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Post by The Barney on Mar 24, 2012 19:24:32 GMT -8
3.5 is a system that has to have the source material severely restricted to match the knowledge of the DM. My mistake when I ran the storyline as 3.5 was that the players were much more familiar with the system them me and like most players in that system, they loved it for the tons of material that enabled them to create minmax characters who (they thought) would be able to loop hole the rules past any need of role playing. I'm sure there are exceptions, but those players were just one more example of how broken 3.5 is and how those breaks are used by hack and slasher to bypass story... etc... (sorry. Got carried away. End rant.)
The 4e game was much better balanced and easier to run, but 4 of 5 players were new to table top. They learned the rules well, but since they were new gamers they couldn't understand when I needed to change the rules in small ways to add flair or drama to some fights. 4e is not designed for high drama situations orcombat. The math is to simple and specific. When the party walked in on the king of sharn being assassinated in his chambers thousands of feet above the city the assassins jumped out the window to escape! And only one character followed. I would have loved to have the falling fight scene as archers took pot shots at the Pc's as they struggled to control their fall enough to dodge the hundreds of airships in the town. It would have ended with a desperate last minute use of feather fall, to late and you risk damage, to soon and you a sitting duck stuck drifting as the enemies blend into the crowds. Insted the players new the rules to well to risk it.
Anyhow. I need less crap then 3.5. And better flavor then 4e.
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Post by ayslyn on Mar 25, 2012 17:48:48 GMT -8
That's not a mechanical problem, but a conflict between your expectations of the game, and your players.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 25, 2012 20:09:45 GMT -8
That's not a mechanical problem, but a conflict between your expectations of the game, and your players. Yeah, I would tend to agree. If I was a player and I saw an assassin jump out of a window that was thousands of feet above the ground to escape, I wouldn't jump out after him regardless of what system we were playing. I would assume that the guy died on impact, or lean out the window and watch what happened to him, not blindly follow him to my possible death. Rather than saying the rules prevented the PCs from doing what you wanted them to do in that situation, I think they simply didn't have enough of a story motivation to follow the assassin as you were expecting them to. Did you expressly set up facts in the world to indicate that the characters would be able to survive a thousand foot fall? Did they see other characters with D&D style jetpacks or using magic that would make a thousand foot fall survivable? If not, then you can't really blame them, or the system, for not jumping out the window like you wanted them to. Everyone GMs differently, and there is no right way to do it. But personally, one thing I try to avoid is forcing characters to take a specific path or chose a "correct" option. Either give the characters and players complete and total free will to solve problems however they want to, or don't give them any choice in the matter. If you wanted that thousand foot fall fight to happen, you should have forced the characters out the window somehow. It's not really fair to complain that they didn't jump out the window after the assassin if you gave them the option to not do that. Any rule system will break if you pile enough material onto it. Yes, D&D 3.5 has a lot of supplemental source books that introduced a whole host of new rules, but I certainly wouldn't say that it's broken. As DM, I feel it's your job to keep players in line when it comes to character power level. If you find that some supplemental rule is being broken or totally abused by a player, I think that it is totally within your rights as a DM to take that player aside and tell them that you think the combination is too powerful.
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Post by jazzisblues on Mar 26, 2012 6:45:38 GMT -8
That's not a mechanical problem, but a conflict between your expectations of the game, and your players. I tend to agree with ayslyn and Hyve here. It seemeth to me that the idea of a thousand foot fall out of a window being a viable means of escape or pursuit is unrealistic. I get the scene that the op was trying to get to, the idea of the falling fight is interesting, but at a 32'/sec squared acceleration it's just going to take a few seconds to fall that distance so at best you get 2-3 rounds of combat in anyway and at least 1 of those is going to be taken up not splatting when you hit the ground. In my mind, it's not the game system (either 3.5 or 4e) that's broken in this case, but the concept. As always just my 2 krupplenicks on the subject, your mileage may of course vary. JiB
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Post by clockworkmonk on Mar 26, 2012 9:26:40 GMT -8
JiB, how many krupplenicks do you have? There are starving children in Kruppleville who could use those to buy bread, you know.
Anyway, regarding the original question, maybe try out D&D retro clones? I'm currently investigating Castles and Crusades, but there are others out there that might fit the bill for fantasy adventure, too. A lot of these seem to be very compatible with D&D material, to the point that converting is largely simple between systems.
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Post by jazzisblues on Mar 26, 2012 9:30:02 GMT -8
JiB, how many krupplenicks do you have? There are starving children in Kruppleville who could use those to buy bread, you know. Anyway, regarding the original question, maybe try out D&D retro clones? I'm currently investigating Castles and Crusades, but there are others out there that might fit the bill for fantasy adventure, too. A lot of these seem to be very compatible with D&D material, to the point that converting is largely simple between systems. Amazingly I have an endless supply of krupplenicks ... Something should, however, be done about those poor starving Krupplekint. Cheers, JiB
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Post by The Barney on Mar 26, 2012 18:40:16 GMT -8
Really, thanks for the info on different systems and the different feels that they have in their fantasy settings. I’m sure I will use the info.
As for the actual scene with the assassins, I’m sorry I gave you guys the short hand version. You seemed to take it as an invitation to criticize what I may or may not have done with the rest of the game. So for the sake of my reputation, allow me to give you some more of the facts. The Kings palace was on the floating island between 12 and 14 THOUSAND feet above ground level, depending on the weather that day. Jib mentioned the 32'/sec squared acceleration that takes place on earth, but forgot about Terminal velocity, which determines that you do have a max speed based on your weight, density, and dimensions. My research said that on earth it would take about 7.8sec to fall 1000 feet. Since they were in my world, I decided that it would take the players 6sec or 1 round of combat to fall 1,000 feet. It’s nice to be god when you want to streamline the physics. The assassins went out the window 10 minutes after a NPC ally gave them pendants of feather fall to ease their fear of heights.
When the group is escorted into the king’s chamber, they walked in on the assassins fighting with the king. The assassin whom appears to be in charge looks up as the door opens, recognizes the party rouge (Who has no memory of his past) and say “There you are Therin. Still alive after all? I’ll fix that in a moment.” A few rounds of combat later, the assassins are starting to lose, so the boss calls a retreat. They all cover each other in organized fashion to the window where they jump into the darkness below.
This is the point were any Bourne rip off character that I was playing would have gone after them. Instead they help the guard check on the king because their attack card says they only have a range of 1. I didn’t mean to imply the mechanics were wrong for the story I was trying to tell, I was trying to say my players interpretation of the mechanics stopped them and me from getting the same FEEL from the game. Something that I’m sure a more rules light system can correct. The players will hopefully FEEL that they can do things that aren’t listed on their attack card.
Hopefully that clears things up. I’m not offended by people stating their opinions, but if you’re going to get off topic, please keep it short and don’t rip into what you think my flaws may be as a DM without more information.
On 3.5 I don’t have the time or money to memorize 3.5. I no longer play with those guys because being able to abuse the system is the only reason they play 3.5 and I shouldn’t have to force people to have fun by playing reasonable characters and follow storyline.
Hyvemynd – You came across and a condescending douche bag. Fuck you very much.
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Post by ayslyn on Mar 26, 2012 21:41:59 GMT -8
Whoa there TB. I think that you're reading a lot more into what we're posting than was intended. This is a problem we all face, every time we sit down behind the screen. It's not a criticism. It's just a fact.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2012 23:00:28 GMT -8
From my experience a rules light system actually tends to leave players extra cautious because they don't have as many guide lines. I love FATE for instance but the first three or four times my group played it they actually ended up doing less wild and creative stuff because they were paralyzed by the fact that they could do anything and thus did nothing. I had to railroad them into situations where only crazy shit could save them to get them out of their shells. Also rules light can sometimes be even harder to moderate because the lack of rules means the players can actually "break" the game far easier since anything goes and getting around your carefully laid plans becomes a breeze.
On the other hand the 4E game I run and the one I play in have both been filled with incredible cinematic combats because we follow the rule that if its cool you can do it. My fighter routinely pulls off wall runs and flips and the like as he moves around the bad guys. I made him as a swashbuckling type and my GM lets me do lots of acrobatic shit with him because we both think its cool. The rules don't say I can do it, we just do it. But that's because we sat down and talked about it and decided that the coolness factor was more important then making sure we followed every single rule in the book.
More important then choice of system, before you start your next game sit down with your players and talk about the kind of game you want to run, give them examples of the kind of things you think would be cool to play out and make sure you get a list of the kinds of things they want to see. Once you are all on the same page then its much easier to alter and manipulate any system to give you what you want. If you make sure they know ahead of time that you are all for cool mid air acrobatic combats then you are more likely to see them jump out those windows.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 26, 2012 23:45:24 GMT -8
Hyvemynd – You came across and a condescending douche bag. Fuck you very much. Well, I certainly didn't mean to come off as a douche bag. I've noticed that happening more and more though. I suppose I should stop replying to posts while at work, as I tend to be rather pissed off for the 8+ hours I'm here. Maybe I can convince Stu to give me authorship status on the Douchey DM blog so I can spread my douchiness to even more people. I get why you're frustrated The Barney. I've run into occasions both as a player and as a GM where I felt that the mechanics of a game had a negative effect on the tone/feel/action of the fiction. This happened most noticeably for me in D&D 4e; those Power cards are very specific in how they work and what they do. It's a tough decision, that doesn't really have an answer. If you force the players to stick to what's spelled out on the cards, then they'll start to only think they can do those specific actions and don't do anything creative. But if you allow for actions that aren't on the cards, eventually the cards become useless as they get used less and less. This is part of the reason why I dislike 4e. It sounds like you want to switch over to a more narrative system, in which case I'd suggest Cosmic Patrol. Just a heads up here, but it relies on the GM coming up with a lot of stuff on the fly, but there is enough crunch behind it so that it feels fair. It's standard setting is a 1930's pulp sci-fi world with bubbledomed spacesuits and Venusian Automen, but it would be really easy to reskin it as a fantasy game. You'd have to come up with your own rules for a magic system though, as one doesn't currently exist. Or if you want something more structured, check out the Ubiquity system that comes in the Hollow Earth Expedition game. Again, you'll have to reskin it, as the out of the box setting is 1930's pulp action adventure. The upside is that there are already rules for magic, though not the earth shattering, mountain moving stuff you usually find in D&D. Or if you want to go darker, use the new World of Darkness system. It and Ubiquity are quite similar, though nWoD is grittier and feels more dangerous. nWoD is probably my favorite system because it's so flexible, and also because I've never felt like the rules got in the way of the story. All that being said though, this could just be an issue of explaining the tone and feeling of the game you want to play with your players. My group call me "the Art House GM" because I'm all about tone and feeling during my games. It's lead to problems in the past because I wasn't clearly communicating what I was expecting from my players before we started playing. They would propose characters that I felt weren't appropriate and I'd veto them, or they'd do things in game that I felt "ruined" the tone I was trying to establish. It lead to some frustration on both sides, and some games ended up collapsing because of it. I've learned my lesson from those mistakes, and now I always make it a point to try and lay out as clearly as I can what type of game we'll be playing before we start.
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Post by clockworkmonk on Mar 27, 2012 6:26:39 GMT -8
From my experience a rules light system actually tends to leave players extra cautious because they don't have as many guide lines. Mmmm. Further proof for the theories that no two gaming groups are alike! I have the complete opposite experience with rules-light gaming. The D&D 3.5 group I'm part of typically played cautious and wary, usually sticking to the rules as written for movement and combat because. Well. It was all spelled out there in the rule set. My Savage Worlds game, on the other hand, is typically full of "All right, I'm going to go ahead and do this crazy stuff now, everyone watch the awesome." It definitely is also linked to GM style, too, though. Our D&D DM was a lot more knowledgable of the rules and very much a "dice-and-rules-are-god" kind of GM while I aim for more narrativist gaming.
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Post by jazzisblues on Mar 27, 2012 6:38:20 GMT -8
From my experience a rules light system actually tends to leave players extra cautious because they don't have as many guide lines. Mmmm. Further proof for the theories that no two gaming groups are alike! I have the complete opposite experience with rules-light gaming. The D&D 3.5 group I'm part of typically played cautious and wary, usually sticking to the rules as written for movement and combat because. Well. It was all spelled out there in the rule set. My Savage Worlds game, on the other hand, is typically full of "All right, I'm going to go ahead and do this crazy stuff now, everyone watch the awesome." It definitely is also linked to GM style, too, though. Our D&D DM was a lot more knowledgable of the rules and very much a "dice-and-rules-are-god" kind of GM while I aim for more narrativist gaming. I think the nature of the gm is far more impactive on this topic than the game system but that's just my experience. I tend to be narrative and encourage the cool creative ideas but that's just my view. Cheers, JiB
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Post by clockworkmonk on Mar 27, 2012 9:55:35 GMT -8
I think the nature of the gm is far more impactive on this topic than the game system but that's just my experience. I tend to be narrative and encourage the cool creative ideas but that's just my view. Cheers, JiB Oh, this is true. I don't think my players went quite as crazy with stunts and all that when I DMed with 4e, but ... uh. I think it's a little telling when your players are still writing what basically amounts to fan fiction about it 3 or 4 years later.
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Post by jazzisblues on Mar 27, 2012 10:06:56 GMT -8
I think the nature of the gm is far more impactive on this topic than the game system but that's just my experience. I tend to be narrative and encourage the cool creative ideas but that's just my view. Cheers, JiB Oh, this is true. I don't think my players went quite as crazy with stunts and all that when I DMed with 4e, but ... uh. I think it's a little telling when your players are still writing what basically amounts to fan fiction about it 3 or 4 years later. I would say that means that the game was important to them, and that's a good sign. Kudos Sir. JiB
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Post by The Barney on Mar 27, 2012 12:13:12 GMT -8
I’m sorry I over reacted. I asked a question about systems and then felt like I was getting the “It’s ok to be a noob G.M.” speech. I’m sure it’s a conversation that you’ve had many times Hyvemynd while co-hosting red idle hands, but for some reason it grated on me. I make it a point to never railroad, not even for what I think will be an awesome scene and I would never punish my players for not doing something that I expect them to, though I did give the one guy who jumped out the window an extra item from the king as a reward.
After moving to a new state a few years ago I’m still trying to find a group that I can work well with as a GM and player. In an effort to help things mesh, I’ve been reading up on a lot of extra systems.
Thank you all for being less touchy then I was yesterday!
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