I'm sorry.
The powers are all flowers, hippies and Barry White music so that we can all love each other and be happy-happy-joy-joy together in an eternity of bliss and spiritual fulfilment.
Unearthed Arcana: Honor
- Thread starter Klaus
- Start date
I'm sorry.
The powers are all flowers, hippies and Barry White music so that we can all love each other and be happy-happy-joy-joy together in an eternity of bliss and spiritual fulfilment.
I would be the biggest hypocrit alive if I told you sarcasm was bad, but what is bad is reacting to someone calling you on your poor argument with passive aggressive vitriol. If he's wrong, tell him why. He had enough courtesy to do so to you. If he's not, then bow down and bow out.
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Over all, the article is o.k.. A little up in the air as how that would play at the table. The quality is very DM centric, but I like the idea behind it. It fits well with the tone of the game, where Fighters can charge into battle against whole crowds of foes and anyone can through willpower shrug off wounds and exhaustion or launch forward with a monster-like tenacity. That acting in tone with a personal code can provide a Tao-like state of heightened skill and purpose (i.e., getting bonuses to critical rolls) fits will with the tone of the game, and, honestly, since it requires a feat (which is a heavy cost), its not over-powered. The only reason I can see this not being official content is the fact that it is so reliant on a good player-DM relationship to really work well. I'll keep it on hand just in case.
I'm not a DDI subscriber, but my gut feel is that the core reward mechanism for honour in 4e is Minor Quest XP. Which is not to say that some tables may not have room for a more finely and character-focused way of mechanically rewarding honourable behaviour. Personally, though, this is the sort of thing that I think Paragon Paths are about. In my game, there is (of the 5 PCs) a Demonskin Adept, a Warpriest of Moradin and a Questing Knight. Each of these already speaks to a differenct conception of honour, and the individual's social and personal obligations. I like to set up situations in the game that revolve around those conceptions, and am not sure that building in a separate, partially overlapping mechanism would help. (What does it mean to be a Questing Knight, or a Warpriest, for whom honour is unimportant? I mean, honour is pretty much baked into those concepts.)
The article looks quite interesting, but I avoid honour systems in my games like the plague. There is nothing worse than a player attempting to play a D&D style samurai in a group of people who have a good understanding of what RL samurais' code of honour would demand of them.
Real life systemic codes of honour were generally terrible things leading to excuses for horrific acts that would never pass in present society (and more than a little stupidity). They are generally a way of wrapping civility around acts of barbarism.
I never again want to have the party asking what sort of samurai does not kill someone for touching his katana without permission; or why a chivaliric knight that does not duel and kill somebody for insulting a female companion.
Any codes of honour in my games will have to be very well seperated from reality to avoid the some of the more iritating arguements. Even then, stubborness because "well that is what my character would do" is really not enjoyable in most instances. It's strange that in practice a mafia/yakuza/barbaric code of honour actually leads to less party-kills and arguements than a chivalric one.
I'm probably just biased because in my games knights and samurai are responsible for every instance of PC v PC murder.
Real life systemic codes of honour were generally terrible things leading to excuses for horrific acts that would never pass in present society (and more than a little stupidity). They are generally a way of wrapping civility around acts of barbarism.
I never again want to have the party asking what sort of samurai does not kill someone for touching his katana without permission; or why a chivaliric knight that does not duel and kill somebody for insulting a female companion.
Any codes of honour in my games will have to be very well seperated from reality to avoid the some of the more iritating arguements. Even then, stubborness because "well that is what my character would do" is really not enjoyable in most instances. It's strange that in practice a mafia/yakuza/barbaric code of honour actually leads to less party-kills and arguements than a chivalric one.
I'm probably just biased because in my games knights and samurai are responsible for every instance of PC v PC murder.
Klaus
First Post
1 - Yes, the Honour system depends heavily on the DM and the players. And it is okay for it to do so.
2 - *If* the DM and players decide to include Honour, they need to work out a *clear* and *concise* set of rules for the honourable character to follow. Stuff like "any insult must be met with death!!!!" has to be right out, to avoid forcing the PCs into causing their own deaths or killing each other.
3 - The Honour mechanics are based off roleplaying. *Anything* based off roleplaying can have unforeseen consequences, and that's the beauty of RPGs. Otherwise we'd be talking about Space Invaders.
2 - *If* the DM and players decide to include Honour, they need to work out a *clear* and *concise* set of rules for the honourable character to follow. Stuff like "any insult must be met with death!!!!" has to be right out, to avoid forcing the PCs into causing their own deaths or killing each other.
3 - The Honour mechanics are based off roleplaying. *Anything* based off roleplaying can have unforeseen consequences, and that's the beauty of RPGs. Otherwise we'd be talking about Space Invaders.
I did tell him and I already mentioned what was wrong with it, he just didn't like what I said. Sensitive artists tend not to take criticism well.
The facts are that the mechanics used in the article are just refluffings of methods already over-used in the system. The designers of the mechanics had a golden opportunity to build something really engaging, unique, interesting, evocative and fun and instead gave us a rebadged Hyundai dressed up with racing decals to look like a sportscar.
If the designers had at least ATTEMPTED to be creative or imaginative, I wouldn't have been so harsh, but this is just laziness with a capital L and on top of that, it's now 'in the system' so there's no further opportunity to make a better version.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Show Me. All you've said so far can be summed up as "this is kaka". That's real easy to say from the peanut gallery. How about get down in the trenches and show us how uncreative it is? Make something better. At the VERY LEAST be specific in your criticisms.
As Klaus just said, anything like this IS going to have to depend on players and DM to implement in the context of their game if it is going to work. That's one reason it isn't built on existing mechanics, because you will want to be able to use or not use it as desired and not have it create strange issues. 99% of the whole thing is going to be RP, with some points thrown in mostly to give the DM a way to have some input on how the player uses it. I could point out any number of RPGs which have had very similar mechanics which have been well-regarded too.
You don't seem to be comprehending what I'm writing as I've said what it is TWICE now; but since you're special, I'll put it in bold writing so it's clear.
The mechanics used in the honour system are just rehashings of mechanics that have already been used elsewhere for other purposes and therefore there is nothing actually new about this system other than its application. Since it's just a bit of fluff changed, there was zero creativity or imagination put into making the system.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
So, what you're saying is that the fundamental first principal of good system design, reuse of existing resources and consistency of design, as well as simplicity, etc are all just "lack of imagination".
Yeah, sorry, I'm not impressed, sorry.
So why are you playing using a system that uses exception-based design?
By your logic, if every class was the same, that would be a well-designed system.
But hey, let's say you're right and there's nothing wrong with being unoriginal when introducing a new concept to the system. There is still one inherently problematic aspect of the design and shows that the R&D guys seem to have either lost their way or just don't care anymore because one of the precepts of 4e was based on something Monte once said back in 3e; that you should never design a system mechanic that has roleplaying requirements.
This was why paladins no longer have a code of honour in 4e and why alignments have no mechanical effect, just to name two examples.
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