You mean it was only great when you remember it 20 years later after you have forgotten all the bad bits?
=;O)
Makes me feel all nostalgic for nostalgia.
A discussion of metagame concepts in game design
You mean it was only great when you remember it 20 years later after you have forgotten all the bad bits?
=;O)
Makes me feel all nostalgic for nostalgia.
I think this thread has devolved into three different threads.
Why don't you guys obsessed with giant's legs go get a thread of your own.
I appreciate the one guys advice but it was mostly "just think about them differently" which wasn't really what I was after in this thread.
As for WOTC, I am still undecided on whether they just chose to ignore us when not ignoring was almost free OR whether they really had no one one staff that fully understood our viewpoint.
When you design a game with essentially built in subclasses, you would think the controversial mechanics would go in the subclasses. You would think you'd then design subclasses that basically appealed to the different styles. By building second wind, action surge, etc. into the base they ruined every subclass. Again who knows what they were thinking. Bawylie in a short time gave an easy option they could have used. So I don't think it is design skill.
And while people who are really bugged by some of these things are rare, the cost to add them to their playerbase is really small.
Oh man, I am so sorry. I thought for sure by 36 pages in that someone would have solved your problem by now.
So, have you tried pretending that your character can only cast the Action Surge spell a limited number of times per day? Seems like that would solve your metagame problem.
heretic888
Explorer
Yeah, that would be me. And, once again, the "basic physics" says precisely the opposite of what you claim. Here are the articles I linked before (one of which is from the University of Virginia's physics department). I would suggest actually reading them this time:
https://www.wired.com/2016/07/giant-bfg-shouldnt-just-look-like-giant-human/
http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/scaling.html
*puts on math teacher hat* Look, guys, this isn't that complicated. A human being scaled up times 3 --- meaning, the same anatomical proportions but 3 times the height, 3 times the width, and 3 times the depth --- will weigh 27 times as much, because volume = length times height times depth and 3 times 3 times 3 = 27. So, basically, your suggesting a given column of support (say, an ankle bone) can be 3 times as thick yet somehow support 27 times as much weight. It just doesn't add up.
This is really, really basic stuff. Like, I teach this kind of stuff to my 8th graders basic.
Trotting out the T-Rex over and over is irrelevant because a T-Rex is not a scaled up human being. Their skeletal, circulatory, and respiratory systems are totally different from ours (they have more in common with birds than primates). Seriously, look at a T-Rex skeleton side by side with a human skeleton. Their leg bones are *massively* thicker in terms of relative proportions than ours are. All large animals are like that. Their bone structure is very, very different from that of smaller animals.
The only way to explain giants-as-scaled-up-humans is to basically wave our hands and say Its Magic! There certainly isn't any math to support their physiology.
A normal sized thigh bone can support up to 30 times the weight of a human.
Now I am no Maths teacher but it seems to me that 30 times support is greater then 27 times weight. And of course that is without taking into account any strengthening that would occur by making the bone three times as big.
Maybe you could run the math past one of your 8th graders to see if my calculations have any errors?
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Except that obviously a stupendous number of seem to like the game. What exactly is their folly?
I look at a game like...oh, all the Fantasy Flight Star Wars variants...and I just have zero desire to play. It's not at all how I would write a Star Wars RPG. It's pretty much the antithesis of what I look for in a game.
However my reaction isn't, "those morons at Fantasy Flight." No, I think, "Hmm...I guess a lot of people have tastes that are totally different than mine. That's a bummer, because I'd really like a good Star Wars rpg."
And yet your conclusion about 5e...despite its staggering success...is that WotC is a combination of malicious and incompetent.
That just comes across as staggeringly arrogant and delusional.
heretic888
Explorer
That would be a compelling argument if every bone in the human body were as strong as the femur. They're not. A giant's ankles would snap as soon as they stood up.
Look, this is a pointless diversion. If you're not going to both to read the articles I provided with actual physicists and mathematicians explaining why giant humans are physically impossible, there is no point in discussing further.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Modified 1e now. 3e in the past.
Which edition do I own? All of 'em except 3.5.
The damage is that the trend - started with 3e and continued through 4e - of seeing house rules as a bad thing is, in my view, damaging to the game. One of the foundational tenets of early-era games (not just D&D) boiled down to "here's the framework, now do what you have to do to make the game your own"...which means anyone willing to do some lifting ended up with the game s/he wanted to run. 5e has gone back to that, but is now fighting this misguided perception that houserules are a bad thing.
A misguided perception you, unfortunately, seem to share.
That's up for debate. The only difference between a pro and an amateur is the pro gets paid to do it while an amateur does it for the sheer joy/love/hell of it.
Pretty much the entire game system I run is a great big houserule: 35+ years of modifications to 1e.
Do I have an agenda? To make what seems like a fun and playable game, yes. To make campaigns last longer than the base design assumes, yes. Beyond that? You'd have to play at my table to tell for yourself, though you're welcome to check out some of our* rules etc. at www.friendsofgravity.com/games (copy and paste this if you want to go there later, google will not find it) then click on "Commons Room".
* - it's not just me doing this, there's been a number of us over the years and more than just me are still at it. And it's still a work in progress, and likely always will be.
Yes, you're >99% of the time getting a game that - while playable as it sits - isn't exactly what you and-or your players want.
3e didn't give any of us what we wanted as written. The DM (not me) went through it and made various mods to try and bring it more in line with what we were after, and while this worked fine for the short-medium term, eventually too many accumulated knock-on effects eventually forced him to go to a much-closer-to-RAW 3.5 when it came out.
Lanefan
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Problem is, it seems there's a bunch of people like me who heard/read that quote at the time, attributed it to the design team as a whole, took it in, accepted and approved of it as a pleasant fact of 5e design, and went about our day.
I never knew the specific person who said it had left, as I never knew - and never cared - which specific person said it in the first place.
It came from the design team - good enough for me - and they never really walked it back that I know of. Therefore, it's IMO perfectly reasonable to view the reality of 5e in light of what was said during the design phase. I don't think anyone lied, I just think they set themselves what turned out to be an impossible goal and settled for getting as close as they could.
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Is it possible that an early-stage design goal somehow morphed over time, in the minds of some fans, into a "promise"?
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Guest 6801328
Guest
Ha!
I have another solution:
- Your character will use Action Surge every chance he gets.
- You, the player, are responsible for narrating circumstances such that he only actually gets that chance once per day. At most. E.g., "I'd love to dig deep and attack twice, but that kobold's ferocious attack has me off-balance and I'm just not feeling it." Or, "Those rations I ate during our last short...err, 1-hour...rest must have been in my Explorer's Pack too long. I feel nauseous."
Your character doesn't know he isn't allowed to use Action Surge twice, he just can't seem to find an opportunity to do so.
Also, a question: how do you take turns? I mean, from your character's point of view everything is simultaneous. So if you, the player, patiently wait your turn, aren't you using information your character wouldn't have? To really immerse yourself in your actor stance roleplay, I think you should interrupt everybody else at the table. Constantly.
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