- 11:35 PM - Elfcrusher quoted Tony Vargas in post Game Mechanics And Player Agency
And, if you don't have such scenes, you've cut out half the game.
That doesn't leave a very large slice of the pie for Exploration...
- 10:09 PM - Lanefan quoted Tony Vargas in post What is *worldbuilding* for?
In 13th Age only PCs get One Unique Thing but the GM is certainly free to make NPCs equally unique if they like. To an extent I think this is a good idea - NPCs should certainly be interesting - but not so interesting that they step on the PCs' toes. 13th Age very much takes the view that the PCs are The Heroes, analogous to the protagonists in fiction.Ah. So kind of the opposite, then, of the small-fish-in-a-big-pond type of PC I prefer. Fair enough. :)
Why would a character with no player need to be a special snowflake? It's just there to be a challenge or a help or a source of exposition or whatever, the DM plays it for a bit, then the next one... Because the same rules that apply to PCs need to apply to NPCs, if the game world is to maintain any believability or verisimal...whatever that word is. The special-snowflake bits of any given NPC might never become relevant during its interaction with the PCs, but that doesn't mean those bits shouldn't exist.
Lanefan
- 09:56 PM - Jay Verkuilen quoted Tony Vargas in post Lost In Translation: Adapting Fictional Characters To Games
Yep, that's back to the OP's issue. You can get a lot more exact in modeling your vision of a fictional character in a point-build system than in a class/level system, but you still have to nail down that vision...
Yeah, figuring out what the vision is is one thing, but the game system often doesn't cooperate. I do think it's one reason why modern games often have mechanisms for extraordinary success above what is just generated by the dice. Willpower (from oWoD and nWoD), bennies from Savage Worlds, chips from Deadlands, Doom and Momentum from Modiphius games, and so on can help avoid having everything just come down to the dice. I think that goes a long way towards making fictional characters not need quite so maxed out abilities. D&D has had that in different times in the form of Action Points (from Eberron) or some of the human abilities, or Lucky and Inspiration in the current edition, but for the most part it's not really been a big part of D&D.
- 09:22 PM - Ovinomancer quoted Tony Vargas in post Game Mechanics And Player Agency
In 5e, specifically, the DM is Empowered to support or undercut player agency as he sees fit. A conscientious DM might always do the former, a bad one the latter, but a really good one, IMHO, will consistently present the appearance of the former, while judiciously doing the latter when it's best for the campaign & the player experience.
I disagree. The presented play procedures are as @Iserth keeps repeating: the DM narrates a scene, the players declare actions, the DM resolves the actions (via mechanics or declaration) and narrates the results. Wash, rinse, repeat. The amount of DM Empowerment is in the first and last parts, not the middle part. The players get the freedom to declare actions however they wish. They may declare impossible actions, to which the DM narrates failure, but the DM shouldn't be choosing player actions.
As for deciding what's best for the campaign and the player experience, under what metric is the DM determining this? What means does he use to divine this...
- 09:17 PM - Elfcrusher quoted Tony Vargas in post What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Or two corporations or two AIs, if you want to get all cyberpunk. The setting you've envisioned certainly seems ideal for it.
I'm just not sure how to take that story into an RPG neatly, because it's always a party of PCs. I've been toying with the idea of running a "Last Adventurer Standing" D&D game for years, but it never quite gelled for that reason.
Well, the world could use "more" (1?) RPGs that are ideal for 1 DM and 1 Player.
- 06:54 PM - hawkeyefan quoted Tony Vargas in post Game Mechanics And Player Agency
Particularly in the subjective sense, and by past experiences and expectations. Something familiar seems more intuitive and simpler than something new, even if, objectively, they're the /same/ thing, viewed from different perspectives. D&D is very complex, but the more you play it, the less you notice that complexity. Similarly, D&D deviates radically from many of it's sources of inspiration, so if you come into it with expectations formed from those same sources, it'll seem less intuitive than if you come to it with expectations shaped by past editions of the same game, or by, say CRPGs or MMOs - or fiction based on them - that cribbed heavily from D&D, themselves.
Sure, I agree with that.
But honestly, I don't think the addition of the word Chaotic or Lawful really muddies things all that much. My 8 year old self was able to suss it out pretty easily, and I wasn't some kind of prodigy.
Your level of concern or knowledge of past editions doesn't change the facts. If you prese...
- 04:15 PM - hawkeyefan quoted Tony Vargas in post Game Mechanics And Player Agency
Maybe 'backsliding' is an unfairly easy thing to hang on a game that set out, explicitly, and continually re-affirmed throughout it's playtest, the goal if evoking the classic game.
But, it is certainly going back to the 9-alignment system, and some mechanical impact, from a simpler/more intuitive (CG, LE, CN, LN, & TN having each thrown some folks) one with less mechanical impact.
Backsliding has a negative connotation and that is what I was disagreeing with.
Whether or not it's more intuitive or simpler will vary by person.
9 alignments is the middle ground between 9 alignments and no alignments? Wouldn't 4.5 be the mid-point. ;P
Seriously, though, it's fine to note that alignment has not been returned to nearly the invasive mechanical bugaboo it was in the classic game. Just don't kid anyone 5e 'reduced' that impact, anymore than it nerfed casters relative to the preceding edition.
5e is very much a compromise edition, so for any given horrendous D&Dism it's typically better tha...
- 02:45 PM - Irda Ranger quoted Tony Vargas in post Using beyond the wall's magic system in 5e
Don't see the point of 2 & 3. Why force the complexity of multi-classing on what promises to be a simpler variant?
So playing a caster doesn't suck.
You seem uninterested in maintaining fairness and balance between your players, but I'm not uninterested. I want to make sure that the guy who chooses to play a caster isn't punished for that choice.
If you want to limit casters to cantrips and 1st-2nd level spells, you can either (1) allow casters to keep leveling up but give them something else for it, or (2) just cap the level advancement and have them level up in fighter or rogue instead.
My first post (allowing all 1st and 2nd level spells to scale with character level) was an attempt at option 1, and my second post (just capping advancement) was a stab at option 2.
- 08:45 AM - Sadras quoted Tony Vargas in post Do you use skill challenges?
I don't use SCs. Instead, I set objectives in the game that can be met with skills, spells, or just creative role playing and I let the PCs go at it however they choose.
As an example, a bandit robbed a merchant near the PCs and they decided to chase him down. In 4E, this would have been an excellent option for a skill challenge. However, PCs might just cast hold person, teleport ahead of the NPC, persuade him to stop with a good threat, etc... Or they might engage in a lengthy chase involving several skill checks.
All that makes sense and I use those examples too. :)
As I said I'm not locked into the SC, I see it as another tool in the box.
SCs were part of a system that generally played best 'above board,' and they share that quality.
I'm not necessarily 100% convinced of this as I think it depends on the challenge (and the Rules Compendium allows for both options), but to be honest I know I do not have the experience you have had with the mechanic.
A game where the players do not...
- 03:56 AM - FrogReaver quoted Tony Vargas in post Lets design a Warlord for 5th edition
Why would it make sense to have a magical ability that you trade a weapon attack now for an extra die later?
The fiction is feeling out enemies (making 'probing attacks' if in melee, for instance) and observing the battle to gain tactical insight, obviously. It could also represent 'conditioning' tactics, in which you make a repeated pattern of attacks that the enemy can easily counter, then vary one part of it when they've gotten used to your 'predictability,' creating an opening.
That might be a lot more satisfying of an explanation if the character in question didn't also get uses of the same abilities without having to feel out enemies by making probing attacks etc.
- 01:55 AM - Jay Verkuilen quoted Tony Vargas in post Lost In Translation: Adapting Fictional Characters To Games
Entirely depends on the system.
A highly-customizeable build system, like Hero or a more freeform one like FUDGE/Fate, OTOH, lets you build to /your/ vision of the character in question.
Sure, you can often do pretty well but fiction characters often have a lot of abilities that make them require very high point totals. Furthermore, the game system may "fight" you to some degree, though nowhere like is the case with a class/level system.
- 01:23 AM - shidaku quoted Tony Vargas in post Lost In Translation: Adapting Fictional Characters To Games
Entirely depends on the system.
A class/level system like D&D? Nah, even at it's most customizeable (3.x) or balanced/re-skinnable (4e), it's unlikely to work well - maybe you'll capture the feel of the character at some level, if everything in the campaign comes together, possibly if you squint at it just right.
An officially-licensed system purpose-built to simulate a specific property? Maybe, if your vision of it matches that of the guy who wrote it closely enough, and the system's not just some slap-dash thing to make it technically an RPG because the RPG license was available relatively cheaply.
A well-researched GURPS worldbook? Again, if your vision is as well-researched and your research led you to the same conclusions. ;)
A highly-customizeable build system, like Hero or a more freeform one like FUDGE/Fate, OTOH, lets you build to /your/ vision of the character in question.
Sure, I'll generally agree with that. I'm not familiar with the system but I understand they'r...
- 01:10 AM - pemerton quoted Tony Vargas in post Lost In Translation: Adapting Fictional Characters To Games
I seem to recall there being several fairly satisfactory translations of Gandalf (my favorite only missed out on cantrips) these often involving the Shielding swordmage some times the Avenger. Early paragon with level 11 or 13 in most cases for Gandalf the White.
I felt both Half-Celestial and Deva captured Maiar, conceptually, better than cleric. And what did Gandalf (or anyone in genre, really) ever do that was at all D&D-Cleric-like?I thought "cleric" because it (i) gives ritual magic, and (ii) gives melee capability (in STR form), and (iii) gives the power to rouse allies' spirits by speaking a gentle word of encouragement (Healing Word), and (iv) gives the power to drive back the Nazgul (Turn Undead).
I though multi-class wizard to get access to Scorching Burst as an encounter power.
Aside from that Gandalf is a DMNPC argument.I know it's common, in discussions of LotR from a RPG perspective, to frame Gandalf as a NPC or DMPC. But I think it's fruitful to actually think of him as a...
- 12:47 AM - Ilbranteloth quoted Tony Vargas in post Let's talk power words!
The 'balance' is likely to be more in a 'right spell for the job,' way. Wish lets you do anything less powerful than a 9th level spell, the other 9th level spells each do their thing. Power Word Kill's thing is that it's a Power Word. Which used to count for something when short casting times (theoretically, the exact mechanics were iffy) made a big difference.
That shifts the balance consideration from "is character A able to pwn character B" to "does having character A in the group tend to obviate the contributions of character B to the group" It's not as big a shift as it sounds. 'Spotlight' balance is still important in 5e whether it's because you're all grandstanding rivals or because you're all trying to make meaningful contributions to your success as a team.
Yeah, spotlighting has never really been a thing in our games. Don’t know why. My players are happy to be a participating spectator if they are killed or otherwise disabled (actually generally insist on it unless there’s a g...