Tropes that need to die

[The Shaman]

DUDE. You just blew my mind.

Landru cannot help you now.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Outright destruction of corpses is often not an option, for either physical (it takes a whole lot of fuel to reduce a human body to ash) or religious (it may mean the dead don't go to the proper afterlife, f'rex) reasons.

The material cost of burning a corpse is a good reason for burial over cremation and one that would have to be considered in a society where every body is destroyed.


The second reason really does not matter, especially in regard to our society. Our religious beliefs (as varied as they are) come from men and women either believing they hear their deity speak to them or just making it up. So in reality it becomes a circular arguement.

Why do you bury the dead? So they make it to the afterlife. How do you know that is what you have to do? Cause we decided that is what needed to do. Why didnt you just decide cremation gets you to the afterlife? Oh we used to do that, but we were cutting down all the forests, and we didnt want to freeze in the winter, so we decided to go with burial instead. Who decided this? The priests of course, they were granted a vision by the almighty. Ok.....

See what I mean?

 

[Hussar]

A better solution, surely, is to reign in the casters in most games to something a lot closer to most of their fictional/mythical counterparts. Have your casters be Merlin-level, rather than Harry Potter. If you let D&D wizards be more powerful than Merlin, or Circe, or Thoth-Amon, or Baba Yaga, then you shouldn't be surprised that warriors comparably as powerful as the ones in those tales are outclassed.

The problem is, all those characters you name are NPC's.

Who wants to be a wizard if all you do is stand around looking important but never actually doing anything?

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, but no they won't.

Most spells in 3e have an effective casting time of 0, in that the casting both starts and resolves on the caster's initiative with extremely limited opportunity to interrupt.

Multiplying 0 by a factor of 10 still leaves ... 0.

That said, if spell casting in 3e actually *took* time - say, for an average spell you start casting on your initiative then take 5 or 10 or some arbitrary number off your initiative to determine when you resolve, with any intervening initiatives having an opportunity to interrupt you (and while you're at it do away with combat casting; if the caster is interrupted at all the spell is lost) - then you're on to something.

Lanefan

That's actually not true. Most, and certainly the majority, of spells in 3e take 1 Standard action. Multiplying it by ten takes it up to a 1 round casting time - so any hit before the beginning of your next turn would interrupt the spell - or at least force a Concentration roll.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here's one: the big dumb warrior who's only good for his fighting and physical skills.

I've only played one of those, and it was ridiculously fun.

 

[Bluenose]

The problem is, all those characters you name are NPC's.

Who wants to be a wizard if all you do is stand around looking important but never actually doing anything?

Protagonist, antagonist, or bystander, I don't think it really matters. Wizards in most stories are limited in the things they can do. there are a few virtually universal things - finding things out, the D&D divination school, although the 'how' often varies - magical protection and breaking of other enchantments, so abjuration - and then there are that particular spellcasters special abilities. Necromancers draining life from people and raising armies of the dead, enchanters (often enchantresses) using magic to trick people into doing things against their will and compel an army of minions, etc. They don't stand around doing nothing all do, but their spells don't solve every problem. In D&D (and Harry Potter) those limits are drastically reduced by allowing a much wider range of spells to every caster.

 

[Hussar]

But, again, Bluenose, everything you've listed off is fantastic for an NPC. For a PC, it's useless. Oooh, I can get information from the DM. Ooo, I can raise armies of minions, which means I'm going to have to control umpteen bajillion NPC's.

Great for NPC's. Terrible for PC's.

Me, I'd rather my PC modeled after Doctor Strange, or Quick Ben from the Steven Erikson Malatzan books, or any number of other wizard types that don't sit and direct from the back.

By the way, when I mentioned Conan in a Harry Potter universe, people jumped on the idea of Conan VS Harry Potter. That wasn't what I meant at all actually. It's not that Conan could or could not defeat Harry Potter, it's that, in a Harry Potter universe, Conan is utterly useless many times.

How does Conan deal with a Dementor, for example? He can't see it or hurt it in any way. Yet the Dementor can certainly kill him.

And that's what happens in D&D. So many of the baddies can stomp all over the fighter. The fighter needs the casters just to be able to fight them. Incorporeal undead, for example. In earlier editions, if you didn't have the right plus, you died. In 3e, you still have a huge amount of problems. Particularly if the undead can fly and have fly by attack.

Never mind things like swarms. Or anything rather large with improved grab (which is pretty much everything huge it seems sometimes). Oops, no fly or free action? You die.

Teamwork is great and I'm all for teamwork. But the rules shouldn't require one class to be propped up by another one in order to get basic functionality.

 

[DragonLancer]

I don't see there should be much issue with troupes. At the end of the day we see them all the time on TV and movies, and in books. It's part and parcel of modern fiction.

Getting away from the burial/cremation topic for the moment, what about the classic troupe of adventurers finding employment in taverns? I think this one works on a realistic level. Adventurers and mercenaries, especially at low levels, will hang out at taverns drinking and telling tales of their deeds. What better place to go to in order to hire someone for a quest than a tavern?

 

[Mallus]

Some rpgs, yes.

Feng Shui is a roleplaying game, but all roleplaying games are not Feng Shui.

Heh... I wasn't thinking about Feng Shui. I've never played it. I was thinking about the way we used to play AD&D back in high school and college, and, frankly, the way my buddies still play it today.

My experience is --and mind you I've never played it-- there's a little Feng Shui in most role-playing game campaigns. Occasionally the DM/GM just says "What the Hell, that sounds really cool! It works".

In other words, the DM/GM stops being an impartial arbiter of the game environment, stops drawing on whatever knowledge they might have of the real world, it's peoples, and it's physical processes, and rules the players succeed for the sheer entertainment value of it or because the players made them laugh.

My understanding is games like Feng Shui made this a formal part of the rules, but informally this kind of thing has been going on for the length of the hobby.

 

[Bluenose]

But, again, Bluenose, everything you've listed off is fantastic for an NPC. For a PC, it's useless. Oooh, I can get information from the DM. Ooo, I can raise armies of minions, which means I'm going to have to control umpteen bajillion NPC's.

Great for NPC's. Terrible for PC's.

Me, I'd rather my PC modeled after Doctor Strange, or Quick Ben from the Steven Erikson Malatzan books, or any number of other wizard types that don't sit and direct from the back.

And I'd rather model my wizard PC, at least at low level, after Merlin from the current BBC tv series. Competent at magic, but not all sorts of magic. All the magic-users in that series work with warriors, without it looking as if they're unnecessary. I'm much happier with that sort of approach than I would be with Doctor Strange.

By the way, when I mentioned Conan in a Harry Potter universe, people jumped on the idea of Conan VS Harry Potter. That wasn't what I meant at all actually. It's not that Conan could or could not defeat Harry Potter, it's that, in a Harry Potter universe, Conan is utterly useless many times.

How does Conan deal with a Dementor, for example? He can't see it or hurt it in any way. Yet the Dementor can certainly kill him.

And that's what happens in D&D. So many of the baddies can stomp all over the fighter. The fighter needs the casters just to be able to fight them. Incorporeal undead, for example. In earlier editions, if you didn't have the right plus, you died. In 3e, you still have a huge amount of problems. Particularly if the undead can fly and have fly by attack.

Never mind things like swarms. Or anything rather large with improved grab (which is pretty much everything huge it seems sometimes). Oops, no fly or free action? You die.

Teamwork is great and I'm all for teamwork. But the rules shouldn't require one class to be propped up by another one in order to get basic functionality.

This, of course, I entirely agree with. Allies who need help before they an contribute aren't exactly particularly helpful.