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Reene posted:I said directly interact with. You'll be moved by its currents and manipulated by its agents or agents of those agents but there's absolutely no reason you need to go dip your toe in an Abyssal warfront to have a campaign in Sigil. Unless you know there were plot hooks that brought you over there. Like saying the party needs to get some macguffin, but it's currently located in an active blood war battlefield in Gehenna. So the party ether needs to sneak in the battlefield or get recruited as mercenaries for that battle to get to the area. (Or whatever other solutions the party can come up with.)
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Apr 29, 2018 20:32
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Waffles Inc. posted:Slow Campaign It sounds like the DM just needs to get the plot going. If you don't have any active quests or goals, the DM is supposed to introduce an NPC that can inform you of the next step.
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Apr 29, 2018 20:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:Unless you know there were plot hooks that brought you over there. Like saying the party needs to get some macguffin, but it's currently located in an active blood war battlefield in Gehenna. So the party ether needs to sneak in the battlefield or get recruited as mercenaries for that battle to get to the area. (Or whatever other solutions the party can come up with.) Sure, if you want to directly interact with the Blood War you could do that. But you do not, in fact, actually need to do that.
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Apr 29, 2018 20:43
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Reene posted:Sure, if you want to directly interact with the Blood War you could do that. Thats true. But that argument can be used for pretty much anything.
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Apr 29, 2018 20:45
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FRINGE posted:Im sure yours were, since you dont even know what planes were what and used that as evidence that "they must be bad". In other words you never used any of it but are real mad about it. Lol. Yeah, I confused the name of two planes so I don't know anything about a setting. Blockhouse posted:Having actually looked up the Blood War the idea of what it was in my head seems cooler The Blood War is like that.
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Apr 29, 2018 21:01
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gradenko_2000 posted:The basic example is if you're playing a character that hates werewolves, and you're dropped into a prison where a werewolf is your cellmate and he's the only one that knows the way out.
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Apr 29, 2018 21:11
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The correct answer to "my character would do (massively counter productive thing)" is "then make a different character"
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Apr 29, 2018 22:27
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Elysiume posted:To expand on this, I see this referred to as "my guy syndrome," as in "that's what my guy would do." There's a pretty good post on stack exchange about it, and it boils down to the fact that everyone needs to keep in mind that mutual fun is the end goal. It's similar to why you don't bring a d2 crusader to a mid-op table; the players and the DM are all responsible for and invested in trying to make everyone have fun. The "it's what my character would do" excuse often gets trotted out to justify actions that lead to PVP conflict, plot derails or disruptions, or general dickish behavior. It's best that the player make a character that is capable of working with the rest of the party. And knowing what characters the other players are making helps. But sometimes the player who makes a werewolf character in the same party as a werewolf hater isn't just a jerk trying to instigate conflict. He might have thought that some minor conflict between party members would help the story, and inspire character development teaching the werewolf hunter that not all werewolves are bad. But sometimes the werewolf hunter just wants to stab werewolves. In other forms of media, plot armor prevents conflict between characters from killing each other before development can set in. But unless the DM steps in, the party can end up killing each other if they don't work well together.
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Apr 29, 2018 22:33
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Also, anyone justifying an action by their alignment ("well, I am chaotic neutral") really needs to take a step back and think about why they're primarily defining their character with a 3x3 grid. Alignment should be the consequence of someone's beliefs, morals, and goals, not the opposite.
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Apr 29, 2018 22:34
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Reene posted:I don't hate the Blood War stuff but honestly if you're playing PS you will almost never directly interact with it, so it's kind of like...who cares? It's just meant to be A War Happening In A Far-Away Place with high enough stakes to justify why people in this If you look at the actual produced PS material it was a constant reference point. A lot of the complaints coming up about PS here are fabricated, and seem like some weird echo chamber effect that started I-dont-know-where. -edit Your complaints about not fighting on the actual front lines of the Blood War are symptomatic of your preferences. You want to fight everything. PS is a bad setting for you. Splicer posted:I'm not saying that people, a lot of people, don't use AD&D for politicking and intrigue. I'm saying that AD&D doesn't mechanically support politicking and intrigue very well. In combat you've got hp, a timing system, a whole table to tell you if you've hit or not, variable degrees of success through weapon damage etc. Outside combat (and spells, which were less of a thing, and rogue skills) you're free-form role-playing with a d20 roll for the debatable stuff. Or at least, that's my understanding. If anything, PS encouraged/required the players to actually think about which way they would approach things, because if they just defaulted to "attack, let the dice decide" they were guaranteed to have a bad day. (Using the previous example, "attack the Great Modron March to stop it" would be impossible.) As far as 3e, I only mined the setting books for the most part. From what I could tell, it tried to codify everything into rolling, and that killed a lot of the implicit RP from the TSR era where it was expected that you played things out instead of just say "I influence them *roll*". The most legitimate problem of "old dnd" (regarding this topic) are the apocryphal stories of killer DMs, and table grudges between DMs and players. (As always, nothing can really fix a game with a bad GM.)
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Apr 29, 2018 23:00
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Fringe coming in with that patented logic leap all the way from downtown
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Apr 29, 2018 23:18
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Glagha posted:The correct answer to "my character would do (massively counter productive thing)" is "then make a different character" Yeah, I agree with this. I like it when people stick to their guns (to a degree). What I think works best is when everyone agrees to have complementary characters from the get go who are going to work well together. For instance, in my last campaign we all agreed no evil mages. after my first char died, I came back as an evil mage. When the party sold said character out , I had no problems with it, because while we all played the right way in character, I knew going in it was a bad idea and that I'd likely pay the price other campaifn examples : in one, I knew going in I'd have to get along with a few characters that I wouldn't normally want to, and built my character to be flexible and tolerant in order to further his goals, even though it made him a pariah among his own people and in the one I just started there's one guy being a straight up evil necromancer that he was obsessed with playing for years, and everyone agreed to find ways to get along with him during chargen back on the Planescape/rules discussion, while I prefer freeform rping to having mechanics of social skills, it really freaking sucks when a DM decides that the npc can't be convinced of whatever you're trying to do. It's effectively like making an unkillable character and it's really aggravating mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Apr 29, 2018 |
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Apr 29, 2018 23:39
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FRINGE posted:
Me I assume lot of people go out of their way to disagree with me and insult me. Once I said it was good people even come and said oh that must mean it's bad. For some of them I assume it's a joke at least.
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Apr 29, 2018 23:41
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Perk up, MonsterEnvy, you've always been kind to me so I'll always be kind in turn!
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Apr 30, 2018 00:05
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Elysiume posted:Also, anyone justifying an action by their alignment ("well, I am chaotic neutral") really needs to take a step back and think about why they're primarily defining their character with a 3x3 grid. because i'm lawful evil
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Apr 30, 2018 00:10
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MonsterEnvy posted:Me I assume lot of people go out of their way to disagree with me and insult me. Once I said it was good people even come and said oh that must mean it's bad. Maybe it’s because of all those times you defended the racial caricature and used up any existing good will but ~who can say~
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Apr 30, 2018 00:16
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Wyvernil posted:But sometimes the player who makes a werewolf character in the same party as a werewolf hater isn't just a jerk trying to instigate conflict. He might have thought that some minor conflict between party members would help the story, and inspire character development teaching the werewolf hunter that not all werewolves are bad. Yeah to be clear, I'm not saying that it's impossible to handle the scenario of a guy who hates werewolves being dropped into a cell with a werewolf cellmate - but the guy needs to be willing to grudgingly swallow their bile while the werewolf leads them out. You're gonna be muttering the whole time, and you might even actually fight the werewolf once you hit daylight, but no sooner than that.
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Apr 30, 2018 00:33
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It is also not a random chance, the DM put the werewolf there for a reason or is being a dick, but the point remains that “my character would do this” may not be the best response to the situation.
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Apr 30, 2018 00:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah to be clear, I'm not saying that it's impossible to handle the scenario of a guy who hates werewolves being dropped into a cell with a werewolf cellmate - but the guy needs to be willing to grudgingly swallow their bile while the werewolf leads them out. You're gonna be muttering the whole time, and you might even actually fight the werewolf once you hit daylight, but no sooner than that. This is one of those 'the GM and player should loving talk about this first and discuss if it would work or if something needs to change' type of problems. For some reason many people find just talking about something that might be a problem to be out of the realms of possibility. Both the 'I hate werewolves' guy and the 'put a werewolf with the I hate werewolves guy' both made conscious decisions end up in that situation. MonsterEnvy posted:Me I assume lot of people go out of their way to disagree with me and insult me. Once I said it was good people even come and said oh that must mean it's bad. In conclusion Planescape is a land of contrasts. kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 02:17
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Wyvernil posted:The "it's what my character would do" excuse often gets trotted out to justify actions that lead to PVP conflict, plot derails or disruptions, or general dickish behavior. It's best that the player make a character that is capable of working with the rest of the party. And knowing what characters the other players are making helps. You just have to keep a "yes and" mentality when it comes to character conflicts. I made an overly-strict objectivist paladin in a game where everyone else is chaotic and some kind of criminal, but I don't spend every session arguing with everyone else about the course of action because I consider them immoral, nor do I try to murder them when they do something illegal. Instead my character reserves his moralizing for when things blow up in our face due to the career thief not keeping his hands to himself, or for when it's funny, like when he was against falsifying century old documents to end a curse. Basically make sure you're not just stopping the game dead in its tracks or derailing everything to make it about yourself. Which is generally good advice for roleplaying. Mr. Maltose posted:Fringe coming in with that patented logic leap all the way from downtown 
Lurdiak fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 02:45
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Speaking of Planescape, I’d like to segue Sigil into my Out of the Abyss campaign. I’m not familiar with PS though but like the idea. Are there any suggestions for PS adventures that may work well? I’ve started reading Dead Gods as I have some ideas on an Orcus plotline already, involving an undead army swarming the surface relating to OotA. I’m considering Sigil replace Gauntlgrym as the launch for the second half of OotA if that helps.
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Apr 30, 2018 03:18
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"It's what my character would do." is bad role-playing because ultimately B.A Baracus always got on the god drat plane/helicopter instead of the A-team just ending 10 minutes in.
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Apr 30, 2018 04:05
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Razorwired posted:"It's what my character would do." is bad role-playing because ultimately B.A Baracus always got on the god drat plane/helicopter instead of the A-team just ending 10 minutes in. This is the best drat analogy and I'm always going to use it to explain to someone saying "It's what my character would do."
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Apr 30, 2018 04:32
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MonsterEnvy posted:Me I assume lot of people go out of their way to disagree with me and insult me. Once I said it was good people even come and said oh that must mean it's bad. You really need to explore the vague concept of self-examination. If literally everyone you talk to just responds with abject horror, maybe it's not them and not that they don't understand you and evidence of a serious flaw in your reasoning. Like, really. Fringe : I've played since the 2e days and was quite the grognard when 3e came out and you are 100% looking through rose-colored glasses. No I can't still recite all the demiplanes of salt and asbestos and cocaine or whatever like I could 20 years ago but that doesn't mean I wasn't there playing the game. D&D was a loving terrible system for Planescape and only worked because it was that or nothing. I as a rando with no design experience could do better than any of the actual rules. That position is indefensible and judging people for not playing older versions is the pettiest poo poo possible. Looking backward for inspiration in RPG's is toxic as looking back for health advice about smoking ; it's mostly negative examples.
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Apr 30, 2018 04:53
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clusterfuck posted:Speaking of Planescape, I’d like to segue Sigil into my Out of the Abyss campaign. I’m not familiar with PS though but like the idea. Are there any suggestions for PS adventures that may work well? I’ve started reading Dead Gods as I have some ideas on an Orcus plotline already, involving an undead army swarming the surface relating to OotA. I’m considering Sigil replace Gauntlgrym as the launch for the second half of OotA if that helps. The guide to Sigil book would likely help. Plus Sgil has portals in it that lead everywhere, so it would not be hard for there to be a portal to it in Gauntlgrym. The reason the portals are not used all the time, is that they normally need a key for them to show up. And the Keys can be anything, from holding a certain object, to having a certain idea in your head, to doing a little dance in it's area. But every Portal has a different one. Edit: The Great Modron March would also likely be a helpful book for finding out about the setting. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 06:15 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 06:10
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Is it just me, or is Reach generally kind of pointless? In fact it works in some detrimental ways with, eg, a Rogue's sneak attack.
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Apr 30, 2018 08:55
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^^^ Reach is good for PAM because the attack triggers when someone enters your weapon reach. If you pair it with Sentinel you can stop someone before they attack you.Xiahou Dun posted:Looking backward for inspiration in RPG's is toxic as looking back for health advice about smoking ; it's mostly negative examples. I wouldn't go that far. Retrospectives can be important design tools. Right now there's a bunch of  aesthetic stuff coming out as 5e hacks that are kind of fun. I'm actually super into my David Bowie/Ganymede Fey Lock made with the options in Faerie Fire and that project was 100% looking back at poo poo like Lisa Frank for inspiration. A read of any iteration of D&D from a game design perspective is gonna be worthwhile the same way a viewing of Akira is always gonna bring something to an animation discussion. It's just that you can't pull a 5e and try to pick and choose editions based on your most toxic fan base.While I dislike 2e, partially because my ultragrog friends got me into Talislanta, the 80s RPG with neither Spells per Day nor Elves  (Talislanta is also terrible). The big overwrought settings with a bunch of noncombat scenes added a lot. Before that game that used to just say "You go back to town, sell loot, buy torches, potions and ammo, and ride back to the Dungeon."3.5 Brought a bunch of character options. It got bad quick but I remember even the crappily designed rift between Wizards and Sorcerers had me and a buddy role-playing a rivalry a la Jin and Mugen from Samurai Champloo simply based on the slight differences. At one point he used his racial longsword profiency against my Sorcerer weapon proficiency so we could solve the matter without magic. 4e brought the game math forward in huge ways. And even though 5e's team and fan base pretend the edition doesn't exist it influenced spiritual successors like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord. And yes, it had a bloated feat system and overly relied on a great service based in a lovely Silverlight App and there were way too many useless Wizard subtypes. Plus it kind of threw you in the deep end of the pool wrt everyone having traceable conditions and riders from level 1. The fact that this complexity was doled out to everyone was actually one of my favorite things about 4e because it gave us stuff like the Warlord and Brawler Fighter I frankly don't like running 5e but if there's a DM that'll run it there are worse games. I can't really say what its influence is because it's replacement edition doesn't exist yet. As a DM it's fairly fast to run early encounters since the PCs don't have a bunch of riders and marks to track at level one. But it comes at the expense of some classes around level 6-7 on. Advantage is a nice mechanic but I wish they had incorporated the +/-d4 thing from Bless in more things. Like maybe let Evil Fighters subtract 1d4 from a target's AC a number of times per short or long rest while Good fighters can add 1d4 to their AC if they intercept an attack made for an ally as a reaction if they're gonna have Alignment. Introduce stuff like that around the time Wizards are starting to reliably do poo poo like fly. Razorwired fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 09:42
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mastershakeman posted:Gradenko - you said "* I also want to make a special call-out to that one line that recommends the use of the "it's what my character would do" excuse. Bad loving advice, that." It's because it's a wretched loving dodge that doesn't help anyone, and people should not be encouraged to use it. Fightgar hates werewolves. Fightgar's locked in a cell with a werewolf and the werewolf knows the only way out. But Fightgar hates werewolves, so Fightgar attacks. Except there is no Fightgar, only Steve. Fightgar is not some malfunctioning machine that Steve can only helplessly narrate for. And Steve at the table is a player like any other. Steve isn't deserving of special consideration because he secretly wrote down "Fightgar hates werewolves" two months ago and never told anybody. Steve is fully capable of working with the other people at the table to put together a nice little Enemy Mine-style narrative that gets Fightgar out of jail and respects his animosity toward werewolves. Or maybe Steve is playing for more drama than that, knowing that Fightgar can't really hurt a werewolf with just fists and wanting things to get worse, to make it more credible to play through Fightgar's acceptance. In which case Steve is better off talking about what Steve wants, rather than elliptically trying to talk about what Fightgar wants and hoping everyone else will somehow arrange things to suit.
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Apr 30, 2018 09:58
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the onion wizard posted:Is it just me, or is Reach generally kind of pointless? In fact it works in some detrimental ways with, eg, a Rogue's sneak attack.
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Apr 30, 2018 10:08
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Glazius posted:It's because it's a wretched loving dodge that doesn't help anyone, and people should not be encouraged to use it. It's generally a hypocritical dodge, too. The player using it is usually relying on nobody else using the same method/justification in response.
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Apr 30, 2018 11:04
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Xiahou Dun posted:Fringe : I've played since the 2e days and was quite the grognard when 3e came out and you are 100% looking through rose-colored glasses. No I can't still recite all the demiplanes of salt and asbestos and cocaine or whatever like I could 20 years ago but that doesn't mean I wasn't there playing the game. D&D was a loving terrible system for Planescape and only worked because it was that or nothing. I as a rando with no design experience could do better than any of the actual rules. That position is indefensible and judging people for not playing older versions is the pettiest poo poo possible. The last time I ran a (complicated, 6 player, modified) RL 2e game was only about 4 years ago, so the rose colored glasses dont have to look back too far. The thing I keep bashing is the "IT WAS NEVER GOOD" crap from people that dont have a basic understanding as to how it worked. People that love other things, well thats good for them, right on. Xiahou Dun posted:Looking backward for inspiration in RPG's is toxic FRINGE fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 12:02
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AlphaDog posted:It's generally a hypocritical dodge, too. The player using it is usually relying on nobody else using the same method/justification in response. Indeed. If Psycho McEdgelord decides to randomly murder NPCs because "it's what my character would do", he shouldn't then complain when the Paladin decapitates his character. Because, frankly, that's what his character would do.
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Apr 30, 2018 12:03
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Razorwired posted:^^^ Reach is good for PAM because the attack triggers when someone enters your weapon reach. If you pair it with Sentinel you can stop someone before they attack you. Fair enough, still doesn't seem like it does much without that feat though. We're not using a grid, so that probably limits its relevance quite a bit I guess. Also that reminds me, in the wording of Polearm Master: it seems odd that they call out the weapons that it works with, rather than having say a "Polearm" attribute for some weapons; and also that the bonus attack doesn't work with Pikes. Edit: Splicer posted:Spell sniper + Booming Blade + a whip is hilarious Ok that sounds pretty funny. I'll have to keep that one in mind if I create a new character.
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Apr 30, 2018 13:31
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My PCs have reached lvl 7 and we've already had our first Fireball, Counterspell, Counterspell your Counterspell. Is this what the future holds for lvl 7+ characters? Should I outlaw Counterspell for all characters to stop this from turning into Magic the Gathering?
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Apr 30, 2018 15:13
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Have counterspell trigger a wild magic failure, mix things up.
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Apr 30, 2018 15:14
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Trent Squawkbox posted:My PCs have reached lvl 7 and we've already had our first Fireball, Counterspell, Counterspell your Counterspell. Why is this a problem? Counter wars are awesome.
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Apr 30, 2018 15:19
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Subjunctive posted:Have counterspell trigger a wild magic failure, mix things up. I like that. Did older versions of D&D require the counterspell caster know what the spell they were countering to be?
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Apr 30, 2018 15:19
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Trent Squawkbox posted:My PCs have reached lvl 7 and we've already had our first Fireball, Counterspell, Counterspell your Counterspell. If they're spending a Counterspell on a Counterspell on a Fireball, that's only a problem for the players themselves. That's a spell spot of 3rd+ that they can't spend on (countering) something that actually matters. Lotus Aura fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Apr 30, 2018 |
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Apr 30, 2018 15:38
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I'm pretty sure counterspell as its own spell spell is new to this edition - it's pretty silly. In 3e you had to ready dispel magic and lost the slot if it didn't get used that round IIRC.
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Apr 30, 2018 15:40
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Trent Squawkbox posted:I like that. AD&D 1e, OD&D, and BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia do not support this sort of instantaneous counterspelling. Dispel Magic is only ever described as removing magical effects, as in stuff that's already there, and never instantaneous effects or spells that only about to be cast. Chainmail, as in the wargame that served as a base for OD&D, does support it: the Wizard "unit/hero" has to devote their entire turn to just counter-spelling, and they can counterspell any enemy magician by rolling a 7 or higher on a 2d6. Weaker magicians require higher rolls: 8 for a Sorcerer, 9 for a Warlock, 10 for a Magician, and 11 for a Seer. AD&D 2e has the following description for Dispel Magic:  One might construe the highlighted part as being capable of counterspelling spells instead of "just" dispelling persistent effects, but it would be incredibly difficult to pull this off: AD&D requires you to commit to casting a spell at the beginning of your turn, so you'd have to say you're casting Dispel Magic even without knowing that it might need to be used. Moreover, AD&D's segment-based initiative/execution system further complicates things - Dispel Magic has a casting time of 3 segments, and so even if you "guessed" right and someone is casting this turn, if they finish their cast in a different segment from yours, it still won't go off in the same "instant" as the Dispel and so the counterspell wouldn't work. Which brings us to counterspelling in 3e: 1. You had to Ready An Action to say that you were going to wait to try and counterspell a specific target 2. If the target tries to cast a spell, you had to pass a Spellcraft check to correctly identify the spell that's about to be cast 3. If you pass the Spellcraft check, you can counter the spell, but only with the exact same spell - this makes Sorcerers slightly better at counter-spelling than Wizards, since they're more likely to Know a spell than the Wizard is to have it Prepared 4. Alternatively the Dispel Magic spell can be used as a general counterspell, but there's an additional opposed caster-level check to make it work This is a fairly involved, and possibly costly process, but it is a reliable process if you really wanted to do it.
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Apr 30, 2018 16:09
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