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hectorgrey posted:That to me is literally unbelievable (especially when it comes to powers that basically boil down to "hit him a little harder than normal") - if you can do a physical action once per day, then you should be able to do it repeatedly. If it's so exhausting that you can only do it once per day, then it should pretty much leave you unable to fight at all. Keeping it narrative (which, as mentioned, was the intent) also works with the 4e style multiclassing - your character doesn't just forget how to do whatever power they lost in exchange for the new one; it just isn't as important to their character in narrative terms as the new ability that they gained. If one takes the encounter/daily limitations as literally "your character is only physically capable of doing this thing once per fight/day", then the Essentials fighter makes far more sense than the PHB one. I dunno maybe i'm just a wuss but when i was working out and lifting there was a max i could lift 1 time and that was it, i could lift a lesser amount pretty much all day but trying to put that weight up again was pretty much impossible so i believe that it's possible to swing your sword with all your might and still be able to fight even if you can't hit that exact amount of strength again.
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Mar 15, 2016 10:29
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hectorgrey posted:That to me is literally unbelievable (especially when it comes to powers that basically boildown to "hit him a little harder than normal") - if you can do a physical action once per day, then you should be able to do it repeatedly. If it's so exhausting that you can only do it once per day, then it should pretty much leave you unable to fight at all. In real life, there's many levels of tired between "can repeat once every 6 seconds forever" and "did it once and need a lie down". The idea that you can do many medium-effort things, 1 maximum effort thing, and then many more medium-effort things is mundane if you've ever done a combat sport, HIIT training, or weight lifitng. The idea that you can keep attacking forever is fantastic. There's a vanishingly small chance that you'll be able to do something extra awesome a second time in a half minute fight, not just because your opponent isn't going to stand there while you try it again, but because extra awesome things tend to be maximum-effort, you're going to need some low-medium effort time before you're capable of repeating, and there's just not enough of that time in a 30 second D&D fight. There's every chance that during your half-minute fight, you'll do something to yourself while that prevents you from doing the exact same thing at any time in the next few hours, or at least until you have a chance to ccalm down, stretch a bit, roll your back out, or whatever.
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Mar 15, 2016 10:49
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I think that trying to argue it from the perspective of how there really are certain physical actions that you might only be able to perform "daily" is an inherently losing prospect because it opens you up to all sorts of nitpickery. What if the ability involves shouting? Do we start defending the anatomy of a fantasy humanoid's vocal cords? If an encounter power is diegetically rationalized as "the enemy won't fall for your martial trick after they see you do it once", does that mean that a bandit that manages to escape your clutches might be able to render all future encounters deeper within the dungeon as immune to your encounter power after they tell all their compatriots about your sweet sword flourish? I mean, maybe I'm in the minority here if I absolutely agree that D&D and its ilk can (or even should) be played as "a board game with a slightly larger variety of potential boards", because the idea that you can ally with the Defias, and subsequently can choose the time, place and circumstances by which you attempt to overthrow the Stormwind government is already a quantum leap in narrative freedom compared to any other possible video game, no matter how procedural and or "gamey" the actual execution of combat is.
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Mar 15, 2016 11:09
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I miss the days when people bothered to ask these questions about divine spells and stuff like that. Nowadays it's just magic, you don't gotta explain poo poo.
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Mar 15, 2016 12:39
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Siivola posted:I miss the days when people bothered to ask these questions about divine spells and stuff like that. Nowadays it's just magic, you don't gotta explain poo poo. Down that road lies playing in a group with a bunch of pro/am scientists who derail the game by arguing that since sound is a vibration in a medium, the spell silence must either merely be a mind altering illusion, create a physical barrier against the vibration or reduce the affected area to absolute zero to prevent any noise causing vibrations or violently destroy or displace the affected medium. I'm much happier with either "A wizard did it." or "Your god says so."
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Mar 15, 2016 15:54
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The joke is that because D&D combat is so abstracted that it's lost all contact with reality, that is the exact same thing as wondering why Fighter Bo can't use Punch Super Hard more than once a fight. 
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Mar 15, 2016 15:57
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So, I've been reading a lot of blogs. Preparing to play some old d&d with my friends. There seems to be a split between using modules or making your own poo poo. What would the thread advise? Links to resources or other "getting started" advice would be appreciated as well.
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Mar 15, 2016 16:07
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At the very least mine modules for the maps, I always found that a good map really fired up my imagination.
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Mar 15, 2016 16:21
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iccyelf posted:So, I've been reading a lot of blogs. Preparing to play some old d&d with my friends. There seems to be a split between using modules or making your own poo poo. What would the thread advise? Links to resources or other "getting started" advice would be appreciated as well. I tend to start with a prewritten module*, and then branch off into making my own poo poo whenever the players decide to take it in some off-the-rails direction. It's a lot easier to make up poo poo on the fly with old-school D&D because monster construction and encounter generation are piss-easy. * in the context of old-school D&D, I've found it rather hard to absorb classic modules, though
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Mar 15, 2016 16:53
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iccyelf posted:So, I've been reading a lot of blogs. Preparing to play some old d&d with my friends. There seems to be a split between using modules or making your own poo poo. What would the thread advise? Links to resources or other "getting started" advice would be appreciated as well. I've always liked hacking modules to suit them to my group and tie them in with the stuff I've made on my own. Also, steal from them - even if you decide not to use the module's plot its nice to have some maps, locations and npcs done up already that you can plug in where needed. There's no need to reinvent the wheel from scratch if you need a tomb, bandit camp or inn. As for resources, are you looking for stuff dealing with older edition game mechanics or general campaign design and running sessions? I can think of a couple blogs focused on specific editions and/or styles of game. For general stuff: I'm a fan of the Engine Publishing Books on GMing, they're mostly system neutral. Gnome Stew has the occasional good article as well. I think there were a couple a while back about people playing older systems for the first time. This was a good one, but does have some names in it that are anathema to the forum. Dyson Logos' Maps are awesome and free. Hexographer is neat if you want to make your own old timey style overland maps.
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Mar 15, 2016 17:14
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I have been reading this thread for a few days now. My current group plays 5E, and my DM has been saying he wishes he could actually play instead of DMing every game. So I've been looking at alternate systems and ideas to run something new for everyone. BECMI looks very interesting (the oldest I've touched was 2e), and I wasn't actually aware it existed until seeing it mentioned here. One of my fondest memories when I was younger were the blurbs about owning a land and a kingdom in the 2e books, and it sounds like BECMI has even more of that. I also saw some of the Hexcrawl stuff mentioned in recent pages and it set the gears in motion. I was thinking of setting up a campaign where the players are part of an expedition to explore/conquer/tame an unexplored continent. They'd start in the encampment set up where the boats landed, and go from there. I'd generate and set up the continent beforehand, and while I want to keep it fairly freeform exploration, it'd be neat to have an actual plot and end goal that they discover and pick up pieces and hints while exploring. I love the idea that they could carve their own place out in the new world though, and establish a meaningful foothold and society as they progress and get stronger. Is BECMI a good system for this? Should I be looking at one of the retroclones (Darker Dungeons or something?) or another system entirely?
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Mar 16, 2016 19:28
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BECMI's just about perfect for that. My half-year long campaign of There's Always A Chance, which is a B/X derivative, was basically "ok, you're on a pier in not-Jamestown. The continental interior is to the north. Go nuts" and we'd explore a couple hexes worth of terrain every session. Darkest Dungeon is just if you want ascending AC, or don't want to pay for the original BECMI PDFs. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Mar 16, 2016 |
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Mar 16, 2016 19:32
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It seems like the Darkest Dungeons site is dead, though. The blog he had redirects to the new site which errors out.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:37
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Aw, poo poo.  And I didn't even have it backed up.Edit: Awright! The Wayback Machine to the rescue! Here's archive copies of the site for Dark Dungeons as well as the more heavily houseruled Darker Dungeons. Siivola fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Mar 16, 2016 |
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Mar 16, 2016 19:43
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Siivola posted:Aw, poo poo. Digging around this got me to a forum for DD. It has an interesting thread where the writer talks about what exactly he changed from BECMI to Dark Dungeons. http://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=4436&sid=fbf540f88ef52f0a1c60cb567de2ecb7
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Mar 16, 2016 20:33
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The Dark Dungeons and Blood, Guts & Glory guy has a new site: Gurbintroll Games His stuff is now going to be up on DTRPG as Pay What You Want, apparently. Anyone have any thoughts on what would be a good set of stat array choices for S&W or BECMI or other old-school games? 3d6 in order has its charm but I'd rather let players actually have a little control over their characters.
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Mar 17, 2016 01:39
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Hypnobeard posted:Anyone have any thoughts on what would be a good set of stat array choices for S&W or BECMI or other old-school games? 3d6 in order has its charm but I'd rather let players actually have a little control over their characters. Darker Dungeons uses an array of 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 9, with an option to raise any one ability score by 2 points at the cost of decreasing all other ability scores by 1 point.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:20
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Hypnobeard posted:Anyone have any thoughts on what would be a good set of stat array choices for S&W or BECMI or other old-school games? 3d6 in order has its charm but I'd rather let players actually have a little control over their characters. I used 18, 16, 13, 13, 10, 8 for Basic D&D Another set of houserules I've seen says that you can give players a total of +6 in modifiers, that they can distribute in whatever manner that they want, capped at 18/+3. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 05:06
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I like backporting the Gamma World 7th rules. 18 in prime stat, 16 in an important secondary, 3d6 rolled for the rest.
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Mar 17, 2016 05:13
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The print version of dark dungeons from lulu is really good. It's cheap too. It is easy to reference things because it is a giant book with big writing.
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Mar 17, 2016 06:12
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Tsurupettan posted:Is BECMI a good system for this? Should I be looking at one of the retroclones (Darker Dungeons or something?) or another system entirely?
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Mar 17, 2016 11:36
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One thing to watch out for if you use the BECMI or Rules Cyclopedia versions, due to them covering 36 levels instead of 14 like the earlier BX version, they ended up making the Thief worse as they stretched out his already kinda weak Thief skills progression to match the expanded level range, so you might want to do some tweaking in that area, or things might drag for anyone who decides to play a Thief
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Mar 17, 2016 11:46
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quote:It is this writer’s opinion that the standard Thief in Credit to Libertad!, but do this for Thieves.
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Mar 17, 2016 11:51
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Hypnobeard posted:The Dark Dungeons and Blood, Guts & Glory guy has a new site: Gurbintroll Games Did darkest Darkest Dungeons ever come out? I liked Darker Dungeons enough to pick up at least Darkest, if not regular Dark Dungeons. But then again I have a pretty big stack of retro clones in my saggy bookshelf. I started buying them just to read at one point, and it really got away from me.
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Mar 17, 2016 13:35
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WaywardWoodwose posted:Did darkest Darkest Dungeons ever come out? I liked Darker Dungeons enough to pick up at least Darkest, if not regular Dark Dungeons. But then again I have a pretty big stack of retro clones in my saggy bookshelf. I started buying them just to read at one point, and it really got away from me. Blood, Guts and Glory is what Darkest Dungeons turned into, except BGG has the setting transplanted to Victorian Steampunk London and the character classes are anthropomorphic animals. It's also fairly distant from Dark/Darker Dungeons, as it's really the RoleMaster combat system transplanted into a d20 scale, combined with a 3.x-style skill system.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:57
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Glorified Scrivener posted:I've always liked hacking modules to suit them to my group and tie them in with the stuff I've made on my own. Also, steal from them - even if you decide not to use the module's plot its nice to have some maps, locations and npcs done up already that you can plug in where needed. There's no need to reinvent the wheel from scratch if you need a tomb, bandit camp or inn. excuse late reply, i'm not a big internet user. thanks for the links. i'm looking for anything really. general running of older games, yes but also world-building with hex/dungeon crawling in mind. i'm not sure if there are specific ways to structure a world so it's suitable for that style but initiatively i feel like there should be. another thing, does anybody know any rules or general philosophies for making charts? like what makes a good chart from a bad chart? i rarely see anybody talking about these things.
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Mar 19, 2016 14:53
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iccyelf posted:excuse late reply, i'm not a big internet user. No idea about chart and table design - might be a good question for the chat thread? There do seem to be a lot of smart, creative people here who obsess over design and tinkering, so I'm sure someone has ideas or knows where some resources are. There's a lot of folks out there pontificating on running hex-crawls/sandboxes I'm partial to welsh piper's approach to Hex based and mid sized campaign design. The bat in the attic guy's approach is way too detailed for me, but looks cool. If you want to spend "2 weeks spending about 2 hours an evening at a 1,000 words a evening and time drawing maps." This random dude's RPGnet post, was useful to me. The west marches campaign is a cool sounding thing that's been kicking around forever in Internet time but was probably a hoax never to be replicated by anyone besides a friend of a friends cousin. I find it inspirational though. For myself I like to help the campaign world fit a hex/dungeon crawl mode by avoiding detailed plots in favor of setting up situations. In my current DCC game there are several things going on in the background at a larger level (A war between neighboring kingdoms, a necromancer raiding the northern villages and creating an undead army, the cult of Set's spring recruitment drive in the capitol) that I sketched out time lines for how they'll progress if the players don't interact with them. When they do want to interact with something going on in the background, it moves to the foreground and reacts to what they're doing. On a smaller scale several sessions have come out of what the characters wanted/needed to do - find a lost library to obtain a lost spell in order to learn it, defeat the bandits harassing the family of an elderly sword master so the fighter could learn a secret technique, go into the underworld to steal back Bob's soul, etc. These are more driven by reacting to what sort of shenanigans the players tell me they want to get the party into. For me the important thing is to remain flexible, for dungeons try to make them less linear and more interconnected like in Jennell Jaquay's work. Which I would really like wotc to get around to putting the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide on dndclassics. This is a good set of posts as well if you can get past the author's quirks. I also found these diagrams a good reference when thinking about tweaking old modules. Inside a single adventure or module I just try to stay open to improvisation and be able to react to what the players are doing. Try to avoid setting up situations where everything hinges on them doing one specific thing or finding a clue or whatever. Though it's fine if they get themselves in a situation where they find the have to do something as a consequence of their own actions. Bleargh, so many  . Hope it's helpful and not too groggy.
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Mar 20, 2016 19:04
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If you don't want a full hex-by-hex map, check out this article about "point crawls" on the Hill Cantons blog, which also has a lot of stuff about hexcrawls/sandboxes in general. See also this article abotu node-based megadungeons, which is along the same ideas as the pointcrawl. Related to pointcrawls, I've used "sandboxigon" map template for a few things with pretty good results.  (not mine, this is the sample map)
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Mar 20, 2016 20:17
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Node-based maps work really well for dungeons / underdark-style exploration too.
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Mar 20, 2016 22:02
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I'm admittedly not a retroclone guy, but I saw someone describe Dungeon Crawl Classics to someone looking for a "good, rather basic dungeon crawl for 6 players" (on a BOARD GAME page mind you) like this: "I love Dungeon Crawl games but in the end the best Dungeon Crawl is always going to be D&D. I would suggest Dungeon Crawl Classics, you get a rules lite system with Ascending AC, basic inventory mamagement and a completely awesome spell system. There are 2 intro adventures in the rule book to test out the game at both low level snd high level. highly recommended plus you can use the figures and tiles from your Dungeon Crawl board games to spice things up." Now I don't know much about DCC, but the "rules-lite" part made my grognard bullshit sense tingle. I'm willing to accept the possibility that I'm completely off base on that, but I figured this would be the place to ask. If it is bullshit, is there another system I should bring up?
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Mar 21, 2016 16:22
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DCC actually is rules light insofar as: * the skill check system is just 1d20 + attribute modifier if you're skilled in it (and whether or not you are is largely up to the group), or 1d10 + attribute modifier if you're not skilled in it * the spellcasting system is a d20 roll plus modifiers versus a chart of possible spell effects, rather than Vancian casting * the combat system is standard 3.x, with ascending AC There are special crit results and special fumble results, but they're all chart lookups, so you don't necessarily need to memorize special mechanics/rules so much as look them up when they happen And one of the foundations of the game is the level-0 character funnel, which means character creation is a snap, and the game is largely immune to charOp. EDIT: where it might not be very newbie-friendly is that there are a lot of old-school, Tomb of Horror-esque assumptions to adventure design. The fact that you have lots of characters to spare means you can afford to lose characters to Rot Grubs, but some people might still not be down with that.
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Mar 21, 2016 16:51
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Yeah, I wouldn't describe DCC as rules-lite, but it's not particularly heavy either. There's a metric fuckton of charts, which puts some people off, but unless you're playing a spell caster you generally only use the crit/fumble tables and don't need to memorize them. If you're playing a spell caster it does have some fiddly bits. Each spell is a 1-2 page chart, though everyone I play with uses the Grimoire Creator Tool from Purple Sorcerer to print out a customized spell book for their character. Some of the folks in my group found the spellburn mechanic off putting at first, but it's not much bookkeeping in practice. Also, nobody uses spell duels, like maybe in a tournament game as a delaying tactic or something... gradenko_2000 posted:DCC actually is rules light insofar as: Good points all, But i'd add a couple of things about combat. The decision to junk 3.X's feat system and replace it with the Mighty Deeds of Arms mechanic (Roll over a fixed target number on a die that increases in size with character level to perform all special combat maneuvers) is another point in the rules lite column. Also, while combat is 3.x derived, it heavily de-emphasizes minis and the associated tactical game, which is a plus in my opinion. The combat in my current campaign feels a lot more like my memories of Basic to me than anything else I've played recently.
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Mar 21, 2016 17:47
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Evil Mastermind posted:If you don't want a full hex-by-hex map, check out this article about "point crawls" on the Hill Cantons blog, which also has a lot of stuff about hexcrawls/sandboxes in general. See also this article abotu node-based megadungeons, which is along the same ideas as the pointcrawl. Neat, I'm going to use the sandboxigon thing for my next side campaign. Thanks!
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Mar 21, 2016 17:55
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Evil Mastermind posted:If you don't want a full hex-by-hex map, check out this article about "point crawls" on the Hill Cantons blog, which also has a lot of stuff about hexcrawls/sandboxes in general. See also this article abotu node-based megadungeons, which is along the same ideas as the pointcrawl. This is a great idea if you have a defined world to work in; I feel like the only time hexcrawls are the best method to follow are in the sense of exploration by both GM and players. Some of the random generator methods we've talked about have that, as the GM also is surprised by the rolls. But if you're not really exploring, then having a more simplified map to work with is usually going to be better, as it lets you focus on what's important in the game. I really like the idea of taking that sandboxigon idea and hack it to build a city in and run a supers game, maybe use the FASERIP retroclone.
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Mar 22, 2016 02:55
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I actually did use the sandboxigon map to plot out a city for a post-apoc game I ran with each space being a "district". The layout also doubled as a d4 by d4 table to see which parts of the city were destroyed by mortar fire during a city siege, so that was convenient.
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Mar 22, 2016 03:02
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iccyelf posted:another thing, does anybody know any rules or general philosophies for making charts? like what makes a good chart from a bad chart? i rarely see anybody talking about these things. No one has answered this yet, so I guess we don't have any chart experts. Here are the two major things I keep in mind when constructing a chart. 1. Only make a chart if it is going help your game. Generally this means, you need to use the chart in play. Except, 2. A chart tells you about the setting. Anything that is written on a chart is true in your world. The things on the chart occur with the stated probability, so every chart tells you something about the world. (So, potentially you could draw up a chart that won't get used to remind you of something about your setting, but mostly stick to what you need.) Scyther posted:"I love Dungeon Crawl games but in the end the best Dungeon Crawl is always going to be D&D. I would suggest Dungeon Crawl Classics, you get a rules lite system with Ascending AC, basic inventory mamagement and a completely awesome spell system. There are 2 intro adventures in the rule book to test out the game at both low level snd high level. highly recommended plus you can use the figures and tiles from your Dungeon Crawl board games to spice things up." Here are some of the problems with that statement, 1. There are so many good dungeon crawl board games now that there's basically an obvious goto game for the question "What do I play next?" for any dungeon crawl board game. 2. You can't ever say "D&D is good at X." without a caveat of which edition you are talking about. and 3. A person who has a preference for D&D might not be the most knowledgeable in what constitutes 'rules-lite'. Suggesting DCC is probably the thing in that quote I agree the most with. If you want a really rules-lite dungeon crawl RPG, my recommendation would be Into The Odd. Glorified Scrivener posted:Neat, I'm going to use the sandboxigon thing for my next side campaign. Thanks!  It looks very useful.
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Mar 22, 2016 03:03
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Here's another blank hexishmap I just remembered I had. Unfortunately I don't remember the source, and Googling for "ggmlk" isn't really helping. Direct link to full-sized version
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Mar 22, 2016 03:08
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Evil Mastermind posted:Here's another blank hexishmap I just remembered I had. Unfortunately I don't remember the source, and Googling for "ggmlk" isn't really helping. Huh, Gorgonmilk maybe? The dude who sort of finished Petty Gods and does the Dolmenwood stuff?
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Mar 22, 2016 03:34
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Glorified Scrivener posted:Huh, Gorgonmilk maybe? The dude who sort of finished Petty Gods and does the Dolmenwood stuff?
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Mar 22, 2016 03:44
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Evil Mastermind posted:Here's another blank hexishmap I just remembered I had. Unfortunately I don't remember the source, and Googling for "ggmlk" isn't really helping. This sort of makes me think of booting up Civ 4/5, letting the AI play through a hundred turns and using the resulting map as your world.
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Mar 22, 2016 03:45
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