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Any good prime day deals on rpg crap?
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Jul 17, 2018 12:35
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tote up a bags posted:I think D&D does a great job of offering narrative combat options I mean, what other rpgs have you played?
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Jul 17, 2018 13:01
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Nephzinho posted:Any good prime day deals on rpg crap? Supporting people who have to piss in bottles when they strike against the world's richest man is free.
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Jul 17, 2018 13:34
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tote up a bags posted:Sorry I should've been more clear. I enjoy combat in D&D, it's a lot of fun. I should've said I am not a super fan of hours upon hours of it if it boils down to rolling dice against enemies' AC over and over. I think D&D does a great job of offering narrative combat options, and what I'm trying to express to my players is that your options in combat are plentiful and can be really narrative. Just keen to get them out of the MMO mentality. I'm curious about what you consider narrative options, or games you consider to not be as narrative. Non-standard attacks are really limited for melee people aside from a few discrete powers like smites and spells. If you stretch a spell definition or do an ad-hoc skill check for advantage, sure, but those aren't part of the game as it is. D&D in general has the least narrative-focused combat I've seen in an rpg. That's not really a knock against it, tactical combat, managing the various economies and challenge are good things, but there's nothing about leveraging your character's personality or adjudicating stunts, everything goes towards an abstract HP pool and its all organized on a tight alternating schedule.
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Jul 17, 2018 13:59
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tote up a bags posted:I think D&D does a great job of offering narrative combat options Sorry to break it to you, but it does not.
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Jul 17, 2018 14:29
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Supporting people who have to piss in bottles when they strike against the world's richest man is free. Off topic but is there any summary of what specifically is going on or a general "amazon is terrible to its employees" sentiment? Been on vacation and out of touch with headlines.
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Jul 17, 2018 14:43
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Amazon is doing Prime Day, Amazon employees are striking, people are choosing not to support Amazon in solidarity with employees.
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Jul 17, 2018 14:44
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They aren't even asking us to boycott Amazon forever. They're asking to boycott Prime Day specifically in solidarity. You can afford to stay off Amazon for a few days. Go pay full price for a DM Guild adventure or something instead.
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Jul 17, 2018 14:47
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Wrestlepig posted:I'm curious about what you consider narrative options, or games you consider to not be as narrative. Non-standard attacks are really limited for melee people aside from a few discrete powers like smites and spells. If you stretch a spell definition or do an ad-hoc skill check for advantage, sure, but those aren't part of the game as it is. D&D in general has the least narrative-focused combat I've seen in an rpg. That's not really a knock against it, tactical combat, managing the various economies and challenge are good things, but there's nothing about leveraging your character's personality or adjudicating stunts, everything goes towards an abstract HP pool and its all organized on a tight alternating schedule. My examples aren't really drawing much from pen & paper RPGs so much as video games, but that's where most of my players are coming from. Something like WoW doesn't really offer much in the way of narrative combat: you either do damage, take damage, or heal damage through a variety of means. But D&D (and I guess by implication many if not all pen&paper RPGs?) allow you to (for example drawing from something another player did recently) pull a curtain off the wall and over the enemy. I'm probably rambling and saying things that are painfully obvious anyway. Conspiratiorist posted:Sorry to break it to you, but it does not. Compared to what? Not disagreeing, I'm really intrigued to learn about other systems!
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Jul 17, 2018 15:02
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tote up a bags posted:Sorry I should've been more clear. I enjoy combat in D&D, it's a lot of fun. I should've said I am not a super fan of hours upon hours of it if it boils down to rolling dice against enemies' AC over and over. I think D&D does a great job of offering narrative combat options, and what I'm trying to express to my players is that your options in combat are plentiful and can be really narrative. Just keen to get them out of the MMO mentality.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:03
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tote up a bags posted:Compared to what? Not disagreeing, I'm really intrigued to learn about other systems! Almost any other rpg to put it bluntly. Heres an example of some of the abilities an actual non-combat class from Star Wars: Age of Rebellion. Now these are the 'Signature Abilities' of the class are and designed to have a bigger impact in the story. 
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Jul 17, 2018 15:09
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Pulling a curtain off a wall over an enemy is something I'd say d&d is horrible at.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:10
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mastershakeman posted:Pulling a curtain off a wall over an enemy is something I'd say d&d is horrible at. See when I was playing 4 I would agree with you but in 5 it just seems a lot easier to say "alright well it's athletics because you're wrenching something off the wall" and maybe a splash of dex roll to see if you can pull off the move to get the curtain to land on them. Am I missing something here because I feel that would be a fair way for a DM to do it?
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Jul 17, 2018 15:16
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tote up a bags posted:See when I was playing 4 I would agree with you but in 5 it just seems a lot easier to say "alright well it's athletics because you're wrenching something off the wall" and maybe a splash of dex roll to see if you can pull off the move to get the curtain to land on them. Am I missing something here because I feel that would be a fair way for a DM to do it? Okay, how does this interact with the abstract numbers layer? Free/bonus/normal action? Check/save DCs? HP damage? What conditions does it inflict? And, most importantly, where are the guidelines for how you should adjudicate this sort of behavior printed in the PHB or DMG?
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Jul 17, 2018 15:20
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tote up a bags posted:See when I was playing 4 I would agree with you but in 5 it just seems a lot easier to say "alright well it's athletics because you're wrenching something off the wall" and maybe a splash of dex roll to see if you can pull off the move to get the curtain to land on them. Am I missing something here because I feel that would be a fair way for a DM to do it? Then what? Does the enemy get a way to break out? At what initiative? Does it use his attack or a move? Athletics check to get out? Strength mod? Dex mod? Does it hurt the enemy? Etc Every single part of that is just the dm making up a number to roll against , let alone what rolls to even take, with no guidance from the books at all. Presumably other systems that are more narrative based handle this a lot better As far as I can tell the second someone wants to improvise the DM might as well say roll a handful of d20s and let me think about what happens since theres no guidance otherwise
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Jul 17, 2018 15:21
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tote up a bags posted:See when I was playing 4 I would agree with you but in 5 it just seems a lot easier to say "alright well it's athletics because you're wrenching something off the wall" and maybe a splash of dex roll to see if you can pull off the move to get the curtain to land on them. Am I missing something here because I feel that would be a fair way for a DM to do it? I love when people say that about 4e because at the very least 4e included a chart of "hey if someone tries something you didn't plan, here's a chart of DCs appropriate for different levels of difficulty, and here's some appropriate damage values if someone does something that should hurt but isn't covered under basic attack/a power." I mean they weren't good but they made an ATTEMPT.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:21
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That new box set. Is there a name for what that product is even called? I can't find any information about it anywhere other than in this thread.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:24
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There is zero difference between 4e and 5e as far as things like "pulling a curtain onto an enemy" goes. I guess you could argue the opportunity cost, since using a power in 4e will generally be of more benefit than just "I swing my sword." Edit: Thinking about it, 4e probably did it better. You were encouraged to flavor your attacks as you saw fit, so a power that did damage and knocked someone prone could be flavored as you tearing the curtain down onto someone and stabbing them through it. Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 15:26
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tote, you're interpreting gaping holes in the rules as room for freeform improvisation, and while not exactly wrong, this isn't an advantage of the system (as that fucktard Colville tries to tell people): it just means this is a shoddily written system with a vague and incomplete ruleset. Ways to comprehensively catch player actions into the mechanics and vice versa translate it into narrative (and without falling into the simulationist trap) exist; 5e chose not to pursue them.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:36
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Nobody in this thread seems to like this game very much. 
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Jul 17, 2018 15:40
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I love D&D and enjoy playing it quite a bit. Enjoying something doesn't mean you can't be critical of its (admittedly many) flaws. Edit: And also be extremely salty about the number of babies thrown out with bathwater from 4e because a bunch of very vocal morons online poisoned that game. Where's my warlord Mearls?! That game did a lot of things right along with a bunch of things wrong and rather than correct for that they swung hard back into 3.5 except they kept like the skill system, and put a couple of limitations on spellcasters I guess. (The changes to feats I think are good and cool though, mostly.) Glagha fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 15:45
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My DN running the lost city for us in 5e. Never played it but am having fun as a human bard who has never seem combat or non humans playing with a goblin, half elf, and an air gensai. Turns out its hard to talk down npc humans from attacking a goblin on sight and vice versa. Lots of fun so far though
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Jul 17, 2018 15:46
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Glagha posted:That new box set. Is there a name for what that product is even called? I can't find any information about it anywhere other than in this thread. There's a product page for it here that explains that the limited edition set is going to be exclusive to hobby stores.
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Jul 17, 2018 15:50
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Yeah I guess my keenness to have my adventure go well lead to me seeing gaps in rules as opportunities to freestyle. Makes sense though!
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Jul 17, 2018 15:59
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Conspiratiorist posted:Okay, how does this interact with the abstract numbers layer? Free/bonus/normal action? Check/save DCs? HP damage? What conditions does it inflict? This is there at least, in the list of actions in combat: quote:Improvising an Action So it's an action and it you use the same DC guidelines that you use for other, non-combat skill checks. It doesn't give damage guidelines (though improvised weapons are there and like, just saying a number is probably fine). I don't think enumerating the possible conditions is necessary for a game to actively support stuff like this though it's highlighted by the pages and pages of pointless rules about other stuff that's less important. In a sea of valid criticism of 5e, I don't think more than "use a skill check or something" is particularly necessary to enable this. Surely basic dnd didn't need rules for adjudicating this stuff either. Flavoring your 4e powers to involve the environment is definitely a cool idea but it's weird if you *have* to do that. You don't need a power that could reasonably correspond to pulling down a curtain to pull down a curtain. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 16:01
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Glagha posted:I love when people say that about 4e because at the very least 4e included a chart of "hey if someone tries something you didn't plan, here's a chart of DCs appropriate for different levels of difficulty, and here's some appropriate damage values if someone does something that should hurt but isn't covered under basic attack/a power." I mean they weren't good but they made an ATTEMPT. tote up a bags posted:"alright well it's athletics because you're wrenching something off the wall" and maybe a splash of dex roll Never ever ever make someone roll twice to do one thing. Never ever ever ever. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 16:03
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My table rule is "don't ask me if you can do something, just roll" and the DC/results scale accordingly. Sometimes they go way off the rails, but usually it just results in them failing DC25-30 checks for punching down a stone door or charming a tree.
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Jul 17, 2018 16:06
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Splicer posted:The big thing missing from 4e's page 42 was adjudicating effects. Explicitly stating that you could swap out damage from the limited table for a stun or slow and what save would be appropriate would be good. Relatively new DM here: this past weekend my players were sneaking around the cultists lair, and wanted to press up against a door to hear the conversation on the other side. I had them make a low-DC stealth check for the sneaky and a perception check for the listeny. Would you recommend doing just one or the other?
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Jul 17, 2018 16:09
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Nephzinho posted:My table rule is "don't ask me if you can do something, just roll" and the DC/results scale accordingly. Sometimes they go way off the rails, but usually it just results in them failing DC25-30 checks for punching down a stone door or charming a tree. I'm the exact opposite. I find it extremely annoying when I'm like describing something to someone and someone just jumps in with  : "I got 23 on my perception."Why? What are you looking for? Don't just roll dice and shout numbers at me I haven't even finished yet like tell me what you're doing I might not even make you roll.
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Jul 17, 2018 16:13
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Toebone posted:Relatively new DM here: this past weekend my players were sneaking around the cultists lair, and wanted to press up against a door to hear the conversation on the other side. I had them make a low-DC stealth check for the sneaky and a perception check for the listeny. Would you recommend doing just one or the other? I'd probably just do a sneak check. Look at the 4 possibilities 1)Sneak check fails, perception check fails. You alert the cultists and don't hear anything. Something interesting has happened. 2) Sneak check fails, perception check succeeds. You probably don't hear anything useful before they are alerted, but at least something interesting has happened. 3) Sneak succeeds, perception fails. Nothing interesting has happened. 4) Sneak succeeds, perception succeeds. You get some info on what is going on inside. Something interesting has happened. As you can see, the Stealth check is the major contributor to what happens, since 1 and 2 are functionally identical. All adding a perception check does is add the possibility of nothing interesting or useful happening, so why include it?
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Jul 17, 2018 16:19
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Quidthulhu posted:Nobody in this thread seems to like this game very much. I like it, but I also like miniature skirmish games and tend to think of D&D like jRPGs where you go from the overworld view into an otherwise unconnected battle view. It's a bit of a tautology but whoever said this is right: that the only thing D&D excels at, is simulation D&D. It's the McDonalds of roleplaying. It's not especially good, but it can be comforting, is ubiquitous, and provide a uniform experience. To extend the metaphor, most of the arguments here are based around Monster Envy trying to argue a Big Mac can taste like filet mignon if you order it right, or people yelling "McDonalds sucks" into the drive thru window as they simultaneously recieve the combo they ordered.
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Jul 17, 2018 16:21
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Piell posted:I'd probably just do a sneak check. Cool, thanks. That's an interesting way to look at it.
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Jul 17, 2018 16:25
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Piell posted:I'd probably just do a sneak check. Yo thanks for this writeup, this is good
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Jul 17, 2018 16:32
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:
Oh yeah, if I ran 4e today, I wouldn't require anyone to flavor a power to do something narrative, and not allow them to do it if they didn't have a relevant power. It's just less of an issue in that edition as powers were pretty broad in their skill set overall.
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Jul 17, 2018 16:49
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Glagha posted:I'm the exact opposite. I find it extremely annoying when I'm like describing something to someone and someone just jumps in with Well sometimes they end up hurting themselves or making a bunch of noise and revealing themselves and other not-good side effects, so they tend to think before doing random things. I want my players to tell me what they want to do whether it is a good idea or bad, not ask me if they're allowed to do something. In your example I'd probably do something along the lines of: "You perceive that the [race] that is talking to [player] and hasn't noticed you and is focused on them. You probably shouldn't interrupt him or he might get annoyed and leave before finishing helping you." Maybe talk about the NPCs mood or that they noticed a mole on their face or something.
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Jul 17, 2018 17:22
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Toebone posted:Relatively new DM here: this past weekend my players were sneaking around the cultists lair, and wanted to press up against a door to hear the conversation on the other side. I had them make a low-DC stealth check for the sneaky and a perception check for the listeny. Would you recommend doing just one or the other? This is not trying to call out tote, the above is a perfectly reasonable judgement call based on how D&D's mechanics are laid out, and also completely the wrong call based on how D&D's mechanics actually work. Outside combat it still holds true. Making someone roll twice to perform one task is basically giving them disadvantage on the roll for no good reason. Especially things like rolling multiple stealth checks to sneak somewhere or multiple athletics checks to climb a thing. It's not a matter if you'll fail, but when. To actually answer your question: Which ever has the most interesting fail state. Stealth means they bust out and chase you. Perception, maybe you get bad info because you misheard? I'd probably go with stealth.
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Jul 17, 2018 17:51
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If I'm tempted to ask for two skill checks because it seems like two discrete actions, I'll just lay out the options and let the player choose. Of course they will always pick their highest bonus and that's fine, I want the players to succeed and maybe if they picked the one that seems less critical (i.e. stealth in the above example), that will bend the results a little.
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Jul 17, 2018 18:20
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Just FWIW to soothe my restless mind as someone who's now spent a lot of time DMing and playing 5E: the Battlemaster's maneuver and superiority dice mechanics should literally be the core mechanic of the Fighter class, right? It seems so obvious. That's how you make the Fighter a fun and interesting skeleton onto which you can THEN tack various specs or whatever. Just validate this so I can sleep again
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Jul 17, 2018 20:36
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Sure....prepare for your mind to be blown as I change fighter to "martial class".
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Jul 17, 2018 20:40
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Perception is the worst skill and shouldn't even exist. Think about it. Most of the time, 'you fail Perception' is, 'you notice nothing'. The only example I can think of is a sneaky assassin in the night, it's useful to have Perception for that, but otherwise it's a whole lot of, 'Roll Perception. Nothing? Nevermind." Don't even get me started with how Perception interacts with traps in most games.
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Jul 17, 2018 20:43
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