Noted. I'm sorry. I've had some bad experiences with such players. One rotten apple spoils the bunch for me. I try to remain civil and have actually had a powergamer develop his gimmick. He was still a powergamer, but his character had depth.
I simply do not like the idea of the bashing of other folk's playstyle.
I think a lot of people who say these things that raise your ire (and others') are thinking of specific people they have gamed with, and they feel pretty strongly about it so the message doesn't always come out in a way that accurately describes the issue. I'm positive I have made generalizations in the past about "power gamers" or "munchkins", but in truth I've gamed with very few people ever that I labelled as such. I can look back now and say that it wasn't really their play style that irked me. It was the person.
Optimization is not antithetical to RP. Characters if RPed are far more than the sum of their bonuses. I mean if you are against optimization have you considered playing an aristocrat or expert.
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Optimization is not antithetical to RP. Characters if RPed are far more than the sum of their bonuses. I mean if you are against optimization have you considered playing an aristocrat or expert.
But practical optimizationers or power gamers ( " charop" from hereon ) or whatever you call it is also largely a 3e + thing isn't it?
Greater ability to customize = greater ability to optimize.
I played 1e not 2e and didn't play 2e kits rules so I guess they could have had some charop potential but in my recollection was that the whole charop thing in 1e involved not choosing to play a monk or thief or half Orc cleric ( level limit 4 d'oh!) . Or maybe choosing to use a Longsword instead of a broadsword or battle axe. But that was it.
The big charop moment came after you rolled up your stats.
Once bill had a human fighter with a Longsword if I had a human fighter with a longsword it didn't matter how much better he knew the rules of the game we would still be comparable as characters. ( stats aside, if he had 18/00 str and I had 16 I would be better off switching it to int and being a magic user)
Power gamers were the monty haul guys and that was a play style choice of the campaign, not of members within the campaign.
So it kinda makes sense that someone hankering for the old style feel of the game is turned of by charop and the way it can ( not always does) warp the balance of a party and effect enjoyment.
Btw when I saw the suggestion that getting players to write paragraphs about their characters for in game rewards to encourage roleplaying I knew that in my group the main charop player would definitely complete this task for his 225gp - making no difference to how he actually played in game. The best role players might, but would summarize their character in probably a shorter word count and still be better roleplayers in game.
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I found some of the restrictive parts of older editions a bit obnoxious.
When I was younger, I was always a fan of the more monstrous, or bizarre characters in stories.
I love Swamp Thing, and was always more keen on the Orcs and Goblins of fantasy tales than Elves, or Humans.
While I did find the lethality and more free-form play entertaining, the racial restrictions, class restrictions, and the whole "paying to level" annoying.
I still say a Pathfinder hack would be a headache at best.
Simply adding some of the Pathfinder flavor you like to an older edition would be much easier.
Well seeing as the 2e PH had paragraphs about min maxing, Mounty Hall adventures and so fourth would imply that such issues game up in 1e at least.
The point that BBT and I were getting at is that there are those who love to RP make great indeapth characters and once we pick an idea aim that build to be the best possible competency.
That said there are plenty of times I pick non-optimal choices because of the character I am playing that adds some flavor.
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That's my feeling on these kind of background writeups. I think I'm a pretty good role-player, as do the people I game with. I hate doing writeups or detailed backgrounds or worst the kind of dialogue of a life changing moment he mentions. I hated writing that kind of stuff in middle school. I hate it now.
And it doesn't help me roleplay. It might hurt. My characters don't start with much background or even personality. They develop it by interacting with the other PCs and with NPCs and by their actions in the game. They usually come out interesting and quite different from each other. I've probably got a rough idea where they're going from the start, but if I try to nail too much down ahead of time, it all falls flat. The personality that develops doesn't match what I'd written down or I try to force it to and the character never really gels.
Quoted, because this deserves more than just a simple favorite.
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I miss poison that f~!+ed you up even if you made the save.Ivana Boritsi's kiss!
Fail the save, die instantly. Make the save, live long enough to realize your mistake, then die.
Not asking for death, but if you drink a bottle of drain cleaner, even if you make the save, the system should make some acknowledgement of the fact that you have a load of poison sitting in your belly.
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So many people get caught up with confusing the attributes of a thing with the thing itself. Because they associate "backstories" with "role playing" they believe that by forcing a backstory they will create role playing.
In statistics they have a maxim that addresses this. That maxim is "correlation does not imply causality". Yes, there is a correlation between writing backstories and role playing, but one does not automatically produce the other.
Nor does "gimping" a character in some way, nor does "a funny accent" or any of the other attributes of role playing.
As I have pointed out in other threads, I am a "first principles" kind of person. That means I try to work things down to their fundamentals as part of analyzing them.
The "fundamentals" of role playing are purely and simply that the role player attempt to play a role. If having a backstory, a funny accent, a particular style of dress or a character with an int of 7 helps to produce the desire to play a role, then those things can facilitate role playing. But if they don't, they don't.
I enjoy role playing. I don't need a backstory, but I like having one. I may or may not write it down, but whether it is written down or not, I can give you the character's important historical background upon request. I don't need an accent, but if I can pull one off it can add to the experience. Etc.
Role playing is all about getting into the head of your character and understanding what that character cares about, and reacting to the game world according to those cares. If you do that, you are role playing. If you don't, then you're not. Even if you have written a 30 page footnoted and indexed backstory and have perfected a unique and colorful accent.
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Well seeing as the 2e PH had paragraphs about min maxing, Mounty Hall adventures and so fourth would imply that such issues game up in 1e at least.
I quote the words of Gygax himself from the 1e DMG:
These god-like characters boast and strut about with retinues of ultra-powerful servants and scores of mighty magic items, artifacts, relics adorning them as if they were Christmas trees decked out with tinsel and ornaments. Not only are such "Monty Haul" games a crashing bore for most participants, they are a headache for the DMs as well, for the rules of the game do not provide anything for such play--no reasonable opponents, no rewards, nothing!
In case you wonder where the terms "Christmas Tree Effect" and "Monty Haul" come from, they are from right there.
lol
Old School DM: "You see an ancient huge red dragon" (1e = 88 hp)
PF TH-Fighter: "<7 minute delay while numerous bonuses and current buffs are added> I hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it, and hit it. That's <3.5 minute delay while dice are rolled and numbers (huge numbers) are added> 367 points of damage. I kill it and its grandchildren. I hit it so hard it parts of the dragon have travelled back in time and told proto-red dragons not to bother evolving. I have destroyed red dragons as a species!"
Old School DM: "Er, right. Shall we continue the adventure?"
PF TH-Fighter: "What adventure? Why?"
Old School DM: "The one you made the character up for, that adventure."
PF TH-Fighter: "What? No, I built the Fighter to destroy your dragon. I'm now going to build a Gunslinger who will destroy all Mindflayers!"
Old School DM: "Ah due to copyright issues there are no Mindflayers in PF."
PF TH-Fighter: "Copyright my butt. Those Mindflayers heard about my Gunslinger and asked not to be imported from 3.5e D&D."
Old School DM: "I think I understand the sudden rise in Retro-Clones..."
There some people who think that Pathfinder is "easy" play, and that's why they're looking for "old school" gaming.
I would invite them to try doing some of the new 3-5th level modules such as "the Midnight Mirror" as a 4 or even 5 person 3rd level party and see how "easy" they are.
Compared to the Tomb of Horrors? ;-)
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Tomb of Horrors is really just "Midnight Mirror" done at a higher level of play.There some people who think that Pathfinder is "easy" play, and that's why they're looking for "old school" gaming.
I would invite them to try doing some of the new 3-5th level modules such as "the Midnight Mirror" as a 4 or even 5 person 3rd level party and see how "easy" they are.
Compared to the Tomb of Horrors? ;-)
Given the publishing dates, I think you meant to say that Midnight Mirror is just a watered-down Tomb of Horrors.
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I think it would be disingenuous to claim that first and second edition weren't more deadly than most D20 games. I think it would be equally disingenuous to claim that powergaming and character builds didn't exist in first and second edition. Sure, the builds were simpler, but how many times did you choose to play a halfling fighter (limited to 4th level) or fighter/thief (likewise, and you get half experience forever, even after you hit the fighter level cap).
With just a casual glance toward "optimization", on the other hand, you could easily build a halfling thief at first level that got surprise on a d6 roll of 1-5. Actually, you could do better than that, but the GM might say no to a character who always automatically gets surprise. If you wanted to do something a little more complex (and you happened to roll really good stats), dual-classing could easily get pretty out of hand, too. Going in the other direction, you didn't actually have to do anything but roll a lot of high numbers to create a fighter who did unreasonable "DPR," because the bonuses for percentile strength got pretty big pretty fast, as I recall.
I think it would be disingenuous to claim that first and second edition weren't more deadly than most D20 games. I think it would be equally disingenuous to claim that powergaming and character builds didn't exist in first and second edition. Sure, the builds were simpler, but how many times did you choose to play a halfling fighter (limited to 4th level) or fighter/thief (likewise, and you get half experience forever, even after you hit the fighter level cap).
With just a casual glance toward "optimization", on the other hand, you could easily build a halfling thief at first level that got surprise on a d6 roll of 1-5. Actually, you could do better than that, but the GM might say no to a character who always automatically gets surprise. If you wanted to do something a little more complex (and you happened to roll really good stats), dual-classing could easily get pretty out of hand, too. Going in the other direction, you didn't actually have to do anything but roll a lot of high numbers to create a fighter who did unreasonable "DPR," because the bonuses for percentile strength got pretty big pretty fast, as I recall.
Well I didn't say they didn't exist in 1e ( there were bettere and worse optiona but they were a few choices that you made ) what I said was that they are more a thing of 3e and I expanded on what I meant ( more customization = more possibility for optimization etc) & I was being sincere.
I simply cannot disagree more. For so many reasons that I seriously have to wonder if you actually PLAYED back then.
My wizard had ONE HIT POINT at level 1 and DEATH OCCURRED IMMEDIATELY at zero hit points. He literally could have been killed outright by a RAT BITE. There was no "unconscious", not even "unconscious until -10 hit points". You hit zero, you were dead, dead, dead.
And if you DID die, and you were raised, you lost XP, you lost treasure and you lost constitution points, which cost you permanent hit points if you happened to drop to a new con bonus tier.
And "running away" did not mean "panic!" It meant you had TACTICS for running away, which usually involved spells or items that slowed down your pursuers, like caltrops or marbles.
Sorry, I just don't agree with you.
At. All.
Maybe that's actually the way you played back then. But a lot of what was made standard in 3.0, such full hit dice at first level, death at -10 hit points (an actual optional rule in 1st edition) were just a official seal on what most groups were houseruling as far back as the '80s.
It's really not hard to ramp up fatality rates if that's what you're going for. You could be like the gaming group I left in Ramsey NJ back then. The DM killed off characters at such a constant rate, his players just mimeoed their last character, and stuck a number after the name.
And thus, Paranoia was born. ;P
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That's the way it worked in theory, but during my whole stint in First Edition, and including a trip to GenCon during those years, I never found a single group that used that table. (Apparantly TSR/WOTC never found that many folks who used it either which is why it was one of those things that made a quiet exit.
It's not like the description of how to use them in 1e was all that functional. However, the number of groups using weapon speed factors in 2e? Lots of them. The rules had been redone to the point that they were much clearer.
Oh I can't believe I forgot you need lots of poorly illustrated books with an overabundance of pentagrams for pretty much no reason.
I simply cannot disagree more. For so many reasons that I seriously have to wonder if you actually PLAYED back then.
My wizard had ONE HIT POINT at level 1 and DEATH OCCURRED IMMEDIATELY at zero hit points. He literally could have been killed outright by a RAT BITE. There was no "unconscious", not even "unconscious until -10 hit points". You hit zero, you were dead, dead, dead.
And if you DID die, and you were raised, you lost XP, you lost treasure and you lost constitution points, which cost you permanent hit points if you happened to drop to a new con bonus tier.
And "running away" did not mean "panic!" It meant you had TACTICS for running away, which usually involved spells or items that slowed down your pursuers, like caltrops or marbles.
Sorry, I just don't agree with you.
At. All.
Maybe that's actually the way you played back then. But a lot of what was made standard in 3.0, such full hit dice at first level, death at -10 hit points (an actual optional rule in 1st edition) were just a official seal on what most groups were houseruling as far back as the '80s.
It's really not hard to ramp up fatality rates if that's what you're going for. You could be like the gaming group I left in Ramsey NJ back then. The DM killed off characters at such a constant rate, his players just mimeoed their last character, and stuck a number after the name.
None of the groups I played with house ruled anything around hit points (with one exception, below). Or much of anything else, really. The GM who ran most of my wizard's campaigns was a stickler for the rules. You rolled up your characters in front of him. You got no "do-overs". You rolled hit points for every level in front of him, etc. He had spent a few years on a ship in the Navy and had developed his rules to run games on ship with players who would try to pull fast ones on him.
His games were truly lethal, but they were also truly epic.
But every other GM I played with in those days used the same rules except one GM who allowed you to reroll 1s on your hit points roll.
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My group and I went back and played our old 1st/2nd edition hybrid game and it was fantastic.
I'm curious; what rules did you decide to use from 2e? I never really played 1e at all (I sort of jumped straight from Holmes Basic to 2e), but I've been led to believe that second edition (at least the core second edition books) didn't actually change all that much.
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It's not like the description of how to use them in 1e was all that functional. However, the number of groups using weapon speed factors in 2e? Lots of them. The rules had been redone to the point that they were much clearer.
That's the way it worked in theory, but during my whole stint in First Edition, and including a trip to GenCon during those years, I never found a single group that used that table. (Apparantly TSR/WOTC never found that many folks who used it either which is why it was one of those things that made a quiet exit.
I saw the weapon speed factors get use with some regularity. It's the weapon vs. armor type penalties/bonuses that--as far as I saw--were NEVER used.
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O.o. Just catching up on this thread.... some non sequitur replies:
> I agree that powergamers suck.
> @ InVenoVeritas - great quote from Gygax.
To the OP: Your central concern is around "converting Mystara i.e. Karameikos to Pathfinder RPG.
STOP!
Stop thinking you need to convert this or that. Pathfinder RPG can be played with any world of your imagination.
NEXT: START SMALL!
Draw a little map. A small little town area map. Add some happy little trees where the forest is. Think about your story. Start small. First level characters know nothing about the immortals, and thus you don't need to either yet.
NEXT: DONT GET OVERWHELMED!
You can keep reading up on stuff, getting ideas for game stories. But all that really matters is what you need to keep running the game from week to week.
The Old School Feel isn't some old abandoned idea that we can carefully reproduce like an Edsel car or a Russian made Fiat. The true old school feel worth having at your table is being a great game master. And you players will "feel" like you are doing that job when you go about running a good game.
Old school notions that are longed-for, and worth replicating are the elements that made great games, again having little to do with how much bulk publisher stuff you can "convert" into a new ruleset.
The veil over gamers eyes is that folks think you need lots of "information about a setting"; when in effect you can do just as well making stuff up as you go and calling it Mystara. In fact, touching a lot of the iconic stuff of any published campaign is a bit anti-thema to running with the classic feel i.e. good gamemastery.
The 1979 DungeonMaster's Guide, along with James Jacobs' Game Masters Guide (from PAIZO) contain just about everything you need to really "get it". And from the sound of your posts, you already do.
I'm not saying reading up on Mystara and having a map or two aren't valuable activities.... BUT... relax, start small, make Mystara YOURS rather than try to step through the mechanical paces of executing all that published canon.
For example, pick a place to start, then pick a hex that has no lable, has no background, and make it YOURS.Imagine what is there, and take your paladin dwarf on a journey to that place.
All the richness of Mystara is already in your imagination because it was designed as the type of quazi-medieval fantasy world that Gary imagined. And all of that is backdrop to the real show--- the real "old school feel" is truly good gamemastery. It's all about the execution of the game, not the particulars, and where particulars are necessary, it is best to go "off-road" from published canon anyhow. This thrill of new and unknown is at the heart of adventure whether it be old-school or new school.
Well seeing as the 2e PH had paragraphs about min maxing, Mounty Hall adventures and so fourth would imply that such issues game up in 1e at least.
I quote the words of Gygax himself from the 1e DMG:
These god-like characters boast and strut about with retinues of ultra-powerful servants and scores of mighty magic items, artifacts, relics adorning them as if they were Christmas trees decked out with tinsel and ornaments. Not only are such "Monty Haul" games a crashing bore for most participants, they are a headache for the DMs as well, for the rules of the game do not provide anything for such play--no reasonable opponents, no rewards, nothing!In case you wonder where the terms "Christmas Tree Effect" and "Monty Haul" come from, they are from right there.
This is one of the best quotes I've ever heard.
Pax, I thank you for your help and your resources. You give me confidence as a GM. This thread has veered slightly off topic...I take fault with it. Now, to bring it back in line. I would like to hear a list of five things you guys would do to give your game more of a feel towards 2e. This could be rule modifications, certain restrictions on race or class, resurrect an old setting, or even the implementation of THAC0. This little ditty isn't ment to spawn an argument. I'd just like to see what you all would do
You forgot to work Stealing Underpants in there, Kthulhu. :P
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1) From the start, tell the players you'll be receptive to attempts to solve problems through cleverness and Skill use. Then let them. PF has a powerful skill system, and solving problems laterally instead of through brute force is very old-school.
2) No magic mart, WBL and no crafting without questing. There's no guarantee/expectation about what kinds of magical items you'll have. Doesn't mean you have to make the PCs poor, just that the players can't count on it, can't look at a table and wonder if they're ahead or behind.
3) Off-APL CR encounters; some monsters can't be fought with brute force. Sometimes you need to go around, trick it, or just retreat. In the Hobbit, they intended to steal from the dragon, not to kill it.
4) It's about the quest and the adventure, not the monster-slaying (unless that's the quest). The main reward is for quest completion, not body count. There's more treasure in the dungeon's deepest vault than all the guardians combined, and if you bypass them, you're pretty clever. Likewise, the XP reward for completing the quest is bigger than that for defeating the monsters. Your chances of "winning" the dungeon should be better if you're not trying to exterminate it completely, but instead bypassing monsters where practical.
5) Don't be afraid to be deadly, but don't be a jerk about it. Serious bad luck or bad mistakes kill; do it without rubbing it in but don't pull punches either. Conversely, while there's all kinds of dangerous things in the world, many risks can be avoided if you put in the effort. If the players notice a monster and try to bypass it without a fight, don't force the fight to happen anyway, instead let them try and see if they (objectively) do well enough.
Summary: I think for me it's about removing the "safety net" of precisely balanced encounters and treasure, but simultaneously having a lot of respect for the party trying to deal with dangers and problems by trying to get around them in ways you weren't counting on.
1. Roll for stats.
2. Dont use miniatures.
3. Begin at 1st level and award experience points at half rate or slower (even better - I'd give 1/10th experience for monsters and award the bulk of experience points for treasure gained).
4. Encourage players to embrace PC death, permanent stat loss, etcetera as part of the game rather than the end of the world.
5. Implement some kind of level dependent inherent bonuses/DR thwarting system behind the scenes and hand out hardly any permanent magical items.
I'd probably do away with the perception skill as well.
1. armor as dr
2. any listing in the book that says gp is instead cp. that way its not raining gold.
3. toss wbl under a train
4. let the players do what they want to do. When they have an idea, try to roll with it and make it fun instead of squishing it.
5. focus on the characters. stick with the big 4
-throw something at them thats way under their power level so they can have some ludicrous rompa stompa time if they like
-throw something at them thats way over their power level so they remember that full speed ahead is not always the right answer
-find the characters individual talents and try to incorporate scenarios where those characters can specifically show off their unique talents
-find the weaknesses in individual characters and force them into a situation that highlights this weakness, reminding the players that no one character can cover all the bases.
1. Roll for stats
2. Award half slow xp
3. Minimal prestige or non core book class adjustments/ traits / feats etc
4 no magic shop, i would still allow some trade but put the brakes on ie make selling gear worth only 1/4, make limited items available ( potions, some low level scrolls, minor stuff)
5. Make the odd encounter NOT balanced for the party or just convert an old 1e or 2e adventure
* the first adventure I ran when 3e came out in 2000 was a converted 2e campaign Night Below. I stretched it to 20th level and it took about 7 years of fortnightly gaming to complete and it was a ball. We had an almost TPK at 4th or 5th level ( one survivor who recruited a new bunch of adventurers) and another at 13/14th ( one survivor who brought the dead ones back to life).
1. armor as dr
2. any listing in the book that says gp is instead cp. that way its not raining gold.
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No early editions of D&D used anything like armor as DR, and my early Pc's were so wealthy that they made Midas cry himself to sleep.
2. Award half slow xp
As I said before, advancement at the lower levels was quite fast. One or two nites to make 2nd level.
Mind you, it got progressively more difficult after that.
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My recommendations for making an old school feel game:
1) dump the battlemet and/or miniatures;
2) take out Attacks of Opportunity, and any feats that rely on it (like Combat Reflexes);
3) leveling up only happens when the PCs are back in town and can train (and they might have to pay for their training!); and
4) use a critical hit table for when someone rolls a 20 and critical fumble table for when someone rolls a 1.
Mostly though, I would suggest just having fun with it and don't try to make it perfect.
Just my 2 cents.