Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Daztur" data-source="post: 9439014" data-attributes="member: 55680">Only 25 hours behind in the backlog of trying to reply to everything relevant to my OP <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Working on it, working on it...For me at least what helps bring RPG stories to life is flavor REALLY mattering. That's why the harder it is to reskin a mechanic the more I like it.Kids have always been pretty naughty word at DMing. I was certain a terrible DM back in the 90's as a kid and my son's friends suuuuuuuuuuck at DMing, as is the way with kids (unless you teach them). It's often more the idea of D&D that sustains a game than the actual play, at least until the DM learns the ropes.That said, yeah, OSR games can be pretty damn hard to DM well. That is balanced out, however, by the being reaaaaaaaaaaaaally easy to learn how to play if you have a good DM. Illusions are SO open-ended that they can be a pain in the ass to DM. That's why I like how Command is more limited, down to a single word. I like those limits, they make people more creative and make the spell easier to adjudicate.Well, I saw some of what my son's friends were doing when they were DMing they were...not good. Teaching someone to be a decent D&D player can be done in 10 minutes flat. Teaching someone to be a good DM can take a good bit longer, although I've seen a few naturals who figured out how to DM well almost immediately.And in any case, really solid intro adventures for newbie DMs to run matter a LOT here. As does mentoring if at all possible. At least kids these days have YouTube videos, I had no idea WTF I was doing back in the 90's.I like more edge-case style shenanigans, but I also like playing PCs who don't think things thorugh so my plans often end up blowing up in my PC's face, which I'm fine with. It's why I really like playing barbarians. They can survive "hold my beer" tactics.I see where you're coming from here, but I think a distinction can be drawn between flavor in the book and flavor that the PC made up themselves. If the PCs pick out a gun from the equipment list I DO feel justified in making their guns not work if the powder is wet and having the sound of the guns draw attention but on the other hand I feel justified in letting them make bombs out of their black powder, scare off animals with the loud noise of gunshots, shoot werewolves with silver bullets, etc. etc. In this case I feel it's fine for flavor not to be free since it's built into what they're selecting.With someone reflavoring a warlock as a gunslinger that falls under more of a "flavor is free" paradigm and if flavor is free it doesn't matter, so I don't think it's really fair for that PC to be helped or hurt by some tacked on flavor.But in any case, that is a bit of a session zero thing, gotta get everyone on the same page about that sort of thing or people will get cranky when their powder gets wet when they didn't think of that as a thing ahead of time.In different campaign it can be fun to focus on certain things REALLY mattering and other things mostly get handwaved. In a survival-oriented campaign tracking ammo can be interesting, but in most campaigns people handwave that. For example I ran a Greek myth campaign where the gods were VERY present and PCs and NPCs alike got smacked around for pissing off a god (hitting the PCs with a giant pissed off Divine Swan of Aphrodite made for a fun and hilarious combat, as did having Ares randomly show up in the middle of a battle and start killing members of both armies for shits and giggles). At one point the players realized that their host had sacrificed to many gods but left out Apollo and they PANICKED, fearing divine wrath to fall upon the hall at any moment. Great fun. In another campaign having that sort of thing be such a constant concern would be an annoying distraction from the main action. Meanwhile in one D&D campaign I'm planning Fantasy Racism will be a huge issue while in a lot of campaigns that's mostly swept under the rug (elves basically rule the world as the Ancien Regime on steroids with minor nobility being half-elves, orcs being the scary people in the mountains that the lowlanders hate but who aren't inherently any more evil than anyone else despite the negative stereotypes, lots of halflings being impoverished city-dwellers due to their half-elven landlords turning their farms into pastureland etc. etc.).Don't argue with the DM, if you don't like how they run things find another DM instead of arguing. Don't be an naughty word DM, if you do you deserve to have all your players leave. I'm a kind and merciful DM personally and let the players have their shenanigans, but when I put my foot down on stupid naughty word that is that. Not going to argue that point since I'm the DM and they're not. As a player I only have a problem with how a DM runs things if they're directly contradicting the rules, rather than making rulings along the edges, but there I point something out and then try to roll with what the DM is doing.Sometimes in my group the DM is unclear on how to rule on something and asks me to check Sage Advice before making a ruling. Sometimes I tell the DM I'm not sure if what I want to do is rules-legal and ask if they want me to check Sage Advice or if they want to making a ruling.And in some cases players that are bad players in one campaign can be good players in another. I always thought that the terrible players in the DM of the Rings: <a href="https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=612" target="_blank">DM of the Rings I:The Copious Backstory - Twenty Sided</a> webcomic would be fine players in a more "you guys are Cugel the Clever in a naughty word up Jack Vance world, go nuts" campaign.Do they want more restrictions or do they want simpler rules where there isn't as much stuff to remember? My son who has mostly played 5e is getting a bit burned out on 5e and has been LOVING the simpler rules of Blades in the Dark, and those rules are open-ended as all hell.Yes, exactly. I love it when my players do that naughty word as a DM. I'd take that over them dropping yet another fireball any day. It's fun when what they do makes sense and they get to kick some ass, it's also fun when what they do doesn't make sense and it blows up in their faces. Win-win for me. Usually I rule in favor of the players but I put my foot down on naughty word. Never really get arguments. It helps that I have the reputation as the groups' resident rules expert (to the extent that I sometimes get DMs asking me for rules clarifications when I play, especially since I often make sure to be fair and make sure the rules are applied in ways that hurt my PC) so people trust me to know the rules and don't argue with me (since I'm not a dick). This is especially the case when I run games for kids, kids don't argue rules with the person who taught them the rules (at least in my experience).Yeah, 2e had a lot of weird inconsistencies and bespoke rule systems, but 3e rules often just BROKE in ways that 2e rules generally didn't. "They just worked" doesn't fit with many people's experience with the more cumbersome aspects of 3.5e. I still have a lot of good memories of my 3.5e campaigns but the rules could be pretty damn cumbersome at times.Nope, not the only kind of humor. It's just by faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar the easiest way to run D&D (at least for me). If I don't want that kind of mood in a campaign I'm going to run a different system rather than trying to stomp out the kind of mood that animated Honor Among Thieves, as that just is what D&D is all about for me. And I loved Honor Among Thieves. Perfect slice of D&D for me. Sure you can run D&D with any kind of mood imaginable, but some go along the grain of the basic assumptions of how D&D is set up and some run against it.As much as the over-use of advantage/disadvantage in 5e can get aggravating at times, I get all twitchy thinking about tracking and remembering all of the types of bonuses:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Ability Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Alchemical Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Armor Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Circumstance Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Competence Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Deflection Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Dodge Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Enhancement Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Insight Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Luck Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Morale Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Natural Armor Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Profane Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Racial bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Resistance Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sacred Modifier </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Shield Bonus </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Size Modifier</li> </ul>Aaaaargh!Yeah 5.0 was built more to try to bring veteran players back with a compromise after the 4e edition wars, it wasn't really set up well for the kids. But then neither was the 1e DMG back in the day. Dear god that blew my mind reading it as a kid, but I had no idea how to apply half of it at an actual table.I think what was most needed to teach people how to run games well, however, was more better intro adventure modules that really explained naughty word more than a DMG. 5e adventure modules have really been sadly mediocre.However, I'm not seeing how 5.5e is necessarily going to be much better for the kids. It seems to be ADDING to rule complication when a lot of kids are still getting mixed up about what they can add their proficiency bonus to. 5.5e seems to be catering more to veteran 5e players who want some new shiny more than kids who are struggling with the system.</blockquote>

Verification