument is nonsense. No character in a game is there "just" to be a sex object. That term gets misapplied and overused to the point of being meaningless. It is not a synonym for sexy, and you need to not use it as one.The idea that most women are desperately clamoring for unidealized, plain-looking heroines is just nonsense. If you really believe that, you know where to find Kickstarter. You don't even need to put your own money where your mouth is. Do a kickstarter for the kind of models you want to see, and if you have any real success, then you can start claiming that's what women want.

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At the same time, some people really need safe spaces where they can socialize and get human contact and feel appreciated and valued, and some people can't get that in mixed company because they can't play the mating game.

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I am pretty bad at “the mating game” (read it as “27, never had a girlfriend, never kissed a girl”), and I would not mind more women playing. I mean, either they are not interested in me as a romantic partner, in which case things stay pretty much the same except with more potential game partners, or they are, in which case it is even better. What do I have to loose, really?


Well, that's you. That's not everyone.

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Yeah, I just don't get it. Sometimes guys want to hangout with other guys. Sometimes chicks want to hang out with other chicks. This is not an "issue." I mean, there's a very real difference between hanging out with a group that's all the same gender and a group that's mixed gender. Totally different social dynamics. I'm willing to bet that every time a girl has been excluded from a Warhammer group, it's because the purpose of that particular group was male bonding and the gaming was sort of tangential to that.

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It doesn't help at all that you are using what sound like feminist arguments, and feminists are some of the most irrational, hate-filled people around. But again, this is why this conversation is completely inappropriate on a forum called "40k General Discussion." This really has nothing at all to do with 40k.

Plague of Hats posted:

…and then after my edgy enlightened speech I called all the black and Jewish people in the restaurant "niggers" and "kikes" and they were all "Yea racism is over thanks for educating us!" and they lifted me up on their shoulders and paraded me around the room and gave me a cake.

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I don't mean just RPGs - I mean gaming (and books) in general. Fantasy took over from history as a geek subject in the late 80s. One of the reasons, in my opinion, is history is awkward and problematic to modern sensibilities. Moreso than in the past, when people took it as a matter of course that that past was different. For some reason, people who believe and think differently from us is more troubling to the modern mind than it used to be.

Winson_Paine posted:

- Gotta be TG grog. Chess grog, board games, RPGS, whatever.

Winson_Paine posted:

- Must post grog. This is the big one. Your post can certainly comment on some funny grog, but the last thread was overwhelmed with low effort slackers riding the jocks of the real grogposters. Don't post grog, something bad will happen to you. Commentary on previous posts is fine, or discussing grog, but you gotta bring a pie to the buffet if you do.

Winson_Paine posted:

- Must post grog. This is the big one. Your post can certainly comment on some funny grog, but the last thread was overwhelmed with low effort slackers riding the jocks of the real grogposters. Don't post grog, something bad will happen to you. Commentary on previous posts is fine, or discussing grog, but you gotta bring a pie to the buffet if you do.

is this grog or mental illness? posted:

Tigh finally Nukes 3e (review)

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They have made D&D more like Metagamings' The Fantasy Trip, Melee, and Advanced Wizard by Steve Jackson which is a talent based system. And sure enough each class has an array of new features that all work just like talents. This is just grafting a talent system into D&D. A hybrid that is neither game that came before it. But is any better?

First of all, we set up rotating DM's with their own hand made campaign to run 3-5 weeks each. The only rule on each DM is that you can't play your own character, and no magic items obviously for your own character who is sitting out while you are DM. Great DM's are fun with any game system. We have a blast. Will, his most awesome girlfriend, my brother Steven, and I. In that order. Brilliant campaigns are always to be had in the company of brilliant people. So I will not be relating any stories about "I knew this guy/girl." Instead I will talk about D&D 3e. And I'm not going to be nice either. In fact I plan to deploy fissionable materials. So, if you will come with me down into the bunker we'll outfit you with some special viewing goggles.

Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition brings in a whole host of new abilities and feats for all classes, and this gives players more to write down. More points to earn, more stuff to accumulate, more outlets for creativity, which are all positive things in my mind. More content for the players. In old school reference and index compilations the abilities can be viewed as active role playing with preexisting pantheons and characters starting out granted a few extra powers. In other words we can already do all of that and in simpler terms. But I guess everyone is not like me. I didn't think I would ever have to actually write this review. I salute Wizards of The Coast. They bought Pokemon and were able to maintain their control of the D&D trade mark. But so far they have still not answered for their crimes against Open Gaming, OD&D, AD&D, AD&D 2nd edition, and campaign multiplication. Some of the published campaigns like Earth Dawn, and other favorites, are still growing. So we are talking about entire communities of D&D players who the 3e publishers seem to be disconnected from.

Why is that? What is it that all the fan supported sites are doing that Wizards of The Coast isn't. Do they just not get it. Lets look at it.

"Story is the result of the game. Not a process within it."
-Stuart Marshall

Having special talents in the game is correct. If someone has been playing for ten years then yes, they could easily have built up a much larger array of rules, peoples, powers, and privileges. Much larger. The trouble is that by making an official cannon of much smaller predefined sets 3e is silencing the very creativity that would normally allow the growth of these understandings between players and their DM's. And so in trying to define the archetypes they have failed to allow the architects voice be heard save as mediator in combat. Which is more easily replaced by a computer. I only hope that this isn't the signal that D&D is going to slide in the direction of muds. No I want a fully empowered DM because the computer can not take my simple instructions and construct exactly the world I want out of it. Boy. It sure would be nice if there was this huge selection of published campaigns to choose from.

What 3e completely fails to understand is that the granting of powers, beyond attack and saving throw, to players is a task best suited to the DM. Only after building an understanding and a relationship with the player will the ability or power feel like it has real magic and presence in the narrative. And narrative is what D&D is used to create. It spreads in active hyper virus like fashion precisely because it is a substance who's residue is a really good story. I'm not sure if people used to spend more time telling each other about D&D than actually playing it or not. I mean do you have any idea how long it used to take to construct an entire campaign. Even with a good two month initial investment in development, mapping, rewrites, and testing it could take years to build up a decent setting. But there is certainly at least that much talking about old school games.

So is there a problem introducing 3e feats into old school? No there isn't. In fact I recommend all DMs use the 3e players handbook as a reference for some new boons that can be granted to players if they run in a pantheon game. There is nothing there you can't handle. And you'll be doing your players a favor by letting it grow as a new ability gained in the course of your regular narrative, instead of as a premade set of little glory flash cards, static, defined, and uninviting of competitive ideas. For instance, if you offer a Wizard a super heroic feat and ask them how far they would go to get it, I think you'll be surprised at how far they will go. But traditionally, in old school we would allow the character to grow into the ability along the way so that we could tailor it just to them. As only one person to another can.

So 3e could have done this. Could have I say, but only if they had done it slower, a lot lot slower. Instead of taking all the best abilities and then just cutting support for specific campaigns, these abilities could have been introduced one at a time as entire campaigns. Is it too late? Well let's give 3e a shot. Let's see what they did. Just what does happen when an old school DM plays in three 3e campaigns in a row and then gets to DM.

Well first of all think of a first level 3e character as about equal to a fourth level old school character. A hero who comes with a predefined chess set of abilities with which to game each encounter. So you have to learn the entire individual pantheon of each separate character and how all of those interact with each other player, and with you as the DM. And you have to know and understand all of this instantly the moment they are done building their characters. They are all eagerly holding their $50 writing pads and schooching forward in their chairs bursting with plans on how they are going to game every encounter and even the campaign itself. The level of disadvantage this puts the DM at is staggering. Instead of coming together to explore one persons' creation a gang of mercenaries has come for the dragons treasure. All of it and at once. The volume and rate at which the impact crater of these expectations and precisely shaped knowledge of their feats goes off with the gentleness of a thermo nuclear detonation. Alright, here it comes, put on your dark glasses.

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No one tells anyone a gathering card game story, they only talk about deck builds. That process is an artificial story telling process. It does not generate stories, it tells stories. There is a difference. People who are really into D&D will bore you to death with stories about their favorite character. You will probably hear about a ton of abilities and situations you have never heard of before. Some character sheets are records of an adventure. 3e only leaves a record of 3e feats and abilities. Collectible card games leave no other residue than packaging. Where as an old school player, no matter how young, can tell amazingly complex stories very well. Just don't let them talk too long. After the second story I would cut in.

Ok you can take your glasses off now. So maybe if at the end of a card game tournament the story told was made into a new power card, then someone would have created a record of something. I'm not sure what meaning it could have though. But I do know that the old school reference and index compilations already allow fully empowered DM's. The rules are not as blinding and blunting to the imagination as flash card scenes spread out over a mathematical matrix.

I'll describe the fall out too you. 3e players have expectations. 3e DMs are compelled to meet those expectations. A person who DMs 3e is being an unpaid facilitator for erasing the record keeping in the old methods and substituting content already promised in the players books. They have removed the active imaginative process, and just left the imagination. It's almost as if they secretly tried to port the entire game into just the players hand book. Either way, the game is firmly in the hands of the players. The best a DM can do is be attentive and arbitrate combat flawlessly. I really had to escalate the power of rewards to get the slightest interest in anything I made. Eventually I got them to start making their own visions and we left the big books behind.

My advice to you is to offer your 3e players a second sheet of paper and offer them a new list of things to keep track of. And see if you can get them to write what they really want down there and build that into some super ability.

So, yeah. It took me all summer to map out the relations between all 3 characters and then to DM all of them for my turn. We had a really good time. But just barely. The game system required 3 months of observation and note taking. This along with a ton of other preparation and still it just barely went well. It certainly didn't evoke any new imaginations from the players. They were just applying the few narrow scripts they had found in the players hand book. I didn't discover any new synergy or active component between their new feats that made all this worth it. They were too busy struggling to play their abilities well as written. Those character sheets are a record of 3e stuff. Even when they got good at them, they are still the products of 3e predefined feats. Not the product of what the players actually think, hope, and dream.

Plague of Hats posted:

Party foul, sorry! - Win

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Rules are simple things, but have all but ceased to exist for the purpose they should be used for.

For most gamers, they have only two purposes these days-

1. Something to ignore and overrule so that the GM and players feel empowered, creative, and lords of all that they desire... and thus BA.

2. Yardsticks by which one can make their character BA, and thus somehow reach the conclusion that in turn it makes the player... BA.

Both uses are for immature minds that should have learned better from their cop and robbers days, except they likely weren't social enough to actually have played those games and thus never learn to outgrow them. Sadly these two mindsets control modern game design and game design discussion. They are overwhelmingly present in this thread from the straw-man topic to far too many of the replies.

What's almost funny about this is that those two mindsets both want the same thing but completely hate how the other goes about doing that. So we gets threads like this where they whine at each other drowning out any reasonable voices that might happen by.

Meanwhile the original and best purpose for rules in gaming is ignored and claimed to be boring at best and impossible at worst. The current crop of designers and publishers were born from this mess, and bring all its dysfunction to every new game published whatever its source.

It's enough to ruin my otherwise sunny mood.

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Appeal to Authority, then? Instead of judging the rules on their own merits, you appeal to Word of God. While we're talking tropes, though, are you familiar with Death of the Author?

To sum it up for anyone not following along at home, there are two games in question whenever you mention Gygax: there's the game he intended, and the game he wrote. It should be pretty clear from anyone who's read his various articles and opinions over the years that the rules of the game are supposed to enforce the tropes of fantasy fiction.

My favorite example is when the hero is chained to a wall, but still gets to save against dragon breath. According to Gygax, it would be impossible to dodge the blast in that situation, so the save represents that maybe the hero finds a weak link in the chain, and breaks free to hide behind a rock just in time. If that were true, then it would imply that there is no objective reality, and the weakness in the chain and the existence of the rock are both determined after the save is made.

But that's not how the game is actually played. I mean, maybe Gygax ran it differently, but I've never seen anything like that in anything between Basic and 3E. Rather, the DM would run it as if everything was pre-determined - the weak link in the chain, the nearby rock, everything - and further alter the mechanics to take that into consideration. If the DM had determined that the chain had a weak link, then you might be permitted a Strength check to break it. If the DM had established that there was a large rock nearby, then you would be granted a bonus to your saving throw. If neither of those had been the case, then your save might have been penalized, and a success meant that you had miraculously dodged it anyway (for half damage, at least); or, the DM might determine that it was just automatic failure, since there was no way to escape.

Regardless of intent, and regardless of how you may have personally played it, the fact of the matter remains that there was a not-insignificant group of people who used those rules to reflect an internally consistent objective reality.

In fact, the first edition where it really felt like the mechanics represented what Gygax was talking about, indisputably, was 4E. The problem that the above group had with that was, though the mechanics matched the original premise, it no longer allowed them to play the game that they had played with every edition from Basic to 3E.

And just for the record, I repeat that I say 5E should aim to allow players to recreate the experience from those previous editions. As they actually played it, and not as some dead guy wanted them to play it.

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I like RPGs...
…and I like much of what is distinctly RPGish in them.

I like that RPGs attract introverts but punish the boring ones.

I like that RPGs create kinds of stories you don't really find in older things like books or movies or TV shows.

I like that RPGs might force you to talk about anything.

I like that RPGs upset peoples' assumptions about what's supposed to happen to heroes.

I like that RPGs undermine peoples' assumptions about how stories are supposed to work.

I like how RPGs force people to cooperate to have fun.

I like that RPGs reveal peoples' character and preconceptions--and that they can force people into dialogue about them.

I like that learning the rules better than the next player can't make you better at playing than them.

I like that RPGs force you to fill in blanks and if you aren't creative enough you fail and suffer and have a bad time.

I like that the writing in RPGs doesn't read like a textbook or a pop fantasy novel.

I like that the design in RPG books can't look like the design in a magazine.

I like that there is great charm in RPGs and that sometimes it isn't on purpose.

I like that the art in RPGs doesn't have to look like Disney art or a comic book or a production drawing.

I like that in order to play with someone, they have to want to play with me, not just want to play.

I like that so much of what I use at the table was made by hand.

I like that so much of what I use at the table was free.

I like that RPGs can scare off people uncomfortable with sex or the devil.

I like that almost the only people who make RPG stuff are people who love RPG stuff.

I like that RPGs force you to think of solutions that can't be found in the rules.

I like that using an RPG ruleset forces you to think about how the world works.

I like that RPGs require people to find people they trust and like and can communicate with.

I like that RPGs frustrate the immature and the hypocritical.

I almost even kinda like that published modules are almost uniformly an object lesson in how much worse published modules are than what you could invent at home.

I like that RPGs are unpredictable and you don't know what the theme or tone or focus of a session will be.

I like that RPGs allow people who will never draw or write or sculpt or graphic design for a living a chance to draw and write and sculpt and graphic design things and by doing that make other people happy.

I like that neither you nor your character can get better than everyone else at the game without actually sitting and playing with other people.

I like that in order to play the character you want you have to be pro-active and do things in the game.

I like that players trying to fulfill power fantasies so often can't and get mad and cry about it and hopefully stop.

I like that you have to learn to play the cards you're dealt.

I like that sometimes other people get dealt way better cards.

...and I like how many of these (still) aggressively cutting-edge things were present or at least possible in RPGs on day one.

I think it's dumb when people who have ideas about progress in RPGs start by walking back from the most progressive and new things about them as an experience and as a medium.

thefakenews posted:

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I offer you these Three Tributes. Come from the Shadows, my Spawn of Darkness. With your coming, Eradicate my foe from existence! Behold: The Wicked Eraser!

Shimmering lights from beyond signal the wakening of an ancient creature. His might only heard of in legends; quake in fear at the sounds of his souring wings! Alight on the battle field: Destroyer of Legends, Controller of Kings; Blue-Eyes White Dragon!

A new power from the Ancients has risen. His power comes not from within; but from others. The ruler of all, come forth from the shadows and bind their minds with your Illusion! Ritual Summon; Relinquished!

Behold; the embodiment of Chaos. A new force brought forth from compromise; Light and Darkness Dragon!

I offer you the souls of the living; find your power within them. Break free from your binds and unleash your might upon the world; Great Maju Garzett!

I take up these souls and offer them unto you; alight down on the field with your Majestic wings. Take up the souls of fools; of men and of all that oppose you. The wingbeat of your wings usher in a new power; Earthbound Immortal Wiraqocha Rasca!

Searing Flames unlike any other; rise from your power and take command over all that oppose you. Burn this world to ashes; Uria, Lord of Searing Flames!

The King of the Fiends! Take these offerings and use them to empower you; break from your bonds and grace us with your presence; Raviel, Lord of Phantasms!

Thunder roars and knows no opposition. Lightning; faster than the eye can see. The calm before the storm is over. Rain your wrath down on my foes; Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder!

Darkness, undead and Fire come together as one. Dark magic alights the battle field; arise from the ashes of my foes and obliterate all that stands in your way. Blaze, your Apocalyptic fire! Pyrotech Mech Shiryu!

Saelorn posted:

(hit points) have been said to be an approximation of many things, including meat, and they have also consistently worked in a reliable and predictable manner. These are not mutually exclusive.

If Joe the paladin has 45 hit points, then it consistently takes ~10 arrows from a long bow before he goes down. You can prove this, over any number of battles, because it's an objective measurement. It is a true fact of the game world that Joe's (meat + luck + divine favor + skill + etc) allow him to not drop from the first nine arrows that hurt him, where the tenth is likely to be the point at which he can take no more and falls over.

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I can't understand moving from there to a position that those ease-of-play abstractions must therefore also be physical laws of the fictional world. That's just bizarre.

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An example. Nobody in a D&D swordfight can lose an arm, absent a sword of sharpness or similar monster ability. Does this mean there are no one-armed veterans?

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I'm worldcrafting, and want to create a place where permanent magic items are special and rare.

What do you think of the following ruling ... would this do it? How would living with this ruling affect you as a player?

Magic items cannot be freely bought.

The feats Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion and Craft Wand can be taken and work as normal to create temporary magic items.

The feats for creating permanent magic items (Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Rod, Craft Staff, Craft Wondrous Item, Forge Ring) are automatically received when the the prerequisites for them are met.

Creating a permanent magic item requires the creator to invest part of their life force. Each permanent magic item created drains the creator’s Con score permanently by 1 point. This loss cannot be reversed by any means, including Restoration.

Exception: Magical properties may be added to a wizard’s bonded object without requiring an investment of Con. Restrictions for the bonded object remain as usual (its magical properties only function for the creating wizard, and are lost if the item is replaced or its creator dies).

I'm actually not sure what to do with wands. They're not permanent magic items, but they are a significant force I'd like to cut down on. I'm not going to make someone use a point of Con for something that expires after 50 charges. One option is to keep them as temporary items but nerf them by reducing the number of charges. Another is to make them permanent items that require a point of Con, but can be recharged. A third is to just drop wands completely ... something that would definitely alter the flavour of the world significantly (not necessarily a bad thing).

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When the players in my game wanted their PCs to kill a behemoth (= dinosaur) by driving it over a cliff, we didn't use hit points to resolve it: they made a successful check within a skill challenge.

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I dislike the fact that Sorcerers use Charisma rather than Intelligence in the first place. I've disliked it since the first time I read the 3.0 Player's Handbook (for those who weren't aware, the contemporary D&D Sorcerer made its very, very first debut in legendary computer game Baldur's Gate II, as well as 2nd Edition prototypes for what would become 3.0's Monk and Barbarian classes - and in this game and its expansions, its magic was Intelligence-based). It makes perfect sense for Bards (and more recently, Oracles and Summoners), but the idea of making Sorcerer magic Charisma-based set the precedent that led to Charisma becoming the 'rule' for arcane magic-users in 3.0 and 3.5, rather than the exception it should have been. In any home game I were to run, I would say right out the gate that Sorcerer magic (as well as that of certain other 3.0/3.5 classes, most notably the Warlock) is Intelligence-based. Heck, I'd also be inclined to declare Cleric magic to be Charisma-based (mainly since I come from the background of the Might & Magic computer games, where there were only two mental ability scores, Intellect and "Personality," the latter of which Cleric and Paladin magic were both based on - Rangers and Druids, whose magic was kind of a compromise between that of Sorcerers and Clerics and thus drew magical power from both abilities, I would keep Wisdom-based in the context of the D&D ability score constellation)!

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Rocky (The Thunderfuck Squirrel) sexually exhausted four pleasure pods into absolute unconsciousness as a prelude to accessing their jacks and siphoning their egoes off the morphs. He's a Scurrier. (Now you know why he's called "The Thunderfuck Squirrel.")

He explained that. I just thought about it for a minute, and decided "You know what? Sure. That sounds great. When the operation starts, you stand triumphant atop a pile of insensate Asian girl pleasure pods. What do?"

(Also, he can deliver shocks from his eelware with his penis. That might be an alternative explanation for the name Thunderfuck. So far he hasn't tried that, thank ghost.)

ProfessorCirno posted:

Yes.

Consider the contrary. What if there are one-armed veterans? The players can participate in an infinite number of battles and have no risk of losing an arm, nor of severing someone else's. If they encounter such a one-armed veteran, most any player will ask "How did he lose an arm? That's not in the rules." And they'd be right.

Frankly, that's DMing 101. One of the first things my players taught me was that if there's no valid reason within the rules for something to happen, it shouldn't happen.

Moreover, any player worth his salt, upon seeing a one-armed veteran, will immediately set about trying to "dis-arm" his opponents, which will require a DM response. What is that response supposed to be? To tell them that no, their powerful fighter can never sever an enemy's arm, despite the fact that it happens in battle all the time? To write an entire new system of houserules to cover limb loss? To just throw in a limb loss arbitrarily from time to time, rules be damned? To me, the only parsimonious conclusion is to say that in this D&D fantasy world no one ever loses their arm in the first place, given the unavoidable implications.

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HOUSE RULES

■1.In general, most of the game information is secret during a game. As a DM I won't say 'the guard has an AC of 12, 8 hit points, and likes apple pie'. As a player, you won't know any of the game information, and as DM I won't tell you, so don't ask.
■2.In general, most information in the game is secret during a game. As a player you can only figure out things by the description given. As a DM I won't say 'The goblin hits you with the dart of Blackfeather poison', but more 'the short, ugly humanoid throws a dart at you. The black oil on the dart causes your skin to burn.' I won't tell you things like a monsters AC.
■3.In general, most game effects are secret during a game. As a DM I won't tell you why something worked or did not work. As a player you have to figure thoes things out, in the game. For example, if you cast charm person on a black skinned guy and it does not work, I will not tell you his race and type.
■4.In general, most game information about other players is secret during a game. Players are free to share whatever they want with each other. As DM though, I won't let you read another players character sheet. You are free to learn about another player's character in the game, through use of skill, magic, or whatever.
■5.In general, most information stays secret even after a game. At least a couple weeks need to pass so the information is no longer current.

Should you have a question about the game or anything in or about the game, it should not be asked in the game itself. I'm online at least a little bit everyday, so feel free to message, text, e-mail, chat or otherwise communicate any time with questions.

dwarf74 posted:

D&D: The game where you will never call a Goblin by name. It will always be a "short, green warty dude." Calling them goblins is the opposite of ... well ... it's the opposite of goddamn something, okay? Also? Don't ask questions.

Darkraven112 posted:

It saddens me to write a negative review about Legend of the Five rings because this is a game line that has been close to my heart for many years. Unlike various other RPG's on the market, L5R has been unique in that it has a continues story that is driven by players each year. One can say that Rokugan is a living, breathing world with all the unknown twists and turns that surround it. It has never tried to be something it's not but rather, it always seemed to have an exclusive experience about it. The story was the game with all of its good and bad elements mixed into a wonderful landscape. Unfortunately, in my opinion, 4th edition turns its back on everything the L5R has stood for.

...

As I continued reading, I noticed a section on hit points. In that section was a side bar that discussed extra hit points. The inclusion of rules for extra hit points in this new edition seems like an odd choice to me. Even though the new rules are optional (increasing the earth ring modifier) the addition of this anime feel is just awful at best and does nothing in helping with the already empty feel of the book. The game that was and always has been based on a lethal groundwork seems to completely go out the window with these "cool new samurai who can't die" rules that are introduced. I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm glad that the development team didn't add in a section on anime." (More on that later)

...

As I continued reading, I came across a point in which I was not surprised. There is actually a section on ANIME and how to run an ANIME game in L5R. I can't make this up. The development team removed important current history from the book, leaving a beautifully laid out corps and replaced current politics and story line with How to run an ANIME game. I'm just going to say what I'm thinking here and that is "sell out."

ProfessorCirno posted:

What happens when PCs start trying to circumvent the combat rules for other monsters.

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Given everything you're writing here I don't think you have any experience with any actual game theory at all - except of course the Big Model. Why on earth would I care about immersion? What have I ever said to give you that idea?

There is no such thing as pawn stance. That's a theory, not anything that actually occurs in games. It's meant to pervert games to always be narratives as its author intended.

The "Big Dichotomy" is whether D&D will wise up and learn that it has no roots at all in Big Model games or whether it will sell its soul to a philosophy designed to make players who love D&D hate it and leave the hobby for another practice with the same name.

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I don't like Shields. I find it completely ridiculous that a heavy shield only provides a +2 bonus to AC.

I've seen shield used before, and used them myself in mock fights (like SCA). When you have a large shield (like a shield the size Link typically uses in Legend of Zelda) those things are a very difficult to get around.

When you look at something like a shield the Spartan's used, they were able to hide under or behind the thing almost entirely, and they could shield bash with them. It's like a mixture of tower shield and heavy shield but no such thing exists.

Even the simple wooden shields used in ancient times (some of which were basically improvised barrel lids) were very difficult to get passed. Sometimes, it's easier to simply break the shield, than to get passed it. In fact, many weapons had to be designed specifically to strip the shield away, or break it entirely.

I don't like the fact that a chain shirt is a better defensive item than a heavy shield. When the reverse should be true.

ProfessorCirno posted:

Storygames are games designed for players to purposefully tell a story. They all the use the same mechanic: narrative resolution. None of that occurs in any other kind of game including D&D. You attempting to pass a philosophy deliberately designed to destroy almost every kind of game design and game play from our hobby (except storytelling) as "modern game design" is simply perpetuating a vicious prejudice.

At least reread the whole of what you quoted from me. I've inserted it so you can do so. Story-games make game playing into telling a better story. They aren't the answer to the thread (game or story?), they are one side of a 2-sided issue. Is D&D going to be a game about telling a "good" story or is it going to remain a game about playing a role (i.e. a simulation game hidden behind a screen)?

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I want my water-balloon-throwing fighter to be able to deal the same damage as a longbow-shooting fighter. Why does Pathfinder have trap options for some ranged characters?