The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[Ryujin]

Never did SO because I thought it was too special-case intensive, but I certainly ran Swordbear and Aftermath!

I certainly simplified things a bit, when I ran it. I tried it as-written for a while but the bookkeeping for two separate ways to become exhausted simply became too much. I ended up just applying those rules to use of Psionics and things went far better. Also, the instant kill critical chances for NPCs, when applied to minor NPCs only, made for some pretty good "minion" style fights. Of course everyone playing wanted to be a level 12 Katana/Lightsword master, because Star Wars.

 

[CleverNickName]

Well it's a question about the 5E rules, and the thread is tagged with the yellow "D&D 5E" label, and the author quotes from the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. So by all means: tell us about that older edition. Again. For the 200th time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

 

[prabe]

Every now and then, I am exceptionally glad I've stayed out of a thread.

This is one of those times.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I certainly simplified things a bit, when I ran it. I tried it as-written for a while but the bookkeeping for two separate ways to become exhausted simply became too much. I ended up just applying those rules to use of Psionics and things went far better. Also, the instant kill critical chances for NPCs, when applied to minor NPCs only, made for some pretty good "minion" style fights. Of course everyone playing wanted to be a level 12 Katana/Lightsword master, because Star Wars.

I even found the character creation overly cumbersome--and I wasn't exactly afraid of detailed character creation, being both a Champions and Aftermath GM at various times.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well it's a question about the 5E rules, and the thread is tagged with the yellow "D&D 5E" label, and the author quotes from the 5th Edition Player's Handbook. So by all means: tell us about that older edition. Again. For the 200th time.

To some people, any post about a modern edition is an excuse to tell people how an older edition Did It Better.

 

[Ryujin]

I even found the character creation overly cumbersome--and I wasn't exactly afraid of detailed character creation, being both a Champions and Aftermath GM at various times.

No more so than systems like D&D 3e or Pathfinder, if creating a character at a level above first. At least characters aren't killed off or hampered in some physical way as part of that creation process, as in a couple of other SciFi games. Removing a little of the randomness can streamline the process though. Give a fixed list of planets on which a character might be born, for example.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No more so than systems like D&D 3e or Pathfinder, if creating a character at a level above first. At least characters aren't killed off or hampered in some physical way as part of that creation process, as in a couple of other SciFi games. Removing a little of the randomness can streamline the process though. Give a fixed list of planets on which a character might be born, for example.

Its been too many years for me to have the nerve to argue with you, but that wasn't the impression I had at the time.

(And yeah, never was a big fan of how overly random and dead-on-arrival Traveler had either; only Traveler version I really like is Cepheus Deluxe for just that reason, though I respect some other design elements of the original).

 

[payn]

As a big Traveller fan, the fear of dying in chargen is overstated. In my experience, a player has to make some pretty poor decisions and go on a bad run of luck with the dice for it to happen. Usually, its a combo.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As a big Traveller fan, the fear of dying in chargen is overstated. In my experience, a player has to make some pretty poor decisions and go on a bad run of luck with the dice for it to happen. Usually, its a combo.

The problem is it has a lot of perverse incentives. Its intrinsically attractive to keep circling back around to cycles through services until you're just this side of taking aging hits--but in some of those services, you've thrown a few too many survival checks for probability to be kind to you, since that's, if I recall correctly, about 4-5 term cycles. It can be even more true if your luck on the tables were weird early on and you look like you're going to go into play with, well, no real function.