Opal
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Posts posted by Opal
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IMX, a character idea that leads to me finishing the Disads first usually turns out easier to build and more fun to play.
- Joe Walsh, Pariah and Scott Ruggels
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3 hours ago, assault said:
True, but you still need some idea of what you want to change to.
Typically "world with you in charge," seems like?
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On 4/9/2023 at 4:19 PM, assault said:
To get a bit philosophical: how can you create a better world if you can't imagine one?
Imagine an even worse world and scare everybody with It?
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On 4/2/2023 at 7:33 AM, Ninja-Bear said:
As long as you describe and have the character do what the character would and not you then its roleplaying.
I'd add that it's key the character can be different from you, and the game's mechanics can model those differences.
Lack of adequately playable resolution for social interaction holds back a lot of games, that way. You may be able to play your version of the Scarlet Pimpernel when he's fencing or shooting or maybe even making a daring escape, but when it comes to sly manipulation or bluff or seduction, it's just you try'n to BS your GM into saying it worked.
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4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:
There you go; all fixed!
Just, as a general rule, I invariably feel offended by the whole "fixed that for you" neticism, even if its something I'd agree with.
But, yeah, y'know, hating your own nation/culture is a solid reason for never wanting to even play at (gold/silver age) simple heroism.
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1 hour ago, Cygnia said:
Nobody wants to be Heroic. 😕
If they want to be edgy, depressive, angst-ridden, self-destructive, anti-heroes in a morally shades-of-dark-grey, ethically bankrupt, dystopian nightmare hellworld, why can't they just go get jobs in Corporate America?
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Oh, I did have a few of these ...
Grossemesser & Kriegshammer (MF) - merc npcs in a grimmfarce setting where all the real supers were long gone and it was down to hasbeens and wannabes. They were superhumanly strong, like 28, but, think about a conventional gun with a calculated 28 STRmin.
Salt & Pepper (FF) street level conjured-knife thrower and rapid fire punch microbrick.
Thunder & Lightning (FF) brick w/linked flash:hearing & energy projector w/linked flash:sight. Painfully obvious. Standard silver age.
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When I say worst, I am, like giving 0e, AD&D1, and B/X a lot of attaboys, slack, and general handicapping for being developed in the hobby's first decade.
And 5e some serious demerits for actively choosing to throw away progress made by 3e and 4e.
Just objectively, 5e is less messed up than those early editions. Mainly because it didn't undo 3e's consolidation of all resolution on the d20.
Complexity is interesting, because there's both quantifiable complexity (all RPGs are pretty complex, some push that complexity to the GM), and perceived complexity. A lot of older D&D fans find 0e, AD&D, B/X, OSR games & 5e simple, because familiarity can mask complexity.
So I'm guessing you have a more objective view.
SpoilerLike, in both 3e & 5e, to resolve an attack, you either roll to hit AC, or make a saving throw. Same complexity?
Not quite. In 3e there's AC, Touch AC, and Incorporeal Touch AC. In 5e there's just AC.
OTOH, in 3e there's 3 saves, in 5e there're 6.
Then you do damage. In 3e you can do hp damage, non-lethal damage, temporary ability drain, permanent ability drain, and impose any of 36 conditions (including negative levels).
In 5e you inflict hp damage, can decide if it's non-lethal when you drop the target to 0 (in melee only), inflict hp damage that reduces max hp (energy drain), and/or one of 15 conditions.
You can see how 5e is objectively, or, at least quantitatively, a bit less complex, just from the common point of attack resolution.
A similar point of comparison is skills. 3.5 has 36 skills, 4 of which are placeholders for groups of skills, one for 9, one for 10, and two open-ended. So there's actually well over 55 skills. Not only that, but skills are rated in ranks from 4 through 24, and classes get between 2+INTmod and 8+INTmod ranks to distribute to skills on their list.
In 5e, there are 19 skills, only one of which, Tool Use, is open-ended. And, you are either proficient, expert (x2 progression), or non-proficient (no progression).
If anything, that's an even clearer advantage to 5e.
Then there's classes, the major choice in making your character. In old-school D&D every class had a different exp chart, gaining levels at different rates, got different numbers of different-size HD, different spells/day, different special abilities in different orders.
In 3e, they at least were all put on the same exp chart, and always got 1 HD/level (5 different HD).
5e kept that and put all the full casters but Warlock on basically the same spell progression, and only uses 4 different HD.
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On 4/3/2023 at 9:32 PM, Scott Ruggels said:
Looks like One D&D may be dead, in favor of incremental changes to 5e
I guess this thread has come full circle, then, from announcing ONE to giving it up as a bad idea.
That means we're getting Ten More Years of 5e, arguably the worst D&D ever.
huzzah 😐
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On 3/30/2023 at 8:36 AM, LiamEvans210 said:
What rule books have special rules in the social section that require players to think more than simply chat and throw dice?
You might check out Fate and Powered by the Apocalypse games. Those are both core systems that have been used to create a number of games each.
PbtA uses a structured system for resolving non-combat challenges that includes setting stakes and a 'clock' the players beat to succeed. (Im not doing it justice)
The one Fate game I've played was Dresden Files, I did like the way it gave you different approaches to social tasks - I haven't played in like 10 years, but the one that stuck with me was "open up" where you share an experience to elicit some information. So you have to think about whether it's a good approach, mechanically, and about your character's past and willingness to be vulnerable. (But, yeah, then you roll the weird fudge dice and count +'s & -'s )
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40 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:
I like to think the magic items found in wilderness and dungeons were mundane items imbued with the spirit of the person wearing/using it when they died under heroic circumstances
That's a more mythic take, I like it. Relics and artifacts sometimes start out like that.
I can imagine building a FH character around bearing such an item, an inheritor or fated weirder, taking advantage of the way indestructible/irreplaceable foci work.
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36 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:
What was Gygax reaching for while being limited in how that was expressed by his game system?
One interesting observation I came across is that early D&D had a lot in common with the Wild West (heck, it even had the "Gold Rush economy").
Kinda obvious once I heard it. You explore, kill whatever's living there already, pick up gold, carve a new land out of the wilderness.
My personal take is that Greyhawk was a post-apocalypse sci-fi setting with sufficiently advanced (and forgotten) ancient technology. That's what all those artifacts, relics, and weirdly common powerful magic items are.
I mean, it was inspired by the Dying Earth, afterall.
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35 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:
What is it about D&D that makes it feel like a D&D setting? WotC got it wrong in 4th Edition
Straight up and simple: overpowered casters, unbounded by any sense of game balance or genre fidelity, let alone realism; and strictly inferior non-casters, struggling against the system to do much at all, and, if anything, more constrained in options and ability than actual reality.
Fortunately you're not going for that.
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You mean you don't just randomly generate the planets as the players get to them?
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On 3/23/2023 at 7:03 AM, Fryguy said:
she is also able to copy their powers. Similar to morph from the old silver age ex man, his shoes, and the animated cartoon.
Anything like Rogue f/ X-Men?
Rogue was a head-scratcher for my old group for a long time. What we finally settled on, since the victim is out for the duration and Rogue was affected by their personality/emotions, was:
:drumroll:
Mind Control
No, really. It worked because, their emotions &c could overwhelm her and end the effect. There were some goofy doublethink limitations along the lines of "leaves body behind," but it surprisingly modeled at least one take on what her powers accomplished.
So, for your player's Mystique type, what happens to the target she touched & how long does it last?
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2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:
Even as much as I dont like DnD, the few fond memories I have of it revolve around "besting" the GM in the borderline adversarial think-traps of old school DnD.
I get the appeal, I just see it as a you had to be there kind of appeal.
I wouldn't want to inflict it on zoomers cause it was "good nuff for me when I was your age" or anything ;
2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:Dont get me wrong: I love a good RPG, I just dont want that version if DnD.
IDK if you meant to imply old-school dungeon crawling wasn't actually an RPG
But, yeah, it kinda wasn't. And for those reasons I pointed out, that you weren't really playing a denizen of a fantasy world, but a 20th century nerd being clever.
It was more of an immersive immaginary puzzle game. With survival horror imaginary stakes
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Queen of the Denonweb Pits seemed plenty high-level to me, at the time...
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I'm not sure I buy that OSR is gaining on the overwhelming popularity of current ed D&D (relative to all those other TTRPGs with 0 mainstream awareness), and even granting that, I see no reason it's anything beyond the obvious coattails effect from the same 80s comeback that's propelling 5e D&D.
(And maybe the OGL scandal, if were talking very recently)
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On 3/20/2023 at 7:13 PM, Duke Bushido said:
Any of you guys that still play- ia that still a routine need the, or sis they admit that it was just wandering damage and let it sie out?
I still play, but I'm an edition behind.
The classic dungeon crawl with all the explicit poking and listening and such arguably died with 3.0 and skill checks that actually worked. Your passive perception could spot traps & ambushes your disable device could actually disarm a trap. Your knowledge skills can identify monsters and recall their special abilities.
Less of the incongruous "player knowledge" being all important.
- Duke Bushido and Scott Ruggels
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On 3/10/2023 at 10:56 AM, Ppaddock said:
My other thought is to expand the real points of the gate pool by x5 or x10, so a 30/60 pool would be able to prepare 150 or 300 real points of prepared spells respectively. I’m thinking of this because once the powers are allocated they’re set until the player can spend an extended amount of time at their base.
They get a big limitation for the sanctum (more than -1, though IDK which version you're on days to change a power sounds major), so no, I wouldn't consider arbitrarily giving more real pts.
I'd imagine an adventuring mage would establish a sanctum when he moves into a region and adventure around it for a while before taking it down and moving on.
I quite like the idea of lesser spells using just the key burning END. It's be flavorful if it was just a handful of simple, well-known spells, so when a sanctum is lost the mage is not just weaker, but more predictable.
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On 3/14/2023 at 11:14 AM, Doc Democracy said:
One of the things the system is often critiqued for is not giving a character the ability to defend and area, stopping opponents from just moving past them unimpeded.
There's no latter D&D AoOs,,no, but held actions and multiple attack option cover it, in concept.
On 3/14/2023 at 11:14 AM, Doc Democracy said:What about a talent based on Barrier, when the warrior uses a defensive stance
Sounds fine. Weave a web of steel and hold back three men at once!
Until one finally breaks through your defense. ( I'm assuming Barrier is like earlier versions' Force Wall.)
Or you could do a continuous-controllable AE around yourself, everyone passing by you gets hurt.
Extraordinary Intimidate could do the trick... Or power based on that. Oratory to impugn their honor if they don't face you honorably could work similarly.
Bronze or Iron
in Fantasy Hero
Posted
Bronze!
And not just because I like Glorantha.
Ok, actually the Bronze/magic vs magic-incompatible iron thing, is cool. The Glorantha version where Bronze & Battlemagic is the norm and iron rare is an intriguing variation.
Next fantasy game I run I'm thinking of doing late Neolithic, with mystical-seeming metals being revealed as it progresses.