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Post by henryhankovitch on Aug 13, 2012 15:13:57 GMT -8
Yes much clearer . . . But it all presupposes what expectations you bring to the table and the system . . . Mention d20 and people assume a certain type of RP structure and flavour when, as noted its actually very neutral at its heart - the d20 being a simple resolution mechanic like d100 or d10 die pool or 2d6 . . . It's the fluff added to the basic mechanic that gives flavour. D20 as a system is more than just "roll a d20 against a target number. It includes the race/class/level structure, incremental stat bonuses, AC instead of DR, abstracted HP, no hit locations, and so on. These things are common to most D20 games out there, and give us a set of mechanical concepts to use when comparing it (implicitly or explicitly) to other systems. The mechanics of D20 absolutely influence the flavor of the games you run in it. A gunfight in D20 Modern would look entirely different from a gunfight in GURPS or Savage Worlds or BRP; and trying to emulate the feel of any of those systems in D20 would require changing so many things that there's little point in calling it D20 from a mechanical standpoint. FFG's Warhammer 40k games and Call of Cthulhu both use a percentile system; but they're entirely different systems with a completely different feel, each going for a different in-game atmosphere.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Aug 12, 2012 6:20:22 GMT -8
Acthually, a true gamer would know that if you take two levelsh in Cleric you can get the Divine Pyromancer from the Player's Guide to Bummington, and then a level in War Wizard from Complete Simian, and then a feat from the Book of Erotic Fantasy and the Wyrmsdong Sceptre from More Loot Tables (Than You Can Handle), then you can totally cast a 20d6 fireball as a thwift action five times a day as long as the character has a foreign object lodged in hith rectum.
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Metrics
Aug 6, 2012 19:35:44 GMT -8
Post by henryhankovitch on Aug 6, 2012 19:35:44 GMT -8
I'd suggest some sort of Actual Play, but I dunno if people have much interest in that.
An AP featuring Windy Draws would be hazardous to my employment.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Aug 6, 2012 15:23:11 GMT -8
There are two mechanical elements of 3E/D20 that I think detract from its usefulness in fantasy-world roleplaying. The first is the meteoric power increase in the game. A D20 character can go from getting his butt kicked by household pets, to a demigod looking for other demigods to kick in the nuts. This is an arc that (I contend) doesn't actually exist in almost any fantasy setting or genre. Sure, callow youths go out, gain experience, discover power, acquire swag; but at the end of the day you still have a more reasonable envelope of their abilities within the world. A character from Lord of the Rings is never going to turn himself into the comic-book Superman, no matter how many orcs he kills. The second element is what I call "Inspector Gadget magic." Magic in D20 is neither mysterious, nor generalized, nor particularly esoteric. It consists of a wide array of extremely specific and completely reliable tools. Need a horse? Cast your Summon Horse spell. This creates a world where the supernatural becomes commonplace and contemptible. Magic is only feared if you can't find any bigger magic. I don't think either of these design elements prevent you from roleplaying, or "ruin the system," or whatever. But I believe they create a world with a very bizarre metaphysics, which is hostile to the sort of narrative that most of us want to create. Aragorn doesn't fit in D20; nor do Conan, Fafhrd, Tyrion Lannister, the Black Company, the element-benders from Avatar, Vlad Taltos, or damn near anyone else in fantasy media.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 30, 2012 15:40:36 GMT -8
On planning: I've used the 5x5 method several times for brainstorming and diagramming multiple plotlines. I don't know where I first heard of it, which means it may have been mentioned in the steamy HJ backlog somewhere. It's been quite useful in my recent Rogue Trader campaign, where I have PC-specific plotlines interlacing with the "main quests," and so forth.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 30, 2012 15:35:43 GMT -8
Regarding the discussion of the "Honor-Bound" disadvantage and the powergamer... A perfect illustration of this sort of conflict is in Saving Private Ryan, when the soldiers take German prisoners at the machine-gun nest.
Upham (the effete translator guy) is in the honor-bound role: he doesn't want the prisoners to be summarily shot, because it's against the rules of war, human decency, et al. The other soldiers are generally in favor of shooting them because their good friend the medic just got killed and they want payback. The captain (Tom Hanks' character) doesn't want to let the Germans go because they're likely to just re-join a German unit and keep fighting; they might even manage to re-occupy the position after the Americans leave. And the sergeant (Tom Sizemore) is basically acting as the shield between the officer and his men. He doesn't express any opinion about the morality of the situation; his job is to make sure that the captain's orders are carried out, whatever they are. He ends up threatening to shoot one of the American soldiers not because he's opposed to executing the Germans, but because they're questioning orders and threatening to mutiny.
So if you statted out all those characters as PCs with various traits or disads, you could see how they conflict in a quite realistic scenario. I don't think there's much argument to be had regarding the situation in the listener email; I just thought this made for a good illustration of a situation that the minmaxer had argued was farfetched or contrived.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 27, 2012 16:30:54 GMT -8
An important distinction to make is that magic being commonplace isn't the same as it being boring or flavorless. That's something the article is quite right about. Just because lots of people have magic swords, doesn't mean they can't be an interesting facet of the game world. i48.tinypic.com/2vjymps.jpgSo in Artesia, for instance, magic enchantment (as described) is quite common among the warrior classes. Lots of soldiers in the setting have them. They're actually common enough that having some magical glyphs on your weapon can go unnoticed or be unremarkable in the company of other nobles or well-off mercenaries. Magic in Artesia comes in a variety of forms, and the consequences of its use are a major part of the story. Another great example is Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. It's an urbanized high-magic setting, where the wealthy have access to things like healing, teleportation, and even resurrection. But it's actually part of the culture in the books; their society reflects the fact that they depend on magic on an everyday basis. For instance, they distinguish between a simple assassination, and a "finalization" in which the victim cannot be magically resurrected. The narrative problem is different than the mechanical problem. A high magic setting doesn't mean magic has to be boring; but a setting in which magical items are bought and discarded regularly will create player contempt for those items.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 25, 2012 17:04:10 GMT -8
The problem isn't a matter of nomenclature or narrative themselves, but the power treadmill of modern D&D. It creates a world where weapons and equipment are both numerous and regularly replaced; you go from a +1 sword to a +2 shocking burst sword because you must. This provides an inherent disincentive to put narrative investment into most magical items.
Whether I call a weapon a +2 Greataxe or "the masterwork of Throg Elf-scalper, legendary orcish forger, gifted to you at your grandfather's deathbed," the player is still going to put it in a box and forget about it when he finds (or purchases) that +3 Greataxe.
Since I've been playing games with a flatter power curve, like Call of Cthulhu and Rogue Trader, I've come to appreciate how players are more likely to invest in "signature weapons" because they like the flavor, rather than constantly going to the weapons shop to look for new magical swag. That's not to say they stop valuing powerful weapons; but the CoC investigator who has a BAR or tommygun in his trunk because it's killy is also likely to carry around an ivory-handled Bowie knife or a Webley revolver because it reflects some part of his character.
It's just another case where the game mechanics of D&D create a game world which has nothing in common with either historical reality or fantasy fiction. Conan doesn't go to every town's blacksmith asking if they can make him a sword with an extra "plus" on it, because he's not a D&D character.
So I guess what I'm saying is, this is a case of a "D&D problem" being presented as an "RPG problem."
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 22, 2012 11:51:30 GMT -8
The ideal campaign length is fourteen sessions of 4-6 hours apiece. No more, no less.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 16, 2012 15:24:15 GMT -8
On a related subject... The Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy, as mentioned in the show, is one of my favorite fantasy works evar. I was really excited to see that Elizabeth Moon was writing sequels to it. And then I see this: This is one of those book covers that I feel compelled to turn face-down when I'm taking it off of the shelf, hiding this romance-novel Fabio bullshit on my way out of the library. (Also, the very first Paksenarrion book, Sheepfarmer's Daughter, is apparently one of Baen's free books. So go read it, if you haven't already.)
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jul 16, 2012 15:15:04 GMT -8
The lads reference this bit of Exalted cover art: Speaking for myself, I'm not offended by lingerie-sorcereress outfits, peekaboo nipples, or LOOK AT MY PUDENDA, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR poses. I just don't want my porn on my gaming table. I like tits; but I don't have titty posters framed on my wall, because I'm a grownup. I'm immediately disinclined to buy any book with a cover like this, because gaming is a social activity, and gaming books are just as much a public display as a t-shirt or a table centerpiece. That's a sort of quiet hypocrisy, I'll admit. But it's one of those common, everyday bits of hypocrisy that lets us mostly get along with each other. I don't want to hear about my aunt's new vibrator at the dinner table, and I don't want to go to game night and pull out a book covered in giant anime titty-monster. It's crass, and it implies I lack taste or discretion.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jun 21, 2012 17:27:48 GMT -8
Thing is, trying to subdivide attributes into some kind of mathematical model of real-world human performance just leaves with an unwieldy mass of stat mechanics. You end up with a clusterfuck that looks like this: For most situations and systems, there's simply no good reason to have more than 6-9 main character attributes. The areas of narrow distinction are better handled via the skill system. You don't need to model the difference in physical ability between a watchmaker and an Olympic gymnast within the agility/dexterity attribute; you just give the watchmaker a high Watchmaking skill and no Gymnastics skill. Differences in innate physical ability tend to be much less pronounced than differences in training and experience anyway. No matter how naturally agile or intelligent he is, a novice watchmaker is going to have trouble fixing watches compared to the person who's been doing it for ten years.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jun 13, 2012 16:52:43 GMT -8
In a horror game, especially Cthulhu, running away should always be a viable option, but it should have some pretty severe consequences. By running away, the evil is now free to do whatever it wants unchecked and those cowardly assholes probably just doomed the planet. They should never get off scott-free for tucking tail and running. Well yes, that's why it's option number four on the list. The point isn't actually "keep your players from running away because it ruins the game." It's that one of the fundamental elements of a horror scenario--whether in a game or a novel/movie/whatever--is the plot element that keeps the characters from just Getting The Fuck Out. Those that don't usually end up feeling ridiculous, like slasher movies where the kids are clearly too stupid to leave the haunted drive-in.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jun 9, 2012 12:55:45 GMT -8
From the DoucheyDM article:
I think one of the most important parts of putting together a CoC scenario is constructing it such that the characters either cannot leave, or are heavy disinclined to flee the situation entirely. "There's a creepy haunted house, would you like to explore it" fails to work as soon as a character says, "fuck this, I'm getting out of here." So, ways to keep your CoC characters from leaving town:
1) Lock them in with the monsters. Put them in a situation where they literally cannot leave the horror without likely death. An infested spaceship, a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, an Antarctic research station, a mountain resort that's snowed in for the winter. The old "your car breaks down in creepytown" is the cliche way to do it. The players HAVE to deal with the horror if the only alternative is to jump overboard to certain death.
2) It's their duty. Make the PCs soldiers, policemen, intelligence agents, or some other group who have no choice but to go take care of a situation. This one isn't ironclad--they still may want to go AWOL when things get bad--but the desire to avoid punishment or disgrace should be enough to get the characters in over their heads. Delta Green cells investigating the supernatural, FBI on an X-Files case, KGB agents going after enemies of the state, etc.
3) Escape is the whole point. When the horror goes down, they're in the middle of it, and getting out of town is not only an option, but probably the best option. You could combine this with "you have to go in and get something/someone before you can escape." This is your typical zombie scenario.
4) If they ignore it, it will get them anyway. This means you give the players some sort of information up-front that implies they cannot actually flee the horror. If they leave the cultists alone, they'll raise Cthulhu and destroy the world; if they skip town after watching the evil VHS tape, then Demon Girl will just come crawling out of the nearest TV after you; or the government will keep hunting them down until the PCs get rid of whatever is haunting them.
Most effective horror uses some combination of these. In It, the kids have to face Pennywise because they're effectively trapped in town--they're all under 13 and have no means to leave if they wanted to. And as adults, they're duty-bound to come back to town and finish the job because they know that Pennywise will keep coming back and killing future generations of kids. And it isn't just about preventing the game from ending prematurely; it's there to keep the suspense level high. In Alien, the crewmen are not only dealing with a murderous monster, but they're dealing with a creature that they can't just stab/club/blow up without potentially crippling their ship and killing themselves. It makes their situation that much more dire.
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Post by henryhankovitch on Jun 8, 2012 20:10:03 GMT -8
For about a year, I was playing in a Rogue Trader game with my regular group. Good times were had by all, shenanigans ensued, etc. The campaign came to a close, and I took over GMing.
Now I'm going to start GMing a new Rogue Trader campaign, set in the same continuity about 15 years after the last game. And my friend--the GM from the last campaign--has come up with a character from one of the factions that our PCs dicked over previously. He's out for revenge--specifically targeting my old character, among others.
So now I have this conflict of interest. I liked that character; I don't want him to get destroyed because I'm happy with the place his story ended. On the other hand, this game is about these new PCs, not this NPC I happen to like. It's a good character concept, and I have no other reason to pooh-pooh it. I could always just ignore that part of the character background and never provide opportunities for direct interaction, but that just seems like a passive-aggressive form of douchebaggery. That would mean ignoring the player's central source of conflict.
So am I a douchebag for not wanting a PC to go gunning for a certain NPC just because I happen to be attached to it?
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