TG Chat Thread 2019: people operating based on completely fucked social norms - The Something Awful Forums

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2019: people operating based on completely fucked social norms

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

Splicer posted:

Can you gimmick post and serious post simultaneously?

Isn't that what we all do?

# ? Jul 13, 2019 17:33

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 07:04

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Worrying about STR/CON splits is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Death to ability scores.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 17:36

gnome7: Oct 21, 2010; Who's this Little
Spaghetti?? ??

My sorting system is very elaborate and absolutely well thought out.

Some of these folders are full of loose PDFs but any game with multiple files gets its own folder inside of these too.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 17:44

UnCO3: Feb 11, 2010; Ye gods!; College Slice

Wrestlepig posted:

this is pretty cool, I especially like the rewind mechanic

Thanks! The ability to go back and change the context for what comes later is probably my favourite mechanic of the game.

gnome7 posted:

My sorting system is very elaborate and absolutely well thought out.

Some of these folders are full of loose PDFs but any game with multiple files gets its own folder inside of these too.

very patriotic to stop reading at the 11th hour of remembrance day, bit over the top to keep it up over nearly 2 years

# ? Jul 13, 2019 18:46

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Worrying about STR/CON splits is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Death to ability scores.

Ability scores are not inherently bad, they're just very easy to do badly. D&D specifically arguably doesn't need ability scores due to the plethora of other ways your characters are customised.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 20:03

Slimnoid: Sep 6, 2012; Does that mean I don't get the job?

Splicer posted:

Ability scores are not inherently bad, they're just very easy to do badly. D&D specifically arguably doesn't need ability scores due to the plethora of other ways your characters are customised.

D&D only really gives a poo poo about the ability score bonus anyway, so the smart thing to do would've been to just make STR +4 instead of STR 18 about oh, 2 editions ago.

But y'know, sacred cows and all that crap.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 20:46

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Slimnoid posted:

D&D only really gives a poo poo about the ability score bonus anyway, so the smart thing to do would've been to just make STR +4 instead of STR 18 about oh, 2 editions ago.

But y'know, sacred cows and all that crap.

What's extra funny is that they're only in that range to begin with because it's a good range for rolling d20s under.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 21:46

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Splicer posted:

What's extra funny is that they're only in that range to begin with because it's a good range for rolling d20s under.

Which honestly was a fairly good system, as far as skills go. "Roll under half stat if you're unskilled, roll under stat if skilled, throw in some bonuses/penalties if you want" is a nice fairly freeform way of doing things.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 21:50

LatwPIAT: Jun 6, 2011

Splicer posted:

What's extra funny is that they're only in that range to begin with because it's a good range for rolling d20s under.

I'm pretty sure they're actually 3d6-generated because that makes for an approximately Gaussian distribution and can be achieved with dice readily available in the early 70s. Early D&D pretty much never rolls against the attribute either, OD&D uses the attributes with exceptional rarity: STR is used to determine the XP gain rate of Fighters and Clerics, and to determine how intelligent swords act in the character's hand, INT determines XP gain rate and the number of languages spoken, DEX only determines accuracy with missile weapons, and WIS is only used to determine a Cleric and Fighter's XP gain rate. If the game wants you to roll a d20 against something, it's probably a save, not an attribute.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 22:40

Splicer: Oct 16, 2006; from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

LatwPIAT posted:

I'm pretty sure they're actually 3d6-generated because that makes for an approximately Gaussian distribution and can be achieved with dice readily available in the early 70s. Early D&D pretty much never rolls against the attribute either, OD&D uses the attributes with exceptional rarity: STR is used to determine the XP gain rate of Fighters and Clerics, and to determine how intelligent swords act in the character's hand, INT determines XP gain rate and the number of languages spoken, DEX only determines accuracy with missile weapons, and WIS is only used to determine a Cleric and Fighter's XP gain rate. If the game wants you to roll a d20 against something, it's probably a save, not an attribute.

I just spent 20 minutes scouring OD&D and AD&D pdfs and yeah apparently we were doing ti wrong. Every time I played pre-3.x versions we always rolled under our ability scores to determine if we managed to succeed at hard things.

# ? Jul 13, 2019 23:08

juggalo baby coffin: Dec 2, 2007; How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?

the 5th edition Devourer looks like a jolly undead goblin who ate a pixie

idk which fantasy system has the means to create a soul-eating goblin PC, but I want to do it now.

Subjunctive posted:

How does a printing error cause that?

by sending the printers a hosed up file to print mostly, the most classic type of printing error

# ? Jul 13, 2019 23:33

juggalo baby coffin: Dec 2, 2007; How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?

edit: i did posting wrong

# ? Jul 13, 2019 23:34

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Splicer posted:

I just spent 20 minutes scouring OD&D and AD&D pdfs and yeah apparently we were doing ti wrong. Every time I played pre-3.x versions we always rolled under our ability scores to determine if we managed to succeed at hard things.

To be fair that is an extremely common house rule, indeed I'm pretty sure quite a few OSR systems codify that sort of thing as an actual rule

# ? Jul 14, 2019 00:11

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

It's in Moldvay Basic.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 00:14

Nickoten: Oct 16, 2005; Now there'll be some quiet in this town.

Yep you guys aren�t doing it wrong, Basic uses it as a rule you can default to if you�re not sure how else to handle a situation. Then BECMI later used it as the basis for its skill system. It�s not the �main� resolution mechanic in the way something like Black Hack uses it though.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 00:25

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Splicer posted:

I just spent 20 minutes scouring OD&D and AD&D pdfs and yeah apparently we were doing ti wrong. Every time I played pre-3.x versions we always rolled under our ability scores to determine if we managed to succeed at hard things.

This goes way, way back. In 2e it's how proficiencies worked.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 00:28

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

Heck, in Mentzer Basic, you could use "roll under on 1d20" or "roll under on Xd6, where X is based on the difficulty of the task."

The latter is pretty neat, imo, and it's a shame it never caught on.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 00:33

Ego Trip: Aug 28, 2012; A tenacious little mouse!

juggalo baby coffin posted:

edit: i did posting wrong

The most classic type of posting error

# ? Jul 14, 2019 04:20

Pieces of Peace: Jul 8, 2006; Hazardous in small doses.

juggalo baby coffin posted:

the 5th edition Devourer looks like a jolly undead goblin who ate a pixie

idk which fantasy system has the means to create a soul-eating goblin PC, but I want to do it now.

I can't think of what the exact build would be off-hand, but the system is definitely Shadow of the Demon Lord.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 04:35

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

juggalo baby coffin posted:

the 5th edition Devourer looks like a jolly undead goblin who ate a pixie

idk which fantasy system has the means to create a soul-eating goblin PC, but I want to do it now.

by sending the printers a hosed up file to print mostly, the most classic type of printing error

You'd have to convert it as a Monster to the system first, but Blueholme has pretty elegant rules for playing as more unusual races, I'll explain in more detail when I'm back at my computer and not posting from my phone

# ? Jul 14, 2019 05:02

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

drrockso20 posted:

You'd have to convert it as a Monster to the system first, but Blueholme has pretty elegant rules for playing as more unusual races, I'll explain in more detail when I'm back at my computer and not posting from my phone

ok time to explain this, to save time I'm going to copy what I said over in a OSR thread on /tg/ back in January on this topic(which was confirmed by one of the writers of Blueholme to be overall accurate when I asked them about it over on RPGnet a couple months ago) and another post in March where the topic came up again with me going over how a Troll PC would work;

quote:

How would you even DO race and class in oldschool games? Give different bonuses or ability score requirements? Seems like it would gently caress up the game, depending on what abilities or races you let players pick.
Blueholme Journeymanne Edition handles it fairly elegantly, with it's rules allowing almost any creature in it's creature section to potentially be used for a PC, the main thing that would be kept in mind for converting a race for PC use is the following;

the creature's hit die will be converted into character levels, and then be appropriately adjusted as needed to match the level of the rest of the party(for example an Ogre in Blueholme has 4 HD by default, so a PC Ogre at level 1 would be weaker than a regular Ogre and not reach it's full abilities as one until it reaches level 4)

non-human races may be restricted from certain classes or multiclass combinations at the DM's discretion

AC is not cumulative from multiple sources(except shields), if a creature with natural armor superior to AC9 wears regular armor, only the better one of the two will count

some races will have modifiers to their ability scores inherently, as may be interpreted at the DM's discretion if not provided by the monster entry

different races have different aptitudes, so if they have access to the Thief class(or a Thief multi-class) they might have different starting ratios in the various Thief skills, as determined by the DM

certain races deal more damage than standard characters, particularly Large creatures, this gets adjusted for PC versions(for example an Ogre character would start out at level 1 doing the same 1d6 damage* on any attack that any normal level 1 character would, at 3rd level this would increase to 1d8 to represent the Ogre being a Large creature, and at level 4 it'd become 1d10 to match the damage of any regular NPC Ogre, plus any bonuses the character might get if they're a Fighter or Fighter multiclass)

*Blueholme uses nonvariable weapon damage by default(though it does include optional rules on adding that and/or weapon speeds)

due to certain races being stronger or weaker than the Human baseline, they may have an adjustment to how much XP they need to level up, to be determined by the DM(the book gives an example of suggesting that Bugbear PC's should get a 20% penalty to their XP requirements due to them getting positive modifiers in 3 ability scores and getting a bonus towards stealth)

certain special abilities or attacks a creature has might require adjusting for a PC version if they're leveled below their natural HD at the DM's discretion(this one isn't fully fleshed out in the rules, but the classic example of someone wanting to play a Dragon in a level 1 party is mentioned)

so overall we have a system that gives some useful guidelines for converting creatures for use as PC's, but doesn't bog it down with a million rules or restrictions either

A troll is a perfectly fine character provided you start him as a fighter with a level equal to his HD+however many asterisks of XP he is worth.
well with how Blueholme handles non-human races, a PC Troll would start out at Level 1 with only 1 HD like most PC's do, and not reach it's full potential as a Troll till Level 6 when it's HD matches that of the default NPC statline for it's race, similarly despite being a Large race it wouldn't attack like a Large creature till around Level 3, however even then it gets some good advantages like having an unarmoured AC of 6 and the ability to make three unarmed attacks in a single round(two claw and one bite) as well as the standard Troll abilities of regenerating damage(3 HP per round unless the damage is caused by fire or acid) and being able to reattach from limbs or regrowing from severed parts though these abilities might be reduced at 1st level for balance reasons, they also get the following bonuses and maluses to their stats; +1 Strength, -1 Intelligence, +1 Dexterity

of course Blueholme recommends strong Races might need XP penalties to better balance them against Human & more standard Demi-Human PC's, it only gives specific examples for a couple races(Bugbears for example are recommended to get a 20% penalty cause they have 3 positive stat bonuses and a bonus to Stealth), but personally I'd suggest a Troll PC would need 40% more XP to level up than a Human PC of the same class or multi-class would need

also as towards whether or not Trolls are restricted from any classes, by default Blueholme leaves class restrictions for non-human races as something optional and up to the DM's discretion(personally I wouldn't outright restrict them from being any classes, but then I've never been fond of restricting class selection in systems where Race is separate from Class), and similarly Blueholme doesn't include anything about Level Limits for non-human races either(at least as far as I can tell)

the parts in Italics were the posts I was responding to by the way

# ? Jul 14, 2019 08:19

Mojo Jojo: Sep 21, 2005

That doesn't really sound all that elegant. It's mostly just "it's up to the DM to figure it out"

# ? Jul 14, 2019 08:42

juggalo baby coffin: Dec 2, 2007; How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?

it reminds me of the racial classes they introduced in Savage Species for dnd 3e

# ? Jul 14, 2019 09:06

drrockso20: May 6, 2013; Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Mojo Jojo posted:

That doesn't really sound all that elegant. It's mostly just "it's up to the DM to figure it out"

Well yeah they do leave it up to the DM but they provide enough examples in the book that it's pretty simple to figure out, the developers had actually playtested it pretty thoroughly too, of the exotic races that were tried out, only a couple brought any significant balance issues to the table, a Gelatinous Cube(due to being too slow), and a Medusa(due to their petrification ability being hard to balance), meanwhile the classic example of someone playing as a Dragon worked out fairly well

Basically something to remember is that since Blueholme is an OSR game(specifically based off Holmes Basic D&D) most monsters aren't all that complex in terms of stats or abilities, so said converting isn't super complex like it would be for one of the WOTC editions of D&D

juggalo baby coffin posted:

it reminds me of the racial classes they introduced in Savage Species for dnd 3e

There's some surface similarities, but it definitely is a lot more practical to use compared to that, and at it's core a lot older(as Blueholme's creators did a lot of research into the games Holmes ran in order to expand his edition of D&D into a full game, and monster PC's were something that apparently happened a lot at his table)

# ? Jul 14, 2019 09:28

juggalo baby coffin: Dec 2, 2007; How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?

Monster PCs whip rear end, and its a shame that in this day and age so many designers don't bother with them. Pathfinder is great for monsterous races, but 5e's inclusion seems to have been done out of spite for the players requesting them, given how lovely and unbalanced the races in volo's are. Dungeonworld you can be basically what the hell ever you want as everything is playbook based, whereas 13th age has remarkably few player options overall. which is a shame, cause i like 13th age a ton.

Starfinder is probably the best, although monster pc races seem more common in sci-fi games, and about 90% of the weirder player races are either giant bug or lizard man. They do include abberations and a couple of outsiders though, which you otherwise never see.

I really liked the Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness for 3.5. They had a full roster of monster classes of all types, and it was great to see them put so much effort into something players have wanted for a super long time. IDK how well balanced those monster classes were, I never got to play as any of them, but I appreciated the work they did fleshing them out.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 11:34

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

^^^
Whenever I run a D&D-style game I always add some traditional monster races to the core lineup (mostly kobolds, goblinoids, orcs and ogres, maybe even gnolls) because I usually end up reworking their lore anyways (intrinsically evil species meant to be killed are, uh, problematic) and some of my players are used to CRPGs or MMOs where you can play orcs and the like. Besides, half-orcs are basically orcs in the majority of D&D art nowadays so I'm just skipping the middleman.

--------

Rob Schwalb, the guy behind Shadow of the Demon Lord, has posted a couple of articles about his upcoming game and he's using a modified version of the SotDL engine. The first thing that caught my exe is that he decoupled the Constitution-equivalent from Strength for some weird reason.

He also went from 4 scores to 8 but somehow that first part was more alarming to me.

Azran fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Jul 14, 2019

# ? Jul 14, 2019 12:15

Ettin: Oct 2, 2010

juggalo baby coffin posted:

idk which fantasy system has the means to create a soul-eating goblin PC

That's easy, just give your regular PCs a multi-page backstory.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 14:00

01011001: Dec 26, 2012

Azran posted:

Rob Schwalb, the guy behind Shadow of the Demon Lord, has posted a couple of articles about his upcoming game and he's using a modified version of the SotDL engine. The first thing that caught my exe is that he decoupled the Constitution-equivalent from Strength for some weird reason.

He also went from 4 scores to 8 but somehow that first part was more alarming to me.

It looks like he split each of the SotDL attributes into two so, wisdom of that decision aside, it doesn�t seem too odd.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 14:11

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

rolling under your ability score was a rule in Basic D&D for anything that wasn't already covered by a rule that a DM didn't want to automatically grant or forbid, otherwise known as the There's Always a Chance rule

# ? Jul 14, 2019 14:24

FirstAidKite: Nov 8, 2009

How's everybody doing today

# ? Jul 14, 2019 15:47

Kibner: Oct 21, 2008; Acguy Supremacy

FirstAidKite posted:

How's everybody doing today

Gassy

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:01

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

FirstAidKite posted:

How's everybody doing today

I woke up with a cramp in my calf but I can't really stretch it out properly because I have a broken ankle. I'm completely sick of this stupid air cast. And I'm looking at my calves and the one that is in the cast is so small and I know it's going to take a lot of working out and physio to get it back to normal. And my ankle still feels bad and it's been 3 weeks. Broken bones loving suck.

On the other hand, I tried out playing goon-made video game Baba Is You and it is so cool. I played it so much last night that it invaded my dreams. Good poo poo. Anyone who likes puzzle games needs to try it out. And I made some peanut butter cookies and a great Greek salad yesterday with lots of feta, and good food always helps cheer me up.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:02

Subjunctive: Sep 12, 2006; ✨sparkle and shine✨

FirstAidKite posted:

How's everybody doing today

There�s Always A Chance

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:34

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

FirstAidKite posted:

How's everybody doing today

Roommate saw another centipede in the bathroom. She closed the door with the light on and stuffed bags under the door so it couldn't get into the apt. When I woke up this morning I went looking for it but didn't see it.

Maybe this'll get her to clean her poo poo up.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:38

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

FirstAidKite posted:

How's everybody doing today

I'm going to the game parlor to play a megagame

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:43

FirstAidKite: Nov 8, 2009

Kibner posted:

Gassy

Gas-x

Jimbozig posted:

I woke up with a cramp in my calf but I can't really stretch it out properly because I have a broken ankle. I'm completely sick of this stupid air cast. And I'm looking at my calves and the one that is in the cast is so small and I know it's going to take a lot of working out and physio to get it back to normal. And my ankle still feels bad and it's been 3 weeks. Broken bones loving suck.

On the other hand, I tried out playing goon-made video game Baba Is You and it is so cool. I played it so much last night that it invaded my dreams. Good poo poo. Anyone who likes puzzle games needs to try it out. And I made some peanut butter cookies and a great Greek salad yesterday with lots of feta, and good food always helps cheer me up.

I'm sorry to hear about your ankle. What happened? What is an air cast? The physical therapy will be tedious and painful I'm sure but it will be worth it once you make it through it all.

I just got done playing some Baba is You myself and that game is very good but also I can only solve so many puzzles before having to take a break. If I get stuck, I'll look up a solution since those puzzles I get stuck on tend to have solutions where I just wasn't thinking in the right direction and having that new mode of thought helps with the next puzzles.

Subjunctive posted:

There’s Always A Chance

I don't understand

Yawgmoth posted:

Roommate saw another centipede in the bathroom. She closed the door with the light on and stuffed bags under the door so it couldn't get into the apt. When I woke up this morning I went looking for it but didn't see it.

Maybe this'll get her to clean her poo poo up.

Good luck, I do not like centipedes at all and I once read an article that tried to claim that centipedes are just like cats because they both groom their "whiskers" and I'm just like "gently caress that poo poo" and kill centipedes when I can because eugh I hate the fuckers

Len posted:

I'm going to the game parlor to play a megagame

Cool, what is a megagame and what megagame are you gonna play

# ? Jul 14, 2019 16:46

Len: Jan 21, 2008; Pouches, bandages, shoulderpad, cyber-eye...

Bitchin'!

It's a large scale game that (at least the one I played at Gencon) was basically a larp set during the Cold War. This one is set in the Vampire the Masquerade setting. Two teams each split in a diplomacy and a pvp subgroup. And then there's mechanics? I dunno. But I'm not doing much else today and they have food and drinks included in my 7.50 cover charge so why not

# ? Jul 14, 2019 17:15

Yawgmoth: Sep 10, 2003; This post is cursed!

FirstAidKite posted:

Good luck, I do not like centipedes at all and I once read an article that tried to claim that centipedes are just like cats because they both groom their "whiskers" and I'm just like "gently caress that poo poo" and kill centipedes when I can because eugh I hate the fuckers

Yeah I remember someone telling me that centipedes are good because they eat other bugs but spiders do that already with the added benefit of staying in their part of the house. I'd rather sleep under a blanket of spiders than have a single centipede within 100ft of me.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 17:31

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

FirstAidKite posted:

I'm sorry to hear about your ankle. What happened? What is an air cast? The physical therapy will be tedious and painful I'm sure but it will be worth it once you make it through it all.

Rolled my ankle playing sports. I have what is called an avulsion fracture - the ligaments got stretched hard enough to break off a couple of tiny bone fragments. I may also have a sprain (torn ligaments) in addition to that, but they can't really be sure without more imaging and it wouldn't change the treatment anyway.

An air cast is one of those hard plastic boots you might have seen around. They have inflatable air pockets to make them snug so that the ankle can be immobilized, but you can still walk (clumsily, slowly, laboriously). Much more convenient than a traditional cast because you can take it off for showering and stuff.

I also occasionally look stuff up for Baba is You, for the same reasons as you. If I've given it my all and am really truly stumped, I'd rather look it up so I can move on. I just have to resist the temptation to look up solutions out of laziness.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 17:34

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# ? Jun 11, 2024 07:04

slap me and kiss me: Apr 1, 2008; You best protect ya neck

Jimbozig posted:

Rolled my ankle playing sports. I have what is called an avulsion fracture - the ligaments got stretched hard enough to break off a couple of tiny bone fragments. I may also have a sprain (torn ligaments) in addition to that, but they can't really be sure without more imaging and it wouldn't change the treatment anyway.

An air cast is one of those hard plastic boots you might have seen around. They have inflatable air pockets to make them snug so that the ankle can be immobilized, but you can still walk (clumsily, slowly, laboriously). Much more convenient than a traditional cast because you can take it off for showering and stuff.

I also occasionally look stuff up for Baba is You, for the same reasons as you. If I've given it my all and am really truly stumped, I'd rather look it up so I can move on. I just have to resist the temptation to look up solutions out of laziness.

I did that exact thing a decade ago. Good luck healing, and make sure to do your physio exercises.

# ? Jul 14, 2019 19:17

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > TG Chat Thread 2019: people operating based on completely fucked social norms

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