Fourward Path

[darkbard]

Are you actively running a Dark Sun game or planning on it?

Sadly, all of my "play" for the past ... oh, nearing 2 years ... has been in that most literal theater of the mind: my own imagination. Life's challenges, and all that. Nevertheless, there is nothing more fruitful than these conversations with like-minded folks to fill that current void and make me a better GM/player for when I do get a chance to play again.

 

[Manbearcat]

Sadly, all of my "play" for the past ... oh, nearing 2 years ... has been in that most literal theater of the mind: my own imagination. Life's challenges, and all that. Nevertheless, there is nothing more fruitful than these conversations with like-minded folks to fill that current void and make me a better GM/player for when I do get a chance to play again.

Gotcha. And agreed!

I hope you get to fulfill your gaming itch soon and that it is as satisfying as you're no doubt imagining

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I can conceive of it, but I don't think I can imagine doing it, or making it work as a GM! Did you run OA in this sort of way?

Well, I never had that kind of scale. I think the group that I mainly played with in that general time period was on the order of 15 or 20 D&D players. They all participated in the overall campaign. Not everyone really ever played in the OA part, and it didn't extend on form many years at a time in a continuous fashion. So, it probably never quite reached the scale of needing all of Gygax's super elaborate timekeeping and whatnot. I was never THAT organized anyway. We created some clans when we rolled up characters a couple times and had the other family members get involved in adventures, etc. I think it was fairly workable, although the actual clan tables are somewhat poorly implemented (kind of classic TSR, the concept is decent, but the implementation falls short). I seem to recall reworking them somewhat so that they produced more interesting and coherent results. Its hard to recall exactly now but I do remember that a lot of fairly critical info was missing from the clans, and some other stuff was rather unworkable.

The events are pretty cool, although again you probably don't want to just literally use the system exactly as presented, or at least you'd probably embelish it or fix some of its issues. There's an LR of OA that was done a year or so back on rpg.net that has some good discussions of the details. In general all of OA follows this pattern, interesting conceptually but with rather poor mechanical execution, interspersed with a few brilliant bits.

 

[pemerton]

There's an LR of OA that was done a year or so back on rpg.net that has some good discussions of the details.

I started reading that thread, but never got through it all. I do remember reading the desconstruction of the family generation system. Even back when I first got the book (1986), I remember noticing discrepancies and inconsistencies in the rules for starting honour, how that relates to families, how honour gain affects family base honour, etc.

The last time I actually used any of those charts in a game was in 1998, when I started an OA Rolemaster game and the players of the samurai PCs rolled for their ancestry and birthrights. I think one of them used his hereditary scale armour of quality (+10 in RM terms, if I'm remembering properly) all the way through to the end of the campaign at 28th level.

 

[Emryys]

...an exploration system where environments are built in a manner similar to a mix between a foe and an SC - actually, more like traps were
...a system of exploration similar to what the SC wanted to be (I think) with "non-combat" environments getting "stats" similar to how traps work now
...an evolution of the 'non-combat encounters' to work with (within) the same framework (with the same resources) as the combat encounters

Rob Donoghue wrote a very interesting series of articles developing a Skill Challenge system that is clever and contains these kind of elements...

http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/situation-problem.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/fighting-situation.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/this-is-not-science.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/challenge-strikes-back.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/how-challenges-hurt.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/mapping-challenge.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/what-doesnt-work.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/building-challenge.html

 

[Garthanos]

Rob Donoghue wrote a very interesting series of articles developing a Skill Challenge system that is clever and contains these kind of elements...

http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/situation-problem.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/fighting-situation.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/this-is-not-science.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/challenge-strikes-back.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/how-challenges-hurt.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/mapping-challenge.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/what-doesnt-work.html
http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/building-challenge.html

That reminds me this one time on the WOTC forums someone complained about having his players go 4 or 5 different directions at the same time in response to a castle infiltration situation - I showed him how to have their actions coordinate and/or interfere with one another so the whole thing functioned like the team effort and as a skill challenge even if they weren't explicitly trying to make it so, not sure how to describe the feel ... but kind of like a jackie chan shotgun method.

Also thanks for the links...

 

[Emryys]

I though this part was interesting...

"When faced with a challenge, there are a few ways to approach it, but in the abstract, they break down into four different approaches:

First, you can try to circumvent it. You can elude it, go around or otherwise avoid engaging it on its terms.
Second, you can try to manipulate, control or wrestle with it. You meet it head on and try to bring it to heel.
Third, you can try to understand it. Study it, and use that knowledge against it.
Fourth, you can hit it. Hard. Possibly repeatedly.

Experienced 4e hackers probably have already seen where I'm going, but I'll lay it out here. The 4 approaches correspond to the four defenses used by 4e."

Thus:
1 - Circumvent - Reflex
2 - Manipulate - Fortitude
3 - Understand - Will
4 - Smash - Armor

http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/this-is-not-science.html

 

[darkbard]

To return to your OP, [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION], one thing that I really wish further development of 4E would have tackled at some point is a subsystem of PC wealth and/or status. As recently discussed in a thread in the General RPG Discussion forum regarding the worth of an XP, gold, and wealth in general, serves no function in 4E. The only game mechanic tied to character wealth is magic item progression, and, essentially, this is divorced from the general economy. The PC's gps buy her that magic sword, but that sword has no mechanic in the gameworld beyond its combat utility, and if the PC used that gold to instead buy an estate or a ruby tiara, there is no mechanic for this at all.

Especially with the advent of Fixed Enhancement Bonuses essentially obviating the need for wealth --> magic item progression, I would have like to have seen a subsystem that explores a staple "carrot" of the adventuring genre! But as the game stands now, outside of an array of powerful combat items (by and large), the 30th level character is little different from the 3rd level character as far his or her economic and social status is concerned, having spent all excess loot on magic items to keep up with the leveling curve.

Of course, one could argue that such matters are essentially beyond the scope of a game that exhorts us to "go where the action is," but I don't think it is necessarily beyond the purview of such a game to provide options for meaningful character building choices: do I upgrade to that magic sword +3, or do I keep the Crystal Chalice of Doruth'kan--because the latter leads to similarly interesting gameplay. And beyond DM scene framing Macguffin (NPCs plot to steal the Chalice; the Chalice serves as a component for some future PC task; etc.).

I realize I'm probably in the minority on this issue, though.

 

[Garthanos]

I though this part was interesting...

"When faced with a challenge, there are a few ways to approach it, but in the abstract, they break down into four different approaches:

First, you can try to circumvent it. You can elude it, go around or otherwise avoid engaging it on its terms.
Second, you can try to manipulate, control or wrestle with it. You meet it head on and try to bring it to heel.
Third, you can try to understand it. Study it, and use that knowledge against it.
Fourth, you can hit it. Hard. Possibly repeatedly.

Experienced 4e hackers probably have already seen where I'm going, but I'll lay it out here. The 4 approaches correspond to the four defenses used by 4e."

Thus:
1 - Circumvent - Reflex
2 - Manipulate - Fortitude
3 - Understand - Will
4 - Smash - Armor

http://rdonoghue.blogspot.ca/2011/01/this-is-not-science.html

Oh very very interesting indeed... the more parallel things the better to me.

I have a concept of 5 methods where attacks and defenses parallel one another this can be generalized as approaches to any task.

Direct/Brute (Str)
Reactive (Dex/Int)
Deceptive (Cha)
Analytical (Int/Wis)
Instinctive/Wild (Con)

 

[Garthanos]

To return to your OP, [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION], one thing that I really wish further development of 4E would have tackled at some point is a subsystem of PC wealth and/or status.

Wealth being handled well is not something D&D has ever done elegantly - Wealth actually is power is not exactly the driving subject of D&D genre and this creates issues. You might not even want a realistic wealth system.