|
Rulebook Heavily posted:Higher-level 3.x wasn't designed. Playtesting stopped at level 10. Well, intended then.
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 19:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 17:59 |
|
|
SALT CURES HAM posted:Does regular D&D really break that badly if you don't have casters? Magic items, yeah, definitely, but I don't see how playing caster-light screws anything up. Depends on the edition, but 3.5 or earlier leave you high and hosed if you don't have some means of magical healing. Healing times are miserable otherwise and there's nothing to balance out a few party-killing crits. You also have the DR system which is "balanced" (ha ha) at early levels by assuming PCs have access to magic weapon and the like. There's also stuff like level drain, petrification, curses, etc., that depends on having a caster on hand to recover from easily... if ever, really. It doesn't fix the balance issues, either. Of the noncaster classes in core, rogues are the best utility class. Barbarians would be #2, but the lack of magical healing gives them the hilarious weakness that they can easily fight on past the point they're doing to die, with damage accumulating at the the end of their rage and no way to heal beforehand. The original 3.0 / 3.5 barbarian rules assume magical healing, so they're hosed. That leaves fighters and monks, two of the worst classes in the game, to play. Evil Mastermind posted:Well, intended then. Yes. You're supposed to have X GP worth of magic items depending on your level in d20 D&D, the game outright gives the numbers PCs should have.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Is it a thing to have campaigns/worlds that are completely bereft of magic? I guess that make it literally 'medieval', except the PCs and NPCs end up being really really good at martial skills. Are there any systems that explicitly support this or is it just a matter of stripping out casting classes and forming the universe accordingly. Iron Heroes
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 20:22
|
|
|
Captain Foo posted:Iron Heroes ... is a mess. It has a lot of interesting ideas and it's better than default 3.0 / 3.5 for fighty bits, but it also carries a lot of terrible, terrible d20 assumptions with it. (Still think Dodge is worth a feat pick? Would you like a system that lets you make that sort of feat blunder ten times...? Well, have I got a system for you folks, then!)
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 20:52
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:... is a mess. Don't forget token pools!
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 20:57
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:... is a mess. yes, I know 
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 22:08
|
|
|
Rulebook Heavily posted:Higher-level 3.x wasn't designed. Playtesting stopped at level 10. Level 12, to be pedantic. Also, the game designers played 3rd Edition just like they played 2nd Edition: Fighters were melee tanks, clerics did nothing but cast healing spells and sometimes melee, wizards mostly memorized damage-dealing spells, and rogues flanked with the fighters to sneak attack. From what I heard, playing 3.X this way is viable, but the play-style pretty much falls apart once you take a look at all the other spells or incorporate any number of splatbooks.
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 23:51
|
|
|
Captain Foo posted:yes, I know Oh, uh... well... I'm just making sure everybody else does! 
|
|
#
?
Sep 15, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
Libertad! posted:Level 12, to be pedantic. It's viable. We were a hair's breadth from going into epic levels with that kind of... basically enforced play, when the GM and his wife had their second kid. I've never been so glad for a child's arrival in my life. I really should take the spare months of their sleep deprivation to bone up on Golden Sky Stories and Dungeon World and such, and hopefully deflect the future from the horror that lurks ahead.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
 For twenty perfect minutes 
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 02:08
|
|
|
Hey, that's the wrong kickstarter! Spirit of '77 is somewhere else! (Weren't the seventies kinda...eh? I seem to remember something saying that a lot of the nihilistic moods of the 1980s had their roots in events and reactions in the 1970s.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:Hey, that's the wrong kickstarter! Spirit of '77 is somewhere else! The 70s were a lot like right now, except slightly more cheerful and with no internet.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 04:26
|
|
|
Error 404 posted:The 70s were a lot like right now, except slightly more cheerful and with no internet.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 04:33
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Also shitloads more pollution. Seriously, the 70's were gross. All that pollution is still here though, plus the new stuff. Ohgodohgodwe'reallgonnadie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 04:37
|
|
|
Davin Valkri posted:Hey, that's the wrong kickstarter! Spirit of '77 is somewhere else! So77's tagline is "Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll... The best parts of a bad decade." for a reason.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 04:41
|
|
|
Error 404 posted:All that pollution is still here though, plus the new stuff. Ohgodohgodwe'reallgonnadie. Lake Erie is a big case in point.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 05:23
|
|
|
Regarding So77 and pollution this has been linked a few times in the So77 Thread. Bucnasti posted:Yeah the photos of TV and Movie characters are out but the chapter headings are all public domain. They're from the DOCUMERICA project, which is really fascinating. From 1971 until 1977 the EPA paid some of the countries best photojournalists to go out and document the state of the American environment, but being photojournalists they documented a lot more than that capturing all aspects of life in the 1970s. It's been an invaluable asset to me during this project and because all the images are owned by the government we can use them freely. Its got some really amazing pictures in it, ranging from Inner City life, the American wilderness, coal mining towns, farmlands, beaches, etc etc, all aspects of the American "environment". Its a neat look at America 40 years ago. There is some pretty  stuff too, the pictures of gas stations during the gas crunch especially make me gloomily wonder about some point in the future.This is the best though.  
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 06:05
|
|
|
Error 404 posted:The 70s were a lot like right now, except slightly more cheerful and with no internet. Spirit of 77 posted:This is a Perfect World - The World of ‘77 This is the beginning of the chapter on the world of Spirit of 77. I do a lot of reading about the seventies and it's amazing the number of parallels with today, you can literally do search and replace on magazine and newspaper articles from the late 1970s switching words like "Saturday Night Special" with "Assault Weapon", "Disco" with "Techno" or "Gas Prices" with well... "Gas Prices", and you wouldn't know they weren't written today. EDIT:Regarding pollution. Yeah the state of the environment was generally dogshit in the US in the 1970's. The EPA was created (by Nixon of all people) in 1970, but it took years before things really started getting better. Bucnasti fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Sep 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 06:22
|
|
|
Bucnasti posted:This is the beginning of the chapter on the world of Spirit of 77. Preaching to the choir here, but the seventies in cinema very much were about the fabric of society fraying (Dirty Harry is probably the best example) so it's def something that's relatable these days.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 06:38
|
|
|
Error 404 posted:Ohgodohgodwe'reallgonnadie. Accept your mortality and embrace the void 
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 07:09
|
|
|
Kemper Boyd posted:Preaching to the choir here, but the seventies in cinema very much were about the fabric of society fraying (Dirty Harry is probably the best example) so it's def something that's relatable these days. Error 404 posted:All that pollution is still here though, plus the new stuff. Ohgodohgodwe'reallgonnadie.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 12:34
|
|
|
I had a thought; how does So77 deal with the LGBT stuff happening around then?
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 12:36
|
|
|
So I'm at something like page 40 of the DND Next thread and something that came up repeatedly was that martial classes need +x weapons at certain points of their progression to keep up with monsters. Is this true across other d20 systems? Are there any rules of thumb for this?Error 404 posted:All that pollution is still here though, plus the new stuff. Ohgodohgodwe'reallgonnadie. The ozone layer has actually recovered (is recovering?) quite a bit since humanity came together to phase out CFCs. I mean, we might still die because we can't seem to come together a couple more times to fix a couple more things, but still.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 12:44
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:So I'm at something like page 40 of the DND Next thread and something that came up repeatedly was that martial classes need +x weapons at certain points of their progression to keep up with monsters. Is this true across other d20 systems? Are there any rules of thumb for this? It's true for "full-featured" d20 systems, like 3e and 4e D&D and Pathfinder. It's probably not the case in something smaller - the relevant mechanic is usually a monster quality called "damage reduction." PCs should be starting to see magic weapons by level 3 at the latest but usually it doesn't matter what type of magic weapon. Anything's good as long as they can use it and it has a +1 or higher.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 12:48
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:So I'm at something like page 40 of the DND Next thread and something that came up repeatedly was that martial classes need +x weapons at certain points of their progression to keep up with monsters. Is this true across other d20 systems? Are there any rules of thumb for this? It's certainly true in D&D 3rd / 3.5 and most of its derivatives, like Pathfinder. Base d20 gives an assumed wealth by level. More progressive d20 games like Fantasy Craft and 13th Age tend to presume the presence of magic items but tend not to rely on players being laden down with them as much.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:00
|
|
|
Alien Rope Burn posted:It's certainly true in D&D 3rd / 3.5 and most of its derivatives, like Pathfinder. And Next, which was designed to throw out all the good design from 4E in favour of appealing to grogs with ~tummyfeels~. 4E also assumes magic items, but actually provides rules for not using them (inherent bonuses), and assumes that everyone is using them/using inherent bonuses instead of gimping non-casters. e; basically, don't play 3.x or Next, they are Bad Games. Play something good instead.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:09
|
|
|
Lemon Curdistan posted:And Next, which was designed to throw out all the good design from 4E in favour of appealing to grogs with ~tummyfeels~. Like Pathfinder! don't play pathfinder
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:11
|
|
|
Thanks, and yeah I should probably stop scouring 3.x and retroclones and the like and just run Dungeon World. All the language about deliberately setting up relationships with the world and with each other is still a bit intimidating though, so I'm rather leaning more towards World of Dungeons, Fate Accelerated or even FU to make it (even more) open-ended. On a somewhat related note, what could tap I as inspiration/suggestions on what a Fighter/Ranger could do beyond just rolling for damage? The Fighter in my game made up "I bash him with my shield instead of trying to pick up my sword" after he dropped his weapon on a critical fumble, so that was cool and I rewarded him with the target losing its next turn.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:21
|
|
|
If those are the sorts of problems you're having, just go ahead and run Dungeon World. It is exactly what you want and it is a lot less formidable than it seems.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:23
|
|
|
Arivia posted:If those are the sorts of problems you're having, just go ahead and run Dungeon World. It is exactly what you want and it is a lot less formidable than it seems. I second this. It sounds to me like Dungeon World would be right up your alley. I can understand why you might be a little intimidated by bits of it, but it's a resilient system - if you dive in and screw up the odd thing here or there, it's no big deal. Just keep making terrible things happen and ask 'what do you do?'
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 13:43
|
|
|
potatocubed posted:I second this. It sounds to me like Dungeon World would be right up your alley. I can understand why you might be a little intimidated by bits of it, but it's a resilient system - if you dive in and screw up the odd thing here or there, it's no big deal. Just keep making terrible things happen and ask 'what do you do?' It's the stuff about Fronts and Moves and Bonds that I don't think I'm getting/is intimidating. I understand the other key parts of it like the fail completely versus the succeed with consequences versus the succeed completely, and "fail forwards" and the DM (almost?) never rolling a die because NPC actions are a result/reaction to what the PCs do and asking "what do you do?" a lot. That other stuff though, how essential is it that I make Custom Moves ahead of time? How essential is it for characters to establish Bonds with each other? How essential is it to formalize the Fronts and [Tag] items and NPCs? Are these critical to the game experience, or is it more for DMs/players that are more used to simulationist games to get into a correct mindset? I personally have no problem with just making stuff up whole-cloth on the fly and assigning bonuses or penalties from snippets of background and assumptions.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:02
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:It's the stuff about Fronts and Moves and Bonds that I don't think I'm getting/is intimidating. I ran DW for about a year as a series of one-shots, and:
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:10
|
|
|
Custom moves are a codification. They just say [NPC] can do [NPC Signature abilities] Fronts are a good fast way of keeping track of NPC organisations and being inspired with them. Useful but not essential. Bonds? They are just inspiration for getting the game started and creating PC backstory. As GM you don't need to touch them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:12
|
|
|
I've always thought the Front stuff was just to keep things organized; friend and I have been alternating dming short campaigns, he uses fronts and has really good notes & stuff, while I've written down almost nothing and mostly pull everything straight from my rear end. It's very easy to just go "Yeah that sounds like something that'd happen." and then do the thing. I say this regarding Fronts, Custom/situational moves, Monster moves, etc. Bonds are the character's relationships with each other character. You get XP if one of your bonds changes or resolves in some way at the end of a session, and they affect your bonus to some moves like Aid/Interfere. That's about it. They're important but simple, don't overthink them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:17
|
|
|
I wish I even knew someone planning on ever playing 5th Edition. The most anti-4th edition people I know all switched to Pathfinder permanently and have no interest in even giving 5th Edition a chance, which is extra-funny given that of course they are the target audience. Oh well, at least the first editor of Dragon Magazine says 5th Edition is proof they finally realized that AD&D 1st Edition was better than anything that came after it. And he says this with joy. So it must be hitting some oldschool dudes just right!
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:19
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:I've written down almost nothing and mostly pull everything straight from my rear end. neonchameleon posted:Fronts are a good fast way of keeping track of NPC organisations and being inspired with them. Useful but not essential. Flavivirus posted:I ran DW for about a year as a series of one-shots, and: Wow, thanks. That pretty much obliterates all my reservations about the system. I really will have to run it now!
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:23
|
|
|
Quarex posted:I wish I even knew someone planning on ever playing 5th Edition. The most anti-4th edition people I know all switched to Pathfinder permanently and have no interest in even giving 5th Edition a chance, which is extra-funny given that of course they are the target audience. Kim Mohan? Or is there someone I'm not thinking of?
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:25
|
|
|
Lemon Curdistan posted:And Next, which was designed to throw out all the good design from 4E in favour of appealing to grogs with ~tummyfeels~. Yeah, I've only skimmed through Next. I tried to get up the gumption to create a character for a local PbP just to try it out. Where it was clearly intended to create a feeling of nostalgia, I just got a strong feeling of deja vu that prompted a feeling of pure boredom. It's a feeling I generally get when I see Cleric, Fighter, Wizard and friends, it's why I struggled a bit with 13th Age until 13 True Ways, but it hit me a lot harder with 5e than it usually does. I just felt like there was nothing new to explore in a brand new game. I don't mind that kind of nostalgia-flogging entirely, as long as there's something novel, but 5e doesn't have any of that. I'd actually rather play 3.5 or Pathfinder over 5e, because for all their flaws, they've both lasted long enough to start getting gonzo. In 3.5 I can at least play a humanoid orca that stuffs her face with the souls of broken gods or a wuxia giant who attacks you with blades of sand born from his faith. The game is still busted as hell, but it's full of interesting ideas... even if it would better to just port them to innovative elfgame du jour. Quarex posted:Oh well, at least the first editor of Dragon Magazine says 5th Edition is proof they finally realized that AD&D 1st Edition was better than anything that came after it. And he says this with joy. So it must be hitting some oldschool dudes just right! Is he sure? Because 5e doesn't include the word "matrix" nearly enough to resemble AD&D. I hear you can even level up a halfling fighter to 7th level!
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:34
|
|
|
I wouldn't worry about Fronts. They're actually really simple to use but for the most part they're a tool for the GM to use to make the world feel like a living, breathing place. First of all, you don't even need to have any fronts set up for the first game: the first session should be all about you, the GM, asking your players questions to let them fill in the details of the world. Once you've played the first session of the game some things the players threw at you should strike you as potentially campaign-defining material, and there you'll get your Dangers for the campaign front. So, if the thing that keeps coming up during the first session is an orcish warlord amassing armies in the North, then that orcish warlord should probably be the big Danger of the campaign. Each Danger on the front has its omens, which are basically a progression of the Danger escalating. Every session when the PCs ignore a particular Danger to focus on another or fail to successfully work against the Danger, you reveal the next omen of that Danger. So, using the orcish warlord example, if the PCs spend the entirety of a session investigating corruption in the Imperial Capital (because the electors of the Empire don't stand united against the orcish threat, with the Southern electors having declared the orcs not their problem) they will probably manage to hold back the Enemies Within Danger, but the time spent not dealing with the oncoming orcish treat will advance that Danger to its next omen (probably something like "Orcs raid the Northern duchies.") When the last omen of a Danger comes to play, it means that poo poo is really going down and if things are not stopped right now it'll lead to really bad poo poo happening. The last omen of the Enemies Within danger might be something like "The Southern dukes move to dismantle the Empire," which would be bad in this case because it would leave the entire Empire vulnerable to the hordes of orcs. If the PCs had successfully resolved that Danger but had thus ignored the orcish threat, the orc Danger might have moved to its last omen, "The horde burns the Imperial Capital to the ground." You can use Fronts on a smaller scale as well: every adventure after the first should have its own Front with its own Dangers. If the PCs decide to stay in town to deal with the corrupt government, you might have a single corrupt elector as a Danger on the adventure Front, with the other Dangers representing other factions in the city. Between adventures you should also check to see if any of your campaign fronts have resolved and if you actually have an adventure Front that could stand to become a campaign Front. So, the players uncover the conspiracy, reveal its members and manage to have them arrested, but while this was going on they ignored rumors of the High Priest talking about turning the Empire into a monastic state with him and his holy order as its statesmen. The plot to fracture the Empire is no longer relevant, but with the corrupt electors out of the picture the High Priest might be looking at putting his plot into motion, and thus his religious faction might become a new Campaign Front. Having said all of that, you won't actually have to worry about any of this stuff during the first game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 14:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 17:59 |
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:It's the stuff about Fronts and Moves and Bonds that I don't think I'm getting/is intimidating. First off, Scrape and I (mostly Scrape) wrote a "how to" guide for running DW that bunches of people have found very useful. There's a lot of advice in there about failing forward and how to apply GM moves. As for the other stuff: Fronts are one of those things everyone gets hung up on for some reason. Even though I wrote the Fronts stuff in the Guide, I never use them. At least, I never use them as written. Just think of a Front as a rough outline of an adventure, except it's written to what will happen in the PCs don't stop it or get involved. You don't have to make grim portents or faces or whatever unless you want to. Likewise custom moves. They can be useful if you want a situation that has an interesting focus that you want to cover in more detail than just a defy danger or parley move ("When you attempt to cross Lava Gorge...", "When you ask the old crone to read your fortune...", "When you try to contact the thieve's guild...") but again they're not necessary.
|
|
#
?
Sep 16, 2014 15:06
|
|