Flavorless 3e- Advantage- players

[Belen]

Aha! But I did throw in a flavor rule that could benefit them:

Soul bond: Sometimes, a character may forge a bond with a specific item. The bond may become so powerful that it links to the very soul of its owner. Once soul bound, the item is forever linked to that person, even upon the death of the owner. The item will always find a way back to the owner. In fact, the owner will instinctually recognize the item even in another life.
Benefit: The owner is always proficient with their soul bound item. The item is always of masterwork quality and will spontaneously gain magic ability as the character advances in level. In addition, the item gains 5 to its hardness and +10 to its hit points for every 4 character levels. If destroyed, the character feels a deep sense of loss, equivalent to the loss of a family member, and the character must make a Will save DC 15 in order to use a similar item.

I am an equal opportunity type of guy.

Besides, the rules already provide them a host of advantages with little disadvantages. Heck, the old ressrection used to put a cleric on his tail end for a week. Now he just looses money and some XP.

Flavor that causes a little pain is not a bad thing. It makes for memorable characters and plots.

By subtracting flavor for the rules, have we benefited, or have mini-wargamers and computer players benefited?

 

[jasamcarl]

To the degree that 3(.5) resembles a videogame, its a good thing. It means that (generally speaking) combat offers a balanced set of options. A simulationist approach would be incredibly difficult to balance. But to think that this somehow violates the intended flavor is ridiculous. This is heroic fantasy. And while I'm sure someone is going to pipe up and cite some pulp fantasy reference where scene x can't be replicated given rules, its pretty clear that they catch the major points. If you have a problem on that score, its more a problem with the dms ability to describle effects than anything else. It has always amazed me how rules obsessed the 'real' roleplayers are, where they require the rules to spell out the most specific details of a scene.

And to those who think that added options in supplement books don't come at a price, well...we can't all know what we are talking about.

Rant out.

 

[jasamcarl]

Aha! But I did throw in a flavor rule that could benefit them:

Soul bond: Sometimes, a character may forge a bond with a specific item. The bond may become so powerful that it links to the very soul of its owner. Once soul bound, the item is forever linked to that person, even upon the death of the owner. The item will always find a way back to the owner. In fact, the owner will instinctually recognize the item even in another life.
Benefit: The owner is always proficient with their soul bound item. The item is always of masterwork quality and will spontaneously gain magic ability as the character advances in level. In addition, the item gains 5 to its hardness and +10 to its hit points for every 4 character levels. If destroyed, the character feels a deep sense of loss, equivalent to the loss of a family member, and the character must make a Will save DC 15 in order to use a similar item.

I am an equal opportunity type of guy.

Besides, the rules already provide them a host of advantages with little disadvantages. Heck, the old ressrection used to put a cleric on his tail end for a week. Now he just looses money and some XP.

Yeah, because its a freakin 9th level spell. The disadvantage is that you can't use that 9th level slot for another spell. Say it with me now...oppurtunity cost. And i would actually say that true res would be the advantage paired with the disadvatage of atleast one player being killed per high level combat. Quit it with the dumb symantics. I could site pretty much anything as being an advantage or disadvantage. What you seem to want is for the players to essentially stagnate in ability..nice..

Flavor that causes a little pain is not a bad thing. It makes for memorable characters and plots.

By subtracting flavor for the rules, have we benefited, or have mini-wargamers and computer players benefited?

Yeah, because its a freakin 9th level spell. The disadvantage is that you can't use that 9th level slot for another spell. Say it with me now...oppurtunity cost. And i would actually say that true res would be the advantage paired with the disadvatage of atleast one player being killed per high level combat. Quit it with the dumb symantics. I could site pretty much anything as being an advantage or disadvantage. What you seem to want is for the players to essentially stagnate in ability..nice..

 

[Belen]

To the degree that 3(.5) resembles a videogame, its a good thing. It means that (generally speaking) combat offers a balanced set of options. A simulationist approach would be incredibly difficult to balance. But to think that this somehow violates the intended flavor is ridiculous. This is heroic fantasy. And while I'm sure someone is going to pipe up and cite some pulp fantasy reference where scene x can't be replicated given rules, its pretty clear that they catch the major points. If you have a problem on that score, its more a problem with the dms ability to describle effects than anything else. It has always amazed me how rules obsessed the 'real' roleplayers are, where they require the rules to spell out the most specific details of a scene.

And to those who think that added options in supplement books don't come at a price, well...we can't all know what we are talking about.

Rant out.

Most of the flavor is not rule-oriented, and I never claimed to be a "real" roleplayer. However, if you have rules-oriented people in your game, it is a good idea to have some stuff defined rather than GM fiat.

Actually, I think the girth of rules, in the form of "options," limit flavor and roleplaying. And 3e consequences and detriments are really watered down.

In any event, I think one of the main goals in creating a game world is adding flavor and style, whether by rules or descriptions and players should not expect rosy treatments all the time.

 

[herald]

There are more players than GMs, so this strategy sells more books.

Seriously, I think this what d20/OGL is for - almost all fantasy OGL d20 games are far less videogamelike than standard D&D. In my experience it's probably easier to build a new campaign off the d20 rules in Conan, Slaine, Midnight, Wheel of Time etc, rather than try to run Scrooge-D&D.

I was thinking about this recently, though. I have a lowish-magic campaign world, but the way D&D works, it doesn't seem to do much harm to let PCs be even more powerful than normal. NPCs can be tougher still, and protected by powerful magics. If the Red Cloak city guards are 8th level Warriors have 80 hp and cloaks of Fire Resistance-20, fireballs are suddenly a lot less scary - and this can still 'look' like a low magic world. This sort of thing is standard in videpgames as a means of PC-control. Arguably Monte really missed a trick when he insisted on retaining DMG demographics that keep most soldiers 1st level & hopeless.

I think I have to go with you on that one. In the new world I'm doing average Warriors start at about 5th level. It doesn't make sense that they show up for the job on day one and the never get any better.

But then again I'm putting in action points for PC classes, making adventurers rare, the society more Reniassance, and thre will be no going to chuches and temples to get healed since they will be experts, not clerics.

 

[Belen]

Quit it with the dumb symantics. I could site pretty much anything as being an advantage or disadvantage. What you seem to want is for the players to essentially stagnate in ability..nice..

Not at all. I am saying that everything should not be designed to be easy. And I am not into having my players die once every combat.

What I am saying is that there used to be some RP effects to things such as resurrection.

How much fun does anyone have with cheesy mess like a get out of death card?

It would be nice if player abilities MEANT something. Maybe you are fine with meaningless stats and abilities, but I want my players to get a sense of accomplishment in overcoming obstacles and gaining abilities.

 

[Crothian]

Why can't flavor be added to all the rules in the suppliments the players want to add? Most of them have flavor to some extent be it in the name or the describtion. I've found that this can easily be expanded upon.

 

[Belen]

Yeah, because its a freakin 9th level spell. The disadvantage is that you can't use that 9th level slot for another spell. Say it with me now...oppurtunity cost. And i would actually say that true res would be the advantage paired with the disadvatage of atleast one player being killed per high level combat. Quit it with the dumb symantics. I could site pretty much anything as being an advantage or disadvantage. What you seem to want is for the players to essentially stagnate in ability..nice..

or you could just make an item to hold a 9th level spell, or make a scroll, and then you do not even have to expend a slot...or...god forbid, they have a 9th level Pearl of Power.

You have a weird way of assessing cost.

 

[jasamcarl]

or you could just make an item to hold a 9th level spell, or make a scroll, and then you do not even have to expend a slot...or...god forbid, they have a 9th level Pearl of Power.

You have a weird way of assessing cost.

No, instead they expend out of their finite treasure value. You basically can't assess cost.

 

[jasamcarl]

Not at all. I am saying that everything should not be designed to be easy. And I am not into having my players die once every combat.

What I am saying is that there used to be some RP effects to things such as resurrection.

How much fun does anyone have with cheesy mess like a get out of death card?

It would be nice if player abilities MEANT something. Maybe you are fine with meaningless stats and abilities, but I want my players to get a sense of accomplishment in overcoming obstacles and gaining abilities.

Again, I think you basically are at a loss when it comes to describing these effects or putting them into context if you think that they have no narrative quality.

This is a heroic game. The players are meant to get better, or atleast have more options. Its not 'easy' because the challenges they face also increase. The flavor arises from the contrast of how the game played at low levels and how it does at high...that sense of advancement, not from beating the players down with some penalty at any given action and basically keeping them in a morass throughout the game. That gets old real quick and doesn't make for an interesting game rules wise either. You have a very simplistic notion of how rules intereact to create flavor. I'll interpret this as a lack of dm skill.