A Thread For Random RPG Musings

[assault]

First level (assuming any game that has levels) is generally the hardest to survive at.

And it's the level at which first time players start.

[Ninja-Bear]

15 minutes ago, assault said:

First level (assuming any game that has levels) is generally the hardest to survive at.

And it's the level at which first time players start.

That’s for sure. However on one thread a poster noted how in AD&D most classes got a HD bump and he still got railed by another poster. Having an extra 4 HP isn’t over balancing at all. P

 

Ok, I think Incan describe the irritation. If a game proclaims X and the mechanics doesn’t support that and a player/GM points that out I think that’s fine. It’s the defenders of the game who want to declare that the player is doing it wrong. Because the Defenders will tell you you need to play a different style of game in order to effective (which mechanically is usually true) however then this style doesn’t support the games original premise. For example Old School D&D is now described as Survival Horror. In many ways that is a more accurate description. 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Ninja-Bear

[assault]

I've been thinking of doing some old style D&D, except adjusted towards Swords & Sorcery.

Characters are humans, and not spellcasters. In fact, I've been considering making all PCs be human fighters, who spend most of their time fighting humans.

Alignments would be Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic, except the group needs to heavily tend towards one of these.

Naturally all this would set up howls of protest about how it's boring, etc, if I described it in a more D&D oriented forum.

All humans seems fine to me. Nonhumans in D&D tend to either be stereotypes, or deliberate subversions of the stereotypes, to the point of making it seem pointless to play that type of character anyway. Certainly, most of the stereotypes can be played as human.

The bigger problem is the "fighters only" bit. Obviously people are going to want to play rogues, but that seems more trouble than it's worth given what can be handled as skills in current D&D. And besides, Thieves were only introduced in Greyhawk. They weren't in the original boxed set...

Ultimately, it boils down to whether or not there is enough scope within the Fighter class to provide a reasonable range of PCs. I'm inclined to think there is, if you poke the players with a big stick made of suggestions.

(This character is a Scythian-flavoured Amazon from the steppes. This one is a shield maiden from a vaguely Germanic/Scandinavian culture. This one was trained as a gladiator by a decadent civilization....)

Hero would do it better, obviously, but D&D players are far more common.

[Cygnia]

Would your players be open to using HERO though?  Or maybe the Conan RPG instead?

[Cygnia]

[tkdguy]

How about giving the players different skills, so they have unique roles? One could be a hunter, while another could be pirate, etc.

[Ninja-Bear]

@assault, I’m at a loss by “no rogues” because of the D&D skill system. Could you elaborate? 

[assault]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@assault, I’m at a loss by “no rogues” because of the D&D skill system. Could you elaborate? 

Characters can climb etc. without having to be Rogues.

[Ninja-Bear]

11 hours ago, assault said:

Characters can climb etc. without having to be Rogues.

Ok, the way I understand it, the Climbing skill (in D&D) refers to sheer surfaces. So anyone has a chance to climb in classic D&D, you should just use climbing ropes and pitons and such to be successful.  If you want you could multi class fighter and thief to get those skills.
 

One thought on keeping fighters distinct is to use feats. 

Another thought about elves is that of course they are human however they are a different branch that developed psionic abilities. (These can be expressed as regular spells). They are super rare so I would only allow one in a group. 

[tkdguy]

I've been toying with the idea of a low-magic Rolemaster 2e campaign. I'd limit the professions to fighter, thief, warrior monk, alchemist, healer, and seer. I may just ditch the realms of power rule and just classify spellcasters as arcane.

[Cygnia]

[tkdguy]

DM's Fiat

[Cygnia]

[assault]

On 9/30/2023 at 7:09 AM, tkdguy said:

DM's Fiat

I don't really care what kind of car a DM drives.

[Cygnia]

 

[tkdguy]

 

 

 

 

[tkdguy]

 

[Ragitsu]

On 10/2/2023 at 10:06 AM, Cygnia said:

 

 

I'll take an expertly crafted railroad over a puny sandbox overgrown with hardy weeds any day of the week.

[Cygnia]

I always say "If you need to railroad, make sure it has a well-stocked dining car."

[Ragitsu]

A surprisingly detailed mini for an iconic AD&D 2e monster ->

 

Spoiler

 

[Cygnia]

I always giggled at the 1st ed MM where the rust monster was eating its border panel.

[tkdguy]

 

[Duke Bushido]

Wierd.

 

Any RPG that I really, _really_ liked had in common that there was no D20 (or 4, or 8, or 12, for that matter)

 

 

[Old Man]

I don't mind d20s but I always thought it was funny that every TSR game after D&D used percentile dice.

 

About the only dice mechanic I've seen that was an innovative as Hero's was Reign, where you thrown fistfuls of dice and look for sets, and count the number of dice in the set as well as the actual number on the dice.

[tkdguy]

I think that video was made for the folks who only play D&D. I think the point was that there's a lot of other games out there that are worth playing. We already know, of course, but we're in the minority.