Grognards.txt NEXT: Goodnight, Sweet Wince

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Grognards.txt NEXT: Goodnight, Sweet Wince

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

paradoxGentleman posted:

Please just answer my question: why is it important that we do not talk about him here? Shouldn't we, you know, make an effort to make sure that people know what a danger to the industry he is? I wasn't even aware of his existance before the last thread, let alone all the damage he's done.

Mostly because goons spent a lot of time reposting their stuff and arguing about it compared to the other dorks that gets quoted in here. If you want to tell people about that there are better places to do it than this thread!

# ? Feb 19, 2015 14:24

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 14:54

Clanpot Shake: Aug 10, 2006; shake shake!

paradoxGentleman posted:

I'm sure it's just a matter of time before something comes up, but if you insist we'll stop.
Please just answer my question: why is it important that we do not talk about him here? Shouldn't we, you know, make an effort to make sure that people know what a danger to the industry he is? I wasn't even aware of his existance before the last thread, let alone all the damage he's done.

There's a difference between informing anyone reading the thread who somehow doesn't already know about them and endlessly reposting their lovely, long-winded blog posts. Any time I see a giant quote wall I scroll to the bottom and check for a Zak S signature or a flavor of tobacco and if I find that I skip the whole post because it's never that interesting. They're one-note jerks and that's really all that need be said.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 15:52

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

NachtSieger posted:

"currently smoking: the woven asshairs of my mccarthyist clone empire"

This is a good one.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 17:06

Slimnoid: Sep 6, 2012; Does that mean I don't get the job?

Clanpot Shake posted:

There's a difference between informing anyone reading the thread who somehow doesn't already know about them and endlessly reposting their lovely, long-winded blog posts. Any time I see a giant quote wall I scroll to the bottom and check for a Zak S signature or a flavor of tobacco and if I find that I skip the whole post because it's never that interesting. They're one-note jerks and that's really all that need be said.

That, and giving them as little attention as humanly possible is the best thing that can be done in response to their gibbering insanity.

# ? Feb 19, 2015 17:22

That Old Tree: Jun 24, 2012; nah

quote:

Don't forget that a lot of companies don't care about the rules that much. They want to sell adventures or settings -- or just sell stuff at all. In the early days, you had plenty of third party D&D products, often jumping through some hoops to avoid friggin' lawyers (especially in the era of She Who Shall Not Be Named). Now all of a sudden everything is okay, even one-man companies can avoid legal hassles and just publish. Details of the system? Who cares.

The ghost of Lorraine Williams will haunt some of these obtuse motherfuckers for as long as they live.

quote:

quote:
Yup: by '84, all the cool kids stopped playing, just leaving us nerds.

There was a distinct uptick in the quality of the gamers that were left playing after '84, I have to say. It was similar to the effect when FPSs and WoW later drained off most of the pure hack and slashers. When people long for the boom times, I shudder.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 10:08

Chaltab: Feb 16, 2011; So shocked someone got me an avatar!

^ Lorraine Williams, haunting people from beyond the grave without actually even being dead.

wild grog posted:

I'm not au fait with 6th edition, admittedly. But if what you say is true, that's still a significant downgrade from the lawful-neutral-chaotic/good-neutral-evil 9-alignment axis.

Then there's the fact that WotC are pushing it now more as a miniature-focused game.

There's a reason that so many players stick with 3rd edition and just ignore all the poo poo that WotC has done to the franchise since then. They just keep removing poo poo and dumbing it all down because they're desperate to keep the franchise going.

Kind of like M:TG really.

You are not au fait with anything, dude.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:14

Orange Fluffy Sheep: Jul 26, 2008; Bad EXP received

Chaltab posted:

^ Lorraine Williams, haunting people from beyond the grave without actually even being dead.

You are not au fait with anything, dude.

Magic? Really?

They're desperate to keep this franchise that's been growing and growing for years, where each new block outsells the last one, which was the previous one, alive? Like, Magic is struggling and Wizards is pulling stunts to keep it afloat? He believes that?

He's not au fait with reality.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:25

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Magic? Really?

They're desperate to keep this franchise that's been growing and growing for years, where each new block outsells the last one, which was the previous one, alive? Like, Magic is struggling and Wizards is pulling stunts to keep it afloat? He believes that?

He's not au fait with reality.

He's talking about D&D, not Magic, which he probably believes in WotC's 'real' star.

Your point stands.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 20:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Night10194 posted:

He's talking about D&D, not Magic, which he probably believes in WotC's 'real' star.

Your point stands.

Last line, it's the cherry on top.

quote:

Kind of like M:TG really.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:10

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

paradoxGentleman posted:

I'm sure it's just a matter of time before something comes up, but if you insist we'll stop.
Please just answer my question: why is it important that we do not talk about him here? Shouldn't we, you know, make an effort to make sure that people know what a danger to the industry he is? I wasn't even aware of his existance before the last thread, let alone all the damage he's done.

That's... I mean it's not a bad thing but it's not really what grognards.txt is supposed to be about. Originally this was a "fun" thread where you'd come to laugh at absurdly overcomplicated house rules and goofy anime catgirl races and junk like that. Somewhere along the way it picked up a side order of "look at the awful things these people believe" and that was, eventually, what got the original incarnation of the thread killed because people lost perspective and started doing really dumb stuff here instead of just pointing and laughing.

I'm not the mod here but I think it would be a pretty decent idea to make a TG Hellthread strictly for the Zack S. and Pundit style shitshows where people could feel free to post about all the terrible regressive crap in the industry and the community but I really really wish that it wouldn't be in grognards.txt.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:20

Error 404: Jul 17, 2009; MAGE CURES PLOT

NorgLyle posted:

That's... I mean it's not a bad thing but it's not really what grognards.txt is supposed to be about. Originally this was a "fun" thread where you'd come to laugh at absurdly overcomplicated house rules and goofy anime catgirl races and junk like that. Somewhere along the way it picked up a side order of "look at the awful things these people believe" and that was, eventually, what got the original incarnation of the thread killed because people lost perspective and started doing really dumb stuff here instead of just pointing and laughing.

I'm not the mod here but I think it would be a pretty decent idea to make a TG Hellthread strictly for the Zack S. and Pundit style shitshows where people could feel free to post about all the terrible regressive crap in the industry and the community but I really really wish that it wouldn't be in grognards.txt.

I'm one of the ones who think these guys' poo poo should be talked about and not allowed to fade, but I can totally see your point.

So who wants to make the hellthread?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:27

moths: Aug 25, 2004; I would also still appreciate some danger.

It's probably a great place for all the GMS and Danks awfulness, too. Being a terrible industry person with lovely real world opinions shouldn't get swept under the rug, and a hellthread probably fits the bill.

Besides, this thread is the home of 2000 word essays about how 1-1-1 replacing 1-2-1 is D&D Communism in Obummer's Amerikkka. Let's not jeopardize this internet treasure-box.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:44

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Splicer posted:

Last line, it's the cherry on top.

I missed it. :negative:

# ? Feb 21, 2015 21:45

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

NorgLyle posted:

I'm not the mod here but I think it would be a pretty decent idea to make a TG Hellthread strictly for the Zack S. and Pundit style shitshows where people could feel free to post about all the terrible regressive crap in the industry and the community but I really really wish that it wouldn't be in grognards.txt.

Bahahaha. Lmao. Lol. Go for it, brother.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:10

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=428711

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:11

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Bahahaha. Lmao. Lol. Go for it, brother.

I mean a good idea from the perspective of preserving grognards.txt. I wouldn't read it. I hope most people would avoid it but it's just like the Gamer Gate stuff that derails every loving thread on the forums; some people clearly want to talk about it and won't take "hey this isn't really about that" as an answer.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:12

Xelkelvos: Dec 19, 2012

Chaltab posted:

^ Lorraine Williams, haunting people from beyond the grave without actually even being dead.

You are not au fait with anything, dude.

3.5 and 3e didn't have an emphasis on miniatures? I'm not up to snuff on my D&D history, but didn't each edition have some sort of focus on miniatures combat, albeit less than 4?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:32

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

NorgLyle posted:

I mean a good idea from the perspective of preserving grognards.txt. I wouldn't read it. I hope most people would avoid it but it's just like the Gamer Gate stuff that derails every loving thread on the forums; some people clearly want to talk about it and won't take "hey this isn't really about that" as an answer.

I agree that the golden age of grogs was when people posted funny stuff and funny stories instead of political crap and rss from blogs but making a new version of the most hated thread in the whole loving forums that bred some of the most obnoxious and lovely posters even for GBS standards is a really unwise idea.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:34

Plutonis: Mar 25, 2011

Also: What is a Gamergate again? The only thing I know it's because Ice-T murked a dude from it on law and order?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:35

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

Also: What is a Gamergate again?

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

some of the most obnoxious and lovely posters even for GBS standards

Imagine two roughly equally sized groups of those people having a giant angry screaming match over twitter and on various message boards. That's Gamergate. There's more to it than just that but if you're neither invested nor involved that's about the best description.

Also, don't watch SVU.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 22:43

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

Xelkelvos posted:

3.5 and 3e didn't have an emphasis on miniatures? I'm not up to snuff on my D&D history, but didn't each edition have some sort of focus on miniatures combat, albeit less than 4?

3.x retroactively didn't have an emphasis on miniatures once 4e came out. When 3e was coming out, it was Diablo as a tabletop game with unrealistic healing and gameplay far too focused on miniatures and not enough on imagination.

Basically it's possible to play 3.x without miniatures, albeit it wrecks a bunch of stuff and the game really isn't built for it, so people did it, and assumed that was the norm. This is absolutely connected to people who go "I don't want long fights in D&D, I just want to get to the good stuff," never realizing that they are rather explicitly stating "D&D's mechanics are terrible, I just want to freeform". This was mostly ignored right up to 4e being released, which also used miniatures but actually made combat fun, which was a sin against all that is D&D, as D&D needs to have terrible un-fun combat to better suit freeform roleplaying.

Basically everything in 3.x is explained when you realize few people who played 3.x actually used 3.x's rules, and instead just made cool looking character sheets followed by ignoring the actual game.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:06

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Xelkelvos posted:

3.5 and 3e didn't have an emphasis on miniatures? I'm not up to snuff on my D&D history, but didn't each edition have some sort of focus on miniatures combat, albeit less than 4?

All the combat examples in the 3.0 handbook use miniatures. They always say "if you are using miniatures", but never actually give any advice on non-miniatures combat. Also:

Speeding up Combat posted:

Miniatures: Use miniatures to show the relative positions of the combatants. It�s a lot faster to place a miniature where you want your character to be than to explain (and remember) where your character is relative to everyone else.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:22

FMguru: Sep 10, 2003; peed on;
sexually

3.x was absolutely filthy with flanking rules, attacks of opportunity, weapons reach effects, and everything else you'd expect to find in a fantasy miniatures boardgame. Half of the combat feats explicitly referenced AOOs and such.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:32

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

FMguru posted:

3.x was absolutely filthy with flanking rules, attacks of opportunity, weapons reach effects, and everything else you'd expect to find in a fantasy miniatures boardgame. Half of the combat feats explicitly referenced AOOs and such.

At least since AD&D every edition has basically assumed that you were going to be using miniatures when it came to the combat rules. When my friends and I in grade school were getting into D&D we just didn't have money for miniatures and so we largely ignored all the rules relating to them. Back in first and second edition it wasn't that difficult to handwave away most of it, especially when confronted with the kind of tactics and encounters created by a bunch of fifth graders. I still remember when one of the people I played with laid hands on a bunch of cardboard standup miniatures from somewhere and we went crazy for a while trying to use every single movement and range rule before getting bored with that and going back to kind of eyeballing everything.

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:47

eatenmyeyes: Mar 29, 2001; Grimey Drawer

moths posted:

Besides, this thread is the home of 2000 word essays about how 1-1-1 replacing 1-2-1 is D&D Communism in Obummer's Amerikkka. Let's not jeopardize this internet treasure-box.

Could someone fill me in on what this means?

# ? Feb 21, 2015 23:58

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

eatenmyeyes posted:

Could someone fill me in on what this means?

Diagonal movement on the square grid in third edition was one 'step' for the first diagonal, two for the second and then one for the third (and so on as long as you wanted to move like a bishop). In fourth edition, diagonal movement was one 'step' no matter how often you moved diagonally. This caused a bunch of people online who know a little bit of math to lose their minds though not quite to full damage on a miss levels of crazy.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:06

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

TheLovablePlutonis posted:

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

This should have been on the next post but whatever. GG chat goes in the hellthread.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:13

Elector_Nerdlingen: Sep 27, 2004

NorgLyle posted:

Diagonal movement on the square grid in third edition was one 'step' for the first diagonal, two for the second and then one for the third (and so on as long as you wanted to move like a bishop). In fourth edition, diagonal movement was one 'step' no matter how often you moved diagonally. This caused a bunch of people online who know a little bit of math to lose their minds though not quite to full damage on a miss levels of crazy.

This also caused that one super serious post by a dude who had the magnificent idea of using tessellated octagons and squares to keep "you move 1 ~~square~~ shape per move point" while making diagonal movement work closer to what he thought of as properly. Has anyone got that saved?

e: It included a perfectly straight faced section about how hexes were silly, too.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:29

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

Splicer posted:

All the combat examples in the 3.0 handbook use miniatures. They always say "if you are using miniatures", but never actually give any advice on non-miniatures combat. Also:

There was also an entire (fairly successful) line of miniatures designed exclusively for play in a stripped-down 3.5 ruleset. Anyone who says 3.x wasn't explicitly 100% designed for minis is a revisionist of the highest order.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:41

NGDBSS: Dec 30, 2009

Don't forget the Miniatures Handbook, which was one of the first two supplements for 3.5 among how ever many tens exist.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 00:57

NorgLyle: Sep 20, 2002; Do you think I posted to this forum because I value your companionship?

NGDBSS posted:

Don't forget the Miniatures Handbook, which was one of the first two supplements for 3.5 among how ever many tens exist.

That entire book could be the rare example of first party grognards.txt. Who wants to build a Warhulk?

# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:07

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

AlphaDog posted:

This also caused that one super serious post by a dude who had the magnificent idea of using tessellated octagons and squares to keep "you move 1 ~~square~~ shape per move point" while making diagonal movement work closer to what he thought of as properly. Has anyone got that saved?

e: It included a perfectly straight faced section about how hexes were silly, too.

By coincidence, I ran across this from the original grognards.txt the other day. Keep reading for a couple of pages after if you want to see some homegrown uh... something. Is that what you're thinking of?

We drew diagrams.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:15

LongDarkNight: Oct 25, 2010; It's like watching the collapse of Western civilization in fast forward.; Oven Wrangler

Oddly prescient.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 01:41

Elector_Nerdlingen: Sep 27, 2004

Splicer posted:

By coincidence, I ran across this from the original grognards.txt the other day. Keep reading for a couple of pages after if you want to see some homegrown uh... something. Is that what you're thinking of?

We drew diagrams.

Nah, this was a wall of text with the octagon/square thing diagrammed out.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 02:07

Saguaro PI: Mar 11, 2013; Totally legit tree

Now, I've been on the convention circuit close on forty years now and there's lots of folks who'll tell you it ain't what it used to be. Hell, I sometimes think that myself, but I've gotta say that I was pretty impressed when I laid up for a 5E exhibition down in Dallas last fall. It was a pretty long drive from Amarillo, which is my usual hangout when I'm back down Lone Star way, especially at my age, but pretty much worth it.

You see, us grognards have been waiting a long time for an edition that scratches some of the itches of OD&D and classic 2E and 5E pretty much delivers on a number of counts. It was a pleasure to pick up and sling some dice again with the convention crowd, even though things've changed since the days when I was a regular on the convention circuit. Hell, I remember GenCon '89, when I was in a pretty involved game with Tracy and a young Robert Salvatore. We were pretty deep into a game after hours. It must have been three in the morning and we'd gone through six extra-large pizzas for a party of five and gallons of Mountain Dew. Anyway, I was polishing off my hotwings - hell, still gotta thing for a good Buffalo Wing- and Rob was in the middle of some pretty gnarly combat against an enraged bear and a dire otter. Those were the days. I still have my Ral Partha barbarian miniature from that encounter.

Anyways, while I was in Dalls I dropped in on the boys at the Dallas Eagle, which is a pretty legendary bar down Maple Avenue way where lots of grognards still hang out drinking beers, slinging dice and talking bout the old times. Tracy and I used to go down there all the time back in the 80s. He'd come down south when he had a bit of writer's block. Hell, I remember this one time back in '84 when he had a hard time coming up with idea on how to take things forward after Sturm dies. We had a couple of jugs of beer and I was packing a hell of a chubby in my jeans and chaps. So we hit the border to check out the action. Long story short, we ended up in a Chicano sauna down in Juarez and Tracy told me how everyone at TSR was still pissed of because they couldn't get Terry Brooks. Apparently some of the folks higher up the food chain thought he was queer and didn't want that to come out. Turns out Terry ain't queer, but, then again, people talk all sorts of trash these days.

You've gotta understand that when guys get together, sometimes stuff happens. It's just in the nature of being men. That don't make no one queer. Look, I don't get done. We can have a good time watching some Ben Dover or Long Dong Silver and whatever happens happens. Hell, there was some pretty steamy action in the GenCon washrooms back in the day, I tell you what. Even for me and I'm pretty heavyset and my BO tends to act up when I wear my cowboy boots and chaps, but I got plenty. It was an open secret that you could get cookies from a lot of the nervous virgin types at conventions if you knew where to look. It was a greasy man's business, with lots of Crisco - those were the days before Astroglide - and those thick rubbers they used to give out. Of course nobody douched back then, but I didn't really mind the smell. Hell, after a tub of hotwings, it all more or less smells the same.

Anyway, long story short, you can't really get that action no more, though it was good times at the Dallas Eagle. Still a real grognard's place with a whiff of nostalgia and stale beer. I think I'll drive up to Indy this summer for GenCon 2015. Should be good times.

Peace out, man.

# ? Feb 22, 2015 12:15

Shrecknet: Jan 2, 2005

Saguaro PI posted:

Anyway, long story short, you can't really get that action no more, though it was good times at the Dallas Eagle. Still a real grognard's place with a whiff of nostalgia and stale beer. I think I'll drive up to Indy this summer for GenCon 2015. Should be good times.

Peace out, man.

there isn't an :allears:

big enough

# ? Feb 22, 2015 17:56

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Somebody does their homework. For those not from north Texas, the Dallas Eagle is a well-known leather bar in Oak Lawn, a historically gay neighborhood near downtown.

EDIT: Apparently from a sock of the same guy:

quote:

So I've been running a 5E campaign for a couple of months now and I've got to confess that I am having some major problems with a player who recently joined us. Now we've all been excluded from something in our lives and many of us know the bitter taste or rejection. Which is exactly why banning this player from our game is not necessarily the best solution. I aim for an inclusive and tolerant group, where prejudice and narrow minds are excluded.

All started well and the problem player, let's call him Bob, rolled up a Dwarven fighter called Thorbol. Now I foolishly let Bob run an evil PC, so Thorbol was a violent Dwarven psychopath. This would have been fine and Bob was really getting into the role, until the party hired a plump halfling torch-bearer as a cohort. One fine day, after setting up camp, Bob declares that Thorbol is going to go into the halfling's tent and 'sort the little punk out'. Thorbol pins the screaming halfling down on his bedroll and proceeds to work his 'beer-can thick fuckmeat all the way up the halfling human being's shitpipe'. Now this left the whole party stunned. We tried to laugh it off. But Bob was dead serious. What followed were five stomach churning minutes of graphic descriptions of all the terrible sodomy Thorbol visits on the halfling cohort. I mean, this stuff is properly whack.

Anyway, that started making us uncomfortable. But things only got worse. He began to assault the halfling on a nightly basis, until I ruled the halfling decided to hang himself in an inn rather than subject himself to further raep. Then, when the party met a gnomish illusionist NPC, Thorbol successfully surprised him and proceeded to 'open up his quivering mantwat with his master Dwarven rod of pain and pleasure'. With each session these incidents became more and more graphic. Bob also began to change. He got a glazed look in his eyes when he described his scenes of merciless anal piracy, sometimes retreating to my washroom for half an hour before returning to the gaming table. Occasionally, he would be visibly erect in his sweatpants.

I have done everything I could to crack down on this behavior. I have tried having Thorbol contract fantasy AIDS, but Thorbol keeps making his Constitution saves and he simply uses this as a pretext to 'charge up neg holes with his toxic poz seed'. He has now singlehandedly started an AIDS epidemic, sodomizing his way across halfling burrows.

Anyone have any ideas on how to deal with Bob?

I don't know who this fella is but I hope he never stops posting these.

Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Feb 22, 2015

# ? Feb 22, 2015 19:22

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

quote:

I've GM'd different groups of people, and they keep deciding to stop halfway through a dungeon and set up camp wherever they are for a short or long rest. They break into a keep, kill the guards, and then decide it must be safe to rest in the guardroom for 8 hours.
Is it a side effect of video games? Where enemies only patrol the room they are in?

Analogy: Someone breaks in to my work place and kills the artists in their room (not that this has crossed my mind much recently) and then they decide to make beds and sit down and eat a meal. Do they assume that no one will notice? No one will enter and talk to them? There might be a change of shift? Their buddies wont visit them?

Sorry for the rant - but this drives me nuts. They've just done it again today and I can't seem to give enough subtle hints.

quote:

There's many ways to change the behavior of those players, sometimes creativity is the key.

A mysterious high-pitched noise making it impossible (and dangerous) to sleep (You even get to choose the reason, could be a ghost, could be the badguy torturing his prisonners or even something more sinister)?

Could be the celling slowly crumbling to pieces under the effects of a storm (for older/crappier/trash dungeons) making it dangerous to even stay in a room for too long maybe?

Something in the dungeon could also be a source of perpetual and horrific nightmares making it not only dangerous for their mental health to sleep as long as they are in the vicinity of the dungeon.

Make the place as inhospitable and as reasonably dangerous as you can

quote:

I find mechanic focused players try this more often. If you can get your group fully into character (which I admit can be extremely hard) then they would never try this. Mechanical players will look at their sheets, though, and see they blew half their slots or they have few health points or are out of rages, etc, and know the easiest remedy is sleep. Once they think about this they decide its the logical character choice too, as their character wouldn't charge into enemies at a disadvantage. It's flawed logic, but I think that's how it happens.

quote:

Your party took a rest in a hostile environment with patrolling baddies and didn't get attacked? Maybe it's time for a not-so-subtle hint

"We take a long rest"

"Alright, whoever's on guard duty roll a perception check"

DC 20 perception for the bad guy who looks through a crack in the door

DC 15 perception for the group of bad guys coming to ambush the party

"A group of enemies bursts into the room. None of you have any armor equipped, you need to take an action to pick up your weapons from the floor, and the effects of the long rest are negated. Roll initiative"

Thankfully, my party views me as some kind of evil genius despite not really throwing anything particularly hard at them yet, so they're smart enough not to try to rest in hostile territory.

quote:

I prefer to think of myself as a chaotic neutral genius... lol

Personally if my players locked themselves into what they think is a safe niche, they would find it barricaded from the other side by morning and then the smoke would start rolling in through the door to knock them out slowly and painfully... I am nice enough to give them a discovered path out of that room, cave, whatever, but they would not be able to progress from that spot. They'd either get captured, killed, or have to flee at that point, and the big bad guy would probably succeed with his plans or escape them.

# ? Feb 23, 2015 14:18

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

I have not consumed any fantasy media since 1989 posted:

I must be playing D&D wrong, because I absolutely enjoy playing fighters.

To me, the game isn't about who can do the most damage per round, or who has the most hitpoints, or who can play the best plot cards; it's about forging the life story of an epic character making his mark on a fantastical world. The fact is some people want to be Merlin, and others want to be Conan. I like playing a character that makes his way through the world on the sharpness of his wits and the strength of his back. I can understand that other classes are fun, but they just aren't for me.

I enjoy being the first to charge into battle. I like being the bulwark upon which my companions lean and my enemies break. I love the inherent simplicity of solving every problem with the liberal application of steel. When we were captured, stripped, and enslaved, who was the character that enabled our escape? The fighter. Just a simple man with simple desires handling the rough business with his bare hands and a loincloth. My fighter doesn't solve problems with fruity spells, but with the strength in his arms and the cunning behind his eyes. He rolls through life from one bar to the next, fathering more illigitimate children than the United States Army. He is a rockstar, the Keith Richards of his world (but far better looking).

5E does a very good job of making the champion relevant both in combat and out. Yes other classes can outshine him, sometimes regularly, but he is always relevant. He can take a punch like Tina Turner and still deliver damaged goods like FedEx. My fighter has rescued more fallen comrades than all the other party members combined. His damage, while maybe not stellar, is as regular as a metronome. When buffed by his allies he hits baddies like Godzilla hits Tokyo. He is the perfect team player as he is a reliable source of damage output while shoring up weaknesses in the party's defenses. He is a rape train with no brakes, while protecting his allies like a chastity belt made of kryptonite.

I don't know what else to say. If you hate the 5E fighter, then it's likely that you're just a hater. WotC has taken the staple character of old-school D&D and high fantasy and given him the tools to hold his own alongside any other class.

I guess you'd have to know some of the movies that I loved as a kid to understand my love for the fighter:

Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Destroyer
Red Sonja
Clash of the Titans
The Princess Bride
The Beastmaster
Krull
Willow (almost all of my fighters end up being part Madmartigan / part Captain Jack Sparrow)
Watership Down
Excalibur
The Secret of NIMH
Heavy Metal
The Dark Crystal (the skeksis and mystics exist in every world I have DMed)

Playing a fighter has nothing to do with being a noob, or lacking the intelligence to know that casters > non-casters. For me it's about playing the type of heroes I idolized as a kid. It's about playing a character, not a class, not a set of skills, but a fully developed, three-dimensional character that I enjoy and care about. 5E allows me to build and play whatever concept I have for a character without worrying that I have somehow gimped myself in the long run.

Of course 5E isn't perfect, but it is a great framework to build epic tales of fantasy around. Part of this is due to what I believe is the best parity among classes (while retaining that old-school flavor) that I have seen in any edition of D&D or its clones.

# ? Feb 25, 2015 19:15

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# ? Jun 9, 2024 14:54

The Crotch: Oct 16, 2012; by Nyc_Tattoo

quote:

Unless the trap is blatantly obvious, like a visible adam's apple or bulge... Oh wait, wrong traps.

I use old school homebrew when it comes to traps. Just because 20 WIS level 1 druid has a +633 passive perception doesn't mean dick to me unless he's also a dwarf passing a stone trap, an elf passing a secret door or he picked up a level in Rogue.

Letting random fighters and clerics "find" traps just by passing them doesn't happen in my games.

# ? Feb 25, 2015 19:19

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