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gradenko_2000 posted:It would be nice imo if people actually started playing RPGs according to their rules. why? I'd much rather do what makes sense while using the rules as a framework or guideline.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:17
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ItohRespectArmy posted:why? It would actually oblige designers to make games that work well out of the box. The implication that players will simply houserule anything they don't like is license to half-rear end the creation of a game and shifts the burden of design back to the players, who shouldn't be expected to do so.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:20
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ItohRespectArmy posted:why? Bonus round: try to do so using reasoning that doesn't start with "first assume the rules are garbage and a chore to engage with".
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Dec 18, 2022 00:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:It would actually oblige designers to make games that work well out of the box. The implication that players will simply houserule anything they don't like is license to half-rear end the creation of a game and shifts the burden of design back to the players, who shouldn't be expected to do so. there are plenty of games that are good out of the box that may have situations come up that the designers did not anticipate that may require a houserule or an on the fly ruling Splicer posted:Explain why "do(ing) what makes sense" is easier than using the system you are (theoretically) playing. see my above qoute but what if you simply approach the problem as "game designers are not omnipotent and if your game is anything other than dull dishwater maybe you'll end up in interesting and complicated situations" 
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Dec 18, 2022 00:43
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Bad games existing is independent of people choosing parts of games that fit most or almost all of what they want to do, but have some parts don't interest them or their group them to tweak and make work for what they want to do. Bad games are going to exist, even if homebrew was somehow banned.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:44
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ItohRespectArmy posted:there are plenty of games that are good out of the box that may have situations come up that the designers did not anticipate that may require a houserule or an on the fly ruling
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Dec 18, 2022 00:47
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Splicer posted:Those goalposts moved so far they changed range increments. sorry that I don't fit your projection or very narrow worldview.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:49
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ItohRespectArmy posted:sorry that I don't fit your projection or very narrow worldview. ItohRespectArmy posted:do what makes sense while using the rules as a framework or guideline. ItohRespectArmy posted:may have situations come up that the designers did not anticipate that may require a houserule or an on the fly ruling
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Dec 18, 2022 00:52
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Splicer posted:Or the actual words you typed. yes "doing what makes sense" where the rules framework or guidelines don't provide much help is indeed what I said.
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Dec 18, 2022 00:56
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Let's say you're playing a game, and you come to an inflection point. Broadly, this can be taken as a question of "do the players get what they want?", with the corollary that a lot of the time this question does not need to be asked, and can be assumed to be yes - "the PC drives from point A to B with no time pressure and no obstacles" is not an inflection point - they simply get to do it. A game has, or should have, rules for dealing with such questions. In the context of D&D 5e, it could be as simple as an ability or skill check. In which case, you use that rule to resolve the question. To bring it back to the precipitating argument, if the VTT supports it, then there's no issue. Sometimes the question requires a more fine-grained answer: you use the combat rules, you use a subset of rules dealing with survival, or the time expenditure for donning/doffing armor, etc. But in all these cases, it's still utilizing the rules of the game, which again, if the VTT supports, then you get to keep using the VTT, as it was programmed, in the same way that a player playing Magic Online only ever uses the application as-is-where-is. If the group decides to make up their own rule to deal with a scenario, and that rule that they had just made up isn't supported by the VTT, then the VTT can't help them, but that goes back to my first post, in that you either should be using the rules already provided to you (even if it necessitates breaking it down to as generic a resolution as rolling a d20 + modifiers against a DC), or we acknowledge that the game is flawed, lacking, etc. without excusing it under the cloak of "well the players will homebrew their own solution" EDIT: I will add that a game sometimes need not be considered "flawed", but instead as inappropriate for the setting/theme/subject-matter. If the group keeps running into scenarios that the rules do not cover, nor are they comfortable with defaulting to the most generic-possible resolution procedure, it's an indicator that perhaps they are using the wrong system for the kind of game being run, rather than it being an indictment of the system per se. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 01:04
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ItohRespectArmy posted:yes "doing what makes sense" [where the rules framework or guidelines don't provide much help] is indeed what I said.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:08
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Splicer posted:I've helpfully indicated the part which completely changes the context of your original post. Are you saying that that was always your intended meaning? Because if so what an extremely banal reply that does not in any way contradict the post you were disagreeing with. Personally I'd find that even more embarrassing than realising I'd said a stupid thing and just saying "oh wait no that was a stupid thing" but that's just me. maybe don't spend your time on the internet looking for banal posts to misinterpret and start even more tedious arguments, you should probably own up to that stupid thing.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:17
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ItohRespectArmy posted:maybe don't spend your time on the internet looking for banal posts to misinterpret and start even more tedious arguments, you should probably own up to that stupid thing.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:29
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Just kiss.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:32
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Subjunctive posted:Just kiss.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:33
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Because that would inject joy into the world and your little "I'm sorry if you" "perhaps you didn't" type passive aggressive pissy argument style does the opposite.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:36
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If you two are *just* gonna snipe at each other, take it to PMs or something. gradenko_2000 posted:Let's say you're playing a game, and you come to an inflection point. Broadly, this can be taken as a question of "do the players get what they want?", with the corollary that a lot of the time this question does not need to be asked, and can be assumed to be yes - "the PC drives from point A to B with no time pressure and no obstacles" is not an inflection point - they simply get to do it. Ah, I did not know you were talking about VTT's in particular. VTT's it's an interesting case, as like, wrt to 5e(which not a great game) and honestly pathfinder as well(much better game) I do not bother with thinking about player encumbrance unless like it becomes interesting narratively or within gameplay(i.e how are you planning on getting all this gold from this dragon horde back). For instance any VTT that forced me to do whatever the encumbrance rules are in 5e(Disadvantage on everything probably?) or Pathfinder I would probably just not use it. As it is simply not fun for me or my players to micromanage, and doesn't fit the vibe we are going for. But in regards to good games, I was more thinking along the lines of like, "We like this game, but we are going to like replace this downtime mechanic, which might be perfectly good, but just something we don't want to do or doesn't apply, with the downtime mechanic homebrewed from some other game that we like. A game should be good enough to stand on it's own without homebrew. But I mostly just disagreed with the generalized 'must play by the rules'. As my general belief is that each table is it's own thing and players should tweak whatever they need/want to tweak to ensure they are having fun. Dexo fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 01:41
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Honestly, I've found that games mostly fall into three categories: Focused games, which work well and have a coherent vision. I don't see why you'd want to replace parts of these. I'll either play them as intended or maybe reskin a bit (e.g. I'd use Under Hollow Hills to play an alien space circus, but not to play a fairyland dungeon crawl.) Modular games, which hack together a bunch of stuff from other games with alterations because they come from this philosophy of ignoring the rules. You can't count on any given part of these to even be functional, let alone good. They all have some parts that work well but you can't really tell what part that's going to be until you try it. They also don't have a thematic focus, so carving them up into pieces and replacing those pieces with other poo poo that works in other games is fine. In a focused game, chopping out and replacing one part would mess up the other parts. Dreck with good fluff. I used to think there were only 2 kinds, but then I played some games where nothing works at all. Like even the designer never bothered trying to play by the rules.
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Dec 18, 2022 01:58
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Dexo posted:Ah, I did not know you were talking about VTT's in particular. VTT's it's an interesting case, as like, wrt to 5e(which not a great game) and honestly pathfinder as well(much better game) I do not bother with thinking about player encumbrance unless like it becomes interesting narratively or within gameplay(i.e how are you planning on getting all this gold from this dragon horde back). yeah I was mostly responding to the claim that a (D&D) VTT couldn't be expected to work as well as Magic Online because players simply wouldn't play by the rules as strictly as they do with MTG, in which case... why aren't you? or rather, if you know you're already not going to be playing by the rules (some/most of the time) anyway, then you wouldn't/shouldn't be engaging with the VTT in the first place (as you yourself have even alluded to) a VTT could even withstand some occasional digressions from the rules - ultimately the thing is a chat program, and as long as you can drag any modifications back into the character sheet without too much trouble (or that your houserule barely interacts with the mechanical bits at all) then it should work, but if you're constantly having to fight it, that's less a problem with the VTT or the base game that it's facilitating
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Dec 18, 2022 02:08
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My issue with an automated VTT is more, like, procedural. There are some situations where a player does something that should be responded to in the rules, but where there isn't a super easy prefabbed 'condition' or anything you can just tack on. Like, to give an example. . . The PCs are about to launch an attack on a dragon who can breathe chlorine gas. They decide to wrap some wet cloths around their faces to dampen the effects of the poison somewhat. The DM says, nice--that's a cool idea, why don't you all take advantage on your saves against the first breath weapon you get hit by. Seems reasonable enough, right? Is this breaking the game's rules? Maybe? Kind of? A little? But I don't think this is the type of thing people are arguing about above. This type of situation is effortless to deal with in a non-automated VTT. Like, D&DBeyond right now you can tap a button to roll a saving throw, but nothing happens beyond that. If you want to use that system to get advantage on a save you can just roll twice or whatever. You'll have to mark off your HP by hand either way, so this doesn't really complicate things at all. In a fully automated "rules enforced" VTT this just doesn't work--you can't give out bonuses like that. On the upside, though, you can get a really smooth and easy user experience. You just select the dragon's breath weapon attack, select a direction to fire it in, and the computer takes care of all the rest for you. Very easy to learn and use. You could always try to split the difference and make a moddable but automated process, but I feel like this is actually a 'worst of both worlds' scenario. You select the breath weapon and aim it. As each character has to roll their save they have to get a pop-up window that asks them if they want to apply any modifiers to to their roll. Then the group has to wait for the fighter to decide if they want to use their bardic inspiration or not. Then when damage is rolled each character has to click through another pop-up window where they have to sign off on the damage being done. If they do want to modify the rolls then there has to be a button for each way they possibly could, and the players all have to invest time into learning when and how to use the system. It's as slow as the non-automated VTT, still very restrictive, and requires way more investment into learning the interface than either.
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Dec 18, 2022 02:41
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OtspIII posted:You could always try to split the difference and make a moddable but automated process, but I feel like this is actually a 'worst of both worlds' scenario. You select the breath weapon and aim it. As each character has to roll their save they have to get a pop-up window that asks them if they want to apply any modifiers to to their roll. Then the group has to wait for the fighter to decide if they want to use their bardic inspiration or not. Then when damage is rolled each character has to click through another pop-up window where they have to sign off on the damage being done. If they do want to modify the rolls then there has to be a button for each way they possibly could, and the players all have to invest time into learning when and how to use the system. It's as slow as the non-automated VTT, still very restrictive, and requires way more investment into learning the interface than either. This is exactly what Foundry VTT does with systems like Pathfinder 2e and it not only works fine, it's more than fast enough to finish a combat round in about the time it takes to say what your actions are. Seriously, stop whining about this poo poo until you've actually tried any of the tools that already do this.
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Dec 18, 2022 03:22
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Roadie posted:This is exactly what Foundry VTT does with systems like Pathfinder 2e and it not only works fine, it's more than fast enough to finish a combat round in about the time it takes to say what your actions are. Yeah, it works fine most of the time.
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Dec 18, 2022 03:53
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It is a pretty big problem industry-wide that games have been janky for so long that, when reading a new game, veteran players assume the role of editor and mentally rewrite games. I know that directly hosed over at least two first-time 4e tables: One, the players all created high level characters for their first game because they were "good at D&D" and were overwhelmed by learning dozens of concepts. (Rather than learning one or two new things per level.) Another, the DM had a gladiator scenario where the players fought NPCs that he'd created ... With each NPC using full player stats and complexity. It's a good idea to understand and attempt the game as written before tearing healing surges out. But the problem is that, for the most part, the industry standard hasn't featured tightly interacting mechanics. A new reader is often just as qualified to make changes as the author.
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Dec 18, 2022 03:56
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Roadie posted:This is exactly what Foundry VTT does with systems like Pathfinder 2e and it not only works fine, it's more than fast enough to finish a combat round in about the time it takes to say what your actions are. Okay, I apparently should because I'm working on a not-quite-VTT thing that involves a lot of rpg mechanic automation and I've found that RPGs are just so full of implied decision points and weird edge cases and overrides that the number of options you have to give players to control automation easily ends up being annoying than what you save from the automation itself if . It's entirely possible my "this is hell from a developer's side" experience is clouding my vision on this, though. I am curious how Foundry does it, though--is it just that when you do an attack or something it auto-opens a die roll prompt that's set to auto-open another prompt if the roll result is over a certain threshold? But then if you decide that you want to handle it some other way you can just manually abort at any point? Like, is it fully rules automated (it notices the enemy you're attacking has the 'goblin' tag and automatically adds +2 due to your Goblin Hunter feat, it gives you a prompt to let you cast Shield in response to an attack and auto-adjusts your AC in response, etc) or are you still doing a bunch of tracking and applying those types of mods yourself? The answer is probably just that I should check it out myself, but it does seem relevant to this discussion
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Dec 18, 2022 04:03
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By default Foundry doesn't do anything, at least in 5e. You can install mods that add varying levels of automation, but frankly it breaks as often as it works.
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Dec 18, 2022 04:08
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The only D&D branded non-game merchandise I've ever bought was a Nerf bow that shoots the regular small size darts and it rules so I predict this entire endeavor will be a huge success
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Dec 18, 2022 04:50
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OtspIII posted:I am curious how Foundry does it, though--is it just that when you do an attack or something it auto-opens a die roll prompt that's set to auto-open another prompt if the roll result is over a certain threshold? But then if you decide that you want to handle it some other way you can just manually abort at any point? Like, is it fully rules automated (it notices the enemy you're attacking has the 'goblin' tag and automatically adds +2 due to your Goblin Hunter feat, it gives you a prompt to let you cast Shield in response to an attack and auto-adjusts your AC in response, etc) or are you still doing a bunch of tracking and applying those types of mods yourself? The answer is probably just that I should check it out myself, but it does seem relevant to this discussion With Pathfinder 2e, which is one of the more automated systems available for it, it pre-calculates rolls and automatically adds modifiers based on your selected target, what action you're triggering the roll from, status conditions on a target, etc. You can then add other modifiers to any given roll on the fly when you trigger it, either with a modifier window that opens up automatically or opening one by shift-clicking (you can set the default behavior either way). You can also just roll stuff at any time, either by triggering a roll directly from your character sheet or entering one manually. Basically, the point here is that it automates things that can be easily mechanized without constraining you just to that automation. OtspIII posted:it gives you a prompt to let you cast Shield in response to an attack and auto-adjusts your AC in response No, that kind of thing happens through, you know, just talking to the GM. The devs for the PF 2e module have mentioned they will probably add an action tracker at some point, but it'll be a convenience feature rather than limiting you to only using it, much as the system will already automatically track effect durations (e.g. "5 rounds left" that counts down every time your turn comes up) but still leaves it up to you to remove effects it thinks are expired.
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Dec 18, 2022 06:26
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Fsmhunk posted:It's going to sell you random minis and terrain in lootboxes. Wizards has been doing that on physical side since 2003, so for almost 20 years. Random sets of pre-painted minis sold in boosters with rarities and all. Back in the day they had separate skirmish battle game attached to the boosters using modified 3rd and later 4th edition rules. RIP: Dungeons and Dragons miniature battles. Nowadays they are just for the RPG, but still released regularly:  
Issaries fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 09:10
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Issaries posted:I have good news for you. Wizards has been doing that since 2003, so for almost 20 years. Random sets of pre-painted minis sold in boosters with rarities and all. While we’re on the subject, what would be the best option if I wanted to get a bunch of cheap pre-painted minis to use in generic D&D-type games? Completely random boosters are out, because I’d probably want multiple copies of some common monsters like goblins, skeletons, etc.
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Dec 18, 2022 09:38
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Cheapest way would be to find someone who is selling their old collection. There are some resellers that split the boosters and sell individual minis from it. They can be pretty expensive if you want anything that everyone else wants too, but some minis are relatively cheap. Then there's buying used Warhammer or other minis that someone has painted. Orcs/Goblins/undead are pretty common, but don't expect to find displacer beast or other rarer things this way.
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Dec 18, 2022 09:51
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Good 3d printing is also under $200, and (if you've got the means and inclination) that's access to unlimited figures for $25/kg. Miguel Zavala is doing the Lord's work for fantasy gamers, and M Bergman has single-handedly designed multiple wars' worth of AFVs for historical games. All of their files are free.
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Dec 18, 2022 11:28
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Printers don't do colours though. Unless you count the filament/resin colour.
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Dec 18, 2022 12:31
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My brain just slid right past "prepainted," nevermind.
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Dec 18, 2022 13:01
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Seems people are freaking out OGL is going away, again. https://twitter.com/hashtag/OpenDnD
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Dec 18, 2022 15:57
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The OGL isn't revocable though...? What am I missing?
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Dec 18, 2022 16:14
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dwarf74 posted:The OGL isn't revocable though...? For the upcoming One D&D, not any current editions
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Dec 18, 2022 16:25
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Piell posted:For the upcoming One D&D, not any current editions
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Dec 18, 2022 16:45
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It's quite possible that WotC decides to do away with the OGL(although it really really doesn't change THAT much) It just means you can't use the specified text from the books in third party material. It'd be an extremely stupid decision, as allowing it functionally costs them nothing and doesn't gain them anything. As IIRC Rules/systems can't be copyrighted so people can still just make content for "the worlds most popular rpg system™" or whatever. It would be extremely dumb for WotC to do that for no real gain, and comical amounts of bad press. So hey maybe they do end up doing it  But that aside, lmao at all the scaremongering over people being asked to sign an NDA about having a conversation with WotC, as if anytime you go to talk to literally any company about stuff that hasn't been released or shown yet you aren't going to be asked to sign something saying you won't talk about it.
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Dec 18, 2022 17:22
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Roadie posted:You can also just roll stuff at any time, either by triggering a roll directly from your character sheet or entering one manually. My point was that a system that tries to represent the entire ruleset in the digital mechanics is non-viable because there are just way too many usually invisible decision points baked into RPGs that you can't automate the whole process without either adding way too many break points or just abandoning full rules simulation and making the players fill in the gaps. It sounds like the Foundry PF2 stuff does the latter. And yeah, looking back at what I said I think I did look like I was including stuff like that in my 'worst of both worlds' zone--that's my bad. Things like having it so that when you roll an attack die it auto-opens your damage roll (which then even lowers HP once approved) makes a lot of sense. My point that I stand by is that full mechanical rules simulation (rather than mechanical rules reminders where it's easy to do so) is a real bad match for a VTT. Issaries posted:Cheapest way would be to find someone who is selling their old collection. Most of the minis I own are just commons from the old D&D minis combat line. The fact that they were in random boxes meant that there were always tons of people getting minis they didn't want and selling them on ebay for super cheap--like often sub $1 per mini.
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Dec 18, 2022 18:53
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Issaries posted:Wizards has been doing that on physical side since 2003, so for almost 20 years. Random sets of pre-painted minis sold in boosters with rarities and all. I don't understand the appeal for this. Do people buy pre-painted (not commissioned) figures to just put on their shelves? For RPGS this is useless, as a GM I usually want certain kinds of figures (at least with a theme of type), or be able to get a squads of smaller units (gorblins, kobolds, skeletons, zombies etc.). Foolster41 fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 18, 2022 |
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Dec 18, 2022 21:30
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