|
Can someone link the sweet AoS battle report the goon wrote that was basically an exercise in futility
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 14:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 23:33 |
|
|
muggins posted:Can someone link the sweet AoS battle report the goon wrote that was basically an exercise in futility Or did you mean this one https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3802686&userid=192807&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post469611122 NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Mar 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 15:03
|
|
|
Good lord, that is awesome. I love the guy who runs by at the end.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 15:10
|
|
|
SteelMentor posted:Here goes, I'm not much of a writer so do forgive the Oh 40k thread.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 15:51
|
|
. I'll try to add some pictures if our camera guy actually gets back to me with those he took.
: So the Sisters of Silence, do you think you could brainwash them if you tortured them enough?
: Erm, no. That's kinda weird dude...
. Most of the game was spent arguing about rules minutia, trying to steer players away from quoting internet memes at each other or trying to get people to stop sulking and finish their goddamn turn. It was all the 'fun' of an Apocalypse game, with none of the booze or pizza that generally make them at least bearable.
|
NTRabbit posted:Or did you mean this one https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3802686&userid=192807&perpage=40&pagenumber=2#post469611122 I love the gif but the link isn't what I was looking for. It was an epic report of this guy finally giving in and trying AoS with someone who basically made it a living hell
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 15:54
|
|
|
My knowledge on 4Ed D&D includes; Page after page of actions, Artwork has squares everywhere, even the faces and, "Why the gently caress is the old man with the stick called a 'Control Wizard' now? That's the sort of name you give to some random enemy in a computer game." As you can see, veeeeery comprehensive  As far as I can understand, you have; people who view the rules in D&D as something to be followed in the strictest way possible, like you would a wargame and you have people who view it as a framework, to tell random, crazy stories with, that everyone participates in. Not to say I agree with throwing out shoddy writing and calling it a day (Hi Games Workshop!) but if the writing is sound and if the intent of that writing is to encourage role play, while also letting people feel like they're having an effect in whatever scenario is conjured (whether that be playing a game in a world where open, brazen use of magic of any kind is met with awe and or fear and playing into that/using player relationships with NPCs in inventive ways, taking them by surprise for good or ill intent/in Russia, hobos murder you! etc.) I've always wanted to play D&D but I'm a dumb introvert that can't stand people. So, I live that vicariously through Critical Role. The way they play is amazing and oft times, funny as gently caress.  http://geekandsundry.com/shows/critical-role/ Edit: This is one of my all time favourites and yes, I know it's not D&D =P http://geekandsundry.com/critical-role-one-shot-brought-to-you-by-pathfinder-and-syrinscape/ Irate Tree fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Mar 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 16:08
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:Can we talk about RPGs and stuff in this thread too? I know we go off on tangents about game design a lot and I think there's fertile ground in discussing RPGs. Anyway, I got into a stupid Facebook discussion about DnD editions and everything positive I had to say about 4e was met with the response that 5e did the same things but better. Not having any experience with 5e, I couldn't really say. So to fill in my own knowledge gaps, I looked through the 5e PHB and what I saw didn't impress me. Not to be flip but the op of the 5th edition thread has a full break down of the differences compared to 3rd and 4th. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3647634&perpage=40 The biggest sin, for me, from 5th is that is goes back to every class having its own fun to play scale from 2nd and 3rd that 4th was able to avoid. Casters start out with limited abilities that quickly balloon while what you're doing as a level 1 fighter largely stays the same straight to 20. If you want a game that does everything that 4th was able to accomplish but better try 13th Age.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
Pash posted:Oh 40k thread. It's as has been said before, none of these guys actually wants to play a game. They aspire to. Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Not to be flip but the op of the 5th edition thread has a full break down of the differences compared to 3rd and 4th. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3647634&perpage=40 I try to stay out of the RPG threads so wasn't aware that they had a breakdown, but I like the opinions and way several of the posters in this thread discuss rules and game design theory so figured I'd skip the middleman and go straight to them. Thanks for the thoughts though! It doesn't like like 5e is anything at all special and markedly worse than 4e.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 16:14
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:It's as has been said before, none of these guys actually wants to play a game. They aspire to. Depends on your preferences in game design, really. I enjoy 5e D&D as a throwback to 2e, because 4e felt way more like running an MMO party than a tabletop RPG.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 16:35
|
|
|
TheChirurgeon posted:It's an ongoing problem--those states will always be considered undesirable, so each time you give them a new label, that same label will be adopted by society at large as a pejorative. Yeah, it's euphemism treadmill stuff, but I feel like autism's already hit the point where it's rolling off the end. Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Not to be flip but the op of the 5th edition thread has a full break down of the differences compared to 3rd and 4th. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3647634&perpage=40 or Strike which is very directly 4e but better. The biggest sin 4e has is how much fuckin' work it is to prep and run. There's too many powers and items and feats and paragon paths and aaaaagh. Strike's so much easier to handle.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 17:25
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:Can we talk about RPGs and stuff in this thread too? I know we go off on tangents about game design a lot and I think there's fertile ground in discussing RPGs. Anyway, I got into a stupid Facebook discussion about DnD editions and everything positive I had to say about 4e was met with the response that 5e did the same things but better. Not having any experience with 5e, I couldn't really say. So to fill in my own knowledge gaps, I looked through the 5e PHB and what I saw didn't impress me. 1) Don't play D&D friend. It's basically the textbook example of a badly designed game that actively fights what most people are trying to get out of an RPG. It's absolutely the GW product of the RPG industry. Huge player base who brush off every issue as if the only time its a problem is when you're playing some WAAC ultra competitive player or something. 2) 3e is a game almost entirely about character creation as its heart. The key selling point is to be getting into crazy combos of characters where you are drawing from 8 different books take 12 different classes and prestige classes to make your character. Thats fantastic for people who like that but the downsides of the system are well documented (wizard supremacy, hosed up math, martial's fail to scale remotely reasonably, huge gaps between functionaltiy of classes) 3) 5e does improve on some of the 3e failings as its not quite a complete shitshow in terms of combat and character building (in large part because there is almost zero content for the game so its just a lot less customization of your classes in general and the very limited increase of natural +1s means your numbers never get to the crazy levels that 3e. Unfortunately none of the actual problems 3e are solve in this and the lovely natural language 5e is determined to used makes it a pain in the rear end to read through and parse half the mechanics of the game. The spell casters are still king poo poo of poo poo design mountain (though bards are consider the master race class now) and can basically trivialize half the problems in the game with a wave of their hand, combat is hyper lethal low levels, the game actively lies to the GM about how to build a balanced encounter for the group and while its never as bad as 3e in terms of the math you're adding up its definitely a game about putting together a series of chain bonuses and triggering everything off.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 23:18
|
|
|
mcjomar posted:In which case holy poo poo at the GW price hikes. It was another casualty of kit consolidation. They started shipping the kit with the bits to make each of the three variants and took the opportunity to jump the price because of all those extra bits.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 23:23
|
|
|
Irate Tree posted:My knowledge on 4Ed D&D includes; Few things I'd thought I would mention. You're all time favourites is actually just D&D in all but name. Pathfinder is essentially D&D 3.5e with someones houserules run over the top of it, its got some numbers changed around here and there but it acts and runs almost identically to 3.5e The main point is that misconception you have about people who follow the rules in the strictest way or others who just want to tell stories. The reason people get upset at D&D's hot mess of mechanics is that everything in it is designed to actively stop you from telling a story. It's a system that is fighting you from trying to roleplaying and doing what you're trying to do with it but nobody who plays it seems to realize whats going on. A lot of those people will just try and ignore rules that get in the way and assume that this is just naturally how an rpg works. The super important point is that a lot of roleplaying games out there actively encourage you play and the mechanics themselves are built upon getting players to tell those stories and act in such a way that they are rewarded for playing those classic storytelling moments. One of the big points is that the core 'conflict resolution mechanic' is a fundamental issue in D&D. A d20 (a 20 sided dice) is inherently very swingy as to its results for almost no payoff and with D&D5e trying to limit the number of +1s the players get it means all resolution falls down on that dice. Its a simple pass or fail mechanic that sets out if you can succeed or fail on random chance. A lot of rpg systems came up with alternatives because its pretty critical to make sure the mental conditioning thats going on in a game leads people to continue to be creative and encourage a positive response. If a player tries something creative for the first time and simply fails it then puts a huge roadblock on the scene and discourages the player from trying again. The systems core mechanic is set up so you have simple binary pass/fail mechanic which hinges a games tone on. This is a lovely design for a game where you're trying to tell a story. On top of that you have the character classes themselves wildly varying in power. Sure you can tell your story with that in mind but you need to actively design around that, something D&D doesn't. Its very difficult to tell a story where everyone is involved and contributing when you have a contrast of 'a fight swinging his sword and merryly chanting a battle song' next to the 'wizard who has constructed their own interdemensional plane of reality and is currently removing his opponents from existence' . Its a contrast that usually leads to some bitterness especially as people realise the way they advance doesn't compare in the slightest. On top of that D&D is pretty traditional in being a number crunch game and a game where you tend to need to plan out your character for a few levels at least. Any time you have a pause in a fight scene to add up numbers means you a both undercutting the tone and tension of a scene and are probably making everything drag out much longer than it otherwise should (D&D is renowned for making combat take for ever). A game's mechanics should actively encourage the players to roleplay and even D&D5e is still a decade or so behind the ball on introducing mechanics that encourage creativity rather than stifle it. Some people like the number crunch rpgs and there are many out there like it but I would point out the people who like roleplaying and telling stories often dismiss D&D because they have gotten used to system that encourage that stuff rather than bury it. EDIT:My go to example of other systems that encourage that kind of behaviour in very simple ways is the Star Wars RPG system Edge of the Empire, known for its unique dice:  I don't know if people want me to go into detail and talk about design philosophies and stuff about what its trying to achieve and why it takes the risk by using its own special dice versus conventional ones but the simple point is that the dice system results in players rolling off and ending up with a pool of points on two different axis:success/failure (determine if you passed or failed at whatever you were trying to do) and advantage/threat (determines if something unexpectedly good and unexpectedly bad that is spent by the players to do something creative or trigger a special quality/ability) so that you end up with a dice roll that almost always results in something happening and pushing the action forward. Its something that people look at being far too complicated but literally everyone who you plays a session or two is immediately able to comfortably do it far quicker than a traditional d20 system when you realise theres no little modifiers and +1s you ever need to look up and deal with, its just build dice pool, roll dice, interpret results. kingcom fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Mar 20, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 23:38
|
|
|
Amen, brother. I used to love crunchy systems that accurately modeled reality (or the verisimilitude thereof). Then I discovered the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games and never looked back. Now the thought of even creating a character in D&D just pains me.
|
|
#
?
Mar 20, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Amen, brother. I used to love crunchy systems that accurately modeled reality (or the verisimilitude thereof). Then I discovered the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games and never looked back. Now the thought of even creating a character in D&D just pains me. Yeah its just too much of a grind to get through a lot of these systems and I would prefer ones where interesting things happen as a result of the rolls rather than a skill check or something just being a big barrier to doing something interesting. Also FFG star wars taught me that if combat works the same as any other skill check it makes everything go soooo much faster. A battle with storm troopers and a heroic escape to a ship all wraps up in 20 minutes of play time. Lol at trying to do that in D&D.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 00:09
|
|
|
D&D is a bad game with enough market saturation that you can basically find people who know how to play it anywhere. And it's still synonymous with RPGs since people very often do conflate it, and systems derived from it, with tabletop roleplaying in general. And you can't really blame them for that. From the beginning, D&D has mechanically always been an imbalanced dungeoneering game that you are encouraged to also roleplay in on the side. You can also try to hammer its square peg into as many roleplaying round holes as you'd like, as people have done and will continue to do, but from a game design standpoint it's obvious it's all about running those dungeons that are mentioned in the name. The closest the game has ever gotten to being a balanced incarnation of itself was in 4e, and that was controversial for a number of reasons that have been talked to death elsewhere. 4e was the closest D&D has ever gotten to being a good game and 5e doesn't really fix the problems that 3.x has. Incidentally, Pathfinder is functionally D&D 3.75 and doesn't really fix the fundamental problems with the 3.x D&Ds either and I still remember the incredibly ludicrous Gunslinger nerf anecdote. Note that D&D 5e splits its core rulebook into three parts (which is something only D&D does) and the part for players is still almost entirely character creation, combat rules, and magic (most of which is used in combat, or to trivialize challenges out of combat to get back into combat). It's the most mechanically rigorous of the three and is clearly all about fighting, which says a lot about the game. The part for GMs, the Dungeon Master's Guide, gives a lot of ideas for inspiration, some extra rules clarification information for running the game, a bunch of random tables for when you're really out of ideas, and magic item catalog, most of which is for combat. And the Monster Manual is literally a catalog of monsters to throw into combat encounters. Even the 40K RPGs have more mechanical support for social characters. The very idea of a "social character" whose effectiveness is out of combat, and who doesn't actually develop combat skills or powers, is something completely outside of D&D's paradigm, but is a staple of nearly every other RPG out there. The FFG Star Wars games even have multiple options for different kinds of social characters, as well as other flavors of out-of-combat utility, and they all have character advancement as crunchy and satisfying as combat types. Some of which are pretty drat powerful, actually. This is not an emptyquote.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 00:30
|
|
|
Oh, you don't have to convince me that DnD is bad. I knew that from the start. I was mostly just looking to reject the idea that 5e does everything 4e did well better.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 01:35
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:Oh, you don't have to convince me that DnD is bad. I knew that from the start. I was mostly just looking to reject the idea that 5e does everything 4e did well better. 5e doesn't even do half of what 3e did but better, and it's basically a retroclone of 3e.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 01:58
|
|
|
Slimnoid posted:5e doesn't even do half of what 3e did but better, and it's basically a retroclone of 3e. This seems obvious, but I was hoping for more specific examples of things to cite, which is why I asked the questions that I did. They changed everything back into feet and miles for "realism" I guess but I hear it's still supposed to be played on a grid where you have to convert? But without the push, pull, and AoE mechanics the combat seems like it would just be a grind where the DM could actively block you from doing anything interesting. I can't just say "the balance is gone" without being able to point to a specific example of broken math or progression. As far as I can tell, a level 1 Fighter can do little more than "swing sword" but most of the other classes get access to spells, which now have a hit/miss mechanic that 3e never had. Is this correct?
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 02:24
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:As far as I can tell, a level 1 Fighter can do little more than "swing sword" but most of the other classes get access to spells, which now have a hit/miss mechanic that 3e never had. Is this correct? As an example: a wizard with the Animate Dead spell can summon enough skeletons with bows to out-damage the fighter as early as 6th level. As you can imagine, this only gets worse with higher levels, as you can summon more and more undead that will simply murder most enemies by sheer weight of attacks, as well as slow the game down to a crawl (have fun rolling 24 attacks!).
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 03:15
|
|
|
Never change, DnD, never change.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 03:48
|
|
|
Ilor posted:Amen, brother. I used to love crunchy systems that accurately modeled reality (or the verisimilitude thereof). Then I discovered the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games and never looked back. Now the thought of even creating a character in D&D just pains me.  I like the FFG Star Wars RPG myself. I threw away the idea that verisimilitude was in any way good a long time ago from the grognards.txt threads, but I didn't really know how much I hated it until I started playing lots of board games and recognizing the value of abstraction. The difference between, say, Chicago Express and 1846 is that of accounting and number crunching, but ultimately, how much more do you get out of the 18xx than chicago express, when CE gets the feel and playstyle right anyway? The 18xx is deeper, sure, but does it offer that much more enjoyment than the much lighter game? The other thing I realized was the difference between depth of play and complexity. Food Chain Magnate is a good one. Extremely simple game. It's dominion, but with a board. Just do what the cards say. But it's a hard game to play right and it's extremely punishing and satisfying. However, there's no hidden gotchas or bullshit rules that are hidden at the bottom of page 62.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 04:18
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:Never change, DnD, never change. That's the idea.  (FWIW I like D&D when played like Tower of Gygax where it's just a series of random puzzle rooms but I admit that that's in no small part due to nostalgia for being 12 and playing AD&D all night with my friends.)
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 04:44
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:That's the idea. This is basically how 4e is supposed to be played. It's a really good dungeon crawler and anything else attached to it is just vestigial design that they couldn't completely eliminate. I mean, sure, you could do a political simulator, but it would work really poorly. Also, I was thinking about that 40k post and how the IG guy didn't really understand how blast templates worked. I have to say that blast templates are the coolest thing I'm glad Mantic have done away with because I don't think they have have ever actually worked well. It's super neat to put down a flame template, but it just leads to so much bitching and wasted time in the movement phase placing models just so.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 04:47
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:This is basically how 4e is supposed to be played. It's a really good dungeon crawler and anything else attached to it is just vestigial design that they couldn't completely eliminate. I mean, sure, you could do a political simulator, but it would work really poorly. I couldn't give less of a poo poo about combat in D&D though. For me, entering combat is a sign that things went seriously off the rails. While I know 4e lets you do other stuff, it never felt quite close enough to AD&D to me so the nostalgia is ruined. At that point I might as well pick a game that's closer to the kinds of stuff I really like (Torchbearer seems really up my alley). It's a hard problem because, as a business, you obviously want to use the D&D name but you're forced to grapple with either keeping the original flavor (and what that constitutes varies from person to person) or making a good game that throws away all the busted parts. Unfortunately, I dislike nearly every element of D&D (classes, levels, D20-based skill rolls, etc) except when it hits the nostalgia center of my brain. Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Mar 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 04:50
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:I couldn't give less of a poo poo about combat in D&D though. For me, entering combat is a sign that things went seriously off the rails. While I know 4e lets you do other stuff, it never felt quite close enough to AD&D to me so the nostalgia is ruined. At that point I might as well pick a game that's closer to the kinds of stuff I really like (Torchbearer seems really up my alley). That's an odd way to view DnD since it started as a war game where the players can pretend to be an elf. Combat is part of DnDs bones
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 05:13
|
|
|
Bad Moon posted:That's an odd way to view DnD since it started as a war game where the players can pretend to be an elf. Yeah well that's the wrong way to play D&D.  e: In any case, I think my point still stands. A lot of people's complaints about D&D (when you filter out the dumb) boils down to "it's not what I was looking for" which is fine. Obviously my issues are based on an idealized version of "playing a game with my friends" but that's what I liked about D&D. Avenging Dentist fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Mar 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 05:15
|
|
|
Kingdom and Microscope are Good RPG Systems.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 05:24
|
|
|
Slimnoid posted:As an example: a wizard with the Animate Dead spell can summon enough skeletons with bows to out-damage the fighter as early as 6th level. As you can imagine, this only gets worse with higher levels, as you can summon more and more undead that will simply murder most enemies by sheer weight of attacks, as well as slow the game down to a crawl (have fun rolling 24 attacks!). Does Animate Dead still have the 25gp per hit dice cost for the spell, or was that dropped for 5th Ed? I can't remember exactly what the material is, but it costs 25gp per hit dice. Then you need to have the bodies and weapons at your disposal to cast the spell on. Edit: The math seems off here - a 3.5/Pathfinder 6th level wizard can't cast animate dead as it's a 4th level spell. Then there's the 25gp per hit dice (600gp total, for 24 single hit dice, if my sums-in-my-head-math is right) in onyx gems. A 5th edition, 6th level wizard can cast the spell three times a day, each creating one skeleton/zombie. And each time it takes a minute to cast. LashLightning fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Mar 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 05:40
|
|
|
Has anyone tried this? http://www.openlegendrpg.com/ Apparently, it's supposed to allow you to do whatever you want?
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 05:55
|
|
|
Chill la Chill posted:
On the other I'm personally a crazy person that doesn't mind complexity or huge rulesets because I play board wargames and enjoy all and think minis wargamers (which I used to be one) should just simply upgrade to board wargames if they are looking for mechanically tight games and are not too bothered about the lack of minis.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 06:04
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:This seems obvious, but I was hoping for more specific examples of things to cite, which is why I asked the questions that I did. The DM can always block you from doing anything interesting, friend. Otherwise, we'd be playing a wargame where nobody has actual narrative control. Half of the point of having a DM setting up scenarios is that they challenge the players by avoiding one size fits all solutions, and this necessarily means limiting the players' options in some way. This is kind of inherent to D&D as a 'GM creates a dungeon, characters crawl it.' battle game rather than a more open system designed for cooperative storytelling. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Mar 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 07:07
|
|
|
I've played every edition of D&D from ~1985 through 4th edition (but not 5th). Of all of those, 4th was by far the most balanced, mechanically interesting, and useful rule set. I say "useful" meaning that the rules - such as they were - were designed from the outset to generate and support the expected gameplay experiences. It was also vastly improved for the GM, especially when you took advantage of the digital tools. That said, it is definitely first and foremost a tactical combat game. 4th edition made that combat game much more interesting, fair, and manageable. Breaking up all character classes into four broad categories (controller, leader, striker, and defender) and then ensuring every character class could perform well within that category was a huge step forward for the game. Standardizing all combat actions as powers, and ensuring that powers of a given level were of equivalent... uh, power ... across all classes, races, etc. meant that players were far less likely to be penalized for making a "trap" choice, and conversely, it became very difficult to make a character that categorically outshined another character in the party. But. 4th edition did not really take on the challenge of the game outside of combat. It has a tacked-on-feeling Skill Challenge system that simply falls on its face - skill challenge math was broken and had to be fixed in later books, but even with fixed math, skill challenges always feel either like dumb exercises in players contriving to justify using their good skills and then rolling lots of dice with a near-inevitable outcome. In the end you feel like you'd have been far better off just roleplaying out what happened and ignoring your character sheets, and that's not a great outcome. It also had a "ritual" system that mostly replaced noncombat magic that - in my very limited experience - was mostly ignored by everyone, and that's unfortunate because the mechanic had some potential. But I think it just didn't fit into most players' expectations of what a game of D&D was like? I dunno. Ultimately, though, you are engaging with the game's mechanics when you're having combat encounters, and the rest of the time, you're free to RP all you want and maybe make some skill rolls occasionally and you can totally play a game that way... but if you spent the time and effort to make a D&D character, you were wasting your time if you aren't mostly using it to chop up monsters and take their stuff. In any case 4th edition made it very straightforward to just build a character with the mechanics you wanted, and then re-skin anything you wanted (race, class, powers, feats, whatever) to suit the flavor you were going for. Some groups cottoned on to that and went hog wild, and others apparently felt constrained by the flavor text and then complained that it was all too samey or video-gamey.  The other complaints about the game are valid. It is not a good system for any of: fast lightweight gameplay, mechanically-supported noncombat character interactions, storytelling as a mechanic, or settings other than the default D&D "everything and the kitchen sink, with lots of magic" setting. 4th edition could have been better. A number of innovations just didn't go far enough. I had a strong sense that the designers understood they were making a big step forward, but felt constrained by Tradition and Expectation to keep some sacred cows that basically held the whole system back. poo poo like still having ability scores from 3 to 18, rolling a d20, huge lists of basically indespensible magic loot without which your character is hopeless, etc. I had some hope that the next edition of D&D would follow through on what was set up by 4th, but it seems that the backlash by grognardy fans, coupled with the massive cuts in spending and the game being in the control of basically a grognard, regression was the choice that won out. Anymore I have no patience for rules-heavy RPGs. I just don't feel like I have the time to master a system just so I can play lets pretend. I kickstarted the new Conan RPG and I'm liking what I see in the books as they come out, although I haven't gotten to play it yet. It's not what I'd call a true lightweight system (like say PDQ or Fate Accelerated) but it's much lighter than D&D and seems to be designed to encourage "adventure" as the core gameplay rather than "murder things and take their stuff." Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Mar 21, 2017 |
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 07:37
|
|
|
Liquid Communism posted:The DM can always block you from doing anything interesting, friend. Otherwise, we'd be playing a wargame where nobody has actual narrative control. Half of the point of having a DM setting up scenarios is that they challenge the players by avoiding one size fits all solutions, and this necessarily means limiting the players' options in some way. This seems like a weird response to what I was actually talking about. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in any edition of DnD that really encourages novel solutions to combat situations. Every class has their weapons and abilities in some form or another and those are what are mechanically outlined and what they bring to every encounter. In 4e, since the players could affect their positions in addition to the positions of their enemies in an encounter, the game lent itself to synergy between players in sort of a combo system. This was of course not unbreakable and enemy abilities would counter or limit this or that and they were pulling similar tricks on the PCs. The players couldn't approach every combat the same, they had to figure out what would work on the targets in front of them and the environment they were in. And the DM could accomplish all of this without relying on fiat.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 07:38
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:This seems like a weird response to what I was actually talking about. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in any edition of DnD that really encourages novel solutions to combat situations. Every class has their weapons and abilities in some form or another and those are what are mechanically outlined and what they bring to every encounter. In 4e, since the players could affect their positions in addition to the positions of their enemies in an encounter, the game lent itself to synergy between players in sort of a combo system. This was of course not unbreakable and enemy abilities would counter or limit this or that and they were pulling similar tricks on the PCs. The players couldn't approach every combat the same, they had to figure out what would work on the targets in front of them and the environment they were in. And the DM could accomplish all of this without relying on fiat. Yes. A huge improvement. You were also kind of supposed to (allowed? Encouraged in some places, but people missed it?) to reflavor your powers to support a creative narrative. Just because your power says something like "you bluff your opponent with a feint and then stab him when he's vulnerable!" doesn't mean that's what you have to describe your guy doing when you (mechanically) force an enemy to slide one square and then do a weapon + 1d8 damage attack. But in my experience, in live play people tend not to want to try to reskin every power use on the fly. In PbP it seemed a lot more common, but eventually when you're making the 43rd attack of the adventure you just don't have the heart to keep inventing new creative descriptions for your guy using that same bluff power again. So that only goes so far. The game absolutely does not allow you to just improvise an attack action that isn't one of the powers on your character sheet. You can do some kind of non-damaging thing with a skill roll, usually, but in a combat it's usually strictly better to do damage to an enemy (or cause a status effect or whatever - use an attack power, basically) than doing anything else, so the classic "I want to leap from the balcony, swing on the chandelier, and then crash into the bad guy with a mighty kick!" requires the GM and player to more or less improvise a mechanic on the fly (a bad GM just says "you can't do that" but D&D does not actively support the GM beyond saying "just improvise something" while many other games actually give the GM and player real tools to make this kind of play not just possible, but encouraged).
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 07:47
|
|
|
Irate Tree posted:Has anyone tried this? I too am now curious about this. I it worth spending money on this elfgame?
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 07:56
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Yes. A huge improvement. Note the the Dungeon Master's Guide for 4e did have a mechanic for improvisation, complete with a damage table: 4e DMG posted:Actions the Rules Don’t Cover The biggest problem with this system is that it doesn't really give a tangible benefit to the players for trying something thematic, as compared to just utilising their powers that can also synergize with their feats and come with conditions. The closest benefit I have is that making a moderate DC check with a favoured skill would be easier than hitting a monsters defences, so you're more likely to get the effect than using a power that has to hit. (note that Shiera only has to make a DC 14 check. The weakest monster at level 8 has AC 20, and as a Rogue, Shira is at 4 + her Dex to hit DC 14. If she has training in Acrobatics, that's a 9 + Dex.) but all of that is for 2d8 +5 fire, as compared to just hitting with a weapon. Without thinking about it, it could be easy to shy away from something like that by reasoning that trying the fancy, thematic action means that failure is much worse, as compared to just using a power and missing, even though the swashbuckling manoeuvre is actually more likely to occur. .
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 08:14
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:But in my experience, in live play people tend not to want to try to reskin every power use on the fly. In PbP it seemed a lot more common, but eventually when you're making the 43rd attack of the adventure you just don't have the heart to keep inventing new creative descriptions for your guy using that same bluff power again. So that only goes so far. And this is where you fall back on "it's an abstraction with a tangible in game effect". What's interesting is that particular encounter and the overall strategy used to defeat the enemies, not the description of every attack. I hardly think that when people were playing 3e and casting the same spell every time or making the same sword attack every time that they were coming up with unique descriptions on every turn. My group didn't burn out because aside from the first time they used an ability and read the flavor text or the odd time when they wanted to do something cool with the same mechanical result, we all knew that they were more or less doing something at that moment that would get them the result of the power. I think back on "The Book of the New Sun" when Severian says something to the effect of, "I practiced my art in the various villages we passed through. I will not describe each time I did so. Assume it was similar to other times," and the book carries forward from there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 08:45
|
|
|
Avenging Dentist posted:Yeah well that's the wrong way to play D&D. It is a point that is often lost when people say 'D&D is bad' - 4E and the old school B/X editions of the game actually do their particular thing really well. On the other hand 3.5 only does wizard supremacy simulator and it doesn't do it particularly well. You can pitch a game concept to which the right answer to 'what system should I use for this' is 4E but I have no idea what that pitch would be for where the right answer is 3.5
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 13:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 23:33 |
|
|
Cthulhu Dreams posted:I have no idea what that pitch would be for where the right answer is 3.5 I want to run a game where a bunch of nerdy wizards who were bullied in high school try to wipe out all martial fighters.
|
|
#
?
Mar 21, 2017 13:57
|
|