Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

I've been slowly watching it with my partner and daughter, and I am just constantly baffled by the decisions they make. Red Riding Hood is The Big Bad Wolf? Yeah, okay (sample dialogue: Prince Charming: "Uh... you have a little someone on your chin"). Pinocchio is a hot dude that drives a motorcycle? Sure. At one point The Actual Winter Soldier shows up and who's he playing but The Mad Hatter who has been reimagined as a M:tG-style Planeswalker, because why not? Our heroine spends most of the series co-parenting with the Evil Queen? Checks out. 30 seconds after learning all the fairy tale stuff is actually true, she (a bounty hunter from Boston but also, you know, Snow White's daughter) is handed a sword and sent to go slay a dragon, which also happens to be Maleficent.

You have to say that for a large part of the run, they committed to the madness, though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Whereas while I have no problem with weaknesses, there's a difference between that and being crippled, and if my character is going to have a weakness I want to be the one to chose that, not dice.

The way I see it, we don't get to choose our weaknesses. I often roll my PCs straight done the line for just that reason. Feels more real and immersive to me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The way I see it, we don't get to choose our weaknesses.

Neither do our characters. We do.

I often roll my PCs straight done the line for just that reason. Feels more real and immersive to me.

Again, your choice, but don't expect other people to share your feelings here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Neither do our characters. We do.



Again, your choice, but don't expect other people to share your feelings here.

Nor yours.

 

[Lanefan]

Me too. Not the maximum number of spells you could learn, but the chance to learn them.

I like the cap as well, in that it forces mages to eventually have to make sometimes-hard choices as to what spells are in their books.

 

[Lanefan]

Of course that also easily turned into producing blatant winners and losers among mages.

Obviously, and that's kind of the point: not all Wizards are necessarily the same, and part of that difference is defined by the spells they've happened to learn over time.

That said, you'd also need to keep the idea that a failed-to-learn spell can be tried again after either your level or intelligence increases.

 

[Faolyn]

Presuming proficiency applies, it is an almost trivial check even for higher level spells. I'm not sure that would solve the problem.

I was actually assuming Int bonus only. At most you'd get a +5 to your roll, and more likely lower than that, meaning there is still a small chance to not be able to grok the spells.

Of course that also easily turned into producing blatant winners and losers among mages.

It depends. If losing means that the player is failing most checks due to low Int or continually bad rolls, then that's a problem and the DM could stop requiring the roll. If losing means they don't get that cool spell, I'd say that it means the player could just try being more creative with what spells they do have. There are a lot of interesting spells out there, especially if you get out of the "caster fireballs everyone all the time" mentality.

 

[Faolyn]

I like the cap as well, in that it forces mages to eventually have to make sometimes-hard choices as to what spells are in their books.

The problem I have with that is that there are so many spells, especially starting from 2e onwards, that you're effectively punishing higher-level wizards who've come across lots of spells early on. If I'm the DM and I find or think up a cool spell, and my wizard can't learn it because of an arbitrary cap, then that spell is wasted.

Unless you're talking about "cap" meaning maximum number of spells in a spellbook. That's a bit different. Personally, that's a bit of bookkeeping that I don't find all that useful or interesting.

 

[innerdude]

Media-related unpopular opinion:

Inception is without question the most overrated movie released since the turn of the millennium. The exceptional quality of the actors involved and the overall "coolness" of the general concept greatly cloud the fact that the last 40% of the film is basically an incomprehensible mess and gobsmackingly inconsistent regarding its own previously established worldbuilding rules.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Inception is without question the most overrated movie released since the turn of the millennium. The exceptional quality of the actors involved and the overall "coolness" of the general concept greatly cloud the fact that the last 40% of the film is basically an incomprehensible mess and gobsmackingly inconsistent regarding its own previously established worldbuilding rules.

My brother would go so far as to say Christopher Nolan is the most overrated director since the turn of the millennium.