maxinstuff
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Posts: 1,939
Preferred Game Systems: DCC RPG, Shadowrun 5e, Savage Worlds, GURPS 4e, HERO 6e, Mongoose Traveller
Favorite Species of Monkey: Proboscis
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Post by maxinstuff on Jul 16, 2013 20:24:05 GMT -8
1) Making Feats equal to a +1 boost to an ability score. The problem with this is it's a very nebulous and variable unit of measure. Is boosting an ability score from 12 to 13 worth the same as boosting that ability score from 19 to 20? Only if all feats are ostensibly equivalent to a +1. This scales fine due to the linear curve in d20. Although I doubt this is the case. More likely the decision will be between a situational +2, 3 or 4, vs an 'always on' +1. This is the kind of trade-off you make in GURPS character gen. Interesting. 2) Assuming that players will take both a mix of ability score boosts and Feats, when Feats are being used. I think this is a dangerous thing to assume, as you may end up with broken math. If official WotC adventures are built assuming that groups using the optional Feat rules will also take ability score boosts, will the challenges be too difficult for player who've chosen only Feats for their character? Possibly. What percentage of ability score boosts is WotC assuming players will swap for Feats? 50%? 25%? 75%? Whatever they decide on, players who don't take that percentage will be at a disadvantage. If the choice is between a situational >+1 bonus and an 'always on' +1 then everyone will take a mix. The challenge will be making sure all feats are useful/desirable enough for it to be an actual decision. I expect there will be a new 'dump-feat' phenomenom, where the less desirable feats are always exchanged for a +1. The concept is intriguing but it sounds like it will be extremely dificult to get right in practice. I find it hard to believe that any optimizer will be able to resist permanent +1's.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 16, 2013 20:57:40 GMT -8
God dammit (curmudgeon voice) - the big problem with feats and +1 ability scores is the old one: power creep. It broke the cavalier class in 1e (and it was well fucking broken). It broke 3.x having an ability increase every so many levels. I just don't get the designers obsession with increasing ability scores - except to satisfy the munchkin: why bother, they're only gonna cheat at character generation anyway? (eg: "oh look I just rolled 4 18's a 17 and a 16 . . . Honest") Don't forget the last rule of fight club 'if it's your first night you gotta fight' Aaron
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Jul 16, 2013 21:09:04 GMT -8
LOL. I am both an art major and a hippie gamer, so I'm doubly allergic to numbers. Heh. Here's the thing though. In hippie games that aren't really intended for tournament or organized play, the social contract of the game says the players will police themselves. The group, as a whole, will reach a consensus about what is fair and appropriate for the game. The rules will be interpreted and adjudicated by the players (including the GM) according to that group consensus. It is possible, and probable, that different groups will interpret the same rules differently. Which is fine, so long as everyone in that group agrees with the rulings. And no CreativeCowboy, that does not mean I think that GM = System. But for games like D&D 5e that are intended to be played in tournament and organized events, especially ones designed so that players are able to take their character to any store in any part of the world and play with any group running that event, things have to be standardized. In that case, the rules of the system have to be consistent from play group to play group. They have to be written in such a way that almost everyone reading the rules will interpret and apply them the same way. Otherwise organized play doesn't work. D&D 5e is trying to do both, which is why they are creating rule modules. That allows them to pick and choose which modules will be used in "official" organized play events (ensuring that all characters will be roughly equal across the entire organized play network), while allowing home groups to pick and choose modules they want to play with. I do not see this as railroading GMs. If you want to run an official organized WotC event, you have to play by Wotc's rules. When you're running your home game, use as many or as few rules modules as you want.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jul 17, 2013 0:07:27 GMT -8
I'm taking exception to certain completely outlandish statements you keep making. Fun things like "I never read this article, but let me tell you what he's got wrong!!" ayslyn Mearls says so himself. I mean you do not have to listen to me to listen to him. Did you read his comments from the escapist (I twice quoted)? I even blockquoted him. The author of that article even sums Mearls up as a contradiction. Yet, there is the official spokesperson for 5e for oyu, unable to even DM a game in a promotional video (part of his job not hobby, and for that I have no respect for him as a professional) – yet he claims to have been playing AD&D 1e with staff for two years. Really? Now what does his position and all his self-confessions mean to me? It means he should have certain and relevant self-knowledge. It means he is either surrounded by a bunch of yes men *cough*Monte’sFarewell*cough* who participate in a circle jerk rather than in a feedback loop or, maybe, he just doesn’t care. Possibly even both because he should be diligently seeking out criticism like how all of us look at 1-star Amazon reviews before buying. Instead, he is fawning and being fawned over. And this attitude of his is like a drop of poison that touches everything in contact with him. . Look at the dungeon map I will attach below. It is not playable from the book. It would be very difficult to photocopy out of the book because its placement is too near the gutter (into the margins of the book’s spine) and would cause great stress to the book’s binding. One drop of poison! Look at the promotional actual play video. One drop of poison two hours at a time! Look at the Legends and Lore columns and all the munchkin favouritism. Poison! Look at his conflicting verbal messages – kind of like the guy is a compulsive liar or, more likely, simply easily intimidated in person: a yes man himself. At some point, if you’re a critical thinking person, you make the connection. Same with me and you: I do not know Mearls and you do not know me. Am I silly? Well, to you I look to be. I should take exception to your comment except that you articulate it based on your experience with my posts. You’re being honest with me and, in fact, somewhat helpful to my self-monitoring. I am judging Mearls the same way. Except my response is different than Mearls’. I am engaging you. I care about our shared topic subject. HyveMynd LOL. I am both an art major and a hippie gamer, so I'm doubly allergic to numbers. Heh. There was a lot of hippie-artsey gaming in my experience of AD&D 1e over the years – more so than in my experience (as GM and player) with either the later iterations: 3e or 4e. 5e is going to unite those two games. If my players were not reading my posts here, I would post the tournament scoring system for the modules I am prepping, which show an outside the box approach to play (based upon the use of pre-generated characters to standardize and level the playing field. Back before everything became a spreadsheet, this was how it was done. (I cannot post the tournament scoring because I want to retain that nonstandard out of the box thinking from my players, which is the reason I bother to GM them rather than sit bored at a game of Pathfinder.) So much of the game in those days relied on hippie exposition rather than waking up players with the words “give me a check for X.” And a douche bag GM was that guy who did not play sociably or give foreshadowing in his descriptions. The best GMs were the ones that evoked emotional responses from players because this was the intersection of character immersion and player engrossment. It wasn’t listed on some “spreadsheet of balance.” The only independent sacrosanct system thing I have witnessed in all AD&D 1e games is the ‘to hit” charts and I have tinkered with them recently in favour of a “DC to hit” (i.e. ascending AC from 3e). Nothing else was a given in any AD&D 1e game as much as those charts. Everything was part of a hippie contract that started out humbly “as one DM equal to another.” Anyways, the game got further and further away from that open play style the more and more blanketed by rules and optional rules and design nerd hubris. The group, as a whole, will reach a consensus about what is fair and appropriate for the game. The rules will be interpreted and adjudicated by the players (including the GM) according to that group consensus. It is possible, and probable, that different groups will interpret the same rules differently. Which is fine, so long as everyone in that group agrees with the rulings. And no CreativeCowboy, that does not mean I think that GM = System. Say what you want to in public. I still know your secret. ::kiss:: You could add to **CENSORED** the house rules, the dumping of large and small portions of mechanics, the implicit and explicit trust between the players, the whole collaborative thing that permeates and forms the game system, the douche bag (experienced) player who becomes a better player, the player who plays his character sheet sitting next to the player who plays against his character sheet, the communication that happens to prevent Spheres of Annihilation from being a big douche bag gotcha moment. All those system bits, which are solely dependent upon the GM and the people who take up the GM-role (in GM-less games), could have been added to your definition of **CENSORED** but I understand. I am not big on public displays of affection either but you know I still love you.
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Post by guitarspider on Jul 17, 2013 0:14:23 GMT -8
I believe there's a major confusion about what a GM is and what a system is. If you drive to work in your car, you are not that car just because you changed the tires yesterday. Different people will drive the same car in different ways, but it still remains the same car.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Jul 17, 2013 0:23:08 GMT -8
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Post by guitarspider on Jul 17, 2013 0:31:00 GMT -8
I really wasn't aware of that before, but now that you put it like this...
Fred=Car, obviously. Because Fred becomes the car as soon as he jumps in right? Just consider all the tiny bits that might fall off, and how Fred might put some cushions on the seats and the social contract between Fred and the other people in the car.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 17, 2013 0:55:41 GMT -8
A) Time to be necromantic and resurrect *that* thread. B) Mearl's and his Angel McSpace horses for paladins in 5e = 'bad, bad, naughty Mearls now go sit in the basement with gimp til you've learnt your lesson . . . Don't wake the gimp mind or you'll be sorry'. That is to say I hate the paladin special mounts as per core 5e, no rationale, no mechanical concerns . . . I just fucking hate them because I think they're stupid. I also hate the way the word 'Paladin', with a pre D&D origin and established use, has been sorely abused - paladins were Charlamaines righteous . . . I stress RIGHTEOUS . . . motherfucking warriors of the Lord. Just because we all wanted an anti-paladin when we were 12 so we could reap the benefits and then rape our fellows players PC's doesn't mean we should be given one. A 'Blackguard' should be, semantically, a 'blackguard' ie a type of warrior/fighter NOT a type of Paladin. That's like saying Damien from 'The Omen' is a type of hebrew messiah . . . Except he wants to kill everyone bring forth the reign of Satan and four horsemen yadda yadda yadda . . . C) hippy's? . . . Hippy's!!! . . . Are you calling me a mungbean farting hippy?? are you saying I was one of the chronically unwashed?? . . . I do not have small hands nor do I smell of cabbage . . . Fucking hippy's . . . Don't trust 'em . . . Ahhh YOU must be a hippy to call me a hippy that explains it, yes, yes I see it all now . . . First the forum then next you know we're all eating slimy tofu burgers and hugging each other spreading diseases and farting other species into extinction . . . Aaron PS did I mention how much I hate hippy's, the real ones not the RPG type label . . . PPS please change the label for those (teeth gritted) 'hippy' (relaxes) games it would remove so much stress from my life if they were called something else. How about 'my little pony' games or even 'hello kitty' RPG's . . . I don't care just stop calling them (teeth clenched again) hippy's (relaxes again, notices tooth is chipped)
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 17, 2013 7:19:57 GMT -8
Mwah haw haw haw . . . done it I have . . . resurrected *that* thread is. Pick your weapons ladies and gentlemen cruise over and **fight**!!!! **CENSORED**? OSR vs NuSchool? start hacking I've a ringside seat and plenty of marshmallows . . . Aaron PS petrol meets fire ;D
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Post by Stu Venable on Jul 17, 2013 7:26:07 GMT -8
How about Kumbyya-singing, granola-munching, macrame-weaving games?
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 17, 2013 7:31:01 GMT -8
How about Kumbyya-singing, granola-munching, macrame-weaving games? Much better Though a cautionary tale from my youth . . . macrame bikini's are neither attractive nor practical. Aaron
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Jul 17, 2013 7:57:21 GMT -8
How about Kumbyya-singing, granola-munching, macrame-weaving games? Much better Though a cautionary tale from my youth . . . macrame bikini's are neither attractive nor practical. Aaron Although I think Macrame Bikini Of Tarantula Panties Power will be a feat in 5e.... How 'bout DRPG (derpa..derpa...or would that be more like Der Pig ?) DEEP ROLEPLAYING GAME ?
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Post by The Northman on Jul 17, 2013 11:59:32 GMT -8
GRRM. But I digress. You obviously have not watched the same books as I have read. I can name a more popular author who handled the same “drudgery” as GRRM but adroitly: the late David Eddings. There are others. Perhaps you’d like the list from the back of the AD&D 1e DMG? Realism and tediousness are not the same thing. I completely disagree with your examples. On the other hand, your assertion that Eddings is 'more popular,' than GRRM leads me to finally understand the weird, winding paths that your posts create: you may be writing from a different decade than the rest of us are living in. Also, out-snarking the competition does not a winner make.
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Post by The Northman on Jul 17, 2013 12:04:04 GMT -8
A) Time to be necromantic and resurrect *that* thread. B) Mearl's and his Angel McSpace horses for paladins in 5e Yes! Keep it alive!
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 17, 2013 12:16:06 GMT -8
Much better Though a cautionary tale from my youth . . . macrame bikini's are neither attractive nor practical. Aaron Although I think Macrame Bikini Of Tarantula Panties Power will be a feat in 5e.... How 'bout DRPG (derpa..derpa...or would that be more like Der Pig ?) DEEP ROLEPLAYING GAME ? Nah FATAL roll for pubic coverage and length. Deploy the mystic wax of Bra'zillica As to names - I rather favour 'fair trade' RPG's Aaron
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