Industrygothica's "Those Left Behind" [OOC]

[Scott DeWar]

well, at the loss of a cirtain monk to a cirtain chaos beaast, you were not a jerk about that at all. quite the gentleman, if i may say.

 

[Leif]

It's not that bad, when you think about it, as it is a simple exercise of Freedom of Association, since we're allowed to hang out with whom we wish to and not be forced to hang out with anyone. After all, role-playing games are a very social thing, thus most folk enjoy gaming with people that they like to be around. If you're forced or guilted into letting someone in, whom you normally wouldn't have, it can sometimes cause all sorts of weird issues, including the dropout effect.

I might post slow, sometimes even weird things, but I tend to be a fairly gregarious guy who is only mostly a jerk.

Since he/she was the one who was asking to join the game, though, I thought, and still think that it was in extremely bad taste to not even make a single IC post after I let him/her into the game. Maybe it was partially my fault, like you say. But your shifter will live much longer if you stop saying those things!

BTW, I concur with the "mostly a jerk" assessment! See? We're just alike!

 

[jkason]

You know, I haven't even glanced at 4e. Is it easy to pick up, and does it have an SRD like 3.x, or would I actually have to buy a book to learn it?

jason

 

[Leif]

You know, I haven't even glanced at 4e. Is it easy to pick up, and does it have an SRD like 3.x, or would I actually have to buy a book to learn it?
jason

If you have a dndinsider account (with a paid subscription), I think you can access the books online. It's not THAT easy to pick up, but it's easier than when I had to transition from 1E AD&D to 3.5E.

 

[industrygothica]

You know, I haven't even glanced at 4e. Is it easy to pick up, and does it have an SRD like 3.x, or would I actually have to buy a book to learn it?

jason

You'll need to buy they book. To be honest, I'm rather fond of the system, except the being confined to a map part... still looking for a way out of that one.

Regardless, it's a solid system. You should check it out.


-IG

 

[Leif]

... except the being confined to a map part... still looking for a way out of that one.Regardless, it's a solid system. You should check it out.

"Confined to a map? What do you mean by that, IG? Have I totally missed something important, or are you just talking about the way distances, ranges, and other measurements are given in "squares?" (That's only a minor impediment to my usual imaginings, just requiring a quick multiplication by 5 of the number of squares stated.)

 

[Friadoc]

"Confined to a map? What do you mean by that, IG? Have I totally missed something important, or are you just talking about the way distances, ranges, and other measurements are given in "squares?" (That's only a minor impediment to my usual imaginings, just requiring a quick multiplication by 5 of the number of squares stated.)

It's only a guess, but I think he means how you pretty much need to play D&D with a battle map, due to how map specific most the actions and powers tend to be. While you can wing it without one, or fudge it with a dry erase board, it's obviously part of the deep design to us a mat and minis.

It's never been an issue for me, as I've always used a map, mat, or surface, but it can be an issue in other venues and folk. I'm still working out how to use it for my game, but it's all good.

 

[Leif]

It's only a guess, but I think he means how you pretty much need to play D&D with a battle map, due to how map specific most the actions and powers tend to be. While you can wing it without one, or fudge it with a dry erase board, it's obviously part of the deep design to us a mat and minis.

It's never been an issue for me, as I've always used a map, mat, or surface, but it can be an issue in other venues and folk. I'm still working out how to use it for my game, but it's all good.

Ok, that's kinda what I thought. I'm at the other end of the spectrum: I can count on both hands the number of times I've used minis. (We did routinely use some kind of dry-erase diagram as a visual aid, though. But when we did the dry erase thing, it was almost always without a grid on the board, so "squares" was not a useful term to help us. And we didn't break out the rulers and plot out exact spell dimensions, either. It was all done using the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-britches method, and it worked quite well, thanks.) Even in my present 4E game with the pervasiveness of "squares" and all that garbage, I'm still doing everything 'old school,' too. Because that's how I DM, it's what I'm comfortable doing, and, frankly, I just don't want to spend the extra time to do it another way.

 

[industrygothica]

That's pretty much what I meant. While it's not an issue with face-to-face games, I've yet to figure out a way to "wing it" with pbp games, which is currently about 100% of my gaming activity. Constantly updating a map and then saving and uploading the current version is a bit tedious; I can't wait to get involved in a few more 4e games so that I can pick up on a few DM tricks to make it less so, and then I'll hopefully be able to run a more productive 4e game without suffering the burnout from constantly keeping up with that garbage.


-IG

 

[Friadoc]

That's pretty much what I meant. While it's not an issue with face-to-face games, I've yet to figure out a way to "wing it" with pbp games, which is currently about 100% of my gaming activity. Constantly updating a map and then saving and uploading the current version is a bit tedious; I can't wait to get involved in a few more 4e games so that I can pick up on a few DM tricks to make it less so, and then I'll hopefully be able to run a more productive 4e game without suffering the burnout from constantly keeping up with that garbage.


-IG

Most the 4e DMs I've seen, on-line, seem to be using low-grade maps using Excel. It's not too hard, just odd. Basically, throw some coordinates on the map and do it like playing chess, remotely.