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Reene posted:Discworld Elves would make a fantastic antagonist.
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Jul 16, 2015 11:04
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In my games I've pretty much done away with the idea of "savage" people as consequence-free enemies because that inevitably leads to some pretty gross parallels. No species is meant to be any less than the others, and there are no nations or groups that are species-exclusive. There's no orc tribes or elf-kingdoms, just nations made up of various species. There are plenty of actual monsters you can use as punching bags for your players without endorsing the wholesale slaughter of sapient beings. Fun fact: in the setting I use at home, halflings used to run a continent-spanning empire built on magic and slavery. It collapsed, but the stereotype of the evil halfling wizard has never really gone away.
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Jul 16, 2015 11:42
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Lightning Lord posted:So like I said in another thread I'm starting up a pirate D&D campaign with some friends. Some of them are new to tabletop RPGs but they all have one thing in common, they've all played at least one of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and the Neverwinter games. I've decided it would be cool as a result to set the game in the Forgotten Realms North. I'm looking at what I want to keep or eject and one of the latter is the whole thing where Amn colonizes Maztica. I'm a little unsure of whether I should just remove the event entirely, or say the attempt happened but the wannabe colonizers had their poo poo pushed in totally. What do you all think? Jumping in on this if its not too late. Canonically, Amn DID get their rear end kicked, basically. Maztica was a failure that destabilized the government and lead to Amn's shattering in the 1360s-1370s and the rise of the Sothilissian Empire. If you want more details, look at Lands of Intrigue for 2e. If you're just playing in the North, keep Maztica as a failure. It sets up strife among the Waterdhavian noble houses, and Amn's issues open up new trade opportunities for the northern ports. Luskan, Neverwinter, and Waterdeep can all benefit from filling gaps the Amnish trade opens up beyond Velen. In other words, Maztica as failure is the perfect opening for new intrigues, like your pirate group.
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Jul 16, 2015 12:22
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Arivia posted:Jumping in on this if its not too late. Canonically, Amn DID get their rear end kicked, basically. Maztica was a failure that destabilized the government and lead to Amn's shattering in the 1360s-1370s and the rise of the Sothilissian Empire. If you want more details, look at Lands of Intrigue for 2e. There's a description I've read somewhere of the colony being extremely profitable for Amn so I didn't realize this. Was it a failure in the Maztica boxed set, that was quite early on if I remember? I'm less knowledgeable about late 2e FR stuff since that was when I was a kid and I was mostly focused on how rockin' Drizzt was then, and I've been refocusing on early FR. You know Arivia your FR knowledge is pretty drat extensive and useful, thanks for sharing it.
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Jul 16, 2015 12:26
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Oh, Maztica was profitable. It made a TON of money for Amn. The problem was the cost: specifically the number of troops they were sending to their death. Even if the troops weren't dying, they weren't in Amn, which left the country vulnerable to the Stinger War and then the ogre rebellion. I haven't read much of the Maztican stuff, but I don't think it was a failure right from the get-go. This is later, after the adventure and novel trilogies. New Waterdeep is utterly destroyed (getting egg on the faces of many noble families), allowing Amn to plunder heedlessly. (Some form of Maztican trade continues until 1374, per Power of Faerun.) The general rule of thumb for colonial additions to the Realms is that they themselves are usually trash that should be avoided, but the influences and effects they have on Faerun are really cool and worth exploring. And you're welcome! I like talking about the Realms, if it isn't obvious. PS: even though trade occurred across the ocean between Faerun and Maztica, piracy wouldn't. It's just too large to even try anything like that. Think more coastal, with each side preying on their own. The only people who could possibly pirate both coasts are the elves of Evermeet, and they're way too isolationist for that. (Nimbral and Lantan are still much too far east and serve better as exotic places to head west to.)
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Jul 16, 2015 12:58
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I was reading through 3.5's Dungeonscape supplement when I came across this passage:quote:Automatic Searches: Dungeon adventures can be grindingly slow if the PCs make Search checks to scour every last inch of the place. You can keep things moving along by assuming that, as experienced adventurers, the party searches as it travels unless circumstances dictate otherwise. The searching specialist (usually the rogue) simply takes 10 as the PCs explore the dungeon, which is enough to reveal basic traps, hiding places, and obstacles. But never abuse this arrangement by jacking up the Search DCs of traps and hidden items. If the players start to suspect they are missing things, their characters will just revert to frequent Search checks. This book was released in Feb 2007, and closely matches the modification to skill checks that was previewed for 4th Edition in Dec 2007: quote:Another idea that’s been bandied about lately is converting some skills to passive “defense” values. Spot and Listen are good examples. Telling the players to roll Spot checks, first of all, tells them that something is up. Also, if you have everybody roll every time there’s something to see, there’s a high probability at least one party member will see it just due to a lucky roll. Skills like this might work better as passive values: Every player character could have a value equal to 10 + skill bonus. Then, when there’s something to see, the Dungeon Master can compare the DC to notice it to the player characters’ “take 10” numbers. So far in playtests, no one has batted an eye and it’s easier on the Dungeon Master—and on your d20. And then of course the final product we got in 4th Edition's PHB in Jun 2008: quote:Passive Checks Along with a space in your character sheet specifically noting down your Passive Perception Score as 10 + modifiers What I haven't been able to figure out is where Monte Cook fits into all of this. I've heard it repeated several times that he said something about passive perception that was really out-of-place, but I cannot find the original article anymore. As near as I can tell, it was because he started claiming he "invented" passive perception years after 4e's release, and that it wasn't even in keeping with d20 mechanics?
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Jul 16, 2015 13:15
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I think the thing about Monte Cook's idea was that he started talking about passive skill checks like he was coming up with the idea on the spot and it was this whole new unheard of concept that might still just work out if you didn't rush things and considered it carefully. It was like a Blackadder moment when a plan has just failed and Baldrick surprisingly comes up with a cunning plan that he totally obliviously reveals to be exactly the same. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 13:48
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That gives me flashbacks to the DM's suggestions from the World's Largest Dungeon where they basically went the opposite route. Their brilliant idea was that not only should players have to declare they're searching every room and door in their enormous mega-dungeon but that doing things like taking 10 or 20 was somehow "too easy" and so should be disallowed...or even better just increase all DC's by 10 to make sure it's utterly pointless, or require making Concentration checks whenever you try and take 10 or 20. They even suggest giving monsters deadlier weapons with better crit ranges...FOR REASONS. God, I hate that book.
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Jul 16, 2015 14:06
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In the lead up to 5e, Monte Cook basically retyped what passive perception is, then said "Now, this is a new idea I like to call passive perception..."
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Jul 16, 2015 16:07
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Reene posted:Discworld Elves would make a fantastic antagonist. FactsAreUseless posted:Discworld elves are just the older version of elves. Mark Rein⋆Hagen and Ethan Skemp like these posts.
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Jul 16, 2015 16:12
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Mark Rein☆(・ω<)Hagen
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Jul 16, 2015 16:15
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Mark Rein☆(・ω<)Hagen
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Jul 16, 2015 16:27
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Reene posted:Within reason, of course. Undead are probably a pretty safe fallback if you and your players really want a murderhobo-style campaign, IMO. I once brought a campaign to a dead stop when my Lawful Good Paladin negotiated a peace treaty between the undead monsters and god-fearing citizens of a theocracy, so even then you're not completely safe from a player determined to talk his way through every encounter.
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Jul 16, 2015 17:53
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Serf posted:In my games I've pretty much done away with the idea of "savage" people as consequence-free enemies because that inevitably leads to some pretty gross parallels. No species is meant to be any less than the others, and there are no nations or groups that are species-exclusive. There's no orc tribes or elf-kingdoms, just nations made up of various species. There are plenty of actual monsters you can use as punching bags for your players without endorsing the wholesale slaughter of sapient beings. How and where do you draw the line between monster and sapient beings? INT score? ability to communicate? ability to interact with others without immediately trying to kill/enslave them?
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Jul 16, 2015 17:56
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inklesspen posted:How and where do you draw the line between monster and sapient beings? INT score? ability to communicate? ability to interact with others without immediately trying to kill/enslave them? "How adorable will the crying orphans be after we wipe out these monsters."
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Jul 16, 2015 18:02
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Realistically you just need to make them unrelatable to the PCs. I mean, this takes knowledge of your players, but basic things like having no appreciable (or an abusive and violent) culture, or the showing the average citizens being oppressed by a warlord and his constituent thugs. Often times you can simply make the opposing monsters the aggressors with no interest in diplomacy; it's easy to be morally assuaged when the pile of dead bodies surrounding them started it.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:09
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:Realistically you just need to make them unrelatable to the PCs. I mean, this takes knowledge of your players, but basic things like having no appreciable (or an abusive and violent) culture 
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Jul 16, 2015 18:14
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Go away please.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:17
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inklesspen posted:How and where do you draw the line between monster and sapient beings? INT score? ability to communicate? ability to interact with others without immediately trying to kill/enslave them? I guess INT score isn't a bad measure. Like a griffin or a manticore or whatever is basically just a badass animal, so yeah go wild on them. No one is going to go to bat for a bulette or a displacer beast. I mean I'm not opposed to the players indiscriminately murdering anything that looks at them funny, it's just not going to be rewarded in the fiction for the most part.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:17
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I keep thinking of Fury Road and the Warboys. They've got a civilization and laws, they're still human beings, but their whole culture has shaped them such that if you're up against a group of them you better "retaliate first" or you're liable to end up as a blood bag. When they cooperate with other societies those will generally be as violent as they are, just differently. They can be swayed and it isn't even terribly difficult but if you do have one joining you, he's still not the guy that gets you into the group so you can finally try diplomacy, he's the one that helps you bring down the others.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:21
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I try to keep weird sex stuff out of my games.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:30
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Magic Rabbit Hat posted:I try to keep weird sex stuff out of my games. I play Pathfinder, so whenever I take it out, Paizo adds it back in.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:32
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Finding out that the fantasy setting I'm playing in is actually Dominic Deegan is a surefire way to make sure I'd set fire to everything at the drop of a hat.
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Jul 16, 2015 18:38
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Well I guess that's one way to bring the thread back around to the topic of "rapists: are they really that bad, or just misunderstood?"
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Jul 16, 2015 18:40
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Kai Tave posted:Well I guess that's one way to bring the thread back around to the topic of "rapists: are they really that bad, or just misunderstood?" This is something my character would do, and he is Lawful Good, therefor
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Jul 16, 2015 18:58
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paradoxGentleman posted:Are there any settings where dwarves are evil, for example? Hmm. I can't think of a setting where dwarves are intrinsically evil at the moment. Naturally the Derro of Forgotten Realms (2nd and 3rd edition) and Chaos Dwarves of Warhammer come to mind, but those are twisted versions of the normal "good" dwarves. There was a failed wargame called Chronopia that had an interesting take on races. The Dwarves there were more amoral, feral and animistic. So essentially each dwarven clan had their own god that was incarnate and resided with them. Then their gods started to go feral and degenerate into a beast form for some reason. This mirrored the decline of the dwarven culture until most of the dwarf tribes were feral like their gods. http://www.chronopiaworld.com/artikel.php?id=89 paradoxGentleman posted:I am pretty sure there is no such thing as an evil halfling. Lightning Lord posted:Dark Sun's cannibalistic halflings are pretty horrible. If I remember my Dark Sun lore, haflings (in the Green Age? Blue Age?) were responsible for making the world a blasted wasteland because they went on a genocidal crusade to kill off the other races. As I recall, the Dragon Kings (or maybe just the Dragon?) are "evolved" halfling genocidal warriors. One was "Bane of pixies" another was "Orc bane", which explains why you don't see those races in Dark Sun. Edit: I'm taking this from the Prism Pentad books. The feral cannibalistic amoral halflings you find west of the ringing mountains in the only surviving forest are degenerate survivors of the original proud halfling race that had a world spanning empire. In the D&D Birthright setting, halflings may have been intrinsically evil or descended from evil I don't know. As a halfling leveled they would get access to shadow magic, specifically dimension door. This was explained as halflings originating from the intrinsically evil Shadow Plane from which they emigrated. Pathfinder published a book on halflings and as I recall halflings were emigres from the fae world. In Tome of Ineffable Evil there was an evil halfling race introduced. Helical Nightmares fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 19:07
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From what little I remember, Mystara Halflings were refugees from a backwards world where Chaos was good and law was evil and their villages were built around black fire that burns cold, or something along those lines.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:18
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inklesspen posted:Go away please. I've got to agree here. Sorry Plutonis is being...Plutonis in your chat thread, Queen Fiona. As for what makes a monster in a D&D setting...aren't there a ton of spells that allow one to talk to plants and animals and extradimensional beasties and stuff? And since all these griffins and the like have to cast spells, don't they get high INT scores to do so? So sapience or INT score or ability to communicate in a language don't seem like they get the desired effect.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:19
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Davin Valkri posted:I've got to agree here. Sorry Plutonis is being...Plutonis in your chat thread, Queen Fiona.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:24
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This may be a weird place to ask this, but what are the odds that a game store could function as a tax mitigation scheme situation? Like I look at the revolving door of opening/closing stores in my area, and it seems like they're a surefire way to lose money. If I could be like, modestly unprofitable and lose enough to offset my earnings elsewhere, while also having a decent place to play games on weeknights, that wouldn't be that bad I guess? I dunno, something I've been kicking around. I know you can't have a business lose money forever or the IRS reclassifies it as a hobby, but I feel like as long as you sell Magic cards and snacks/sodas you could probably make enough money to avoid that? I'd probably have to draw up an actual business plan here. As a way to make a living, it seems suicidal. As a way to almost-break-even most of the time while also paying for a place to play and store a ton of loving wargames, that makes more sense to me. Does this make any sense?
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Jul 16, 2015 19:27
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Gotta love all the "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" posts in this thread.frest posted:This may be a weird place to ask this, but what are the odds that a game store could function as a tax mitigation scheme situation? Like I look at the revolving door of opening/closing stores in my area, and it seems like they're a surefire way to lose money. If I could be like, modestly unprofitable and lose enough to offset my earnings elsewhere, while also having a decent place to play games on weeknights, that wouldn't be that bad I guess? Are you trying to get us to help you commit fraud?
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Jul 16, 2015 19:28
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Davin Valkri posted:As for what makes a monster in a D&D setting...aren't there a ton of spells that allow one to talk to plants and animals and extradimensional beasties and stuff? And since all these griffins and the like have to cast spells, don't they get high INT scores to do so? So sapience or INT score or ability to communicate in a language don't seem like they get the desired effect. I think that's a matter of tone and setting. Like, Speak with Plants is gonna be of dubious use if you ask me, because plants aren't exactly gonna be able to tell you much. And Speak with Animals should get you, at best, rudimentary animal communication that should be hard for the humanoid mind to understand. Unless of course everything in your world is sapient and just lacks the ability to communicate with humanoids without magic, then you've either got a sorta goofy setting or a horrible nightmare world where your every meal requires butchering an actual being.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:29
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Lightning Lord posted:
Think of it like an exciting new live action roleplaying game!
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Jul 16, 2015 19:31
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Lightning Lord posted:Gotta love all the "What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets!" posts in this thread. No, not at all. It would be a bad decision to open a store if your goal was to get rich quick or whatever. But I've been a customer at some lovely, low-effort stores and I'm wondering if they're just like, modest operating losses to offset other earnings while acting as a way to finance a gaming space. I dunno I figured if anyone knew anything about the motivations of game store owners, TG might E: the other option is that they were just terrible money pits being operated by incompetent people who honestly thought there was a huge profit to be made
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Jul 16, 2015 19:33
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They're generally just lovely stores run by people with no business sense who figure it's super easy to monetize their hobbies.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:37
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frest posted:E: the other option is that they were just terrible money pits being operated by incompetent people who honestly thought there was a huge profit to be made It's this one.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:38
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Lightning Lord posted:They're generally just lovely stores run by people with no business sense who figure it's super easy to monetize their hobbies. That's actually what I was afraid of. They all seem to go out of business around here, some faster than others, but none of them seem to do well or anything.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:40
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Just make your players fight demons. They're literally born evil it's fine.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:40
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In my last campaign, the players mostly fought the fae, who were basically stories made real. They materialized from nowhere, were made of this weird undifferentiated matter, faded away after being killed and would return for as long as their story was being told. They can't communicate beyond whatever the legends say, and are only as intelligent as the story says they are. They defy the laws of magic and science, and exist seemingly only to hurt or kill people, and they can't be reasoned with. I just raided history for ideas, so my players ended up fighting Springheeled Jacks, Mad Gassers and Mothmen.
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Jul 16, 2015 19:47
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I did some googling and the tax mitigation aspect of it is legit, so long as you're able to prove that you actually have a profit motive and you're treating it like a serious business etc. Apparently it's very common for people to try to make a failing business out of their hobbies so there's a whole thing about it (for example, a guy who loves vintage car restoration or whatever and is using all his purchases for the hobby as business expenses).
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Jul 16, 2015 19:52
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