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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:I think there's a good case to be made for having monster attacks just do flat damage (maybe even player attacks - rolling to hit already adds plenty of variance). it would cut down on the number of dice rolls a lot!
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Sep 21, 2017 14:31
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Ominous Jazz posted:Alignment continues to be dumb I have played D&D since I was ten and I still don't know what the gently caress Chaotic Good actually entails also how is a Lawful Evil character good for Ravenloft isn't corruption of good characters like a key part of that setting
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Sep 21, 2017 14:35
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Sep 21, 2017 14:40
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Blockhouse posted:I have played D&D since I was ten and I still don't know what the gently caress Chaotic Good actually entails Ironically the one use of the D&D Alignment Chart meme that is explicitly about D&D displays the least awareness of D&D. "Chaotic good" I think is supposed to mean "doesn't mind breaking the law to aid the downtrodden." In practice it means "a good guy and the player supports marijuana legalization."
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Sep 21, 2017 14:43
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superimpose the alignment chart onto the political axis chart and it'll all make sense
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Sep 21, 2017 14:46
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I've always used the shorthand that Chaotic Good is someone like Jack Sparrow, who works outside the law but for the greater good.
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Sep 21, 2017 14:48
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"Chaotic Good" is basically the alignment that supports pretty much anything you do that isn't overtly evil.
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Sep 21, 2017 14:48
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gradenko_2000 posted:superimpose the alignment chart onto the political axis chart and it'll all make sense that would make chaotic good... authoritharian right?!
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Sep 21, 2017 14:49
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Alignment wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so broadly applied. Like when the Monster Manual is writing off entire species as "Always Chaotic Evil", you hosed up.
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Sep 21, 2017 14:51
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But isn't all that stuff basically Neutral Good too?
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Sep 21, 2017 14:52
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chaotic generally maps into being actively anti-authoritarian, which works great until you think about all the Chaotic Evil races that regularly practice inherently authoritarian acts like slavery
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Sep 21, 2017 15:01
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Splicer posted:As usual, 4e supremacy where a basic crit just maximises your damage. WFRP3 will always be my gold standard for hits 'n crits though. Well, maximized damage is another mitigating fix rather than a hard fix. It's not quite as problematic, but it still presents smaller issues. ProfessorCirno posted:I know I bring up this game nonstop already, but Fragged Empire's crit system is kinda weird, where essentially you can't be taken out unless you're crit. Well, what crits represent is also much different in Fragged Empire, and also occur far more often - about half the time on a successful hit, unless the target is well-armored. Crits have interesting effects because of how attributes work and feel more like some crippling or weakening injury. While there is a bit of a death spiral, the fact that they impact your ability to act is softened by the fact that you can take different actions keyed off of different skills or attributes. In any case, it's all absolutely intended by the designer and more interesting than sudden death.
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Sep 21, 2017 15:15
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Another way to look at it would be how games like WoW and Diablo 3 really let you go nuts with the crits - there are stats to increase critical hit chance, and stats to increase critical hit multipliers, and they're one of the cornerstones to maximizing damage. But that requires a large "cushion" of HP, which is generally more than what trad games are willing to go into because of all the arithmetic and administrative overhead.
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Sep 21, 2017 15:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:superimpose the alignment chart onto the political axis chart and it'll all make sense So paladins are tankies?
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Sep 21, 2017 15:53
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Jimbozig posted:So paladins are tankies? That would actually make a lot of sense.
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Sep 21, 2017 15:55
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Jimbozig posted:So paladins are tankies? yes, in every sense of the word 
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Sep 21, 2017 16:07
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Honestly the only D&D alignment I like is the original Law vs. Chaos where they don't map to any individual morality and are mostly just different color jerseys.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:14
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whydirt posted:Honestly the only D&D alignment I like is the original Law vs. Chaos where they don't map to any individual morality and are mostly just different color jerseys. Someone needs to make a heartbreaker where alignment is which bloodbowl team you support.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:16
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Law vs. Chaos is Clean-Cut And By-The-Book vs. A Maverick Who Plays By Their Own Rules.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:17
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The Murtaugh vs Riggs axis.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:23
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The only alignment that matters is the sub vs dub axis. E: The other axis is legal vs piracy. Waffleman_ fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Sep 21, 2017 |
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Sep 21, 2017 16:26
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The "Thieves' Guild? More like Thieves' Union" idea I have in my head is now further fleshed out: it will use the Fish-hook Theory axis.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:30
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whydirt posted:Honestly the only D&D alignment I like is the original Law vs. Chaos where they don't map to any individual morality and are mostly just different color jerseys. I liked it when alignment was just nine languages D&D people spoke and they didn't know why they spoke them, and they couldn't teach the languages to people that spoke one of the other languages, and it was rude to speak the languages in public.
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Sep 21, 2017 16:36
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LongDarkNight posted:The Murtaugh vs Riggs axis. My alignment is Neutral Riggs! Cop Killers!
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Sep 21, 2017 16:36
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Two comments: 1. Where's BBG? 2. Missed opportunity to use your av as the background with some transparency so it isn't completely obvious. whydirt posted:Honestly the only D&D alignment I like is the original Law vs. Chaos where they don't map to any individual morality and are mostly just different color jerseys. Make it like the Shin Megami Tensei alignment system: Law supports God and his angels, but also absolute order with the complete absence of freedom. Chaos supports Satan and his devils/fallen angels, but with its absolute freedom it also promotes a dog-eat-dog world of Might Makes Right. Have Neutral in the middle whose only objective is to gently caress over whichever side is in the lead at the moment. They follow no God or demons, but are actually more of an unconscious expression of humanity to counterbalance the dominant force and as such can't really be put down through doing things like killing God/Satan (otherwise, the clear imperative would be for Law/Chaos to team up and massacre Neutral, and then fight it out between themselves). If you really want to give them a God/leader - make it King Arthur.
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Sep 21, 2017 17:29
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I think my favourite "Neutral" in RPGs is the Balance in the Elric RPGs. Where gaining Balance requires you to do things that aren't about gaining power to establish a system or destroy it. But yes, the best alignment in D&D is Law/Chaos where it's just about which monsters will or won't attack you, plus some cool baroque oddities that come out of that like the Avenger class.
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Sep 21, 2017 17:54
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Ratoslov posted:Law vs. Chaos is Clean-Cut And By-The-Book vs. A Maverick Who Plays By Their Own Rules. my alignment is "guy that's 2 weeks away from retirement"
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Sep 21, 2017 18:01
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New Guy/Vet close to retirement is the other axis of the Maverick/By the Book alignment grid.
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Sep 21, 2017 18:05
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LuiCypher posted:
this creates the true neutral "problem" where a dude switches sides mid fight cause the other side is losing
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Sep 21, 2017 18:34
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Recent posts just make me wonder why we have potential instant death crits on PCs at all, DnD's gotten increasingly better at death rules, but even 4e and 5e still have a damage threshold you can take that instakills you. In 5e it's if you hit 0 and if the remaining damage exceeds your max hp. That's by far the most generous one the game's had so far (even 4e made it your bloodied value, which is to say half your max hp), but you're right that it probably shouldn't be possible at all. Coup de Grace at least requires some DM intent. Blockhouse posted:I have played D&D since I was ten and I still don't know what the gently caress Chaotic Good actually entails Antifa.
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Sep 21, 2017 19:17
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LuiCypher posted:Two comments: It was for people on a pyf forum posts thread and the guy who made it put himself as CN which made everyone made fun of his rear end forever
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Sep 21, 2017 19:19
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Elfgames posted:this creates the true neutral "problem" where a dude switches sides mid fight cause the other side is losing This is meant to be more of a macro-scale thing (especially since Law and Chaos in my example are portrayed as two diametrically opposing points locked into a struggle), rather than a psychotic mid-process switch. The outcome is generally meant to restore the balance, which also means once the fight's over you're not immediately turning on the other side, unless the outcomes make it so that one side is much more powerful on the broad scale (think end of Act 1 in Shin MegaTen 1 where you kill Gotou (Chaos) first, but then afterwards you go to kill Thorman (Law) to stay on the path of Neutrality and maintain balance).
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Sep 21, 2017 19:32
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Plutonis posted:It was for people on a pyf forum posts thread and the guy who made it put himself as CN which made everyone made fun of his rear end forever I can see why #2 is a bad idea then. Alien Rope Burn posted:Recent posts just make me wonder why we have potential instant death crits on PCs at all... Most systems that have them don't have a way to mitigate them, or give express directions on how the GM should use criticals against players. The 40K RPGs are by no means the best RPGs written, but they do state that only major enemies/villains should have the ability to crit PCs, and even then Fate Points serve as 'ablative armor' against instant-kill crits. Further systems (Black Crusade onwards) removed the ability for crits to outright kill anything in one hit - instead they go straight to the first five entries on the criticals chart for the hit location if they manage to deal damage after reductions for Toughness/Armor. Finally, the rulebook justifies that only major enemies should be able to crit rather than all enemies because enemies will always roll more dice than players - a critical hit system is inherently anti-PC because they'll get more chances to crit and consequently more crits overall. Of course, the major problem with just about all of the 40K RPGs is that they were written with WHFRPG 2e as a base, which means the power levels of weapons/items inevitably increased without the underlying system really adapting for it. In other words, it's a game of rocket tag where it doesn't matter if a hit crits or not when it can just kill you outright based on raw damage, even after accounting for Toughness/Armor. Even though they have all these cool rules for how to adjudicate the use of crits, in the end it winds up not mattering unless players are really big on using cover (they should).
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Sep 21, 2017 19:44
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Blockhouse posted:I have played D&D since I was ten and I still don't know what the gently caress Chaotic Good actually entails Robin Hood. Like, alignment is stupid but that one's not hard.
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Sep 21, 2017 20:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Robin Hood. Except it isn't, not quite. Robin Hood is a criminal himself, true, but he does not seek to spread criminality or undermine the rule of law. He might ace the Sheriff of Nottingham given the chance, but he isn't going to hand the poor of Sherwood all bows and declare a Purge. So he isn't _advocating_ Chaos and arguably that means he's Neutral Good.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:13
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hyphz posted:Except it isn't, not quite. Robin Hood is a criminal himself, true, but he does not seek to spread criminality or undermine the rule of law. He might ace the Sheriff of Nottingham given the chance, but he isn't going to hand the poor of Sherwood all bows and declare a Purge. So he isn't _advocating_ Chaos and arguably that means he's Neutral Good. The hell are you talking about.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:20
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Robin Hood is literally the justification in AD&D 1E for allowing thieves to be Neutral Good.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:23
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Lurdiak posted:The hell are you talking about. But wait, Robin Hood is also known for his honor and chivalry, so he's clearly Lawful Good.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:24
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Lurdiak posted:The hell are you talking about. Being chaotic, by the old definitions in the book, means you don't believe in _laws_. Not the particular current law, but laws as a whole. Robin Hood breaks the law because he feels it's unjust, but it's not clear he feels laws _as a whole_ are unjust. He would not, for example, encourage peasants to steal from each other. The problem with making him CG is that if he were crowned King, so he could make the laws, he would make things fairer for the poor.. so would he suddenly become LG? Seems a bit weak. No, if a CG was crowned king they would cry "do as you will!" while genuinely believing this was a good thing.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:25
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Ceterum censeo Alignment Debates delenda est
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Sep 21, 2017 21:28
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