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fool_of_sound posted:It's also awful. It encourages players to make super-specialists at creation, and only branch out with XP. I'm not sure I've ever seen a freeform advancement system that was actually good. I've been pretty happy with my experience with Savage Worlds advancement system which is fairly free-form.
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Nov 24, 2015 17:30
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Hey all, I'm finally going to run a NEXT campaign, like, for reals. So while I'm sorry to break up XP chat I was wondering: -Are there any major rules ambiguities or fuckups that I should know about going into it? I know the math on CRs is practically nonexistent so I'll be designing encounters with a light touch at least at first. -Are any of the adventure books any good? The Kobold Press Hoard of the Dragon Queen was okay (aside from a couple of glaring errors, no worse than most adventure supplements though) but then Rise of Tiamat starts with the characters literally whisked away to the next location by a magic raven and that's pretty atrocious. Overall it seems like some of the set pieces and scenes are cool but the links tying them together are tenuous and the overarching story is absolutely stupid - in other words, they're great to steal encounters and locations from wholesale but I"m not going to run them straight. I'm looking at the Out of the Abyss book because the Underdark is cool and I never run poo poo there, anyone have any experience with that?
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Nov 24, 2015 18:36
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hyphz posted:Maybe a little bit, yes, if you know that. The problem with this example is that you set up the goal as getting 100 points and "winning". I am assuming you are saying that getting 100 points is the number of points to get a levelup. Why are we assuming here that the win condition of the game is a level up. The 100 points should be a tool to do what you actually want to do, not the end goal in and of themselves.
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Nov 24, 2015 18:45
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Radio Talmudist posted:It's astounding the sort of behavior GMs and players tolerate. I guess the Geek Social Fallacies are real. GSF is very over-cited and over-emphasized IMO. RPG dynamics are like a club. The internal hierarchy usually has the GM at the top, the Club President position. Whenever someone refers to a campaign as "my campaign" what they are actually saying is "we've organized ourselves into a hierarchy and I'm at the top position" The interpersonal dynamics are compounded by the fact that RPGs are a club where the participants are generally "real" friends outside of the game and so you aren't running an activity purely on the basis of interests. This also introduces complications. There are outside social ties to consider and this is enough to complicate any situation, not just one that involves "geeks". And there's the other part which is that most of the participants in a game don't actually know the club's purpose. They know that they are there to participate in a social game of some sort, and the storytelling roots of RPGs have deep, deep cultural and neurological foundations. But that's often not enough to understand how and why they work, or what the group is trying to accomplish. To put it another way, just because you enjoy stories doesn't mean you're capable of authoring a good one, and RPGs put EVERY PLAYER in various positions of authorship. So the result is, alot of the time, a very tumultuous complicated interpersonal clusterfuck. It's not because "geek subscribe to bad axioms".
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Nov 24, 2015 18:45
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JackMann posted:Aside from the idiot mentioned earlier, most people play the games because they want to go out and do cool stuff. Sitting around doing nothing isn't cool stuff. If your players are sitting around doing nothing, then it's time to stop playing, sit everyone down, and talk about what sort of game they actually want to play. In D&D, and certainly at low level in 5e, cool stuff is also dangerous stuff with a high chance of dying to the dice. Levelling up reduces that chance, and if the only way to work towards leveling up is to kill session time, that's what players are being encouraged to do. They might or might not actually do it but it's still pretty awkward.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:01
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hyphz posted:In D&D, and certainly at low level in 5e, cool stuff is also dangerous stuff with a high chance of dying to the dice. Levelling up reduces that chance, and if the only way to work towards leveling up is to kill session time, that's what players are being encouraged to do. They might or might not actually do it but it's still pretty awkward. One of the main advantages of a ttrpg is that you don't have to wait around/grind like in a video game. If everyone at the table is saying "we just gonna kill the clock til we're level X"...then just write level X on the sheets and move on?
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Nov 24, 2015 19:05
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Ryoshi posted:-Are there any major rules ambiguities or fuckups that I should know about going into it? I know the math on CRs is practically nonexistent so I'll be designing encounters with a light touch at least at first. Maintain Short Rests every 2 encounters. I'd make this ironclad if at all possible. Remember to dole out Inspiration. You'll probably want to disentangle skills proficiencies from ability scores, or you'll run into the old "Strong Fighter can't intimidate a dude via his swoleness because intimidate is linked to CHA" problem. Besides that, if you're already an old hand at RPGs, just play it straight and anything you want to houserule will just emerge from your own table's idiosyncrasies. Ryoshi posted:- in other words, they're great to steal encounters and locations from wholesale but I"m not going to run them straight. I'm looking at the Out of the Abyss book because the Underdark is cool and I never run poo poo there, anyone have any experience with that? Out of the Abyss has a bunch of neat setpieces you can lift. Its biggest weakness is that it doesn't have a big picture overview that tells the DM what's really going on and summarizes the overall adventure. If you're not running it straight that might be okay, but you still need to read most of the book before getting how it all fits together
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Nov 24, 2015 19:11
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Vanguard Warden posted:I've talked to another member of my group about this, and he mentioned that one of the things he disliked about 4e was that "the orcs would just level up with you", and that he didn't like the way that felt. I don't actually know if that's a valid account of things, and I'm not sure that the orcs leveling up would be a bad thing, but it seemed like something worth considering. Somehow nobody mentioned this, but 4e actually had a fairly elegant system for this. Instead of upleveling the orcs, after they become trivial you just convert them into minions. It's now easy to run a horde of them without it being a total logistical nightmare, they still have some relevance to fights, but the players get to feel great when they can kick a formerly difficult fight in the face and watch it crumple in front of their new power. Games like DMC often did something similar, where you'd fight (depowered) versions of earlier bosses as normal enemies later in the game, and that always felt great to plow through something that had been a difficult fight early on. It's a fun thing to give your players the chance to do in TTRPGs too, so long as there's mechanics to make it not a total shitshow. Minions are that mechanic.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:13
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hyphz posted:In D&D, and certainly at low level in 5e, cool stuff is also dangerous stuff with a high chance of dying to the dice. Levelling up reduces that chance, and if the only way to work towards leveling up is to kill session time, that's what players are being encouraged to do. They might or might not actually do it but it's still pretty awkward. If they literally just sit there and refuse to do anything all session, why would they level up? They've not done anything, they've not moved the story forward, they've not developed the characters, they've just sat there being boring. Unless you've got some set-in-stone rule of "Characters always level up every other session" that makes people throw tantrums if it's broken, why the hell would that situation ever occur? Who the hell goes to play a game and then refuses to play it?
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Nov 24, 2015 19:22
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I really like the idea of slot levels per hour. Like you get an 8 hour long rest but you can only recharge slots one at a time. Oh you used your level 7 spell that day? Well you can only get that back and a level 1 not all the 3/4s you casted.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:37
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goatface posted:If they literally just sit there and refuse to do anything all session, why would they level up? They've not done anything, they've not moved the story forward, they've not developed the characters, they've just sat there being boring. Unless you've got some set-in-stone rule of "Characters always level up every other session" that makes people throw tantrums if it's broken, why the hell would that situation ever occur? Nobody. But if they wouldn't level by doing nothing then.. why not explicitly give them the XP for the things they do rather than the passage of the session?
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Nov 24, 2015 19:40
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RPZip posted:Somehow nobody mentioned this, but 4e actually had a fairly elegant system for this. Instead of upleveling the orcs, after they become trivial you just convert them into minions. It's now easy to run a horde of them without it being a total logistical nightmare, they still have some relevance to fights, but the players get to feel great when they can kick a formerly difficult fight in the face and watch it crumple in front of their new power. Yeah was going to post this. To expand, in 4th you can also go up and down the scale. Big scary orc chieftain - solo Players level up Hard orcs - couple of elites Players level up Gang of orcs - normal orcs Players level up Tribe of orcs - load of minions Players level up Army of orcs - swarms Mix in versions from up and down the scale to expand your range . You can be fighting orcs for 10+ levels if you want when you take into consideration things like spell caster versions, mounted versions etc. Too add to the exp talk, we dropped tracking exp ages ago too. We just level when appropriate to the adventure - sometimes we know in advance (complete this goal you level up) sometimes it's hidden. It lets us gently caress about and go off on tangents without the dm having to redo planned encounters because we killed 2 extra goblins and levelled up and gained abilities to trivialize content. Also saves a gently caress ton of bookkeeping and fiddly arguments about seeking out exp for every little action. I don't however like using "session" as a measuring metric for anything, exp or recharging powers etc. Our sessions last anything from 2 hours to 14 hours, plus we sometimes have a session dicking around and don't really achieve anything, get a poo poo load done, or end the session right in the middle of something. Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 19:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:Maintain Short Rests every 2 encounters. I'd make this ironclad if at all possible. What's the danger here if I don't, I don't have the DMG or PHB at hand right now? quote:You'll probably want to disentangle skills proficiencies from ability scores, or you'll run into the old "Strong Fighter can't intimidate a dude via his swoleness because intimidate is linked to CHA" problem. quote:Out of the Abyss has a bunch of neat setpieces you can lift. Its biggest weakness is that it doesn't have a big picture overview that tells the DM what's really going on and summarizes the overall adventure. If you're not running it straight that might be okay, but you still need to read most of the book before getting how it all fits together This sounds like it'll fit my DMing style like a glove.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:42
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hyphz posted:Nobody. But if they wouldn't level by doing nothing then.. why not explicitly give them the XP for the things they do rather than the passage of the session? You are the one creating this situation where a group doesn't track exp and just sits their characters down doing nothing to gain free level ups. In reality this won't happen , but if it does you have bigger problems as you are gaming with idiots.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:48
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Ryoshi posted:What's the danger here if I don't, I don't have the DMG or PHB at hand right now? Not giving out Short Rests that often will screw over certain classes on their resources, and everyone on their healing. Separating skills from ability scores is an officially recognized variant rule, but isn't technically RAW
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Nov 24, 2015 19:51
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Ryoshi posted:What's the danger here if I don't, I don't have the DMG or PHB at hand right now? It's the only way to get some semblance of balance among the various player classes. They setup things to adhere to a pattern of a short rest after every second combat and a long rest after every eighth. It's still not a good balance, but it's about as good as you will do without homebrew rules.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:51
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Ryoshi posted:What's the danger here if I don't, I don't have the DMG or PHB at hand right now? Some classes have abilities that require short rests to regain, so it sucks poo poo if you don't get them reliably. hyphz posted:Nobody. But if they wouldn't level by doing nothing then.. why not explicitly give them the XP for the things they do rather than the passage of the session? Because it's tedious and ultimately pointless bookkeeping. Like, you seem to be operating on the assumption that a "level up every session" table means some rear end could waddle up and say "heh, then my fighter just drinks at the bar til he's level 2  ", when that's really not the case.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:52
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hyphz posted:Nobody. But if they wouldn't level by doing nothing then.. why not explicitly give them the XP for the things they do rather than the passage of the session? Because it's fiddly and annoying. You also are restricted on what and how many encounters you can throw at the party because you need them to be at a certain level of power at certain points of the plot for them to succeed. When characters level up at the speed of plot, then it's easy to ensure that they're appropriately kitted out for the challenges they're supposed to be facing.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:53
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hyphz posted:Nobody. But if they wouldn't level by doing nothing then.. why not explicitly give them the XP for the things they do rather than the passage of the session? It's easy enough to set goals, too. "The party hits 4th level when they reach the Temple and 5th when they defeat the Bonelord." This is how my games work. There's level ups at narrative milestones.
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Nov 24, 2015 19:59
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I wanna fight this Bonelord. And "level up every session" has always meant "level up every session if you accomplish something," you are being needlessly obtuse about this.
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Nov 24, 2015 20:27
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I think the problem here is the use of "session" vs "milestone". No one would ever run a game and level up per session, especially if no one does anything. I mean, maybe there are DM's out there that lovely. Milestones on the other hand makes perfect sense and is the correct way to do it. Maybe the group in question actually completes an appropriate milestone per session. I could see that with people aged 15-25 who don't have kids and houses and jobs yet. Let's stop nitpicking and get back to properly dissecting how terrible WotC and 5e are!
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Nov 24, 2015 20:28
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Ryoshi posted:
As far as I recall using "off-brand" abilities with skills is an optional rule somewhere or other, it's at least addressed at some point in the books as something you can do. (And is definitely something I endorse).
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Nov 24, 2015 20:30
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I run levelup/session but my players aren't lovely and recognize that the goal of the game isn't to levelup, but to accomplish goals within the game universe, so it doesn't cause problems. Maybe get better players???
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Nov 24, 2015 20:35
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cheetah7071 posted:I run levelup/session but my players aren't lovely and recognize that the goal of the game isn't to levelup, but to accomplish goals within the game universe, so it doesn't cause problems. Maybe get better players??? That hypothetical(?) player that sits around all session obviously just wants to feel smug and clever about something - tell them that they can't get XP for just dicking around at the pub until the end of the session (or alternatively coming up with obtuse ways to farm rats or whatever, unless it's a sandbox campaign explicitly designed around that kind of thing). Then to keep them engaged when they're actually out adventuring throw in a puzzle with a few solutions, they're sure to come up with a really obscure and overengineered "solution" that will give them the same feeling of smug superiority in their game about pretending to be an elf. Tailor to your players.
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Nov 24, 2015 21:22
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Generic Octopus posted:Because it's tedious and ultimately pointless bookkeeping. Like, you seem to be operating on the assumption that a "level up every session" table means some rear end could waddle up and say "heh, then my fighter just drinks at the bar til he's level 2 If taken literally it does. Yes, it's stupid to take it literally, but if not taken literally it means you're actually awarding XP for activity and just ducking deciding how much activity is necessary. I do find this happens often in RPGs and RPG rulebooks - where terms are given that it'd be stupid to take literally but if you don't you decide major system things in the interpretation. How about the converse? The players have a really good session, get twice as far ahead as intended, and then find themselves underlevel for the plot? Yes, you can give them multiple levels to compensate, but then you're doing milestones rather than sessions.
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Nov 24, 2015 21:34
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hyphz posted:If taken literally it does. Yes, it's stupid to take it literally, but if not taken literally it means you're actually awarding XP for activity and just ducking deciding how much activity is necessary. I do find this happens often in RPGs and RPG rulebooks - where terms are given that it'd be stupid to take literally but if you don't you decide major system things in the interpretation. Why are you so hung up on this "level once per session" thing when it's just an example someone used?
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Nov 24, 2015 21:38
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hyphz posted:If taken literally it does. Yes, it's stupid to take it literally, but if not taken literally it means you're actually awarding XP for activity and just ducking deciding how much activity is necessary. I do find this happens often in RPGs and RPG rulebooks - where terms are given that it'd be stupid to take literally but if you don't you decide major system things in the interpretation. I mean at this point you're arguing semantics. Everyone who's said they level up every session or every other session has done so with the unspoken assumption that things happen in the session because who on earth would sit around a table for 4-5 hours doing nothing.
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Nov 24, 2015 21:43
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hyphz posted:How about the converse? The players have a really good session, get twice as far ahead as intended, and then find themselves underlevel for the plot? Yes, you can give them multiple levels to compensate, but then you're doing milestones rather than sessions. Then you loving give them multiple levels. No one is hung up on how much to award. The point is to award how much is appropriate without dicking around with an actual XP bar because that poo poo doesn't matter. Why are you so hung up on this hypothetical insane DM that only ever awards a level every other session and lets the characters gently caress off to a bar instead of play the game?
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Nov 24, 2015 21:51
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hyphz posted:If taken literally it does. Yes, it's stupid to take it literally, but if not taken literally it means you're actually awarding XP for activity and just ducking deciding how much activity is necessary. I do find this happens often in RPGs and RPG rulebooks - where terms are given that it'd be stupid to take literally but if you don't you decide major system things in the interpretation.
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Nov 24, 2015 21:56
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hyphz posted:If taken literally it does. Yes, it's stupid to take it literally, but if not taken literally it means you're actually awarding XP for activity and just ducking deciding how much activity is necessary. I do find this happens often in RPGs and RPG rulebooks - where terms are given that it'd be stupid to take literally but if you don't you decide major system things in the interpretation. This isn't difficult. To talk about the player who says he'll do as little as possible to level up - is this a real person? I ask because he sounds like a rhetorical construct and not a real person. "I sip wine until I'm level 20" would be problematic in any group because he's deliberately separating himself from the party and not participating in order to gain levels, which is ironic, because the only reason to gain levels is to challenge stronger foes. Aside from that though there are a million ways to reward players with levels and have it not feel arbitrary. Use specific (explicit or not) story milestones. Use boss encounters. Use X number of encounters. The point is that XP is at least as stupid and arbitrary and probably a lot more so.
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Nov 24, 2015 21:56
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Discrete XP tracking doesn't even work well in a game with solid math backing up the threats, in NEXT it's an absolute loving joke because of how poorly CR is handled. If you're handing out a measly 100XP after the level 1 party kills a Magmin, which is a CR 1/2 despite igniting enemies with every successful hit and detonating in an unblockable AoE when they die, you are probably not a very good DM.
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Nov 24, 2015 22:05
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Does 5e have that rule where you can't gain enough exp to level up twice?
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Nov 24, 2015 22:18
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hyphz posted:Yes, you can give them multiple levels to compensate, but then you're doing milestones rather than sessions. Either way you're not tracking xp.
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Nov 24, 2015 22:29
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If I was doing the xp tracking thing, I'd probably enforce the old rules of levelling up taking time and training that you need long periods of downtime for.
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Nov 24, 2015 22:36
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hyphz posted:Maybe a little bit, yes, if you know that. If you're trying to make an analogy to D&D, there needs be a set of rules about what questions you should be asking at different stages of the game, how many points those questions are worth, how many questions get asked before the next thing happens, etc, all of which means your Game 2 scenario simply doesn't happen. Try this instead: Game 1: You are asked questions out of a book of appropriate questions for various stages of the game. You get some number of points per correct answer, and there are guidelines saying that questions are worth, on average, 10 points and that this stage of the game should not involve questions easier than 8 points or harder than 12 points. There are guidelines saying that questions are worth, on average, 10 points. When you accumulate 100 points, the questions get harder, but you get a little more ability to look stuff up before you have to answer. Game 2: You are asked questions out of a book of appropriate questions for various stages of the game. There are guidelines (same as above) which show you which questions are currently appropriate. You can see how many questions you have answered correctly. When you have answered 10 questions correctly, the questions get harder, but you get a little more ability to look stuff up before you have to answer. In either game, to keep the analogy working, you will sometimes be shown a question that you can't currently answer (a dragon). The Question Asker in either game needs to make it clear that this is not a question you can currently answer, but rather an example of the questions that you will be asked later on when you've unlocked the ability to use google. Just so this is clear to you, neither scenario allows for you to refuse to answer any questions until 1,000 questions have been asked and google unlocks. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 22:47
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The pure gametheory approach to XP only works if you assume that every action requires a reward. XP isn't actually an award, but rather a promise or timer that checks how quickly the next 'real' award is going to arrive. Assuming that a hypothetical player requires an XP reward to participate in the game is stupid because DnD already fails to incentivize stuff that's pretty essential to the roleplaying experience. Better give XP awards for conversations or players won't bother. Puzzles? Hope it's got an XP award. Shopping? Should probably have XP involved somehow. Intraparty negotiation? XP for bothering to get along with each other. Etc. The reason why you don't need to do that is the activity is intrinsically rewarding. It feels good to get information from NPCs or to develop new character arcs or to get to the bottom of a nagging conundrum. The trivia analogy also breaks down in practice. Clearly you have never popped open a box of Trivial Pursuit questions and just dug through it with some buddies and a few beers if you think you need to track points to have fun. In much the same way 'ad-hoc trivia' is fun if you're more invested in seeing what you can answer or learn than you are in winning.
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Nov 24, 2015 23:24
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Welp my players want to be a Dragonborn rogue, a Half-Orc warlock, and a bard of undetermined race.
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Nov 24, 2015 23:31
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Ryoshi posted:Hey all, I'm finally going to run a NEXT campaign, like, for reals. So while I'm sorry to break up XP chat I was wondering: A popular suggestion to keep low level characters from being one-shotted by anything and everything is to give everyone an extra bit of HP at level one. Either a flat bonus or their Constitution score (so a 16 Con fighter would have 10+3+16 HP and then gain HP normally)
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Nov 24, 2015 23:57
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ProfessorCirno posted:Counting XP works when XP is a currency, when classes level at different times, or when you run a sandbox. Hth. Short and simple. I like it. So, uh, how many of ya'll seen people use the XP system in modern D&D games? For the d20 games, I haven't met a single person who tried to track XP for more than 2-3 sessions before saying gently caress it. It's certainly not the worst part of D&D, but I never met anyone who actually liked the system for this type of game.
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Nov 25, 2015 01:32
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GrizzlyCow posted:Short and simple. I like it. I use a VTT, which makes tracking a non-issue, and also gives me control over when and where to award XP so I have a fair idea of if I am about to level anyone too early. I can understand it being a huge headache and if we weren't using a VTT to track it, I would probably use milestone or pretend XP
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Nov 25, 2015 01:37
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