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Only real thing of value on it is the attack and save tables, which are wedged randomly on the middle somewhere, and the incredible magic item list, which I'd say is the best in any edition of the game. And yeah encounter tables, though you need to vibe with them not meaning "you encounter, uh (rolls) 2-4 type 3 demons! They attack!" but rather being a jumping off point for story.
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Mar 7, 2022 21:47
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Too many magic items! I've been using a Luck Blade (short sword) that we found as a monk. +1 to hit and damage and +1 on saving throws. Plus I can reroll a hit, ability check, or saving throw per day. And it has a wish on it. Now I want to hand it to our wizard (who is proficient but it wouldn't even be necessary), to help out on those Saving Throws and that hit reroll can be nice on some spells. He won't use it for offense ever, I hope. I want to do this to use a Razor-rang(spelling?), essentially a +1 throwing dagger that returns on hit and is either dropped on 1 or hits again on a 20 after every toss. It has a range of 40 and as a monk I have 0 range. I imagine myself using it to kite and to home in on enemies, or using it up close but then tossing it to attack someone further away with an extra attack if necessary. I just feel I can get a lot of use out of a knife like that, even if the short sword is undeniably better. Thoughts? Drakyn posted:What kind of monster would deny the rest of their party their rightful french fries. They should know better than to buy french fries quite frankly.
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Mar 7, 2022 22:55
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sebmojo posted:Only real thing of value on it is the attack and save tables, which are wedged randomly on the middle somewhere, and the incredible magic item list, which I'd say is the best in any edition of the game. The 1e DMG is a toybox, more like something you would see in Tome of Adventure Design than just a rulebook for the DM. The actual rules in the DMG are all optional after all, the book was forbidden to players and if a DM ever caught one of them reading it you were to flay them alive or something  The important table to go along with the random encounter is the Reaction Table. This means when you randomly encounter 4 type 3 demons they might actually be your buddies and want to help you out! Of course a clever DM would not make a low level party fight them even if you rolled hostile, maybe just show some evidence they are around. Other gems of the 1e DMG include Racial Mining Speed Chart (in case you want to enslave some goblins?)  Random NPC personality generator. Oh I hope I roll the Perverted Zealot Skin Collector!   Appendix D Random Demon Generator! I hope I get to fight the Amoeba that smells like poo poo and does level drain  Appendix F Simulated gambling systems, I'm sure the parents loved this section 
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Mar 7, 2022 23:01
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I just realised that encounter table is literally "roll a d20, higher is better" gussied up a bit, lol Reaction rolls are really good, and something later versions kind of ditched.
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Mar 7, 2022 23:09
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The best thing about 1e is alignment languages. Theoretically they're supposed to represent how some abbeys and churches would use Latin for infosec as much as for doctrine. But the in game reality is that there are these nine secret languages, you speak one, and you can't learn the others. If your family is a different alignment than you you'll have learned your language...somehow. Obviously this would cause metagame issues since if you can use trickery to just suss it who in this town speaks evil, so they made it a universal huge faux pas to speak alignment languages in public. Can you learn to speak two? Yes but only if you're an Assassin. Assassins aren't magic or anything so presumably this is just a secret technique they pass down. Their rigidity also would make it pretty simple for anytime smart and connected enough to realize in game that there are nine ethical and moral viewpoints in the world that count, since others don't have secret universal languages.
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Mar 7, 2022 23:50
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theironjef posted:Their rigidity also would make it pretty simple for anytime smart and connected enough to realize in game that there are nine ethical and moral viewpoints in the world that count, since others don't have secret universal languages. Also anyone who studies religion or metaphysics would find this ethical system written into the fabric of the multiverse
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Mar 7, 2022 23:58
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1e is actually a fun and good game to play, almost because it's so crap as a game. You make up rules for foundational things like skill checks (roll under stat on a d20 was right there!) as you go because gygax had way more important stuff to tell you about, like what particular variety of sex worker you just encountered
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Mar 8, 2022 00:17
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sebmojo posted:I just realised that encounter table is literally "roll a d20, higher is better" gussied up a bit, lol DMG 1 was like trying to make a procedurally generated world. Dwarf fortress with dice and pencils. Stories will emerge from that type of randomness, but if you want to tell a particular story you'll know what sort of reaction is reasonable from particular npcs. Random dice rolls could have peasant farmers violently hostile and then the next day an orc raiding party is enthusiastically friendly, which tells a story but not necessarily the one you meant to tell.
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Mar 8, 2022 00:21
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sebmojo posted:1e is actually a fun and good game to play, almost because it's so crap as a game. You make up rules for foundational things like skill checks (roll under stat on a d20 was right there!) as you go because gygax had way more important stuff to tell you about, like what particular variety of sex worker you just encountered Just a sec I have to look up the stats on my weapon. Oh, I have that page open here, what do you have? Guisarme Uh, which one? The Glaive Guisarme, the Guisarme, or the Guisarme-Voulge?  
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Mar 8, 2022 00:31
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sebmojo posted:1e is actually a fun and good game to play, almost because it's so crap as a game. You make up rules for foundational things like skill checks (roll under stat on a d20 was right there!) as you go because gygax had way more important stuff to tell you about, like what particular variety of sex worker you just encountered By extension, this bottle of Cholula on my desk is an even better RPG because you have to make up even more of your own rules.
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Mar 8, 2022 00:33
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theironjef posted:By extension, this bottle of Cholula on my desk is an even better RPG because you have to make up even more of your own rules. Does that bottle have a table for the 72 possible colours of gemstone, and intricate and unusable rules for hand to hand combat? No, it does not. E: I mean it might, I've never heard of that drink
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Mar 8, 2022 00:43
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It's a hot sauce, so obviously yes it does.
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Mar 8, 2022 00:53
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Deteriorata posted:The problem was the reverse, from what I've seen. Everybody had their own system for it and they had a hard time harmonizing them for the first edition. Everyone's system worked well enough for them and their group and they couldn't find a compelling reason to make one official method. So "do it however you want" became an acceptable stance. Ahh, that makes sense. And "do it however you want" is a fine enough stance when initiative doesn't interact with a bunch of character traits.
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Mar 8, 2022 01:15
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1st ed was explicitly intended to remove those distinctions between groups though, to make one proper way of playing d&d. Gary was just very bad at writing rules imo.
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Mar 8, 2022 01:26
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sebmojo posted:1st ed was explicitly intended to remove those distinctions between groups though, to make one proper way of playing d&d. Gary was just very bad at writing rules imo. Won't argue with that, but TSR was also dealing with explosive growth and equally explosive ambitions. A lot of the problem was trying to do too much with insufficient resources and always being a step behind. So the parallel issue was just insufficient time and editing. The market wanted stuff now, and they were struggling to cope.
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Mar 8, 2022 01:33
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I still refer back to those random item and encounter tables every once in a while. Maybe it’s out of nostalgia but I think they’re awesome.
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Mar 8, 2022 03:12
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A bit of shameless self-promotion, but just in case anyone here is interested I restarted work on my Spheres conversions of various 5e settings here
Libertad! fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Mar 8, 2022 |
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Mar 8, 2022 04:08
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Deteriorata posted:Won't argue with that, but TSR was also dealing with explosive growth and equally explosive ambitions. A lot of the problem was trying to do too much with insufficient resources and always being a step behind. So the parallel issue was just insufficient time and editing. The market wanted stuff now, and they were struggling to cope. also this is ADVANCED is it TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what that other guy allegedly helped me invent and he is a JERK
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Mar 8, 2022 15:48
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I wanted to pop by and thank folks for feedback on character design I got a few pages back. In the end someone else who likes playing clerics opted to be a human cleric of a trickster god, so it took the focus on healing off my back. My character concept revolves around an archetypical hero-of-glory type, but he's a goblin and has a darker nature. I believe we're rolling for stats so some of my final decisions on character class will come down to how I roll, as goblin isn't an optimal class for melee. I hope to play a paladin and round out my background with something sinister like criminal or urchin. If I only get 1x good stat I might need to shift focus to a primary caster....maybe a circle of stars druid. Sure, I could pump dex and use a finesse weapon, but finesse weapon doesn't speak to me conceptually the way laser druid does. "Have at thee, spawn of the pit! Face the pan-seared glory of my righteousness! Now let me poke you with my...rapier?"
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Mar 8, 2022 16:31
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Gameko posted:I wanted to pop by and thank folks for feedback on character design I got a few pages back. In the end someone else who likes playing clerics opted to be a human cleric of a trickster god, so it took the focus on healing off my back. My character concept revolves around an archetypical hero-of-glory type, but he's a goblin and has a darker nature. All this 1e talk has me imagining Gary Gygax fuming mad at the mere idea of an Evil Goblin Paladin player character
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Mar 8, 2022 16:58
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new Unearthed Arcana on dragonlance races and classes i can't decide if groups dealing with kender PCs or RPG twitter dealing with gully dwarf Discourse is gonna be worse going forward
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Mar 8, 2022 18:50
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https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/1501245115498643465 “Embrace curiosity as a Kender”
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Mar 8, 2022 18:52
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Shitshow posted:“Embrace curiosity as a Kender” phrases that sound horrific but aren't
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Mar 8, 2022 18:56
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Shitshow posted:https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/1501245115498643465 Ugh...well all I'll say is that there will now be my first banned race when I DM.....I will not subject my other players to a Kender pc.
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Mar 8, 2022 19:00
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Moon sorcerer seems cool both thematically and mechanically but everything in here will probably be simplified before this is published officially
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Mar 8, 2022 19:02
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So Dragonlance next then
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Mar 8, 2022 19:02
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Froghammer posted:So Dragonlance next then as someone who never read the dragonlance books, can someone give me a summary of what makes it worth considering as a setting? it seems like generic high fantasy to me, but i'm prepared to be corrected
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Mar 8, 2022 19:05
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Azathoth posted:as someone who never read the dragonlance books, can someone give me a summary of what makes it worth considering as a setting? it seems like generic high fantasy to me, but i'm prepared to be corrected That's most of it. People SAY the Forgotten Realms is high fantasy, but Dragonlance actually IS - custom-designed for epic, sweeping giant storytelling plot campaigns, originally started with one in late 1e. It's got some okay remixes on some staples of D&D - wizards are three separate groups, elves are weird goths, minotaurs are a thriving warrior culture - but it's hard to really find a great reason to say "THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD PLAY DRAGONLANCE IN 2022." But maybe there's some turbo-fan of the setting in this thread akin to me for FR, so I'd be interested in their take.
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Mar 8, 2022 19:08
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Azathoth posted:as someone who never read the dragonlance books, can someone give me a summary of what makes it worth considering as a setting? it seems like generic high fantasy to me, but i'm prepared to be corrected Dragonlance's written content is much, much, much, much larger than two novels and a fistful of short stories.
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Mar 8, 2022 19:13
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Madmarker posted:Ugh...well all I'll say is that there will now be my first banned race when I DM.....I will not subject my other players to a Kender pc. Yeah not telling my playgroup about this, with any luck they won't notice
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Mar 8, 2022 19:15
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What, no gully dwarf? Slacking on the Dragonlance content, Wizards.
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Mar 8, 2022 19:24
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Empty Sandwich posted:also this is ADVANCED is it TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what that other guy allegedly helped me invent and he is a JERK That's right, he used a mechanic where both sides roll 1d6 and compare the results. My mechanic is that you usually roll 1d6 and compare results for initiative. Not always. So it's totally different. Plus I'm using all these other dice he didn't (mainly because they weren't widely available). Azathoth posted:as someone who never read the dragonlance books, can someone give me a summary of what makes it worth considering as a setting? it seems like generic high fantasy to me, but i'm prepared to be corrected Not much to add to what others have said. The one really worthwhile element to their world, IMO, is the Towers of High Sorcery, which essentially is an organization of arcane spellcasters that acknowledges there's room for good, neutral, and evil casters and that they should all be working together to benefit magic as a whole and fend off all those people who want them dead for various reasons. How you take that is strongly dependent on the extent to which you like the alignment system, but I appreciated the idea that a specific kind of community grouping can essentially cross moral and ethical boundaries in terms of getting people to work together. Granted, wizards have never had much trouble getting interesting RPG-side story opportunities. But Dragonlance supported some really interesting and political options for wizards.
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Mar 8, 2022 20:07
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Empty Sandwich posted:also this is ADVANCED is it TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what that other guy allegedly helped me invent and he is a JERK Dave Arneson isn't even mentioned in the brief list of thank yous in the foreword which is just breathtakingly mean and petty, but I guess that was the point. Anyway enough 1e talk sorry fur the derail.
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Mar 8, 2022 20:19
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sebmojo posted:1st ed was explicitly intended to remove those distinctions between groups though, to make one proper way of playing d&d. Gary was just very bad at writing rules imo. Yeah, agreed. And 1E does give you a "proper" rule for rolling initiative; it's just a basic rear end rule that Gygax spends a page describing. Arivia posted:That's most of it. People SAY the Forgotten Realms is high fantasy, but Dragonlance actually IS - custom-designed for one epic, sweeping giant storytelling plot campaign FTFY. Dragonlance was designed for the DL series of modules and the Chronicles trilogy. Every critique about metaplot or NPCs made about FR is doubly or triply true about DL. TSR tried a few times to make DL more friendly to homebrew campaigning, but the only time they really succeeded was with the Time of the Dragon boxed set that introduced an entire new continent that was only tangentially related to the rest of the setting (it didn't even have the titular dragonlances).
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Mar 8, 2022 20:29
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the early novels are the unfiltered results of the cowriters' game sessions, complete with whatever the gently caress the dice did to really screw the narrative. when I was a kid I thought the books were just tedious. I was wrong. do you love cliche? overworn tropes? boring archetypes? all three abound. the real junk-kick is that there's an entire race that makes Spritle and Chim Chim look like Watson and Crick. the kender have no understanding of the concept of possession so they steal poo poo constantly but they nonetheless fully understand the concept of possession because if someone in-game calls it stealing they literally cry. on the one other continent there are minotaurs in togas.
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Mar 8, 2022 20:32
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Allow Kender but only the 4th age version where they've learned how to be afraid and it's the only emotion they can feel anymore. Have they announced what the fall book is going to be? Timing seems good for a Krynn setting book then since the first in the new Hickman/Weiss trilogy releases in August. Macdeo Lurjtux fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Mar 8, 2022 |
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Mar 8, 2022 20:46
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(wisely) kender unto caesar
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Mar 8, 2022 21:53
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Lunar sorcerer gets Death Ward (which is a 4th level spell) at 5th level. If they choose Full Moon to manifest, they can actually cast it too. Obviously this isn't going to be published like this and it's clearly just a mistake, but is there any other non-homebrew way to cast a 4th level spell before 7th level without magic items?
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Mar 8, 2022 21:56
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The Kender in the UA aren't kleptomaniacs. Their pockets just sort of fill up with stuff and nobody knows where it comes from. I think you could read it as like an implied benign absent-minded theft, like the kind of guy who accidentally winds up with a collection of bank pens. But it's pretty clear now that it's not an excuse to play a sociopath.
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Mar 8, 2022 22:06
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Kender might be one of those "Damage already done" things about D&D. Like how second edition defined Chaotic Neutral as "You're a literal walking coin flip and might just jump off a bridge or change sides in a fight" and even though it's been better written ever since, there's still a core contingent that always choose it and pretend it's been the lolrandom alignment the whole time.
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Mar 8, 2022 22:16
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