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Ferrinus posted:I don't really see the basis for complaining that you can only hit an enemy monster on an 18 if the point is to make enemy monsters too strong to reasonably challenge unless you've scraped together some big advantage beforehand. It feels like a lot of the complaints about 4e (not yours) oscillate opportunistically between players being too strong and too weak, such that the actual complaint is that certain character builds/gameplay styles which used to be vastly stronger than others have now been brought into parity with them. Let's say we sat down to play 4E and we started playing 4E exactly as written, except that at the start of every turn I roundhouse kicked the player in the balls as hard as I possibly could. Now I've successfully "discouraged combat" but, weirdly enough, nobody* seems to be having a good time! And doubly weirdly, if, after people objected to this, I said "I thought you wanted combat to be scary and more difficult", I would be seen as the crazy one! *OK I'm not saying there's no-one at all who wouldn't want to play this but that's outside the scope of this discussion An 18 to hit (which is what "level +10" is in 4E, I'm not being hyperbolic with that) with the associated HP is functionally identical to "cannot be killed", as well as "cannot be affected by any power with a to-hit requirement", so just cut out the middle man and say that. Except Ferrinus posted:Like, if you want a version of D&D in which actually getting into a straight fight is a failure state and it's up to you to either avoid or at least maximally tilt in your favor any combat ever, you can just run 4e but remove all the combat powers and make each monster unkillable. e: realised I should probably spell that out: "You have no combat abilities and the monsters are unkillable (until you do the thing needed to make them killable) is a perfectly good design goal for a game, it's the "First, start with Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition and make this minor change..." bit that's what makes it coocoo for cocoa puffs. Splicer fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Dec 26, 2022 |
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Dec 26, 2022 20:25
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Also you really are making an argument that parts of a game should be frustrating and tedious to engage with on purpose. Seriously that's "Robot pretending to be human" level stuff.
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Dec 26, 2022 20:27
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Splicer posted:Ah, I see the issue. You think the only way to discourage combat is to leave combat mechanics pretty much untouched but make them an out-of-character ball ache that nobody wants to engage in. Splicer posted:Also you really are making an argument that parts of a game should be frustrating and tedious to engage with on purpose. Seriously that's "Robot pretending to be human" level stuff. An 18+ to hit and a huge HP pool is functionally identical to "cannot be killed" if you run into one monster per level and just roll initiative at each other, yes. But if you ambush a single such monster, and maybe have managed to poison it ahead of time or steal some above-your-pay-grade magic weapons or otherwise use clever narrative maneuver to debuff the enemy, buff yourself, or both, the game changes. If I was running super hard meatgrinder 4e and was willing to do a little more work than just drag and drop stuff out of the book, I would probably give monsters ad hoc damage and health bonuses while leaving their defenses on-level so that it was a little more possible to manipulate them with control effects, but, as I've said before, we're now in the realm of haggling. I reject out of hand the claim you're making that a monster with high health and defenses represents some kind of impolite, mean, and perhaps even abusive "you shouldn't be fighting this guy, get out of here" game mechanic. It's just got high health and defenses! You'll be okay! I mean, your character won't, but I thought the monsters weren't supposed to be easy?
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Dec 26, 2022 20:41
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Ferrinus posted:some kind of impolite, mean, and perhaps even abusive whut
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Dec 26, 2022 20:49
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I think I get what Ferrinus is trying to convey: if you leave detailed combat mechanics intact, just with a high level of difficulty, you create space to overcome that difficulty within the scope of the details of the mechanics. If a level 8 Ogre is an extremely dangerous threat to a level 1 party, the party can still eventually defeat it by, say, engaging it over multiple encounters without giving it a chance to heal in between fights, by isolating it from all of its other Ogre buddies so it's a 4 on 1 fight (that isn't using the Ogre as a "Solo"—statted monster), by maximising all other conditions such as Combat Advantage and marking etc. There's value in having the mechanics themselves describe how the difficulty is overcome, as compared to switching to a system that might not engage in such a nuanced discussion, so yo speak.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:08
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I think there's confusion between "18+ to hit by default comparing the Monster Manual stats and the PC's character sheet, but subject to modification" and "18+ to hit as played out at the table, after accounting for everything the players have done". The latter is a failure condition, the former might not be, but would require the modification to be mechanically specified as well. "18+ to hit is fine if you ambush the monster" sounds good but requires an ambush to give more than 1 round of attacks at the standard chance to hit or 10% better.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:16
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Splicer posted:whut You're the guy comparing fighting a level +10 enemy to being kicked in the balls. Now, I do agree that only dramatically upscaling monster damage or something might make the "oh poo poo, they found you!" combat go by quicker. However, I don't really agree or sympathize with your framing of the out-of-depth combat encounter being supposed to serve as a real-life punishment, like, I the DM am now going to waste your IRL time so that maybe you think harder before pulling the blue lever instead of the red one next time you tackle this dungeon. On the one hand, getting your rear end kicked probably won't feel good by default however it happens, and on the other hand, getting your rear end kicked could well be narratively satisfying in a number of ways that are supported rather than detracted from by high monster defenses, such that you get a "drat we can't even penetrate its scales" feeling.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:21
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Splicer posted:Also you really are making an argument that parts of a game should be frustrating and tedious to engage with on purpose. Seriously that's "Robot pretending to be human" level stuff.
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Dec 26, 2022 21:39
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All I was saying in the first place was that 4e is by default more geared towards heroic-style play, much by design. It's possible to tweak it, and 4e is easier to tweak than it looks once you get how the underlying math works, but there are still certain things it encourages. Like a good 4e combat encounter will usually take place in a big space with lots of room to maneuver and room for obstacles and hazards, which in dungeon design tends to lead the DM towards fewer and larger rooms and fewer outright labyrinths or realistically cramped castle keeps or whatever. (Not that those are necessarily "good" design in earlier editions, but 4e shows off the weakness more.)
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Dec 26, 2022 23:15
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Ferrinus posted:However, I don't really agree or sympathize with your framing of the out-of-depth combat encounter being supposed to serve as a real-life punishment, Ferrinus posted:If building a new character is complex... ...that just gives you that much more incentive not to get killed. Ferrinus posted:...in which the mechanics of the game effectively serve as a punishment for a failure to persuade the DM of your plan's effectiveness on the largely-unrolled narrative layer
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Dec 27, 2022 00:17
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Hostile V posted:You've never seen Ferrinus' posts in the WoD thread, have you.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:18
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The actual punishment is that your character loses resources or dies. As others have pointed out there are a lot of ways to dodge what would normally be a lengthy chargen process, starting from just hitting the "same as last time" button on the roguelike character selection screen and moving upwards.
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Dec 27, 2022 00:34
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The whole "combat is a failure state" thing regarding TSR editions of A/D&D or OSR games derived from them is an extreme exaggeration, it's only that way to any real extent at the lowest levels and even then only really applies to fights where the players don't go into it with some sort of advantage*(or even going into a fight with disadvantages), it's one of the reasons the people use variations of the "Fantasy loving Vietnam" term when describing early versions of D&D and clones thereof *this is one of the reasons spells like Sleep are so important at low levels as it can completely turn around a fight before it even begins
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Dec 27, 2022 05:10
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I so should not have gotten a friend with kids SCOUT as a card game present. There’s now been at least eight accusations of someone secretly rearranging their hand..
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Dec 27, 2022 15:33
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Do we have a thread for scale model building/painting? I have a bunch of questions but I don't know if that's germane to the miniatures thread since I'm not going to be gaming with a Tamiya 1:48 Zero fighter
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Dec 28, 2022 16:01
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gradenko_2000 posted:Do we have a thread for scale model building/painting? I have a bunch of questions but I don't know if that's germane to the miniatures thread since I'm not going to be gaming with a Tamiya 1:48 Zero fighter I think you're better off in HCH for that: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3148869&pagenumber=1&perpage=40
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Dec 28, 2022 16:03
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gradenko_2000 posted:Do we have a thread for scale model building/painting? I have a bunch of questions but I don't know if that's germane to the miniatures thread since I'm not going to be gaming with a Tamiya 1:48 Zero fighter Have you considered playing Bag the Hun in 1:48 in your backyard, though?
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Dec 28, 2022 17:58
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gradenko_2000 posted:Do we have a thread for scale model building/painting? I have a bunch of questions but I don't know if that's germane to the miniatures thread since I'm not going to be gaming with a Tamiya 1:48 Zero fighter Coward.  If people can use Lego minifigures for tabletop wargaming, you can use your 1:48 Zero in your Godlike or GURPS: WWII games.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:08
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LatwPIAT posted:Coward. Why limit yourself? No reason the party can't get strafed by an elven fighter ace while adventuring.
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Dec 28, 2022 19:18
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hyphz posted:I so should not have gotten a friend with kids SCOUT as a card game present. There’s now been at least eight accusations of someone secretly rearranging their hand.. Oh dear. If you're looking for something with a similar theme, Reiner Knizia's Circus Flohcati is also about collecting circus acts and has a push-your-luck element to it; unfortunately it's also out of print in English. There are foreign variants being actively printed but maybe not something you'd hand to a friend with kids.
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Dec 28, 2022 20:26
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Toshimo posted:I think you're better off in HCH for that: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3148869&pagenumber=1&perpage=40 thank you! Zorak of Michigan posted:Have you considered playing Bag the Hun in 1:48 in your backyard, though? I have to say that this thought definitely crossed my mind
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Dec 29, 2022 03:42
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GreenBuckanneer posted:If you all get holiday presents and get minis or boardgames you should share what they were imo I got 3 board games from my sister/brother-in-law: Tempvs, a civ builder I hadn't heard of that looks interesting ALDR: The High Sage, a light tile matching game that looks cool, I tend to gravitate towards lighter games, and it looks like something I could bring more to game nights (I guess it's standalone, but can also be an expansion to the award winning Element, which I think I've heard of, but I'm not super familiar with) And Memoir 44', the game I was most excited about getting, since I've heard very good things about and have been interested in playing. for giving, I gave one of my nephews a set of Pokémon cards (4 tins and some foil cards) that they seemed to genuinely appreciate. I also plan on giving a 3D Frozen puzzle (it's sort of a trad game, right?) to my niece (she LOVES Frozen) who we haven't been able to get together with yet. I also am sending a Kickstarter backed game to my sisterthey were interested in, but that's sadly not arriving until next summer.
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Dec 29, 2022 06:12
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The only gaming present I got was a Soulbound book because a friend has a trade account and really wanted to get me gaming stuff. I basically knew there was no point as it'd just go straight on the unplayed stacks but I couldn't really say that to someone who wanted to get me a gift so I just picked at random.
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Dec 29, 2022 19:19
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I'm looking for the name of a tabletop RPG that recently (last couple of years) got re-released, and features a cyberpunk setting on an island. I've read the 90s (?) original before, but can't think of the name now. The island has an arabic name, and is set in the Mediterranean.
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Dec 30, 2022 14:56
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busalover posted:I'm looking for the name of a tabletop RPG that recently (last couple of years) got re-released, and features a cyberpunk setting on an island. I've read the 90s (?) original before, but can't think of the name now. The island has an arabic name, and is set in the Mediterranean. Could possibly be Over the Edge?
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Dec 30, 2022 15:54
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BinaryDoubts posted:Could possibly be Over the Edge? Yeah, that's it, ta
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Dec 30, 2022 16:02
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I'd like to take a moment of your time to rant about how much DrivethruRPGs website loving sucks. I'm not logged in. I'm trying to search for a book. I find it, I click on it, and it sends me to a page telling me I've been logged off. I search for it again through a different search bar and it takes me back to the same logged off message  I search for a system by clicking on the menu shortcut for that system and it brings up completely unrelated splatbooks for some other completely different system I have never searched for or purchased. How the gently caress is this the most popular site to purchase RPGs from? Is there ANY competition?!
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Dec 30, 2022 19:42
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ninjoatse.cx posted:I'd like to take a moment of your time to rant about how much DrivethruRPGs website loving sucks. I'm not logged in. I'm trying to search for a book. I find it, I click on it, and it sends me to a page telling me I've been logged off. I search for it again through a different search bar and it takes me back to the same logged off message IIRC they used to have competition, but they bought it and converted it to a clone of their own system.
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Dec 30, 2022 20:10
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Lemniscate Blue posted:IIRC they used to have competition, but they bought it and converted it to a clone of their own system. ah, the old fextralife shuffle
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Dec 30, 2022 20:10
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Itch.io is an option but their discovery tools aren't great and I think it's exclusively indie stuff so you aren't going to get the foot traffic of people clamoring for a DnD book or Pathfinder adventure
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Dec 30, 2022 20:32
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Drivethru is also trying to revamp their website and have been asking for feedback, and have gotten blasted because the revamp is so awful.
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Dec 30, 2022 20:53
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ninjoatse.cx posted:I'd like to take a moment of your time to rant about how much DrivethruRPGs website loving sucks. I'm not logged in. I'm trying to search for a book. I find it, I click on it, and it sends me to a page telling me I've been logged off. I search for it again through a different search bar and it takes me back to the same logged off message
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Dec 30, 2022 21:20
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mellonbread posted:If you tell it to load all books by an author, it just uses the search engine and returns any results with that name. It doesn't actually have the ability to sort books by who wrote them. So if you want more books by Frank, author of a fan spell school for Unknown Armies, you click on "more books by Frank" and get pages and pages of 5e books which were also written by a guy named Frank. Maybe DTRPG is just pulling the lid off the Frank Conspiracy. There's only one Frank, there's never been more than one Frank, they're all the same.
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Dec 30, 2022 21:29
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Do we have a thread for that Dungeon 23 thing? I'm pondering doing it, but not sure about a dungeon. Maybe islands? Or I keep wanting to do a road trip game, so maybe a big roadtrip thing? Like locations would be towns and wierd things on the route. Not sure what setting trappings should be used though.
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Dec 30, 2022 21:44
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This is the first time I've heard of "combat as a failure state" in d&d, I thought combat was the heart of the game. I think it makes more sense in WoD, I wish wod combat was more pared down. I've played a few sessions of wod combat and I still find it tremendously confusing.
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Dec 30, 2022 22:11
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mila kunis posted:This is the first time I've heard of "combat as a failure state" in d&d, I thought combat was the heart of the game. As drrockso points out, I don't think it was ever really true but became the focus of a lot of revisionist history as part of the anti-4e backlash. The famous "Tucker's Kobolds" story, for instance, makes sure to point out that the Fantasy loving Vietnam of the highly-organized kobolds on dungeon level 1 stood in sharp contrast to the casual, fun, and conventional RPG combat against the dragons and beholders and so on found on the dungeon's lower floors.
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Dec 30, 2022 23:11
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I could see it having been true in terms of tournament D&D, if something like tomb of horrors came out of that environment. It's just that that's nearly a lost subculture at this point
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Dec 30, 2022 23:33
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mila kunis posted:This is the first time I've heard of "combat as a failure state" in d&d, I thought combat was the heart of the game. I've always felt that "combat as a failure state" is an attempt to introduce "mechanics" that early D&D didn't really have, or had in very poor ways. For instance, take the poor 1e Thief who can't use any of his skills more reliably than 1 time out of 5 until he's almost at level 20. "Ah," the grognard will say, smirking, "But have you considered that rolling the dice is a failure state, and instead you should be using these twenty unassuming non-weapon items from the equipment list to construct a rube goldberg machine that will simultaneously disarm every trap and pick every lock in the dungeon?" Similarly, the Fighter, who has no real tricks between "walk at thing, swing weapon" and pray that the dice don't get him brained by a goblin, gets told that if he's in that situation, it's because he's playing the game wrong. He should've just been playing the game "smart" and dodged the mechanics by hiring henchmen to divert a major river and flood out the dungeon instead of fighting anything inside. Which to me is similar to claiming that a game isn't bad if you mod it and don't engage with its core, vanilla mechanics. Then the game is absolutely bad, if you need to do that. Ferrinus posted:The famous "Tucker's Kobolds" story, for instance, makes sure to point out that the Fantasy loving Vietnam of the highly-organized kobolds on dungeon level 1 stood in sharp contrast to the casual, fun, and conventional RPG combat against the dragons and beholders and so on found on the dungeon's lower floors. I always found "Tucker's Kobolds" to be mostly an example of how to be a lovely, unfun GM.
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Dec 30, 2022 23:34
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PurpleXVI posted:I always found "Tucker's Kobolds" to be mostly an example of how to be a lovely, unfun GM. Don't forget a permanently gobsmacked player. I couldn't believe it when I finally got around to reading it and the whole story basically relies on the players standing there screaming in horror with none of them ever saying like "So when do we roll initiative?"
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Dec 30, 2022 23:36
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theironjef posted:Don't forget a permanently gobsmacked player. I couldn't believe it when I finally got around to reading it and the whole story basically relies on the players standing there screaming in horror with none of them ever saying like "So when do we roll initiative?" The kind of powerplayers that Tucker's Kobolds is usually invoked to be used as chastisement against would 100% gently caress them up.
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Dec 31, 2022 00:00
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