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If the village's issue was instead that they had to deal with constant bandit attacks, the fighter could work on training a militia to protect them after the characters are gone.
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Sep 1, 2017 16:39
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LuiCypher posted:And also trying to break the mindset that HP represent real physical injuries rather than just an abstraction of a whole bunch of different factors comprising overall ability to remain fighting, aka the whole stupid argument over 'warlords shouldn't be able to shout limbs back on'.
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Sep 1, 2017 16:41
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Serf posted:If the village's issue was instead that they had to deal with constant bandit attacks, the fighter could work on training a militia to protect them after the characters are gone. Whereas a wizard who tried to build the village a guardian golem would at best have to spend way more time and money and at worst create some kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice situation where safetybot refuses to allow any of the villagers to leave their homes, yeah. I get why people get really reductive about making sure there's literally no thing magic can do that elbow grease can't but it's misguided.
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Sep 1, 2017 16:41
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Ferrinus posted:Whereas a wizard who tried to build the village a guardian golem would at best have to spend way more time and money and at worst create some kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice situation where safetybot refuses to allow any of the villagers to leave their homes, yeah. I get why people get really reductive about making sure there's literally no thing magic can do that elbow grease can't but it's misguided. Magic being really flimsy and able to backfire or being more expensive or taking a toll on the caster are all well explored ways to balance that stuff.
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Sep 1, 2017 16:49
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Ferrinus posted:Whereas a wizard who tried to build the village a guardian golem would at best have to spend way more time and money and at worst create some kind of Sorcerer's Apprentice situation where safetybot refuses to allow any of the villagers to leave their homes, yeah. I get why people get really reductive about making sure there's literally no thing magic can do that elbow grease can't but it's misguided. Hell, you could combine the two approaches. The fighter trains a ragtag band of misfits and the wizard has to work to assemble the proper components for the safetybot. The cleric restores the local temple and the rogue tries to pit different bandit clans against each other. Then when the final confrontation with the
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Sep 1, 2017 16:53
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The level 1 adventuring party happens upon a village that lives in fear of a rogue safety golem and they have to either destroy or repair it.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:02
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Well, yes. In fact the classic D&D balancer was that a high level fighter was expected to be leading an army. Obviously an army can do things to the setting one guy with a sword cannot. But if you look at the published Skill Challenges in 4e, they love Arcana to bits for anything (saving drowning people? Arcana! Impress the King? Arcana!) but hate Intimidate.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:04
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One of the problems with 4e that you don't hear about so much is how Strength has never ever been less important in D&D. It should be combined with Constitution but nooo, we have to have this matrix of 6 ability scores.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:06
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hyphz posted:Well, yes. In fact the classic D&D balancer was that a high level fighter was expected to be leading an army. Obviously an army can do things to the setting one guy with a sword cannot. You can flatten the class hierarchy, but the wizard boner persists.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:07
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Serf posted:Alternatively maybe warlords should be able to shout limbs back on. That poo poo sounds rad. But at the same time, D&D doesn't have rules for losing limbs, so the concept itself is flawed.       (this is the last one of these I'll post, I promise - I just thought the coincidence was too funny to pass up)
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Sep 1, 2017 17:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:
Does Brain Repair help with D&D brain damage?
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Sep 1, 2017 17:17
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Zoro posted:What's the best way to play board games online? I assume you talk about rpg's here more than board games because it's much easier to do that online. But I'm curious how we can do board games online. A bunch of my friends use Tabletop Simulator. They appear to love it and have ongoing campaign games being run in it weekly. gradenko_2000 posted:
Source your quotes.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:19
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How the hell is repairing one single muscle/tendon as difficult as repairing the brain
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Sep 1, 2017 17:19
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Halloween Jack posted:One of the problems with 4e that you don't hear about so much is how Strength has never ever been less important in D&D. It should be combined with Constitution but nooo, we have to have this matrix of 6 ability scores.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:19
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Halloween Jack posted:One of the problems with 4e that you don't hear about so much is how Strength has never ever been less important in D&D. It should be combined with Constitution but nooo, we have to have this matrix of 6 ability scores. This is one of the things I like about Shadow of the Demon Lord. It combines STR and CON, and also WIS and CHA (sorta).
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Sep 1, 2017 17:21
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hyphz posted:Well, yes. In fact the classic D&D balancer was that a high level fighter was expected to be leading an army. Obviously an army can do things to the setting one guy with a sword cannot. Those writers need to get it through their heads that Arcana is a knowledge skill. It can only do cause material changes in the world if you separately have access to specific rituals or, at the very least, have some kind of existing magic circle or crystal ball or whatever that someone else set up and you're doing the equivalent of computer hacking into.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:24
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Blasphemeral posted:Source your quotes. my last two posts were spell lists from Rolemaster's Spell Law
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Sep 1, 2017 17:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:my last two posts were spell lists from Rolemaster's Spell Law As soon as I saw the mention of Ways, that clued me into the fact that it was probably Rolemaster. Even then, Muscle Ways focus far too much on healing and not enough on 'make opponent flex muscles so hard they break through their armor' or 'grease, but only for your muscles - improve grappling/intimidation-related abilities' and of course the classic 'cast fist'.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:42
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"Oh, whoops, goddamnit, I won" is the perfect way to end a Dominion's lp, truth be told.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:45
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LuiCypher posted:As soon as I saw the mention of Ways, that clued me into the fact that it was probably Rolemaster. You should be able to flex so good that you distract enemies or get them to believe anything you say.
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Sep 1, 2017 17:50
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Serf posted:You should be able to flex so good that you distract enemies or get them to believe anything you say. I've always maintained that you can make most RPGs better by having at least one player be a pro-wrestler and play it straight  Disclaimer: I am totally doing that in a Savage Worlds cyberpunk game right now, and rolling around as the Thirteenth Macho Man in hot pink spandex with neon yellow lightning bolts in a dystopian future where my primary method of attack involves suplexes/moonsaults never gets old. The cameras spotted me? I WANT the cameras to see me! *starts cutting a promo and flexing in front of the security guard, then suddenly explodes him via piledriver* Note: Building an effective pro-wrestler in Savage Worlds is actually pretty hard, because just about every ability score is important in some way. You need Agility for the brawling skill, Strength for your damage, Body because... well, you're probably going to take some hits to get into suplex range, Spirit because you need to intimidate/persuade to cut your promos, and Smarts if you want to taunt people really well. LuiCypher fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Sep 1, 2017 |
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Sep 1, 2017 17:55
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Plutonis posted:How the hell is repairing one single muscle/tendon as difficult as repairing the brain Rolemaster healing doesn't work how you think. Healers actually transfer the damage to themselves because they can only mend their own wounds. So it's as hard to actually heal one of your own muscles as it is to transfer brain damage from someone else.
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Sep 1, 2017 19:59
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LuiCypher posted:I've always maintained that you can make most RPGs better by having at least one player be a pro-wrestler and play it straight Crap that reminds me, what was the name of that one wrestling RPG? Also the topic of how magical settings should be reminds me of how in most of my homebrew fantasy settings my default assumption is that all adventuring characters with class levels are in some form supernatural in nature, not just Wizards and Clerics(one of the easiest to explain examples of this is with Thief Skills, for example the skill Hide In Shadows doesn't mean simply hiding, it means merging yourself into a shadow completely), similarly NPC's with class levels are relatively rare, especially any over the Lvl 1-3 range
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Sep 1, 2017 20:14
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Yeah. YOu've got "Healers'" (The empaths, divine magic/Channelers) and Lay Healers (Psonics/mentalists) Lay Healers mostly just do magically enhanced regular surgery and first aid and have an an entire spell list that's just creating and animating more and more complex magical prosthetics out of increasingly rarer materials.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:14
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LuiCypher posted:I've always maintained that you can make most RPGs better by having at least one player be a pro-wrestler and play it straight In the first 4E game I ever ran, my brother played a rogue who was "Hannibal Lecter plus Rey Mysterio" and another character was a fighter specced for grabbing. Wrestling rules.
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Sep 1, 2017 20:19
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My HD just killed itself when I was 60% done making an Ars Magica thread OP. Incredible.
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Sep 2, 2017 00:08
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it was fate, plutonis
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Sep 2, 2017 00:16
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Rip plutonis's hard drive, owned by fat wizards
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Sep 2, 2017 00:18
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Haystack posted:Rip plutonis's hard drive, owned by fat wizards well of course, but what happened to make it fail?
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Sep 2, 2017 00:41
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:well of course, but what happened to make it fail? 
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Sep 2, 2017 00:48
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:well of course, but what happened to make it fail?
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Sep 2, 2017 00:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:well of course, but what happened to make it fail? I'm not even 30 yet dude
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Sep 2, 2017 00:58
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Thirty paragraphs of wizard and medieval peasant jokes, lost to the void, like tears in the rain.
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Sep 2, 2017 01:00
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Does anyone have recommendations for podcasts about TTRPG GMing? I've listened to a a panel from GenCon and it was OK if basic, but I'd love to hear more about prep styles, working with different systems, getting new players up to speed, encounter design, etc.
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Sep 2, 2017 01:27
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Say, how's that Storytellers Vault coming along? Let's take a look at the Most Popular community content: Denmark By Night ($7.95, 43 pages): A setting guide written by a native. Purports to be both a chronicle unto itself and also just an interesting set-piece you can drop into the middle of an existing game, with a bunch of story hooks in it. The preview only gets you the first half-page chapter open of the actual material, but it does a pretty good job of selling it as an interesting place where things happen of interest to both Camarilla, Sabbat and in-between. Provisional B+, the few paragraphs available were still in need of serious editing despite the crediting an editor, but it's a good concept and clearly executed with passion Combination Discipline Compilation ($10, 35 pages): Boasting "over 100 combination Disciplines" for all types, including "New combinations with multiple requirements." and "New branching requirements for a wider variety of powers to wield." The preview only gets you through the table of contents, and it appears this really is just a pamphlet of alphabetically-sorted new doodads. Provisional C-, a boring concept and you don't get a sample of the actual work that's supposed to be worth $10 Contagion: The Berlin Chronicles ($9.99, 78 pages): The first in a series that's supposed to be a combination of modern update for Berlin By Night (again by a native, maybe?), a guide to a past era for Berlin vampire society, and a "plug-and-play" adventure, with pregens and game quickstart. The full preview link is broken, but the entire 78-page book is unreadably available in the quick preview. Which is why I got to see some character "portraits" that are just photos that clash with the rest of the art in the PDF. Also I'm a little iffy on whether they're just stock photos or "I found it on Google and that means it's free", but they're too low-res in the quick preview to do a good reverse-search and I'm not paying $10 to find out. Also, the dude turned on watermarking for this PDF. Provisional B, it's probably not the creator's fault the full preview is broken and he probably didn't steal art, but even then well over half the book appears to be character stat blocks and part 1 of a three-part scenario; still, it's again generally a good idea to have natives writing their own setting material Bloody but Unbowed ($4.95, 33 pages): Another setting-guide plus introductory scenario, this time for Rockford, Illinois. The scenario is that a 14th Generation Caitiff stole something from the Prince and as a distraction for her escape, murdered and tried to Embrace a bunch of people at the night club she was hiding in. The PCs can either be neonates sent to clean up the mess, or fledglings struggling to survive the random thin-blooded fate thrust upon them. The preview includes quite a bit of the first few pages, and the writing is pretty good and doesn't drag on into a verbose travelogue. The author has quite a catalog on DTRPG, too, including a whole mess of low-rating shovelware-looking stuff with a preoccupation with disease and superheroes, including a straight rip-off of Mr A/The Question for Mutants & Masterminds. And also a credit in the M20 fiction anthology. Provisional B-, another native setting guide, and an interesting enough introductory adventure premise, marred by the clashing use of full color location photos Fiends and Foes: Ready Made Antagonists for V20 ($4.99, ??? pages): Three pre-made coteries that you can break up and rearrange to suit your chronicle. It's 20-some pages of character background/roleplaying tips, then some indeterminate number of character sheets for all of them. The creator didn't fill out the page count field for the product information. The one character whose write-up you can see in the preview is alright, I guess; she's not completely flat, but "too good at her job and bitter about it" isn't the most exciting hook to put at the front of your book. Provisional B- Madison by Night ($1.95, 16 pages): Another setting-guide, I dunno if it's by someone who is actually from Madison, WI or not; the author, Bill Bodden, actually has some legit credits for V20 Anarchs Unbound and Ghouls & Revenants, and as this puts forward that Madison is an Anarch hub, I guess he's probably got the chops to make this brief supplement worth $2. Again, my principle thumbs-up is for it seeming to be A Place Where You Might Want to Go Because Things Happen There, which far too many setting guides fail to do. Provisional B+, the writing looks competent; despite a thanks for layout help in the credits, there's some poor art element overlapping in the first couple of pages A Golconda Story ($9.95, 500 pages): Edited by Onyx Path's rising star Matthew Dawkins, it's a novel about a journalist who gets Embraced and seeks to escape back to humanity. Another one where the creator forgot to fill in the page count field for product information, I only know how long it is because of an author comment—"The novel is over 500 pages (143k words)"—in which he also plugs it as modeled after Campbell's Hero's Journey. I am constitutionally allergic to the relatively brief game fiction in your typical WoD/ChroD rule books, so there's no way I can give this a fair shake, but I still can't help saying "uuuuuuuuugh" at this. Provisional C+, apparently well-liked by someone whose opinion shouldn't be dismissed out-of-hand; the text formatting looks absolutely terrible A Harpy's Primer ($4.95, ??? pages): Yet another product without a page count, but the table of contents indicates it's at least 12. Also, again, they went and turned the watermark option on. It's supposed to be a roleplaying guide for the position of harpy in the Camarilla, which is an interesting enough premise. Unfortunately, the opening is a big "splash page" with some sexy-time vampire art under a giant TImes New Roman quote: "“It’s all fun and games until a bitch fucks up and a Harpy calls scandal” ~Rhys" This does not inspire confidence. The one page of the central material in the preview alternates between huge column-eating quotes in section-header font, and actual roleplaying advice in Arial. Provisional D+, an interesting premise for a product but every indication of the particulars in the preview looks disappointing The Tomb of Alexander (Chronicles of the Blood Moon, 1) ($2.02, 16 pages): They turned watermarks on again! Formatted like an SAS with dot-ratings for how challenging it is, the actual formatting is okay, with some mediocre filtered photos for art. Unfortunately, the author is not so great at English; the entire thing appears to be riddled with such spelling and grammatical errors it would be difficult to read. The premise is that the PCs (which can be Camarilla Archons or Sabbat Templars) are investigating a tantalizing vampiric mystery that turns out to be a vampire hunter's trap. Provisional D, desperately needs a translator Clanbook: Karnstein ($1.75, 21 pages): Again with the loving watermark. Purporting to be more about Carmilla-style vampires, they're a weird mostly-lost bloodline that can only Embrace blood relatives of up to four degrees of separation (i.e., once you're out of second-cousins and great-great grandchildren you're hosed if you want a childe). Their unique Discipline is "Pretense." The writing seems fair enough, but it shows that the author has to work in MS Word so it's pretty ugly looking. Provisional C, an uninspired premise with ugly formatting Gangster Vampire Hunters ($1.99, 30 pages): I was only going to do the top ten, but I couldn't let this title pass by. It appears to be by someone whose first language isn't English, but they still write very well. It's a Cthulhu-y pulp detective mystery set in Chicago, and the PCs are humans investigating a bunch of vampire goings-on. If that were just the lead-in to get the PCs turned into vampires themselves, that would be nice, but this appears to want to just be a scenario for mortals, at least up-front, so I'm a little disappointed in that. Overall it appears to be an okay premise with fair writing and editing, and the use of filtered photos is far better than any of the rest of the ones above. Also there's a sketch of Liza Minnelli from Cabaret which I hope he got permission for (someone please tell me it's actually from the Storytellers Vault art packs because if so  ). Provisional B-, interesting premise, good writing, presentable formatting, but I'm generally not a fan of an entire adventure of not being a vampire when playing the game VampireAll in all the only surprising thing is that there doesn't appear to be any steaming, hot garbage dumped into the Storytellers Vault. Most of this stuff seems pretty mediocre, yes, but I didn't even see any Black Dog-labeled stuff. Honestly, there's not all that much stuff of any caliber; my write-ups above cover a significant fraction of what's available. A great part of the product entries are little art packs, and like 10 iterations of MrGone once more reuploading his character sheets because he was cursed by a PDF witch. Because that's the kind of person I am, I went looking for the worst thing I could find, and again there's just not really any offensive horseshit, so instead I leave you with the only thing that made me chuckle a little: The Rose Witch, another poorly-formatted novel, opening sentences posted:It was quiet night at the manor. Nathaniel was sitting by the fireplace with his usual facial expression - the expression of a Fledgling.
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Sep 2, 2017 09:20
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Would it be weird to break out the timer app on my phone, set it to an hour, and sit my rear end down and just read a book until it goes off? I have a lot of books that I want to read, but given the advent of modern media and "being extremely online", I really don't read as much as I want to. I feel like this could be a way for me to commit to reading books long enough to finally finish some of them, and theoretically it's no different from setting aside 30 minutes for cardio at the gym, but I don't know if I'd be cheapening the experience by "forcing" myself to do it. Does that make sense? I am probably overthinking this.
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Sep 2, 2017 10:42
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Glazius posted:Rolemaster healing doesn't work how you think. Healers actually transfer the damage to themselves because they can only mend their own wounds. So it's as hard to actually heal one of your own muscles as it is to transfer brain damage from someone else. Rolemaster healers were the most unfortunate souls. They get to the end of the fight, look at the damage done to the warrior and go, "welp, " They then spend the next three days in the back of the cart regenerating a lost limb Deadpool style. Seriously, Healers in Rolemaster are the only good argument I can come up with for a GMPC in a game.
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Sep 2, 2017 11:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Would it be weird to break out the timer app on my phone, set it to an hour, and sit my rear end down and just read a book until it goes off? It sounds like a fine idea. I do a similar thing when it comes to practicing an instrument. I schedule 30-60 minutes at a specific time every day and force myself to play. Of course, I have gotten away from that routine by now, but it worked while I was following it!
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Sep 2, 2017 11:46
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This is the good poo poo
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Sep 2, 2017 11:58
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gradenko_2000 posted:Would it be weird to break out the timer app on my phone, set it to an hour, and sit my rear end down and just read a book until it goes off? Nah, that's fine. I'd probably aim for a Pomodoro / Tomato Timer or the like first, an hour is probably going to feel like a longer time than you'd expect if you've gotten out of practice with it.
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