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Servetus posted:The first Forgotten Realms novels, the Moonshae trilogy, had no heroic wizard characters. A lot of the popular storylines in the 90s featured few or no wizard protagonists, or even spellcasting protagonists in some cases. None of this led to any reform in the formula of what playable D&D was. If anything the shift from 2nd edition to 3rd edition seemed intended to ensure no one could ever try to play Drizzt or Arilyn Moonblade without a wizard to prop them up. D&D fails to emulate D&D. To elaborate on this, this has to do with the early sword and sorcery genre that D&D pulled most of its earliest inspiration from. I'm not talking about Tolkien (there's shockingly little Tolkien in D&D) but rather things like Conan the Barbarian. The reason early D&D stories didn't see wizard protagonists is because in classical sword and sorcery stories, the wizard is the bad guy. Wizards as assholes. They're evil schemers and cultists Meddling with Powers Men Ought Not and treating ordinary men like chafe. The protagonist is the buff dude with a gently caress-off sword that fights his way through the dungeon full of monsters, kills the evil wizard, and rescues the damsel. In the earliest fic (and hell, early modules) there was shockingly little departure from that model.
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Dec 20, 2018 10:46
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Lord_Hambrose posted:Really, who plays D&D games past 10th level anyway? Staying in the lower part of the curve is better for everyone. spectralent posted:Twenty levels are there, and a lot of people want to play everything advertised in their book, weirdly. Thuryl posted:I've known people who play epic-level D&D, but I haven't known anyone who actually played a "level 1 right up to epic" campaign all the way through. Most of the people I know who play epic-level D&D start their characters out at those levels in the first place, and a lot of them play epic-level pretty much exclusively. Kinda makes me question whether high-level and low-level D&D are well served by being the same game system. Disregarding infinite ladder shenanigans and people who should really be playing something else, Tomb Robbers barely survive robbing tombs. Adventurers wander the land going on quests etc. Famous Heroes save the <kingdom through world, depending>. Demigods and Hero-Kings engage in pantheon level power struggles or combat existential threats. are the ways people usually play D&D. That these also look a lot like power levels is a problem, because they don't meaningfully flow into each other. They also need different rules. They're all totally valid ways to do D&D, but yeah, it'd be way better if the rules initended for murderhoboing through a different dungeon each weekend, the rules for knockoff LoTR only everyone's boromir, and the rules for punching cthulhu until it agrees to help you fight zeuss were explicitly separated.
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Dec 20, 2018 10:48
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Leperflesh posted:D&D is four to six homeless powerful amoral thieves genociding 250 minorities and hauling away all of their valuables (and various parts of their bodies) while the unimpressed locals shrug and then buy all the stuff they stole for a global gold-backed universal eternal currency. Torchbearer does a decent job of both evoking and somewhat subverting this expectation, by rightly coming to the conclusion that adventurers are scum not worthy of anything more than a messy death in some dungeon somewhere. It also somewhat redresses the magic user vs non magic user balance, by making map drawing, cooking and other dungeoneering tasks integrated with the games system as well as the fiction. Sure, the wizard has the powers of the elements, but if you are all trying to drag a giant armoire out of some hole and she is too angry and hungry to cast much anyway having a hafling there to make merry is a godsend.
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Dec 20, 2018 10:50
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AlphaDog posted:They also need different rules. They're all totally valid ways to do D&D, but yeah, it'd be way better if the rules initended for murderhoboing through a different dungeon each weekend, the rules for knockoff LoTR only everyone's boromir, and the rules for punching cthulhu until it agrees to help you fight zeuss were explicitly separated.
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Dec 20, 2018 10:57
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All my DnD groups have usually devolved into bizarre schemes and plot disregard. Abandon the mcguffin that can stop the apocalypse in order to steal and sell race horses? Might as well, the DM doesn't have the balls to actually end his precious homebrew world. Go to a town to get a quest? Why not kidnap the mayor's son instead and ransom him back!
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Dec 20, 2018 11:00
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Loomer posted:All my DnD groups have usually devolved into bizarre schemes and plot disregard. Abandon the mcguffin that can stop the apocalypse in order to steal and sell race horses? Might as well, the DM doesn't have the balls to actually end his precious homebrew world. Go to a town to get a quest? Why not kidnap the mayor's son instead and ransom him back! RPGs-as-brinksmanship is pretty fun to do every once in a while.
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Dec 20, 2018 11:03
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I like to have worlds where it's clear other things are going on with or without the PCs. Also, if you dawdle too long on the quest then a rival adventuring party might get it done instead and get all the gold and glory.
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Dec 20, 2018 11:22
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Kai Tave posted:RPGs-as-brinksmanship is pretty fun to do every once in a while. Ran with a half-orc bard once whose whole gimmick was kicking down doors in dungeons and going 'HEY! YOU WANNA JOIN MY ARMY?!?' at whatever monsters were inside. It worked 99% of the time.
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Dec 20, 2018 11:33
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Loomer posted:All my DnD groups have usually devolved into bizarre schemes and plot disregard. Abandon the mcguffin that can stop the apocalypse in order to steal and sell race horses? Might as well, the DM doesn't have the balls to actually end his precious homebrew world. Go to a town to get a quest? Why not kidnap the mayor's son instead and ransom him back! Kai Tave posted:RPGs-as-brinksmanship is pretty fun to do every once in a while. If I want this to be a successful game, and I'm DMing, do I keep pushing back hard and make them continuously escalate until we get a Tom Sharpe -esque series of cascading disasters? Or am I supposed to eventually let them have it?
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Dec 20, 2018 11:43
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AlphaDog posted:If I want this to be a successful game, and I'm DMing, do I keep pushing back hard and make them continuously escalate until we get a Tom Sharpe -esque series of cascading disasters? Or am I supposed to eventually let them have it? I'm a fan of continuously escalating disasters, that basically describes most every memorably successful RPG campaign I've ever participated in, but I also have enough social awareness to notice if the GM is getting annoyed or frustrated instead of simply playing along with things and enjoying themselves as well. It's one of those things where having some clear lines of communication and a feel for the group really helps.
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Dec 20, 2018 11:45
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one of the best campaign arcs I've ever been in was just repeatedly kicking the can the down the road until the delicately web of delaying actions we weaved couldn't take it any longer and we had to clean up an apocalyptic mess
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Dec 20, 2018 12:09
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AlphaDog posted:If I want this to be a successful game, and I'm DMing, do I keep pushing back hard and make them continuously escalate until we get a Tom Sharpe -esque series of cascading disasters? Or am I supposed to eventually let them have it? Treat it like any other game. They swerve, you swerve. You might have been planning for them to fight the wizard later but they managed to one-shot him with a lucky crossbow critical as he mocked them from the other side of the ravine. Do you go 'no he survives anyway because... BECAUSE!" No. You find an alternative mode, whether the Wizard is now a minion for someone or the threat is outright averted but turns out to only be the first of many. My PCs decide to gently caress off the main story to steal race horses? Okay. They're horse thieves now, with all that entails.They're wanted criminals and worse, the world is still slowly ending around them, so on the game goes with a new focus: Duck the law, and try not to die as it all comes crumbling down. The best disasters flow naturally. Steal a horse, don't take care to make sure there are no witnesses? You got seen, and now you're persona non grata in the villages, and worse, there's a bounty on you. Defeat the bounty hunters? That hasn't resolved the problem, it's just raised your cost and made tougher enemies come for you. Sell a horse to someone? It got recognized as market, he had it confiscated, and now his clan is out for your blood.
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Dec 20, 2018 12:12
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Loomer posted:Treat it like any other game. They swerve, you swerve. You might have been planning for them to fight the wizard later but they managed to one-shot him with a lucky crossbow critical as he mocked them from the other side of the ravine. Do you go 'no he survives anyway because... BECAUSE!" No. You find an alternative mode, whether the Wizard is now a minion for someone or the threat is outright averted but turns out to only be the first of many. Yeah, I agree 100%. The way you originally phrased it, it sounded like you were talking about (effectively) challenging the GM and expecting them to blink first because they don't want to facilitate you ruining whatever they've got planned. Which is why I was wondering if there were players who'd expect that, who I don't think I've ever encountered those people but if they're common then I need to be thinking about them when I GM.
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Dec 20, 2018 12:19
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My successful campaigns avoided these problems in the character creation stage. The players had to make a character that fit in with the world and had a hook related to the plot that would motivate them to join the band of murderhobos and drive the plot forward. My players liked this because I could drop in NPCs and events into each session that were relevant to them on a personal level and gave them a moment in the spotlight where they were able to explain why some random event was important and how it fit into the larger picture. I was also flexible though. If they wanted to steal horses, I might send an NPC from their past who would question this sudden career and goal change and if the player roleplayed through that with a good justification, I'd do my best to work it into the larger plot. But usually the players would police themselves. If Bob wanted to steal horses, Jim would say have fun with that and the rest of the party would follow Jim on to the next plot point. Bob tended to change his mind then.
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Dec 20, 2018 13:22
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Kai Tave posted:I'm a fan of continuously escalating disasters, that basically describes most every memorably successful RPG campaign I've ever participated in, but I also have enough social awareness to notice if the GM is getting annoyed or frustrated instead of simply playing along with things and enjoying themselves as well. It's one of those things where having some clear lines of communication and a feel for the group really helps. Old Kentucky Shark should write a book.
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Dec 20, 2018 13:30
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If the players go off on a tangent, I tend to roll with it as long as everyone's having fun. It's endemic to Shadowrun that the group will hare off into left field away from the plot, and some of my favorite campaigns have come from this.
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Dec 20, 2018 13:31
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It should be stressed though that the litmus test is that the group is having fun. As the GM, my job is to be a check on one person running away with the plot to the detriment of the other players/characters.
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Dec 20, 2018 13:38
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I wish there were a PARANOIA version of D&D. Instead of a player being the Morale Officer or the Tech Support. they are the Fighter or the Wizard, tasked with equally-funny and -frustrating individual goals that will constantly undermine the success of the party. The gear from PARANOIA R&D is more or less cursed items/unidentified items in AD&D anyway. I would call such a game GEAS if people knew how to say it.
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Dec 20, 2018 15:03
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Counterpoint: the fact that no one knows how to say GEAS properly makes it the perfect name for the game you’re describing.
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Dec 20, 2018 15:04
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AlphaDog posted:If I want this to be a successful game, and I'm DMing, do I keep pushing back hard and make them continuously escalate until we get a Tom Sharpe -esque series of cascading disasters? Or am I supposed to eventually let them have it? May I suggest Hackmaster?
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Dec 20, 2018 15:33
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homullus posted:I wish there were a PARANOIA version of D&D. Instead of a player being the Morale Officer or the Tech Support. they are the Fighter or the Wizard, tasked with equally-funny and -frustrating individual goals that will constantly undermine the success of the party. The gear from PARANOIA R&D is more or less cursed items/unidentified items in AD&D anyway. I would call such a game GEAS if people knew how to say it. There's an actual PARANOIA sendup of D&D called Orcbusters that is pretty much this.
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Dec 20, 2018 15:37
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Kai Tave posted:This isn't necessarily a bad place to start with something but it does tie back into something that D&D has historically done which is the implicit statement that a "feat of magic" is "potentially anything and everything." It gets back to what moth is saying about narrative control and agency. A Fighter might say "I use my special point to bust down this wall" and that's cool but what stops the Wizard from going "I just teleport past the wall" or "I turn invisible" or something which similarly steps on the Rogue's toes, etc. Like yeah it's still noticeably better that Fighters and Rogues in such a system do have the ability to simply say "I do X" but it's always been a hassle that D&D's conception of the Wizard has veered so heavily into the territory of anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better. Yeah you'd probably have to break down "wizard" or "magic-user" in more granular terms, probably with word-building fluff justifying it. Narrow the scope of their available powers, basically. Someone else mentioned combining this with the ability to roll to see if your actions succeed when you run out of tokens or points and I like this too, but have there ever been any good systems where casting spells requires rolling dice? If there were some that were well designed, were they actually popular? I feel like wizard players always expect their spells to work.
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Dec 20, 2018 16:35
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FordCQC posted:Yeah you'd probably have to break down "wizard" or "magic-user" in more granular terms, probably with word-building fluff justifying it. Narrow the scope of their available powers, basically. ars magica is still here
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Dec 20, 2018 16:37
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Counterpoint: the fact that no one knows how to say GEAS properly makes it the perfect name for the game you’re describing. /gɛʃ/ Finally a use for all those Gaelic lessons!
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Dec 20, 2018 17:03
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Xiahou Dun posted:/gɛʃ/ If I'm understanding correctly, that sounds like an American newscaster saying "gesh." How did this failure of orthography come to be?
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Dec 20, 2018 17:17
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grassy gnoll posted:If I'm understanding correctly, that sounds like an American newscaster saying "gesh." Having spent a lot of time lately hanging out with an Irish history scholar: Old Irish is a bastard of a language which hates you and everyone you know.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:25
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Gaelic has a really complicated sound system where sounds change depending on neighboring sounds, but they represent this by putting in other letters (like random vowels and all those god drat h's) to show that a sound change happened because you put the word next to a vowel or whatever. This would be a lot more clear with diacritics or something like that, but some random monk came up with this and refused to use anything besides the roman letters he already knew. Basically a lot of bullshit about spelling in most European languages can be chalked up to "some loving rando monk thought this made sense in the 7th century and now we're stuck with it". Bonus points if you can guess the plural of "geas" without googling it. Ninja edit to give an example : "cuachag" means like "sweetie/beloved/it's a pet name", but if you want to say "my sweetheart" it's "mo chuachag" and that "c" turns into a the "ch" in something like "loch" because obviously that's what happens when you're next a vowel. Duh. Gaelic was really not meant to be written with this alphabet. Xiahou Dun fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Dec 20, 2018 |
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Dec 20, 2018 17:25
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Xiahou Dun posted:Gaelic has a really complicated sound system where sounds change depending on neighboring sounds, but they represent this by putting in other letters (like random vowels and all those god drat h's) to show that a sound change happened because you put the word next to a vowel or whatever. This would be a lot more clear with diacritics or something like that, but some random monk came up with this and refused to use anything besides the roman letters he already knew.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:27
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Xiahou Dun posted:Bonus points if you can guess the plural of "geas" without googling it. Trick question, it's already plural, güs is the singular.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:29
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"Geese."
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Dec 20, 2018 17:30
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FMguru posted:Geasa? You cheated. Shenanigans. (Yes.)
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Dec 20, 2018 17:31
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Xiahou Dun posted:You cheated. Shenanigans. My favorite obscure Englishism is the adjective (and it's spelling and pronunciation) for referring to George Bernard Shaw and his works (like Orwellian or Kafkaesque)
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Dec 20, 2018 17:34
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Comrade Gorbash posted:Counterpoint: the fact that no one knows how to say GEAS properly makes it the perfect name for the game you’re describing. The preceding discussion has proven you right, conclusively.
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Dec 20, 2018 17:36
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As a counterpoint, since this is the ungodly year 2018: I had a dude in high school get really, really angry at me for suggesting he play a wizard in 2E AD&D because it had a spell called "gay-rear end."
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Dec 20, 2018 18:21
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grassy gnoll posted:As a counterpoint, since this is the ungodly year 2018: I had a dude in high school get really, really angry at me for suggesting he play a wizard in 2E AD&D because it had a spell called "gay-rear end." I feel like this creates more incentive to call it that, rather than less.
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Dec 20, 2018 18:27
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Mors Rattus posted:ars magica is still here More wizards should be involved in novel spell research to push what is possible with magic.
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Dec 20, 2018 19:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm still waiting for someone to a dungeon crawl hack of Gumshoe Kai Tave posted:lol I was gonna ask if someone had already done that (I know someone made a fantasy Gumshoe insert that you can slot into other RPGs to add more investigative crunch) but I figured if anyone would know it would be you. I guess they haven't gotten around to it yet. http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/swords-of-the-serpentine/ http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/swords-of-the-serpentine-guidelines/
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Dec 20, 2018 19:09
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homullus posted:I feel like this creates more incentive to call it that, rather than less. I would agree with you three years ago, but now I'm afraid it ends in some poor kid getting beaten to death.
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Dec 20, 2018 19:19
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https://blog.white-wolf.com/2018/12/20/vampire-modiphius-partnership/ Paradox announces that the Camarilla and Anarch books will not be sold. In any form. Preorders will be fulfilled; that's it. If you didn't preorder, you aren't getting one. Modiphius are now in charge of writing oWoD books and may at some point reissue these books in a new form, or might not.
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Dec 20, 2018 23:01
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Cessna posted:May I suggest Hackmaster? It's usually me saying that.
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Dec 20, 2018 23:35
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