Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ahnehnois" data-source="post: 6153711" data-attributes="member: 17106">Not all rpgs have encounter design guidelines at all. I find the whole concept quite extraneous. I do believe that "classic" D&D falls apart when its used outside of its intended context, which is why newer versions aren't so narrowly focused.Potato, potahto, AFAICT.You're talking about a situation where the rules of the game should be used only to create the play experience people at the table want. This is exactly the argument I use to justify certain abusable 3e spells and other elements as being reasonable, and "GM fiat" and "Mother May I" are invariably hurled back as part of argument about 4e's "balance" fixing things so that this kind of consensus is no longer needed (because it was apparently a bad thing).In other words, I say a player can creatively use a polymorph spell to his benefit, but if he starts changing into a giant squid every time for the ten attacks, we might have to have a talk. You say a player can survive brutal challenges due to high hp, but if he starts jumping off cliffs just to see what happens, you'll have to have a talk. This is the exact same thing, whether you call it "GM fiat" or not.I'd call that a good example, yes.Don't know why anyone would play CoC that way; for me the absence of that kind of behavior is one of its strengths. I'm currently playing a CoC character, and for me the ability to look at the game strictly from his perspective is a rather enjoyable contrast to my usual DM responsibilities.I'd say not better, but different. Better for some purposes, worse for others.Because I was introduced to D&D, have a bunch of D&D books, and a very workable set of houserules. Because D&D (at least, in its best iteration) is available for free while any other rpg likely costs me money. Because D&D is easy to work with, especially for those of us who learned on it.When playing CoC or BSG, I do use an injury ruleset that allows those kinds of possibilities. I imagine D&D characters do wonder why their wounds aren't more tangible. That's a (fixable, if imbedded) flaw in the system, in my view. If I ever successfully implement injuries in D&D, I guarantee you'll read about it on these boards.D&D seems astonishingly ill-suited to that kind of approach. Given your opinions on "indie rpgs" I find myself wondering why you don't just play MHRP or some other game that isn't bogged down with all the sim-elements of D&D.That's fine. I'm merely asserting that inhabitation has value, and some people like that as well.IME, one of the main themes of my gaming experience has been the DM's (usually me) desire to increase the narrative responsibilities of the players and play looser with the meaning of the rules against the players' desire for a more strict in-character stance and more realistic simulation of cause and effect in the rules.</blockquote>

Verification