Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Wrong thread

Name Change fucked around with this message at 19:46 on May 29, 2014

# ¿ May 29, 2014 19:40

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:06

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Level caps were definitely the thing that was always house-ruled out of every 2E game I ever played.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2014 01:06

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

How your DM treats paladins is a good litmus test for whether you should ever play in his games ever.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2014 02:23

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

To most people who like cleric, it's not really the healing other people thing that appeals. That's useful, but there's also healing yourself, buffs, good toe-to-toe fighting capability (even without those first two things), and generally having a comparable or better spell selection to the wizard. It's essentially the "master race" class because they never figured out where it should have real limitations. AD&D has a Forgotten Realms book called Faiths & Avatars that is essentially just "do literally anything with a cleric." In 3E it got even worse, you can run a game with nothing but clerics quite handily.

In fact you might consider just giving everyone access to magic or sticking everyone on a cleric chassis in your D&D game to effectively "eliminate" the cleric.

Name Change fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Dec 28, 2014

# ¿ Dec 28, 2014 12:52

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Lightning Lord posted:

I always end up giving fiat and milestone level-ups in every level based RPG I ever run, just because my players always, always forget to record their XP.

Our group members don't give a flying gently caress about what the XP count is, we care about levels. We're lucky if one person records.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2015 09:48

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Generally my group does not even run with screens for anything anymore. Laptops and tablets, sure. But that whole huge discussion a couple of weeks ago about fudging rolls? Well, nothing happens behind a screen, so...

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 23:35

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Edit/don't want to break site rules about files.

Name Change fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Jun 14, 2015

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 09:09

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Gaming with strangers at Wednesday night Encounters events is eventually how I put together my entire weekend gaming group in Seattle. 5E caused the talent pool at that same FLGs to wither until it's now almost nothing but kids now. I don't know how the bigger shops like Card Kingdom are doing.

For me it's a chance to meet new people and not get bored playing the same game with the same people all the time.

As far as this is organized play stuff, I've never really been into the idea. The game is better when the ground rules are set by the people in the room.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2016 10:26

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Headsman's Axe tacks 5 damage onto prone enemies.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2016 22:48

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

quote:

As mentioned, Iron goes back ages and ages. Limiting it to "Cold/unworked/wrought iron" is much more modern invention, though.

Yeah as far as I can tell the second one is a D&D thing, because "the secret to killing fairies is to stab, bludgeon, and shoot them, or failing that just wave your weapons at them" doesn't have a great ring to it.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2016 21:29

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

As a technical writer, the thing that bothers me about tabletop RPGs is that most writers do not get that character creation should be a linear procedure. At no time should you need to flip back and forth to reference things that are out of order. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for a person to learn it--they need merely follow the steps.

There are too many games that are actually quite simple that require players to spend hours learning what they are supposed to be doing. That's horrible.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 18:18

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

LeSquide posted:

Are there any that you think do it well, especially regarding more complex systems?

Believe it or not, D&D is usually pretty good at it. Coincidentally, they have the most money and time to throw around. Books that actually use modernized design logic (and these are very rare) would be Marvel Heroic Roleplaying and 4E, off the top of my head.

A lot of books get carried away with sidebars trying to sell you on the game's theory of functionality, bits of explaining things before it is necessary to explain them, and just chapters frankly being out of order.

The ultimate example of doing it wrong would be Dark Heresy, which is a horrendous book and system on all counts and drove me to give up and write a Dungeon World hack for it.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2017 22:25

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Halloween Jack posted:

Reading Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is the last time I remember a book's layout making me actually angry at it. Its flailing attempts to explain how its system works are dogshit that turned into an otyugh and hosed the dog that poo poo it out.

Well, come to think of it, I roll that one back, since you cannot make a character in MHR. That's what I get for using the top of my head. However, the actual layout (as in how the book looks) is good. Being that I was talking about character creation as an SOP, however, I look like a horse's rear end.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 00:58

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Arivia posted:

Huh? There's a character creation system in MHR - starts on OM110. It's a pretty good example of all this because it comes after the game has explained the rules and then everything on character sheets to you. People just don't USE MHR's character creation much/find it too mushy for them.

They don't use it because it's about a paragraph's worth of "Do whatever feels right" extended to several pages.

quote:

To create your hero the way you want, you need to know as much about him or her as you can. If you�re already a big fan of the character from the comics, that�s the best source. Maybe you�ve read about someone in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, or on the Characters archive at Marvel.com. These are all great resources.

For many characters, you might have Marvel�s own official rankings in areas like Strength, Energy Projection, and Speed. Take a note of those, but remember that this game doesn�t completely line up with the Power Grid�s system of measurement.
You may even disagree with how they ranked your favorite character, so just go with your gut. The game is quite forgiving! And you can always change your hero datafile later if you and the Watcher agree that it�s not quite right.

From this information, write up a short summary of the hero. Write down his name, his origin story or background, some notes about his powers and skills, notable catchphrases, that sort of thing. You should be able to hand this to someone who has never heard of your hero before and they should get a sense of who he is and what he can do.

...

Create Power Sets
This is probably the most time-consuming part of creating a new datafile. You have to summarize the important aspects of your hero�s super hero abilities in one or two bundles of tricks�in some cases, there are hundreds of ways to look at this.

We�ve found it�s best to think about it like this:

- Does the hero have a singular thematic set of powers?
- Does he have a special or unique item, weapon, or gadget?
- If some power-stealing tech were used on the hero, which abilities would go?
- If the hero is a member of an alien race, super-powered organization, or shared heroic origin, what characteristics does that group have in common?

Become familiar with the Power Sets section of Understanding Datafiles, beginning on page OM70. Look over a number of existing hero datafiles, or even some of the villains in an Event. Figure out what�s best served with a power trait and die rating, and what�s probably SFX. Some things may be stunts you bring into the game, especially if the hero only uses them once or twice in her own comic book. Give every Power Set you create at least one Limit, tied into the Power Set�s theme. Don�t be afraid to just copy a Power Set from an existing hero datafile. Rename the SFX, or the entire Power Set. Step a die up or down. Don�t worry about whether or not the hero is balanced; just assign die ratings and powers that best fit the description of the hero you want to play. The game is designed to make sure everyone gets their fair share of fun. Remember that it�s also a group activity. If you create a hero with d12 in every power, your friends are going to give you that look. You know the one.

Finally, you know the saying, �It�s an art and not a science?� That applies here. Power Sets are descriptive, narrative, and flexible. If it looks right to you, and the Watcher and everyone else at the table says, �Yeah, looks about right,� then it�s probably right!

This is how to assign hero abilities.

-Asking you to use outside resources, strike one... Or ignore them at your leisure! Whatever!

-No balance system or consideration of balance whatsoever

-Obvious predilection toward playing an established Marvel character

It's remarkably shallow, to the point of being lazy. Notably, fans have done work on trying to establish a point system or really anything.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 02:22

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Covok posted:

To be fair, it's an uphill battle, really. How can you balance all of the Marvel superheroes? They were never meant to be balanced. Spiderman, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man were once all on the same superteam. The writers usually b.s. balance in by just writing things a certain way so, considering the chargen system was intended to just be importing or updating heroes from the Marvel Universe, that's really as good as you can make it. The main hope being the internal Plot Point economy and the nature of the dice system to keep some semblance of balance.

Several games have been released over the years that make the attempt to balance not just Marvel heroes but just about any hero (some of them end up awful, true). Also, for what it's worth, almost all the A-level Marvel heroes are cosmic or near-cosmic, if not in description then in deed.

quote:

Actually, my problem wasn't with character creation but with the first chapter that tries to explain how to play the game. Every time they explain a new trait on the datafile, they go into the vagaries of how you can add dice, step up dice, combine dice, keep extra dice, drill holes in dice, run a string through dice, feed dice up your butt. Then they do it again, like a dozen times.

Only after plowing through this tedious poo poo do they explain what Assets, Complications, and Stress actually do. There is a term for this writing style. It's "Kevin Siembieda."

Let us forget I mentioned this game.

At the moment I am actually struggling to come up with another game that does what I would like games to do. 3E certainly doesn't do it; prestige classes and magic items are hidden in the DMG for no real reason (perhaps other than to pad out the DMG).

# ¿ Feb 1, 2017 20:51

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Dragonlance's system of magic alone is hilarious and the most D&D thing ever, more D&D than anything Ed Greenwood could put together. A sorting hat figures out whether you are good, ambiguous, or evil, and then the evil wizards are not only allowed to exist at all ever, but in the middle of a city with a haunted lawn. This is the 200th dumbest thing about Dragonlance.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 12:05

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

What are the pros/cons of T&T vs. D&D?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2017 02:29

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Siivola posted:

That's a really promising idea and I love it.

Total time needed to finish one dungeon: 8 real-time years

# ¿ Jul 8, 2017 05:32

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Let's not varnish the subject. It's not like you are buying consumer goods and it happens that certain CEOs involved in the manufacturing chain hold depraved political viewpoints, you're giving money to a Nazi in an already-saturated hobby market because you don't give a gently caress.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2017 00:03

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Halloween Jack posted:

IME D&D never had great rules for handling stuff beyond the individual level. Like, IIRC the rules for building your own castle were more focused on literally mapping out all the turrets and staircases and poo poo instead of good rules for mass combat and domain management.

It probably got left behind for the same reason that careful tracking of maps, time, and logistics fell by the wayside--the way that D&D modeled it is too fiddly for most people.

The Rules Cyclopedia has rules for mass combat that I recall being at least OK.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2018 20:05

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 20:06

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

While searching for something else the other night I found this for use in my 4E group. Most of us have laptops and/or touchscreens.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/character-viewer/9wzdncrdlz0v

We've now tested its functionality at the table and it went off without a hitch for 6/7 people. The seventh guy had weird display problems with it on his laptop where some of the powers overlapped.

# ¿ May 5, 2018 07:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E