This could really be a topic all its own.They also provide cover to players to play with integrity in situations where common tabletop rpg culture would put pressure on them to be more of a team player.
This could really be a topic all its own.They also provide cover to players to play with integrity in situations where common tabletop rpg culture would put pressure on them to be more of a team player.
I don't see how this could be a general truth about RPGing. Maybe it's a truth about a certain sort of approach to D&D, Classic Traveller and maybe RQ.isn’t combat (besides being fun) really the result of failing to overcome challenges in more interesting, and in many ways less risky, ways?
Just to add to my post half-a-dozen or so upthread, and also [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s post just upthread of that - what you describe here is an offer, not a challenge. It invites the player to make a calculation or choice of some sort.As as a quick example - let’s say your the chaste knight. You are promised Excalibur for giving up your chastity. Do you take that offer? Is that not having your character challenges while still maintaining full control of it?
This is why I keep saying that you don't understand 4e's mechanics and combe resolution system.And by that we can reasonably extrapolate that for game purposes a cave troll has lots of hit points and-or a high Con score.pemerton[/quote said:This is why I say you don't undertand the 4e combat resolution mechanics. This claim isn't true of 4e; hit points aren't a description of anything. The toughness of a creature is described in the fiction - just as (say) JRRT conveys that the cave troll is tough.
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Just as you can't say a creature described as being particularly tough (relative to other creatures) in the fiction doesn't have lots of hit points, you can't say a creature with lots of hit points (relative to other creatures) isn't tough.
Put another way, hit points (relative to the hit points of other creatures) are just one more means of expressing and describing toughness and resilience.
This is just nuts - you're now saying that 4e is inconsistent and mistaken because it uses a different combat resolution framework from the one that you're used to!And if 4e wants to (rather oddly) claim that this doesn't apply then that's its problem, not mine.
In D&D there is no limit - neither a hard one, nor even a soft one based on principles - as to how many special abilities a GM can use and how many saves s/he might force.Look through the Monster Manual and tell me how many mental/emotion control powers there are that don't give a save. D&D does demonstrate quite clearly that the DM is supposed to make these sorts of things resistible. And the comment on the number of saves is just odd. What does that have to do with anything we've been saying?
In D&D there is no limit - neither a hard one, nor even a soft one based on principles - as to how many special abilities a GM can use and how many saves s/he might force.
This is not a universal truth of RPG design: I quoted the principle from Prince Valiant upthread; Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic uses the Doom Pool to modulate the challenges the GM introduces; other systems have other sorts of devices here.
Huh? Are you taking Frogreaver's meds, too? The ask is to explore the reasoning behind the sudden change, not to refute it if doesn't meet guidelines. Heck, @Aebir-Toril even says they wouldn't know what to do with "lol, magic sword duh" which strongly suggests that this would just be a confusing answer, not one that's censored.
Perhaps I'm wrong, and AT really is running roughshod over his players, but I haven't gotten that at all, and it requires adding words to what they've posted to get there.
You really can't just say, "Nah, this has no impact." or it's not core to the personality of the character. A challenge to the core will have an impact either way it goes
Sounds like roleplaying thought police to me.
Ever seen/read a fictional noble character who succumbed to temptation or other base instincts? Like...all of Greek literature? Shakespeare?
Conversely, imagine the opposite: the noble and pure character who *never* does. Like...in moralizing cartoons for small children?
Now, maybe said player is just greedy, and isn’t trying to roleplay a dramatic fall from Grace, but in trying to distinguish between the two you’re falling into the same trap as the anti-metagaming crowd and trying to police their thoughts.
Don’t play with people you don’t want to play with, but expecting (or trying to force) people to roleplay a character the way you think it should be role played just ain’t gonna end well.
Somebody above referred to immersion. Put the player in the situation where he is genuinely agonizing over a moral choice, and he will feel like his character feels. That’s a win before he even makes the decision.
I might be wrong, too. Let me break down how I read it:
In my book, that's something that DMs do only if they are trying to enforce "correct" roleplaying.
Again, maybe I'm mis-reading it all.
Folks keep using the dice rolling of combat as some kind of standard against which other activities are measured, but isn’t combat (besides being fun) really the result of failing to overcome challenges in more interesting, and in many ways less risky, ways?