|
Agent Boogeyman posted:This reminds me of a nightmare I'm glad I avoided back in the day by witnessing a guy's absolutely unimaginable GM style before joining one of his games. First of all, he was a "pay to play" GM, which is a completely different can of worms that I won't go into right now Actually I'd like to hear more about this, it sounds vastly more interesting than anything Next related.
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 00:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
A couple of the big-name grogs on the WotC forums claim to be paid to DM, but for the life of me I can;t remember the usernames. Which is probably no bad thing. But based on the story, I'm assuming the guy you're talking about is one of those. And if it is, then yeah, they are golden examples of how bad D&D is for your critical reasoning faculties.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
There was a dude who used to post on RPGnet for a while who had big plans to be a professional for-pay GM and posted threads non-stop soliciting advice and feedback for his totally not at all unrealistic and insane life goals. He once posted an outline of his sick pro-GMing strats which included, among other things, wearing a mask to heighten...something, I'm not sure which.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 00:50
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:There was a dude who used to post on RPGnet for a while who had big plans to be a professional for-pay GM and posted threads non-stop soliciting advice and feedback for his totally not at all unrealistic and insane life goals. He once posted an outline of his sick pro-GMing strats which included, among other things, wearing a mask to heighten...something, I'm not sure which. Oh, dang, I remember that guy. Agent Boogeyman, is that the guy?
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 01:13
|
|
|
He was in the op of grogs.txt.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 01:15
|
|
|
Roadie posted:Oh, dang, I remember that guy. No, that guy can't be Agent Boogeyman's (who I would still love to hear more about) because Mask GM never actually got his dreams off the ground, he eventually (to the best of my recollection, this was years ago) gave in and got a minimum wage job of some sort because it turned out that in addition to being crazy and delusional he was also unemployed and broke. I think he posted something to the effect that his lofty aspirations of pro GMing were basically his way of denying the reality of his lovely situation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 01:20
|
|
|
"Dude With GMing Mask" was in the very first post of the very first grognards.txt thread. There was another guy who was trying to be a paid GM, but some poking showed that he was a college-aged dude without much in the way of job skills trying to bring in some money to help out his mother who he lived with and who had health problems (physical and mental). His big plan was to charge people $10/hr to have him GM at a table in his local mall's food court, and he'd give you $12 in coupons to the restaurants so really you can't afford not to play with him. It stopped being funny and started being painful and sympathetic and I think it ended with the guy getting some help for himself after people on another board managed to get through to him that he was in the middle of a major crisis and DMing-for-pay wasn't going to solve anything. e: Oh, I guess they were the same guy. Huh.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 01:25
|
|
|
Nah, that's not the guy I'm talking about. This guy is a self proclaimed "Professional GM" and in all his profiles he has it plastered everywhere as such. He runs Pathfinder exclusively, with a few custom rules to make the game way more difficult than it really should be. He lauds this as some kind of badge of merit in that the first thing he told me when trying to recruit me was that only one or two groups make it past the first encounter out of every ten or so. Like, it is the thing he talks about most every time he discusses the game with anyone or advertises himself. The short story is he's a snake oil salesman through and through, and somehow has a following of hundreds of people lining up to get into his games. When I talked with him last it was 2012 and it was over Skype. I was invited by one of his players and we talked for a bit before being added to a queue of literally hundreds of people in one Skype group who were all apparently "trying out" for his games. They were waiting for the inevitable TPK of his groups to play in the maddening rotating meat grinder that is apparently his game. But I suppose I should stress how kind of slippery slope this whole deal was. I went in thinking, "Okay, cool, so this guy has a group who really likes his game. Maybe I'll check him out" and he presented himself as a pretty cool guy to begin with. At this point in time I didn't know he was expecting me to PAY MONEY to play in his game. No one had mentioned this; not him, not the guy who introduced me to him. In fact, this was literally the last thing I learned about, AFTER the session sit-in. Like, literally a bait and switch in which he suddenly mentions it, ("So, I accept paypal..." "What.") We had a good discussion before that about all the stuff he added and changed in the system and what he expected from his players, one of which seemed to hint that if you played the game to just play the game, you were barking up the wrong tree. This was the first red flag. He was obviously looking for power gamers or gamers who only cared about numbers and very little about roleplay. Second red flag: He ONLY ran in Pathfinder and was as groggy as groggy can be when it comes to game systems. He was VERY opinionated about anything that wasn't Pathfinder to the severely negative. He was in love with the OGL because he told me numerous times he was going to try and sell his PF houserules at some point and mentioned that the only reason he hadn't already was because he didn't want others having access to it (Major WTF right here). He invites me to sit in on a session and I am treated to the seven hour nightmare puzzle that may as well have been orchestrated by Takeshi Kitano himself. I pretty much explained already what happened there. After that I just said "Nah" and then left the group not really thinking about it until a good deal later when it began to settle in that... this was a man who is roping people in to play a game, effectively taking their money and... not delivering. And that these people neither cared or noticed. That's when I decided to look him up. I found a lot of threads of him trying to advertise his game on forums like 4chan (Which he was promptly laughed at. Hard), roll20 (In which he was banned permanently for soliciting, which is against the rules) and reddit (That thread is long gone though). In each one he was followed up by the SAME four dudes who would parrot thigns like "Yeha, this guy is great!" "Love your games!" etc. I soon discovered he's a part of a group of so-called "Professional GMs" that have a pretty big forum that specializes in making money off of GMing tabletop games. He's technically been relatively quiet for the past 2 years, but he's now running a twitch stream of this exact same campaign. One of his videos is a 10 hour battle in which the most exciting thing that happens is someone full attacking every turn. It was one fight that spanned two sessions. Agent Boogeyman fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Dec 16, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 02:05
|
|
|
Agent Boogeyman posted:He's technically been relatively quiet for the past 2 years, but he's now running a twitch stream of this exact same campaign. One of his videos is a 10 hour battle in which the most exciting thing that happens is someone full attacking every turn. It was one fight that spanned two sessions. Ok, I must ask... link?
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 02:17
|
|
|
Yeah c'mon, I wanna watch the train-wreck for myself.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 02:23
|
|
|
Haha, I don't think that'd be mod approved, seeing as he kind of has all his information right there and goons don't behave. It's why I'm not actually dropping any links. He uses his real name EVERYwhere. He really isn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 02:31
|
|
|
Ok, thanks for the answers on the reach problem. Between your responses, taking a closer reading of the rules, and skimming some other sites, I think I've got it figured out. The rules aren't any more or less balanced than how I'd do it, they're just needlessly complicated. Does this look like a good little chart to give to my DM and other players? (It's my first time playing 5E, but it's also his first time running it and there are a bunch of new players, so I'm trying to be helpful to keep things running smoothly) Also, how do you guys feel about flanking? I was baffled that it wasn't included since it's the only reason to really care about positioning for most characters, but the optional rule says it gives Advantage, which seems like it's maybe a little too much. Anyone have an opinion on whether we should use it or not?
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 22:35
|
|
|
That's correct. 1. A dude can be attacked by the smiley if they're standing on the Reach During Turn squares 2. A dude will trigger an Opportunity Attack if they're in an adjacent square and move away (normal OA behavior) 3. A dude will trigger an Opportunity Attack if they're in the farther square and move adjacent (OA granted by Polearm Master) You should also caption that image: Remember, the use of miniatures in
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
Pharmaskittle posted:Ok, thanks for the answers on the reach problem. Between your responses, taking a closer reading of the rules, and skimming some other sites, I think I've got it figured out. The rules aren't any more or less balanced than how I'd do it, they're just needlessly complicated. Does this look like a good little chart to give to my DM and other players? I knew what you were talking about and I found the chart confusing. Skip the chart maybe? Demonstrate the three scenarios on the grid instead of trying to present them as one image? I don't care about flanking. This game's tactical depth is "Does the <Wizard> use a spell or use a cantrip?" Adding flanking, removing it, who cares. If you have it in, it should be Advantage because a bonus should be Advantage, not piddly modifiers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 22:58
|
|
|
The whole thing is an overcomplicated mess because of the natural language, but it makes more sense if you can imagine/wrap your head around the idea that a) melee battles are a lot more fluid than previous editions and b) the intent behind the polearm master feat is to smack someone closing with you (as though you set a spear against a charge) rather than control a larger area.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:04
|
|
|
I can't understand what is meant by "natural language" other than "poorly written." Natural language has no meaning and is something of a paradox.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:05
|
|
|
The chart is correct for a PC with the polearm master feat. It is confusing to look at, but I guess it demonstrates that you've understood the rules. Question time: Can a person with a polearm fight "through" a person with a shield (ie, standing behind a shield wall and using your axe or spear) in Next like they can in AD&D*, or does a PC "block" their space? *and in real life
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:06
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I can't understand what is meant by "natural language" other than "poorly written." Natural language has no meaning and is something of a paradox. Serious answer, you know how 4E had a consistent way of describing how a power or ability worked using codified keywords and terminology? Natural language is not-that. It's the idea that a roleplaying game shouldn't read like a technical manual even when it's trying to impart technical information.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:14
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Serious answer, you know how 4E had a consistent way of describing how a power or ability worked using codified keywords and terminology? Natural language is not-that. It's the idea that a roleplaying game shouldn't read like a technical manual even when it's trying to impart technical information. Right, that's just bad writing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Right, that's just bad writing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
ImpactVector posted:Except D&D has traditionally been poorly written in that way, so people needed a name for it to feel better about preferring it. In order to get back true "natural language" they have to launch into lengthy one-paragraph descriptions of what % of the 1d100 hobgoblins are juveniles and what percent are captains, wizards, and chiefs (with no accompanying rules).
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:24
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Question time: Can a person with a polearm fight "through" a person with a shield (ie, standing behind a shield wall and using your axe or spear) in Next like they can in AD&D*, or does a PC "block" their space? I believe the target would count as having half cover, and so gain +2 AC.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:24
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:I can't understand what is meant by "natural language" other than "poorly written." Natural language has no meaning and is something of a paradox. It's a painful term as compared to, like, MtG, which has well-regulated yet intuitive language without instantly sucking everything into a black hole of TOO GAMEY NO GOOD (well, except for the weirdness of "at the beginning of the end step").
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:30
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:In order to get back true "natural language" they have to launch into lengthy one-paragraph descriptions of what % of the 1d100 hobgoblins are juveniles and what percent are captains, wizards, and chiefs (with no accompanying rules). You say this like there aren't a ton of OSR games out there that don't tout themselves as doing this exact sort of thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:31
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:You say this like there aren't a ton of OSR games out there that don't tout themselves as doing this exact sort of thing. What we really need is a retroclone game with minimalist mechanics in one chapter at the front and then the rest of the book is just a giant set of Central Casting lifepath generators for chargen and NPCs. No, actually, we really need that. That would be pretty rad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
goatface posted:I believe the target would count as having half cover, and so gain +2 AC. So the guy with the shield (or I guess a guy without a shield) provides equal cover to the guy he's defending and the guy they're both attacking. Because teamwork doesn't exist? Or because  ?Roadie posted:What we really need is a retroclone game with minimalist mechanics in one chapter at the front and then the rest of the book is just a giant set of Central Casting lifepath generators for chargen and NPCs. Yeah, that sounds pretty great.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:41
|
|
|
Roadie posted:It's a painful term as compared to, like, MtG, which has well-regulated yet intuitive language without instantly sucking everything into a black hole of TOO GAMEY NO GOOD (well, except for the weirdness of "at the beginning of the end step"). It's kind of weird to hold Magic up as an example of "clear language but not too gamey" because Magic's language is literally all about gameability. I mean yeah, it has flavor text, but the actual rules text on each card follows a very specific set of syntax and keyword terminology rules designed for the express purpose of ensuring that players can very easily parse what it is a card is supposed to do. It is well-regulated and intuitive, but it's absolutely 100% game-oriented with nary a drop of "natural language" in sight. And this is exactly the sort of thing 4E tried to do. 4E's power and ability language is basically the child of Magic: the Gathering and it shows that someone on the development side of things looked at Magic and went "hey, these guys manage thousands of relatively unique and individual cards without it turning into an enormous clusterfuck, how do they do that?" and took some lessons away from it. The problem is that there's this die-hard contingent of elfgamers...call them Gygaxian naturalists or grognards or immersionists, I have no idea what you'd call them...who absolutely and utterly loathe it when a roleplaying game reminds them that it is, in fact, a game. To them an RPG needs to be some nebulous tome of mystery and wonder and anything that's "too gamey" is bad because of reasons I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around. Because it's dumbed down WoW for kiddies, because powergamers will abuse it, take your pick. M:tG-ese isn't the only way to write an RPG, you don't have to do it, but I think Next is doing a pretty good job of illustrating what happens when you try to pen a game full of fiddly moving parts and a bevy of powers and exceptions using "naturalistic language," i.e. it raises a lot of questions and uncertainties. But again, to whatever fanbase for naturalistic language this is a feature and not a bug because "ask the GM" is an expected part of the proper D&D experience.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:46
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:So the guy with the shield (or I guess a guy without a shield) provides equal cover to the guy he's defending and the guy they're both attacking. Because teamwork doesn't exist? Or because If your target is more than half obscured by anything, including allies, they get the bonus. You could certainly argue it shouldn't count, especially if the characters were phalanx trained at some point.
|
|
#
?
Dec 16, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Yeah, that sounds pretty great. One could even mix in some of this newfangled social gaming with the d100 grog and have the option for stuff that each person rolls to determine parts of the game/setting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 00:03
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:And this is exactly the sort of thing 4E tried to do. 4E's power and ability language is basically the child of Magic: the Gathering and it shows that someone on the development side of things looked at Magic and went "hey, these guys manage thousands of relatively unique and individual cards without it turning into an enormous clusterfuck, how do they do that?" and took some lessons away from it. The problem is that there's this die-hard contingent of elfgamers...call them Gygaxian naturalists or grognards or immersionists, I have no idea what you'd call them...who absolutely and utterly loathe it when a roleplaying game reminds them that it is, in fact, a game. To them an RPG needs to be some nebulous tome of mystery and wonder and anything that's "too gamey" is bad because of reasons I couldn't even begin to wrap my head around. Because it's dumbed down WoW for kiddies, because powergamers will abuse it, take your pick. The tabletop hobby is one simultaniously built around math, yet populated by nerds who were really bad at math and came to loathe it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
I don't know if I'd say it's "grognards loathe math" so much as it is a pervasive sentiment I've seen over the years that game design is, essentially, an art and not a science. It's where the "no one will give a poo poo about a formula" mindset comes from, not because they got bad math scores on the SATs but because worrying about math isn't the proper way to appreciate an RPG and the GM can just fix it in post anyway, plus real roleplayers don't care about numbers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 00:27
|
|
|
If someone's actually done a proper probability analysis and worked out balance, party-size encounter scaling and level progression, that completely destroys the noble art of poring over books until you attain a level of system mastery you can lord over the "casuals".
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 00:32
|
|
|
goatface posted:If someone's actually done a proper probability analysis and worked out balance, party-size encounter scaling and level progression, that completely destroys the noble art of poring over books until you attain a level of system mastery you can lord over the "casuals". I mean this is some of it. I'm trying to be reasonable and not just dive straight into "hurr grogs are shitlords," but yeah, you see some people talk about how balance and math ruins their enjoyment of a game and you'll see this sort of thing shine through. If a game spells things out in clear and unambiguous terms then it removes the "mystery" of having to figure out what hoops to jump through and which pitfalls to avoid and any random scrub can make whatever character they want and not get punished for it, plus if you can clearly tell that the GM is throwing something drastically out of scale to your level 3 party at you then you can quite reasonably call them out on their poo poo or question why he's feeling the need to do that whereas with a game whose encounter creation systems are an obfuscated mess you're left in the dark about everything which is how a chunk of D&D fans want the GM/PC divide to function. "Naturalistic language" plays into all of that. A game that's clear and concise goes against all of these things. The M:tG team has spent a considerable amount of time and effort tweaking and tightening the rules and language of their game to make things as clear and effective as possible in an effort to A). open their game up to as broad an audience as possible and B). not have players groping in the dark to figure out how the latest set of cards work. Kai Tave fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Dec 17, 2014 |
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 00:40
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:If a game spells things out in clear and unambiguous terms then it removes the "mystery" of having to figure out what hoops to jump through and which pitfalls to avoid and any random scrub can make whatever character they want and not get punished for it, plus if you can clearly tell that the GM is throwing something drastically out of scale to your level 3 party at you then you can quite reasonably call them out on their poo poo or question why he's feeling the need to do that whereas with a game whose encounter creation systems are an obfuscated mess you're left in the dark about everything which is how a chunk of D&D fans want the GM/PC divide to function. What I don't understand is why would this prevent a GM throwing something way bigger than you into the mix and its now suddenly become an issue because you now know its something way bigger than you? Given there isn't really a mechanic for retreating in D&D shouldn't you be better off having your players know what is or isn't an actual threat. I've been told I don't really play D&D the may its commonly played though?
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
Nothing really, but look at the deal with the brain-eating dog monster. In a system with rational, easy to parse encounter guidelines anybody could see that throwing a pack of those at some low-level characters is a lovely move, but in a system where all that is obfuscated through fuzzy logic and "just eyeball it" then if you, the GM, throw some Intellect Devourers at a low-level party and wind up eating Bob the Fighter's brain before Steve's Wizard turns the fight off then you're off the hook and can blame the players for not utilizing proper "player skill" because there's no way they understand what a "proper" encounter should be and to be honest you probably don't either, but the book said it was okay so that's what we're going by. Are you a professional game designer, Bob? No? Then quit complaining and roll a new character, jeez.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:26
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Nothing really, but look at the deal with the brain-eating dog monster. In a system with rational, easy to parse encounter guidelines anybody could see that throwing a pack of those at some low-level characters is a lovely move, but in a system where all that is obfuscated through fuzzy logic and "just eyeball it" then if you, the GM, throw some Intellect Devourers at a low-level party and wind up eating Bob the Fighter's brain before Steve's Wizard turns the fight off then you're off the hook and can blame the players for not utilizing proper "player skill" because there's no way they understand what a "proper" encounter should be and to be honest you probably don't either, but the book said it was okay so that's what we're going by. Are you a professional game designer, Bob? No? Then quit complaining and roll a new character, jeez. What groups operate like this though. If your playing a turbo lethal style game where people are excepting this kind of player death then surely people would be all system mastery up the wazoo but if your not isn't it just going to bring the session to a crushing halt and gently caress up whatever story you were trying to tell in the first place? I mean I'm all on board with kill players off but you generally want to do that so the death is exciting and meaningful as opposed to being chumped by a save vs death.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:30
|
|
|
There are a lot of people out there who just follow the module along and try to kill their players with whatever is in the room.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:33
|
|
|
kingcom posted:What I don't understand is why would this prevent a GM throwing something way bigger than you into the mix and its now suddenly become an issue because you now know its something way bigger than you? Given there isn't really a mechanic for retreating in D&D shouldn't you be better off having your players know what is or isn't an actual threat. I've been told I don't really play D&D the may its commonly played though? Some people hate being able to "see" the mechanics. When you encounter the brain-eating dog monster that's just because what the story laid out and the system is just for task resolution, not to tell us whether or not the DM is doing it wrong. In my experience these are usually the same kind of people who will happily accept yet another d10+stat+skill game because they categorically do not care what the mechanics are like - its just for task resolution, nothing more. Things like milestones, powers that work with mechanics first and flavor second, daily powers for Fighters... these are the works of the devil. Oddly enough, in my own experience these people are also the most likely to powergame or go full munchkin, whereas those who do like to look at mechanics are more understanding of the spirit behind the letter of the text. But that could just be a statistical fluke so I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions from that observation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:34
|
|
|
goatface posted:There are a lot of people out there who just follow the module along and try to kill their players with whatever is in the room. Are modules known for being able to do this? I've only played pathfinder adventure paths for long enough to get any kind of feel for them and they tend to be pretty bad at the whole 'killing your party' thing. Plus death is super trivial in the grand scheme of things.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 05:01 |
|
|
Sage Genesis posted:Some people hate being able to "see" the mechanics. When you encounter the brain-eating dog monster that's just because what the story laid out and the system is just for task resolution, not to tell us whether or not the DM is doing it wrong. In my experience these are usually the same kind of people who will happily accept yet another d10+stat+skill game because they categorically do not care what the mechanics are like - its just for task resolution, nothing more. Things like milestones, powers that work with mechanics first and flavor second, daily powers for Fighters... these are the works of the devil. I totally get not wanting to see the mechanics. Thats a giant pain in the rear end thats not worth it most of the time but this comes back to my fundamental question of why do they like D&D, a game that is flooded with mechanics, if they dont want to see it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 17, 2014 01:36
|
|